Turkey Treats Kurds Fairly

I disagree with your editorial ``The Case for The Kurds,'' March 25.

The PKK (Marxist-Leninist Kurdish Workers Faction), which has been terrorizing the region for years, is based in Lebanon and Iraq, and these two countries have been exploiting the terrorist groups at the expense of the Turkish republic.

Turkey still hosts thousands of Iraqi Kurds who fled Saddam Hussein in Iraq in the late 1980s. The Turkish and Kurdish villages have survived hardships and misfortunes together throughout the centuries. Fuat Ulus, Altoona, Pa.

Turkey Treats Kurds Fairly

The assertion that Turkey's treatment of the Kurds ``approaches `ethnic cleansing' '' is a serious and dangerous accusation, especially since it is false.

Turkey is firmly dedicated to defending and strengthening its democracy in addition to safeguarding the human rights of all its citizens. In this regard, it is committed to fighting the brutal scourge of international terrorism and ethnic cleansing.

In discussing human rights in Turkey, it is the PKK itself which indiscriminately violates basic human rights. Regarded as a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization by several Western nations including the US, the PKK is engaged in a reign of terror, violence, and intimidation in its efforts to carve a Kurdish nation out of the sovereign borders of Turkey. The PKK kills the very Kurds it claims to represent and serve.

Germany's minister of the interior appropriately stated that the PKK is attempting to spoil the peace and stability of Germany, as well as that of the entire region, under the mask of human rights. The Turkish government is determined to eradicate the PKK's terror within the rule of law.

Furthermore, your implication that ``the arrest in Turkey of eight elected Kurdish members of the Turkish parliament'' is an affront to the rights of Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin is misleading.

The lifting of the immunities of certain members of the Turkish parliament was not an arbitrary decision. Rather, it was a legal, constitutional, democratic process which required a vote by the Parliament. The fact that 100 Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin in the Parliament, representing several different political parties, actually voted to lift the immunities of the members in question proves that this was not a campaign to impede or silence the political rights or representation of Kurdish citizens. Nuzhet Kandemir, Washington Turkish ambassador to the US

`Fly by wire' jets

Regarding the economy-page article ``Boeing Hails Technology and Teamwork as It Rolls Out Jetliner,'' April 8: ``Fly by wire'' (f.b.w.) means something quite different to jet fighter designers and to commercial jet designers. The article states that in ``Boeing's first fly-by-wire jet ... mechanical connections from cockpit to rudders and wing flaps are replaced by electrical connections.'' Actually the connections to rudder, elevators, and ailerons, not to flaps, are electrical, allowing significant weight savings. Connections to flaps and other high-lift devices remain mechanical in the form of push-pull cables. Since the primary control is electrical, Boeing, Airbus, and others refer to it as f.b.w.

The f.b.w. concept, used in the primary controls of jet fighters since its introduction in the F-16, involves far more than mechanical cable replacement inasmuch as, with sensors and computers, it provides artificial stability to the inherently unstable aircraft. The advantage is that an unstable fighter is much more maneuverable than it would be if it possessed inherent stability. But entrusting the stability of a commercial jet to black boxes is a philosophy of design not needed or likely to be proposed.

The highly publicized f.b.w. systems of jet fighters are not what commercial jet salesmen are talking about. Bernard M. Leadon, Gainesville, Fla.

Poetry's potency

Thanks for the new feature ``The Poetry Notebook.'' Throughout history poetry has afforded some of the most incisive and penetrating views of the world and mankind, and Americans - more than most people - need a greater exposure to it. Cooper Renner, Midland, Texas