PKK: EU Should Remove Us from Terror List

PKK: EU Should Remove Us from Terror List

The Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) has called on the European Union to remove them from its list of terrorist organizations and aid them in their fight against Islamic State (IS) militants.

Demhat Agid, a PKK spokesman based in the Qandil mountain range, told BasNews that their fighters have been fighting the jihadi group in both Iraq and Syria and pleaded their case for military help in preventing IS insurgents spreading through the region.

“We don’t see ourselves as terrorists, in fact we are freedom fighters, fighting for our rights just like any other nation in the world,” said Agid.

“Now the time has come for the EU and its Parliament to review its attitude towards us, as they can see now that we are fighting a terrorist organization that is against humanity,’ added the senior PKK official.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by several states and organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United States, and the European Union.

The Council of the European Union has added the PKK to its list of terrorist organizations in 2004.

In recent months, with IS attacks in northern Iraq and Syrian Kurdistan, the PKK and its affiliated forces in Syria, known as the YPG, have been fighting the extremist group and there have been calls for the PKK to be removed from US and EU terrorist lists and given weapons to fight IS militants.