Is Turkey's lax oversight keeping PKK flush with funds?
While the Turkish public is asked to mobilize against PKK terror, are the government’s efforts to curtail PKK financing and money laundering enough?
In our quest to find the best tea in Istanbul, my friends and I recently stopped by Van Sofrasi, a restaurant chain named after the eastern province of Van famous for its lavish morning feasts. Unfortunately, as it turns out, we found that it is merely an urban myth that the smuggled mahogany-colored tea from Iran and Syria is the best.
As we sat down, a news reporter on TV announced that a truck loaded with smuggled cigarettes worth 4 million Turkish lira (about $1.5 million) had been seized in the largely Kurdish southeastern province of Diyarbakir.
As the Turkish public is asked to mobilize against terror, operations against smuggling have intensified. Yet in this tense environment, it is hard to find recent news or debates about the government’s efforts to dry up the coffers of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The waiter at Van Sofrasi said, “After the fighting started in the east, you know many Turks stopped coming here, saying they don’t want to support the PKK. But our tea is addictive, so now they call and ask for delivery.” Pointing to a sizable thermos, he added, “We deliver in style.”
Can one be supporting a terror organization by consuming smuggled goods? Social media chatter focuses on signs at stores reading “HDP [pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party] members cannot enter” or “Do not buy from PKK members.” Even writing a petition to the government asking for peace and reconciliation with the terror organization is considered a crime. Government representatives reiterate that the PKK and its offshoot organizations are as dangerous for Turkish national security as the Islamic State and other Islamist terror organizations.
