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Turkey Kurdish mayor Osman Baydemir
visiting USA
6.2.2006
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According to Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) WebPages, Osman Baydemir, the
mayor of Diyarbakir, is scheduled to visit the U.S.
accompanied by six businessmen starting yesterday
and lasting through Feb. 16.
The webpage reported that Baydemir is going to
attend various meetings at United Nations
headquarters in New York. In addition Baydemir will
visit Nashville, Tennessee for two days, which has
the largest Kurdish community in the U.S. known as
'mini Kurdistan'. This visit is planned to develop a
sister-city project between Diyarbakir and
Nashville. During the last five days of his program
Baydemir and the six businessmen will visit
Washington D.C.
What makes Baydemir's visit interesting is the
timing and the places to be visited. For those who
follow the Kurdish issue in Turkey, it's no a secret
that there are two key figures who've dominated the
Kurdish debate lately: PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan
and Baydemir.
Unlike other pro-PKK, Democratic Society Party (DTP)
mayors, what makes Baydemir hit the headlines in the
pro-PKK media is his stubborn and intolerant
opposition to Turkish state policies. For instance,
against the government's will, Baydemir led the
other DTP mayors to write a letter to the Danish
government asking that the Danish-based, pro-PKK
satellite TV channel Roj-TV not be banned. |
Osman Baydemir,
the mayor of Diyarbakir |
In addition, not only did he visit the families of
'Kurdish freedom fighters' who were killed in gun
battles between Turkish security forces and the PKK
organization, he also sent official ambulances,
which belong to the municipality, to pick up the
Kurdish rebels bodies. Lately, although the law
strictly bans the use of local languages for
official purposes, he didn't hesitate to use Kurdish
in his official celebration letters.
It's also no secret that on Feb. 15, the seventh
anniversary of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan's capture,
the PKK, and its extension the DTP, will organize
large-scale demonstrations in Diyarbakir, Mersin
(Kurdistan-Turkey) and other cities in Turkey to
protest the arrest. It's expected that the protest
in Diyarbakir will be the largest compared to other
cities. It's also expected that the U.S. will be
condemned by the demonstrators for the help it
provided in the process that led up to to the
capture of Ocalan.
These two points make Baydemir's U.S. visit more
interesting. As usual, as a vocal leader of the
Kurdish "opposition," one would expect Baydemir to
lead the demonstration in Diyarbakir. However he
chose not to do so and instead decided to travel to
the U.S. Experts believe that Baydemir's visit is a
strategic move.
After the Iraq liberation, the U.S. has become an
active player in regional politics. The Kurdish
issue occupies an important part of the agenda of
regional politics.
The timing of the visit is also interesting in terms
of international political dynamics. If we consider
that the U.S. is desperately searching for local
allies to support its policies on Iran, Baydemir's
visit can be considered a strategic move. From this
perspective Baydemir's agenda also gives the
impression that he planned this visit for strategic
purposes to establish contacts in Washington D.C.
For instance, the visit to Nashville, besides the
sister-city project, is most likely planned to
establish such connections because Nashville is the
city with the largest Kurdish community.
In the Nashville Kurdish community there are people,
including American professors, who work extensively
on the Kurdish issue and advise Iraqi Kurdistan
regional government President Massoud Barzani, whom
Baydemir is most likely to meet, and are very
influential in Washington. After the Nashville
visit, the five-day program in Washington D.C. also
is an indicator of his aim to establish contacts
with influential Washingtonians.
If we take all these factors into consideration,
Baydemir's visit could be a turning point for the
Kurdish issue, assuming that it wasn't encouraged by
Abdullah Ocalan himself to discuss the PKK's
possible help to the U.S. in an anticipated strike
against Iran.
www.thenewanatolian.com
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