The international conspiracy of October 9, 1998, which began with the Kurdish people’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, being forced to leave Syria, is now reaching its 26th anniversary. What can you tell us about the conspiracy and the intentions of those who organized it?

It indeed is necessary to understand the conspiracy and the struggle against it correctly. As the freedom movement and the people, we have been waging a historic resistance against the attacks of the international conspiracy under the leadership of Rêber Apo¹ for 26 years. On this basis, we salute the pioneer of this heroic resistance, Rêber Apo, and the struggle of our people for freedom and democracy led by the historic Imrali resistance. At the same time, we remember with respect, love, and gratitude our heroic martyrs who stood protectively in front of Rêber Apo and gave their lives carrying the slogan “You cannot darken our sun!” in their hearts. We once again express our conviction and will to defeat the international conspiracy and the Imrali torture and isolation system that represents it and to bury it in history by struggling more accurately and decisively, following the paved way of Rêber Apo and the legacy of our martyrs.

As it is known, the international conspiracy was launched on October 9, 1998, with Rêber Apo being forced to leave Syria. What followed was the biggest pursuit in history, extending from Russia to Europe and from there to Africa – continuing for over four months. With this attack, they aimed at destroying Rêber Apo, liquidating the PKK, the vanguard of the Kurdish people’s freedom. All obstacles in front of the Kurdish genocide were wanted to be removed. It should be noted that the international conspiratorial forces have indeed acted in a very planned and organized manner. They have come up with the most suitable attack strategy for themselves and put it into practice. By carrying out the Kurdish genocide, they aimed to further divide and fragment the Middle East, to make it live under fascist dictatorships, and to poison life for all humanity.

However, thanks to the very careful and sensitive stance and struggle developed by Rêber Apo against these conspiratorial extermination attacks, and thanks to the unity of our movement and our people based on the slogan “You cannot darken our sun!” their efforts came to nothing and their attack failed. Realizing that they could not destroy Rêber Apo with these methods, the conspiratorial forces changed their approach and made a new plan and came up with the February 15, 1999 conspiracy. It should be noted that they did not give up on the goal of Kurdish genocide, the liquidation of the PKK, and the destruction of Rêber Apo; it was only when they could not destroy Rêber Apo through conspiratorial methods that they had to change their methods and find new methods of destruction.

The conspiracy emerged on October 9 as an attack of annihilation. Many forget and ignore this. The conspirators wanted to destroy and annihilate Rêber Apo on October 9th. That is a fact about which there is nothing to argue. We live in a world where the law of the jungle applies. Whoever has the power, they attack brutally without adhering to any moral or legal rules. This process started most concretely with the attack on Rêber Apo. In the early 90s, during the dissolution of real socialism, there were also attacks in those areas, but apart from that, an attack of this kind started then. These extermination attacks were thwarted through struggle. Otherwise, it is not that our opponents did not plan and implement them; they planned, tried to implement them, but they failed. The February 15th conspiracy was planned for the execution of Rêber Apo. Some of us have lost touch with reality to the extent of saying, “They took Rêber Apo to solve the Kurdish question in Imrali.” They put him there to be executed. The execution could only be prevented through struggle. For some, the effect of the conspiracy began to take effect, so they started saying things like, “Struggle does not yield results; the struggle of the peoples, women, and youth is done, but it does not yield results; they have no power; only the rulers determine the outcome.” This was obviously wrong from the beginning. However, the struggle of the peoples, the struggle of the Kurds, and the effective and sacrificial struggle of Rêber Apo have always yielded successful results. It has frustrated the plans of the enemy, defeated them, and gained gains. The struggle prevented the extermination and prevented the execution.

The conspiratorial forces reevaluated the situation and decided to destroy Rêber Apo politically and ideologically through the policy of decay within the Imrali system. The so-called wise rulers of the Turkish Republic took the approach of ‘everyone else has used Apo; let’s use him in this way; let’s make him serve us’. They wanted to carry this out with the government headed by Ecevit, but in the end they themselves were defeated. Rêber Apo used his time in the Imrali system to deepen his thoughts and reassess the ideology of the movement. He gave self-criticism on behalf of the movement and struggle of all the oppressed and gave this struggle a new paradigm. In the solitary confinement of Imrali, he realized the greatest mental and intellectual revolution in history. He developed the new paradigm, the line of democratic civilization, which shows the path of liberation for all the oppressed, and created an appropriate system. He created the paradigm of democratic modernity. These are the greatest revolutionary developments in history. This means that one can struggle under those conditions as well; one can struggle, make progress, and achieve gains under all conditions. We saw this in the Imrali struggle. In the end, those who wanted to rot Rêber Apo in Imrali were confronted with the greatest revolutionary thought and were defeated. Then they hoped to achieve results with the lying and dishonest methods of the Tayyip Erdogan administration, the AKP. They thought that the AKP would bring the international conspiracy to a conclusion with its deceitfulness. They wanted to get results with all kinds of lies and deceit in the form of the so-called “solution process.” They wanted to succeed by misleading and deceiving the other side; they developed a thousand and one methods in this direction. Over the past twenty years, they have repeatedly created such plans. A great struggle was waged against them all. Thus, Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP’s way of managing the conspiracy was frustrated and defeated. Turkey was put as a “guardian”; in other words, Turkish politics as a system that will put the conspiracy into practice and bring it to a conclusion that will manage Imrali, has long since ended, is in crisis, and cannot get out. Together with Turkey, the conspiratorial system is in crisis and chaos; it cannot get out of it.

