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Turkey should subsidise poor SE Kurdish
region
22.11.2006 |
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ANKARA, November
22 ,-- Turkey should pay a monthly subsidy to around
five million poverty-stricken people in its mainly
Kurdish eastern regions to help kickstart the local
economy, said a U.N.-backed report unveiled on
Wednesday.
Incomes in eastern Turkey are about one third of the
national average and as little as 7 percent of the
average income in the European Union, which Turkey
hopes to join.
Ankara must at least double the east's income before
it can join the EU, the report said, echoing
concerns about regional income disparity in Turkey
made by the European Commission.
"About 60 percent of the population in the region
lives under the poverty threshold and that poverty
has acquired a chronic character as it is passed on
to successive generations," said the report.
It said public investment in these regions remained
at about one third of the national average.
The report suggests a subsidy of 150 Turkish lira to
each family that qualifies and puts the total cost
at 771 million lira ($572 million). The average
family in the east has five children.
The region's economy has suffered from more than two
decades of conflict between security forces and
separatist Kurdish guerrillas that uprooted
thousands of people and created ghettos of
unemployed migrants in the region's cities.
The proposed "citizenship income" and other measures
such as free lunches for students would help boost
employment and develop the regional market, allowing
a gradual revival of local entrepreneurship, the
report suggested.
Turkey is required to close the wide gap between its
western and eastern regions under its obligations to
the EU, with which it began accession talks last
year. The gap is wider in Turkey than in any other
candidate or member state.
The report also called for public investment in
tourism to attract more visitors from Iran, Georgia
and Armenia and also ethnic Armenians living abroad.
Reuters
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"
Southeastern Turkey.
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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