The Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) Executive Committee member Duran Kalkan was interviewed in a special programme that was broadcast on Medya Haber TV.
The PKK executive shared recent information and his predictions regarding the ongoing clashes between the Turkish armed forces and Kurdish fighters in Zap, Avashin and Metine regions of Iraqi Kurdistan.
“I salute the heroic resistance against the occupying attacks [in Iraqi Kurdistan]. I commemorate the martrys of this resistance with respect. Victory shall be with this resistance. Victory shall be with those who resist”, Kalkan stated.
He continued: “That is an important territory, a very strong territory. For the ongoing war, for the guerrilla. Even if the Turkish state captured all the hills there, the guerrilla will still be able to make moves, chase them, hunt them and hit them.
“In Avashin, in Zap, along the Metina-Zendura line, the clashes continue in an intensified way. It is understood that the clashes will continue like this.
“Of course, they may have landed in some regions using their technological power”, he noted. “But this is not success. We have never said that no one is able to deploy military shipments here or to land here. Yes, they may enter our zones, but will they be able to exit? That is the question”.
He addressed the historical and international aspects of the ongoing Turkish operations: “The attacks in question are a product of a genocidal policy. This is a hundred-year-old, even a two-hundred-year-old issue. This is also the continuum of the US-Turkey agreement on war policies, dating back to the 5 May 2007. The attacks are a continuum of the attacks targeting Kobani, Afrin and Serekaniye, the continuum of attacks targeting Heftanin and Hakurk and of the attacks targeting Makhmour and Sinjar”.
Kalkan especially emphasized the importance of the last phone call that reportedly took place between the US President Joe Biden and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Kalkan said: “On 23 April, the new US President happened to call Erdoğan. ’23 April’ is no ordinary day. It is the day when the Turkish assembly was founded. Calling Tayyip Erdoğan on that day actually means to give a message to him. He gave the message: ‘We are with you’. And immediately after this, the attack came. This attack on Metina, Zap, Avashin and Zagros began”.
He shared the view that Biden’s recognition of Armenian Genocide carries further meaning with reference to Turkish state’s genocidal policies. “The statement on the Armenian Genocide was also a message to the other side [the Turkish state]. [The US President] did not only say that they recognized the Armenian Genocide, but he also stated that:
‘We see such a potential and we are concerned’. That is, he explicitly defined the current Turkish regime, the Justice and Development Party and Nationalist Movement Party (AKP-MHP) fascism, as a regime that has the potential to carry out new genocides”, he said.
Kalkan also shared his evaluation regarding the relationship between fascism and the international “system”. “We wage a struggle, we force out fascism, we narrow the area of fascism, we bring them to the point of collapse, but then – again – Europe, the US or Russia or other forces run to their rescue in order to protect fascism. This system keeps fascism alive. They say that the ‘right’ powers progress in the system”, he said.
“But the system has no ‘right’ and no ‘left'”, he asserted. “The worst is to become the ‘leftists’ of this system. Such ‘system-leftists’ are the ones keeping this system alive. Europe and then Russia have given a hand to Tayyip [Erdoğan]. Finally, the US gave a hand. They try to sustain his power. They did and still encourage him with new attacks”.
