Turkey's Kurdish question /

Barkey (Lehigh Univ.) and Fuller (RAND), two eminent scholars, deal with one of the most important problems in the Middle East--the challenge of the Kurdish nationalist movement to the states of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. This challenge to the Turkish government grew enormously as a result of the security vacuum created in northern Iraq by the 1991 Gulf War. Barkey and Fuller suggest possible solutions to the war between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), in which more than 30,000 people have been killed and 2,500 Kurdish nationalists have been murdered by government security forces or groups cooperating with them. The authors favor cultural concessions (right of Kurds to speak Kurdish in public), economic development of a Kurdish region, a diminished Turkish armed forces and security presence, legalization of Kurdish political parties, devolution of power to Kurdish regions, and more cultural and political autonomy. The fact that the Turkish government and armed forces have rejected all of the solutions favored by Barkey and Fuller reflects on the depth and intensity of the Kurdish issue in Turkey. This first-rate book is must reading for all scholars, policy advocates, and general readers interested in the Middle East. For broader aspects of the Kurdish question readers should consult Kemal Kiri,sci and Gareth M. Winrow's The Kurdish Question and Turkey (CH, Jan'98). Upper-division undergraduates and above. R. W. Olson; University of Kentucky