How far is Turkey down the road to the EU?

For a long time the European Union made Turkey’s candidate status for entry to the EU conditional on serious progress being undertaken towards resolving the Cyprus and Kurdish issues as well as fulfillment of the Copenhagen Criteria. However, Turkey, who apparently wants EU membership, has persistently resisted undertaking the necessary steps.

Despite this, the EU changed tactics at the Helsinki summit in 1999 and gave Turkey full candidate status on the grounds that it would then be easier to influence Turkey and to get it to achieve the required reforms.

However, Turkey continues in its accustomed ways. About one year following the Helsinki summit, on November 8^th 2000, the EU presented Turkey with the “Accession Partnership Document”, a timetable for both the fulfillment of the Copenhagen Criteria and the resolution of the Cyprus issue. This document contained many compromises. The Copenhagen Criteria were loosened up and the Kurdish issue was not referred to by name. Even so the Turkish leadership and press seethed with rage against the EU. They claimed that the EU wanted to give Cyprus to Greece and that Europe was trying to partition Turkey.

Prime Minister Ecevit said: “The Europeans have tricked us!”

Foreign Minister Cem roared: “Some Europeans see us as a colony and behave just like colonialists!”

It was clear that the Turkish leadership were neither willing to make changes nor to resolve the Cyprus and Kurdish issues. They were also not prepared to grant their citizens the human rights expected of today.

Eventually, in March 2001, Turkey issued their “National Report” after putting off the EU and failing to meet deadlines which had been set. The report ignored many important and fundamental requirements within the accession partnership document.

With the statement, “Turkey is a unitary state, its official language is Turkish”, the existence of other ethnic groups, languages and cultures were rejected as well as guarantees of their rights. Cultural rights were reduced to individual rights.

Even though the EU considered the national report to be unsatisfactory they still saw it as a positive step and continued their tactic of “motivating and encouraging”.

Has Turkey fulfilled the requirements of the Accession Partnership Document?
What do the constitutional amendments mean?

In the period following, Turkey planned to make constitutional changes to keep promises made in the National Report. Some of the intended changes for 2001, which were actually reasonable in terms of democratization, were held back by the Turkish National Security Council, i.e. by the military. The rest were at best just window dressing.

As confirmed by renowned legal experts and lawyer associations, the constitution from 1982 is just a product of the military junta of 12th September. It is anti-democratic from beginning to end and it is impossible to straighten it out just by patching it up. As Sami Selcuk, head of the court of appeal, said, it was, “a police statute” and it was necessary to put it aside and to draw up a completely new constitution.

The junta’s 1982 constitution was not drawn up to guarantee the freedom and rights of citizens but, on the contrary, to protect a repressive state against its citizens, citizens who were not taken seriously, who were not trusted and who were feared. For these reasons it became a straightjacket which restricted freedom and rights as far as possible and made them ineffective.

The constitution is from beginning to end written with racist and chauvinistic thinking. The preamble is an unparalleled racist tirade. While the Turkish “race” and culture is placed in the foreground, the existence of other groups and cultures is ignored and receive no protection.

With this “constitution” and other similar legislation, freedom and human rights are being restricted by racist and chauvinistic values, with all rights concerning opinion, press, organization and demonstration being denied.

The system is anti-democratic, repressive and primitive. What takes place in practice goes beyond any standards of crudeness many times over.

That is why there is no freedom of opinion in Turkey and why there is at any one time thousands of political prisoners spending time in Turkish prisons. Writers, artists, politicians and ordinary citizens are being arrested and receive heavy penalties because of what they write or say.

Under this system political parties are being constantly banned.

Under this system any peaceful assemblies and demonstrations are entirely dependent on the whim of police and governors. As a rule, any opposition to the regime is never permitted this right. Under this system torture has not ended.

Under this system neither 20 million Kurdish people nor any other minority have cultural or national rights and freedoms. Demands for such are deemed to be a serious offence of “dividing the fatherland and nation” and are mercilessly punished. The law on political parties even forbids saying that other languages and cultures exist in Turkey. This would be grounds for closing down a party.

