Karayılan: No Kurdish force is involved in the Istanbul attack

PKK Executive Council Member Murat Karayılan said no Kurdish force is involved in last night's attack in Istanbul, stating that Turkey resorts to such an organised incident in order to say 'Look, ISIS is attacking us'.

Speaking to Dengê Kurdistan Radio, PKK Executive Council Member Murat Karayılan spoke about last night's attack on a popular nightclub in Istanbul, which left 39 people dead, mostly foreigners.

Karayılan underlined that no Kurdish force is involved in this attack, saying: "I am of the opinion that TAK would not carry out such an attack either. Ours is a rightful cause and all Kurdish and Kurdistani forces want to have the people of Turkey by their side. Kurdish freedom struggle is at the same time a fight for Turkey's democratization. To this end, we and no other Kurdish force would never target innocent civilians as we are fighting against Turkish colonialism."

Murat Karayılan made the following evaluations regarding the Istanbul attack:

"It seems that deep powers are involved in this attack. Why? Because Turkey is in a tough spot today, left alone and isolated from the world. Turkey has supported the ISIS and Al-Nusra in order to suppress the Kurdish freedom struggle and crush the Kurdish people. It later got engaged in the Syrian issue, developed different relations and grew away from NATO. It has now thrown itself into the arms of Russia but it knows that this will not yield any result either. Turkey resorts to such an organised incident in order to overcome this tough process and to say 'Look, ISIS is attacking us'. These people are cruel and they shed the blood of the people for the sake of their own ruling and interests.

No single bullet would be fired in Turkey if Erdoğan and AKP wanted so. Such a process would have never emerged in Turkey if they had not frustrated Leader Apo's efforts and rejected the Dolmabahçe Agreement. In such a case, Turkey wouldn't have felt the need to support ISIS, nor would it have experienced problems with the ISIS itself later on. All this process is a consequence of what Erdoğan and AKP have done. ISIS has not fought against Turkey so far. This is only happening in al Bab for 15 days now. It looks like that their agreement was until the Eqterina area near Bab. After that point, ISIS adopted a stance against Turkey. There has emerged a conflict between ISIS and Turkey now and ISIS has never targeted the state in Turkey up to date. Last night's attack in Beşiktaş is suspicious because all the attacks conducted by ISIS in Turkey so far have targeted Kurds, civilians and foreign tourists.

ISIS targeted Germans and Jews in Turkey before. Similarly, many foreigners died in last night's attack. This is a plan in which some forces are involved. This attack was organized to call the world to Turkey's help, and to save AKP-Erdoğan from this solitude. They are shedding crocodile tears and are not telling the truth. We strongly condemn this savage attack and share the pain of the families of victims."