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Letter: Kurds' 'protectors' are terrorists

Mr Hale Worthy
Friday 17 June 1994 23:02 BST
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Sir: We understand from the letter with 60 signatures you published on 14 June that not only the man in the street, but also some members of the British parliament and prominent authors still seem to suffer from lack of information regarding the plight of the people in south-east Turkey, which is, in fact, an outcome of the PKK terrorists' atrocities.

It is clear that the text of the letter is the PKK's version of the description of the ongoing events in that most remote geography of Nato, in which Turkey and the United Kingdom are allies.

The PKK is one of the few Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisations in the world. It claims that it fights for the rights of Kurds in Turkey, but the majority of the loss of 11,000 lives in south-east Anatolia in the last 10 years, has been of ethnic, innocent Kurds.

On 10 December 1993, the administrative staff were arrested when Turkish police went into the offices of the pro-PKK daily, Ozgur Gundem, and found ammunition, identity cards of some soldiers murdered by the terrorist organisation and copies of receipts of the money raised by the PKK during its extortion campaign. We believe that if ammunition or identity cards of British soldiers murdered by the IRA were to be found in the offices of the Independent, the approach of the British security and judicial systems would not be very different.

The signatories of the said letter admit that the paper has published PKK propaganda, which they regard as the proper reporting of the bitter war in the south-east of Turkey, and yet seem surprised that this is a reason for arrests. It appears that they forget that the statements of Gerry Adams are broadcast with the voice of an actor, in a country where the first parliamentary democracy was established.

With regards,

HALE WORTHY,

President

European Association of Turkish

Academics, UK Section

London, SW7

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