PKK Executive Council Member Murat Karayılan said: “All of the peoples of Kurdistan, all of the international public and the progressive Arab groups should see this clearly: AKP has played a determinant role in the current situation in Syria. And Turkey has very dirty aims over Syria. Along with this, as Turkey wanted to take Kobanê by using the ISIS gangs, now they have targeted Efrîn. Our people and the progressive public should not stay silent in the face of this. The people of Kurdistan should support the heroic resistance of the people of Efrîn today, as they supported Kobanê. There is a serious situation there. Of course, the situation affects us seriously as well. Why? Because Kurdish people live there.”

PKK (Kurdistan Worker's Party) Executive Council Member Murat Karayılan spoke to ANF about the recent developments in Kurdistan and the Turkish state's role in these.

According to some news stories in the Turkish press, Turkish authorities detect PYD forces’ advance towards Al-Bab and relay this to the US authorities demanding them to stop this. Meanwhile, you have supposedly given the order to not retreat over the radio, your radio correspondence has entered the records, and there are claims that Turkey has launched the aerial operation when the advance of the forces there couldn’t be stopped. Is this true? Did you give such an order? We want an explanation from you.

These are entirely fabricated and false news. I have no relationship to the forces there. There is no relationship between myself and the forces there, or other forces in Rojava. Therefore, it is impossible for me to have contacted them in any way through any means like telephones or radios. If they say it has been recorded, and if such a recording exists, let them publish it. This is entirely false information. But at the base of all of the Turkish state’s scenarios on Rojava is a great lie, a great falsification and a great dishonor. First of all, it isn’t PYD and YPG who are under the Turkish state’s attack in Shehba and who resist against the Turkish state and their allied gangs. It is the force called Jaysh Al Thuwar (The Army Revolutionaries) that is 6-7 separate organisations that I can’t even name right now coming together. There are Kurdish groups in this -who are mostly Kurds that live in the Shehba region- and some progressive and democratic Arab groups, and the Bab Military Council.

For the Turkish state, the reason they are targeted is that they are Kurdish and allies to the Kurds. Like they target the Kurds and their allies, the democratic groups in Turkey, they are doing the same thing in Syria as well in reality. The groups there are Kurdish groups and Arab groups who are allies to the Kurds. These people may have another crime in the eyes of the Turkish state! What is it? It is that they have declared their joining the Syrian Democratic Forces that includes the YPG. Also, the Syrian Democratic Forces declared that they support their resistance there and their goal of advancing towards Bab. The Efrîn YPG Command has also stated this clearly, they declared that they will support the resistance of the revolutionary army there.

Now the problem here is Turkey gathering groups that have committed many crimes against humanity and taken part in many terrorist actions under the name “moderate opposition forces” and intervening in Syrian territory with essentially their own forces. They are using these forces as a cover, those groups themselves have no fighting power. Here the Turkish state is conducting an attack on the formation of a democratic Syria and the Kurds gaining the right to a status in this democratic Syria. So the Turkish state’s attack on Shehba is an attack against Syria and the Kurds’ status. There is an open hostility against the Kurds. They are aiming to build a hegemony over Syria and Iraq. Didn’t Erdoğan just say “These borders were forced upon us”? Didn’t he say that he didn’t accept the Treaty of Lausanne? Wasn’t his comments of “Turkey will either expand or contract” and his apparent decision to make it expand make it to the media? It is clear that, led by Erdoğan, the Turkish state is trying to intervene to the will of the people and imposing their own dictatorial system, sectarian mindset and antidemocratic stance on the whole region.

Today Efrîn has been under siege for five years by the gangs allied to Turkey. There are more than 1 million people there, they are subjected to an embargo and siege. But the Arab, Turkmen and Kurdish people who flee these gangs today come to seek refuge in Efrîn. Now, in the face of this attack by Turkey, thousands of people have reached the refugee camps in Efrîn. They want to corner these people. They are planning on suppressing, keeping under fire and keeping the region under gang control by positioning tanks around Efrîn.

All the peoples of Kurdistan, all the international public and the Arab progressives should see this very clearly: AKP has played a determinant role in the current situation in Syria. And Turkey has very dirty aims over Syria. Along with this, as Turkey wanted to take Kobanê by using the ISIS gangs, now they have targeted Efrîn. Our people and the progressive public should not stay silent in the face of this. The people of Kurdistan should support the heroic resistance of the people of Efrîn today, as they supported Kobanê. There is a serious situation there. Of course, the situation affects us seriously as well. Why? Because Kurdish people live there.

The AKP state has spoken to the media and stated that Turkish fighter jets have hit PYD-PKK and YPG camps. Why are these stories put in the news? How do you assess these stories?