It is known that Turkey is under the guardianship of the National Security Council which resides over civil politics, the government and parliament and possesses special powers. No changes can happen in this semi-militaristic institution without the consent of the generals.

Is Turkey a secular country?

Despite claims to the contrary, the regime in Turkey is not secular just as it is not democratic. The 15-20 million Alevites who live in Turkey are oppressed as are the Yeziden, Assyrians and Christian groups.

Religious education is compulsory in schools. Sunnite Islam forms the basis of this education. Everybody, including members of other religious groups such as the Alevites, Yezidens and Christians, are forced to learn the rules, prayers and the Namaz (the ritual daily prayer to Mecca) of Sunnite Islam.

The state provides religious institutes with thousands of employees and a large budget and pressurizes society into a particular form of Sunnite belief (Hanefi).

There also exists a privileged Islamic class which is from time to time a target of repression from a Kemalist regime who believes it can interfere in the beliefs and private lives of its citizens. The regime’s repressive attitude over the past years towards the headscarf is a concrete and real example of this. The state – depending on the circumstances – encourages the Islamic movement to oppose the political Left and Kurdish national movement, and then, when they become dangerous for the rule, they are held back.

What has changed regarding the Kurdish situation?

The Turkish press loudly proclaimed the constitutional changes of 2001 to be a “democratization coup”. Obstacles to education and broadcasting in native languages had allegedly been removed. However, this did not reflect the facts and nor did the regime have the will to make such changes. In the period following, Kurdish children, youths and their parents who demanded either native language education or Kurdish as a subject choice, were subjected to various methods of repression as were the Kurdish teachers who gave them support. They were accused of being members of a “terrorist organization” and of carrying out a campaign controlled by terrorists. Hundreds were arrested, tortured and detained. Court cases are still ongoing.

Precisely during the period of constitutional change, Kurdish names were banned on the orders of the interior ministry. Such names were “not consistent with Turkish culture”! State prosecutors began legal proceedings in many Kurdish provinces, as well as in Turkey’s west, to have the names of Kurdish children changed.

Also in this period, magazines, newspapers and books which were written partially or entirely in Kurdish or dealt with the Kurdish issue, were confiscated. Legal proceedings were brought against authors and publishers, and punishments were imposed. Amongst those punished were the well known writer, Ahmet Altan, and the academic, Fikret Baskaya. The publications were not permitted into Kurdistan. This practice continues today.

Even the repression of Kurdish music continued during this period and became even worse. For example, in Diyarbakir a minibus driver who had Kurdish music playing in his vehicle was sentenced to 3.5 years imprisonment because just by playing Kurdish music he had “supported a terrorist organization”.

The years of states of emergency were lifted except in Diyarbakir and Sirnak. However, in reality the state of emergency rules, which were in force over the previous 24 years, were not lifted. The special powers of governors and police remain valid and are applied at random. The situation can simply not return to normal.

The Turkish government intended to lift all states of emergency and to install in their place a different special system known as the “South East State Administration”. This means nothing other than the continuation of the regional state of emergency governments, just under a different name. In other words, the regime does not intend to allow the situation in Kurdistan to return to normality.

The regime provides nothing more than empty words to improve the social and economic situation of the region. They are not making any concrete progress.

What must be done is to provide support for the millions of people whose villages and houses were destroyed during the bloody war and who were therefore forced to flee or were expelled. A way back to their villages should have been provided. The state should have helped to heal the wounds. Although it is always said that permission to return to the villages has been given, in practice return is being systematically hindered. State security forces, police, gendarmerie and the paramilitary village guards do not permit any return and threaten anyone wanting to return. Whoever returns despite this, is then subjected to harassment and repression to the point of regretting ever having returned. For example, three persons were recently murdered by paramilitary village guards in the village of Nureddin in the region of Mus, who had returned to their village and were cutting grass out in their meadows. The perpetrators have had no criminal charges brought against them. Prior to this incident, inhabitants of the village of Marinus near Hakkari had been murdered as they returned to their village to harvest walnuts. Many incidents of this type could be listed here.

