Brussels, 09/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - Selahattin Demirtas, President of the Diyarbakir Human Rights Association (Diyarbakir is a Kurdish region of Turkey), said at a press conference on 7 November about whether the Kurds have been forgotten with the choice of 3 October 2005 as the launch date for EU-Turkey accession negotiations, that there was still war in the region. In 2004, he said, the war between the Turkish government and the PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party) had led to 219 deaths, with 270 being killed in the first few months of 2005 alone, along with thousands of arrests and thousands tortured for simply expressing their ideas. He wondered how the Copenhagen criteria fitted into this picture. The EU does not want to give its views on the Kurdish problems, added Demirtas, refusing to mention the Kurdish problem in its reports or only mentioning it in passing and not trying to find a solution. On the report on Turkey to be published by the European Commission on 9 November (see other article), he had been informed that the report would describe the PKK as being sole responsible for the conflict in the region. Demirtas said the EU's approach was superficial and did not take account of the reasons underlying the conflict. Nazmi Gur, Vice-President of the People's Democracy Party of Turkey and member of the EUTCC (European Union-Turkey Civic Committee) executive committee, said Kurds had made great efforts in the accession process, regretting that this had not been recognised by the EU (or by Turkey for that matter). He said the Kurdish problem was not only a Kurdish or Turkish issue, but was also a problem for the European Union. Pointing out that the EU can't even bring itself to name or identify the Kurdish problem, he said that despite this, the Kurds fully support the idea of Turkey joining the EU because they see it as the only way of getting changes in Turkey. Kris Van Dyck, Flemish N-VA MP (Belgium) warned the EU that the Kurdish question had to be solved before Turkey joins the EU because otherwise the EU would be facing a massive problem. Jan Behin, Flemish Socialist MP and member of the EUTCC, asked what the EU was waiting for before opening dialogue with Kurdish leader sand clearly recognising the problem.