Turkey investigates Israel-PKK ties

ISTANBUL –Turkish intelligence services are investigating whether there is a connection between the Israeli attack on the aid convoy to Gaza and a PKK attack on a Turkish marine base on the Mediterranean Sea a few hours earlier. Speculation about a link is rising in the Turkish press.

Newspapers have been printing articles about a possible connection between the two events since Monday, the day the attack was carried out. And politicians don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the violent incidents came so close together. A politician from the governing AKP said on Monday that his party doesn’t believe it’s a coincidence. Kilicdaroglu, leader of opposition party CHP, also speculates on a connection, as does the leader of a small religious party. The Israeli secret service allegedly ‘hired’ the PKK so Turkey could be hit with a double attack, as a warning.

Any proof for the connection between the events was not shown by either politicians or media. Minister of Internal Affairs Atalay earlier claimed to see ‘parallels’ between the attacks, and demanded to have both incidents researched thoroughly, also at ‘international level’.

The accusations are not totally baseless: several analysts point out that agents of the Israeli secret service and retired Israeli servicemen had been spotted in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq. There they allegedly train the Iranian Kurdish organisation PJAK. And this with the knowledge of the United States, who are said to see it as a way of destabilizing the Iranian government.