PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan: "Be ready for a big war"

PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan: "Be ready for a big war" HT: TurkaFile.

Taraf’s reports today on the reaction of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to the AKP government’s negotations with ISIS, for the recent release of the 49 Mosul hostages after 101 days, in comparison to its ongoing 2-year-old negotations of the Kurdish peace process.

According to Taraf, Öcalan made his statement through his lawyer, Mazlum Dinç, after a meeting between the two, and unlike his previous positive comments on the peace process, this time the PKK leader signalled a change of tone in light of the release of the hostages, and also the ISIS onslaught in the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Syria .

The opposition daily quotes Dinç as saying Öcalan is ready to take every necessary step for the democratic solution of the Kurdish issue, but that the government has not yet started the negotiation stage of the peace process, nor is it willing to start it.

Comparing the lack of negotations for the peace process with the recent apparent negotiations between ISIS and the government for the hostages, Öcalan said:

The state announced openly to the public that they carried out negotiations for the release of the hostages, but they have not been willing to start the negotiation process for the solution of the Kurdish issue.

Dinç also conveyed Öcalan’s statement on ISIS attacks in the north and northeast of Syria, much of which has become an autonomous Kurdish region during the 3-year-old Syrian civil war. With the Islamic militants encroaching on Kobani, forcing thousands of Syrian Kurds to flee to the Turkish border, and with many Turkish Kurds trying to cross into Syria to take the fight to ISIS and prevent the region from falling under their control, Öcalan signalled a subtle but notable shift with his choice of words.

According to the report, the PKK leader said that the Kurdish people needed "to shape their lives according to a highly intensive war".

He said "not only people in Rojava" in Syria, but also "Kurdish people in the North", an oblique reference to southeastern Turkey, seen by the Kurdish movement as ‘northern Kurdistan’. He continued that Kurds "in all parts must shape their lives accordingly", and made a call to "all Kurdish people to resist against this highly intensive war".

Noting the shift in emphasis from the influential Kurdish leader, the interpretive headline on the front page from the liberal, Gülen-aligned daily reads as "Öcalan: Be ready for a big war", and online as "Call for mobilisation to all sides from Öcalan". Hmmm....Using ISIS to displace the Kurdish population will come back with a vengeance.