You know, sometimes, when you are right, you are right! No matter what naysayers may claim. The truth will surface because it always does. It can be ignored, sure. But ignoring, doesn't make any thing less real. Rather it suggests a preference to remain blinded to reality. We see that a lot. A preference to remain blinded to the reality.
For years now the disinformers/misinformed have refused to see what has been in plain sight for quite some time. Willfully or not. The effect is the same. Deception.
For years and years, a very solid case has been presented here that the PKK, the US military and allies have been in cahoots.Working together. Cooperating. In Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran. And for that matter the PKK was active in the recent Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
After having been taken to task for presenting evidence of this reality, for years now, below we will read still more proof of the real. The deceivers have been named previously here. Those who toe the line of the empire, while, deftly dancing around what is really going on. What has been really going on. We have more acknowledgement that the US has been backstabbing Turkey. All this time. And colluding with true criminals and terrorists to achieve a goal. A goal that has been discussed countless times here. The creation of a yet another disruptive force in the region of the middle east, Israel being an existing disruptive force. Fracturing Asia. Which will affect Russia and China.
Friend or Foe? Group on terror list details US military meeting
Cemil Bayik has a $4 million U.S. counterterrorism bounty on his head. But the Kurdish guerrilla leader says his forces have been meeting with U.S. troops — and he’s ready to make amends.
Bayik is part of the three-man council leading the Kurdistan Workers Party, usually known by its Kurdish initials, PKK. The militant group has fought a decades-long struggle against the Turkish government, earning it a place on the U.S. State Department’s terrorist list.
A contradiction in U.S. policy has given his group an opening. U.S. forces have relied on PKK-aligned militants, including the Sinjar Defense Units of Iraq and the Syrian Democratic Forces, to fight the Islamic State across the Middle East. And so the PKK has been pushing for closer relations with the United States, over the objections of NATO ally Turkey.
Oh there is no contradiction in US policy whatsoever. NONE. That's rubbish. Grade A bullshit.
Responsible Statecraft was granted a rare, exclusive opportunity to interview one of the PKK’s elusive leaders. Hiding from Turkish drones in the Kandil mountains, Bayik provided answers to a series of questions sent to him in writing.
How did Responsible Statecraft gain access to this elusive individual? Did they just call him up? And why didn't they just claim the bounty
You know this coming out party was prearranged by the US, right? It's obvious.
“We used to exchange indirect messages via Rojava and Sinjar,” Bayik said, referring to regions of northeast Syria and northwest Iraq controlled by Kurdish forces. “We have already sent letters to all U.S. presidents. Through different mediators, some of our units have had a few meetings with U.S. units at the local level.”
“They might have wanted to learn our views,” Bayik added, although he declined to provide further details about these meetings.
After years of helping Turkey fight the PKK ( not really) in the name of counterterrorism, the United States may now be talking to the group — also in the name of counterterrorism. U.S. strategy in the Middle East, which has swung from fighting the Islamic State to countering Russian and Iranian influence, relies on the goodwill of Kurdish militants who are considered sworn enemies of an ally dating back to the Cold War.
Goodwill? Guffaw!!!(a loud and boisterous laugh.)
Such a meeting was rumored to have taken place in August 2020, after Turkey launched air raids against the PKK on Iraqi soil. U.S. government sources denied the allegations at the time, according to the Washington-based news outlet Al Monitor.
U.S. forces did visit the area, as the Turkish airstrikes had “ruffled some feathers” among U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, and Washington wanted to reassure its partners, according to Aaron Stein, research director at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. But Stein was not sure whether U.S. units had actually met with their PKK counterparts.
Washington wanted to reassure it's PKK partners, not it's NATO ally, Turkey
U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East, gave a blanket denial of having met with the PKK. “CENTCOM was not involved in, nor is aware of, any such meetings,” U.S. Army Major John Rigsbee told Responsible Statecraft.
U.S. European Command, which oversees U.S. forces in Turkey, declined to comment. The Pentagon’s main press office did not respond to a request for comment.
Turkey has repeatedly accused the United States of supporting the PKK’s terrorism. The Turkish embassy did not respond to a request for comment as of press time, but told Responsible Statecraft via email that it would reach out “if we have something.”
Turkey has made the accusation, repeatedly, because it's the reality,
The U.S. State Department has listed the PKK as a foreign terrorist organization since the 1990s, when the group was led by Marxists and embroiled in a guerrilla war against the Turkish government. That war killed tens of thousands of people, with both sides allegedly committing war crimes.
