15 March 2002

1. "Turks may lift ban on Kurdish soon", Turkey's top advisory council is likely to discuss within days the lifting of controversial bans on Kurdish-language broadcasting as part of reforms to meet EU membership standards on human rights. "The issue will probably come onto the agenda of the MGK (National Security Council) in the coming days," Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said on Thursday in televised remarks.

2. "Turkish leftist sued second time over EU e-mail scandal", the leader of a small Maoist party in Turkey faces a second lawsuit over leaking confidential e-mails from the EU commission's Turkey representation, the Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

3. "Politicians split over Eken issue", the Susurluk Scandal, which emerged in 1996, has caused a fresh split among the politicians in Ankara in the aftermath of some retired generals' support to Korkut Eken.

4. "Turkey fears being drawn into wider anti-terror war", threat of U.S. attack on neighbouring Iraq raising tensions in crisis-hit nation.

5. "Second UK firm abandons Turkey dam project", another British based construction firm has pulled out of a controversial dam project in Turkey and withdrawn its application for £68m of backing from British taxpayers.

6. "Taliban-style group grows in Iraq", in the Kurdish north, a new Islamist group with ties to Al Qaeda has killed women without burqas, seized villages.

1. - Reuters - "Turks may lift ban on Kurdish soon":

March 14

Turkey's top advisory council is likely to discuss within days the lifting of controversial bans on Kurdish-language broadcasting as part of reforms to meet EU membership standards on human rights. "The issue will probably come onto the agenda of the MGK (National Security Council) in the coming days," Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said on Thursday in televised remarks.

The MGK comprises politicians and top generals in an advisory body that meets every month and its recommendations are generally taken as binding by governments. Ecevit's ruling coalition is busy preparing a swathe of liberalizing reforms designed to meet European Union membership criteria and accelerate Turkey's accession to the wealthy bloc.

Successive Turkish governments have said changing the law banning Kurdish broadcasting could foster division and fuel violent separatism among Turkey's estimated 12 million Kurds. Recent constitutional changes lifted some limits on Kurdish broadcasting but other restrictions still linger on the statute books and broadcasters have been targeted in a police crackdown. The government is preparing legislation to harmonize other laws with the constitution and with EU standards.

Ecevit said he was confident he would reach a deal in his coalition, which includes a nationalist party that has long opposed any concessions on Kurdish as meeting the aims of separatist Kurdish rebels Turkey has fought for decades. "We three coalition partners have discussed every issue in depth for the last two and a half years and always reached agreement in the end.

I am sure we will be able to do the same from now on," Ecevit said. Any Kurdish education or broadcasting is likely to be closely monitored by security forces, alert for anything seen to promote separatism or violence. Security forces have fought Kurdish separatists in a 17-year-long conflict that has claimed 30’000 lives, mainly civilians in the southeast.

2. - AFP - "Turkish leftist sued second time over EU e-mail scandal":

ANKARA / March 14

The leader of a small Maoist party in Turkey faces a second lawsuit over leaking confidential e-mails from the EU commission's Turkey representation, the Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

In the indictment, deputy chief prosecutor Erol Ozgenc at the Ankara courthouse charged Dogu Perincek, who heads the Labour Party (iP), with "illegally obtaining, forwarding and publishing" e-mail messages from Karen Fogg, the EC representative in Turkey, the agency said.

It was not clear when the trial would start. If convicted, Perincek could face a prison term of one to three years, the

report said. This is the second lawsuit launched against Perincek. Earlier this week, an Istanbul prosecutor indicted the IP leader and the publisher and editor-in-chief of the party newspaper Aydinlik, Emcet Olcaytu, with the same charges and demanded a maximum prison term of three years for both men.

The e-mail scandal broke last month when Perincek claimed to have obtained e-mails sent to Brussels by Fogg, although he has not explained how. Perincek, known in Turkey for his anti-Western views and conspiracy theories, alleged that the e-mails showed that Fogg was a spy working against Turkish interests. The scandal prompted European Commission President Romano Prodi to call Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit to express his dismay. EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen demanded that Turkey improve security at the EC mission.

