10 December 2002

1. "Democratic actions campaign from KADEK", KADEK announced that it had launched a campaign to claim and defend President Apo. The campaign will begin on December 10, the World Human Rights Day, and continue till February 15, 2003, the dateline for the AKP government to change their stance.

2. "The Ticking Time Bomb of EU Expansion", Cyprus is one of expansion's most precarious issues Cyprus is one of expansion's most precarious issues

3. "EU Backs Date for Talks with Turkey - Germany", Germany said Tuesday the European Union overwhelmingly supported a Franco-German proposal to open membership talks with Turkey in 2005 if it passed a progress review in 2004.

4. "Turkey's Week", this is shaping up to be a historic week for Turkey and the West. On Thursday the European Union is to decide whether to open negotiations with Ankara on membership, a step that could fully integrate a Muslim nation of 80 million people into the community over the next decade or so.

5. "Crosswinds Over Turkey: Will Europe Balk Again?", on the eve of a White House summit meeting, the crosswinds of public opinion on two continents have left Turkey and the United States in an unusual embrace: united in an effort to move Europe their way, but with little leverage to do it.

6. "Iraqi Kurds sidelined as US woos Turkey", while the United States applies high-level pressure to Turkey to win the use of critical military bases for any war with Iraq, concern is growing among Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq that their future is also on the bargaining table.

7. "Turkey Forces Seek End to Radical Islam", Turkey's military on Monday asked the new government, formed by a party with Islamic roots, to press ahead with the fight against radical Islam, a private television station reported.

8. "Bush and Erdogan set to hold talks over Iraq", President George W. Bush is expected on Tuesday to underline the price of his support for Turkey's campaign to join the European Union when he meets Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the governing Justice and Development party.

1. - Kurdish Observer - "Democratic actions campaign from KADEK":

KADEK announced that it had launched a campaign to claim and defend President Apo. The campaign will begin on December 10, the World Human Rights Day, and continue till February 15, 2003, the dateline for the AKP government to change their stance.

MHA/FRANKFURT / 9 December 2002

The Kurdistan Congress for Freedom and Democracy (KADEK) announced that they would launch a campaign to claim and defend President Apo on December 10, 2002. The campaign that would continue till February 15, 2003 called to set forces of serhildan (popular uprising) into motion.

KADEK Presidential Council released a statement yesterday, saying that they would give time to the new government till February 15 to change their stance. “The state and the government should revise their stance and change” said KADEK. The Kurdish party emphasized that the campaign was a “warning to the government to turn towards a positive stance.”

KADEK made the following call: “The Kurdish people must organize their democratic serhildan units in every field. Youth and women must assume a leading role, making actions. They must make demonstrations, marches, boycotts, closing up shutters and strikes.”

Democratic transformation is obligatory

Pointing out that democratic transformation was unavoidable in countries that dominated Kurdistan, KADEK continued with words to the effect: “The regimes in these countries are helpless to solve problems. In spite of impositions of domestic and foreign dynamics they do not have the capacity to solve them. It is possible to see the exhaustion of the existing regimes in Turkey. And efforts of societies to find a solution increase, determination for a democratic change strengthens. The last election in Turkey express this fact.”

Possible armed intervention speeds the developments up

KADEK added the following: “A possible intervention on Iraq speeds up such developments. Democratic change is spoken of as a way either to avoid the war or to limit the damages of the war. There is no possibility to insist on the old anymore. Insisting on existing regimes will bring disaster. The only way to avoid disaster is democratic change and transformation. And a change in Turkey will affect Iran, Iraq and Syria as well.”

“Claim President Apo”

KADEK reminded that the starting day of the campaign is the World Human Rights Day: “Celebrating the day properly is possible only by struggling for freedom for the Kurdish people and its Leadership. Democratic actions are the most meaningful way to claim human rights in Kurdistan. The Kurdish people must celebrate the Human Rights Day by starting to make democratic actions. And democratic forces and those who defend human rights must support the actions. The democratic actions campaign will be a historical step for claim and defend President Apo. For the campaign to play a such a role the Kurdish people, democratic forces and human rights defenders must be active. As a necessary step for this KADEK calls on our people living in all parts of Kurdistan and abroad to participate in the campaign, and democratic forces and human rights defenders to support it.”

