MUST READ: PRESENCE OF TURKISH TERRORISTS IN BELGIUM LEADS TO DISPUTE WITH ANKARA

Presence of Turkish Terrorists in Belgium Leads to Dispute with Ankara
By Thomas Renard

Belgium and Turkey have a somewhat tense and delicate relationship that has lately been complicated by a dispute over counter-terrorism efforts. Ankara believes that activities by Turkish terrorist groups abroad constitute a Turkish matter. Brussels, on the other hand, attempts to resist Turkish pressure on these issues while evaluating terrorist activities in their Belgian and European context. Moreover, Brussels questions Ankara’s respect for human rights, leading to difficulties in counter-terrorist cooperation and extradition efforts. Nevertheless, both countries are tightly interrelated and are therefore compelled to maintain good relations, at least in appearance.

On March 21, during the celebration of the Kurdish New Year in the streets of Liege, Belgian police arrested Mehmet Sahin, a 33-year old member of the Kurdish terrorist organization the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The arrest occurred one month after the controversial acquittal by a Belgian court of seven members of the radical Turkish Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front/Party (DHKP/C) (AFP, February 9). The arrest of Sahin has the appearance of a make-up gift designed to placate Turkish indignation over the acquittal of figures wanted on terrorism charges in Turkey.

Mehmet Sahin is accused of having participated in various terrorist attacks in the southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakir between 1992 and 1997. One of those attacks against a police station killed 23 people (Today’s Zaman, March 24). Sahin illegally entered Belgium in 2000 and appealed for asylum. He was the subject of seven arrest warrants in Turkey and was named in an Interpol “Red Notice,” which requests the arrest and extradition of wanted individuals. At the moment Sahin is in the Lantin Prison in Liege, waiting to be extradited. Belgium, however, demands guarantees that he will not be sentenced to death, according to Belgium’s national policy on capital punishment (De Morgen, March 23).

Mehmet Sahin was living in the Liege area, where most of Belgium’s Kurdish population is concentrated. Members of the PKK are present mainly in Germany, but also in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Through propaganda efforts they try to gather active and passive support for their cause. Kurds are also alleged to have financed militant activities through criminal operations in Europe. Various reports have emphasized that those operations are ongoing (Spiegel Online, October 30, 2007; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 5, 2005). In Brussels Kurdish groups also attempt to pressure European diplomats.

It is not the first time that Belgian authorities have taken action against the PKK. In 1996, for instance, Belgian police conducted Operation Sputnik in collaboration with Scotland Yard. The operation discovered some $11 million in an account held by Med TV Broadcasting Company, accused of having ties to the PKK. Security officials tied these funds to operations related to drugs, weapons and human trafficking. The raids resulted in the closure of Med TV in 1999. In 2002, Belgian and French investigators launched Operation Sputnik II, breaking up an extensive PKK money-laundering operation [1].

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Pertinent Links:

1) Presence of Turkish Terrorists in Belgium Leads to Dispute with Ankara