After iraqi bloggers decided announce week for publishing about the Turkish, Iranian bombardments and Mubarak Kuwaiti port here
Turkish bloggers chime in on cross-border operations against PKK
03/09/2011
As Turkey's air operations in northern Iraq continue, bloggers condemn the military attacks by arguing the Kurdish issue can only be solved through dialogue and peace.By Alakbar Raufoglu for Southeast European Times -- 03/09/11
The General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces announced on August 29th that they have killed an estimated 145 to 160 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and injured at least 100 others since operations began on August 17th.
Air strikes hit nearly 150 targets belonging to the PKK in the mountains of northern Iraq, including the PKK's main Kandil base, in response to PKK attacks that have left more than 40 Turkish soldiers dead this summer.
"The fight against terror will continue until it is destroyed to its roots," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an address to the nation on August 28th.
"Neither the Kurdish problem will be fixed, nor the atmosphere of conflict will end with this [military] way," he wrote on the party's official blog.
For blogger Cetin Yilmaz, the Kandil operations weren't surprising as the Turkish government, he claims, "was likely preparing this for a long time".
"The [ruling] AKP ignored the 'stop the operations' messages, even blocked Hatip Dicle who sent the same message, from entering the parliament and as we understand now, all of these – the Imrali meetings [between jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and government officials], the cajoling of the BDP -- were a routine part of the game. AKP was on the road to war," he wrote.
According to blogger Ragip Duran, there is no difference between the AKP government's Kurdish policy, which he accuses of being "Islamist-Kemalist", and prior government attempts to solve the Kurdish problem. The AKP government still sees the Kurdish problem as a strict security problem, he says.
"It would be naive to believe the Kurdish problem, which hasn't be solved since 1925 [the Sheikh Said Rebellion], can be solved by arresting thousands of politicians, blocking elected MPs from the parliament, bombing Kandil [PKK], or starting new arrest campaigns," he said.
He also criticizes the mainstream Turkish media for jumping on the nationalist bandwagon, instead of providing objective and accurate reporting and analysis.
Sharing this concern, Mehmet Yavuzatmaca compares the Kandil operations with the Halabja Massacre in 1988, when Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein's orders attacked the Kurdish village with chemical weapons, killing an estimated 5,000 people.
"The bulk of one family including five children was massacred during yesterday's [August 26th] attack in Kandil. The pictures that have been taken after the attack demonstrate the atrocities. The images of the child in the lap of the beheaded mother remind one of the Halabja Massacre images."
A diplomatic row occurred between the Iraqi and Turkish governments following the event, with the Turkish government later providing visual evidence and analysis to the Iraqi government showing the family was not killed by Turkish airstrikes. The Turkish government claims the pictures are PKK propaganda.
Calling the Kandil operations "very important", another blogger, Yusuf Gezgin, asked whether the government is ready to fight the rebels and their supporters in Turkish territory from now on.
"There are approximately 700 [rebel] organization members in Hakkari alone, who take men up to the mountains. The local municipalities under BDP are practically setting up a 'social security administration' for the PKK and their families. The [BDP] municipalities are hiring relatives of family members who send people to the mountains, providing for their funerals and health care. The resources of the municipalities are not going to the cities, but to the mountains. Unfortunately, nobody is controlling these activities or questioning them."
Journalist-blogger Hamza Aktan also worries about the operations "sabotaging" a post-Kandil period of reconciliation.
"Erdogan and his cabinet are repeating the same policy as the politicians of the 1990s who created today's atmosphere without finding a peaceful solution," he argued, adding that Turkey is getting further away from the end of the Kurdish problem by pursuing structural solutions to the structural reasons behind the Kurdish problem.
Meanwhile, pointing out the regional nature of the problem, CHP's Utku Cakirozer advises the newly elected Erdogan to visit the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Erbil and Baghdad, and even Washington, DC, to find a way to solve the Kurdish problem peacefully.
* what about iranian and kuwaiti bloggers? we waiting.....
* what about iranian and kuwaiti bloggers? we waiting.....