15 December 2004

1. "Kurdish demands ahead of EU summit", 200 Kurdish intellectuals living in Turkey and Europe, from Zana to Uzun, from Elci to Rojin, listed their demands ahead fo the EU negotiations period, for the solution of the Kurdish problem by International Herald Tribune and Le Monde.

2. "Turkey: EU green light would bolster rights reform", a European Union decision this week to begin membership negotiations with Turkey would ensure that essential human rights reforms in the country continue, Human Rights Watch said today.

3. "A crossroads for human rights?", Human Rights Watch’s key concerns on Turkey for 2005.

4. "EU membership offers ray of hope for Turkey’s conflict-weary Kurds", for 13 million plus Kurds living in Turkey’s southeast, EU membership means a golden opportunity for more democracy in their conflict-weary region, where many fear a return of violence and unrest if Ankara is denied entry into the 25-nation bloc.

5. "What Brussels Really Thinks About Turkey", in public, discussions by journalists and politicians over Turkey's possible membership in the EU are matter of fact and objective. However, remarks made away from the mics and cameras can have a very different tone.

6. "Analysis: Turkey's US embrace", the United States hopes that Turkey will develop into a strategic ally as a democratic moderate Muslim country locked both into Nato, as now, and into the European Union one day.

7. "US, Turkey readying for trilateral talks on PKK", the Turkish-US-Iraqi meeting will discuss measures to eliminate the group’s presence in northern Iraq; the timing is yet to be set.

8. "Mass grave found in Kurdish region", Iraqis who lost loved ones during Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule rushed Tuesday to a site in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq that Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said was a mass grave containing some 500 bodies.

1. - Bianet - "Kurdish demands ahead of EU summit":

200 Kurdish intellectuals living in Turkey and Europe, from Zana to Uzun, from Elci to Rojin, listed their demands ahead fo the EU negotiations period, for the solution of the Kurdish problem by International Herald Tribune and Le Monde.

ISTANBUL / 15 December 2004

Kurds in Turkey are announcing to the international community their demands from Turkey and the European Union ahead of the crucial EU summit on December 17, where EU leaders will decide whether to begin membership negotiations with Turkey.

The "list of demands," published in the International Herald Tribune on December 8, and France’s Le Monde on December 9, was signed by 200 people, including internationally known Kurdish intellectuals and politicians like the former Diyarbakir lawmaker and writer Tarik Ziya Ekinci; Tunceli Mayor Songul Erol Abdil; writer-translator Nurettin Elhuseyni; singer Nilufer Akbal; former Mardin lawmaker Ahmet Turk; former minister of public works; former Mardin lawmaker Serafettin Elci; former Diyarbakir mayor Mehdi Zana; writer Mehmet Uzun; former Diyarbakir lawmaker Leyla Zana, head of the Paris Kurdish Institution Kendal Nezan; member of the Berlin State Parliament, Helin Evrim Baba; and editor-writer Umit Firat.

Turkey’s Kurds, who asked for their demands to be regarded as preconditions to Turkey’s accession into the EU, and to be met for "regional peace and stability," will also deliver their list of demands to relevant Turkish and European Union administrations before December 17.

The announcement titled, "What do Kurds Want in Turkey?" was prepared with the initiative of the Paris Kurdish Institution and signed by 200 Turkish Kurds. The following are the main measures the Kurds called for, for the democratic solution of the Kurdish problem:

* The preparation of a development plan with Europe’s support for the rebuilding of more than 3,400 Kurdish villages that were evacuated in the 90s and for the encouragement of about 3 million Kurds to return to their villages;

* A general amnesty for the establishment of peace and stability and the complete closure of the era of clashes;

* The preparation of a new, modern and democratic constitution that recognizes the existence of the Kurdish people, and which grants Kurds the right to give and receive education in Kurdish, have Kurdish broadcasts and publications, set up associations, institutions or political parties and express their culture and political wills freely and defend themselves.

* The full text signed by people who represent the political and cultural diversity of the Kurdish community was as follows:

What do the Kurds Want in Turkey?

The Kurds make up about a quarter of the population of Turkey, numbering between 15 and 20 million, according to the October 2004 Report of the European Commission.