Years later, the United States found itself on the same side as the PKK in its war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Same side as the PKK against ISIS? Sniggers! (laugh in a half-suppressed, typically scornful way.)
U.S. forces re-entered Iraq in mid-2014 when it looked like the Yezidi people— who were being defended by the PKK on Mount Sinjar— were about to face genocide. The Obama administration then partnered with a collection of Kurdish militias now known as the Syrian Democratic Forces in a counteroffensive against the Islamic State.
Let's go back to this specific incident, covered around that time: Admittedly my error at that time was to believe Turkey was involved. THEY WERE NOT. This was the US, UK and France getting their PKK allies into Syria (I realized the TRUTH not long afterwards)
The Yazidi genocide narrative strains credulity- No fly zone by stealth- nearly 7 years ago..(2014)
I'm going to be straight up- The Yazidi narrative? I don’t find it credible. I find it convenient. But, not credible. *Why on earth would the Yazidi’s who are Kurds, however that is defined, head up to some mountain top on the border of Syria, when Kurdish territory is heavily guarded and virtually untouched?
The tale seems implausible.
Because it was so utterly ridiculous. Even at that time!
Turkey sees the Syrian Democratic Forces as an extension of the PKK and accuses the United States of supporting terrorism.
Bayik denied that his group has “any organizational link” with the Syrian Democratic Forces, but claimed that “thousands of PKK sympathizers from all walks of life, undeterred by the attacks and obstacles of the Turkish army and police forces, marched over the border fences and joined the anti-ISIS fight.” The anti ISIS fight. Absurd
He admitted that many former PKK fighters of Syrian origin joined the Syrian Democratic Forces because they wanted to“wage struggle for the protection of their people and the freedom of their own lands, where they had been born"
PKK invaded Syria.✔️ PKK allied with Usrael.✔️ PKK allied with UK and France✔️PKK as NATO allies (not Turkey)✔️✔️✔️
At the time that the U.S. partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces began, the PKK and Turkey were engaged in peace talks. But the negotiations broke down in 2015, and the United States has since struggled to balance between its NATO ally and its Kurdish partners.
The US hasn't struggled. They in fact attempted to overthrow the elected Turkish leadership alongside their flunkies in Greece and Egypt. (thinking again of the disinfo crowd out there endlessly shrieking this was not a real attempt to take down a government- it was)
Turkey's Coup- Pt1: Contradictory Claims and Egypt's role
Pt 2- Turkey's "Keystone Coup": A Failure to Project Power
The Trump administration green-lit limited Turkish interventions against Syrian Kurdish forces and slapped multimillion-dollar counterterrorism bounties on PKK leaders — Bayik called the bounties “utter injustice and disrespect” — but also kept up U.S. support for the Syrian Democratic Forces. (which is chock full of PKK)
Nicholas Heras, a senior analyst at the Newlines Institute, said that the United States “would naturally engage with the PKK” during the pre-2015 peace process, and “would still have the ability to engage with the PKK” after the breakdown of Turkish-Kurdish talks, “especially as it relates to seeking to clarify the role that the PKK would play in determining the choices made by America’s closest Syrian partners.”
“The United States has a clear interest in resolving the longstanding conflict between its NATO ally, Turkey, and the PKK,” added Heras, who has advised the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria. “This conflict destabilizes a core, strategic area of the Middle East, and it contributes to the authoritarianism that is expanding within Turkey’s political culture.”
Ben Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities, disagrees that talking to the PKK is a good idea.
“I’m generally not too worried about the United States offending Turkey, but this seems to be a prize issue for them, and I’m not clear on what benefits it gains for us by meeting with the PKK,” he told Responsible Statecraft. “It speaks to how totally unclear it is what U.S. forces are up to in Syria, what the goal we’re trying to achieve by having this modest force is.”
Sorry Ben Friedman, I'm not buying what you are selling on the unclear about the lack of benefits in these meetings. Though I do agree the US is unconcerned about offending Turkey.
The PKK argues that revoking the U.S. terrorism designation and the bounties on its leaders is part of the solution.
“Our guerrilla forces have never made any military action, direct or indirect, against the United States of America,” Bayik declared.“If the United States makes policies in favor of the solution of the Kurdish question and democratization, we will never oppose them.”
That statement makes very clear that the US has been an ally of the PKK all along and has in fact made policies that favoured them, which explains very clearly why the PKK never took action, direct or indirect, against the US.
