Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to Ekurd.net

Hüseyin Baybaşin saw his own name on the list and many others, now dead.

Former MIT chief, Mehmet Eymur, produced a 54 name hit list before the No. 1 High Criminal Court in Ankara in mid 2014 where he was testifying as a witness into extra judicial killings carried by Turkish state agents in the 1990s. The order is reported to have been given by then President Suleyman Demirel and endorsed by PM Tansu Çiller.1 In other words, the decision was taken at the highest levels of the Turkish state. Prominent Kurdish activists and businessmen were targeted and killed. The basis was their support for resolving the Kurdish Question and by extension, supporting the PKK. Several parallel lists are likely to exist on a need-to-know basis. Another list concerned undesirable foreigner close to the Kurdish issue and yet another of those considered sympathetic to the Kurdish cause from inside the Turkish state – all were designated as enemies and very likely still are today where still alive.

Hüseyin Baybaşin saw one such list for himself when given access by the head of the Military Supreme Court, General Ilhan Şenel Pasha. Hüseyin knew the top brass in Ankara and Istanbul at the time. “The ‘hit list’ was set down over more than 20 pages and was printed on some oily kind of paper,” He told me. “Every city was listed with key opposition figures to be assassinated – the importance and urgency of the need for elimination were noted, the person’s background, where he was living, how influential he was. The Kurds were to be eliminated to make sure no other influential Kurdish person would act.”

Ilhan Şenel Pasha approached me and told me I should go on TV and say ‘We are all Turkish and the PKK is being orchestrated by the Crusaders, the Jews etc.’ but if I refuse I will be killed. I protested that I was Kurdish. I could not therefore say I was a Turk.

“Other high level officials told me the same thing: “either protect the State or you’ll be eliminated.”

Former Prime Minister, Turgut Özal was named there as were several Kurdish businessmen that Hüseyin knew personally. He warned those he could. According to sources: ex- MIT Chief, Mehmet Eymur, “stated that the hit list was ordered by Mehmet Ağar, a former police chief who later served as justice minister and interior minister, and Ibrahim Sahin, the former head of the National Police Department’s Special Operations Unit, to neutralize Kurdish businessmen who were allegedly funding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Together with Ağar, other suspects in the case have all been released pending trial…”

Among the 54 individuals named on the list2 that Hüseyin Baybaşin knew personally and who were assassinated were included:

-Fevzi Aslan and his two nephews from Licê
-Medet Serhat, a lawyer in Istanbul from Ağri
-Yusuf Ekinci, a lawyer from Licê
-Behcet Cantürk from Licê
-Adnan Yildirim, also from Licê
-Savas Buldan from Yüksekova
-Haci Kirtay from Yüksekova
-Three members from the Erez family from Van

General Hulusi Sayin – he was on the list because he was motivating high level support for Turgut Özal’s project of creating a federation to resolve the Kurdish Question and he had already begun to lobby. Sayin was from Elaziğ. I had met him. The state was warning: “Sayin Pasha is making statements that are going to cost him his life.” His security team was taken away from him and the killers got him on his way to an appointment in Ankara. Dev Sol had claimed Sayin was the leader of the Contra Guerrilla Gladios but it was the State that killed him, not Dev Sol. I made this public in 1995. Why would those who advocated for revolution kill the person who wants to solve the Kurdish Question? The state killed him to stop people from getting angry at the state and then took kudos from such events.

Uğur Mumcu was fingered by the state for investigating state drug trafficking. Former General, Kenan Evren, and the Saudis had signed a contract with Rabita to train Imams in Wahabism and made it clear Turkish Islamists had a role to play. Uğur Mumcu was killed in front of his house in 1992. The state sought to murky the water.

Eshref Bitlis was killed and his helicopter was downed. Many other generals were also killed off.3

“We have to remember that some 17,000 Kurds were disappeared during the 1980s and 1990s under different governments. Their fate is still unknown today.

Hüseyin continued: “We have to remember that some 17,000 Kurds were disappeared during the 1980s and 1990s under different governments. Their fate is still unknown today. This has been the policy of the Turkish state since its foundation in 1923. Turkish officials are guilty of these crimes. I am very disappointed that international bodies are not doing anything about it. The Kurdish drama is a dark page of the civilized world’s history and is a shame upon all of us. Turkish officials lack a sense of morality and therefore feel no qualms about acting in such a way.”

