The elections in Türkiye are crucial for a long list of reasons and one of them, end or middle, depending on which piece of the international puzzle you look at, is the question Kurdish. Just a few days before the May 28 vote, which could change everything for Ankara (and not only), a thousand kilometers to the south, on the same parallel, a Nicosiain the Republic of Cyprus, the Supreme Court has given the green light to the first extradition of a Kurdish activistaccused of being a member of the Pkkthe Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
To ask for it, by virtue of a European arrest warrant, was the Germania who accuses him of propaganda for a “terrorist organization” (as the Germans have classified the PKK), even if Turkey is the first to try him, where he risks many years in prison. Kenan Ayaz lived for 10 years in Cyprus with the status of refugee and the day before yesterday, the official government of the Republic of Cyprus agreed to extradite someone to Germany who could then, in turn, be extradited to Turkey.
It had never happened before, because Nicosia it has no diplomatic relations with Ankara since the occupation of the northern portion of the island, and the links between his government and the minorities with more difficult relations with Turkey (Kurds and Armenians) have always been excellent. But something has changed recently: Germany is the country that collaborates most with the Turkish government for the extradition of the Kurdish activists it considers terrorists – says Ayaz’s lawyer, the Cypriot lawyer Efstathios C. Efstathiou – and the risk that the 49-year-old will find himself having to serve a 34-year sentence in Turkish prisons for terrorist activity, according to him and the activists who are supporting his cause , that’s almost certain.
But the location conciliatory of Cyprus (the government declined to comment on the ruling), along with the fact that Finland e Sweden have suddenly become soft on topics that in other times would have been not negotiableare fairly clear indications of a change of course on the Kurdish question at European level.