What results could be achieved in the 26 years of resistance and struggle against the conspiracy?

In order to take a truly patriotic position, it is first of all necessary to feel the effects of the conspiracy in all its depths. In the context of the conspiracy, various approaches emerged; there were those who assessed the situation very superficially, others who remained very narrow in their analyses, still others simply tried to continue their own way of life, while there were others who whined that they would now have to struggle with difficulties. For 26 years now, the existence of the free Kurds has constantly been under the sword of Damocles. This existence is preserved only by continuing a resistance with great consciousness and organization every day and every night. Instead of the Kurds living comfortably and freely, they live in a system of torture, isolation, and genocide – the Imrali system.

At that time, there were those who thought they could live by exploiting the gains that were achieved in Rojava and southern Kurdistan. There were those who thought they could live by exploiting the values that were created in southern Kurdistan. But they were mistaken. Talking about the gains and achievements of the Kurdish people, one must question on what basis they were created and are sustained. They are maintained and kept alive by carrying out the 24/7 resistance of existence against the torture, isolation, and genocide system of Imrali. They have not been created for individuals to exploit them. With the blood of tens of thousands of martyrs and by continuously giving martyrs day by day, these gains are kept alive, multiplied, and enlarged.

One needs to see the connection between the reality of the conspiracy and the reality of the Kurdish genocide. The Kurdish genocide attacks continue as an international conspiracy attack. For 26 years, since October 9, 1998, the free Kurdish existence has been ensured by the sacrificial resistance based on the Imrali resistance. One cannot understand Kurdish reality by looking at Hewler (Erbil). One can understand it by looking at Imrali. The real Kurdish entity, the free Kurdish entity, is there, and it is obvious what kind of annihilation attack it is under. Those who say that they want to live freely in Kurdistan must see, know, and understand how this life is created in Imrali and how it is achieved through a great 24/7 struggle.

And it should be emphasized that the struggle against the conspiracy has made significant progress throughout those 26 years. The ongoing global freedom campaign should be seen as one of its results. Not understanding the conspiracy leads to not understanding the Kurdish reality, the Kurdish genocide, the mentality and system that created this genocide, the global capitalist modernity system. Failure to understand this leads to a failure to understand the Kurdish strive for freedom and therefore to a failure to understand humanity’s gaining a free and democratic life. Not understanding the colonialist-genocidal mentality and system correctly also leads to not understanding the struggle against the conspiracy. It leads to wrong conclusions such as ‘the conspiracy cannot be fought against’ or ‘the conspiracy cannot be defeated’. This is how many liquidationist tendencies emerged among and around us. Individualism, disorganization, being according to oneself, and all the approaches that emerge by saying “my views” underlie this. In fact, we are living on the values created by the struggle against the conspiracy, but we are not aware of it. Some values have been created, and one can see that some people are asking themselves how they can use and exploit them for themselves. This is very dangerous, and we should forbid it for ourselves. Also, not understanding what values you are living on is like usurping the values that someone else has created through sweat and blood. This is no different from the theft of capitalist modernity; it is another version of it. After this 26-year struggle, we need to see what the results have been, and for this, we need to be well aware of the aims of the conspiracy.

In this context, let us take a closer look at the situation today. The international conspiracy is closely intertwined with the ongoing Third World War. This is something you have mentioned several times. What exactly does that mean? What can you tell us about it?

While there are those who are still puzzling over whether there will be such a war, it has to be said that this war has already been going on for years in various places. Generally speaking, this war has been going on for 35 years. Before, we used to say that those who are not in the war could not see and understand it. And it is really like that. People can only really understand something if it affects them directly and immediately. I guess we have reached this level of consciousness because we have been affected so much. The fact that the most powerful mental revolution in history has taken place in Imrali is linked to the system; it is linked to the scope, depth, historicity, and globality of the attack. Those who are not aware of this and live simple, individualistic, and narrow lives can see the world in a rosy light and say that just some events are disturbing. But there is indeed a world war raging.

As the capitalist system of modernity became the global hegemonic power, wars became globalized and World Wars emerged. The system of capitalist modernity means war and aggression. Before reaching the global level, these wars were local and regional. Once the system became global, that is, when the statist system took over the whole world, wars became world wars, and world wars have been going on ever since. Why it was divided into World War I, World War II, and World War III is related to the Soviet Revolution in Russia in 1917. That revolution reduced the intensity of war. It made the warring powers declare a ceasefire. Because it opposed this system by creating an alternative world. They had to declare a ceasefire out of fear of it. That is how the First World War ended. Otherwise, it did not end with the planning of the war itself; the system did not bring its own planning to a conclusion.

