YEREVAN (Realist English). The editor-in-chief of the Realist News Agency, Sarkis Tsaturyan, condemned the extradition of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party militiamen Atilla Çiçik and Hussein Yildirim to the Turkish fascist regime.
“The surrender of fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party to the clutches of the Turkish fascist regime is the height of cynicism and betrayal on the part of the viceroys in Yerevan. How can people be extradited to the country that still does not recognize the Armenian Genocide, which attacked Armenia and Artsakh in 2020, and with which Armenia does not even have diplomatic relations?
The joint liberation struggle of the Armenian peasantry and the Kurdish peasantry from Turkish colonial oppression has been going on since at least 1880 — since the Uprising of Sheikh Obeidullah. And it went on throughout the twentieth century with small interruptions (for example, the Uprising of Sheikh Said). During the genocide, the Turks exterminated the Kurdish militias no less cruelly than the Armenians.
The goal of the viceroys in Yerevan is to bury the glorious traditions of the joint Armenian-Kurdish struggle against Turkish fascism. But we must preserve our ties with the Kurds by all means!
I am an Armenian and I speak only for myself now: the Pashinyan regime does not represent me. I condemn the betrayal of the fighters of the Kurdish People’s militia. This is an indelible shame!
Pashinyan turns Armenians into outcasts. Are you looking for support in the USA and Iran to defend Syunik and Artsakh? Are you really looking for it? Am I right? With what eyes will Washington and Tehran, who support the Kurds in every possible way, now look at the Armenian authorities? Guess three times,” Tsaturyan said in his telegram channel.
Earlier, the Kurdish People’s Defense Forces (HPG) reported that çiçik and Yildylyrim were detained by the Armenian border guards in August 2021. On February 23, 2022, they appeared before the Armenian Court of Appeal, which decided to free them.
“According to international and Armenian law, they should have been released. Instead, they were abducted and detained by the Armenian special services. Despite the fact that they were promised release after the initiatives taken, they were extradited from Armenia to Turkey about a month ago,” the HPG statement reads.
The Kurdish People’s Militia held Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan responsible for the extradition.
