Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RwISTA
STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZET;
2
Turkish Probe December 2, 1993
Western Europe Moves
on Militant Kurds
Murat Yetkin
Ina long-awaited move by Ankara, the German
government outlawed the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) on Nov. 25 in Germany and
banned legal institutions in that country which have
been affiliated to that organization.
The institutions which were declared illegal by
German Interior Minister Manfred Kanther were 35
associations and companies across Germany, including
the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan
(ERNK), the Kurdistan Committee, a Kurdish cultural
and political federation and the radical Kurdish
news agency Kurd-Ha. The decision came after a
two-day meeting of the interior ministers of the 16
states in Germany.
Ankara was actually tipped off in advance about
German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel's decision.
On Nov. 24, Kinkel called Turkish Foreign Minister
Hikmet Çetin and said the ban would be enforced
the next day. He proposed that since the British
Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd was visiting Germany,
they could hold a tripartite meeting with Turkey
on a broad range of matters, including security. The
next morning he called Çetin again and said that
from 6 a.m. German police had started to implement
the ban.
Well over 100 measures are being adopted
throughout the regional states to seize the assets of
the banned organizations, including searches of
clubs, businesses and homes and the seizure of
the contents of post office boxes and bank accounts,
as Interior Minister Kanther said in a statement
after the decision's announcement.
"The PKK has been banned because it uses violence
as a means to reach its goals," he said. "Foreign
extremism must be fought with determination.
Germany must not become a battlefield for foreign
terrorists."
The PKK actions which forced Kinkel to use the
expression "the glass is full and overflowing" were a
series of attacks by the Kurdish militants against
Turkish consulate buildings and companies in Europe,
and in Germany earlier in November. One
demonstration caused the death of a Turk.
When these events were added to the usual
claims of extortion, money laundering and even
drug trafficking by the PKK, it was in the German
interest to ban the PKK as well.
France had taken harsh measures a week before
against the PKK militants in four of its cities and
opened court cases against 21 militants, accusing
of them involvement in activities on behalf of a "terrorist
organization," meaning the PKK. France renewed
its clampdown on the PKK on Nov. 30, and
banned two more Kurdish associations, accusing
them of "illegai" activities in connection with the
PKK. French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua's
words on the move were much the same as those
of Kanther. France was not going to allow itself to
be turned into a battleground for radical groups.
With 400,000 Turkish citizens within its borders,
more than 50,000 of them of Kurdish origin, France
has been one of the main bases of the PKK in Europe.
But Germany, with 1.8 million Turkish citizens,
more than 400,000 of them being of Kurdish origin,
has been the core of the PKK's network in Europe
and a major source of finance and recruits for its
nine-year-old armed campaign against Turkey for
an independent Kurdish state. More than 11,000
people have been killed in that campaign so far in
east and southeast Turkey. Turkey has been telling
Germany and other allies in NATO that the PKK
aims to carve out a portion of its territory, the integrity
of which has been guaranteed by the Western
alliance. The response used to be quite discouraging
for Ankara. In 1991-92 Germany suspended its
military assistance to Turkey, saying that some of it
was being used to suppress the Kurdish insurgency,
not to protect borders.
To be frank, that attitude changed when Germany's
former Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher
resigned from his post in May 1992 and was
replaced by Kinkel.
This change in attitude can be summarized in
general terms as allowing Turkey to get closer and
treating it as a member of the (European) family, instead
of pushing it away and antagonizing its public
and government.
If Europe needs a strong and united Turkey as a
buffer zone between itself and a region of territorial
disputes, political instabilities, autocratic regimes
and radicalism of every kind, it should help Turkey
to solve its major problems.
Confirming the rationale behind that policy, the
Turkish people, media and the government warmly
welcomed the move by Germany in outlawing the
PKK.
Many people knew that Bonn's blow to the organization
would not have a significant impact on the
5,OOO-strongnetwork of militants in the country in
practical terms. Working professionally, they have
already transferred a major part of their bank accounts
to individuals, and secured their computer
records and top-secret documents, though perhaps
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