10
March 2003
2. "Turkey's Erdogan set for prime minister's seat amid Iraq crisis", Turkey's ruling party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who won a parliamentary seat in a weekend by-election, was preparing on Monday to take over as prime minister.
3. "Turkey offers Saddam resign", Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should at least resign if not go into exile in order to avoid a US-led war on his country, the leader of Turkey's governing AKP party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said on Sunday.
4. "Annan to Push for Referendum on UN Peace Plan for Cyprus", U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is holding crucial talks in the Hague Monday on the future of Cyprus with the leaders of the island's Greek and Turkish communities.
5. "EU enlargement should be put on hold after 2007: EU Parliament head", the enlargement of the European Union should be put on hold after the bloc expands to include Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia.
6. "Kurds Set for War, But Not With Iraq", militia trains to repel Turkish troops.
1. - The Kurdish Observer - "Tugluk: They insist on deadlock":
KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan’s lawyer Aysel Tugluk considered the lack of visits “insistence on deadlock”, saying that they would continue their attempts.KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan has not been able to see his lawyers and family members for 14 weeks. While the public prosecutor gave up his decision to send the visitors to the island of Imrali on Fridays or Mondays, the lawyers saw the transportation problem as "insistence on deadlock".
MHA/FRANKFURT / 8 March 2003
KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan has not been able to see his lawyers and family members for 14 weeks. While the public prosecutor gave up his decision to send the visitors to the island of Imrali on Fridays or Mondays, the lawyers saw the transportation problem as “insistence on deadlock”. Ocalan’s lawyer Aysel Tugluk stated that they would try to meet with government officials and deputies for the matter.
The lawyers were suggested by Emin Ozler, Chief Public Prosecutor of Bursa, that they could try to go to the island on Thursday when the regular visit on Wednesday did not take place. But they were not allowed to go to the island on Thursday either. Then the lawyers went to Bursa once again and met with Deputy Chief Prosecutor Cemil Kuyu.
Talking to MHA, Ocalan’s lawyer Aysel Tugluk said the following: “The prosecutor has stated that visits on Friday and Monday are on the agenda. But the other day the deputy prosecutor called us and said that the visit would not take place, we could go to the island only on Wednesday.” Tugluk said that they were not offered any explanation about the cancellation. The lawyer attracted attention that the solution of the problem was very simple, that they could be allocated another boat. “If they want to solve the problem, they have enough boats. But we see that they do not allocate them to us, they insist on not using them,” said Tugluk.
They pretend wanting to solve it
Tugluk continued to say the following: “We do not consider the offer a serious one. They do not display determination. They try to give the impresson that they want to solve the matter but it is impossible due to conditions. The solution is in their hands but the fact that they do not show the determinations proves that they are not sincere. We see that they even allocate us a new boat. We could not go to the island on Wednesday as they allocated us the boat Imrali-9. Yesterday they gave us the same boat too. Probably they will allocate the same boat next Wednesday, therefore our right to visit our client is in danger once more.”
“There are suitable boats”
“It is not a problem they cannot solve,” said Tugluk. “There are suitable boats. There are coast guard boats for example, they are overwhelmingly used for the transportation to the island. But they do not allocate them to us. We have suggested them to the prosecutor but he said that military officials did not accept the alternative.”
Drawing attention that they had come to a deadlock, Tugluk underscored
that they would continue their efforts.
2.
- AFP - "Turkey's Erdogan set for prime minister's seat amid
Iraq crisis":
ANKARA / March 10
by Hande Culpan
Turkey's ruling party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who won a parliamentary
seat in a weekend by-election, was preparing on Monday to take over
as prime minister and determine whether Ankara will back US war plans.
Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) took 84.7 percent of
the vote in Sunday's polls in the southeastern province of Siirt,
winning all three seats in the constituency and propelling its charismatic
leader to parliament.
The Turkish press on Monday hailed the 49-year-old politician's victory,
which was a final hurdle to his return to politicals after he was
slapped with a political ban for reciting a poem with political undertones
in a 1997 rally in Siirt.
"Siirt pays back its debt: Erdogan is in parliament," the
Aksam daily said.
"He (Erdogan) went away with a poem and came back like a poem,"
read the Yeni Safak daily.
It is not yet clear when Erdogan will take over from current Prime
Minister Abdullah Gul, who has been heading the government since the
AKP -- a movement with Islamist roots -- shot to power on a landslide
victory in the November elections, but observers say it could be as
early as Tuesday or Wednesday.
Following the publication of the official results of the Siirt vote,
Erdogan needs to be sworn in. Gul, for his part, has already indicated
that he will step down.
In a television interview following Sunday's vote, Erdogan said he
planned to come up with a new cabinet list, which needs to be approved
by the president before the government faces a vote of confidence
in parliament.
One of the first questions to be tackled by the new government will
be a decision on whether to call again on parliament to authorize
the deployment of US troops in Turkey in preparation for war on Iraq.
In early March, the AKP-dominated parliament rejected a request to
allow 62,000 US soldiers to use Turkey as a springboard to invade
Iraq from the north, hampering Washington's war plans and jeopardizing
bilateral ties.
The vote also blocked Ankara's plans to send Turkish soldiers to northern
Iraq to keep check on the region's breakaway Kurds, which it suspects
of entertaining separatist aims.
But Erdogan said on Sunday that he would not rush the matter and hinted
that Ankara wanted new guarantees from Washington before going ahead
with the request.
"It is difficult to say what the timing would be. We are facing
the UN Security Council meeting and the process of setting up the
new government. We will make evaluations and take a decision,"
he told the CNN-Turk news channel.
Asked whether parliament would be asked to evaluate troop deployment
this week, Erdogan said that there were steps the United States needed
to take, and that it would be "difficult to soften the atmosphere"
in Turkey without them.
The AKP leader said there were uncertainties as to what Turkey's role
would be in northern Iraq, and added: "The doubts need to be
dispelled."
The anti-war feelings running high in the parliament has considerably
changed following last-week's warning from the army that Turkey would
lose both vital US financial aid and the chance to protect its security
interests in Kurdish-held northern Iraq if it denied support to its
number one ally.
3. - Irib News (Iran) - "Turkey offers Saddam resign":
Ankara / March 10, 2003
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should at least resign if not go into exile in order to avoid a US-led war on his country, the leader of Turkey's governing AKP party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said on Sunday.
"I'm not saying that he should go into exile but he should resign from office," Erdogan said.
The head of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a seat in parliament in a by-election on Sunday and is widely expected to take over as prime minister from Abdullah Gul.
Erdogan was barred from running in the November election which swept the AKP to power because of a conviction for an Islamist statement in the strictly-secular country, but his party forced through legislative changes enabling him run for parliament and become eligible to serve as prime minister.
Erdogan confirmed that he intended to lead a new government and that
there would be some changes in the ministerial lineup.
4. - Voice of America - "Annan to Push for Referendum on UN Peace Plan for Cyprus":
10 March 2003
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is holding crucial talks in the Hague Monday on the future of Cyprus with the leaders of the island's Greek and Turkish communities. Mr. Annan is expected to ask Greek-Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash if they accept his call to hold separate referendums March 30 on his plan to re-unify the island.
The U.N. Secretary-General has urged both sides to quickly put his plan to a popular vote, to avoid missing a historic opportunity. But, Mr. Denktash -- speaking Sunday in Ankara, Turkey -- said Mr. Annan's plan lacks qualities needed for a referendum. Greek-Cypriot President Papadopoulos has said he needs more time to negotiate the proposal.
Mr. Annan has proposed a Swiss-style federation for Cyprus, which has been divided into Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot sectors since 1974. He is pressing for a deal to ensure that European Union membership benefits extend to all of Cyprus when it joins the trade bloc next year. Otherwise, membership will apply only to areas controlled by the island's internationally-recognized Greek-led government.
Last week, EU Commissioner Guenter Verheugen warned Turkey that failure
to end the division of Cyprus could hurt Ankara's bid for EU membership.
Turkey has been an EU candidate since 1999, but has not yet started
membership talks. The union has indicated such talks may finally start
in 2005 if Turkey improves its human rights record and plays a helpful
role on Cyprus.
