Kurd unrest escalates in Turkey

[bigfootedfred]

Hundreds of Kurdish youths have clashed with Turkish police in the town of Batman,
in a third day of street violence in south-eastern Turkey.
Two thousand riot police used tear gas against the protesters, who threw stones and petrol bombs.

The protesters set fire to a bank and built barricades of flaming car tyres.
The violence started in the city of Diyarbakir on Tuesday after the funerals of 14 Kurdish rebel fighters killed by security forces.
Thousands gathered on Thursday at a cemetery in Diyarbakir for the funeral of three people killed during the week's street violence.

Fresh fighting erupted in the city after the funeral, with some mourners pelting police with stones,
prompting volleys of tear gas and warning shots from them.
At least 250 people have been injured in the protests so far - more than half of them police officers, Turkish officials say.
In nearby Batman, an estimated 2,000 people were taking part in a protest march when the unrest broke out.

Correspondents say these are the worst street clashes in the region for many years.

In Diyarbakir mourners held flags of the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
which called off a unilateral ceasefire almost two years ago.
The authorities have reinforced the number of riot police and armoured personnel carriers in the city's streets.

source

The Iraqi president - Jalal Talabani
A former leading member of the KDP, and since 1975 the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
a long history lies behind the movements of the KDP and the PUK,
streching back to the Creation of the Republic Of Turkey in 1923.

[Rhah]

Hundreds of Kurdish youths have clashed with Turkish police in the town of Batman

must... resist....crap....pun.

This has been going on for years, but just wait till the Iraqi Kurds try and form their own proper state, then all hell will break loose in Turkey.
Or, maybe there will be a mass exodus of Turkish-Kurds into the new Iraqi Kurdistan, which could be useful because its most likely all the Sunni's will move out of the area

[Garbarsardar]

The Kurds have played it very nicely until now in Iraq. They managed to establish a quasi-autonomus zone. The logical next step? Kurdistan.
Of course Turkey will go ballistic over such an idea, but the truth is that with the bases in Iraq, the Gulf and Afghanistan Turkey was not the valuable strtegic ally it used to be.
Time for Ancara to pay the cost for the airspace antics during the initial operations in Iraq?

[Sgt Gul]

this is all provocation, turkey will not bite in this. THe army waits for the right time to crush the terrorists for good, the kurds will make a historic mistake if they plan to make a independant state Kurdistan. Turkey and other neihboruing states will not wathc while that happen

[Garbarsardar]

this is all provocation, turkey will not bite in this. THe army waits for the right time to crush the terrorists for good, the kurds will make a historic mistake if they plan to make a independant state Kurdistan. Turkey and other neihboruing states will not wathc while that happen

I wonder what exactly are they waiting for?
Anyway one terrorist down, millions to go...


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4860692.stm

[Dromikaites]

this is all provocation, turkey will not bite in this. THe army waits for the right time to crush the terrorists for good, the kurds will make a historic mistake if they plan to make a independant state Kurdistan. Turkey and other neihboruing states will not wathc while that happen

Humm, a historic mistake for Turkey would be to escalate the conflict. Right now Turkey is trying to get accepted in the EU and "crushing terrorists" won't do it any good. Besides, even if the majority of the Turkish population would say: "to hell with EU, we want the terrorists crushed" it would still be a very bad idea for the Turkish government to use the military option.

As long as the things are handled by the riot police Turkey can hope the international community won't intervene. However if the army is sent in the army would start shooting because that's what soldiers know how to do best. Then Turkey would experience another Kossovo. US is not exactly pleased with Turkey since the invasion of Iraq, many influential EU countries are anyway demanding that the Turkish government acknowledges the Armenian genocide, all the EU countries demand better treatment for the Kurds and all the EU countries demand the Turkish troops withdraw from northern Cyprus. In other words, right now Turkey is not exactly popular. If the Turkish politicians make the mistake to escalate the violence in the Kurdish areas or if the Turkish government allows "patriots" and "volunteers" to "pacify" the area then Turkey would have the same fate as Yugoslavia.

The best way for Turkey to avoid the separation of the Kurdish area would be to accelerate the reforms and give Kurds a large cultural autonomy. If Kurds cannot prove they are opressed there won't be any international support for a separatist movement.

[Blaven]

The best way for Turkey to avoid the separation of the Kurdish area would be to accelerate the reforms and give Kurds a large cultural autonomy. If Kurds cannot prove they are opressed there won't be any international support for a separatist movement.

The more autonomy in Turkey that they're granted will logically lead to the next step: complete emancipation, and Turkey is afraid of going that way, but sad to say, they're just going to have to let it go. Turkey's already lost Kurdistan in the most basic human and demographic ways. The more they try to hold on, the worse it ends up being.

[Dromikaites]

The more autonomy in Turkey that they're granted will logically lead to the next step: complete emancipation, and Turkey is afraid of going that way, but sad to say, they're just going to have to let it go. Turkey's already lost Kurdistan in the most basic human and demographic ways. The more they try to hold on, the worse it ends up being.

