23 October 2006

1. "Turkey's Kurds voice loyalty to jailed rebel leader", more than three million Turkish Kurds have signed a declaration proclaiming loyalty to jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, whom Ankara sees as the country's "number one terrorist", activists said Friday.

2. "DTP: All NGOs Should Work For Lasting Peace", pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party calls on all labor, employer organizations and NGOs to take "bold and determined steps" for the PKK cease-fire to be lasting. Says problem should be solved through internal dynamics and all weapons need to be silenced.

3. "Child Death Probe Team' Investigated", public prosecutor launches investigation into rights advocates investigating the suspected killing of a girl by security. Among the 'suspects' is Bar Association chair Ozevin who says the enquiry is "repressive and an attempt to block rights activists".

4. "Turkey's post-modern identity crisis", three apparently unconnected events last week brought to the fore Turkey's crisis of identity and highlighted the tortuous path of the country's bid for European Union membership.

5. "Cyprus not seeking to derail Turkey EU bid", the president of Cyprus said yesterday he was not seeking to derail Turkey’s European Union accession as long as Ankara upheld its EU obligations by opening its ports to Cypriot traffic.

6. "Dividing Iraq and Creating a Kurdish State", previously in his interview with Paul Gigot in the Wall Street Journal President Bush said to partition Iraq would be "a mistake." Bush went on to say "the Iraqi people are going to have to make that decision."

1. - AFP - "Turkey's Kurds voice loyalty to jailed rebel leader":

ANKARA / 20 October 2006

More than three million Turkish Kurds have signed a declaration proclaiming loyalty to jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, whom Ankara sees as the country's "number one terrorist", activists said Friday.

The text of the declaration reads: "As a Kurdistani, I consider and embrace Abdullah Ocalan as a political entity in Kurdistan."

Ocalan is the founder and leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has fought a bloody 22-year campaign for self-rule in the predominantly Kurdish southeast.

He has been serving a life sentence for treason and separatism since 1999 on the prison island of Imrali, in the Marmara Sea, of which he is the only inmate.

"Despite the hard conditions he is living in, Ocalan has, in the past seven years, made many proposals for a democratic solution to the Kurdish problem, including his latest call for a ceasefire," a statement by organizers and supporters of the signature campaign said.

Heeding an appeal by Ocalan, the PKK, which had notably stepped up violence this year, announced a unilateral truce on October 1.

"Ocalan made a determining contribution to the current climate of peace," the statement said. "In this context, we believe the authorities will make a correct evaluation of the results of this signature campaign."

The statement was read out by one of Ocalan's lawyers, Irfan Dundar, at a news conference here that was also attended by leading Kurdish politicians.

The results of the signature campaign will be sent to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc, Dundar said, adding that none of the three leaders had responded to their requests for an appointment.

Despite calls by Ankara that they should distance themselves from the PKK, Kurdish politicians often praise Ocalan and many call for his release.

The government has categorically ruled out the PKK as an interlocutor in efforts to resolve the Kurdish conflict and brushed aside suggestions for a general amnesty for the rebels as a means of encouraging them to surrender.

The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms in 1984.

2. - Bianet - "DTP: All NGOs Should Work For Lasting Peace":

Pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party calls on all labor, employer organizations and NGOs to take "bold and determined steps" for the PKK cease-fire to be lasting. Says problem should be solved through internal dynamics and all weapons need to be silenced.

ANKARA / 21 October 2006

Turkey's pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) has issued a statement appealing to all labor, employer and civilian society organizations in the country to take a "bold and determined stance" to ensure an October 1 unilateral cease-fire declared by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) turns into lasting peace.

The statement issued by the DTP headquarters on Thursday asked for NGOs in the country to approach the issue with sensitivity and encouraged for opinions and views on the cease-fire and current conditions to be relayed to the party.

"A cease-fire is not yet peace but it is an important opportunity in that direction" the statement said. "In order for the problem to be discussed, all weapons need to be silenced".

Stressing that the DTP was in favor of the Kurdish problem to be solved through internal dynamics, the statement added:

"We, those on the side of peace who for a long time have wanted the war to come to an end, are face-to-face with the responsibility of developing this process. In order for not a single one of our people to lose their life, our people should not be at each other's throats but we should know how to take bold and determined steps to construct in brotherhood the future of a honorable, free and equal Turkish-Kurdish unity".

