10
November 2006
1. "Turkish parliament passes minority foundations property law", Turkey's parliament on Thursday passed a law allowing properties confiscated by the state to be returned to Christian and Jewish minority foundations, a day after the European Union urged Ankara to do more for non-Muslim minorities.
2. "EU criticises Turkish penal code article under which 65 people have been prosecuted", Reporters Without Borders today welcomed a report on EU enlargement which the European Commission issued yesterday, saying it could help to promote press freedom in Turkey.
3. "Turkey and France in conflict over Armenia", in France, denying the Armenian genocide could lead up to one year in prison and a €45.000 fine.
4. "Turkish complexities confound EU", the European Commission's annual report on Turkey's progress towards EU membership, released earlier this week, has criticised Ankara's pace of reforms, but has not brought to light new challenges since accession talks began in October 2005.
5. "Turkish bid exposes EU rifts", few issues divide the Europeans as much as Turkey.
6. "Iraq's Kurds press their claim on Kirkuk", as leaders insist on control of the oil-rich city, regional peace hangs in the balance.
1. - AP - "Turkish parliament passes minority foundations property law":
ANKARA / 10 November 2006
Turkey's parliament on Thursday passed a law allowing properties confiscated by the state to be returned to Christian and Jewish minority foundations, a day after the European Union urged Ankara to do more for non-Muslim minorities.
The law would allow foundations to reacquire confiscated properties, but it was not clear if they would be allowed to reclaim property that has since been sold to other people.
It also allows foundation to reclaim properties registered under the names of saints. A committee will be established to decide which properties should be returned. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer must approve the reform before it takes effect.
Turkey's reluctance to concede to demands of non-Muslim minorities stems from a deep mistrust many here feel toward Greece, Turkey's historical regional rival.
Turkey seized some properties owned by minority foundations in 1974 following years of ethnic clashes in Cyprus which led to the invasion of the island by Turkey following an abortive coup by supporters of union with Greece the same year.
At the time, a Turkish court ruled that the foundations had no right to acquire property that they had not declared in 1936 when they were asked to specify their sources of income.
The amendments however, fell short of minorities' expectations and does not address some types of confiscated properties, such as cemeteries or minority school properties — which are not foundations.
On Wednesday, the European Commission in a progress report said the pace of political reforms has slowed, criticizing Ankara's human rights record on torture and freedom of expression. The commission threatened to suspend Turkey's entry negotiations unless Turkey opened its ports and airports to EU-member Cyprus by mid-December.
On minority rights, the parliament recently ratified a motion giving more administrative rights to minority schools, but removed a passage that would have allowed foreign students to attend these schools — but avoided addressing the possible reopening of a Greek Orthodox theology school shut down 35 years ago.
Turkey has been resisting pressure from the EU to reopen the Halki Theological School on Heybeliada Island near Istanbul, which was closed to new students in 1971 under a law that put religious and military training under state control.
The seminary trained generations of Greek Orthodox leaders including the current Patriarch Bartholomew I, a divisive figure in Turkey, which does not recognize his international role and rejects his use of the title "ecumenical," or universal, arguing instead that the patriarch is merely the spiritual leader of Istanbul's dwindling Orthodox community.
The seminary remained open until 1985, when the last five students graduated.
The Orthodox school issue is likely to attract attention when Pope Benedict XVI meets Bartholomew in Istanbul during a visit to Turkey later this month.
The patriarchate in Istanbul dates from the 1,100-year-old
Orthodox Greek Byzantine Empire, which collapsed when Muslim Ottoman
Turks conquered Constantinople, today's Istanbul, in 1453. 
2. - RFS - "EU criticises Turkish penal code article under which 65 people have been prosecuted":
PARIS / 9 November 2006
Reporters Without Borders today welcomed a report on EU enlargement which the European Commission issued yesterday, saying it could help to promote press freedom in Turkey. While conditioning further membership talks on Turkey’s respecting all of its commitments on Cyprus, the report clearly says in point 11 that “significant further efforts are needed, in particular on freedom of expression.”
Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code, which penalises “humiliating Turkishness, the republic, and the organs and institutions of the state,” is specifically mentioned in the report. The conclusions say: “freedom of expression in line with European standards is not yet guaranteed by the present legal framework (...) Article 301 and other provisions of the Turkish penal code that restrict freedom of expression need to be brought in line with the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).”
Reporters Without Borders said: “We can only endorse these conclusions, as article 301 allows the law to be used to control the activity of the media. The proof is in the fact that 65 people, including many journalists and writers, have been prosecuted in Turkey since it took effect on 1 June 2005. Turkey’s laws must meet European standards as regards basic freedoms such as freedom of expression.”
The trials of several intellectuals - novelists Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak, the journalist of Armenian origin Hrant Dink, and five columnists with the leading dailies Milliyet and Radikal (Erol Katircioglu, Murat Belge, Haluk Sahin, Hasan Cemal and Smet Berkan ) - gave rise to scenes of violence between their supporters and the supporters of the Leading Lawyers Union, the ultra-nationalist group that brought the complaints against Pakuk and Shafak.
Not only do the Turkish courts interpret article 301 in the most draconian manner, but they also fail to apply section 4 of the article, which stipulates that “expression of thought in the form of criticism cannot be penalised.”
The Turkish government and society are split on this issue. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party did not heed the criticism and warnings coming from press freedom groups and civil society for the past two years.
Erdogan finally took a position on the issue in the run-up to the publication of the EU report and after the protests about Shafak’s trial and the award of the Nobel literature prize to Pamuk. He met with representatives of trade unions and medical associations, including the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers Unions (Disk) and the Turkish Confederation of Employers Unions (Tisk), on 5 November in Istanbul to discuss the possibility of amending 301.
After the meeting, he said he was ready to receive proposals designed to make the article more concrete “if problems exist due to the fact that it is abstract.” He added that, “we will look at options in line with the spirt of the reforms in the article 301 framework.”
This pleased EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn of Finland. He said he was “satisfied by Erdogan’s personal commitment to freedom of expression and his country’s participation in the EU,” adding that, “we are waiting for this intention to be supported by concrete steps and for concrete decisions to be taken.”
Several journalists who have been convicted say they will petition the European Court of Human Rights accusing Turkey of violating article 10 of the convention. They include Dink, the publisher of the Armenian weekly Agos, who was given a suspended sentence of six months in prison on 7 October 2005 for a series of articles entitled “Armenian Identity.” They also Burak Bekdil, a columnist for the English-language Turkish Daily News, who received a 20-month suspended sentence (upheld by the highest appeal court in October 2005) for a column about the lack of confidence of Turkish citizens in their judicial system.
Lawyer Eren Keskin, the former president of the Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD), meanwhile faces prison for refusing to pay a fine of about 3,300 euros for comments she made in Cologne in 2002, accusing the Turkish security forces of several cases of rape in the mainly Kurdish area of southeast Anatolia. “I will not buy my freedom by paying this fine,” she has said.
Entitled “Humiliation of Turkishness, the republic,
and the organs and institutions of the state,” article 301 of the
penal code makes “humiliating the government and judicial organs
of the state or the police or military structures” punishable by
six months to three years in prison.
3. - cafe babel - "Turkey and France in conflict over Armenia":
In France, denying the Armenian genocide could lead up to one year in prison and a €45.000 fine
10 November 2006
The recent award of the Nobel Literature Prize to Orhan Pamuk, and the new law passed by the French national assembly making denial of the Armenian genocide a crime, have brought this historical event back into the limelight. The Turkish government is still recovering from the shock. Their talk of imposing economic sanctions on French companies does seem very European. They also warned that political relations with Paris threaten to deteriorate if “hostilities do not cease”.
