Turkey urges Europe to cooperate against PKK terrorism

EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış has urged European countries to cooperate with Turkey in its counterterrorism efforts against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which he claimed was "the largest human and illicit drug trafficking network in Europe," a comment that came on top of piling resentment of Turkish officials toward Europe for indirectly financing the organization. "Europe needs to cooperate with Turkey to end this network of drugs and human trafficking [the PKK] now," Bağış told a private television news station on Tuesday before he left for Brussels on a two-day visit to meet with European officials and discuss Turkey's EU progress. Noting that it would greatly benefit Europe's own problems regarding drug trafficking, Bağış said it was high time for Europe to realize that cooperating with Turkey "would indeed work in their favor" and save the European youth from drugs, a major issue that he claimed was largely connected to the PKK trafficking ring across Europe. Bağış also criticized European countries for adopting an indifferent attitude and not bothering to solve the PKK problem "unless it came banging on their doors," as he acknowledged that PKK sympathizers in many European countries have extorted money from people using threats and blackmail, an issue that "urgently needs to be addressed by the EU member countries' intelligence agencies."