9
July 2002
2. "Desertions from ailing Ecevit put Turkey on road to poll", Turkey appeared to be heading for early elections last night after the party of Bulent Ecevit, the Prime Minister, started to disintegrate around him.
3. "Wary US watches political unrest in Turkey", the United States said Monday it was watching ongoing political unrest in Turkey "with interest" but declined to comment on what it said was a purely domestic issue.
4. "Kurds, Secure in North Iraq, Are Cool to a U.S. Offensive", as the United States considers ways of accomplishing President Bush's call for an end to Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq, Washington's goal of a "regime change" in Baghdad is running into strong reservations from Iraqi Kurdish leaders who would be crucial allies in any military campaign.
5. "Political Changes Reduce Kurdistan Honor Killings", in the independent semi-state of Kurdistan, the repeal of an Iraqi law means fewer women are dying at the hands of family who they believe have shamed them. Some threatened women must now live in shelters, however.
6. "Clerides says not optimistic over Cyprus talks", Greek Cypriot leader Glafcos Clerides said on Monday the outcome of peace talks designed to stave off the prospect of a divided country joining the EU did not look promising.
1. - AFP - "Political earthquake rocks Turkey":
ANKARA / 8 July 2002 / by Sibel Utku
Turkey's ailing Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit saw his party and government
fall apart on Monday as his top deputy led a wave of resignations by
ministers atop a move by his senior coalition partner to call early
polls.
Ecevit's closest aide and deputy prime minister Husamettin Ozkan was the first to quit both his government post and Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP) amid a rift over the future of the embattled government. Culture minister Istemihan Talay, state minister Recep Onal and deputy parliament speaker Ali Iliksoy followed suit, while two other state ministers were reported poised to join the mutiny.
Resignations by DSP legislators followed swiftly, and Iliksoy said their number "must have reached 10 to 15." Parliamentary sources told AFP the resignations were expected to continue on Tuesday and the total number of defectors to hit about 35. The 77-year-old Ecevit's two-month absence from office due to ill health has already hit the financial markets, battling one of the country's worst ever recessions with massive aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
A government deadlock over democracy reforms required under Turkey's struggling bid to join the European Union has added to the tensions. The Istanbul stock market continued to plunge Monday, losing nearly 4.7 percent. The defections dealt a second blow to Ecevit, following an initiative by his far-right coalition partner, the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), earlier in the day to call for early elections. Ecevit, who has steadfastly refused to resign or call an early vote despite mounting pressure, remained silent in the face of the mutiny, which deprived the DSP from its position as the biggest party in the 550-member parliament.
The DSP had 128 seats, only one more than the MHP. A senior MHP member said the future of the government depended on the decisions Ecevit would make. "The stance of Mr. Ecevit is important. (It is to be seen) whether he will maintain the government or not and if the government continues, under what conditions this will be," Sevket Bulent Yahnici was quoted by Anatolia news agency as saying. Many doubted the government's ability to hold together.
"It has become harder for the government to stay on its feet. Polls have become imperative," said opposition Islamist leader Recai Kutan. The defectors said their decision was due to the "disloyalty" Ecevit had displayed towards Ozkan, whom many called the "son" of the childless Ecevit and had the reputation of the coalition's troubleshooter.
"There is no place for us in a party where respect and loyalty have disappeared," Iliksoy said. The shake-up followed remarks by Ecevit on Sunday that Ozkan had hurt him by remaining silent in the face of harsh calls on the prime minister to quit. But the media reported that at the core of the row were plans by Ozkan to initiate the formation of a new overnment without Ecevit and the MHP to boost the economy and break the deadlock over EU-demanded democracy reforms.
The defectors did not hide their intention to launch a new political movement. "Turkey needs new political formations... to open the way of politics, which is now deadlocked and passive," Talay said. Two more powerful figures are named as possible allies in the new movement: Foreign Minister Ismail Cem and Economy Minister Kemal Dervis, the latter expected to meet with Ozkan on Tuesday.
