Recognising Kurds as minority was very important topic during the negotiations of Lausanne treaty. The British delagate insisted on it much but finally Turkish side won because it was a give-and-take and in return British side managed to keep apart Mosul and Kirkuk from Turkish territory. They however didn´t forget it and they are still after it. Imperial powers didn´t like the Lausanne treaty at all. Because they failed on their plans on Anatolia badly.

I don´t think Kurds want to be a minority in Turkey. This is a EU project and they keep pushing on it for obvious reasons.

Well said, but try selling that to the DTP/PKK crowd, they are the same as Basque nationalists in Spain, they go around playing the victim and demanding everything from the State, and keep pushing Spanish outside the education system, so they can do a ´great´ service to their own people by making sure they struggle with the Spanish language questions in the university entry exams, but I´m sure a LOT of them would be proud of having the same in Turkey, schools in the Kurdish villages where the language is 90% Kurdish, making sure they youth find it harder to see even just the rest of their own country, but they can preserve all their traditions (including less savory ones like honor killings), and more importantly, keep voting for the racist ethnicity-based party...

Those guys are every bit as bigoted or worse as their counterparts on the other side, sadly there are some who just swallow all their lies because they have a cute red star and/or a ´socialist´ slogan in their rallies.

 I think you will Celtic is far more wide spread than you think and is spoken in Cornwall (a county in the south of England) Wales, Isle of Man (who also speak a language called Manx), Scotland and Ireland, plus Brittainy in France.  But that does not mean we provide translations in every day life as those areas mentioned above except Brittainy, would learn English as the first language although there are some parts in the Scottish Islands that are trying to re-introduce Celtic as their first language.

In Wales and England there are over one million Welsh speakers and much is provided in Welsh as well as English.  I know is the north of Wales, there is a strong nationalistic feeling and some people only speak Welsh.  We provide training courses in Welsh for Welsh speakers.

But then Great Britain is a bit different from Turkey, as we are know as the 4 nations, and each nation have some of their own laws or variations on English law and govern themselves to an extent.  As for Wales, they have their own parliament.  Scotland as you know from the recent release of the Lockerbie bomber also have their own regulatory body.

Because some Kurds are rich, it doesn´t mean that there is equal opportunity. Just because the major of one city in Rotterdam is Maroccan, doesn´t mean that people with Maroccan names get the same treatment when applying for a job interview through a letter.

The Kurds not being a minority was done on purpose, which one should know if you would study the history of Turkey. Calling a group of people with their own cultural expressions, their own language, and a distinct region from which they originated "mountain Turks" doesn´t make them ethnic Turks.

I also don´t think comparissons can be made with other countries. For example, the thing in the Netherlands with the double name signs works very well, but we have to be honest that the history of the Frisians and other Dutch has not been so complicated as the history in Turkey. An important aspect of the current day conflicts have to do with big wars, promises Ataturk made, alliances and such. Too long to mention on here, but people should really study history from every side possible, and then try to make up their mind.

I´ve spend too much time on reading up on the history of Kurds in Turkey, talking to people of every possible side, and it has left me confused an unable to make up my mind

+10000 

People should really study the history. Otherwise, there is no other way of understanding this conflict..

You should be a bit careful before accusing some parties and then accusing people living in Turkey..

Kurds are the ones here we Turks tried to assimilate since the beginning of republic. 

They are the ones their villages were destroyed; Kurds are the ones we Turks famously said ´there are no Kurds here..You are not mountain Turks´; Kurds are the ones here their language was denied..

17.000 Kurds gone missing for example!! (this value itself must be enough for any straight decision)

And you are still turning your head around and saying ´ah but they are supporting DTP´. Do you expect them to support CHP or MHP type of fascist nationalist parties?

Who do you think they will support?

can you seriously think that they would support parties that support the army, single nation idea  and no understanding what so ever about multi nationalism or the party whose members were jailed because they were fighting for  Kurdish people´s rights?  

Living under same flag and talking the same language by keeping our ethnical and cultural rights and specialities the best solution i think.But if aim is political benefits or a power fight,i´m afraid guns never will stop on this lovely country.And i think main mattter is to be a nation  with the ethnical and cultural diversities,we can name it ´´Türk´´ or ´´Türkiyeli´´.Our Kurdish siblings musn´t have any fear with this words to...

I think you should really read about how we negotiated in Lausanne !!

Some wordings for you: 

"We defended our arguments in Lausanne as ´we Turks and Kurds as a nation´ and then we got our arguments accepted"

Ismet Inönü

"Turkish goverment is a goverment belongs to Kurds as much as  it belongs to Turks; ...

