8
May 2002
2. "Turkey's blockade on Armenia will not waiver", Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli said on Tuesday his country's blockade on neighbouring Armenia would stand until Armenians relinquish control over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
3. "Yet another hitch in Israel tank tender", Israel claims that the Berlin-imposed military embargo would be lifted within time for it to proceed with the tank modernisation program.
4. "PKK put on terrorism list, Turkey initiated military operation in Kurdistan", the day the European Union placed the PKK on its terrorism list, the Turkish army initiated a military operation in Kurdistan.
5. "Kurdish leader meets Syrian president", the leader of the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Massoud Barzani, has met the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus amid increasing talk of a "regime change" in Baghdad pushed by the United States.
6. "We're Taking Him Out", his war on Iraq may be delayed, but Bush still vows to remove Saddam. Here's a look at White House plans.
1. - AFP - "Turkish army cuts ties with France over media protest":
ANKARA / May 8 
The Turkish military has suspended bilateral ties with the French
military in retaliation for a recent protest by the Paris-based Reporters
sans Frontieres (Reporters without Borders) group targeting its chief,
the NTV news channel reported Wednesday.
The report could not immediately be confirmed, as officials from the Turkish general staff were not available for comment. A French diplomat based here, however, said that although Turkish military officials had made known their displeasure over the RSF initiative, the French embassy in Ankara had not been notified of any suspension in ties.
"Our military attache met Turkish military officials yesterday (Tuesday) who expressed discontent over the RSF protest," the diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. "At no point did they say that there would be a suspension of ties," he added. The reported Turkish protest came after a picture of the Turkish Army's general chief of staff, Huseyin Kivrikoglu, was featured on an RSF world map as the leader of a country where "freedom of the press is trampled on", along with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad of Syria, NTV added.
A large copy of the map was notably placed on the floor of Saint Lazare station in central Paris, where passers-by could symbolically trample on it, the report said. The Turkish military had asked French authorities to intervene, adding that the the suspension would stay in effect as long as Kivrikoglu's picture was not removed, NTV said. The general staff had also hired a lawyer in France and would launch legal action against RSF, the report added. Last week the reporters' group held a series of high-profile protests against regimes that it says repress media freedoms to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3.
The Turkish army, which has carried out three military
coups since the Turkish Republic was set up 79 years ago, wields considerable
influence in politics and heavily influences the country's administration
through the monthly meetings of the national security council. It remains
one of the most trusted institutions in the country, according to recent
public polls. 
2. - AFP - "Turkey's blockade on Armenia will not waiver":
BAKU / 7 May 2002
Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli said on Tuesday his
country's blockade on neighbouring Armenia would stand until Armenians
relinquish control over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Bahceli
made the pledge at the end of a two-day visit to the former Soviet republic
of Azerbaijan, Turkey's close ally which lost control of Karabakh during
a bitter war in the early 1990's.
"Normalisation of relations between Turkey and Armenia depends on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem and the liberation of the occupied territories," Bahceli said at a meeting with Azeri President Heidar Aliyev. Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, accompanying Bahceli on the visit, said earlier on Tuesday that Ankara "will support Baku on the question (of Karabakh), whatever decision it takes."
However, Aliyev slapped down his own Defense Minister Safar Abbiyev who said on Tuesday that Azerbaijan's military was ready to seize control of the enclave by force if necessary. "I have thought a lot about this and analysed the question and I have arrived at the view that we must try to solve this problem through peaceful means," said the Azeri president. The conflict broke out in 1989 when Karabakh's mainly Armenian population declared independence from Azerbaijan. A ceasefire in 1994 ended the fighting but Baku still claims the enclave is being illegally occupied by Armenia.
This week's visit by the delegation of Turkish cabinet
ministers cemented the already close relations between Azerbaijan and
Turkey. The two countries share a common culture and language, Azerbaijan
has modelled its secular constitution on Turkey's and they have growing
economic, political and military ties. Among other issues discussed
by the delegation were plans to increase Azerbaijan's military co-operation
with Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance. The two sides talked about
joint measures to create a "security corridor" to protect
the planned Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline which will export Azeri crude
oil via Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean. The delegation also discussed
a collective effort to tackle terrorism and international crime in the
region. Abbiyev pointed the finger at Karabakh's Armenian rulers, claiming
they were letting the territory be used as a base for international
terrorists, weapons smugglers and the illegal drugs trade. The Turkish
delegation, which also included Resat Dogru, Minister of State in charge
of relations with Turkic-speaking countries, was scheduled to fly home
on Wednesday morning.