Like all historically constituted human communities, they have the right to live in dignity in the land of their ancestors, and to preserve their identity, culture and language and hand them down freely to their children.

Having been victims of great injustice throughout the 20th century, the Kurds now pin their hopes for a better future on the process Turkey must undergo to become a member of the European Union, which they perceive as being, above all, a multicultural area of peace, democracy and pluralism.

To join this family of democracies, Turkey itself must become a true democracy, with respect for its own cultural diversity and political pluralism. In particular, it must guarantee its Kurdish citizens the same rights that the Basques, Catalans, Scots, Lapps, South Tyroleans and Walloons enjoy in the democratic countries of Europe - and which it is itself demanding for the Turkish minority in Cyprus.

Public conscience will not abide a policy of double standards, which would eventually under- mine the moral credibility of the European Union and tarnish the image of the Turkish government in European public opinion.

The European process offers both Turks and Kurds new and promising prospects, and gives them a chance for reconciliation on the basis of a peaceful settlement of the Kurdish question, with due respect for existing borders. This opportunity must be appreciated at its true value. We the undersigned, representing Kurdish society in all its political and cultural diversity, consider that such a settlement calls for: a new and democratic Constitution, recognising the existence of the Kurdish people, and guaranteeing it the right to a public school system and media in its own language and the right to form its own organizations, institutions and parties with the aim of contributing to the free expression of its culture and its political aspirations. a general amnesty in order to establish a climate of confidence and reconciliation and, once and for all, to turn the page on violence and armed conflict; - the implementation, with European support, of a vast programme of economic development of the Kurdish region, particularly including rebuilding the more than 3,400 Kurdish villages destroyed in the 1990s, and incentives for the three million displaced Kurds to return to their homes.

We ask the Turkish authorities and the European leaders to do justice to the Kurds in Turkey by acceding to their legitimate demands in order to ensure regional peace and stability, and to consider the fulfilment of those demands to be an essential criterion by which to measure Turkey ’s progress along the road to membership of the European Union.

2. - Human Rights Watch - "Turkey: EU green light would bolster rights reform":

ANKARA / 15 December 2004

A European Union decision this week to begin membership negotiations with Turkey would ensure that essential human rights reforms in the country continue, Human Rights Watch said today.

“The EU accession process has already helped bring about significant human rights improvements in Turkey,” said Jonathan Sugden, Human Rights Watch’s researcher for Turkey. “A ‘yes’ from the European Council would maintain that momentum.”

On December 16 and 17, the European Council will meet in Brussels and decide whether Turkey should start negotiations for full membership. The European Commission in October concluded that “Turkey sufficiently fulfills the political criteria” and recommended that membership talks should begin.

Human Rights Watch said that monitoring and standards inherent in the EU accession process have contributed greatly to the improvement of human rights in Turkey, by creating the political space for the government to undertake difficult reforms on the death penalty, language rights for minorities and freedom of expression. The process has also bolstered the efforts of human rights defenders and others pressing for reform in Turkey.

Significant challenges remain however, particularly in relation to torture and ill-treatment in policy custody, and the safe return of more than 350,000 internally displaced Kurds forced from their homes in the 1990s. Key human rights priorities for the coming year are detailed in a background note, “Turkey at the Crossroads”, released by Human Rights Watch today.

“The Turkish government deserves support for its work so far, but there’s still much to do. In the coming months, we expect further progress from the government to fully eradicate torture and a start to the safe return of displaced Kurdish villagers,” Sudgen said.

Human Rights Watch takes no position as to whether Turkey meets the criteria for membership or whether membership would be positive for the European Union or for Turkey.

3. - Human Rigths Watch - "A crossroads for human rights?":

Human Rights Watch’s key concerns on Turkey for 2005

15 December 2004

At its December 16-17 summit in Brussels, the European Council is expected to decide whether or not to open negotiations for Turkey’s full membership of the European Union. The decision follows the October 2004 evaluation by the European Commission that “Turkey sufficiently fulfils the political criteria” and its recommendation that accession negotiations be opened. Even if the Council gives a positive decision, Turkey is not expected to achieve full membership for another decade.

