[Marxism] On PKK, Kurds and recent developments

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The Ceasefire This Time

Evren Balta-Paker

August 31, 2005, Middle East Report Online

(Evren Balta-Paker is a doctoral candidate in political science at
CUNY-Graduate Center, New York.)

"The aim of the Turkish armed forces is to ensure that the
separatist terrorist organization bows down to the law and the
mercy of the nation." Thus did the Turkish chief of staff, Gen.
Hilmi Ozkok, brusquely dismiss the one-month ceasefire announced on
August 19, 2005 by the Kurdistan People's Congress (or Kongra-Gel).
Kongra-Gel is the name adopted in 2003 by the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK), which had renewed its armed struggle with the Turkish
state just over one year before proclaiming its latest truce.

The ceasefire came in response to an August 12 speech by Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Diyarbakir, a city nestled in the
rugged southeast where much of Turkey's Kurdish population lives.
Under strong European pressure not to intensify military action in
the southeast, Erdogan promised to handle Turkey's "Kurdish
question" with more "democracy." Since it was swept into power by
November 2002 elections, Erdogan's neo-Islamist party has affected
a somewhat softer attitude toward the Kurdish question than the
secular hardliners who have traditionally dominated Turkey's
military and civilian elite. Anxious to meet the human rights
benchmarks for talks on Turkey's desired accession to the European
Union, the new government used its parliamentary majority to ram
through a reform package that legalized Kurdish-language
instruction and broadcasting. Though this reform has been unevenly
implemented at best, it was de facto recognition of the distinct
culture of the people the Turkish state had long called "mountain
Turks." The speech in Diyarbakir, a town long regarded as the
center of Kurdish opposition, was a sign that the neo-Islamist
government is prepared to extend its reforms.
...

FULL: <http://www.merip.org/mero/mero083105.html>

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