There is therefore just a decreasing minority of people that manage to return home. Most of the rest live out a miserable existence on the outskirts of cities without shelter, without work and without education. In this way Kurdistan’s entire rural regions are far from being able to produce anything and remain devastated. Unemployment and lack of prospects lead to depression for the people of the region.

This state of affairs and the incidents referred to above have been chronicled in the press and in the world at large. In summary, the regime are on the one hand carrying through reforms to allegedly achieve convergence with the EU, but on the other hand, they avoid making any serious changes and, in their efforts to uphold their existing repressive and primitive system, they are becoming even more aggressive.

This is nothing other than hypocritical, double-faced politics.

What has the “EU-Compliance Package” achieved?

What has actually been achieved with the EU compliance package passed by the Turkish parliament on August 2^nd. 2002?

Turkish statesmen, politicians and the regime’s loyal press organs loudly celebrated that Turkey had now fulfilled all its requirements, including those under the so-called Copenhagen Criteria. Politicians and the press spoke of the “giant leaps” that had been made. The public at home and abroad had never been subjected to such a bombardment of propaganda. “The ball is now in the EU’s court. They must now give Turkey a date for negotiations”, they said.

However, the actual situation is again something completely different from the way it is being portrayed.

The steps made to date are far from fulfilling the Copenhagen Criteria. It is even unclear whether they will be implemented in practice. What is clear is that whatever happens in practice things will remain the same!

What the14 articles of EU-Compliance Package contains?

One of the articles concerns the death penalty. The death penalty has been abolished except in “states of war or imminent states of war”. This is definitely something positive. In any case, since 1984, to avoid any criticism from abroad, executions have not been carried out on people sentenced to death by the courts. But this wasn’t necessary because executions took place by other means. For example, intelligence services under state control perpetrated the so-called “murders by unknown persons”. Over the past 20 years thousands of intellectuals and democrats who did not suit the regime, especially Kurdish patriots, have been murdered. The perpetrators will remain forever unknown. Executions have also been carried out by the state’s executives, i.e. the police and the military. In the countryside, in the towns, in prisons and even in the homes of the victims and in full view of the public, many innocent people who had nothing to do with terrorism have been victims of unlawful executions.

We do not believe that such practices will come to an end. On 15^th August 2002 the office of the Turkish Human Rights Association in Diyarbakir stated that in the past 2 months alone in Kurdistan a further 10 people had been killed in “executions without court sentencing” and “murders by unknown persons”.

Torture is allegedly banned in Turkey and is a criminal offence. But the wheels of torture continue to turn, systematically and without pause.

Demonstrations are allegedly permitted. But in the past year those who wanted to peacefully demonstrate were brutally beaten.

One of the amendments in the EU compliance package concerned native language education. This change does not provide the Kurdish people, nor any other groups who speak a language other than Turkish, the right to native language education. One third of the Turkish population, i.e. the 20 million Kurds who make up the oppressed majority in their country of Kurdistan, are not allowed to have any educational establishments which teach their native language. There are will be no primary schools, no secondary schools and no high schools which teach in Kurdish. For those interested there will be “language courses” provided outside of school hours, just as if somebody was learning Japanese or English. Of course the state will not spend anything here. The courses are run privately and require the payment of a fee.

This is not about granting the right to native language education – it is just a callous way of ridiculing a people. The right of Kurds and other immigrant groups to native language education is far better in European states. For example, in countries such as Sweden and Germany there are even kindergartens which provide native language education. In these countries, in Holland and in other European countries, Kurdish children have the right to tuition in their native languages at primary school level. These lessons take place in school and the salaries of the teaching staff are paid for by the state. In Sweden there is even a school where Kurdish teachers can be trained.

This right has been given to the 30-40 thousand Kurds who have come to Sweden over the past years as refugees or to work. Many of them fled from torture and persecution perpetrated by the Turkish regime.

This means that Turkey does not consider a third of its citizens, the 20 million Kurds who make up the oppressed majority of Kurdistan, worthy enough of granting them this right to education. These people are not even immigrants. They inhabited this country thousands of years before the Turks who had made their way from central Asia and occupied Anatolia and Thrace.