The key to solution is the Kurdish question

Stating that the origin of all problems is the Kurdish question, the KADEK Presidential Council said the following: “The key to solution of all problems lies in the solution to the Kurdish question. As long as it is not solved, any other problems cannot be solved either. The key to solve the grave problems in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria is to solve the Kurdish problem. The same thing is valid for the international forces.” KADEK underlined that it was not possible to solve the Kurdish question in spite of Kurds.

Stance towards Ocalan is the touchstone of the solution

Drawing attention to the repression on KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan, the Council said, “The stance towards KADEK President, concrete expression of the will of the Kurdish people, is of vital importance. It is the touchstone of the solution.” The statement continued with words to the effect: “Without improving the life conditions of our President it is not possible to solve the Kurdish question. Our President is exposed to a policy of decaying under the worst life conditions. The AKP government seems not intending to take any steps towards the solution of the Kurdish question and to improve the life conditions of our President. More importantly the isolation has been made more grave and murders-by-unknown-perpetrators and torture have increased in Kurdistan.”

Dateline, February 15

KADEK stated that on behalf of the Kurdish state they would give time to the Turkish state and the AKP government to change their stance till February 15, 2003. “The state and the government should reconsider their stance and change it. Otherwise KADEK will have to take all sorts of struggles including war into its agenda as a necessary step for the freedom of President Apo and the Kurdish people. Waiting longer is in contradiction with the interests of our people. Securing the peace and making it permanent necessitates a main change of their stance.”

2. - Deutsche Welle - "The Ticking Time Bomb of EU Expansion":

Cologne / 10 December 2002

Cyprus is one of expansion's most precarious issues Cyprus is one of expansion's most precarious issues

In November, the UN presented a blueprint towards reconciling the Greek and Turkish sides of the island of Cyprus. The plan was received warmly on all sides, but the clock is ticking. The southern, Greek Republic of Cyprus is a prime candidate for membership in the European Union.

Should the two sides remain at odds, the divided island does not only have the potential to derail the entire enlargement process, it could spark conflict between Greece and Turkey. Turkey has said it will annex the northern third of the island, which it invaded in 1974 following a coup attempt by the Greek government, should the Republic of Cyprus become a EU member. Turkey, itself a future EU candidate, is incensed at the prospect of the Greek side getting in without the Turkish side.

Greece has threatened to veto the entire enlargement process should the Republic of Cyprus not make it in. It has also said that an annexation would seriously escalate the historically tense relationship between Greece and Turkey.

Countless top diplomats have sought to solve the Cyprus issue in its 28-year history. The UN resolution represents a serious ray of hope. The Greek side, both in Nicosia and Athens have agreed the plan, which recommends the two sides share ruling duties, provides a good basis for negotiation. Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and Turkey’s new government have given mixed signals, with Denktash denying reports that he had accepted the plan.

3. - Reuters - "EU Backs Date for Talks with Turkey - Germany":

BRUSSELS / 10 December 2002

Germany said Tuesday the European Union overwhelmingly supported a Franco-German proposal to open membership talks with Turkey in 2005 if it passed a progress review in 2004.

Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan rejected the plan last week as unacceptable and accused the EU of double standards Monday for not giving Ankara an earlier, firmer date.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told reporters that EU president Denmark had said it would use the plan as the basis for its proposal at a landmark summit in Copenhagen Thursday and Friday, where the bloc will conclude enlargement talks with 10 candidate countries.

Asked how the 15-nation bloc had received the proposal, Fischer said: "Overwhelmingly positive. There was a large majority which could agree to this proposal.

"The presidency announced that it will take this into account in its conclusions and I hope that the Turkish side can also see how wide this opens the door in favor of Turkish interests," he added.

4. - The Washington Post - "Turkey's Week":

December 10, 2002

THIS IS SHAPING UP to be a historic week for Turkey and the West. On Thursday the European Union is to decide whether to open negotiations with Ankara on membership, a step that could fully integrate a Muslim nation of 80 million people into the community over the next decade or so. Between now and the summit, U.N. negotiators are hoping to achieve a breakthrough in the 30-year-old conflict in Cyprus, a feat that will require Turkey's new government to deliver crucial concessions by the Turkish administration in the northern half of the divided island. Meanwhile, Turkey's new leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is spending today in Washington, where he will be pressed by President Bush to accept the staging of both American warplanes and American troops in Turkey if there is war with Iraq. By week's end the bonds between Turkey and the West could have been decisively strengthened -- or critically weakened.

