PodcastTurkish Interior Minister calls PKK a 'women's organization'
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has said that the PKK is a women's organization, adding that the ratio of women in PKK's all acts until today is 56 percent. "So women took place in these acts more than men," Soylu told state-run Anadolu Agency on Feb. 27, adding that the group did this to get support from the West.
Duvar English
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu deemed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) a women's organization, as he commented on the group's gender distribution.
"The PKK is a women's organization, it's based on this. The ratio of women in PKK's all acts until today is 56 percent. So women took place in these acts more than men," Soylu told state-run Anadolu Agency on Feb. 27, adding that the group did this to get support from the West.
Saying that children in Turkey's southeast join the PKK when they are about 13 or 14 years old, Soylu noted that it's what Abdullah Öcalan, the group's leader, wants.
Interior minister promises to end PKK in 2020"Öcalan says, 'I don't need people to argue about their ideas with me. Bring the PKK children under the age of 14,'" Soylu said.
Found by Öcalan towards the end of 1970s, the PKK carried out its first attack in 1984 in Turkey's southeast. The state has been fighting the group, which is a designated terrorist organization by Ankara, Washington and the European Union, ever since.
The minister also shared statistics on PKK militants who surrendered to security forces.
Liking posts related to PKK is freedom of expression, court rules"We have started efforts to persuade those who joined the terrorist organization to come back," Soylu said, as he added that 48 people were persuaded to leave the PKK since the beginning of 2020.