11 April 2005

1. "In many Turks’ eyes, U.S. remains the enemy", hostility bodes ill for efforts to boost Americans’ image.

2. "Turkey to debate strategy against Armenian genocide campaign", Turkey’s parliament next week will debate counter-action against a damaging Armenian campaign for the recognition of the killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as genocide, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was quoted as saying Saturday.

3. "Kurdish rebel killed in Turkey mine explosion", a Kurdish rebel was killed and another seriously wounded when a mine they were laying on a road in southeastern Turkey exploded, local security sources said Friday.

4. "British delegation visits Diyarbakir for Newroz celebrations", a delegation of activists visited Diyarbakir (Amed) in the Kurdish area of Turkey between 18 and 25 March in order to observe the Newroz celebrations and to report on changes in the human rights situation in the area since the start of the EU accession process.

5. "US designs on Syria's Kurds", one of the overriding fears in the Middle East is how Kurds might be manipulated by outside forces to create havoc in the region, as has happened before.

6. "Unrest and violence continue in western Iran", violent clashes continued, yesterday and this evening, in several western Iranian cities, such as, Mahabad, Baneh and Piranshahr. Few Kurdish independentists tried also to transform these rallies in their favor but their calls were ignored by residents as most Iranian Kurds believe strongly in the territorial integrity of Iran.

1. - The Washington Post - "In many Turks’ eyes, U.S. remains the enemy":

Hostility bodes ill for efforts to boost Americans’ image

ISTANBUL / 9 April 2005 / by Karl Vick

In Turkey, heralded as the model of a Westward-looking Muslim democracy, sales records were shattered this spring by a book that imagines a U.S. invasion of this nation, a longtime U.S. ally. Polls show an overwhelming majority of Turks regard that scenario as a real possibility.

Mainstream newspapers here routinely mock U.S. troops in Iraq, and many feature breathless but unsubstantiated reports of American atrocities there, including mythical accounts of troops harvesting organs from dead civilians. One paper announced the U.S. offensive against Fallujah in November with a photo illustration of President Bush wearing a swastika.

Conspiracy theories, a staple topic at teahouses and water coolers, are now taken so seriously that in December the U.S. Embassy felt compelled to issue a statement denying that the United States had caused the tsunami in South Asia and, with it, the deaths of more than 200,000 people.

As the Bush administration ramps up efforts to improve the American image in the Muslim world, the magnitude of the challenge is starkly visible in this country of 70 million, long seen as a bridge between East and West. Polls suggest that few countries have turned more dramatically against the United States than Turkey.

The latest survey, gathered in February by the private Metropoll organization, found that four in 10 Turks regard the United States as their country’s "biggest enemy." That is more than double the number who named Greece, the ancient rival Turkey has come to the brink of war with three times in the last half-century.

"Yes, definitely, the opinions are changing," said Ismail Baykus, 45, at the door of his stationery store in a middle-class Istanbul neighborhood. "Based on what we hear and see in the press, the Americans talk one way and then act another, especially when they say they will bring stability and peace to a region."

"They’re all lies!" shouted an elderly fruit seller standing nearby. "All lies!"

By all accounts, the turnabout can be traced to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Some 90 percent of Turks opposed the war, and their parliament voted to deny the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division permission to open a northern front against Iraq from Turkish territory.

When the war ended after just three weeks, 82 percent of Turks said they were disappointed that Iraq’s military did not put up a better fight.

"It obviously all starts with Iraq," said a senior Western diplomat in Ankara. "All this is going on in the context of the U.S. sending 140,000 troops next door."

But more than two years later, U.S. officials voice growing concern that the rift between the two governments not only has not healed, but is deepening.

The tangle of sentiments working against Washington and any new effort to reverse the trend are not easily sorted. Nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire, which ruled the entire Middle East from Istanbul, plays a role. So does the fierce nationalism on which modern Turkey was founded in the 1920s by the revered Kemal Ataturk, who worked hard to push religion out of public life and orient the new nation-state toward the prosperity and progress he saw in the West.

