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Iraqi Kurdistan Minister of Culture shows
sympathy for Kurds in Turkey
9.11.2007
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November
9, 2007
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region 'Iraq',--
When Turkey accuses Iraq's Kurdistan officials of
backing insurgents, one man they may have in mind is
Falkadin Kakei - reportedly on Turkey's wanted list
of Iraqi Kurds.
Kakei, grey-haired and engaging, is the Kurdish
region's minister of culture, a role that includes
campaigning to free what he calls Kurdish political
prisoners, including Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed
leader of the Kurdish rebel group in Turkey.
Kakei's dual loyalties - an official within Iraq's
autonomous Kurdistan region and champion of Kurdish
nationalism - show why Kurdish officials here have
been slow to move against Kurdish insurgents, even
as Turkey threatens to move across the border to
strike rebel hideouts.
Many of Iraq's Kurds share Kakei's sympathy for
Kurds in Turkey and tolerance of the rebels' past
brutal tactics. But their continued tolerance of the
guerrilla group risks placing them in the middle of
someone else's conflict and could threaten their
privileged place as Iraq's most stable and
prosperous region.
Now they face international pressure to help uproot
the Turkey's rebels, known as the Kurdistan Workers'
Party, or PKK, from Iraqi mountain sanctuaries used
as staging areas for raids across the border in
Turkey. That pressure is expected to rise Friday in
Istanbul during a regional conference on Iraq's
security.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has all
but accused Kurdistan's president, Massoud Barzani,
of helping the PKK.
"He is in a position of aiding and abetting the
terrorist organization in that region," Turkey's
Hurriyet newspaper quoted Erdogan as saying.
Kurdish authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan region
strongly reject these claims.
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Falkadin Kakei, Kurdistan region's Minister of
Culture
Falkadin Kakei as peshmerga fighter, battling the
regime of Saddam Hussein |
Turkey rejects direct talks with Iraqi Kurdistan
government, Officially, Turkey does not recognise
the regional government of Kurdistan led by
president Massoud Barzani.
www.ekurd.net
Turkey has never, and still does not, recognize the
Kurdistan region government (KRG) and refuses to
meet with its representatives in any official
capacity. That reflects Ankara's fear that any
international respect shown to the autonomous Iraqi
Kurdistan region would only embolden Turkey's own
large Kurdish minority to seek similar home-rule
status.
Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan regional
government that holds sway in northern Iraq,
regretted Ankara's refusal to hold direct talks on
the crisis over the Turkey's separatist Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) rebels.
www.ekurd.net
But British Defence Secretary Des Browne said
Thursday said he was encouraged by talks with
Barzani about the need to crack down on the PKK. "I
have seen over the past couple of days the serious
commitment to implement the range of measures that
will make a difference," Browne said.
If so, it could signal a major shift in the way
Kurdish authorities deal with the PKK, which has
waged war on Turkey since 1984 in a campaign that
cost an estimated 35,000 lives.
Kakei and other government officials say they don't
regard the PKK as a terrorist group - though the
United States, the European Union and other
governments insist it is.
"We fully sympathize with the fact that ... the
Turkish government and the Turkish people have faced
a vicious set of attacks by the PKK," U.S.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Thursday
in Vienna, Austria.
The former Marxist group, which once sought
independence, now says it is committed to democracy
and wants more cultural and political rights for
Turkish Kurds, but not a separate state. It also
claims to have ceased offensive operations.
That hasn't stopped large-scale clashes between the
PKK and Turkey, fighting which in recent weeks has
killed scores of Kurds and Turks.
Kakei, who still wears the olive-drab baggy pants
and shirt that was his guerrilla peshmerga uniform
for 35 years, denied rumours that the government of
Kurdistan turns a blind eye to shipments of food and
other supplies to the wild border lands where the
group finds sanctuary.
He noted that the PKK has in the past waged war
against both the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan - which today share
power in Iraqi Kurdistan. For years, Kakei ran
clandestine radio broadcasts for peshmerga
insurgents battling the regime of Saddam Hussein.
"Not only do we not offer them any help, the PKK is
fighting us, even now," Kakei said. "And they don't
seem to be in need of any help from us, either,
militarily or politically."
Kurdish Iraqi officials say they have not moved
against the PKK because they don't have the
resources. The group's seasoned guerrilla fighters,
they say, would be impossible to dislodge from their
hideouts in the soaring mountains of Kurdistan
'northern Iraq'.
But Iraqi Kurds closely identify with their ethnic
brethren across the borders in Turkey, Syria and
Iran. The Kurdish people feel they have been
subjected to political and cultural repression in
this, their homeland, since the days of the Ottoman
empire.
The current crisis has helped heal some historical
divisions among the region's Kurdish communities.
"Now for the first time, the government of Turkey
has united the Kurds of Iraq and Turkey," Kakei
said. "For the first time, Kurds on both sides are
demanding the same thing."
After Turkey recently demanded that Iraq extradite a
number of PKK officials, an Iraqi newspaper reported
that Kakei was one of those sought by the Turks.
So far, the list has not been made public. But Falah
Bakir, Kurdistan's foreign relations chief, told AP
the list included only officials with the PKK.
Kakei said he was not a PKK official, but
acknowledged he was not popular with the Turkish
government.
Six months ago, Turkish officials barred Kakei from
attending a cultural conference in Diyarbakir, in
Turkey's heavily Kurdish southeast.
The reason? "I think the main thing and the only
thing is that I have always been calling for a
peaceful settlement of the Kurdish issue in Turkey,"
he said.
"I never hide my sympathy for the Kurds of Turkey,
Syria and Iraq. The problem is that anything in
support of the Kurdish is considered a terrorist
act."
Iraqi Kurdish politician says, Turkey is using
Turkey's Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an
excuse to invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent
the establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq', Turkey fears
this could fan separatism among its own large
Kurdish population in southeast Turkey.
www.ekurd.net
AP
Since 1991, the Kurds of Iraq achieved self-rule in
part of the country. Today's teenagers are the first
generation to grow up under Kurdish rule. In the new
Iraqi Constitution, it is referred to as Kurdistan
region.
Kurdistan region has all the trappings of an
independent state -- its own constitution, its own
parliament, its own flag, its own army, its own
border, its own border patrol, its own national
anthem, its own education system, its own
International airports, even its own stamp inked
into the passports of visitors.
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
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.
Others estimate over 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.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
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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