The Cypriots and the Kurds in Turkey
[16:49 , 15 Nov 2006]
Kurds, Turkey (International Herald Tribune)
PNA-Turkey complains vociferously about the European Union's unfair
treatment of the politically and economically isolated Turkish Cypriots. Why
then shouldn't Turkey grant a big chunk of its own citizens - the Kurds -
the same rights it demands for people who are not even Turkish nationals?
There are many similarities between Northern Cyprus and the Turkish
southeast, where many of Turkey's estimated 15 to 20 million Kurds live.
They are geographically similar and are located in sensitive areas - the one
off Syria's coast, the other bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria.
Both are relatively isolated and poor, though the Kurds are a lot
poorer than the Turkish Cypriots. In both cases, poverty is linked to the
unresolved political and security issues around their identity and political
status.
But it's the differences that are more striking. Turkey is loudly
championing the rights of Turkish Cypriots in the EU. But anyone who
champions Kurdish rights in Turkey risks being accused of separatism and
even terrorism.
While Turkey expects international support for its Cyprus solution,
based on a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality between
the two communities, it argues the precise opposite for its own Kurdish
citizens.
For many Turks, any Kurdish request for national recognition - whether
to be called Kurdish citizens of Turkey rather than Turks, or for a
federation, or to use the Kurdish language in schools or in the media - is
perceived as an attack on the Turkish nation and its territory.
While many Kurds are ready to remain within a unitary Turkish state so
long as they can have full cultural rights, for most Turks the idea of
Turkish Cypriots accepting simply minority status in a Greek-Cypriot
dominated Republic of Cyprus is anathema.
The Turkish habit of stamping slogans onto mountainsides is evident
both in Northern Cyprus and in southeastern Turkey. But on Cyprus, the
slogans declaring the north to be the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
are directed at the Greek Cypriots across the Green Line, while in the
desolate mountains of southeast Turkey, the slogans assert "one state, one
flag, one language."
Many Turks will argue that the Cyprus problem and the Kurdish problem
are not the same due to the violence of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK),
which has been fighting the Turkish military for over 20 years and is and
labeled as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European
Union. But why should violence by a minority of Kurds mean curtailing the
rights of the majority of Kurds?
How can there be any hope of a political solution in either place
without respect for the rights of both minority groups?
Where are the political leaders? Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
is struggling on many fronts, not least to win re-election next year in the
face of a nationalist and secularist onslaught, and also to keep Turkey's EU
process on track despite negative signals from Europe and waning public
enthusiasm in Turkey. Thus Erdogan may not be capable of making a deal on
Cyprus, nor of making any progress on the southeast in the face of growing
hostility both to him and to the Kurds.
And yet while some hardline Turkish nationalists may want an
independent Northern Cyprus, and some radical Kurds may dream of an
independent Kurdistan, the fact is that neither Turkey's southeast, nor
Northern Cyprus has a realistic future as independent state.
In both cases the best hopes for an acceptable solution lie with a
continuation of Turkey's EU negotiations.
Much of the solution lies in Turkey's hands. If Turkey's government
and public stand up consistently for democracy and human rights - whether in
support of Turkish Cypriots or Turkey's Kurds - and against the undemocratic
political pronouncements of Turkey's military and nationalists, then it will
be hard for democratic European politicians to give in to their nationalists
and to suspend membership negotiations with Turkey.
Kirsty Hughes is a former senior fellow of the Centre for European
Policy Studies, Brussels.
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously rejected due to its
alleged political implications by the Republic of Turkey, which does not
recognize the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan".
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in Big Kurdistan
(Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia), which covers an area as big as France,
about half of all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in Turkey.
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but unofficially
flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey
where flying it is a criminal offence"
http://www.peyamner.com/