On October 3, 2018, TRT World Research Centre held a roundtable meeting on the Activities of Terrorist Groups Abroad. This was one of a series of roundtable meetings forming part of the two-day TRT World Forum 2018, which included 8 public sessions and 11 closed sessions. The roundtable meetings were held in English under the Chatham House Rule. This rule stipulates that ‘when a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.’ Terrorism today is a trans-national phenomenon which has fundamentally changed the nature of counter-terrorism. Terrorist organisations have long sought foreign support for their causes. However, the undertaking of direct advocacy in foreign countries is a relatively new phenomenon employed by some organisations in the last few decades. The PKK and FETO provide clear examples of how terrorist organizations operate overseas under a chain of command that functions through the organisations that they establish abroad. The PKK and FETO operate mainly in Europe and the US, exploiting the democratic rights and freedoms in these countries for their political purposes. The primary strategy of these terrorist organisations abroad is to wage a psychological and political war in order to gain leverage and legitimacy for their cause. This session seeks to shed light on this relatively new phenomenon and provide functional strategies against such activities of terror groups.
Activities of Terrorist Groups Abroad: FETO and PKK
