8 April 2005

1. "Turkey: Is Ankara Growing Weary Of EU Reforms?", following a decision by European Union leaders to open accession talks with Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government have committed a number of faux pas that have cast a shadow on their recent efforts to further democratize the country. There is now concern in both Ankara and Brussels that the Turkish leadership may be losing its determination to carry through with the EU reforms.

2. "Turkey rejects European pressure for Armenian genocide recognition", Turkey will not bow to European Union pressure to recognize the World War I killings of Armenians as genocide as a condition for joining the EU, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said Thursday.

3. "Rights court delivers new blow to Turkey", the European Human Rihts Court decision opens door to hundreds of pending cases.

4. "Rights abuses paid for by the people", rights violators in Turkey remain free from financial penalties, while the state has paid more than 30 million euros since 1987 in compensation for human rights violations.

5. "Arms are being smuggled into Turkey", Orhan Dogan, former deputy of the now-defunct Democratic Party (DEP) and spokesman for the new Democratic Society Movement, is clearly concerned about recent developments in his region.

6. "Talabani: Iraq's pragmatic new leader", the struggle will go on, focused now on the battle for a constitution that enshrines Kurdish rights to autonomous self-rule in the north as part of a federal Iraq, something he believes is as good for Iraq as it is for the Kurds.

1. - RFE/RL - "Turkey: Is Ankara Growing Weary Of EU Reforms?":

Following a decision by European Union leaders to open accession talks with Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government have committed a number of faux pas that have cast a shadow on their recent efforts to further democratize the country. There is now concern in both Ankara and Brussels that the Turkish leadership may be losing its determination to carry through with the EU reforms.

PRAGUE / 7 April 2005 / by Jean-Christophe Peuch

When Turkey’s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party, or AKP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi) won a landslide victory in the November 2002 early parliamentary elections, many observers expressed concern about the country's future.

Turkish secularists feared party leader Erdogan -- who would be elected prime minister a few months later -- would seek to establish Sharia, or Islamic law. Minority groups and human rights activists also questioned Erdogan's democratic credentials.Some observers say Turkey's reform drive is now losing momentum.

Erdogan has consistently rejected both charges. He says AKP sees Islam as a set of moral values, n-o-t an ideology. He also argues that the party's religious conservatism presents no greater threat to Turkey's secular democracy than Christian Democratic parties do to those in Western Europe.

Erdogan also surprised his critics by embracing the foreign policy agenda of his liberal predecessors and accelerating the pace of reforms needed to join the European Union.

Brussels rewarded his efforts at last December's EU summit by agreeing to open accession talks in October of this year.

But some observers say Turkey's reform drive is now losing momentum.

Bahadir Kaleagasi, head of the Brussels office of the Association of Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen (TUSIAD), an influential interest group that has long been supporting Ankara’s EU membership bid, says Erdogan’s cabinet is showing signs of reform weariness:

“Since the beginning of this year, the action of the government has been showing signs of fatigue. This was particularly obvious during the first weeks of the year," Kaleagasi says. "In part this was due to the fact that the government had concentrated all its efforts on the December 17 European Council summit. Yet since then we’ve noted some wavering in the way the government is managing certain issues, such as its relations with Europe or the economy.”

In a statement released 11 March, the business association urged Erdogan’s cabinet to demonstrate its commitment to what it called "high democracy standards."

TUSIAD was reacting to the Turkish government’s failure to prosecute police officers responsible for violently dispersing a peaceful International Women’s Day protest in Istanbul a few days earlier.

The EU has also reprimanded Ankara over the excessive use of police force.

Kaleagasi says he hopes the protest incident will “serve as a lesson” for the Turkish government:

“[In our statement] we did not question the government’s willingness [to stick to EU democracy requirements]," Kaleagasi says. "That would have been too speculative, too harsh a statement. Rather we wanted to caution the government that this kind of incident was likely to raise doubts [abroad]. We wanted to tell the government that it should be more careful when dealing with this kind of situation because of the various perceptions of Turkey [abroad]. It should not say [the excessive use of force] was merely the result of a unfortunate mishap.”