But while Turkey is a secular republic, it is populated by Muslims, whose faith defines the community of Islamic believers as one body, the umma. When the Pew Research Center surveyed global attitudes on the Iraq invasion, Turkish "unfavorable" views toward the United States clustered around 80 percent, the same level reported in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

"It was obvious after September 11 that the United States was going to feel provoked and attack a Muslim country," said Sezai Oflaz, 33, carving meat in a kabob restaurant overlooking the Bosporus Strait, which divides Europe from Asia through the center of Istanbul.

"It looks like it will come to this: First they invade Iraq, then maybe Iran and Syria. Eventually, Turkey. So rather than waiting for it, I’d rather go and fight now in Iraq," Oflaz said.

The complexion of Turkey’s current government encourages empathy with fellow Muslims. Though Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says that he no longer promotes political Islam and that his party respects Turkey’s secular constitution, its 2002 election on a populist platform clearly broadened what passes for acceptable political discourse in Turkey.

In November, the chairman of the parliament’s human rights committee described the U.S. offensive in Fallujah as "genocide." Erdogan referred to "hundreds martyred" in the insurgent stronghold.

The most sensational claims of U.S. atrocities surface in Yeni Safak, a moderately religious newspaper often described as Erdogan’s favorite.

"It’s interesting that only Yeni Safak picked this up," a U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of a spurious report that the Marines had used chemical weapons in Fallujah. With a copy of a volume titled "Understanding Anti-Americanism" on the desk beside his phone, the diplomat traced the Fallujah rumor from a pro-al Qaeda Web site to a Cuban news service to Yeni Safak. The chronology was posted on the embassy’s Web site, beside a Cold War-era tutorial offering reporters tips on how to spot disinformation.

"But there is anti-Americanism in some of the most secular press," the diplomat added. "You can’t say it’s uniform. It comes from different places."

The authors of the best-selling "Metal Storm" say wounded pride informed its popular plot.

The thriller, set in 2007, has been criticized for depicting Turkey’s proud military as collapsing easily under an American onslaught, launched from a conquered Syria at the behest of an American industrialist. According to the book, the man had found a use for boron, a mineral that, like hazelnuts, Turkey has more of than the world knows what to do with.

But co-author Burak Turna, a lanky graduate of American University in Cyprus, said the book -- in which a Turk replies to the invasion by detonating a nuclear suitcase bomb outside the White House -- was intended as a wake-up call.

"I think people were forgetting how important Turkey is," said Burak Turna. "Even some Turks had forgotten."

A sense that the importance of Turkey’s role in the world is beyond question colors almost every conversation with its citizens, whom a Pew survey calculated may be the only people in the world more patriotic than Americans. Their identification with the state in many cases appears to add a personal quality to the Ankara government’s specific complaints over the Iraq war.

Turkey continues to press Washington to confront a guerrilla army of separatist Turkish Kurds based in Iraq’s north and to protect Turkish-speaking populations in Tall Afar and Kirkuk. And more than 18 months later, the humiliating July 4, 2003, arrest of Turkish army special forces by American soldiers in northern Iraq remains a raw topic.

"It’s very important," Baykus said. "If we are friends, why did you do that to us?"

"I also wonder," the stationer added, "if the U.S., being a great power, is also a little bit jealous of Turkey."

The other author of "Metal Storm" is Orkun Ucar, a burly heavy-metal fan who suggested the truck bombs that killed 61 people in Istanbul last year were arranged by the United States to punish Turkey for not cooperating in Iraq. He expressed deep offense that the Bush administration was not consulting Turkey on its every move in the Middle East.

"Turkey is a puppet master," Ucar said. "It’s a player."

When Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in Ankara last month, asked Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to rein in criticism of a longtime ally, Gul pointed out that Turks are irked by how they are portrayed in the U.S. media.

