Europe shamefully silent on attacks and Turkish threats against Kurds, says columnist

Despite attacks on Kurds in Europe which started in early 1970s, European countries, in a shameful silence, have left Kurds unprotected against the Turkish government’s aggression, said Artı Gerçek columnist Doğan Özgüden on Monday.

By Medyanews,

Despite attacks on Kurds in Europe which started in early 1970s, European countries, in a shameful silence, have left Kurds unprotected against the Turkish government’s aggression, said Artı Gerçek columnist Doğan Özgüden on Monday.

Özgüden in his column shared a chronology of attacks against Kurds in Europe prepared by the Fırat News Agency after one woman and two men were killed and three others were wounded in an attack against a Kurdish cultural centre and a Kurdish Cafe in Paris last Friday.

The recorded attacks against Kurdish targets in Europe start in 1974 with engineer Neşet Danış being killed by Turkish nationalists in Hamburg, Germany, followed by the 1980 murder of unionist Celalettin Kesim in Berlin by members of the same group. From 1994 to 1999, six Kurds were also murdered by Turkish fascists, according to ANF.

Interestingly the attacks were paused in 1999, the year Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was abducted in Kenya and put into prison in Turkey. No attacks on European soil against Kurdish targets were recorded again until 2015, the year the peace negotiations between the PKK and the Turkish state collapsed.

In September 2015, nine Kurdish people were wounded in two separate attacks in Switzerland and Germany. The list includes a 2017 attack against Kurdish shop owners in Belgium, a 2020 attack on Kurdish demonstrators in the Austrian capital of Vienna and a 2021 attack on a Kurdish association in France.

The list excludes a 2013 attack against a Kurdish cultural centre in Paris, which left three female Kurdish activists, including one of the founders of the PKK, dead. The case over the assassination has remained unsolved for almost ten years, while the gunman of the incident, allegedly linked to the Turkish intelligence, died in prison in 2016, just one month before his trial was to start.

Despite these realities, the officials of the government in Turkey and the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in their relations with the European countries, keep on portraying Kurdish institutions as “criminal organisations” and use all types of lies and threats to ensure their members’ deportation, according to Özgüden.

As the most recent examples of such attempts, the columnist reminded people of a speech from Fahrettin Altun, the communications director of the Turkish presidency, delivered on 20th December in Ankara during a panel on the relations between Turkey and France.

“The relations between Turkey and France should not fall victim to cheap and short-term calculations that make terrorist organisations and anti-Turkey lobbies happy,” Altun said. “Turkey has not been receiving the support it deserves. As long as this happens to be the case, we will continue our determination to do what is necessary for our national security and to resume the fight against terrorism with all our resources,” he added.

Özgüden reminded people that Turkey has not only been attacking the Kurds in the country, but also those living in Iraq and Syria by conducting cross-border military operations.

“And, what about the Kurdish nation, who received a standing ovation when fighting with its women and men against the Islamist terrorist ISIS that also threatened the European countries, being left unsupported against the threats and attacks of Erdoğan after this trouble was brushed off,” the columnist said, adding that Europe was not only protecting Turkeys crimes, but also looks as if it is a partner in these attacks.