The so-called Second World War was Hitler’s Germany’s objection to this armistice. German capital wanted to try its luck with Hitler’s fascism and dominate global capital. The Soviet Union prevented this. It was mainly the Soviet resistance that defeated it. In the early 90s, when the Soviet Union dissolved, there was no obstacle for the global capitalist system of modernity to wage a World War. Real socialism must be criticized ideologically in terms of mentality, style, and system, but we must also give it its due. In two certain parts of the 20th century, from 1920 to 1940 and from 1950 to 1990, a truce occurred in between the Word Wars. They said they would represent world peace, and they had the right to say so because it was the existence of the Soviet Union that created the armistice. It was not only the existence of the Soviet Union as a state, politically and militarily, but also ideologically; it was the existence of socialism. This was the alternative to capitalism, the emergence of an alternative life and world. The fear of this forced the monopolies of capital to compromise instead of confrontation, or to limit and minimize the conflict.

They did this through various international institutions that they created. After the First World War, they created the League of Nations, and after the Second World War, they created the United Nations. They also created other institutions and made them accountable. The system itself did not come out of the war. It was the existence of the Soviet Union, the October Revolution, that forced it out of the war, forced it to leave the war, forced it into an armistice. It was the existence of the search for an alternative world. After this disappeared, the world entered war again.

The initial war was the German-British war. It was called the ‘war for the redivision of the world’. The essence of that war was to share sovereignty over energy resources and routes, the exploitation of the riches of Asia by Europe. Britain had become the ‘Empire on which the sun does not set’. The British capital had become the hegemonic capital; it had established sovereignty over all of Asia. The newly developing and strengthening German capital wanted a share of this and objected, demanding a bigger share. It wanted to establish more influence over energy resources and routes. This is how the war emerged. They built constructions accordingly. At the beginning of the war, there was the transportation of the riches of Asia to Europe and the marketing of goods produced in Europe in Asia because the population was in Asia, the riches were more in Asia, and consumption was higher in Asia. European capitalism could exist only with the raw materials and markets of Asia. Because it had to make a profit. The logic of the business was maximum profit; with an ever-growing greed for profit, it would attack wherever there was wealth, wherever the market was big.

Based on this, they wanted to create a trade and energy route from Europe to Asia. It started as the Berlin-Baghdad-Basra Railway Project. It was also a British project. The British wanted to create a trade route to Asia, to India particularly. Abdulhamid allied with the Germans and gave the project to them. The British opposed this and allied with France and Russia. When the administration of the Committee of Union and Progress formed a war front with the Germans, they entered the war. It was seen that Germany would build this road; therefore, it would become effective in the exploitation of Asia through India. Against this, Britain, France, and Russia entered the war to seize Ottoman lands. They started the war in 1914. In 1916, Britain-France and Russia reached an agreement on how they would share the Middle East. In other words, they mapped out how the capitalist modernity system would become global hegemonic and how they would share the Middle East. At the end of 1917 with the Soviet Revolution, Russia withdrew from this agreement and therefore from the war. As the Russian front remained weak, the environment of the war changed. On the one hand, it threatened to seek alternative socialist alternatives, and on the other hand, it broke the war alliance. Britain and France drew something in the Middle East with the result they achieved against Germany, but in the absence of Russia and the presence of the October Revolution and the Soviet Union, the Republic of Turkey was established.

It is considered Mustafa Kemal’s success. His success lies in the fact that he read and saw this political and military situation well and foresaw that he could create a certain development based on this new situation. He saw and evaluated the new situation created by the Soviet revolution. It also relied on the Ottoman army, which was left standing after Russia’s withdrawal, and mobilized the resistance power of the Kurdish people. With this, he went to the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and had the State of the Republic of Turkey recognized. The ruling powers, Britain and France, accepted this. Because they needed it to defend itself against the October Revolution and the Soviet Union, and also because according to that model, it was Russia’s territory anyway, they shared their own territory, and they compromised with it. Using it as a model, they envisioned shaping and developing the nation-state system of global capitalism in the Middle East. This was the case until 1990. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, the war resumed. Based on the current developments, based on the results 35 years later, we see that the fight over the energy route is still at the center. There is a fight over where the trade route will pass. That is what the Ukraine war is about. Russia and China made an alliance; they wanted to pass the energy route through the north of the Black Sea on the basis of China’s ‘Belt and Road’ project, in agreement with Europe through Ukraine. The US intervened there. For this reason, it risked withdrawing from Afghanistan and strengthened NATO. On the other hand, Turkey wanted to develop an alternative; they fought with Turkey. In the end, the war that started in 1990 is the desire to create such a secure energy route.

So you would say that the strategy of the ‘New World Order’ and the later accompanying ‘Greater Middle East Project’, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, was essentially developed by the US to pave the way for such an energy route?