I was also questioned about the hit list for the Turkish court investigation currently underway. The Utrecht Court Judge was trying to ascertain things in a roundabout way, asking ‘do you know this person, that person?’ I said, come out and say what you want to know. It was about this ‘hit list’ trial in Turkey and information finally coming out.

Eymur’s testimony

Turkish press reports cite Mehmet Eymur as a key witness in the Turkish case into political murders still underway. Eymur recounted that “Tarik Umit, a MIT agent, personally ‘executed some of the names on the list including Savaş Buldan, Adnan Yıldırım and Hacı Kirtay who were abducted by armed men from an İstanbul hotel in June 1994 and found dead two days later.

“In July 2014, the Ankara Heavy Penalty Court…ordered the release of a former member of the police’s Special Operations Unit, Ayhan Çarkın, the last suspect kept behind bars as part of the trial. Çarkın shocked the nation when he said he “might have killed about 1,000 people on behalf of the state” as part of counterterrorism efforts in that period. He later retracted his statement, saying in court testimony in 2013 that his remarks were made due to his issues with substance addiction.”4

Lawyer, Eren Keskin – human rights defender at risk

In August 2016, Eren Keskin testified before the Istanbul court: Many editors and writers of this newspaper were killed in ‘unidentified’ murders, such as Musa Anter, Ferhat Tepe and Hüseyin Deniz. I became a chief editor of the newspaper in solidarity with those seeking for the exposure of these killings. Regarding ‘unidentified’ murders, Saturday Mothers and IHD held a meeting at Dolmabahçe Palace with the then Prime Minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. I attended that meeting as an administrator of the Human Rights Association. Erdoğan pledged that ‘there will be no more unidentified murders and the perpetrators of all those committed so far will get arrested during our rule’. This meeting was held in 2014 but I do not remember the exact date.”5

Huseyin recalled meeting Eren Keskin late in the 1980s: “I had been heavily tortured for 18 days at the police headquarters in Gayretepe 2nd branch (homicide, political and Anti-Terror Division). From there I was transferred to Metris Prison, where I was beaten so fiercely my ribs were sticking out through my skin. Eren Keskin, came to see me with a group of lawyers. She was new then and shocked at the state they’d left me in. I told her I would live and it was more important to act in relation to what was happening on the Kurdish issue. Now she herself is facing charges that could see her sentenced to 400 years’ imprisonment for being the formal co-editor in chief of Özgür Gündem newspaper.”

MIT murders have not ceased

MIT is now being linked to the London murder of Kurdish trade unionist, Mehmet Kaygisiz in 1994.6

Turkish activist, Nafiz Bostanci, close to the Kurdish community in London, was also named on the original hit list but survived an assassination attempt soon after Kaygisiz was killed and is now trying to sue the Turkish state.7

MIT is currently implicated in the murders of three Kurdish female activists in Paris linked with the PKK. “The French prosecution clearly accused the Turkish intelligence services. It was the first time that a state was shown as a murder suspect in a political murder.”8

A mainstream reporter with the Dutch media has also reported this adding that it appears that MIT enjoys a command centre in Den Hague9, based on phone recordings, and suggests that Turkish spies in Holland play an active main role in the composition of death-lists. It is based on a conversation between a Turkish man from Çorum, Mustafa Karataş, based in Hamburg and intercepted by Turkish City Councillor, Mrs Cansu Özdemir.10

Dutch prosecution continues to scapegoat Baybaşin

Hüseyin Baybaşin continues to battle for justice in the Netherlands. On 2 July 2017 the Dutch Attorney General, or Prosecutor, Mr. Aben DJC, refused to acknowledge the blatant manipulation of phone taps and deliberate mistranslation of content, presented by the defence and the evidence of ten international experts. This adverse recommendation has just been made after a procedure taking six years! 11 Of importance, Prosecutor Aben has been involved since the beginning. The background to this is exceedingly significant.

