We’ve figured out PKK’s racket system: Turkish minister

Nuray Babacan – ANKARA

AA photo

Turkish authorities have determined how the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) raises money through “extortion,” Environment and Urban Minister Mehmet Özhaseki has said.

“They do it this way: There is a sheet in front of them. ‘Whose property is this? That person’s.’ They then build a road there. The owner of the land says, ‘My parcel is ruined, I was going to build 10-20 apartments there.’ Then they tell the man that they can fix it, ‘We can fix it, give us 100,000 Turkish Liras and it will be done.’ There are documents and footage of this. We’ve figured out the system,” he said, giving an example from the southeastern province of Diyarbakır.

“The contracts that were made for the municipalities that trustees were appointed to with the latest state of emergency decree will be canceled,” Özhaseki said, referring to the state of emergency declared after July 15 failed takeover, widely believed to have been masterminded by the U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen. 

“Because when you look at it, it seems that there are 250 people working in the municipality, but 50 of them are actually there and 200 of them are in the mountains. We’ve seen the example of it in Diyarbakır Municipality. Three PKK militants sit in the back room as temporary workers,” he also said. 

“They force citizens to pay money. The people appointed as trustees say, ‘Let’s clear the municipalities that were managed by the PKK, finish the old businesses, end the contracts, because there is filth all over.’ We can’t clear the municipalities in any other way,” he added.