Kurdish diaspora

The family are lucky this time - the approaching footsteps are those of volunteer doctors who are helping the migrants stuck in the border area. They give medicines to the mother and walk off.

The Kurdish problem-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has called for an emergency provincial leaders' meeting in Ankara on April 18 in the wake of calls for an early election. 

The countdown has started and the clock is ticking very loudly to warn the Iraqi Kurds that their referendum vote for independence, scheduled to take place on Sept. 25, is loaded with a potential disaster not only for northern Iraq but a bigger geography spanning Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran and probably beyond. 

Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has denied that Turkey has a "Kurdish problem," saying there is instead only an outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) "terror problem" that hinders development in the country's eastern and southeastern provinces.

A co-leader of Turkey's Kurdish problem-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has raised question marks over President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's conviction that Turkey has had no Kurdish problem, while also challenging Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu to a public debate over a presidential system and autonomy.

Turkey has no Kurdish problem but only a terrorism problem, President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has said, maintaining his bellicose rhetoric on the conflagration in Southeast Anatolia.

All ethnic groups in Turkey have their own specific problems and the government has been constantly exerting efforts to eliminate these problems, Erdo?an said in a speech delivered on Jan. 6.

Violence has again erupted in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakır, as police used water cannons and armored vehicles to crack down on a planned rally organized by the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP)

Be careful what you wish for, in politics too; things may not go as planned.

Speaking at an iftar dinner over the weekend, which he gave in honor of artists, sportsmen and sportswomen, Presidential Recep Tayyip Erdo?an underlined the urgent need for ?unity? in Turkey, saying this was required more than ever if the country is to move ahead. He pointed out that attaining this unity would also provide an example for the ?wronged and oppressed? nations of the world. 

The first Gulf War in 1991 introduced the concept of Northern Iraq to Turkish political jargon. For the two decades that followed the Gulf War, not a day went by without a Turkish official underlying the importance of Iraq?s territorial integrity and warning Iraqi Kurds against their aspiration for independence and even autonomy. Turkish officials avoided using the terms ?Iraqi Kurdistan?