Anyone with an interest in overcoming the present gulf between the developed democracies and the Islamic world must hope for the first outcome. That -- and not just the desire for Ankara's military cooperation -- explains why the Bush administration is pressing the European Union so hard on Turkey's membership. The point is not just to ensure Turkey's economic stability; the real benefit of EU membership, or even negotiations for it, will be the requirement that Turkey fully liberalize its political system and end its discrimination against minorities and abuses of human rights. The result would be not just the consolidation of modern democracy in a strategically located country, but also the creation of a model for the neighboring states of the Middle East and Central Asia.

Many European politicians say the challenges and costs of accepting Turkey would be overwhelming -- a stance that frequently is a cover for aversion to granting the same privileges to relatively poor Muslims, as will likely be given this week to the disadvantaged but mostly Christian people of 10 new member countries, mostly in former Communist Europe. But while the political windfall from opening talks with Turkey would be immediate, actual membership, and its economic costs, would not come for many years. That leaves plenty of time to overcome the genuine hurdles to integrating Turkey with the European market -- as well as time for European politicians to educate their publics about the imperative of accepting religious and ethnic diversity in their continental superstate.

While the Bush administration is right to cheer on this process, it must prove itself willing to shoulder some of the burden of the country's modernization. U.S. aid should be directed at projects that help build democratic institutions as well as military bases. Even as he advocates for Turkey with Brussels, Mr. Bush should press Mr. Erdogan to follow through on his political promises and accept the U.N. settlement on Cyprus. Finally, the Pentagon's zeal to nail down bases in Turkey should not lead the administration to promise Ankara undue influence over postwar Iraq. Part of promoting Turkey's European integration must be pressing its government to observe, sooner rather than later, the democratic norms that for the United States are the point of the process.

5. - The New York Times- "Crosswinds Over Turkey: Will Europe Balk Again?"

ISTANBUL / December 9-10, 2002 / By Dexter Filkins

On the eve of a White House summit meeting, the crosswinds of public opinion on two continents have left Turkey and the United States in an unusual embrace: united in an effort to move Europe their way, but with little leverage to do it.

When Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey's newly triumphant Justice and Development Party, meets President Bush on Tuesday, he is expected to ask for help securing agreement of the European Union in giving Turkey a date to begin negotiations for membership. The European Union is meeting this week to decide the issue, which Turkey views as a historic opportunity to throw in its lot with the West. The odds seem even at best.

For his part, President Bush would like nothing more than to persuade Europe's leaders to give Turkey what it wants, if only because he could then get from Turkey what he wants: agreement to support the United States in a war with Iraq. Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country that borders Iraq, is seen as crucial partner in any future military operation there.

But last week, after a visit by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Turkish leaders cited strong public opposition to any war with Iraq and withheld the public endorsement the Bush administration sought. Hence Mr. Erdogan's invitation to the White House.

President Bush's conundrum is clear: try as he may, he does not have much leverage over the Europeans, who are divided and ambivalent about Turkey's European Union bid and are either opposed outright to an American war in Iraq or at least querulous about it.

Here in Turkey, the country's leaders are so edgy about the European Union summit meeting, which starts Thursday in Copenhagen, that they are trying to use the Iraq issue to solve their problem. "In terms of the Turkish people, they will find a link between European attitudes and Turkish involvement in Iraq," said Murat Mercan, a member of Parliament and a senior adviser to Prime Minister Abdullah Gul. "If Europe does bad to us, why cooperate on Iraq? This administration will try to separate those issues, but that is what the Turkish people will try to think."

6. - The Christian Science Monitor - "Iraqi Kurds sidelined as US woos Turkey":

President Bush meets with Turkish leader in a bid to win use of military bases for any war effort.

SALAHUDDIN, NORTHERN IRAQ / 10 December 2002 / By Scott Peterson

While the United States applies high-level pressure to Turkey to win the use of critical military bases for any war with Iraq, concern is growing among Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq that their future is also on the bargaining table.

President George Bush meets Tuesday with the leader of Turkey's ruling party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the latest US attempt to woo Turkey to serve as a staging base for a reported 100,000 US troops and to allow US use of its air bases.