Yes, that’s why they made Iraq invade Kuwait and then used that as a justification to put troops in the Gulf. They tried to control the Persian Gulf from the land and sea. Not enough, they launched invasion attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, using the September 11, 2001, Twin Tower attack as a pretext. They tried to take the Gulf and its environs under military control both through Saudi Arabia and by extending it to Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a struggle to secure that part of the road project they envisioned. They created a justification for this. Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait was a pretext. But they did not destroy Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War against Iraq. They kept Saddam Hussein in Baghdad for more than ten years, living with him. Because they were not ready, they did not have the power, and they were afraid. Most of all, they were afraid of the developments in Kurdistan. In such a situation, the freedom struggle developing in northern Kurdistan would spread to the South; it would be effective in Iraq through the South, and even when the Soviet Union could not be an alternative, those who feared the Soviet Union feared that they would face a more dangerous situation through Kurdistan, so they kept Saddam Hussein alive.

In southern Kurdistan, they established the Hewler administration in 1991 with the Operation Hammer Force, the aim of which was to encircle Baghdad from the north, but also one main aim was to prevent the PKK, the Kurdish freedom movement, from entering southern Kurdistan. It was to prevent the unification of northern and southern Kurdistan in the struggle for freedom. In 1991, the US initiated the administration of Hewler with Operation Hammer Force, and Rêber Apo wanted to create a free Kurdistan with the liberated areas of Botan and Behdinan and make a move for democratization in Turkey and Iraq. There were two opposing projects. It was America’s project that was implemented. The project envisioned by Rêber Apo could not be implemented in practice. These two confronted each other at that time. With the Hewler administration, they prevented the PKK from entering southern Kurdistan with the Hammer Force Operation. They created the KDP-PUK administration and supposedly gave it Kurdish status. Thus, they blocked it and created an alternative force against the PKK. Otherwise, there was no KDP and PUK.

In 1988, they had all scattered; they had all left. Some were in eastern Kurdistan, some in northern Kurdistan, some in Europe; they had no one in southern Kurdistan. This was also the beginning of the conspiracy. It was a preparation to encircle the PKK. Before the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, they needed to completely destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime in order to gain more control over the Gulf. In order to do this, they first envisioned making the PKK and Rêber Apo ineffective. They acted cautiously out of fear that there would be an alternative development and that they would be weak. In the First World War, they did not have such experience; they did not have such fear. In fact, the October Revolution was born partly out of that vacuum; the Bolsheviks took power in Russia with a very weak force; because the ground and the environment were open, there was no alternative to them. In that respect, the system was not afraid of them, so it tolerated the creation of such a vacuum. The Bolsheviks took advantage of that vacuum, but from 1990 onwards the system did not want to leave any vacuum. It tried to neutralize anyone who could be an alternative. In order to neutralize the PKK as an alternative, it brought the international conspiracy to the agenda before attacking Baghdad. It wanted to attack Baghdad by destroying Rêber Apo and neutralizing the PKK. They could not destroy him, but they attacked Baghdad by placing him under the Imrali isolation system, hoping that they would achieve results there.

Thus, in the first two decades, it seemed that they took control of the Gulf and its environs. After 2010, they want to control the Eastern Mediterranean in order to utilize the popular uprisings called the “Arab Spring,” the opposition in society against the Arab nation-state dictatorships, and the reaction that has developed in line with their own interests. With this, they went after the statist radical Islamic groups. They both overcame the Hosni Mubarak regime and took control of Egypt and North Africa to a certain extent by controlling the Ikhwan-i Muslumin regime. Together with ISIS, they envisioned to disintegrate and weaken Iraq and Syria and to further develop their influence in these regions. All of this was actually to take control of the Eastern Mediterranean as the second part of the energy route. While the US was still planning this route and before it had finalized it, it had a plan to lay it across the Iraqi border and take it to the Mediterranean through northern Syria. The reason why it went to war against ISIS in Kobane and allied itself with the Kurds was actually the approach of creating and securing the area for the energy route. This was their plan and project. But Turkey prevented this. It put pressure on the US by attacking from Jarablus and occupying Idlib. The resistance in Rojava developed very quickly militarily and could not achieve such effectiveness. In this situation, Turkey frustrated this plan of the US. So they envisioned the sea as a safer place, and in fact, they announced this road project at the G-20 summit in India in 2022.

They have made agreements with the relevant players and have completely secured the Gulf side. They also made agreements on the Eastern Mediterranean. There was an Israeli-Arab agreement. Egypt, Germany, and other countries made agreements. There were Egypt-Iran and Saudi-Iran agreements. They ensured the security of the Gulf partly on the basis of these agreements. They tried to do this by cleaning up the remaining rough edges. They also prepared Greece and southern Cyprus. For years, the US and Germany specifically prepared Greece for such a project. They have both equipped the islands militarily and created their ports.

Why is it in the interest of the Turkish state to obviously sabotage the announced road project? What does it hope to achieve through this?

