The Swedish and Finnish ambassadors should inform their public about the PKK's terrorist acts committed in the last 40 years with the information they will collect from Turkey. For this purpose, their interior ministers and national defense could meet with their colleagues in Turkey with an expert delegation to find out what the PKK is.
Since 1984, the PKK has killed many infants, children, women and senior citizens. The majority of these civilian massacres were Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin and the PKK established dominance over these citizens in the region with terrorism. The bloody group burned hundreds of construction machines, bulldozers, cranes, trucks, cars and jeeps to prevent all infrastructure and superstructure investments in the region. It massacred engineers, technicians and workers working for the region's development. They burned down schools and murdered young teachers. In addition, tens of thousands of cattle and sheep were killed and punished the peasants who did not work for them.
The number of the PKK's weapons seized by Turkey in the last 20 years can equip the armed forces of Sweden and Finland several times. The group organized a number of bomb attacks in the Turkish cities. The damage it caused to the Turkish economy is more than $500 billion (TL 8.6 trillion). The terrorist group aims to deprive the eastern and southern regions of investment, forcing them to remain poor and then put this responsibility on the Republic of Turkey.
Informative actions
The Swedish and Finnish ambassadors are supposed to pass on all this information to their public, government and related institutions and universities. They need to announce it in newspapers, magazines, television, radio and social media. They must inform the journalists and even academics who should come and investigate its accuracy in Turkey.
The Swedish and Finnish public has the right to know exactly what the PKK is. The Nordic countries' public mistook the PKK for an innocent and conscientious freedom struggle based on the information they obtained from immigrants who came as pro-PKK. It will be very convincing for the ambassadors to explain the PKK's true face to their own people.
Moreover, it should not be easy to enter the most important club in the world like NATO by saying, "I want to join now." Through hundreds of martyrs and those wounded in Korea, Turkey paid the price of joining NATO in 1952. For 60 years, while spending more than $1 trillion on their military within NATO, Sweden and Finland spent their money on development and prosperous life.
Sweden and Finland, who have done nothing for NATO, will ask for the assistance of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in case of a war. Can the ambassadors say in exchange: "We will develop a special program and cooperate to ensure that the Turkish economy, especially your defense industry, reaches the highest technology." They can give the Turkish public a message of friendship in the fastest, easiest and most effective way. For example, they can visit the mothers whose children have been kidnapped by the PKK, waiting patiently for more than 1,000 days outside the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) building in the southern province of Diyarbakır to ensure the return of their children, and express that they share their pain.
*Former Turkish minister of health and culture and tourism