Ecevit, a five-time prime minister who has become a symbol of honesty and gentlemanliness on Turkey's rough political scene, has governed his party with an iron grip together with has wife Rahsan, and earned reputation for easily dismissing those who showed the slightest disobedience. Since Ecevit fell ill two months ago, the stock exchange has plunged, the lira has nosedived against the dollar and interest rates have shot up, triggering fears over the rollover of the country's hefty debt.
At stake are crucial economic reforms backed by a 16-billion-dollar
loan from the IMF and Turkey's EU membership bid, whose delay could
further discourage foreign investors from the country. Public surveys
have shown that snap polls could oust the embattled ruling parties from
parliament and open the door to the rise of popular Islamist leader
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which would almost certainly upset the army-led
secularist elite of the mainly Muslim country. 
2. - The Times - "Desertions from ailing Ecevit put Turkey on road to poll":
ISTANBUL / 9 July 2002 / from Andrew Finkel 
Turkey appeared to be heading for early elections last night after
the party of Bulent Ecevit, the Prime Minister, started to disintegrate
around him.
Mr Ecevit, who has been plagued by illness, is witnessing the collapse of both his Government and the Democratic Left Party, which he founded. Four senior ministers quit and a further wave of resignations is expected today as more MPs desert the main government party.
Recently Turkey had appeared to be coming out of its worst recession since 1945, but the Prime Minister’s ill-health has shaken confidence and the consequent jittery markets have put in question a commitment by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to lend the country $17 billion (£11 billion).
Although Mr Ecevit has long maintained that both he and his coalition were healthy enough to serve until April 2004, its full term, it seems inevitable that Turkey will face an early poll, probably this autumn.
“I think everyone wants early elections,” Emre Balkeser, a sales trader at Alfa Securities in Istanbul, said. “The biggest problem is we don’t know what’s going to happen until then.”
The lira, which lost half its value during financial turmoil last year, hit an all-time low of 1,680,000 to the dollar in early trading before pulling back. Stocks ended almost 5 per cent down.
“It’s chaos: extreme uncertainty in the sense that you don’t know what’s going to happen the next day or even in the next hour,” Emin Ozturk, an economist at Bender Securities, said.
The desertion of Mr Ecevit’s main coalition partners in the Nationalist Action Party, who are opposed to reform, also threatens Turkey’s hopes of joining the European Union in negotiations due to begin after the Copenhagen summit in December.
Turkish deputies have dragged their feet over key pieces of legislation demanded by Brussels, including measures to allow broadcasting and education in Kurdish and to abolish the death penalty.
The political confusion made this task no easier, Ismail Cem, the Foreign Minister, conceded. “We have to persevere. If this Parliament can’t do it. It might be easier for the next,” he said.
The Nationalist Action Party, Mr Ecevit’s hardline coalition supporters, suspect Europe of trying to divide Turkey by saving the life of Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish separatist under sentence of death. Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalists, signalled the end of the alliance by calling for a general election. “If political instability is preventing the implementation of the economic programme then we should have the courage to let the nation decide,” he told a party rally at the weekend.
Until now most commentators had believed that the Government would cling together out fear of annihilation at the polls in the face of economic problems. GNP shrank by 9.4 per cent last year. Turkey is the IMF’s best customer already, using about a third of its available country credit.
However, clearly the sight of Mr Ecevit in open conflict with his own supporters has convinced Mr Bahceli that he had nothing to lose by waiting. By showing that he is not afraid of an election, he is hoping to gain a tactical advantage in a highly divided field.
There are numerous political parties all hoping to get over the 10 per cent threshold necessary to qualify for seats in Parliament.
It was the immediate prospect of having to fight an election with a physically drained leader at their head that is hastening the desertions from Mr Ecevit’s party. Likely candidates to head a new Centre Left party include Mr Cem. Kemal Dervis, Turkey’s highly regarded Economy Minister, has also announced that he would be seeking a more active political role.