Now, the Turkish state and Erdoğan repeatedly saying “PYD-PKK and YPG” without shame is very low, and is a lie. They claim I told the forces to not retreat, and then the Turkish jets targeted the region because of this. They say they killed 200 people there. They say “We hit PKK hard”. This is a great lie.

The PKK isn’t there. Jaysh Al Thuwar and YPG are there. The discourse that the YPG and PYD are organically linked to the PKK is a great lie and distortion. The AKP state and Erdoğan have created this lie to make the Kurds there into targets. He relentlessly repeats this lie and disinformation so the international powers will stay silent. He tricks both his own people and he tries to trick the peoples of the world. Supposedly, that is how he will also trick the US. The Kurdish people are there, there are 1.2 million Kurds in Efrîn. He wants to make them look like PYD-PKK and achieve his dirty goals. This is very apparent and it’s the truth.

All international powers should be aware of the AKP’s lying, denialist, anti-Kurdish politics. The Kurdish people and other progressive forces should not stay silent. Now he says he will head for Bab. Didn’t the gangs he took with him enter Bab already? What did they do when they entered? They murdered people by throwing them off of 6-story buildings when they entered Bab in 2012. They killed dozens of Bab residents this way. So the people of Bab are afraid now. We are facing the reality of a group of gangs and a state that employs entirely terrorist tactics.

In the name of democracy, humanity and the fraternity of peoples, the resistance of Jaysh Al Thuwar is a great and meaningful one.

In short, there is no truth of the stories in question. These are utter lies, and they are distorting the truth. The Turkish state wants to project to the world public the exact opposite of the truth in Rojava. They are aiming to make the US, the EU and other forces believe this and either make them join their attacks on the Kurdish people or to keep them neutral. There is a great intrigue here, it is dirty and insidious. And some international powers are used as pawns in this. Today, Shehba to the north of Aleppo displaying a great resistance is a meaningful and humane resistance. In the name of democracy, in the name of humanity, in the name of the fraternity of peoples, the resistance led by Jaysh Al Thuwar is a great and meaningful one. We support this resistance to the end, and all progressive democratic forces should do the same. The Kurdish people should also support this resistance to the end. The losses there are not as many as the Turkish state exaggerates. But an important resistance has developed, and there are martyrs. Thus, we commemorate all martyrs in the resistance and offer our condolences to their organisations and families.

What role do the AKP and Erdoğan play in the attack on Kirkuk? How do you assess this?

The claim that the Turkish state is behind this attack as well is being discussed today, and thus it is serious. Who is behind the attack on Kirkuk and the murdering of the people within? Maybe not directly, but it is highly probable that the Turkish state has played a role there. Their goal is to expand the war into the Kirkuk front and void the Mosul operation. Now, from whom did Jaysh Al Thuwar take the villages that the Turkish state wants to take back? Look, the Jaysh Al Thuwar took the villages from ISIS, and the Turkish state is attacking Jaysh Al Thuwar! Isn’t this an overt support? It is clearly in support of ISIS. They entered Bashiqa with the same goals, and the Kirkuk attack happened on similar grounds. And many people lost their lives in these attacks. I offer my condolences to the families of all our people who lost their lives in this attack, and to all of the people of Kirkuk. They heroically defended their city and fell martyr for this cause. May god rest their soul. We will protect their memory and defend Kirkuk to the end. Kirkuk will never be abandoned for the fascist gangs. The Kurdistan freedom guerrilla will fulfill their sacred duty to protect, in Kirkuk as well as anywhere in Kurdistan.

The bigger issue is the identity of the attackers. ISIS carries out these attacks, but who fed ISIS to this level? What is the role of the AKP and Erdoğan here? Everybody knows that Erdoğan’s politics and his support for the Salafi gangs played an important role in ISIS growing to this level. Now he tries to cover that up. But the truth that has come out is so clear that it can not be covered up. AKP and Erdoğan have played a huge role in this and that is a clear fact. Erdoğan’s tactic is to attack and slander the opponent to cover his own dirt. Like he went into attack mode to cover it up when his corruption surfaced in Turkey, now he is seemingly fighting ISIS so he won’t have to answer for the crimes they committed together with ISIS and these crimes don’t surface. He is seemingly fighting ISIS, meanwhile he slanders and attacks everybody and hopes to hide his own dirty face with this tactic. But he won’t succeed. Because the truth is very clear. This truth can never be hidden. The crimes the AKP and Erdoğan have committed will come to light and the whole world will know this reign of lies with all its layers. The whole world will watch as this reign of lies crumbles. And for this, we first need to organise and develop the resistance against the fascist-colonialist attack everywhere.