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Analysts say political rights key to
wooing Turkey's disenchanted Kurds
15.3.2008
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March 15, 2008
ANKARA, -- The Turkish government's pledge of
more investment and television broadcasts for its
disenchanted Kurds is unlikely to end a long-running
bloody insurgency as it fails to address key Kurdish
demands for ethnic acceptance and political rights,
analysts say.
As part of a push to erode support for Turkey's
separatist Kurdish PKK rebels fighting the
government, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on
Wednesday announced a planned investment of up to 15
billion dollars over five years in infrastructure
projects in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
He also pledged a special public television channel
broadcasting in Kurdish, Arabic and Farsi as opposed
to weekly 45-minute broadcasts launched in 2004.
The announcement follows a week-long Turkish
military incursion into
Kurdistan region in 'northern Iraq'
last month to hunt Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) rebels waging a 23-year campaign for self-rule
in the southeast that triggered calls for Ankara to
also consider political and economic measures to win
over the Kurds.
For political analyst Dogu Ergil, the planned
measures show Erdogan's unwillingness or inability
to address the basic demand of Kurds to be accepted
for their ethnic roots and be allowed to participate
in Turkey's affairs as Kurds.
"Turkey has a system which is based on a Turkish
ethnic identity and sees Kurds as a dependent
component that has to suffice with what it is given
and told to do," he said. "Unless Turkey addresses
this issue,www.ekurd.net
nothing can resolve the
tensions between the state and society."
The measures are "an indication that the government
does not want to or is unable to take a serious and
bold step on the Kurdish issue" for fear of a
nationalist backlash, Ergil said.
Many here, among them the army, are wary of Kurdish
demands for political and cultural freedoms, which
are also voiced by the PKK,www.ekurd.net
a group, blacklisted by
Turkey and much of the international community as a
terrorist movement, whose separatist campaign has
claimed more than 37,000 lives.
They fear that increasing cultural rights for Kurds
could strengthen the PKK's hand and lead to the
breakup of the country.
Turkey's main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society
Party (DTP), which enjoys considerable support among
the Kurds, was also unimpressed by Erdogan's plans.
"The essence of the Kurdish problem is creating a
nation based on a single language, a single religion
and a single ethnicity," the party's deputy
parliamentary group chairman Selahattin Demirtas
said.
"One cannot solve the Kurdish problem with factories
and Kurdish broadcasts," he added.
Such a change is difficult as rising rebel violence
that culminated in the army's foray into Kurdistan
in 'northern Iraq' has revived a nationalist
rhetoric and frenzy, with Turks sending in letters
of support to the army or lining up in front of
conscription offices to fight the rebels.
"Turkey is fighting a monster of its own creation, a
Frankenstein, right now," Ergil said. "The
government believes that it will be very difficult
to deal with the nationalist masses and such an
effort will not have any significant return for
them."
Sedat Laciner, president of the International
Institute of Strategic Research (USAK) said time is
needed for Turkey to back up economic measures for
the Kurds with cultural and political moves.
"This is a more important area than economics and it
requires a change of mentality and not just legal
changes to expanding rights," he said.
"We have to get people not to be afraid of the word
'Kurd'," he added.
Since 1984the 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.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, AFP |
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 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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