1 September 2003

1. "Kurdish rebel group warily watches Americans’ moves", the PKK moved into the Iraqi region years ago to fight for independence from Turkey. Little did it know a more powerful military was coming.

2. "Turkey Presses U.S. to Fight Rebels", Turkey's war with Kurdish rebels threatens to become a whole new headache for the U.S. military in Iraq. The rebels, who are fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey and who have in the past fought for a Kurdish homeland straddling the Turkey-Iraqi border, have spurned Turkey's offer of amnesty and are threatening to end their four-year unilateral cease-fire on Monday unless Turkish soldiers stop attacking them.

3. "Turkish PM heads to Germany on EU membership mission", Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan begins on Monday a three-day visit to Germany, the latest of his diplomatic efforts to consolidate Ankara's bid to join the European Union.

4. "Germany may relax restrictions on arms sales to Turkey", German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said his country may soften restrictions on arms exports to Turkey ahead of a visit next week by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan, the Handelsblatt newspaper said in its issue to be published Monday.

5. "Turks revealed to be pro-EU, anti-US", almost 70 percent of Turks favor accession into the European Union and 66 percent have a positive view of the union, while more than 70 percent of the public looks to the United States negatively, an opinion poll has revealed.

6. "Focus on Turkish-Cypriot polls", as a US mediator kicks off a new round of meetings this week aimed at restarting the Cyprus peace talks, Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash on Saturday accused Washington and London of backing his internal political opponents ahead of December’s electoral process in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.

1. - LA Times - "Kurdish rebel group warily watches Americans’ moves":

DIYARBAKIR / 31 August 2003 / by Amberin Zaman

The PKK moved into the Iraqi region years ago to fight for independence from Turkey. Little did it know a more powerful military was coming.

Faruk Yigit was just 18 when he headed for the rugged mountains bordering Iraq in 1992 to become a fighter for Kurdish independence against his traditional enemy, Turkey.

Everything changed when the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq this spring and unseated Saddam Hussein. As part of the war on terrorism, the United States pledged to take military action against about 5,000 Turkish Kurd rebels in the part of northern Iraq, who are controlled by the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

The PKK "will be gone because we have always said that one of the visions that all of us, Turks and Americans, have for Iraq is an Iraq that has no connection to terrorists, and the PKK is a terrorist organization," Marc Grossman, U.S. undersecretary of State for political affairs, said in a recent interview with private Turkish news channel CNN-Turk.

The comments have fueled a growing fear of what the U.S. will do next.

"What I never imagined," said Azize Yigit, 52, mother of nine children including Faruk, "was that he might be butchered by Americans instead" of by the Turks.

Turkey accuses the PKK of being a terrorist organization for waging a 15-year insurgency. But to millions of ethnic Kurds, the guerrillas are freedom fighters. Pressure on Washington to dislodge the rebels has been mounting in recent weeks as the Ankara government weighs whether to send up to 10,000 troops to help U.S. forces bring Iraq under control.

"The United States remains committed to working with Turkey to eliminate the PKK threat in Iraq, and to ensure that a free Iraq does not serve as a sanctuary for terrorists," a State Department official said recently.

The official was careful not to link U.S. action against the PKK to Turkish cooperation on troops for Iraq.

"I don’t think there’s any explicit quid pro quo anyplace," the official said. "But we’re working with them on PKK. We have been for a long time."

For Turkey, the proposal to send troops is aimed at mending relations with the U.S. while giving Turkey a say in shaping the future of its Arab neighbor to the south. Turkish officials have made it clear that they expect the U.S. to disarm and evict the PKK in exchange for the help.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party is expected to come up with a final decision on dispatching forces in the coming days and will probably present a motion to parliament authorizing their deployment next month, said Murat Mercan, a party legislator. Even though a majority of Turks are opposed to the move, Mercan insists that "the motion will pass this time for sure."

On March 1, parliament rejected a bill to allow thousands of U.S. combat troops to use Turkey as a launching pad to invade northern Iraq, straining Ankara’s relations with Washington.