3. - Turkish Daily News - "Politicians split over Eken issue":

March 15

Ecevit: As the head of government I do not want to make commands. It is a judicial matter

Izgi: A policy that jails heroes like Eken and pardons traitors is not present in Turkey

Saglar: The timing of the statement is remarkable. Eken would start talking after he is sent to prison

Arinc: To praise a crime is a crime itself according to law. The retired generals should face trial

The Susurluk Scandal, which emerged in 1996, has caused a fresh split among the politicians in Ankara in the aftermath of some retired generals' support to Korkut Eken.

The Bagcilar Prosecutors' Office has opened an investigation into the retired generals who made these statements, on charges of violating the first clause of Article 312 of the Turkish Penal Code, which deals with the praising of crime.

A number of prominent retired military figures, including former Chief of Staff Dogan Gures, and two former regional commanders, namely, Necati Ozgen and Hasan Kundakci, told Hurriyet newspaper that Eken did everything he did with their knowledge.

Retired Col. Korkut Eken, a former National Intelligence Organization (MIT) official and a major figure in Susurluk, the so-called state gang scandal of 1996, has now been put in prison to serve a sentence for forming a gang along with some members of the police force's Special Operations Team, which he trained himself.

The former generals' statements came some five years after the accident that took place in the Susurluk province of the Aegean, seen as one of the biggest scandals in Turkish political history, showing ties between the mafia and the state.

Parliament Speaker Omer Izgi said that a brand-new legal process may begin in the light of these statements.

"If some special commands were given on special occasions, then the crime that emerged in the aftermath can be accepted as never happening," Izgi said.

Izgi stated that a policy that jails heroes like Eken and pardons traitors is not present in Turkey.

Former member of Parliamentary Susurluk Commission and Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Fikri Saglar told the Turkish Daily News in a telephone interview that the timing of the statements was remarkable.

"People like Eken begin talking after they are jailed. According to the Court of Cassation, those who formed, supported and benefited from this gang should face trial," Saglar said.

Some politicians argue that the retired generals who supported Eken should be tried, while others believe that this is a judicial issue and prefer not to make further comments.

Opposition Saadet (happiness or contentment) Party (SP) leader Recai Kutan said on Thursday that he regarded these statements as being strange.

"First, the Court of Cassation approved the imprisonment decision. Then, the generals decided to make statements. It would be better for them to make these statements before," Kutan said.

Interior Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen is among the politicians who argue the timing of the statement.

"It is natural for those who were on duty during that period, but I wonder why they didn't make these statements during the trial," Yucelen said.

Meanwhile, Eken's attorney has told reporters that they have appealed to the Court of Cassation to correct the verdict, and expected a positive response in the light of the retired generals' statements.

Two polls: For and Against

The generals' joint declaration of support to Eken created mainly two poles in political circles. Some politicians argued that the retired generals who spoke on behalf of Eken should also face trial, while some others cautiously support the retired generals.

However, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said on Thursday, before his departure for Spain, that as the head of government he would not comment on the debate over the imprisonment of Eken.

"It is a judicial matter," Ecevit said.

Ecevit is not the only politician who views it as a judicial issue. Parliamentary Human Rights Commission Chairman Huseyin Akgun from the senior coalition partner Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) also said that there was an ongoing legal process on this issue, but he also added: "Eken is one of the rare brave heroes of Turkey. His commanders have announced that he was acting according to their commands."

Main opposition True Path Party (DYP) leader Tansu Ciller is among those who carefully supported Eken.

"We have no right to name the decision of the court as being 'good' or 'bad.' During that period [Ciller was the prime minister of Turkey during the emergence of the Susurluk Scandal], I told that those who die or are killed in the name of this state and this nation are sacred," Ciller told the reporters.

"These people patriotically fight for the integrity of this country, but we should also be respectful to the decisions of the judiciary," Ciller added.

On the other side of the dispute, there are politicians who claim that these generals should face trial.

Democratic Left Party (DSP) Deputy Ali Arabaci said that the statements made by the retired generals revealed that those who created Susurluk were fully protected by the state.

Justice and Development Party (AKP) Deputy Group Chairman Bulent Arinc said on Thursday that praising a crime was a crime in itself according to Article 312 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), and stated that those who had declared that they have given the command should be tried.

