The US offered several million dollars in 2018 for tips on the whereabouts of three leading members of the Kurdish movement. The public wanted notice was directed at the co-chair of the KCK Executive Council, Cemil Bayık, and two members of the PKK Executive Committee, Duran Kalkan and Murat Karayılan.

The Foreign Relations Committee of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) published a statement condemning the US Department of State’s Decree on three members of the PKK leadership, which has been renewed, and calling for democratic pressure on the USA to revoke its decision.          

Full text of the KCK Foreign Relations Committee reads as follows:

“On April 20, 2021, the US Department of State renewed a decision it had previously taken concerning three Kurdish revolutionaries – all of them leading cadres of the Kurdish Freedom Movement. This decision is based on false and made-up accusations and encourages espionage and treason among our people and causes harm to our leadership members.

We would like to emphasize that this decision and the related accusations run contrary to historical, political and social facts and are against human values and morality. They are void of legitimacy. This decision constitutes an inappropriate approach to the morals and conscience of the Kurds and the American peoples. Until now neither our leader Abdullah Öcalan, nor our three leading executives or any member of the PKK and the Apoist movement have ever been involved in any actions against the US state or the people of the USA. They have never aimed at attacking US interests. On the contrary, they have always called on the USA to use its influence and support the solution of the Kurdish question. Our three leading executives and the philosophy and struggle they represent have rescued the Kurdish people, the people of the USA and all of humanity from the evil that the Islamic State (IS) stands for. Therefore, the recent decision by the US Department of State stands in contradiction to the sense of morality and justice that the people of the USA possess. Without our leader Abdullah Öcalan, our three leading executives, and the thousands of PKK martyrs, IS would have never been defeated. In the absence of their philosophy and struggle, IS would have survived as a political reality of the Middle East, and the USA would have conceded to hold negotiations with it, hosted by Turkey, as it did in the case of the Taliban.

Erdogan and the Turkish state, as the ideological and political twins of IS, are the ones who must be put on trial for the crimes they have committed against humanity. Tens of thousands of IS members poured into Syria and Iraq through Turkish borders. After being trained and equipped by Turkey, they were then sent to Europe, Africa and the Caucuses to carry out the same massacres they had committed in the Middle East. Turkey abetted in all these crimes before the witness of the United States which looks on as Turkey has assumed the sponsorship of all global jihadist proxy forces.

The renewal of the three-year-old decision of the US Department of State is a clear sign that the US has no policy and vision for the solution of the Kurdish question. It also means being accomplice to the physical, political, and cultural genocide the fascist government of Erdogan and Bahceli carries out against the Kurds. This decision is the result of a dirty deal at the expense of the blood of the Kurds and other peoples. It aims at winning the support of the fascist Turkish state and Erdogan for the US policy in the Middle East. A democratic solution to the Kurdish question is the key to solving all problems in the Middle East. It is obvious that the goal of the recent decision of the US Department of State is to deepen the Kurdish problem and thus continue the crisis, chaos and massacres in the Middle East.

22 years ago, the USA, trampling the international law and all moral-political standards, took our leader Abdullah Öcalan hostage – with the support of all its allied forces – and handed him over to the Turkish state. For 22 years, our leader Abdullah Öcalan has been subjected to inhumane lawlessness and heavy solitary confinement. This constitutes a major political and moral crime and a crime against humanity. Instead of abetting such crimes against the political leaders of the Kurds, the USA should apologize to the Kurds and all other peoples of the Middle East for the imprisonment and heavy isolation it has imposed on our leader Abdullah Öcalan. By holding hostage and handing over our leader Abdullah Ocalan to the Turkish state, the USA prevented the solution of the Kurdish question and thus paved the way for the death of thousands of people. The decision concerning our three leading executives constitutes the continuation of the USA`s old policy. Therefore, US representatives need to apologize immediately to the Kurdish people and the peoples of the USA. They need to take measures to correct this wrong and immoral history by ensuring the freedom of our leader Abdullah Öcalan and a democratic solution to the Kurdish question.

The recent decision of the US Department of State has nothing to do with rewards for justice. It is an act of bribery to get people to commit espionage. Thus, the USA seeks to establish a spy network in the Kurdish society. It seeks to turn Kurdish individuals into spies on its own people and thus completely destroy the culture and morality of the Kurds. The decision of the USA constitutes a direct support to the activities of the Turkish secret service MIT and to IS. This is because our three leadership members played an essential and leading role in the struggle to foil the plans of Turkish MIT and IS in the Middle East.

We would like to take this opportunity to call on the US people and the Kurds to take all the democratic and civil measures needed to revoke this decision, for it only benefits the fascist Turkish state and IS. Democratic and political actions are necessary. They need to put pressure on the USA so that it refrains from abetting further massacres against the Kurds and all peoples of the Middle East.”

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