German Federal President visits Turkey (February 5)

On the occasion of the German Federal President’s visit to Turkey, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) appealed to the German head of state to advocate for peace between the Turkish state and the Kurdish people.

“The unsolved Kurdish question has always been Turkey’s Achilles’ heel. A peaceful solution between the Turkish state and the Kurdish people living in and outside Turkey, an end to violence and terror, would also be in the interest of the Federal Republic of Germany,” stated Dr. Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East consultant. “Ever since its founding, the Federal Republic of Germany supported the persecution of Kurdish people in Turkey and abroad. Now, it is Germany’s responsibility to advocate for an end to the violence and terror,” the STP wrote in its appeal to the German Federal President, who will be meeting up with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday (February 5).

“A peaceful solution within Turkey would be an important step towards putting an end to Turkey’s illegal attacks against the Kurdish people in Syria and Iraq. Federal President Steinmeier should speak clearly on this issue in the course of his meeting with President Erdoğan – and advocate for an end to Turkey’s attacks on the Kurdish regions of Syria and for an end to the Turkish occupation of Afrîn and other Kurdish areas of northern Syria,” the Middle East consultant said.

“An end to the violence would also have a positive impact on other ethnic groups and minorities such as the Assyrians/Arameans, Armenians, Alevis, Christians, and the Yazidis in Turkey and in the neighboring countries, as they are often caught up in the fighting and suffer as a result,” the human rights activist added.

“A large majority of the Kurdish population, but also many Turks, are hoping for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question and the entire conflict, which has been going on since the founding of the Turkish state. Prerequisites for this are the immediate release of tens of thousands of Kurdish political prisoners, the recognition of the Kurdish language as a second national language, and the recognition of the right to autonomy and self-administration in Turkish Kurdistan, in the predominantly Kurdish-inhabited regions in the east and the south-east of Turkey,” Sido added.

According to Turkish, German, and international media, talks are currently taking place between the Turkish government and Abdullah Öcalan – the founder of the Kurdish PKK, who has been in jail in Turkey since 1999 – to put an end to the violence and war and to find a possible solution to the Kurdish question.