In Turkey, acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide is a crime that can lead to prison sentences, severe economic penalties, and ostracism from Turkish society. In a recent interview, a journalist from Turkish Daily News said that “many intellectuals and communicators are still afraid to speak openly about these matters in Turkey”. Some journalists and writers have been prosecuted, whilst extreme right-wing groups have attacked, and even killed, a number of journalists, lawyers and activists dedicated to freedom of expression and to the promotion of human rights in Turkey. Many violent attacks have never been investigated and violent groups enjoy relative impunity thanks to their links with security forces.
European values
There is much talk about Turkey’s ‘European-ness’ and need to adapt to the pace set by Brussels for its accession to the European Union. If only the government in Ankara had the moral conscience post-war Germany had, they would recognise facts which have been documented and acknowledged by historians. Just as it is a crime to deny the Holocaust in many countries, playing down or denying the Armenian Genocide is an absolute absurdity in our world today.
It is estimated that between 1915 and 1921 around 2 million Armenians died at the hands of the Turkish security forces and army. The Armenians, like the Jews after them, were accused by the Turks of being in league with those who wanted to see Turkey destroyed. They were accused of being "Russian agents" and paid for this with their lives.
European leaders need to be more courageous and emphatic when defending Europe’s democratic values in Ankara, because it is these principles which are at the heart of the European project. Without values or moral principles to ensure the defence of democracy, there is not, and neither can there be, a unified Europe. The economic advantages which the enormous Turkish market presents for Europe should not be the only factor determining their attitude towards Turkey.
To deny the Armenian Genocide, a tragedy recorded by many
Europeans such as the philosopher Antonio Gramsci or the historian Arnold
Toynbee, would be a return to the “radical evil” postulated
by another European thinker, Hannah Arendt, in her early writings. This
"forgetting" is the result of a reflexive, voluntary and entirely
purposeful attempt to erase all traces of the truth.
4. - Aljazeera - "Turkish complexities confound EU":
10 November 2006 / by Jody Sabral
The European Commission's annual report on Turkey's progress towards EU membership, released earlier this week, has criticised Ankara's pace of reforms, but has not brought to light new challenges since accession talks began in October 2005.
This is the view of Ali Yurttagul, a member of the European parliament and expert on asylum and immigration to Turkey.
"In 2004, the EU's report on Turkey, which wasn't really a progress report in the same sense, was very positive. The main message of this new report is the slowdown in pace of implementation, a stagnation if you will," Yurttagul said.
The 2006 report said that the Turkish Grand National Assembly adopted 148 laws of a total 429 draft bills submitted since October 2005.
Ibrahim Gunel, a columnist at the Turkish daily Radikal, believes the EU has very high expectations of Ankara, but does not really comprehend its complexities.
He explains that Turkey's majority Muslim composition and its secular democracy make it a unique country.
The report also described the prosecutions and convictions
for the expression of non-violent opinion as "a cause for serious
concern".
The case of Hrant Dink, a journalist who has openly written about Armenian
identity, is one example from a list of hundreds of writers, publishers,
academics, journalists and human rights activists who have been prosecuted
under article 301 of the new penal code.
Charged with insulting Turkish identity for writing a series of articles on the Armenian genocide, the article allowed a court to hand Dink down a six-month suspended prison sentence on October 7.
The Turkish government has always rejected Armenian demands that the loss of two million lives under the Ottoman empire can be described as genocide.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has since said that the government might consider amending article 301.
"We are open to concrete proposals that will make clear the line between the crimes stipulated under article 301 and the right to criticism," he said in a speech to the public.
Erdogan gave no indication as to when article 301 would be taken up in parliament, only that the "opposition" was behind the move.
He did indicate, however, that it would take time as "a change in mentality [among the judiciary] is needed to do that because it's the job of people to implement laws. It's a process that takes time".
In response to this new approach to freedom of speech in Turkey, Yurttagul said: "The commission has noted that Ankara is willing to modify article 301, and it is appreciated, but it wants to see concrete steps. We don't know in which direction it will be modified yet."
