The PKK's name would seem to indicate that, at least at its founding, it had some sort of Marxist or Marxish affiliation. The way it acts and talks now are simply reminiscent of your typical regionalist/nationalist seperatist movement. Did or does it have such ties? If I had to guess, I would guess that the PKK took its name to court Soviet backing, since they both had a common enemy in Ankara. Am I somewhere near the truth?

If only some of this common sense could also be used when speaking of the Palestinians and Gazans. On both side of the borders.

It is very hypocritical of Turkey to stand up for human rights while it does what it condemns to the Kurds.
And what of northern Cyprus?

It is time to create a Kurdish region in south east Turkey based largely on the model of their Kurdish cousins in Iraq. Turkish and Kurdish groups can haggle over where the border will be but it needs to be set and largely finalized.

That might end the PKK and the conflict between Turks and Kurds, but if it dose not a border will give definite lines showing how much of Turkey will become part of an independent Kurdistan.

Hi Aliza,

Is not it coincidental that the whole PKK scenario is coming up (after being dormant for some time now) only when Turkey has started to chart an independent course for itself in the global affairs ?

Let us face the fact , Turkey has built strong bridges with the Kurds in Iraq and Iran. Kurds in Iraq and Turkey are not similar when it comes to attitudes with Turkey. Masood Barzani just made a visit in Turkey and Turkey is the leading economic activity when it comes to iraqi kurds.

I have observed reports in Turkish media that Mossad has got strong presence in both PKK held areas in Tukey and Iraq. So is Israel using PKK as it's cat's paw when it knows that increasingly the Turks are opposing Israeli policies ?

On to the question regarding Hamas and PKK , it is simply comapring apple and orange. Hamas is an Islamic organization whereas the PKK can at best be described as an anrchist organization.

Hamas are saints and angels compared to PKK. Hamas has not even killed one tenth of what PKK has done in the last few years.

Moreover , Hamas has participated in democratic process unlike PKK.

Unlike PKK , Hamas performs social charitable works in both at the Gaza and the West Bank.

And on the question of independence and identity , I think the Turkish Kemalist state owes a lot of the identity questions coming out of Kurdish areas.

We should remember that during the time of the Ottoman Caliphate , most people whether they were Kurds , Turkish or Arabs considered themselves Muslims first and anything else later.

That is why national question was absent in the time of the Caliphate.

What is required here a loose confederation of autonomous Islamic nations throughout the Muslim world , headed by a representative body comprising of elected representatives from all over the Muslim world.

An Islamic EU?

The other alternative is a weakening of the stranglehold of the Westphalian Nation State. This is what I call the Fealty argument. To whom do you owe your allegiance? Or more accurately if allegiance is a zero sum game in what proportions do you dole it out. I am British but have no interest in football but it is interesting to watch the shifting allegiances in the World Cup. Sports fans will support the village team against the next village but both camps then join if the local town plays someone form another region. They back the national side against any other nations and if E.T. plays soccer I suppose they will all don Earth team colours. Most of my loyalty is to family and close friends, the country gets some as does the EU and UN, but I am much more likely to side with some undefined group, who share my view, than a position taken by some democratic entity which had deigned to enfranchise me. If the UK embarked on a war in which I felt they had backed the wrong side I would fight for the cause not the country. As I am an atheist religion does not enter into my metric but for many this is going to trump any of geographical logical sets. As a European, and inhabitant of a small island with clear boundaries and single language, the idea of the Nation State should be much more strongly embedded in my psyche than for most of the world. Were I a Middle Eastern pastoralist - whose ancestors had moved between a summer and winter pastures as far back as oral tradition could recall and who only found out a generation ago that his two homes were in different countries - I assume my slice of fealty to either would be even smaller. There are probably some very remote tribes who have yet to learn that there are States.
Should so much power be vested at this one level? The fixed boundary state was a regional solution to protracted war with horrendous casualties but no clear winner. It was never the norm in Europe, or anywhere else, and just because it seemed to make sense to some Europeans at one moment in history should it be imposed on the rest of the world. It is an arbitrary, and I would argue an increasing less useful, unit of fealty. Many of the problems we need to address are exacerbated when dealt with through a nation state lens. It is a poor unit to deal with pollution, climate change or our genocidal war (almost won) against all commercial species of sea fish.
Its nature is adversarial where the participants’ primary goal is not the problem’s solution but the furtherance of their national interest, at the expense of the others. The others are, of course, other nation states. The UK has a population of about 60 million of which about 50 million are English and the other three countries make up 10 million. Add to these three the rest of the Irish and the Dutch and you get about 30 million, which is about the size of the Kurds. Add in Finland and Norway and you are up to the size of the Pushtans who are another fealty unit without any Nation State voice. The boundaries of the Nation States were primarily drawn by Imperial European cartographers, for administrative convenience, with scant concern for logical fealty groups which has been the cause of irredentist pressure since independence as fealty groupings have attempted to re-draw the map to accommodate the realities of who they feel are ‘us’ rather than ‘them’.

