Deputy PM To PKK Leader: No One Can Threaten Turkey

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan responded on Sunday to a senior figure of the terrorist group Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for remarks targeting him, saying no one can threaten Turkey.
In televised remarks on Sunday, Akdoğan said if the PKK has enough power to threaten Turkey, it should then use that power to defeat Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which has been attacking the Kurdish town of Kobani near the Turkish border in northern Syria for days.
“If you have the power to do anything at all, go do it to ISIL. Why do you ask for Turkey's help if you have any power?” Akdoğan said in an interview on pro-government broadcaster Kanal 7.
He was responding to Mustafa Karasu, a senior leader of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) umbrella group, which also includes the PKK. Karasu recently targeted Akdoğan for saying that a recently made statement by PKK commander Murat Karayılan -- which indicated that Turkey's Kurdish process was effectively over because of Turkey's policy toward the ISIL attacks on Kobane -- was a mere “bluff.”
In weekend remarks, Karasu said, addressing Akdoğan: “We will show him what we will do if he does not take the right stance.”
Akdoğan said statements from Kandil, the mountain region where the PKK leadership is based, are “irresponsible and threatening,” adding that “no one can threaten Turkey.”
“They just sit back in Kandil and ramble on about Kobani. Instead of talking, go and fight in Kobani. This is an unacceptable sham,” Akdoğan told Kanal 7.
The clashes in Kobani present a threat to Turkey's precarious Kurdish peace process, which mainly consists of secret talks with the PKK's jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan.
Fueled by suspicions that Turkey is supporting the ISIL militants, the Kurds have clashed on the Turkish side of the border with security forces who have fired water cannon and tear gas partly in a bid to prevent them joining the fight across the border in Kobani.
The PKK said Ankara had violated a ceasefire, declared by Öcalan in March last year as part of the peace process, by supporting ISIL.
PKK's Karayılan declared the ceasefire "finished" in an interview with a TV station close to the PKK last week, adding, however that Öcalan will make the final decision. (Cihan/Today’s Zaman)