SAHMARAN: The Kurdish question: EUTCC Conference in Brussels: Turkey must put its promises into action!

The European Parliament in Brussels.

Leyla Zana.

Some days ago, the 3.-4. December, there was an important conference about the future of the Kurds. It was arranged by a NGO, EU Turkey Civic Commission. The conference was held in the European Parliament in Brussels.

This conference was a forum for discussion. It reflected the atmosphere in Kurdistan and feelings of the Kurds. And how is the Kurdish atmosphere now? Courageous and optimistic. Recent news from Turkey show that common awareness is increasing about the Kurdish question. More and more Turkish people understand that this problem is endemic source for instability in Turkey and a solution must be found.

This conference was arranged for the fourth time, but for me it was the first time I attended it. The people who had been there earlier said this was the best of the four EUTCC conferences.
Turkish Kurds run now a campaign called "Edi bes e" - It is enough! These words describe well the atmosphere of the conference. One of the speakers, Dutch green MEP Joost Lagendijk, put it this way: "Now the situation is that EU criticises and Turkey promises to make changes but in practise nothing happens." This must change! This demand was repeated by speaker after each other, for example by Leyla Zana, Ahmet Türk, Akin Birdal and Nurettin Demirtas.

It depends on the political development during the next five months whether there will be war or peace. British lawyer Mark Muller talked about the need for a new way of thinking. "In peace negotiations it is question about what helps, not about what is right or wrong", he explained. Muller did not believe that there would be any purely political or military solution to the problem. A twin approach is needed because there are many military and geopolitical aspects.

Mr Muller spoke about the historical responsibility of his country Britain. He said also that Britain has lots of knowledge in peace processes due its experience of creating peace in North Ireland.

Like many other speakers, Mark Muller wanted EU to be more active in demanding change in Turkey. Some other speakers demanded EU to make time table for Turkey in the democracy process.

Next year will be the fifth anniversary of EU Turkey Civic Commission and it already plans a big new conference. There are many ideas for it, for example that there should be participants also from South Kurdistan, despite the topic will be the Turkish part of Kurdistan. There were some Iranian Kurds already in the conference of 2007. One of them was psychiatrist Kamal H. Artin, who come to Brussels from California, American west coast. He was critical on Nurettin Demirtas who demanded democratic autonomy. Artin wants the Kurdish target to be an independent state.

Kamal H. Artin had sat twenty hours in aeroplane travelling to Brussels. The next day after the conference he returned to California. "It was boring to travel so long time but it was worth of it to get the opportunity to say my opinion", he told.