Many in France and Germany oppose Turkey’s entry into the EU, arguing the country is not sufficiently democratic.

Concerns Growing Stronger

Those concerns grew stronger after Erdogan last month announced plans to sue Turkey's “Penguen” (Penguin) satirical magazine for publishing drawings showing his head attached to various animals.

Yuksel Inan teaches international law and human rights at Bilkent University in Ankara. He says Erdogan’s lawsuit is inappropriate and may have little practical effect:

“That’s just foolish and the courts ought to assess the situation. To sue cartoonists over claims that their drawings are degrading is nonsense," says Inan. "Every individual has such a right and no one should suffer for that. Some courts have received Erdogan’s claims and started proceedings. But others have rejected them [outright]. There is [no consensus] among Turkish courts. Yet I think that as time passes, and as judges and attorneys realize what the spirit of the law is, they will reject those claims in favor of the cartoonists.”

So far, however, the prime minister has not lost a single court claim. Yesterday, he won a suit against a left-wing columnist who had criticized his recent attempts at re-criminalizing adultery. Several weeks ago, he successfully sued a cartoonist who had portrayed him as a cat entangled in a ball of wool in the left-wing "Cumhuriyet" daily.

Erdogan may be unnerved by signs of dissent within AKP. The party has recently lost 13 high-profile members, including its tourism and culture minister, Erkan Mumcu. Mumcu was last week elected chairman of Anavatan (Motherland), the center-right party of former Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz.

One of the defectors, lawmaker Suleyman Saribas told Agence France Presse on 5 April that he had decided to leave AKP because of what he said was Erdogan’s lack of commitment to EU democracy standards.

Yet, Kaleagasi says that rather from a EU-centered debate, the current sense of revolt stems not from the EU reforms, but from disagreements over the way Turkey’s ruling party is being managed. Noting that Mumcu and most other defectors had joined AKP’s ranks just before the 2002 legislative polls, he believes Erdogan should not be worried about the stability of his cabinet:

“Those are breaks from a very large [party] that was not homogeneous to begin with and that is not even homogeneous enough now to meet all of the political interests represented in its ranks," says Kaleagasi. "This shows that [AKP] is experiencing management problems. Be that as it may, it retains a very large majority in parliament. So, although those defections testify to important problems, they're not yet in a position to shake the government.”

Erdogan has scorned the defectors, calling them "the rotten apples in the bag.”

He has also reiterated his commitment to pursue his reform policies.

Last week, his cabinet pushed through parliament a bill postponing the launch of a revised criminal code that had drawn many critics from civic society and the media.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul pledged the government would use the two-month delay to consider the criticism and further liberalize the country’s legislation.

Gul also vowed that Turkey will extend its customs union agreement with the EU to Cyprus.

Brussels has made this requirement a key condition for opening entry talks with Turkey. The step may open Erdogan to further criticism at home, as it appears to breach Ankara's support for the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

2. - AFP - "Turkey rejects European pressure for Armenian genocide recognition":

ISTANBUL / 7 April 2005

Turkey will not bow to European Union pressure to recognize the World War I killings of Armenians as genocide as a condition for joining the EU, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said Thursday.

"We are witnessing efforts to bring many issues not directly related to our (EU) membership process before us as covert conditions," among them allegations that more than a million Armenians were victims of genocide under Ottoman rule, Sezer told a press conference at the military academy here.

"It is wrong and unjust for our European friends to press Turkey on these issues," he said. "They should know that it is not possible for demands imposed on us and devoid of just foundations to be accepted."

Turkey has recently faced mounting calls from within the EU, which it hopes to join, to acknowledge the massacres as genocide, something it systematically rejects.

Some EU politicans have said that the genocide claims will be one of the issues Turkey must address as it prepares to launch lengthy membership talks with the EU on October 3.