The December 17 decision represents a major crossroads for the Turkish government, for the future of human rights in Turkey, and arguably, for the E.U. itself. It also presents a genuine opportunity to consolidate and deepen the human rights progress made by Turkey in recent years. With sustained government focus, and continued E.U. scrutiny, Turkey could truly live up to its potential as a country that respects the human rights of all its citizens, and leave behind an ugly past of torture and ethnic conflict.

This moment in history marks a point of departure for Turkey politically: immediately after its election in November 2002 the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government, which has described itself as “Muslim Democrat” (using the analogy of Christian Democracy elsewhere in Europe), vowed to secure Turkey’s E.U. candidacy. In doing so, it has taken risks by enacting reforms that were not welcomed by the army—the self-appointed guardian of the unitary secular Turkish state, founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923. These reforms include permitting the broadcasting of minority languages such as Kurdish, and reducing the influence on the government that the military exercised through its domination of the National Security Council. The government has also risked offending its own constituency among the religious right by postponing or refusing to enact measures they expected from AKP as a single party government with a substantial minority. The measures include lifting the ban on university education for women who choose to wear the headscarf, and improving access to higher education for students from clerical high schools (imam hatip liseleri), the preferred form of state education for many AKP voters.

We are also at a departure point for human rights in Turkey: just ten years ago, torture was pandemic, with deaths in custody running at approximately one a week. State forces committed extrajudicial executions and “disappearances,” or political killings through their proxies, almost daily. Security forces burned villages in intense conflict with the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and drove hundreds of thousands of Kurdish farmers out of their homes. Courts often branded writers or politicians, who mentioned Turkey’s minorities, as terrorists, and imprisoned them.

Today the situation has improved markedly, but areas of concern remain. Since 1999, the promise of E.U. membership has supported a dynamic process of reform. Progress has been halting, and occasionally disappointing, but when there has been movement, it has been consistently in the direction of improvement. (A Human Rights Watch analysis of Turkey’s progress on a broad range of human rights issues in the context of the Commission regular report October 2004 is available at: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/10/04/turkey9433.htm) In two areas, however, Turkey’s respect for human rights continues to fall well below international standards: torture and ill-treatment in police custody remain common, and there has been little progress on the return of internally-displaced Kurds to their homes.

Torture and Ill-Treatment

Torture remains common in Turkey today. In the twenty years following the 1980 military coup, successive governments maintained a system of detention and interrogation that encouraged torture and protected the perpetrators. As a result, more than 400 Turkish citizens died in custody apparently as a result of torture, with forty-five deaths in 1994 alone. In the past five years, changes to laws and procedures have significantly reduced the frequency and severity of torture to the extent that it is now realistic to hope that such deaths in custody are a thing of the past.

Legal reforms enacted since Turkey was recognized as an E.U. candidate in 1999 give all detainees in Turkey the formal right to a lawyer, which is the best safeguard against abuse. But some victims report that police deny them access to counsel. In the absence of comprehensive supervision, police sometimes beat, threaten and insult detainees. A number report being blindfolded, stripped naked and hosed with water or subjected to electric shocks during interrogation in some police stations. This year alone, scores of citizens have complained of torture or ill-treatment to prosecutors and to the government human rights body, while hundreds of other victims have reported abuses to the local human rights association or independent medical treatment centers. By contrast, deaths in custody as a result of torture are approaching a zero annual average, with none so far this year.

Impunity remains a problem. Few torture cases result in prosecutions, and fewer in convictions. Sentences for torture rarely reflect the seriousness of the crimes. The European Commission’s 2004 Regular Report stated: "Although torture is no longer systematic, numerous cases of ill-treatment including torture still continue to occur and further efforts will be required to eradicate such practice." The persistence of abuses in police stations appears to principally be a function of lack of supervision.

Turkey’s internal monitoring systems currently do not make their findings public, which makes it difficult to establish where monitoring is being carried out and whether it is sufficiently probing. Apart from occasional visits by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), there is no independent monitoring. The CPT is able to visit only a handful of police stations each year, and it continues to uncover slack practices and ill-treatment.