It only remains to be said that it will be no surprise when even these courses are hindered in one or any other.

The right to native language broadcasting is being similarly treated. The obstacles to broadcasting in languages other than Turkish have allegedly been lifted. But it has already been revealed that this right will be very restricted and will remain under state control. At most there will be just a 15-30 minute daily programme.

Isn’t this ridiculous for a people numbering 20 million? Is this the way to grant linguistic and cultural rights? It is like saying that a half glass of water a day is adequate for somebody dying of thirst.

Treaty of Lausanne trampled over by Turkey
Now it wants to bypass the Copenhagen Criterias

The Turkish regime say that the reason for refusing to grant basic cultural and political rights to the Kurds is that the Kurds are not a minority. The Kurds are certainly not a minority because in their own country they make up the majority. In their country, the size of France and partitioned in four ways, live 40 million Kurds of which 20 million inhabit northern Kurdistan, i.e. within Turkish borders. It would be ridiculous to see such a people as a minority. Kurdish roots reach back thousands of years into the past. They have their own language, history and territory. Along with the Turks, Arabs and Persians, they are one of the four major nations in the Middle East. At the Lausanne peace conference, post World War 1, the Turkish representative, Ismet Pasa, said : “Kurds, along with Turks, make up the basic elements of our country. Minority rights are not adequate for this supreme nation. The government in Ankara is the government of the Kurds as well as the Turks”.

But they have ignored the Kurds since Lausanne. They have not even been granted minority rights, despite being described as a “basic element”, i.e. on equal terms with the Turks. The Turkish state has not once granted the rights referred to in the Lausanne treaty to one’s own language and culture.

Article 39 of the Lausanne treaty states: “All citizens of the Republic of Turkey may use, without restriction, their native languages in the press, publications and at all levels of society”.

That means therefore that the granting of rights to press and publishing in Kurdish and other languages, including radio and TV, is not really necessary neither for accession to the EU nor for the Copenhagen Criteria. These rights have already been granted under the Treaty of Lausanne. But Turkey has trampled over the decisions made in this treaty. They have banned the publication of newspapers, magazines and books in Kurdish and have even, at times, banned the speaking of Kurdish with punishments being meted out against those who spoke Kurdish. They have therefore forbid “the use of Kurdish at all levels of society”. When the Kurds spoke out and opposed such inequality and repression they were mercilessly put down. The states which also ratified the Treaty of Lausanne remain spectators to such practices.

Turkey continues today to trample over the Treaty of Lausanne. They intend to proceed in the same way in their accession to the EU and the Copenhagen Criteria by wanting to bypass their requirements.

The EU compliance package represents no serious prospects concerning rights and freedom. For example, in many laws such as the criminal law, anti-terror law, press law, and the laws on political parties, there are numerous regulations which restrict rights regarding opinions, beliefs, the press, organization, assembly and demonstration. These restrictions remain in force.

For example, article 81 of the law on political parties forbids any talk of the existence or need for protection of any languages and cultures other than Turkish, and considers any breach of this as grounds for closing the party.

It has always been forbidden to speak Kurdish at any assembly of political parties and even within Kurdish associations. Nothing has changed in this respect. Immediately following publication of the compliance package the electoral commission let it be known that in the parliamentary elections planned for November 3^rd, it will be forbidden to use any languages other than Turkish. It will therefore be considered a breach of electoral regulations if political parties use Kurdish when they address Kurds who do not speak the Turkish language.

There can be no doubt that in future it will continue to be a criminal offence to criticize Turkey’s Kurdish policies, to oppose repression and to demand freedom and rights for the Kurdish people. Such will continue to be seen as an attempt to partition the “state and nation”.

There can be no doubt that in future political parties will not be closed down on grounds of supporting or using terror, but simply because of the views they hold.

