4 April 2002

5. "Iran places under guard senior PKK commander wanted by Turkey", Iran has placed under police surveillance a senior field commander of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Cemil Bayik.

6. "Turkey Warns Iraq of "Grave Danger", Turkey's Prime minister Bülent Ecevit has made an urgent appeal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

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1. - BBC - "Iraqi Kurdish leader evades assassins":

Salih said the attack was inspired from outside the country

Wednesday, 3 April, 2002 by BBC's Hiwa Osman

The head of the Iraqi Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) regional government, Barham Salih, escaped an assassination attempt outside his house in Sulaymaniyah on Tuesday.
Two gunmen opened fire at Mr Salih while he was leaving his house in the afternoon. His bodyguards returned fire and the shootout resulted in the killing of the two gunmen and five of the bodyguards. In an interview with BBC News Online after the incident, Mr Salih said that the assailants, who posed as taxi drivers of a red Volkswagen car were on "a suicide mission" and that their car was "full of bombs and grenades".

Assailants killed

He said that he was not accusing anybody "at this stage" but added: "We have obtained very useful leads about the identity of the assailants."

He also said: "There are unconfirmed reports that there were three assailants, we are looking into this matter and investigation is underway."

Salih refused to disclose any further information: "Because we do not want to jeopardise the outcome of the investigation."

Barham Salih was representative for his party in Washington for almost 10 years before he became the Prime Minister of the PUK-led Kurdish regional government in Sulaymaniyah last year. The PUK has been in control of the Kurdish region together with the Kurdistan Democratic Party since 1991.

In September 2001, a newly established Islamist group, Jund al-Islam, which is suspected of having links with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation, seized control of an area of the Kurdish region near the Iranian border.

Trying to oust them from their area, the PUK entered into an armed conflict with the group.

New Islamist group

Jund al-Islam, alongside a number of other Islamist groups, has merged into a new group, Supporters of Islam. Despite a few negotiation rounds - with Iranian mediation - tension between the PUK and the Islamist group remains unsolved. Asked about the PUK's response to the attack, Mr Salih said: "I do not want to prejudge any course of action that we may take.

When the investigation concludes, we will decide accordingly."

"Terrorism is alien to our society," said Dr Salih.

"But we will not be swayed foreign-inspired terrorists who seek to undermine the civil and democratic institutions that we are trying to build in Iraqi Kurdistan."

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2. - Star - "Turkey's ESDP problem continues":

3 April 2002 / by Semih Idiz

While concentrating on the situation in Middle East, Afghanistan and Cyprus, we seem to have forgotten some other areas of Turkey’s foreign policy, but developments have continued. The last of them concerns the ESDP, which seemed to have reached a satisfactory conclusion, but which in fact still remains unresolved. This extremely complex issue had appeared to be at an end following long, hard negotiations held in Ankara and London with US and British officials. In these negotiations, the US represented NATO, while Britain represented the EU. The talks ended up agreeing that the proposed EU army under the ESDP could not be used against a member of NATO and that the EU could only use NATO supplies and facilities with the full agreement of all NATO members.

All of the EU member countries accepted this arrangement, except Greece, which is still balking. Athens is arguing that no non-EU country can be in a position to be able to influence EU military decisions, even if that country belongs to NATO. In rejecting the “Ankara agreement,” Greece signaled that it couldn’t tolerate the diplomatic advantage that Turkey had gained with the support of all the other EU members.

As long as Greece continues to reject the Ankara agreement and exercise its veto, this issue cannot be considered a done deal for Turkey. Therefore, Turkey cannot let down its guard.
But recent developments point to a way that Ankara can soon concretely show the EU its determined manner on this issue. The place to make its stand will be Macedonia, where NATO is to withdraw its forces and transfer military responsibility to the EU. According to sources close to European Parliament Turkey-EU Joint Parliament Committee Co-Chairman De Heer Joost Ladendijk, Foreign Minister Ismail Cem conveyed Turkey’s determination to the EU side during a one-and-a-half-hour meeting he held with Ladendijk.

So in short order, unless Greece lifts its veto on the current ESDP agreement, Ankara is preparing to prevent the command transfer of the international force in Macedonia from NATO to the EU. In other words, if such a transfer occurs, it will block the EU taking benefit of its alliance with the North Atlantic Council, where NATO decisions can be taken only by full consensus. In fact, at this point Turkey is fully in the right. Readers may recall how the guarantees which were given to Turkey in Washington during NATO’s 50th anniversary celebrations then faced attempts at derailment at the hands of NATO members who also belong to the EU. When Turkey sharply rejected these attempts, long discussions resulted in the Ankara consensus. In summary, Turkey wants Greece to sign the Ankara agreement, which should be a binding agreement for the EU.

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3. - BBC - "No compromise' to Turkey prisoners":

The hunger strikers reject changes to the prison system

4 April 2002 / Istanbul / by Jonny Dymond

The Turkish Minister of Justice, Sami Turk, has said that there will be no compromise with prisoners on hunger strike.

Fifty people - mainly prisoners plus some of their supporters - starved themselves to death in Turkey's one-and-a-half-year-long hunger strike.

The 50th victim died late on Sunday.

The hunger strikers are protesting over new prisons which they say would isolate them from their comrades.

The Justice Minister's uncompromising message came on the same day that the 50th victim of the world's longest hunger strike was buried.