"These claims (of genocide) upset and hurt the feelings of the Turkish nation," Sezer said. "What needs to be done is research, investigate and discuss history, based on documents and without prejudice.

"The basis of such discussions should be scientific and not political," he said.

The Armenian massacres of World War I are one of the most controversial episodes in Turkish history.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated killings nine decades ago during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern Turkey.

Turkey, on the other hand, argues that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were killed in what was civil strife during World War I when the Armenians, bacvked by Russia, rose against their Ottoman rulers.

3. - Cyprus Mail - "Rights court delivers new blow to Turkey":

Court decision opens door to hundreds of pending cases

7 April 2005 / by George Psyllides

THE European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that a ‘compensation commission’ set up by the Turkish Cypriot regime cannot be an effective domestic remedy in addressing Greek Cypriot refugee claims, opening the doors to a flood of court cases against Turkey.

The case, which was considered critical, as it affects scores of similar cases before the ECHR, examined the status of the commission, which Turkey claimed was an efficient domestic remedy in relation to an application filed by Myra Xenides-Arestis concerning her property in Varoshia.

Turkey’s lawyers further suggested that since the partial lifting of restrictions on the freedom of movement in April 2003, Greek Cypriots had free access to properties.
They argued that the ECHR should therefore reject the case.

But the Court upheld Arestis’ case and unanimously decided to make her application admissible.

“The essence of the case is that the compensation commission set up in the subordinate local administration is not considered an effective remedy, which Greek Cypriots applying to the ECHR or who plan to apply are obliged to exhaust,” the applicant’s lawyer Achilleas Demetriades said yesterday.

He added: “It is of great importance because the way is still open for applications against Turkey.”

In its decision, the Third Section of the ECHR observed, among other things: “The composition of the commission raises concerns, since, in the light of the evidence submitted by the Cypriot government, the majority of its members are living in houses owned or built on property owned by Greek Cypriots.”

This remained undisputed by Turkey.

The Court said the remedy proposed by Turkey could not fully redress the negation of the applicant’s property rights and could not be regarded as an effective or adequate means of redressing the applicant’s complaints.

“That being so it considers that the respondent government’s (Turkey) plea of inadmissibility on the ground of non-exhaustion of domestic remedies must be dismissed,” the court said.

Demetriades stressed that the decision effectively confirmed previous ECHR decisions, like the landmark Titina Loizidou case.

Turkey was last year forced to pay $1.1 million to Loizidou, as compensation for the loss of use of her property in Kyrenia. Until then, it had been refusing to comply with the judgement of the ECHR for five years. It is still refusing to implement a second court decision regarding Loizidou: the freedom to enjoy her property.

The latest ECHR decision is set to affect hundreds of cases pending before the court.
Demetriades said the court has so far declared 33 cases involving Greek Cypriots admissible.

Arestis said she was satisfied by the decision and hoped that after 30 years her rights on her house in Famgusta as well as other property would be restored.

“It is hard to be deprived of your family home for such a long time,” she said.

The government said yesterday the decision had been expected.

“It was clear that it would have arrived at this decision,” Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said.

He said the creation of the commission was clearly a political act and not a domestic legal remedy in line with the articles of the European Human Rights Convention.

Chrysostomides said there were no applications before the ‘commission’.

4. - Turkish Daily News - "Rights abuses paid for by the people":

Rights violators remain free from financial penalties, while the state has paid more than 30 million euros since 1987 in compensation for human rights violations

IZMIR / 8 April 2005 / Serdar Alyamaç

Since Turkey first permitted personal petitions to the European Court of Human Rights in 1987, it has been forced to pay significant amounts of compensation to complainants; however, the compensation has never been collected from those guilty due to personal negligence or failure to find the people responsible.

