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Entries in PKK (70)

Monday
Mar262012

Turkey Live Coverage (26 March): Has Assad Solved Erdogan's Kurdish Problem?

;1845 GMT: According to a survey conducted by the Ankara-based MetroPOLL Strategic and Social Research Center, 61.7 percent of respondents said they supported children's receiving education in their mother tongue on the condition that they learn Turkish.

1825 GMT: In order to increase the cooperation against the PKK-Syria camp, the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani will make his first diplomatic visit to Ankara. 

1740 GMT: Ahead of the 'Friends of Syria' meeting on April 1, Ankara heeds the two-day meeting of Syrian opposition groups in İstanbul. Out of 200 representatives of the country, the only group left out of the two-day meeting is the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) because of its affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"This is by far the most significant meeting as far as the Syrian opposition is concerned,” a Turkish official told journalists.

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Thursday
Mar222012

Turkey Live Coverage (22 March): Military Operations Continue Against Kurdish Group

1920 GMT: Following Israel's confiscation of a Palestinian plot in Valaja village in the West Bank and its plan to turn it into a park for Jewish settlers, a statement released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that Israel's settlement activities despite all warnings by the international community are unacceptable.

It is also stated that Israel is blocking the peace process by its negative position and deprive vision of two state solution by physical conditions it creates in the region. 

1725 GMT: Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said that almost no one earns less than $2 a day in Turkey, and the number of those who earn less than $4 a day is only 3.6 percent.

1650 GMT: A speculation is going on in Ankara that the ruling AKP government has adopted a new policy on the Kurdish issue.

According to officials, the government is abandoning dialogue and negotiations with the leaders of the outlawed terrorist/separatist organisation, PKK. Instead, some believe that the government will hold negotiations with the pro-Kurdish party, BDP; whereas others think that the priority will be given specifically to the Turkish public opinion, in order to prevent increasing anger of Turks against Kurdish people.

Just hours ago, Prime Minister Erdogan called on Kurdish citizens to abandon BDP. If BDP and Ocalan (the imprisoned leader of PKK) are sidelined, then with whom AKP is going to talk? If BDP is wanted to be negotiated with, then the question is that how is it possible to convince the party to change its strategies while the party-Kurdish base alliance is anchored on a nationalistic platform where Ocalan and PKK militia are seen as the leader and "guerillas" of a "freedom-seeking" nation, respectively? 

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Wednesday
Mar212012

Turkey Live Coverage (21 March): New Year Celebrations Turn into Deadly Clashes

1725 GMT: It is reported that Turkish border security units and gendarmerie forces have tightened security measures along the country's border with Syria in order to prevent Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members and Syrian refugees from entering Turkey.

On Tuesday, it was reported that gendarmerie forces were questioning coming refugees on the border to see if they were really escaping from the violence in Syria. Besides, alongside the refugee camp in Hatay, two more camps were said to be formed in two other cities, Sanliurfa and Kilis. 

1645 GMT: At a conference, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said that Turkey would not allow any Cold War-like sectarian confrontation in the region. 

1625 GMT: Fifth police officer killed in the ongoing operation in Cudi, Sirnak. 

1610 GMT: One policeman injured in an explosion near the provincial office of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır. 

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Thursday
Mar152012

Turkey Live Coverage (15 March): Refugees Flowing from Syria

1900 GMT: Rakel Dink, wife of Hrant Dink (a Turkish citizen of Armenian decent) who was murdered due to his writings in the bilingual newspaper Agos, said that the Dink case is Turkey's face-off case and criticized that the government for "responding with gas bombs to tears." Dink continued:

My mind has always been stuck in the pre-murder period. All signs are already taking me there. Those threats... These were not just to scare.Those increasing number of protests in front of Agos since 2005 and a Prime Minister, an Interior Minister, a Justice Minister, an intelligence, a police who had not seen all. 

1825 GMT: According to a high Dutch administrative court verdict, Turkish citizens visiting Netherlands on business need no visa and they can stay for up to three months.

1745 GMT: Having Armenia decided to withdraw from the Eurovision song contest which will be held in Azerbaijan this year, Minister of EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagıs said

Turkey would prefer Armenia to pull out of Nagorno-Karabakh, rather than from the Eurovision song contest. I think they should revise their decision.

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Thursday
Mar082012

Turkey Live Coverage (8 March): Erdogan's Kurdish Problem

1620 GMT: The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) MP Nursel Aydogan has said that there will be more deaths unless meetings between the State and PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) take place. Aydogan added:

The pathway towards peace and freedom shall be opened. And its way, as we have expressed before, is going through Imrali (the small island where PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is imprisoned). Just as there were meetings, dialogue and negotiations between PKK and the state for a year, we express that meetings with Imrali shall re-start and the door of the pathway leading to the solution of the problem shall be opened.

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Thursday
Oct272011

Syria Special: Will the Kurds Join the Uprising? (Zalewski)

http://bit.ly/svvLWo

Time Magazine's Piotr Zalewski investigates the increasingly mobilized Kurdish protest movement in northern Syria, particularly after the death of Kurdish leader Mashaal Tammo. Zalewski asks whether the Kurds will join in the uprising, and whether that uprising will become a violent one.