Prosecutor Aben and Mehmet Marsil – “the Marsil case”

In a fresh statement published on his website Huseyin recalled:12 “A Turkish police officer called Mehmet Marsil, came to Amsterdam with some dubious cronies in 1997 asking to see me. He was carrying a special Turkish diplomatic passport. Because we knew that the Turkish State had sent a hit team to carry out my assassination this particular person fit the description we’d been given. The people he approached asked me what they should do. I told them to have him hand over his ID and passport to my lawyer at the time, Mr Koppe. 13 Later, I asked Mr Koppe to file a complaint about this individual to the Dutch police, or the prosecutor, in Amsterdam. Mr Koppe did so.14

“The prosecutor in Amsterdam at that time with whom my former lawyer, Mr Koppe, communicated was Mr Aben, (the very same official who has just denied there being any manipulation of the phone taps in the review of my case). The Turkish police officer and friends were told to give their address until I could get to see them. My former lawyer told the Dutch prosecutor and police in which hotel they were staying. Somehow that complaint of mine got moved from Amsterdam to Rotterdam. Rotterdam’s police department contacted Mr Koppe and told him they “lacked the expertise to take Baybasin’s statement about the complaint, and as soon as an expert or officer was available, they would contact him again”. Three days’ later, the Turkish Consulate in Rotterdam issued official papers to the Turkish police officer and his companion. They were sent back to Turkey under supervision of the Dutch police and prosecutors. Two days’ after they returned to Turkey, the Rotterdam police called Mr Koppe and me and said to come to the police department in Rotterdam to give my statement. So we did.

“I asked my lawyer and police officers why the case was moved from Amsterdam to Rotterdam. Nobody explained the reason to me – not the police, the prosecutor or my former lawyer. They just ignored my question. When I was re-arrested in March 1997, one of my so-called crimes, according to Hugo Hillenaar, was that I had tried to kill that Turkish police officer. And that, too, is one of my convictions. Hugo Hillenaar and the High Court of Den Bosch knew full well that I was the complainant and not the accused. The High Court of Den Bosch took that decision in 2002. It became clear that Mr Aben and Mr Hillenaar framed me in the case concerning this Turkish police officer whom we believed was sent to kill me. The conviction was based on alleged taped telephone conversations that they have never produced.

Prosecutor Aben continues to play the devil’s cards

“Now Mr Aben’s latest conclusion after his ‘investigation’ of the phone tap evidence they relied on to convict me is that there has been no manipulation of the recorded conversations and nothing is wrong with the translations. Mr Aben is not only being unprofessional he is being dishonest. I emphasise again that I was the complainant in the matter of Mehmet Marsil and not in any position to be accused of any wrong doing. Because they could not find any other story to convict me on, they made up this case and concocted some transcripts. When we asked to hear the so -called telephone conversation they told us ‘’niet gevonden” (could not be found). We later discovered it was Hillennar with Koppe that made this decision to move it to Rotterdam when I was arrested on false charges.

“My complaint statement concerning Mehmet Marsil is the cornerstone of our defence. How can they charge me with an issue on which I brought the complaint? This first charge concerning Mehmet Marsil was deviously turned around so they could concoct something to detain me on. This is known to everyone in Holland and is all set down in a statement on the Bakker Schut Foundation website.” 15

Soon after the prosecutor delivered his opinion on 13 July 2017, Baybaşin reacted strongly. Speaking in a phone conversation with Ton Hofstede, an expert that is intimate with his case, Baybaşin exclaimed “It is sickening! I don’t know if we should call it a verdict or call it the policy…I did not expect this much dirtiness from Mr Aben, to be honest. I thought he would leave it hanging so when he says there is no manipulation we have more than ten international experts agreeing over manipulation – if this is not enough what else will be enough? It is up to the Supreme Court Judges to decide. We have to wait and see…”16

He also told me a short while later, “They are making things up as they go along and refuse to acknowledge their own wrongdoing. They make a new law to fit their purposes and then try to accuse me under it to silence me. Like with the so-called financial case against me for apartments that don’t even exist.”17

Baybaşin was first lured to the Netherlands and arrested in 1995, framed in 1997 on the basis of falsified telephone tap recordings. He denies any involvement with narcotics and was never sentenced on this basis – something not widely known. 18

Baybaşin has accrued widespread support from independent (former) police experts, criminologists, linguistic experts and academics, prison wardens and even governors, all convinced of his innocence and opposed to the abuse of justice by prominent figures in the Netherlands government, justice ministry and police.

Evidence cited by Police Chief, Necdet Menzir, to journalist Burhan Kazmali (in Turkish)

An important interview with former Istanbul police chief, Necdet Menzir was set down in ernment, the military and other d in the Hagueosul would potentially lead to greater risks to Master Mohammed’ame volent andackia statement dated 12 December 2007 taken down by Turkish investigative journalist, Burhan Kazmali of Sabah-ATV Yalova office.