Mr Turk said that the new prisons, known as F types, are state policy and that would not change.

The hunger strikers are members of small left-wing groups the Turkish government accuses of terrorism.

'Develop identity'

They say the F types would, by isolating them from their colleagues, leave them open to either torture or to long spells of solitary confinement. But Mr Turk rejected that. He said that the old prisons with communal dormitories had become "training camps" for the left-wing groups; that the new prisons conformed with UN and Council of Europe guidelines and that, far from crushing the prisoners, the F types would allow them to develop their identity away from the ideological constraints of their colleagues.

Mr Turk's comments will come as a severe blow to the team trying to negotiate between the government and the hunger strikers. They had thought that some compromise might be in the air. But Mr Turk went out of his way to reject one of the compromises that the hunger strikers had agreed to - he said it was just a ploy to keep the protests alive.

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4. - Committee to Protect Journalists - "TURKEY: Publisher's trial opens in Istanbul":

New York, April 3, 2002

The trial of Abdullah Keskin, a Turkish publisher charged with "separatist propaganda" in connection with a U.S. journalist's book about the Kurdish issue, opened today in a State Security Court in Istanbul.

The charges against Keskin came after his publishing house, Avesta, printed a Turkish edition of After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness?—My Encounters in Kurdistan, a book about the Kurds written by retired Washington Post correspondent Jonathan Randal. The state prosecutor's indictment cited several passages from the book that contained references to "Kurdistan."

The word "Kurdistan" means "land of the Kurds." Turkish courts often cite such references to justify prosecuting journalists and intellectuals for allegedly supporting separatist ambitions among Turkey's Kurdish minority population.

At the trial today, the three-judge panel refused a request from Randal to testify in Keskin's defense and scheduled the next hearing for June 7.

"It is unacceptable that Turkey, which is seeking membership of the European Union, should ban books and put publishers on trial," Randal said after today's hearing.

Originally published in 1997, Randal's book has since appeared in several countries and languages without incident. The Turkish edition, which Avesta published in 2001, was confiscated on January 15, 2002, by order of a State Security Court. Keskin was later charged under Article 8 of Turkey's Anti-Terror Law. If convicted, he faces between one and three years in prison.

In support of Abdullah Keskin, CPJ and three other press freedom groups have endorsed an amicus brief submitted to the State Security Court by attorneys at the London office of the international law firm Covington & Burling. The brief argues that the prosecution of Keskin clearly violates Turkey's obligations under international law and urges his acquittal.

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5. - AFP - "Iran places under guard senior PKK commander wanted by Turkey":

TEHRAN, April 3 (AFP) - 16h31 - Iran has placed under police surveillance a senior field commander of Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Cemil Bayik, who Ankara has asked to be extradited after he found refuge in the country, an Iranian official said on Wednesday.

Bayik, one of the closest aides of condemned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, along with another PKK leader named as Halil Atac have been detained in the city of Ouroumieh near the Turco-Iranian border, the official said.

The pair had ventured into Iran "for medical reasons" but had been placed under police surveillance in the city pending a decision on Turkey's extradition request, said the official, who requested he not be named.

Turkey ambassador in Tehran earlier said the country had "official information" Bayik was on Iranian soil, according to the Anatolia news agency.

"Based on this information, we have made a formal request that the person in question is arrested and extradited to Turkey," Selahattin Alpar said.

The extradition request for Bayik was made on March 30, the Turkish NTV news channel said.
Bayik, a senior member of the PKK leadership council, was tipped as one of the possible successors of Ocalan when Turkey captured the latter in February 1999 and sentenced him to death for treason several month later.

But the PKK subsequently decided to keep Ocalan, the sole inmate in the prison island of Imrali, as their chairman.

Bayik was also reported to be opposing a peace bid by Ocalan, under which the PKK declared in September 1999 that it was laying down its arms and withdrawing from Turkish territory.
About 4,000 PKK militants have reportedly moved to northern Iraq, an area outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War, which the PKK has used as a launching pad for attacks on Turkey.

Bayik was also based in northern Iraq, but was frequently crossing to Iran, a country that Ankara has accused of sheltering Kurdish rebels, according to media reports.

Alpar said that relations with Iran had recently recorded a significant progress, particularly on cooperation against the PKK.

Iran's ambassador to Turkey, Mohammed-Hossein Lavasani, told Iranian radio last week that Iran and Turkey had agreed to recognize the PKK and Iran's main armed opposition, the People's Mujahedin, as "terrorists."

"The decision to consider as terrorists the MKO (Mujahedin) and the PKK was taken during a recent meeting and will enable the development of relations of trust between Tehran and Ankara," Lavasani said.

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6. - Deutsche Welle - "Turkey Warns Iraq of "Grave Danger":

Turkey's Prime minister Bülent Ecevit has made an urgent appeal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to allow United Nations weapons inspectors back into his country. In a letter, which Ankara described as a last warning, Mr. Ecevit said Iraq was facing a "grave danger", if it delayed further weapons inspections.

The U.S. Defense Policy Board chairman, Richard Perle, said on Monday that it had been essentially decided that the "next front" would be Iraq, unless inspectors were allowed into the country. He also said Washington would act - even against the will of the Europeans, if necessary. The German Foreign Ministry has warned the United States against taking any unilateral action.