Human Rights Watch’s recommendations to the Turkish government on torture reflect the guidance of the U.N. Committee against Torture and the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture. Our key points include:

Make public the investigations of police stations that are carried out by prosecutors and provincial governors, including the methods and findings of such inquiries;

Encourage impromptu visits to police stations by independent monitors from medical and bar associations through their participation in the existing system of local human rights boards;

Provide a ministry-level response from Ankara to every substantial torture allegation reported to the government and nongovernmental organizations, establish whether the police unit in question has been implementing the relevant laws, regulations and advisory circulars, and take remedial action.

For further information, see Eradicating Torture in Turkey’s Police Stations: Analysis and Recommendations, a Human Rights Watch briefing paper.

Internal Displacement

In the early 1990s, at least 380,000 Kurdish villagers were forcibly displaced by security forces in an intense conflict in the mountains of southeast Turkey. Most internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Turkey still live in conditions of hardship and poverty in the cities, with no state assistance or compensation. Government initiatives for return have been mainly cosmetic while the government has yet to implement the recommendations from the international community— including calls by the U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary General on Internal Displacement, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to abolish the corrupt paramilitary village guard corps. As the October 2004 Commission Regular Report stated: "On the ground, the situation of internally displaced persons remains critical. A number of obstacles, including the village guard system and the absence of basic infrastructure, currently prevent displaced people from returning to their villages."

The Turkish government has begun a dialogue with U.N. agencies about future return plans, and has developed two important initiatives. The first initiative is a proposed governmental agency to develop policy on IDP return, coordinate implementation of the existing Return to Village and Rehabilitation Program, in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement ("Guiding Principles"), and to develop a policy for demobilizing the village guard corps. The second is a fairly small-scale joint UNDP-Turkish government project for the return of internally displaced persons to their homes. Neither initiative had been implemented at the time of writing.

In November 2004, Human Rights Watch carried out field research on the current conditions for return in southeast Turkey. It found that government statistics on return overstated the true number of returns and masked the wretched conditions under which returns were taking place. Most returning villagers had received little or no state support or compensation. A large number of internally displaced persons stay temporarily in their village during the long summer school holiday and return to urban areas during the winter, leaving a much smaller number as permanent residents. Villagers made it clear that the main reason for the winter exodus was that village life in winter is unsustainable and dangerous. Many villages lack access to electricity and telephone services and are inaccessible by road for up to three months a year. They also lack medical facilities and, most importantly, schools. That any villagers choose to remain in the villages over the winter reflects the miserable conditions for the displaced in urban areas.

Civil servants sometimes cite the extremely primitive conditions in some villages to argue that these remote settlements are not viable but it is important to note that all these villages had electricity and telephone connections fifteen years ago prior to their destruction. In most cases, road access deteriorated as a result of a decade of neglect. Most villages also had ready access to schools before the late 1980s, the turning point when the PKK began its policy of killing teachers, and the state began destroying school buildings and other infrastructure.

Return is a risky process. Returnees are not viewed with much sympathy by the security forces, and are under threat by government-sponsored village guard neighbors, who in some cases have occupied their lands. In the last three months Human Rights Watch has noted several attacks on civilians by village guards in areas of return, including in the provinces of Diyarbak?r, Mu?, Mardin and Hakkari. The fear and intimidation that kept many villagers out of the countryside has to some extent diminished in the two years since Human Rights Watch’s 2002 report on the village return program. However, the recent shootings are an alarming reminder of the continued potential for lethal state violence against civilians. They substantiate the fears the internally displaced have for their personal security, a key obstacle to their return.

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Turkish government ensure that the recent attacks on civilians in return areas are thoroughly and independently investigated, that the methods and findings of that investigation are made public, and that any members of the security forces found to be responsible for the killings are prosecuted and punished. It also recommends that the government take concrete steps to establish the new government body to coordinate returns in accordance with the U.N. Guiding Principles, to operationalize the joint project between the government and UNDP, generate accurate government statistics, and to ensure accountability for violence in return communities.

For further information, see: Last Chance for Turkey’s Displaced?, a Human Rights Watch briefing paper.

4. - AFP - "EU membership offers ray of hope for Turkey’s conflict-weary Kurds":

DIYARBAKIR / 15 December 2004

For 13 million plus Kurds living in Turkey’s southeast, EU membership means a golden opportunity for more democracy in their conflict-weary region, where many fear a return of violence and unrest if Ankara is denied entry into the 25-nation bloc.

