Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-28-Speech-3-039"
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"en.20050928.3.3-039"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the negotiations with Turkey start on 3 October, but Turkey must not be allowed to make a fool of the European Union: human rights must be at the heart of any talks. In contrast, constitutional reform has remained a mere aspiration and there is still the 10% barrier in electoral law that prevents the Kurds from having their own representatives in parliament.
A new law restricts lawyers’ ability to carry out their professional duties; journalists can be arrested and their articles considered an attack on territorial integrity; teachers’ unions have been condemned for defending everybody’s right to speak their own language as well in school; and Mehmet Tarhan, a young Turkish gay, has been sentenced to several years in prison for claiming to be a conscientious objector.
The situation is even worse in the Kurdistan region. Only a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Erdogan raised hopes that a peace process might begin, but nothing of the sort has happened. Although the Congra-Gel have declared the suspension of all military action, there are still reports of violent military action against the Kurdish population, together with torture and rape.
The European Union must call on Turkey to politically acknowledge the existence of the Kurdish issue and to start public negotiations. The road to the European Union passes through Diyarbakir, the capital of Turkish Kurdistan. Human rights and respect for democratic rules are non-negotiable, yet the Turkish Government does not seem to have any intention of agreeing to the call from the European Court of Human Rights to grant Abdullah Ocalan a retrial. The European Union must not ignore that situation, unless it wants to undermine the credibility of that institution.
The idea that Turkey can join the European Union without recognising Cyprus is utterly unacceptable: the ball is now in Turkey’s court. We can negotiate on economic and customs agreements for years, but never on human rights."@en1
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