3. - NTV / MSNBC - "Yet another hitch in Israel tank tender":
Israel claims that the Berlin-imposed military embargo would be lifted within time for it to proceed with the tank modernisation program.
8 May 2002
The controversial M-60 tank modernisation tender, awarded to the
Israeli firm IMI, now faces another possible complication, coming hard
on the heals of calls to cancel the multi-million dollar agreement in
protest at Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian communities
on the West Bank.
The future of the project has been thrown into doubt due to a military embargo imposed on Israel by Germany, supplier of some of the critical components to be used in the upgrading of Turkey’s fleet of ageing M-60 main battle tanks.
Ankara has expressed its concern to IMI officials over the possible impact of the German embargo and is seeking assurances that there will be no complications in the project. Israel has responded by saying that it has a 30-month time to develop the prototype of the upgraded M-60 and that the embargo would be lifted by then.
The modernisation tender has came under fire, mainly from
Turkey’s opposition parties, who have called for the cancelling
of the project in response to the heightened military action of Israel
against the Palestinians.
4. - Comité du Kurdistan - "PKK put on terrorism list, Turkey initiated military operation in Kurdistan":
Press Statement / 7 May 2002
The day the European Union placed the PKK on its terrorism list, the Turkish army initiated a military operation in Kurdistan.
As a direct result of the latest exoneration by the EU of the terror that has been executed against the Kurdish people, the Turkish state’s policy of denial and annihilation of the Kurdish people has been re-enforced and, as though waiting for this opportunity, it has mobilised its military might against them. The EU countries, ignoring the fact that the Kurdish side had unilaterally ceased its military struggle 4 years ago and had declared to the world that the Kurds wished to see the Kurdish question resolved by peaceful and democratic means has, by placing the PKK on its terrorist list, opened the path to a period in which violence and atrocities will be be legitimised.
Despite all warnings by the Kurdish people and their friends the EU countries, for purely economic and political reasons, placed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on its terrorism list on the 3rd of May. On the same day the Turkish military began an operation that encompassed the regions of Cudi, Besler, Beytussebap and Uludere south and east of Sirnak. In addition at 11:00 yesterday, Turkish soldiers were dispatched in Sikorsky helicopters to the region of Haftani, northeast of the city of Zaxo in South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). This operation which was initiated against the People’s Defence Forces (HPG) continues in all its intensity.
From the information we have received to date, the Turkish army’s moving into a region that it had mined on a previous military incursion, has resulted in the death of two unnamed village guards in the village of Osyan in Berwari.
Additional news from civil organisation in the region have indicated that further large-scale military deployment in Sirnak and Silopi is taking place. This indicates that preparations are in progress for a large-scale military incursion into South Kurdistan.
We call on the EU countries to abandon the decision to place the PKK on the terrorism list which has provided the excuse for the operations of the Turkish military which will result in much civilian loss of life and the destruction of homes. We also call on the EU and the international public to demand an end to these attacks which threaten any possibility for the recognition of the legitimate demands of the Kurdish people and a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question.
Comité du Kurdistan, Rue Jean
Stas 41,1060 – Bruxelles, Tel. 0473 49 36 81, Fax. 0253 42 511,
e-mail: kurdistancomite@hotmail.com
5. - BBC - "Kurdish leader meets Syrian president":
By the BBC's Hiwa Osman / 5 May 2002 
The leader of the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Massoud
Barzani, has met the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus amid
increasing talk of a "regime change" in Baghdad pushed by
the United States.
The Kurdish position on such a change could be quite different from that of the Syrians, as each has different interests and ties with Washington and Baghdad.
In an interview with BBC News Online, the KDP's foreign relations chief, Hoshyar Zebari, said that "the two sides presented their views and concepts and there was an understanding of the positions of each other on this issue."
Mr Zebari, who accompanied Mr Barzani on his tour and in Damascus, described the meeting with Mr Assad as "positive and cordial".