Recognizing that in the 1999-2004 period of cease-fire some reforms and economic developments had taken place, the DTP said there was the threat of an internal conflict in the country and stressed it was vehemently important for the future of the people "to eliminate the environment of conflict and violence and create social peace".

3. - Bianet - "Child Death Probe Team' Investigated":

Public prosecutor launches investigation into rights advocates investigating the suspected killing of a girl by security. Among the 'suspects' is Bar Association chair Ozevin who says the enquiry is "repressive and an attempt to block rights activists".

BATMAN / 21 October 2006 / by Kemal Ozmen

The Public Prosecutor's Office of Batman on Thursday launched an investigation into five human rights activists who have been investigating the September 5 killing of an 11-year-old girl in the province by gunfire allegedly opened by security forces.

The prosecution is also investigation the Batman Cagdas and Batman Postasi newspapers that printed the team's findings.

Mizgin Ozbek was killed in gunfire at a security roadblock in the province while in a car and her mother was wounded in the incident. While security forces said they opened fire on two armed passengers in the car, who the family had picked up as hitchhikers, a human rights probe into the incident concluded on the use of excessive force disregarding human rights.

All five members of the Association for Human Rights and Solidarity with the Oppressed (MAZLUMDER) who conducted the investigation into Ozbek's killing are now being investigated for violation of three laws after the Batman Gendarme Provincial Command filed criminal complaints.

The group may be charged under penal code article 285 for "violating the secrecy of an investigation, article 288 for "influencing a fair trial" and controversial article 301/2 for "denigrating the military or police establishment".

Ozevin: This is repression

Batman Bar Association Chairman and attorney Sedat Ozevin who was part of the five investigating the child's death said the prosecution's probe was an attempt to repress human rights activists and to prevent them

"Is articles 285 and 288 of the penal code are interpreted this way" he warned, "no rights activist can make any statements on any violation of rights."

"Rights violations such as extra judicial killings and torture under detention are incidents that need to be investigated under law. When it is seen this way a conclusion can be reached that rights activists should not speak about such incidents or issue statements which is a very dangerous situation," Ozevin said.

The Bar Association Chairman noted that because of a prosecutor's decision of secrecy the file on the incident could not be examined by the team, adding that he could not make out how they could have violated any secrecy having not even seen the file.

"An investigation should not have been launched" he said. "We expect it to result with a dismissal of proceedings. What the prosecutor's office should do is to investigate whether excessive force was used in the death of Mizgin".

Ozevin noted that as part of the enquiry members of the investigation team had been interviewed by the prosecutor.

"Right to life may have been violated"

The delegation investigating Mizgin's death issued a report containing its findings which said her right to life might have been neglected in the incident while two suspects killed in the same care could have likely been apprehended alive by security forces.

The fact-finding mission announced that all findings suggested that the incident, which left Mizgin dead and her mother Saniye, and elder brother Hadi wounded, showed necessary care was not shown in protecting their right to life.

According to the report prepared by the delegation many of the findings contradict the initial official statement that a clash took place in a rural zone of the Taslidere village of Batman's Kozluk district when two suspects opened fire on security forces at a roadblock on the road with long range weapons.

During the clash, the official statement had claimed, Mizgin Ozbek who was in a car was killed and her other Samiye was wounded and later taken to the Batman State Hospital. The two "terrorists" meanwhile, were killed and their weapons alongside 2 kilogram of C-4 explosives were confiscated.

Fact-finding Report

The fact-finding report into Mizgin's death warned that the recently passed Anti-Terror Law article authorizing security forces to open fire on anyone without warning them to stop will lead to disproportional use of force and bring together with it abuse of authority.

It called on authorities to investigate whether there was a neglect or carelessness in the killing of an 11-year-old child and finalize this investigation as soon as possible and listed its own findings as:

* Investigation at the scene of incident showed that because the scene itself was a very narrow and closed stream, because there was no possibility for those involved to have escaped, there is a strong possibility that they could have been apprehended alive.

* At the scene of incident a large number of foreign origin empty cartridges belonging to long-range weapons were found. In official statements that appeared in the press, it was claimed the "militants had thrown bombs". Nothing was found to support this.

* It is understood from his own statements that Hadi Ozbek who was driving the car during the incident was subjected to verbal and physical insults and torture.

* The dragging of Mizgin's dead body after the clash by holding her by the hair in front of her older brother has deeply effected her brother and when he was telling our delegation about the incident, he was having difficulties because he cried.

