Turkey's Bahceli lauds intelligence operation in Kosovo

Opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli has praised the operation of Turkish intelligence agency in Kosovo that resulted in six senior members of Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) being brought back to Turkey.

In cooperation with Kosovar intelligence, Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) arrested six men, who were said to be in charge of getting FETO members out of Turkey to go to Europe and the U.S., alongside their activities in the Balkans.

The group, brought back to Turkey by a private plane, is made up of Cihan Ozkan, Kahraman Demirez, Hasan Huseyin Gunakan, Mustafa Erdem, Osman Karakaya, and Yusuf Karabina, all wanted in Turkey as FETO fugitives.

"This is what the [Turkish] state should do," Bahceli said during his party's parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday.

He added: "There are so many [FETO] traitors running wild in the U.S. and European countries."

Bahceli called for similarly bringing back FETO's U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen.

"If the traitor priest in Pennsylvania would be held at night by a brave Turkish youth while throwing a hood over his head, and then if he could be brought to Turkish justice while being brought with a plane or ship over the ocean, in that case all project owners’ masks would be dropped," Bahceli said.

"In that way, national conscience will take a deep breath."

He reiterated that FETO, which orchestrated the July 2016 defeated coup in Turkey, was a "project terror group".

On March 28, National Security Council defined the terror organizations FETO, YPG/PYD/PKK and Daesh as "project terror groups" that target Turkey's national security.

FETO orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016 in Turkey, which left 250 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

Ankara also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.

Dislodging PKK from Sinjar

Bahceli said that Turkey would continue to take necessary steps for the security of its southern borders.

"If the Iraqi government cannot clear Sinjar, which is 60 kilometers away from our borders, of [YPG/PKK's] traitors, Turkey is capable of doing it," said Bahceli.

"Destroying all terror targets starting from Qandil to northern Syria by neutralizing all terrorists is a matter of honor for the Turkish state."

Airstrikes on PKK targets in northern Iraq, where the terror group has its main base in the Mt. Qandil region near the Iranian border, have been carried out regularly since July 2015, when the PKK resumed its armed terror campaign against Turkish forces.

In late March, Iraqi troops were deployed in Sinjar after members of the PKK terrorist group withdrew from the district.

The PKK first established a foothold in Sinjar in 2014 on the pretext that it was “protecting” the local Ezidi community from the Daesh terrorist group.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently hinted at the possibility of a military campaign aimed at dislodging the PKK from Sinjar.

The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- waged a terror campaign against Turkey for more than 30 years and has been responsible for the death of nearly 40,000 people.