Statement by Minister for European Union Affairs and Chief Negotiator Ambassador Volkan Bozkır on European Parliament’s Rapporteur for Türkiye Ms. Kati Piri MEP

-       European Parliament’s Rapporteur for Türkiye Ms. Kati Piri MEP lost her neutrality about Türkiye’s issues.

-       We cannot accept or tolerate any understanding that describes the terrorist attacks in Türkiye, which claim lives of our citizens on a daily basis, as civil war; while condemning terrorism and sharing the grief only when it takes place in an EU country.

-       Should Rapporteur Ms. Piri, who does not describe PKK as a terrorist organisation while PKK is on EU’s official list of terrorist organisations, insists on this approach of hers, it will be highly difficult for her to find counterparts to talk in Türkiye other than the organisations she visited in Diyarbakır.

European Parliament’s (EP) rapporteur for Türkiye Ms. Kati Piri MEP (S&D) and a delegation of some other members of the EP visited Diyarbakır last week.

EP Rapporteur for Türkiye Ms. Kati Piri published a text on her own website after her visit. PKK, which EU officially considers a terrorist organisation, is not described in any part of this text as a terrorist organisation. However, Rapporteur Ms. Piri alleges that the Turkish army keeps the civilian habitations under continous fire. Also, no mention of terrorist attacks or the fight aganist terror in the region in this text, but what is going on is described as a civil war.

It is meaningful that this delegation did not feel the need to visit Ankara, but went directly to Diyarbakır where intensive fight against terrorist organisation PKK is in progress and also met with organisations overtly supporting PKK terrorist organisation.

It is also interesting that Rapporteur Ms. Piri, who served very well to PKK’s perception management operation by her visit to Diyarbakır, does not mention in her text at all the severage systems and basements transformed into arsenals by the PKK, the continous attacks on our security personnel, the damage caused by PKK to towns in order to declare so called autonomy in the region or the thousands of real civilians without arms who had to leave their homes because of PKK’s attacks on schools, hospitals and even ambulances. It should be noted that, some western European countries even suspended certain articles of European Convention of Human Rights in the face of much less terrorist threat compared to what I have listed above.

Spending a whole day with supporters of PKK, after the funeral of the 28 fellow citizens massacred by a terrorist attack in Ankara and on a day when 7 soldiers were killed by PKK in Sur, is disrespectful to Türkiye’s grief as well as to the lives we lost.

It is obvious that Rapporteur Ms. Piri, whose Resolution on Türkiye was returned to the EP last year as it described the 1915 events as “genocide”, cannot comprehend the most vital issue of Türkiye and also lost her neutrality about Türkiye’s issues.  

We leave it to the consideration of our friends in the EU to judge how healthy a report could be when prepared by a rapporteur who is so far away from understanding Türkiye and acting in such a biased manner.

We cannot accept or tolerate any understanding that describes the terrorist attacks in Türkiye, which claim lives of our citizens on a daily basis, as civil war; while condemning terrorism and sharing the grief only when it takes place in an EU country.

Should Rapporteur Ms. Piri insists on this approach of hers, it will be highly difficult for her to find counterparts to talk in Türkiye other than the organisations she visited in Diyarbakır.

Hosting more than 2,6 million Syrians irrespective of their religion, ethnic origin or qualifications, a figure more than the population of many EU countries, Türkiye displays the strongest humanitarian stance. Criticising Türkiye for being harsh on PKK terrorist organisation, which claims dozens of lives everyday, despite Türkiye’s track record of this humanitarian approach that I described, cannot be explained by good will, humanitarian values or political correctness. 

It is our right to fight against this terrorist organisation, which takes our lives everyday, leaves children without parents or parents without children or splits couples by their heinous massacres, with the harshest way possible within the limits of the rule of law. This fight will continue until the bloody handed terrorists lay down their arms for good.

We will not forget who supports us in this fight of vital importance for Türkiye as well as who stands by the PKK terrorist organisation.