MESOP INTERVIEW : Duran Kalkan, PKK Executive – THE BIGMOUTH OF THE PKK MOVEMENT
We Are Going to Bury AKP in 39th Year: PKK’s Duran Kalkan – Kurdish Question
26 Nov 2016 – On the eve of the 38th anniversary of the Kurdistan Workers Party, PKK Executive Committee Member Duran Kalkan said the Kurdish group had brought the Turkish state system to its knees and would deliver the final blow in its 39th year.
Speaking to Ersin Celik and Siyar Pir from ANF, the leading PKK figure gave an in-depth interview about the formation of the Kurdish organisation and its 38-year history before evaluating more recent developments. Below we are publishing a shorter version of the 2-part interview, which addresses current issues.
PKK will not lose
Kalkan: On the 38 anniversary, we, as a party and people are 40 times stronger than the fascism of the Turkish state and AKP government. Yes, we are fighting and there are difficulties, we have martyrs; but the PKK’s struggle has never been easy. We always overcame obstacles and difficulties to reach today. This is where the value and meaning of our struggle lies. That which is won easily is lost easily. The PKK has always gained victories in the most difficult circumstances; this is why it does not lose. And everyone should know that it will never lose.
We cannot retreat
Now [Kurdish] municipalities are resisting. The HDP and DBP’s politicians, its municipality workers, parliamentarians, party officials are all resisting. Our only principle in the fight against fascism is that to live you must resist. [PKK founder] Mazlum Dogan taught us this, that “Life is resistance,” and he was right. This is how we have managed to come so far as a movement and people. For this reason we cannot and will not withdraw from our positions. Faced with fascism one cannot retreat and surrender. Wholesale resistance is needed.
Erdogan’s buffoonery
Democratic Kurdish politics and Kurdish society is resisting. This resistance will bring about the end of the AKP’s fascism. We are sure of this. [Turkish President] Tayyip Erdogan, [PM] Binali Yildirim and others are enraged because of this. Erdogan is acting like a bully and gangster and attacking everyone. His actions reflect the state of mind of a person who has lost the plot. But his lumpen buffoonery will not keep him in power for long.
They have been eradicating the PKK for 38 winters!
Erdogan and his cronies have been propagandising that they are going to “eradicate the PKK this winter.” They have been saying this every winter for the past 38 years. But the PKK enters each spring stronger than the one before. This is what is going to happen once again.
Attack in South Kurdistan-KRG
The Turkish army conducted its first operation in South Kurdistan on 25 May 1983. I know that operation very well. Since then they have been carrying out operations in South Kurdistan every year. Each time they say, “This time we are going to finish the PKK.”
But Erdogan should worry more about his palace than about what will happen to Qandil [PKK’s main base.] He is so afraid of death that no one even knows where he stays or lives. He doesn’t sit to eat or to rest. He is gripped by fear and is spreading it. His is now a regime of fear and it is through this that he is keeping his hold on power. And despite this he has the audacity to repeat that he will eradicate the PKK. They may conduct an operation. But as the saying goes: ‘They’ll regret it if they do.’
The AKP does not have a future
People should not be duped by the AKP’s psychological warfare. Erdogan has no rival when it comes to cruelty and bloodthirstiness, because he has no principles other than his personal gain. Everything can be expected from people like this. We need to be alert and prepared for what he may do. We are not taking him lightly. But strategically speaking the AKP and Erdogan have no future. This is certain.
The end of the AKP is nearing
The AKP’s time in power is nearing. It is going to collapse, because neither the people of the Middle East –primarily Kurds and Arabs- nor the international system, which the AKP is bound to, accept its strategy. Kurds and Arabs do not accept religious nationalism and global capitalism is not OK with religionism.
Blackmail will not extend their lifespan
Now the AKP is blackmailing the U.S. and Europe with, “We will join the Shanghai Five,” (SCO). The AKP’s policy is formed of blackmail, demagoguery, state terror, massacres, oppression and fear mongering. These policies have no place in administering a society and state. This ideology and strategy doesn’t have a long lifespan.
Erdogan doesn’t even have control over the AKP
Erdogan doesn’t even have control over the AKP. He doesn’t know what is going to emerge from within his party or from within Turkey!
This means that we need to mount a more effective struggle against the AKP’s fascism. All leftist, socialist, democratic circles, libertarians and forces in favour of human rights, circles within the CHP, Alevis, women, youth, everyone needs to unite.
We are going to bury the AKP in our 39th year
In our 38th year we brought the AKP to a point of collapse, in our 39th year we are going to bury the AKP. We are going to dispose of the genocidal fascist AKP. This is our objective. The Kurdistan revolution is going to be victorious and open the path for a democratic revolution in the Middle East – Source: ANF