"I am sick, I cannot sleep," says Hervin Ose, fighting back tears as she remembers her friend and fellow Syrian Kurdish activist, Mashaal Tammo. "Till now I cannot believe he is not here. Sometimes I even try to call him, sometimes I wait for him to call me."

On Friday Oct. 7, Hervin met Tammo at a friend's house in Qamishli, a Kurdish-majority town in northeastern Syria, just across the border from Turkey. "He had a sadness about him," she recalls, speaking via Skype. Tammo, one of the few Syrian Kurdish leaders to have openly called for the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, had recently escaped an assassination attempt. Now he spoke as if he was going away on a long trip. "My message is finished in this life," he told her. Before taking his leave Tammo even snapped a few pictures of his friend. "I wondered," says Hervin. "He'd never taken a photo of me before."

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Friday
Oct212011

Turkey Analysis: As 10,000 Soldiers Pursue Kurds Inside Iraq, What Does "Big Revenge" Mean?

The curiosity of Prime Minister Erdogan's statement was in its emphasis. Instead of a focus on operations against the Kurdish Communities’ Union (KCK), with the arrest of hundreds of Kurdish politicians, or ongoing military action against PKK militants, Erdogan implicitly blamed “external powers” for using PKK.

Doing so, he was trying to divert the public’s attention from domestic political debates. But this is also a move in foreign policy: according to many experts, columnists, and academics in Turkey, Erdogan is targeting Iran and Syria.

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Sunday
Sep042011

Latest from Iran (4 September): Shrinking Lake, Growing Protests

1710 GMT:Environment Watch. Associated Press' coverage of the Lake Urmia protests is taken entirely from the summary of Mehr, which claims demonstrations have ended with no casualties.

Mehr --- and thus AP --- assert that the protests ended Saturday night.

1410 GMT: Protest Watch. Peyke Iran reports that the strike of cloth merchants in the Tehran Bazaar, complaining about the Government's policies on value-added tax, is continuing despite talks with MPs.

1405 GMT: More claimed footage from Saturday's protests in Tabriz over Lake Urmia:

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Friday
Aug192011

Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Pressure Outside, More Pressure Within

In a separate entry, we had posted 2 exclusive videos. One video showed what may be the remains of the now infamous bodies that were dumped in a Hama river.

But the video at the top of the entry shows something very interesting, soldiers beating protesters while they are detained in a bus, forcing them to shout pro-Assad chants. Al Jazeera now has an interesting piece of analysis, that the soldiers in the video have beards, and beards are not allowed in the regular army.

1814 GMT: The LCCS has released a statement entitled "Indications of Victory:"

This Friday was one of the most important during the course of the protest movement in Syria. For weeks, the security forces and the military, through their operations, have prevented mass demonstrations. However, in a remarkable step and due to increasing international support for the protest movement and the subsequent morale boost, many protesters have managed to overcome the security and military barriers and begin taking the steps necessary to de-legitimize the government. Despite the Syrian president’s promises to withdraw his troops and end military operations across the country, armored vehicles and tanks have continued to be stationed in city centers. In fact, security backups have been called to quell protests such as the one that occurred in Hirak and Ankhal in the Daraa Governorate, where they have resumed gunfire using both light and heavy machine guns. Today alone, security forces killed at least 22 protesters, including children who were not part of the demonstrations.

In the besieged city of Homs, all neighborhoods, including Khaldieh, Bab Sbaa, and Baba Amr demonstrated in thousands, despite gunfire yesterday and today, and despite the violent military operations in the city for the past week, which take lives on a daily basis. Deir Ezzor is in the same condition, but demonstrations approached large numbers before the military invasion.

The statement also said that there were renewed protests in the embattled regions of Idlib, its suburbs, and Hama, where security once again fired on demonstrators. In Lattakia and in Jableh, the most recent scenes of the military crackdown, protesters also began retaking the streets.

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Tuesday
Aug162011

Turkey PKK Special: Invasion of Kurdistan? Don't Count on It

On Sunday, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke, and his target was the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). In response to a series of fights between Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and PKK militants, Erdogan said:
"We are maintaining our patience because of our respect for Ramadan. But, everyone should know that the beginning of peace will be more different after this month of peace and solidarity
I am saying it frankly. The cost of this will be heavy for them. Those who fail to distance themselves from the separatist terrorist organization in this country are also abetting this crime. They are also doomed to pay the price for that. "
Does this threat have any teeth? This is a time when Iran is increasing pressure on PKK’s PJAK branch and while speculations have arisen to such an extent that the Turkish state’s own news agency, Anadolu Agency, was announcing at first that PKK’s second man (Murat Karayilan) had been captured by Iranian security forces, a statement which couldn’t be confirmed by Turkish politicians. With the significance of this regional PKK-targeting game, is Turkey really willing to carry out an operation in northern Iraq? 

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