Ethnic groups in Turkey

The PKK on Aug. 5 urged all Kurds to take up the fight against the Sunni militants of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who have expanded their advance across Iraq into Kurdish-controlled territory.

Presidential hopeful Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu has lent support to the government’s efforts in finding a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question, which includes the possible release of Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Turkey is a country in the first league of international diplomacy. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was exuberantly boasting in comments to the media that “Turkey had become such an important and big player that even a fly could not fly in its region without Turkey being informed in the first place.”

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli has issued a warning particularly addressed to Kurdish citizens, asking them not be deceived by a “plot aiming to annul the Lausanne Treaty,” referring to the historic treaty that is widely acclaimed as the basis of the independence and unitary structure of the Turkish state.

For Turkey’s secularist elites, for years Kurds were “mountain Turks.” For decades, they had a condescending attitude toward Kurds and turned a blind eye to their plight and demand to enjoy cultural rights.

Hundreds of Kurdish fighters have entered the predominantly Syrian Kurdish region known as Rojava in recent days to battle jihadists besieging the Kurdish city of Kobane, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdul Rahman said July 14, as the Turkish army beefed up its security on the border.

A group of artists have announced they will gather at Turkey’s border with the pre-dominantly Kurdish region of northeastern Syria – known as Rojava – to protest the latest assault of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) militants on the town of Kobane.

Those who think the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) will withdraw from armed struggle before the Kurdish people live in a “free and democratic” society are “dreamers,” a founding member of the organization has said, amid a fresh push from the government to revive the stalled peace process.

In the ruins of the Surp Asvadavin Mother Mary Church, which is located on Mount Mereto in the eastern province of Batman’s Sason district, a historical tablet and some historical artifacts have been discovered. The tablet and pieces were delivered to the Batman Museum Directorate.
 

The government’s road map for a new wave of efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question includes the return of outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants to Turkey between one to three years, daily Sabah reported July 7.