There can be no doubt that a multitude of reasons will be found to hinder the activities of political parties and associations which have been founded by Kurds and which put forward constructive proposals on solving the Kurdish question. For example, in this way Abdülmelik Firat, head of the Party for Rights and Freedom (HAK-PAR), has been prevented from travelling abroad for the past five years. Even following the recent compliance package, his situation has not changed. Firat has been a member of parliament in the past two legislative periods and there are currently no on-going legal proceedings for any offence against him.

There are also restrictions on the freedom to travel by foreigners, even for diplomats, when the reason for travel has anything to do with Kurds. A recent example of this happened shortly after the compliance package had been passed. A group of members of the Swedish parliament and members of the Swedish Green Party, who wanted to travel to Iraq via Turkey, were stopped at the border crossing of Habur and were forced to turn back despite having valid visas from the Iraqi consulate.

There can be no doubt that from now on magazines, newspapers and books which are published in Kurdish and deal with the Kurdish question, will be confiscated, their distribution hindered. Authors and publishers will have legal proceedings taken against them with an out pouring of fines and prison sentences being imposed.

The recent compliance package has not provided an end to the threats and repression against the press. In some regards these have even been intensified. For example, prison sentences have been abolished for some breaches of the press laws, but then financial penalties have been dramatically increased – fines of up to 100 billion TL are now possible. This would mean ruin especially for small and mid-range media organizations. This is certainly the reason why even Turkish president of state Sezer considered the changes to be “inconsistent and excessive regarding press freedom and democracy” and has lodged an appeal against these articles with the Turkish constitutional courts.

There can be no doubt that Kurdish music, culture and way of life will continue to be targets of repression and that supporters of Kurds and of a democratic Turkey will be affected by such repression.

There can be no doubt of this because the system has not altered. The labyrinth of bans continues. It is much more important to realize that the regime is not willing to make changes because it is a regime of repression and its ideology, its mortar, is its racist-chauvinistic prejudices. This is the basic characteristic of this ideology.

The country’s leadership – past and present – are all from the same mould. There is no difference between them. There is no difference between the alleged “democratic left” Ecevit and the racist leader of the Party for National Movement (MHP), Bahceli, who is proud to be descended from the race of wolves. Justice minister Hikmet Sami Türk, who initiated placing political prisoners in isolation in F-type prisons, thereby physically and emotionally destroying them, belongs to the DSP. He is also the person that cut back some of the proposals for democratic reforms contained in the compliance package. Interior minister Rüstü Kazim Yücelen, who had Kurdish names banned, belongs to the ANAP party of Mesut Yilmaz, who prides himself on being a supporter of accession to the EU.

None of the parties in parliament, which for years have switched back and forth from government to opposition, opposes the racist-chauvinistic ideology of Turkism. If they did they would cease to exist.

None of the parties which have to date governed the country supports the granting of rights to the Kurds because the national policies of this country are based on the belief that all those other than Turks are null and void and are to be disposed of. Only in this way can the so-called Turkey of Anatolia, Thrace and Kurdistan, where the majority of the inhabitants are non-Turks, become a nation of Turks!

The Armenians were the victims of genocide. A number of Greeks in Thrace were murdered or expelled. Lazians, Cherkessens, Albanians and others were, on the whole, forced to assimilate. Forced assimilation of the Kurds has now been going on uninterrupted for over a hundred years with methods such as genocide, expulsions and bans on language and culture.

The real plan which the Turkish regime has for Kurdistan, and which it is trying to implement, was published two years ago in Turkish newspapers under the title “Secret Plan of Action”. The main aim of this plan is to make Kurdistan Kurd-free, to eradicate the Kurdish language and culture and thereby dispose of the Kurdish question. Dam projects which will flood historical towns of Kurdistan, flood the fertile agricultural land of the region and flood the valleys of incomparable natural beauty are part of this plan. The plan’s architects, Ecevit included, are the civil and military units which have led Turkey from the past to the present. In comparison, the Austrian Haider and Frenchman Le Pen are mere lightweights.

