 In 2000 the Independent referred to him as a "senior commander" of the PKK when Medya TV, the underground Kurdish satellite television channel reported him as claiming that the Turkish authorities wanted his brother to die.In March 2003, in an interview to western journalists from his refuge in the Qandil mountains, he asserted "We will never allow ourselves to be disarmed as long as the Kurdish issue is not settled".He split away from the PKK again in August 2004 to form the Patriotic Democratic Party (PWD) with Hikmet Fidan, after a lost power struggle with Murat Karayılan and Cemal Bayık.