Germany’s PKK policy undermines internal security, report says

PKK attacks on the Turkish community in Germany have increased since Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch on Jan. 20, which has been damaging Germany’s internal security, a report published by an Ankara-based think tank, Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), has said. The report, published on April 10, “Perspective: The PKK Threat in Germany,” underlined Germany’s inconsistent PKK policies and the effect of these policies on the country’s internal security, as well as the damage to bilateral relations with Turkey.

According to data in the report, the PKK carried out 42 attacks against Turkish nationals and institutions in Germany from Jan. 1 to March 15, while this number was only six in 2017. The overall number of attacks in Europe is 62, including 20 mosque and eight diplomatic mission attacks. Reportedly, the attacks rose 589 percent in a year. Besides the increasing danger to Germany’s internal security, the author of the report, Zeliha Eliaçık, underlined that the reason is Germany’s false predictions about seeing PKK as the controllable power they experienced in the past. Eliaçık used German internal intelligence report statistics to show the increasing numbers of PKK members because of Germany’s tolerant stance. According to the German reports, the PKK had only hundreds of members when it was first established, a number that jumped to 14,000 people and 40,000 adherents today. Aside from internal security threats that Germany faces, their inconsistent policies also harm bilateral relations between Turkey and Germany. Eliaçık underscored that Germany always kept PKK the issue as a trump card for stepping into Turkish internal affairs, but Turkey’s rising power in the Middle East region after conducting Euphrates Shield and Operation Olive Branch, has pushed Germany to revise its policy toward the PKK.

“Considering that these operations will continue and expand until the terrorist threat is completely eradicated, Germany will inevitably be obliged to revise its policy balance in the context of Turkey, the PKK and the Middle East,” the report says.