The report, while crediting Turkey for reform in the area of civil-military relations, also said that overall "limited progress" had been made in aligning civil-military relations with EU practices.
To understand Turkey's relationship with the military is to understand the very foundations of the modern republic. Turkey is a 99.8% per cent Muslim country, but operates as a secular state with religion kept strictly out of politics.
This foundation was first laid in 1923 when the republic was established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a military man with democratic principles.
Turkish women were given the right to vote two years before their British counterparts in 1926 under Ataturk's governance.
The military is therefore seen as a beacon of democracy and secularism, which safeguards the republic from becoming a theocracy like Iran. Any attack on the military is, unsurprisingly, seen as an attack on these principles.
Hasan Unal, a scholar at Bilkent University in Ankara, said: "EU countries don't understand how important the military is in Turkey. The republic was set up by it. The military is the most modern and progressive part of the Turkish regime."
Many Turks are concerned that if the military were to
lose more power, particularly to the Islamist-leaning ruling Justice
and Development party (AKP), the secular lifestyle they enjoy could
be under threat.
These concerns were highlighted when the education ministry took over
four years ago from the ministry of religious affairs the responsibility
of overseeing all religious textbooks for elementary and high schools
nationwide.
Stuck on Cyprus
But the most contentious issue may lie outside Turkey's borders.
The 2006 report issued earlier also set a deadline for Turkey to open its ports to Greek Cypriot ships and flights by mid-December or face consequences.
Most Turks are tired of hearing about the Cyprus issue as they believe that it is just a sticking point that the EU uses to frustrate Turkey's struggle to be accepted.
This is especially true since Turkish Cypriots voted "yes" in 2004 to a plan by Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, to bring about reunification to the divided island.
Greek Cypriots, by contrast, voted "no".
In response, the Turkish government said that "the Cyprus question is a political question and is not an obligation in the context of our accession process".
Erdogan dismissed the possible collapse of the talks because of the Cyprus impasse, but acknowledged that some "chapters" might be held back.
Analysts believe that it might be a stumbling block, but that Erdogan has no cards left to play on the issue.
"Erdogan has hit a wall on Cyprus, he cannot make more concessions. After voting 'yes' to the Annan plan, there is nowhere to go. Europe has to give Turkey something in return," Unal said.
However, Gunel disagrees on this point. He believes the Cyprus issue could be solved by a change of leadership.
"Turkey accepted the Annan plan, but the Greek Cypriot president Tassos Papadopulous rejected it. If Papadopulous was to fall from power, the problem could be solved."
Gunel said the stalemate had become more entrenched after the EU failed to keep its promise to end the economic isolation of northern Cyprus.
"According to the Nice Convention [one of the founding principles of the EU], Cyprus should not even really be a member of the EU as it quite clearly states if a country has a border problem it can not be accepted as an EU member," he said.
The southern part of the island, which is governed by Greece, joined the EU in May 2004.
For now, Turks will have to wait for the outcome of the
December talks in which 25 European leaders will discuss their EU path
before anything more can be said about accession.
5. - BBC - "Turkish bid exposes EU rifts":
Few issues divide the Europeans as much as Turkey.
BRUSSELS / 10 November 2006 / by Oana Lungescu
Divisions are becoming ever more apparent as the European Union nears the moment of truth in relations with its biggest and poorest applicant country, which also happens to be Muslim.
For EU leaders meeting in Brussels on December 14-15, the question will be how to punish Turkey if it fails to open its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus. Turkey's promise to do so allowed it to open EU membership talks a year ago.
This week, several European commissioners pushed for the consequences to be spelled out in the Commission's progress report on Turkey.
According to officials, they were Markos Kyprianou of Cyprus, Stavros Dimas of Greece and Jacques Barrot of France.
Others - like Viviane Reding of Luxembourg, Louis Michel of Belgium and Jan Figel of Slovakia - raised serious concerns about the cost of integrating Turkey and the human rights situation.