Three lawyers from Izmir discovered that Turkey, which has had to pay almost 30 million euros in personal compensation up until now, has failed to collect a single cent from the state employees responsible for the crimes, despite the fact that Turkey amended the relevant law in 2002 to allow collection of the compensation paid from the human rights violators.

5. - The New Anatolian - "Arms are being smuggled into Turkey, warns Dogan":

ANKARA / 8 April 2005 / by Nursun Erel

Amid ongoing debate about arms being smuggled into Turkey meant for use against Anatolian Kurds, Orhan Dogan charged the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) with complicity in this alleged scheme, in an exclusive interview with The New Anatolian.

"Some reliable sources are informing us that, every week around three or four full truckfuls of arms are being brought into Turkey, and no one knows about their final destination," said Dogan, spokesman for the Democratic Movement Society. "A recent report in your newspaper warned about far-right cells getting ready for attacks against Kurds in Anatolia. I personally think that MHP is also involved in that dangerous course of events. This is a very dangerous acceleration. In fact, in the last National Policy Document, it said that ethnic tendencies should be our number one concern. Turkey musn't ever go back. Turks and Kurds want to live in peace since they've lived peacefully together for a thousand years. The government must keep an eye on these dangerous developments."

According to Dogan, it is almost impossible to bring these arms into the country without the complicity of some authorities. It is quite obvious that some circles are trying to raise tensions, he says.

"My concern is that Turkey has never faced an ethnic confrontation, there was a war against the PKK , but the sides of this war were never the people," stressed Dogan. "I'm afraid with such efforts, Turkey can easily become an area open to international interference."

Former DEP deputy and Democratic Society Movement member Orhan Dogan:

‘Every week, three or four truckfuls of weapon are brought into Turkey, we think far-right cells and even the MHP are involved in this'

According to Dogan, the Kurdish issue can be solved by realistic steps:

‘Via a brotherhood solution, thousands of youngsters in the mountains can be reintegrated into normal society'

Orhan Dogan, former deputy of the now-defunct Democratic Party (DEP) and spokesman for the new Democratic Society Movement, is clearly concerned about recent developments in his region. "According to reliable sources, every week three or four truckfuls of weapons are being brought into Turkey," he warned. "We still don't know about their intended target, but not only far-right cells but also the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is involved with this course of events." Dogan is calling for a "brotherhood solution" to solve the Kurdish issue in Turkey, and offered projects to this end to the government.

According to Dogan, a new political party to be established soon will embrace both Kurds and Turks, and will be able to compete in the next general elections.

In an exclusive interview, Dogan spoke with TNA:

TNA: It seems that there's a rising tension in Turkey, for example in the recent attempted flag burning. What do you think about this?

DOGAN: We kept on hearing for some time that a chauvinistic, nationalistic infrastructure was being built. Outrage at the flag incident was just an excuse for such expressions. I still remember the '90s. An anti-Kurdish campaign was organized in towns like Fethiye, the Alanya area, and we even saw some clashes between groups. So we visited Alparslan Turkes [former leader of the MHP] and we asked him to solve the problem. He emphasized his authority and that ethnic polarization could be turned into a brotherhood. Today, even though I have concerns about such a risk, I don't expect such confrontations again, but do I want to remind government figures of their responsibilities.

Truckfuls of weapons

TNA: What do you mean by a newly built chauvinistic infrastructure?

DOGAN: Some reliable sources were informing us that, every week around three or four full truckfuls of arms are being brought into Turkey, and no one knows their final destination. A recent report in your newspaper [by Editor in Chief Ilnur Cevik] warned about far-right cells getting ready for attacks against Kurds in Anatolia. I personally think that MHP is also involved in that dangerous course of events. This is a very dangerous acceleration. In fact, in the last National Policy Document (Milli Siyaset Belgesi), it said that ethnic tendencies should be our number one concern. Turkey musn't ever go back. Turks and Kurds want to live in peace since they've lived peacefully together for a thousand years. The government must keep an eye on these dangerous developments.

TNA: Do you think those weapons can be brought easily?

