18 July 2002

1. "Turkish government to make last-ditch effort on EU-demanded reforms", Turkey's embattled Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has pledged to make a last-ditch effort to push through reforms urgently needed to boost the country's struggling bid for European Union membership before early elections in November.

2. "Turkey: From political uncertainty to political chaos", Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit is facing one of the most difficult battles of his political life, which has been marked by challenges and staying power. It is a life he began in the early 1970s, when he was facing his first confrontations, by removing Ismet Inonu, hero of the war of liberation and Mustapha Kemal Ataturk’s comrade in arms, from the leadership of the Republican People’s Party.

3. "Call for Turkish elections seen easing uncertainty", Turkey's lively press heaved a sigh of relief on Wednesday that polls could finally provide an escape route from months of political turmoil sparked by the illness of the ageing Ecevit.

4. "ECHR condemned Turkey", the European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey for 4 cases. In the most important of the cases the court ruled that the Turkish state violated the article 13 for killing of lawyer Yusuf Ekinci, one of the outstanding Kurdish intellectuals.

5. "Iraq's Kurds assess risk of backing the US", supporting Washington's plans could jeopardise precious gains.

6. "Turkey Says Debt Negotiations Aren't Linked to Stand on Iraq", Turkey wants the United States to write off more than $4 billion in debt, but government officials said today that they were not naming a price for their support of military action to topple President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. (...) "There is a lot of agreement with Turkey on what we would like to see after Saddam," Mr. Wolfowitz said. "We're both opposed to Kurdish states. We're both concerned about the rights of minorities."

1. - AFP - "Turkish government to make last-ditch effort on EU-demanded reforms":

ANKARA / 18 July 2002 by Sibel Utku

Turkey's embattled Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has pledged to make a last-ditch effort to push through reforms urgently needed to boost the country's struggling bid for European Union membership before early elections in November.

On STV television late Wednesday, Ecevit said he hoped that the parliament, currently in recess, would convene in August to vote on a package of key democracy reforms. A rift over EU membership in the three-way coalition, along with the 77-year-old prime minister's ill health, is at the core of the current turmoil in Ankara. On Tuesday Ecevit was forced to call snap polls to stave off the collapse of his government after a mass exodus from his party deprived him of his parliamentary majority.

Ecevit's far-right partner, the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), has blocked a drive to comply with EU basic norms such as the abolition of the death penalty and cultural freedoms for the country's sizable Kurdish minority. Amid the turmoil, which has also threatened to derail a vital IMF-backed economic recovery program, the MHP has allowed its coalition partners to seek opposition support for the reforms.

"The draft we will bring to parliament envisages changes in about 10 laws," Mesut Yilmaz, Ecevit's pro-EU deputy told ATV television. Opposition parties have pledged their support on condition that early polls are held, but it is yet to be seen whether they will keep their promise. Yilmaz said the government planned to convene parliament for an extraordinary session on August 1 to vote on holding snap elections on November 3 and then continue work on adopting EU-demanded reforms.

"We think we can pass all those reforms in 10 days of uninterrupted work in parliament," Yilmaz said. Two opposition parties, meanwhile, are planning a joint move to recall parliament even earlier, on July 22. Turkey, the only country among the 13 EU hopefuls that has so far failed to start the accession process, has a self-imposed deadline of getting a date to open negotiations by the end of the year when the EU is to draw up its enlargement calendar.

Ankara fears its membership bid could be postponed indefinitely if it fails to get a place on the calendar. But many doubt whether Turkey will succeed in its aim if progress is not made on bringing together the Greek and Turkish sides on the divided island of Cyprus, itself a front-runner for EU membership. Turkey, which maintains about 30,000 troops in the Turkish Cypriot north of the island, has a key role in seeking a solution.

Meanwhile Turkey's stock exchange market surged by 10 percent Wednesday as investors saw a way out from economic and political uncertainty in the prospect of snap polls, although experts said they would be closely watching whether Ankara would push forward the country's EU bid. "People want to hear good news about the EU integration process," which is expected to boost the economy by luring vital foreign investment, Serdar Senol from Tekfen Bank said.