Turkey's strongest advocates were Peter Mandelson of the UK and Charlie McCreevy of Ireland.
Germany's Guenter Verheugen even argued that Turkey should be treated as a special case.
That is hardly the official German line, but as a former enlargement commissioner, Mr Verheugen was bitterly disappointed when the Greek Cypriots rejected a UN plan that would have led to the reunification of the island in 2004, just days before Cyprus was welcomed into the EU.
Tough talking
In the end, the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, decided to give diplomacy one more chance, delaying a formal recommendation by five weeks.
Why should we act suddenly, like an elephant in a china shop, asked Olli Rehn, the current enlargement commissioner. Instead, Mr Rehn, who is from Finland, asked everyone to back Finnish diplomatic efforts to achieve a breakthrough.
Finland holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of the year, but Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja also has a personal stake in the long-running Cyprus dispute. His father Sakari was the UN envoy to the island when fighting between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities broke out in 1963.
More than 40 years later, Mr Tuomioja junior puts the chances of a deal at 50/50.
But, with key elections next year, the Turkish government has given no indication it will budge on the sensitive issue of Cyprus.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged there could be a "period of stagnation" in ties with the EU, but ruled out the possibility of accession talks collapsing.
"It's five minutes to midnight and Turkey is pursuing a risky strategy," says Camiel Eurlings, a Dutch conservative member of the European Parliament who monitors Turkey's progress.
Cyprus holds key
If Ankara does not make a gesture over Cyprus, even Turkey's friends agree there must be consequences.
"Turkey must implement its obligation to all EU member states. If it fails to do so, the EU must act," said Britain's Minister for Europe, Geoff Hoon.
To preserve the EU's credibility, Britain would probably back a limited freeze on only three or four policy areas in the membership talks - known as chapters - directly linked to transport and trade.
Other countries, like Sweden and Italy, argue EU rules must be respected, but would rather focus the debate away from Cyprus and more on the need for Turkey to speed up political reforms.
At the other end of the spectrum, Cyprus is calling for a freeze of all membership talks. It is a view supported by politicians in France, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, the countries where most people want to keep Turkey out of the EU.
In one of the toughest statements so far, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the EU should rethink its timetable for Turkey's entry bid if it refuses to comply by December.
Germans divided
In Germany, which will take over the EU presidency in less than two months, the splits go right through the ruling coalition.
The Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber, leader of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), called for a total suspension of talks with Turkey, which he said was not a European country anyway.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who heads the main Christian Democratic Union (CDU) conservative party, dismissed Mr Stoiber's comments, but insisted there could not be "business as usual" if Turkey failed to keep its promise to lift restrictions on Cyprus.
In opposition, Ms Merkel advocated a "privileged partnership" for Turkey, like Mr Stoiber. In power, she remains more critical of Turkey than her foreign minister, the Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
"Some in Europe want to bring about a failure of Turkish negotiations through their rhetoric," Mr Steinmeier said, "this only strengthens the view in Turkey that they are not welcome in the EU - we need to fight against this impression."
Dream turning sour
EU leaders will have to reach a unanimous decision on Turkey, like on any other important matter.
One compromise solution could involve freezing talks on up to ten chapters.
But common ground is hard to find.
"My biggest fear," says MEP Camiel Eurlings, "is that there won't be unanimity. The difference between the positions of Cyprus and the UK is so huge that quite a big minority of countries could use the split to effectively cripple negotiations or bring them to a halt."
At first, that may not make much difference. Using its rights as an EU member, Cyprus has already been blocking technical talks for weeks.
"What we have is already a suspension," says a diplomat close to the negotiations. "We already have a crisis. The atmosphere has never been so bad in any membership talks."
For months, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has been warning Turkey of a "train crash".
But the membership train may already be on a dangerous course. If it goes off the tracks in December, MEP Camiel Eurlings fears relations between Turkey and Europe could suffer unpredictable damage.
