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Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

Kurdish Conflict in Turkey. Causes, Actors, and Means of Struggle. Geography of conflict. Kurds of Turkey. Kurds make up about 15% of Turkey’s population About two-thirds of Turkey’s Kurds live in the country’s southeastern provinces; about one-third live in western Turkey

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Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

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  1. Kurdish Conflict in Turkey Causes, Actors, and Means of Struggle

  2. Geography of conflict

  3. Kurds of Turkey • Kurds make up about 15% of Turkey’s population • About two-thirds of Turkey’s Kurds live in the country’s southeastern provinces; about one-third live in western Turkey • Kurds are distinguished primarily from Turks by the fact that they speak Kurdish, but are physically indistinguishable from ethnic Turks

  4. Why is there a conflict? • State-building nationalism in Turkey • 1923: foundation of Turkish Republic • Turkish nationalism & integration of Kurds • Repression of those who resisted

  5. Response: Kurdish peripheral nationalism • Early uprisings • Rise of a new counter-elite and the re-creation of Kurdish identity, 1960s • PKK guerrilla activism, 1984-1999, and 2005-present

  6. KurdsI can't talk because I don't know my languageI'd like to tell you about my self but I don't know my historyI have no education because there are no schoolsI don't have a brother, he was a politician, he got killedNo I'm sorry, no friends either, they are all in prisonI don't have a village because it's burned downI don't have a house because tanks destroyed itI couldn't stay in my land because mines cover itI have no sister, she was a journalist, she just disappearedNo I'm sorry, no relatives either, they fled from the warI don't know any songs, they are bannedI can't dance, it's forbiddenI can't tell you any stories because no one ever told me anyI don't have parents, they were hangedNo, I'm sorry, no country either, it has been stolenS.W.Z

  7. PKK guerrillas, early 1990s. Boys at a Kurdish New Year celebration in the early 1990s. Photo: Kevin McKiernan.

  8. Who is involved? • Turkish Armed Forces • Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) • Pro-Kurdish politicians in various political parties • Liberal Turkish media and civil society organizations • Kurdish diaspora community and other transnational actors • Ordinary people

  9. Modes of Conflict • Guerrilla war • Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) • Conventional politics • Pro-Kurdish political parties • Civil contention and protest • Kurdish newspapers, cultural organizations • Human rights organizations

  10. Effects of the conflict • 35,000 dead • New attention to status of Kurds in Turkey on domestic and international agenda • Some political gains • Human rights abuses Pro-Kurdish newspapers such as this one are often closed down for expressing support for PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

  11. Current status: stalemate & new conflict • 1999 capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan; PKK guerrillas lay down arms • PKK guerrillas in northern Iraqi mountains • Some democratic reforms BUT… • Spring 2005-2006: new sets of attacks, and new anti-terror bill? PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan being returned to Turkey for trial, Feb. 1999.

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