Kurdish politician Abdulmelik Fırat
Kurdish politician Abdulmelik Fırat died on Tuesday
at an Ankara hospital, where he had been receiving
treatment for leukemia. photo: TodaysZaman com
September
30, 2009
ANKARA, Turkey, — Famous Kurdish
politician Abdulmelik Fırat, who had been
hospitalized on Monday for deteriorating health due
to complications from leukemia, died in Ankara on
Tuesday.
The 75-year-old Fırat died in the intensive care
unit of Güven Hospital in Ankara, where he was taken
early this week. As his son, Abdulmelik Firat,
previously told reporters Fırat's doctors said that
Fırat's lungs had lost 60 percent of their function.
In addition to leukemia, Fırat also suffered a
diabetic coma in June, which caused serious brain
damage.
About Abdulmelik Firat
A grandson of the Kurdish rebel leader Sheikh Said,
Fırat's family history is full of persecution, exile
and executions. A revered sheikh of the Nakshibendi
sufi order and originally from the main Kurdish city
of Diyarbakir, Sheikh Said was captured in 1925 and
hanged with many other rebel leaders. His family
members were sent into exile and were given the last
name "Fırat" (“Euphrates”)
With Turkey's transition to a multi-party regime,
Firat became a deputy from the Democrat Party (DP)
in 1957 and was sent to prison following the May 27,
1960 military coup d'état,www.ekurd.netwhich
resulted in the execution of the prime minister and
two other ministers. Firat was also sentenced to
execution, but his sentence was later commuted to
imprisonment.
In 1991, he entered
politics under the True Path Party (DYP), but
subsequently left the party because he did not agree
with its policies toward Kurds. He was sent to
prison again for two months on charges of helping
the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
A harsh critic of the PKK, he remained on the
political scene and finally established the Rights
and Freedoms Party (HAK-PAR) in 2001. He left three
years ago because of health problems and handed over
the post of his party's presidency to Sertaç Bucak.
Firat also lent his support for the government's
recent democratic initiative to settle Turkey's
long-standing Kurdish issue.
In early September 2009, Firat says he disagrees
with assertions that the democratic initiative will
divide the country. He emphasizes that Turks need
the initiative as badly as Kurds do, noting that the
25-year-old problem of the Turkey's separatist
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the 80 years of
wrong policies implemented by the Turkish state were
intertwined. Fırat said that despite these factors,
on the public level Turks and Kurds have still been
able to live together, notably because of their
common identity as Muslims.
Both the Kurdish problem and the PKK will be solved
by the government's initiative, he said, and the
initiative has the potential to change mentalities
that have been holding Turkey back. Firat also said
the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the
Republican People's Party (CHP) needed to become
involved in the solution to prevent them from
damaging the initiative.
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 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 PKK is considered as '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.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, todayszaman.com | Agencies
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