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Turkey's pro-Kurdish lawmakers rejoin Kurdish party
30.7.2007 |
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July
30, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey,-- A group of 20 Kurdish
lawmakers, elected to parliament as independents,
rejoined a Kurdish party Sunday that seeks more
rights for the ethnic minority, the state-run
Anatolia news agency reported.
Kurdish lawmakers won 23 seats in the 550-seat
parliament in last week's general elections,
returning to parliament for the first in more than a
decade.
Twenty of them joined the pro-Kurdish Democratic
Society Party, or DTP, on Sunday, Anatolia reported.
The party's candidates ran in the election as
independents to circumvent a 10-percent vote
threshold required to win representation in
parliament.
At least 20 lawmakers were needed to regroup under
the party banner and the rest were expected to join
the party later on. Officials from the pro-Kurdish
party were scheduled to petition the parliament
Monday to register the party in the parliament.
Several Kurdish lawmakers were ousted from
parliament in 1994 for having ties to Kurdish
rebels.
Turkey has been fighting rebels of the Kurdistan
Workers' Party, or PKK, since 1984 when the PKK took
up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly
Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
All three other parties that won seats in parliament
have refused to cooperate with Kurdish lawmakers
unless they denounce the PKK as a terrorist
organization.
Pro-Kurdish politicians have refrained from doing
so.
Turkey has threatened to stage an incursion into
northern Iraq if the United States and Iraqi
authorities fail to crackdown on Kurdish rebel bases
there.
Kurdish guerrillas have killed more than 70 soldiers
this year.
In the latest violence on Sunday, Kurdish guerrillas
killed one Turkish soldier and wounded two others in
a clash near the southeastern city of Mardin,
Anatolia reported.
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.
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)
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