German Secret Service: No Proof of PKK Involvement in Drugs

[kirkuki]

LONDON, England – In the 2011 report of the German Intelligence Service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) claims there is no proof that the “organization structures of the PKK [in Germany] are directly involved in the narcotics business.”

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is banned as a terrorist group in Germany, but organizes several large-scale events, rallies and demonstrations in the country through the Federation of Kurdish Associations in Germany (YEK-KOM). It also maintains good relations with the German leftist party Die Linke, according to the BfV.

Moreover, the BfV notes that supporters of the PKK’s youth organization, Komalên Ciwan, organized partially militant sit-ins which attracted considerable public interest and media attention. The BfV adds that the PKK tries to recruit young Kurds and uses the Internet as a means of propaganda, but says there is no proof the group is involved in drugs.

According to the book “Blood and Belief: The PKK and The Kurdish Fight For Independence” by journalist Aliza Marcus, it was an open secret that Turkish Kurds were involved in heroin smuggling, with some of them donating drug money to the PKK. But, Marcus notes, it does not seem that the PKK, as an organization, has directly produced or traded in narcotics.

The U.S. president named the PKK as a significant foreign narcotics trafficker under the Kingpin Act in May 2008. In October 2009 and April 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department designated a total of eight PKK leaders pursuant to the Kingpin Act. In 2012, the U.S. sanctioned three Moldovan-based individuals -- Zeyneddin Geleri, Cerkez Akbulut (a.k.a. Cernit Murat) and Omer Boztepe -- as connected to PKK drug trafficking networks.

In March 2010, in an interview with Reuters, PKK rebel commander Murat Karayilan, accused by the U.S. of being a “drug kingpin,” denied that the group is involved in drugs. Karayilan said the PKK is willing to open its camps in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq for investigation.

The PKK itself claims it does not allow drugs into areas it controls. For example, in a report from the pro-PKK news agency Firat on July 4, the PKK destroyed drugs fields in the Kurdish city of Efrin in Syria.

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