Erdoğan claims no longer any Kurdish problem in Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has managed to resolve Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish problem during the years it has been in power and that there is no longer such a problem in the country.

Speaking at a fast-breaking dinner in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır on Sunday evening, Erdoğan said that “We managed to solve the Kurdish problem only by relying on God and our people. In the old Turkey, Kurds themselves were seen as a problem. No citizen is seen as such in today’s Turkey. Our only problem is terrorism. And we are solving and overcoming it.”

Since it came to power in 2002, the AKP has several times launched talks with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging a bloody war in Turkey’s Southeast since 1984 and is listed as a terrorist organization by the EU, the US and Turkey, in a bid to resolve the Kurdish problem, but they all ended in failure, sparking new clashes between the PKK and the Turkish military.

“When compared to past, there is a freer and more democratic Turkey. There is nobody in this country apart from coup plotters and terror lovers whose freedoms have been curtailed over the past 16 years. The freedoms of none of our citizens have been restricted,” said Erdoğan.

During the 16 years it has been in power, the AKP has taken some steps to expand the rights enjoyed by the Kurds, but they are viewed mostly as symbolic moves, such as the launch of a Kurdish TV station and the restoration of some place names that were originally in Kurdish.

The Kurds are still deprived of the right to receive education in their mother tongue, and there is no reference to them as equal citizens in the Constitution of Turkey. These are two major demands of the country’s Kurdish population among many others.

Meanwhile, the Turkish military is waiting for the right time to carry out an operation in northern Iraq’s mountainous Qandil region where high-ranking members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are hiding, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Monday.

“Qandil is not a distant target for us anymore. Right now, a lot of positions have been seized there by Turkish forces, especially in the northern Iraq region,” Soylu told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency in a televised interview. “Timing is what is important for us right now… Qandil will be made a safe place for Turkey, no one should doubt that,” he added.

The militant group frequently carries out attacks on Turkey from its camps in the Qandil Mountains, a remote region of Kurdish-run northern Iraq. In response, Turkey has been conducting land control operations inside northern Iraq territory near the border since March. Turkey has also conducted frequent air strikes against PKK targets in northern Iraq. It previously carried out cross-border operations in the region in the 1990s and 2000s.

In addition, dozens of members of Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) are in jail on terror charges. They include the party’s former chairpersons Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, who have been in pretrial detention on terror charges since November 2016.

Demirtaş is also the HDP’s presidential candidate for the June 24 presidential election. The AKP’s presidential candidate is Erdoğan.

HDP’S ELECTION CAMPAIGN SUBJECTED TO 22 ATTACKS IN 35 DAYS

According to a report from the HDP, the party as of June 3 had been the subject of 22 attacks since the launch of its election campaign for the June 24 presidential and general elections, reported by Cumhuriyet daily on Monday.

Turkey will hold early presidential and general elections on June 24, and the political parties began campaigning on April 28. The HDP has been subjected to the highest number of attacks, with its officials also exposed to judicial harassment during this period.

According to a report drafted by the party, HDP campaign booths and stands as well offices were attacked 10 times in Ankara, six in İstanbul, two in İzmir and Antalya and one time each in Hatay and Edirne. In the same period, 136 party officials have been detained, 14 of whom have been arrested.

The party’s presidential candidate, Selahattin Demirtaş, has been in pretrial detention since November 2016. He has not been released from prison despite calls suggesting that Demirtaş should be temporarily freed so that the elections can be held in a fair and equal environment for all candidates.

In the meantime, İYİ Party and Felicity Party (SP) campaign booths have also been attacked several times since the beginning of the election campaign. (SCF with turkishminute.com)

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from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/erdogan-claims-no-longer-any-kurdish-problem-in-turkey/