Turkey’s Aid to Iraqi Kurds

* Your coverage of the helicopter tragedy in northern Iraq (April 15) fails to show Turkey’s essential role in Operation Provide Comfort. Not only does Turkey permit Allied forces to use Turkish air bases, but the Turkish military is actively taking part in this humanitarian operation.

Turkey’s humanitarian help to the Kurdish population in northern Iraq is not limited to its part in this operation. Turkey is helping Iraqi Kurds by providing food aid and even electric power. Turkey recently furnished $15 million to the Iraqi Kurds to manage their daily economic needs. The terrorist PKK organization recently sabotaged the power lines in northern Iraq to prevent Iraqi Kurds from using the electricity provided by Turkey, showing once again that this terror organization’s activities are not only a threat to the Turkish citizens living in this border areas but to the well-being of Iraqi Kurds.

The map attached to the story also is flawed in the sense that it designates some provinces of Turkey as “areas of Kurdish majority,” as if Kurdish citizens of Turkey do not belong to the population as a whole.

The April 17 Column Left makes a substantial blunder as well by comparing the situation of the Kurdish populations in Turkey and Iraq. Turkey is governed by a democratic parliamentary system, and Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin know they are unique and different from the Kurds living in the neighboring countries, which are ruled by theocracies or one-party systems. All Turkish citizens, regardless of ethnic background, have the right to participate actively in Turkey’s multi-party system. In the last local elections, Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin cast their votes among the 14 parties that participated in the election and ignored boycott calls from the PKK organization. The participation rate in the election was more than 92%. The Democratic Labor Party, which stated open sympathy with the PKK in the past, opted to withdraw from the election, evidently to avoid a total electoral defeat. Your reporter fails to understand Turkey’s problem is not with its ethnic Kurdish population, but with a terrorist organization, which is based and financed from abroad.

OGUZ CELIKKOL

Consul General of Turkey

Los Angeles