Ladies and Gentlemen,
 
As a member of parliament you will surely join us in condemning the fact that two freely elected Kurdish members of the Turkish Parliament with large majorities have been removed overnight from this institution, their party forbidden and ten likewise freely elected Kurdish mayors taken away in handcuffs. It will surely also shock you to hear that a kind of pogrom atmosphere is being stirred up against their Kurdish colleagues, among them the Party Chairperson, Ahmed Turk,, with the
result that even the tenancies on their apartments in the capital of Ankara have been terminated.
We have in Germany and in other EU countries large Turkish minorities often with delegates in municipalities and in the parliaments.
Nevertheless the representation of the interests of Kurdish nationals in Germany and other EU countries is usually pretty poor.
Our human rights organization is represented by a section and an office in Arbil in the federal state of Iraqi Kurdistan, observing day by day the human rights situation of the approximately 35 million Kurds in the four Near-east “homelands” of this ethnic group.
Our concern is therefore growing that the positive signs in matters of minority politics in Turkey have failed as a result of the actions of Constitutional Court, the other courts, the army and the security services.
There are in addition the constant violations of human rights and the infringement of the freedom of worship for the various Christian communities.
We beg you then as delegate to make sure that all negotiations with Turkey on entry to the EU are postponed until the rights of the democratically elected Kurdish members of Parliament are restored and the ban on the pro-Kurdish party DTP is raised. We also appeal to you to make entry to the EU dependent on equal rights for the Kurdish ethnic group and the Christian minorities in the country.

Yours Truly,
 
Tilman Zülch
President of the STP International

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