25 March 2016•Update: 28 March 2016
YOZGAT, Turkey
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that the terrorist organization PKK that targeted civilians in Turkey can target civilians in any city in the world.
The president’s remarks came in the central Anatolian province of Yozgat at Yozgat Bozok University, where he received an honorary doctoral degree.
Referring to the Syrian Kurdish group PYD – an affiliate of the PKK terror group – opening an office in Moscow last month, Erdogan said,
“Now Russia thinks, ‘I had them open an office in Moscow, I give them plenty of weapons,’ but it will hit you one day just like a boomerang. You realize this, that a terrorist organization which targets innocent people, carries out attacks in Ankara, is a structure which already has cast off any humane, moral norms.”
The president also criticized Belgium for allowing PKK supporters to pitch their tents near the venue of the Turkey-EU summit last week in Brussels.
“Recently we criticized the Belgian government by saying, ‘You are nursing a viper in your bosom and it can sting you any time.’ I warned them. Unfortunately Belgium’s state is clear. We caught [the attacker] and sent him back to Belgium and Belgium released him. Those released people carried out the disaster, this terror attack.
“I make the same warning to all countries that are being stubborn about [saying], ‘The PYD is not a terrorist organization.’ Nobody should be fooled by the fact that the suicide bombers that carried out attacks in Belgium are members of Daesh.
“When a conflict of interest occurs, anybody that belongs to the separatist organization’s [PKK] structure that expresses itself with different letters can conduct a similar attack in any city of Europe, America, or Russia.”
At least 31 people were killed and 260 injured on Tuesday in multiple explosions at Brussels’ Zaventem Airport and a local metro station.
One of the Brussels suicide bombers, Belgian national Ibrahim el Bakraoui, last June was deported from Turkey to the Netherlands, where he claimed he was living at the time. The Turkish Foreign Ministry informed both the Belgian and Dutch authorities of his expulsion.
The Brussels attacks came in the wake of a March 13 car bomb attack at a major Ankara public transportation hub, killing 36 and injuring dozens of civilians.
The terrorist PKK organization claimed responsibility for the attack.
Turkey lists both the PYD and its armed wing the YPG as terrorist organizations.
