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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Revue <strong>de</strong> Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro <strong>de</strong> la Prensa-Basin Ôzeti<br />
locally grown tobacco.<br />
There is a picture of his father, long<br />
<strong>de</strong>ad, the top of his portrait covered<br />
in lace in accord with local tradition.<br />
Lace also covers the features of a<br />
much younger man, Mr. Gur"s son,<br />
a PKK militant who died fighting the<br />
Turkish army in 1994.<br />
Mr. Gur points to another photo¬<br />
graph. "My youngest son," he said.<br />
"He went to join the group in July. I<br />
haven"t heard from him since."<br />
Many Kurds say they are surprised<br />
by the PKK"s continued ability to<br />
attract recruits, especially since the<br />
rebels dropped their separatist<br />
<strong>de</strong>m<strong>and</strong>s to call instead for "<strong>de</strong>mo¬<br />
cratic confe<strong>de</strong>ralism" a concept<br />
that few Kurds un<strong>de</strong>rst<strong>and</strong>.<br />
Part of the explanation can be<br />
found outsi<strong>de</strong> Mr. Gur's front door.<br />
A <strong>de</strong>ca<strong>de</strong> ago, his neighborhood<br />
consisted of fields sloping down to<br />
a river. Now it's a slum, streets full<br />
of grubby children, some barefoo¬<br />
ted, leaping over open sewers <strong>and</strong><br />
piles of rubbish.<br />
Places like this exist throughout<br />
southeastern Turkey, filled with<br />
villagers forced from their homes by<br />
Turkish security forces during the<br />
1990s.<br />
Diyarbakir's population, 350,000 a<br />
<strong>de</strong>ca<strong>de</strong> ago, is now nearly 1.5<br />
million. Ninety percent of the fami¬<br />
lies in some districts live below the<br />
poverty line.<br />
"What future do these children<br />
Turkish Daily News November 6 . Turkish Daily News November 6 . 2007<br />
have?" one local journalist asked.<br />
"Crime, the PKK, radical Islam."<br />
Locals say it was poverty <strong>and</strong> a<br />
sense of neglect, rather than orga¬<br />
nized PKK activity, that drove a<br />
recent riot in Diyarbakir, in which 11<br />
persons, mainly children, were<br />
fatally shot by security forces.<br />
Poverty, though, is not a problem<br />
unique to southeastern Turkey.<br />
What makes it explosive here is the<br />
frustration that has grown since<br />
PKK lea<strong>de</strong>r Ocalan was captured in<br />
1999.<br />
Despite the steps by Ankara to<br />
ease restrictions on the Kurdish<br />
language <strong>and</strong> culture, nationalists<br />
point to a flood of criminal investiga¬<br />
tions opened against Kurdish politi¬<br />
cians since elections in July. The<br />
DTP faces probe on soldier rescue<br />
latest came last week in response<br />
to calls for a revision of Turkey's<br />
unitary structure.<br />
When four policemen shot a 12-<br />
year-old boy 1 0 times in the back at<br />
close range in 2005, on the other<br />
h<strong>and</strong>, a court <strong>de</strong>scribed it as "self<strong>de</strong>fense"<br />
<strong>and</strong> freed the policemen.<br />
Nothing irks Kurds more than what<br />
they see as the partiality of the<br />
Turkish press <strong>and</strong> television. When<br />
a TV reporter enthusiastically <strong>de</strong>s¬<br />
cribed a military attack that killed 30<br />
PKK fighters last week, stu<strong>de</strong>nt<br />
Semdin Dumankaya complained,<br />
"He makes it sound like a [soccer]<br />
match."<br />
Government <strong>and</strong> opposition parties unite in an assault on the DTP, claiming that the pro-<br />
Kurdish party is trying to paves the way for negotiations with the outlawed PKK through its<br />
latest initiative on the release of kidnapped soldiers<br />
GOKSEL BOZKURT ANKARA TDN Parliament Bureau<br />
An investigation was launched about<br />
three Democratic Society Party<br />
(DTP) <strong>de</strong>puties yesterday who took back<br />
the eight missing Turkish soldiers from the<br />
outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)<br />
in northern Iraq Sunday.<br />
Deputies of the Pro-Kurdish DTP, Aysel<br />
Tugluk, Osman Ôzçelik <strong>and</strong> Fatma Kurtulan<br />
had signed a document with the PKK<br />
terrorists during the release of the sol¬<br />
diers, who called their engagement merely<br />
"humanitarian." But the DTP's initiative<br />
was frowned upon by a large part of the<br />
Turkish public as well as the government<br />
<strong>and</strong> other opposition parties. The Soldiers<br />
were taken hostage on Oct. 21.<br />
The chief public prosecutor's action came<br />
after a statement by government spokes¬<br />
man, Cemil Çiçek, who claimed that the<br />
DTP <strong>de</strong>puties were caught red-h<strong>and</strong>ed as<br />
they were photographed while receiving<br />
the soldiers <strong>and</strong> jointly signing a docu¬<br />
