Still banned from Turkey
For the second time since 2007, Turkey denied an Al-Monitor contributor entry because of his work as a journalist on Kurdish issues.
On March 2, for the second time since 2007, I was deported from Turkey — this time from Istanbul Ataturk Airport when I made a stopover en route to Iraqi Kurdistan to attend the Sulaimani Forum at the American University. The reason: writing about Kurds.
My plan was to go to the conference where many prominent analysts and officials were scheduled to speak, including Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and fellow Al-Monitor columnist Cengiz Candar. But I wasn’t allowed to make a "domestic" transfer through Turkey, despite telling customs control in Turkish, “I am going to Iraq, not Turkey.”
I was locked up for the night as an inadmissible traveler with a Kurd and two others. The Iranian Kurd who was planning to travel to Erbil to see his family told me in Kurdish that because the Kurds have no country, they have "no friends, only enemies."
The airport security officers must have been wondering whether I was speaking Kurdish with my roommate. However, they were quite friendly, and even served us a McDonald's meal twice, including the traditional yoghurt drink, ayran. “Drink ayran, it is a great Turkish drink,” one of the officers told us.
