The Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and the Kurdistan Solidarity Committee (UK) welcome your initiative to establish this network and wish you all every success in raising some vitally important issues in these most difficult times for the advancing of humanitarian actions and extending social justice. We are encouraged that the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) is to be represented at this conference and hope that you can develop a working relationship with this umbrella organisation of Kurdish parties and groups.
Such a network as you envisage has never been more urgently needed and its remit marks a recognition of the indivisibility of human rights and peace. A key challenge today for the whole of humanity is to devise a common approach that adequately addresses the root causes of the conflicts that threaten world peace and the future of life on our planet. Practical measures based on the principles of inclusiveness and democratic thinking must be agreed. This will form the basis of a programme of action to be raised at the highest levels and among the widest sections of the public.
One of the fundamental questions that remains unresolved is how international law and the institutions claiming to be representative of a wider humankind like to United Nations can be made to encompass the rights of minorities such as the Kurds. The sense of a global community articulated by concepts like globalisation will remain meaningless until the rights of all peoples are respected irrespective of whether they are currently able to enjoy the privileges of a nation state and a seat at the UN. Ways should be found to give practical effect to the basic rights for all peoples that are allowed for in international law and the dangerous attempts to dilute or ignore these rights have to be resisted.
The current war on terrorism in the aftermath of 11 September has put questions of peace, security and conflict resolution at the top of the political agenda, but it has led to a new alliance of states each seeking to suppress the rights of their own minority populations. Turkey is seeking to exploit its role in the US led alliance in Afghanistan to gain easy accession to the European Union without granting real concession to its long denied Kurdish population.
Turkey is intent on branding all Kurdish demands for recognition of their identity as terrorist inspired. It ruthlessly refuses to accept any legitimacy to the current campaign by Kurdish students to be granted the option for mother tongue lessons in Turkish colleges and universities. * The network should seek to raise among European institutions and NGOs the continuing human rights violations in Turkey and in particular the failure to make constitutional reforms to give recognition to the Kurds. * The network should try to ensure that standards for minority rights as embodied in the Copenhagen Criteria should not be diluted to accommodate Turkey. * The network should establish links with NGOs in Turkey such as the Human Rights Association (IHD) and strengthen dialogue with the legal Kurdish political party HADEP.
As the US turns its sights on Iraq in the second phase of its war on terrorism it should be recognised that the Kurds will not benefit from any new bombing campaign on Baghdad. This will only lead to greater instability in the Middle East and a reinforcement of the hatreds and injustices that exist there. The danger of Turkey gaining even more advantage to exert its influence in Northern Iraq is a real threat to the future of all the Kurds. It is clear that Turkey would never agree to the existence of a thriving de facto Kurdish state in Northern Iraq.