Mustafa Tabanli Turkish scholar Fethullah Gulen broke a self-imposed 16-year broadcast silence and spoke to BBC about his home country Turkiye. One of the key issues facing the country is the Kurdish issue, Hizmet movements support for the peace process. Fethullah Gulen, Turkish scholar: “We were never completely aligned with any political party. But on […]
Fethullah Gulen, Turkish scholar: “We were never completely aligned with any political party. But on the Kurdish issue, we were supporting the peace process before the government.” The Hizmet or service movement, through civil service initiatives, has been active in the region. It has focused on education, healthcare and religious affairs.
Through educational projects, the Hizmet movement helped to alter the social fabric of Turkish people who consciously or otherwise supported the institutional resistance of state and governmental bodies. Through dialogue and face-to-face encounters, Turkish people have had the chance to experience and feel the grievances of their Kurdish brothers and sisters and listen to their stories.
Mehmet Simsek, the Minister of Finance, spent the first day of Eid-Al-Adha at his hometown, Batman, an ethnically diverse city in the Southeastern Turkey. There he attended Kimse Yok Mu Association’s brotherhood event. When Simsek was told that a thousand volunteers from outside the city were gathered in Batman for the Eid-Al-Adha, he replied “Then, I’d be the thousand and first one!”
Thousands of [Hizmet] businessmen and volunteers from Western Turkey spent this year’s Eid al-Adha in East and South East of the country so as to strengthen the brotherhood between Kurdish and Turkish citizens, and extend a helping hand to Syrian refuges. The provinces in Eastern and Southeastern Turkey have significant Kurdish populations. People in these parts of Turkey suffer poverty and various social problems.
A recent report released by the International Crisis Group (ICG) on Turkey’s efforts to address the Kurdish issue has praised the positive role the faith-based Hizmet movement plays in the settlement process. The report, titled “Crying Wolf: Why Turkish Fears Need Not Block Kurdish Reform,” released on Monday.
Journalists and Writers Foundation Vice-President Cemal Ussak, regarding the Kurdish-medium education at the Gülen community schools in southeastern Turkey, said “It is a matter of course following the amendment to the current regulation.” Vice-president of Journalists and Writers Foundation, regarded as the institutional face of Gülen Movement, Cemal Ussak brought to minds the fact that the movement’s […]
About 90 percent of the Turkish public believe the Kurdish question cannot be settled through military means but by democratization, and that expanding cultural rights and negotiating are the answers that will finally produce a settlement for Turkey’s decades-long problem with separatist terrorism, according to a recent survey conducted by pollster MetroPOLL.
Following the decision to allow education in languages other than Turkish in private schools, as part of the democratization package recently unveiled by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a private school run by Gülen movement volunteers said it is ready to start education in Kurdish once such a law is introduced.
ÖZGÜR KÜÇÜK, ARBIL/IRAQ In a country that has been rocked by violent conflict for more than a decade, a Turkish-led drive to improve education in Iraq is flourishing. Ankara has not let its complicated relationship with Turkey’s Kurdish population mar its education ties with Iraqi Kurdistan, which are strong and growing more powerful every day, […]
Minister of Food, Agriculture and Livestock Mr. Eker praised that people from all walks life in Diyarbakir are represented at the Iftar. He said Turkey’s regime had problems with his own people. The state had divided its people into races, colors and ethnicities, which created problems. “We have made important progress for the solution in the last seven months, we wish that the settlement process will end with peace,” he added.
As far as the Kurds living in other countries are concerned, as Fethullah Gülen underscored in his Rudaw newspaper interview, Turkey should not only be interested in the well-being of Turks’ ethnic brothers in other countries but also Kurds’ and other ethnically non-Turkish citizens’ brothers and relatives all over the world. Thus, instead of seeing an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Syria as a threat, we must be happy that our Kurdish relatives on the other side of the border will hopefully have better living standards and human rights.
Gulen: “Basic rights cannot be the subject of negotiation. Things bestowed by God cannot be denied by a man”. Hodjaefendi’s spiritual authority is indisputable. This spiritual authority that shapes the future of Turkey by kneading the hearts and uniting them with the same ideal leads us all in coming up with solutions to the burning problems.
EKREM DUMANLI Mr. Fethullah Gülen, a well-respected Turkish Islamic scholar, has made a very important statement. He says when we consider that people are endowed with rights and freedoms indiscriminately by God, we understand that no one has the right to introduce prohibitions against certain groups. This principle should be applied to the Kurdish issue. Mr. […]