ISTANBUL
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK, and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, are the same for Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday.
"It is wrong to consider them in different ways (...). We need to handle them all together on a common ground," said Erdogan.
Erdogan opposed Turkey's taking in Kurdish refugees fleeing from the Syrian border town of Kobani, where ISIL launched a fresh offensive last week, to the "so-called" efforts of the outlawed Kurdish party's supporters in the region.
Around 160,000 Kurdish refugees took shelter in Turkey, according to Ankara, since the country opened its border on September 19. ISIL, which controls vast areas of Iraq and Syria, has launched several attacks near the Turkish border.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey as well as by the U.S. and the European Union. Turkey has launched what is publicly known as "the solution process" to end a decades old conflict with the PKK, which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people.
Speaking to the reporters at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, following the morning prayer for Eid al-Adha - the festival of sacrifice observed by Muslims all over the world - Erdogan also objected strongly to comments made by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden who accused America’s key allies in the Middle East, including Turkey, of allowing the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.
"Biden has to apologize for his statements," said Erdogan.
“Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria,” had said Biden in a speech at Harvard University on Thursday, claiming that certain Middle Eastern countries had provided “hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons” indiscriminately to anyone who would fight against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, thus instigating, according to him, a Sunni-Shiite war.
"We never helped any terror organization, including ISIL. No one can prove it," said Erdogan, stressing no one can claim that the foreign fighters in Syria had crossed Turkey with weapons on them.
It had been reported in June that at least 12,000 foreign fighters from at least 81 countries, including 2,500 from Europe or the Unites States, had joined the civil war in Syria,
In order to stop foreign fighters aiming to go to fight for ISIL, Turkey has deported around 1,000 people in addition to forbidding 6,000 others to enter the country, Erdogan noted.
Pointing to the concerns that ISIL was getting very close to the tomb of Suleyman Shah [a sovereign Turkish territory in Syria], Turkish President said, "We will not hesitate to act against any potential threats to the tomb."
He said there were 40 Turkish soldiers in the area, who were on alert for any potential attack and that Turkish armed forces would take the necessary steps should they find trouble.
Suleyman Shah was the grandfather of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, and his tomb is a Turkish exclave in Syria 30 km south of the border.
http://aa.com.tr/en
