29 September 2003

1. "Kurds slam Turkish government over rights", a newly formed pro-Kurdish party lashed out Friday at the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for failing to enforce EU-inspired reforms aimed at expanding the cultural rights of the Kurdish minority in Turkey.

2. "Turkish court upholds jail sentences for Kurds in critical election case", Turkey's appeals court Monday upheld jail sentences handed down to four former leaders of a pro-Kurdish party on charges of electoral fraud, in a move that threatens to spark a political storm and possibly force new elections.

3. "Turkish soldier killed in fight with Kurdish rebels", One Turkish soldier was killed in a firefight with Kurdish rebels in Turkey's troubled south-east, security officials said yesterday.

4. "No Peace, Now No Peacekeepers", the decision by the Bush administration to seek Turkish, Indian and Pakistani troops for peacekeeping in Iraq has reached what many Iraqi political figures knew from the outset would be its final destination: the department of ideas whose time has not come.

5. "Turkey's Isolation Over Northern Iraq", opinion by Semih Idiz.

6. "Cyprus Is Biggest Obstacle for EU Hopeful Turkey", Turkey's ruling party has championed bold political and human rights reforms in a bid to win a date for European Union entry talks, but remains strangely silent on the issue that most threatens its EU hopes -- Cyprus.

1. - AFP - "Kurds slam Turkish government over rights":

ANKARA / 27 September 2003

A newly formed pro-Kurdish party lashed out Friday at the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for failing to enforce EU-inspired reforms aimed at expanding the cultural rights of the Kurdish minority in Turkey.

"The resolution of the Kurdish question is the most important pillar of Turkey's democratization," Ahmet Turan Demir, head of the Free Society Party, said when addressing the party's first convention here. The party was officially set up in June.

"Education, radio and television broadcasts (in Kurdish) should be guaranteed without any limits and conditions," he said to the cheers of some 2,000 party suppoters.

Eager to boost its struggling bid to join the European Union, Turkey has adopted reforms allowing Kurds to learn their own language at private courses, along with radio and television broadcasting in Kurdish. But the reforms are still to be put in practice.

"The government is not sincere. With those reforms it just wants to look nice in the EU's eyes," Huseyin Aktas, a 52-year-old delegate from Elazig in the mainly Kurdish southeast, told AFP.

Demir also urged Ankara to cancel a controversial amnesty law aimed at encouraging rebels from the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), or KADEK, hiding in the mountains of northern Iraq to lay down their arms.

"Instead the government should make regulations to ensure that the armed forces of KADEK are integrated into the democratic political life," he said.

Demir's speech was frequently interrupted by slogans in favor of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK who is serving a life sentence at the prison island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara.

"Thousands of greetings to Imrali," "Long live the leader Apo," the crowd shouted, using Ocalan's nickname.

Clearly disturbed by the pro-Ocalan cheers, the party leadership sought in vain to silence slogans "which do not belong to the party."

Turkish authorities have banned a number of Kurdish parties for being linked with the PKK, which Ankara sees as a terrorist organization.

"Thanks to Ocalan we became something out of nothing. He must be freed and allowed to do politics," said Hasan, a 19-year-old driver from Diyarbakir, as he waved a flag of red, yellow and green, the traditional Kurdish colors which also symbolize the PKK.

2. - AFP - "Turkish court upholds jail sentences for Kurds in critical election case":

ANKARA / 29 September 2003

Turkey's appeals court Monday upheld jail sentences handed down to four former leaders of a pro-Kurdish party on charges of electoral fraud, in a move that threatens to spark a political storm and possibly force new elections.

The court said the former leaders of the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP) tampered with documents relating to the party's overall national representation in order to be allowed to stand in the November 3 vote. The defendants were sentenced in June by a lower court to 23 months in jail each.

Electoral authorities could now cancel the nearly two million votes that DEHAP won in the elections, a decision that could result in a change in the number of seats the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) currently hold in parliament.

Some observers believe the electoral board could even cancel the November 3 vote and call new polls. Under Turkish law, a party needs to have opened offices in at least 41 of Turkey's 81 provinces, at least six months before a poll, to be able to field candidates.

In court, the prosecution charged that DEHAP told authorities it had offices in 63 provinces when in fact it had fully organized offices in only six.

DEHAP, who gets most of its support from the Kurdish southeastern region, was allowed to run in the elections, but failed to win any parliamentary seats after receiving only 6.2 percent of the vote, well below the 10 percent national threshold required to enter the legislature.

If the electoral board just cancels the DEHAP votes, the number of votes required to overpass the 10-percent threshold and win parliamentary seats will be effectively lowered.

The main beneficiary would be the center-right True Path Party (DYP), which won 9.5 percent of the vote in the November elections. In the case of seat redistribution, it could take over some 60 seats now held by the AKP and CHP.

3. - Reuters - "Turkish soldier killed in fight with Kurdish rebels":

TUNCELI / 29 September 2003 / by Ferit Demir

One Turkish soldier was killed in a firefight with Kurdish rebels in Turkey's troubled south-east, security officials said yesterday.

