Dutch analyst announces receiving death threats from PKK terror group

By Merve Aydogan

ANKARA (AA) - A Dutch researcher has announced receiving death threats from the PKK terror group's social media accounts as well as via emails.

On Twitter, Rena Netjes went public with the incident, saying: "For the past few weeks I have been receiving death threats and other warnings from Rojava Kurdish accounts (incl from Paris).

"Tonight I got emails that they made my profile on lesbian/gay/sex accounts. I pay a price for exposing PYD propaganda," she said on Twitter on Sunday.

In an online report titled "the YPG/PYD During the Syrian Conflict," which was published back in April 2021, Netjes and her fellow researcher Erwin Van Veen concluded that "what emerges from the analysis is an organization that has ruthlessly pursued its objective of establishing and controlling its own autonomous territory and sphere of action."

It added: "The YPG/PYD's record is further muddled by the sway that an organization external to Syria – namely the PKK – holds over it ... As it happens, the PKK pursues a regional agenda that includes conflict with several other entities – such as Turkey and the KDP. The YPG/PYD's link with the PKK makes the support it seeks from external parties such as EU member states neither feasible nor appropriate."

The PKK and its Syrian branch the YPG have used terrorist bases across Türkiye's border in northern Iraq and northern Syria to plot and carry out attacks on Türkiye. The group has worked to create a terrorist corridor along the Syrian border, threatening both Syrian locals and nearby Turkish residents.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the US and EU – has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.

Since 2016, Ankara has launched a trio of successful anti-terror operations across its border in northern Syria to prevent the formation of a terror corridor and enable the peaceful settlement of residents: Euphrates Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018), and Peace Spring (2019). Turkish officials have suggested another such operation is coming.