ISTANBUL // High-profile arrests of leading activists of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in western Europe have dealt a blow to the Kurdish rebel group that has been fighting against Turkey for 26 years, and Ankara hopes the police action heralds a new era of increased international pressure on the rebels.
"We do find the attitude of many European countries to be more serious than before," Selim Yenel, the deputy undersecretary in Turkey's foreign ministry, wrote in an e-mail. "This is a welcome development and we do hope that it will continue to be taken seriously."
Remzi Kartal and Zubeyir Aydar, two high-ranking PKK members in western Europe, were among 20 suspects arrested by police in Belgium on March 4. Mr Kartal and Mr Aydar, former parliamentary deputies of a Kurdish party in Turkey, were charged and put into custody, along with six other suspects. They are accused of trying to recruit fighters for PKK training camps in northern Iraq and Greece.
Turkey is preparing an extradition request for Mr Aydar, who has been living in Sweden, Turkish news reports said. "This action by Belgium, following [earlier operations in] Italy and France, carries a very strong message to groups and organisations providing financial resources for terrorist activities," Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, told reporters after the raids.
Police in Belgium also searched a studio of Roj-TV, a television station close to the PKK that broadcasts from Europe and that is widely watched in Turkey's Kurdish areas. The PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in 1984 and has been conducting its campaign against Ankara from a mountain hideout in northern Iraq.
"They force war on us," Murat Karayilan, the acting leader of the PKK, said after the arrests in Belgium, according to pro-Kurdish media. "They want to sow fear. They want to put pressure on the Kurdish community."
Western Europe is an important base for the PKK. Voluntary contributions and protection money raised among the Kurdish diaspora of several hundred thousand people in Europe generate funds for the rebels. The PKK also recruits fighters in Europe, while Europe-based media outlets such as Roj-TV bring the rebel group's messages to audiences in Turkey and beyond. Western governments also accuse the PKK of being active in drug-trafficking to Europe.
Turkey has long complained that European governments do not do enough to curb the PKK's activities in their countries although the rebel group is listed as a terrorist organisation in the European Union. Ankara suspects that European politicians have long tended to leave the PKK alone as long as the Kurdish group does not stir unrest in their countries.
But that attitude may be changing, observers say. Police in Italy and France have arrested more than 100 PKK followers since late February, pro-Kurdish media reported. On March 5, one day after the police raids in Belgium, German police arrested Haci Ehmedi, the leader of the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK, the PKK's arm in Iran. In late January, Hasan Adir, the PKK's leader in Germany, was arrested while trying to enter the Netherlands.
Those operations "carry the signs of a serious change" in the way Europe deals with the PKK, Mehmet Ozcan, an expert on the Kurdish rebels, wrote in an analysis for the Institution for International Strategic Studies, or USAK, a think tank in Ankara.
Mr Ozcan wrote that Turkish security officials had succeeded in convincing their European counterparts that the PKK was not only a problem for Ankara. "The PKK's European wing is involved in all kinds of activities that threaten domestic security in Europe, including drug smuggling, human trafficking and arms trafficking."
Another factor behind the change is pressure by the United States on the Europeans, Mr Ozcan wrote. Last year, the US government, which also regards the PKK as a terrorist group, accused Mr Aydar as well as Karayilan and Ali Riza Altun, the PKK's treasurer, of drug smuggling as a means to finance the PKK.
The office of foreign assets control of the US treasury department said that the designation of the three men as drug traffickers "freezes any assets the three designees may have under US jurisdiction and prohibits US persons from conducting financial or commercial transactions with these individuals".
Turkish news reports suggest the PKK is in dire financial straits.
It is not yet clear how the PKK will react to the latest arrests in Europe. There have been threats to stage terror attacks in Belgium, according to Turkish news reports, but no major incident has been reported.
Some commentators in Turkey think the PKK, in an effort to ease the new pressure coming from Europe, could abandon its highly critical position towards a recent initiative by the government in Ankara to solve the Kurdish conflict by widening democratic rights, a plan called Kurdish Opening.
@Email:tseibert@thenational.ae
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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