Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
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• 12 • <strong>Information</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>liaison</strong> <strong>bulletin</strong> n° 272 • November 2007<br />
through Engl<strong>and</strong>’s <strong>de</strong>cision. Wherever<br />
Engl<strong>and</strong> has a finger one should be<br />
suspicious. In my view they <strong>de</strong>ci<strong>de</strong>d to<br />
run the bor<strong>de</strong>r-line over the summits,<br />
in a geography that was hard to control<br />
to create problems in the future.<br />
The bor<strong>de</strong>rs must be changed … not<br />
only those with Iraq but also with<br />
Syria”, conclu<strong>de</strong>d Ibrahim Hakki<br />
Karadayi.<br />
“We cannot finish with the PKK<br />
through cross-bor<strong>de</strong>r interventions”,<br />
said, the next day, General Hilmi<br />
Ozkok another former Chief of<br />
Staff interviewed. “For some time<br />
now, public opinion has been expecting<br />
such an intervention. As if any<br />
operation in Northern Iraq (Kurdistan)<br />
would put an end to all this. Why<br />
wasn’t the PKK born there instead of<br />
here? There has been a pro-Kurdish<br />
movement <strong>and</strong> people who incite it<br />
insi<strong>de</strong> <strong>and</strong> outsi<strong>de</strong> the country since<br />
1984. … After 23 years, the people<br />
have had enough <strong>and</strong> want an end to it<br />
… or else find a solution some other<br />
way… To put an end to a movement<br />
one must put an end to hope. If there<br />
is no more hope, then the movement<br />
runs out of steam, because the solution<br />
does not just lie in eliminating the<br />
cause … The English tried <strong>de</strong>velopment<br />
<strong>and</strong> economic expansion in<br />
India, but they saw that all that just<br />
strengthened the separatist’s<br />
<strong>de</strong>m<strong>and</strong>s… ”<br />
To conclu<strong>de</strong> with this series of<br />
interviews of Turkish generals<br />
entitled “The Comm<strong>and</strong>ers of 24<br />
years with the PKK” Fikret Bila<br />
questioned General Kenan Evren,<br />
perpetrator of the 12 September<br />
1980 Army coup d’état, who seized<br />
the opportunity of making some<br />
self-criticism of his years in power,<br />
knowing that he did not risk anything.<br />
“Government officials in the<br />
South-East (Kurdistan) should also<br />
know how to speak Kurdish”, says,<br />
today, the general who is more<br />
famous for having <strong>de</strong>clared, when<br />
he seized power “why feed them<br />
instead of hanging them?” in reference<br />
to political activists who were<br />
sentenced to <strong>de</strong>ath. It was he who<br />
had toughened the laws forbidding<br />
the use of the Kurdish language<br />
even in everyday speech.<br />
When speaking about the PKK the<br />
Diyarbekir prison springs to mind,<br />
it is generally recognised that the<br />
use of torture <strong>and</strong> the ill treatment<br />
in this notorious prison had<br />
strengthened the PKK. Questioned<br />
on the matter, General Evren<br />
stormed “It really gets on my nerves<br />
when people talk about that prison. I<br />
was head of State, not manager of the<br />
prison”. “As if there was no torture in<br />
police stations before the 12 September<br />
coup d’état. They all used torture,<br />
which means that as soon as you fell<br />
into the h<strong>and</strong>s of the police you suffered<br />
ill treatment. After the coup<br />
d’état we left the police free to work<br />
freely … but they did it all the same”,<br />
he said with astonishment.<br />
Why forbid the use of Kurdish,<br />
asked the journalist adding that he<br />
had visited a school at the time <strong>and</strong><br />
that the children spoke Turkish<br />
very badly. “Look at Belgium. The<br />
Flemings <strong>and</strong> the Walloons don’t tear<br />
one another apart. When I was head of<br />
the General Staff I visited Canada,<br />
Quebec more exactly, <strong>and</strong> I w<strong>and</strong>ered<br />
around with my opposite number. In<br />
Quebec they speak French, which<br />
astonished me as I asked about this.<br />
They answered that all government<br />
officials have to know both French <strong>and</strong><br />
English to be able to serve the citizens.<br />
… Our officials in the South-East<br />
(Kurdistan) must also learn Kurdish<br />
…”<br />
AS WELL AS …<br />
• IRANIAN CONSULATES IN<br />
IRBIL AND SULEIMANIYAH<br />
ARE OFFICIALLY OPENED. On<br />
6 November, Iran officially opened<br />
two consulates in Iraqi Kurdistan,<br />
at Irbil <strong>and</strong> at Suleimaniyah. Hassan<br />
Kazemi Qomi, the Iranian<br />
Ambassador to Iraq, <strong>de</strong>clared in<br />
Irbil: “Today we have good economic<br />
relations with Iraq (…) The two consulates<br />
have been opened in cooperation<br />
with the government of Iraq <strong>and</strong><br />
the authorities of Kurdistan who are<br />
responsible for security”. He atten<strong>de</strong>d<br />
a brief ceremony to inaugurate<br />
the Consulate in Irbil, together<br />
with the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan<br />
Regional Government,<br />
Nechirvan Barzani. The new Irbil<br />
consulate is in premises previously<br />
occupied by Iranian officials but<br />
closed since the beginning of the<br />
year because of an operation by the