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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, March 21 (AFP) - 14h51 -
Tens of thousands of Kurds in southeast Turkey on
Monday celebrated the Newroz, their traditional New
Year, which has been marred by tensions and
bloodshed in the past.
Kurdish leaders who joined the celebration in
Diyarbakir, the main city of the predominantly
Kurdish region, urged Ankara to expand Kurdish
freedoms and end years of conflict that have claimed
some 36,500 lives.
"We expect the solution neither from the European
Union nor the United States, but from those who are
governing Turkey," Tuncer Bakirhan, the chairman of
the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party (DEHAP),
told the crowd.
"If you just make up your minds, the Kurdish people
are ready with their projects and the problems can
be resolved in three months," he was quoted as
saying by the Anatolia news agency.
Ankara, long under international pressure to improve
the rights of the Kurds, has recently granted them a
number of cultural freedoms as part of reforms aimed
at boosting Turkey's bid to join the European Union.
The Kurds, however say the reforms should be
enhanced and are pressing in particular for an
amnesty for Kurdish rebels who have fought the
government since 1984.
For the Kurds, Newroz has become an occasion to call
for their rights and demonstrate support for the
outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has
waged a 15-year separatist campaign against Ankara.
Scores of police kept watch Monday as Kurdish men
and women danced and sang around traditional
bonfires at the festival venue in Diyarbakir.
Some revellers carried PKK flags and chanted slogans
in favor of the group's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who
is serving a life term for treason in a prison
island in northwestern Turkey.
In a statement carried by the pro-PKK MHA news
agency, Ocalan, from his prison cell, issued a
message advocating a loose confederal system of all
Kurdish communities that would rule out an
independent Kurdish state.
Twenty-six people were detained in the southern city
of Mersin Sunday when a group marking Newroz
attempted to burn a Turkish flag, causing tensions
between revellers and the police, the NTV news
channel reported.
Authorities have often banned Newroz celebrations in
the past for fear they would trigger unrest.
In 1992, about 50 people were killed by security
forces during Newroz clashes. Two men were crushed
to death and dozens injured in a police clampdown on
Newroz demonstrations in 2002.
Newroz marks the awakening of nature at the March 21
equinox, and is also celebrated in Iran and other
Muslim communities in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
AFP
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