BERLIN
The German government has declared its ban on the terrorist organization PKK will continue, despite an apology by the group for violent attacks during the 1990s.
German Interior Ministry deputy spokesman Dr. Tobias Plate said on Friday that the recent statement by a senior PKK figure renouncing violence and apologizing to German people was not enough for a new assessment.
“The statement alone provides no reason in the short term to change our assessment which was relevant so far,” Plate said at a press conference in Berlin.
He said the German Interior Ministry was having exchanges with all relevant parties on the subject and was also closely following Turkish government’s soluton process initiative to end the conflict with the PKK.
Apology from PKK
Cemil Bayik, a leading PKK figure, apologized to the German people on Thursday for attacks carried out during the 1990s in Germany in a move that analysts saw as an attempt to get off of the country’s terrorist watch list.
“On behalf of the PKK, I would like to apologize to the German people,” Bayik said in an interview broadcasted on Thursday by the regional German public televisions WDR and NDR.
“These will never happen again,” he said, adding the group had recently gone through a transformation and renounced the path of violence to achieve its political goals.
Green Party’s call on PKK
The German opposition Green Party’s co-chair Cem Ozdemir said the PKK’s apology to the German people was long overdue.
“The ban should be lifted when the group permanently ends violence, also in Turkey,” Ozdemir tweeted on Friday.
Germany, which is home to around 700,000 Kurdish immigrants, outlawed the PKK in 1993, following murders against political opponents, violent protests and highway blockades that injured scores of German police officers.
According to the German domestic intelligence agency, BfV, the PKK allegedly has 13,000 adherents in the country.
It is also believed to be involved in using various associations for fundraising activities and recruitment of new members inside Germany.
Given the recent developments in Syria and Iraq where Kurdish fighters participated in battles against Daesh, a debate has sparked in Germany about the legal status of PKK; recently the German opposition Left Party demanded the removal of the ban on the group.
However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat bloc and its coalition partner Social Democrat Party defended the ban during a parliamentary debate on Feb. 27.
The German government noted the outlawed organization has not renounced its terrorism tactics and its goal of an independent state.
The PKK has fought for an independent Kurdish state since 1984, and its terrorist attacks claimed almost 40,000 lives in Turkey.
Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union list PKK as a terrorist organization.