Menzir detailed the following information to Burhan Kazmali (and more than can be summarized here).

Özer Çiller, husband of the Turkish PM of the period, Mrs Tansu Çiller, had informed Necdet Menzir that he and his circle were uncomfortable with Hüseyin Baybaşin’s increasing prominence and good relations with certain figures in the Turkish government, the military and other elites. He wanted the whole Baybaşin family and Hüseyin’s close circle to be put under surveillance, to have their phones bugged and taped even thought his was done illegally and without court authority. Menzir had been obliged to go along with the request to an extent owing to his position. Özer had special links with MIT and was “close as a son to Tolga Sakir Atik” and used him to do what was necessary. Some people thought it would be a good idea to get Baybaşin thrown into prison as he was very popular at the time but many countries drew back from the idea. Many underworld figures internationally would have supported the idea because if Baybaşin was in prison they could take advantage of the space vacated. A civil servant could get more than he’d earn in his whole life time along with all the players in the plot that covered up their orders after the job was done. No one looked into where their villages and sudden wealth came from afterwards. A lot of pressure was put on the press. A lot of reporters close to the police were given the information to write and not allowed to stray outside the box. I know that the politicos at the top of the government and important bureaucrats, their wives and relatives and certain MIT figures were paying close attention to Baybaşin…We took the Baybaşin matter in hand as a whole case…

I can’t figure out how the Dutch police could condemn this man to a life sentence. If you ask me, above all the Dutch police and the Netherlands International Research Unit’s Inter-regional Investigation Unit conducting the investigation have been wrongly informed. The Netherlands went about things on the basis of phone conversations and tapping and behaved just as they wanted to. But in this same period Baybaşin could not seize the opportunity to explain or defend himself adequately.

Özer Çiller and the top political circles in Turkey, the narcotics circle and other profiteers, and, in particular, Emin Aslan and Ferruh Tankuş went after Baybaşin because he was helping the Kurdish freedom movement associated with the PKK and getting advertising for MED TV so they wanted to block him. They didn’t want him coming back to Turkey but wanted him out of the way and locked up.

“Consider, that a country’s (Holland) prosecutor, and Special Ops. police came to Turkey and had various very close relations in 1995 and 1996. Baybaşin had links with MIT and the state and Özer Çiller was also being put under pressure. At that time the drug traffic and politics were enmeshed.”

The campaign to defame Baybaşin as a “drug baron”: the role of Frank Bovenkerk and Yücel Yeşilgöz in the framing and ‘investigation’

The defamation campaign was highly successful and essentially arose from police insiders and the pro-state Turkish press acting on orders from the state to get Baybaşin out of the way, if not by killing him, then by setting him up as the fall guy. Their work was further assisted by Yücel Yeşilgoz and Frank Bovenkerk, authors of the Turkish Mafia, (a book that later became widely quoted verbatim and over which Baybaşin’s lawyers are finally bringing a case for libel). Interestingly, the original Dutch, Turkish and English versions of the book are all different.

Huseyin explained: “The Dutch book was used as the starting point to permit the investigating judge to launch a case against me. Without this book the judge could not have brought a case. The book came about entirely on the basis of a collaboration between the Dutch and Turkish police and their collaborators.

Tayar Çetinkaya, a Dutch citizen of Turkish origin and a member of the investigating team in Holland prepared the investigation along with Ferruh Tankuş’s deputy, Hüdayi Sayin.19

Joris Demmink sent Yeşilgoz and Bovenkerk to Breda Prison to interview me for a proposed book, never saying they were actually appointed to work with the North & East Netherlands Police Unit responsible for ‘investigating’ my case with Tayar Çetinkaya and Hüdayi Sayin .

The introduction to the later Turkish edition of the Turkish Mafia book states the authors were very glad to work with that Unit. What’s more, after I was arrested, although Tankuş was removed, Hüdayi Sayin was promoted by the Dutch government and enabled to undertake a doctorate under Bovenkerk’s department and two years’ study paid for by the Dutch state, as Dutch officials have admitted. Bovenkerk was asked by the Ministry of Justice to accept Sayin as a doctoral candidate, as he accepted to have done, when questioned by the prosecution and the defence. Tankuş was just giving his signature. Without that book they could not have started the case. My case is therefore the product of the Turkish state and their criminal collaborators in Western Europe, especially the Dutch government. It is solely because of my standing against the Turkish state’s tyranny against the Kurdish nation. Their criminal collaboration has been well served by the international media and the Dutch Ministry of Justice. With each new addition of the book they added more lies about me.”

