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EU-Turkey: Recognize that Kurds are Kurds
and Kurds are not Turks
7.11.2006 |
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ANKARA, November
7 - The European Union's former envoy in Ankara
urged Turkey to recognize that Kurds have a distinct
ethnic identity, putting him at odds again with
Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt, who
disapproved of attempts to “create minorities” in
Turkey and told the EU to speak more carefully.
“It is necessary to
recognize the identity of the Kurds, to recognize
that Kurds are Kurds and Kurds are not Turks,”
Kretschmer said in an interview with the Turkish
Daily News before his successor, French diplomat
Marc Pierini, succeeds him as head of the EU
Commission's Delegation in Ankara tomorrow.
“They are Turkish citizens and they want to be
Turkish citizens, but they are Kurds, you cannot
deny that.”
Büyükanıt, an outspoken critic of EU demands to
grant more cultural rights to the Kurds, suspecting
that they are aimed at ruining Turkey's unity,
slammed the EU's demands for recognition of
different ethnic identities. “Approaches based on
race are shameful in this century,” Büyükanıt told
reporters late on Thursday during a visit to Greece.
“Such approaches are an insult to the Turkey of
Kemal Atatürk. … Atatürk would have been deeply
saddened if he had lived through these days.”
“When you are in the Southeast, in areas that are
predominantly inhabited by Kurdish people, when you
see Atatürk's words, ‘Ne Mutlu Türk'üm diyene,' how
can one interpret that?” Kretschmer asked in the
interview, referring to the founder of the
republic's famous saying. “They are Kurds living
there and they see 'how happy I am that I [say I] am
a Turk' while they are not Turks.”
In Athens, Büyükanıt, who earlier chided Kretschmer
for his remarks critical of the military's role in
politics, revealed the extent of the disagreement
with the now former EU envoy. “Atatürk says ‘how
happy [is] the one who says he is a Turk.'
He does not say ‘how happy [is] the one who is a
Turk.' Show me just one country that has a
homogenous racial structure. There are communities
all around the world that are proud of the country
they live in,” he said. “We have to be sensitive;
they are trying to create minorities.”
turkishdailynews com.tr
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan".
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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