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Kurdish teen shot at Turkish PKK
demonstrations
30.11.2009 |
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November 30, 2009
ISTANBUL, Turkey, — A Kurdish teenager was
shot during violent demonstrations in Turkey marking
the founding of the outlawed Turkey Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK), Turkish television stations
reported Monday.
In the worst of the clashes, around 300
demonstrators attacked a police station in Mersin,
on the southern Mediterranean coast, with stones and
Molotov cocktails on Sunday evening, according to
the NTV news channel.
A 16-year-old was shot in the chest and protesters
burned shops in the town, which is home to a large
Kurdish population, television reports said.
In Istanbul, demonstrators set fire to a bus in the
Sultanbeyli district on the European side of the
city, without injuring anyone, Anatolia news agency
reported.
Police broke up a demonstration by young Kurds in
the centre of Istanbul, according to the same
agency, and violence flared in other Turkish towns
with large Kurdish populations.
The PKK was founded in 1978 by Abdullah Ocalan, who
has been serving a life sentence for treason and
separatism since 1999,www.ekurd.netand
the organisation is listed as a terrorist group by
Turkey and much of the international community.
The PKK has gone from seeking full independence for
the Kurdish region to calling for regional autonomy
and better cultural rights for Kurds.
Ankara has recently announced measures aimed at
improving Kurdish rights in the hope of undermining
support for the PKK.
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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