One of the longest conflicts in the highly conflict-hidden Middle East is the struggle of the 40 million Kurdish people for self-determination. Living in southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, northern Iraq, and western Iran, in addition to a sizable diaspora in Western Europe, Kurds have been subject to various forms of ethnic discrimination and repression in the countries in which they reside. In today's program, host Gregory Wilpert interviews journalist, documentarian, and anthropologist Mehmet Dogan, spokesman for the Kurdistan Latin American Solidarity Committee. Dogan discusses prospects for peace between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a radical nationalist organization and one of the most important political forces in the Kurdish national movement; the emergence of a unified progressive opposition in Turkey, the Peoples Democracy Party, which is running in the upcoming June 7 elections; the situation in the Middle East and the role of NATO and the United States; political and organizational divisions in the Kurdish nation and the majority position in favor of democratic federalism, advanced by the PKK and the Union of Kurdish Communities, a broad front of 400 social movements; and the reasons for the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the region and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. teleSUR
