Turkish president seeks to calm Kurdish tensions
TURKEY | 30.12.2010
Kurds in Turkey have been asserting their culture and language
The Turkish president is set to travel to the main city of his country's Kurdish minority on Thursday in a bid to defuse tensions over a recent push by Kurds to assert their culture, language and rights.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul is set to make a one-day visit to Turkey's main Kurdish city, Diyarbakir, on Thursday. The trip comes as political tensions continue to rise over an initiative launched by the country's main Kurdish party for greater rights.
The presidential visit, which appears to have been hastily arranged, is being seen as crucial to defusing political tensions in Turkey, which have been heightened by the initiative.
"I think he will look for ways to calm things down," political scientist Cengiz Aktar told Deutsche Welle. "As it is, I think we are again going back to this very belligerent rhetoric of the Kurdish issue. So again we are heading towards a period of dialog."
In addition to meeting with local state officials and businessmen, Gul was also expected to meet with the mayor of the Diyarbakir, Osman Baydemir, who is one of the leading figures in the Kurdish initiative launched earlier this month, which calls for democratic autonomy and the right to use the Kurdish language in aspects of public life, including in education.
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"I am putting it very clearly, those who want to bring discord to this nation are the enemy of 73 million people," Erdogan said. "The artificial discussion of the last few days is a dirty game and evil plot of the terrorist organization and its extensions. My people will not fall for this plot, they'll spoil the game."
The terrorist organization Erdogan referred to is the Kurdish rebel group the outlawed PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish state for greater Kurdish rights since 1984. For now they've called a unilateral ceasefire.
"What happened to the promise of solving this problem, and the promise that mothers won't cry anymore," Demirtas asked. "Were you expecting a BDP which will kneel before you and beg?"
Tensions were further ramped up when the leader of the far-right National Action Party, Devlet Bahceli, warned that the very existence of Turkey was at stake.
"This is a nasty plot hatched by those who want to change the governing structure of Turkey, and to divide the Turkish nation into two, with a separate flag. This will for sure divide our nation," Bahceli said.
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Ahjead of his trip, President Gul tried to play down expectations, saying it was just a routine visit. But with tensions rapidly escalating, the trip is expected to get a lot of media attention.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14742945,00.html