The man most commentators believe the contenders have to beat is Tayyip Erdogan, the head of the Justice and Development Party, which opinion polls give a clear-cut lead. Mr Erdogan, however, suffers from a judicial ban and his victory might force a confrontation with the Turkish military, which suspects him of having a hidden Islamic agenda.
Yesterday Mr Erdogan insisted that there was nothing to
fear from either himself or his party. He said that he represented a
conservative tradition and pledged to maintain support for the Turkish
military operation in Afghanistan.
3. - AFP - "Wary US watches political unrest in Turkey":
WASHINGTON / 8 July 2002
The United States said Monday it was watching ongoing political
unrest in Turkey "with interest" but declined to comment on
what it said was a purely domestic issue.
"Turkey is a vibrant democracy, a good friend and a NATO ally," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "We're monitoring the unfolding political developments there with interest, but we have no comment on what's an internal political matter," he told reporters. However, US officials allowed that they were not watching situation -- in which ailing Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's party and government fell apart on Monday -- without unease.
"Certainly, there is some concern," one official told AFP. "But we're sure the Turks will be able to handle this." The crisis has hit the Turkish stock market hard -- it plunged nearly 4.7 percent on Monday -- and fears over political paralysis have risen in the last two months, with the ailing Ecevit away from his office since then. Turkey, the only Muslim-majority member of NATO, is currently heading the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan is home to key alliance air bases.
Its political and economic stability are important to
a variety of US interests, including the Middle East, Iraq, the war
on terrorism and its festering disputes with fellow NATO member Greece.
Public surveys have shown that snap polls could oust the embattled ruling
parties from parliament and open the door to the rise of popular Islamist
leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which would almost certainly upset the
army-led secularist elite of the mainly Muslim country.
4. - The New York Times - "Kurds, Secure in North Iraq, Are Cool to a U.S. Offensive":
8 July 2002
As the United States considers ways of accomplishing President Bush's
call for an end to Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq, Washington's goal
of a "regime change" in Baghdad is running into strong reservations
from Iraqi Kurdish leaders who would be crucial allies in any military
campaign.
These leaders, interviewed in their strongholds in northern Iraq in the last week, say flatly that they would be reluctant to join American military operations that put Kurds at risk of an onslaught by Iraqi troops of the kind they suffered after the Persian Gulf war in 1991. A Kurdish uprising then that was encouraged by the first President Bush was brutally suppressed by Mr. Hussein, and American forces failed to intervene as thousands of Kurds were killed.
No group has suffered more from Mr. Hussein's 23-year-old rule than the Kurds, who lost tens of thousands of lives to Iraqi offensives in the 1980's and 90's. The most brutal attacks, cited by the present President Bush recently as part of the justification for toppling the Iraqi ruler, involved Iraqi use of poison gas at Halabja and dozens of other towns and villages in the northern Kurdish districts during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war that ended in 1988.
Still, no Iraqis have benefited more from Western support in the last decade than the Kurds. Protected by a "safe haven" declared by the United Nations and a "no-flight zone" patrolled by American and British warplanes, the Kurds, with barely 40,000 troops and only light weapons, have built a 17,000-square-mile mini-state that arcs across a 500-mile stretch of Iraqi territory bordering Syria, Turkey and Iran.
The threat of Western airstrikes has kept Iraqi armored battalions immobilized to the south, often within artillery range of Kurdish strongholds like Erbil, a sprawling city of 750,000 people 250 miles north of Baghdad. In this "liberated area" of soaring mountains, fertile foothills and semi-desert, the Kurds have built a society with freedoms denied to the rest of Iraq's population.
The Kurdish-controlled area has opposition parties and newspapers, satellite television and international telephone calls, and an absence of the repressive apparatus that has prompted international human rights organizations to brand Mr. Hussein's Iraq a terror state.
The drawback is that all this exists outside international law, and could be made permanent only by a new government in Baghdad that embraced freedoms for all of Iraq.