4. - The Star - "Turkey fears being drawn into wider anti-terror war":

Threat of U.S. attack on neighbouring Iraq raising tensions in crisis-hit nation

ISTANBUL / Olivia Ward / European Bureau / 15 March

When U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney arrives in Turkey this week, during his Middle Eastern tour to soften up opposition to a new war against Baghdad, he will find a country that is shaken by the traumatic events outside, as well as within, its own borders.

Since Sept.11 and the launching of the worldwide war on terror, tensions have risen steadily.

The prospect of an imminent U.S. attack on neighbouring Iraq and the decision to take a leading role in peacekeeping in Afghanistan have increased the uneasiness that Turks have felt over the last crisis-ridden years.

"America is not used to living surrounded by enemies and uncertainty," said Ozgen, a travel agent in Istanbul's seething Taksim district.

"Just one terrible event put the country on high alert. But we've lived that way for years, and we're afraid that things might now get worse."

Outwardly, the Turkish coalition government, led by the Democratic Left Party's Bulent Ecevit, stands four-square behind the United States and its allies in Afghanistan, and wherever else America chooses to strike.

It abhors Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, and deplores Islamic radicalism. It is committed to joining the European Union as soon as possible, and is working with the International Monetary Fund to shore up its badly sagging economy.

But beneath the political rhetoric there is another story.

On the streets and cafes of Istanbul, ordinary people talk about the Afghan military mission with trepidation.

They fear being drawn into an escalating conflict and becoming the target of a new wave of terrorist attacks in reprisal for Turkey's proposed frontline role — leading the security force in the shattered country.

They also fear a new war against Iraq, which might split the seams of their patched-together neighbour.

That, they believe, would unleash civil war and give rise to a new Kurdish state just across the border, inciting Turkey's own large Kurdish population to a separatist uprising.

The depths of the anxiety are visible in recent polls.

In one joint European-Turkish survey, the majority of Turks felt "unhopeful" about their own future and that of the country, having little confidence in any government to improve the outlook.

As well, a recent Gallup poll found that six out of 10 Turks oppose the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, and only 57 per cent believe that Arabs had anything to do with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

There was also a split in attitude to the United States, with close to half of those surveyed feeling more animosity than affection for the super power.

Attitudes to Europe were also ambivalent, with 68 per cent in favour of EU membership as a way of scrambling out of Turkey's deep economic pit, but only 8 per cent saying they felt like Europeans.

"It's as though we're being squeezed in the middle of everything," said Hikmet, a history student and part-time shop assistant.

"We've always been between Europe and Asia, but now we have to make very serious, maybe dangerous choices."

Turkey's strategic position on the Black Sea, the eastern Mediterranean and the borders of the Middle East, has ensured it is a country that no major power can ignore, especially in times of world crisis.

To the secularists in Turkey's government, like President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, an avowed democrat, the only choice is to look westward for the future, keeping a strict separation of mosque and state.

Turkey's army has shown the most dramatic hostility to religious radicalism, forcibly removing an Islamist government from power in 1997.

And it was among the first to back the war in Afghanistan, sending military advisers to train Afghan recruits.

Journalists have been jailed for focusing attention on the political aspects of Islam, and there has been a crackdown on suspected members of the illegal radical Selefiler group, accused of plotting to create a religious state.

But even secularists who favour more co-operation with the West have reservations about the Turkish plan to take over command of the peacekeeping forces from Britain.

It has stalled as Washington widens its war on terror, and there is anxiety that Britain and the United States might quit the peace effort, leaving overstretched and cash-strapped Turkish troops to keep the country from falling into chaos.

There are currently 4,500 troops from the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands patrolling Kabul — along with Turkish soldiers.

But in Turkey, opposition politicians say that if the situation in Afghanistan continues as it has for more than two decades, Western forces will be under pressure from their own politicians to pull out.

They are also suspicious that the emphasis on leaving troops from "Islamic nations" to staff the security force may be a way of abandoning responsibility for Afghanistan.

"Hastily made declarations of full support for the U.S. anti-terror war, and ambitions to spearhead an international operation to safeguard peace in Afghanistan could cost Turkey more than it anticipated," says analyst Elif Unal in the Turkish Daily News.

