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Iraq's political chaos raises fears in
Turkey
19.12.2006
By Matthew Schofield |
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December 19, 2006
GIRMELI, Turkey - Every year, young men
coming of age in this dusty, impoverished town in
southeastern Turkey slip away into the hillsides to
join the Kurdistan Workers Party and fight for
independence for Turkey's 12 million to 15 million
Kurds.
"A free Kurdish nation doesn't solve the poverty of
our region," conceded Yusug Turgay, the mayor of
this town of 5,000, where donkeys still haul wood to
heat the homes, much as they did when Girmeli was
founded 1,760 years ago.
"That's solved only through jobs, which don't come
to troubled corners of the world. We know this, but
still our young men go into the mountains, to join
the fight."
The PKK, as the Kurdistan Workers Party is known in
its Kurdish initials, has been fighting this battle
for 22 years, and by all accounts losing. At least
50,000 Kurdish men and boys have joined its cause
over the years, but the PKK controls no territory.
More than 30,000 Turkish soldiers and PKK guerrillas
have been killed in fighting.
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In Mardin, Turkey-Kurdistan, the locals say the
country's government feels there is no chance for
dialogue because all the locals "are terrorists". |
Yet the PKK, which the U.S. State Department lists
as a terrorist organization, is a growing concern
for Turkish officials, largely because of
disintegrating conditions in Iraq.
Turkish officials fear that should Iraq's central
government collapse, the three Kurdish provinces of
northern Iraq, with their own military and their own
government, would become an autonomous nation - and
a source of inspiration for Kurdish separatists.
Officials in Syria and Iran, which also are home to
large Kurdish populations, share that concern.
Already, Turkish officials said, PKK guerrillas are
seeking refuge in northern Iraq between battles with
Turkish troops. Local Iraqi authorities and U.S.
troops have made little effort to detain or deter
them, Turkish officials charge. Some complain that
the U.S. won't let Turkish troops pursue PKK forces
into northern Iraq, but allowed Israel to attack
Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The boiling point could come as soon as next spring,
when a PKK-declared cease-fire expires May 1. The
Turkish military hasn't accepted the cease-fire, and
its chief of staff, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, has
promised to "keep up the struggle against terrorism
until not even a single armed terrorist is left."
"I don't want to think about what is to come when
the cease-fire ends," said Mehmet Dalhan, the mayor
of nearby Nusaybin and a member of the Kurdish
Democratic Society, the PKK's political wing.
The PKK has become a tangible point of tension
between NATO member Turkey and the United States.
Turkish officials say the lack of U.S. action to
stop the PKK from using northern Iraq as a refuge is
insulting and have threatened to send in their own
troops if nothing is done.
In November, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
bluntly warned Iraqi Kurds not to think about
statehood and said Turkey wouldn't allow Iraq to
break apart.
"You are on the brink of a historic mistake," Gul
said, addressing the Kurds.
He was just as direct in addressing proposals often
floated in the United States to break Iraq into
three countries: one Shiite Muslim, one Sunni Muslim
Arab and one Kurdish.
"There are those who think that dividing Iraq might
be better, that this chaos might end," he said.
"This is what we say: Don't even think of such an
alternative."
Even those who say Turkish Kurds are unlikely to
break away argue that an autonomous Kurdistan in
Iraq wouldn't be acceptable. "People in Turkey
believe it would be a territorial threat," said
Faruk Logoglu, a retired Turkish diplomat and the
head of one of Turkey's most respected research
centers.
Whether the Turkish military would push its campaign
against the PKK into northern Iraq isn't known; the
Iraq Study Group, in its recent report suggesting
changes to U.S. policy on Iraq, said Turkey already
had done so.
But Kurds in Turkey's hardscrabble southeast say
they expect the worst when the PKK cease-fire comes
to an end.
"In the eyes of the Turkish military, we are all
terrorists, we are all the enemy," said Abdulkerim
Adam, the mayor of Yalim, another Kurdish village
near here. He, too, is a member of the PKK-affiliated
Kurdish Democratic Society.
Turkey has a long history of conflict with the
Kurds, who dominate a region in southeastern Turkey
near the borders with Iraq, Syria and Iran. The
first rebellion by Kurds was in 1925, two years
after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the modern,
secular Turkish nation. There have been 28 upheavals
since.
Most Turks are Sunnis, like the Kurds, but
differences over language, culture and customs are
at the root of the conflict. Kurds say the Turkish
state is trying to wipe them out.
Until 1991, Turkey barred the use of the Kurdish
language, and even now it can't be used in state
documents. A human rights official is facing an $800
fine for using the Kurdish name for one of the
area's provinces in an official letter.
Relaxed rules that allow private schools to teach
Kurdish and some television broadcasts to use
Kurdish have had little effect: Private schools are
too expensive for most Kurds, and the broadcasts are
too limited to reach most of them.
Earlier this year, Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan came to the region and promised "more
democracy, more civil rights, more prosperity."
Another Turkish minister even proposed making the
PKK into a legitimate political force. Many
politicians in southeastern Turkey said they'd hoped
that the PKK cease-fire would allow a cooling-off
period for talks on ways to improve the region's
economy and, maybe, move toward an autonomous
Kurdish zone in Turkey.
Some local political leaders say Turkish Kurds don't
seek independence, just a better deal. "Every people
want the chance to keep their history alive," said
Ferhan Turk, the president of the Kurdish Democratic
Society in Mardin, a town that traces its origins to
the Hittites. "This is all we ask. But we can do
this within a united Turkey."
Recent developments in Iraq, however, have sapped
much of the optimism. With Kurdish flags flying
across the border and evidence mounting that PKK
cells have been training there, few expect Turkish
national politicians to pursue a gentle course here,
especially as they face elections next spring and
fall. Kurds predict that poor economic conditions
here will send more disaffected youths to the
mountains.
Cihan Sincar, the mayor of Kiziltepe, a PKK
stronghold, lost her husband to the fighting in
1993, and PKK guerrillas and the Turkish army
clashed outside her office months ago. She thinks
that most people want the fighting to end. But she
also thinks that that won't happen soon.
"People are getting more and more desperate," she
said. "I don't want to think about what will happen
when the cease-fire deadline passes. It will be
worse than ever."
thestate com
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"
Southeast Turkey. The Kurds have no rights in
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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