Cagri Kaya, a graduate student at Ankara’s Bilkent University, offered an example in an interview. "I was watching ’24,’ and one of the terrorists was Turkish," Kaya said. Compounding the offense, Kaya added, was a sloppiness that lumped Turks with the Arabs they had ruled in Ottoman times: "He spoke Arabic, not Turkish, and looked like he was Saudi."

There is some evidence that diplomacy is having an effect. Since Rice’s visit, U.S. officials have noted a sharp drop in critical comments by Turkish officials, at least. And Erdogan is scheduled to visit Washington in June.

But the authors of "Metal Storm" cited themselves as evidence that, among ordinary Turks, perceptions have changed profoundly in a country that long served as Washington’s most reliable ally in the Muslim world.

"The canary the U.S. took down in the mine is dead," Ucar said. "But they haven’t noticed."

2. - AFP - "Turkey to debate strategy against Armenian genocide campaign":

ANKARA / 9 April 2005

Turkey’s parliament next week will debate counter-action against a damaging Armenian campaign for the recognition of the killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as genocide, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was quoted as saying Saturday.

Gul told journalists accompanying him on a trip to Algeria he would take the floor at a special parliamentary session, scheduled for Wednesday, to detail Ankara’s strategy, Anatolia news agency reported.

"Like it or not, Turkey has gotten behind on this issue," Gul said. "Turkey should have been more active and addressed this problem with more courage to better enlighten the international community."

On April 24 the Armenians will mark the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the controversial World War I massacres, which have already been acknowledged as genocide by several countries, including France which is home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Ankara worries that the Armenians are using the anniversary to step up their campaign, particularly in the United States, whose traditionally close ties with Turkey are today markedly strained amid differences over Iraq.

Some European Union politicans also maintain that Turkey should address the genocide claims and mend fences with neighboring Armenia as it prepares to launch membership talks on October 3.

The mass killings and deportations of Armenians during World War I is one of the most controversial episodes in Turkish history.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen perished in orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern Turkey, was falling apart.

Ankara categorically rejects claims of genocide and argues that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were killed in what was civil strife during World War I when the Armenians rose against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month called for an unbiased study of the genocide allegations and declared Turkey’s state archives open to all historians.

3. - AFP - "Kurdish rebel killed in Turkey mine explosion":

DIYARBAKIR / 8 April 2005

A Kurdish rebel was killed and another seriously wounded when a mine they were laying on a road in southeastern Turkey exploded, local security sources said Friday.

The incident occurred late Thursday on a road frequently used by soldiers near the town of Lice, in Diyarbakir province, the sources said.

They said the rebels were members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which waged a a bloody campaign for self-rule in mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey between 1984 and 1999 before declaring a unilateral ceasefire.

The group, which changed its name twice in three years and recently reverted to its original name, called off the truce last June, raising tensions in the region.

4. - Kurdish Media - "British delegation visits Diyarbakir for Newroz celebrations":

8 April 2005

A delegation of activists visited Diyarbakir (Amed) in the Kurdish area of Turkey between 18 and 25 March in order to observe the Newroz celebrations and to report on changes in the human rights situation in the area since the start of the EU accession process.

The Newroz spring fire festival, which had been illegal until 2000, took place on Monday 21 March in an outside arena eleven km from Diyarbakir.

The police stopped the coach before we entered the event and our passport details were noted. The police and military surrounded the event and had commandeered some nearby buildings that overlooked the event.

The Diyarbakir Newroz celebration was the largest ever, with an estimated one million people taking part in spite of the distance from the city and a ban on all civil servants attending. Many people made the journey on foot, others utilised whatever transport they could find, overloading motorcycles, hanging off the backs of lorries with a few riding in on horseback. It was a display of unity, peaceful defiance and pride, with real warmth shown to outsiders who wanted to share it with them. There was much traditional dancing and people displayed their red, yellow and green national colours, making endless and enthusiastic peace signs, waving flags of KONGRA GEL and the People’s Defence Forces and placards of Abdullah Ocalan.

