Abdurrahman Deveci, a representative of the Turkmen Sahra Cooperation Council, called for institutional guarantees to protect the rights of different communities. “We need a structure in which neither side can eliminate the other, even without trust,” he said. “Trust should be the result of agreement, not a precondition for it.”
According to Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), Deveci made the remarks at the conference “Iran’s Human Rights Crisis: From Shared Principles to Joint Action”, held in Oslo on 25–26 September 2026. Bringing together representatives of political parties and organisations, it was the sixth conference in IHRNGO’s “Iran and the Transition from Authoritarianism” series.
Deveci began by describing decades of ethnic and religious discrimination against Turkmen people, including killings, barriers to university admission and employment, land seizures and a lack of official accountability. “Turkmen voices go unheard because we live in a closed geographical space.”
The region’s border with Turkmenistan, and previously the Soviet Union, had restricted opportunities to reach the media, he argued. Turkmen people loved their country and, like Iran’s other nationalities, sought their human rights within it.
He accused the authorities of systematically transferring Turkmen land to incoming settlers while promoting narratives that portrayed Turkmen people as outsiders. Citing their historical presence and the Seljuks’ role in spreading Persian, he said: “Yet today, if the descendants of the Seljuks wish to write in their own language, Turkmen, they are immediately accused of separatism.”
Deveci represented a council comprising the Turkmen Sahra Union Party, the Turkmen Sahra Cultural and Political Organisation and the Turkmen Sahra Solidarity Council. All three welcomed agreement on minimum human rights principles, despite the difficulty of reconciling their broader political demands.
Deep political, ideological and historical divisions made agreement on a future system of government difficult. Human rights offered firmer common ground. “There may be something that can bring us together despite all our differences: human rights.”
Such cooperation required parties to place rights above organisational loyalties. “We must accept human rights not as a slogan, but as a fundamental principle above party, group and ideological interests.” Differences need not be denied, but neither should they obstruct cooperation.
He identified abolishing the death penalty, freeing political prisoners, holding free elections, ensuring judicial independence and securing equality as shared priorities. Equality meant both equal treatment before the law and equality within the law itself.
Language and regional rights needed stronger protection than ordinary legislation could provide. “Linguistic and regional rights must not be removable simply by passing an ordinary law.” They should be guaranteed by the next constitution and protected by a constitutional court or another independent institution.
Preserving identity and belonging to Iran were complementary aims. “No member of an ethnic group should have to leave Iran to preserve their identity, or abandon their identity to preserve Iran.”
Nor were different communities’ rights in competition. “Every right we demand for ourselves must also be recognised for others.”
Deveci illustrated the problem with a familiar impasse: a Turkmen group might demand guarantees before cooperating, while a nationwide movement asked for trust and promised to discuss ethnic rights later. Neither position would produce agreement. The answer was to establish rules preventing exclusion or domination, even where mutual trust remained weak.
“The purpose of cooperation is not to make people alike,” he concluded. “It is to create conditions in which differences can coexist in freedom, equality and dignity.”
Translated from Farsi via machine translation and lightly edited for clarity.