DOGAN: It's almost impossible to bring them into the country without a wink and a nod from some authorities. It's quite obvious that some circles are trying to raise tensions. My concern is that Turkey has never faced an ethnic confrontation, there was a war against the PKK, but the sides of this war were never the people. I'm afraid with such efforts, Turkey can easily become an area open to international interference.

Prime minister must face the facts

TNA: What must be done?

DOGAN: The prime minister must be ready to face the history. Once he said, ‘If you don't ever think, there is no Kurdish issue.' So this wording is the same old wording which we've seen for the last 70-80 years. What must be done? First, he has to accept that there is a Kurdish issue, and he has to say that they intend to solve the problem, even though there are some difficulties. Such an acceptance would help a great deal.

TNA: When you say that there is a Kurdish issue, what do you mean as the existing problems and the solutions?

DOGAN: Kurds were among the founding elements of this republic but when you look at the Constitution and the legal system you don't see them recognized. Secondly, we know that in Turkey there are over 40 ethnic groups. These groups must be allowed to be educated in their mother tongues. Unless they call for violence, all the political establishments must be free as a constitutional right. Also thousands of people who live in the mountains now must be integrated into democratic channels.

TNA: Are you calling for a new amnesty?

DOGAN: Well I refuse two expressions, one is pardon, the other is penitence. Maybe we can call it a 'brotherhood arrangement.'

TNA: Whatever you call them, several times such amnesties were announced in Turkey, but it didn't help. Why?

DOGAN: You can't integrate the people by insulting or ordering them to confess their regret. If you want them to be integrated, putting them behind bars isn't the way.

What did Turgut Ozal offer?

TNA: You simply want them to be freed?

DOGAN: In 1993, then President Turgut Ozal had a very helpful approach. He said, Let's take their written statements, if they claim they weren't involved in clashes and there is isn't any proof against their claim, they'd be allowed to integrate into normal society. They'd be able to exercise all their political and citizenship rights.

TNA: Did he really lay out that project with these words? When and where did this happen?

DOGAN: Yes he did, in the Presidential Palace, I was there and Sirnak Deputies Mahmut Alinak and Sirri Sakik were there too.

TNA: But with only a statement, how can this prove that they weren't involved with terror?

DOGAN: The government has all the records, and the main issue about this project was trust of the people. But people who took part in any activities using weapons would have their political rights revoked for five years. In that period if they doesn't get involved in any crime, at the end of that five years, they would be integrated too.

TNA: Abdullah Ocalan is the most controversial figure for Turks and Kurds. How do you see him?

DOGAN. Well it must be accepted that he has a great influence on the majority of the Kurds. First, we must forget about our fears. When Ocalan was brought into Turkey, he called for disarmament, so thousands of young people responded to his call and left their arms, so by the help of Ocalan, Turkey could live in a peaceful period for six years. If we ask for peace, we must consider the actors of such a process. In my opinion, Ocalan is an important actor for peace and he must immediately be taken from Imrali island. Also his humanitarian needs must be considered. He's living in a cell, he doesn't even have a television.

TNA: Why not Imrali? Such a secure place for him, don't you think so?

DOGAN: It 's very humid there, so he complains about health problems. If they have such security on Imrali, they can do it in Ankara too.

TNA: There is a hatred towards him among the Turkish people. In recent decades, thousands of people were killed, villages were burnt, a huge amount of money was spent on anti-terrorist efforts. So, who do we blame if not Ocalan?

DOGAN: Well, is peace important for us or not, that's the question. And Turkey must get used to living with Ocalan. When you talk about the clashes and the number of people killed, you mustn't forget that this was a dirty war. Now we call for peace, and to realize this, we must embrace our common values like the Turkish flag, we must never question our borders, and we must never allow others to demolish our unity.

TNA: That flag event, Turkish officials said that it was a provocation of the PKK.