Acrimony between the traditional allies mounted in July when U.S. troops captured 11 Turkish special forces in the Kurdish-controlled Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah and accused them of plotting to kill a Kurdish governor from the oil-rich Iraqi province of Kirkuk.

About 3,000 Turkish troops are deployed in northern Iraq to hunt down PKK rebels. Iraqi Kurdish leaders say the soldiers are there to undermine Kurdish self-rule, which Turkey fears could reignite separatist passions among its own 12 million Kurds. Both the Iraqi Kurds and the U.S. want the Turks to pull out of northern Iraq, and stress that any Turkish military presence would be welcome only outside the Kurdish zone. Turkey’s military leaders have pledged to withdraw from northern Iraq once the PKK is gone.

The dilemma for U.S. policymakers, according to some Western analysts, is how to move against the PKK without risking further instability in Iraq.

"The U.S. is in so much trouble in central and southern Iraq that I don’t believe there’s much stomach for action in the one place [the Kurdish-controlled north] that’s in good shape," Peter Galbraith, a retired U.S. ambassador and expert on Iraq, said in a telephone interview.

Bulent Aliriza, an expert on Turkey at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, argues that the U.S. has not acted against the PKK so far because "its military machine in Iraq is overstretched and its decision-making process overloaded." But failure to do so ahead of any further Turkish troop deployment in Iraq would be wrong, he said, and would lead to further "Sulaymaniyah-type dust-ups between the Americans and Turks."

A U.S. failure to act against the rebel group would also make it harder for the Turkish government to justify potential casualties in Iraq to the public.

Counted among the world’s toughest guerrilla groups and deployed in the forbidding Qandil mountain range separating Iraq from Iran, the PKK has said it would resist any U.S. attack. The rebels also have threatened to end on Monday a cease-fire declared after the capture of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in 1999 and to carry their armed battle outside Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern region to urban centers in the country’s west.

"Violence could resume and on a much broader scale," warned Firat Anli, chairman of the Diyarbakir branch of Turkey’s largest legal pro-Kurdish party, Dehap. Like many here, Anli points out that anti-American feelings fed by tacit U.S. backing for Turkey’s campaign against the rebels — both in providing weapons to the Turkish army and providing intelligence that led to Ocalan’s capture in Kenya — had eased over the last year because of perceived U.S. support for Kurdish autonomy in Iraq.

"Now we see that the Americans are applying double standards again, with the Iraqi Kurds treated as the good guys and our [Turkish] Kurds as the bad guys," said Ahmet Turan Demir, who leads a smaller pro-Kurdish group.

Times staff writer Sonni Efron in Washington contributed to this report.

2. - AP - "Turkey Presses U.S. to Fight Rebels":

DIYARBAKIR / 31 August 2003

Turkey's war with Kurdish rebels threatens to become a whole new headache for the U.S. military in Iraq.
The rebels, who are fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey and who have in the past fought for a Kurdish homeland straddling the Turkey-Iraqi border, have spurned Turkey's offer of amnesty and are threatening to end their four-year unilateral cease-fire on Monday unless Turkish soldiers stop attacking them.

That may spell not only the possibility of instability in southeastern Turkey but also in northern Iraq, where an estimated 5,000 rebels who fled a Turkish onslaught in the 1990s are hiding out in mountain villages and caves.

Entitled to U.S. support

Having supported the American war on terrorism, led the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan and cooperated in the hunt for al-Qaeda operatives, Turkey feels entitled to U.S. support in fighting the rebels.

But the thinly stretched U.S. military would have a hard time against experienced fighters in remote mountain hideouts.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a television interview Friday, said the United States owed Turkey help. ``After Sept. 11, Turkey fulfilled its responsibilities in combating international terrorism . . . now it is time for you to fulfill your responsibility,'' he said.

Erdogan said U.S. officials were responding with some measures, but he refused to elaborate.

