However, when he was safely freed on Tuesday, his statements caused even more debates as he stated that the incident was not intended to harm him but “to send a message to the Turkish people.” While most of the columnists interpreted the PKK’s actions as propaganda, the question of whether Aygün is deliberately serving this propaganda is now a matter of heated debate.
In her article titled “Aygün is still a prisoner,” Gülay Göktürk from Bugün says that once the PKK realized that its abduction of Aygün was not going to be successful, it first put the blame on “local independent groups” and later made it seem that the abductors were young men who in fact wanted to stop fighting and return home. But why is Aygün being a tool in this game of creating such an appearance? She explains that with a little empathy, anyone can understand that someone who says nice things about the terrorists who abducted him is still a captive in a psychological sense. Watching Aygün uttering those words is just like watching the Western soldiers or journalists who were held captive by al-Qaeda and who subsequently said “They are treating me very well; I believe in their rightful causes,” with eyes full of fear and desperation. Göktürk argues that even though he was freed, Aygün and his wife and children are still under the threat of the terrorists, which is why he can’t even imply what he has seen and experienced, let alone talk about it.
Focusing on the CHP’s reaction to the deputy’s statements delivered after he was freed, Sabah’s Nazlı Ilıcak says Aygün is known as a man who bravely stands up against some of the CHP’s actions such as the party’s denying responsibility for the 1937 Dersim massacre and its lack of support for terrorist organization Ergenekon trials. However, a discourse of a new CHP has emerged in recent years, and Aygün is a man who exactly represents the new CHP’s arguments. Thus, today’s fight within the CHP with regards to Aygün’s statements is a reflection of a fight between the old CHP and the new CHP, but the party has to solve this matter and adopt a certain identity at once in order to promise a better performance in the next elections.
In his article, Star’s Fehmi Koru assesses the PKK’s move of kidnapping Aygün in light of several recent PKK attacks. The PKK staged attacks in several areas at a time when our country was relatively weakened due to reasons stemming from foreign issues, but none of these attacks yielded the success that the PKK wanted. Following the failures of attacks in Hakkari’s Şemdinli and İzmir’s Foça districts, it had to release the deputy two days after it kidnapped him. The terrorist organization had failed to find militants who are willing to be suicide bombers, and, more importantly, it had also failed to receive the support it expected from Kurds across the country. It is also worth considering that the PKK leaders who are getting older by the day are slowly being replaced by militants from foreign countries. The terrorist organization is turning into a “Pan-Kurdish” organization, and it is becoming a regional problem rather than just a Turkish one. In light of this, the Turkish government should follow more active policies regarding restoring rights to Kurdish citizens and focus on the ethnical dimension of the Kurdish issue. If this is achieved, then a PKK whose attacks do not yield results and which is opposed by Kurds loses its raison d’être and will face its own end, which is exactly what happened in the case of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
