Turkey chides Europe over Kurdish ‘terror’

On the border with Iraq, where PKK attacks are launched

Erdogan: some EU sates ‘failed to cut’ financial channels of PKK ‘terrorist organisation’.
ISTANBUL – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed European countries Wednesday for inadequate support against separatist Kurdish militants, Anatolia news agency reported.

“Unfortunately, some European countries have failed to give Turkey the required support in its long-running struggle against terrorism,” Erdogan told a gathering of Balkans leaders in Istanbul, according to Anatolia.

“Despite bloody attacks against civilians and security forces (in Turkey), there are countries which have failed to cut the financial channels of the terrorist organisation, turned a blind eye to its activities and propaganda and failed to extradite criminals,” he said.

Erdogan was referring to the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, including the EU.

The PKK has an extensive support network among Kurdish immigrants in Europe.

Erdogan’s remarks followed Tuesday’s bombing of a bus carrying army personnel in Istanbul, which killed four soldiers and a teenage girl.

Radical Kurdish militants claimed responsibility for the blast, the latest episode in surging Kurdish rebel violence across Turkey.

Ankara has long accused EU countries of tolerating PKK activities on their soil and failing to close down organisations affiliated to the rebels.

It says the PKK obtains much of its finances through drug trafficking, people-smuggling, extortion and money laundering in Europe.

Many Kurds were granted political asylum in European countries, notably in the 1990s, when the prosecution of activists opposed to Ankara’s heavy-handed policies against its sizeable Kurdish minority was a common occurrence.

Copenhagen notably has long angered Ankara for refusing to shut down a Denmark-based Kurdish television channel, Roj TV, which Turkey says is a PKK mouthpiece.

In 2007, Turkey slammed Austria for failing to arrest a senior PKK member wanted on an Interpol bulletin, allowing him instead to board a plane for northern Iraq, where the PKK enjoys safe haven.

The PKK took up arms for self-rule in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.