2.
September 2002
2. "Turkey warns military action against Kurdish independence in N. Iraq", Turkey will take military action against Kurdish groups along the border with northern Iraq if they move towards independence after a possible US strike, the country's defence minister said on Sunday. (...) Army chief acknowledges Turkish presence in northern Iraq. (...)
3. "EU welcomes Turkish reforms, but mum on date for entry talks", The EU welcomed recent reforms by Turkey aimed at preparing it for EU entry, but its executive arm said it will not be able this year to judge if Ankara meets criteria needed for entry talks. EU commissioner Guenter Verheugen said the commission will send an "encouraging" sign to Turkey after its reforms, including abolition of the death penalty and cultural rights to Kurds.
4. "Death toll rises to 56 in Turkish prison hunger strike", the death toll in a long-running hunger strike by Turkish prisoners against high-security jails rose to 56 on Saturday when a woman convict died in an Ankara hospital, a human rights activist said. Fatma Kose, 35, had been admitted to the Numune hospital here some 20 days ago from a prison in western Turkey, a spokeswoman for the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) told AFP.
5. "Turkey Says No To War", these days the mantra of U.S. foreign policy-makers toward the Middle East is “regime change.”
6. "Turkish Islamic party says would cut ties with IMF", a pro-Islamist party campaigning for November elections has said it would abandon Turkey's $16 billion International Monetary Fund agreement if it comes to power, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
1. - The Daily Star - "Syria rediscovers its Kurdish problem":
2 September 2002
President Bashar Assad’s recent visit to Al-Hasaka, some 650
kilometers northeast of Damascus, did not attract much political comment
or analysis. But coming at this particular juncture, it said much about
Damascus’ thinking on both domestic and foreign policy.
It was the first official visit by a serving Syrian head of state since independence in 1946 to the far northeastern corner of the country, where its borders meet those of Iraq and Turkey. The governorate of Al-Hasaka grows about half of Syria’s annual grain yield of 4 million tons and produces most of the country’s 600,000 barrels per day of oil and 16 million cubic meters per year of gas. It is located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the country’s water lifelines. But it also has a legacy of religious, ethnic and tribal complications that have kept it out of official favor, leaving millions of local people with a sense of having been neglected by the central authorities, prior to the president’s visit.
In one respect, it reflected the new approach adopted by the young president, who since assuming office two years ago has made a point of touring remote parts of Syria, encouraging decentralization and promoting development projects in outlying districts. In line with that, he has taken to holding some official meetings, and occasionally receiving foreign visitors, in Aleppo rather than in the capital. And he went in person to the afflicted district of Zayzoun in June, after the collapse of a dam on the Orontes River claimed over 33 lives and inundated large tracts of cultivated land.
Nevertheless, Assad’s visit to Al-Hasaka came as something of a surprise given the political problems that have long been associated with the area, home of the country’s largest Kurdish communities. And it suggests that a new attitude is evolving among some leaders and officials of the ruling Arab nationalist Baath Party toward the area, where the major Iraqi Kurd and Turkish Kurd political parties are active, albeit unofficially and without the sanction of the central authorities. The main demand raised by some local Kurdish leaders is for the government to reverse the consequences of the controversial 1962 census, as a result of which many local Kurds who were deemed to be incomers from Iraq or Turkey some 260,000, according to Kurdish parties lost their Syrian citizenship. Kurdish parties also have cultural and political demands, which some regard as cover for Kurdish separatist aspirations.
Damascus has long been resolutely opposed to any step it believes may risk leading to the “fragmentation of Syrian territory.” Officials often suspect the motives of Kurdish parties and intellectuals, seeing their activities as pressure on the central government and a threat to the country’s territorial and political integrity. Moreover, there is a policy of refusing to license any political party that is based on ethnicity or religion.
Syrian officials argue that the “Kurdish problem” in the region is not in any way of Syria’s making, because most Syrian Kurds came to the country from Turkey. The majority arrived as a result of the mass expulsion of Kurds from southeastern Turkey in three waves, following the crushing of successive Kurdish rebellions. Many Kurds fled to Syria after the suppression of the revolt launched in 1925 by Sheikh Saeed Pirani. There were further exoduses after the insurgencies led by Sheikh Rashid Reda and General Ihsan Pasha in 1932 and 1936, respectively.
