VOA: Turkey/Kurds

[root at newsdesk.aps.nl]

From: newsdesk at newsdesk.aps.nl (Newsdesk Amsterdam)
Subject: Re: VOA: Turkey/Kurds
Reply-To: root at newsdesk.aps.nl

------ Forwarded from : Haldun Haznedar <haldun at avalanche.micro.ti.com> --------

date=3/20/95
byline= Victor Beattie

Intro: American experts on Turkey says the latest military
offensive into northern Iraq -- the largest in modern Turkish
history -- will not solve the long-standing and complex Kurdish
problem. VOA's Victor Beattie reports political and cultural
issues must be dealt with to defuse the 11-year quest for an
independent homeland:

Text: Author Robert Kaplan says the Turkish military has gained
increasing political control in Ankara at the expense of what he
calls a weak civilian coalition government. While none of the
experts expects a long offensive they do agree the offensives in
recent years have involved more force.

They say this latest offensive aimed at destroying the guerrilla
bases of the marxist Kurdistan Worker's Party, which has been
fighting for an independent homeland for 11 years at a cost of
thousands of lives, does not address the political issue of
autonomy.

Mr. Fuller says Kurds have intermarried with Turks for over 600
years and they are everywhere in the country today:

                     ///Kaplan actuality///

         Federalism, giving them some autonomy will not work.
         That is a recipe for an even weaker Turkish state.
         There has to be some form of dual-nationalist or
         extremely subtle constitutional formulation for this.
         This is one of the hardest problems to solve because it
         cannot be solved territorially.

                       ///end actuality///

Mr. Graham Fuller of the wellknown research group in Washington
DC, Rand Corporation, says granting certain cultural rights to
the Kurdish minority might ease their demand for separatism.

The experts warn a resurgent Kurdish movement toward autonomy
could result in a new form of Balkans conflict in the region.

20-Mar-95 9:56 pm EST (0256 utc)

Source: Voice of America

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