The Iraqi Kurds' relations with Syria have always been more amicable than their relations with their other neighbours, Turkey and Iran.
"We enjoy historical relations with Syria," Mr Zebari said. "It is very important for us to consult them on the future of the region and Iraq."
This meeting comes after a "regular and private" European tour by Mr Barzani that coincided with a tour by his rival Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Since 1991, the PUK and KDP have governed the majority of Iraq's Kurdish region, outside the control of Baghdad.
Details of the two leaders' European tours have not been made public, apart from an unprecedented joint meeting in Germany.
Meeting with rival
This meeting was the first of its kind since the signing of a Washington agreement between the two leaders under the auspices of the US State Department in 1998, after four years of fighting.
"We are on the right track to resolve the remaining issues between us," Mr Zebari said of the meeting.
"Both sides are still committed to the Washington agreement despite the different interpretations."
According to Mr Zebari, the two sides have agreed on what needs to be done to "confront the threats and challenges that face the Kurdish experience of self-rule."
These challenges include a unified policy "in dealing with our neighbours and the outside world".
The threats include a newly emerged Islamist group, Supporters of Islam, who have allegedly attempted to assassinate leading figures of the two parties.
"Practical steps in this regard have been taken," Mr Zebari said.
A joint operational centre was established to "combat terrorism" through security cooperation and the exchange of intelligence.
The main task of the centre would be to coordinate efforts between the two sides to combat threats posed by Islamic groups operating in the area and suspected of having links with Osama Bin Laden.
But the centre is also the first step in normalising relations between the two parties, as "it will be expanded to other joint political and military committees".
This reconciliation comes amidst increasing speculation of a US attack against Baghdad and a possible role for the Kurds in such a scenario.
But Mr Zebari said that any talk in this regard is still premature and that one could not compare the overthrow of the Taleban in Afghanistan to the situation in Iraq.
"We have not heard from anyone that a strike is imminent
or in the planning. No one has consulted us at all," he added.
6. - The Times Magazine - "We're Taking Him Out":
His war on Iraq may be delayed, but Bush still vows to remove Saddam. Here's a look at White House plans.
BY DANIEL EISENBERG / 5 May 2002
Two months ago, a group of Republican and Democratic Senators went
to the White House to meet with Condoleezza Rice, the President's National
Security Adviser. Bush was not scheduled to attend but poked his head
in anyway — and soon turned the discussion to Iraq. The President
has strong feelings about Saddam Hussein (you might too if the man had
tried to assassinate your father, which Saddam attempted to do when
former President George Bush visited Kuwait in 1993) and did not try
to hide them. He showed little interest in debating what to do about
Saddam. Instead, he became notably animated, according to one person
in the room, used a vulgar epithet to refer to Saddam and concluded
with four words that left no one in doubt about Bush's intentions: "We're
taking him out."
Dick Cheney carried the same message to Capitol Hill in late March. The Vice President dropped by a Senate Republican policy lunch soon after his 10-day tour of the Middle East — the one meant to drum up support for a U.S. military strike against Iraq. As everyone in the room well knew, his mission had been thrown off course by the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. But Cheney hadn't lost focus. Before he spoke, he said no one should repeat what he said, and Senators and staff members promptly put down their pens and pencils. Then he gave them some surprising news. The question was no longer if the U.S. would attack Iraq, he said. The only question was when.
The U.S. appears ready to do whatever it takes to get rid of the Iraqi dictator once and for all. But while there is plenty of will, there still is no clearly effective way to move against Saddam. Senior Administration officials at the highest levels of planning say there are few good options. Saddam's internal security makes a successful coup unlikely. The Iraqi opposition is weak and scattered. And this is a war that the rest of the world, with the possible exception of Britain, is not eager for America to wage. While key allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, would be more than happy to see Saddam go, they are too busy worrying about their own angry citizens — and quietly profiting from trade with Iraq — to help. A senior Arab official needed only one word to sum up the region's view of any possible military action: "Ridiculous." Yet Cheney gave the Senate policy lunch a very different view. He said the same European and Middle Eastern allies who publicly denounce a possible military strike had privately supported the idea.
