LETTER:Turkey is only defending its own

From Mr Yaman Akdeniz

Sir: I have been reading the letters and the news about Turkey and its invasion into Iraq. I do not understand why the media keep blaming Turkey for everything its government does. Why is nobody bothered about the Turkish citizens - old people, women and children - that the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) keeps killing in the south-east part of Turkey.

There is terrorism going on there and Turkey finally decided to protect its citizens and to find a final solution to PKK. That's the reason why 35,000 soldiers went into Iraq. This has nothing to do with the EU and the customs union. Why threaten Turkey with it, why say things like: "Let Britain defend the Kurds"? It is not the Kurds Turkey is fighting, it is the PKK Turkey is fighting.

Heather Clarke (letter, 24 March) writes that "last week Turkish police shot dead 28 members of the non-conformist Alevi sect" in Istanbul. There have been killings, but the number is under 12. I am not justifying what the Turkish police did, but the police were in a fight with the protesters.

I cannot understand how people in the UK can talk about what is going in Turkey while they easily forgot what was going on in Northern Ireland. Is everything done by the British Army there justified? The UK has had its problems with terrorism; why can Turkey not have its problems and try to solve them without attacks from the EU?

Yours faithfully,

YAMAN AKDENIZ

(student)

Law Faculty

University of Leeds

Leeds

27 March