[We are not guilty of terrorism; we are victims of state
terrorism. But we are guilty of defending our people”, said the PKK
in its letter addressing to the American people and president.]
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PKK LETTER TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND PRESIDENT TRUMP  
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Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Foreign Relations Committee
October 18, 2019
ANF News
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_ We are not guilty of terrorism; we are victims of state terrorism.
But we are guilty of defending our people”, said the PKK in its
letter addressing to the American people and president. _

,

 

Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Foreign Relations Committee wrote a
letter addressing to the American people and President Donald J. Trump
responding to the comparisons made between the Kurdish movement and
ISIS amid the genocidal campaign of the Turkish state against the
Kurdish people.

The letter reads as follows;

“To the American people and President Donald J. Trump,

We refuse comparisons being made between our movement and the inhumane
thugs of ISIS. Our response is as follows: There are more than 40
million Kurds living in the Middle East today. At the end of the First
World War, outside powers divided them among four autocratic states:
Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, where our movement began. 

For years, the Kurdish people had asked these governments only for the
basic democratic rights that you enjoy each day: the right to exist,
to speak their own language, to practice their own culture, to
participate in politics as free and equal citizens.

"PKK WAS FOUNDED TO RESIST THE TURKISH STATE VIOLENCE"

Each time, they were brutally subjugated: bombed with advanced
weapons, torn from their homes in the middle of the night and
disappeared, jailed and tortured, their villages flattened, and their
very language and culture banned. Up until we founded the PKK in 1978
to resist the violence of the Turkish state against the Kurdish
people, it had already massacred hundreds of thousands of Kurds in the
Kurdish regions of Turkey. We don’t have to go too far back in time,
in the 90s the Turkish state destroyed 4,000 Kurdish villages and
extra-judicially killed 17,000 Kurds.

“OUR EFFORTS WERE IGNORED”

Turkish leaders believed, like so many tyrants throughout history,
that they could crush the basic human desire for a free life with
violence and terror. They branded us as terrorists and criminals and
spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get other countries like the
United States of America to do so too, even as their forces committed
unspeakable atrocities in violation of all principles of international
law. We signed the Geneva Conventions and asked for peace negotiations
on various occasions since 1993, knowing that the war could end the
second Kurdish rights were institutionalized. These efforts were
ignored.

“PKK HAS NEVER TARGETED THE U.S. OR ANY COUNTRY”

The PKK has never targeted the U.S. or any other country. We have
never shied away from the negotiating table to solve this conflict
peacefully and politically. As a matter of fact, we have declared no
less than eight ceasefires since 1993 to pave the way for
negotiations. The PKK’s political project is founded on basic human
rights and liberties, gender liberation, religious pluralism and
ecological rights.

When ISIS began its campaign of terror across Syria and Iraq, we knew
we had to respond. The group threatened not only the ideals we have
fought so many years to defend, but the safety of tens of millions of
people. The well-armed and well-funded states of the region and the
world were slow to respond, weighing the cost of action as millions
fell under extremist subjugation.

In August of 2014, we carried out a humanitarian campaign in Sinjar,
Iraq, where ISIS was committing atrocities against the Yezidi
community that the United Nations would subsequently recognize as a
genocide. The Yezidis had been left defenseless by the world, facing
an enemy who regional forces had so far been unable to stop. Our first
military unit dispatched to the region was made up of just seven
people. From those beginnings, we were able to open a humanitarian
corridor to Northeast Syria, allowing 35,000 civilians besieged on
Mount Sinjar to reach safety. We went on to join other forces in
liberating the region from ISIS control.

“TURKEY DID NOTHING TO STOP ISIS EXTREMISTS”

As our movement and our people gave thousands of lives in this fight,
the Turkish state that calls us ‘terrorists’ did nothing to stop
the ISIS extremists that were terrorizing innocent civilians across
the world. The Turkish state has attacked Northeast Syria with greater
ferocity today than they ever did when ISIS plotted international
attacks from territory just across their border. They have sent
terrorist gangs affiliated with al-Qaeda to torture and murder the
people who defeated ISIS. They see the simple articulation of Kurdish
identity as a greater threat than the groups that targeted innocents
in not only Sinjar and Kobani, but Paris, Manchester, and New York
City.

Many Americans saw in May 2017 how the Turkish President Erdogan
ordered his bodyguards to brutally attack peaceful Kurdish protestors
in your capital city; imagine what they do in Kurdistan. We are not
guilty of terrorism; we are victims of state terrorism. But we are
guilty of defending our people. We believe that the American people
will be able to judge for themselves who the dangerous terrorists of
this world are.”

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