Kurdish Conference in Istanbul
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:59 amCan anyone find some more information about the conference in the report below? Like what was discussed in detail, or what were the accomplishments made? I am really interested to know more about this event...
Kurdish conference opens in Turkey under tight security
Saturday, 11 March 2006
ISTANBUL (AFP) - Turkish and Kurdish intellectuals gathered in Istanbul Saturday under tight security for a major conference on peacefully resolving the 22-year-old Kurdish conflict in the country's southeast.
Police imposed strict security measures after nationalists threatened to disrupt the two-day event, which is designed to promote ways of ending a conflict that has long impeded Turkey's efforts to join the European Union.
Police officers searched participants at the entrance of the venue, the private Bilgi University, and several dozen riot police were on guard outside the campus.
"Ultra-nationalist groups have threatened to sabotage the conference," former culture minister Ercan Karakas, who is among the organizers, told AFP.
More than 45 Turkish and Kurdish intellectuals, politicians and journalists of various political convictions were scheduled to speak at the conference, entitled "The Kurdish question in Turkey: ways for a democratic settlement".
Organizers said the participants could adopt a final declaration appealing to the government to do more to resolve the Kurdish conflict, which has claimed some 37,000 lives since 1984.
The conflict started when the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey, the EU and the United States, began fighting for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
It has led to allegations of gross human rights violations on both sides, ravaged the already meager economy of the region and forced hundreds of thousands of already poor peasants to migrate into urban slum areas.
Keen to boost its democratic credentials and join the EU, Turkey has in recent years lifted emergency rule in the southeast and allowed the Kurdish language to be taught at private courses and used in public broadcasts.
It is also compensating villagers who have been displaced and suffered material losses during the conflict.
But Kurdish activists maintain the reforms are inadequate and are calling for a general amnesty for PKK militants to encourage them to renounce violence.
Unrest in the southeast has significantly escalated since June 2004, when the PKK called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire, shattering a period of relative calm in the region.
Around 12 million of Turkey's 72 million inhabitants are estimated to belong to the Kurdish community.
Source: AFP
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