Turkey to pay cash reward for capture of PKK leaders

ISTANBUL

Murat Karayılan. AFP photo

Turkey's Interior Ministry has prepared regulations that would initiate a monetary reward system to help with the country's anti-terrorism efforts, daily Sabah has reported. 
 
The Turkish state will pay 4 million Turkish Liras to people providing information leading to the capture of Murat Karayılan, leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), or one of the 49 other people designated as the “leading staff” of the PKK under the regulation.
 
The regulation would also create a 2 million-lira reward for the capture of any lower-level PKK leader. Those who aid in the capture of a perpetrator or a plotter of a terrorist attack would be rewarded with no less than 100,000 liras while the reward for the capture of an ordinary PKK member would be less. 
 
The regulation was prepared in the wake of the increasing bomb attacks and rural activity by the outlawed group and was sent to the Prime Ministry’s Office for approval, the report said.
 
The names listed in the regulation as the PKK's "leading staff" included Karayılan, Cemil Bayık, Rıza Altun, Duran Kalkan, Mustafa Karasu, Osman Öcalan, Nizamettin Taş, Ali Haydar Kaytan, Zübeyir Aydar, Numan Uçar and Fehman Hüseyin. 
 
Twenty of the 50 names listed in the regulation as the PKK's "leading staff" live in Europe, the report said. 


The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.