On Tuesday, Kurdish politician Yüksel Koç was arrested for alleged PKK activities. While the organisation announced its disarmament, Germany is holding on to the terror label – and playing for time.
On Tuesday, the German Federal Criminal Police Office arrested the Kurdish politician Yüksel Koç in his Bremen flat. The Public Prosecutor General’s Office accuses the 61-year-old Turkish national of acting as a full-time cadre of the Kurdistan Workers‘ Party (PKK), which is classified as a ‘terrorist organisation’’, from June 2016 to July 2023. He is said to have been responsible for the coordination and implementation of ‘propaganda activities’ and to have been closely linked to the PKK’s European leadership. On Wednesday, Koç was issued with an arrest warrant by the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice.
Yüksel Koç is in fact a prominent figure in the transnational Kurdish movement. He was co-chair of the Congress of the Democratic Society of Kurds in Europe until 2023. His lawyer Fatma Sayin emphasises that the accusations under the terrorism section 129b of the penal code relate to Koç’s work within the umbrella organisation – but that these activities were ‘legal, public and political in nature’.
Koç became familiar with the German justice system as a victim and witness back in 2017 – when it became known that he had been spied on by the Turkish secret service MIT for years. The presumed agent Mehmet Fatih S., disguised as a reporter, is even said to have harboured murder plans against the Kurd. The Hamburg Higher Regional Court sentenced S. to a suspended sentence for secret service agent activities, but dropped the charge of involvement in a murder plot due to a lack of evidence.
Koç’s current arrest came at a time of intense debate about how to deal with the PKK in Germany. In 2022, the Kurdish Workers’ Party submitted an application to lift the ban on its activities, which had been in place since 1993, but the German government only rejected it three years later, citing foreign policy interests and German-Turkish relations. This week, the PKK filed an appeal against the decision with the Berlin Administrative Court.
The background to this is also the changed political situation: on 27 February 2025, PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan, who is being held on the Turkish prison island of İmralı, launched a new peace initiative. Following a congress, the organisation declared its intention to disband and lay down its arms.
Despite this historic development, Koç cannot hope for an early release or even a reprieve from prison. This is because 32 years after the PKK was banned, the German government is still playing for time with regard to its classification as a terrorist organisation: in response to a parliamentary question from Left Party MP Gökay Akbulut, the now Christian Social Union-led Federal Ministry of the Interior replied on Wednesday that the PKK’s announcement must first be followed by action.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: Yüksel Koç is said to have been responsible for coordinating and carrying out PKK ‘propaganda activities’.
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