Speaking about the Turkish states ambitions over Kurdistan and its efforts to destroy the Kurdish freedom movement, member of PKK’s Executive Council Murat Karayılan said: “2017 has been a year when the Kurdistan freedom struggle continued to develop and great resistance was displayed against the developing attacks. This year has been one when Turkish colonialism failed to achieve their aims and was unsuccessful”.

In an interview with ANF Turkish service Karayılan pointed out that Turkish colonialism has been utterly defeated in Rojava.

“They failed to stop the emergence here, and the situation got deeper still. It’s not just the Kurdish cantons, the Rojava Revolution is in the process of turning into a Syrian revolution with the perspective of Northern Syria. The Democratic Nation perspective has put forth a new option and has furthered development”

Here are some excerpts from Karayılan’s interview: 

“The Turkish state has failed to achieve their goals in Bashûr (Southern Kurdistan). But there has been some ground lost due to the fault of politics in Bashûr and their insistence on the referendum despite all warnings. Today there is an important foundation for development in the sense of the truth coming out in Bashûr. For the last 3-4 days in Bashûr, there has been a popular movement developing particularly in the Soran region. That popular movement I the result of this search. It’s possible to see this search as an attempt to get out of crisis mode in Bashûr, but hegemonic politics fail to read and understand the situation correctly. Even so, our people’s search for freedom, just distribution and democracy continues in Bashûr. This will certainly develop a solution.”

“For the Turkish state, failure is apparent. Here there are no gains for the Turkish state. It is clear that colonialism will lose anywhere there is a search for freedom.”

FREEDOM STRUGGLE VOIDED ATTACKS BY THE ENEMY

“Turkish colonialism led by the AKP, who have developed such technology and attacks against the North’s revolution, has failed. The Apoist Movement, the sacrificing militants and the heroic leading commanders, Comrade Delal, Berçem, Gülnaz, Aze, Soro, Salih, Serhildan and Savaş who increased the resistance through heroic fighting have ruined the enemy’s aspirations. The freedom struggle in Northern Kurdistan has voided the attacks by the enemy, has protected its positions and all the while renewed itself and created the foundations for a higher period of struggle.”

“In this sense, looking at it in general, 2017 has been a time when great resistance took place, the Kurdistan freedom struggle has achieved more gains and the enemy has failed.”

THE TORTURE IN IMRALI IS ORDERED BY ERDOGAN

“The AKP state continues the propaganda that they have been successful with these practices in Kurdistan. Today there is a policy of tyranny in place in Kurdistan. There are practices reminiscent of, or even transcending, the fascist junta regime of September 12. There is the Imrali torture system and the torture that is spreading to other prisons. The psychological torture the AKP regime inflicts on Leader Apo and the intense isolation system is unmatched in the world. This is completely arbitrary and is implemented on Erdoğan’s orders. They are aiming to tear the Leader away from the people and the revolutionary forces to achieve results, but that is a futile effort. It is not possible for them to achieve results this way. On the contrary, this offers more ground to develop more sacrificial spirit and hone the anger further. It is not possible for them to achieve results with these methods. They claim they achieve important results with this inhuman torture and practices that can’t be part of any law and operations with extensive aerial attacks.”

THE BALANCE SHEET OF WAR IN 2017

For instance, they recently claimed that they martyred 4.536 guerrillas since September 1, 2016 and 115 of them were high ranking commanders.

Now we need to announce the revolutionary truth against these colonialist bourgeois lies. Informing the public correctly is a revolutionary duty. Accordingly, I can give an account of the last 11 months. HPG has an official balance. The balance for December is not complete because the month isn’t through yet. But the balance from January to November is as follows:

- Number of Turkish state interim operations: 112

- Number of aerial attacks: 191

- Helicopter attacks: 97

- Howitzer, artillery and tank attacks: 298

- Number of guerrilla counteractions: 657

- Determined Turkish state losses in 162 actions: 1.484, 24 officers with a rank

- Determined wounded soldiers: 386

- Destroyed armoured vehicles: 60

- Destroyed regular vehicles: 20

- Downed helicopters: 3 (1 Kobra, 2 Sikorsky’s)

- Number of martyrs in 11 months: 578

- Number of guerrillas taken prisoner: 30

There have been only 29 clashes throughout the year. Because the soldiers are avoiding clashes. They carry out aerial operations and avoid clashes. There have been only 29 clashes in this timeframe.

I think that this is actually a striking result that explains the situation. So the war is not on the ground, but in the air. It has transformed into a war that is carried out through the airforce.

SUCCESSFUL OPERATION AGAINST TURKISH SPIES

One of the most successful operations of the year has been the capture and arrest of 2 MİT (Turkish intelligence) administrators at the management level by our forces in an expert operation while they were planning and organizing assassinations against administrators of our movement.

The performance of this operation shows that revolutionary intelligence has also achieved a certain level now. With this operation, a heinous plan of the Turkish state has been foiled and 2 MİT administrators have been captured. What is important here is that this is a revolutionary operation that created great benefit.

There may be a statement to the press on this matter in the future, for now I can say this: It has been an action that has created very positive results and created great benefit for our movement.