Milliyet said Bayik s promotion had dealt a blow to the leadership hopes of Ocalan s brother Osman. Yilmaz, the leader of the ERNK, particularly active in Europe, has been eager to succeed to Ocalan. According to Turkish intelligence sources cited by TDN, the PKK has enterea period of crisis, due to the non-nomination of a successor and the full dependence of the organization s structure on Abdullah Ocalan s leadership. The split and incoherence in the leadership can be seen also in the contradictory statements and instructions issued lately. The PKK clearly and emphatically declared by way of Osman Ocalan in his interview to Der Stern that the PKK would neither wage war again in European capitals nor kill foreign tourists in Turkey itself.
Every region of Turkey is now a region of war.
This means that even the tourist regions of the Turkish state are included In order to prevent harm to human lives, tourists from around the world, but especially from Europe, should not travel to Turkey. There is no doubt that these latest terrorist attacks are related to the capture of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK and his forthcoming trial in Turkey. But it is still not clear if the latest outburst of violence is indeed the work of mainstream PKK militants and whether the organization has a defined leadership with a clear strategy for the near future. Turkish political analyst Dogu Ergil said he believed that the attack on the Istanbul department store was carried out by the PKK or by underground urban leftist groups linked to the rebels. After losing ground militarily in the southeast and losing their leader, they are moving to attacks on urban centers to put pressure on Turkish society and on public opinion, Ergil said.