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Turks lukewarm to broader rights for
Kurdish minority
25.3.2007
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March 25, 2007
ANKARA, -- About a third of Turks back
Kurdish-language education and broadcasts as a means
of ending the two-decade Kurdish conflict in Turkey,
while a majority believe that combating separatist
Kurdish rebels is the way out, a poll showed
Saturday.
The survey, published in the popular Milliyet daily,
found that 34.9 percent believe that granting the
Kurdish minority the right to education in its
mother tongue would be a "right" way to resolve the
conflict, while the remaining respondants said it
would be "wrong."
Another 36.3 percent backed Kurdish-language
broadcasts.
About 39 percent expressed support for removing a
10-percent national threshold for parties to enter
parliament, which has kept Kurdish political
movements from obtaining parliamentary
representation.
More people -- 42.4 percent -- were in favour of
extending state support to preserve Kurdish culture
and traditions and 48.3 percent said the powers of
local administrations should be broadened.
A solid majority of 80.3 percent said "eradicating
terrorism" is the way to end the conflict, which has
claimed more than 37,000 lives since the separatist
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a
terrorist group by Ankara and much of the
international community, took up arms in 1984.
The survey was conducted by the Konda polling
company among 48,000 people across Turkey in
October.
Under European Union pressure, Turkey has in recent
years broadened Kurdish cultural freedoms,
legalising the teaching of the Kurdish language at
private courses and allowing limited
Kurdish-language television and radio broadcasts.
But Kurdish activists say the reforms are inadequate
and have called notably for lowering the 10-percent
election threshold and granting general amnesty for
PKK militants to encourage them to end their armed
campaign in the southeast.
Other parts of the poll, published in Milliyet this
week, projected the number of Kurds in Turkey at
11.5 million, or 15.7 percent of the
73-million-strong population.
AFP
** 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
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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