The police were moderate in their behaviour but the military sent their jets screaming noisily overhead several times and helicopters constantly circled the event.

Afterwards there was disappointment and anger amongst the Kurds that the Turkish media had not reported on the overwhelmingly positive atmosphere of the Newroz celebrations, including the large numbers celebrating in many cities. Instead focusing on a minor incident in Mersin where some young people allegedly tried to burn a Turkish flag. RTUK, the High Board of Radio and Television, invited all television station to include the Turkish flag on their advertising in response to the incident and the policeman who ‘saved’ the flag received a reward of 24 months salary.

The delegation visited the ancient city of Hasankeyf with members of International Pen who were in Diyarbakir for a writers’ conference on language and cultural diversity. The Mayors of Batman and Hasankeyf met the party and made a strong appeal for people to help them save Hasankeyf from the Ilisu Dam. The Turkish government has begun negotiations with the Austrian firm VA Tech to build the dam. When complete the dam would not only flood Hasankeyf but also forcibly displace 80,000 people.

The delegation met with representatives from various NGOs and political parties. We inquired about the present human rights situation, how far the organisations feel their work is still hampered by repression and intimidation by police and security forces, and how far they feel the legal changes stipulated by the EU accession process have been implemented.

The Diyarbakir and Istanbul branches of the Human Rights Association (IHD) noted that there had been an improvement in the incidences of torture and violence in the preceding period but, regrettably despite the reduction in extra-judicial killings and disappearances there had been recently a resumption of killings. These included the murder of 12 year old Ugur Kaymaz and his father. This atrocity has evoked fear and alarm that the country was returning to the terror and lawlessness of the part. On the eve of Newroz a DEHAP mayor and his family in the village of Hazro had been subjected to an attack by armed arsonists led by his predecessor. This was cited as only one example of the present uncertainty which prevails in the area.

The Diyarbakir branch of GOC-DER (Immigrants’ Association for Social Cooperation and Culture) which works with internally displaced people expressed concern over the new compensation laws for those internally displaced during the conflict. The state is now coercing people into signing statements declaring that they left their villages voluntarily, thereby rendering them ineligible to receive compensation. There was also concern over the very short space of time that all claims had to be registered in. The government has refused the offer of EU assistance stating there was no problem – a point vehemently disputed by GOC-DER. It was also reported that the burning of villages was still continuing.

The Diyarbakir branch of Mothers for Peace, reported being severely harassed, their homes are raided, they are constantly stopped at police checkpoints and regularly beaten whilst demonstrating. Most of the women we met were in their seventies.

The teaching union Egitim Sen had recently faced closure because its constitution calls for mother tongue teaching in Kurdish to be introduced in schools. Though the case against them failed, they are waiting to see if the government will appeal against the decision. The universally expressed view was that the changes that have been made have only been done to facilitate Turkey’s accession to the EU, and that the mentality of the people who actually apply the laws has by and large not changed. For example we were told at the one private language school in Diyarbakir allowed to teach Kurdish, that their activities are tolerated in order to show the EU that the use of Kurdish is permitted, but registration of the school has not been officially accepted; it could be shut down at any time. There are ongoing disputes with the authorities over designation of the school, permissible teaching material etc.

We were told at several meetings that although physical brutality by the police and security forces has been reduced, it has often been replaced by psychological torture and increased harassment of Kurdish and human rights activists. This takes the form of prosecutions, threats, intimidation, and bureaucratic obstacles. For example, we were told that school children had been threatened with getting low grades if they attended the Newroz celebrations. No public servants were allowed leave on that day, under the threat of disciplinary procedures leading to possible sacking and permanent banning from employment as a public servant.

One of the DEHAP officers responsible for the arrangements for the Newroz festivities was already being investigated because one of the banners at the festival had a letter “w” in the Kurdish phrase “Newroz Piroz Be” (“Happy Newroz"). The Turkish alphabet does not include the letter “w” and its use is not permitted. The DEHAP office is still raided on a regular basis.

