Kurdish groups in southeastern Turkey call for self-rule
News | 28.12.2015 | 11:30
euronews - Kurdish groups in southeastern Turkey are calling for self-rule.
It follows a summit of the Democratic People’s Congress (DTK), a coalition of non-governmental Kurdish groups, and comes as heavy fighting continues in the region.
The army is pushing ahead with a security operation in which it says more than 200 Kurdish militants have been killed.
“To form a democratic autonomous region including one or several neighbouring provinces, one needs to take into account their cultural, economic and geographic affinities,” said Hatip Dicle, Leader of Kurdish Democratic People’s Congress.
The final resolution of the meeting called for the formation of autonomous Kurdish regions, including several neighbouring provinces.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu cancelled a planned meeting with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) on Saturday, saying its politics were rooted in violence.
For three decades, Ankara has been trying to end an insurgency by fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK – classified by the EU and US as a terrorist organisation.
A two-year ceasefire fell apart in July, plunging the southeast back into a conflict that has killed more than 40-thousand people.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/12/28/kurdish-groups-in-southeastern-turkey-call-for-self-rule.html
Topic: Turkey´s Civil War: Fighting moving from rural areas to cities - page 6. (Read 4768 times)
December 28, 2015, 04:27:15 AM
December 27, 2015, 08:45:06 AM
Also like to mention the PKK uphold their end of the peace agreement back a couple of months ago and It was Erdogan and Turkey that violated it, so Turkey has nobody to blame but itself
December 27, 2015, 12:21:35 AM
ISTANBUL–A small Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility on Saturday for a blast at Istanbul’s second-largest airport that killed one airplane cleaner, raising concerns about expansion of a conflict that has largely been isolated to southeastern Turkey.
The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks said it had fired mortar rounds at Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in an effort to disrupt Turkey’s commercial flights as part of its fight against a military offensive targeting Kurdish insurgents.
“This attack by mortar shells will also be the beginning of our new period of action,” the group said in a statement published by the Kurdish news agency Firat.
If proven true, the attack may signal a new attempt by Kurdish militants to carry their fight for autonomy into Turkey’s major cities.
The Turkish government has said little about last Wednesday’s airport blast, drawing criticism from relatives of the slain airport worker and opposition lawmakers who are demanding answers.
“This is not a banana republic,” one mourner said Thursday at the funeral for Zehra Yamak, 30, the airport cleaner killed at the airport. “How can a bomb explode at the airport? Still, no one has come out and said: ‘This and that happened, that is why the incident occurred.’”...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/kurdish-group-claims-responsibility-for-turkey-airport-blast-1451154534
The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks said it had fired mortar rounds at Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in an effort to disrupt Turkey’s commercial flights as part of its fight against a military offensive targeting Kurdish insurgents.
“This attack by mortar shells will also be the beginning of our new period of action,” the group said in a statement published by the Kurdish news agency Firat.
If proven true, the attack may signal a new attempt by Kurdish militants to carry their fight for autonomy into Turkey’s major cities.
The Turkish government has said little about last Wednesday’s airport blast, drawing criticism from relatives of the slain airport worker and opposition lawmakers who are demanding answers.
“This is not a banana republic,” one mourner said Thursday at the funeral for Zehra Yamak, 30, the airport cleaner killed at the airport. “How can a bomb explode at the airport? Still, no one has come out and said: ‘This and that happened, that is why the incident occurred.’”...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/kurdish-group-claims-responsibility-for-turkey-airport-blast-1451154534
December 26, 2015, 09:53:10 AM
Everyone know that the Kurds are the most effective and fearless ISIS fighters. Even there women carry guns and fight. Are they not our best middle east ally?
They will be maybe if U.S. "trainers" get to inject their parade ground mentality. You know; marching together in the field in tight and orderly formations so as to be better prepared for I.E.D.´s and suicide bombers.
December 26, 2015, 09:29:49 AM
Everyone know that the Kurds are the most effective and fearless ISIS fighters. Even there women carry guns and fight. Are they not our best middle east ally?
December 26, 2015, 09:11:32 AM
What a load of crap. Straight out of Turkywood. Pretty well produced though. Good timing, framing, storyline etc.
December 26, 2015, 05:37:24 AM
December 26, 2015, 03:46:18 AM
This not the case of "revenge" for downing SU 24 but the matter of principle that Kurds must win its own state. Russia should supply them with all weapons they need because that brave nation is decimated by superior army force. They must have equal chance to fight sultan's islamo-nazis. What is needed is declaration by Syria, Iraq and Iran to accept Kurds autonomy and provide them with arms. Kurdistan should be proclaimed only after defeating and neutralizing of the Turks and Kurdistan proclamation to become non allied , neutral country.
December 26, 2015, 03:08:13 AM
Locals: Turkey’s Crackdown on Kurdish Towns Increasingly Violent
Troops Shelling Indiscriminately Into Curfew Towns
by Jason Ditz, December 25, 2015
While Turkey continues to hype its military operations against towns in the southeast as part of the war against the PKK, with an eye toward “cleansing” the country of PKK separatists, locals complain the operations are increasingly bloody.
