ICG report: Need to press on with rights for Kurds
ICG report: Need to press on with rights for Kurds
The International Crisis Group (ICG) has released a new report called
"Turkey’s Kurdish Impasse: The View from Diyarbakýr".
Commenting on the report the ICG said that it examines the country’s biggest Kurdish-majority city and province in light of the main issues underlying the Kurdish problem and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) insurgency: mother language, local government and identity and political representation.
"The armed conflict - said Didem Collinsworth, Crisis Group’s Turkey/Cyprus analyst - is more violent than ever before in the past decade and has killed over 870 people since June 2011. Yet across the political spectrum in Diyarbakýr, among Kurds and Turks, rich and poor, Islamic and secular, there is a shared desire for a common future based on a clear government strategy to resolve the chronic issues of Turkey’s Kurdish problem".
The report underlined how "grievances that underlie support within the Kurdish movement for the PKK’s armed struggle remain strong in the south east: local government’s resentment at decisions made by Ankara-appointed officials, anger at mass arrests of political representatives and frustration at the bans on the public use of Kurdish. A budding economic revival risks being undermined by the PKK insurgency and lack of interest from state and private investors".
The report also underlined how "the political scene in Diyarbakýr is not monolithic. Though dominant nationally, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has lost much of its local appeal. However, the Kurdish movement’s Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), Diyarbakýr’s strongest political force, has yet to prove its ability to distance itself from an increasingly violent PKK. The moderately Islamic Gülen movement is trying to offer an alternative, and Kurdish Islamic groups are boosting their already substantial influence".
The report stressed the fact that "leaderships in Turkey as a whole, and majority Kurdish-speaking areas like Diyarbakýr in particular, need to work pro-actively on four lines of reform, which Crisis Group has outlined in two previous reports: ensuring full mother-language rights in education and public life; a new, informed debate on decentralisation and a strategy to implement it; reducing the threshold for election to the national parliament to 5 per cent from 10 per cent to allow fairer representation; and stripping discrimination from the constitution and laws. The government should also urgently undertake legal reform to end mass arrests and lengthy pre-trial detentions of non-violent activists on terrorism charges".
Both sides - concludes the report - need to show true leadership by eschewing violence, committing to dialogue and achieving the Kurds’ legitimate aspirations through Turkey’s existing legal structures. They can strengthen Kurds’ trust in the state by resolving pressing local problems in Diyarbakýr and ensuring its long-term development.
The civilian population and local politics are increasingly stressed and polarised by rising tensions. “The struggle for the hearts and minds of Diyarbakýr residents – and of Kurds at large – is not yet lost”, says Hugh Pope, Crisis Group’s Turkey/Cyprus Project Director. “If both sides place more emphasis on fostering realistic discussion of differences than on populist rhetoric, there are still many reasons to hope that Turks’ and Kurds’ millennium-long common history can continue more harmoniously”.
"Turkey’s Kurdish Impasse: The View from Diyarbakýr".
Commenting on the report the ICG said that it examines the country’s biggest Kurdish-majority city and province in light of the main issues underlying the Kurdish problem and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) insurgency: mother language, local government and identity and political representation.
"The armed conflict - said Didem Collinsworth, Crisis Group’s Turkey/Cyprus analyst - is more violent than ever before in the past decade and has killed over 870 people since June 2011. Yet across the political spectrum in Diyarbakýr, among Kurds and Turks, rich and poor, Islamic and secular, there is a shared desire for a common future based on a clear government strategy to resolve the chronic issues of Turkey’s Kurdish problem".
The report underlined how "grievances that underlie support within the Kurdish movement for the PKK’s armed struggle remain strong in the south east: local government’s resentment at decisions made by Ankara-appointed officials, anger at mass arrests of political representatives and frustration at the bans on the public use of Kurdish. A budding economic revival risks being undermined by the PKK insurgency and lack of interest from state and private investors".
The report also underlined how "the political scene in Diyarbakýr is not monolithic. Though dominant nationally, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has lost much of its local appeal. However, the Kurdish movement’s Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), Diyarbakýr’s strongest political force, has yet to prove its ability to distance itself from an increasingly violent PKK. The moderately Islamic Gülen movement is trying to offer an alternative, and Kurdish Islamic groups are boosting their already substantial influence".
The report stressed the fact that "leaderships in Turkey as a whole, and majority Kurdish-speaking areas like Diyarbakýr in particular, need to work pro-actively on four lines of reform, which Crisis Group has outlined in two previous reports: ensuring full mother-language rights in education and public life; a new, informed debate on decentralisation and a strategy to implement it; reducing the threshold for election to the national parliament to 5 per cent from 10 per cent to allow fairer representation; and stripping discrimination from the constitution and laws. The government should also urgently undertake legal reform to end mass arrests and lengthy pre-trial detentions of non-violent activists on terrorism charges".
Both sides - concludes the report - need to show true leadership by eschewing violence, committing to dialogue and achieving the Kurds’ legitimate aspirations through Turkey’s existing legal structures. They can strengthen Kurds’ trust in the state by resolving pressing local problems in Diyarbakýr and ensuring its long-term development.
The civilian population and local politics are increasingly stressed and polarised by rising tensions. “The struggle for the hearts and minds of Diyarbakýr residents – and of Kurds at large – is not yet lost”, says Hugh Pope, Crisis Group’s Turkey/Cyprus Project Director. “If both sides place more emphasis on fostering realistic discussion of differences than on populist rhetoric, there are still many reasons to hope that Turks’ and Kurds’ millennium-long common history can continue more harmoniously”.