* According to witness Hadi Ozbek's statements, the bodies of the two armed organization members who were killed were dragged for a while before they were sprayed with bullets again. Batman Governor Haluk Imga, on the other hand, said officials told him such an incident never took place. This issue will be understood more clearly when the post-mortem report is examined.

* A confiscation order issued for the vehicle used by Hadi Ozbek had prevented any examination of the vehicle. According to information received from the outside, the Kozluk Public Prosecutor's Office has not opened a separate investigation into the killing of Mizgin Ozbek but preferred instead to investigate her death in the capacity of the current investigation.

4. - Asia Times - "Turkey's post-modern identity crisis":

21 October 2006 / by M K Bhadrakumar*

Three apparently unconnected events last week brought to the fore Turkey's crisis of identity and highlighted the tortuous path of the country's bid for European Union membership.

The tangled relationship between Turkey and the European Union played out in three separate capitals on October 12. In Stockholm the Swedish Academy announced that Orhan Pamuk became the first Turkish writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In Paris the French parliament approved 106 to 19 legislation

making it a crime to deny that Ottoman Turkey committed genocide against Armenians during and after World War I. The same day, at a solemn ceremony in the Turkish capital of Ankara, some 260 soldiers wearing blue helmets set out for Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission.

Turks have a penchant for conspiracy theories. Many people in Turkey seem to view the choice of Pamuk for the Nobel award at this juncture as part of a Western political agenda to highlight Turkey's human-rights record.

To be sure, people opposed to Turkey's EU membership have used Pamuk to slander Turkey. Pamuk took pains to stress last December when the Turkish authorities were foolish enough to put him on trial for speaking out about the killings of Armenians, that it was "embarrassing" that his trial was "overdramatized" in the West, although his case was "a matter worthy of discussion".

In his article in New Yorker magazine, Pamuk insisted that his drama was not peculiar to Turkey. He said it formed part of a "new global phenomenon" as much visible in China or India. With the rapid expansion of the middle class, "these new elites - the non-Western bourgeoisie or the enriched bureaucracy - feel compelled to follow two separate and seemingly incompatible lines of action in order to legitimize their newly acquired wealth and power.

"First, they must justify the rapid rise in their fortunes by assuming the idiom and the attitudes of the West. Having created a demand for such knowledge, they then take it upon themselves to tutor their countrymen. When the people berate them for ignoring tradition, they respond by brandishing a virulent and intolerant nationalism ... On the one hand, there is rush to join the global economy, on the other, the angry nationalism that sees true democracy and freedom of thought as Western inventions."

Thus, Pamuk concluded, "The intolerance shown by the Russian state toward the Chechens and other minorities and civil rights groups, the attacks on freedom of expression by Hindu nationalists in India, and China's discreet ethnic cleansing of the Uighurs are all nourished by the same contradictions."

Evidently, Turks who are incensed by Pamuk's outspokenness and hasten to question his patriotism, and the Westerners who use Pamuk selectively to debunk Turkey's credentials for EU membership alike do not grasp the point that he has a very large canvass and universality.

Nothing brings home Turkey's identity crisis more starkly than that President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has yet to send a congratulatory note to Pamuk. Actually, Turkey doesn't have to be so sensitive. Nobody today is claiming that Turkey is an intolerant repressive country.

True, the Turkish state is as strong as ever, but, as prominent commentator Mehmet Ali Birand pointed out, "It can't control every aspect of our lives. The NGOs [non-governmental organizations] no longer follow the commands of the state to the letter. They ignore them. When NGOs are up in arms, the state can do almost nothing. Especially if they are willing to confront police, nothing stops them."

What aggravates Turkey's crisis of identity is partly at least the ambivalence in the European mindset vis-a-vis Turkey. In comparison with Turkey's crisis of identity - between Islamism and Westernism, between tradition and secularism, between East and West - the European mindset, too, has a problem.

It has to pretend, being the "civilized world", that it is the inheritor of the Enlightenment and is redolent with discussion over the interlacing of cultures, while in reality it surreptiously harbors primeval passions as ancient as the Crusades.

There is no other way to describe the French parliament's new legislation. The point is that the goalposts are constantly being shifted on Turkey's EU membership. Other national parliaments in Europe may now emulate the French legislation. One more hurdle will then have appeared on Turkey's steeplechase. European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso told CNN on Tuesday, "Political reforms should be continued [in Turkey]; freedom of expression and religious rights should be fully adopted; the Ankara Protocol should be implemented; and, Turkish ports and harbors should be opened to the Greek Cypriots."

