14 December 2001

1. „Turkey to drill for oil in Iraq under UN approval“, planned oil drilling in Iraq by Turkey's state petroleum company (TPAO) has been approved both by the United Nations and Baghdad, officials said on Friday.

2. “European court to hear appeal over ban on Turkish Muslim party“, the European Court of Human Rights on Thursday decided to submit an appeal over the banning of an Islamic political party in Turkey to a special Grand Chamber council, a lawyer for the party said Thursday.

3. "European anti-torture body criticizes Turkey over prison riots”, the Council of Europe's anti-torture commission Thursday strongly criticized a crackdown last year by Turkish authorities on prison riots, which left dozens of inmates dead.

4. „Turkey's women get right to wear trousers”, women working in state offices in Turkey have won the right to wear trousers at work after a nationwide protest last week, newspapers reported Thursday.

5. “Washington still wrestling with dilemma over Iraq”, when a US delegation arrived in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq this week, speculation mounted that the Bush administration may be preparing for the second phase of the anti-terror campaign.

6. „Unity will be useful for everybody”, the conference organized by KNK to determine the strategy of Kurds for the 21. century commences today (yesterday).


1. – AFP – „Turkey to drill for oil in Iraq under UN approval“:

ANKARA

Planned oil drilling in Iraq by Turkey's state petroleum company (TPAO) has been approved both by the United Nations and Baghdad, officials said on Friday. A TPAO subsidiary has won a tender to open 20 wells, held by the Iraqi oil ministry within the framework of UN programs, TPAO director-general Kenan Veziroglu said in a written statement.

A contract between the two sides was signed in October 2000 and was approved by the UN in October this year. The project is to start within three months after Iraq completes several procedures required under UN sanctions imposed on the country after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Veziroglu said. Contrary to earlier press reports that the wells would be opened in northern Iraq, a Kurdish enclave outside Baghdad's control since the Gulf War, Veziroglu said the project would be carried out in an area under Baghdad's authority -- the Khurmala field near Kirkouk.

Ankara, which says it has suffered losses of up to 40 billion dollars due to the sanctions against Iraq, has in recent months rolled up is sleeves to boost economic ties with its embargo-hit southern neighbor, an arch US foe. On the other hand, Turkey, a NATO member which backed the US strikes on Iraq during the Gulf War, continues to host US and British jets enforcing the no-fly zone over northern Iraq.


2. – AFP – “European court to hear appeal over ban on Turkish Muslim party“:

STRASBOURG

The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday decided to submit an appeal over the banning of an Islamic political party in Turkey to a special Grand Chamber council, a lawyer for the party said Thursday.

The 17 judges sitting in the special appeal hearing are to examine an appeal over the court's initial judgement, made in July, that the banning of the Islamic Welfare Party, or Refah, in 1998 did not violate the right to freedom of assembly. A date has yet to be set for the hearing against the court's decision.

The Court ruled in July that Turkey had not violated article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, covering freedom of assembly and association, as claimed by the party founders. Instead, it underscored that some of the values advocated by Welfare Party leaders, such as planning to introduce Islamic law and legitimising a holy war to achieve religious ends, were not compatible with the Convention. The Court is an emanation of the pan-European Council of Europe, which has its headquarters in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.


3. – AFP – „European anti-torture body criticizes Turkey over prison riots”:

STRASBOURG / by Therese Jauffret

The Council of Europe's anti-torture commission Thursday strongly criticized a crackdown last year by Turkish authorities on prison riots, which left dozens of inmates dead. The Council's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) said it was concerned over the use of live ammunition to put down the riots, with eight prisoners and two police having died from gunshot wounds in December 2000.

In its report, the CPT also called on Ankara to release video recordings and other supporting material to clarify the conditions under which six women died, some of them from severe burns, in one prison when the police stormed the facility. Turkish paramilitary police raided 20 prisons on December 19, 2000 to try to end a two-month hunger strike by hundreds of inmates protesting the introduction of new prisons. Nearly a year later, the hunger strike continues, with over 170 prisoners on a strike to the death, according to recent figures by Turkish human rights groups, and the death toll among inmates and their supporters now at 50.