Maybe so, but even the Administration has conceded that the Middle East crisis has shoved action against Iraq onto the back burner. When the White House announced a Middle East peace conference last week, a senior Administration official said, "This is a detour, and we have to get around it." Hard-liners, however, think delaying an attack against Saddam because of the Middle East conflict simply means giving him breathing space to perfect his weapons of mass destruction. "Time is not on our side, and Saddam is running out the clock," says Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank.
Though there is a near consensus in Washington that the U.S. can no longer afford the failed containment policy of the past decade, which consisted of sanctions, no-fly zones in the north and south and periodic bombings, there is no real agreement on how or how quickly to achieve "regime change" in Iraq. For all the tough talk along the Potomac, the only war now being waged is the one involving the White House, State Department and Pentagon over how and when to move against Saddam.
A front-page story in the New York Times on April 28 claimed that Bush had all but settled on a full-scale ground invasion of Iraq early next year with between 70,000 and 250,000 U.S. troops. But military and civilian officials insist that there is no finalized battle plan or timetable — and that Bush has not even been presented with a formal list of options. Instead, the Times story, with its vision of a large-scale troop deployment, seems to have been the latest volley in the bureaucratic war at home, leaked by uniformed officers who think some of their civilian overseers have been downplaying the size and difficulty of an attack.
Still, planning for some kind of military action is clearly under way. Earlier this year, Bush signed a supersecret intelligence "finding" that authorized further action to prepare for Saddam's ouster. Mindful of widespread concern that a post-Saddam Iraq could quickly be torn apart by ethnic violence and regional meddling, the White House is increasing its efforts to devise a workable replacement government.
Over the past month, CIA and State Department officials have met with long-feuding Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani to help them bury the hatchet. At a top-secret gathering in Berlin in April, the CIA discussed with them how the U.S. could protect the Kurds if Saddam retaliated against them after a U.S. attack. Also on the U.S. agenda are critical logistical issues, from the condition of roads and airports in the area to how soon Iraqi exiles could be sent into training. (Late last week Barzani confirmed to Time that there was a meeting of Kurdish leaders in Berlin, but denied that the CIA was involved.) While the Kurds, whose forces number about 85,000, could act as a proxy army in the north, they are wary of sacrificing their newfound autonomy (their land is protected by the northern no-fly zone, which is patrolled by U.S. and British planes) for vague promises of a better future. But after watching how the minority Northern Alliance grabbed a major share of power in post-Taliban Afghanistan, they are now asking for a major role in any future Iraqi government, rather than just regional rights, as a price for their cooperation.
Invasion is not the only alternative being considered, but it is the most likely. Taking the Afghanistan campaign as their model, many proponents of action, including Senator John McCain, still believe that before the U.S. commits to a full-scale invasion, it's worth trying to overthrow Saddam in a proxy war with the help of a local opposition force much like the Northern Alliance, aided by American special forces and air power. But the Iraqi opposition, made up of Kurds in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south, is fragmented, largely untested and faced with an Iraqi army much larger and more sophisticated than the one the Northern Alliance helped vanquish in Afghanistan. Given Saddam's brutal record of using chemical weapons against the Kurds and the U.S.'s past failure to help rebelling Kurds as well as Shi'ites in the south, Iraqis would be understandably wary of heeding an American call to rise up.
While Ahmed Chalabi, the tweedy, M.I.T.-educated head of the London-based Iraqi National Congress, is the best-known member of the weak Iraqi opposition, he is not a unanimous choice to inherit the reins of power once Saddam is driven out. Though he enjoys some backing in the White House and the Pentagon, both the CIA and the State Department deride him as a divisive, autocratic blowhard. Since he is a Shi'ite Muslim, Chalabi is viewed with suspicion by many of Iraq's powerful Sunni neighbors, such as Saudi Arabia. The Administration has recently increased contacts with an array of opposition figures, including many military defectors, though a much anticipated conference was scuttled by infighting over who would run it.
The smoothest regime-change scenario — a coup from within Saddam's own military ranks — is the least likely. At least six such coups have been attempted in the past decade, and all have failed miserably. With internal intelligence and security services at his disposal, Saddam has recently stepped up the pace of military purges, shifting around or simply executing any popular, effective officer who posed a potential threat. That leaves classic warfare as the only real alternative to a proxy war.
