Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Executive Board member Murat Karayılan spoke to Sterk TV about Turkey’s oppression of the Kurds, referring both to the East Reform plan and the Destruction plan and the many ways the Turkish state seeks to marginalise Kurds.
Hawar News Agency reports that Karayılan spoke about the war policies that Turkey imposed on Kurdish people. “Of course the colonialist system in our homeland has been based on looting the valuable underground resources”, he said.
“However, the goal is not only this. The goal is to erase us completely, while looting underground and above ground resources. Their aim is to win through implementing destruction, denial and genocidal policies. This is the character of the colonialism implemented in Kurdistan. There are no similar instances of colonialism, such as France’s control of Algeria or United States’ occupation of Vietnam. It does not resemble those. The aim of the colonialism implemented in Kurdistan is to suppress people and assimilate, to Turkicise and remove the Kurds completely”.
From the East Reform Plan to the Destruction Plan
Drawing attention to the continuity between the East Reform Plan and the Destruction Plan, Karayılan said, “For instance, when we consider the past, we see the East Reform Plan was implemented in 1925. We know that the East Reform Plan changed its name later. It has carried on under the name of Tunceli Law, Forced Settlement Law etc. The Justice and Development Party [AKP]-Nationalist Movement Party [MHP] government has also tried to implement the Destruction Plan as an updated version of East Reform Plan”.
Assimilation of Kurdish language
Executive Board member Karayılan also drew attention to the assimilation policy implemented on the Kurdish language and noted that the assimilation was accelerated with the East Reform Plan. Karayılan said the Kurdish language faced significant danger and needed support.
Special war policies against youth and women
In recent times the Turkish state has implemented a special war policy towards Kurds in Turkey. Karayılan explained that the Turkish state targeted Kurdish youth and women in particular. Referring to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan’s idea of the “New Paradigm”, Karayılan said Öcalan provided a pioneering role for women in his philosophy, adding, “The fight put up by Kurdish women attracted not only the attention of women in the region but also women across world. In this paradigm the leadership [Öcalan] approaches the revolution in three ways: first the women’s revolution; second, the democratic revolution; and third the ecological revolution”.
Karayılan said the fight of Kurdish women was not only for women but also for Kurdistan, and the Turkish state targeted women for that reason.
Triggering war among Kurds
Regarding Turkey’s policies against Kurds, Karayılan said the Turkish state aimed to trigger war among Kurds and used the village guard system in pursuit of this. Despite attempts by the Turkish state to recruit Kurds from Iraqi Kurdistan, they were rejected, said Karayılan.
Karayılan finally warned that the Turkish state aimed to trigger a war among Kurds and spread it across the region.
