Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Basm Ozeti
Ilkin said Turkish troops are involved in peacekeeping operations in Bosnia
and Kosovo and argued that his country's armed forces need a "strong
defense capability" so they can contribute to peace and stability in the
region. Told about the concerns of human rights groups, he said: "I think
we decide on what we need and we acquire what we need. . . . We are
restructuring the army so it has more mobility and rapid action units. We
are surrounded by a lot of crises, in the Balkans, Kosovo, internal troubles
in Georgia, the Caucasus, and we are following developments in Iraq."
He added, "Turkey is in a delicate part of the world. This purchase is not
for the declaration of wars but so that peace can prevail .... Assault
helicopters are part of our inventory of arms."
Turkey to Allow Limited Kurd New
Year Celebrations
ISTANBUL, March 18 (Reuters) - Turkish officials have relaxed restrictions on Kurds
publicly celebrating their annual spring festival, the main legal Kurdish party said on
Saturday.
Festivities for Newroz, or Kurdish New Year, on March 21 are to be allowed in Diyarbakir,
the southeastern regional capital, as well as in some southern and western cities, a
spokesman for the People's Democracy Party (HADEP) told Reuters.
But petitions for similar celebrations were rejected in allother mainly Kurdish cities as well
as Istanbul, home to a large Kurdish population swelled by years of migration from the
embattled southeast.
"I think this discrepancy basically reflects the attitude of local authorities in those places,"
HADEP'S Mahmut Esiyok said.
"They should not stop the people from celebrating Newroz," a HADEP statement said. "We
believe the people willlay claim to their festival, celebrating it in a peaceful way."
Newroz is traditionally a time of protest for Turkey's restive Kurds and a rallying day for
Kurdish nationalists. Youths leap over bonfires in an ancient rite linked to similar March 21
festivities in Iran and Central Asia.
Organised celebrations have been banned in Diyarbakir for years. Hundreds of people were
arrested at illegal Newroz festivities in Istanbullast year which threatened to turn violent
when riot police opened fire into the air.
Fighting between jailed Abdullah Ocalan's Kurdish rebels and Turkish troops in the
southeast has all but ended since Ocalan was sentenced to death last June and ordered his
PKK to seek peace with Turkey.
Hopes have been rife that Turkey's policy towards its 12 million Kurds might
change after Ankara was made a European Union member candidate last year.
But the government has so far shown no signs of allowing Kurdish cultural rights, such as
broadcast and education, or lifting a state of quasi-martial rule in the southeast.
Ocalan is on a Turkish prison island, awaiting a European right court ruling on his appeal
on the grounds that the death penalty violates European law. He was sentenced for leading
his PKK's 15-year campaign for self-rule in which more than 30,000 people have died.
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