28 November 2002

1. "Turkey's Gordian knot", Turkey's November 3 elections shocked many in the West after its electoral system delivered a quixotic two-thirds majority for the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamic roots, although it polled only a third of the votes cast.

2. "The sterilisation of Kurdish women in Turkey", the Kurdish Women's Bureau for Peace, with its headquarters in Duesseldorf, issued last weekend a condemnation of the sterilization of Kurdish women.

3. "Turkey set for sweeping reforms", the leader of Turkey's largest political party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said that the government is planning a major revision of the constitution to bring it into line with European Union political norms.

4. "Schroeder Urges EU Encouragement to Turkey", Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Wednesday Germany would push for the European Union to send Turkey a strong signal of encouragement on its bid to join the bloc at next month's EU summit.

5. "A nation with no country", Kurds' desire for a homeland complicates U.S. war on terror.

6. "Denktash begins to budge", Turkish-Cypriot moves toward Annan plan as UN, USA and his people push.

1. - Asia Times - "Turkey's Gordian knot":

28 November 2002 / by K Gajendra Singh *

Turkey's November 3 elections shocked many in the West after its electoral system delivered a quixotic two-thirds majority for the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamic roots, although it polled only a third of the votes cast.

The only other party to cross the 10 percent threshold and enter the new parliament was the People's Republican Party (PRP), which won a third of the seats for its 20 percent of the votes. Parties polling 45 percent of the votes thus will remain unrepresented in the new 550-seat parliament.

Although the AKP had been the front runner in pre-election polling, even its leadership was surprised by the magnitude of its windfall. Led by the suave Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the AKP leadership immediately went on a charm offensive to soothe the anxiety felt in the West over the party's perceived Muslim affiliations.

They reiterated that the AKP was a conservative and not an Islamic party, emphasizing that no drastic changes were planned for the secular country. The leaders promised to redouble their efforts to take Turkey into the European Union and stood by the International Monetary Fund program to help sort out the country's dire economic problems, except for some changes relating to help for the poor.

The leaders even suggested a Belgian-style model for the sticky Cyprus problem, which has defied a solution since its independence from Britain in the 1960s. This was heartily welcomed by the Greeks and the Cypriots in the Greek portion of the disputed island, but Turkey's Foreign Ministry and the military came down like a ton of bricks, forcing the AKP to do some nifty backpedaling. The Belgian model is based on a strong center, whereas the UN secretary general's formula under discussion, based on a Swiss canton model, is closer to the mainstream Turkish viewpoint. Cyprus' entry into the EU (confirmed last month) is linked to a solution to this intractable problem. Along with a date to discuss the entry of Turkey into the EU, this, too, will be discussed at a EU summit in Copenhagen on December 12.

Turkey's strategic importance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) might have declined somewhat, but it remains a buffer against Islamic lands; Syria, Iraq, Iran and beyond. Its cooperation is also essential in US plans for a war on Iraq and a regime change in that country. Turkey's NATO bases are used to enforce no-fly zones over Iraq, and they were also used in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, after Saudi Arabia refused the use of its bases.

The US and the West, after their initial scare, bent over backwards to welcome the AKP and its leaders, with messages of congratulations and invitations for talks, led by US President George W Bush. As the AKP's all-powerful leader Erdogan is debarred from entering parliament - he has a criminal record for reciting an Islamic poem some years ago - his deputy, Abdullah Gul, has been handed the premiership and the task of forming the AKP cabinet, the first single party government in the country since 1987.

Erdogan, nevertheless, undertook a whirlwind tour of Western European countries to drum up support for Turkey's entry into the EU, but also to allay fears about his party and its program and to establish a personal rapport with the European leadership. From Silvio Berlusconi in Rome to Greek premier Costas Simitis and then to Germany's Gerhard Schroeder, Tony Blair in London and others, the message was the same. While some "promised" support, the Germans, with more then 3 million Turkish guest workers already in the country, were more reserved. Erdogan might travel on an ordinary passport, but he was treated like the head of a country wherever he went. The EU's foreign and defense policy coordinator, Javier Solana, traveled to Ankara for an on the spot assessment.

The outgoing ruling coalition parties, decimated in the elections, were thunderstruck by the outcome for which they were entirely responsible. Their misgoverning saw a record 10 percent fall in Turkey's GDP last year, which added millions more to the ranks of the unemployed. After waiting for some time, the Pashas (as Turkey's top military brass is called), clearly unhappy with the outcome, declared, "We will continue to protect the republic against any threat, particularly the fundamentalist and separatist [one]." Both President Ahmet Sezer and the Pashas expressed opposition to amending the constitution to enable non-parliamentarian Erdogan to become prime minister. AKP leaders have talked about the national will (with 34 percent of the votes?) prevailing over politics to force through an amendment. They are acutely aware that Gul lacks Erdogan's charisma, and if the latter is unable to become premier soon, the seeds could be sown for divisions within the AKP leadership.

