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Kurds in Turkey celebrate Newroz festival
under tight security
21.3.2007
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Turkey declares zero tolerance to illegal
demonstrations by Kurds during Newroz festival
March 21, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey, -- Turkish authorities said
Tuesday they would not tolerate illegal
demonstrations by Kurdish activists during an
upcoming spring festival, while reinforcing security
around the country against possible trouble.
The Newroz festival on Wednesday is celebrated
largely by the country's Kurdish population, and is
traditionally used as an opportunity to highlight
separatist demands by Kurdish rebels.
'Newroz or Newroz' is the traditional Kurdish new
year, The year 2007 corresponds to the Kurdish year
2619. All Kurds around the world are celebrating the
new year 'Newroz'. The Kurdish calendar starts at
612 BC.
Past festivities have ended in riots that claimed
dozens of lives. Tensions are high this year, in
particular, because of the arrests of dozens of
pro-Kurdish politicians on charges of ties to
separatist rebels.
Authorities in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the
Kurdish-dominated southeast, on Tuesday banned
chanting of some separatist slogans. |
Kurds around the world celebrating the New Kurdish
year "NEWROZ' |
Local authorities expected a turnout of about
100,000 people in Diyarbakir. Organizers said they
hoped the event would be peaceful. Police in
Diyarbakir were planning to deploy 2,500 officers,
while Kurdish organizers were planning to field an
equal number of people in charge of security.
"I hope Newroz will be celebrated in Diyarbakir in
peace, with no one's nose bleeding," said Seyhmus
Diken, an adviser to Diyarbakir's pro-Kurdish mayor,
Osman Baydemir.
Police reinforcements were moving into the southern
city of Mersin, and time off for officers in the
eastern city of Van was canceled, reports said.
In Istanbul, Gov. Muammer Guler said authorities
would not tolerate any illegal action.
"No one should tend toward actions that would
disrupt public order," Guler told a news conference.
"The disruption of peace and order in Istanbul will
never be allowed."
Guler said violators would have to pay the price of
their actions.
Pro-Kurdish activists urged calm, but authorities
still expected some trouble by supporters of the
separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, formed
by the imprisoned rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan.
Lawyers for Ocalan recently claimed that he was
poisoned in prison, though Turkish authorities said
last week that tests on hair, urine and skin samples
from Ocalan showed no signs of poisoning.
Kurds celebrate Newroz — the Farsi word for new year
— on March 21, along with people in Iran and many
Central Asian Turkic republics.
For Kurds, the festival is an occasion to assert
their cultural identity. They sing songs and jump
over the flames of burning car tires, symbolically
burning away the impurities and memories of the
past.
"This fire does not symbolize the fury in souls but
love and friendship. I invite everyone to be
foresighted and careful," Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday.
However, Murat Karayilan, a Kurdish rebel commander,
said the celebrations should serve as a reminder of
the unity of the Kurdish people in the face of what
he called "an attack against Kurdish leader Ocalan,"
the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency reported Tuesday.
Karayilan warned that Turkey would be responsible
for a "mad war" that would develop if it did not
agree to rebel demands, and called on Kurds to relay
this message during the Newroz celebrations.
In the latest violence, two Turkish soldiers were
injured Tuesday when they stepped on a mine believed
to have been planted by rebels near the southeastern
city of Bitlis, authorities said.
The Kurdish group has been fighting for more than
two decades for autonomy in Turkey's southeast in a
war that has left some 37,000 people dead.
AP
** 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 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.
Turkey is home to some 20 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
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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