After the announcement of this road project, Turkey realized that it was being excluded and objected to it. First, Turkey wanted to develop an alternative with the Azerbaijan-Armenia war; it wanted to connect Azerbaijan to Turkey by road and create a highway coming directly from Central Asia. In response, Iran and Israel put pressure on Azerbaijan in the Zangezor Strait and frustrated Turkey there. Now, Turkey wants to do the same with Iraq. Under the name of ‘Development Road Project,’ it is trying to create an alternative route from the Gulf to Europe through Turkey. They do not raise a voice against it, but they are in the process of implementing their own projects. Turkey wanted to organize the Development Road with Iraq and make it an alternative, and by putting Hamas in place, it wanted to frustrate the road project announced in India. Hamas’ attack on Israel was on this basis. Turkey was behind it. They did it with the hand of Tayyip Erdogan himself. Supposedly, they were going to make Israel an unsafe zone. Actually, it was the US and Israel who wanted this; they wanted to find an excuse and create a war that would enable them to remove Hamas and Hezbollah, the obstacles in front of them. Hamas created this, and Turkey pushed Hamas into this. They say Iran pushed it, but this has nothing to do with Iran. Some people say that Iran should have agreed from the beginning. Personally, I am not of that opinion. It’s not that Iran has completely dismissed them, but Iran has to deal with this way in the Persian Gulf. Therefore, it is not in a war that will frustrate this path. Many leftist circles claim this; especially the Turkish state, the AKP government, is doing this, and everyone is following in their footsteps. It has become so much so that Tayyip Erdogan has now become the leader of the anti-US and anti-Israeli front. He has been speaking in recent days, saying, ‘We are the leader; everyone will follow us’, but this is all false and lies. The US and Israel are using Tayyip Erdogan. First they directed Tayyip Erdogan to guide Hamas to be crushed by Israel, then they provoked Hezbollah, saying that when Hezbollah is fighting in Lebanon, Iran will join them. And now they have created the Lebanese war. Turkey is successful in creating war. Why is Turkey doing all this? It wants to disrupt this road project. It wants to keep the war there and prevent it from coming closer. Because the energy route will pass through the Eastern Mediterranean, all these wars are to create the ‘security’ of the Eastern Mediterranean. A significant part of the Eastern Mediterranean borders Turkey.

The biggest port in the Eastern Mediterranean will be southern Cyprus. When the road reaches southern Cyprus, they will annex the north. There will be no one left in Northern Cyprus. If Turkey wants to object to this, it might face a heavy reaction. Turkey prevented the road from passing through northern Syria so that the Kurds would not benefit from it; now, it itself was left out of the road. Until now, all energy routes passed through Turkey. They called themselves the bridge between Asia and Europe. They said that their strategic position is very important; everything passes through them. Indeed, everything from east to west passed through Turkey. From south to north, everything was passing through Turkey; all of them were passing through the Bosphorus. Now the Bosphorus is excluded. All of Turkey is excluded. Thus, Turkey’s strategic importance is lost. One, it was important against the Soviet Union; they made an agreement in Lausanne, and this has disappeared. Two, it was a trade route and was important, and with this project it disappears. For the system of capitalist modernity, the current Turkish state has no special importance.

On the other hand, the center of the war is Turkey. The First World War started over the Ottoman Empire. The continuation of the Ottoman Empire is Turkey. In fact, the French-British part of the division of the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire by the British-French-Russian alliance was realized; the Russian part was not. The Turkish state was established in the areas given to Russia. The state of the Republic of Turkey is not compatible with the global hegemonic plan of capitalist modernity; it is against it. The state that contradicts it the most is the Turkish state. Because according to that plan, there was no such state. In the end, even after Russia withdrew, they concluded the Treaty of Sevres. They did not give the Straits, the Aegean, or Kurdistan; they gave the Turks a tiny place. In fact, before that, in the division of Russia-Britain-France, maybe Turkey did not exist at all. The fact that it became such a state was purely temporary; it is not in line with the global hegemonic plan of capitalist modernity. The existence of the October Revolution and the Soviet Union revealed this. Now, in their absence, capitalist modernity is restructuring itself as a global hegemonic system, taking into account current developments but also eliminating the aspects that contradict it. And it is Turkey that is experiencing the most contradictions. In this respect, Turkey is actually the center of the war; it will end in Turkey. The big fight will take place in Turkey. This is due to both the restructuring of the system in the Middle East and the energy route that has been created. Turkey’s rulers realized this, albeit a little late. They saw the energy route late; they realized it when it was announced, and immediately Tayyip Erdogan brought up the Karabakh War to frustrate this route. Recently, they have realized it a little bit, so they are doing everything to turn the war into a war between Iran and Israel, between Iran and the US, in order to keep the war outside of themselves. The idea is to have an Iran-US war so that no war comes to Turkey and Turkey’s position is preserved. Just as in the British-French-Soviet Union conflict the Turkish Republic was established, now they want a US-Iranian war so that Turkey is left untouched or the global capitalist system is dependent on Turkey. They want to protect the current Turkey. But this will not happen. Turkey has made all kinds of provocations for this.

What exactly is the system of capitalist modernity trying to achieve with the war in Gaza and Lebanon? What exactly Iran wants to do? How can the stages of this war develop? Where is Turkey in this war, and how is it reflected in Turkey?

