I can answer these for Kadir, who is born out of a Zaza father and a Kurmanci mother.

1. No.

2. No.

3. No.

It depends on what chances in life you get from the place you came from. Kadir is studying medicines and nobody ever asked him if he was Turkish or not. He had the same chances and rights for education as any other citizen/Turk in Turkey. But just as Kurdish girls in villages dont really go to school/university, neither do their Turkish village counterparts. In Turkey your rights are not presented to you on a silver platter, you have to reach out for them. And this counts for Turks as well. It is easy talk for Turks in big cities, but their fellow citizins in villages do not have any more chance at a lifeperspective as Kurdish ones.

I am not saying there is no discrimination because I believe there is quite some discrimination (not to mention discrimination of PKK towards Kurds who do not support them, as happend in my boyfriends family), but in Turkey generally life is what you make it: Kadirs parents decided to leave Diyarbakýr and move to Ankara in order to give their children a better chance at education. Any other Kurdish or Turkish family in Diyarbakýr (atthat time) could have decided that as well. And they have, if education was something important in their families at that time.

I agree with Meltem that there arent much pure Turks in Turkey left, and then we could even discuss about what a pure Turk is.. I also agree that it is normal not to mention your nationality. Actually nobody introduces himself that way   There is discrimination against Kurds, but as citizens of Turkey they have the same rights as all other inhabitants, and they can achieve the same things as well. But it has to do with choices and circumstances.

(Obviously this is not a closing-answer, it is only 1 case of a good background. I merely wanted to point out that some discrimination about education-job is not true in many cases. Ýncidents in the past have shown us lots about discrimination. And the police in turkey is ´famous´ for being abusive anyway. Oh well this was my addition. It is too easy to just say they are discriminated because they are Kurds and to say that they do not have the same rights)

 I can answer these for Kadir, who is born out of a Zaza father and a Kurmanci mother.

1. No.

2. No.

3. No.

It depends on what chances in life you get from the place you came from. Kadir is studying medicines and nobody ever asked him if he was Turkish or not. He had the same chances and rights for education as any other citizen/Turk in Turkey. But just as Kurdish girls in villages dont really go to school/university, neither do their Turkish village counterparts. In Turkey your rights are not presented to you on a silver platter, you have to reach out for them. And this counts for Turks as well. It is easy talk for Turks in big cities, but their fellow citizins in villages do not have any more chance at a lifeperspective as Kurdish ones.

I am not saying there is no discrimination because I believe there is quite some discrimination (not to mention discrimination of PKK towards Kurds who do not support them, as happend in my boyfriends family), but in Turkey generally life is what you make it: Kadirs parents decided to leave Diyarbakýr and move to Ankara in order to give their children a better chance at education. Any other Kurdish or Turkish family in Diyarbakýr (atthat time) could have decided that as well. And they have, if education was something important in their families at that time.

I agree with Meltem that there arent much pure Turks in Turkey left, and then we could even discuss about what a pure Turk is.. I also agree that it is normal not to mention your nationality. Actually nobody introduces himself that way   There is discrimination against Kurds, but as citizens of Turkey they have the same rights as all other inhabitants, and they can achieve the same things as well. But it has to do with choices and circumstances.

(Obviously this is not a closing-answer, it is only 1 case of a good background. I merely wanted to point out that some discrimination about education-job is not true in many cases. Ýncidents in the past have shown us lots about discrimination. And the police in turkey is ´famous´ for being abusive anyway. Oh well this was my addition. It is too easy to just say they are discriminated because they are Kurds and to say that they do not have the same rights)

I think it will be misleading to just take a snap shot of a succesful  kurdish family and do the genaralisation to be honest. (

And, in my view, looking at our kurdish problem as terorism only and thinking that we have done nothing wrong -everything is done by usa and eu-is the real problem.

Unfortunately, until we realise that and stop looking at the army as the ultimate god in Turkish politics, we will keep losing those young boys..

That is the reality

 As I said, it was not a closing-answer, just an example of 1 family with good background. I did not make the generalisation, then you have not read my last words if you thought thats what I did.

I agree with you in this last paragraph. But Ive been told that the army starts to loose its divine image gradually lately.. ? That would be good progress.

I would like to remind you though, that discussing PKK itself is still prohibited for the time being. Just a reminder, so far it has not been about that in itself nor has the discussion escalated.

Thanks for that.

But why did you remind ME specially about the forum rules DK?

 I can answer these for Kadir, who is born out of a Zaza father

this discussion demonstrates that all this mess will be going on and on. you can not agree on simple things. so many words for nothing. do you have any suggextios what could be done to solve the problem. BTW, history knows many examples when political and personal will of person "made the history". this problem is not new in the world. you discuss minor aspects of the situation (atitude and opinions), though if old methods do not work, then smth should be done differently. what? taking into account that we live now in much more humane and politically correct world than our ancestors?

And this was the funniest comment I have ever heard.. so you think the Kurds want our land because they innocently want to live on their own land? There is nothing there.. How weird.. There is fuel in Iraq, there is fuel in Caspian Sea, there is fuel everywhere around.. and not there.. come on, grow up.. stop believing in media.. or the media created crisis.. if there is no benefit, no one would have fought about it.. Why doesn´t the other minority groups in Turkey ask for partition? Did you ever think? And I don´t know where you are from, but i can say your great grandfathers were not shedding their blood to keep our country and our land together.

I had many kurdish friends, and i always liked Kurdish people.. but if we talk about only them being tortured or treated badly, it is not fair.. yesterday somenody was talking about, how things went bad, and how the kurdish people suffered during the 1980 coupe.. for your info, the only people who were tortured badly or whatever was not the Kurds.. it affected everyone living in Turkey who was trying to bring a more independent life.

And it was during our (supressed as azade said - or given up their origin)Kurdish presidents´ time, when all the dams were built in the south east.. when people realised that they were actually not living in a desert.. and of course let´s not forget the fuel issue.. which was located long ago, but not allowed to take it out, and recently rediscovered by an american oil company.. what a coincidence..

There is a big picture out there.. young people, specially young kurds who have no choice but join PKK or cooperate with the government and become a betrayers in their own community, soon becomes the target of this newly raised racism.. but actually there is none.. did you know that if you get on a bus and go to that area, the PKK willl stop you on the way, interrogate you, and rob you off? So what are we talking about.

Turkish land has always been a home for many ethnic groups, which doesn´t necessarily mean that they own the land.. and like mltm said, we are all Turk - not genetically, but because we share the land.