"Does anybody think how difficult it would be to
get the train back on track," Mr Eurlings asks, "with a Europe
increasingly worried about enlargement and a Turkey which is becoming
increasingly nationalistic?"
6. - Chicago Tribune - "Iraq's Kurds press their claim on Kirkuk":
As leaders insist on control of the oil-rich city, regional peace hangs in the balance.
IRBIL / 10 November 2006 / By Aamer Madhani
The skyline in this northern Iraqi boomtown is a mosaic of half-built concrete retail centers, sparkling new hotels and giant earthmovers and cranes working overtime. The cafe-lined streets buzz late into the night.
While in much of Iraq, coalition troops never leave their secure bases without donning bullet-proof vests and helmets, the few U.S. troops stationed in Irbil travel through the city wearing camouflage baseball caps. Instead of staring resentfully, Kurdish motorists honk their horns and smile as the Americans drive by.
The calm here is part of a separate peace forged by Kurds in the three northern provinces known as Kurdistan since the start of the Iraq war--only that peace soon may be in peril.
In coming months, Kurdish leaders will begin the process of laying their historic claim to the region's oil-producing center, the contested city of Kirkuk, thereby opening the door to a dispute with Arab and other Iraqis that potentially could immerse the Kurdish enclave in the kind of violence gripping the rest of the country.
The dispute could be one more headache facing the Bush administration and U.S. military commanders as they explore alternatives to their Iraq strategy in response to voters' clear demand for changes at the polls Tuesday.
A line in the sand
Kurdish leaders say the constitutional annexation and repatriation of Kirkuk is non-negotiable and necessary to rectify Saddam Hussein's policy of forced migration of Kurds, who for years were uprooted from their homes in the Kirkuk area and replaced by Arabs.
The leaders acknowledge their move on Kirkuk could have a destabilizing effect, at least in the short term. But for the Kurds, there is no bigger prize than the dusty city that sits atop billions of barrels of oil.
"There are many questions we face, but the only real question is that of Kirkuk," said Sadi Ahmed Pire, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's politburo in Irbil. "Kirkuk can be solved two ways: We can discuss it with the neighboring countries and Iraqi communities and solve the situation politically or we can solve it militarily. We hope to solve it peacefully, but this is an issue that cannot wait. It will be resolved."
Since the fall of the former regime, Kirkuk has been a flash point of ethnic strife, with fighting between the city's Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens, all of whom claim to be the predominant group in the city with ancestral ties to the land.
Thousands of Kurds who say they were displaced from the area during Hussein's regime have been living in a soccer stadium and other refugee camps around the city since soon after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and are awaiting repatriation.
The three-step plan for normalizing the situation in Kirkuk starts with bringing the predominantly Kurdish villages and towns that were administratively detached from the city under Hussein's regime back into the fold by March 29, according to the timeline set in the Iraqi Constitution.
The constitution also calls for a new census of the area to be completed by July 15 and for the people of Kirkuk to hold a referendum on whether they should join Kurdistan by the end of 2007. The Kurds also must negotiate an understanding with neighboring Turkey, which believes any move toward Kurdish independence will stoke unrest among the millions of Kurds in Turkey. Iran and Syria also have Kurdish minorities.
`Two separate countries'
Further complicating matters, Kurdish leaders say they might find themselves in a delicate position if the intractable violence pitting Shiites against Sunnis elsewhere in Iraq devolves into full-scale civil war.
"We've been living in what feels like two separate countries, because we are so separated from the violence in the south," said Mowloud Murat, a top political adviser with the Kurdistan Islamic Union. "If there was a civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis in the south . . . the Kurdish leaders would have no choice but to separate us from the rest of Iraq."
The Kurdish north has operated as an autonomous region since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when the U.S. military established a no-fly zone over Kurdistan. Kurdish leaders point out that they had more than a decade head start on the rest of Iraq in practicing democracy, which has contributed to relative stability in Kurdistan.