Deniz Baykal, the leader of opposition, is bit of a maverick, with some of his ideas in the past ending up in fiasco. In 1974, after then prime minister Bulent Ecevit had sent Turkish troops into Cyprus, Baykal persuaded him to dissolve parliament in the hope of coming back with a clear majority to be able to rule without Islamist leader Necmettin Erbakan, who was deputy premier in the coalition.

But wily politicians such as Suleiman Demirel delayed the elections, and Republican People's Party (RPP) did badly in the elections and Demirel was able to form the next coalition government. Similarly, in 1995, when Baykal took over the leadership of the RPP, then in coalition with prime minister Tansu Ciller, he created a situation leading to early elections. Again, his party did badly in the 1999 elections, failing to cross the 10 percent mark, and ended up with no deputies in the House.

The latest quirky results in Turkey's elections are an excellent demonstration of the maxim that errors tend add up in the same direction. Turkey's d'Hont electoral system, which is based on the German pattern with a very high threshold, was selected to provide stability to governments in a highly fragmented polity. If the threshold were 5 percent, the True Path Party (DYP), the National Action Party (MHP), the Young Party (GP), the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP- Kurdish) and even the Motherland Party (ANAP), would have been in the new parliament. The unrepresented votes, at 45 percent now, would have come down to a more acceptable 10 percent. On the other hand, independent candidates, who polled only 1 percent of the total votes, have won eight parliamentary seats, whereas the DYP, with almost 9.5 percent of the votes, does not have a single deputy.

In Turkey's fragmented political spectrum, there are two major parties, on the left and on the right of center, apart from the Islamic roots of the AKP and the nationalist/fascist MHP. Then there are many smaller splinters, which, unwilling to toe the party leader's line or his authoritarian ways, have left to form new parties. The Saadet Party (which won 2.5 percent of the votes), led by Recai Kutan, a proxy for Erbakan, Turkey's first-ever Islamist premier who was forced from power by the military in 1997. Indeed, Erbakan established the first "Islamist" party in 1969, but he and his Virtue Party were banned last year. Both Erdogan and Gul made their careers under Kutan's autocratic stewardship.

The high threshold produces surprises after every election. The RPP (in Turkish the CHP - Cihat Halk Party), established by Turkey's founder Kemal Ataturk and which was his instrument for policy implementation, was the only party until 1946. But it did not cross the threshold - for the first time - in 1999, although, like other parties, it was banned after the 1980 military takeover and revived only in the 1990s. The MHP has been in and out of parliament, doing well when it can exploit nationalist xenophobia and anti-Kurd feelings, which it did in the 1999 elections, but is now out again. The Democratic Left Party (DSP) was established by outgoing premier Ecevit when the RPP was banned. Ecevit is now seriously ill, the last of the dinosaurs with Demirel, Necmettin Erbakan and Turgut Ozal, who have dominated Turkish political life over the past 40 years. Ecevit saw his DSP plummet to an ominous 1.5 percent of the vote. His poor health was the reason for the coalition's collapse and the early elections.

Apart from the fond wish that each party leader has of seeing others not crossing the 10 percent threshold, there appears a tacit understanding not to lower it to 5 percent as Kurdish parties, on the basis of their strength in the southeast, could consistently manage to beat the 5 percent mark, so they are kept out. With over 20 percent of the population of Turkey Kurds, they can count on nearly 100 MPs among various parties, but they cannot raise questions concerning Kurds and their problems. When elected in seat sharing arrangements, as Kurdish party members, they have been persecuted. Many times, their parliamentary immunity has been withdrawn and some taken directly from parliament to jail. Many have escaped to Europe to work for the Kurdish cause.

Symbolism in politics is important everywhere, more so in Eastern societies. Take for example the scarf; the most well known symbol of Islamic identity in Muslim countries and among minorities in Western societies.

In a defiant gesture, wearing a scarf, the wife of the new AKP speaker of parliament accompanied him to see off the Turkish president to the NATO summit in Prague last week. Pashas and others take note. According to the Turkish constitution, scarves are forbidden for public servants and in public places. Many a women has lost her job, and some woman their seats in parliament, for defying this provision. AKP members and supporters might insist on regular prayers in public places during working hours, and thus aggravate the war of symbols, which could lead to a critical situation.

In secular Turkey, as parties based on religion are banned, to attract religious and conservative votes, most parties resort to symbols with Islamic meanings and nuances, even the mainline secular parties. The first Islamic party established by Erbakan was called the National Order Party, hinting at Islamic order. When it was closed in 1971 after the military intervention, he named the next party the National Salvation Party (remember the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, which, if it had been allowed to contest the second round of voting, would have won a thumping majority in Algeria. It had proclaimed that it would do away with elections and usher in Islamic Sharia rule).

When the National Salvation Party was banned after the 1980 military takeover, Erbakan named the next one the Welfare Party (zakat for welfare). It won nearly 21 percent of the votes, with the largest number of deputies, in the 1995 elections. The shotgun coalition government of two right of center secular parties formed under pressure from the secular establishment and the army (and the US) collapsed within three months. Then, in coalition with Ciller's DYP, Erbakan formed in June 1996 the first-ever Islamist-led government in the republic's history.

