Kübra Chohan
18 October 2017•Update: 18 October 2017
By Mehmet Emin Gurbuz
BOLU, Turkey
An Azerbaijani lawmaker said Wednesday that western countries have double standards when it comes to approaching the issue of terrorism.
Ganira Pashayeva, part of the Azerbaijani delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), said: “The PKK terrorist organization camps have been established near the European Council and a couple of meters from the European Court of Human Rights.”
“Why are you letting a terror organization here when they have massacred over 30,000 people in Turkey? Their supporters come here and spread their propaganda,” she added, speaking to Anadolu Agency at a symposium in central Turkey’s Bolu province.
The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- resumed its armed campaign in July 2015.
Since then, it has been responsible for the deaths of more than 1,200 Turkish security personnel and civilians, including a number of women and children.
Pashayeva added that Turkey is the fore-fighter against Daesh, something she said she has advocated in her speeches across Europe.
At least 319 people have lost their lives in Daesh terror attacks in Turkey, where the terrorist organization has targeted civilians in suicide bomb, rocket and gun attacks. In the southern border province of Kilis, 21 people have been killed in rocket attacks since January.
Other attacks include the Reina nightclub attack in Istanbul on New Year's Eve that killed 39; the targeting of a wedding party in Gaziantep in August last year by a child suicide bomber who killed 57, many of them children; the deaths of 47 people in a bomb and gun attack on Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport last June; and the targeted attack on tourists in Istanbul in January and March that caused the deaths of 12 Germans, three American-Israelis and an Iranian.
In 2015, Daesh's largest attack saw 107 killed as two suicide bombers targeted peace protesters outside Ankara's main train station in October and three months earlier Daesh-linked a suicide bomber killed 32 in Suruc, Sanliurfa province.
She added that Turkey and Azerbaijan are part of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation as well as other groups in Europe and had noted that Islamophobia had increased over the years.
“The increase in Islamophobia is not something that has spontaneously developed in Europe. It is something that has evolved with the provocation of politicians,” she said.
