Press Release

March 25, 1999

Telephone: (202) 483-6444

Clinton Says Kosovars Can't Speak Their Language;

The Kurds in Turkey Can't Either

Last night, March 24, 1999, President Bill Clinton addressed the nation to cite his reasons for America's entry into the war as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) against Serbia. Among these, he said, "In 1989, Serbia's leader, Slobodan Milosevic, ... stripped Kosovo of the constitutional autonomy its people enjoyed, thus denying them their right to speak their language, run their schools, [and] shape their daily lives."

In the same address, referring to Turkey, he noted that it is our ally.

Given the tremendous demands placed upon his shoulders, President Clinton may not know that in Turkey, an ethnic minority known as Kurds numbering some 15 million people can not speak their language, run their schools and shape their daily lives no different than the Kosovars in Serbia.

But Clinton's aides know this and know more, for example, that it is the United States1 supplied weapons that have enabled Turkey to enforce these draconian laws on the Kurds. Some among the Kurds have taken up arms, the way the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has, and have fought the Turkish army that has cost the lives of 37.000 people, the destruction of 3432 Kurdish villages and the displacement of more than 3 million Kurds. Silence seems to be the mood on this issue in the capitals of the world, though.

To count on Turkey as an ally to undo the wrongs of Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo while letting Turkey get away with the same faults in the Turkish controlled Kurdistan can only be interpreted as disingenuous. President Clinton has had strange bedfellows before, but in an adventure that may cost the American lives, it behooves him to disassociate himself from Turkey for the credibility of the United States.

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) condemns this blatant double standard and urges the United States government to counsel its own ally as it continues with the costly adventure of undoing the wrongs of Mr. Milosevic in Kosovo.