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Kurd party slams Turk govt, army, EU over clashes |
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Kurd party slams Turk govt, army, EU over
clashes
15.4.2006
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ANKARA, April 14
(Reuters) - Turkey's main Kurdish political party
accused the government of doing nothing to tackle
the problems of the mainly Kurdish southeast and
also expressed disappointment with the attitude of
the EU.
Turkey's impoverished southeast has recently been
rocked by street clashes between Kurdish protesters
and security forces. Violence has also increased
between rebels of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK) and the army.
"The army and the government does not want the
Kurdish problem to be solved ... If soldiers and the
government wanted a solution, weapons would
immediately fall silent," said Hasip Kaplan, deputy
head of the Democratic Society Party (DTP).
"The solution of the problem lies in Ankara," he
told a news conference devoted to the recent civil
disturbances.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has refused to meet
DTP representatives, saying they must first renounce
terrorism.
During the recent clashes, DTP leaders said they
understood and sympathised with the protesters. The
government accused the PKK of deliberately provoking
the violence.
Kaplan did not spell out what the DTP wanted Ankara
to do, but in the past the party has called for more
cultural and linguistic rights for the Kurds, more
state help to revive the region's economy and a
lowering of the threshold for parliament.
The DTP has no representatives in the Turkish
parliament because it has failed to win enough votes
to cross the 10 percent threshold. Its support is
mainly concentrated in the southeast and is weak
elsewhere across Turkey.
Turkey's Kurds have strongly backed Turkey's bid to
join the European Union, which has already resulted
in the lifting of some restrictions on their
language and culture, but Kaplan hinted that the EU
could do much more for his people.
"The EU ... made weak statements without inspecting
the scene of the (recent) incidents ... The EU
scored badly in this test. But unrest in Turkey, as
a candidate country, should interest them," he said.
Erdogan, on a visit to the southeast on Friday,
reiterated his view that all ethnic groups in Turkey
should work closely together and abandon political
separatism.
"We all have different ethnic identities, but it is
the bond of common citizenship of the Turkish
Republic that unites us," he said.
"Our Kurdish citizens should not feel that the state
regards them differently."
Reuters
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