The MHP has charged that a plot by pro-EU forces, who allegedly sought to oust the nationlists from the government, was behind the current crisis. The party has thrown down the gauntlet to EU advocates, making it clear that it intends to campaign for the elections on an anti-EU ticket. The MHP, which is now the largest party in parliament, could face a new and possibly powerful pro-EU party emerging under the leadership of the popular former foreign minister Ismail Cem, who has deserted Ecevit, along with 60 other deputies since last week.

2. - The Daily Star / Lebanon - "Turkey: From political uncertainty to political chaos":

17 July 2002

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit is facing one of the most difficult battles of his political life, which has been marked by challenges and staying power. It is a life he began in the early 1970s, when he was facing his first confrontations, by removing Ismet Inonu, hero of the war of liberation and Mustapha Kemal Ataturk’s comrade in arms, from the leadership of the Republican People’s Party.

The essence of the overall political crisis in Turkey is connected to the ethos of a regime that is working to exclude some political powers (the Islamists and Tansu Ciller), hindering and paralyzing democracy’s mechanisms. Over the past few days, a disagreement, at least in theory, has been perceptible between two political streams: one that calls for speeding up implementation of the conditions for admission to the European Union, and another calling for caution and taking into account the long-standing anxieties regarding territorial and national integrity and national security.

Those who subscribe to the first stream believe the government is no longer capable of decisive action on this issue because of differences among its various components. And they hold the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) led by Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahecli directly responsible for obstructing adherence to the Copenhagen standards, especially when it comes to abolishing capital punishment and allowing the use of Kurdish in radio and television broadcasts and in education.

Bahecli has stuck to his guns on those issues in the knowledge that the current regime is unable to form a new government without his party, as the alternative would be to draw in the Islamists or Ciller ­ and both are in the bad books of the military establishment. Hence, the survival of the current government and its inability to take decisions to which Bahecli does not agree has served the interests and power base of the MHP, which adopts a hard-line position against non-Turkish minorities, particularly the Kurdish minority.

The pro-EU political stream has almost run out of patience as the November date nears for an EU report on the extent of Turkey’s progress in implementing its political and economic pledges. The time is also nearing for the start of direct EU negotiations with the Greek Cypriot government, irrespective of whether the problem on the island is resolved by the end of the year. This is provoking Ankara and causing it to threaten taking “deterrent” measures.

The conspiracy’s threads have been well woven, and its participants have used Ecevit’s illness as a cover for their plot. The goal was to bring down the current government and to form a new one that would exclude the MHP and include the Democratic Left Party without its leader, Ecevit, whose positions on the EU and on Cyprus keep swinging. Since bringing down the government required Ecevit’s resignation, and since Ecevit did not resign despite being incapacitated by ill health, the “conspirators” moved on to a new plan to remove him.

The plot’s pillars were Deputy Prime Minister Husamettin Ozkan, the second man in Ecevit’s party; Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, who is also a member of Ecevit’s party; Minister of State for the Economy Kemal Dervis and Mesut Yilmaz, leader of the Motherland Party who is also deputy prime minister.

The plot called for removing Ecevit, excluding Bahecli’s MHP and bringing in Ciller’s True Path party. Ozkan or Cem would have been appointed as prime minister. In the event that Ecevit were to insist on remaining in power, Yilmaz would have called during a meeting with Ecevit and Bahecli for a medical report on the prime minister’s condition. This would have been likely to say that Ecevit’s physical and mental state did not enable him to carry out his duties in office, and he would have been ousted on the basis of that report.

Since the head of the medical team managing Ecevit’s treatment is a friend of Ozkan, who is one of the conspiracy’s pillars, Ecevit and Bahecli sensed the plot. Bahecli even accused Yilmaz of hatching it. So, like a phoenix, the elderly Ecevit came to life again and delivered a blow ­ which may be the last in his political life ­ firing Ozkan from the party. Following the plot’s failure, Ozkan and his co-conspirators began another phase in their plot. Ozkan resigned from the government. So far, 46 legislators, seven of them ministers, have also quit Ecevit’s party, including Cem. They hope that the number of resigning party members will reach around 60 so that their plot will succeed following the failure of its earlier stages.

Ecevit dealt with the plot, not merely by putting his own house in order within the party, but by appointing Sukru Sina Gurel, one of the most implacable opponents to joining the EU and a hard-liner on the Cypriot issue, as foreign minister and deputy premier. Ecevit has also succeeded in keeping Dervis, who is an independent, although the latter had planned to resign and join his two co-conspirators, Cem and Ozkan.

