German deputy speaker: NATO must stop Turkey support for ISIS
By
RUDAW 12/10/2014
BERLIN, Germany – NATO must force Turkey to stop its undeclared support of the Islamic State (ISIS) and shift its policy toward the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the deputy speaker of the German parliament said.
Claudia Roth said in an interview with
Rudaw that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government is pursuing a “murky” policy in Syria because it wants the Kurds weakened and their fighters “annihilated.”
“What we have learned is that Mr Erdogan wouldn’t mind if Kurds were weakened and then annihilated,” said Roth, deputy speaker of the Bundestag and a Green Party MP.
Erdogan’s “dealings with the ISIS are unacceptable. I could not believe that Turkey harbors an ISIS militant camp in Istanbul,” Roth said. “Turkey has also allowed weapons to be transported into Syria through its borders. Also that the ISIS has been able to sell its oil via Turkey is extraordinary,” she added.
Turkey categorically denies any dealings with ISIS. But there are many reported accounts of foreign jihadi fighters crossing from Turkey to Syria, wounded militants treated in Turkish hospitals and Ankara turning a blind eye to ISIS selling smuggled oil.
Turkey has invited criticism for its Syria policy. Ankara has remained idle while in Kobane Kurdish fighters of the PKK-affiliated People’s Protection Units (YPG) are making a last stand to keep ISIS from overrunning the Syrian town just across the border.
“I really don’t understand either why would Mr Erdogan and his ministers regard the PKK the same way they view the Islamic State,” Roth said. “Yes, it’s true the PKK does not have a democratic foundation, but it is no ISIS and one should not regard it as such,” she added.
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Germany must put pressure on Turkey to change course and reevaluate its policies. It should also ask NATO members to do the same. Germany must help the peace process to continue in Turkey.”