[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 123 (Thursday, July 27, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1529]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    KURDS IN TURKEY: THE TRUE STORY

                                 ______


                            HON. DAN BURTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, July 27, 1995
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, the relationship between Turkey, 
its Kurdish population, and the PKK--the Kurdistan Workers Party--is 
greatly misunderstood. Contrary to what Turkey's critics in the United 
States Congress would like the rest of the world to believe, Turkey's 
Kurdish population is not oppressed by the Government. In fact, the 
Turkish Constitution provides that all citizens, including Kurds, have 
the same political rights and civil liberties which they may exercise 
equally, without impediment, regardless of ethnic or religious 
background.
  Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin live freely throughout Turkey, and 
participate in all walks of life without discrimination. Kurds are 
doctors, lawyers, teachers, and artists. This is an important fact that 
is widely misunderstood. Twenty-five percent of the Turkish Parliament 
is composed of Kurdish Turks, even though only 18 percent of the 
general population is Kurdish. Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister is 
Kurdish. Even Turkey's former President Turgut Ozal was Kurdish.
  In addition, Turkey works to protect the livelihood of Kurds in 
northern Iraq. When Saddam Hussein attacked his own Kurdish citizens 
with poisonous gas years before the gulf war, Turkey opened its doors 
and clothed, fed, and sheltered them until it was safe for them to 
return to their homes. After the gulf war, Turkey again accepted half a 
million Kurds fleeing from Saddam Hussein's tyranny. Today, Turkey 
hosts Operation Provide Comfort, the international effort which 
operates from Turkish bases to protect
 Iraqi Kurds.

  These facts, however, are overshadowed by Turkey's fight against the 
PKK--Kurdistan Workers Party--a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group that 
is supported by Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Western societies fail to 
understand that the Kurds now fighting against Turkey are not the same 
Kurds suffering under the brutality of Saddam Hussein. Although the 
Kurdish people of Turkey have little sympathy for the PKK, the PKK has 
the audacity to claim that it represents the Kurdish people.
  Another little-known fact about PKK terrorists is that they are not 
all Kurds. The PKK ranks include mercenaries and the unemployed from a 
host of other countries. The only support it receives from within 
Turkey, it extorts from innocent Kurdish businesses. The PKK is only 
able to continue its war against Turkey by maintaining bases outside of 
Turkey, such as one in Syria's Bekaa Valley, and training with other 
extremist organizations. Not only is the PKK unrepresentative of the 
true aspirations of the Kurdish people, but its goal of ``freeing the 
Kurdish people'' is ironic when one considers what the PKK is 
ultimately seeking to accomplish: To set up an independent Kurdistan 
State based on Marxist-Leninist ideology. Such a Marxist-Leninist State 
would endanger the lives of many Turks and Kurdish Turks living in the 
region and threaten peace and stability throughout the entire Middle 
East.
  Since its inception in 1984, the PKK has based its operations on 
intimidation. To force its ideology upon the masses, the PKK uses an 
extensive policy of oppression, and forces villagers, both Turks and 
Kurdish Turks, who are loyal to the State, to vacate their villages and 
move elsewhere. It has killed thousands of civilians, many of whom are 
the same Kurds that the PKK claims to represent, while sabotaging 
economic development projects that would assist in the strengthening of 
democracy in Turkey. It has also extorted money from the Kurds. Those 
who resist are murdered in groups. Their houses are burnt, and their 
harvests and livestock are destroyed. It is absurd to say that the PKK 
is an organization waging an armed struggle for the freedom of the 
Kurdish people.
  What we are dealing with is a group that could seriously undermine 
the future of democracy in Turkey. It has defied the laws that are 
designed to promote economic opportunity and preserve law and order, in 
a democratic society that respects the rights and freedoms of all 
people in the region. Supporting a strong democratic Turkey in a 
generally volatile region has long been regarded as important to the 
United States. Therefore, it is in the interest of the United States to 
support Turkey's policies to combat PKK terrorism. It is not correct, 
however, to target Turkey's fight against terrorists like the PKK as a 
sign of democracy in danger. On the contrary, true danger would be 
signified if a democratic government were unwilling to protect its 
country's territorial integrity or its citizens' human rights from the 
inhuman measures of a terrorist organization.
  By conditioning and threatening to cut off aid to Turkey, the United 
States is undermining a democratic government that is only seeking to 
protect its citizens and its territorial integrity. It is especially 
counterproductive to condemn Turkey's policies at this critical 
juncture when the Turkish Parliament is considering a series of 
constitutional reforms to bring Turkey's laws in line with those of the 
European Union, and just recently approved a 6-month extension of 
Operation Comfort to provide relief to Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq. In 
order to promote Turkish democracy, the United States should support 
Prime Minister Ciller in her efforts to fight PKK terrorism and improve 
democracy. The Turkish people deserve the support of their democratic 
allies in the face of PKK intimidation.


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