Dervis remained within the government because Ecevit told him he would bear the responsibility for any economic collapse that followed his resignation. Dervis was brought in under a US umbrella from the World Bank over a year ago to save the Turkish economy. After trying to blackmail Ecevit by joining the Cem-Ozkan tandem, Dervis now faces blackmail to stay on in the government.

The political uncertainty in Turkey that had until last week characterized the current phase since Ecevit fell ill, has intensified following the recent dramatic and accelerating chain of events, opening up several possibilities:

1. Survival of the current government. However, it cannot survive for long because it is paralyzed. All it can do is postpone its fall for several weeks until agreement is reached in Parliament for early legislative elections in the autumn. If the Ecevit government remains in office until those elections, debate on the issue of capital punishment and the Kurdish language will be postponed. This will be a victory for Bahecli and those disputing the EU’s membership conditions.

2. If the number of those resigning from Ecevit’s government increases to a degree that deprives the government of its parliamentary majority, a new government might be formed grouping Yilmaz and those who have resigned from Ecevit’s party, plus Ciller, who might be invited to join. But to secure a parliamentary vote of confidence, such a coalition would have to ask the Justice and Development Party and the Islam-based Saadet Party to support the government from outside.

The new coalition government’s task would be to quickly ratify the EU’s conditions before the autumn, then hold early parliamentary elections early next year. Ciller and the Islamists may not oppose such a roadmap because in effect, it practically lifts the embargo imposed on them by the famous decision of the army-dominated National Security Council, known as the “Feb. 28 resolutions” of 1997, against the Erbakan-Ciller government. But such a roadmap entails tackling some complex issues involving the military, especially regarding Ciller’s participation and soliciting the Islamists’ support.

The party Cem plans to establish adds nothing new to the political map. Experience shows that no dissident figure has succeeded in imposing its presence outside the large traditional parties and groupings. However, Cem and Ozkan’s dissent and the steadfastness of Ecevit indicate that Turkey’s political map is fragmenting further, and that the situation is less clear than ever before. The only certainty is total political chaos ­ and the only way out of it is to hold early parliamentary elections.

Mohammad Noureddine is an expert on Turkish affairs. He wrote this commentary for The Daily Star

3. - Reuters - "Call for Turkish elections seen easing uncertainty":

Turkey's lively press heaved a sigh of relief on Wednesday that polls could finally provide an escape route from months of political turmoil sparked by the illness of the ageing Ecevit.

ANKARA / 18 July 2002 / by Ayla Jean Yackley

A call by Turkey's fractured government for early polls eased nerves on Wednesday in financial markets terrified that protracted political instability could ruin an IMF-backed economic recovery.

European Union diplomats said November elections may be too far off for a hamstrung government to make real headway before an October progress review of reforms needed for the EU candidate to launch entry talks.

But opposition and government deputies signalled they may back an early return of parliament in July or August to push through the reforms.

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, crippled by this month's defection of almost 60 deputies from his Democratic Left Party, bowed to pressure from his two coalition partners on Tuesday and agreed to call for general elections on November 3.

Turkey's lively press heaved a sigh of relief on Wednesday that polls could finally provide an escape route from months of political turmoil sparked by the illness of the ageing Ecevit.

But they warned the coming months would prove a stern test for Turkey's fractious parliament and its will to push through EU and IMF reforms amid what is set to be a protracted period of electioneering.

"Last chance for the EU", read the headline in Sabah daily.

Illness has sidelined the 77-year-old premier for much of the last two months, exposing the left-right coalition to simmering disputes over sensitive political reforms demanded by the EU, including abolishing the death penalty and expanding cultural rights for the country's Kurdish minority.

Ecevit's partner, the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP), sees such steps as fomenting ethnic separatism in a country that saw more than 30,000 people die in 17 years of fighting between Kurdish guerrillas and Turkish soldiers.

The division threatened to undermine the government's will to see through a $16 billion International Monetary Fund deal to drag Turkey out of recession. The lira currency has plunged to all-time lows and yields on debt have soared past 70 percent.

Traders welcomed the call for early polls as going some distance in easing the uncertainty that has plagued markets.

"We see that the summit of Turkey's leaders has at least dispersed political uncertainty over elections," said Pelin Okul at Koc Invest in Istanbul.

