Having found out that Sanir was doing his military service in the province of Tokat, the court wrote to the military headquarters there asking for information about him. The military responded by reporting to the court that Sanir had been martyred on April 28 when he stepped on a land mine laid by the PKK in the province of Iğdır, on the border with Iran. The court dropped the case against him.Stories about Kurds slain in the fight against the terrorist PKK and about Kurdish brothers and relatives fighting on opposing sides of the conflict between Turkish security forces and the PKK often appear in the Turkish media. However, the story of a Kurd accused of demonstrating in favor of the PKK being killed by a PKK land mine while serving in the Turkish army was surely singular. The dramatic and tragic nature of Sanir's story does give reason to consider the relations between Turks and Kurds, on the one hand, and between Kurds and the PKK, on the other.
According to a recent statement by the Ministry of Defense, the number of members of the security forces who have lost their lives over the last 28 years totals 7,848 (including 5,766 soldiers, 745 policemen and 1,337 village guards). The fact that Kurdish-majority provinces like Şırnak, Hakkari and Diyarbakır top the list of provinces with the highest numbers of slain security forces seems to indicate that the Kurds of Turkey are contributing to the fight against the PKK, which claims to stand for Kurdish rights, on a relatively higher scale than the rest of the country. How can this be explained?
The Ottoman Empire was based on the "millet system," whereby subjects were divided between confessional groups called millets, enjoying free exercise of their religion and having a certain degree of autonomy in internal affairs. Turks and Kurds, alongside Arabs, Albanians, Bosnians and others, formed the "Muslim nation." Currents of nationalism first dissolved the millet system and, eventually, the "Muslim nation." The War of Independence against foreign invasion at the end of World War I was, however, fought and won in the name of the Muslims of Rumelia and Anatolia. Kurds joined the war effort on the understanding that they would enjoy cultural rights and autonomy in their region. The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923 as the fatherland of Turks, as well as Kurds. At the Lausanne Conference, which ended the war, the Ankara government claimed to represent both the Turks and Kurds of Turkey. This was mainly why the Lausanne Treaty accorded minority status only to non-Muslim citizens of the republic.
The single-party regime that was established in 1925, however, in line with the notion of modernity that prevailed at the time, adopted policies to homogenize the population of the country and to create a Turkish nation that spoke the Turkish language, adhered to Turkish culture and believed in an officially sanctioned form of Islam. Alongside other Muslim ethnic groups, Kurds were subjected to forced assimilation or Turkification. These policies have to a large extent been successful. A significant number of Kurds were assimilated into the majority language and culture. The introduction of multiparty politics and democracy in the 1950s led also to the successful political and economic integration of many Kurds to such an extent that, in contemporary Turkey, they may be said to be overrepresented among the country's political, economic and cultural elites. Generations born out of mixed marriages between Turks and Kurds who, as Sunnis and Alevis, share religious beliefs constitute a significant part of the population.
For all these reasons, only briefly discussed above, the vast majority of Turkey's Kurds continue to recognize the Republic of Turkey as their fatherland, despite the violent insurgency led by the PKK since the early 1980s. Even for those who are strongly attached to their Kurdish identity, the main demand is to be freely able to enjoy linguistic and cultural rights and a measure of autonomy within Turkey. This is why even the PKK has given up its original separatist agenda. This is why the vast majority of Turkey's Kurds do not sympathize with the PKK. This is why most of the Kurdish intelligentsia in Turkey is strongly critical of the PKK for helping the authoritarian rulers to delegitimize the demand for the recognition of Kurdish rights by equating such demands with violence and terrorism.
It is impossible to understand Turkey's Kurdish problem without considering the factors highlighted above. It is because of these factors that Turkey can, by recognizing the Kurds' right to freely enjoy their linguistic and cultural heritage and by extending a measure of autonomy in the Kurdish-majority region, not only protect its territorial integrity and national unity, but also gain the respect of all Kurds.
Benzer Haberler 
