Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan waits for deeds from EU

ANKARA

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan participated in a joint press conference with his Georgian counterpart Bidzina Ivanishvili on Feb. 13.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has urged European countries that recently launched raids against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to extradite militants, saying the operations would mean nothing otherwise.

“Those recently taken steps [police raids against PKK members] will mean nothing unless those terrorists are handed over to us, because we are expecting results, we are yearning for results,” Erdoğan said during a joint press conference with Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili Feb. 13.

Seventeen Kurds were arrested in southwestern France in an anti-terror probe into extortion rackets used to raise funds for the PKK on Feb. 12, while six people were detained in a similar operation in Spain.

The detentions came as German federal prosecutors pressed charges Feb. 12 against a 46-year-old Turkish man suspected of raising money for the PKK. “Similar steps have been taken for the last 10 years, but unfortunately we have not observed any results yet. We have many extradition agreements, there are thousands of legal probes [against PKK members], but there’s not a concrete result,” Erdoğan said.