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A lorry-load of pain on Turkey-Iraqi
Kurdistan border route
25.2.2008
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February 25, 2008
HABUR, Turkey border with Iraqi Kurdistan, --
It can take up to three days for lorries to crawl
through the queue which snakes back from Turkey's
only functioning border post with Iraqi Kurdistan
region at Habur.
"We just sit and wait here, for days on end," said
Aslan Ozturk, who feels his livelihood is held
hostage by the tense relations between Iraq's
autonomous Kurdistan region and the Turkish
government.
"I (already) spent two nights in the pre-crossing
camp, which all heavy trucks have to pass through
before joining the queue," said Ozturk, who is
trying to transport household goods to the Iraqi
Kurdish city of Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan.
Ozturk, from the southeastern Turkish Kurdish town
of Mardin which is home to Turks, Kurds and Arabs,
has spent the last 20 years trying to feed a family
which now runs to nine children. |
Turkish lorries queue, waiting to enter Iraqi
Kurdistan at Habur border post |
"If the political problems between Turkey and the
Iraqi Kurds were to ease, obviously we'd be able to
do more for our families," added the 43-year-old
driver, who earns around 600 euros (900 dollars) per
month.
He says he has never had anything personally against
the Turkish-Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels who
are the object of an ongoing ground incursion by
Turkish troops.
The Turks entered on Thursday night through a steep
mountain pass around 80 kilometres (50 miles) east
of Habur -- although there is no evidence of
military activity here.
"They (the rebels) are in the mountains, we never
see them," added Lokman Alkan, also stuck in the
two-kilometre queue,www.ekurd.net
which he blamed largely
on the customs bureaucracy on the Turkish side.
Despite its complete renovation in 2006, a single
road-crossing for goods is totally insufficient to
meet the rapidly-expanding needs of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The region has enjoyed something of a boom thanks to
being largely untroubled by the sectarian violence
that has gripped much of Iraq since the US-led
invasion in March 2003.
Traders have long sought a second road customs point
between Turkey and Iraq, but have been frustrated by
political and military tensions between Ankara,
Baghdad and Erbil,www.ekurd.net
the seat of Iraqi
Kurdistan's regional government.
Ankara accuses the Iraqi Kurdish authorities of, at
worst providing safe have for their PKK "cousins",
and at best not doing enough to clamp down on their
activities. Iraqi and Kurdish authorities in
Kurdistan region strongly reject the claim.
Turks are also fearful of the autonomy the northern
Iraqi Kurdistan region enjoys with its own flag,
institutions and even oil exploitation contracts
with overseas companies.
A fully independent Kurdistan state in Iraq would
only fuel separatist sentiment in Turkey's own
Kurdish population, they fear.
Iraqi Kurdistan politician says, Turkey is using
Turkey's Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an
excuse to invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent
the establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq', Turkey fears
this could fan separatism among its own large
Kurdish population in southeast Turkey.
The truckers recall another casualty of the recent
tensions -- the healthy trade in domestic heating
oil which flourished between the first and second
Gulf wars.
Turkish lorries would exchange vital everyday
supplies brought into northern Iraq for the valuable
household energy source, which they sold on back
home at a tidy profit.
Dozens of these trucks lie abandoned today along the
sides of the main road towards the border.
Over 39,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas have been killed since 1984 when the PKK
took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly
Kurdish southeast of Turkey. A large Turkey's
Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish
PKK rebels.
The PKK demanded Turkey's recognition of the Kurds'
identity in its constitution and of their language
as a native language along with Turkish in the
country's Kurdish areas, the party also demanded
an end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, ranting them full
political freedoms.
The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by
the U.S. and the EU.
AP | Agencies
**
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.
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 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, a
large Turkey's Kurdish community 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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