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Turkish State, Kurdish Separatists at Odds
13.6.2007 |
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June
13, 2007
Turkey,, -- The long-simmering guerilla
conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish
separatists, known as the PKK, has escalated in
recent weeks.
The rising tensions have led to a massive troop
buildup in southeastern Turkey, and to threats that
the Turkish military may launch cross-border attacks
to root out PKK rebels taking shelter in neighboring
Kurdistan region (northern Iraq).
In early June, the Turkish military declared much of
southeastern Turkey, a "temporary security zone."
This predominantly Kurdish region is where 15
Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes during an
eight-day period in June.
The Turkish military has shipped in trainloads of
tanks, and tens of thousands of additional soldiers
to the southeast.
But local Kurdish politicians claim these measures
are aimed at hurting their political campaigns in
the run-up to general elections next month.
"This is martial law," said Orhan Dogan, a Kurdish
politician in Diyarbakir who served 10 years in
prison after being convicted of having links to the
PKK. Recently, Turkey's electoral commission barred
him from running for parliament.
"The military won't need any excuse to cancel
meetings, political campaigns or even [stop] travel
from one town to the next," Dogan said.
The Kurds in Southeastern Turkey
The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey.
But for decades, the ruling Turkish establishment
refused to even acknowledge the existence of Kurds,
calling them, instead, "mountain Turks." Only in
recent years, did the Turkish government finally
allow some restricted Kurdish-language education and
broadcasting on state television and radio.
In 1984, a Turkish Kurd named Abdullah Ocalan
founded the Kurdish Workers Party or PKK, a guerilla
movement that fought to carve out a homeland for the
Kurds.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the predominantly
Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey became the
bloody battleground between PKK rebels and the
Turkish military.
Some 30,000 people died in the conflict, most of
them ethnic Kurds. Millions of Kurds were displaced
by the fighting, and many migrated to western
Turkish cities.
After the capture and imprisonment of Ocalan in
1999, the PKK declared a unilateral cease-fire. For
several years, the fighting abated. But many ethnic
Kurds complained that the Turkish state was moving
too slowly to recognize Kurdish linguistic and
cultural freedoms.
Since Ocalan's capture, the PKK has given up its
struggle for an independent Kurdish homeland. But
the rebels have not given up their guns. Shadowy
Kurdish groups have claimed responsibility for a
series of deadly bombs in Turkish resort towns on
the Mediterranean Sea. And the guerilla fighters in
southeastern Turkey continue to clash with Turkish
security forces every week. With every military
funeral, pressure builds on the Turkish government
to take harsher actions against the PKK.
The Kurds in Northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan)
Last April, Turkey's top military commander, Gen.
Yasar Buyukanit, gave a televised speech, demanding
government permission to pursue PKK rebels across
the border into neighboring Iraq. Thousands of PKK
fighters are based in camps in remote mountains on
the Iraqi side of the border.
For years, Turkey has pressured the U.S. military
and the Iraqi Kurds who rule semi-autonomous
northern Iraq, to destroy these mountain bases. But
American forces have been bogged down fighting the
bloody Arab insurgency in central Iraq. And the
Iraqi Kurds have appeared unwilling to side with the
Turks against their fellow Kurds.
The Turkish military already has several thousand
soldiers deployed in more than a dozen forts and
observation posts along a security cordon some 10
miles into Iraqi Kurdish territory, as part of a
negotiated agreement dating back to the late 1990s.
Since early June, Turkish artillery has bombarded
the mountains around the Iraqi Kurdish border
village of Kani Masi.
The shelling, often conducted at night, has
terrified but, so far, not harmed residents.
"I don't know why they are bombing us," said Nabir
Adi Shahroor, one of scores of Iraqi Christians who
fled to Kani Masi to escape the violence in Baghdad.
"I'm very, very afraid. I don't want Kurdistan to
become like Baghdad."
On June 9, the Iraqi government lodged a formal
protest with the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad, calling
for an end to the artillery strikes. Washington also
has urged Turkey not to intervene in Iraqi
Kurdistan, warning that it would destabilize the
safest region in Iraq.
Political Tensions in Turkey
Many analysts and politicians in the region say the
tensions on the Turkish border with Iraq are related
to the political crisis in Ankara, which erupted
after Turkish presidential elections were canceled
last month.
"I think this game they are playing relates in the
first place to the internal struggle," said Fouad
Hussein, a spokesman for the regional administration
in Iraqi Kurdistan. "One side or the other wants to
expand the crisis [across] the border."
Presidential elections were canceled after
secularist opposition parties boycotted the vote to
protest the likely victory of a moderate Islamist
candidate from the party of Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey's military issued a statement during the
disputed election, warning that Islamic
fundamentalism posed a threat to Turkey's strict
secular system of government.
Erdogan called for snap general elections to be held
in July. His party is now mobilizing for the vote.
But the Turkish military has become increasingly
vocal about the political and security situation in
the country. After a bombing in Ankara last month,
Gen. Buyukanit told the public that they could
expect similar bombs in other major Turkish cities
at any given moment.
On Tuesday, Erdogan challenged the Turkish
military's position on the PKK, when he questioned
why officials were shifting the focus to Northern
Iraq.
"There are 500 terrorists in northern Iraq. There
are 5,000 terrorists in mountains in Turkey,"
Erdogan told journalists.
"Has the fight with the 5,000 terrorists inside
Turkey ended for us to think about an operation in
northern Iraq?"
Later in the day, after a special security meeting
with top Turkish army generals, Erdogan and the
military made a joint announcement calling for unity
against terrorism, adding that "the fight against
terrorism has the highest priority for the country."
npr org
** 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.
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.
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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