EU Minister slams EP rapporteur Piri over ‘one-sided’ remarks on anti-PKK fight

ANKARA

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Turkey’s EU Minister Volkan Bozkır has suggested that the European Parliament’s Rapporteur for Turkey Kati Piri lost her “neutrality” about Turkey’s issues, voicing anger over Piri’s shying away from calling the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) “terrorist” in a recent statement she released following a visit to Diyarbakır.

“After her visit [to Diyarbakır], she has posted a text on her website. The PKK has not been identified as a terrorist organization in any part of this text although it is an officially recognized terrorist organization by the EU,” Bozkır said in a written statement Feb 22. Piri’s text describes the Turkish Security Forces’ operations in Southeast Anatolia as civil war, accusing police and military forces of opening fire on civilians. 

Blaming Piri for serving the PKK’s efforts to influence the public’s perception on the anti-terror fight of security forces and for meeting with organizations that allegedly support the PKK, Bozkır said: 

“The fact that Kati Piri and her delegation spent their day with PKK supporters on the day when we gave seven martyrs in Sur and a day after our 28 citizens were massacred in a terrorist attack in Ankara is a disrespect to Turkey’s pain and loss of lives.”  

Piri has lost her neutrality on issues concerning Turkey, he said, adding it was not possible to accept an understanding that tries to depict the fight against terror as a civil war. 

“In the case Turkey Rapporteur Kati Piri insists on this approach, it will be very difficult for her to find interlocutors other than the organizations she has visited in Diyarbakır,” EU Minister stated, adding, “We will not forget those who were on our side in our vital struggle as well as those who chose the side of the PKK.”