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