It doesn't work that way. Cultural autonomy would result in the majority of the Kurds not "noticing" anymore they live under the Turkish rule. Once they're not punished anymore for being Kurds (it was illegal till recently to speak Kurdish in public) they have no real reason to separate. And most of the people on the street don't care if they pay taxes to the Kurdish government or to the Turkish one.

well turks have treated kurds very harsh in the past but the kurds never wanted to integrate in turkey and accept turkish as the official language.

US or Canada are good examples of countries where sizable parts of the population don't speak English. The problem with Turkey is that untill a few years ago it was illegal to speak Kurdish in public.

i do not think that the eu would do more then protest against turkey if they use the military to crush a possible rebellion.
in the past the military was very harsh in kurdish villages and nobody intervened.

At that time Turkey was needed because of the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Turkey lost its strategic importance and the western countries started to put pressure on Turkey to improve its human rights record. Then Turkey managed to irritate the US on the occasion of the invasion of Iraq.

turkey is also a very important country. it is the country between muslim and western world. and not only geographically, also mentally. this country can be a connector between muslims and westerners. well lets see what happens. i would not be surprised if turkey uses its military if the situation escalates..within turkey.

Turkey is indeed an important country and this is something the politicians there need to realise. If they play their cards correctly by difusing the situation only with riot police operations and negotiations then the western powers would support an unified Turkey. Otherwise there's always the Kossovo approach.

People seem to forget the episode with Indonesia and the East Timor. The largest Muslim country in the world was "persuaded" not to interfere with the seccession of East Timor. That incident happend right after NATO had bombed Serbia into submission because of Kossovo. The Indonesian government was not keen on finding out what the US and Australia would do to them. The Turkish economy is still fragile and an economic blockade would ruin it. And the Turkish army, even though it's large, reasonably well equipped and quite well trained is in no measure to win a war against the western powers. US can't afford to allow the Turks have too much fun with the Kurds because that might cause unrest among the Iraqi Kurds, making Iraq more unstable than it is today.

Turkey has lots to lose if the tensions escalate.

[Ahlerich]

And the Turkish army, even though it's large, reasonably well equipped and quite well trained is in no measure to win a war against the western powers. US can't afford to allow the Turks have too much fun with the Kurds because that might cause unrest among the Iraqi Kurds, making Iraq more unstable than it is today.

Turkey has lots to lose if the tensions escalate.

turkey would never make a war against western powers..its as likely to expect germany or spain to make a war against western powers. thats out of question..its an absurd idea. and turkey is way to close to europe, there is no way for the US to do military operations in turkey either. it would be the same like attacking greece or poland or whatever. the US might not rely on turkey anymore but that doesnt mean they can do what they want with turkey

[SARMATIAN LEADER]

yeah..yeah!they are terrorists!crap!!they are an autonomus nation which turkey is opressing!!
and they would love to do another genocide like they did to the Armenians!!

[SARMATIAN LEADER]

Genocide is back i think,you should be ashamed for pictures like this(i mean you turkish people)
I hope Kurdistan gains its independence!

garba plz edit this post,i was also reffering to turkey!!

[Garbarsardar]

Genocide is back i think,you should be ashamed for pictures like this!!
I hope Kurdistan will be independent!!

The image is from BBC. It is a Kurdish child wounded during a Turkish anti-"terrorist" operation. Think again who should be ashamed for making rash comments. I hope you were not reffering to me...

[Legiondude]

Genocide is back i think,you should be ashamed for pictures like this(i mean you turkish people)
I hope Kurdistan gains its independence!

garba plz edit this post,i was also reffering to turkey!!

not that i support turkey, but they are calling the kurds terrorist in the same way that the saddam loyalists are beeing called terrorists, so everyone calls their enemyes terrorists......

anyways, doubt there will be a kurd state for long, but one thing i must ask, to arabs this goes...

how come arabs and kurds have issues with each other, the only time that the arab world was going up, it was lead by a kurd, was not saladin a kurd?

[SARMATIAN LEADER]

eheemm...i agree with you maybe my english are so bad that you didn't understand the post so well!anyway i agree that the turks are opressing the Kurdish people!!

[Kanaric]

I hope they go to an all out rebellion to the brink of civil war.

[allthesedamnnamesaretaken]

all that's on my mind right now is that they live in the town of Batman

[Denny Crane!]

I think that in any situation where you get an ethnic group striving for independance the same situation ends up developing; decades of insurgency and/or terrorism ending in compromise and devolution. It would save time if people just went straight into negotiations and diplomacy with some sort of proposals. Patriotism blinds people, they feel they need to maintain this fiction of there country and fear losing status or territory.

Peter

[John I Tzimisces]

I think that in any situation where you get an ethnic group striving for independance the same situation ends up developing; decades of insurgency and/or terrorism ending in compromise and devolution. It would save time if people just went straight into negotiations and diplomacy with some sort of proposals. Patriotism blinds people, they feel they need to maintain this fiction of there country and fear losing status or territory.

Peter

this kind of started when the turks started killing their minorities off because they wanted more freedom, not because the minorities asked for it...

[ShangTang]

If any people deserve their own country, it's the Kurds. I pray they get it.

[Denny Crane!]

this kind of started when the turks started killing their minorities off because they wanted more freedom, not because the minorities asked for it...

Regardless of the reason why the kurds decided they wanted their own country what I said stands true, it just makes there motivation and reasons more valid.

Although I didn't know that thanks.

Peter