Turkish embassy clarifies
It was good to read the letter in The Daily Star (6 May 2009) of Mr. M. Sanaul Huq entitled "A Tale of Two Armies" where he made rightful comments on the Turkish Army, second largest in NATO. However, I understand that due to lack of information about Turkey, Mr. Huq thinks that Turkey has a "perennial Kurdish problem."
The Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin have been living in peace side by side for at least a thousand years in Anatolia. Both during the World War I and in the Independence War of Turkey, led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Kurds and the Turks fought together against the occupation forces. Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin have always been great contributors to the Turkish economic, cultural and political life.
Today, in Turkish parliament, in different political parties there are a good number of MPs with Kurdish ethnic background. However, for the past 25 years the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), an organisation finding safe heaven in the North of Iraq and recognised as terrorist by the US, the EU and Australia, claimed thousands of lives in Turkey. So, it may be better to put the record straight: Turkey does not have a "perennial Kurdish problem", but "terrorism problem for the past 25 years."
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