The Syrian Kurds are thus viewed as not inhabiting part of historic Kurdistan as such, but rather as migrants who fled and continue to flee to Syria from neighboring countries, multiplying in number to around 1 million today. Accordingly, the government puts political effort into preventing the establishment of a distinct Kurdish entity in the country. It opposes Kurdish independence in northern Iraq to prevent any spillover effect into Syrian territory, and now appears intent on addressing any internal tensions in Al-Hasaka referred to locally as the “Syrian Jazeera” (the “island” between the Tigris and Euphrates) by extending goodwill gestures.
Syrian officials argue that the status of the Kurds improved after the rise to power in 1970 of the late President Hafez Assad. He cancelled some of the oppressive measures introduced by hard-line Baathist leaders in the early 1960s and made March 21, the Kurdish festival of Nowruz, a national holiday. Dozens of Kurds were accorded high political or religious office, including the late veteran communist leader Khaled Bekdash, Syrian Mufti Sheikh Ahmed Kaftaro, and the senior religious marjaa, Mohammed Saeed al-Bouti.
Bashar Assad’s visit to Al-Hasaka was a further step in that direction. He used it to call for national unity, which he described as “our strong point” at a time when the region was passing through “difficult and harsh” circumstances and external powers were trying to “bring the region’s peoples to their knees.”
The significance of his remarks, and of the visit, was that they were made just a few dozen kilometers from Iraqi Kurdistan, which the Bush administration is presumed to be counting on using as a launching pad for the war it is planning against Iraq.
They also followed the public welcome given by Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Jalal Talabani to the prospect of US forces deploying in Iraqi Kurdistan, and his assurances that the Iraqi Kurds would welcome them as liberators. Both Talabani’s party and its main rival, Masoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), have a following in northeastern Syria. Assad’s surprise visit to Al-Hasaka can be seen both as an attempt to pre-empt any drive by Iraqi Kurdish leaders to enlist the assistance of Syrian Kurds for their plans, and a reaffirmation of Syrian opposition to US threats to wage war on Iraq. Damascus believes war would result in the installation of an American client regime in Baghdad, and/or lead to the breakup of Iraq. Either prospect would pose a major strategic threat to Syria.
Ibrahim Hamidi is a Damascus-based journalist specialized in Syrian current affairs. He wrote this commentary for The Daily Star
2. - AFP - "Turkey warns military action against Kurdish independence in N. Iraq":
ANKARA / 1 September 2002
Turkey will take military action against Kurdish groups along the
border with northern Iraq if they move towards independence after a
possible US strike, the country's defence minister said on Sunday.
"Under UN charter, countries can at times carry out border operations to ensure border security," Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said in the northwestern town of Mengen, the Anatolia news agency reported. The minister recalled that the Turkish army had frequently carried out "border operations" in the past against armed Kurdish rebels fighting for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey's south east. Such operations had seen Turkish troops entering deep into northern Iraq to hunt down Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels sheltering in the mountainous region.
"If Turkey sees a possible threat at its border, it is ready to undertake similar moves," Cakmakoglu said. His remarks came two days after the chief of the Turkish army, General Hilmi Ozkok, acknowleged that the country kept a military presence in northern Iraq, but refused to give any further details. Two main Kurdish factions have run northern Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War when the area was taken out of Baghdad's control and put under the protection of a Western-enforced no-fly zone. Turkey, a key US ally in NATO, has recently raised its voice against one of the factions, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), over media reports that the group was aiming to set up an independent state if the United States were to launch a military operation to topple the Iraqi regime.
Turkey stiffly opposes an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq on the grounds that it could rekindle the recently subdued Kurdish rebellion for self-rule in its southeast. Possible Kurdish independence in the area is one of the main reasons Turkey opposes any US military action against Baghdad. Ankara also fears that a war in Iraq could deliver a heavy blow to its crisis-hit economy when the country is trying to recover from its worst recession in decades.
Army chief acknowledges Turkish presence in northern Iraq
ANKARA / 31 August 2002
The new chief of Turkey's powerful military has acknowledged that
the country has a military presence in neighbouring Kurdish-held northern
Iraq, but refused to elaborate on the force. "We have some military
elements in northern Iraq to serve a specific purpose, but it would
not be right for me to explain the reason for their presence,"
General Hilmi Ozkok told reporters at a reception late Friday, the Anatolia
news agency reported.
