Turkish MP slams Switzerland for allowing PKK rallies

By Bayram Altug

BERN

The head of parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee criticized Swiss authorities on Friday for allowing demonstrations of terrorist group PKK.

“We cannot accept that members of the killer terrorist organization are allowed to wander in your streets and we will always say that,” Volkan Bozkir told Anadolu Agency, referring to the PKK supporters.

Bozkir is in the Swiss capital Bern as part of an official visit by the Turkish parliament’s Foreign Affairs Commission.

The Turkish MP said that although certain activities of the Turkish community in Switzerland are now allowed, the country permits those of the PKK as well as the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group behind Turkey's defeated coup attempt in 2016.

Several terrorist PKK, DHKP-C, and YPG rallies have taken place in Switzerland in the past.

Ahead of Turkey’s constitutional referendum last April, a rally in Bern targeted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan featuring a large banner saying “Kill Erdogan” and a picture of a gun being pointed at the president’s head. The Swiss police did not intervene.

The Turkish foreign minister had demanded that Switzerland and other countries either take measures against PKK terrorists or extradite them to Turkey.

Although the PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU, it is not listed as one in Switzerland.

The PKK group has waged a terror campaign against Turkey for more than 30 years, causing nearly 40,000 deaths.

More than 1,200 Turkish security personnel and civilians, including a number of women and children, have been killed since July 2015 alone, when the group resumed its armed campaign against the country.

FETO and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup attempt of July 15, 2016, which left 250 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.