The clash between Turkey's troops and Kurdish militants, who ended a unilateral ceasefire on September 1, raged on in remote terrain on the mountainous border of Tunceli and Bingol provinces.

"One soldier is dead ... more units have been sent to the area with helicopter support," a Turkish official said on condition of anonymity.

Turkey has fought a decades-long war with the Kurdistan Workers Party, also known as Kadek, in which more than 30,000 people have been killed, most of them Kurds.

Ankara has called on the US to help crack down on hundreds of Kadek militants holed up in northern Iraq, as it considers sending peacekeeping troops to its southern neighbour to help US-led forces there.

Turkey has stationed thousands of its soldiers just inside northern Iraq since the late 1990s in a deployment it says is necessary to prevent Kurdish militants from slipping into Turkey.

Fighting between the Turkish military and Kadek has largely subsided since the 1999 capture and imprisonment of rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, now serving a life term in an island prison.

His brother, Osman Ocalan, said at the weekend his brother's health was worsening. Abdullah Ocalan would no longer accept weekly visits from lawyers, in protest at his solitary confinement on Imrali, off Turkey's western coast, his brother said.

4. - The New York Times - "No Peace, Now No Peacekeepers":

BAGHDAD / 28 September 2003 / by Patrick E. Tyler

The decision by the Bush administration to seek Turkish, Indian and Pakistani troops for peacekeeping in Iraq has reached what many Iraqi political figures knew from the outset would be its final destination: the department of ideas whose time has not come.

"We do not want Turkish troops in Iraq," said a Kurdish member of Iraq's Governing Council last week. His sentiments were shared not only by fellow Kurds, whose frustrated national ambitions make for relations of mutual mistrust with the Turks. Some non-Kurdish members of the council also wonder how Iraq's other neighbors, particularly Iran, might react if Turkey got even a toehold in the territory of their oil-rich neighbor.

India and Pakistan — the other foreign candidates that Washington was hoping would send enough troops to relieve the strain on American armed forces — conjured an even more delicate problem: where to deploy them so they would not be at each other's throats.

Some Iraqis feared that however much Iraqi territory separated the nuclear rivals of South Asia, the two armies might find a way to harass each other in Iraq over some imaginary "line of control" like the one that separates their formations in Kashmir.

It has been hard enough to win the peace among a restive population that resents the current American occupation without worrying about keeping peace among the peacekeepers.

And so Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of allied forces in the Middle East, effectively threw in the towel last week. He told reporters after an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington that it looked as if he would not be able to count on building a "coalition brigade" with India, Pakistan and Turkey and that, therefore, "we have no choice but to plan for American forces" in coming months, a decision that will stretch military manpower even further.

There was some sense of relief in Ankara, Islamabad and New Delhi, since American pressure had been intense.

An alternative may be possible if discussions now taking place at the United Nations result in a peacekeeping role for the United Nations in Iraq.

Acting without that mandate, United Nations personnel have come under attacks just as deadly as what American troops face, and last week Secretary General Kofi Annan decided to pull his remaining staff out of Iraq. His decision put a sharp point on why, after two car bomb attacks, it was necessary to keep them in harm's way when they were operating without a clear mission.

But it also raises another question: whether even a well-defined and universally accepted United Nations role in rebuilding Iraq will be accepted by the forces that are already engaged in trying to rid Iraq of American soldiers and the United Nations staff members who have worked here under the American occupation.

5. - Aksam - "Turkey's Isolation Over Northern Iraq":

29 September 2003 / by Semih Idiz

As a nation, we like to reinvent the wheel. This is one of our oddest habits. We like ‘rediscovering’ certain already known facts like they were new. Then we suddenly stir up a wave of indignation, as if we were facing these previously known facts for the first time.

Such is the case on the northern Iraq issue. We’re currently ‘rediscovering’ the fact that Washington doesn’t want us to unilaterally deploy our troops to Iraq. According to Ankara’s recent agreement with the US for $8.5 billion in loans, our government must cooperate with Washington in Iraq and furthermore musn’t unilaterally deploy troops into northern Iraq. What our Economy Minister Ali Babacan recently said on this issue was correct: This conditional loan isn’t a new issue for us. Washington has been clear on it since the very beginning of negotiations on Turkish troop deployments.

I’m not trying to say that the US is right in putting forward such conditions for its financial assistance. As a matter of fact, I believe that it’s very inconsistent for the US – which intervened unilaterally in Iraq heedless of worldwide opposition – to lecture Turkey on not making unilateral moves in the region. However, Washington has finally managed to cobble together a patchwork, token international coalition. But on the northern Iraq issue, our country stands completely alone. No other country believes that we have the right to unilaterally deploy our troops there. In the past, Washington turned a reluctant blind eye to Ankara’s cross-border military operations. ‘We understand your reasons, but your forces must withdraw as soon as possible,’ was what the US always said during such operations.

In addition, the European Union’s stance is no secret. There are even certain EU circles which contend Brussels should completely break off relations with Ankara in case of an intervention by our forces in northern Iraq. What about the Arab countries? In the past, the Arab League was always the first to reproach Ankara whenever our military held a cross- border operation. In brief, we’re all alone on this.

