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For over
13 million Kurds living in Turkey's southeast, EU
membership is a chance for more democracy in their
conflict-weary region, where many fear a return of
violence and unrest if Ankara is denied entry.
The region has had more than its share of blood and
tears since 1984, when the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) took up arms against the
government for self-rule, plunging the region into
chaos. But the atmosphere has changed dramatically
over the past couple of years. Ankara, eager to
catch up with European norms to ease its entry into
the EU, introduced once-taboo reforms, allowing
Kurdish-language programs on the state broadcaster
and the creation of private schools that teach
Kurdish.
With more rights to their credit thanks to the EU,
the Kurds -- whose very existence officialdom denied
10 years ago -- are keeping their fingers crossed
for a positive outcome from the Dec. 16-17 summit of
EU leaders who will decide whether to open
membership talks with Turkey.
Fears of rejection
"I am hopeful that Turkey will obtain a date that
will pave the way for more positive changes in the
region," 43-year-old worker Ahmet Ataman said in
Diyarbakir, the main metropolis of Turkey's largely
poor, Kurdish-majority southeast. "I fear the
possibility that there will no date. Such a
development will tear Turkey away from Europe," he
added.
"I do not even want to consider that possibility,"
said Cevdet Polat, an unemployed 29-year-old. "That
would butter the bread of those who oppose the EU."
Hasan Cemal, an experienced journalist who wrote a
book on the bloody history of Kurds in Turkey,
agreed that failure by EU leaders to open accession
talks would be very costly for the region.
"If there is no date, it will strengthen the hand of
those who are against the EU and who flinch at the
mere mention of Kurds. There will be a huge wave of
anti-EU sentiment that will put a stop to democratic
reforms," Cemal said. Such a development would also
play into the hands of Kurdish hawks bent on
pursuing their armed struggle against Ankara, he
said.
Bloody conflict
More than 37,000 people died in the PKK's armed
campaign and the subsequent military crackdown in a
bloody conflict that led to gross human rights
violations on both sides, forced population
movements, disappearances and summary executions.
The rebels announced a unilateral truce in 1999,
shortly after their leader Abdullah Ocalan was
captured in Kenya and convicted for treason in
Turkey. But, the PKK -- which changed names a few
times and is now known as the Kurdish Peoples'
Congress -- ended the truce in June; sporadic
fighting has resumed since, but with far less
intensity than before.
"What we have now is controlled fighting," said
Selahattin Demirtas, the Diyarbakir head of the
Turkish Human Rights Association. "But the lack of
an EU perspective would erode hard-earned democratic
rights, increase military operations and
counter-attacks by the rebels. "The result would be
a return to the old atmosphere of violence," he
added.
With the locals giving less support to armed Kurdish
rebels and rallying behind the government's EU
drive, renewed violence would only hurt a tentative
rapprochement between the Kurds and the state, which
long resisted their demands to preserve their ethnic
identity.
"EU-minded reforms have led to relief in the region
and drawn the Kurds closer to the state, but there
is a lot more the state can do to really make peace
with Kurds," Demirtas said. "At this point, EU
membership seems to be the only guarantee for more
democratic openings from Ankara," he added.
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