Opening Remarks

Opening remarks 

Kariane Westrheim
 
Dear Patrons, Advisory Council, Distinguished Speakers and Moderators, Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen!

It is a great pleasure for me, as the Chairperson of the EU Turkey Civic Commission, to welcome you all to the Second International Conference on EU Turkey and the Kurds. In November 2004, by a joint initiative, the Rafto Foundation, Kurdish Human Rights Project, Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales, and medico international hosted the First International Conference in the European Parliament. As an outcome of this historic event, the above mentioned organisations, based on the conference resolution, agreed to establish and sponsor a standing Civic Commission to monitor Turkey’s compliance with the Copenhagen criteria. Since last year's conference the EU Turkey Civic Commission has seen the light of day. Representatives from the founding organisations now hold key positions in the commission's Board of Directors, along with representatives from Turkey and Spain. The members of the Board of Directors will be presented in the last session tomorrow.

Besides the Board of Directors, the EUTCC consists of an Advisory Council – prominent members from many parts of Europe, from Turkey, the US and South Africa – they all hold high positions within politics, Academia, culture, law and different fields of civic society. I would also like to mention that the Advisory Council has Assyrian representation as well. What link advisors together is that each and one of them wants to contribute to the democratisation of Turkey – a process in which the solution to the Kurdish question and the situation for the minorities in Turkey plays a crucial role. We are immensely grateful that 14 out of 25 members of the Advisory Council are present here today. We certainly look forward to our future collaboration.

The aim of the EUTCC is to promote the accession of Turkey as a member of the EU, in order to guarantee respect for human rights and a peaceful, democratic and long-term solution to the Kurdish question.  We believe it is an opportunity to transform Turkey into a stable democracy. It is vital, however, that Turkey are not admitted EU membership before the country have implemented the reforms necessary to meet the Copenhagen Criteria. This includes first and foremost an end of military intervention, violence and oppression, secondly that Turkey express an explicit will for consultation and dialogue with Kurdish representatives. By this conference we wish to contribute to this dialogue, and we regard the work of the EUTCC as a bridge between the EU and Turkey in these matter.

This conference aims at providing a further platform for the possible solution to the Kurdish question and to present an opportunity for NGO’s and individuals with regional expertise to highlight to decision makers the successes and failures of the Turkish Government’s reforms.

This conference is sponsored by the above mentioned organisations, however, I would like to take this opportunity to give a special thanks to the Left groups of the European Parliament and Stefano Squarcina for sponsoring this conference. I allow myself to see this tremendous generosity as a way of telling us that the EUTCC is to be regarded as a potential cooperation partner to the European Union and that EUTCC is highly qualified and worthy listening to.

I would like to add that there have been some changes in our agenda. Some of our speakers can not be here today including, Tuncer Bakirhan, the President of DEHAP, because of his statement related to the Kurdish question in Turkey, his freedom of movement has been limited, and he is banned to travel abroad. We hope that the government of Turkey will understand that this attitude is unacceptable within the European Union.

The patrons of the conference are; Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi, both Nobel Peace Prize Recipients, Goodwill Ambassador to the Council of Europe Bianca Jagger, and Playwright Harold Pinter. Unfortunately our patrons were not able to participate at the conference; however, they have all sent their messages.  

The opening session includes four prominent speakers. First and foremost Mr. Edward McMillan-Scott, the Vice President of the European Parliament. We feel honoured and grateful that Mr. McMillan Scott found this conference of such importance that he accepted our invitation to give an opening speech.

The next speaker; Mr. Hatip Dicle, is a former Member of Parliament in Turkey. He was arrested, along with Leyla Zana, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak in 1994 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for separatism and for being a member of the PKK. Mr. Dicle has been the Head of the Diyarbakir Human Rights Association and was also an active member of DEP (Democracy party). We all owe Mr. Dicle the greatest respect.

It is also a pleasure to welcome Mr. Luc Van den Brande, Chairman of the Political Group (PPE), Bureau of the Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The last speaker of the opening session is Mr. Vittorio Agnoletto, who is the Coordinator of the Kurdish Friendship Group in the European Parliament. Mr. Agnoletto has been engaged in Kurdish issues for many years and we are honoured to have you here.

Dear audience, on behalf of the EUTCC, I wish you all an interesting and fruitful conference. 

Thank you!