To make matters worse, the attacks are largely indiscriminate, with Turkish military forces imposing a full curfew on those towns, and firing against anything that moves. Wounded civilians are basically stuck in their homes, with no way to get to hospitals, and no way for doctors to reach them.
Turkey insists the operations are very precise, and hit militants who are active in affected neighborhoods, but locals point to a growing number of women, children, and the elderly killed in the operations to dispute those claims.
Turkey has been at war with the PKK for over 30 years, but had a ceasefire in place until this fall, when the Erdogan government abandoned the ceasefire and launched a new offensive against PKK targets inside Iraq. This has since escalated, and they’ve ruled out any return to a truce.
http://news.antiwar.com/2015/12/25/locals-turkeys-crackdown-on-kurdish-towns-increasingly-violent/
Troops Shelling Indiscriminately Into Curfew Towns
by Jason Ditz, December 25, 2015
While Turkey continues to hype its military operations against towns in the southeast as part of the war against the PKK, with an eye toward “cleansing” the country of PKK separatists, locals complain the operations are increasingly bloody.
To make matters worse, the attacks are largely indiscriminate, with Turkish military forces imposing a full curfew on those towns, and firing against anything that moves. Wounded civilians are basically stuck in their homes, with no way to get to hospitals, and no way for doctors to reach them.
Turkey insists the operations are very precise, and hit militants who are active in affected neighborhoods, but locals point to a growing number of women, children, and the elderly killed in the operations to dispute those claims.
Turkey has been at war with the PKK for over 30 years, but had a ceasefire in place until this fall, when the Erdogan government abandoned the ceasefire and launched a new offensive against PKK targets inside Iraq. This has since escalated, and they’ve ruled out any return to a truce.
http://news.antiwar.com/2015/12/25/locals-turkeys-crackdown-on-kurdish-towns-increasingly-violent/
December 25, 2015, 10:47:58 PM
When the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein did the same against the Kurds, the Americans and the British were among the first to react. Remember the Halabja chemical attack in 1988? But now, when Turkey is perpetrating even worse atrocities, the NATO is remaining silent. It is not a civil war. It is just a one-sided genocide against unarmed people.
Well, I think it started long ago and is now seriously escalating. In a few weeks garbage media will be unable to ignore it anymore. It´s good to try to be ahead of the curve, so starting this thread.
December 25, 2015, 10:41:35 PM
When the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein did the same against the Kurds, the Americans and the British were among the first to react. Remember the Halabja chemical attack in 1988? But now, when Turkey is perpetrating even worse atrocities, the NATO is remaining silent. It is not a civil war. It is just a one-sided genocide against unarmed people.
December 25, 2015, 10:35:26 PM
Turkish media report that a passenger aircraft landing at Diyarbakir airport came under fire.
http://www.sozcu.com.tr/2015/gundem/pkklilar-yolcu-ucagina-ates-acti-1017095/
Conflict News @Conflicts
VIDEO: Clashes continue in #Cizre #Turkey - @evrenselgzt
5:31 PM - 24 Dec 2015
https://twitter.com/Conflicts
http://www.sozcu.com.tr/2015/gundem/pkklilar-yolcu-ucagina-ates-acti-1017095/
Conflict News @Conflicts
VIDEO: Clashes continue in #Cizre #Turkey - @evrenselgzt
5:31 PM - 24 Dec 2015
https://twitter.com/Conflicts
December 25, 2015, 10:21:10 PM
Chris Kilford: Could Turkey be headed towards civil war?
CHRIS KILFORD
Published on: December 25, 2015 | Last Updated: December 25, 2015 9:38 AM EST
In scenes reminiscent of Syria’s five-year-old civil war, fighting between the Turkish government and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey has increased dramatically in the last few months, leading to concerns that Turkey — a NATO country — could be headed for a civil war of its own.
Indeed, the conflict has moved from Turkey’s rural areas to its cities. Hundreds have been killed and some 200,000 people have been forced to leave their homes. Schools, government buildings, shops and houses have been destroyed and infrastructure crippled.
Major towns such as Cizre, Nusaybin and Silopi are under curfew and an additional 10,000 police and troops armed with artillery and tanks have been deployed. If Turkey was not a NATO member, one suspects that the United States and France would have already sent their ambassadors to the region by now in a show of support for the Kurds.
The fighting between the Turkish government and the PKK has been ongoing since 1984. But a few years ago, when the Turkish government initiated a courageous political process to end the decades-long armed conflict, there was great hope the security situation would dramatically improve. And, for a while it did.
In 2013, I travelled to southeastern Turkey and met with many Turkish and Kurdish political leaders. I will never forget the mayor of Hakkari, who leaned across his desk and dramatically said to me, “welcome to Hakkari, the very centre of 30 years of war.”
It’s a fight that has cost the Turkish economy more than a trillion dollars during the past three decades – money that could have been better spent on development than war. However, the Kurdish people were subjected to a systematic and often brutal assimilation policy after 1923. The outcome was the PKK.