But all the same, Turkey's membership process in the EU will "take time", Barroso maintained. In another interview with the BBC over the weekend, Barroso said he was unsure how receptive the EU would be with regard to Turkey's membership in a timeframe of 10-15 years, even if Turkey were to fulfill all the EU criteria.

Right wing French Interior Minister and presidential favorite Nicolas Sarkozy has repeated in recent weeks that before deciding on further enlargement, the EU should first find an answer to the question of who is a European and who is not.

Sarkozy said Turkey deserved no better than "preferential partnership" with the EU - short of the full membership that Bulgaria and Romania were entitled to. The leader of the German Christian Social Union, Markus Soeder, added that Turkey's membership would pressure the EU "from all sides".

Again, following a visit to Paris on September 25, Barroso said the EU's accession talks with Turkey would be "conditional" in so far as the Nice Agreement only envisaged an EU with 27 member countries and "new mechanisms have to be determined for the fourth wave of enlargement to include Turkey".

Thus, in immediate terms, a hectic and stormy season lies ahead in EU-Turkey negotiations. The Turkish parliament appears set within the next week or two to legislate on the so-called ninth EU harmonization package. However, the EU's next progress report on Turkey's accession talks, due to be released on November 8, is bound to contain more negative aspects, including on freedom of expression and human rights and the highly sensitive issue of the opening of Turkish ports and harbors to Greek Cypriots.

Turkish diplomacy will be hard-pressed to navigate a course cutting across the rising tide of nationalist sentiments in the public opinion. A variety of factors - ranging from the EU's double standards, President George W Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", the Iraq war, the Palestine problem, the Kurdistan issue, the cartoon crisis and terrorist attacks in Europe, Pope Benedict XVI's history lessons - have accentuated Turkish nationalism in the recent past.

But within this widening gyre of nationalism, the Turkish elite finds itself divided into two distinct "worlds". On the one hand is the entrenched Kemalist vision of Turkey as an ally of the Western world; of Turkey, while being a majority Muslim society, not being an Islamic state; and at the same time, Turkey being secular and democratic both as a state and society. That is to say, Turkey should be Muslim and secular and democratic as a society, while being only secular and democratic as a state. A complicated thought indeed.

Life could have been simpler. The Indian elite, for instance, shamelessly left behind the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi - without any sense of remorse or atonement. To compound it further, the Kemalist vision tends to assume contradictory tendencies when it comes to Turkey-EU ties. On the one hand, it envisages Turkey with its economy and its large Anatolian middle class integrating with the Western economy and the country itself engaging in a process of integration with the EU. But on the other hand, it resists any perceived attempts of encroachment by supranational organs such as the EU.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), though an Islamist party that is antithetical to Kemalism, is engaged in a delicate process of staging a political maneuver into the vast reservoir of Turkish nationalism. It is a subtle political plan since nationalism is a deviation from Islam. The AKP has already tapped Turkey's limited base of religious electorate. And no potentials of growth for the party exist among the country's liberal opinion, which is devoted to a staunchly secularist outlook.

Much depends on the AKP's ability to poach into the nationalist parties' vote banks and to tap into the 4 million new voters, most of whom are susceptible to nationalist sentiments. The AKP's predatory skills, even under such brilliant leadership, will constitute a fascinating aspect of Turkish politics in the turbulent 12-month period ahead as the Islamist party lurches toward capturing the presidency and thereafter seeking a renewed parliamentary mandate, securing control thereby over the tallest pillars of constitutional rule in the country.

The implications can be profound not only for Turkey but for the entire Middle East. But, would the AKP be able to reconcile such a risky political course with its commitment to the EU accession drive? Two years back, the ideologues of the AKP government used to claim that it was striving to create a balance between freedom and security in Turkey. Broadly, this meant a more liberal democracy, a strengthening of the rule of law and the determined pursuit of EU membership. But in the past year or two, the public mood has changed.

Previously, something like 80% of Turks favored EU membership. The figure has now dropped to below 50%. Doubts, fears and adversarial sentiments have grown. The AKP, too, may come under pressure to begin acting as if it has lost its conviction in the Westernization project. Certainly, a robust kick-start is needed. But the prospect of a highly surcharged election year in Turkey and the EU's own deepening identity crisis following its catastrophic referendum exercise in drafting a constitution preclude this.

