TURKEY ACCUSES ARMED GROUPS OF DRUG TRAFFICKING
Agence France Presse — English
April 9, 2006 Sunday 11:29 AM GMT
Kurdish rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and
smaller armed leftist groups in Turkey are deeply involved in drug
trafficking according to a Turkish police report, the Anatolia news
agency said Sunday.
Since 1984, the report contends, the PKK, the Armenian Secret Army
for the Liberation of Armenia, and two extremist communist groups
have been involved in 333 separate drug trafficking incidents.
The two extreme-left groups are the Turkish Communist Party, and the
Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front.
A total of 3.7 tons of heroin, four tons of morphine-base, 710 kilos
of cocaine and various quantities of other drugs have been seized
by police, who also shut down two illegal drug-making laboratories,
Anatolia said.
Anatolia did not provide any statistical breakdown of trafficking
by group.
The police report noted that the PKK — classified as a terrorist
organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States —
is also routinely identified by international experts on narcotics
as being involved in drug trafficking.
The conflict between the PKK, which seeks an independent state in
Turkey’s predominately Kurdish southeast, and Turkish security forces
has claimed an estimated 37,000 lives since 1984.