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Turkey, Mindful of Kurds, Fears Spillover if U.S. Invades Iraq October 3, 2002 By CRAIG S. SMITH TUNCELI, Turkey - The traditionally rebellious Kurds of this hardscrabble hill town live hundreds of miles from the Iraq border, but tensions that bristle so obviously here could erupt into fresh violence against the Turkish government if the United States invades Iraq. At least, that's what the Turkish government contends. The virtual autonomy enjoyed by Iraqi Kurds - thanks to American and British enforcement of a no-flight zone over northern Iraq - is likely to increase if the government of Saddam Hussein is ousted Indeed, Iraqi Kurds are asking for a Kurdish administrative district within an Iraqi federation. That, Turkish officials say, would reawaken Kurdish nationalism here, feeding dreams of the same kind of independence for Turkey's estimated 12 million to 20 million Kurds. "It's already having an effect on the political atmosphere in southeastern Turkey, and that effect will increase," said Umit Ozdag, chairman of the conservative Turkish policy institute Asam. "Kurds are going to ask for the same political framework in Turkey" that the Iraqi Kurds would enjoy in a post-Hussein Iraq. [Turkey's prime minister, Bulent Ecevit, underscored the government's concerns about Kurdish nationalism in an interview published Tuesday in Hurriyet, a Turkish daily. "Many steps have already been taken toward the establishment of a separate state," he said. "Turkey cannot accept this to be taken further."] Turkey is pressing the Bush administration to restrict the rights and territory granted Iraqi Kurds in any future Iraqi government, arguing, for example, that the country's northern oil fields should be kept out of Kurdish hands. But many Turkish Kurds insist that northern Iraq has nothing to do with the tension here and that Turkey simply wants to avoid giving them full cultural and political rights. In August, Turkey's Parliament did approve constitutional changes abolishing the death penalty and legalizing private Kurdish-language education and Kurdish-language broadcasts. The hotly debated changes are required to qualify for membership in the European Union, which Turkey would like to join. But the reforms have yet to be carried out, and Kurds complain that their rights are still being denied. Turkey fought a 15-year civil war against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which once hoped to establish an independent Kurdistan. Serious fighting stopped three years ago when the party declared a cease-fire and withdrew its battered forces to the Kurdish regions of Iraq. While some Turkish Kurds warn of a new uprising if Turkish oppression continues, many say they are fed up with war and have abandoned the dreams of independence. Encouraged by a birthrate that suggests they could eventually overtake Turks as the country's main ethnic group, Kurds have turned to politics to pursue full rights. "Kurds in Turkey don't favor separation, nor are they standing with a request for federation in their hand," said Murat Bozlak, former chairman of the recently disbanded Kurdish political party, Hadep, at the party's headquarters in Ankara. "Their only wish is to be given democratic and cultural rights equal to those of every citizen." But those rights have been slow in coming, in part, some Turks say, because politicians and the ever-powerful military are reluctant to countenance democracy overall. "Of course there's a danger Kurds may want a federal state in Turkey as well, but that's their democratic right," said Dogu Ergil, a political science professor at Ankara University. "The fear isn't of what Kurds will say, but of democracy itself." Generations of Turkish leaders have sought to force the Kurds' assimilation into the larger Turkish population. For decades, speaking Kurdish was outlawed and Kurds were officially designated "mountain Turks." Kurds say the repression is the main reason for more than two dozen revolts in the last 80 years. An estimated 30,000 people died in the fighting that erupted in the 1980's after the Kurdistan Workers' Party took up arms and Turkey responded with emergency rule that turned the southeast into a network of army checkpoints. Even today, with emergency rule - a limited form of martial law - lifted in all but two Kurdish cities, travelers are stopped and checked by soldiers about every 10 miles, and many towns remain off limits to outsiders without government approval. In Tunceli (pronounced toon-JEH-lee), armored personnel carriers still stand sentry on the approach roads and heavily armed soldiers continue to keep watch from hilltop bunkers. At the last checkpoint before Tunceli - which residents still call Dersim, its Kurdish name - foreigners are required to sign a form stating that they will not stray from the main road. The town itself is an isolated outpost reminiscent of Wild West towns, and the mood is tense. A former farmer whose village was burned down eight years ago said the town had been brutalized by the military. In 1996, he said, soldiers dragged the body of a 25-year-old man through the streets as a warning to others after the man was caught giving bread to two Kurdish fighters, who were also killed. "The government is a criminal gang," said a middle-aged man late one night at a table crowded with bottles and cigarette butts in a Tunceli restaurant. "All we want is democracy and to live peacefully with everyone else." At the local Hadep office, a party official, Ali Can Unlu, explained that the Kurds felt robbed of rightful control of their town. When the vote was being counted for mayor three years ago, he and other witnesses say, the police cleared the room with three ballot boxes yet to be opened and the Hadep candidate leading by 100 votes. The Hadep candidate lost. "If they start to deny language and cultural rights again, people will return to a revolutionary state," Mr. Unlu said. To some extent, the denial of cultural rights is routine. Berdan Acun, for example, a fresh-faced lawyer in nearby Ergani, went to record his son's birth at the local registrar nine months ago. But the office refused to accept the name he had chosen for his child, Hejar Pola, which in Kurdish means "valuable steel." The office director, a woman he had known for years, would not give a reason. The authorities regularly reject Kurdish names. Most people do not want trouble, so they choose another. But after being repeatedly rebuffed, Mr. Acun is preparing to take his case to court. "He has no name yet," said Mr. Acun as his son played on the family's living room carpet, "but he will." The subgovernor of nearby Silopi, Unal Cakici, grew visibly angry when asked about the rules on Kurdish names. "If someone applies to me with a name that I don't understand, I will refuse it, too," he said. "Terrorists are trying to use all sorts of methods to create problems and this is one of them." Mr. Cakici said the outside world had failed to appreciate the depth or viciousness of the threat posed by Kurdish separatists. Although the Kurdish military threat has largely abated, the European Union finally put the Kurdistan Workers' Party on its list of terrorist organizations this year. In the past, the group assassinated officials and killed entire Kurdish families for collaborating with the government. Political gains by Iraq's Kurds could revive Turkish separatism and renew that threat, Turkish officials say. Turkish Kurds dismiss the government's fears, saying they are dedicated to finding a political solution. Yet in time that could well include a federal Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey, a prospect that sends shudders through governing circles in Ankara. Kurdish-language programming produced in Belgium and beamed into Turkey on Medya TV, a Paris-based satellite station, refers frequently to Kurdistan, and occasionally shows maps giving the outlines of the idealized Kurdish state covering parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The staff in a small office at Hadep headquarters in Ankara, listening raptly to the programming, said Turkish Kurds recognized that an independent Kurdistan was an impractical dream. "Personally," said a young hazel-eyed man, "I think it would be better to have a federal system." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/03/international/middleeast/03KURD.html?ex=1034718092&ei=1&en=7bf86bb12f8a78fa HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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