If it were not for the weapons and financial support by some European countries, the PKK terror group would have been eliminated and our children would not be abducted by its terror affiliates, said one of the fathers attending an anti-terror protest in southeastern Turkey.
The sit-in protest in the Diyarbakır province has been ongoing outside the office of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), an opposition party accused by the protesters of playing a role in their children's forced recruitment and abduction by the PKK and its Syrian offshoot, the YPG.
"The Kurdish people, including myself, are greatly disturbed by the PKK's policy of forcing children to bear arms," said Süleyman Aydın, who has been part of the protest for years to bring back his son, Özkan, who was abducted in 2015 at the age of 15.
Despite his family being devastated when Özkan went missing, Süleyman never stopped looking for him and finally joined the sit-in alongside other parents.
"Who in their right mind could be okay with the abduction of a 15-year-old boy? My son could not even tell the difference between right and wrong due to his young age. Does it make sense that he could make a decision like that on his own?" he said, accusing the YPG/PKK affiliates of indoctrinating children and influencing their decisions by taking advantage of their lack of experience.
Aydın also said the YPG/PKK claimed to be the champions of Kurds and fighting for their rights, but the reality on the ground pointed to the opposite as the terrorist group forcibly recruited underage children of Kurdish families and threw them into deadly clash zones in northern Iraq and Syria "with no respect for human life."
"They are using our children against our country, Turkey, and the Kurdish community here hates them for this reason," he said. "Our people are now conscious and know the intentions (of the terror group)."
Ayten Elhaman is another protester who joined the sit-in protest to reunite with her son Bayram. He was abducted by the PKK in 2017 when he was only 16 years old and sent to northern Iraq to fight under the banner of the terror group.
The 44-year-old mother of four said the PKK and its Syrian branch got encouraged by foreign support in the mid-2010s, and this marked the period in which a large number of young people in the region were forcibly recruited by the PKK and YPG.
"I still cannot believe how they have brainwashed my son and tricked him into joining the PKK. He was such a shy and introverted boy, and now he is forced to fight against our country from the Iraqi regions," she said.
The weeping mother accused HDP members of acting as the political extension of the PKK and assisting the indoctrination and brainwashing of underage children.
"They (PKK and YPG terrorists) claim to be fighting for the Kurdish people. We are Kurdish as well (but) cannot accept such acts. They say they are defending Kurds, but this is not the case," she said. "It is not the Turkish state but the HDP and PKK oppressing us."
"All we want is to reunite with our children. We do not have anything to do with the politics or war," she said.
"The uncertainty about my child's fate is killing me slowly. I do not even know if he is alive or not. If he's dead, I would at least want to have his body so as to recite prayers next to his grave.
"Half of our youth is either belowground or taken to mountains. We say enough!"
In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the European Union -- has been responsible for the deaths of some 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants. The YPG is its Syrian offshoot.
