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Talking to Turkey's Kurds
26.2.2008
By Aliza Marcus and Andrew Apostolou
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February 26, 2008
The crisis between Turkey and Iraq, with the United
States playing the uneasy role of mediator and
friend to both, has escalated with the
Turkish land operation
launched Feb. 22. Following last
fall's spate of attacks inside Turkey by the Turkish
Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, the Bush
administration gave Turkey intelligence to
facilitate air strikes against key PKK bases in
remote Iraqi Kurdistan mountains. Washington hoped
this would prevent any Turkish military offensive
inside Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraq's most stable region
and the PKK's unwilling host. This policy has
clearly failed.
The inability of the United States to rein in
Turkey, and the dangers the Turkish invasion poses
to Iraqi Kurdistan, demonstrate that a better
approach is needed. The
core of Turkey's "Kurdish problem" is not the PKK.
It is Turkey's denial of basic political and
cultural rights to its Kurds, who are
about one-fifth of the population. Any resolution of
the decades-old conflict was unthinkable because
often there were no credible nonviolent Kurdish
partners for the ever suspicious Turkish state to
talk to. Such partners now exist and the United
States should help Turkey to recognize this.
In July 2007, Turkey's Kurds elected 20 members of
parliament from the Democratic Society Party, or
DTP. A Kurdish nationalist group,www.ekurd.net
DTP also has 54 mayors
in largely Kurdish municipalities in Turkey's
southeast. These democratically elected politicians
are not PKK members. They may sympathize with PKK
fighters - who often hail from the same towns and
villages. And contrary to government demands, they
refuse to label the rebels "terrorists." But DTP
politicians oppose violence, whether from the state
or the rebels. They call for a state-rebel
cease-fire and want to work with Turkish officials
to end the conflict.
These elected DTP officials matter because they
articulate a Kurdish case separate from PKK
violence. In November 2007, DTP called for
decentralizing power to Turkey's regions, the first
time this Kurdish party has presented a viable
political vision. Unlike the PKK, whose demands have
ranged from independence to broad cultural rights,
DTP's ideas are not punctuated by gunfire.
Unfortunately, Turkey has responded with hostility,
not dialogue. Turkey's chief prosecutor may shutter
DTP because he claims that statements by party
officials, including using the taboo word
"Kurdistan" and praising a PKK cease-fire, are
tantamount to supporting terrorism.
If the state is successful, this will be at least
the fifth time it has closed this Kurdish party (or
its predecessors) since 1993. Turkey has already
jailed DTP's chairman for allegedly avoiding
compulsory military service at a time when he would
probably have had to fight fellow Kurds. The state
is also investigating DTP's parliamentary chairman
for allegedly insulting the Turkish military - he
had objected to being barred from an official
function by Turkey's politically active armed
forces. The popular mayor of Diyarbakir, Turkey's
largest Kurdish city, says 30 lawsuits have been
filed against him for using the Kurdish language in
official settings.
This is where the United States can help. The United
States should strengthen these democratically
elected Kurdish officials as potential alternatives
to the PKK. Washington can do this in two ways.
First,www.ekurd.net
Ankara should be told
openly and repeatedly that putting Kurdish
politicians on trial for representing the
ethnic-based interests of their voters is
counterproductive. Second, US diplomats in Turkey
should meet Kurdish parliamentarians and mayors
regularly, especially in their municipal or
parliamentary offices. Visiting members of Congress
should also see their Kurdish counterparts.
By talking to many genuine Kurdish representatives
in Turkey, the United States would oblige the
Turkish state to stop treating all expressions of
Kurdishness as potential terrorism. Just as
usefully, the United States would allow Turkish
liberals, who abhor their state's heavy-handedness,
to embrace these Kurdish politicians.
Above all, the United States would enhance the
credibility of these isolated and publicly reviled,
but democratically elected, Kurdish leaders. With a
US stamp of approval, they could acquire the
strength to build a potent, non-violent alternative
to the PKK. The rebel group will not disappear, but
Kurdish officials could claim their rightful
position as political leader of Turkey's Kurdish
community.
The vicious war between the Turkish state and the
PKK is just one aspect of a conflict that has
prevented democratization in Turkey. By fostering a
democratic alternative to the PKK, and encouraging
the Turkish state to talk rather than repress, the
United States could put both sides on the path to
accommodation and away from violence.
Aliza Marcus is author of "Blood and Belief: The PKK
and the Kurdish Fight for Independence." Andrew
Apostolou is an analyst of Kurdish politics
boston com
**
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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