5.
- AFP - "EU enlargement should be put on hold after 2007:
EU Parliament head":
LISBON /March 8, 2003
The enlargement of the European Union should be put on hold after
the bloc expands to include Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia, a move
expected to happen in 2007, European Parliament President Pat Cox
said in an interview published in a Portuguese weekly on Saturday.
"With the entry of 10 countries in 2004 and the possible entry
of Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia, the EU will probably need to stop
the process for a few years so that there will be a consolidation
of the enlargements that have already taken place," Cox told
Portuguese weekly Expresso.
Cox also said the European Parliament -- the EU's directly-elected
assembly -- was still divided over whether Turkey, which has been
an EU candidate since 1999 but has not yet been allowed by the EU
to begin entry talks, should ever be allowed to join.
Ten mainly former Communist states are scheduled to join the EU in
May 2004. EU leaders have also agreed to accept Bulgaria, Croatia
and Romania as members in 2007, provided they make progress on meeting
the criteria for joining.
These two waves of expansion are set to enlarge the EU to 28 countries
from the current 15. On Ankara's membership aspirations, Cox said:
"Turkey needs to push ahead with radical transformations and
the European Parliament is almost evenly
split as to the country's chances of joining the EU."
The EU said late last year it would decide in December 2004 if Turkey
had introduced sufficient reforms to be allowed to begin membership
talks.
The key reforms Brussels wants Turkey to implement include abolishing
torture and amending the role of the army.
Cox was in Lisbon last Wednesday for talks with Portuguese Prime Minister
Jose Manuel Durao Barroso.
6. - The Washington Post - "Kurds Set for War, But Not With Iraq":
Militia Trains to Repel Turkish Troops
By Daniel Williams
ATRUSH, Iraq / March 8, 2003
A line of 25 soldiers in green uniforms, camouflaged with pine branches stuffed into their ammunition belts, crept along the skirt of a conical hill approaching a bunker. Shots rang out, and the line broke into two, half to storm the bunker from the rear, the other to produce diversionary fire from the front. A few simulated explosions on the hillside, some war whoops, a sprint and the troops took the position.
The choreographed training maneuver was carried out at a camp of the pesh merga, the storied Kurdish militia. The pesh merga were once a ragtag, baggy-pants guerrilla group famed for stoic perseverance against better-armed adversaries in the harsh conditions of northern Iraq's mountains. The Kurds are trying to convert the force into a modern fighting group, although still steeped in its guerrilla traditions. It has been refashioned along the lines of the Iraqi army, with spit and polish borrowed from the British.
For the first time since the modernization program began in 1997, the pesh merga are being deployed to defend against an invasion of their territory, a U.S.-protected haven in the northern stretches of Iraq where the Kurds have enjoyed self-rule since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But the pesh merga are not deploying against the forces of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to the south. Rather, units are taking up posts in towns and villages along the border with Turkey, preparing to repel Turkish troops if they try to occupy the Kurdish zone during the expected U.S.-led war against Iraq.
The Turks are their historic enemies, having repressed Kurdish nationalism inside Turkey. The Kurds believe Turkey is now poised to do the same inside Iraq.
The Bush administration appears to be a partner in the Turkish plan. To persuade its NATO ally to provide it with bases and easy access to northern Iraq, the United States has discussed letting the Turks into the Kurdish zone. The Turks say they will move in -- reports from Turkey say troops and equipment are already moving toward the border. The purpose, Turkish leaders say, is to prohibit refugees from flowing into Turkey, keep the Kurds from declaring independence and disarm the pesh merga.
The Kurds say they will fight the Turks, creating a formula for a war within a war. While the United States and its allies take on the Iraqis, the Kurds say they will take on the Turks.
No one at this Kurdish base or at military headquarters in Dahuk, 30 miles to the west, believes the pesh merga can stop a Turkish invasion. But with their recent training, the fighters can hurt them, the Kurds contend.
"They will be sorry if they come. Anyone who invades our territory will regret it, especially the Turks," said Gen. Aziz Huwas, commander of the troops in training here.