DOGAN: No, the PKK wasn't involved in that provocation. During that People's People's Democracy Party (HADEP) Congress in 1996, the same flag provocation was faced and everybody blamed the Kurds. But later it was declared that this was done by another group. We shed our blood together, Turks and Kurds, during the War of Independence, so this flag is a symbol of salvation for us as well. Kurds don't have any problem with the Turkish flag.

TNA: We never see a Turkish flag in your hands during the political activities or in meetings. Why?

DOGAN: We have the Turkish flag at all in our congresses and meetings. But if I do this now, it will be all the talk, and they won't believe my sincerity. The important thing is not taking the flag into your hands, the thing is to keep your common values alive.

TNA: Leyla Zana (former DEP deputy) was criticized for kissing the hands of Abdullah Ocalan's aunt a few weeks ago.

DOGAN: I was there, it took us about one-and-a-half hours to get there. She kissed the hands of many people, and in the end she met Ocalan's aunt, she would do the same. So what? Even recently we met somewhere Mete Isikara and Turkan Saylan, she kissed their hands too.

TNA: She has also been criticized for not visiting the home of any Turkish soldier slain in the conflict.

DOGAN: We did this in Batman. The problem is, we don't look at the people like, this is my hero, the other one is the enemy. We embrace both sides. The killed 30,000 people, we're sorry for all of them.

TNA: Your Democratic Society Movement, when it will become a political party?

DOGAN: We plan to fill the political vacuum, and meet the needs. We reject ethnic politics and violence.

TNA: What about DEHAP? Can't they fill this vacuum?

DOGAN: The problem is, up to the time DEHAP was established was a time of war. If these parties emerge from such a violent period, they can't meet expectations during peacetime. Our aim is not to establish a Kurdish party, we will embrace everyone in Turkey -- Kurds, farmers in Edirne and fishermen in Trabzon, even the abandoned children on the streets.

TNA: But DEHAP still exists? So there will be a division?

DOGAN: No, once we establish the party, we'll embrace them too.

TNA: Will you be able to take part in the next elections?

DOGAN: Yes we believe so. Even the prime minister describes the early election talks as treasonous. In fact in Turkey you mustn't listen to what the politicians say, what they don't say is more important. I believe early elections will be held next year and we'll compete in them.

6. - BBC - "Talabani: Iraq's pragmatic new leader":

BAGHDAD / 7 April 2005 / by Jim Muir

If Saddam Hussein did indeed watch on television the election and inauguration of Jalal Talabani as his elected successor in the Iraqi presidency, he must have been grinding his teeth.

During his more than 30 years in power, the former Iraqi president several times issued amnesties forgiving the Kurdish rebels in the north. But one name was always excluded: that of Mr Talabani.

Yet the two men were not strangers. Both pragmatic players of the political game, their paths had intersected at various times.

At the height of the Iraq-Iran war in 1983, Saddam Hussein, anxious about the threat of an Iranian-Kurdish alliance, tried to divide the Kurds, and wooed Mr Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) into a ceasefire that lasted over a year.

The collapse of that truce reinvigorated a united Kurdish campaign against the Baathist regime, which reacted by launching what is widely seen as a brutal campaign of genocide against the Kurds.

In 1987 and 1988, hundreds of villages were razed, and uncounted thousands of Kurds were arrested and summarily executed in what Baghdad called the Anfal Campaign.

At least 200,000 are believed to have died, some of them falling victim to chemical attacks such as that in Halabja in 1988.

Triumph and tragedy

Three years later, Mr Talabani crossed back into northern Iraq from neighbouring Syria as the Kurds again rose up against Saddam Hussein in the wake of Iraq's ejection from Kuwait by a US-led coalition.

He was given a hero's welcome by huge crowds of jubilant Kurds in the towns of Zakho and Duhok.

But triumph turned to tragedy as the Baathist forces struck back. Virtually the entire Kurdish population fled into the high mountains along the Turkish and Iranian borders, where many perished in the snow.