In the article the members of PKK are named as rebels. PKK is not a group of people trying to gain their 'freedom' or their 'indepency'. It can not be denied that Kurds are the %20 of the whole generation, and it is acceptable that they may want to govern themselves or they are trying to protect their rights as humans. However, the discrimination between terrorism and struggle, and terrorists and rebels should be made well. Because PKK is not an innocent constitution, killing little babies, pregnant women, innocent children while they are playing their games can not be done by a group who claims that they suffer and need freedom.

With Regards to Debanjan and JJackson: I think we all agree that a changing and defining of borders is needed in many areas of the region, not just Kurdistan and Palestine. Unfortunately, as we have seen in the Middle East (whatever you define it as) since Sykes-Picot and the creation of principalities, puppet kings, rulers/ruling bodies have greatly enjoyed their newfound power over specific regions and have (in many cases) repressed all opposition.
Returning to pre-Western influenced times has been largely unsuccessful as far as unifying individual state populations and the Muslim population in general for many of the same reasons, but also due to a small percentage who have made it an overly violent or oppressive, much more so than any Caliphates, who successfully unified under the heading of Islam.
The problem with attempting this is secularism continues to spread through the region, plus the Sunni/Shi'ite rift, plus nationalism, plus greed. Therefore, I see no unification through Islam.
As far as a loose confederation ala the EU based on economy; that would require the creation of a more natural states carved out of the current ones, which again would be impossible for the same reasons. Unfortunately, I therefore see no immediate end to hostilities either in Turkey with the Kurds, Israel/Palestine, or pretty much anywhere else in the region...
Thoughts/opposing views? I would love to become a believer.

wether PKK is a Marxist-Leninist affiliation or just a Nationalist group we should not forget that they represent the aspirations and goals of many Kurds not only in Turkey but also across the border in Iraq, Iran and Syria!
By the way dont you think that Marxist-Leninist affiliations are far safer and better than the Jihaddists and the religious fundamentalists!
Mind you there are still a number of the so called Marxist-Leninist affiliations and orgs operating freely in Europe and other parts of the democratic world!
While I do not recommend a Marxist-Leninist style of a state for our Poor Kurdish nation but I believe that time has come for Turkey to allow Kurds in Turkey to decide their fate. And before I end this conversation I would like to remind my dear commentators that history tell us that Kurds, Turks and Arabs where living in three seperate regions as neighbours not long ago (80 years or so) untill somehow The British Empire, The Ottoman Empire and some other parties decided to devide the Kurds between three newly created states of Turkey, Iraq and Syria, In fact the MOSUL QUEST?ON AND THE TURK?SH REPUBL?C: BEFORE AND AFTER THE
FRONT?ER TREATY is still fresh in our mind..

