International support
At the height of its campaign, the organization received support from many countries. According to Turkey, countries the PKK has previously/currently received support from include: Greece,
[98][99] Iran,
[100] Iraq,
[101] Russia
[102] and Syria.
[100] The level of support given has changed throughout this period.
Syria
From early 1979 to 1999
Syria had provided valuable safe havens to PKK in the region of
Beqaa Valley. However, after
the undeclared war between Turkey and Syria, Syria placed restrictions on PKK activity on its soil. Turkey was expecting positive developments in its cooperation with Syria in the long term, but even during the course of 2005, there were PKK operatives of Syrian nationality operating in Turkey.
[93][103]
Iran
Iran provided PKK with supplies in the form of weapons and funds.[
citation needed] However, Iran later
listed PKK as a terrorist organization after
Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan used Iran's supply of resources to the PKK began to be used on its own soil.
Greece
Retired Greek L.T. General Dimitris Matafias and retired Greek Navy Admiral Antonis Naxakis had visited the organization's Mahsun Korkmaz base camp in Beqaa Valley in October 1988 along with parliamentarians from the
Panhellenic Socialist Movement(PASOK).
[104] At the time it was reported that the general had assumed responsibility for training. Greeks also dispatched arms through the
Republic of Cyprus.
[104] In December 1993, Greek European affairs minister
Theodoros Pangalos was quoted as saying "we must be supportive of the Kurdish people to be free".
[105] Greece declined to join Germany and France and the eleven other members at the EU to ban the organization.
[105] During the 1990s,
Greece supplied the rebels.
[106]
Republic of Cyprus
Support of the Republic of Cyprus was alleged when
Abdullah Öcalan was caught with a Cypriot passport
under the name of Mavros Lazaros, a nationalist reporter.
Soviet Union and Russia
[107] According to the former
KGB-
FSB officer
Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in 2006, PKK's leader Abdullah Öcalan was trained by
KGB-
FSB.
[108] As of 2008, Russia is still not among the
states that list PKK as a terrorist group despite intense Turkish pressure.
United Kingdom
MED TV broadcast for five years in the UK, until its license was revoked by the regulators the Independent Television Commission (ITC) in 1999. The PKK has been listed as a terrorist organisation since 2001. In 2008 the United Kingdom detained members of the PKK and seized the assets of the PKK's representative in Britain, Selman Bozkur, alias "Dr. Hüseyin". His assets remain frozen.
[109]
Support of various European states
Despite Brussels' designation of the group as a terrorist organization, the EU continues to permit the broadcasting of the organization's networks on the Hot Bird 3 satellite owned by the French company
Eutelsat.
MEDYA TV started transmissions from studios in Belgium via a satellite uplink from France. MEDYA TV's license was revoked by the French authorities. A few weeks later
Roj TV began transmissions from Denmark. It has also been argued that the
Netherlands and
Belgium have supported the PKK by allowing its training camps to function in their respective territories. On 22 November 1998, Hanover's criminal police reported that three children had been trained by the PKK for
guerrilla warfare in camps in the Netherlands and Belgium.
[110] After the death of
Theo van Gogh, with increasing attention on domestic security concerns, the Dutch police raided the 'PKK paramilitary camp' in the Dutch town of
Liempde and arrested 29 people in November 2004, but all were soon released.
[111] Denmark allows Kurdish satellite television stations (such as ROJ-TV), which
Turkey claims has links with the PKK, to operate in Denmark and broadcast into Turkey.
[112]
Various PKK leaders, including Hidir Yalcin, Riza Altun, Zubeyir Aydar, and Ali Haydar Kaytan all lived in Europe and moved freely. The free movement was achieved by strong ties with influential persons.
Danielle Mitterrand, the wife of the former
President of France, had active connections during the 90s with elements of the organization's leadership that forced a downgrade in relationships between the two states.
[113] After harboring him for some time,
Austria arranged a flight to
Iraq for Ali Rıza Altun, a suspected key figure with an
Interpolarrest warrant on his name.. Turkish foreign minister
Abdullah Gül summoned the Austrian ambassador and condemned Austria's action.
[114] On 30 September 1995, while Öcalan was in Syria,
Damascus initiated contact with high-ranking German
CDU MP Heinrich Lummer and German intelligence officials.
The Chief of the Turkish General Staff during 2007, General
Yaşar Büyükanıt, stated that even though the international struggle had been discussed on every platform and even though organizations such as the UN,
NATO, and EU made statements of serious commitment, to this day the necessary measures had not been taken.
[115] According to Büyükanıt; "
this conduct on one side has encouraged the terrorists, on the other side it assisted in widening their activities.[115] "
Sedat Laçiner, of the Turkish think tank
ISRO, says that US support of the PKK undermines the US
War on Terrorism.
[116] Seymour Hershclaimed that the U.S. supported
PEJAK, the Iranian branch of the PKK.
[117] The head of the PKK's militant arm, Murat Karayılan, claimed that Iran attempted to recruit the PKK to attack coalition forces, adding that Kurdish guerrillas had launched a clandestine war in
north-western Iran, ambushing
Iranian troops.
Kurdistan Workers' Party - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia