28 April 2003

1. "KADEK proposed a regional solution", KADEK stated that peaceful resolution based on democratic unity to the Kurdish question would make the Middle East a heaven of peoples, announcing a package of proposals for Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

2. "Political Experiment Stumbles in Turkey", effort to Reconcile Islam, Democracy Showing Few Results After Six Months.

3. "Kurds offer a model for postwar Iraq", experts say the minority group could be a major troublemaker.

4. "U.S. Says Turks Are Smuggling Arms Into Northern Iraq City", men who identified themselves as Turkish Special Forces soldiers tried to smuggle grenades, night-vision goggles and dozens of rifles into this oil-producing city in northern Iraq this week, American military officials said today. The officials say they believe that the weapons, which were hidden in an aid convoy, were bound for ethnic Turkmens living here.

5. "Turkish court under fire in retrial of jailed Kurdish politicians", a Turkish state security court hearing the retrial of Leyla Zana and three other jailed Kurdish politicians was criticised Friday by European MPs and defense lawyers for failing to give the defendants a proper chance to defend themselves.

6. "Two Turkish soldiers killed in clash with Kurdish rebels", two Turkish soldiers have been killed and two others wounded in fighting with Kurdish rebels in the east of the country after three months of quiet, the Anatolia news agency reported Sunday.

1. - Kurdish Observer - "KADEK proposed a regional solution":

KADEK stated that peaceful resolution based on democratic unity to the Kurdish question would make the Middle East a heaven of peoples, announcing a package of proposals for Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

MHA/FRANKFURT / 25 April 2003

KADEK stated that the Middle East faced with a preference of either war or peace after the war in Iraq. The Kurdish party called on the regional forces to undergo transformation. KADEK called attention that the status quo established by reactionary forces in the region had been overthrown, demanding steps to be taken towards democratization especially by Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria and submitting its proposals for a solution.

KADEK proposed a "Middle East Conference" to be held by all governments, political parties and non-governmental organisations. KADEK Presidential Council submitted the project with the proposal of democratic unity in the region.

The statement stressed that the reactionary regimes in the region must be overcome as they were a hindrance before the transformation.

Status quo has never brought favors to peoples

KADEK emphasized that the status quo that kept the peoples under oppression was not based only the regional reactionary states but was encouraged by foreign forces. The Kurdish party added that mostly Kurds suffered loss from it, they were subjected to denial, destruction and asimilation in all four parts of Kurdistan, and called attention that those regimes, although they had contradictions between them, met on the same ground in the face of demands for freedom. "Now the time has come for peoples to raise their voice for a democratic life," said the statement. KADEK underscored that the policy of denial and destruction had become a legal ground on which both preeminent states and international forces acted freely. The statement also referred the international conspiracy imposed on the Kurdish people through KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan in order to supress the Kurdish liberation movement.

The statement pointed out that during the Bill Clinton's presidency the US administration had supported the Turkish state limitlessly in its war of destruction against the Kurdistan Freedom Movement and that the same administration's incorrect policy was a determining force to allow the Saddam regime to survive after the I. Gulf War. It also said that the new US administration had changed its policies considerably both in the world at large and in the Middle East and the success of the latest invasion was dependent on the improvement of democracy, freedom and human rights. The statement continued with words to the effect: "The intervention will be successfull only it paves the way for improving the common values of humanity. But if a regime having the old characteristics will cause a chaos. Therefore for USA the only way is to give opportunity to democratic regimes to be establish and support them."

Kurds demands a solution to the Kurdish question

KADEK reminded that while the reactionary forces in the region were insistent on the status quo Kurds had taken steps towards a democratic transformation and become a force for solution, underscoring that the Manifest of Democratic Civilization written by KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan had given the Kurds the opportunity to being a guarantor of democracy. The statement continued with following words: "If radical democratic reforms are carried out leaving the worries aside will make it possible to avoid wars. The only alternative against war and oppression is democratic transformation and change. If the Kurdish National Movement wants to be a force for solution it must review its policies and approach to the line of democratic civilization. It must give preference to the democratic unity line instead of a nationalistic solution. Classical nationalistic policies will soon become a deadlock. The Kurdish movement needs democratic transformation and change more than others. It is an unavoidable prerequisite of the solution for all national forces to take a leaf out of KADEK's book and to undergo a process of democratic transformation and change."

The Kurdish party stated that it was time to implement the solution of democratic unity and the only way to a resolution was democratic regimes to be established. "Transition of the countries in question to democracy will create opportunity to develop cooperation and the free Kurdish people will be a bridge to establish a unity, eliminating all contradictions and sources of conflicts," said the statement. KADEK also stressed that they were ready to do their best unconditionally for a solution. And it proposed a solution package in order to make the region a common native land for all peoples.

General requirements of the democratic solution

The package contains the following main subjects:

1-) Organizing a Middle East democracy Conference with all governments, political parties and non-governmental organisations attending without regarding national, religious differences, and determining the criteria of the new regimes to be established based on the democratic principles and human rights and freedoms.

2-) A conference to be attended by Turkish, Iraqi, Iranian and Syria governments where Kurds are living, political parties and non-governmental organizations, determining the main principles of democratic administrations of the countries in question and the framework of a resolution to the Kurdish question.

3-) A democratic administration in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria and its legal adjustments to allow peoples, women and all societal groups to be represented freely.

4-) Annulling all agreements made in the past by Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria in order to deprive Kurds from their freedom.

5-) Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria should apologize for their injustices against Kurds and record it as a promising gesture to create a free unity.

6-) Lifting all obstacles keeping the Kurdish people from participating freely in all walks of life whether it is political, economical and social and guaranteeing it legally.

7-) The Kurdish people should give preference to realize its freedom within the borders of the state they are living and avoid seperatism.

8-) Giving a special encouragement to improvement of the Kurdish people and women and guaranteeing it with laws.

Democratic unity in Turkey

1-) A new constitution complying with universal criteria of human rights and freedoms and allowing free representation of non-governmental organisations and all political parties.

2-) Full freedom for political activities, putting an end to close down political parties, a new law on elections allowing all sections of society to be represented in the parliament.

3-) Eliminating the inequality between various regions of Turkey, supporting societal groups, victims of religious and ethnical reasons with special laws.

4-) Radical legal adjustments guaranteeing working conditions of toiling masses.

5-) Lifting all obstacles before the non-governmental organisations to organize and to make activities.

6-) A special section in the new constitution for a resolution to the Kurdish question, defining the Kurdish national reality and freedoms in the constitution.

a-) Legal adjustments allowing the Kurdish people to be represented in the parliament.

b-) Making special laws for the Kurdish people to participate in central administration.

c-) Encouraging local administrations with increased authorities and making self-administration of the Kurdish people a constitutional and legal right.

d-) Releasing KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan, recognizing the right to political and social life, lifting his solitary confinement and improving his life conditions.

e-) A general amnesty for all political prisoners, recognizing their political and social rights, allowing HPG guerrillas and other oppositional forces to participate in the legal process and thereby eliminating a possibility for armed clashes wholly.

f-) Constitutional guarantee for the Kurdish language, eliminating all restrictions on Kurdish education and broadcasting.

g-) Abolishing the village guard system and other special war organizations, bringing the perpetrators of killings with unknown perpetrators before courts.

h-) Legal adjustments to improve the conditions of war victims and implementing the project of "return to village" as soon as possible.

Democratic unity in Iran

1-) A new constitution allowing democracy and human rights and freedoms in Iran.

2-) Giving constitutional and legal guarantee to political activities and political parties.

3-) Recognizing the right to assembly.

4-) Eliminating the inequality between various regions of Iran, supporting societal groups including women, victims of religious and ethnical reasons with special laws

5-) Making radical laws for working conditions of toiling masses.

6-) Declaring a general amnesty as a prerequisite of societal peace and giving the prisoners the opportunity to participate in the political and social life freely.

7-) Recognizing the Kurdish national reality and freedoms in a new constitution.

a-) A new law on political parties and elections in order to allow the Kurdish people to be represented in the parliament.

b-) Re-arranging the borders of states bearing the settelement of the Kurdish people in mind, giving increased authority to state administrations and allowing free elections and guaranteeing them with constitutional and legal support.

c-) Constitutional guarantee to the Kurdish language and lifting all restrictions on Kurdish education and broadcasting.

d-) Annulling all laws restricting freedom of the Kurdish people and putting an end to such practices.

Democratic unity in Iraq

1-) Establishing the new regime in Iraq as a parliamentary democracy and allowing all sections of the society to partake in the new constitution draft.

2-) Making the new regime being respectul to universal principles of human rights and freedoms.

3-) Constitutional guarantee to political parties and political activities.

4-) Considering non-governmental organisations an unrenunciable requisite of a democratic regime and giving them a constitutional and legal guarantee.

5-) Improving working conditions of toiling masses legally.

6-) Preserving unity of Iraq as being depending on the equal and free unity of Arabian, Kurdish, Asyrian and Turcoman communities.

7-) Giving a special statue to Mousul and Kirkuk within the borders of Kurdistan Federation and making it responsible only to Kurdish parliament.

8-) Allowing Kurds, Asyrians and Turcomans who have been forced to migrate by various regimes to return to their lands and paying indemnities those who have been expelled due to political reasons.

9-) Giving a special place to federal statue of Kurdistan and freedoms of the Kurdish people in the Iraqi constitution.

a-) Giving system of states with free parliament and government in Kurdistan a constitutional and legal guarantee as a solution model.

b-) A national parliament in Kurdistan formed by free elections and having authorities to pass general laws being in relations with central parliament and parliaments of states.

c-) Recognizing the free political activities and establishing parties in Kurdistan Federation in the constitution and laws, putting and end to preferential position of KDP and PUK by giving equal opportunities to all political parties.

d-) Granting constitutional and legal guarantees to non-governmental organisations and rights of women and workers in Kurdistan Federation.

e-) Recognizing the special rights of Asyrian and Turcoman peoples and Ezhidi and other communities, allowing them to participate in the administration by way of special adjustments.

Democratic solution in Syria

1-) Putting an end to ruling Syria with laws of state of emergency.

2-) A new constitution allowing a democratic parliamertary system, human rights and freedom and related laws.

3-) Giving constitutional and legal guarantee to political activities and political parties.

4-) Recognizing the right to assembly and guaranteeing its free enjoyment with laws.

5-) Eliminating the inequality between various regions of Iran, supporting societal groups including women, victims of religious and ethnical reasons with special laws.

6-) Political and legal adjustments allowing Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Christian Syrians, Druzes and other minorities to live brotherhoodly and to enjoy democratic rights.

7-) Improving working conditions of toiling masses legally.

8-) Declaring a general amnesty as a prerequisite of societal peace and giving the prisoners the opportunity to participate in the political and social life freely

9-) A special section in the new constitution for a resolution to the Kurdish question, defining the Kurdish national reality and freedoms in the constitution.

a-) Legal adjustments allowing the Kurdish people to be represented in the parliament, Making special laws for the Kurdish people to participate in central administration

b-) Encouraging local administrations with increased authorities and making self-administration of the Kurdish people a constitutional and legal right.

c-) Putting an end to the practice of considering a considerable part of Kurdish people living in Syria a "foreign" and giving them constitutional citizenship, thereby returning their usurped rights and paying indemnities.

d-) Constitutional guarantee to the Kurdish language and lifting all restrictions on Kurdish education and broadcasting.

