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Kurds aiming for final agreement next week Ecevit says Turkey prepares its defenses Trouble brews between Kurds/Islamic rebels in Iraq KDP and PUK Set to Seal Agreement on Implementing Four-Year-Old Peace Deal Kurds tell of Iraqi war ignored by outside world Iraq's Kurds Fear Results of U.S. Attack on Saddam Former US diplomat visits Iraqi Kurdistan Turkey's Kurdish party sees no ban before polls Al-Qaeda Surrogate Islamic Group in Southern Kurdistan Destroys Sufi Shrines Two Kurdish guerrillas killed in Southern Kurdistan Police Smash Immigrant Smuggling Ring Washington will not lay the groundwork for a "provisional government" Iraqi Kurds Fear Islamic Militant Group Attack by Islamist Radicals in Kurdistan Brings Kurdish Factions Closer Sweden Arrests Kurd in Immigrant "Honor Killing" Turkey set for November polls, EU reforms in doubt
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Turkish court
acquits Kurdish children over language campaign
DIYARBAKIR, (Northern Kurdistan) (AFP) A Turkish state security tribunal on Tuesday acquitted 28 Kurdish children who faced up to three years in jail for demanding education in their mother tongue, Anatolia news agency reported. The ruling by the state security court in Diyarbakir, a city in the mainly Kurdish southeast, followed parliamentary adoption of key democracy reforms last month legalizing broadcasts and courses in Kurdish, aimed at raising Turkey's chances of joining the European Union. The defendants, aged between nine and 18, were charged in December 2001 after staging a small demonstration and shouting slogans in favor of Kurdish-language courses in the town of Carikli, near Diyarbakir. The demonstration took place as part of a nationwide campaign by Kurdish students asking for the right to receive education in their mother tongue. The Carikli youngsters were charged with aiding the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Turkish authorities had accused of organizing the campaign as part of an initiative of "civil disobedience" against the government. The PKK waged a 15-year war for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast before announcing a unilateral ceasefire in 1999. The conflict claimed more than 36,000 lives.
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