The delegation had a meeting in Diyarbakir with managers from several women’s centres who were working with women in the shanty towns, the majority of whom had been forced to flee their homes when their villages were destroyed. Major problems were the general social conditions of poverty, high unemployment, and lack of actual shelters for women who were victims of domestic violence, with many of the managers taking these women into their own homes. Many of the women also suffered severe psychological problems stemming from their forced displacement and the violent manner in which it had occurred.

The representatives of the various NGOs and democratic organisations we visited were keen to emphasise the need to establish basic democracy and human rights in this region. They are anxious that these issues were being ‘glossed over’ in the process of Turkey’s accession to Europe.

Rachel Bird, Sarah Parker and Angela Sibley
April 2005

* A full report of the delegation’s findings will be available in May. Members of the delegation will be happy to speak at meetings or give interviews. For further details please contact 020 7250 1315, 07941 311 556 or 020 8809 0633, alternatively you can email knklondon@gn.apc.org

5. - Asia Times - "US designs on Syria's Kurds":

DAMASCUS / 9 April 2005 / by Sami Moubayed*

One of the overriding fears in the Middle East is how Kurds might be manipulated by outside forces to create havoc in the region, as has happened before.

On May 29, 1945, while the French were trying to topple the Syrian government, they bombed Damascus and ignited violence in the Hay al-Akrad neighborhood of the Syrian capital, where the city's Kurds resided.

The French told the Kurds that acting prime minister Jamil Mardam Bey had fled to Jordan, spreading a rumor that president Shukri al-Quwatli had been killed, leaving Syria in chaos. It was now up to the Kurds to take matters into their own hands, the French said. The Kurds quickly took to the streets, occupying police stations, destroying government offices, and raising the Kurdish flag to replace the Syrian one. They were calmed, and brought back to order by Mardam Bey.

The event, which took place exactly 60 years ago, explains how easily some Kurds can be incited to cause trouble. The story, mentioned in the memoirs of Mardam Bey, was confirmed by an observer of the events of 1945, but challenged by a Kurdish gentleman who said, "Absolutely untrue. An officer in the Syrian army, who was a Kurd, called on us to carry our weapons, and to defend Shukri al-Quwatli."

This shows the degree of division in Syria over the Kurdish issue, with some insisting to denigrate the Kurds as separatists who have no loyalty to Syria, and others insisting that they are a part of the Syrian identity, just like any Syrian Arab, who shaped Syria's history and culture over the centuries, and are Syrian nationalists at heart. The truth, another camp argues, is somewhere in between.

The de-Syriafication of 1962

Nothing shows this division better than the violence that rocked Syria in March 2004, conducted, once again, by some - but not all - Kurds, and generally believed in Syria to be the dirty work of the US. The event led to the killing of some Kurds and to the arrest of hundreds.

In March this year, President Bashar Assad released 312 Kurds, all arrested during the disturbances of 2004, promising to grant Syrian citizenship to 300,000 Kurds who were stripped of it in 1962.

Currently, 25,000 Kurds are unregistered in Syria, and another 225,000 are registered as "foreigners" with no Syrian passports but red IDs, granted by the Ministry of Interior. They have restrictions on travel, marriage and owning property. Exaggeration in the Western media says that they are discriminated against at schools, in hospitals and in government employment and wages. In July 1996, the Syrian government told Human Rights Watch that the number of Kurds with such status was only 67,465.

Assad today wants to be nice to the Syrian Kurds, fearing that inspired by the autonomy and grand concessions, they are gaining in Iraq, they will make similar demands for autonomy in Syria. The truth is that the Kurds of Syria are very different from those of Iraq. They want citizenship, not autonomy.

Ahmad Barakat, of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party, confirmed this to the Christian Science Monitor, saying, "Our problem is very different from that of the Kurds in Iraq. Their aim in Iraq is to get a state of their own. But in Syria, we just want our culture and freedom as Syrian nationals."