He gave no further details. Turkey has long been reported to have troops in northern Iraq, where it has carried out frequent operations against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels who have waged a 15-year armed campaign for self-rule in Turkey's southeast. But Turkish officials had never previously confirmed the reports. Northern Iraq has been under the control of two rival Kurdish factions since the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War when the region was wrenched from Baghdad's control and placed under the protection of a Western-enforced no-fly zone.
The leader of one of the factions, Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), said in comments carried by Anatolia on Saturday that the Turkish army had recently reinforced its presence in the mountainous region. "In the area around Bamerni, there are around two dozen Turkish tanks, troops and helicopters that are from time to time making sorties," Barzani said. "The Turkish military presence in the area has been reinforced recently," the KDP leader added, calling for its withdrawal. Turkey keeps a wary eye on the Kurds of northern Iraq, regularly warning against any move to establish an independent state there for fear it might rekindle violence among its own large Kurdish community.
The fear of a Kurdish state emerging in northern Iraq
is one of the main reasons behind Turkey's stiff opposition to any US
military action to topple President Saddam Hussein. Turkey, a key US
ally in NATO, also fears that a war in Iraq would have dire consequences
for its crisis-hit economy at a time when it is implementing structural
reforms with a 16-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary
Fund. 
3. - AFP - "EU welcomes Turkish reforms, but mum on date for entry talks":
ELSINORE / Denmark / 30 August 2002
The EU welcomed recent reforms by Turkey aimed at preparing it for
EU entry, but its executive arm said it will not be able this year to
judge if Ankara meets criteria needed for entry talks. EU commissioner
Guenter Verheugen said the commission will send an "encouraging"
sign to Turkey after its reforms, including abolition of the death penalty
and cultural rights to Kurds.
Turkey, which has long been an EU candidate but has not begun membership talks pending key reforms, has demanded that the European Union set a date for it to begin those negotiations at a summit in Copenhagen in December. "The signal that will come will be an encouraging one. We fully appreciate the efforts that have been made in Turkey we fully appreciate that Turkey has started to move in the right direction," he said. "But it will not hide the fact that we need to see proper implementation.
We need to see secondary legislation that applies the changes of the constitution, therefore I do not believe that we will have a track record before the end of the year which is sufficient to make a final judgment." Asked by AFP to elaborate, he said data by the end of the year would not be "sufficient to make a final judgement whether Turkey already meets the political criteria," which are a requirement to begin EU membership talks.
He was speaking after informal talks among EU foreign ministers, which do not take decisions. In any case any decision would take into account regular European Commission assessments, due to be released on October 16 this year. "The proposal of the commision will be based on the findings of the regular report and the draft is not yet completed. So the question is a little bit too early," he said. "What we will try to do is to encourage Turkey to continue, to make it clear that Turkey is a candidate like the others and that we are prepared to continue to support Turkey in the preparations for membership," he added.
Turkey has earned right for EU talks date, Ecevit says
ANKARA / 1 September 2002
Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit urged the European Union again Sunday to set a date by the end of this year for the start of accession talks, saying Turkey had taken "big steps" towards fulfill criteria membership. "Despite all its problems and difficulties, Turkey has taken and will continue to take big steps to advance on the road to EU," Ecevit told reporters here in Ankara.
"It is now very difficult for the EU to find an excuse to reject Turkey," he added. Turkey has been pushing for a date to formally start negotiations to join the 15-member bloc since parliament last month adopted several human rights reforms demanded by Brussels. Ankara claims that it has fulfilled the pan-European bloc's political criteria -- a prerequisite to beginning EU membership talks -- with the reforms, which include former taboos such as the abolition of the death penalty and cultural rights for Turkey's sizeable Kurdish minority.
But EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen said Saturday in Denmark, current holder of the body's rotating presidency, that the EU needed to see proper implementation of the reforms first. He doubted whether enough time is left before the EU's Copenhagen summit in December to establish whether Turkey is determined to put the reforms into action. "I do not believe that we will have a track record before the end of the year which is sufficient to make a final judgment," Verheugen said after informal talks among EU foreign ministers in Elsinore, Denmark. In Ankara, Ecevit reacted to the remarks by saying: "If what Verheugen said is true, it would be great injustice to Turkey."