But Iraqi Kurds worry they are being forced out of the strategic equation by reported Turkish demands that the US promise to limit the role of Kurdish forces during and after any conflict.

"If America wants a fundamental change in Iraq, it can't ignore our role," says Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), one of two Kurdish factions that rule northern Iraq under the US-British no-fly zone. "We do not want bad relations with Turkey. But if America doesn't take seriously our requirements, we believe it is impossible to have stability in Iraq now or in the future."

Turkey has repeatedly threatened to send forces across the border to prevent Kurds from declaring an independent state in northern Iraq - a state the Kurds say they also reject. It has also warned Kurds against taking over the oil-rich areas of Kirkuk, historically a Kurdish city.

Though US-Turkey horse-trading makes Kurds uneasy, US reasons for deploying ground forces into northern Iraq include fighting off any attack from Baghdad and preventing a Turkish incursion. Already, Turkish officials speak of creating a 60-mile military buffer, and are reported to have deployed up to 10,000 troops in border areas. More than two-dozen armored vehicles have long been visible in northern Iraq, remnants of three cross-border operations to hunt rebels among Turkey's own ethnic Kurds. "It is an occupation, because the reasons for [Turkish troops] no longer exist," says Fawzi Hariri, a senior KDP official. "They serve no purpose, except to intimidate."

Still, it is Turkish concerns being addressed at the highest US levels. The US is offering $5 billion in aid, say Turkish reports, help in solving the Cyprus problem, and, to pressure on the European Union to admit the Islamic nation.

"Obviously, if we are going to have significant ground forces in the north [of Iraq], this is the country they have to come through," US deputy defense chief Paul Wolfowitz said last week during a Turkey visit. "There is no other option."

Though Turkish officials say war with Iraq is not in their interest, their own list of demands has been circulating in the Turkish press. Besides debt relief and cash, it includes a demand that the US will prevent the creation of a Kurdish state and ensure that Kurdish forces - which number in the tens of thousands and are the only significant armed opposition within Iraq - will play no meaningful role.

Turkey's root concern is that a boost of Kurdish influence in northern Iraq will spark unrest among its own ethnic Kurds.

"It would be a great irony if the US were to subordinate human rights and political rights of all the people of Iraq to Turkey's interest," says Barham Salih, prime minister of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) territory of northern Iraq. "The people of Iraq should be given the right to self-determination."

Kurdish leaders on both sides say they want to be part of a democratic, federal Iraq, in which local autonomy is guaranteed by Baghdad. "If this can be achieved without military action and risks to our people, good," says Mr. Salih. "But we are freedom fighters; the Kurds have an important role to play."

That role is still unclear, say Kurdish officials in contact with US officials. But the game plan regarding Turkey is taking shape as US efforts to bring it on board peak. While in Washington, Mr. Erdogan also will meet Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Wolfowitz's trip last week followed several high-level visits.

With polls showing low support for any US-led war, decisionmakers in Turkey are torn. Freedom to act on their own in northern Iraq may be a key consideration. "Whatever candy the US can offer Erdogan, it can't change Turkey's interests," says a Turkish official in Ankara. "America is reading us wrong. It is not a matter of $1 billion or $2 billion. We do not feel comfortable with this war."

Turkey is concerned the final price tag could be higher than the $60 billion some analysts put on Ankara's losses in trade since the 1991 Gulf War. It also fears strategic fallout from war and the unpopularity of having US troops on the ground.

Kurds also feel pinched. The US has yet to provide any gas masks, nerve-agent antidote, and protective suits requested by Kurdish leaders last April.

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has used chemical weapons against Kurds before. "All American officials say 'We will defend you if Saddam attacks,' " says Barzani of the KDP. "But we believe it is not enough. What we are looking for is a clear, public statement to convince the people."

Another member of Parliament, Mevlut Cavusoglu, of the AK Party, said: "I think the U.S. wants to use Turkey's bases against Iraq. Almost all the Turkish are going to be against this."

Mr. Mercan and other members of the Justice and Development Party, which triumphed in last month's elections and dominates the new government, said they expected Mr. Bush to help the faltering Turkish bid for the European Union.

"We have very high hopes that Mr. Bush is going to intervene, make several calls, and that it will change the tune in the European capitals," Mr. Mercan said. "I have very high hopes on that."