The US media, however, and some US-backed Kurdish activists, in Syria and abroad, insist on marketing a story of Kurdish plight, unrest and separatism in Syria, claiming that the Syrian Kurds are oppressed and deserve autonomy, just like their Iraqi counterparts. Many see this as part of a grand US smear campaign against Damascus.

The London-based al-Hayat published an article on April 3 saying that Syria "was putting the last touches on a law that will give citizenship to roughly 300,000 Kurds". Most of them had come to Syria in the 1920s, fleeing persecution in neighboring Turkey. Everybody who came to Syria during the French Mandate, Kurdish, Armenian, etc, were given Syrian nationality as a part of France's plan to create diversity in Syria. Nobody was turned away between 1920 and 1946.

These Kurds had their citizenship revoked in August 1962 during a highly controversial census conducted under president Nazim al-Qudsi, a civilian pre-Ba'ath leader of Syria. The Qudsi regime came to power when Syria dissolved its merger with Egypt in September 1961, and was coming under daily fire by president Gamal Abd Nasser, who accused the new leaders of Damascus of being opponents of Arab nationalism.

To prove their Arab zeal, Syria's new leaders passed decree number 93, stripping about 120,000 Syrian Kurds of their Syrian citizenship. The argument of the authorities in 1962 was that the census was aimed at identifying "alien infiltrators" in Syria; those who had illegally crossed the border from Turkey. Kurds had to prove that they had lived in Syria at least since 1945, or lose any claim to Syrian citizenship. The census was rigged, and led to the fiasco of Kurdish "unrest" in Syria, which exploded in 2004.

The Kurdification of trouble in 2004

The chronology of the disturbances that took place in 2004 is difficult to believe. Presumably, Kurds clashed with Syrian Arabs in the town of Qamishli, 600 kilometers northeast of Damascus, on March 12. Reportedly, the Syrians provoked them by chanting anti-Kurdish slogans and raising photos of Saddam Hussein, to remind the Kurds that it was the ex-Iraqi dictator who had gassed them to death in Halabja in 1988.

This provocation was very had to believe since no Syrian with the right mind would dare ignite such tension, and praise Saddam so publicly in a country falsely accused by the US of having supported him. The truth is that there was no provocation in the first place, and in fact the soccer match that the media talked about as having fueled the fight never happened. The Kurds came to the stadium, attacked the Syrians, then accused them of foul play.

Maybe had the match occurred, then a clash between soccer fans would have led to violence, giving a more reasonable scenario. Reportedly, the Kurds began chanting praise of Jalal Talabani, who one year later (on April 6) became president of Iraq, Masoud al-Barazani, and George W Bush.

As the Syrians fought back in self-defense, police broke up the mob, killing 14 people in the stampede. Violence spread like a forest fire throughout Syria, with Kurds attacking Aleppo University, small towns in northern Syria, and the Dummar district in Damascus. They burned automobiles, smashed billboards, attacked public property, and in one case, tried to set a hospital ablaze.

In Ayn al-Arab, a town 500km from Damascus, they destroyed police headquarters, ransacked the Ba'ath Party office, and demolished garbage trucks. As police retaliated, more deaths occurred, and according to then-Syrian interior minister Ali Hammud, a total of 25 people were killed (six of them in Aleppo). More shocking than the violence were the protests that took place in Belgium, where Kurds demanded an end to the "Qamishli massacre", offering to donate blood to the wounded and claiming that Syria was letting them die of their injuries.

Yes, people died in Qamishli, and yes some innocents might have been killed, but there was no "massacre" in Syria in 2004. The police did their job in keeping order. The Kurds, who make up 8.5% of Syria's 17 million, are not an oppressed group in Syria. The Syrian Kurds, who currently number nearly 1.5 million, are a well-respected minority. They have one problem: citizenship. Apart from these "unregistered" Kurds, whose plight will be shortly resolved, the Syrian Kurds are first-class citizens.

