World press review on Kurdish movement in Turkey (November 24-26, 2012)

 Turkey confronts resurgent Kurdish threat: With a wave of audacious

attacks in recent months, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is

reemerging as an increasingly organized resistance that is now in the

midst of its bloodiest campaign since the worst days of the conflict

in the 1990s. The Washington Post published ar article on these

developments.

"The rebels appear to be taking a cue from the recent Arab uprisings,

seeking to inspire a “Kurdish Spring” among segments of a stateless

ethnic group numbering roughly 30 million and traditionally living in

parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. The campaign is presenting a

major security risk for Turkey at a time when this strategically vital

NATO member is also pushing for a limited international intervention

against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who

Turkish officials see as being at least partly responsible for the

mounting PKK threat", writes the newspaper. "The death toll in Turkey

has climbed to at least 490 in the past 10 and a half months, making

this the conflict’s deadliest year since at least 1999".

“We think the PKK has become an organization that is being utilized by

a number of countries as proxies, to inflict harm on Turkey and show

displeasure with Turkey’s policies toward its neighbors,” the

Washington Post cites Suat Kiniklioglu, an Ankara-based political

analyst and former national legislator from Prime Minister Recep

Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party.

“We don’t want independence, just a separate parliament and rights

within Turkey that recognize our different language, our separate

identity,” Esat Canan, a national legislator from the pro-Kurdish

Peace and Democracy Party. “The demands of the Kurds are reasonable.

If the government would just sincerely move to help us obtain our

rights, the fighting would stop.”