[lg policy] Turkey and the Kurds

[Harold Schiffman]

November 24, 2009
Editorial

Turkey and the Kurds

In a show of courage and good sense, Turkey’s government has announced
a plan to grant long-denied rights to its Kurdish minority, and, it is
hoped, finally end an insurgency that has cost more than 40,000 lives.

Kurds compose as much as 20 percent of Turkey’s population, yet for
decades the government banned their political parties and denied them
the most basic cultural rights, including the right to use their own
language. This mistreatment helped fuel Kurdish demands for
independence and two decades of bloody attacks by the Kurdistan
Workers Party, or P.K.K.

Although some 12,000 militants are still hiding in northern Iraq along
the Turkish border, the P.K.K. has been steadily losing popular
support. The new initiative is designed as further pressure and
incentive for the group to disband. Last year, Parliament legalized
private Kurdish language courses and created the first public
television channel in Kurdish. New regulation lets Kurdish prisoners
speak to visitors in their native language.

Parliament is now debating an initiative that would allow the Kurdish
language to be used in all broadcast media and political campaigns. It
would restore Kurdish names to thousands of towns that were given
Turkish ones. And it would establish an independent committee to fight
discrimination and investigate torture allegations.

There are other trends that are very worrisome, including Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s attempts to shut down independent news
media. But Mr. Erdogan has shown sound leadership with his plan for
the Kurds, despite fierce opposition from nationalist politicians. For
Turkey to fulfill its potential as a secular Muslim democracy, he will
have to keep battling the nationalists and others to make additional
political and economic reforms, without sacrificing free political
debate.

The United States and other Western countries that have long pushed
Turkey to become more democratic should encourage Mr. Erdogan to keep
pressing ahead. Most important, Europe must finally make clear that if
Turkey bolsters its democracy and respects the rights of its
minorities, it will be welcome in the European Union.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/opinion/24tue2.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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