Kurdish Political Representation and Equality in Turkey Debate

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Department: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

Kurdish Political Representation and Equality in Turkey

Crispin Blunt Excerpts
Tuesday 2nd November 2021

(2 years, 4 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Crispin Blunt Portrait Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Angela, and to follow the comprehensive introduction to the all-party group’s report from its chair, the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), with whom I enjoyed—and “enjoy” is the right word—an interesting visit to north-east Syria, seeing the Kurdish statelet there at the time. It is incredibly instructive to be on the ground and to see the effects of the attempt to put a new philosophy—the Öcalan philosophy—into action in the most difficult and challenging of circumstances.

I do not intend to speak for long, Dame Angela, because it is important to hear from the Minister. If we really wanted to torture the Minister, the rest of us here would give her longer to respond on the exquisite issue of British-Turkish relations and exactly what balances the United Kingdom needs to strike, which are matters of enormous difficulty. She will probably get just her 10 minutes and will not have to twist on the spit of having to represent her colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), within whose brief this issue formally sits. I do recognise her difficulties.

We are at the stage of trying to establish the values of global Britain. What does this nation stand for now we have left the European Union? It is a moment to define the values we will stand up for. That is why we ought to carefully review relations with Turkey and examine what message we will send, so we do not get ourselves into a place where we are too contradicted in what we are trying to say and in the differentiation of the messages we are trying to send.

Plainly, the relationship with Turkey is critical and central for the United Kingdom going forward, as we are both major powers on the periphery of Europe. However, we cannot ignore the fact that that nation has locked up more journalists than any other nation, nor its conduct and policy towards the Kurdish minority. That was examined to a degree in the report by the Foreign Affairs Committee when I was Chair, it has been looked at again in the report by the all-party parliamentary group for Kurdistan in Turkey and Syria, and it was the subject of a letter to the Foreign Secretary that I co-wrote with the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), which was signed by 64 colleagues. That letter raised our concerns about Turkey’s conduct in respect of human and political rights—an area where I do not believe Turkey to be acting in her own interest.

The Foreign Affairs Committee report that was published in 2017 identified that as a central challenge for the President of Turkey. In what direction was he going to take Turkey? He had an opportunity then, and he has an opportunity now with Abdullah Öcalan as his prisoner, who has ceased to have any aspirations for Kurdish independence. If one looks at the Kurdish minorities in the other main countries where they appear—Syria, Iraq and Iran—it is plain that any aspiration for a greater Kurdistan is, frankly, for the birds at the minute. It is not even an aspiration that is front and centre of most Kurdish discussions. The referendum in Iraq was a total disaster for the Kurds and now seems a profound mistake. Even the Kurdish Syrians we went to see in north-east Syria had to take Syrian protection, in effect, in the face of the threat that came from Turkey in the north.

I look forward to the reply from my right hon. Friend the Minister and to hearing if some of the balances expressed by her predecessors, in answer to such debates, have begun to shift and if we are now beginning to say something more robust about what global Britain stands for, or if we cannot say anything about our relationship with Turkey and the pretty dreadful things going on in regard to the values we ought to share with the Turkish Government, who have plainly gone very badly wrong and are not seeking the opportunity to find a route to peace in the PKK-inspired civil war.

I concur with the points that have been expressed about closely questioning the PKK’s terrorist designation. It is designated a terrorist organisation because Turkey has asked us to do that. Frankly, that is not adequate and needs proper examination, if possible in our courts, to see if they would come to the same conclusion as the courts of Belgium. I look forward to the Minister’s contribution to see if matters are now moving in a more satisfactory direction in respect of the values we seek to stand for.

--- Later in debate ---
Amanda Milling Portrait The Minister for Asia (Amanda Milling)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Angela. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) on securing this debate through the Backbench Business Committee, and thank him and other hon. Members for their contributions today.

I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), would have been delighted to respond today, but she is in Glasgow attending COP26. As such, Members will understand that this is not my brief, although it is my pleasure to respond on her behalf. I will do my best to cover as many of the points raised by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown as possible—I am grateful to have had early sight of some of the questions—as well as other comments made during the course of the debate. I am more than happy to ensure that the Minister responds after today’s debate, and I am sure that we can arrange follow-up conversations.

I am aware of the correspondence between the Minister and the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown relating to the APPG report. We are grateful for the work that the APPG has done to create this report. The Government take these matters very seriously, as with all matters relating to democracy, security and human rights, and although the APPG report is wide-reaching, today we are focusing on Turkey.

Crispin Blunt Portrait Crispin Blunt
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I wanted to follow up on one question. The final recommendation of the Foreign Affairs Committee in its 2017 report The UK’s Relations with Turkey, paragraph 179, is that:

“We recommend that the FCO designate Turkey as a Human Rights Priority Country in its next Human Rights and Democracy Report.”

Matters have hardly improved over the past four years. What consideration is now being given to so designate Turkey?

Amanda Milling Portrait Amanda Milling
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I would like to mark and commend his work as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Everyone thought very highly of him in terms of his chairmanship, and now his ability to pull out a report today. I will talk about our relationship with Turkey and a number of the issues that have been raised, including my hon. Friend’s own contribution and our role as global Britain. As NATO allies and G20 economies, the UK and Turkey continue to work closely together. We have seen Turkey’s participation in the G20 and COP26 over the weekend as testament to this.

Turkey sits on the frontline of some of the most difficult challenges we face, and our shared interests cover security, defence, trade, the covid pandemic and climate change, which is very topical this week. Turkey hosts more refugees than any other country, including around 3.6 million Syrians, at a considerable cost and more than many other countries. We also have a shared interest in pursuing regional stability with Turkey, including in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the eastern Mediterranean.

It is worth saying at the outset that we should not generalise when we talk about the Kurds, in Turkey or elsewhere. There are 15 million to 18 million Kurds in Turkey alone, who form a diverse section of society with different political affiliations and outlooks. I note the concerns expressed in this debate about political representation in Turkey, specifically the pressure on Turkey’s third largest party, the People’s Democratic Party, or HDP. The party’s supporters tend to be drawn from the Kurdish community.

We note, as does the APPG report, that a number of MPs and officials from the HDP have been arrested for alleged links with the proscribed terrorist organisation the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK. A number of colleagues mentioned the PKK. We are closely monitoring the progress of the case to close down the HDP for terrorist links, which the Turkish chief public prosecutor is pursuing through the Turkish constitutional court. We also know that the Turkish Government have replaced elected HDP mayors with Government-appointed officials. It is well known that the UK has proscribed the PKK as a terrorist group, as have many of our international partners. We do not share the view of the APPG and some Members today that there are grounds to justify unproscribing the PKK while it continues with terrorist activities. According to the International Crisis Group, the conflict has caused nearly 5,700 deaths since the latest peace process broke down in July 2015. We urge the HDP to distance itself from the PKK and its ongoing terrorist activity.