Turkey is planning to raise the issue when Gen. James Jones, the head of U.S. forces in Europe, visits on Wednesday.

The United States may feel less obligated to Turkey, since Ankara refused to let U.S. invasion forces pass through the country en route to Iraq. But it also has a new reason to court Turkey: It's one of the countries being asked to send peacekeepers to Iraq.

Joint operation

Turkey will insist that in return, the United States should shut the rebel bases in Iraq, said Soner Cagaptay, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Turkey has several thousand soldiers backed by tanks in northern Iraq who could be used to fight the rebels.

``If it is going to happen, it would be a joint U.S.-Turkish operation,'' Cagaptay said. ``The U.S. could contribute air power and intelligence while the Turkish troops fight on the ground.''

But Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, captured in 1999, is already warning from his prison cell in Turkey that any fight would be brutal.

``If the way to peace is not cleared, then the legitimate defense war will take place, maybe 100 people a day will die,'' Ocalan said in a statement which appeared in the German-based Kurdish paper Ozgur Politika.

Kurdish fighters ``would defend themselves against whoever attacks them, including . . . the United States,'' he said.

A senior Turkish intelligence official said Turkey would be satisfied if the Americans force the rebels to lay down their weapons and melt into the Iraqi Kurdish population.

Cease-fire tattered

The cease-fire is already tattered. Hundreds of rebels reportedly have filtered back into Turkey and there has been a recent upsurge in attacks. On Thursday night, six policemen were wounded in two separate shootings.

Turkey, encouraged by the United States, passed a law in early August that grants amnesty to rebels who didn't engage in violence and offers reduced prison sentences to those who surrender and give information. The rebel leadership is excluded.

The rebel group rejected the law, saying it fell short of their expectations of an unconditional general amnesty.

In a bid to inform the rebels and their relatives about the new law, Turkey is using helicopters to scatter leaflets on the mountains.

Dread of fighting

On the streets of Diyarbakir, the main southeastern city, police hand out leaflets explaining the law. Most people accept the leaflets without comment.

But there's a great dread of a return to the fighting that left 37,000 dead and hundreds of villages destroyed.

``Now, we are free to walk at night,'' said Abdulkadir Cicekci, as he sat on a stool amid piles of goat cheese in colorful plastic basins in his shop. ``If clashes start again, I am afraid we may not be able to do that.''

The Kurdistan Workers Party, the main rebel movement, withdrew most of its forces to northern Iraq after declaring the cease-fire in 1999. It renamed itself the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress, KADEK, last year to emphasize what it said was a shift from military to political action.

But Turkey has rejected any contact with the group and says all rebels must surrender or be killed. It sees the whole idea of a Kurdish autonomy as a step to a Kurdish homeland that could threaten its territory.

3. - AFP - "Turkish PM heads to Germany on EU membership mission":

BERLIN / 31 August 2003 / by Lorne Cook

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan begins on Monday a three-day visit to Germany, the latest of his diplomatic efforts to consolidate Ankara's bid to join the European Union.

Erdogan, who visited Austria and Portugal in July and heads to EU president Italy from September 5-7 before going to Spain, will hold talks in Germany with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Tuesday and meet Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.

Turkey is one of 13 candidates to join the 15-nation EU but it has never been given a date for starting membership negotiations because Brussels says it has not carried out sufficient reforms to bring its democracy up to western standards.

Germany is home to more than two million Turks, estimated to be the largest Turkish community in western Europe, and Berlin defended Ankara's EU bid at the bloc's summit in Copenhagen in December 2002, which focused on enlargement.

But ties have been strained by Turkey's decision to strip passports from some of its nationals living abroad for failing to do military service. Germany fears the move could leave it with a number of stateless people of Turkish origin who could not be deported even if they committed serious crimes and it has warned Turkey the move could harm its EU bid.

But Erdogan remains optimistic. He told Saturday's Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that Turkey could be in a position to join the EU in a few years. "The EU can't do without Turkey," he told the conservative daily. In an interview to be published on Monday, Fischer praised Ankara's reform process and said Germany was considering softening restrictions on arms exports to Turkey.

