|
Turkey's Kurds set to return to parliament
23.7.2007 |
|
|
|
July
23, 2007
ANKARA, -- Militant Kurdish politicians were
voted back to the country's parliament Sunday after
a 13-year absence, winning more than 20 seats in
general elections, their leader said.
"We will make efforts to resolve the Kurdish problem
through democracy and reconciliation," their leader
Ahmet Turk said on CNN Turk television. "We want an
end to violence and confrontation."
Sixty members of the Democratic Society Party (DTP)
contested the polls as independents, a strategy
designed to circumvent a 10-percent national
threshold that has kept outside parliament Kurdish
parties campaigning for the rights of Turkey's
largest minority.
The Kurdish candidates campaigned for reconciliation
between Turks and Kurds, calling on Ankara to
abandon military action against the separatist
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and expand Kurdish
freedoms to pave the way for a peaceful settlement
of the 23-year conflict.
Drawing on strong support in the mainly Kurdish
southeast, 24 of them will win seats, according to
unofficial results carried by CNN Turk.
The are expected to regroup under the DTP banner
once in parliament.
Among them is at least one former member of the
defence team of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan,
accused of being an intermediary between the rebel
chief and his troops.
The PKK stepped up violence this year, sending
nationalist sentiment into a frenzy and prompting
calls for a military incursion into neighbouring
northern Iraq, where the rebels take refuge.
Many Turkish Kurds have become legislators on
mainstream party tickets, but the first stint in
parliament of militant Kurdish politicians ended in
disaster in 1994 when their immunity was lifted on
charges of aiding the PKK.
The group camped inside parliament for two days to
avoid arrest, but eventually gave up. Some of them,
including human rights award winner Leyla Zana, were
jailed; others went into exile and one joined the
PKK.
Since then, Turkey, under European Union pressure,
has granted the Kurdish minority a measure of
cultural freedom and lifted emergency rule in the
southeast.
Kurds, however, still complain of discrimination and
ask for Kurdish to be taught in schools and allowed
to be used in all fields of public life.
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.
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
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 