The Kurdish Platform in Europe (UK Branch)
P.O Box 24677
London N15 D0

Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London SW1A
25 February 2003

Dear Prime Minister,

We are a group of Kurdish organisations from Turkey in the United Kingdom come together in the present crisis.

We are deeply alarmed at the possibility of a Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan which we believe, would have serious repercussions in the Middle East in general, and Turkey in particular.

The aggressive posturing of the Turkish governments against Iraqi Kurds pose grave dangers to the future stability and democratic order which we all wish to see established in the Middle East after Saddam Hussein is removed from power in Iraq. We believe that the demand of Iraqi Kurds to have a devolved administrative power in a democratic federal Iraq poses no threat to Turkey. In fact, a truly democratic federal Iraq with free political parties will have a stabilizing effect in the whole of the Middle East.

Turkey should not be allowed to invade Iraqi Kurdistan. All the Iraqi Kurdish leaders have unanimously declared that they would resist such an unprovoked, uninvited aggression.

Turkey claims to be a democratic country, upholding western liberal values. The present government stated that it will implement the criteria laid down in Copenhagen for the membership of the European Union.

Although the Turkish government has given an undertaking by December 2004, to grants 20 million Kurds their political and social rights including the right to learn and study their own language, it has not yet carried out any of these promises.

Turkey has huge foreign debts, reaching into hundreds of billions of US dollars. Their economy is in a really bad state. The country is burdened with an oversized conscript army. And yet, the same army leaders are trying to plunge the country into a new, costly military adventures, to invade Iraqi Kurdistan. It should be remembered that the Turkish army is still occupying Northern Cyprus after 40 years.

We urge you to use your good influence with the Government of Turkey to prevent them from invading Iraq and to persuade the US administration to deter them from doing so.

Yours sincerely,