President Joe Biden“knows we have waged the greatest struggle against ISIS,” he claimed.
ROFLMAO
The PKK would not be the first group to make it off the U.S. terrorist list in recent years. In January, the Trump administration designated the Houthi movement of Yemen a terrorist group, which the incoming Biden administration quickly reversed. Last month, PBS published an interview with Al-Qaida’s former leader in Syria arguing that he, too, should be taken off the list.
Bayik added that the PKK now promotes “democratic socialism” rather than “such concepts as proletarian dictatorship.”
The PKK promotes, crime, human and drug trafficking, child soldiers and some kind of feudalism.
“From the 1990s on, our freedom movement has undergone great transformations,” he claimed, but the United States “has largely upheld the visions, arguments and policies characteristic of the Cold War era.”
Yah, they got better PR companies to clean their brand up
Bayik said that his group is interested in a negotiated solution that involves democratizing Turkey as a whole, but the Turkish government only wants to “subject the Kurds to genocide.”
Turkey maintains that Kurds are not discriminated against. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a speech last year that the PKK is “the biggest enemy of our Kurdish brothers.”
The aftermath of a February battle in Mount Gara in Iraq revealed how U.S. policy has left both Turkey and the Kurdish movement unhappy.
Turkish forces had attempted to rescue 13 prisoners of war being held by the PKK, but the operation left all of them dead. Turkey accused the PKK of executing the prisoners — and blamed the United States for its alleged (real and actual) soft line on Kurdish militancy.
“You said you did not support terrorists, when in fact you are on their side and behind them,” Erdoğan said in a February speech. “If we are together with you in NATO, if we are to continue our unity, then you will act sincerely towards us. Then, you will stand with us, not with the terrorists.”
Go back to 2014 here at PFYT's- When the US was already partnered with the PKK in Iraq as they entered Syria
November 19/2014: Kurd/ISIS Symbiosis: Impending Destruction of Turkey
Nov 21/2014: Pt.2- Kurd/ ISIS Symbiosis- The impending destruction of Turkey
Bayik, however, used that battle at Mount Gara as an example of how the PKK has rendered the West’s “high-tech weapons null and void.” He claimed that the prisoners were killed when Turkish forces used poison gas to assault the PKK base.
“Turkey uses all the weaponries of NATO. The USA and some European countries provide Turkey with all kind [sic] of support,” he said. “Despite this, our struggle has, for many times, taken the Turkish state to the verge of collapse.”
The PKK leader also chimed in about various regional political issues.
Bayik supported “the democratization of Iraq,” which “will make it hard for others to intervene in its internal affairs” but claimed that new prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi is “not in a position to [oppose] Iran and Turkey.”
He also commented on the 2015 nuclear deal between the United States and Iran, which the Biden administration is negotiating to re-enter.
“The success of the 2015 agreement would have positive results for all the peoples of the Middle East,” Bayik said. “Given the fact that democratization is the best approach to solve the problems in Iran, the public opinion, both at home and abroad, should not get engaged solely in the nuclear issue. The Islamic Republic of Iran needs to undergo a democratization process.”
And he expressed skepticism that the United States would ever lose interest in the Middle East.
“Today, Europe is, in a way, integrated with the Middle East. There is no decline in the strategic importance of neither Europe nor the Middle East,” Bayik asserted. “We don’t want to elaborate on the positive and negative dimensions of the changes in the United States’ focal points of interest. We don’t think that there will be a decline in the significance of the Middle East.”
Stein, however, warned that there is an “inherent contradiction” in U.S. policy in the region which cannot be resolved.
There is no contradiction. You're supposed to believe this is the case. I see no contradiction. The goal is to remake the region. Give Israel greater power in the region and block the Silk Road project.
“As a matter of policy, the United States government supports the Turkish government’s right to strike the PKK, including the PKK leadership, and assists those strikes,” he told Responsible Statecraft, but “the entirety of U.S.-Syria policy is dependent on a PKK affiliate.”
“War is messy,” Stein added.
Policy and practice are often times two very different beasts. And war gives cover to many unstated agendas.
http://pennyforyourthoughts2.blogspot.ca/2015/08/isiskurd-symbiosis-conquer-istanbul-pkk.html
There are dozens and dozens of reports covering this topic here.
Most recently:The New Istanbul Kanal- Montreaux Accord & Belt and Road (Silk Road) Infrastructure Project