Ankara war on terror aimed at wiping out Kurds: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with William Jones, with the Executive Intelligence Review from Leesburg, to discuss the recent comments by Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chairman of the left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), condemning the Turkish army operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the country’s southeast.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Do you think that Turkey is eliminating Kurds as a whole with looking at civilian deaths that are rising, we had 200 and now this number here 70 of civilians who have died based on army operations by Turkey?

Jones: I think that’s the agenda and I think that’s been the agenda from the get go. The Turks unfortunately have been able to use this so-called war against terrorism to mobilize their forces without significant criticism from the international community, which otherwise would have overreacted and what seems to be a policy of ongoing genocide of the Kurdish part of their population. And this is their main task in terms of the so-called war against terror. It’s not aimed against ISIL (Daesh) but it’s aimed against the Kurds. I don’t know how far they intend to go, but Turkey has a history with regard to this and everybody remembers the Armenian genocide. And the question is ‘Is history repeating itself in essence?’. And if that is the case that the international community regardless of the war on terror has to react to this type of policy, but as yet there’s been little said about it.

Press TV: Unless there’s a deal that Turkey has made with the United States in particular about the issue of the Kurds.

Jones: Well, obviously they’ve done that. I mean all the compromises were made; the fact that the Kurds were not involved at all in the Geneva talks in spite of the fact that they have been the main force fighting against ISIL and have been supported by the US military on the ground. They’re, nevertheless, not getting much support politically in terms of coming from the US or from the Western countries. I think they’re in a very bad situation. They’ve been sold out in many respects by the US in spite of the role that they’re playing militarily on the ground. And I think that if this continues and we give more vote to the Turks to do what they’re doing, they’re going to hang Kurds and the responsibility will lie not only on Turkey but also on the Western nations who have allowed that to happen.

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