Thanks Aliza for bringing Kurdis issue on board.
First as a Kurdish I belive and deserve to be free and have a indepent state like all other nation. The PKK is the 29th insurgent in the Turkey"s Kurdistan since Turkey estabilished. Even Turkey defeats PKK( could not in last 25 years ) it will face up with other Kurdish party. the issue Kurdish people is the biggest non-state nation and can not use their languag officially.Turks left unliterate and hoped to assimilate them , but it could not.
Turks have to give up with their nationalis idea and let Kurds be free. I do not think Israel helps Kurds, they have very strong relationship with Turks. I belive no contry in the world helps Kurds and because every country thinks their interst and since we Kurds are weak they do not care what are happening in Kurdistan. Why people think for Gaza because there are 22 arab country and the other muslim countrys other wise currently the stuation in Kurdistan is worsen than Gaza.
Even western MEDIA (pro democracy and peace ????) ignores Kurds.
Thanks

@Zinar and all other Kurds
For those Kurds reading into this , I want to say to you that remember who is the most famous Kurd of all times ? The man was Sultan Saladin Ayubi.

Remember Sultan Saladin created an empire where there were Arab , Turkish as well as Persian speaking subjects. No one did talk about the identities like Arab , turkish or Persian at the time. So why they are doing now ?

I have never understood why people in the Middle east want to identify themselves on western ethnic nation style ? Is not being Muslim enough ?

Why would any man or woman in the middle east would like to define himself in terms of Arab , Turkish , Kurdish or Iranian and not as a Muslim ?

I again request Kurds and Arabs(Turks and Iranians are also included) to define themselves as Muslims first and rest of the problems then can be solved quite easily.

My point here is that if Kurds,Turks ,Arabs and Persians could live together peacefully under a leader like Saladin why they can not do the same , now ?

What you need is a real leader like Saladin to emerge from the region who can create a benevolent nation where all these identities like Turkish,Kurdish,Arab or Persian can slowoly die and people can live as proud Muslims.

Do not you think it is a good idea ?

@VILKSSWEDEN

You should know it very well that Hamas has not done anything against any target in Israel for the last 3 years whereas PKK has always been targeting innocent Muslims(whether being Turkish or Kurdish) on behalf of Mossad.

And rememebr unlike Gaza there is no illegal blockade on Kurds either in Iran,Turkey or Iraq.

And it is true that Turks has built good relations with Iraqi Kurds. Remeber that the Iraqi Kurd leader Masood Barzani's visit to Turkey was well covered in Turkish media. Most foreign investment in Iraqi Kurdistan come from Turkey. That is probably the region the Iraqi Kurdish authorities have kept queit after the justified Turkish attacks upon PKK hideouts.

I think you are right. The spreading of the secularism which started since the times of late1890-s statrted to spread widespread secularism throughout the middle east.

I also guess the current states which are ruled by repressive regimes like the ones in Egypt and Saudi Arabia also discourage the unification based upon their perverted interests.

I also agree with you that greed is a reason behind all these.

I guess the people in the region need to understand that with secularism comes tyrannical ideologies and repressive states like Saddam's Iraq , Shah's Iran or the current Mubarak regime in Egypt or the one in Saudi Arabia.

One good thing that we can currently see in the middle east is the wide spread popular participation in the movement against Israeli blockade on Gaza. People from very diverse backgrounds like Lebanon , Iran , Iraq , Turkey and Syria are coming together on the question to protest against Gaza blockade.

What we need is this movement to solidify and take roots in the minds of the people in the region and then these ideas about a Pan-Islamic unity can be very useful.

People who support Pan-Islamic identity need to consolidate their ideas on the basis of the current popular movement that we can see against Gaza blockade.

@DEBANJAN

Brotherhood?

No muslim does think that Kurds as brother. Have you ever talked with turks arab and persians , they never see Kurds as brother. We learned how they treat us from our recent history (genocide, massacre and tyranny). We will never trust any of them.

