NEWS CENTER - Prominent US intellectual and academic Noam Chomsky said on Sunday that the Turkish state would not accept investigations into allegations of the use of chemical weapons in northern Iraq. "There are lots of things they should do. But you can't expect criminal states to carry out investigations into their own crimes."

 

Prominent US intellectual and academic Noam Chomsky on Sunday said that the Turkish state would not accept investigations into allegations of the use of chemical weapons in northern Iraq, nor would they accept investigations into previous and more recent crimes.

 

Individual protests are not sufficient to urge international bodies to launch investigations into Turkey’s alleged use of chemical weapons against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters in northern Iraq, Chomsky said in an interview with Selahattin Işıldak of Medya Haber TV.

 

“An effective protest is going to have to come from some international organisation or state with enough credibility to reach the general public,” he said.

 

When asked the reasons why Turkey does not accept an international investigation, Chomsky said: “But they’re not gonna do it. They should also accept the investigation of the hideous crimes that they committed in the 1990s, more recent crimes, crimes in Afrin, and their invasion of Kurdish areas in Syria.”

 

“There are lots of things they should do. But you can’t expect criminal states to carry out investigations into their own crimes,” he said, adding that such an attitude was not unique to Turkey, pointing out that the United States does not investigate its own crimes, but calls for the investigation of others’ crimes, and suggesting that other countries behave in a similar way.

 

Since last month, human rights activists have been calling on international organisations to take action against Turkey’s alleged use of chemical weapons, while the Turkish government persists in denying the claims.