Kurdish groups in southeastern Turkey call for self-rule



ANKARA: -- Kurdish groups in southeastern Turkey are calling for self-rule.

It follows a summit of the Democratic People’s Congress (DTK), a coalition of non-governmental Kurdish groups, and comes as heavy fighting continues in the region.

The army is pushing ahead with a security operation in which it says more than 200 Kurdish militants have been killed.

“To form a democratic autonomous region including one or several neighbouring provinces, one needs to take into account their cultural, economic and geographic affinities,” said Hatip Dicle, Leader of Kurdish Democratic People’s Congress.

The final resolution of the meeting called for the formation of autonomous Kurdish regions, including several neighbouring provinces.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu cancelled a planned meeting with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) on Saturday, saying its politics were rooted in violence.

For three decades, Ankara has been trying to end an insurgency by fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK – classified by the EU and US as a terrorist organisation.

A two-year ceasefire fell apart in July, plunging the southeast back into a conflict that has killed more than 40-thousand people.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-12-28

and this my friends is why Turkey is in Northern Iraq, not to protect their "training forces" or fight ISIS

The Kurds in Northern Iraq have very little to do with the Turkish Kurds. The PKK, according to Ankara, often flees into Northern Iraq and they have justified bombing raids in Iraq in the past, but during my time there the Iraqi Kurds had their own issues and had little or no concern for the Turkish Kurds.

As Kurds they have mutual respect and a sense of cultural identity, but neither was particularly interested in helping the other with their conflicts with their respective gov'ts.

A two-year ceasefire fell apart in July 2015???

“PKK group says Turkish ceasefire over”

by Rudaw 12/7/2015

"The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in a statement released on Saturday announced that a ceasefire with the Turkish government is over, claiming that Ankara has welched on its promises regarding the Kurdish issue in that country.

The Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), an organization inside the PKK, said in a statement that the Turkish government by building an excessive number of dams and security stations in Kurdish areas dishonored the ceasefire that had been sustained since 2012.

“The number of dams that were built is highly disproportionate with the Kurdish region’s energy producing capacity,” said KCK. It added that the Turkish government was previously warned to stop building the dams.

The KCK threatened that it will target the dams and asked people working in those projects to leave.

The KCK claimed the Turkish government has targeted Kurdish citizens and used them as human shields, which resulted in civilian deaths, suggesting that there is a military intention behind building the dams and security stations.

'Our guerrillas with responsibility pledged themselves to honor the ceasefire since the beginning of the process, but the Turkish government with its arbitrary actions has already resumed the war against the Kurdish people,' read the statement."