SF parliament member addressed Turkish politicians in Kurdish, urging more economic reforms for the eastern part of the Euro-Asian country
MP Özlem Sara Cekic of the Socialist People’s Party travelled to Ankara this week with the aim of challenging Turkey’s political leaders on the issues of Kurdistan and women’s rights.
Cekic was a guest speaker on Tuesday for a conference in connection with International Women’s Rights Day at the headquarters of government-leading party AKP. She was also scheduled to meet with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday.
In addition to raising criticism of the Turkish government’s record with regard to the nation’s Kurdish population and women’s rights, she held her speech in Kurdish – a language spoken by around 18 percent of the Turkish population but not recognised as an official one.
Cekic, whose family originally hails from Ankara, told Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman that Turkey has come a long way in its treatment of the Kurds.
She also addressed the country’s high unemployment, widespread poverty and the lack of education among the general population, adding the country’s ongoing battle with internal terrorism is an economic one.
‘If we want to solve the terror problem then we should bring education and jobs to the east. When we eliminate the poverty then there will be no reason for people to take up arms and fight from the mountaintops,’ she told Today’s Zaman.
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