The Turkish leadership which is today standing at the door of the EU is no different to its predecessors. In the 20^th and 21^st centuries such politics of repression can only be maintained through violence and terror. Policies which do not lead to an ending of internal tensions, which provoke conflicts at home and abroad, which squander the country’s resources thereby pushing the land into discord leaving its population without bread or work, do not serve the interest of the Turkish people either. The Turkish people also want change even though they have been subjected to the decade long influence of chauvinism and have, to a degree, contributed to prejudices. They want entry to the EU, economic development, democracy and peace. This is also the reason why the regime does not trust the people and needs constant control over them.

The regime which withholds freedom from the Kurdish people, withholds democracy from the Turkish people. It is afraid and resorts to violence.

Turkey has become a hostage to the Kurdish question

There were two main reasons why in the past the Turkish leadership resisted democracy: communism and fear of the Kurds. A change of regime and partitioning was the issue. Following the collapse of socialism there was no longer any fear of communism and Russia even became a trading partner. But the Kurdish question still remains unresolved and the fear of partitioning continues. This fear manifests itself into an unbelievable animosity towards the Kurds and into a compulsion to eradicate them.

If erroneous politics are pursued for years and, in this sense, war is perpetrated, then such animosity and such a system of values can turn into bloody revenge. It is then difficult to get out of such a situation.

This is the situation which the Turkish regime is in. Its efforts to take the Kurds hostage and to eradicate them has boomeranged and made the regime itself a hostage to the Kurdish question. The Kurdish question has become a key issue which then effects other problems. It is such politics which nourish Turkey’s racism and militarism.

This situation does not just explain the major discord between the Kurdish people and Turkey’s leadership but also the major discord between the Turkish people and its leadership.

This thinking and this type of leadership will not solve Turkey’s problems nor bring peace and democracy to the country. They will also prevent the implementation of the important and fundamental changes necessary for EU convergence.

That is why the current changes are just a whitewash. Turkey’s leadership are masters at being shrewd and cunning. In this way they are trying to pull the wool over the Europeans’ eyes just as they have done for years to their own people.

What is the way out of this situation?

The solution is definitely not about putting the Kurds off their yearning for freedom or by eradicating them, but instead by halting the wrong course being taken. The Turkish leadership must end the politics of genocide, repression and forced assimilation which have been pursued for over one hundred years, and to grant rights to the Kurds. All of Turkey’s citizens must be granted basic rights and freedom. There must be an end to the attempts to deceive the public at home and abroad. Instead, the Turkish leadership must resort to making fundamental and serious changes.

In short, the following steps should be undertaken:

A priority is the implementation of the Copenhagen Criteria, a requirement for EU accession, without degenerating or by-passing its requirements and without deceiving the public at home and abroad or the EU. Therefore, the following steps are necessary:

1.The 1982 constitution from the junta, which is like a straightjacket on society, belongs in the rubbish bin. A democratic and modern constitution must be drawn up. This constitution must recognize the Kurds, who make up a third of the country’s population, and the rights of the Kurds.

2.As well as the constitution, other legislation must also be changed especially political party legislation, electoral legislation, criminal law, press legislation and legislation on assembly and demonstration. This means a democratization of the entire legal system.

3.All opinions and thoughts must be allowed to be freely expressed as long as this is done peacefully. Freedom of the press is to be guaranteed.

4.All political parties which do not resort to violence must be freely permitted.

5.The National Security Council, which presides over parliament and government, must be disbanded as well as the state security courts set up under the states of emergency.

6.So that the country can become secular, the state must stop all unjust and random intervention in the beliefs of the people. That means

·   Disbanding of the Institute for Religious Affairs.

·   The ending of compulsory religious education.

·   The ending of repression towards the headscarf.

7.The language and cultural rights of the Kurdish people and other ethnic groups are to be recognized in accordance with the Copenhagen Criteria. This can not be achieved through granting individual rights. The Copenhagen Criteria refers to basic rights as well as minority rights.

Furthermore, the OSCE in June 1990 – again in Copenhagen –issued a joint resolution which Turkey’s foreign minister had also signed. The agreements in this resolution, which referred to “national minorities” and their rights, were as follows:

·   To freely express, protect and develop ethnic, cultural and religious identities;

·   To freely use ones own native language, privately and publicly;

·   To establish and develop institutions and associations for education, culture and religion.