Washington also sees stability as crucial in a key ally bordering Iraq at a time of mounting speculation the United States may launch an offensive to depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for his alleged development of chemical weapons.

Europe wary

The junior coalition Motherland party, along with leaders of the opposition, have said they will call the assembly back from summer recess for an extraordinary session before the end of July to vote on laws aimed at fulfilling some EU criteria.

MHP leader and deputy premier Devlet Bahceli has signalled he will not stand in the way if his coalition partners turn to the opposition in parliament for support.

"The parties except for the MHP largely agree on these reforms and could pass much of the legislation and ... (that would) bring pressure on the EU to move on the prospect of Turkish membership," said Cengiz Candar, a liberal commentator.

Diplomats in Brussels, however, worry Turkey might still put reforms on the back burner as campaigning gets underway. In October, the EU is to assess Turkey's progress made this year.

"It is important for us to have a strong and stable government as an interlocutor in Turkey, able to carry out the many reforms it needs to adopt," said an EU diplomat.

Others in Brussels said waiting until November for elections could shunt aside slow-moving efforts to reunite Cyprus, where Turkey keeps 30,000 troops in the breakaway Turkish north.

The east Mediterranean island has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded after a short-lived coup backed by Athens.

The EU expects Ankara to press Turkish Cypriots to agree to a peace deal with the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot government before the EU admits the frontrunning candidate, with or without a settlement, as early as 2004.

Most Turks, ravaged by unemployment and poverty, see their country's future in the affluent bloc. Membership, they argue, would guarantee greater economic and political freedoms and cement NATO's only Muslim member firmly alongside the West.

4. - Kurdish Observer - "ECHR condemned Turkey":

The European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey for 4 cases. In the most important of the cases the court ruled that the Turkish state violated the article 13 for killing of lawyer Yusuf Ekinci, one of the outstanding Kurdish intellectuals.

MHA / 17 July 2002 / by Huseyin Elmali

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned Turkey to pay 100 thousand euro damages to the applicants. The court declared its decisions on four cases of killings with unknown perpetrators, torture and freedom of expression the other day. One of the important cases is related with the Kurdish intellectual and lawyer Yusuf Ekinci. The court ruled that Turkey had violated article 13 of the European Accord of Human Rights (EACH) and other two articles which guarantee the right to live. The court condemned Turkey to pay 15 thousand 590 euro moral damages and 5 thousand 200 euro for the legal expenses.

Ekinci was abducted on February 24, 1994 and then found dead on February 25, 1994. That he was found at E-90 highway like Kurdish businessman Behcet Canturk was considered a making of Ciller "list". The case is one of the most evident killings with unknown perpetrators in Kurdistan after 1990. The rule of the ECHR is an important document of the dirty war in Kurdistan.

Freedom of expression

The other three cases vs Turkey there are friendly solutions. On "Haberde Yorumda Gercek" case Turkey will pay 18,700 euro to the applicant to lawyer Kamil Tekin Surek who is the owner of the magazine. The magazine was condemned to pay heavy fines for "propaganda for separationism" and the copies of the magazine were confiscated.

Torture case

And Turkey will pay damages in value of 32,014 euro to Kurdish Mehmet Aydin who has been tortured. Mehmet Aydin was taken under detention on December 30, 1993 on the grounds of being a member of PKK and had been tortured for 7 days. Then he has carried his case to ECHR.

Ozgur Yildiz who was detained on April 19, 1993 on the grounds of being a member of illegal DEV-SOL revolutionary movement will get 30,489 euro damages from Turkey. Yildiz has carried his case to ECHR showing maltreatment under detention as ground.

5. - The Guardian - "Iraq's Kurds assess risk of backing the US":

Supporting Washington's plans could jeopardise precious gains

SULAYMANIYAH - NORTHERN IRAQ / 18 July 2002 / by Michael Howard

The vibrant city of Sulaymaniyah is anxiously awaiting a decision 6,000 miles away in Washington which faces its people, and the rest of the 3.5 million Kurds in the self-rule region of northern Iraq, with a cruel dilemma.

Most of them are as anxious as George Bush to see the back of Saddam Hussein and an end to decades of brutality by successive Iraqi governments, but they are wary of sacrificing all that they have build for themselves since the safe haven was established in the bloody aftermath of the Gulf war.

