ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – British officials on Friday listed the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) and the People’s Defense Forces (HPG) as “aliases” of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the UK considers a terrorist organization.
The move was welcomed by the Turkish foreign ministry on Saturday.
On Monday, the British government also outlawed the neo-Nazi Sonnenkrieg Division (SKD) and System Resistance Network as an alias of the already proscribed far-right National Action.
The order came into force on Friday, making membership of TAK and HPG illegal in the UK. Anyone found to be a member or supporter could face 10 years in prison.
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel said recent attacks in the UK and Germany “highlighted the threat we continue to face from violent extremism.”
During the 7th Congress of the PKK in January 2000, the HPG replaced the People’s Liberation Army of Kurdistan (ARGK) as the group’s armed wing.
The TAK was designated as a terrorist group by the United States in 2008.
TAK appeared on the scene in mid-2004. Little is known about the group except that it considers PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan as its leader and that it broke away from the PKK because it could no longer accept what it called the “passive struggle methods” of the PKK.
The PKK denies TAK is one of its factions and accuses the Turkish government of using the group to portray the PKK as a terrorist organization. Experts are divided on the reality of the TAK-PKK relationship.
TAK has carried out several attacks in Turkey, indiscriminately targeting civilians and tourists, including suicide bombings in Ankara in 2016.
The British government’s move was applauded by the Turkish foreign ministry.
“We welcome the entry into force on 28 February 2020 of the regulation which includes the incorporation of TAK and HPG, both extensions of PKK/KCK, as alias of the said terrorist organisation to the terrorist organisations list of the UK,” Ankara’s foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement on Saturday.
The PKK is an armed group which has fought a decades’ long insurgency against the Turkish state for greater Kurdish political and cultural rights in Turkey, which is home to a substantial Kurdish minority.
In addition to Turkey, the United States, the European Union, and Canada consider the PKK a terrorist organization.
More than 40,000 civilians and combatants on both sides of the conflict have been killed since the PKK insurgency began in 1984.
Ankara launches regular military operations against the PKK both inside and beyond Turkey’s borders, coupled with diplomatic pressure on its foreign allies to crackdown on the group’s activities and affiliates.