Under such circumstances, instead of getting angry at the world, it would be better for our government to consider the reasons behind our international isolation. Otherwise, no matter how great our indignation, eventually having to abandon our fiercely stated red lines is all but inevitable.

6. - Reuters - "Cyprus Is Biggest Obstacle for EU Hopeful Turkey":

ANKARA / 28 September 2003 / by Gareth Jones

Turkey's ruling party has championed bold political and human rights reforms in a bid to win a date for European Union entry talks, but remains strangely silent on the issue that most threatens its EU hopes -- Cyprus.

With the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot half of the divided island poised to join the EU in May, Turkey should be actively trying to coax Rauf Denktash's breakaway Turkish Cypriot enclave toward a settlement, diplomats and experts say.

But Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government is heavily focused on repairing strained ties with the United States over Iraq and seems to have put Cyprus on the backburner, they add.

Earlier this year, Denktash drew international criticism for rejecting a U.N.-brokered peace plan widely seen as providing the best basis for resolving the island's 30-year division. Denktash opposed the territorial concessions the plan envisaged.

Since then talks have stalled and Turkey, which backs Denktash's statelet with subsidies and guards it with 30,000 troops, has not pressed him to revive the U.N. plan.

"Cyprus can only be solved if there is urgent fresh thinking in Ankara. If there is a solution, the initiative has to come from Ankara," said a senior European diplomat in the Turkish capital.

"The U.N. plan...cannot be accepted by the Turkish Cypriots, but the government should come up with proposals for improving the plan, proposals which would put the Greek Cypriots on the defensive and show Turkey is serious about peace."

Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos has also pinned blame on Turkey, saying most Turkish Cypriots wanted a deal.

BARGAINING CHIP

A second EU diplomat said many in Turkey saw Cyprus as a bargaining chip and wanted to extract from Brussels a firm guarantee of entry talks before making any concessions.

"The EU cannot do that. Turkey must first meet the criteria on human rights and political freedoms," he said.

EU membership criteria also include good relations with one's neighbors -- a condition Turkey does not meet, he added.

Cyprus has been split along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded the poorer northern third after a brief Greek Cypriot coup backed by the military junta then ruling Greece.

Even without a settlement, Cyprus will join the EU next May along with nine other, mostly ex-communist, countries, but EU laws and regulations will only apply in the Greek part.

Cyprus, probably backed by Greece, might then veto any EU decision to open entry talks with Ankara, arguing Turkish troops were illegally occupying its territory.

The EU is due to review Turkey's progress in December 2004.

The stakes are high for Ankara.

"Either Turkey helps solve the Cyprus problem and eventually joins the EU, or it maintains its occupation, illegal under international law, turns away from the EU and looks to other regional alliances," the senior diplomat said.

Turkey says it wants a negotiated settlement in Cyprus but insists Turkish Cypriots must be equal partners of Greek Cypriots.

Recalling the inter-ethnic conflict preceding its 1974 invasion, Turkish conservatives back Denktash's preference for a two-state model to protect the minority Turkish Cypriots.

Turkey says it is naive to think Greek and Turkish Cypriots will suddenly start to love each other inside the EU.

STRATEGIC CONCERNS

But many experts say that for strategic reasons Turkey's powerful military wants to keep the status quo on Cyprus, located just 70 km (40 miles) from its Mediterranean coast.

"The army will never agree to give up Cyprus. It sees a Greek-dominated Cyprus as a direct threat to Turkey's strategic interests in the region, a knife aimed at its underbelly," said one Turkish commentator, who asked not to be named.

He said a planned oil pipeline from the Azeri capital Baku to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, not far north of the island, further increased Cyprus' strategic value.

Never mind that Greece and Turkey are NATO allies or that Turkey, once inside the EU, would be part of a common market with its ancient nemesis.

"Paranoia drives Turkey's Cyprus policy," said Dogu Ergil, a professor of politics at Ankara University.

He said that even if Erdogan wanted to cut a deal on Cyprus he faced resistance from Turkey's so-called "deep state" -- the military, the intelligence services and much of the bureaucracy.

"For the moment, the government appears unwilling to pay the price of (such a) confrontation," Ergil said.

The staunchly secularist "deep state" views Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) with suspicion and distaste because of its Islamist roots.

The AKP denies wanting to "Islamise" Turkey and describes itself as moderate conservative, but has to take the "deep state's" distrust into account when devising policy.

Ergil said the main hope for those in the AKP who favor a speedy Cyprus settlement was victory for Denktash's opponents in a December parliamentary election.

Turkish Cypriot opposition parties have vowed to sideline Denktash -- whose job is not up for grabs in December -- and negotiate on the basis of the U.N. plan in a bid to secure a settlement before Cyprus joins the EU.

However, Denktash -- who has dominated Turkish Cypriot politics for decades and has influential friends in Ankara -- is unlikely to go quietly.

"It is a mistake to pin everything on the results of the December election," Baroness Emma Nicholson, a British member of the European Parliament, told Reuters on a visit to Ankara.

She said many politicians in the EU opposed the accession of Turkey, a large, poor, overwhelmingly Muslim country, and would happily use the Cyprus issue as an excuse to block its entry.