Pro-Western politicians see the peacekeeping effort as a way of proving Turkey's crucial role among European nations, and they hope it will be a lever to open the door to the European Union. But the issue of Iraq has left more uncertainty.

And as U.S. President George W. Bush, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair look to Ankara for support for a widening of the anti-terror war, Turkey will want assurances that Iraq's Kurds will not become a new threat to the country's fragile stability.

"America tells us that we should support their war on terror," said Suli, a clerk in a store that sells tapes of Kurdish folk music. "But if they attack Iraq and the Iraqi Kurds separate, and the ones here start a civil war, will they send peacekeeping troops to Turkey? I think we already know the answer to that question."

5. - The Guardian - "Second UK firm abandons Turkey dam project":

Paul Brown / Thursday March 14, 2002

Another British based construction firm has pulled out of a controversial dam project in Turkey and withdrawn its application for £68m of backing from British taxpayers.

On the day before it faced a protesters' demonstration outside its headquarters in Carter Lane, in London, AMEC announced it was not going to build the Yusufeli Dam, on the River Coruh in Turkey.

Following Balfour Beatty's decision to leave another consortium that was to build the Ilisu Dam in Turkey, attention of British protest groups had switched to AMEC.

In a statement yesterday the company said its decision was commercial, and that it could get a better return on its capital elsewhere. Accordingly it had decided to abandon the project in north-east Turkey.

The Ilisu and Yusufeli projects were similar. They each would have involved "drowning" environmentally sensitive areas, covering important archaeological remains, and involved the resettlement of a large number of people of ethnic minorities. In the case of Ilisu it was Kurds; in the present case, it is Georgians. An international coalition of objectors was demanding that proper resettlement and compensation be arranged and that environmental assessments of the damage from the dams be made and published.

Among the wildlife species that would be affected in the River Coruh area are the brown bear and red vulture. The Yusufeli project would also have seen the loss of 18 towns and villages and the submerging of churches, fortresses and a citadel.

In theory both dams could still be built, and the Turkish government has said that, if necessary, it will continue without any international backing. But with the state of the Turkish economy this seems unlikely at present. Some European construction companies are still involved but report that they require new partners.

Hannah Griffiths, campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "We are delighted. Corporations planning to help construct large dam projects must [be] more transparent and accountable. They must adopt the international guidelines of the World Commission on Dams, and make their environmental impact assessments open to public scrutiny."

6. - Christian Science Monitor - "Taliban-style group grows in Iraq":

In the Kurdish north, a new Islamist group with ties to Al Qaeda has killed women without burqas, seized villages.

HALABJA / NORTHERN IRAQ / By Catherine Taylor | Special to The Christian Science Monitor / from the March 15, 2002 edition

– A radical Islamist group – with possible links to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein – is growing and threatening the stability of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

The group – Ansar al-Islam – emerged just days before the Sept. 11 attacks on the US. It delivered a fatwa, or manifesto, to the citizens in mountain villages against "the blasphemous secularist, political, social, and cultural" society there, according to Kurdish party leaders.

Since, Ansar al-Islam has nearly doubled in size to 700, including Iraqis, Jordanians, Moroccans, Palestinians, and Afghans – a composition similar to the multinational Al Qaeda network. Villagers here claim it has ransacked and razed beauty salons, burned schools for girls, and murdered women in the streets for refusing to wear the burqa. It has seized a Taliban-style enclave of 4,000 civilians and several villages near the Iran border.

With the US dedicated to rooting out Al Qaeda's influence wherever it surfaces in the world, a group of Islamic extremists in northern Iraq with even loose ties to Al Qaeda could complicate further any Iraq intervention. Already the US is in a delicate dance with allies over how to handle Iraq, with many warning that the US must consider the implications of possible instability that a move to topple Hussein could cause.

The emergence of the group comes as the US ramps up pressure on the Hussein regime in Iraq over weapons development. In a White House press conference on Wednesday, President Bush said Hussein "is a problem, and we're going to deal with him."

The State Department did not have extensive information on Ansar al-Islam, but one official there said he was aware of its existence and connection to Al Qaeda.