The EU could help by merely being seen not acting in a discriminatory fashion toward Turkey and instead taking a fair and equal stance to Turkey as to any other candidate country. The fact remains that the AKP government is keen to maintain the momentum of accession to the EU. As a matter of political expediency alone, AKP visualizes the EU accession (and Turkey's democratization agenda) guaranteeing the incremental advancement of civilian supremacy in Turkey's national life, which in turn ensures for it, as an Islamic party, a level playing field in Turkey's electoral politics.

The AKP, confounding pundits, has chosen to remain cooperative while swallowing many recent indignities from the EU member countries and institutions. It has held out the assurance that if need be, it is prepared to amend the Turkish Penal Code's controversial Article 301 regarding freedom of expression - with or without Pamuk.

Similarly, while strongly voicing its deep resentment over the French parliament's legislation on Armenian massacres, the AKP leadership has signaled that it has no intention to "match filth with filth". Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said, "This will be a great shame for France." Turkish indignation has been extraordinary in its controlled vehemence, its dignified outburst.

Again, Pope Benedict XVI's four-day visit to Turkey is going ahead as scheduled on October 28, despite the public outcry in Turkey over his poor grasp of political Islam. Benedict XVI will only be the third pope to visit Turkey in the history of Christendom. Least of all, the AKP government steered through parliament in Ankara on September 2 its controversial plan for troop deployment in Lebanon in the teeth of opposition from virtually the entire spectrum of domestic political opinion. On October 12, the first Turkish troop detachment departed from Ankara.

The AKP leadership no doubt estimates that among other things, Turkey's cooperation with the US's regional policies in stabilizing the Middle East are linked with its EU accession plans. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a key endorsement from the Bush administration during his visit to Washington on October 2. "It is in the United States' interests that Turkey join the European Union," the White House press release quoted Bush as saying to Erdogan.

* M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

5. - AFP - "Cyprus not seeking to derail Turkey EU bid":

NICOSIA / 22 October 2006

The president of Cyprus said yesterday he was not seeking to derail Turkey’s European Union accession as long as Ankara upheld its EU obligations by opening its ports to Cypriot traffic.

“No country wishes to terminate Turkey’s accession talks,” Tassos Papadopoulos told reporters on returning from an EU summit in Finland.

“Neither does the Cyprus Republic seek a crisis that would stop Turkey’s accession course on the understanding Turkey respects its obligations towards Europe,” he added.

Papadopoulos said the bloc’s 25 members were agreed that a solution needed to be found by the end of the year to avoid a crisis with Turkey but that “no one has a specific proposal on how” to do so.

Finland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, is seeking a compromise deal that will placate both Nicosia and Ankara.

The deal reportedly offers partial access to Turkish ports while opening the northern port of Famagusta under EU supervision with Greek Cypriots being allowed to return to the UN-protected resort town of Varosha.
Papadopoulos has said no proposal would be considered unless it involved the return of the fenced-off area of Varosha to its legal inhabitants.

Cyprus says Finland has yet to officially submit any concrete proposal but has only expressed a “few ideas”.
It is opposed to opening any more chapters in the accession negotiations until the ports issue is resolved.
The EU Commission’s progress report on Turkey’s accession talks is expected on November 8.

Turkey has signed a customs union agreement with the EU extending a trade protocol to the 10 new members, including Cyprus, that joined the bloc in May 2004.

But it refuses to open its air and sea ports to vessels from Cyprus - whose Greek Cypriot government it does not recognise - unless the EU makes good on a promise to break the economic isolation of the divided island’s Turkish Cypriot north.

Turkey says it will not recognise Cyprus until a global solution is found to the island’s three decades of division along ethnic lines.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops seized and occupied its northern third in respon.

6. - Kurdish Aspect - "Dividing Iraq and Creating a Kurdish State":

22 October 2006 / by Ardalan Hardi

Previously in his interview with Paul Gigot in the Wall Street Journal President Bush said to partition Iraq would be "a mistake." Bush went on to say "the Iraqi people are going to have to make that decision."

The current government that rules Iraq as a state exists only in name. The division of – Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni – already has happened. Mistake or not it is very much a reality we have to face. If our goal is to reform the Middle East like President Bush suggests, then we have to accept the will of the people of Iraq and accept the inevitable. Democracy is not forcing people to live together that do not want to.

On Oct. 11 the Iraqi parliament approved a law that will allow Iraq to be carved into a federation of autonomous regions. The bill passed the 275-member parliament by a vote of 141 to 0.

