The Turkish government has gone full fascist.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42863531

Summary: There is currently an armed conflict going on in Syria between the Syrian government and the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is a secular-progressive organisation that stands for the rights of the Kurdish people. The Turkish government is helping the Syrian government crush the "Kurdish liberal scum". Hundreds of Turkish citizens have been arrested for criticising this decision on social media.

Come on Turkey! Is this what Mustafa Kemal Atatürk would do?

wasn't the KDP a proscribed terrorist organisation once upon a time?

I'm not sure. The Kurdistan Worker's Party is better though.

Nearly all Western governments consider the Kurdistan Worker's Party to be a terrorist group.

Why do we think that the US government is trying to "free the Middle East"? Whenever someone actually does try to free the Middle East, they get labeled as terrorists.

Yes it's a complicate business when dealing with the Kurds

Considering the number of times the turks have, when given the choice between firing on ISIS or firing on the Kurdish groups fighting against ISIS have chosen the latter, I can't really say I'm surprised.

The Turkish political system, much like the American political system, is a "democracy" with insufficient barriers against corruption. Any democratic system without barriers against corruption is bound to rot into a plutocracy, like a vegetable which hasn't been put in the fridge.

ISIS is fine with a tyrannical upper class as long as that upper class claims to be devoutly Muslim. The Kurdish people want universal human rights, not tyranny.

Thus, the Kurdish people are greater threat to the Turkish elites than ISIS is.

Notice how most people in the West don't even know about the existence of the Kurdistan Worker's Party. The Western elites don't want you to know that such an organisation even exists. We're supposed to believe that the Middle Eastern people are incapable of creating progressive social movements on their own, and that all social progress in the Middle East is a product of Western intervention.

They could have been in the EU if it wasn't for Erdogan.

And you're right, DMK! Ataturk is spinning in his grave.

Kurds want an ethnic state. They get support for that from one already established. Kurdish people have been treated terribly though. Probably best to try and integrate somehow.

Integration is not possible in this instance. The Syrian government is treating the Kurds like second-class citizens. Integration would be great, but it will only be possible once the Syrian government ceases its evil ways.

You're talking like Kurds are just in Syria. Syria's enemies have tried to break the country up and Iraq too and form a Kurdistan. Kurds are just being used as pawns. The Syrian government isn't the problem.

The Kurds have been stepped on, murdered, and generally oppressed, while we Americans have been jerking them around with promises of statehood if they helped us, only to screw said Kurds over after we got what we wanted. It is completely amazing to me that the Kurds still remain loyal allies of ours. Personally, I think a free, democratic, self governing Kurdistan is long overdue.

It's curious how Kosovo was given independence since almost all the Yugoslavian states hate the Albanians in the same way the Turks, Iraqis and Syrians detest the Kurds...any insights?

Didn't the Iraqi portion of Kurdistan declare independence?

I remember back when the Albanian minority was terribly persecuted not many years ago. Is that still going on? I ask, because old news tends to be brushed aside with the new flavor of the week.

I haven't heard much about Kosovo lately. Serbia very recently appointed an openly LGBT prime minister, but other than that, virtually nothing about the ex-Yugoslavia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/world/europe/serbia-ana-brnabic-prime-minister.html

Well, I'm surprised! Good for Serbia!