 | ||||
Menu
April 26, 2008
NEWS
The most admired Independent Kurdish Newspaper from the heart of Kurdistan.
For Kurdish Women’s Issues
SOMA Digest, Iraqi Kurdistan's one and only English-language news digest
Hevallo actively supports the Kurdish Freedom Struggle.
An Independent Online Kurdish-English Newspaper
Open letter to President Carter: Help solve the Kurdish conflict in Turkey
Kurdishaspect.com - By Karwan Azadi
Dear Mr. President Jimmy Carter,
This week was another highly controversial one for you as you set out to solve an old problem in Gaza by meeting with a group the world has described as terrorist. For what seems the majority in our government here in the United States has long rejected the notion of negotiating with any group that falls on the wrong side of our nation's political interests. However, you have bravely defied policy makers in Washington on more than one occasion and met with those leaders our country has deemed enemies of the United States.
Now, my own political beliefs question the effectiveness of meeting with former political leaders of Iran as you had set out to do in 2006. However, I certainly feel that your approach is one that should be respected by Americans and policy makers when considering that the current policies they have employed lack any direction and have failed with regards to any progress towards peace. The Washington policy of rejecting negotiations or peace talks with enemy states or groups have not gotten us anywhere with regards to peace and stability. In fact, our policy of isolating such states and groups has created more hostilities and has produced more instability than usefulness with regards to security.
Now I sincerely hope that a big part of your intentions are to encourage the Iranians to respect the international laws of human rights and to provide more justice in rights to the people, but I am confident an intention to meet with them at the very basic principle of helping avoid another bloodshedding war between our two nations is just as humane.
And while I remain ever-so-critical of your recent meeting with Hamas, I am also highly interested in the outcome of your meeting. The reports I've read today claim that you have settled a ceasefire plan with the leaders of Hamas. If true, this may turn into an example that may undermine the entire approach to U.S. foreign policy. If you are able to negotiate peace through your willingness to meet with these "enemies", you will have shown that diplomacy can supersede force in the path to peace and stability.
Mr. President, there is another conflict that has been in existence for the past century that needs the attention of true diplomats like yourself. Since it's establishment as a republic, the Turkish government has implemented a policy of discrimination against the Kurdish people in Turkey that also has included thousands of displacements and relocations, forced assimilation, total violations of human rights and civil liberties, murders and killings and questionably genocidal policies. These policies have inevitably led to an armed conflict between Kurdish citizens turned rebels and the Turkish State. I know someone of your intelligence and stature must be aware of what has gone on in Turkey for far too long.
Over the past several years, the main rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has offered the Turkish government at least 5 ceasefires in an attempt to offer a peace negotiation to lay down their arms. They have even released an official press statement listing their commands, which I do not think any democratic state would see fit to deny. Among those demands are the acknowledgment of the Kurdish identity, language, culture, right for Kurds to politicall organize, right to freedom of thought and expression, social development for the Kurdish region, removal of Turkish military forces from the Kurdish region, a disbanding of the village guard system, as well as the gradual disarmament of the PKK and granting them the right to legal participation in democratic and social life.
Despite the sincerity of these civil demands through their repeated ceasefires, the Turkish State has constantly rejected them, as have United States policy makers. In fact, our government continues to sell the military weaponry that only ensures that this conflict will remain as long as possible. We have yet to witness a high-ranking U.S. politician that has sincerely laid out a plan, or even merely expressed his/her view, about how to solve the Kurdish conflict in Turkey through diplomacy. And today, even the highest ranking U.S. generals will admit, it is only diplomacy that can solve this conflict.
Mr. President, I ask through this letter when you will visit the PKK, and through your strong diplomatic abilities, negotiate the peace agreement that our government has failed to do. The PKK has never targeted an American throughout it's existence and it is strange that our government meets with (and sometimes even funds) insurgent groups in Iraq, but refuses to meet with the so-called enemy of another state. If we want to spread peace and democracy to the Middle East, let us please start with our allies. Let us use our diplomatic pressure to persuade Turkey to start making real changes.
Mr. President Jimmy Carter, the Kurds need your help too. We hope you can grant them it.
Sincerely,
Karwan Azadi
A Kurdish-American Citizen
_________________________
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
RECOMMENDED SITES
| ||||
| ||||
Sponsors
