Turkey was gripped by uncertainty Wednesday ahead of an imminent statement by jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
from Agence France-Presse /Kurdish Minute/ANHA/SDFPress/RiseUpForRojava on 8th Feb 25 with thefreeonline (banned in Turkey) at https://wp.me/pIJl9-FYj
Serving life without parole on a prison island near İstanbul since 1999, Öcalan is imminently expected to address Ankara’s call for the PKK to lay down its arms.
Jailed PKK leader willing to take initiative for settlement of Kurdish conflict: nephew Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)…
Ocalan previously negotiated two long ceasefires with Turkey, both finally broken by the State. The second ceasefire resulted in a ‘Kurdish Spring’ in Turkey whose 20 million Kurds blossomed in cultural, linguistic and political rights after many decades of repression.
In 2015 when Kurdish parties threatened to unseat his ultra-nationalists via the balance of power Erdogan drowned the ceasefire in blood – bombing majority Kurdish cities like Nusaybin and parts of Cizre to rubble amid deafening silence in the West.
Turkish authorities’ crackdown on Kurds, including political figures and journalists, is continuing amid ongoing peace talks between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), aimed at ending the 40-year conflict between the state and the outlawed group
Police conducted early-morning raids on several homes in southeastern Mardin province, detaining Ziynet Algan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Regions Party’s (DBP) former Nusaybin district chair, along with Mithat Yılmaz, Lokman Aslan and others, according to a report by the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya news agency on Friday.
Turkish police detain 269 after rally for jailed PKK leader’s freedomTurkish police have detained 269 people in connection to a recent demonstration in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish province of Diyarbakır where protestors demanded an end to the…
The Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) also reported on Friday that Birsen Orhan, the former co-mayor of the eastern city of Tunceli from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), who was removed from office in November on terrorism charges, was given a suspended sentence of five months.
Orhan was detained on the same day she was removed from office after participating in protests over the mayors’ dismissal and was under house arrest. A Tunceli court had ruled to lift Orhan’s house arrest and travel ban on January 15.
Thousands protest daily in Rojava(AANES) for SDF and Tishreen, blocking the Turkish sponsored jihadi mercenary offensive from crossing the Euphrates.
The court on Friday sentenced the former co-mayor for “publicly provoking the commission of an offense,” considering the prosecutor’s argument that her use of the words “occupation” and “struggle” during her speeches at the protests posed “a threat.”
Meanwhile, Kurdish journalists Ali Barış Kurt and Öznur Değer were also detained on Friday, according to Mezopotamya.
Kurt’s detention followed the upholding of his prison sentence of more than two years by the Supreme Court of Appeals for social media posts and journalistic activities, while JINNEWS reporter Değer, who was beaten, handcuffed behind her back and forcibly removed from her home by the police, was referred to court with a request for arrest.
Police confiscate Nelson Mandela book and others, detain publisher at book fair in southeastern… Police raided the Diyarbakır 8th Book Fair on its fourth day, confiscating five books and detaining publisher Artı Gerçek … Incarcerated Kurdish leader Ocalan is often known as the “Kurdish Mandela”
The authorities’ continued arrests and efforts to silence those advocating for Kurdish rights raise questions about the sincerity of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in addressing the longstanding Kurdish conflict and deepen concerns about the future of the negotiations.
Turkish courts sentence 3 Kurdish mayors on terror-related chargesTurkish courts have sentenced three elected Kurdish mayors to prison on terrorism-related charges in separate trials, Turkish media reported. The mayors are Mehmet Sıddık Akış,…
Critics of the peace talks say the public is given little information about the discussions’ content.
They question what concessions Turkey will offer to persuade the PKK to lay down its arms and what steps the government will take to improve the cultural, political and linguistic rights of the Kurds, who have been fighting for these rights for many years.
In 2015 a peace attempt initiated by Ankara broke down, unleashing a wave of State war crimes in the country’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Öcalan, 75, has said he was “determined” to be involved in a process that would turn the page on a conflict since 1984.
Should Öcalan make the call, it remains far from clear what he stands to gain from the unprecedented olive branch that was extended with the blessing of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“What did Erdoğan propose? We don’t know anything, is he ready for concessions?” wondered Hamit Bozarslan, a Paris-based specialist on Kurdish issues.
“Öcalan calling on his followers to lay down their arms does not mean a capitulation nor a renunciation of the right to defend the legitimacy of the Kurdish cause,” he argued.
Speaking on Wednesday, Tuncer Bakırhan, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) said Öcalan was “preparing the formula for an honorable solution to the Kurdish question.”
“We don’t know its exact content, but we know it will include a message regarding a democratic response to the Kurdish question,” he said in Diyarbakır, a Kurdish-majority city in the southeast.
What of PKK in Syria, Iraq?