The CPT traveled to Turkey four times between December 2000 and May 2001 to investigate the methods Turkish police employed in suppressing the riots and to look into the hunger strikes. It was also investigating the conditions of prisoners in the so-called Type F prisons -- where higher-security cells are built to house three prisoners instead of the previous dormitory system of dozens of inmates. Turkish inmates are fiercely opposed to the new jails that have gradually been introduced because they fear they will be more vulnerable to maltreatment and torture when isolated in smaller units.

The committee expressed concern over the "considerable number" of inmates who complained that they had been mistreated since they had been admitted to such Type F prisons. The CPT said in its report that Turkish authorities were "making considerable efforts to... improve the conditions of detention." But the fact that the hunger strikes were continuing showed that a "process of adaptation, explanation, and confidence building" was required, it said. Since the strike movement began in October last year, 42 prisoners or their supporters have starved to death, four have died after setting themselves on fire and another four have been killed by police in an operation to regain control of a jail where they were on hunger strike.

Thirty-two people -- 30 prisoners and two police -- also died during the police crackdown last December to bring the hunger strikes to an end. The European Parliament has consistently criticized Turkey's human rights record -- notably its stance on prisons and the death penalty -- saying it has a long way to go before meeting EU criteria on human rights that are needed to begin membership negotiations. Turkey in October adopted a series of wide-ranging constititional reforms aimed at bringing Turkish law into line with EU norms, although the steps were seen as falling short of those required for EU membership.


4. – AP – „Turkey's women get right to wear trousers”:

ISTANBUL

Women working in state offices in Turkey have won the right to wear trousers at work after a nationwide protest last week, newspapers reported Thursday.

The government has decided to revise a strict dress code for female civil servants after thousands of women defied the code last week by wearing trousers to work, the daily Sabah and other newspapers reported.

The new code will allow women to wear trousers, but will maintain a ban on sleeveless and open-collar dresses and skirts, skirts that are split or above knee-length, and open shoes, Sabah said.

Government officials were unavailable for comment.

Women's groups say the dress code reflects widespread authoritarian attitudes in this largely traditional Muslim society. Women in strictly secular Turkey, however, already enjoy wider rights than in most Islamic countries.

"We'll continue to fight for our other demands," said Aysegul Kilic, a spokeswoman for public sector workers' union KESK, which launched the trouser protest.

Those demands include longer maternity leave, childcare in workplaces employing more than 50 people and stronger measures against sexual harassment, Kilic said.


5. – Financial Times – “Washington still wrestling with dilemma over Iraq”:

When a US delegation arrived in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq this week, speculation mounted that the Bush administration may be preparing for the second phase of the anti-terror campaign.

The north, which has escaped control from Baghdad in 1996, is thought to be a likely launch pad for a ground campaign to unseat Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader.

No decision has been taken in the White House to extend the war on terror to Iraq and officials have been damping speculation of imminent action. But the administration's concern about the link between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction suggests Baghdad will remain a potential target.

Administration hawks and some members of Congress, emboldened by military success against the Taliban, want President George W. Bush to launch a decisive action to topple the Saddam regime.

But the US delegation's four-day visit to northern Iraq underlines a key problem facing Washington in the event of an Iraq campaign.

The main purpose of the mission, led by Ryan Crocker, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, is to avert a collapse of the 1998 peace process between rival Kurdish factions that have fought each other for years.

In a sign of the difficulties of dealing with the Iraqi opposition, US plans to unite the two main Kurdish factions - the Kurdistan Democratic party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) - have stalled and the parties have asked the US to mediate.

US intervention is all the more necessary because Mr Saddam has tried to exploit Kurdish divisions and renew dialogue with both parties in the hope of bringing them back under Baghdad's wing.