It would be madness to mirror their story to the plight of the Kurds of Iraq. Salaadin, the most celebrated warrior in Arab and Muslim culture, who is highly glorified in Syrian history, television and schools, was a Kurd. In 1920, Abd al-Rahman Yusuf, a Damascene Kurd, was senior adviser to the Syrian government, while his son Sa'id was governor of Damascus in 1949.

Also in 1949, Syria's first military president, Husni al-Za'im, was a Kurd, as was Adib al-Shishakli, a Kurd from Hama who ruled in 1951-54. Two prime ministers, Husni and Muhsen al-Barazi (in 1941 and 1949), were Kurds. Khalid Bakdash, the veteran leader of the Syrian Communist Party, was also a Kurd, and he became a member of parliament in 1954 because of his Kurdish roots. It was the Kurds of Damascus, rather than the views of Karl Marx, that won him a seat in parliament.

Syria's Grand Mufti Ahmad Kaftaro, the highest Muslim authority in Syria, who held office from 1966 until his death in 2004, was a Damascene Kurd. Ali Buzzo, a prime Kurdish leader of the 1950s, was a many-times minister of interior, agriculture and justice. The list of prominent Kurds in Syrian government and society could go on and on, but these are just a few names to prove the Syrian argument.

The Kurds were not only active in the political life of Syria, but had their own political environment. In 1957, one of the earliest Kurdish parties was founded in Syria, called the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, loyal to Iraq's Kurdish leader, Mullah Mustapha al-Barazani. It was a replica of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraq, echoing its same program and objectives. It called for recognition of the Kurds as an ethnic group in Syria, and more government attention to their districts, which were economically underdeveloped.

Its activities were greatly suppressed by the pan-Arab regime of Nasser, who became ruler of Syria in 1958, and its members were persecuted. In 1965, two years after the Ba'ath Party came to power in Syria, the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party was founded, supported by Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which was founded in Damascus in 1975. The Progressive Party is currently headed by Abd al-Hamid Darwish, who became a member of the Syrian Parliament in 1992.

Other prominent parties are the Kurdish People's Union Party and the Kurdistan Workers Party, headed by Abdullah Ocelan. Everybody in Syria remembers only too clearly that it was because of Ocelan's residence in Damascus that Syria nearly went to war against Turkey in 1998. He had been given asylum in Syria, along with members of his party fleeing the Turkish dragnet, by president Hafez Assad. When he left Damascus, Ocelan was arrested by Turkish authorities, and Kurds went into frenzy in Turkey and Europe, protesting violently and setting themselves ablaze to pressure Turkey not to have him executed.

Back then, the Syrian Kurds did not protest or create any disturbances, so why should they rise in fury in 2004? Syria not only supported Ocelan, but Talabani as well, who founded his PUK in Syria, and worked in the underground against Saddam using a Syrian passport that he only recently returned to Syrian Vice President Abd al-Halim Khaddam, "with gratitude". Both Talabani and Barzani, two of the strongest men in Iraq today, enjoyed excellent relations with Damascus. Damascus had a common enemy with them in Saddam, and used them to create havoc for the Saddam regime throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

The point is that the Kurds had no real reason to riot in Syria in 2004. They are well represented in government, in the commercial community, and in the arts. They have their schools, are free to use their language among one another, and have their own political parties, which although not licensed, number 14.

Yet the vibrations in Iraq have had their effect on Syrian Kurds, and created shock waves in Damascus. The fact that the Kurds succeeded in preserving their autonomy in Iraq, and making their language official next to Arabic, undoubtedly influenced the Syrian Kurds to demand similar privileges.

Today, the Kurds have 75 seats in the Iraqi National Assembly, preceded only by the Shi'ite List of Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim. They have secured the presidency for themselves, with Talabani becoming the first Kurdish president of Iraq. In addition, they are demanding that 25% of oil revenue be allocated for them, in addition to annexing Kirkuk, an oilfield, to their territories. More alarming is their demand to keep the peshmerga, their famed militia, armed, to defend Kurdistan Iraq.