Another unknown is how any such call would resonate among PKK militants in the mountains of northern Iraq or in northeastern Syria, where the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are resisting attacks and ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands by the Ankara-backed mercenary jihadi militias with Turkish troops, airforce, drone and heavy artillery support.
Ankara views the US-backed AANES multi-ethnic social administration’s SDF defense coalition with hostility, alleging one of its elements, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), is an extension of the PKK.
The hugely popular AANES endorses Ocalan’s philosophy with radical horizontal democracy and Women’s Liberation, unheard of in the Middle East, and a key reason for Turkish, HTS, and Irani hostility.
One of 100’s of wounded by the Turkish attacks on the ongoing Human Shields mass picket blocking the crossing of the illegal and criminal Jihadi /Turkish offensive into the Kobani area via the Tishreen Euphrates Dam
Daily support demonstrations continue around Rojava with large convoys of citizens traveling to the Euphrates frontline to act as Human Shields, attacked by Turkish drones, jets and artillery with 28 civilian deaths and 100s of injured so far (8th Feb 25).
The SDF defends a huge semi-autonomous Kurdish-led administration in largely desert northeastern Syria that flanks the Turkish border, in another vital element which will play into the mix.
Turkey is relying on Syria’s new rulers to address its always touted “security concerns”. Although attacks on Turkey across the border are nonexistant (and attacks from Turkey a daily crime) Erdogan remains obsessed about contagion of the AANES social system to the repressed Kurdish omajority on the Turkish side of the closed Border Wall..
Speaking on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the stance of Syria’s new interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa (Jolani) “on the fate of the PKK/YPG is perfectly clear,” expressing confidence he would “address Turkey’s security needs.”
His remarks came a day after al-Sharaa’s first official visit to Turkey.
US stance key
Although al-Sharaa has rejected any form of Kurdish self-rule and urged the SDF to hand over its weapons, regional actors know much will depend on US President Donald Trump and his new administration.
Is the END of Rojava coming? – you can help save a unique human experiment in real time!- Help expose Turkey’s new fascist invasion! – The Free↗thefreeonline.com 2nd Feb 2025
Recent rumors suggest that the U.S. may be preparing to withdraw its more than 2,000 troops deployed in Rojava, SDF-AANES, in north and eastern Syria
on 2nd February 2025 from thefreeonline at https://wp.me/pIJl9-FTZ Tgram https://t.me/thefreeonline/2126.
Banner shows 11 of the civilian ‘human shield’ protestors murdered in cold blood by Turkey at Tishreen Dam
Such a move could weaken the SDF to the point of collapse and we hope the reports are mere rumors.
However,the AANES/SDF revolutionaries, although sponsored by the International Coalition against ISIS, are totally against US policies. The US has only supported them in resisting ISIS, indeed in 2019 Trump betrayed them to allow a Turkish invasion which seized and ethnically cleansed a border zone leaving thousands still in internal refugee camps.
The 100,000+ strong SDF coalition of multi-ethnic and women’s militias does NOT get paid by the USA (chatGPT sources) but by their AANES coordination and vows to resist the promised major offensive by Turkey, the 2nd biggest army in NATO, alongside the new Damascus Regime, formerly HTS, formerly Al Qaeda jihadi ‘headchoppers’.
The revolutionary AANES constitution reflects the democratic principles, communal work, human rights, ethnic and religious tolerance, Woman-Life-Freedom, gender equality, and the decentralization of power already being implemented with great enthusiasm in their liberated area..
The revolution, unique in the middle east if not the world, follows the teachings of Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned forever on a Turkish island.
It began in Turkey in where there are over 20 million repressed Kurds, when Ocalan organised the PKK defenders to make a 2nd successful truce with Turkey, until the Erdogan regime forced the collapse of the agreement in 2015 and drowned the civil revolution in blood, even bombing Kurdish cities in Turkey like Nusaybin to rubble to stamp out Kurdish horizontal democratic practices . see photo.
The revolution survived however in NE Syria. e Assad regime had to abandon the area due to almost losing the civil war.
The Turkish armed jihadi ISIS Caliphate had been sweeping north Syria, but the Kurdish defenders defeated them in the epic Siege of Kobanî (Sept 2014 to Feb 2915) despite the destruction of the city, with the International Coalition (mainly the USA) finally intervening with some air support.
After the Kobani victory the Kurdish defenders (YPG men and YPJ women) went on to organize the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces, now over 100k strong) as a host of other militia groupings joined them, Arabs of all sorts, Yazides, Womens militias, Christians, Syriacs, Turkmen, Armenians, etc
The rest is history, the SDF defeated ISIS in Manbij and set up a vibrant unique multi cultural multi religious city following the communal liberation agenda and continued east.
Continue reading “Turkish Repression of Kurds continues amid ongoing “Peace Talks” with PKK. – Depraved Bombing /Shelling of civilians in Rojava –”
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