Turkey unlikely to do anything beneficial to Kurds: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with David Lindorff, an investigative journalist, about the clampdown on Kurdish people in Turkey.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What is the legal ground for the curfews imposed on the people? And how do you think Turkey, having the support of EU, can get away with killing Kurds, its own people?

Lindorff: Yeah, that’s interesting, isn’t it? I mean that Assad killing his own people supposedly in that sarin strike a year ago almost led to the US doing a massive bombing raid on Syria, because we said: ‘Oh, my God! He’s killing his own people.’ But here we have Turkey killing its own people. Kurds in Turkey are a minority and are citizens of Turkey.

So, you have the same thing going on, only it really is the Turkish government that’s doing it unlike that sarin attack in Syria. So, it is, I suppose, arguably countries are allowed to do inside their own country what they need to do for national security. So, I don’t know how the legality of that works out, but when you start targeting an ethnic group within your country for reprisals that can include killing civilians, it no longer becomes a police action, it starts to lean towards genocides, I suppose.

So, if this expands into a more widespread attack on Kurdish populations, you just have another situation like we see so often in the Middle East of one majority population attacking a minority within its borders, which would be illegal under the UN Charter.

Press TV: Well, there was a Human Rights Watch report about civilians being killed in Turkey’s southeast mainly, given that there’s also been a crackdown on journalists in Turkey and the news is not really getting out there appropriately, how do you think we’re going to ever understand what is really happening in Turkey and where is the situation going to lead to?

Lindorff: I wish I knew. I have confidence that these kinds of stories in today’s world do get out. You have cell phones, you have computers, you have dedicated journalists in Turkey. And so, it’s likely that we will get the story one way or another. What’s going on there, it’s not a pretty picture.

It also, I think, further throws a light on the true nature of what Turkish troops are doing in Iraq, because... they made the claim that they were training Kurds, Kurdish fighters from the Peshmerga, in Iraq to fight ISIS and yet here they are attacking brother Kurds across the border in Turkey.

I think it’s very unlikely that Turkey is doing anything beneficial for Kurds whether it’s in Turkey or in Iraq.

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