ment with the PKK on a table <strong>de</strong>corated<br />
with pictures of terrorist lea<strong>de</strong>r Abdullah<br />
Ôcalan. "We knew that our soldiers would<br />
be freed one day before their release <strong>and</strong><br />
before the three mentioned <strong>de</strong>puties went<br />
[to northern Iraq]," said Çiçek, un<strong>de</strong>rlining<br />
that there was another point that must<br />
not be overlooked in the images. "It is<br />
clear who is close to the terror<br />
tion," he said.<br />
organiza¬<br />
Those who <strong>de</strong>nied knowledge on the<br />
whereabouts of the terrorists ma<strong>de</strong> a clear<br />
impression on Sunday, said Çiçek, lashing<br />
out at the DTP's rhetoric of "mediating for<br />
the sake of humanitarianism." The DTP<br />
earlier announced that the party regar<strong>de</strong>d<br />
the hostage crisis from a humanitarian<br />
point of view, not from a political one.<br />
Mediation vs. negotiation<br />
As the DTP's influence on the PKK led to<br />
judicial action, discussions on the scale of<br />
DTP-PKK relations flared up in Parliament<br />
again. The DTP's self-<strong>de</strong>clared role as<br />
"mediator" was interpreted as that of<br />
"negotiator" in Ankara. The DTP's objec¬<br />
tive was seen as pushing for a political<br />
solution to the Kurdish problem by nego¬<br />
tiating between the state <strong>and</strong> the PKK, a<br />
terrorist organization. Spokesmen of va¬<br />
rious parties castigated the "mediation"<br />
initiative of the DTP by stressing that the<br />
state will not negotiate with terrorists.<br />
Politicians of Kurdish origins that gathe¬<br />
red un<strong>de</strong>r the DTP ma<strong>de</strong> their first signifi¬<br />
cant move this weekend. Three of them,<br />
Osman Ôzçelik, Aysel Tugluk <strong>and</strong> Fatma<br />
Kurtulan went to northern Iraq <strong>and</strong> took<br />
back the missing soldiers by contacting<br />
the PKK un<strong>de</strong>r surveillance of Iraqi offi¬<br />
cials, northern Iraq government represen¬<br />
tatives <strong>and</strong> U.S. soldiers. The DTP hig¬<br />
hlighted its message to the public that it is<br />
the address to resort to for a political<br />
solution. The DTP's lea<strong>de</strong>r, Ahmet Turk,<br />
reiterated that they adopted a humanita¬<br />
rian view of the crisis, speaking to Turkish<br />
Daily News. The DTP's head of parliamen¬<br />
tary administration, Sirn Sakik, <strong>de</strong>nied<br />
any ulterior motives for gaining political<br />
leverage from the hostage situation. "But<br />
we repeat this: Turkey must solve this<br />
problem with dialogue," he left.<br />
AKP angry with DTP<br />
Ruling Justice <strong>and</strong> Development Party<br />
(AKP) parliamentary group <strong>de</strong>puty lea<strong>de</strong>r,<br />
Nihat Ergun, said it is not clear how exac¬<br />
tly the DTP was involved in the resolution<br />
of the hostage crisis, adding that these<br />
initiatives did not change the truth that<br />
the PKK spreads terror. "While the reality<br />
of terror remains in place, the DTP brin¬<br />
ging soldiers back does not mean quitting<br />
the struggle," Ergun said.<br />
An end to the nation state will not be<br />
consi<strong>de</strong>red as part of a political solution if<br />
this is what they mean by a political solu¬<br />
tion, said Ergun. "If DTP members want to<br />
bring terrorists back from the mountains,<br />
or convince the terrorist organization to<br />
give up violent methods, then let them<br />
use their influence," said Ergûn. He ad<strong>de</strong>d<br />
that any possibility of negotiations bet¬<br />
ween the state <strong>and</strong> the terror organization<br />
is inconceivable.<br />
'DTP benefits from hostage crisis'<br />
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) par¬<br />
liamentary group <strong>de</strong>puty lea<strong>de</strong>r, Oktay<br />
Vural, said the DTP is after political gain<br />
by turning the hostage situation into a<br />
negotiation process. "It was known from<br />
the beginning who took the soldiers, who<br />
controlled them <strong>and</strong> who was in charge.<br />
The DTP knew this too," said Vural.<br />
"Was it the AKP who wanted the DTP to<br />
mediate? Did they ask Barzani to mediate<br />
between Turkey <strong>and</strong> Barzani? It was im¬<br />
possible for the PKK to harm the soldiers<br />
anyway," said Vural, adding that the ex¬<br />
ploitation of the event was a sign of the<br />
beginning of a negotiation process.<br />
Republican People's Party <strong>de</strong>puty lea<strong>de</strong>r,<br />
Cev<strong>de</strong>t Selvi, said they found the DTP's<br />
efforts to mediate with the PKK unhealthy.<br />
"Turkey would never negotiate with terro¬<br />
rists. These attempts are merely inten<strong>de</strong>d<br />
to distract Turkey from a cross-bor<strong>de</strong>r<br />
operation," he said.<br />
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