The Iranian leadership was more prudent in the Gaza war. It did not make itself a party to the war. But Hezbollah is different; Hezbollah can be considered a force organized by Iran. The Hamas-Iran relations were different from the Hezbollah-Iran relations. We were saying that Iran would not give the opportunity for such a war in Lebanon, that it would not make itself a party to the war, and if we look now, in its current state, it is trying not to do so; its statements show that. Iran still says that they do not go to war against Israel. But it could have protected Hezbollah. For example, it could have pulled back; they didn’t fight in the Persian Gulf. Why did it drag Hezbollah into the war in Lebanon? Is that what it wanted? Some people say that Iran made a deal and sold out the Hezbollah leadership. Is this the truth, or was it powerless? Because there were many provocations. Especially the Turkish provocations were too much. Was it unable to prevent the provocations, and such a war was entered into? We don’t know this exactly. But what is clear is that after Gaza, Lebanon would be next, then Syria, then Cyprus, and Turkey. This will go on like this.

The free press is reporting about Rêber Apo’s assessments of Israel. On this basis, it reports the construction of the state of Israel. Yes, they are trying to create a Jewish society. They bring people from all over the world; in fact, the state of Israel is the headquarters of global capital in the Middle East. Jewish capital is very influential. They want to make it effective on this basis. They want to ensure its security and make it the center of the energy route. Thus, they will create the new Middle East with the Israeli-Arab alliance. Obviously, the Iranians are also in this alliance, and they have compromised. The Iran-Saudi and Iran-Egypt agreements ensured this. They did not openly agree with the US, but Iran’s agreement with Saudi Arabia and Egypt was an agreement with this system.

Turkey is in contradiction with this system, even if it is in NATO. The Israeli war is a war of the system. The US and NATO are behind it. The US has decided to bring in additional military forces and navy; it has increased its military power step by step. When Iraq invaded Kuwait and the Gulf Crisis began, within the first three months the US brought 150 thousand troops to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Arab Emirates, and the Middle East. Now the Gaza war has started; it has brought its entire navy to the Eastern Mediterranean, to the Red Sea. This time it is holding the Middle East from the sea. Back then it held the main places by land, and now it is holding them by sea. Israel is fighting on their behalf.

Also, Israel’s method of warfare is a bit like ISIS. It uses a shocking, effective, striking style. This is what it did in Gaza, but it did it even more against Hezbollah. It did it both by blowing up the pagers and by striking the headquarters from the air and with the support of intelligence. It wants to shock the other side; it wants to shock everyone. It wants to create an atmosphere of ‘Israel cannot be fought, Israel cannot be opposed’. It uses its technical and intelligence power. This is the case in all new wars. Now it has launched a ground operation. Most probably, it will impose the disarmament of Hezbollah, but if not that, it will at least foresee the disarmament of a large area of Lebanon close to the Israeli border, creating a buffer zone. There used to be a UN peacekeeping force in the early 80s, made up of many states. They created a buffer zone between the Palestinians and Israel. Then, when the Palestinian guerrillas withdrew from Lebanon with the 1982 attack, they ended that force. Hezbollah filled all those gaps. Hezbollah filled both the vacuum created by the withdrawal of the peacekeeping force and the vacuum created by the withdrawal of the Palestinian guerrilla. Now they are going to push them back completely. They will ensure the following: One, there will be no military threat to Israel from Lebanon. Two, there will be no Lebanese threat to trade in the Eastern Mediterranean; on the contrary, Lebanon will adapt and participate. They can create this in a short time. The result against Hezbollah shows that this will happen. Hezbollah suffered a heavy blow. How did it take it? Why was it so unprepared? One cannot know the exact reasons, but we know this: Communication is important in organizational functioning, and they made it extremely technically dependent because it was constantly monitored by intelligence. When the technical connection was severed by blowing up the devices, Hezbollah became unable to manage itself. That’s when intelligence came into play faster. This technical attack and the breakdown of communication are linked to the complete destruction of the administration in a few moves. Hezbollah relied on Iran. In fact, it was supporting Hamas, but in the statements of Hassan Nasrallah, at the beginning, he did not envisage much war with Israel. He was saying things close to Iranian policy. Gradually, in the last period, provocations have increased, and they have reached a confrontational situation. They probably wouldn’t carry out such an attack; diplomacy was in effect, France, etc. were making diplomatic initiatives, and it was as if there was a vacuum; Israel took advantage of the vacuum and struck a blow. It did not last as long as Hamas. The whole leadership was almost eliminated. In fact, Hezbollah controlled an area like Hamas. All of South Lebanon was in the hands of Hezbollah; it is based on the Shiite community; it has a social basis. It was also an example of an underground organization.

