KurdistanObserver.com

Northern Kurdistan Looks to Southern Kurdistan for Inspiration

Turkish Kurds See Iraq As An Inspiration

By SELCAN HACAOGLU
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey -AP- April 4, 2006- For Ramazan, an elderly Kurdish businessman, the recent battles between masked Kurdish youths and Turkish police have rekindled a dream - the creation of an autonomous zone for his people in Turkey, much like the one carved out of Iraq. But that dream is Turkey's worst nightmare.

While Kurds look to northern Iraq for inspiration, Turks see it as an example of what the future could bring: a collapsed central state and a brewing ethnic civil war.

Iran and Syria also are concerned that Kurds in Iraq's oil-rich north could set up an independent state if the Iraqi central government collapses - serving as a rallying call for their own restless Kurdish minorities and destabilize the entire region.

Iran's ambassador to Turkey, Firouz Dowlatabadi, warned in an interview published Tuesday that Turkey, Iran and Syria need a joint policy on the Kurdish issue or "the U.S. will carve pieces from us for a Kurdish state."

But international politics was of little concern to Ramazan when he headed out into the streets as soon as he heard Kurdish protesters were confronting Turkish police.

The protests started late last month in Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeastern Turkey, the predominantly Kurdish region devastated by more than a decade of warfare between autonomy seeking Kurdish guerrillas and the army.

At least 15 people were killed and hundreds were injured and detained as the rioting spread, with mass demonstrations throughout the southeast and smaller protests in Istanbul.

"I did not throw any stone, I did not enter the clashes. I am old, you know," said Ramazan, who refused to give his last name or details about his life for fear the police could track him down. "But I went out to support the Kurdish revolution. I had to be there since I am a Kurd."

"I am a Kurd, we want our language, our rights," Ramazan said.

Turkey refuses to recognize Kurds as a minority, and speaking Kurdish was illegal until 1991. At the prodding of the European Union, Turkey recently has granted some cultural rights to Kurds such as limited broadcasts on television, but many say it is too little, too late.

Turks fear that increasing cultural rights could lead to the breakup of the country along ethnic lines. Stoking that fear is a U.S.-supported Kurdish region in northern Iraq, complete with its own government and militia.

Kurds - brutally repressed under Saddam Hussein before the autonomous zone was created after the Gulf War in 1991 - have played a key role in the new Iraqi government and are prepared to stay in a federal Iraq. But many Kurds say their real aspiration is independence.

Turkish businessmen already are flocking to the area as the Kurdish economy in northern Iraq grows. Some Turkish Kurds living on the border regions are sending their children to universities in the area.

That is coming as Turkey's economic program to build up the southeast is faltering. The government has done little to improve ruined roads or the dilapidated health care system, and blackouts are common.

Fighting between government and rebel forces - which has left 37,000 dead since 1984 - largely ended after the 1999 capture of guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan but began to flare up again after the guerrillas declared an end to their unilateral cease-fire in 2004.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged not to give in to the rioters.

"No one should dare to test the power of the state or the nation," Erdogan said Tuesday in an address to his party. "The government will not step back from expanding democracy, laws and freedom of expression."

Many Kurds have pinned their hopes on Turkey's push to join the EU, which repeatedly has said Ankara's treatment of the Kurds will be a key determining factor in its decision on whether to accept the country. But that process could take at least a decade and frustrations among Kurds are growing.

Unemployment is extremely high in the region, which helps increase support for Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq. Ankara says the guerrillas also have been able to acquire sophisticated plastic explosives in Iraq for bombings in Turkey.

"No doubt, the region is affected by winds of change from northern Iraq," former Kurdish lawmaker Hasim Hasimi said.

For Ramazan, the fate of the Kurdish dream lies with Washington and the EU.

"Give us a federal status like in Iraq, that's enough," he said. "I hope, it will happen this time."