Statue of Slain PKK Commander Unveiled in Turkey
A statue of a former militant commander of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who planned the first attacks of its 30-year insurgency against the Turkish authorities has been unveiled in southeast Turkey, reports said Sunday.
The statue of Mahsum Korkmaz, who was killed in 1986, was unveiled on Saturday in the village of Yolacti in the Lice district of the majority Kurdish Diyarbakir province in Turkey's southeast.
But the hugely unusual move has infuriated nationalists who denounced it as the unwanted result of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's policy of granting greater rights to Turkey's Kurdish minority.
The statue shows Korkmaz standing on a high triangular plinth dressed in battle gear and holding a rifle by his side, according to pictures published in Turkish media including the Milliyet daily.
It was erected in a newly opened cemetery in Yolacti for slain PKK fighters where Korkmaz is also buried, in a ceremony attended by local politicians, including a representative of the People's Democratic Party (HDP).
The unveiling coincided with the 30th anniversary of the start of the PKK's deadly campaign of violence against the Turkish authorities, which began with attacks in the southeastern towns of Eruh and Semdinli on August 15, 1984.
The first attacks were co-planned by Korkmaz, who was known as "Agit", and since being shot dead in 1986 has been feted as a martyr by Kurds seeking self-rule and greater autonomy.
The head of Turkey's ultra-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahceli denounced the statue as a "very clear and dirty challenge to our moral and historic rights."
"The Turkish nation should see the grave danger... It should not be forgotten that if a statue to the PKK stands today, then tomorrow the country will be divided and the state will collapse," he said in a statement Sunday.
The controversy comes after the jailed head of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, said in a statement released Saturday that the 30-year conflict was "coming to an end".
The authorities are seeking to restart a stalled peace process with the PKK rebels to finally end a conflict that claimed an estimated 40,000 lives.
The PKK, which is proscribed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has joined forces with other Kurdish fighting units to halt the advance of Islamic militants in Iraq.
Source: Agence France Presse
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