Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Tuesday confirmed news that broke in late August that Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists had captured two National Intelligence Organization (MİT) operatives in northern Iraq.
Speaking during an interview with Al-Monitor on Monday, Çavuşoğlu said the PKK has kidnapped local authorities, ordinary civilians, doctors and policemen. However, he added that neither the Turkish government nor MİT is in touch with the PKK to bring the two senior intelligence agents back home.
“The PKK has kidnapped local authorities, ordinary civilians, doctors, policemen and everybody, and so this is a terrorist organization. Of course our institutions have been working to bring back all our citizens that the PKK kidnapped, but our country doesn’t — we didn’t have any direct contact with the PKK to bring those two persons mentioned back,” he said.
On Aug. 28, Diyar Xerîb, General Presidential Council member of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that encompasses the PKK, confirmed that they had captured two MİT operatives in northern Iraq.
According to the pro-Kurdish ANF news agency, Xerîb told Rojnews that “Turkey should be glad we haven’t shown the people [MİT agents] we captured in the media yet. We could just parade them to the press now and publish their names.”