For the Kurds, the U.S.-led invasion was a risky venture because it rejoined the country's fate with Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Arab population. The Kurds ultimately were willing partners in the invasion but demanded that federalism and the return of Kirkuk would be core points enshrined in the Iraqi Constitution.
Pire and other Kurdish leaders see Kirkuk as an indisputable red line. The city, which is home to large populations of Arabs and Turkmens, is considered by Kurds the "heartbeat" of greater Kurdistan. It is the economic nucleus that makes the region, and perhaps an eventual Kurdish state, viable.
Kurds and U.S. officials blame the forced migration of Kurds, known as Arabization, on the former regime, but the policy of Arabizing the city and surrounding area goes back to the early days of Iraq.
Kamal Kirkukli, the deputy speaker of the Kurdish Regional Government, spends most of his days in an office that his Kurdistan Democratic Party has set up in Irbil to research the cases of families who were expelled from Kirkuk. The office is filled with hundreds of boxes of documentary evidence.
Kirkukli said that it is possible many young Arab men and women, who were born in Kirkuk on land their parents illegally gained, will be forced to leave the only homes they have known. While Kirkukli said the situation for some Arabs is difficult and not their fault, it is necessary that they move.
"What is built on a wrong remains a wrong," Kirkukli said.
Alaa Talabani, a Kurdish parliamentarian whose family was expelled from Kirkuk in 1991, said she fears that carrying out repatriation of Kirkuk too quickly could do more harm than good for the Kurdish refugees in the city.
In the short term, Kurdish leaders know they must remain tied to Iraq, while keeping focused on their long-term goal to establish an independent state, said Talabani, who returned to Kirkuk in 2003. To achieve the goal, she said, Kurds must help bring stability to the rest of Iraq and improve relationships with Turkey, Syria and Iran.
"It is too soon to deal with Kirkuk," said Talabani, who is the niece of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. "Maybe in a year or two, we can let the people of Kirkuk decide their fate."
Pulling apart
In ways both small and large, the Kurds seem to be separating themselves from the rest of Iraq.
Massoud Barzani, who heads the Kurdish Regional Government, in September banned the flying of the Iraqi flag in the Kurdish region. The Iraqi national government and Kurdish Regional Government also have quarreled over who has the right to negotiate with foreign companies vying for oil exploration in Kurdistan after a Danish oil company discovered oil near the northeastern town of Zakho.
Iraq's oil minister argued that oil is a national resource and revenues from the new Zakho find have to be shared with all of Iraq. Kurdish leaders contend the constitution calls only for the sharing of oil revenues from existing oil reserves and newly found oil is the property of the region where it is found.
While the security situation in much of Iraq has stifled foreign investment, hundreds of foreign outfits--from Turkish construction companies to a German bierhaus--have set up in Kurdistan. Although there has been economic growth, some businessmen complain Kurdistan is ultimately hampered by the security situation elsewhere in the country.
On a cool night in Irbil recently, hundreds of shoppers roamed the aisles of Ahmed Rekhani's $20 million venture, the New City Mall, while others loitered in the parking lot to stare at a pristine white Hummer that had pulled in.
The mall, which opened three weeks ago, is more of a one-stop retail center where you can purchase food, clothes and electronics. It sits on 23,000 square yards of land and includes a Turkish restaurant with a staff imported from eastern Turkey and a motel for out-of-town shoppers.
Sitting in his second-floor office, Rekhani nervously fingered a stack of invoices and explained to a visitor that he has sunk his fortune into a project that is risky at best.
"There is no one to insure us, no banks to give us loans," he said. "The security situation in much of the country is very dangerous. And while it is peaceful here, the dangers elsewhere in Iraq can easily affect us, and things could change quickly."
Anis Sandi, an Egyptian general manager that Rekhani recruited to help run the project, was more blunt about the situation:
"It's like we've built this whole thing on sand."