Turkey ignoring civilian deaths in Iraq: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Sabah Jawad, director of Iraqi Democrats against Occupation in London, to discuss Turkey’s airstrikes against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What do you make of the Turkish aggression now against the PKK? Of course Ankara says that it is protecting its people and protecting the territory whereas the PKK says that these attacks have been initiated by the Turkish government in order actually to try to get a different result this time around in the elections. Your take sir.

Jawad: Yes that is precisely the point actually, the reason behind the aggression being waged against the Kurdish people and the PKK in particular in Iraqi Kurdistan. In fact the Turkish government only joined the so-called western alliance against terrorism to further its own agenda by creating an external enemy actually to serve its purpose in the forthcoming election. They want to utilize these issues as saying to the Turkish people actually that we are facing terrorism from within, from the Kurdish people and therefore we have to take part in fighting this terrorism.

If you look at the military operations conducted by the Turkish army since Turkey joined the western alliance against terrorism, you find maybe about two, three operations were conducted against ISIS in Syria and the rest actually, the vast majority of the attacks, were conducted against the Kurdish oppositions to the Turkish regime. That will indicate actually that the reason behind all these kinds of things is to play the election card in regard to the attacks in Iraq and also to further their Turkish agenda in Syria as well.

Press TV: What does that say? Let me jump in here because if it is true that this is just being done for votes in November, I mean what does that say about the Turkish government? We have seen Turkish troops as well as civilians and of course besides the Kurds also being killed, so what does that mean? What does it say about Ankara?

Jawad: Well this means that actually the Turkish government does not care about all these civilians killed whether in Iraq. They have been supporting terrorism in Syria and Iraq in the past few years anyway and they still do actually. If you look at the facts on the ground now, they are still supporting terrorism and terrorist groups in Syria for example. They are facilitating the immigration of the Syrian people toward Europe. They want to create so-called humanitarian crisis and they want to establish a safe zone in northern Syria - it is about one hundred kilometers of territories - and they will attempt to NATO and the United States to call for a no-fly zone there. So therefore, basically is to encourage military bases by terrorists to be established in north of Turkey with the support of Turkey and the United States as well.

They have over ten thousand terrorists within the so-called Free Syrian Army, they are Turkmens and supported by the Turkish government and they want them actually to be based in northern Syria. And to be able to do that without attack from the Syrian forces, they need to establish a safe haven and no-fly zone in Syria as well. So this is part and parcel of the Turkish plan. Do not forget at the same time that the flood of terrorists are still coming to Syria and Iraq through Turkey as well despite the pronouncement by the Turkish government that actually they are in, in the fight against ISIS and other terrorist groups as well.

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