Why the Protests Have Changed Turkey Forever

After Prime Minister Erdogan's order to clear the park that has been the scene of two weeks of protests, The Times's Sebnem Arsu tells Marcus Mabry that Turkey and Turkish politics will never be the same.

Why the Protests Have Changed Turkey Forever

After Prime Minister Erdogan's order to clear the park that has been the scene of two weeks of protests, The Times's Sebnem Arsu tells Marcus Mabry that Turkey and Turkish politics will never be the same.

Kurds Uneasy About Turkish Protests

LONDON â€" Turkey’s historically marginalized Kurdish community has been largely absent from the anti-government protests that drew thousands to Taksim Square in Istanbul.

“Turkish protests, Kurdish indifference,” read a headline at the Kurd.net Web site this week above an article by Kani Xulam, a Washington-based Kurdish activist.

“Do we not want to curb the power of sultan wannabe prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan?” Mr. Xulam asked. “Apparently not.”

“In Taksim Square, where are the Kurds?” asked Jenna Krajeski in a New Yorker blog. “With some notable exceptions, Kurds, usually Turkey’s most robust anti-government protesters, had been absent,” she wrote.

The reticence of Turkey’s Kurds, which represent about 20 percent of the population, to embrace the protest movement is partly because Mr. Erdogan has offered them the best chance in decades of achieving a settlement of their grievances through a landmark peace agreement with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the P.K.K.

Mutlu Civiroglu, writing at the Rudaw Kurdish Web site, said Kurdish leaders, including those linked to the P.K.K., had expressed sympathy with the protesters. Sirri Sureyya Onder, the Istanbul representative of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or B.D.P., had been prominent in the protests from the start.

But although they might sympathize with the protests, Mr. Civiroglu wrote of Turkey’s Kurds, “they worry how they will impact the unfolding peace process, which is in its sensitive first stages.”

Armed fighters of the P.K.K., which has waged a 30-year guerrilla war against the state, have begun withdrawing to the mountains of northern Iraq as part of a peace deal the Erdogan government brokered with Abdullah Ocalan, the movement’s jailed leader.

Kurdish leaders expressed concern that the anti-Erdogan protests might be exploited by ultranationalist groups that have opposed the prime minister’s rapprochement with the Kurds.

“We will not allow the events in Gezi Park to turn against the peace process,” said Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the B.D.P., referring to the development of a park in Taksim Square that started the protests.

David Romano, author of “The Kurdish Nationalist Movement,” wrote on the Rudaw site that prominent amongst the protesters were nationalists from the Republican People’s Party and the National People’s Party, “two political groupings that historically played a large role in suppressing Kurdish identity and rights in Turkey.”

While acknowledging that some Kurds had reacted to the anti-Erdogan protests with indifference or even antipathy, he said that those who supported the movement were right to do so.

“Just as Turkish democracy could never be truly healthy as long it suppresses ethnic minorities like the Kurds,” Mr. Romano wrote, “Kurds will never be free under a government that ignores the rights of other groups.”

Kurds Uneasy About Turkish Protests

LONDON â€" Turkey’s historically marginalized Kurdish community has been largely absent from the anti-government protests that drew thousands to Taksim Square in Istanbul.

“Turkish protests, Kurdish indifference,” read a headline at the Kurd.net Web site this week above an article by Kani Xulam, a Washington-based Kurdish activist.

“Do we not want to curb the power of sultan wannabe prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan?” Mr. Xulam asked. “Apparently not.”

“In Taksim Square, where are the Kurds?” asked Jenna Krajeski in a New Yorker blog. “With some notable exceptions, Kurds, usually Turkey’s most robust anti-government protesters, had been absent,” she wrote.

The reticence of Turkey’s Kurds, which represent about 20 percent of the population, to embrace the protest movement is partly because Mr. Erdogan has offered them the best chance in decades of achieving a settlement of their grievances through a landmark peace agreement with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the P.K.K.

Mutlu Civiroglu, writing at the Rudaw Kurdish Web site, said Kurdish leaders, including those linked to the P.K.K., had expressed sympathy with the protesters. Sirri Sureyya Onder, the Istanbul representative of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or B.D.P., had been prominent in the protests from the start.

But although they might sympathize with the protests, Mr. Civiroglu wrote of Turkey’s Kurds, “they worry how they will impact the unfolding peace process, which is in its sensitive first stages.”

Armed fighters of the P.K.K., which has waged a 30-year guerrilla war against the state, have begun withdrawing to the mountains of northern Iraq as part of a peace deal the Erdogan government brokered with Abdullah Ocalan, the movement’s jailed leader.

Kurdish leaders expressed concern that the anti-Erdogan protests might be exploited by ultranationalist groups that have opposed the prime minister’s rapprochement with the Kurds.

“We will not allow the events in Gezi Park to turn against the peace process,” said Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the B.D.P., referring to the development of a park in Taksim Square that started the protests.

David Romano, author of “The Kurdish Nationalist Movement,” wrote on the Rudaw site that prominent amongst the protesters were nationalists from the Republican People’s Party and the National People’s Party, “two political groupings that historically played a large role in suppressing Kurdish identity and rights in Turkey.”

While acknowledging that some Kurds had reacted to the anti-Erdogan protests with indifference or even antipathy, he said that those who supported the movement were right to do so.

“Just as Turkish democracy could never be truly healthy as long it suppresses ethnic minorities like the Kurds,” Mr. Romano wrote, “Kurds will never be free under a government that ignores the rights of other groups.”

IHT Quick Read: June 13

NEWS German and French officials are warning that the events in Taksim Square threaten to worsen frayed relations and reinforce doubts about whether Turkey is ready to join the European Union. Dan Bilefsky reports.

Across northern Syria, rebel weapons workshops are part of a clandestine network of primitive arms-making plants, a signature element of a militarily lopsided war. C.J. Chivers reports.

Wary of the raucous street demonstrations that erupted during the last election in 2009, the Iranian government decreed that this year’s presidential campaign would consist of rallies in predetermined spaces and a series of tedious, four-hour debates that many Iranians dismissed as more like a pointless quiz show than a discussion of real issues. Thomas Erdbrink reports.

For years it has been an open secret in Rome: That some prelates in the Vatican hierarchy are gay. But the whispers were amplified this week when Pope Francis himself, in a private audience, appears to have acknowledged what he called a “gay lobby” operating inside the Vatican, vying for power and influence. Rachel Donadio reports.

BUSINESS The leaders of the European Union, mired in recession and battered by increasing opposition from voters, are pushing for a rapid negotiation of a trade agreement with the United States aimed at expanding commerce and creating jobs. Steven Erlanger reports.

Thursday’s drop on the Japanese stock market was one of many sharp declines seen in recent weeks since a feverish six-month rally in Japanese stocks â€" incited by optimism over the government’s aggressive efforts to reinvigorate the listless economy â€" came to an abrupt end. Bettina Wassener reports.

Devices that mimic tobacco cigarettes are growing in popularity even as regulators in Europe and the United States weigh their risks. Liz Alderman reports.

ARTS The hip-hop artist Kanye West was forthright and lucid while discussing his career and his goal to make a bigger footprint in worlds outside of music, with Jon Caramanica.

SPORTS Soccer and politics are never far apart in Iran, but the mix is at its most combustible every four years in June when the country’s presidential elections take place at the same time that the beloved national team either qualifies for the World Cup or falls short, sometimes in heartbreaking fashion. John Duerden reports.