Although under the best of circumstances Turkey would still be years away from becoming a full member of the European Union, it is difficult to overstate the importance placed on the issue here.

Ever since the Turkish Republic rose from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, it has struggled to find its place in the world: as a Muslim nation in the Middle East, or as a secular democracy in Europe.

For its part, Europe has not been able to decide either, and Turkey's application has languished for 15 years. While the 15 nations now in the bloc have agreed to take up the issue again — as they set a much firmer date for post-Communist nations to actually join the European Union — the latest signals are not promising for Ankara.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president, who is overseeing efforts to draft a new European Constitution, said flat out last month that Turkey did not belong in Europe.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, predicted this week that Turkey would not be given a date to begin negotiations.

In Copenhagen today, Turkey's edginess was palpable.

"The fact that Turkey has not been given a date is a double standard in itself," Mr. Erdogan told journalists after talks with Mr. Rasmussen. "There is no other way to explain it."

American officials have said privately that they have some sympathy for Turkish allegations of European prejudice against them. Mr. Erdogan, whose party has Islamist roots, suggested that a cold shoulder by Europe this time would smack of a final rejection.

If Turkey is not given a firm date to start negotiations, "we would revise our road map and carry on our journey in that light," he said.

Mr. Erdogan did not elaborate, but many Turks have worried aloud that rejection by the European Union would revive Islamist currents.

Those concerns are shared in the White House, and not just because of plans for a potential war with Iraq. The Bush administration sees in Turkey — secular, democratic, with a relatively open economy — a country with much to teach the rest of the Muslim world.

7. - Associated Press - "Turkey Forces Seek End to Radical Islam":

ANKARA / 9 December 2002

Turkey's military on Monday asked the new government, formed by a party with Islamic roots, to press ahead with the fight against radical Islam, a private television station reported.

The military - self-declared guardians of Turkey's secular system - pressured an Islamic government out of power in 1997 and considers radical Islam a major threat.

Chief of Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok and other generals met with Prime Minister Abdullah Gul on Monday to talk about security matters.

NTV television said the generals asked the government not to try to change laws barring women civil servants and students from wearing headscarves in public offices and campuses. Many believe the headscarves show support for political Islam.

The television report also said the military asked Gul to pass laws that would allow authorities to sack civil servants for suspected anti-secular activities. The generals also asked the government to curb financial organizations suspected of supporting radical Islamic activities, the station said.

Neither the government nor the military commented on the TV report.

Gul assumed power last month after his Justice and Development party won elections. The party denies it seeks a pro-Islamic agenda and is keen to avoid any struggle with the military.

Justice, founded last year by members of a pro-Islamic party closed by the courts, has distanced itself from its religious past and calls itself a conservative, democratic party.

8. - The Financial Times - "Bush and Erdogan set to hold talks over Iraq":

WASHINGTON / December 9 2002 / By Caroline Daniel

President George W. Bush is expected on Tuesday to underline the price of his support for Turkey's campaign to join the European Union when he meets Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the governing Justice and Development party.

The meeting is expected to address Turkey's role in a possible conflict in Iraq. The US administration has been seeking to secure Turkish approval for the use of its land to support a potential ground invasion of Iraq, rather than it just making air bases available, as in the 1991 Gulf war.

Visiting Copenhagen on Monday to lobby the Danish EU presidency for a firm date for Turkey to start accession negotiations, Mr Erdogan accused the EU of applying double standards in its treatment of prospective new members by failing to give Turkey a date.

"The only country without a date is Turkey. This is double standards," he said.

In a series of meetings in Washington, Mr Erdogan will meet President Bush, Colin Powell, secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, Dick Cheney, vice-president, and Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defence.

The meetings follow a trip last week by Mr Wolfowitz to Ankara, where he emphasised the importance of Turkey in any conflict. "If we are going to have significant ground forces in the north, this is the country they have to come through," he said.

However, a Turkish diplomat in Washington was sceptical that Turkey would give a clear answer to that request on Tuesday.

The diplomat emphasised domestic unease about the presence of US ground troops in Turkey. "Mr Erdogan is more likely to provide a taste of his outlook on these matters than firm commitments. It is not going to be an easy issue, especially with the expectation of thousands of troops in Turkey. That would require parliamentary approval."