But while an American-led military campaign to topple Mr. Hussein holds out the possibility of making their freedoms more secure, the Kurdish leaders, backed by almost every Kurd who discussed the issue, said Washington would be asking them to put all they have gained from their decade of autonomy at risk of a fresh Iraqi offensive.
"We are not ready to take any risks, and if we are not sure of the outcome of any step, then we are not ready to take that step, because we are not sure of improving our circumstances," Massoud Barzani, leader of one of the two main Kurdish political groups, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said at his mountaintop headquarters outside Salahuddin, north of Erbil.
He added, alluding to the centuries of oppression Kurds suffered from Turks, Arabs and Persians, "This is a golden era for Iraqi Kurds."
Their concerns are so deep that the Kurds have set aside political differences among themselves to speak with a common voice on the possibility of American action against Mr. Hussein. After a history of internecine strife, including a brief civil war in 1996, Mr. Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan have divided the northern territory into two separate areas, each with its own government and army.
But at their respective headquarter cities, Erbil and Sulaimaniya, the reluctance of the Kurds to support American moves against Mr. Hussein is expressed in virtually identical terms. Leaders in both cities said officials from the Pentagon, the State Department, the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency visited the Kurdish territory this year to discuss American options, and had also met with Kurds in Washington and Europe.
At one meeting in Europe this spring, Kurdish officials in Sulaimaniya said, Mr. Barzani and Mr. Talabani, bitter rivals for years, sat down together to meet with American officials. Their main message, the Kurdish officials said, was that Washington should not expect Kurds to subordinate their own safety to American priorities. "Nobody has suffered more from Saddam than the Kurds," one senior official said. "We told the Americans, `This time, the Kurds will put their own interests first, and last.' "
Although the Kurds' fear of again being abandoned by the United States seemed real, the greater fear seemed to be of Mr. Hussein. An official in Erbil acknowledged that the Kurdish leaders, in publicly discouraging American military action, were signaling to the Iraqi leader that the Americans, not the Kurds, were his adversaries. "Saddam is our shadow," the official said. "He's always there, right behind us, and we don't want him to think that we're drawing the Americans in to overthrow him."
Concern among the Kurds seems certain to increase with the failure in Vienna on Friday of the latest talks between the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, and Iraqi officials aimed at resuming United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq. The inspections are to determine whether Baghdad is continuing efforts toward building nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as Washington has charged, and to destroy any programs that are found.
Many United Nations members, including important American allies, see a resumption of weapons inspections, suspended after Mr. Hussein drove inspectors from Baghdad in 1998, as the only way of forestalling American military action. United Nations and Iraqi officials said talks would continue in Europe in coming months, but Washington viewed the Vienna meeting as a watershed. Iraqi officials placed blame for the talks' failure on an "American plot" to prepare for a military attack.
In an American-led campaign, Kurdish territory would be a crucial platform for a ground assault.
In one plan discussed in Washington, American forces, with Kurdish and other Iraqi opposition fighters, would seek to replicate the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, using the Kurdish-controlled areas and troops much as the territory and troops of the Afghan Northern Alliance were used.
But the Kurdish leaders, in the interviews, said they would resist any American actions aimed at toppling Mr. Hussein unless Washington gave "guarantees" in advance. They said these would include an undertaking that a future Iraqi government would adopt a democratic political system, with a federal structure that provided for wide-ranging Kurdish autonomy in the north.
In effect, this would require Washington to promise that Kurds would maintain effective control of the area they now rule. But it is far from certain that other Iraqi opposition groups drawing support from the country's Arabs would agree, partly because of the Baghdad's reliance on revenues from the north's oil fields.
The Kurdish leaders spoke with a sharp edge of distrust for the United States, which they said had "betrayed" Iraqi Kurds at crucial moments in the past, most recently during the Iraqi onslaught against the Kurdish uprising in 1991. Mr. Barzani and other leaders also referred bitterly to events in 1975, when the United States encouraged Iraqi Kurds to ally themselves with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran in a territorial dispute with Iraq, only to back a reconciliation between Iran and Iraq that left the Kurds exposed to a military crackdown by Baghdad.
