Turkey Must Save the Kurds-by ASLI AYDINTASBAS My generation of Turks grew up hating Kurdish separatists. Instead of questioning why Kurds weren’t allowed to speak their own language, live in their own villages or sing their own songs, we blamed the Kurdistan Workers Party, or P.K.K., which had been waging a guerrilla war against Turkey since 1984, for all of Turkey’s woes. Kurds were responsible for the death of our soldiers, we said. They were guilty of tearing up the country, draining our resources and siding with our enemies. In the mainstream press, they were simply “baby killers.” Over the past few decades, that view started to soften as the history of human rights abuses committed in Turkey’s Kurdish regions was revealed. An ongoing peace process with the P.K.K., and the Turkish government’s post-2010 rapprochement with Iraq’s Kurdish region has begun to heal the rift between Turks and Kurds.... More here: mobile.nytimes/2014/10/04/opinion/turkey-must-save-the-kurds.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1&referrer=
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 13:28:18 +0000
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