Page 80 - America's Failure to Perceive the PKK

T The PKK's imperialist mask

Question: Why should the West, which is
unhappy with Saddam, wish to see Turkey grow
stronger?

Öcalan: However, this will also create a Kurdish
autonomy. That will weaken Turkey, will know

how to weaken her.

Question: Do you mean that Kurdish autonomy
will also restrain Turkey?

Öcalan: This pro-Western Kurdish autonomous
region will restrain Turkey for the West. It will ret-
rain the Arabs and Iran. From that point of view,

I think the West will delight in Kurdish autonomy.
They will spread this region out toward Turkey
and Iran. That is what the West wants, of course. 17

These words, taken from an interview PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan
gave to Rafet Ballı in 1991, are quite sufficient to reveal the heart of
the matter. Some forces in the West long to see Kurdish autonomy in
Turkey. The goal here, just as Öcalan says, is to restrain Turkey, the
Arabs and Iran. A Kurdish region extending to Turkey and Iran is just

what the forces in question in the West want to see. That is highly com-
patible with the interests of the deep state services discussed in detail
above.
The plan in question was actually discovered by Öcalan in the early

1990s. Those were years when the PKK suffered severe losses in Turkey,
when the organization suffered a veritable hemorrhaging of manpower,
lost a vast number of supporters and was unable to muster new recruits.

78 America's Failure to Perceive the PKK