Hawks like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Policy Board chief Richard Perle strongly believe that after years of American sanctions and periodic air assaults, the Iraqi leader is weaker than most people believe. Rumsfeld has been so determined to find a rationale for an attack that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of Sept. 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back empty-handed. The best hope for Iraqi ties to the attack — a report that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech Republic — was discredited last week.
If links between Iraq and the Sept. 11 conspirators are elusive, links to al-Qaeda may not be. In the past three years, an armed group of Islamic extremists now known as Ansar al-Islam, led in part by a suspected Iraqi intelligence agent, Abu Wa'el, has waged a terror campaign in Kurdistan. Most recently, in April, three militants tried to kill the Prime Minister of eastern Kurdistan just as a State Department official was visiting the region. "It was a message to the U.S.," says a Kurdish investigator. Many of the 700 to 800 members of the group were trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and have returned to Kurdistan since the fighting last year at Tora Bora, according to Kurdish officials.
With hard-liners seizing on such testimony as reason to attack, it falls to Secretary of State Colin Powell — whom many Administration hawks blame for preventing a march on Baghdad at the end of the Gulf War — to play the lonely diplomat. While batting down rumors that he is fed up and quitting, Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, are close to getting a new set of Iraqi sanctions at the U.N. But other Administration principals fear that Saddam is working his own U.N. angle for the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq, whose presence could make the U.S. look like a bully if it invades. "The White House's biggest fear is that U.N. weapons inspectors will be allowed to go in," says a top Senate foreign policy aide.
From the moment he took office, Bush has made noises about finishing the job his father started. Sept. 11 may have diverted his attention, but Iraq has never been far from his mind. By the end of 2001, diplomats were discussing how to enlist the support of Arab allies, the military was sharpening its troop estimates, and the communications team was plotting how to sell an attack to the American public. The whole purpose of putting Iraq into Bush's State of the Union address, as part of the "axis of evil," was to begin the debate about a possible invasion.
Though the Israeli-Palestinian crisis has certainly got in the way, it is not the only potential stumbling block. Bush still has to show anxious Arab allies that the U.S. wouldn't leave a mess for someone else to clean up — which some feel is happening in Afghanistan as the Pentagon refuses to allow international peacekeepers past Kabul city limits. Since the Administration has made it clear that the objective is Saddam's ouster, he has no reason to behave: on his last legs, the Iraqi ruler would seemingly have no reason not to launch missiles laden with chemical or biological weapons against U.S. troops or Israeli cities.
Most important, Bush, unlike his father, has no big, bold provocation around which to build a coalition. Except for offering $25,000 bounties to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Saddam has been trying to stay out of trouble. Everyone knows he's a bad guy and a long-term danger, but as Republican Senator Chuck Hagel wonders, "How urgent is the threat?" And, one might add, how does it compare with the others the U.S. is facing? To many observers, it's a stretch to link any attack on Iraq to the broader war on terrorism. By fostering more anti-American resentment, a long-term neo-colonial presence in Iraq could breed a new generation of suicide bombers ready to wreak havoc on the U.S.
Saudi Arabia might feel compelled to block the U.S. from using its staging bases, though the war could be launched largely from Kuwait in the south and Turkey in the north, with assists from Bahrain and Oman. The Pentagon is preparing for such an eventuality, building a sophisticated combined air operations center at Al Udeid air base in Qatar to replace the one in Saudi Arabia. But if Saddam waits for the conflict to come to Baghdad, this could be an urban, house-to-house battle unlike anything current U.S. troops have ever experienced.
If that sounds like another potential Somalia, it's easy to understand why the President, for all his tough talk, is not about to rush into anything. "Bush cannot embark on a mission that fails," says Geoffrey Kemp, a former member of President Reagan's National Security Council now at the Nixon Center in Washington. "Given what happened to his father and the hype in this Administration, it would be the end." And for Saddam, yet another new beginning.
— Reported by Massimo Calabresi, James Carney,
John F. Dickerson, Mark Thompson, Douglas Waller and Adam Zagorin/Washington,
Scott MacLeod/Cairo and Andrew Purvis/ Kurdistan