Mr. Barzani coupled this bitterness with a reminder that Washington's hawkishness on Iraq is led by a president whose father, many Iraqi Kurds contend, let them down in 1991.
After American troops liberated Kuwait, then stopped at Iraq's southern border, the first President Bush encouraged Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the south to "take matters into their own hands." He then withheld American military support when their uprisings drew savage retribution from Baghdad.
When they discuss American plans, the Kurdish leaders reserve their harshest condemnation for any attempt to topple Mr. Hussein by C.I.A.-led covert action, possibly by fomenting a military coup. Reports from Washington have said Mr. Bush this year strengthened a presidential directive authorizing the C.I.A. to mount covert operations inside Iraq with the aim of toppling Mr. Hussein, and authorized American agents to kill him if necessary in self-defense.
But Barham Salih, who heads the government in the eastern
half of the Kurdish territory under the authority of Mr. Talabani, said
American officials had been told bluntly that the Kurds would oppose
any attempt to topple Mr. Hussein by a coup. "We are not interested
in exchanging one dictator for another," Mr. Salih said. "We
want a democratic, pluralistic, responsible government in Iraq, and
that cannot come from a coup."
5. - Womens News - "Political Changes Reduce Kurdistan Honor Killings":
In the independent semi-state of Kurdistan, the repeal of an Iraqi law means fewer women are dying at the hands of family who they believe have shamed them. Some threatened women must now live in shelters, however.
SULEIMANIYA / by Joshua Kucera
It's 11:30 a.m., but Awas is still in her nightgown as she tells
a visitor about what brought her to a women's shelter here. It's the
2-year-old daughter she dandles on her knee, and the fact that no one
knows who the father is.
For that, Awas' relatives have promised that they will kill her if they see her again. So she stays here, under the protection of an armed guard, while the shelter workers try to negotiate a peaceful solution with the family.
"Everybody makes mistakes. Why don't they forgive me?" asks Awas, 25, who asked to be identified by her first name only.
In rural areas in many parts of the world, especially the Middle East, a family's honor is defined by the perceived purity of its women. And when that honor is damaged, some families take drastic actions to restore it. Thus "honor killings," in which a family makes the decision to kill a woman who has brought them shame. In many countries, including Iraq, the practice is legal and claims hundreds of lives every year.
But here in the independent semi-state of Kurdistan, the situation is changing.
After years of fighting against Baghdad, Kurds seeking autonomy within northern Iraq took control of three provinces in 1991. They now have their own administration complete with parliament, police, army and tax collection independent of the Iraqi government.
Women Fought for Independence, Demanded End of Sanctioned Murders
For women's rights advocates, one of the first goals after independence was the repeal of Article 111 of the Iraqi code, which allows honor killings.
"Because [women] participated in the fight for freedom, for Kurdistan, we must have the ability to have our freedom," said Roonak Faraj, head of the Independent Women's Center here.
Kurdistan now is jointly ruled by two factions, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Patriotic Union controls the region of Suleimaniya, which is regarded as the cultural capital of Kurdistan and is traditionally more liberal than the rest of the region.
The Independent Women's Center operates three shelters in Suleimaniya for women threatened by their families and also publishes a newspaper that reports on every honor killing.
Last year, activists managed to get Article 111 repealed in Patriotic Union territory. Now they're trying to do the same in Democratic Party territory, as well as open more shelters in the Kurdistan capital of Erbil and the provincial capital of Dohuk.
The repeal of Article 111 in Suleimaniya was a good start, but "this doesn't mean the problem has disappeared," Faraj said. The number of honor killings in Patriotic Union territory has steadily declined over the last decade, from 75 in 1991 to 15 last year. The drop in Democratic Party territory has been only slightly less dramatic, from 96 in 1991 to 32 last year.
Only Four Women Able to Leave Shelters; One Later Murdered
The shelters are new and the problems so difficult that there is still no permanent solution for the women.
