FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS
EDITOR’S NOTE
The fifth annual EU-Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) Conference was held on
28th and 29th January 2009 at the European Parliament in Brussels. The event was
hosted by the founders of the EUTCC, namely, the Bar Human Rights Committee of
England and Wales (UK); the Kurdish Human Rights Project (UK); medico international
(Germany); and the Rafto Foundation (Norway), and was supported by members
of the European Parliament. The conference was dedicated to the memory of the
writer and Nobel Prize laureate Harold Pinter, who died on 24th December 2008.
This publication sets out the speeches and papers of the 2009 Conference, including
the Final Resolutions, in order to give an idea of the key issues discussed over the 2
days of the conference, although not all remarks by moderators have been included.
A brief account of the background to the Conference can be found below; for a more
comprehensive guide to the accession process and related recent developments in
Turkey, the Background Paper that was given to Conference delegates is included in
this publication (Appendix 1).
For the purposes of publication, the speeches reproduced here have been edited and
in some cases abridged or transcribed from the simultaneous translations made at
the conference on each day. Where given, the title of each speech has been included.
Where speeches were submitted to the publisher as papers, author’s footnotes have
been retained.
The opinions expressed in this work do not necessarily represent the views of the EUT-
CC.
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