Other obstacles on the road to accession include the role of Turkey's powerful army. The staunchly secular military participates in political decision-making through its membership in the country's top security body, the National Security Council. It has carried out three coups since 1960 and was instrumental in forcing the resignation of the country's first Islamist-led government in 1997. The military has also fought Kurdish rebels since 1984 and has cautioned that EU-demanded democracy reforms -- namely those expanding minority rights for the Kurds -- should not serve to fan Kurdish separatism.
Advancing Turkey's EU bid may also depend on whether a
strong pro-EU government emerges from a legislative election scheduled
for November 3 ahead of schedule in April 2004. Doubts also persist
over whether Ankara will be given the green light without a resolution
to the longstanding conflict on Cyprus, a front-runner for EU membership
which has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded its northern third.
Supporters fear that Turkey, the laggard among 13 membership hopefuls,
will see its bid postponed indefinitely if it fails to obtain a date
for the start of accession talks by the end of the year.
4. - AFP - "Death toll rises to 56 in Turkish prison hunger strike":
ANKARA / 31 August 2002
The death toll in a long-running hunger strike by Turkish prisoners
against high-security jails rose to 56 on Saturday when a woman convict
died in an Ankara hospital, a human rights activist said. Fatma Kose,
35, had been admitted to the Numune hospital here some 20 days ago from
a prison in western Turkey, a spokeswoman for the Turkish Human Rights
Association (IHD) told AFP.
Kose had been serving a prison term of 17-and-a-half years for links to an extreme left-wing underground group, the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C), she added. The DHKP-C is believed to be the mastermind of the deadly protest which was launched in October 2000 by mainly left-wing prison inmates to protest at the introduction of new jails in which one- to three-person cells replaced large dormitories for dozens of inmates.
The protestors have been fasting on a rotating basis, taking only liquids with sugar and salt as well as vitamin supplements to prolong their lives. The strikers say that the new jails leave them socially isolated and more vulnerable to torture and maltreatment.
The Turkish government, however, has categorically ruled
out a return to the old dormitory system, arguing that it was the main
reason behind frequent riots and hostage-taking incidents in the country's
unruly jails. There are currently only about 30 prisoners on hunger
strike after several stopped fasting in the face of Ankara's tough stance.
5. - "In These Times - "Turkey Says No To War":
By Ian Urbina / 30 August 2002
These days the mantra of U.S. foreign policy-makers toward the Middle
East is “regime change.” Hamid Karzai is firmly installed
in Afghanistan, the Palestinians have been given an ultimatum to replace
Yasser Arafat, and now all eyes are on Saddam Hussein. But as the White
House gears up to attack Iraq, a messy situation for a longtime ally
could complicate U.S. plans. Turkey seems to be conducting a regime
change of its own, and it’s not clear who will take the reins or
what the new government’s stance will be toward Washington.
To invade Iraq, the United States desperately needs Turkish help. The most militarily viable road to Baghdad runs through southeast Turkey. And the air cover provided during the Gulf War from Incirlik airbase in southwest Turkey—currently home to more than 50 U.S. fighter jets—would be even more essential in the type of campaign that Washington is now considering. Furthermore, the Pentagon wants to arm and train the Kurds in northern Iraq, as it did with Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance. But that would require a green light from Ankara, which keeps the Kurdish population firmly under its thumb.
As the only predominantly Muslim member of NATO, Turkey is diplomatically important, representing the geographic and cultural gateway between the West and the Islamic world. Turkish willingness to cooperate with Western interests in the region is not in question. The Turks have played an active role in the war on terrorism, and, for the next six months, 1,400 Turkish troops will take over as the international force in Afghanistan.
But the United States has had trouble getting a reluctant Turkey to endorse its plans for Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War and its fallout cost the Turks $50 billion in lost trade. The country’s economy remains in its worst shape since 1945; the IMF’s single largest debtor, Turkey is teetering on the edge of default.