From the perspective of many people I met in 2013, the time to achieve a lasting peace had finally arrived. Turkey had a strong majority government ready to negotiate with the PKK. The Turkish economy was performing well with money available for development projects. The military, unusually, appeared willing to support the government’s peace overtures and many Kurds were simply fed up with the never-ending unrest.
Now, everything has changed.
Instead of going ahead with democratization efforts that would have enabled the easing of Kurdish grievances, the government re-started the fighting in late July 2015, the day after a group allegedly linked with the PKK killed two policemen.
A more reasonable government, one might have expected, would have taken the time to discuss its options. In this case however, in an instant the gloves were off.
If the Turkish government believes it can win a war with its own people it is simply being delusional. Combing through some old files in my Ankara office a few years ago, I came across a 1991 Turkish military briefing for foreign attachés that claimed the military had already broken the back of the organization. They were wrong 25 years ago and will continue to be until some sort of negotiated settlement is achieved.
These are, unfortunately, dark days for Turkey. International media outlets paint a picture of a government that is attacking its own people, that is insincere about fighting ISIS, that shot down a Russian fighter jet for no good reason, and that drags its feet when it comes to closing its border with Syria.
Oh, it also violates Iraqi sovereignty by stationing troops in that country without permission, has failed to stem the refugee flow to Europe, jails its journalists and, according to Amnesty International, mistreats refugees.
Of course, as a complete picture of Turkey it’s unfair. But perceptions are everything and the Turkish government needs to work quickly to repair its international reputation. Initiating a ceasefire with the PKK would be a very constructive first step.
Dr. Chris Kilford (then Colonel Kilford) served as Canada’s Defence Attaché to Turkey from 2011-2014. He recently became a fellow with the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy.
http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/chris-kilford-could-turkey-be-headed-towards-civil-war
CHRIS KILFORD
Published on: December 25, 2015 | Last Updated: December 25, 2015 9:38 AM EST
In scenes reminiscent of Syria’s five-year-old civil war, fighting between the Turkish government and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey has increased dramatically in the last few months, leading to concerns that Turkey — a NATO country — could be headed for a civil war of its own.
Indeed, the conflict has moved from Turkey’s rural areas to its cities. Hundreds have been killed and some 200,000 people have been forced to leave their homes. Schools, government buildings, shops and houses have been destroyed and infrastructure crippled.
Major towns such as Cizre, Nusaybin and Silopi are under curfew and an additional 10,000 police and troops armed with artillery and tanks have been deployed. If Turkey was not a NATO member, one suspects that the United States and France would have already sent their ambassadors to the region by now in a show of support for the Kurds.
The fighting between the Turkish government and the PKK has been ongoing since 1984. But a few years ago, when the Turkish government initiated a courageous political process to end the decades-long armed conflict, there was great hope the security situation would dramatically improve. And, for a while it did.
In 2013, I travelled to southeastern Turkey and met with many Turkish and Kurdish political leaders. I will never forget the mayor of Hakkari, who leaned across his desk and dramatically said to me, “welcome to Hakkari, the very centre of 30 years of war.”
It’s a fight that has cost the Turkish economy more than a trillion dollars during the past three decades – money that could have been better spent on development than war. However, the Kurdish people were subjected to a systematic and often brutal assimilation policy after 1923. The outcome was the PKK.
From the perspective of many people I met in 2013, the time to achieve a lasting peace had finally arrived. Turkey had a strong majority government ready to negotiate with the PKK. The Turkish economy was performing well with money available for development projects. The military, unusually, appeared willing to support the government’s peace overtures and many Kurds were simply fed up with the never-ending unrest.
Now, everything has changed.
Instead of going ahead with democratization efforts that would have enabled the easing of Kurdish grievances, the government re-started the fighting in late July 2015, the day after a group allegedly linked with the PKK killed two policemen.
A more reasonable government, one might have expected, would have taken the time to discuss its options. In this case however, in an instant the gloves were off.
If the Turkish government believes it can win a war with its own people it is simply being delusional. Combing through some old files in my Ankara office a few years ago, I came across a 1991 Turkish military briefing for foreign attachés that claimed the military had already broken the back of the organization. They were wrong 25 years ago and will continue to be until some sort of negotiated settlement is achieved.
These are, unfortunately, dark days for Turkey. International media outlets paint a picture of a government that is attacking its own people, that is insincere about fighting ISIS, that shot down a Russian fighter jet for no good reason, and that drags its feet when it comes to closing its border with Syria.
Oh, it also violates Iraqi sovereignty by stationing troops in that country without permission, has failed to stem the refugee flow to Europe, jails its journalists and, according to Amnesty International, mistreats refugees.
Of course, as a complete picture of Turkey it’s unfair. But perceptions are everything and the Turkish government needs to work quickly to repair its international reputation. Initiating a ceasefire with the PKK would be a very constructive first step.
Dr. Chris Kilford (then Colonel Kilford) served as Canada’s Defence Attaché to Turkey from 2011-2014. He recently became a fellow with the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy.
http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/chris-kilford-could-turkey-be-headed-towards-civil-war
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