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Turkish Kurds want democracy, not state, says MP |
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Turkish Kurds want democracy, not state
3.8.2007 |
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Pro-Kurdish lawmakers will not be working to win a
state when they take up seats in Turkey's
parliament, but for more democracy.
August 3, 2007
ANKARA, -- Pro-Kurdish lawmakers will not be
working to win a state when they take up seats in
Turkey's parliament, but for more democracy and an
end to separatist violence, one of the newly elected
MPs said on Friday.
Turkey's parliament reconvenes on Saturday with an
oath-taking ceremony after July 22 elections in
which voters handed a fresh five-year mandate to the
ruling AK Party.
The pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) has
20 seats in the 550-member assembly, the first time
supporters of more rights for Turkey's large ethnic
Kurdish minority have been represented in parliament
for more than a decade.
"The Kurds don't want a state, they want democracy.
If the Kurds send candidates to Ankara, those with
power should draw a lesson from this," DTP deputy
Sirri Sakik told Reuters in an interview.
"We want to solve problems all together within a
united Turkey... We want to express our identity
under the guarantee of the constitution and the laws
and to find a formula, by consensus, for removing
weapons and violence from the agenda."
Other DTP deputies made similar calls for dialogue
and compromise during the election campaign.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government, which is
seeking European Union membership, has eased some
curbs on Kurdish language and culture, but the DTP
says it must go much further.
However, many Turks remain deeply suspicious of the
DTP, believing it is just a mouthpiece of the
outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) whose
guerrillas are battling security forces in mainly
Kurdish southeast Turkey.
DIALOGUE
Sakik said the DTP sought dialogue and compromise,
not confrontation. He said the new parliament, where
Turkish nationalists will also be represented,
provided a chance to hammer out a consensus on
resolving the Kurdish issue.
"We have to be able to speak to one another. If we
can do this, we can solve the problems," he said.
Sakik said he did not expect any problems at
Saturday's ceremony.
In 1991, Kurdish lawmakers from a forerunner of the
DTP that was later banned caused an uproar when they
entered the chamber wearing the colours of the PKK
and tried to take their oath of office in the
Kurdish language.
The lawmakers were later stripped of their
parliamentary immunity, tried and jailed for
supporting the PKK.
Turkey and its Western allies class the PKK as a
terrorist organisation.
More than 30,000 people have been killed since the
PKK launched its armed campaign in 1984 for an
ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey. After a
relative lull, violence has flared up again over the
past year or two.
Sakik said the DTP was "ready to take risks" to help
end the violence, noting that it had helped forge a
2006 ceasefire.
Turkey's military has ignored the PKK's unilateral
ceasefires over the years, saying it does not
bargain with terrorists.
Reuters
** 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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