Lack of jobs will quicken breakaway in Turkey’s east, says CHP report

ANKARA

CİHAN photo

If the Turkish state does not find a cure to unemployment in the country’s eastern and southeastern provinces, the process of the area’s breakaway from the rest of the country will accelerate, according to a report prepared by a group of Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmakers. 

CHP deputies Fikri Sağlar, Mustafa Akaydın and Ali Şeker penned a report on Turkey’s eastern and southeastern province after paying a visit to Van and Hakkari from Aug. 26 to Aug. 29. 

“The breakaway of this region will quicken if the Turkish Republic does not find a solution to unemployment.

The time is ticking,” the report said, adding that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) urgently needed to lay down its arms without any preconditions. 

“Instead of asserting its authority by using disproportionate force, the state should take care of the youth which it knows are its citizens. If a transparent peace could be established and this could be transferred to the parliament, then an environment of trust could be formed and this would eliminate the weaknesses,” said the report. 

The deputies also conducted interviews with locals, local state officials and local staff. 

One citizen from Hakkari’s Yüksekova district, whose identity details were not disclosed, asked why the state was killing Kurds because he did not vote for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the June 7 elections, unlike the previous three times, in which the AKP had received enough votes to rule the country as a single party for 13 years.

Building upon these remarks, the report said the citizens of the region believed that they had been tricked by the AKP with the hopes of peace but were being punished because they had not voted for the AKP in the latest elections. 

The co-mayors of Van, Hatice Çoban and Bekir Kaya, said that while people were waiting for peace to prevail from the parliament, the state had forced war upon them. 

“The AKP marketed the hope of peace to the nation before the elections. It later deceived and betrayed the nation,” the co-mayors were quoted as saying in the report, adding that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the biggest obstacle before peace as the police, soldiers and members of the judiciary were acting against the nation for the sake of Erdoğan. 

Van Gov. İbrahim Taşyapan said the party that “was the reason for terror” – a reference to the HDP – received the highest vote in the region but “they did not aim at breaking away from the state.”

Menaf Turan, an academic at the Public Administration Department of Yüzüncü Yıl University in Van, said the key to reaching a solution in the region was to combat drug use as the age of using drugs had decreased to as low as 10 years. Turan said internet cafes were acting as prostitution and drug usage centers but were not closed, despite families’ complaints, because they were regarded as “intelligence sources.” 

Yüksekova’s District Gov. İbrahim Çenet said safety teams between five to 10 people had been established in the district in the name of the PKK, adding that they did not permit civilians to go about their daily routine and also forcefully collected money and other commodities from the people.

Meanwhile, the CHP marched on Sept. 5, on Istanbul’s Galata Bridge with the infamous motto of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, “Peace at home, peace in the world.” 

CHP secretary general Gürsel Tekin, deputy chair Sezgin Tanrıkulu and Istanbul deputies Milletvekilleri Bihlun Tamaylıgil, Dursun Çiçek and Barış Yarkadaş attended the march, where white doves were flown in a quest for peace.