Where is the PKK? Just ask Deborah Haynes.
Published October 24th, 2007 in Turkey, Politics Tags: deborah haynes, pkk, Robert Gates, terrorism, The Times, Times, turkey, turkish.
Perhaps the most absurd thing that I’ve read over the past few days on the newswires was that the US defense secretary Robert Gates said in an interview that it is very hard to locate the PKK and that is one of the reasons why US can not share intelligence with Turkey. He advised Turkey to not take any action until the terrorist camps are located with certainty.
He continued on to say:
I think that if we were to come up with specific information that we and the Iraqis would be prepared to do the appropriate thing. And if we had information on them in Turkey, that we would provide that information. So we are determined to work with the Turks in trying to reduce this threat to the Turkish people and the Turkish army
A couple days later after this statement, Deborah Haynes of The Times has updated her blog with pictures and interviews from the PKK terrorist base in Kandil mountains. She also had an article in the newspaper as well.
Hard to see how Mr. Gates expects people to believe US does not have intel on PKK, when journalists can easily go to PKK camps and interview terrorists.
The fact that a journalist can so easily visit a PKK camp should make it clear that while being a dissident organization, it is not a terrorist organization. It is international recognized as such only on a token basis to placate Turkey as a NATO member nation. It is never referred to as a terrorist organization in the European press, other than to mention that fact.