2. - The Washington Post - "Political Experiment Stumbles in Turkey":

Effort to Reconcile Islam, Democracy Showing Few Results After Six Months

ANKARA / 27 April 2003 / by Philip P. Pan

The parliament speaker's reception last week was supposed to be a festive event, a chance for Turkey's ruling elite to make a show of political unity on a national holiday. But then the main opposition party declared a boycott. The president indicated he too would skip the reception. The military's top generals also decided not to go.

What prompted this crisis? The host suggested he might bring his wife.

Like many women in the Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party, the speaker's wife wears a head scarf in public because she believes her religion requires it. But in Turkey, where the secular state has viewed Islamic headgear as a symbol of extremism for nearly a century, an official function co-hosted by a woman in a head scarf is too much for some to bear.

"Shall we dress our wives in chadors and take them?" one senior military commander was quoted saying scornfully, referring to the traditional full-length shawl worn by many Muslim women.

The episode highlights the challenge facing the upstart Justice and Development Party, known in Turkey as AKP, which rode a wave of voter anger into office in November and promised to overhaul Turkey's corrupt and moribund political system. At the time, the party presented itself as a new kind of Islamic political movement, one that embraces secular democracy as the best way to guarantee the rights of devout Muslims.

Now, nearly six months later, this experiment in reconciling Islam and democracy is struggling to produce results. Dogged by internal divisions, inexperience and the lingering suspicions of the political establishment, the AKP has made little progress so far toward its goals of far-reaching reform. Meanwhile, relations between the secular state and Muslim society have become more strained. The party's inexperience also was evident when a split in parliament led to rejection of the U.S. request to deploy troops in Turkey for the war against Iraq.

The party's biggest problem is the continuing hostility of Turkey's bureaucracy and its powerful military, both of which are wary of democratic reforms that would weaken their influence, and suspicious of the AKP because of its roots in political Islam. The military sees itself as the guardian of Turkey's secular tradition.

On a series of domestic and foreign policy issues, these institutions and others in the establishment have resisted change, often portraying AKP's proposals as part of a hidden, Islamist agenda. Despite a huge legislative majority, the party has generally responded by backing down, worried that a divisive showdown could drain its public support and provoke the army to intervene and oust it from power, as it did to Turkey's first Islamist government in 1997.

So the parliamentary speaker, Bulent Arinc, eventually announced his wife would not attend Wednesday's reception. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other senior party officials also promised to leave their head scarf-wearing wives at home. But the opposition, the military, the president and several senior judges still didn't show up at the event.

"If there are sides that want to create tension, we will never respond to them," Erdogan said afterward. "We have an understanding of the sensitivities of society. . . . We will always pay attention to these sensitivities."

In recent months, that has meant retreating from plans to expand academic freedom by reshaping the university system, to grant women the right to wear head scarves in schools and public buildings, to limit the army's power to expel soldiers accused of religious extremism and to adopt a softer position in negotiations with Greece over the fate of Cyprus. The party has also been unable or unwilling to force the bureaucracy to implement new laws aimed at granting the minority Kurdish population greater cultural rights.

Cengiz Candar, a liberal newspaper columnist who once was blacklisted by the military and had supported the AKP, predicted Erdogan would end up leading "the longest-lasting caretaker government in Turkish history," because he has been so careful about not offending the army that he is unlikely to accomplish anything significant.

"They don't have the courage," he said. "They can't even bring their wives to the VIP halls."

Murat Mercan, deputy chairman of the party, said Erdogan is still determined to bring "radical change" to Turkey, but has decided to follow a long-term strategy aimed at easing people's fears about the party and gradually winning over opponents. That means putting off the most divisive problems for later, he said.

"We need at least 10 years," Mercan said. "We've been saying that politics in this country is going to change, and the bureaucracy and others must adapt to these changes. But change doesn't come that easy. . . . These problems eventually must be solved in such a way that it doesn't disturb anybody."

The problem with the go-slow approach is that the party risks alienating voters who expect faster progress. At the same time, the military appears unwilling to cut the government much slack, and has already issued several direct and indirect warnings. According to local media, the army plans to confront Erdogan at a key meeting this coming week about "ongoing Islamic reactionism" in his appointment of civil servants and management of the economy.