In his last interview on Fox News, President Bush said he would reject any recommendation to partition Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines and that creating semi-autonomous states for Kurds, Shiite and Sunni Muslims would worsen divisions in Iraq. It would seem that Bush is back-tracking from his earlier statement of letting the Iraqi people make their own decision. It is understandable for the president to have reconsidered his earlier comments when it comes to Iraq’s’ future since the U.S. has invested so much money and manpower in freeing Iraq from tyranny. However, to emphatically rule out the partition of Iraq is regrettable.

Staggering violence in Iraq, has now taken 2,791 American lives and according to The Lancet, the British medical journal, 650,000 Iraqi lives have been lost. It is time for a new approach in Iraq.

Many experts agree dividing Iraq is the only way to keep stability in the region and to bring foreign troops home.

Senator Trent Lott, former republican party senate majority leader says “When it comes to curbing Iraq’s sectarian violence, we should remember that Iraq is essentially three peoples — Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites — lumped together long ago by Colonial Britain into the manufactured nation of Iraq. Suppressed by decades of dictatorship, these three peoples still have distinct historical and cultural differences, manifesting themselves again and threatening the stability of the region and the entire world.” He goes on to say “Iraq requires a new plan.”

Peter Galbraith, former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia and author of a new book, The End of Iraq,” says “Iraq has disintegrated into three parts – a pro-Western Kurdistan in the north, an Iranian-dominated Shiite entity in the south, and a chaotic Sunni Arab region in the center.” He goes on to say “There can be no strategy of keeping Iraq together because it is not together.”

U.S. senator Joe Biden says “resolving the problems in Iraq will require separating the various factions there.” He added “the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis need to have their own mostly autonomous regions in Iraq, that reconstruction assistance should be increased to the country and that most U.S. troops should be withdrawn by 2008.” Biden said this plan would be similar to what was done during the mid-1990s in Bosnia.

President Bush’s desire to keep Iraq as a unified country is hopeless and unworkable. The sectarian violence that has plagued Iraq for last few years is not going to go away like Shlomo Avineri, professor of political science at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says “There seems to be no power able to hold Iraq together. Attempts to set up a national unity government, in which all groups will be represented, have failed.” Such attempts will probably fail in the future as well, even if they are papered over by some verbal, worthless face-saving formula.”

"Iraq is going the way of the former Yugoslavia. When ethnic and religious groups are unable and unwilling to live together in a country held together by force and lacking any democratic traditions, disintegration may be the only way out."

"Maybe three separate states in what used to be Iraq have a better chance - as occurred in Yugoslavia - of leading to some stabilization and even democratic development."

"By calling the strife in Iraq "sectarian," observers and policymakers are trying to minimize the deep chasms that divide Iraqi society - like calling the bloody wars between Catholics and Protestants in 17th-century Europe "sectarian." But those were not only about theological disagreements; they were about identity, historical narrative and memory."

"The sooner one realizes their force - and their legitimacy within their respective communities - the sooner illusions about abstract democracy and non-existing unity can be replaced by more realistic policies."

However, President Bush maintains that such a move would increase violence in the region and "create problems for Turkey". On the contrary, many, including some Turkish experts, agree that a Kurdish state would be a beneficial to Turkey’s security. Furthermore, Turkey would rather see a democratic Kurdish state rather than another Islamic fundamentalist regime on its border. Moreover, the Turkish economy is already benefiting from a Kurdish regional government developing economy.

Sedat Laciner, director of the USAK says “Contrary to the general belief, there is no fear of the establishment of a Kurdish state among Turkish public opinion. The premise that a possible Kurdish state in Northern Iraq will threaten Turkey is not a majority view in Turkey. On the contrary, a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq may have some advantages for Turkey.”

This week another Republican from Bush's home state has come to the same conclusion. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas expressed her openness to consider the value of breaking up Iraq.

President Bush did the right thing by getting rid of the dictator Saddam. Now it is time to come to the right conclusion by dividing Iraq and getting our troops out of harms way.

A united Iraq does not exist and never will. Forcing unity in a country that does not want to be unified creates a time bomb that could bring further negative ramifications and greater consequences to the future of U.S. foreign policy. It is false to think that a united Iraq keeps U.S. interests at heart when it only benefits those neighboring countries that lack democracy in their own states and are fearful that a true democratic Kurdish state might coerce them to change their ways. By dividing Iraq, at least we will gain the Kurdish nation as an ally in a region where true friends are hard to come by. We might even gain some influence from the Shiite’s in the south.

Like former senator Trent Lott says “I’d rather have 50 percent of something than 100 percent of nothing.”