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Turkey's trouble with minorities
20.1.2007
By Ali Ettefagh
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January
20, 2007
The murder of Hrant Dink in Istanbul by right-wing
extremists may well shatter Turkey's chances of
joining the European Union.
The killing of the
53-year-old Armenian journalist and the
publisher of a newspaper for the Armenian community
merely intended to open honest discussion about what
Winston Churchill called the first Holocaust of the
20th Century. In late 1970s, the civil war that
ended in a coup was triggered by a very similar
murder of a respected leftist journalist, Abdi
Ipekci, by the rightwing "Gray Wolves" nationalists.
Back in 2000, a highly visible Jewish industrialist
and philanthropist was murdered in Istanbul but the
matter was stifled as economic crises overshadowed
the matter.
Hran Dink (and 12 other Turkish journalists
currently in prison) was convicted of insulting the
ethnic fabric and the "Turkishness" of the nation, a
criminal offence under section 301 of the Turkish
Criminal Code. This is a highly subjective law in
Turkey and a topic at the core of objections by the
European Union which insists on fair treatment of
ethnic minorities. The French parliament has
demanded Turkey face its past conduct in respect to
the systematic killings of Armenians back in 1915.
Turkey is certainly in a tough fix: Its EU
negotiations are frozen in their tracks. It has a
number of prickly issues and disagreements to
overcome with the EU including the issues of human
rights, recognition of ethnic minorities and the
resolution of its no-win position in Cyprus.
Concurrently, it worries about the future of an
Iraqi Kurdistan and its own Kurdish population, some
one-third of its citizens. It has a young population
base and close to 100% of its GDP in national debt.
Its private sector continues to bet on a one-way
road of entry into EU as it incurs higher levels of
debt.
With a civil war on its border, the Turkish
government openly supports and arms the Turkomen
minorities in Kirkuk. And it has other interests in
Bosnia and hostile postures towards Armenia and
Serbia.
The sum of such components can further complicate
issues in a region that is revisiting its religious
and ethnic roots, dating back to the times of the
Ottoman Empire and the pre-revolutionary Russia.
Turkey must deal with these ghosts in a frank and
transparent manner just as all other secular
countries in Europe have done.
blog washingtonpost com
First world war
massacres | Related
issue:
Armenian Genocide by Turkish Muslims against
Christians
Turkey faces international pressure to recognise
that more than 1 million Armenians were massacred
during a 1915 campaign of ethnic cleansing by
Ottoman Turks. Turkish officials claim that most
deaths were caused by hunger and disease.
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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