Some critics say the party has already lost credibility by failing to keep a promise to repeal criminal immunity for lawmakers. Another issue was an attempt to pass legislation that would allow the party to direct contracts to favored businesses. The party has also sought to replace senior bureaucrats across the government with their supporters, who are often less experienced.

"It's more of the same corrupt politics, and worse," said Burat Bekdil, a journalist who writes about government corruption and faces a prison term for criticizing the Turkish courts.

Erdogan and his colleagues "are very scared of the state apparatus. They think the only way to deal with the state apparatus is to ally with it," said Cuneyt Ulsever, a prominent writer and economist who supported the party. "So they end up doing what the establishment tells them to do."

In many ways, Erdogan is haunted by the failure of the Islamist movement led by his former mentor Necmettin Erbakan. When Erbakan was elected prime minister in 1995, he too promised to respect Turkey's secular system. But he angered the military by championing increasingly radical policies, and was ousted two years later.

During the crackdown on Islamic activism that followed, Erdogan is said to have concluded that only democratic reform in Turkey would guarantee the rights of devout Muslims. He and others abandoned Erbakan and established the AKP to pursue that path, which they said would include securing membership for Turkey in the European Union -- a position at odds with Erbakan's anti-Western views.

In his first months in power, though, Erdogan has emerged as a cautious leader of the government that once jailed him for reading a poem with religious undertones at a political rally. A major challenge has been holding together a party that remains more of a coalition of different interest groups than an organization united around a coherent political philosophy.

"We are a new party, and we trying to build an identity," said Zekeriya Akcam, an AKP legislator. "It's gone slower than I had hoped."

The strains are most apparent on foreign policy issues, with one wing of the party favoring stronger relations with Muslim neighbors and another emphasizing ties with the United States and Europe. There are also differences between those close to Erdogan and others who advise Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who served as prime minister during the party's first four months in power. Another faction supports Arinc, the outspoken parliamentary speaker.

In addition, party officials said they also have to worry about the potential defection of lawmakers back to Erbakan's Islamist party.

These rifts burst into the open on March 1, when nearly 100 AKP lawmakers -- including several cabinet members -- bucked the party line and narrowly rejected Erdogan's proposal to allow U.S. troops to use Turkish territory for an invasion of Iraq.

"That was a real turning point for this party," said one senior party official, who asked not to be identified. He said Erdogan "realized how fragile the party really was, and decided to be much more careful after that."

3. - The Star Ledger - "Kurds offer a model for postwar Iraq":

Experts say the minority group could be a major troublemaker

27 April 2003 / bY JOHN HASSELL

If the Bush administration is seeking a model for postwar Iraq -- one that is secular, pluralistic and rooted in democratic institutions -- it could do much worse than the fledgling society that Iraq's 3.6 million Kurds have cobbled together in the country's rugged north over the past dozen years.

At the same time, regional experts say, there is no single minority group in Iraq's complex ethnic quilt with more potential to create instability in the region if the new government that emerges in Baghdad does not recognize the autonomy and social progress Kurds have achieved.

The anti-American Shi'a protests in southern Iraq last week showed how fractious the country's body politic can be, analysts say. But the Kurdish situation underscores how quickly trouble could affect Iraq's neighbors -- namely, Turkey, Iran and Syria, all of which are home to Kurds.

"The Kurdish issue is going to be the next big problem in the Middle East," predicted Henri Barkey, a former member of the U.S. Department of State's policy planning staff and an expert on Kurdish politics and history at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa. "The more they taste freedom, the more conscious they become, and the more they will demand."

Described often as the largest stateless nation in the world, the estimated 25 million Kurds who inhabit the swath of land between the Mediterranean and Caspian seas have maintained a distinct culture and language for more than a millennium, despite numerous efforts -- most notably by the Turks -- to suppress their ethnic identity.

