Turkey seeks to clean out Kurdish population: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed William Jones, a member of the Executive Intelligence Review in Leesburg, to discuss the ongoing clashes between Turkish army forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Turkey and in particular Erdogan has taken a bidding on how they have dealt with the Kurdish issue especially in this town that at this point rights groups have decried the fact that 200 civilians have been killed. Do you think that the way that Turkey has dealt with this was to the advantage of Turkey or is it just because of the gripes that they have against the Kurds?

Jones: I think Turkey is involved in something of a genocidal war against the Kurds and Erdogan wants to use this in order to create his new Ottoman Empire in the region. The whole game that is being played about the so-called Turkish involvement in cooperation against ISIL (Daesh) is really an attempt to get a cover against any opposition to Turkey moving in militarily against the Kurds.

I do not think it has anything to do with the PKK terrorists per se. I think it is a more general issue that they would like to just clean out the Kurdish population in order to change the political situation in Turkey where it is no longer democracy but basically a caliphate with Erdogan atop.

I think that has been his policy all along and this is another sign that it is moving in that direction and he is not getting much opposition from either the US or any of the other so-called Western powers that claim to be democracies.

Press TV: And of course you have got the issue of the Syrian Kurds that come into the picture. How does that tie in with the way that as you mentioned the US would back some other Kurds, it is kind of a conflict of interest with their ally Turkey?  

Jones: Well obviously it is and they are trying to find some kind of a modus operandi where they can support the Kurdish fighters to some extent that is the US support the Kurdish fighters in their fight with ISIL but at the same time allowing the Turks to do what they feel they have to do against their own Kurdish minority in order to reach their own goals.

It is a very hypocritical fight going on. It is leading to chaos, it is leading to disorder, it has created a situation in which the so-called coalition against ISIL is operating on the basis of several different agendas. Both the Saudis and the Turks have their own goals in the region and the goals are not to destroy ISIL but are very much different.

So if there is going to be any effect in this, there has to be some kind of pressure put on the Turks and on the Saudis in that respect to get rid of parts of their agenda which is not consistent with getting rid of ISIL but given the administration that we have here which has been playing patsy with these forces, I do not think you are going to have anything happening, pressure coming from this direction anytime soon.

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