These things [mistakenly killing 35 villagers in Şırnak] can happen,’ like it used to say in the past, then we, and particularly Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, would have a different response.” According to Çelik’s statement, this was the explanation for Erdoğan’s thanking the General Staff and security forces during his party’s parliamentary group meeting. Erdoğan thanked them for revealing the incident to the public so soon and being sensitive to the tragedy. I wonder whether the opposite of this move is possible. For example, during the 1974 Turkish intervention in Cyprus, the General Staff was able to hide the fact that Turkey sank its own ship because back then it was much easier to hide things from the public due to communication deficiencies. However, today, the Uludere tragedy occurred on Dec. 28 at about 9:30 p.m. After five-and-a-half-hours, the pro-Kurdish Fırat news agency released the story worldwide.
