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Turkish general slams Leyla Zana statement
27.3.2007 |
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An
official investigation has been launched against
Leyla Zana, who said during March 21 Newroz
celebrations that Kurds saw Barzani, Talabani and
Ocalan as their leaders.
March 27, 2007
WASHINGTON - A statement by well known
activist Leyla Zana that Kurds saw two senior Iraqi
Kurdish politicians and Adbullah Ocalan as their
natural leaders was an invitation to Kurds in Iraq
to interfere in Turkey’s domestic affairs, a senior
Turkish general said late Monday.
General Ergin Saygun, the deputy chief of the
Turkish General Staff, said in an interview with
television station NTV that by this statement Zana
had invited Iraqi Kurds to intervene in Turkey and
that the state would do what was necessary to
prevent this.
On March 21, during an address to crowds in the
south eastern Kurdish city of Diyarbakir to mark
Newroz, the
traditional Kurdish festival to celebrate the
coming of the new Kurdish year,
Zana said that
Massoud Barzani, the President of the
semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in (north Iraq);
Jalal Talabani, Iraqi’s President; and Abdullah
Ocalan, the imprisoned chief of the Kurdish rebel
group the PKK were seen by Kurds as their leaders. |
Turkey's outspoken Kurdish rights advocate Leyla
Zana, Former Kurdish MP in Turkey
Zana spent a decade behind bars in Turkey for
speaking Kurdish in the Turkish Parliament after
taking her parliamentary oath. She was the first
Kurdish woman to be elected to Turkey's parliament |
During the American-Turkish Council (ATC) annual
meeting held in Washington D.C. Saygun was reminded
about Zana's statements. Saygun said: "These
statements are inviting Iraqi Kurds to interfere in
Turkey. I hope our attorneys are investigating what
Zana's words meant. I think they were very serious
and dangerous statements. The Turkish state will
hopefully do something about it."
Such a statement made all Turkish citizens look like
they were terrorists, the general said, adding that
he believed that citizens would react to the
statement.
Zana and her colleagues were first sentenced to 15
years in jail in 1994 for membership of the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has been
fighting a 22-year bloody campaign for Kurdish
self-rule in the country's southeast.
Zana spent a decade behind bars in Turkey for
alleged links with Kurdish armed rebels
Zana, the first Kurdish woman to be elected to
Turkey's parliament, , who was imprisoned for
speaking Kurdish in the Turkish Parliament after
taking her parliamentary oath and for her political
actions which were considered against the unity of
Turkey. She was awarded the 1995 Sakharov Prize by
the European Parliament, but was unable to collect
it until her release in 2004.
In March 2003, Zana and her co-defendants were
allowed a retrial after their original conviction
was condemned as unfair by the European Court of
Human Rights in 2001.
More than 30,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas have been killed since 1984 when the PKK
took up arms for a Kurdish homeland in the country's
mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
The United States and the European Union, like
Turkey, class the PKK as a "terrorist organisation"
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** More
about Kurdish Activist Leyla Zana
** 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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