UK-Turkey Relations

Ann Clwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I, too, have a taxi story, following the one from the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter). My taxi story started in Diyarbakir in the south-east of Turkey some years ago, when I was going to the very south-east of the country to look at the Ilusu dam area and the flooding of Batman and other areas which are of historic importance to Turkey and particularly to the Kurds. My taxi driver said to me, “I’ve sold my only cow.” I looked at him in amazement and he said, “To buy a satellite dish.” At that time he could see television programmes only in the Turkish language, and he wanted to see programmes in the Kurdish language. Things have moved on quite a bit since then,

I am pleased to say I have a long association with Turkey and want to see it in the European Union, and I can say strongly that this country is a friend of Turkey and also wants to see it in the European Union.

My friend the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, gave a comprehensive account of the areas the Committee has looked at and the recommendations it has made. I still have many concerns about human rights in Turkey. When I chaired the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s committee on the human rights of parliamentarians —you know it well, Mr Deputy Speaker—which is based in Geneva, we always had delegations from Turkey at its conferences twice a year because of complaints about the way members of the Turkish Parliament were being treated.

I see myself as a critic of Turkey and also a friend. When it needs a pat on the back, I am pleased to do so, but I will also kick it when that is necessary to get some action on human rights. There have been great changes in Turkey, and I have to say that the AK party Government have contributed much towards that. The change has not been as fast as some of us would like it to be, but nevertheless there has been considerable progress on human rights.

I still have concerns about the treatment of the Kurds in the south-east of the country, to which my friend the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) also referred. Few people have visited the south-east and seen for themselves where the majority of Turkey’s Kurdish population live and the strong feelings they have about the use of their own language. They want the right to speak in Kurdish whenever they want to do so. Of course, in the past that was very difficult and many have been put in prison for using Kurdish, which the Turkish Government have very strong views about.

I want to talk briefly about a friend of mine, Leyla Zana. I first met her nearly 20 years ago when I visited her in prison in Ankara. She had been a member of the Turkish Parliament, one of the first Kurds to be elected to it, and when she was sworn in she took her oath in Kurdish and wore Kurdish colours in her hair. It was not long before she found herself in prison. She was put in jail for 10 years because it was believed that she was strongly associated with the PKK. Of course, some of the PKK’s aims include language rights for the Kurds. I went to see her in jail and took her a birthday card, because it was her birthday. I had written the card in Welsh, which the Turkish authorities of course could not make out, and so was able to deliver it and wish her a happy birthday. The prison governor allowed me to stay with her for about an hour and a half, and afterwards he said to me, “You know, she shouldn’t be here.” I knew that she should not have been there.

Unfortunately, in the past few weeks Leyla Zana has been sentenced to another 10 years in jail, but because she is a member of parliament she has immunity, but there is no certainty that that immunity will remain. There are concerns that she could still face another 10 years in jail, which would be a disgrace. It is interesting that in the past few days Prime Minister Erdogan met Leyla Zana and they had a discussion, and she made some comments after it. The Prime Minister told journalists that it had gone very well and I believe that it was very productive. After the meeting, Leyla Zana spoke to the press and called on the Government to restart talks with militants, meaning the PKK. It is important that those talks take place. There have been awful incidents on both sides, and many people on both sides of the argument have died. Many in the military have been killed, but PKK personnel and innocent civilians have, too.

Ms Zana said that security-based policies had not worked, and she made the suggestion, anathema to many Turks, that Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK leader serving a life sentence, could be transferred to house arrest. She also praised the Prime Minister for meeting her, saying:

“He showed his sincerity on the need to open channels of dialogue. When I decided to meet with him, I based it on my reasoning, political experience and insight.”

Their meeting was dismissed by the PKK, which said:

“They have entered into a military-solution process. The AKP government lost the war it staged against the Kurds and Kurdish freedom movement in the last year.”

Interestingly, however, Leyla Zana could take over as leader of the PKK, and, although it is described as a terrorist organisation, we in this House all know how many times we have described organisations as terrorist and then sat down to talk with them. Such talks are beginning to take place, and I commend the Turkish Government on initiating that dialogue, which I very much hope will continue.

I am concerned also about the treatment of journalists in Turkey, as I know our Government are, and in our report we made several comments on that, stating:

“We recommend that the FCO should suggest that the Turkish government encourage prosecutors and judges to exercise restraint in the use of arrest and pre-trial detention, pending more thorough-going reform of the justice system.”

When I was in Istanbul I met journalists and journalist associations. They are afraid of saying anything that is sensitive to the Turkish Government, and too many of them are in jail. Our Government have welcomed recent steps to address those issues, because freedom of expression is a very necessary freedom, which any potential EU member must support, but Turkey need not be as sensitive as it is, because it has made substantial progress.

Indeed, I have paid tribute to Turkey for that progress over the years, because my first visit to the country took place when the military were in charge. I went on behalf of Amnesty International to a trial at a prison in Istanbul, where people who were the equivalent of members of CND were on trial, and that was a horrible time in Turkey’s history. Things are changing, however, and with a bit more initiative they will improve even faster.

Some time ago, in talks with the Foreign Office, I suggested that we invite Turkish MPs to this country to see bilingualism in practice and to show them that it does not mean separation. We now have bilingualism in Wales, and it was hard fought-for, but the Turks could learn a little from the process. All the Turkish MPs whom I have met have seemed very keen on the idea of coming to see how bilingualism works in practice, and, if they were convinced of it, the Kurdish problem in Turkey could be solved.