Mr. Speaker, Kurdish people are outraged in Canada and around the world after their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was arrested. However this anger and fury is rooted in years of abuse by Turkish and Iraqi leaders who have murdered, tortured, driven into swamps and had chemical weapons dropped on innocent Kurdish people. Peaceful efforts to resolve this situation have failed.
Layla Zana, Turkish MP, mother of two and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, has been incarcerated since 1994 and for what? Speaking out on behalf of the Kurdish people. Enough is enough.
Now that we are on the security council, I implore the Minister of Foreign Affairs to bring this issue to the floor of the general assembly and the security council to ensure that Layla Zana will be released and to ensure that there will be a peaceful negotiated settlement to the Kurdish situation. If it does not occur, war will break out and thousands more innocent people will die.