Authorities said most of the websites had been banned upon requests of Turkey’s security bodies for ties to the PKK or “for supporting terrorism”.
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When it was announced that the US and Turkey were going to unite against ISIS, there was an immediate announcement of talks underway to establish a “safe zone” in northern Syria, along the Turkish border.
A senior defense official told Fox News that another reason the Turks want to keep Kurdish fighters outside of the 68-mile border is to prevent the Kurds from potentially selling their oil on the open market from ports along the Mediterranean. Judicial sources have said he is thought to have acted under instructions from people in Turkey who may have had connections to the Turkish intelligence service.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Friday that Turkey itself would take action if the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) Qandil Mountain bases in Iraq’s Kurdistan region were not closed down.
The incidents are the latest in a recent surge of violence between Turkish security forces and the PKK.
Demirok said: “There seems to be a misperception and shallow evaluation of the operations being carried out against exclusively PKK targets”.
On Monday, four Turkish police officers were killed in a roadside bombing in the south-eastern Sirnak province while a Turkish soldier was killed in a rocket attack on a military helicopter. But Turkey and most of its allies consider PKK an extremist group which has been involved in scores of terrorist activities, so deserves no sympathy.
Later in the interview, I asked Demirtas about his reported claim that a suicide bombing July 20 at Suruc in southeastern Turkey was linked to a secret “Gladio” organization (a cover name for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation intelligence activities during the Cold War). This decision, then, runs contrary to the critical role that the Kurdish forces play in the war against IS, and demonstrates the lack of co-ordination, and awareness, in Australia’s national security strategy. Such access should shorten flight times for U.S. (and presumably allied) fighter jets – especially into Syria, where the group calling itself the Islamic State has its de facto capital, Raqqa – compared with taking off from bases in Iraq or aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.
Ankara launched a peace process with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in 2012 and a ceasefire declared by him in 2013 had largely held until hostilities resumed last month.
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He referred to Demirtas as a composer that leads the PKK orchestra.