Mr Talabani and his ally and rival Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) stayed on with their peshmerga guerrillas, and fought off the government forces.

But Mr Talabani's pragmatism again broke surface. One night in the spring of 1991 when staying at his camp in a ruined school in Mawat - a mountain village north of Sulaymaniyah where he had taken refuge during earlier struggles with the rival KDP in the 1960s - he disappeared, and nobody would say where he had gone.

Then he popped up on television from Baghdad, kissing Saddam Hussein on the cheeks. Far from being outraged, the Kurds danced in celebration. They thought reconciliation with Baghdad must mean the war was over.

As he embraced Saddam Hussein, little can he have imagined that one day he would be taking his place as president of the Iraqi republic.

Saladin's heir

But in February this year, when it was already clear that he was almost certain to become president, he seemed to be taking it in his stride.

"Believe me, I do not have any special kind of feeling," he said.

"I think it is normal that our struggle started and developed and reached this stage of success. With the collapse of the dictatorship, a new Iraq is going to be reshaped, and the Kurds must have their share in the main posts of this country, because we are the second nationality of Iraq."

The Kurds, who make up perhaps 25% of the population, are ethnically, linguistically and culturally quite distinct from Iraq's Arab majority.

The last Kurd who really made his mark in the wider Arab Middle East was Saladin (Salah al-Din al-Ayyoubi), who drove the Western Crusaders out of Jerusalem in the 12th Century.

It is an analogy that Mr Talabani plays down, while acknowledging the significance of a Kurd assuming the presidency.

"Firstly, I am going to lead the country in alliance with the Western countries, not against them," he said.

"Secondly, I don't think I will have the authority to lead the country alone. The presidency is a symbolic one. But it has of course its importance, that for the first time in the history of Iraq, a Kurd will be the president."

Few believe that Mr Talabani will be content to play a purely symbolic role.

Large, ebullient and energetic, he has been an active politician to his fingertips since his student days in the late 1940s and 1950s, when he espoused Kurdish nationalism and joined the KDP, then led by Massoud Barzani's illustrious father, Mullah Mustafa.

During the decades of Kurdish struggle, Mr Talabani forged close, if fluctuating relations with the Iraqi Arab opposition factions which now dominate Baghdad politics, and also with neighbours such as Iran, Turkey and Syria, and the West.

He masters Arabic and Persian as well as his native Kurdish, and is also fluent in English and French.

Bloody war

Born in the small Kurdish village of Kalkan in 1933, Jalal Talabani made his way in a turbulent and complex world of Kurdish politics that often involved internecine struggles for local power as well as the broader drive for freedom.

Espousing left-leaning ideologies and spurning what they regarded as the conservative tribalism of Mullah Mustafa Barzani, Mr Talabani and his influential future father-in-law, Ibrahim Ahmad, split with the KDP in the 1960s, and set up the PUK as a formal rival in 1975.

The two factions sometimes co-operated and sometimes clashed.

After the Kurds held their first free elections in the north in 1992, under the protection of a Western air umbrella, it was not long before the KDP and the PUK engaged in a bitter, bloody and indecisive war.

Despite continual plans for reunification, they still control separate administrations in separate areas of Iraqi Kurdistan.

But they formed a single electoral list for the Iraqi elections in January, and Mr Barzani supported Mr Talabani's bid for the presidency.

Will he use it as a platform to promote the independence for which, deep in their hearts, all Kurds long?

"I know the Kurdish people want independence, but they understand that it cannot be achieved now," he says. "The Kurdish leadership is realistic, they know it's impossible at this time, so they are struggling for federation within the framework of a democratic Iraq."

For Mr Talabani, becoming president of Iraq crowns more than 50 years of untiring struggle.

But he is not a man to rest on his laurels.

The struggle will go on, focused now on the battle for a constitution that enshrines Kurdish rights to autonomous self-rule in the north as part of a federal Iraq, something he believes is as good for Iraq as it is for the Kurds.