The Kurdish Question: Are there any Turkish or Kurdish dopers out there?

Great Debates
1

For obvious reasons, there are at least a dozen threads going on right now on the Kurdish question, in GD and GQ. I have yet to encounter a single post in any one of them that appears to have been submitted by a Turk, or a Turkish-American, or a Kurd, or a Kurdish-American. Without their contribution, us SDMB participants – who appear to be mostly Yanks, Canadians, Brits, and other native English-speakers – are just talking to each other about other people’s problems. Aren’t there any (English-speaking) Turkish or Kurdish dopers out there? Let’s hear your point of view!

If you’re Turkish, do you really care whether Turkey holds onto its Kurdish provinces or lets them go? If so, why? How do you justify the status quo? Historical claims? What about the Treaty of Sevres, which promised the Kurds their own state? Why has it never been honored? Wouldn’t you like EU membership for Turkey? Letting the Kurds go would help immensely. The Kurds, so far as I know, are the only house minority in Turkey large enough and concentrated enough to demand their own state. Once they’re gone, that problem is solved once and for all, and Turkey would no longer have to use police-state tactics to hold their country together, because every remaining province would be solidly and happily Turkish. (The Armenians have some historical claims to northeastern Turkey, but I don’t think any of them actually live there, not since the Armenian Genocide that followed World War I.) Under these circumstances, the human-rights record of Turkey would improve dramatically, and EU admission would become much more likely – which would give Turkey a voice in the affairs of Europe, and the power to defend the rights of Turkish guest-workers in Germany, etc.

If you’re Kurdish, what prospects do you see for an independent Turkish Kurdistan, considering that the insurgency for that purpose has by now been thoroughly crushed after years of fighting? Are you for or against the Marxist PKK? Do you think terrorist tactics are justified in the fight for independence, considering that that’s all that the Turkish Kurds are really in a position to use? And, if Turkish Kurdistan were independent, would it unite with Iraqi Kurdistan as a matter of course? I believe the two groups actually speak different, though related, languages – would it really be that simple for them to form a single state?

2

The Treaty of Sevres was pretty much completely ignored by all parties actually in the region, who decided to thrash things out the old-fashoned way.

The Allies decided to simply abdicate enforcing the treaty.

It’s a non-Treaty.

3

Turkish dope? I tried it a few times, but I didn’t inhale.

4

Merhaba! Bin Kibris’ta (KKTC), ama ingilizim.

I think most Turks would be against the creation of an independant Kurdistan, as they are generally (yes I know, broad strokes, etc.) and perhaps keeping land is more important thjan EU mmbership. Another dimension is the Turkish army; though Turkey is a democracy, the army wields alot of political power (the last Islamic-leaning government was forced out of office by the army, who regard themselves as the guardians of Turkish secularism) and is the main driving force behind the supression of Kurdish national asperations.