The British press was equally blameworthy, jumping on the bandwagon and seeking sales of their papers by running attention-grabbing headlines using the climate on Turkish drug operatives working in the UK and throwing the name of the Baybaşin family into the mix without any evidence. That mud still sticks but the challenge has begun.

Ferruh Tankuş was the Turkish police chief especially tasked with the Baybaşin operation at the time. He linked in with numerous officials and a special team. Tankuş worked in the narcotics division over some 21 months as its chief. He was then transferred to the Beyoğlu Police station and certain interested parties got 4 million dollars from this deal.

Hüseyin continued: “Tankuş and Aslan were trained abroad and knew their job well – they were experts. Tankuş was later disgraced for corruption and sacked. He was also charged with involvement in drug trafficking and the murder of a police officer in his own division. That officer had been investigating him. The officer made an appointment with one of Tankuş’s dealers that was going to give him important inside information about Tankuş. On his way to the appointment he was killed. Tankuş was charged but a deal was done and he agreed to work with the Dutch police in the conspiracy to frame me.

“He had been Chief of Anti-Terror in the Kurdish region of Elaziğ. Eight months before the Dutch investigation was launched against me in September 1997, even though Tankuş had been suspended from duty owing to his criminal activity, Hugo Hillenaar went to Istanbul early in 1997 and made an agreement with him concerning how to continue the case against me. Çiller’s government appointed Tankuş Chief of the Narcotics Branch in Istanbul. As soon as the case against me was sewn up in Holland, Tankuş was immediately removed from this post.

“In 2001, the High Court of Den Bosch asked Hugo Hillenaar about that meeting with Tankuş – he acknowledged that it had taken place. He was asked why he had met Tankuş when Tankuş was out of the job. Hillenaar responded that he had spoken to him about a drugs case involving Holland and not my case. He claimed “They were very angry. They told me about your case but I was not the one that brought it up” he said. But as Tankuş had no position at this time, he had nothing to do with narcotics. Hillenaar replied under oath that Tankuş “was a very good official of the Turkish state” and further, falsely claimed that “Tankuş was promoted as Supreme Court Judge in Turkey.” We have the document that proves Hillenaar was lying under oath. Tankuş was never appointed as a judge and was suspended when Hillenaar went to see him. We complained at least ten times to the Prosecutor’s office about this but no action has ever been taken. It requires international intervention to force them to rectify the matter.”

Demmink’s role

As Necdet Menzir relayed to journalist Burhan Kazmali, “Joris Demmink’s name was linked with a sex scandal in Turkey and between 1995 and 2000 entered and left Turkey under different names…The Istanbul Police provided him with protection formally and informally during his visits… Demmink was paying close attention to the Baybaşin issue. (Baybaşin was exposing Tansu Çiller and she was afraid of losing her position and being prosecuted). I heard that Tansu Çiller spoke numerous times with the Dutch Justice Ministry. Baybaşin has been stirring things up by mentioning Tansu Çiller’s name in connection with drug trafficking… Ferrus Tankuş taped all the meetings of Demmink, Hillenaar and the foreign police coming to Turkey from Holland with the intention of deciphering them later. This wasn’t done with negative intentions but so as to better understand and prove the issues being discussed and who had said what afterwards from the translations…

“Had the Dutch court wished they could have formed a specialist team and gathered documents professionally from the Turkish court on the Baybaşin issue and undertaken serious research and enquiries. If this matter had concerned someone other than Hüseyin Baybaşin he would not even have been left detained for a single day. No one would even have dared to do so. Ferruh Tankuş is key to the event…”

Necdet Menzir detailed the charges against Tankuş that saw Tankuş removed from his position as the Chief of the Narcotics Branch tried under 13 different counts of raking in illegal financial profits from his position as well as the other charges. There was never any mention of Baybaşin in connection with narcotics.

“Gerhard Shroeder, the former German chancellor, also played an active role in my case and in the kidnapping of PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, meeting Turkish officials and working for money” Hüseyin emphasized.

Why the Dutch government?

The Kazmali interview further detailed the trial of Tankuş and his gang but returned to the main subject of the hit list that corroborates Hüseyin Baybaşin’s own account. Baybasin and his family found security in the UK where they passed high level vetting. He was lured to Holland and all accusations were made there, 99% of the so-called ‘evidence’ being unreliable recordings and translations of alleged phone conversations from Holland. He knew his phones were bugged so why would any sane person ‘order’ murders by phone? The charges were brought in order to put him out of action permanently.