Now they are still saying that they will resist the ground operation, but we don’t know how much resistance there will be. There will be a certain resistance, but when the leadership is eliminated, it will be difficult for them to carry out the resistance. If the leadership had not been eliminated, they could have resisted more than Gaza because they have rural areas. If they have developed a strong underground, and Hezbollah’s work was cited as an example for this, they may be able to do some things. Hezbollah also participated in the Syrian war and has experience from there. If Israel attacked Lebanon the way it attacked Gaza, Lebanon would also have a hard time. If it had attacked with an invasion method from the beginning, it would have been hit, and Hezbollah would have resisted more strongly. In fact, Israel’s tactics are very effective. First break the contact, then hit the leadership. No matter how much warrior power or underground preparation, after these two blows, they will not be led, they will not be able to communicate, and there will be no leadership. Like this, it is difficult to resist. Still, one cannot say anything for sure, but the conflict situation in Lebanon may not last as long as Gaza. This is how it can be evaluated.

We cannot say anything about what will follow in Syria. There is mainly Russia’s influence in Syria. One does not know whether the rematch of the Russia-Ukraine war will take place in Syria or whether they will keep Ukraine separate and Syria separate. These are the internal relations of the system, conflicts of interest. Maybe Russia will fight in Ukraine, but in Syria they can compromise on the basis of not going completely outside the system. So far, the US and Russia have carried out operations in Syria in a certain alliance. This was the case until the road conflict. After the war in Ukraine, this situation deteriorated a bit, but that line has not completely broken down either. Both the situation of the Assad regime, the situation in Syria, and Russia’s presence in the Mediterranean are essentially there. If they clash with Russia, it will be difficult, and Turkey is one of the forces that will encourage Russia to clash with the US. If that happens, Turkey will secure itself. If the US-Russia conflict develops, just as the Turkish Republic survived on the basis of the US-Soviet conflict, now it wants to survive on the basis of the US-Russia conflict. If so, it may survive. But for now, we don’t know for sure, but if they come to an agreement with Russia so that Syria is no longer an obstacle to trade in the Eastern Mediterranean, then Turkey will be next. The surgery in Turkey will be done through Cyprus. It will be connected to the energy route. Turkey will be asked to completely surrender and become a servant. They will leave no room for self-determination. If it does not do so, they will dismember Turkey.

There is the planning of the Treaty of Sevres. Before that, there are the plans of the Brest-Litovsk Agreement. On the basis of them, they will dismember Turkey. Rêber Apo wrote about this fifteen years ago and warned them many times. He said that the things they rely on would tear them apart. They did not listen. AKP-MHP fascism has led Turkey into such a disaster. Rêber Apo also said: “There is no place for the current Turkey in this system. There is no Turkey in the global capitalist hegemony. Therefore, Turkey can only exist with an alternative system. Through a free Kurdistan, a democratic Turkey can emerge. If it turns towards pioneering the creation of democratic confederalism in the Middle East, Turkey can preserve its existence.” This was Rêber Apo’s project. His warnings were on this basis. Instead of taking this into consideration, they wanted to destroy the PKK, to completely intimidate and neutralize Rêber Apo through isolation. They wanted to intimidate the Kurdish people through isolation and attacks on the PKK. In other words, the AKP, Tayyip Erdogan, and Devlet Bahceli gambled, thinking that they could survive by relying a little bit on Russia, by provoking others, and by launching invasion attacks. But on the contrary, they directed them all towards this. They also allowed invasion attacks on Rojava and southern Kurdistan. They did this in order to put Turkey under more control. Therefore, the situation in Syria depends on Russia’s attitude. If there is no war there, the center of the war will be Turkey; contradictions and conflicts will intensify in Turkey. We must see this absolutely clearly. The current Turkish Republic will cease to exist.

It seems that the system is afraid to intervene in Turkey because of the PKK’s presence. Is it because of this fear that they allow the Turkish Republic to cross the borders and carry out invasion attacks?

The Turkish Republic has already abrogated Lausanne when it invaded Idlib, poured troops into Jarablus, and attempted a military invasion of southern Kurdistan and the Medya Defense Zones². According to the Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey was not to enter these borders. By launching a military invasion, it has abolished the borders; therefore, it has abolished Lausanne. Now the restructuring is taking place through the energy route. If they solve the problems in Lebanon and Syria, the Arab-Israeli problem will be solved. The way is completely paved for Israeli-Arab reconciliation. The new Middle East will be built accordingly, and most probably Iran should be reconciled with this, because Iran was not in a position to be disintegrated in the First World War; Iran’s integrity was there for the capitalist system to become a global hegemony. The Ottoman Empire was disintegrating; there was still no Turkey. Therefore, most probably the Iranian regime will be kept in the system by exerting pressure on it, but Turkey will be reshaped; the process is heading in that direction. Maybe this process is being delayed, and the main reason for the delay is again the existence of the PKK. They are still afraid of making the necessary interventions in Turkey because of the PKK’s existence. That is why they allowed and supported the Turkish invasion attacks. They added the KDP to this, and now they have also added Iraq. All of this is actually carried out by the global capitalist system. They are doing it to weaken the PKK. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe extended the deadline by one year to weaken the PKK. They are afraid of any intervention in Turkey if the PKK is strong. An example of this happened in Russia. There was a vacuum in the system; a handful of Bolshevik organizations took over. Now they are afraid that if they develop a conflict situation in Turkey, the PKK would be too strong and would take over Turkey. They are trying to weaken the PKK and lure it into compromise in Rojava. If they achieve results there, they will spread the war to Turkey. They will develop the operation in Turkey. After that, there is no telling what will happen to Turkey or the Kurds.

