Monday, February 22, 2016

Is Turkey crushing Kurdish self-rule in Syria? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

Is Turkey crushing Kurdish self-rule in Syria?

Looking back at Turkey’s failed peace process with the Kurds now that it has devolved into a bloody conflict also affecting Syria, the position of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan is perhaps best summarized through something he conveyed to lawmakers from the Kurdish-dominated Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) during a March 2014 meeting on the prison island of Imrali, where he is serving a life sentence. According to minutes of his meetings with the HDP team that began in 2013 and ended April 5, 2015, Ocalan said, “I have a family. My family — 5 or 10 million people — we rebelled. Now we want to make peace. How is this to be achieved? I want to give up the war. Do you agree?”

More:Is Turkey crushing Kurdish self-rule in Syria? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East