Article 33 of the resolution states that:

·   The signatory states take responsibility for protecting the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of national minorities within their territory and to provide the conditions for the development of these identities.

Article 34 deals with the right of national minorities to native language education and expressly states that history and literature lessons must include the history and culture of national minorities.

In any consideration of the degree of minority rights in the Copenhagen Criteria, reference must also be made to this agreed, joint and binding resolution from 1990.

In light of this, the reforms which Turkey made with its “EU compliance package” are so superficial that Kurdish linguistic, cultural and political party rights were not taken into account, nor those of other national minorities.

From the Kurdish point of view the following must take place in Turkey:

a) Kurdish must be declared an official language alongside Turkish and freely used in all private and public spheres of life.

b) The right to education in ones native language must be provided from primary through to high school.

c) All day broadcasting in Kurdish must be available over public and private radio and TV stations.

d) Political parties and associations representing national identities must be permitted.

The fundamental solution to the Kurdish question

A fundamental solution to the Kurdish question clearly goes beyond the extent of the Copenhagen Criteria. The Kurds, with a population of 40 million and a territory the size of France, is one of the largest nations in the Middle East. Even if this nation is partitioned between four states, the problem can not be solved through denial or eradication of the Kurds, but instead through criticism of the injustices to the Kurds and by upholding the principles of justice and international standards.

This can happen in two ways:

Either the Kurds decide to separate on their own free will and establish a state where they can exist on the basis of equality. This would be possible in the form of a federation or confederation.

We, the Socialist Party of Kurdistan, remain realistic despite the more than one hundred years of unbelievable barbarity and injustice by the Turkish state towards our people and despite the animosity and anger felt by our people.

We believe that the Kurdish people can coexist under the right conditions in a federal structure with the people with whom they are living side by side. The Kurds in Iraq have chosen this way. We also prefer this solution for northern Kurdistan, i.e. the coexistence with the Turks on the basis of equality, within a federation.

Turkey considers as inadequate a federal solution, which has been accepted by Greece, of two regions and two societies for the 100 thousand Cypriot-Turks, and demands a confederation of two states. Then why is Turkey not prepared to grant this right to the 20 million Kurds in north Kurdistan which is 10 times the size of the island of Cyprus?

A permanent solution to the Kurdish question is only possible in this way, i.e. a federal structure on the basis of equality for both peoples. Such a solution would bring peace to Turkey and would open the road to a true democracy. Only in this way can the complex situation be solved in Turkey, whose problems become greater from day to day.

The Turkish leadership and the European states must be realistic and see the Kurdish question in its true dimensions. This question can not be resolved by pitiful and superficial means such as language courses or half-hour TV broadcasts. These are not solutions which can be presented to a nation. They are dishonorable and will never be taken seriously by the Kurdish people.

On the other hand, as has already been said, the ruling class, government and opposition are neither capable nor willing to make such a fundamental U-turn. What is then to be done?

We think the answer to this question is clear: until the forces that can make this U-turn come into power, the depression in Turkey will only deepen. Both peoples– Kurds and Turks– will suffer. Neither the Kurds fight for freedom nor the Turks fight for democracy will end. In other words, the solution, which is about a deep seated transformation within society, depends on whether a truly reform-willing democratic force comes to power. We do not know how much time this requires.

The EU must uphold its’ standards and principles

How should the European Union respond to this situation?

We are of the opinion that accession negotiations with Turkey should only be undertaken after the Copenhagen Criteria have really been fulfilled and serious progress has been made in resolving the Kurdish question. It is clear that Turkey has not yet done this.

To open the path to accession negotiations to a Turkey which blatantly violates human rights and refuses even the most basic of human rights to the Kurdish people, would encourage it to continue in the same way, to breach the standards of the EU and to maintain their machinery of repression. It would be rewarding repression, injustice, racism and militarism.

The EU should not make this mistake.

Socialist Party of Kurdistan

September 2002