ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey’s prime minister apologized yesterday for the first time for the killings of nearly 14,000 people in a bombing and strafing campaign to crush a Kurdish rebellion in the 1930s.
Now up to 40,000 dead since the 1980s. Going to apologize for that?
The apology by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was no big change of heart but a political tactic to tarnish the reputation of the opposition party, which was in power at that time. Still, it comes at a tense time for relations between Turkey and its minority Kurds, and it sparked calls for Turkey to face another dark chapter of its history, the mass killings of Armenians in 1915.
Related: France Turns on Turkey
Why is Turkey being singled out?
Erdogan’s government is currently fighting against autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels and despite efforts to seek peace, says it is determined to crush the rebels if they don’t lay down their arms.
The fighting has killed tens of thousands since it began in 1984, but it is only the latest of several uprisings by Kurds in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast.
Erdogan yesterday offered his apology for the killings of 13,806 people in the southeastern town of Dersim - now known as Tunceli - between 1936 and 1939.
Turkey is also under pressure to acknowledge other dark pages in its history, including the mass killings of Armenians in 1915, a special wealth tax imposed on Jews in the 1940s, and attacks on its Greek minority in 1955.
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You can add 35 more souls to the tally:
"Turkish military says airstrike killed 35 civilians mistaken for Kurdish rebels" by Associated Press, December 30, 2011
ISTANBUL — The Turkish military said yesterday that airstrikes had accidentally killed at least 35 Turkish cigarette smugglers after the military mistook them for separatist fighters in the Kurdish border region with Iraq.
Related: Turkey Takes on Iraqi Kurds
A spokesman for the governing Justice and Development Party said in a news conference that the military strikes had occurred just inside northern Iraq, near the Turkish township of Uludere and along a route used by smugglers to transport goods by mule. The route is also used by the separatist Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK....
Also see: Plan B
PKK is working with Mossad?
As officials headed to the area, the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party denounced the mistaken killing of civilians, most between ages 17 and 20, and called for protests.
Crowds gathered in a central Istanbul street to denounce the strikes, hurling stones at shop windows and striking passing cars with bars. The police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters as some held up victory signs, Turkish news agencies reported.
Selahattin Demirtas, the deputy chairman of the Peace and Democracy Party, compared Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to the Syrian President Bashar Assad for, he said, tolerating the killing of his own citizens.
Yeah, Turkey has some f***ing nerve!
“An administration that murders its own people has no legitimacy,’’ Demirtas said, repeating Erdogan’s words about Assad, according to media reports. “Those killed were mostly children and youth, including youngsters that prepared for college. These are villagers that survive on smuggling.’’
The struggle between the Turkish government and Kurdish separatists has claimed more than 40,000 lives since the mid-1980s and scared off most business investment from the mountainous region, Turkey’s poorest. Smuggling is a primary source of income for many.
Spokesman Huseyin Celik acknowledged the airstrikes as a “mistake’’ but said it would not deter the Turkish military from further missions.
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Also see: As Turkey Turns
