• Thursday, 08 August 2024
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Renowned Turkish scholar says Kurds have historic chance for sovereignty now

Renowned Turkish scholar says Kurds have historic chance for sovereignty now
DERSIM, Turkey—The celebrated Turkish activist, Ismail Beşikçi, says that recent political and military developments in the Middle East have provided “historic opportunities” for the Kurdish people and their aspirations towards independence.

Beşikçi says that giving the ongoing transformations in the region, the declaration of a Kurdish state is unlikely to face “lingering animosity” from regional powers.

“If the pro-independence camp receives around 70 percent of the votes in the referendum, no one could reasonably stand against it and that includes both Iran and Turkey,” Beşikçi told Rudaw in an interview Friday.

The former Turkish army chief of staff, Ilker Basbug, was quoted in the Turkish media earlier this week indicating that Ankara and Tehran could effectively halt the Kurdish drive towards further independence in Iraq.

“The Kurds need to take their steps according to their own needs regardless of what Iran, Turkey, the US or Russia think about it,” Beşikçi argued. “The Kurds have resources, especially oil and gas, which they can use when they become independent,” he added.

Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region held its first non-binding referendum in January 2005 in which more than 99 percent of the voters supported independence.

But the forthcoming referendum, if held, will be constitutionally binding, as it will most probably have the Kurdish regional parliament’s full endorsement. All political parties, including the opposition groups, are widely expected to back the public vote.

Iraq’s 2005 constitution underscores that the Kurdistan region preserves the right to secession from the country if the constitution is violated and the privileges of the people in the region are not safeguarded.

With the ongoing economic and political turmoil in Iraq and while Baghdad has virtually withheld all payments to Erbil since February 2014, it seems increasingly improbable for the Iraqi government to try to prevent Kurdistan from secession.

“The Kurds (in Iraq) didn’t declare independence in the 1960s saying that the time was not ripe, if they do the same thing now they will most probably face similar fate in our time,” explained the Turkish scholar who spent 17 years in a prison for his defense of Kurdish rights in Turkey and was released in 1999.

“I see it as important for the Kurds to have their referendum now and go ahead in accordance with the result it produces which is the establishment of a Kurdish state,” said

A prolific writer, only four of Beşikçi’s 36 published books and researches have been reprinted in Turkey with the rest of his writings banned in the country.
rudaw.net
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