But the Pashas made Erbakan resign the next year, accusing him of promoting Islam. When Erbakan offered support to Ciller becoming the PM, in spite of their having a majority, under the military's pressure the offer was not accepted by President Demirel. When the Welfare Party was closed, Erbakan established the Virtue Party. After its closure, and the ban on Erbakan from politics last year, younger and more moderate leaders such as Erdogan and Gul formed the conservative AKP. They have repeatedly proclaimed that it is not a religious party. They do not even meet with Erbakan.

But by naming his party AKP, Erdogan is also trying to lure voters loyal to the Justice (Adalet) Party of Demirel, who led Turkey's right after the 1961 coup and retired as president in 2000. He had claimed that his party was the successor of the right wing conservative Democratic Party when multiparty politics were introduced in 1946. The Democratic party ruled Turkey from 1950 to 1960, and by the end had become autocratic. It was banned after the 1960 military coup and its popular premier Adnan Menderes was hanged (like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto later in Pakistan). The word AK in Turkish means white.

The nomad Turks named the Mediterranean, the white sea, Ak Deniz. The Democrat Party's symbol was a white stallion. After the 1980 military takeover, the Justice Party was banned by General Kenan Evren and was not revived as the DYP had been established as its successor. To contest the 1983 elections, Evren's successful civilian prime minister, Turgut Ozal, established the Motherland Party, ie, the Anavatan Party, which he had wanted to call AP to remind voters of the Justice Party, but Evren, who had got two retired generals to establish right of center and left of center parties, refused point blank, so Ozal had to call it Anap. And Anap won a majority in the 1983 elections. Evren wryly commented that raising political parties was not like raising new battalions or assembling brigades.

Most political parties treat municipalities as mulch cows and milk them shamelessly. The AKP, though, has Erdogan's excellent track record as mayor of Istanbul and of others elsewhere, apart from Erbakan's clean government in 1996-97, so people are now hopeful and optimistic.

Members of the Gul cabinet are highly educated, many with a background in economics and management. Unless something goes amiss, the AKP should be able to consolidate its vote. Its backers are upwardly mobile conservative trading and industrial classes from central Anatolian towns such as Kayseri, Konya and beyond, who want a share in the economic cake. It also has the backing of the poorer sections of Istanbul, Ankara and other big cities. Erdogan in Istanbul and Welfare mayors in Ankara and elsewhere had provided cheap bread and medical facilities to poor areas. These people had earlier been looked after by communist and leftist parties and have now come over to the AKP. During the past three decades, Istanbul's population has risen from 3 million to over 12 million, the majority being poor migrants or their children looking for work in the commercial and industrial metropolis.

One important observation about the AKP: it should not try to amend the constitution without consensus to make Erdogan prime minister, or take similar steps. It should not let power go to its head. The president can call for a referendum, as he has done on other issues in the past. The AKP received 34 percent of the total votes in the country, so with some help it could pass important amendments. Legally, this would be correct, but morally it would be wrong.

Erdogan and Gul have talked of the nation's will and appear to be carried away somewhat by the two-thirds majority in parliament. There is the 1992 example of another Islamic party, the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, which failed. Or take the armed forces in Pakistan, Indonesia or even Christian nations in Latin America. Their will cannot be trifled with. In China, the armed forces are well provided for.

Turkey is certainly at the crossroads again, simply because it is at the crossroads dividing Europe from Asia, at the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, forming a bridge to the Middle East and Central Asia via the Caucasus and Africa via the eastern Mediterranean. It has always attracted conquerors and invaders, and been buffeted by winds from all around.

Throughout history, Europe, which the Turks had ruled, had enticed them with its science and political systems, specially when the Ottomans were being rolled back. And it still is. Turkey has had a secular constitution since 1923, it is a NATO member, and it has a customs agreement with the EU, apart from being a member of the Council of Europe.

But this time around it is quite different. The November elections have produced, however quixotic, a two-thirds majority for a party with Islamic roots. The electoral algebra now is like the 1950s when the conservative Democratic Party won. In the 1970s, when Erbakan was deputy premier and later premier during 1996-97, he planted religiously-educated cadre in the bureaucracy, many of whom are now in senior positions. The AKP will take the process further. The secular establishment and the armed forces will carefully watch these measures and try to counter them.

How Turkey and the West handle the present situation will have important consequences all around, internally and externally. Turkey's secular polity and democracy is the most advanced in the Muslim world. If Turkey has no credible assurance of entry into the EU, it would be disappointed and might vote for the MHP and leftists, as it did after Turkey was denied candidate status in 1998, or it might hurtle further to the right. By ostensibly going all out for EU membership, Erdogan is undermining parties like Anap and the DYP, which had been taking credit for the drive to join the EU. This will also help establish its credentials as a mature conservative party with which Europe can do business. Improvements in freedom of expression and human rights norms now on the anvil will make it difficult to ban the AKP and similar parties, or more open Kurdish formations. The AKP could also call the EU's bluff of leading Turkey up the garden path if denied even a distant date for entry into the EU. The unfolding situation remains fraught (pregnant) with unexpected developments.