Mustafa Kemal

Inonu used the words ´a nation as great as Kurdish nation´ in laousanna.

But a few years later, they prepared that sark islahat plani:     http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_29206

Just briefly really..

  What i observed is, people are very disturbed about this initive issue, because people dont know anything about the contents, they are hiding it like a secret. So it was not supported by the people except the kurdish racists and the ones who are willing to advertise themselves, dont try to fool people here. I ask again what Kurds want from Turkish Republic rather than other ethnicities have.  Kurds have the right of being turkish citizen but they thrust this aside and they prefer to segregate that is Kurdish racism supported by imperialists of course, and because of this Turks gave begun to question the Kurds in every part of life for a few years, this increases the tension between Kurds and Turks. 

 Kurds only want to be treated as Turks. They want to have same rights.. We talked about assimilation policies; what we have done to Kurds (denying their existance; language etc.)

So what Kurds want is not a valid question anymore!!

In Turkey there are millions of people from different ethnicities living, none of them has problems except the Kurds who creates problem for themselves.  They can be parliamentarian even prime minister, Kurds too, so what is the problem? Why do Kurds always the only ethnicity used by colonial imperialists who cannot still digest the Turkish war of Independence.  Turks are witnessed lots of hypocrisy through past decades.  They had seen how Kurds tried to seek asylum in European countries by spreading lies like "We Kurds are being tortured, oppressed in Turkey, no equal opportunities for Kurds.". When the issue is complaining about Turkey in Europe they easily say they are Kurds, but when they are caught committing a crime, they proudly say they are Turks. While they are supporting terrorists freely in Europe, they can talk about democracy-human rights, what a terrible conflict is this.

"Kurds are tortured and oppressed in Turkey" is not a lie. Check the EU human rights court´s decisions..Check how many time we as a country had to pay compansation!! 

Now lets talk about the truth, why other eyhnicities do not terrorize the country but Kurds? Why always we see Kurds dealing with illegal organizations such as terrorism, extortions, honor killings, drug smuggling, women trade, selling girls like goods? Why only Kurds are disturbed by being Turkish citizen? Why only kurds have inferiority complex? Why only Kurds request everything from state, why only Kurds accusing everyone except themselves rather than self-criticism? Why only Kurds spreading the lie of that they are being assimilated whereas we still see Kurdish people who do not know a single Turkish word?

Kurds living in medievil state suited very well into agenda..

We have been quite happy with them until they started to ask question about their identity or language.

If they did not, you would not care to talk about how underdeveloped they are..

For instance we have Turks with ...

But still these Kurdish fascists talking about democracy and human rights, i wonder where are those merits when they are stoning women and children? Where are those merits when they are attacking police with molotov-cocktails or when they are setting fire to buses, cars in Istanbul for example? They will realize human rights and democracy by killing people and causing terrorism, sorry but people do not believe these lies anymore.

That is still the case that Turkish fascist hate anything about the democracy.

They can not bear it.

.Because they dont want to hear or see their fascism or think that their ideas have been  the problem of Turkey..

Lastly if Kurds are still supporting these terrorist acts, they should first look at themselves. The ones who want justice and rights as they put forward, firstly should respect the people of Turkey and Turkey´s unity. People of Turkey never liked the pawns and i hope this hadnt been changed.

As the president said : ´We either solve this problem ourselves or somebody will solve it´.

In order to solve this problem we have to ´clean´ Turkish racists first and teach them that THEY ARE THE PROBLEM 

I agree with what you are saying.

But Mrx67 put your hand on your heart and tell me who opposes the word ´´Türkiyeli´ most?

Well.

That may look like I am taking the things too far..But however, there are people in Turkey and they think that adding those 3 letters is not a bad idea.

I dont care that much to be honest is they are included or not. I mentioned that alphabet is not that important..it should not be treated as ´ah it is a pure Turkish thing and it will be contaminated´.

Because, personally, I dont think it will be contaminated.. It is an alphabet..We adopted it less than 100 years ago..We  deliberately excluded some of the words. They could have been included at the time..they can be included now..

It is not a great deal!!  

But denying some Kurdish names is an important issue..

In the end, we do have a problem here: 

We have our citizens here..Some of them are having w, x in their names..

We have a citizen there and his name is ´welat´ for example

-He wants to register his name as welat.

What we are saying :

- ´NO you can not..Because we do not have W in our alphabet´

-Then why can not we add w into alphabet?

-No it will be contaminate our alphabet.

Well in the end, what do we do?

We do have a problem..

Check how many of these Turks posting here will accept that person´s right to register his name!!