Kati Piri, the rapporteur for Turkey at the European Parliament (EP), has been criticised in Ankara for her remarks about the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). She said it is “not a threat”.
In response, Turkish EU Minister Ömer Çelik on January 28 posted on Twitter: “Such wrong views” will not be taken seriously by the Turkish side.
“It is a tragedy that a politician, who doesn’t have the abc level knowledge on these issues or who rejects these even if she knows them, is the rapporteur for Turkey in the biggest parliament of Europe,” said Çelik.
“Piri partly continues with the wrong view by saying that ‘the number one threat for Turkey is not ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], but PKK.’ It is actually very rare to see such an open statement of this ugly approach toward terrorism,” he added.
As reported by Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News, Çelik said Turkey is the only country which is fighting against both Islamic State and PKK militants “at the same time and on equal footing”.
“As Piri and similar circles think that mankind is living only around their geography, they only regard the ones who threaten them as terrorists, but they don’t perceive any threat from the ones who attack others. It is clear that there is a problem here about how they view humans even before how they view terrorism,” Çelik said.
In a separate report, Euronews noted that Bulgaria, which currently holds the EU presidency, is keen to work with Turkey on migration, counterterrorism and energy issues.
