Utilising the chaos in Syria in the wake of Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, Turkey has mobilised its military along with militias it sponsors along the border with Kurdish-held Syrian territories in what appears to be a preparation for an imminent invasion, according to a report
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Sure conflict becomes unavoidable if you’re brutally repressing your minorities. The minorities don’t tend to like that. The whole idea to found Turkey as a nation state while simultaneously claiming non-Turkish inhabited territories was bound to lead to conflict, and yes that’s all Atatürk. Small minorities can be incorporated in such a project, kinda like mascots, larger ones? Forget it. They must go, or the project must go. Turkey opted for the former.
How about his (adopted) daughter, personally bombing civilians? Tens of thousands massacred, and you stand here and say “nothing wrong”? Nothing, whatsoever? Not even a tiny bit?
Not even a tiny bit. Ataturk’s ideals are based on national unity regardless of what ancestry you’re from, which I sympathise with. Instability on a country’s leadership creates conflict; as we saw on Syria.
Population count in Dersim makes the claim “tens of thosands massacred” impossible, as 1935 population count was 101,099 and 1940 population count 94,636. If we add in the people fleeing the region; the estimated death count there is supposed to be near 2500 within the whole ordeal.
Considering Turkish aviation technology around that era, it’s tough to imagine Turkey having the means to kill tens of thousands of people with a single aircraft operation. For comparison, Bombing of Dresden in 1945 was made with 2000 military aircraft at the top of their technology has killed 25.000 people. How realistic is it for one pilot to kill tens of thousands of people?
Turkish documents, and Erdogan himself, admit 13806 dead and 11683 displaced. And no it wasn’t all a single aircraft operation, it’s just that his daughter was a pilot and personally dropped bombs. Not that she, personally, killed all the Kurds that died.
He knows better, hes just laying down the required denialism so that his government can conduct another genocide.
Lol, he wasn’t saying there was only one plane.
Plus, turkey was able to kill hundreds of thousands of Armenians just a decade or so before the 30’s… That’s unless you are denying the Armenian genocide of course.
I’m not saying that either. I’m saying the fleet Turkey had back in the day wouldn’t be big enough to cause ten thousands of casualties by themselves.
What do you think it was all done at once, or that planes are single use items?
Muhsin Batur, engaged in massacres for about two months over Dersim, stated in his memoirs that he wanted to avoid talking about this part of his life.[57][better source needed] Kurdish leader Nuri Dersimi claimed that the Turkish air force bombed the district with poisonous gas in 1938.[58]
“Since the conflict began, more than 40,000 people have died, most of whom were Kurdish civilians.[”
“Turkey has depopulated and burned down thousands of Kurdish villages and massacred Kurdish civilians in an attempt to root out PKK militants.”
“The initial reason given by the PKK for this was the oppression of Kurds in Turkey.[81][82] At the time, the use of Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names were banned in Kurdish-inhabited areas.[83] In an attempt to deny their existence, the Turkish government categorized Kurds as “Mountain Turks” during the 1930s and 1940s.[83][84][85] The words “Kurds”, “Kurdistan”, or “Kurdish” were officially banned by the Turkish government.[86] Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life until 1991.[87] Many who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned”
Ethnic cleansing is killing off the majority of a population solely because of their ethnicity. Turkey has sent various ambassadors to get as many civilians possible to not get involved in the revolts and helped them relocate; then used the army to surpress the revolt movement. How does this constitute as ethic cleansing?
“Kurdistan” refers to an imaginary territory claim inside Turkey, it is obvious why the term is banned. It promotes a seperation idea in a country built with the idea of national unity.
“Kurdish” and “Kurd” were never banned, however referring to PKK as these terms are. Terrorist groups do not represent the entire view of the Kurds as a whole; it would be the equivelant of calling al quada as Arabs.
Restriction of speaking Kurdish was never applied to private life. It’s restricted in public displays and official documentation; in a similar manner to every country enforcing their home language. However 80s coup were significantly different times; as even mosque prayer calls were forced to be said in Turkish at that time. It’s possible at that time this was enforced more harshly, and that’s fair. No one looks back at those times with fond memories.