The Kurds' failure to achieve statehood through their long history is partly a matter of geography; spread out in small villages across an unforgiving landscape, they have never developed a political center. They also have been divided by great powers: by the Ottomans and Persians for almost 500 years, and by the Allied victors after World War I.

During Saddam Hussein's reign, the Kurds of Iraq suffered mightily. According to Human Rights Watch, an international watchdog group, the Iraqi government systematically destroyed 4,000 to 5,000 Kurdish villages from 1977 to 1987. Then, in a series of attacks in the late 1980s, Saddam's forces slaughtered more than 100,000 Kurds.

After the Kurds mistakenly believed the U.S. military would support an insurrection at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, they were brutally suppressed yet again. The Kurds' first real glimpse of autonomy came later that year, when U.S. and British warplanes began enforcing a no-fly zone in northern Iraq.

In an area roughly the size of Switzerland, the Kurds have created the building blocks of civil society in short order, including democratic institutions with opposition parties, dozens of lively newspapers and satellite TV stations, and unfettered access to the Internet and international telephone lines.

Politically, the Kurdish territory has been split into two regions, one controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by Massoud Barzani, the other by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by Jalal Talabani. After fighting a four-year civil war during the 1990s, the two parties are still not on the best of terms.

So far, despite their differences, the Kurds have proven the best of allies for the United States, fighting beside American Special Forces to oust Saddam's Republican Guard troops from northern Iraq, and staging a celebratory rally last week for Jay Garner, the retired general who leads the U.S. effort to rebuild postwar Iraq.

"What the Kurds have accomplished in 12 years is extraordinary, and they don't want to lose it," said Judith Kipper, director of the Middle East Forum at the Council on Foreign Relations. "That accounts for their extremely good behavior so far. They are relying on the Americans to preserve the gains they have made."

Already, though, tensions have become apparent. In the days since the U.S.-led war drew to a close, Kurds have pushed into areas previously controlled by Iraqi authorities. South of Mosul and Kirkuk, Kurdish fighters have evicted thousands of Arabs from villages the Kurds claim as their own.

These events have been watched closely by Turkish authorities, who reached a cease-fire with Kurds in southeastern Turkey in 1999, after a 15-year struggle that left 37,000 people dead. The Turks fear an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq -- or even quasi-autonomy in a federalized Iraqi state -- could once again spark rebellion.

The existence of vast oil reserves in Kurdish areas adds urgency to Turkey's concerns. Turkey believes it has a historical claim to the legendary oil fields in the Mosul and Kirkuk provinces, which Turks ruled during the Ottoman era. Iraqi Kurds believe they should have control of these areas, along with their energy resources.

Turkish authorities also worry about the possible persecution of northern Iraq's 1 million ethnic Turkmen, who live primarily in the cities of Mosul, Kirkuk and Erbil. Largely middle class, Iraqi Turkmen have exercised broad influence over the cultural and political life of those cities -- influence that some Kurds have had reason to resent.

"If these cities are going to be integrated into a Kurdish region, Turkey will want to see how that plays out," said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish research program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "The Turks are very concerned about the welfare of Turkish-speaking communities in their neighborhood."

Another concern in Ankara is the continued presence of 4,000 to 5,000 Turkish Kurds, guerrillas known as the PKK, in northern Iraq. Although relations between the Turkish government and the Kurds of southeastern Turkey are better than they have been for decades, the existence of these armed fighters is viewed as an ever-present threat.

The problem for Turkish leaders is that the government's recent decision to deny the United States permission to base ground troops in Turkey has severely reduced Ankara's sway over the Bush administration's plans. Had Turkey cooperated, Turkish troops would likely have joined the action in northern Iraq.

"The way things have turned out, Turkey has been left almost completely out of the development of northern Iraq, despite historically close ties with Washington," said Sabri Sayari, director of the Institute for Turkish Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. "They have literally been left on the other side of the fence."