“A death list was being circulated at the time circa 1995-1997 when the state’s involvement in drug trafficking, trafficking women and illegal exports and money laundering was at its peak. However, it dated back to 1992. The state had taken its decision had been taken to kill those on the list. It was being said that Baybaşin had managed to save his life and had escaped to Europe. Ferruh Tankuş and his team, the top hands in control of the state, and a number of political entities were intensifying the pressure to see Baybaşin locked up and were holding frequent meetings with teams from abroad, police chiefs and experts. One day we learned from the newspapers that Hüseyin Baybaşin had been arrested in Holland… Some 5-8 months before he was arrested, some foreign officials, even police were frequently coming to Istanbul to set up teams to work together and to make their joint efforts easier to carry out and was the work of the security and protection branch. In the work underway on the Baybaşin operation, some of the teams that were coming to Istanbul were quartered in the police houses and others in special hotels. Those coming from Holland before the operation against Baybaşin was a man I knew later was called Demmink and two others with him, from the Dutch police and one of them from the intelligence unit. It wasn’t just police from Holland at that time, it was also other officials from Italy, England, Belgium and Germany. They always spoke in a foreign language but some of my colleagues knew English so I knew what they were saying…

“Demmink and the Dutch police always made contact with some police and judicial officials and a couple of retired judges.

“The second time Demmink came was around the end of 1995, beginning of 1996. After having several meetings at Gayrettepe (Anti-Terror Branch HQs) he took a room under a different name at the Akgün Hotel in Topkapi. He held meetings with several officials from the Dutch Consulate in the lobby. A number of top police personnel were also present at meetings there and an important part of the conversations revolved around the name of Hüseyin Baybaşin.”20

The former Turkish police chief’s story then moved to an account of Demmink’s activity in Istanbul after work was over on a Friday night and of Demmink telling his police colleague he wanted to spend the next few days seeing tourist sites by day and at night not going to entertainment places to meet women but that he wanted to have sex with a young boy. Details are given in full. The boy who was a homeless minor is said to have been coerced to spend the week with Demmink for payment. He is named Mustafa Y. He was 12 years old at the time. He recounted meeting a man his father’s age.

Years later, Baybaşin’s lawyer, Adèle van der Plas, would also take on two Turkish victims’ cases against Joris Demmink. That is another story – but a connected one. It, too, is ongoing.

Contemporary ‘de-activate’ lists

Turkey’s security services and police compete between themselves and draw up various lists of political enemies and terror targets at home and abroad.

The Interior Ministry hosts a website that resembles a Play Station computer game. In 2015, it published a ‘wanted list colour-coded from red at the top to grey for the lesser targets. The public ‘Red List’ of the state’s most wanted mixes PKK guerrillas, former Kurdish DEP MPs, Remzi Kartal and Zübeyir Aydar21, and various figures said to be Gülenists and left-wing terrorists – the latter word being applied liberally. The website exposes the violent, nationalist, merciless character of the Turkish state today and Erdogan’s extreme clampdown on all manner of opponents in the name of combatting ‘terrorism’.

“Any information leading to the capture of those named may result in an reward of between 300,000 lira (around $100,000 or 90,000 euros) and four million lira ($1.4 million, 1.2 million euros), according to the website www.terorarananlar.pol.tr.”22

Last year, the list was updated to include suspected Islamic State operatives offering a $14 million reward.23

In November 2016, Turkey issued an arrest warrant for the leader of the PYD (Democratic Union Party), the US ally in Syria) Salih Muslim Mohammed alleging his involvement in the Ankara car bombing on 17 February 2016.24 He responded: “This is absolutely not true. Kurds have nothing to do with what happened in Ankara. What happened there is related to Turkey’s fight with Islamic State (IS), whose members live in Turkey.”25

Erdogan’s wider anti-Kurdish policies represent a grave danger for stability in Turkey and the wider region. He presents a façade of having a close relationship with KDP leader, and President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Masoud Barzani, but this is deceptive.26 Erdogan’s broader goal is to undermine and destroy the Kurdish freedom movement throughout Kurdistan.

Hüseyin summarized: “The story of my life and the history of my case tells me that the United States of Kurdistan is the only solution for the people of Kurdistan.”