The PKK terrorist organization has swarmed a Dutch researcher with death threats over a report she released on its activities in Syria. Rena Netjes went public with the incident via Twitter on Sunday, saying that she had been receiving “death threats and other warnings from 'Rojava' accounts, including from those based in Paris” for the past few weeks.
She revealed she received emails from the group about how they set up her profile on LGBT-related accounts. “I pay a price for exposing PYD propaganda," she said.
In an online report titled, "The YPG/PYD During the Syrian Conflict," which was published back in April 2021, Netjes and her fellow researcher Erwin Van Veen concluded that "what emerges from the analysis is an organization that has ruthlessly pursued its objective of establishing and controlling its own autonomous territory and sphere of action."
Excerpts from the report included: "The YPG/PYD's record is further muddled by the sway that an organization alien to Syria – namely the PKK – holds over it. As it happens, the PKK pursues a regional agenda that includes conflict with several other entities, such as Türkiye and the Iraqi Kurdish administration. The YPG/PYD's link with the PKK makes the support it seeks from external parties such as EU member states neither feasible nor appropriate."
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the European Union and the United States, and is responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG, which is also known as PYD with a broad presence in Europe and is sanctioned by several governments, is the PKK's Syrian branch.
The two groups have been using terrorist bases across Türkiye's border in northern Iraq and northern Syria, much of which they have controlled since Bashar Assad regime’s forces withdrew in 2012, to plot and carry out attacks on Türkiye. The PKK has been trying to create a terrorist corridor along the Syrian border, threatening both Syrian locals and nearby Turkish residents, as well as exploiting energy sources with U.S. support.
Another financial source for the terrorists is drug trafficking in the EU, where its members and supporters are involved in all aspects of the illicit narcotics trade, and channel funds for their subversive activities in Türkiye and Syria.
In recent years, Türkiye has stepped up efforts to cut off drug supplies to the group while Turkish security forces regularly conduct counterterrorism operations both at home and across the border.
Since 2016, Ankara has been targeting terrorists through a trio of successful operations across its border in northern Syria to prevent the formation of the said terror corridor and enable the peaceful settlement of residents: Euphrates Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018) and Peace Spring (2019). Turkish officials have suggested another such operation is forthcoming, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stressing that Türkiye would “close the gaps” in its 30-kilometer (18.64-mile) deep security line to “completely eliminate terrorist threats.”
"We will enter a new phase of struggle that will destroy the entire infrastructure and resources of the terrorist group (PKK and YPG/PKK), where it draws strength from, as well as clip its ability to launch acts of armed sabotage," said Erdoğan in late December.