The alternative to this is a democratic Turkey and a democratic Middle East based on Kurdish freedom. Rêber Apo developed this formulation. He said, “Free Kurdistan, Democratic Middle East.” Then he created the “Democratic Middle East Confederalism.” It is the Democratic Nation and Democratic Confederalism projects that could prevent the attacks, conflict of interests, and fragmentation of the Middle East through capitalist modernity and could bring the Middle East to a position where free, democratic, and brotherly peoples live together. They did not allow Rêber Apo to implement this. They forced Turkey to war with Rêber Apo and the PKK. The ‘cokturme plani’³ is not only the plan of the AKP-MHP; it is the plan of the forces carrying out the Kurdish genocide. It is necessary to see it this way. The situation is very critical. When they launched attacks on Rêber Apo and the movement, yes, we carried out a resistance at some level, but we could not develop an activity to break all this. This could have been prevented if the AKP-MHP administration had been overthrown earlier, if the awareness and organization of democratic modernity had spread more in the Middle East. But this was not achieved. Tayyip Erdogan and Devlet Bahceli are still in power and continue their projects. This, too, is supposedly in opposition to the system, but it is part of the system. It is not outside the system, although it has relations with Russia and some other powers. Therefore, there is something effective that the global capitalist powers are developing through Israel in order to realize their plans. After Lebanon, the US will step in during the Cyprus process; the US made a security agreement with southern Cyprus; Israel also made an agreement; they held joint military exercises; they developed some ports for trade. The US and some powers will then directly intervene.

It can be seen that we are in a very important process. So is the situation of the war in Kurdistan. So is the expansion of the Third World War in the Eastern Mediterranean. The developments in Lebanon have revealed this situation. There are those who wonder whether this will spread to Iran; it seems very difficult and rather unlikely. We thought that it would not be like this in Lebanon, but it did not happen as we thought. Because provocations can lead to different situations. We should not say that it will happen one hundred percent, but the tendency in Iran is to reconcile with the system and stay out of the war. But we have to take into account the possibility of war; we have to take into account the possibility of staying out of war. We have to consider the situation in Syria. We should try to develop our struggle more strongly for what should happen if it is Turkey’s turn.

Considering the situation you have assessed in detail; what is the role of the Kurdish freedom movement? What do you think is to be done?

So far we have not been able to implement our line effectively, sufficiently, and successfully. They wanted to annihilate us; yes, we are preventing annihilation, but we have not been able to develop an activity that would disrupt the plans of the other side. Now they want to weaken us and make us like Hezbollah and Hamas and dominate Kurdistan completely. If we frustrate this, what Rêber Apo calls ‘intermediate solutions’ may come to the agenda. The situation in Rojava may generalize a bit. We must be open and ready for that too. In this sense, we need to handle the practice in North and East Syria better and evaluate it more accurately. We need to carry it out in a more planned and effective manner. It is necessary not to become too dependent, but we should not think that we will be left alone there with only our own power, with no one else, without seeing our own real situation. Either you spread it around; in Kurdistan, in other parts of the Middle East, you bring out the power and democracy of the peoples and rely on it, or you will be in reconciliation. Otherwise, there is no other way to survive. In this sense, approaches that are too submissive are also wrong; approaches that are shortcuts and detached from reality are also wrong. We must not fall into these situations. Therefore, we must see this reality and accordingly be in a position to carry out more planned, more organized reconciliation and alliances better. We must not be destructive; we must not eliminate them; that is also wrong.

By making the struggle more effective as much as possible and spreading more in the region and the world on the basis of the global freedom campaign, it will serve us to some extent to develop the alternative of democratic modernity against the global capitalist modernity system’s total domination of itself. There are possibilities and opportunities for this, but it is necessary to assess correctly, to be organized, and to be able to fight more effectively with a creative style. When we realize this, we will definitely succeed. The conspiracy is a process intertwined with the world war. It can be handled and evaluated differently. In order to successfully wage the struggle against the conspiracy and to understand today’s events, it is necessary to correctly understand the reality of the world war in which the conspiracy is intertwined.

This means that success can be achieved through struggle; many plans of the conspiracy were foiled. It has been defeated many times. Now the global freedom campaign is the finale of this. It aims to achieve the physical freedom of Rêber Apo by breaking the Imrali torture system. This can be realized. The lessons of 26 years of struggle show us this. The fact that 26 years of struggle have repeatedly broken the attack plans of the international conspiracy proves the fact that the conspiracy can be completely shattered and destroyed. Therefore, if the struggle is carried out more accurately and effectively, results can be achieved, and such a stage has been reached. This needs to be well understood. We must be more faithful and hopeful in the struggle. We must act more planned and organized. We must act more creatively. We must be more courageous and sacrificial. We have really reached the stage of achieving results, and we must be in an action that can realize this, consciously seeing that results can be achieved and believing in it.

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