The bottom line on Turkey's entry into the EU has been honestly but brutally underlined by former French president Giscard d'Estaing. He said that Turkey was not in Europe (as if Cyprus is) and its culture was different. Its admission would be the end of the EU, he said. He is now helping write a constitution for the EU. The EU has said that democracy should not be under the army's shadow. EU politicians will go through many contortions and make soothing noises, but visa-free entry to Turks and freedom to work in EU countries is out of question, and the AKP might attempt to drive a hard bargain and consolidate its position.

After talking to various European leaders gathered for the NATO summit in Prague, a frustrated Turkish President Ahmet Sezer complained that they were not serious about Turkey's entry into the EU or on the Cyprus problem. In his talks, almost everyone said that they favored Turkey's entry, but blamed others for raising obstacles. The aftermath of the December 12 Copenhagen EU summit could be a messy affair.

According to legend, it was at Gordian, 60 miles west of Ankara, where Alexander the Great cut the knot with his sword - the warrior's way - instead of laboriously untying it. So the oracles said that had he untied it, his empire would have lasted for ever (in any case, he left behind no sons).

And it was just across the Dardanelles at Gallipoli in Europe that another soldier with Macedonian origins earned his spurs by standing up to the mighty British navy in World War I. He was equally fearless in defying death, and only a medal came in the way of a bullet to his heart. And it was near Gordian where, from a position of material weakness, Ataturk, with great courage and strategic skill, turned back the invading Greeks in 1922.

It made him all powerful among his nationalist, albeit mostly conservative colleagues, and he was able to carry out his reforms and create a modern republican Turkey. He did not untie the religious knot, though, preferring to methodically cut it. He outlawed the Caliphate, banned religion and turned mosques and sacred tombs into public museums. He, too, left behind no son, but his generals have inherited the secular ideology of Kemalism and continue to guard it.

* K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal.

2. - Junge Welt - "The sterilisation of Kurdish women in Turkey":

27 November 2002 / translated by Kurdish Media

The Kurdish Women's Bureau for Peace, with its headquarters in Duesseldorf, issued last weekend a condemnation of the sterilization of Kurdish women*:

"Imagine you are a woman in a region of Kurdistan where doctors seldom wander and then all of a sudden three ambulances show up, tell you something about essential health measures in a language that you don't understand, and take you to a hospital in the nearest city. There procedures are carried out on you that you don't understand, and which, out of shame, you are afraid to talk about. And then several months later you discover that you can no longer bear children."

On 16 January 2002, this happened to at least 17 women from the village of Ozekli, in the southeast of Turkey, according to the Kurdish Women's Bureau.

The case was made public in a "Symposium on Violence against Women in Medicine" by Meral Danis, the Chairwoman of the Women's Committee of the Diyarbakir Bar Association.

Investigations showed that in the case in question, a team of doctors, subordinate to the Governor of Diyarbakir province, went from house to house and took the women into the hospital. The women did not know what sort of surgery was being performed on them. Danis also revealed that similar cases have also been uncovered in Mardin, Adiyaman, Adana, and Van.

Sterilization measures were carried out against Kurdish women during the mid-1990s, when the Turkish National Security Council (MGK) declared that the rate of growth of the Kurdish portion of the population represented a "danger for Turkey". Thereupon a package of "population control" measures was instituted. At that time, women were made infertile by means of hormone injections.

Since then, similar cases have been repeatedly uncovered. The women victimized in this process are either sterilized without their knowledge, or else are pressured by various means into agreeing to the procedures. Organizations such as the Selis Women's Center in Diyarbakir, the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD), and women's and lawyers' associations are presently carrying out further investigations into this particular form of human rights violation.

* For further information: Kurdisches Frauenbüro für Frieden e.V., E-mail: ceni_frauen@gmx.de

3. - BBC - "Turkey set for sweeping reforms":

ISTANBUL / by Jonny Dymond

The leader of Turkey's largest political party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said that the government is planning a major revision of the constitution to bring it into line with European Union political norms.

Mr Erdogan said that the laws regulating the electoral system governing political parties and regulating freedom of expression would be changed.

He spoke from Paris, which was part of his second tour of European capitals since his party swept to power just under a month ago.

Just as he promised, entry into the EU has been the top priority for Mr Erdogan and his administration.

He has hardly stopped from a whirlwind round of visits to EU capitals and leaders.

Fleshing out

After the cabinet met on Wednesday, it was announced that a new set of reforms would be drawn up to bring Turkey closer to the EU political criteria it must meet if it is to stand a chance of getting into the Union.

Now Mr Erdogan has put some flesh on the bones of that statement.

He is suggesting a thorough overhaul of the political system, designed by the military after it relinquished power in 1982:

# changes to the laws on political parties that keep political life tightly regulated by the state
# reforms to restrictions on free speech that led to Mr Erdogan and others being barred from standing for parliament.

