The objective of this maneuver was to control throughout Europe the sizable community of Kurdish immigrants and refugees from Turkey. There are actually more than 600,000 of them, of whom 400,000 to 450,000 are in Germany. Moreover, it was there that the PKK set up its central offices ("European Front"), under the name "ERNK - Mission in Europe," legally, at first, then, since its dissolution in November 1993, clandestinely. According to the German Interior Minister, in 1987, the PKK had about a thousand active militants in Germany. This was in addition to numerous satellite structures: ERNK, a Kurdish patriotic workers's union, youth associations, women's associations, etc., not to mention a formidable "security, control, and intelligence" service. At that time they had offices in Cologne, which served as not only their "capital" but as that of the Turkish Islamic fundamentalists as well, and in Mainz, Offenburg, Russelsheim, Oldenburg, Dortmund, and other cities (1) . Starting at that time, Germany was divided into five regions, then into 17 districts, and finally into neighborhood sections, each with a designated leader. Today, the PKK is reported to have more than 7,000 activists in Germany, out of a pool of sympathizers estimated at 50,000, i.e., 10 percent of the Kurdish community. According to a report published by Germany's domestic security agency (the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) [Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV] in August 1995, in 1994 the PKK took in some DM30 million (approximately FF103 million) from racketeering of every sort.

The PKK is on the scene in northern Europe:

- In France (which has, according to sources, between 60,000 and 100,000 Turkish nationals of Kurdish origin). In February 1990, more than 150 PKK militants clashed with police in front of the Grand Palais in Paris, where President Mitterrand was opening the "Suleiman the Magnificent" show together with Turgut Özal, his Turkish counterpart. Since then, PKK demonstrations have taken place almost every month in Paris. After their dissolution in late November 1993, the PKK's cover organizations, the Kurdistan Committee and Yek-Kom, regrouped under names such as the Kurdistan Information Center, the Cultural Association of Kurdish Workers in France, and the National Committee for Solidarity with the Kurdish People. Currently, there are said to be 1,000 PKK activists in France, and approximately 5,000 active sympathizers:

- In Sweden, there are approximately 10,000 Kurds(2)   and there are also sizable communities in the Netherlands (approximately 40,000), Belgium (3) Denmark, Switzerland, and Great Britain. In the latter country, the PKK has 700 to 800 militants and active sympathizers in London. According to a confidential memorandum (dated February 1994) by the British National Criminal Intelligence Service [NCIS], racketeering among the Kurdish community in Great Britain brought in approximately FF20 million for the PKK in 1993;

- In Southern Europe, the PKK has a presence in Italy;

- Since hostility to Turkey is the rule there, the PKK is persona grata in Greece(4)   and in the Greek part of Cyprus.

Finally, it was in Western Europe that the PKK chose to establish, in early 1995, its itinerant "Parliament of Kurdistan in Exile." In late February, the "Preparatory Committee" for the first session of the "Parliament" met in Brussels, with deputies from the DEP [expansion unknown] in attendance. The first full-fledged session was held in The Hague in April 1995. In attendance were 65 "deputies," "elected by the Kurdish diaspora," according to the spokesman for the "Parliament," Yasar Kaya. Among the "deputies" were 12 members of the ERNK; the others were apparently nothing more than PKK stooges.
 
 

(1) In Europe, the PKK hides behind a front called the "Kurdistan Committee," with offices in: Paris (shut down in November 1993); Brussels, Belgium; Basel, Switzerland; London, UK.; Cologne, Germany (shut down in November 1993); Vienna, Austria; Copenhagen, Denmark; Athens, Greece; The Hague, The Netherlands; Madrid, Spain; and Nicosia, Cyprus
(2) However tolerant it may be of any Third World "Liberation Movement", since 1984, Sweden has nevertheless categorized the PKK as a "terrorist group," and banned Ocalan from visiting the country.
(3) In Belgium, the PKK has contacts with a small left wing extremist movement, the Belgian Labor Party [Parti du Travail de Belgique], which is active in the Kurdish mining communities in Limbourg, Verviers, and Liege, as well as in Brussels, one terminus of the Cologne-Brussels rail line, on which many Kurdish immigrants in Europe travel
(4) In June 1990, in Athens, "Hamit," an ERNK leader attending the Conference of Socialist Parties of Europe and the Mediterranean, "thanked Greece for its support," and requested an extension of the annual $10-million subsidy it had been granting the PKK. At the rostrum was Mikhailis Kharalambidis, from the Central Committee of PASOK [Panhellenic Socialist Movement, the governing party in Greece].