Union of the Diaspora Turkmens: A Call to the Free People of the World

A CALL TO THE FREE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD

UNION OF THE DIASPORA TURKMENS (UDT)

There has been another vicious attack on the peaceful Turkmen people of Iraq.

On Saturday June 20th, 2009 at noon, a truck bomb exploded in the busiest centre of the town of Taze Khurmatu , 15 km south-west of Kerkuk, killing 75,wounding over 200 innocent people and destroying the entire neighbourhood.

This has been the latest in the chain of terrorist attacks against the Turkmens in Iraq ; it follows the attacks against them in Telafer, Kerkuk, Tuz Khurmatu, Amirli, Yengije, etc...

These terrorist attacks are particularly vicious as they are directed against the peaceful, unarmed and unprotected Turkmen community of Iraq.

The Iraqi authorities with their local police and security forces have failed to stop these attacks in the past and the recent terrorist attack in Taze Khurmatu shows once again that they are either unable or unwilling to ensure adequate protection for the Turkmens.

The Turkmens represent Iraq’s third largest ethnic group and despite the fact that they constitute a main ethnic community in Iraq alongside the Arabs and the Kurds, they continue to be discriminated as they remain the only ethnic group without any means of self-defence or community protection, because the central and local Iraqi authorities deny them the right to possess weapons and to organize their own self-defence and the protection of their community.

We are asking the Iraqi authorities: the President of the Republic, Mr. Talabani, the Prime Minister, Mr. Maliki, the Members of the Iraqi Parliament and the Presidents of all political parties, to revise their policy concerning the security in the Turkmen region.

We ask them to encourage and allow the Turkmens to form their own local law enforcement units, and provide them with financial support and proper training. We in the Union of the Diaspora Turkmens (UDT) ask the free peoples and all the human rights organizations of the world to help us by putting pressure from their side upon the Iraqi authorities to grant the Turkmens their right to defend themselves and form law enforcement units of each locality from the local Turkmens.

Otherwise these tragedies and the human suffering of the Turkmens will continue.


UNION OF THE DIASPORA TURKMENS (UDT)

turkmencenter@yahoo.com