Turkey also desperately want to join the European Union—most of whose members oppose an invasion of Iraq. In its bid for membership, Turkey recently took the positive steps of ending peacetime capital punishment and loosening restrictions on Kurdish broadcasting. But Brussels will demand further economic reforms and stronger checks on the military’s involvement in politics.
A U.S. invasion of Iraq would surely inflame Turkey’s conflict with the Kurds. Since 1984, Turkey has been at war with the Kurds, both within and across its borders. There have been some 40,000 mostly Kurdish casualties and more than 3,000 Kurdish villages destroyed, displacing as many as 2 million civilians. Turkey fears the possibility of an autonomous Kurdish state being created in post-Saddam Iraq, which might embolden the 20 million Kurds of southern Turkey to push for more basic rights or eventually break away. Ankara especially doesn’t like the idea of Kirkuk and its surrounding oil-rich area, which once produced more than 70 percent of Iraq oil exports, ending up as the Kurdish capital.
But Turkey’s internal political crisis may be the most serious obstacle to U.S. aspirations. Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit is a lame duck, and as the 77-year-old’s health has worsened, his coalition government has fallen apart. Defections have taken Ecevit’s party from being the largest component of the government to the smallest, forcing him to acquiesce to early elections in November.
Polls in Turkey currently have the Justice and Development Party—led by Istanbul’s former mayor, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a pro-Islamist—winning by a landslide. In the past, Islamist parties have been outspokenly opposed to Turkey’s facilitation of U.S. policy toward Iraq, including the no-fly zones policed by U.S. and British fighters from Incirlik.
Promises of debt assistance and arms disbursements in hand, Washington might throw its weight behind Ismail Cem, the strongly pro-Western ex-foreign minister, who has quickly assembled the New Turkey Party out of Ecevit defectors. But so far Cem has failed to form a viable coalition, an effort particularly frustrated by former World Bank Vice President Kemal Dervis, who left Ecevit’s government but remains on the sidelines, withholding his endorsement.
The far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP), making the best of a chaotic situation, is now running second in the polls at around 11 percent. Aside from tapping into the frustration of skyrocketing unemployment, the MHP also has drawn strong backing from the Army by taking a firm stance against any expansion of Kurdish civil rights, claiming it will only fan the flames of separatism.
The prospect of democratic elections ushering in an Islamist government is deeply troubling to the highly influential armed forces, who fear that Erdogan would steer the nation away from its pro-Western course. That raises the danger of a military coup. The military has seized power three times in the last four decades, including a pivotal role in unseating the republic’s first Islamist-led government in 1997.
Would the United States look the other way in the event
of another coup? For Washington, calculated and guided regime change
is always preferable to an unpredictable democratic vote. With so many
financial and strategic interests at stake, it is likely that the United
States will get involved in Turkey’s political quagmire. The question
is how.
6. - Reuters - "Turkish Islamic party says would cut ties with IMF":
ANKARA / 31 August 2002
A pro-Islamist party campaigning for November elections has said
it would abandon Turkey's $16 billion International Monetary Fund agreement
if it comes to power, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
The opposition Saadet Party said it would draw up a new programme to drag the country out of its worst recession in decades, the Hurriyet report said.
Financial markets have sagged with fears over the fate of the IMF pact in the hands of a new government that will form after snap polls, which were called in July after government infighting nearly wrecked the governing three-party coalition.
Saadet, one of two parties in parliament with Islamist roots, has fared poorly in opinion surveys, falling far below the 10 percent vote threshold a party must clear to enter parliament.
It is the only party now in parliament that has said it would depart from the IMF programme.
"The biggest difference between us and the other parties will be relations with the IMF," Saadet deputy leader Numan Kurtulmus was quoted as saying by the mass-circulation newspaper.
"The programme being implemented has politically and economically oppressed Turkey. When we come to power, we are not going to implement the programme with the IMF. We will implement a new programme with production, employment and exports at its core," he said.
Saadet arose from the ashes of the Virtue Party, banned last year for being a centre of Islamic militancy.
Virtue's other successor, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), rejects the Islamist label and instead calls itself a conservative grouping committed to Turkey's IMF-backed economic recovery and European Union candidacy.
AKP regularly tops opinion polls, with surveys showing
it could garner around 20 percent of the vote in the upcoming election.