This makes the disarming of any other militia in Iraq virtually impossible, since other groups would feel threatened by an armed Kurdish militia, which would be supported by Talabani. The US, wanting to add further pressure on Syria, gave the Kurds the needed nudge to riot and demand similar status in 2004. Assad tried to appease them by making a visit to the Hasake region in Syria, where they are densely populated, promising them reforms and pledging to upgrade their living conditions.

Assad was the first Syrian president to visit the Kurdish districts since president Husni al-Za'im (a Kurd) did in 1949. The state has promised to invest in eastern Syria, where the Kurds are located, and the reform plan is expected to be announced during Turkish President Ahmad Cesar's visit to Syria next Wednesday.

The Syrian regime, pan-Arab by Ba'athist rhetoric, cannot forget that the Kurds of Iraq allied themselves with the US from 1974 onward to topple the Ba'athist regime of Saddam. Back in 1974, Henry Kissinger encouraged the Kurds to riot, in order to drain the energy of the Iraqi army and divert Baghdad's attention from supporting Syria's "steadfastness" front against Israel.

Kissinger fanned flames of conflict in Iraq, and was very generous with the Kurds, prompting Mustapha al-Barazni to send him expensive rugs as a token of appreciation, and a gold necklace for his bride on the occasion of Kissinger's marriage in March 1974.

According to Patrick Seale, the veteran journalist specialized in the Middle East, some Kurds had gone to Israel for training in sabotage attacks as early as the 1950s (see Assad: Struggle for the Middle East p 243). Seale adds that Rafael Eitan, who was Israeli chief of staff from 1978-82, also once visited Kurdistan Iraq.

The scandal, among Kissinger's numerous endeavors, was revealed during the Watergate investigations in 1976, in what became known as the Pike Report. The testimony said that Kissinger had armed and financed the Kurds to dissuade Iraq from "adventurism", such as coming to the aid of Syria. The report adds, "Our clients, who were encouraged to fight, were not told of this policy."

The Kurds were never intended to win, only to weaken Iraq, and materialize US interests in the Middle East. Wishful hawks in the US administration want a similar scenario today, hoping Syria will persecute its Kurds, as Saddam did in 1998, to use it against Bashar Assad.

The Kurdish problem is yet another dose of pressure on Damascus. Assad failed them and refused to act in a similar manner that would give the US more reason to confront Syria. He enjoys unanimous support from the people of Syria in this particular measure. Everyone is calling on him to be firm and diplomatic in dealing with the Kurdish issue, to appease the disgruntled Kurds and end their plight once and for all, in order to avoid their deviance, since national unity is one thing that Syrians (thousands of Syrian Kurds included) have always boasted of having. History is yet to prove if granting them citizenship will help bring calm to Syria and put an end to the Kurdish issue in the country.

* Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.

6. - MND - "Unrest and violence continue in western Iran":

9 April 2005

Violent clashes continued, yesterday and this evening, in several western Iranian cities, such as, Mahabad, Baneh and Piranshahr. Hundreds of protesters came, again, into streets in order to call for a democratic change in Iran, despite the heavy presence of Islamic regime's forces.

A death and tens of injured have been reported from Mahabad alone. Additional forces sent from Marivan are unable to establish full order. Molavi area and Heyvanat Square accesses are often blocked by enflamed tires.

Slogans against the Islamic regime and its leadership are consistently shouted by protesters in chase and run actions.

Several security agents have been also injured in the clashes by armed masked individuals. Several official buildings and banks have been heavily damaged by fire.

Protesters have been energized, since Wednesday, by the events in Iraq and its electoral process having lead to the election of the new Iraqi executive.

Few Kurdish independentists tried also to transform these rallies in their favor but their calls were ignored by residents as most Iranian Kurds believe strongly in the territorial integrity of Iran. Most leaders of Iranian Kurdish parties have confirmed their attachment to Iran in various meetings or interviews. Islamic regime intelligence circles' are known for fueling independentist rumors in order to create fear of a split of Iran in case if the theocracy is overthrown.