Police: PKK held talks with UK intelligence
(Cihan) Former İstanbul Counterterrorism Unit Police Chief Yurt Atayün, who was arrested in July of last year as part of a government-backed operation against the police force, said in an interview with a daily on Friday that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) held secret meetings with officials from the British intelligence agency ahead of the 2010 Oslo meetings between some senior PKK operatives and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) officials aimed at resolving Turkey's Kurdish problem.
“During the [police] search of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party's (BDP) building in Diyarbakır, several documents regarding secret talks between the mediator, British intelligence officials, and PKK officials. There are tape recordings of this meeting of which MİT and, naturally, the Turkish government had no idea,” Atayün told the Bugün daily from his cell in Silivri Prison.
Members of the British intelligence agency allegedly mediated between the Turkish state and the PKK to launch and carry out secret talks in Oslo in order to find a solution to the country's decade-long Kurdish problem.
The talks were held some time in 2010, after Hakan Fidan was appointed the new undersecretary of MİT. In September 2011, an almost 50-minute-long voice recording of the secret talks was revealed for the first time.
“In that period [when Atayün was the head of the İstanbul Counterterrorism Unit Police], we wanted the [then-] prime minister [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] to know that the PKK and British intelligence held secret talks outside Turkey's knowledge. Thus, we informed Erdoğan through [the former İstanbul Police Chief] Hüseyin Çapkın,” Atayün noted.
Although Atayün is better known for his counterterrorism efforts while in office, along with dozens of other police officers, he is now accused of performing illegal wiretaps, spying and forging official documents.
Atayün, who previously made headlines after orchestrating a raid against al-Qaeda members in eastern Turkey, has rejected the accusations, saying that he was not involved in any illegal activity during the time he served as a member of the police force.
The jailed police chief also accused MİT of working as a courier for the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, saying, “MİT operatives conveyed to Kandil [Mountain, where the PKK's top levels of administration and training camps are based] a letter in which Öcalan ordered the PKK to carry out attacks against Turkish soldiers. And terrorists killed 16 soldiers and wounded seven others in an ambush in [Diyarbakır's] Silvan [district].”
Atayün also said that MİT intentionally refrained from handing over information to security forces regarding attacks organized by the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that encompasses the PKK.
“The person we took into custody following the KCK bomb attacks [between 2009 and 2013] in İstanbul turned out to be an intelligence specialist secretly working for MİT. Then we figured out that the same person was also involved in five or six terrorist attacks in Turkey. MİT was fully informed about the attacks but withheld the information,” Atayün said.
Source: http://www.nrttv.com/en/detailsnews/2015/02/20/police-pkk-held-talks-with-uk-intelligence“During the [police] search of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party's (BDP) building in Diyarbakır, several documents regarding secret talks between the mediator, British intelligence officials, and PKK officials. There are tape recordings of this meeting of which MİT and, naturally, the Turkish government had no idea,” Atayün told the Bugün daily from his cell in Silivri Prison.
Members of the British intelligence agency allegedly mediated between the Turkish state and the PKK to launch and carry out secret talks in Oslo in order to find a solution to the country's decade-long Kurdish problem.
The talks were held some time in 2010, after Hakan Fidan was appointed the new undersecretary of MİT. In September 2011, an almost 50-minute-long voice recording of the secret talks was revealed for the first time.
“In that period [when Atayün was the head of the İstanbul Counterterrorism Unit Police], we wanted the [then-] prime minister [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] to know that the PKK and British intelligence held secret talks outside Turkey's knowledge. Thus, we informed Erdoğan through [the former İstanbul Police Chief] Hüseyin Çapkın,” Atayün noted.
Although Atayün is better known for his counterterrorism efforts while in office, along with dozens of other police officers, he is now accused of performing illegal wiretaps, spying and forging official documents.
Atayün, who previously made headlines after orchestrating a raid against al-Qaeda members in eastern Turkey, has rejected the accusations, saying that he was not involved in any illegal activity during the time he served as a member of the police force.
The jailed police chief also accused MİT of working as a courier for the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, saying, “MİT operatives conveyed to Kandil [Mountain, where the PKK's top levels of administration and training camps are based] a letter in which Öcalan ordered the PKK to carry out attacks against Turkish soldiers. And terrorists killed 16 soldiers and wounded seven others in an ambush in [Diyarbakır's] Silvan [district].”
Atayün also said that MİT intentionally refrained from handing over information to security forces regarding attacks organized by the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that encompasses the PKK.
“The person we took into custody following the KCK bomb attacks [between 2009 and 2013] in İstanbul turned out to be an intelligence specialist secretly working for MİT. Then we figured out that the same person was also involved in five or six terrorist attacks in Turkey. MİT was fully informed about the attacks but withheld the information,” Atayün said.
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