PKK leaders say in secret talks with U.S. amid Turkish strikes

PanARMENIAN.Net - The leaders of the PKK Kurdish guerrilla organization said they have been in indirect talks with the United States, despite being listed by Washington as terrorists, asking it to intervene and mediate in its war with Turkey.

In an interview with Telegraph, Cemil Bayik, one of the three-man interim leadership council of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), would not identify the intermediaries in the negotiations – used because of its international proscription as a terrorist group.

He also said the group was rejecting any idea of a unilateral ceasefire in the recent fight with Ankara, in which it has killed more than 20 policemen and soldiers while coming under heavy air attack from Turkish fighter bombers.

However, Bayik – one of the founding members of the group – said it would accept a ceasefire under U.S. guarantees.

“Of course there are messages, there are meetings, letters and they are likely to develop more,” he said. “I repeat my call that the U.S. mediate in this situation between us and Turkey, and if they give us a guarantee we accept that role. Unless there are guarantees we cannot make unilateral steps.”

Ankara launched raids against PKK positions in both Turkey and Iraq immediately after agreeing that America could use its airbases against Islamic State (IS, also referred to as ISIS or ISIL) – something the Pentagon had long sought. It also began its own air operations against the IS, and declared it would create a non-IS “safe zone” in northern Syria.

However, it has conducted far more raids against the PKK than against IS, while the “safe zone”, which would be policed by Turkish-backed Islamist rebel groups, would also keep separate the two Kurdish enclaves of northern Syria controlled by the YPG, the local PKK affiliate.

Turkey insists its air raids are a response to the resumption of PKK killings of policemen and soldiers, and the U.S. says Ankara has “the right to defend itself against terrorism”, although reports from Washington say officials were shocked at the speed and extent of Turkey’s response.

Bayik accused Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of deliberately engineering the breakdown of the two-year ceasefire for electoral reasons.

“Erdogan is deepening the present crisis in Turkey and at the same time deepening the crisis in the Middle East,” he said, according to Telegraph.

Turkey should also stop “police operations” – meaning the hundreds of arrests of Kurdish activists in recent weeks – and allow an independent monitor for negotiations and the implementation of the ceasefire, Bayik said.

“If America continues to back Turkey’s policies it is possible it will lose the Kurds,” he said. “If America loses the Kurds, it will be difficult to defeat Isil.”