The Terrorist
State
Of Turkey Charges
Kurdish Leader Aydogdu For His Remarks Regarding Kirkuk
Kurdish Politician in
Turkey Charged with Inciting Hatred
ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 23, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey – A politician was charged Friday with inciting hatred and
threatening public safety after suggesting that fellow Kurds would rise against
the state and fight if Turkey ever attacked their Kurdish brethren in
neighboring Iraq.
Police detained Hilmi Aydogdu, leader of the
Democratic Society Party's branch in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, as
he left a conference and questioned him over the remarks, said Nazmi Gur, a
party spokesman.
Prosecutors later formally arrested Aydogdu and
charged him with threatening public safety by inciting racial enmity and hatred.
The charge carries a maximum three-year prison sentence.
In remarks published in several newspapers,
Aydogdu had warned Turkey against taking any action in the oil-rich Iraqi city
of Kirkuk.
Turkey, which has been trying to quell a
domestic Kurdish insurgency for more than two decades, fears that Iraqi Kurdish
groups could seize control of the northern city and incorporate it into their
self-ruled region.
Some in Turkey have suggested that Ankara could
take military action to prevent that from happening.
“The two sides in this war would be Turkey and
the Kurds in Iraq. There are some 20 million Kurds in Turkey, and the 20 million
Kurds would regard such a war as an attack against them,” newspapers quoted
Aydogdu as saying.
“Any attack on Kirkuk would be considered an
attack on Diyarbakir,” the politician was also quoted as saying.
Turkish leaders are concerned that Iraq's Kurds
want Kirkuk's oil revenues to fund a bid for independence that could encourage
separatist Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey who have been fighting for autonomy
since 1984. The conflict has claimed the lives of 37,000 people.
Turkey has not ruled out military incursions
into Iraq to hunt separatist Kurds, despite warnings from the U.S., which fears
that such moves could lead to tensions with the Iraqi Kurdish groups allied with
Washington.
Turkish authorities frequently accuse the
Democratic Society Party of having links to an outlawed Kurdish guerrilla group,
the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which the U.S. and European Union consider
a terrorist group.
Party members frequently are detained and
branch offices raided.