This has not gone down well with Turkey's military, which exerts powerful influence over national affairs. According to Time magazine, U.S. units in northern Iraq caught a Turkish special forces team last week as it infiltrated the country on a mission to stir up ethnic Turkmen and provide a pretext for sending troops into the region.

Col. Bill Mayville, commander of the U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, told the magazine that the soldiers "did not come here with a pure heart." Rather, he said, "their objective is to create an environment that can be used by Turkey to send a large peacekeeping force into Kirkuk."

Iran and Syria also have been monitoring events in northern Iraq closely, according to regional analysts. But, unlike Turkey, those countries have had fewer tensions with their Kurdish populations in recent years, and therefore don't feel as immediately threatened as the Turks do, said Barkey of Lehigh University.

Authorities in Tehran and Damascus will, however, insist that the United States and Great Britain abide by a promise to maintain Iraq's territorial integrity, to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish state -- a development they would consider both provocative and destabilizing.

In the meantime, said Barkey, the Kurds of northern Iraq will work hard to preserve whatever independence they can under the federal system of government envisioned by planners in the Bush administration. "They have worked very hard, and suffered a lot, to get where they are," Barkey said. "The danger is, if there are setbacks, they could bolt."

4. - The New York Times - "U.S. Says Turks Are Smuggling Arms Into Northern Iraq City":

KIRKUK / 27 April 2003 / by David Rohde

Men who identified themselves as Turkish Special Forces soldiers tried to smuggle grenades, night-vision goggles and dozens of rifles into this oil-producing city in northern Iraq this week, American military officials said today. The officials say they believe that the weapons, which were hidden in an aid convoy, were bound for ethnic Turkmens living here.

Tonight, gunfire erupted as aid was distributed at a Turkmen political office in the city. One Arab and one Turkmen were wounded, witnesses said. It was unclear what led to the shooting.

Turkey has repeatedly said it might launch a military incursion into northern Iraq, citing what it says is abuse of Turkmens by Arabs and Kurds. Turkmens make up less than 5 percent of Iraq's population.

The discovery of the smuggled arms came on Wednesday, when a Turkish aid convoy reached an American checkpoint north of the city, officials said. American soldiers, who had heard that Turkish Special Forces soldiers were trying to enter the city, questioned the men.

"They were all in civilian clothes, and they didn't produce anything that they were authorized to be in the area," an American military official said. "They identified themselves as Turkish Special Forces."

The American seized and then searched the half dozen vehicles in the convoy. They found several dozen AK-47 assault rifles and other military equipment, including a small number of American-made M-4 rifles and grenade launchers.

Night-vision goggles, radio scanners, pistols and banners and flags of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, the main Turkmen political party in Iraq, were also found. About half of the roughly two dozen men in the convoy identified themselves as Turkish Special Forces soldiers. American soldiers escorted them to the border.

Kemal Yaycili, chief of the Turkmen front's new offices in Kirkuk and nearby Mosul, said local Turkmens needed to defend themselves against "our enemies." He said that six members of the ethnic group had been killed in Kirkuk since it was captured two weeks ago and that three had been killed in Mosul.

Kurds have expelled 300 Turkmens from their homes, he said. "Really, when we feel any threat, when we feel anyone bother us from outside," Mr. Yaycili said, "we have a right to ask for help from the outside." But he added that security was improving.

Kirkuk sits on top of huge oil reserves, and Kurds and Arabs claim that 100,000 members of each of their groups were expelled from the city by Saddam Hussein's government.

American military officials who have been trying to ease tensions in Kirkuk reacted with frustration to the arms smuggling. "As we are trying to maintain stability," one said. "We don't need an outside force coming in and stirring things up."

Col. William Mayville, the commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which patrols Kirkuk, said he had been urging Turkmen leaders to use the fall of Mr. Hussein to begin a new chapter in their relationship with the local Kurds. "They were a group that was a minority that did suffer under Saddam Hussein," he said. "I think it's time for the Turmen here to re-evaluate their relationships."

