Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency, tasked with domestic intelligence, has removed several organisations including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from its list of foreign terrorist organisations.
The removal of PKK and others, including the Lebanese Hezbollah, was due to Japan starting to use the UN Security Council’s designations, which propose sanctions on a smaller selection of organisations in line with the UNSC Resolution No.1267, according to a PSIA spokesperson. The list was updated in September, but changes were made public on the agency’s website in late November.
Japan does not have a system in place to designate international terrorist organisations, the spokesperson said. Previous lists the country used were sourced from “overseas think tanks”, however, this led to questions on listing standards, they added.
With the change, the standard was made “clear and easy to understand”, the spokesperson said. “The timing of the update may have caused it to become a hot topic,” they added.
The PKK was included in the US list of foreign terrorist organisations in 1997, and the European Union’s list in 2004. Efforts to delist the PKK have since continued, activists and legal experts arguing that the designation was inaccurate and harmful to relations between the group and Turkey, as well as to a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish question. Several European courts have since issued rulings that PKK’s inclusion in the list is unlawful.
“Though the PKK is de facto included on EU terror lists, effectively at the behest of the Turkish government, no EU or international court has ever found that the PKK meets the definition of a terrorist organisation,” journalist and Medya News contributor Matt Broomfield said in an article published by Progressive International.
“There is no doubt that PKK meets all the criteria that allow it to be considered as a political-military organisation, which carries out an armed struggle against Turkish security services, army and authorities, towards the realisation of the right to self-determination of the Kurdish people,” Broomfield quoted lawyer Jan Fermon as saying in the wake of Belgium’s top court ruling in favour of delisting the PKK.
The change becoming public coincides with Turkey targeting 20 NGOs and humanitarian organisations throughout the world, including the Japan Kurdish Cultural Association and the Japanese branch of the Kurdistan Red Crescent Society.
