Turkey's ex-president Evren probed for Kurd remarks (Reuters)

[Eugene]

Turkey's ex-president Evren probed for Kurd remarks
02 Mar 2007 15:10:10 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Gareth Jones

ANKARA, March 2 (Reuters) - State prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into
ex-president Kenan Evren, leader of a 1980 military coup, over his call for decentralising
power in Turkey, the state Anatolian news agency said on Friday. Evren, 88, told the Sabah
newspaper this week he favoured giving more powers to the provinces, and he dismissed
fears this would embolden Turkey's Kurds -- "our brothers" -- to push for independence.

-snip-

Anatolian quoted prosecutor Mehmet Yurtseven in Evren's home province of Mugla as saying:
"I have given the necessary order to the relevant departments. We have begun an
investigation. If there is a crime, we will do what is needed."

-snip-

TABOOS

"They keep saying Turkey's Kurds would declare independence. They would not. Why would
they want to secede if they are given the same rights? We must treat the Kurds as brothers,"
he said.

Evren broke another Turkish taboo in his interview by saying Ankara should accept the reality
of an independent Kurdish state in nearby northern Iraq. Turkey fears such a state would fan
separatism among its own Kurds and destabilise the wider region.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02262977.htm

[Rydz777]

1. Evren is right

I lived for a year in Turkey, and there is a pretense that the Kurds don't exist - a curiosity since they are also regularly called "the dirty Kurds." The Kurds who are one of the most oppressed people in history at the least deserve some kind of autonomy in southeastern Turkey where they are an unacknowledged majority.

[Xerxes]

2. I have much respect for Turkey

as a Muslim secular Democratic nation, but they are way to nationalistic.