Looking up to the craggy ridges of Mt Pir Magroun, which tower over the town, Sherwan Mohammed recalls his days as a peshmerga (meaning one who faces death) fighting to defend his people from the wrath of Baghdad.

"I lived in these mountains for months on end with little food. I know every peak, every ambush point, every hiding place. And I'll go up there again if I have to."

But he is anxious about America's intentions.

"We have been let down before. Who is to say it won't happen again?"

This is what the Kurds' leaders want to know too. Why should they commit themselves to taking part in a US-led attack on Baghdad without a clear guarantee of their security and future status?

The two parties controlling the self-rule area, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani, and the Kurdistan Democratic party, led by Massoud Barzani, could muster perhaps as many 80,000 peshmerga between them.

But they would be lightly armed and no match for the Iraqi army, especially if it uses chemical weapons, as it did in the late 1980s.

Aware that their "democratic experiment" in self-rule may stand or fall according to the nature of a post-Saddam administration, the Kurds are reluctant to gamble everything they've gained unless they know the kind of future Iraq the US has in mind.

They are adamant that they will not just be "hired guns" for the west.

"We have bitter memories of being sold out by the Americans on more than one occasion," says Dr Mahmoud Osman, a veteran Kurdish leader.

"Now people fear being victimised once again if America does not support a democratic regime to replace the current one in Baghdad."

His concern is echoed by Barham Salih, the prime minister of the PUK government in Sulaymaniyah.

"We are seeking international guarantees for our security and we are trying to affirm to our neighbourhood ... that we have no desire to harm anyone," he says.

Mr Salih, an articulate, western-educated moderate and one of a much-needed new generation of Kurdish leaders, adds: "The consequences and the risks are very dire for our people, no doubt about it.

"Remember we endured a massive chemical attack in Halabjah, and there are people who are still traumatised by that and it remains very high on our minds. We definitely risk losing what we have."

Since the creation of the haven and the British- and US- patrolled no-fly zone above the 36th parallel, this 40,000 sq km crescent-shaped area, populated mostly by Kurds but with Turkoman and Assyrian minorities, has undergone an impressive transformation.

The task of rebuilding was enormous. Thirty years of fighting the central government in Baghdad left its economic infrastructure in ruins: vast areas of prime agricultural land were mined; 20 towns and more than 4,000 villages were flattened.

The Kurds felt the full force of Saddam's rage during his infamous Al-Anfal operation in the 80s, in which thousands were tortured to death, gassed, shot, or buried alive. Thousands are still missing.

Doubly hit by international sanctions on Iraq and internal sanctions imposed by Baghdad, they created more difficulties for themselves when fighting broke out between the KDP and the PUK in the mid-90s. But the US-brokered ceasefire in 1998 and the revenues from the UN's food-for-oil programme, which began in 1996 and guarantees the Kurds 13% of Baghdad's oil income, have laid the ground for the current renaissance.

A UN official who works in the region says: "At least instead of fighting each other the two regional authorities are now competing to show who can provide their people with the best services. And that's very encouraging."

With the help of the oil revenue, and under UN supervision, most of the destroyed towns and villages have risen again from the rubble.

Agricultural land is being cleared of mines and a big afforestation scheme is under way.

Cities resemble vast building sites. Smartly-uniformed, and uniquely polite, traffic police patrol the streets.

Health care is also improving, food seems plentiful and the standard of living is rising steadily.

The Kurdish authorities are encouraging a cultural pluralism rarely seen in the region: satellite TV and the internet are widely available; there is a growing party and opposition press, the Turkoman and Assyrian communities can broadcast and publish in their own languages; an atmosphere of religious tolerance prevails.

"The times here are good but they are definitely not good enough," Mr Salih says.

"Our people deserve better and it cannot be good enough until we have a voice in Baghdad and until we have constitutional guarantees in Baghdad, and we have a credible share in the revenues of Iraq devoted to the rehabilitation or our economy.

"Some Kurds may be short sighted enough to say don't tamper with what we have, that this is good, but definitely this is not a healthy situation we live in."

Having long ago abandoned any realistic hope of an independent state, the Kurds are clinging to the notion of a federal Iraq, in which they will run their own region. They hope a framework will be agreed at a meeting in the Netherlands in September of the Group of Four: the KDP, the PUK, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (representing the Shia majority) and the Iraqi National Accord - mainly former members of the ruling Ba'ath party.

