By Mustafa Akyol-Hurriyet Daily News
11/08/2010
About 10 days ago, Osman Baydemir, the Kurdish mayor of predominantly Kurdish Diyarbakir, said something that shocked most Turks. “Why hasn’t the yellow-red-and-green-colored flag waved,” he asked in a public speech, “beside the star-and-crescent flag in front of the municipality?” This would be the flag of the Kurdistan region, he explained, which would exist along with other several autonomous regions around Turkey.
In other words, Mr. Baydemir voiced a demand to change the “unitary” structure of Turkey into a federation (or “semi-federation,” such as in Spain) with regional governments.
Not too surprisingly, he received reactions. Minister Cemil Çiçek, one of the more nationalist figures in the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government, gave a rather crude one by calling him “a man whose organs have changed places.” Some media commentators bashed him for his “separatist agitation.” And a prosecutor opened an investigation about him, probably finding the notion of a “Kurdish flag” too unbearable to hear.
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A Kurdish flag in Turkish skies?