It is not clear yet how far Mr Erdogan will try to go.

The powerful military, for instance, still play a role in Turkish political life that many in the EU find unacceptable.

Mr Erdogan has the flush of victory to carry him along and the deadline of the EU summit in Copenhagen in mid-December provides the government with a good reason for urgency.

But the political opposition is urging caution and there will be others in the Turkish political establishment who will be alarmed by actions that could be deemed too hasty and too far reaching.

4. - Reuters - "Schroeder Urges EU Encouragement to Turkey":

BERLIN / 27 November 2002 / by Kerstin Gehmlich

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Wednesday Germany would push for the European Union to send Turkey a strong signal of encouragement on its bid to join the bloc at next month's EU summit.

"The real question now is to decide a date, not for Turkey's accession to the EU, but for the start of entry talks," Schroeder said at a joint news conference after talks with Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.

"We have made clear that Germany will push for a signal at the Copenhagen summit which goes beyond the decisions made in Brussels in October," he said.

Schroeder said Germany had a national interest in strengthening secular and pro-Western forces in Turkey.

The statement was Schroeder's strongest signal that a date for the start of accession talks -- something that Turkey has long sought -- might be set at the EU's Copenhagen summit in December.

In Paris, French President Jacques Chirac told Tayyip Erdogan, leader of Turkey's new ruling party which has Islamist roots, that France had not made up its mind on a start date.

"France has not set its position yet because it is seeking a consensus across Europe (on the date) that is both acceptable and viable for Turkey," Chirac's spokeswoman told reporters after the meeting.

Chirac says Turkey has place in Europe

She said Chirac had reiterated to Erdogan, head of the Justice and Development Party, that he believed Turkey had "a place fully within Europe."

Chirac has made clear he disagreed with remarks this month by former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing -- now in charge of drafting a new EU constitution -- that Turkey's entry would spell "the end of the European Union."

Despite backing from some, many in the EU are still doubtful that the bloc can absorb Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim country of nearly 70 million stretching to Iraq and Iran.

Erdogan, who has been touring Europe to win support for an early date for accession talks, told reporters he expected the December 12 EU summit to come up with a date for talks.

He said the new Turkish government's two priorities would be getting an early date for EU entry by securing reforms on human rights and other issues, and by bolstering the economy.

The Financial Times Deutschland daily Wednesday quoted EU sources as saying it was likely EU leaders in Copenhagen would give Turkey a conditional agreement to begin entry talks.

This would mean accession talks could start in 2004, or 2005 latest, conditional on Brussels accepting Turkey had met economic and political standards for membership, the paper said.

EU leaders have already made clear that the start of accession talks had moved closer after Turkey passed a package of EU-inspired reforms abolishing the death penalty and lifting bans on Kurdish-language broadcasting and education.

But a recent EU progress report said Turkey's political system did not meet criteria for starting accession talks. The EU wants progress on freedom of speech, assembly and religion.

Chirac and Schroeder said last week progress toward a political settlement on Cyprus would also improve chances of a positive answer from EU leaders in Copenhagen.

Turkey invaded northern Cyprus in 1974 in response to a pro-Greek coup engineered by the ruling military junta in Athens and has kept 30,000 troops on the island since then.

On the sidelines of last week's NATO summit in Prague, Sezer sought support from key EU leaders for Ankara's ambitions.

"The British, Spanish and Italian prime ministers expressed their full support for extending a date to Turkey," Sezer said after private meetings with Tony Blair, Jose Maria Aznar and Silvio Berlusconi.

5. - Denver Post - "A nation with no country":

Kurds' desire for a homeland complicates U.S. war on terror

NORTHERN IRAQ / 24 November 2002 / by Bruce Finley

For 11 years, U.S. fighter jets kept these honey-colored mountains safe from Saddam Hussein.

But now the 3.5 million Kurdish people thriving here pose dangerous problems for a possible U.S. war on Iraq, and for the country that would remain if Hussein falls.

The U.S. air patrols have inspired Kurds - such as woodcutter Burus Olmez - in their decades-long push for an independent Kurdistan (see graphic). Olmez, 28, who enters Iraq from a village in Turkey to load logs and trade in cigarettes and sugar, looks forward to increased commerce under Kurdish rule. In Turkey, he must work as a "village guard" against Kurdish separatists, a job he hates.

"I don't want to kill anybody," he said recently, leaning on a concrete security post that once bore Hussein's eagle insignia.

"We want all Kurdish people to be free."

This yearning for freedom is forcing a very tough play for the United States - balancing the goal of replacing Hussein, Kurdish ambitions and the concerns of neighboring Turkey, a key ally that opposes Kurdish independence.

The Kurds are the world's largest group without a country - 25 million people in all, scattered across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Nobody has ever controlled the Kurds. They are mostly Muslims, ethnically distinct from Arabs, Turks and Persians, known for their intricate language and fine, hand-tied carpets.

