Recently, 4 ranking Turkish soldiers were caught in a military vehicle with 80 kilograms of drugs at a search point in Sur, Amed.
Thirty people were detained in operations launched after the arrest of the 4 ranking soldiers, including the Lice Central Gendarmerie Commander, for the drug trade.
According to the statements given by the detained soldiers, they had carried out drug trade before and had relations with the raw material providers.
During the interrogations, the soldiers confessed that they could easily pass through checkpoints because of the transportation of drugs by military vehicles. They stated that the drug trade network was not limited to Lice. The soldiers further stated that the drugs being processed in the Northern Kurdistan region were being transported to the West of Turkey in mass scales.
Regarding the event, the Governor’s Office made a statement after 4 days. As per usual policy, the fascist governor said that the soldiers were compromised and had made the shipments for the PKK, despite PKK supporters being arrested in the region for reactions to drug-dealers.
Countering the confessions of the detained soldiers, the Governor’s Office said that the soldiers had “not done this job before.”
This is not the first
In Kurdistan, not only the soldiers but also the Turkish police are heavily involved in the drug business. On December 6, a police officer in Hazro district was caught with 120 kilograms of cannabis in his car.
It has been revealed many times that soldiers were arrested while smuggling drugs in an official vehicle to and from Northern Kurdistan provinces which has increased since the State of Emergency was declared.
On 26 July 2016, under the pretext of a coup, state of emergency was declared in all provinces of Kurdistan where soldiers could not enter the streets due to resistance.
After the announced state of emergency, all institutions and organizations of Northern Kurdistan were put under pressure by the MIT and the General Directorate of Security of the Ministry of Interior. After suppressing all the institutions in Kurdistan, the Turkish State’s official institutions became hubs of drug and prostitution networks.
According to the information we received from the people of the region, the drug traffickers were personally protected by the state, although they were complained by the public, they were rarely arrested only to be released within hours.
In their statements, the Kurdistanis expressed that the use of drugs has increased since the state of emergency.