Turkey, Syria, and Iran, each with its own large Kurdish population, are wary of this growing confidence.

An extreme Islamist group with suspected links to al-Qaida is violently opposed to the secular Kurdish authorities and has attempted suicide bombings and assassinations, including an attack earlier this year on Mr Salih. Attacks on parks and restaurants, possibly instigated by Baghdad, have unsettled the main towns.

Mr Salih says: "We Kurds have learned to deal with the terrible hand history and geography have dealt us."

Nobody, it appears, wants to see the Kurds deal with it too well.

Living with the enemy

·An estimated 35m-40m Kurds live in an area covering parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran, Iraq and the former Soviet Union: the world's biggest ethnic group without its own country

·About 4.5m live in Iraq, roughly a quarter of its population

·Of these, 3.5m live under Kurdish rule in the northern safe haven and no-fly zone, the rest in areas governed by Baghdad

·The self-rule region was governed jointly by the Kurdistan Democratic party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan until 1994, when the factions began fighting

·The Iraqi army invaded in 1996 and briefly occupied Irbil

·In1998 the factions signed a peace deal dividing the region: the KDP rules from Irbil, the PUK from Sulaymaniyah

·In the early 90s those in the self-rule region suffered doubly under the UN sanctions against Iraq and Baghdad's sanctions on their region, but their standard of living has improved substantially since the UN food-for-oil scheme began in 1996

6. - The New York Times - "Turkey Says Debt Negotiations Aren't Linked to Stand on Iraq":

ANKARA / 17 July 2002 / by Daniel Simpson

Turkey wants the United States to write off more than $4 billion in debt, but government officials said today that they were not naming a price for their support of military action to topple President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

Turkish officials, who publicly oppose any operation against Iraq but privately concede they may be willing to compromise, said they had discussed cancellation of money owed for arms purchases with the deputy defense secretary, Paul D. Wolfowitz, during his talks here.

"The economic support we discussed was independent of any other issue," a senior government official said. Ankara also wants Washington to hasten Congressional approval for a $228 million aid package that the Bush administration has earmarked for Turkey, according to officials of both countries.

But the Turkish government was at pains to emphasize that this did not amount to laying down conditions for an operation in which the support of Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, would be vital.

Before leaving Ankara, Mr. Wolfowitz emphasized that Washington was not asking for Turkey's clear backing for an attack on Iraq.

"We did not come here asking for decisions — we haven't made our own decisions ourselves," Mr. Wolfowitz told reporters in Ankara, the capital. He said that before making such decisions, it was important for Mr. Bush "to have the benefit of perspectives of key countries who are key partners, and Turkey is as important as any country in figuring out how to grapple with this issue."

Turkey, mired in its worst recession since 1945 and a political crisis that has brought about early elections, publicly repeated its reservations about a renewed offensive against Iraq after its request for economic assistance.

Mr. Wolfowitz assured the Turks, who say the 1991 Persian Gulf war and subsequent sanctions against Baghdad cost billions of dollars in lost trade, of American support to ease a crippling economic crisis that has made Turkey the International Monetary Fund's biggest debtor.

"Turkey's economic situation is something of great concern to the United States," he said.

He also sought to ease Turkish fears that an attack on Iraq could create problems with Kurds who are demanding independence.

Since Kurdish fighters wrested control of northern Iraq from Baghdad after the gulf war, the United States has protected the breakaway region. But Mr. Wolfowitz ruled out the creation of a separate state, which Turkey has long opposed, fearing its own large Kurdish minority would be encouraged to renew a guerrilla struggle for independence.

"There is a lot of agreement with Turkey on what we would like to see after Saddam," Mr. Wolfowitz said. "We're both opposed to Kurdish states. We're both concerned about the rights of minorities."

He also reminded Turks that they stood to gain from a change of regime in Baghdad, where the Iraqi president was defiant today, insisting there was no way Washington could bring an end to his 23-year rule.

If Iraq were to become a democratic state, "it won't only be the people of Iraq who benefit from that, it will be the whole world and very much this region," Mr. Wolfowitz said. "Turkey stands to benefit enormously when Iraq becomes a normal country."