March 2, 2013

'MIT targets us'

Emre Uslu

Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader and chief negotiator of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has met with three Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputies and shared his view on the peace negotiations. Records of the meeting were leaked to the media, which expectedly sparked an immense debate.

Records indicated that Öcalan has no new arguments. He repeats himself. The only new thing is his strategy. Instead of preferring to fight to gain what he wants, just like others in opposition to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, he sides with Erdoğan and hopes to gain more by supporting him. For instance, Öcalan suggests that he would support Erdoğan if Erdoğan changed the system and became president. For Erdoğan, there couldn't be a better gift since he really wants to change the parliamentary system to the presidential system and become the next president.

Öcalan thinks that by offering this carrot to Erdoğan, he will also win in this process. While offering the carrot, Öcalan also targets the Gülen movement group, perhaps on behalf of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) -- which aimed to dismantle the network -- and hopes that he and the PKK will be a good asset for Erdoğan in eliminating a power center.

It is obvious that Öcalan contradicts himself when he targets the Gülen movement because Fethullah Gülen himself came out and lowered the threshold to reach peace with the PKK. Gülen has said that to reach peace, even kissing hands is acceptable. Unless there is another reason, while giving the most obvious support to the peace process, there is no reason for Öcalan to demonize the Gülen movement in this process. Thus, it is very likely for Öcalan to target this network on behalf of a group within the MİT, which put the Gülen community as a target.

Worst, Öcalan does not stop there. He targets the US and the West and includes myself and another journalist, Mehmet Baransu, in his so-called analysis and suggests that we were both trained by opposing guerilla forces, which for him is secret NATO forces in the US and that there is an immense power behind us.

I just don't know what to say about this kind of mentality. On the one hand I am deeply disillusioned with the peace process when I see a Kurdish leader floundering with nonsensical conspiracy theories. When I see Öcalan adopt this sick mentality, I don't see any hope for peace because you cannot relay on a sick man to negotiate peace.

On the other hand, I think what Öcalan is saying is not his personal opinion. Because Baransu and I harshly criticized MİT when 34 innocent Kurdish villagers were killed by a Turkish war plane a year ago and MİT was the primary source of intelligence to conduct such a lethal operation, it is likely that MİT is targeting us through Öcalan.

Baransu is supportive of the recent peace process. He wrote a column openly supporting the process saying he is optimistic about peace.

I support the negotiations but have hesitancies about the methods of the negotiation. Therefore there is no reason for Öcalan to target Baransu at this time, unless he was told to by the MİT.

Further, at least one MİT member was readily available at the meeting between Öcalan and the BDP deputies. He should have intervened and stopped Öcalan when he made us targets for the PKK to kill us.

Imagine if a CIA agent was negotiating with a leader of a terrorist organization, and the leader was naming American citizens as targets to be killed by the terror organization. What would happen?

Unfortunately, we are citizens of Turkey. This is the third time that Öcalan has made me a target of the PKK under the initiative of MİT, a state organization that runs its operations with my tax money. If something happens to me, if the PKK targets me, it is MİT that is responsible. That is exactly what has happened to Hrant Dink, the Armenian journalist who was warned by MİT agents and later killed.

Published on Today's Zaman, 01 March 2013, Friday

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