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Turkey: Kurdish MP admits husband with PKK,
slams media assault
10.11.2007
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November 10, 2007
ANKARA, -- A Kurdish member of Turkey's
parliament acknowledged Friday that her husband is a
militant of the Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
the armed separatist group fighting the Ankara
government.
Fatma Kurtulan, the target of a media onslaught
since the identity of her spouse emerged this week,
warned that she was being made a target for
nationalist attacks.
The controversy erupted after Kurtulan and two other
members of the Kurdish Democratic Society Party
(DTP) travelled to northern Iraq Sunday to
participate in the release of eight Turkish soldiers
captured by the PKK in a deadly ambush last month.
Mounting PKK violence has prompted Turkish threats
of an incursion into northern Iraq, where the rebels
take refuge, and fuelled accusations that the DTP is
linked to the separatists. |
Fatma Kurtulan, a Kurdish member of Turkey's
parliament |
Kurtulan, 43, said that her husband -- who the media
say is currently at PKK camps in Kurdistan region
'northern Iraq' -- had been away for 13 years and
she remained married only on paper. www.ekurd.net
"This peculiarity of mine should be seen as a
consequence of the Kurdish problem. This is a social
reality," she said in a written statement.
"It is natural for people who are together in their
private lives to have different (political)
choices," she said.
Many Kurdish families in southeast Turkey have been
torn between the state and the PKK, which has waged
a bloody campaign for self-rule since 1984 and is
listed as a terrorist group by much of the
international community.
"I expect some media organs to review their attitude
towards me... Otherwise they will bear the
responsibility for racist and chauvinist reactions
that I may face," Kurtalan said.
Another DTP lawmaker, Sirri Sakik, is the brother of
a senior PKK commander who was captured and jailed
in the late 1990s.
The DTP, which holds 20 seats in the 550-member
parliament, advocates a peaceful settlement to the
Kurdish conflict. But its refusal to brand the PKK a
terrorist group and the sympathy its members often
voice for the rebels have sparked accusations that
it is a political tool of the PKK.
Since 1984 the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the
country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey. www.ekurd.net
AFP
**
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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