Gular el-Nakib, a 48-year-old teacher was one of dozens of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens lounging near the city's central square tonight. "We don't want differences; we want to live happily without enemies," she said. "Our main enemy is gone."

5. - AFP - "Turkish court under fire in retrial of jailed Kurdish politicians":

ANKARA / 25 April 2003 / by Sibel Utku

A Turkish state security court hearing the retrial of Leyla Zana and three other jailed Kurdish politicians was criticised Friday by European MPs and defense lawyers for failing to give the defendants a proper chance to defend themselves.

"Is it possible to rectify an incorrect trial by repeating the procedures of a decade ago? Some stains stay even if you wash them ten times," defense lawyer Yusuf Alatas told the court. He was reacting to the judge's rejection of demands by the defense that witnesses who had earlier testified against the defendants -- most of them policemen -- should not be called, in favour of witnesses called by the defense.

"It seems to be the copy of the first trial. And the copy of an unfair trial is also an unfair trial," Joost Lagendijk, the Dutch head of a European Parliament delegation attending the hearing, told AFP. In 2001, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the first trial of the Kurds was unfair, saying they were unable to have key witnesses questioned and were not informed in time when charges against them were modified.

Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak, all former parliament members, are serving 15-year sentences for collaborating with an armed Kurdish rebellion for self-rule in southeast Turkey. They were convicted in 1994 at a time of high tension between Ankara and its restive Kurdish minority.

The EU and rights campaigners have strongly criticized the sentences as a move to silence even peaceful advocacy of Kurdish rights. Zana was bestowed the European Parliament's Sakharov freedom of thought award in 1995. The outcome of the retrial could have a bearing on Ankara's bid to join the European Union, which will review the country's progress next year before deciding whether to open membership talks.

The four former MPs were able to ask for a judicial review under reforms recently adopted by Ankara as part of efforts to boost its EU membership bid. As it did during the first hearing last month, the court Friday rejected a demand to grant the convicts a provisional release.

"I think they're entitled to that after nine years in prison," Lagendijk had said ahead of the hearing. The trial was also attended by Claudia Roth, a German government official who has long campaigned for greater freedoms for Turkey's Kurds. The next hearing was scheduled for May 23.

The four Kurds, members of the Democracy Party (DEP), entered parliament in 1991 on the ticket of a center-left party and caused uproar by taking their oaths in Kurdish instead of Turkish, the official language. At the ceremony, Zana wore a headband in yellow, green, and red, the colors of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), whose separatist campaign has claimed about 36,500 lives since 1984.

The DEP was outlawed in 1994 for collaborating with the PKK and parliament then lifted the immunity of its MPs. Hostilities between Ankara and the Kurds have abated since 1999 when the PKK said it was ending its campaign for self-rule in favor of a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question.

Ankara, for its part, has legalized broadcasts and courses in the Kurdish language as part of a series of reforms expanding human rights. The authorities, however, have come under criticism for being slow in implementing the changes.

6. - AFP - "Two Turkish soldiers killed in clash with Kurdish rebels":

ANKARA / 27 April 2003

Two Turkish soldiers have been killed and two others wounded in fighting with Kurdish rebels in the east of the country after three months of quiet, the Anatolia news agency reported Sunday.

The clash erupted late Saturday when troops on patrol in the eastern province of Bingol came upon a group of outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels, the agency quoted local officials as saying.

The shooting was the first such deadly clash reported since January. Turkish forces launched a security operation in the area after the fighting, Anatolia added. Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast has been the scene of a 15-year armed campaign by the PKK for Kurdish self-rule and a fierce crackdown by the Turkish army to quash the rebels.

The conflict, which has claimed some 36,500 lives, has significantly abated since 1999 when the PKK -- renamed KADEK -- said it was ending its armed campaign in order to seek a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question.

But the powerful army has rejected the PKK's truce and has called on them to either surrender or face the military's wrath. Ankara, in the meantime, has undertaken a number of steps to broaden the freedoms of its Kurdish minority as part of efforts to align the country with European Union democracy norms.