"Turkey is working seriously and intensively to further open the door to membership of the European Union," he told the Handelsblatt daily. But recent developments at home do not paint a picture of serenity.

Only last week, a Turkish general blasted the government's reforms. He said they had hobbled the National Security Council, where political influence is wielded by the army, which sees itself as the protector of secularism.

"With the reforms, the council... has kept its place legally but has been left functionless," outgoing council head General Kilinc said on August 25. Once banned from politics for alleged Islamist sedition, Erdogan has appeared a moderate since coming to power and has promised to make 2004 the "year of reforms".

To Ankara's credit, capital punishment has been abolished while minority rights and freedom of expression have been reinforced. EU leaders have said they will assess the progress made on reform in December 2004 before deciding whether to open accession talks with Ankara.

In addition to discussing EU membership, Erdogan and Schroeder will on Tuesday discuss developments following the war against Iraq, which Germany vehemently opposed.

The Turkish prime minister said on Friday he backed sending troops to neighbouring Iraq to help the US-led coalition restore security, despite widespread opposition among the Turkish public.

Another subject likely to arise during Erdogan's visit, which ends on Wednesday, is the fate of Metin Kaplan, an extremist leader known as the "Caliph of Cologne" who is living in Germany and who is wanted by Ankara for treason. Turkey's demand for his extradition was blocked last week by a German court.

4. - AFP - "Germany may relax restrictions on arms sales to Turkey":

DUESSELDORF / 30 August 2003

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said his country may soften restrictions on arms exports to Turkey ahead of a visit next week by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan, the Handelsblatt newspaper said in its issue to be published Monday.

Fischer is head of the coalition government member Green Party, which helped lead opposition to sales of arms to Turkey and other countries it deems not to respect human rights.

"We have refused [sales of tanks to Turkey] until now, but we will have to re-examine the question if the reality changes, taking the new situation into account," Fischer said, alluding to a recent spate of reforms undertaken by Ankara to improve its credentials for joining the EU.

"Turkey is working seriously and intensively to further open the door to membership in the European Union," he added.

Berlin adopted its current arms export guidelines in 2000. The Greens subsequently opposed the sale of a German Leopard 2 tank to Turkey on a trial basis, a move German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pushed through.

Fischer's statements mark the first time he has indicated he would not oppose re-examining the restrictions on arms exports to Ankara, Handelsblatt said.

Turkey has been a candidate for EU membership since 1987. EU leaders are to assess the mainly Muslim country's progress in December 2004 before deciding whether to open membership talks.

The International Federation for Human Rights said last month that despite the Turkish government's commitment to reform, torture, disappearances and extra-judicial killings of the Kurdish minority still go unpunished.

5. - Turkish Daily News - "Turks revealed to be pro-EU, anti-US":

ANKARA / 1 September 2003

Almost 70 percent of Turks favor accession into the European Union and 66 percent have a positive view of the union, while more than 70 percent of the public looks to the United States negatively, an opinion poll has revealed.

The poll, carried out by Pollmark Research and involved 1,945 people from 12 different provinces, also revealed that a significant portion of the Turkish people are against sending troops to Iraq to help the stabilization of the war-torn country, as attacks on U.S. forces and UN headquarters mount.

According to the poll, 35 percent of Turks believe Turkey should send troops to Iraq, while 59.3 percent disagree. The findings of the poll also revealed a huge disagreement within the public on the issue: 56 percent of the voters of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party agree that Turkish troops should be deployed in Iraq, while only 26 percent of the voters of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) supports the idea.

In addition to the high risks associated with sending troops to volatile Iraq, dislike with the United States, mostly thanks to detention of 11 Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq by American forces last month, may be the reason behind the general opposition to sending troops to Iraq to help the Americans cope with the escalating instability.

The survey revealed that only 20.4 percent of the Turkish people have a positive view of the United States and that 70.4 percent dislike the United States.

