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Bilingual road signs in Turkey's Kurdish
villages
26.11.2009 |
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November 26, 2009
DIYARBAKIR, Kurdish Southeastern region of
Turkey, — The first bilingual road signs in Turkish
and Kurdish have been erected in Turkey's southeast
as part of efforts by Ankara to win over its restive
minority, an AFP reporter observed Thursday.
The direction signs feature the names in both
languages of villages around Diyarbakir, the largest
city of the Kurdish-majority region which has been
the scene of a bloody insurgency since 1984.
The initiative was spearheaded by the Diyarbakir
municipality, which is held by the Democratic
Society Party, Turkey's main Kurdish political
movement.
Bilingual signs have been placed for 82 villages,
but signs for Diyarbakir city remained only in
Turkish, a municipality official told AFP.
The introduction of the signs followed Interior
Minister Besir Atalay's announcement this month that
settlements in the southeast would be allowed to
return to their Kurdish names as part of a
government plan to improve Kurdish rights,www.ekurd.neteven
though the laws have not been amended yet.
Although many Kurdish settlements were given Turkish
names decades ago, the use of their original names
by the local population has remained widespread in
daily life.
Reviving the Kurdish names of some villages -- for
instance, Heware Xas (Yesildalli) and Qubaxidir (Kabahidir)
-- broke a taboo on using the letters X, Q and W,
which exist in the Kurdish but not the Turkish
alphabet.
Turkish courts have in the past rejected
applications by Kurds to have their names officially
registered with Kurdish spellings if they include
those letters.
Using the Kurdish language in government affairs and
politics remains banned. Atalay has said Ankara
plans to allow Kurds to use their native tongue in
political activities.
Eager to boost its EU membership bid, Turkey in the
past several years has enacated a series of reforms
to win over the Kurds, including the inauguration of
a public television channel broadcasting in Kurdish,
a language which was banned until the early 1990s.
The Islamist-rooted government hopes fresh gestures
to the Kurds will erode popular support for the
Turkey rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party.
Since 1984 the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the
mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey
(Turkey-Kurdistan) which has claimed around 45,000
lives of Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas. A large Turkey's Kurdish community
openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK rebels.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority.
"The Kurdish question cannot be resolved without
recognizing the will of the Kurdish people and
holding dialogue with its interlocutors," the group
said.
The PKK has long called on Ankara to halt military
operations and agree to negotiations for a solution,
which it says should include official recognition of
the country's Kurds in the constitution.
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,www.ekurd.net
the party also demanded
an end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, ranting them full
political freedoms.
The government categorically rejects dialogue with a
group it labels a terrorist organization and says it
will not let up on the military campaign against the
rebels. The PKK is considered a 'terrorist'
organization by Ankara, U.S., the PKK continues to
be on the blacklist list in EU despite court ruling
which
overturned a decision
to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its
political wing on the European Union's terror list.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural
rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish
language and private Kurdish language courses with
the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish
politicians say the measures fall short of their
expectations.
The European Union, which Turkey wants to join, has
praised Erdogan's efforts to end the conflict. His
so-called democratic initiative aims to expand
cultural and political liberties to address decades
of grievances from Kurds who say they have faced
state-sanctioned discrimination and violence.
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respective author or news agency, AFP |
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