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The Grand Turk
Renewing Call to End Turkey Conflict, Kurdish Rebel Leader Hails 'New Era'
2015-03-22
[NYTIMES] The incarcerated
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
 Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan on Saturday renewed a call for his fighters to disarm and end a long conflict with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
, hailing a "new era" in relations between Turks and Kurds.
"I said what you wanted me to say. Now will you please stop hitting me!"
Mr. Ocalan, who continues to exercise influence over Turkey's Kurdish population from a prison on an island in the Sea of Marmara where he has been serving a life sentence since 1999, urged the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, known here as the P.K.K., to hold a congress in the spring to end a Kurdish insurgency that has fractured society and claimed nearly 40,000 lives since the 1980s.

"I call on the P.K.K. to convene a congress to end the 40-year-long armed struggle against the Republic of Turkey and to determine political and social strategies and tactics in accordance with the spirit of the new era," Mr. Ocalan wrote in a letter that was read to a crowd of hundreds of thousands celebrating the traditional spring festival of Nowruz in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey.

Television images showed women in bright dresses and men in uniforms dancing and cheering jubilantly, waving scarves and flags of the holy warrior group as the letter was read in both Kurdish and Turkish.

Kurds, who account for roughly 20 percent of Turkey's population of about 80 million, have been demanding greater rights and more autonomy after decades of being ostracized by the Turkish state. While Mr. Ocalan's call for disarmament is likely to add momentum to a fragile grinding of the peace processor, which is now in its third year, Kurdish rebels are waiting to see whether the Turkish government can deliver on the democratic reforms outlined in a 10-point framework for peace that is to be safeguarded by a new constitution.
An Nahar adds:
The PKK has largely observed a ceasefire since 2013 but attempts to find a permanent deal have stalled over the issue of the withdrawal of PKK fighters and weaponry from The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
The PKK is regarded as a terrorist group not only by Turkey but also by the United States and the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
However it has also been working with Iraqi and Syrian Kurds in the U.S.-backed campaign against IS hard boys, with its fighters winning respect for their abilities.
Posted by:Fred

#2  As per the US, ironically the same DemLeft that refuses to close US borders to waves of illegal immigrants is the same DemoLeft that's now complaining about Race-led demographic shifts in the US Population + effect on US Society.

OOOOOOOPPPPPPPSSSSSSIES.

WE WANT TO HAVE OUR CAKE + EAT IT TOO, ALL THE TIME, DON'T WE???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2015-03-22 22:59  

#1  Not unlike US fears vee Hispanics, due to high birth rates Turkey repor could end up being a Kurd-majority nation widin one generation.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2015-03-22 22:54  

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