US ties to Kurd groups

The US has longtime ties to Iraq's Kurdish opposition groups, and would have to gauge how those groups – which inspire varying levels of confidence among key US officials – might want to exploit or downplay the existence of groups with ties to bin Laden in their midst.

Ansar is challenging the two main Kurdish political factions – the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) – in northern Iraq.

But the PUK and KDP – which have spent much of the past 11 years fighting among themselves for control of northern Iraq – say they have united against this common enemy.

"[Ansar] al-Islam is a kind of Taliban," says PUK leader Jalal Talibani. "They are terrorists who have declared war against all Kurdish political parties. We gave them a chance to change their ways ... and end their terrorist acts. But if we can't do it through dialogue, we are obliged to use force."

Kurdish fighters, known as peshmerga, now patrol the road between Iraqi Kurdistan's southern city of Sulaymaniyah and Halabja.

On Sept. 23, Kurds here say, guerrillas ambushed a PUK unit and killed 42 soldiers. The ambush came after negotiations between the PUK and Ansar al-Islam, offering amnesty in return for peace, failed to end their activities.

Since the Sept. 23 ambush, peshmerga have pushed Ansar al-Islam back toward the Iranian border where they retain a stronghold in the town of Biara and surrounding villages.

"We have captured two of [Ansar's] bases and found the walls covered with poems and graffiti praising bin Laden and the Sept. 11 attacks on the US," says Mustapha Saed Qada, a PUK commander. "In one, there is a picture of the twin towers with a drawing of bin Laden standing on the top holding a Kalashnikov rifle in one hand and a knife in the other." He adds that the group has received $600,000 from the bin Laden network, and a delivery of weapons and Toyota landcruisers.

In an interview with the Kurdish newspaper Hawlati, the group's leader, Mala Kreker, declared bin Laden the "crown on the head of the Islamic nation."

Ansar al-Islam's leaders

Kurdish military sources say that Ansar al-Islam's Mr. Kreker is a former member of a Kurdish Islamic party who joined Ansar al-Islam after its formation in September. Kreker replaced Abu Abdullah Shafae – an Iraqi Kurd who trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan for 10 years – and changed his name from Warya Holery. Mr. Shafae is now Ansar al-Islam's deputy.

Another of the group's leaders, Abu Abdul Rahman – who, the Kurds claim, was sent to northern Iraq by bin Laden – was killed in fighting in October.

Commander Qada also claims that Ansar al-Islam has ties to agents of Saddam Hussein operating in northern Iraq. "We have picked up conversations on our radios between Iraqis and [Ansar] al-Islam," he says from his military base in Halabja. "I believe that Iraq is also funding [Ansar] al-Islam. There are no hard facts as yet, but I believe that under the table they are supporting them because it will cause further instability for the Kurds."

Barhim Salih, a PUK leader, says a second group affiliated with Ansar al-Islam is working from the Baghdad-controlled city of Mosul.

The Kurdish sources say Hussein's involvement in any mission to destabilize their autonomous ministate would not surprise them. Since 1991, Baghdad has been unable to control the north, because of the no-fly zone created by the US and England and enforced by the US military from a base in Turkey.

Still, in November, Hussein warned that he would "cut out the tongues" of any Kurds who defied him. This month he told the Kurds not to be "deceived" by "the foreigner." But he added: "I do not want anyone to be under the illusion that this leadership is calling for dialogue because it is under futile threats."

Since Sept. 11, Qada says the Iraqi Army has doubled its troops stationed on the border between government-controlled Iraq and the area the Kurds control. It is a clear sign, Qada says, that Hussein will attack them if the US threatens his regime.

Attempts by the PUK to renew negotiations with the group during the past month have failed, and Kurdish sources say Ansar al-Islam is preparing to fight back.

Kurd party leaders say some 2,000 Kurdish soldiers stationed high in the mountains of northern Iraq, near the Kurdish city of Halabja, are trading mortar fire with Ansar al-Islam. Both sides have suffered casualties. "We have to treat them seriously, because they are treating us seriously," Mr. Salih says, adding that the US is aware of the Kurdish struggle with Al Qaeda.

• Howard LaFranchi in Washington contributed to this report.