Rural settlement policies in Turkey and the Kurdish areas

The adament refusal of Turkey to admit to a Kurdish question is a major source of human rights violations, social tension, political and economic instability, and an irritant in Turkey's relations with neighboring countries and the European Union. In the 1980s and 1990s Turkey, and in particular the areas predominantly populated by Kurds, was the scene of an increasingly bitter war between Turkish armed forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK; Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan). As a strategy for defeating the PKK and a reprisal for suspected support for the PKK, Turkish armed forces evacuated and burned villages on a large scale.