PKK's Bayık: AK Party And ISIL Share Same Ideology

Cemil Bayık, the head of the Kurdistan Communities' Union (KCK) and also the “number two” man in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has claimed that the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has been using the Süleyman Şah tomb, a sovereign Turkish exclave in Syria, as headquarters for its military operations.

In an interview with the Evrensel daily published on Monday, Bayık argued that the tomb, which is guarded by a few dozen Turkish soldiers and was demarcated as Turkish territory under a 1921 Franco-Turkish treaty, has served as a military base for ISIL militants. He maintained that there are several key staff members from Turkish special operations within ISIL, adding, "Today, Turkey -- and [specifically] the AK Party [ruling Justice and Development Party] -- is leading ISIL's siege on Kobani."

Bayık asserted that there are also military elements from Turkish special operations within the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is composed of various armed groups fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, and that they have been conducting their armed struggle from the Süleyman Şah tomb under the direction of those Turkish elements.

"ISIL militants have demolished all the holy places of all religions [in the territory they control] to date, such as tombs, graveyards and even mosques, but they have not wrecked the tomb. Why have they not demolished it? Because they are using it as a military base for their attacks, in cooperation with Turkey," Bayık said.

The PKK leader stressed that the Western world, including NATO, does not support Turkey's policy regarding Syria. The West stands united against the threat of ISIL in Kobani and in the region, which has led to reconciliation between the PKK and the West.

Defining the process that started with the resistance against ISIL in Kobani as a breakthrough, Bayık maintained that nothing will be the same after this armed struggle. Furthermore, he accused Turkey of contributing to the creation of ISIL in the region. "By supporting ISIL's advances in Syria, the AK Party has extinguished the possibility of democratic opposition in the country. Thus, people are forced to bow down to either the Assad regime or ISIL. This is the result of the AK Party's policies. Turkey is the main [party] responsible for the extensive cruelty of ISIL against Syria's peoples. … Their ideologies derive from the same source. That is why the AK Party cannot adopt an anti-ISIL stance and why their [the AK Party and ISIL's] common goal is to eliminate the existence of a Kurdish structure in Rojava [Western Kurdistan, in northern Syria]. Also, Turkey is trying to be the leader of the Sunni world in the Middle East. Who is now considered to be representing the Sunni ideology in the region? ISIL, in an effort to be a hegemonic power in the Middle East," Bayık commented.

Bayık also remarked upon the ongoing settlement process, which is being carried out between the government and Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK, in order to seek a solution to the country's decades-old Kurdish problem. He highlighted that the PKK would not lay down its arms and repeated former threats that violence will be revived in Turkey if Öcalan's demands are not met and if the government does not put the draft that Öcalan has drawn up for the solution of the problem on the country's agenda.

In an interview with Germany's Die Zeit, Bayık accused President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of being the true leader of ISIL. "The real caliph of ISIL is not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi [the self-proclaimed caliph], it is Erdoğan, as the AK Party is fully supporting ISIL's violent acts against the Kurdish elements in Kobani and in the region," Bayık stated.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)