This comes as stark opposition to the perception of the EU: 66.1 percent of the public looks to the EU favorably, while 27.2 percent expressed negative views about the union.

Public believes rights violations widespread

According to the Pollmark survey, a significant majority of the Turkish people think human rights violations are still widespread in Turkey, a claim frequently voiced by the EU. Some 62.4 percent of the people believe human rights violations are widespread in Turkey, while 28.1 percent dispute this.

AK Party still tops surveys

The survey also revealed that the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, which won the Nov. 3 elections with a clear victory, was still popular, with the rate of support standing at 32.5 percent.

Its closest rival, the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), would have 11.7 percent of the votes if there were elections today.

The poll revealed that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was the most popular politician in Turkey, with 20.2 percent. Former President and veteran politician Suleyman Demirel followed Erdogan with 7.6 percent and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer was the third with 7.2 percent.

Cem Uzan, a controversial businessman-turned-politician and an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Erdogan, has been revealed to be popular for 2.3 percent of society.

As for the government performance, the government appears to be the most successful in its EU policies and efforts to fight corruption. Those who were surveyed gave a grade of 5.31 out of 10 for the government performance to achieve EU reforms. The government got 4.82 for its performance in fighting corruption.

The average grade for the government's anti-inflation program is 4.74 and 4.24 for the way it handled the Iraq issue.

Some 38.7 percent of the Turkish people, according to the survey, believe that the Turkish economy has started to recover but 55.7 percent disagrees.

Military: The most credible institution

Responding to the question of which institution is most credible in Turkey, those surveyed have shown that the military was still at the top. The credibility grade for the military was 7.43, out of ten. The poll revealed that AK Party supporters as well have a high trust for the military, as they gave 7.99.

The Presidency and the Police Directorate follow the military, with 6.38 and 5.08 respectively. Parliament got 5.01 and the government's grade was 4.65. The media was revealed to be the least credible institution in Turkey, with a credibility of 2.81.

Amnesty and Kurdish broadcasting

The poll also revealed that a partial amnesty introduced by the government to encourage militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was welcomed by the majority of the public. According to the poll, 42 percent welcomed the amnesty, while 30 percent has not.

Some 47.4 percent of Turks think it was a positive step to allow broadcasting in Kurdish as part of EU-inspired reforms and 43.3 percent were opposed to the move.

Uzan family

Some 78.6 percent of those surveyed said their perception of the controversial Uzan family was negative, while 9.4 percent said they had a positive view of the family.

A court has issued a warrant of arrest for two members of the family in connection with alleged irregularities that have resulted in the bankruptcy of the bank owned by the family.

6. - Kathimerini - "Focus on Turkish-Cypriot polls":

1 September 2003

As a US mediator kicks off a new round of meetings this week aimed at restarting the Cyprus peace talks, Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash on Saturday accused Washington and London of backing his internal political opponents ahead of December’s electoral process in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.

State Department Cyprus envoy Thomas Weston will discuss ways of reviving the talks — which stopped in March after Denktash turned down a United Nations blueprint for reunification — during meetings with officials in London, Brussels, Berlin, Paris and Rome, which currently holds the rotating European Union presidency. He will then engage in talks with UN officials in New York.

In remarks quoted by the Athens News Agency from Nicosia, Denktash told Turkey’s Sky TV station that both the USA and Britain favored an opposition victory in the hope of getting Turkish troops off Cyprus. Denktash was quoted as saying Washington and London want to use Cyprus as a military base for use against Arab countries.

In other comments quoted by the ANA, Denktash said he expected opposition parties to win no more than 30 percent of the vote in December, and accused the Cypriot government of using the opposition to divide Turkish-Cypriot public opinion.

In an interview with Greece’s Eleftheros Typos yesterday, Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos expressed hopes for an opposition victory that could force Denktash to resign.

“For as long as Denktash remains in power and acts as the negotiator, we cannot expect any progress in negotiations between the island’s two communities,” he said. “If the opposition win a clear victory, perhaps the picture could change.”