Kurdish officials say relations between the KDP and PUK have improved and they have been sending joint delegations abroad. But northern Iraq is still run by two separate administrations and plans for elections have been delayed for more than a year.

The Kurdish opposition is the most organised among the 70 or so dissident groups in Iraq. In any military campaign the Kurds would have to be joined by the Shias in the south, who make up the majority of the population but live under the control of the central government, preventing them from setting up an organised opposition. The US state department has long been sceptical of the ability of opposition groups to play an effective role in ousting the Baghdad regime.

US caution was signalled recently when the administration refused to disburse Congress-allocated funds for the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella organisation for the Iraqi opposition, for operations inside Iraq.

A bipartisan group of nine lawmakers last week urged President Bush to support the Iraqi opposition - the latest example of rising pressure to target Iraq.

But the US risks acting on its own - or at best with British assistance - if it targets Iraq. European and Arab allies have underlined their opposition to extending the campaign to Baghdad.

The US has not linked Iraq with September 11 but officials say previous assumptions that Iraq's secular society ruled out co-operation with extremists like Osama bin Laden have now been shattered.

The US has recorded several contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda members, though the only publicised incident is a meeting in Prague in April between Mohammad Atta, seen as the key figure in the September 11 attacks, and an Iraqi agent.

US officials say Washington's new emphasis on weapons of mass destruction puts Iraq in a more dangerous light, given its past involvement in producing deadly weapons.

"America's next priority in the war on terrorism is to protect against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them," President Bush said on Tuesday.

"We cannot accept and we will not accept states that harbour, finance, train or equip the agents of terror . . . They have been warned, they are being watched and they will be held to account."

The US has not presented any evidence that Iraq has resumed production of weapons of mass destruction. But UN inspectors, who left in December 1998, have not been allowed back. Iraq says inspectors can return only after the UN suspends sanctions.

Iraq also insists it has eliminated all its past programmes and no new production of weapons is taking place. But UN disarmament experts say they never accounted for Iraq's biological weapons arsenal, which included production of agents like anthrax and the ability to weaponise them.

For now, the US is pressing for a resumption of UN inspections, which has support among allies and could, at some point, be used as a convenient justification for a decisive military campaign.


6. – Kurdish Observer – „Unity will be useful for everybody”:

The conference organized by KNK to determine the strategy of Kurds for the 21. century commences today (yesterday). Representatives of parties, politicians and artists and intellectuals participating in the conference said “The national conference will be a good example to the world showing the unity of the Kurdish people.”

ASLAN SARAC / BRUSSELS

The conference “National Conference for Unity, Peace and Democracy” commences today with the representatives of parties and organisations from all four parts of Kurdistan. The conference is organised by Kurdistan National Conference (KNK).

It is taken part by more than 100 people living in exile from America to Australia, from Jordan to Germany, and by a number of friends of Kurds including Daniel Mitterand.

The conference has of historical importance. Principles of Kurdish peace, development of Kurdish national democracy, relations with the dominant states and peoples, improvement on international relations, development of Kurdish national unity will be discussed, and a number of binding resolutions are expected.

The first session at the first day of the conference includes the topics such as Kurds in the existing world conjuncture, inter-Kurds unity, principles of peace and democracy, perspective, responsibility and practical steps of Kurdistani parties and organisations for national unity, peace and democracy. And the second session includes approaches of the Western powers and international organisations to the Kurdish question and their historical and actual roles on Kurdistan.

The second day of the conference will discuss the importance of the solution for the stability and democracy in the Middle East and principles of solution of the Middle East and parts of Kurdistan. And in the second session a number of resolutions are expected.

Daniel Mitterand (Chairwomen of France Foundation of Liberties), Hans Brandtscheidt (Chairman of Eastern Institute), Piet de Pauw (Belgian Human Rights Association), Lord Lylton (English Deputy) and Lloyd Kenan (Scotch Deputy) will attend to the conference.