Brew-ha-ha over beer in Turkey (dated material)

In the Dec. 23 edition of the "Washington Post," their reporter Karl Vick reported from Istanbul over a controversy regarding a Kurdish beer called "Roj," which is actually brewed in Vienna, Austria. The makers of Roj are trying to get tehir product sold in Turkey, which has the world's largest Kurdish population. The issue is a messy one because Kurds and the majority Turkish-ethnic population have had troubled relations caused by violent rebllions on the part of the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) and the Turkish government's reactionary policies that resulted from that period in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Vick said that a bloody head of a ram has been left outside Roj's main office, and that a reporesentative of the brewery was questioned by authorties in Istanbul for an excessive amount of time. Vick interviewd Filiz Telli, an Istanbul resident who was sharing a beer with a co-worker at an Istnabul bar. When asked if Roj should be sold in Turkey, Telli told Vick that 'she wouldn't advise it.'

The Kurdish population in Turkey lives mostly in Eastern Turkey, though a significant number of Kurdish residents live in Adana, Turkey's fourth largest city and in Istanbul. Other major cities with Kurdish populations include Diyarbakir and Van.

The chance that Iraqi Kurds could form their own country in northern Iraq is often cited as the main reason why many people in Turkey oppose American forces being in Iraq.

The web site for the Washington Post is:

http://www.washingtonpost.com

For more daily news from Turkey, one can access the English-language Turkish Daily News from the web at:

http://www.turkishdailynews.com