Kurdistan Observer

Turkish PM Promises More Democracy, Welfare For Kurds After Riots

ANKARA, April 4, 2006 (AFP) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged more democracy and prosperity for his country's troubled Kurdish minority Tuesday after bloody riots that raised fears of renewed ethnic conflict.

The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, urged Ankara to show restraint in quelling the unrest that claimed 15 lives over the past week as security forces opened fire to disperse Kurdish youths torching banks and public buildings, vandalizing shops and hurling firebombs.

The death toll included three women killed Sunday in Istanbul when a petrol bomb attack set a bus on fire, causing it to crash into another vehicle.

"While they try to capitalize on hatred and enmity, we will build more roads, more hospitals, more schools and more workplaces" in the southeast, Erdogan said in a speech in parliament to deputies of his Justice and Development Party.

"We will not back down from justice and democracy," he said. "We will bring more freedoms, more democracy, more welfare, more rights and justice."

Ankara has accused the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -- listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the EU and the United States -- of orchestrating the unrest that erupted on March 28 in Diyarbakir, the main city of the southeast, after the funerals of PKK militants killed in fighting with the army.

The Kurdish conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984, when the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the southeast, ravaged the region's meager economy and forced tens of thousands of already poor peasants to migrate to urban slums.

The region enjoyed relative calm after the rebels declared a unilateral ceasefire in 1999 and Ankara, under EU pressure, granted the Kurds a number of cultural rights, lifted emergency rule in the region and began compensating villagers who had suffered in the conflict.

Kurdish politicians, however, say the reforms were half-hearted moves to please the EU and call for broader rights and a general amnesty for the PKK.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul ruled out a general amnesty, but said the government was preparing to unveil "a new wave of reforms," the Anatolia news agency reported.

Tensions in the southeast have been on the rise since June 2004, when the PKK ended its five-year truce.

In Strasbourg, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn urged the authorities to "refrain from excessive use of force" against the rioters.

He dismissed suggestions that the EU should threaten to suspend membership talks with Ankara, which started in October.

The situation "requires economic and social development and bridge-building rather than dramatic measures by Europeans," Rehn said.

Erdogan, however, rejected any dialogue with the main Kurdish political group, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), until it openly condemns the PKK as a terrorist organization.

The DTP, which runs many local administrations in the southeast, is accused of encouraging the unrest in line with PKK appeals for civil disobedience.

In Diyarbakir, four senior DTP members were detained Tuesday following the arrest of a party leader in Batman, the police said, adding that they were looking for two others, including the provincial chairman.

Back in Ankara, the government faced accusations for being too soft on Kurdish separatists during a stormy parliamentary debate.

Main opposition leader Deniz Baykal described the riots as "an uprising attempt" by the PKK aimed at Turkey's unity.

In Istanbul, police chief Celalettin Cerrah said security measures were being intensified after Sunday's deadly firebomb attack on a bus.