Entrenched in ancient stone hamlets, Kurds control vast oilfields, as well as water sources such as the Tigris River that the Middle East desperately needs. And Iraqi Kurds have amassed armies with an estimated 80,000 troops.

Their leaders are grateful for the U.S. protection they've received since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and pledge support if disarmament efforts fail and America launches war on Iraq.

But Iraqi Kurds insist any war must give them freedom from a central government in Baghdad.

"We want to make sure we are not oppressed," said Qubad Talibani, representing the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two main Kurdish factions. "We are not satisfied with what we have."

Neighboring Turkey bristles, concerned that independence could cause chaos in Iraq and incite the 13 million Kurds in Turkey who also want to be free.

The United States labors to keep Turkey calm. Turkey's modern military bases are critical for a war on Iraq. F-16s poised on runways at Incirlik, northwest of the Turkey-Iraq border, fly the patrols over northern Iraq. An underground hospital is ready to treat victims of chemical attacks. U.S. cargo planes hauled in supplies and bombs last week, and nurses gave anthrax vaccinations, as diplomats negotiated for Turkish approval to use bases for a war on Iraq.

Turkey meanwhile has sent tanks and camouflage-clad troops to the Turkey-Iraq borderlands. And it backs the Iraqi Turkomen Front in northern Iraq. This group, with a 500-member militia and a Washington lobbyist, asserts interests of non-Kurdish Turks in the region.

Mishmash of policies, treatment

U.S. officials face additional complications from internal Kurdish feuding. Rival factions in Iraq - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party - run separate governments. A civil war between these factions in the mid-1990s claimed 5,000 lives.

The Kurds also clash with other Iraqi groups. There are Shiite Muslims supported by Iran, Sunni Muslims for and against Hussein, royalists wanting to bring back a king, and an exile-run Iraqi National Congress. All try to curb the Kurds.

Kurdish factions act "as if they are de-facto governments," said INC director Entifadh Qanbar in Washington, warning that Iraq seems destined for "maximum fragmentation" if Hussein is removed.

This month, squabbling between Kurds and other opposition groups postponed a unity conference that U.S. diplomats helped organize.

For decades, U.S. policy toward the Kurds has been a mishmash. Americans treated Iraqi Kurds as allies when that was convenient. Kurds in Turkey were ignored.

On one hand, the United States supplies combat helicopters that Turkey's military uses to enforce martial law in Kurdish regions. Turkish forces emptied more than 3,000 Kurdish villages in the 1990s, uprooting an estimated 400,000 Kurds. Then they installed some 46,000 "village guards" to squelch support for the banned Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK.

Turkish authorities continue to detain and torture Kurds, using electro-shock and other methods, said Sezgin Tanzikulu, a human-rights lawyer in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, walking near a helicopter base where U.S.-supplied helicopters fly in and out daily.

Over the past 11 months, Kurds in southeastern Turkey filed 159 cases alleging abuse by military gendarmes or civilian police, Tanzikulu said, adding that most abuses aren't reported.

Freelance journalist Yilmaz Akinci, 25, recalled how a gendarme collared him as "one with an illegal face," put a gun to his head, and said, "You know, I can easily kill you."

International human-rights organizations accuse U.S. officials of tolerating abuses in Turkey.

At the same time, U.S. Air Force patrols over northern Iraq - dozens of fighter jets scream overhead enforcing a no-fly zone against Iraqi forces - guarantee safety across an area the size of Maryland. As a result, Iraqi Kurds savor what they call a golden age.

They've built thousands of schools, including a new university. Leaders conduct parliamentary debates and recently drafted a constitution declaring Kirkuk, just outside the safe haven, a Kurdish capital. Kirkuk is the site of one of the world's largest oilfields.

This month, covert U.S. agents headed through southeastern Turkey toward northern Iraq. U.S. officials decline comment on what they may be doing.

'No friends but the mountains'

U.S. military planners count Kurds as allies in any war on Iraq. They have identified thousands as candidates for possible combat training, said Lt. Col. Dave Lipan, a Pentagon spokesman. The Kurds offer access to strategic runways and turf within 100 miles of Baghdad.

But first, Kurdish leaders demand a U.S. guarantee of protection should Hussein launch a pre-emptive attack against them. They remind U.S. officials how, in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, the first President Bush urged Kurds to rise up against Hussein. The Kurds did so. The United States failed to help. Iraqi forces crushed the Kurds, sending refugees north into Turkey and reinforcing an ancient Kurdish proverb: "We have no friends but the mountains."

That could happen again, said Farhad Barzani, a Kurdistan Democratic Party envoy in Washington and nephew of its leader Massoud Barzani. "Without moving a single soldier, the Iraqis can shell us with chemical weapons," he said. "We think America should publicly say: 'If Iraq attacks, we will respond immediately. Immediately."'

U.S. officials won't comment on whether they would protect Iraqi Kurds.

But U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Robert Pearson has told Turkey's rulers Kurds would be contained after a regime-toppling war.

