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November 6, 2007
NEWS
The most admired Independent Kurdish Newspaper from the heart of Kurdistan.
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Thousands march for a peaceful solution to Kurdish question
Turkish Daily News
Thousands on Saturday gathered in Ankara to push the government to find a democratic solution to Kurdish problem at a time when Ankara is threatening Iraqi officials with a cross-border operation into northern Iraq if they don't take substantial measures against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party's (PKK).
More than 30,000 protestors called for a “free, democratic and equal Turkey,” in the meeting organized by Turkish Union of Chambers of Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK) and the Union of Turkish Doctors (TTB).
KESK President İsmail Hakkı Tombul claimed that the Kurdish problem can be solved through its own dynamics. “Unconditional abandonment of armed methods is obligatory for taking necessary steps towards solution. It is not a motion or a state of emergency we need,” he said at the rally, amid slogans and posters in Kurdish.
Pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) deputies Sırrı Sakık and Selahattin Demirtaş and Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP) leader and Istanbul deputy Ufuk Uras were among the protestors.
Third option for a new constitution
Protestors criticized the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) policies concerning a new constitution, accusing the government of keeping the drafting process in the dark. “AKP aims to build a more conservative society, in accordance with the Turk-Islamic synthesis in which [the party] was born,” said Tombul. He also condemned the economic perspective reflected in this draft, claiming that AKP was institutionalizing neo-liberal economic policies and securing privatization policies by granting them a constitutional statute.
TMMOB president Mehmet Soğancı argued in his speech that Turkey had been reshaped conveniently to fit the interests of the “capital,” under the guise of acting in line with capitalist globalization. Protestors offered a third option for a constitution that ensured public services like education, health and social security and suppressed obstacles to freedom of associations and securing peaceful coexistence between cultures, identities and beliefs in society.
The AKP charged a “scientific board” this summer with the preparation of a draft constitution dubbed the “civilian constitution,” to replace the one that was penned in 1982 under the authority of generals following the 1980 military coup. A draft of the constitution was leaked to the press in September, sparking a new wave of comments and criticisms on its content.
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