Turkey Lifts Provincial Restrictions

Turkey lifted a 15-year state of emergency in the southeast Saturday, ending an era that saw security forces wield sweeping powers against Kurdish separatists in a conflict in which 30,000 died.

“A new, normal period is starting for the region,” Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu told reporters in Diyarbakir.

Parliament decided in June to schedule the end of emergency rule in the provinces of Sirnak and Diyarbakir after lifting it in two other provinces this year.

Turkey had imposed emergency rule, giving authorities extraordinary powers to detain suspects and carry out investigations, in 1987, three years after the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, launched a violent campaign for independence.

Human rights groups argued that the special powers handed to police led to serious abuses.

Thousands of people fled to the major cities to escape the violence, deserting hundreds of villages.

Fighting subsided after 1999 when Turkey arrested PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who ordered the rebels to withdraw from Turkey to northern Iraq and campaign for greater cultural rights by political rather than military means.

Residents of Diyarbakir welcomed the end of emergency rule, saying they hoped it would bring peace and help the economy. About 1,000 gathered in the city center Saturday to celebrate.

Turkey’s new Justice and Development Party government, which won a landslide victory in Nov. 3 elections, has vowed “zero tolerance” on torture and pledged a range of human rights reforms to meet European Union standards for membership.