"We oppose any independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq," Pearson said in a Denver Post interview at his residence in Ankara.

Instead, U.S. officials talk of a democratic system designed to give all factions equal opportunity in a post-Hussein Iraq - a model for the rest of the authoritarian Middle East. The details of how much control a central government could have still are under debate. State Department bureaucrats guide "future of Iraq" brainstorming sessions involving some of the 100,000 Iraqi immigrants in America.

Analysts warn that any U.S. reliance on Kurds or other factions will have strings attached - as in Afghanistan, where warlords who helped the United States now seek favorable treatment.

The stakes, experts say, are much higher here.

"The Kurds could destabilize the whole Middle East," said political scientist and former government consultant Michael Gunter at Tennessee Technological University. He emphasizes the Kurds' presence in four countries, and global dependence on Mideast oil.

Today's talk of eliminating Hussein and then delivering "a nice democratic baby" is unrealistic, said Gunter, a former consultant to the U.S. government on Kurdish issues who in March 1988 met with Turkey's now-imprisoned Kurdish separatist leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

Nor will America's past "use-them-when-we- need-them" approach to Iraqi Kurds suffice given U.S. interests in oil and regional stability.

"The solution would have to be some type of long-term American involvement. You need the United States in there. But you'd also need cooperation from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. If you think you are going to get that, you probably believe in the tooth fairy," he said. "It's not easy to be optimistic about this. ... This problem will come back and burn us if we walk away."

Bottom line: U.S. air protection already has created a de facto "Kurdistan" in Iraq, said former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, who has visited Iraqi Kurdish territory nine times over the past two decades.

After any war, Kurdish forces "are not going to meekly go back under Baghdad control," said Galbraith, now a professor at the National Defense University, a government think tank.

"We can't use force to bring them under Baghdad control. They are going to be our allies. Besides, that wouldn't be just. We are just going to have to come to terms with it. So is Turkey."

Negotiating postwar arrangements

Now in the run-up to a possible U.S. war, Kurdish leaders are down from the mountains, jockeying in Washington, London and Turkey's capital, Ankara, for favorable postwar arrangements.

Consider the scene one recent evening in Ankara, beyond clusters of black Mercedes at a grand hotel. In the glowing atrium, Turkish generals with medals on their lapels commanded prime, padded chairs while intelligence agents skulked about murmuring into cellphones.

In strode a burly man with a mustache, Sanaan Kassap, leader of the Iraqi Turkomen Front that asserts Turkish interests in northern Iraq. The group seeks U.S. funding under the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act, said Mustafa Ziya, the front's coordinator. The act provides millions of dollars for Iraqi opposition groups.

Across the lobby, leaders of the Kurdistan Democratic Party watched warily. They're feuding with the Turkomen Front over its 500 armed "guards" in Iraq, said Safeen Dizayee, the KDP representative in Turkey. The Turkomen "totally disregard our regional Kurdish administration," he said, and the militia is "a security risk."

Iraqi Kurds want independence, but without support from the United States they will settle for autonomy within a federation of Iraqi groups, Dizayee said. "I mean, we are actually independent now. But if we declared it, how long would we survive? We have to be pragmatic. It's the right of the Kurds to be independent. But the geopolitical situation does not allow that."

Iraqi Kurdish leaders have proposed expanded turf, while a central Iraqi government would guide foreign, military and economic policy.

Turkish officials reject this.

"A federation can lead, in the long term, to a dismantlement of Iraq," said a diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is no experience of 'a federation' in the Middle East. If there is instability in Iraq, it could be worse than it is under Saddam Hussein."

And instability in a postwar Iraq could spread to Turkey.

Interviews with Kurds in southeastern Turkey reveal the push to create a Kurdistan under U.S. protection in Iraq - and the arrival of a new Turkish government - are raising expectations for better treatment.

'We are second-class'

These rolling hills where scarf-clad women pick cotton and rusting oil trucks whoosh past bullet-pocked shells of former shops long have been a hotbed of anti-Turkish sentiment. The name of every town has been changed from Kurdish to Turkish. Parents give their sons and daughters Turkish names, and teachers punish children who speak Kurdish.

Turkey's 15-year crackdown to suppress any sympathy for the banned PKK cowed many Kurds.

Yet at the roadside village of Svik, sharecroppers proudly told how they refused Turkish offers of $190 a month each to serve as "village guards" against separatists. That money would have bought medical care for sick and deformed children, and paved Svik's muddy streets.

"Any true Kurd would refuse," said Bedirhon Gokhan, 42. "If we could, we'd make a Kurdistan. We want all the Kurdish people to live together. If the U.S. war against Iraq will help us live together, we want this."

The Kurdish-run People's Democracy Party, successor to the PKK, now wins more than 50 percent of votes in southeastern cities. Kurds join because "they see that in Iraq, as in Iran, Kurds can teach Kurdish in school," said Aydin Unesi, a gas station manager who directs the party in the town of Batman along the Tigris River.