Forgive me if my wording made it sound like i said the times of the Caliphates was like heaven on earth. I was trying to say that since the redrawing of borders, there are a number of leaders who have made their individual states unbelievably difficult to live in as a minority (or a majority in some cases). Some have refused to get along with their neighbors (i.e. Iran/Iraq, Israel/Palestine [though obviously Israel isn't Arab or Muslim]). They have made the region fractious, which is only one of the many reasons it has fallen behind the west in power. In addition, most governments who have tried to rule under Islam like during the time of Mohammed and after into the Caliphates have failed in utilizing their entire population and making it so everyone is useful to the state.
During the Caliphates there was obviously repression (including the stealing of Christian children to man an Army, though I can't seem to remember who it was or what they were called, though I feel like it started with a 'J'), infighting, and the obvious rift between Sunni and Shi'ite, but at the same time, the entire region was unified and one of, if not the strongest powers in the world. Also, people of other religions than Islam were allowed to continue practicing (because they could be taxed), and therefore were worth a lot to the Caliphate. The Caliphates knew they needed everyone 'on board' in order to stay powerful, and though they obviously came to power through conquest and kept power in part through repression, there was the knowledge that a content public is a productive public.
Basically, I was trying to say that the difference between Caliphate rule and the rule of some of the oppressive leaders we have seen is the Caliphates unified the region, there was relative prosperity in different areas, and a common, though obviously changing law across the region; the leaders I am referring to control a relatively small area, brutally repress subjects they don't like or that aren't part of their religion or ethnicity, and did/are keeping their own personal interests at the top without making sure the public is both willing and able to help the government/country/nation strong. In effect, the Caliphates knew how to govern effectively, and these leaders do not.

we`r as (kurds) dont want anythings from any one, we fought iraqi regime for many years all we wanted our human right , freedom , but the rest of the iraq and thought we wanted to be separated, BUT we proved every body wrong in 2003 we didnt take advantage of the sitaution, infact we helped any one whom tried to do a decent thing for iraq, SO for those who never travelled to southern turkey then you know what PKK r fighting for , 2nd class citizen, unemployment, poor publice service, infact some ppl outside diyarbakir have to travel morethan 40 miles to get to the hospital , So basically all we saying is this if ur occupying our country , dont treat us like in idiot, turkey has to learne something . you can not make kurds silent , even if the whole world silent abt our future,land,human right, nobody cant achieve peace by violence that is something we `v learnt that from the human history .

@SHANY

See I do not have any problems in Kurds runnng their own affairs. The Kurds usually ran their own empire during the time of Sultan Saladin and Turks , Arabs and Persians lived well enough under that empire.

Going back further during the time of the four righteous Caliphs , the Kurds were given complete control of their own lives.

Even during the Ottoman empire's golden period , Kurds could live peacefully and prosperously and with considerable amount of autonomy.

What is required is more flexibility on the parts of the powers-that-be in Turkey , Iraq and Iran , to help the Kurds out with more autonomy and creating a loose federation based upon common Islamic identity and Islamic heritage.

@Zinar

You are incorrect to classify the current Kurdish issues as Kurdish-Islamic issues. Remember Sultan Saladin was also a Kurd whom still the whole of the Islamic world , reveres and respects.

Do not you agree that people in the region whether they be Kurd,Turk,Persian or Arab will be better off if they come together and form a loose confedeartion based upon common Islamic identity and Islamic heritage ?

The anarchists like PKK who along with Israel and USA do not want the people in the region (that includes everyone Arab,Persian,Turk or Kurd) to unite and live together peacefully and advance.

The job of people like you is to understand that you will suffer more if you choose to be separate instead of living together along with your brothers.

I agree that very heinous crimes have been committed against the Kurds but then again Arabs,Turks and Iranians also have suffered tremendously.

So why cannot all be together in suffering ?

"This renewal of violence should serve as a reminder to Erdogan that peace begins at home -- not in Gaza or Iran."

Could it be Israel, or perhaps Turkey's military establishment, that wants to remind Erdogan of this?

Unfortunately, secret games are not finishing on Turkey. PKK, so-called Armenian Genocide project etc. aim at weakening Turkey and keeping Turkey far from the Middle East problems to exploit the region easily.

Is it a revenge of Ottoman times? Is it related to geopolitical position? Is it a fear of powerful and democratic muslim country? I do not know.

The cost of terror is very big. It decreases the life standards of Turkish citizens especially Kurds.

In the Independence war, around 300 000 Turkish people have died. So, our land is holy to us.

A political system is incomplete if it does not allow internal conflicts to be resolved.