Kurdish Conference in Istanbul

[heval]

Can anyone find some more information about the conference in the report below? Like what was discussed in detail, or what were the accomplishments made? I am really interested to know more about this event...

Kurdish conference opens in Turkey under tight security
Saturday, 11 March 2006

ISTANBUL (AFP) - Turkish and Kurdish intellectuals gathered in Istanbul Saturday under tight security for a major conference on peacefully resolving the 22-year-old Kurdish conflict in the country's southeast.
Police imposed strict security measures after nationalists threatened to disrupt the two-day event, which is designed to promote ways of ending a conflict that has long impeded Turkey's efforts to join the European Union.

Police officers searched participants at the entrance of the venue, the private Bilgi University, and several dozen riot police were on guard outside the campus.

"Ultra-nationalist groups have threatened to sabotage the conference," former culture minister Ercan Karakas, who is among the organizers, told AFP.

More than 45 Turkish and Kurdish intellectuals, politicians and journalists of various political convictions were scheduled to speak at the conference, entitled "The Kurdish question in Turkey: ways for a democratic settlement".

Organizers said the participants could adopt a final declaration appealing to the government to do more to resolve the Kurdish conflict, which has claimed some 37,000 lives since 1984.

The conflict started when the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey, the EU and the United States, began fighting for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

It has led to allegations of gross human rights violations on both sides, ravaged the already meager economy of the region and forced hundreds of thousands of already poor peasants to migrate into urban slum areas.

Keen to boost its democratic credentials and join the EU, Turkey has in recent years lifted emergency rule in the southeast and allowed the Kurdish language to be taught at private courses and used in public broadcasts.

It is also compensating villagers who have been displaced and suffered material losses during the conflict.

But Kurdish activists maintain the reforms are inadequate and are calling for a general amnesty for PKK militants to encourage them to renounce violence.

Unrest in the southeast has significantly escalated since June 2004, when the PKK called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire, shattering a period of relative calm in the region.

Around 12 million of Turkey's 72 million inhabitants are estimated to belong to the Kurdish community.


Source: AFP

[Piling]

I know 2 ppl who were in the panel. I will ask when I see them.

Here is the programm (forgot where it could be found in English )

http://sohrawardi.blogspot.com/2006/03/ ... html#links

[dyaoko]

I am curious to know , that have they say anything beyond red lines ?

I heared it was supposed to talk about the reasons that Kurds did revolt against central government... I worry that they have said turkish propagenda things for the reason

propagendas like "it was just because of Bad Economy not because of cultrual rights ,kurds love to be turk ...and they hate kurdish language..."

[Piling]

I don't think that all the participants have made "Turkish propaganda". The panel was very large, from Turkish politicians or journalist, to more "PKK sympathizers" and independant Kurdish intellectuals (some from Europe) and Ismaïl Besikçi, a Turkish sociologist who spent many years in prison for having stated in many books that the Kurdish people EXIST and is not Turk.

The debates were probably very free. In Turkey you can state whatever you like on the moment. If you have trouble, it is after, when someone put yourself in trial.

[tomjez]

I worry that they have said turkish propagenda things for the reason

Certainly not with guys like Besikçi or Belge, don't worry. Red lines are being exploded in turkey for a few years, and it's the beginning.

[heval]

I know 2 ppl who were in the panel. I will ask when I see them.

Here is the programm (forgot where it could be found in English )

http://sohrawardi.blogspot.com/2006/03/ ... html#links

Thanks. If this conference is indeed what people have speculated it to be, as a conference approved by government to have serious and meaningful discussions about the Kurdish question, then it is the first of it's kind in Turkey. When you get the information, please let us know.

[panzer]

BIJÎ KURDISTAN