Pesh merga means "those who face death," and that pretty much sums up their history over the decades. The guerrillas have been battered by Iraqi armies several times and, occasionally, killed one another in internecine wars.
Northern Kurdistan is run by two Kurdish political parties, each with its own pesh merga force of about 30,000 troops: the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. In advance of a possible Turkish arrival, the KDP and PUK have agreed to combine their military command. The forces are armed with rifles, mortars and antitank weapons.
Atrush is in the KDP zone. To the east, where the PUK rules, the militia is also being spruced up. "We are trying to mix our own guerrilla experience with modern techniques," said Huwas.
The pesh merga in Atrush put on a recent demonstration. About 250 fighters marched to the beat of drums and chants of "Kurdistan or death." They stomped their feet and saluted in the palms-out British style. Besides the "assault" up the hill, black-shirted martial arts trainees flipped each other over their shoulders, dove through flaming hoops, somersaulted off elevated platforms and hopped over logs and around poles.
It was something that Huwas, a 20-year pesh merga veteran, never experienced. "My training was in a cave. We lived off the land and off the population. It was very different," he said. Huwas is a veteran of several battles with Iraqi troops, and suffered temporary breathing problems from a gas attack during Iraq's use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988.
The pesh merga was founded in 1970 by the late Mullah Mustafa Barzani, who had led Kurdish revolts since the 1940s. Barzani's forces had long bedeviled Iraqi governments, which were unable to subdue them. However, in the 1970s, growing Iraqi oil wealth fed a buildup of Baghdad's army. The Kurds' patrons, including Iran, the United States and Israel, stopped their support in 1975, after a bargain was struck in Algiers between Baghdad and Tehran. As a result, the Kurdish forces were crushed. Other rebellions, during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and after the Gulf War, were also put down.
"After 1991, we knew we had to change," said Huwas.
So the trademark pants, sash and cloth headgear are disappearing. Fatigues are in. Recruits must be bachelors between 18 and 28 years old. They live on bases, not in their home villages, and are taught weaponry, history and military theory. Basic training lasts three months and recruits sign up for a 31/2-year stint. The troops are paid although Huwas declined to say how much. Kurdish officials also declined to provide a numerical breakdown between the old pesh merga and new.
The new pesh merga have also added former officers from the Iraqi army. Indeed, with their red berets and eagle medallions, they would not look out of place in Baghdad. "There is little difference now between the structure of our army and the Iraqis," said Faisal Amin Rostinki, a deputy to the area commander, Gen. Babakir Zubari.
To reinforce front-line positions in the defense against the Turks, trained units have been sent to border towns and villages. In the town of Ibrahim Khalil, the troops arrived a week ago, residents said. In nearby Bachuka, they reportedly came five days ago.
The Kurdish defense appears to be designed to use all branches of the pesh merga -- the old style, with vintage rifles to harass the Turks on roads and in and around villages, and the newer troops for ambushes and mortar and rocket propelled grenade attacks on fixed posts.
Both the units in baggy pants and sashes and the soldiers in fatigues man stone outposts along roads leading to Turkey. Mountain refuges, the Kurds' best wartime friend, appear to be the main area of operation in case of Turkish intervention.
"We will withdraw to the mountains as usual in our way of partisan warfare," said Rostinki during an interview in Dahuk.
The headquarters complex is a far cry from the ambience of the pesh merga of old. The buildings are cream-colored limestone with porticos that vaguely resemble the front of the White House. But traditional pesh merga can still be found in the rudimentary mud or cement block buildings that predominate in Iraqi Kurdistan. It is a mantra among Kurds that everyone is a pesh merga. At a refugee camp outside the city of Irbil, a group guards the KDP's local headquarters. There, Hama Raza Amin, 57, recalls fighting for the first time in 1963, defending the village of Chiman against Iraqi troops. "They just kept coming and we kept shooting," he said. "We were all miserable, so we took our rifles and fought."
In 1974, Amin faced heavy Iraqi weapons for the first time. In 1988,
he fought again. "When the leadership calls, I go," he said.
He is a refugee from Kirkuk, a city under central government control.
"My land and house are over there. We ask only one thing, that
Saddam goes. The Turks have no business here if they don't want to
fight Saddam."