Western countries need to stop their unconditional support for the pro-PKK Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and recognize the body’s ties with PKK terrorists, Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said Sunday.
"The West needs to stop spreading HDP/PKK lies and tell the truth," Altun said on his Twitter account.
Recalling that the PKK and its affiliates are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people, including women and children, Altun said the terrorist group also perpetrated suicide attacks and released thousands of Daesh terrorists from prisons in Syria.
"Refusing to condemn those cowardly acts, HDP officials glorify terrorists, including suicide bombers, and act as PKK recruiters," he said.
Altun noted that this is why Kurdish parents have been protesting outside the HDP’s headquarters in Diyarbakır for facilitating the forcible recruitment and abduction of their children.
The communication director’s criticism came after police discovered posters of the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan in the HDP’s building in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district.
Öcalan, who founded the PKK in 1978, was arrested in 1999 due to his role in the terrorist group’s decadeslong campaign against the Turkish state, which led to the deaths of more than 40,000 people.
The HDP has many times drawn ire for transferring taxpayer money and funds to the PKK, a globally recognized terrorist group. HDP mayors and local officials have been found to misuse funds in support of the PKK terrorist group and provide jobs to PKK sympathizers.