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US labels PKK drug smuggling kingpin - 2 June 2008
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Published on 02 June 2008, Monday
By TODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES Ä°STANBUL
The United States, which already classifies the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization, has imposed further sanctions on the group to cut off its funding under an anti-drug smuggling law.
The PKK as well as a Turkish national and other foreign organizations and individuals are now on a US list of suspected drug traffickers. The terrorist organization will be denied access to the US financial system and all trade transactions involving US companies and individuals under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, according to a statement released by the White House on Friday.
"Now that the PKK has been designated under the kingpin act, the penalties for doing business with them are much higher," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council. "We also now have the authority to target and designate other PKK entities and associates for narcotics activity. Before, we were limited to this group's terror activities."
The decision takes Turkish-US cooperation against the PKK a step further. Washington designates the PKK as a terrorist organization, and President George W. Bush described the group as a "common enemy" during a meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan in November. Washington is also assisting Turkey's efforts to fight the terrorist group in northern Iraq by providing intelligence and airspace clearance for Turkish jet fighters, which have been hitting PKK targets in the Kurdish-controlled region periodically since last December.
The PKK is widely believed to control most of the drug smuggling from Central Asia to Western Europe. US experts and administration officials believe that the PKK has taken advantage of Turkey's strategic location between the poppy fields of Central Asia and the vast market of Europe and has used drug smuggling to finance its activities since as early as the 1980s. The terrorist group both "taxed" the drug traffickers and directly engaged in trafficking, according to narcotics specialists. According to Interpol data, the PKK was orchestrating 80 percent of the European drug market in 1992. Other sources similarly indicate that the PKK controlled between 60 and 70 percent of the European illegal drug market in 1994.
Revenue from drug trafficking also provides a source to finance the PKK's propaganda activities. A television station broadcasting from Denmark, Roj TV, is one of the main propaganda tools of the PKK, in addition to several so-called cultural groups. Turkey frequently criticizes European countries for turning a blind eye to PKK activities in their territory and has urged, so far in vain, Denmark to revoke the broadcasting license of Roj TV.
The US Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Desig-nation Act, which became law in December 1999, targets major foreign narcotics traffickers, their organizations and operatives worldwide.
With the latest action, 75 individuals and groups have been named on the list.
"This action underscores the president's determination to do everything possible to pursue drug traffickers, undermine their operations and end the suffering that trade in illicit drugs inflicts on Americans and other people around the world, as well as prevent drug traffickers from supporting terrorists," the White House said in the statement.
In addition to the PKK, two more entities were also added to the list, namely the Beltran Leyva organization of Mexico and the 'Ndrangheta organized crime syndicate based in the southern Italian region of Calabria.
Crime experts say the Italian crime group 'Ndrangheta overtook the Sicilian mafia in the 1990s as Italy's largest drug trafficking group and has since spread throughout Europe and beyond.
Turk wanted by police for years on the list
Four individuals, including Turkish national Cumhur Yakut, were also added to the list. Yakut, son-in-law of a former parliamentarian, has been wanted by the Turkish police since 2000 under four different warrants for his arrest issued by courts in Diyarbakır, İstanbul and Van. His family is also under police surveillance in an anti-drug trafficking operation that has been underway since 1996. Yakut's whereabouts are not known but media reports say he is hiding in the Arab Peninsula.
Yakut was linked in press reports to a fatal shooting in 1997 in which seven people were killed. News reports said the shooting was ordered by a drug baron who worked with Yakut. The 56-year-old man, who is originally from the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, is the son-in-law of Mustafa Bayram, a former deputy from the eastern province of Van. Media reports also linked Yakut to the PKK and the Susurluk gang, a shadowy crime group revealed to have links with some state officials, including deputies, police and intelligence officials.
Other individuals are Haji Asad Khan Zarkari Mohammadhasni of Afghanistan, Hermagoras Gonzalez Polanco of Venezuela and Marcos Arturo Beltran Leyva of Mexico. Media reports in Mexico have said a spike in drug violence in Sinaloa state this year, with some 300 people killed, could be the result a fracture between reputed cartel chief Joaquin Guzman, who is Mexico's most wanted man, and Leyva, one of his boldest operatives.
The Leyva family was widely thought to be responsible for the killing of Guzman's son in a military-style attack on May 8. President Felipe Calderon has launched a crackdown on Mexico's drug cartels, and the effort has prompted a rash of retaliatory killings of federal police.
Published on 02 June 2008, Monday
By TODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES Ä°STANBUL
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