"We know that it's like a prison for them," said Faraj, who encourages families to take back and forgive the female relatives they believe have shamed them. "But we're trying to think of what to do with them. So far we don't have a suitable solution for them. Day by day, month by month, we will try with their families."
So far only four women have been able to leave the shelter. Two fled to Europe and one was killed by her family, who had insisted they were ready to forgive her before pushing her into a lake. Only one has been able to remain in Kurdistan, and that is because the center's patron, the mother of a top Patriotic Union official, made her son promise to jail all the men in the woman's family if anything happened to her.
Awas is from the city of Kirkuk, which is predominantly Kurdish but lies outside Kurdistan's control. She was first married at age 11 to a cousin three years older, then divorced at 17 and got married again five months later. Three children later, Awas was forced to go back to her family after her second husband was killed.
But when she gave birth to 2-year-old Kale, she had to go to prison for a year and a half--sex outside marriage is a punishable offense in Iraq. During this time, a relative came to the prison and told an official there that the family was planning to kill Awas when she was released. The prison administrator told the Independent Women's Center, and Awas went straight from prison to the shelter.
The women working at the shelter said they haven't told Awas that a relative specifically threatened her, but she knows anyway. "I can't go back to Kirkuk. I know my family will kill me," she said.
The Women's Center keeps the locations of the honor killing shelters secret for security reasons. But, because Awas' family in Kirkuk likely does not know that she is in Suleimaniya, she isn't in as much danger as women from Kurdistan in similar circumstances. So she is staying temporarily in a shelter for battered women while the shelter workers figure out a longer-term solution.
A 2000 U.N. report documented honor killings from Bangladesh, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, India, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Brazil, Ecuador, Uganda and Morocco.
"The practice of 'honor killings' is more prevalent although not limited to countries where the majority of the population is Muslim. In this regard it should be noted that a number of renowned Islamic leaders and scholars have publicly condemned this practice and clarified that it has no religious basis," the report said.
One notorious honor killing in January was of an Iraqi Kurd woman living in Sweden who had campaigned against honor killings. After she had a relationship with a Swedish man her father shot and killed her. The father is now living in the Kurdish province of Dohuk, out of Patriotic Union control and thus legally untouchable for now.
But there are success stories, too. Faraj points at a recent issue of the Independent Women's Center's newspaper, which has a photo of a recent honor killing victim whose alleged killers were arrested. Because of the new law, she says, "this man is in jail now."
Joshua Kucera is a freelance journalist based in Belgrade,
Yugoslavia.
6. - Reuters - "Clerides says not optimistic over Cyprus talks":
NICOSIA / 9 July 2002
Greek Cypriot leader Glafcos Clerides said on Monday the outcome
of peace talks designed to stave off the prospect of a divided country
joining the EU did not look promising.
Reunification talks started in January in a bid to beat the countdown to December's European Union decision on enlargement, with little progress so far.
"No optimism is justified at the present time in spite of the constructive approach of our side during these talks," Clerides told a conference of academics in the capital Nicosia.
Clerides represents the Greek Cypriot community in the talks with the Turkish Cypriot community headed by its leader Rauf Denktas.
Clerides's second five-year term expires in February 2003. The veteran leader, 83, dismissed speculation of a possible extension of his term to continue negotiations.
"There are no thoughts to extend the term of the current presidency," he said.
The two leaders, who have sparred with one another in various capacities for decades, have already overshot their self-imposed end-June target for a breakthrough in the talks.
A key source of tension between NATO allies Greece and Turkey, Athens has made no secret of the fact it may block EU eastward enlargement if the next expansion does not include Cyprus.
Turkey, which supports Turkish state in northern Cyprus, has said it may annex the territory -- possibly ending its own EU membership hopes -- if Cyprus gets in without a settlement.
The Greek and Turkish Cypriots are deeply divided on many issues ranging from power sharing in a future administration to territorial adjustments, troop withdrawals and settlement rights of the population.
The talks have broken off for 15 days while U.N. envoy Alvaro de Soto reports back to the Security Council in New York.