SIRNAK, Turkey, June 9 (Reuters) - Thousands of people took to the streets of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast on Saturday in a state-sponsored demonstration against separatist violence.
The protesters, mainly state-paid village guards, civil servants and schoolchildren, waved Turkish flags and chanted anti-guerrilla slogans in the remote hillside town of Sirnak, overlooking the Iraqi border some 50 km (30 miles) away.
In recent months there has been an upsurge in the decades-old conflict between the army and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels, who cross the border from mountain bases in northern Iraq to attack Turkish forces.
The rally came amid rising speculation about a possible Turkish army incursion into northern Iraq and coincided with a call from the army General Staff in Ankara on Friday for Turks to show a "mass resistance reflex" to PKK attacks.
"Damn the PKK", "Martyrs do not die, the homeland will not be divided," the crowds chanted below a 10 metre (33 ft) high portrait of modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, flanked by similarly large Turkish flags hanging from a state building.
"Can someone who fires bullets at the people and lays mines on the roads be human?" said a banner held aloft by one child in the square amid tight police security and with military helicopters circling overhead.
More than 30,000 people have died in the conflict since the PKK took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out an ethnic homeland in the Kurdish southeast. Much recent rebel activity has focused on laying landmines targetting the armed forces.
"I say damn the PKK. They killed our animals, they burned our houses, they kidnapped our children," said 34-year-old farm worker Mehmet Acet, from a village which supplies militia forces who fight alongside the Turkish military.
PEOPLE DIVIDED
Tens of thousands of Kurdish villagers across the southeast receive a monthly salary of around 500 lira ($373) as village guards, who in the past were frequently the targets of PKK attacks.
But the village guards acknowledged that many Kurds in the impoverished region remained sympathetic to the PKK's aims. "In Sirnak, some are on one side and some on the other. Nearly all of us at this protest are village guards. We fight with the army against the PKK," said Kamil Bakir, 26.
He said he was forced to move to Sirnak from his village in 1990 after the militants killed members of his family, hanging his uncle from a lamp post in the town of Cizre. Away from the tight security in the main square, local traders sat drinking tea and voiced sharply contrasting views on the demonstration.
"What they're holding is a rally against peace. Kurdish people just want peace. The state makes that difficult. The PKK offered a ceasefire and the state ignored this," said trader Hayri Gokce, 28. The PKK has sometimes declared unilateral ceasefires, but Ankara has always dismissed them as cosmetic gestures. It refuses to sit down and talk with a group it brands terrorist.
Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's southeast, staged a similar anti-PKK demonstration on Saturday. Underscoring regional tensions, Iraq's Foreign Ministry accused Turkey of "intensively shelling" northern Iraq this week and said it had handed Ankara's envoy a protest letter.
Local sources say Turkey's military does sometimes shell PKK targets inside Iraq and also stages small "hot pursuit" raids across the border. Ankara never confirms such reports. Analysts say a large-scale military incursion into Iraq is still unlikely, given the political and diplomatic as well as security risks. Parliament would have to authorise such a move.
But the government is under public pressure to get tough as the PKK attacks continue and elections loom in July.
Source : www.alertnet.org
The protesters, mainly state-paid village guards, civil servants and schoolchildren, waved Turkish flags and chanted anti-guerrilla slogans in the remote hillside town of Sirnak, overlooking the Iraqi border some 50 km (30 miles) away.
In recent months there has been an upsurge in the decades-old conflict between the army and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels, who cross the border from mountain bases in northern Iraq to attack Turkish forces.
The rally came amid rising speculation about a possible Turkish army incursion into northern Iraq and coincided with a call from the army General Staff in Ankara on Friday for Turks to show a "mass resistance reflex" to PKK attacks.
"Damn the PKK", "Martyrs do not die, the homeland will not be divided," the crowds chanted below a 10 metre (33 ft) high portrait of modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, flanked by similarly large Turkish flags hanging from a state building.
"Can someone who fires bullets at the people and lays mines on the roads be human?" said a banner held aloft by one child in the square amid tight police security and with military helicopters circling overhead.
More than 30,000 people have died in the conflict since the PKK took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out an ethnic homeland in the Kurdish southeast. Much recent rebel activity has focused on laying landmines targetting the armed forces.
"I say damn the PKK. They killed our animals, they burned our houses, they kidnapped our children," said 34-year-old farm worker Mehmet Acet, from a village which supplies militia forces who fight alongside the Turkish military.
PEOPLE DIVIDED
Tens of thousands of Kurdish villagers across the southeast receive a monthly salary of around 500 lira ($373) as village guards, who in the past were frequently the targets of PKK attacks.
But the village guards acknowledged that many Kurds in the impoverished region remained sympathetic to the PKK's aims. "In Sirnak, some are on one side and some on the other. Nearly all of us at this protest are village guards. We fight with the army against the PKK," said Kamil Bakir, 26.
He said he was forced to move to Sirnak from his village in 1990 after the militants killed members of his family, hanging his uncle from a lamp post in the town of Cizre. Away from the tight security in the main square, local traders sat drinking tea and voiced sharply contrasting views on the demonstration.
"What they're holding is a rally against peace. Kurdish people just want peace. The state makes that difficult. The PKK offered a ceasefire and the state ignored this," said trader Hayri Gokce, 28. The PKK has sometimes declared unilateral ceasefires, but Ankara has always dismissed them as cosmetic gestures. It refuses to sit down and talk with a group it brands terrorist.
Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's southeast, staged a similar anti-PKK demonstration on Saturday. Underscoring regional tensions, Iraq's Foreign Ministry accused Turkey of "intensively shelling" northern Iraq this week and said it had handed Ankara's envoy a protest letter.
Local sources say Turkey's military does sometimes shell PKK targets inside Iraq and also stages small "hot pursuit" raids across the border. Ankara never confirms such reports. Analysts say a large-scale military incursion into Iraq is still unlikely, given the political and diplomatic as well as security risks. Parliament would have to authorise such a move.
But the government is under public pressure to get tough as the PKK attacks continue and elections loom in July.
Source : www.alertnet.org
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