KurdistanObserver.com

Turkish Premier's Remarks Stir Debate

ANKARA, Turkey -AP- Nov 29, 2005- When Turkey's prime minister recently recognized that not all Turks are alike, the restive Kurdish population rejoiced.

Finally they could call themselves a distinct ethnic group - providing they acknowledged being first and foremost citizens of Turkey.

But many non-Kurds were alarmed, saying the prime minister's remarks amount to a redefinition of Turkish identity that could threaten the nation's survival.

Multiculturalism is an explosive concept in Turkey, where the army has been battling Kurdish rebels since 1984 in a fight that has left 37,000 dead. The conflict has destabilized the country, a key U.S. ally straddling Europe and the Middle East. It has also carried over to neighboring Iraq, where Kurdish militants have established a base.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the comments in an effort to calm unrest in the country's largely Kurdish southeast. No one should be discriminated against because of their ethnicity, he told hundreds of Kurds who gathered to hear him during a trip to the region last week.

"We are all citizens of the republic of Turkey under that upper identity," he said. However all Turks have "sub-identities," Erdogan said. "No one should be offended by this. A Kurd can say 'I am a Kurd.'"

The audience burst into applause.

Back in the capital, though, Erdogan's speech angered the country's powerful nationalists, who assailed him for questioning the "one Turkish nation" policy that gave birth to the republic 82 years ago. So deeply engrained is the policy that Turkish schoolchildren start the day by chanting "Happy is the one who says 'I am a Turk.'"

Many nationalists regard any expression of a separate Kurdish identity as a cover for trying to break up the state along ethnic lines. That fear has been strengthened by the war in Iraq, which left Iraqi Kurds in control of a region in the north of the country bordering on Turkey.

Deniz Baykal, the main opposition leader, claimed that Erdogan's redefinition of Turkish identity could lead to a conflict of the kind that tore up the former Yugoslavia and threatens to do the same in Iraq.

"If we go into that process, we would be drifted toward the danger of becoming the Balkans, Yugoslavia and Iraq," Baykal said.

Turkey is home to the largest Kurdish population in the Middle East - at least 12 million out of a total population of 70 million. It also has an estimated 130,000 non-Muslims - mainly orthodox Christians and Jews.

Turkey grants Jews and Christians minority rights under a 1923 treaty but considers all Muslims in the country to be of Turkish ethnicity. It has never granted Kurds, who also are Muslims, minority rights.

Turkey is under pressure from the European Union to improve its human rights record, including recognizing Kurds as an official minority. The EU started formal talks with the country last month on its application to join the EU.

In a progress report earlier this month, the European Commission urged Ankara to review its restrictive interpretation of the treaty.

"There are other communities in Turkey which, in the light of the relevant international and European standards, could qualify as minorities," the report said.

The national identity debate has only aggravated the unrest Erdogan was seeking to calm.

Violent protests have convulsed southeastern Turkey since a Nov. 9 grenade attack targeting a convicted Kurdish guerrilla. He survived but four people have died in the unrest. Kurds say security forces were behind the attack in Semdinli, the town the prime minister visited last week.

On Monday two paramilitary police officers were arrested in the attack and charged with "establishing an organized crime ring" and "inciting hatred based on ethnic differences."

Human rights groups repeatedly have accused the government of brutal tactics against rebels.

On Monday, NTV television reported that a mass grave containing nine bodies believed to be those of Kurdish guerrillas was discovered in southeastern Mardin province.

On Sunday, police refrained from using force against several hundred stone-throwing Kurdish children marking 27 years since the founding of the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, known by its Turkish acronym PKK.

But a group of Turkish children threw stones back at the Kurdish children - and were awarded chewing gum by the officers, according to Turkish media reports Monday and Tuesday.