Son of slain writer visits father’s grave

MARDİN - Doğan News Agency

Anter Anter, the son of slain Kurdish writer Musa Anter, visited his father’s grave in the southeastern province of Mardin yesterday during his first visit to Turkey in 30 years.

“It is great happiness to be next to my father,” Anter Anter, who has been banned from entering Turkey since 1991, told reporters in Mardin’s Nusaybin district.

He came to Turkey last week for one month after receiving special permission from Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “I think I was banned because I’m a Kurd, I had no other crime,” said Anter. “But I will not leave my country again.”

Prominent Kurdish writer Musa Anter was shot dead 14 years ago, in September 1992, in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır where he was attending a festival held by the local council.

In early 2004, Abdulkadir Aygan, a defector from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), admitted in confessions published in a daily newspaper that he had killed Anter after becoming a member of the Gendarmerie Intelligence Organization (JİTEM). Aygan was a PKK member until 1985, then surrendered to security forces and became an informant.