Kurdish schools and newspapers in the Iraqi safe haven are "an example for us," he said. "Kurdish people in Turkey, we want this."

Some party members envision new arrangements for Kurds to cross Turkish, Syrian, Iranian and Iraqi borders. "They are Kurds. We are Kurds. Why not?" said Sehnaz Turan, 28, a party administrator in Diyarbakir. "I know those outside Turkey have better conditions. They are free to express the culture, the language. We haven't seen freedom in practice yet here."

Turkish Kurds already press for cross-border commerce.

Thousands of oil trucks line up at the main border crossing at Habur. There drivers wait for weeks as Turkish border guards parse out permission to enter Iraq and buy oil, then return and sell it for a profit.

This defies United Nations sanctions against Iraq, but long has sustained Turkish Kurds. "People depend on it here," said butcher Bayram Yakut, 30, pouring tea as trucks rolled past his shop just north of Habur. "We want the door open."

Turkish soldiers posted in the borderlands say they will block any Iraqi Kurdish refugees who might flee north to Turkey in a war.

A U.S. war may prompt an extension of martial law in southeastern Turkey, said Selahattin Demirtas, 29, a lawyer leading a human-rights group in Diyarbakir.

"If Turkey's government would give equal rights to the Kurds," he said, "then people would accept being part of Turkey."

Turkey's ailing economy adds urgency to the Kurds' call for change.

Huddled in burlap-and-plastic tents by a roadside near Batman, a group of migrant $1.90-a-day cotton pickers complained they can't get medical attention. Rain pattered on the tent roofs and mud oozed around them. They went to big cities looking for jobs, "but we are second-class," said Mehmet Titiz, 45, a father of six.

Even the childrens' hands were calloused from picking. Parents said they are ashamed that their children don't attend school. They would also prefer to give their children Kurdish names and listen to radio news in Kurdish, said Mehmet Guli Tepe, 41, gesturing helplessly at his skinny 12-year-old boy.

"We can't keep living like this."

6. - Reuters - "Denktash begins to budge":

Turkish-Cypriot moves toward Annan plan as UN, USA and his people push

REUTERS / 28 November 2002

‘This Country is Ours’ reads the banner with a united Cyprus in the middle of an EU flag. The message is also the name of a Turkish-Cypriot organization that allies 92 NGOs, professional associations and trade unions.

Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash came under concerted pressure from the United Nations, the USA and his own people yesterday and signaled that he would agree to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s plan being the basis for talks aimed at solving the Cyprus problem.

The UN received a letter from Denktash overnight and was studying it. “It does appear from the letter that Mr Denktash is prepared to negotiate on the basis of the plan,” Annan’s associate spokesman Stephane Dujarric said yesterday.

Annan has written to Denktash and Cyprus President Glafcos Clerides urging them to inform him by Saturday of their observations on his plan. Only the Greek Cypriots met Annan’s deadline of Nov. 18 for accepting the plan. “The message is not an ultimatum. It asks the two sides to inform him by Saturday which points of his plan, in their view, need to be negotiated and altered,” said Cyprus government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou. Denktash told Turkey’s NTV television the UN request was positive. “When both sides put everything they disagree with in the middle, it will become self-evident whether this document can be negotiated or not,” he said. “But inside the plan, beginning with territory... I think there are many elements that must be changed, but we will negotiate these.”

US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Foreign Minister George Papandreou met in Washington and discussed Cyprus and Turkey-EU ties. An invitation for Cyprus to join the EU is to be extended at its Copenhagen summit on December 12 and both ministers said progress on Turkey’s EU membership could also encourage Ankara to support Annan’s Cyprus plan. Powell called Annan’s plan an “historic opportunity” to reunite Cyprus. “I hope that both sides will respond in a way that allows the process to move forward,” he said. “We focused on the opportunity that is before us over the next two weeks with possibility of a date or ‘date for a date’ with respect to Turkey’s accession to the European Union with the prospects of some movement forward on Secretary-General Annan’s plan for Cyprus,” Powell said. “A lot of pieces are coming together.”

Papandreou expressed hope of a Cyprus solution by Copenhagen.

“We’re working toward the date of December 12, so the united island could be welcomed into the EU... We also support the important decision that we will be making in the EU about Turkey,” he said.

Thousands, meanwhile, marched in the Turkish sector of Nicosia, urging Denktash to accept the UN plan. The Turkish-Cypriot TAK news agency said 12,000 people took part in the demonstration, but Turkish-Cypriot reporters said the turnout was one of the biggest in recent years and put it at up to 20,000, The Associated Press reported. The demonstration was backed by opposition parties and “This Country is Ours,” an alliance of 92 non-government organizations, professional associations and unions supporting reunification.

A poll conducted by Greek company Alco and Cyprus’s Symmetron on November 22-26 found that 52 percent of Greek Cypriots would like to see two independent states, 17 percent preferred Annan’s plan for a common state and two “component states,” another 17 percent wanted neither and 14 percent did not know or did not reply, said Greek independent MP Stefanos Manos who commissioned the poll.