Turkey is right to fight

Turkey is right to fight for an end to the PKK

Norman Stone

27 October 2007

The PKK must be stopped if Turks and Kurds are to make peace

They are as usual being lectured by the Americans. But what are they supposed to do? The Americans after all hardly hesitated when it came to invading Panama to get rid of Noriega. And besides, the Turks know enough about the Kurdish question to recognise an impossible quandary when they see one. The Kurds themselves are very divided. The millions in western Turkey just want to get on in Turkish. There is no single Kurdish language: there are at least four, divided even then by dialects. The northern Kurds are good Turkish citizens, some of them — the Zaza speakers — even nationalist. The southern ones, with a heavy tribal inheritance, have something of an outlaw tradition, but they are divided by religion. You can bring out thousands for a nationalist demonstration, sympathetic to the PKK, but tens of thousands for a religious cause.

It would be horribly difficult to construct an autonomous region out of all of this, let alone a state, and most Turks (including most western Kurds) regard Barzani’s region as just a huge Somalia, with oil. They have, therefore, mustered their forces, and are telling Barzani to get rid of the PKK. They are right. In the end he will have to co-operate with Turkey, the only truly working state in the whole vast region. But the PKK must go first.

The paperback edition of Norman Stone’s World War One: A Short History is being published by Penguin next March at £7.99.

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Sehmus

October 24th, 2007 6:01pm Report this comment

I didn't read the article completely because you need to be neutral to write about two organization. You have already made your decision that PKK is a terrorist group. Question: What makes it a terrorist group? Asking right for 15million Kurds? Fighting with Turkish Army?

James

October 25th, 2007 7:11am Report this comment

Turkey murders Armenians-Silence Turkey Invades-Cyprus Silence Turkey Denies Kurds Rights-Silence. If the Bully is never confronted he is still free to Bully.

Dario

October 25th, 2007 9:50am Report this comment

Turkey has entered iraq 24 times in past each time has attacked few PKK bases in most of the previous times Iraqi Kurdish helped them. however none of these attempts were fruitful and PKK has gone from strength to strength. The best solution for PKK is Full amnesty for PKK fighter and lifting ban on Kurdish cultural activities. also creating an environment were Kurds can take their fight to parlament.at the moment Turkey is ruled by bunch of army thugs who only interested in provoking Kurds to strength PKK and in return tell Turks they are the most important people in Turkey because they protect the nation hence need to keep 70% of the nations budget.

Ray Wallis

October 25th, 2007 11:31am Report this comment

The Turks are a nasty bunch of thugs with delusions of imperial grandure. The PKK is a perfectly legitimate freedom fighting organisation. It's that simple.

Broker

November 13th, 2007 2:03pm Report this comment

My esteemed fellow commentators can clearly spell the words "thug", "savage" and "freedom fighter"... I wonder if they can spell "racism" and "moral relativism" too?

Leo Colgar

November 15th, 2007 8:41pm Report this comment

Very good. Thank you very much indeed. It is good to see someone in Europe being aware of what is going on...

not important

November 18th, 2007 8:38pm Report this comment

To all those who have commented... how many of you actually know the history of what has happened in Turkish soil post the great war and during the revolution war? how many of you have had family, ancestors killed by Armenians when the men were at the battle field? The armenians revolted to the Ottoman Empire during the WW. They killed thousands of women and children in villages while the men were at the front. they fled the army and joined russian army to fight agains the ottomans. What was supposed to happen? should the ottomans have shaken their hand for all this? as for the kurds, they have done the same during the ottoman empire last years and also during the great national revolution war. and afterwards the pkk has killed 30,000 people most of which are civillians. they are an internationally recognised terrorist group. As far as Im concerned all you posting here either are ignorant or of ill nature and intention. either way, it is likes of you who speak without knowledge and with malintention that enable injustice to prevail in the world today. wake up and smell the coffee... i had 2 brothers killed by the pkk one was a soldier and the other just a civillian... i had 2 great great grandparents slain by the armenians during the great war. what justice are you talking about??? who is the bully???

Adam

November 18th, 2007 11:32pm Report this comment

Thanks to Norman Stone for this informative report.I wanna add just a few points to here: PKK is not only a simple terrorist party but also an organization supported by internal external evil forces aiming to block Tukey's development. Throughout the history, the Turks knew how to overcome such evil plans and provocations, and will do so in the future. Besides, how come a Kurdish terrorist group having killed even thousands of innocent Kurdish women and children can be called legitimate? Just a little bit reason please..

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