TURKEY: Turks near the border hope Iraq conference will bring peace

Thousands of people took to the streets of the southern Turkish town of Silopi on Saturday (November 3) in a peace demonstration. Singing and waving their arms in the air, people carried pictures of soldiers who have died in battles with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels. "We come here for peace. We want democracy and not to kill Turkish soldiers. Turkish soldiers are our friends. People in the mountains are also our friends. They are all human. We want equality, peace and brotherhood," said demonstrator Mehmet Celik. The peace demonstration was organised to coincide with the Iraq's Neighbours meeting in Istanbul which hosted permanent UN Security Council members and the Group of Eight Industrialised Countries (G8) including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The conference comes at a time of growing tensions over Turkish warnings of an incursion against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. In the southern town of Cizre, residents hoped the meeting would bring stability to the region. "We hope that the best decision will be taken for the region and for public comfort and ease in this meeting," said Eyup Aydin a Cizre resident. "Everyone should uphold peace. We are all brothers. We are all this country's people. Enough!" said Masut Burcin, another resident. Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops, backed by tanks, artillery, warplanes and combat helicopters along the Iraqi border in preparation for a possible cross-border incursion into northern Iraq where 3,000 rebels are believed to be hiding. Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984. The United States and the European Union, like Turkey, brand the PKK a terrorist group.

ITN Source | November 4, 2007

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