The deceptions and misinformation behind the PKK and YPG

Turkey has confronted the particularly vicious terrorism of the PKK since the mid-1980s. The scope of the conflict has claimed the lives of nearly 40,000 between 1984 and 2018 alone.

Over recent years, the conflict has intensified with the organisation’s growth and regional proliferation. Its most recent offshoot and established affiliate, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), founded in 2011, shortly after the beginning of the Syrian civil war, offered a new transnational reach to the terrorist organisation.

Benefiting from the power vacuum brought on by the conflict in Iraq and Syria to expand unchecked, the YPG embarked on a rebranding campaign, aiming for international legitimacy by espousing liberal democratic ideals and emphasising its role in combating terrorism. This stance garnered the group significant international support. 

Years on, following the success of an international coalition in uprooting Daesh, the justifications for working with a designated terrorist group are increasingly flimsy.

With the planned US withdrawal from Syria, the YPG is set to bid for further international support.

Here are the top 6 claims that underpin the PKK/YPG's media war, and everything that’s wrong with it.

1) "The YPG has no relations with the PKK"

The YPG continues to try to escape its international terrorist designation, which can be confusing for international observers given the number of acronyms and multiple fronts.

Recently, however, a thorough study of over 2500 cases of YPG fighters killed in action found them to be known, wanted members who fought for the PKK. The PKK readily makes use of its affiliates in neighbouring countries for logistics, arms smuggling, and operations.

The PKK and its affiliates are designated terrorist organisations by the US State Department and CIA, the European Union as well as Turkey and a host of allies.

In spite of being listed as a terrorist organisation, the PKK has received extensive military and logistical assistance from a number of countries through back channels.

2) "The YPG is dedicated to fighting Daesh"

With the emergence of Daesh in Syria in 2014, the YPG was quick to claim legitimacy in its fight against the terrorist group, while benefiting from the Syrian regime’s intentional policy of non-interference.

The use of Daesh to legitimise the YPG was mostly self-serving, however, underlying the express goal of expanding control of territories in North Syria.

Amnesty International reports that the YPG and its parent organisation, the PYD, committed extensive war crimes. Through careful review of eyewitness accounts and satellite imagery, the PYD/YPG was found guilty of deliberate displacement of thousands of civilians, and razing entire villages. 

(Satellite images obtained by Amnesty International illustrate the scale of the demolitions in Husseiniya village, in Tel Hamees countryside. The images show 225 buildings standing in June 2014 but only 14 remaining in June 2015 – a shocking reduction of 93.8%. Source: Amnesty International.)

In some instances, the YPG forced out Arab and Turkmen villagers in areas they laid claim to, with documented threats of providing their coordinates to the United States as targets for bombardment or the outright burning of houses. 

“They pulled us out of our homes and began burning the home… they brought the bulldozers... They demolished home after home until the entire village was destroyed,” said one witness.

This policy emerged from the highest levels of the group’s leadership. Salih Muslim, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which acts as the political head of the armed YPG wing, stated, "One day those Arabs who have been brought to the Kurdish areas will have to be expelled.”

Throughout its campaign to carve out territory for further operations, the YPG has managed an ever-shifting web of temporary alliances of conveniences to further its interests.

The Assad regime has capitalised on this strategy by tolerating the PKK in Northern Syria to threaten Turkey.

Radeef Mustafa, a Syrian-Kurd and lawyer, protested against the Syrian regime and was jailed for advocating for the rights of Kurds.

Speaking to TRT World on the Syrian regime’s policy of non-interference, he comments, “The regime previously gave regions to the PKK/PYD, and used PYD militias who ruled with an iron fist. But while doing so, they also paved the way for Daesh and Al Qaeda to declare all Kurdish people infidels.”

“We believe that all these policies have served and are still serving the Syrian Regime,” he adds.

3) "Turkey’s economy is suffering because it insists on waging war on the PKK/YPG"

Turkey’s latest bid in a long war to free the region of the entrenched terrorist group finds popular backing not only due to the indiscriminate attacks against civilians, but due to the dampening effect the terrorist group's actions have had on the economic growth of the country.

According to one estimate, Turkey could have witnessed a 14 percent higher GDP per capita without the PKK/YPG's terrorism, effectively translating to an increase in per capita income of $1,600.

With emerging markets hit hard by rising interest rates and global financial instability, the need to resolve the plague of terrorism holding the country back is more pressing than ever.

4) "Turkey has targeted civilians in its operations against the YPG/PKK"
Turkey has suffered indiscriminate terrorist attacks and bombings by the group through its many incarnations for over 34 years.

The allegation that Turkey targets civilian targets is based on drone footage of an operation that targeted YPG militants in the town of Jinderes. This runs counter to the absence of reported civilian casualties in the operation.

Moreover, drone footage has since revealed YPG fighters firing heavy artillery from within densely populated civilian centres, relying on Turkish adherence to the laws of war to avoid civilian casualties.

The strategy is not unusual for the YPG/PKK however, given a documented habit of using civilians as human shields.

The ongoing military campaign against the YPG/PKK has relied heavily on precision strikes by unmanned drones. In Operation Olive Branch, which liberated the Afrin region from Daesh and YPG terrorists, more than 1129 terrorists were eliminated through precision drone warfare.

5) 'The YPG/PKK isn't a communist-anarchist group'

The lynchpin of the PKK and YPG's public relations front is rooted in a claimed adherence to democratic and progressive values. 

However, the group publicly espouses communist ideology, given that it was founded in 1978 as a radical Marxist-Leninist organisation. Today, elements of the group including the Rojava Kurds, declare allegiance to anarchist-Marxist ideals of the collapse of the state and commune-based societies.

According to a report by the Henry Jackson society's Centre for the Response to Radicalization and Terrorism, the first-wave of YPG conscripts consisted of individuals motivated by self-serving considerations, such as gaining reputation or fame (designed to lead to monetary gain over time). There were also those seeking to satisfy an impulse to kill. 

The report details that a number of petty criminals and drug addicts joined the YPG, alongside ideologues – communists, anarchists, and other hard-left militants – who mean to create a revolutionary society in Syria. 

In total, the YPG/PYD has exiled more than 500,000 Syrian Kurds from areas under its control for not being Marxists or communists.

6) "The YPG/PKK don’t profit from narco-terrorism"

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), estimates that the organisation makes about $75 million annually from heroin alone. British intelligence previously estimated that the PKK is responsible for at least 40 percent of heroin smuggled into the European Union.

The NATO Terrorist Threat Intelligence Unit (TTIU) found that the PKK was also involved in smuggling, drug and counterfeit money trafficking, and part of a global drug empire based on coercion and fear.

The YPG/PKK network thrives in lawless conflict zones such as North Syria, suffering from power severe power vacuums and the absence of law and order, permitting terrorist groups such as Daesh and the YPG to expand and consolidate illegal activities further.

The group’s primary targets include police, military, economic and civilian targets, with heavy involvement in arms smuggling, drugs trafficking and extortion, with a specific focus on southern Turkey’s tourism industry and economic infrastructure.

It uses a wide range of methods to carry out acts of terror ranging from attacking infrastructure, various facilities, schools and ambulances, kidnapping nurses, customs officials to using cyanide to poison drinking water supplies; and engaging in unconventional tactics, assassination, drive-by shootings, executing uncooperative civilians, ambushes, kidnapping etc.