The region has had more than its share of blood and tears since 1984, when the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) took up arms against the government for self-rule, plunging the region into chaos.

But the atmosphere has changed dramatically over the past couple of years. Ankara, eager to catch up with European norms to ease its entry into the EU, introduced once-taboo reforms, allowing Kurdish-language programs on the state broadcaster and the creation of private schools that teach Kurdish.

With more rights to their credit thanks to the EU, the Kurds—whose very existence officialdom denied 10 years ago—are keeping their fingers crossed for a positive outcome from the December 16-17 summit of EU leaders who will decide whether to open membership talks with Turkey.

“I am hopeful that Turkey will obtain a date that will pave the way for more positive changes in the region,” 43-year-old worker Ahmet Ataman said in Diyarbakir, the main metropolis of Turkey’s largely poor, Kurdish-majority southeast.

“I fear the possibility that there will no date. Such a development will tear Turkey away from Europe,” he added.

“I do not even want to consider that possibility,” said Cevdet Polat, an unemployed 29-year-old. “That would butter the bread of those who oppose the EU.”

Hasan Cemal, an experienced journalist who wrote a book on the bloody history of Kurds in Turkey, agreed that failure by EU leaders to open accession talks would be very costly for the region.

“If there is no date, it will strengthen the hand of those who are against the EU and who flinch at the mere mention of Kurds. There will be a huge wave of anti-EU sentiment that will put a stop to democratic reforms,” Cemal said.

Such a development would also play into the hands of Kurdish hawks bent on pursuing their armed struggle against Ankara, he said.

More than 37,OOO people died in the PKK’s armed campaign and the subsequent military crackdown in a bloody conflict that led to gross human rights violations on both sides, forced population movements, disappearances and summary executions.

The rebels announced a unilateral truce in 1999, shortly after their leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in Kenya and convicted for treason in Turkey.

But, the PKK—which changed names a few times and is now known as the Kurdish Peoples’ Congress (KONGRA-GEL) -- ended the truce in June; sporadic fighting has resumed since, but with far less intensity than before.

“What we have now is controlled fighting,” said Selahattin Demirtas, the Diyarbakir head of The Turkish Human Rights Association. “But the lack of an EU perspective would erode hard-earned democratic rights, increase military operations and counter-attacks by the rebels.

“The result would be a return to the old atmosphere of violence,” he added.

With the locals giving less support to armed Kurdish rebels and rallying behind the government’s EU drive, renewed violence would only hurt a tentative rapprochement between the Kurds and the state, which long resisted their demands to preserve their ethnic identity.

“EU-minded reforms have led to relief in the region and drawn the Kurds closer to the state, but there is a lot more the state can do to really make peace with Kurds,” Demirtas said.

“At this point, EU membership seems to be the only guarantee for more democratic openings from Ankara,” he added.

5. - Deutsche Welle - "What Brussels Really Thinks About Turkey":

15 December 2004 / by Bernd Riegert

In public, discussions by journalists and politicians over Turkey's possible membership in the EU are matter of fact and objective. However, remarks made away from the mics and cameras can have a very different tone.

Jokes about Turkey are enjoying something of a boom in Brussels right now, both among journalists and even among some politicians. While during the numerous meetings of ambassadors, councils and the European Commission, Turkey's accession is discussed in all seriousness, during breaks and behind-the-scenes conversations, everyone is eager to relate a best or worst story that took place while once on vacation in Turkey.

After that, it's not unusual that stories extolling beautiful beaches turn into comparisons between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government with carpet sellers, bazaar traders and vegetable sellers. Fears of the foreign and unfamiliar are often dressed up in stereotypes and coarse observations.

"Rich, arrogant, fat cats"

Of course, it's all very politically incorrect, xenophobic, racist and who knows what else. It's precisely for these reasons that these observations don't surface in official reporting or negotiation protocols. They simmer in the backs of people's minds.

It's not much better the other way around. Ask some of the Turks in Brussels what kind of prejudices and stereotypes the Turkish delegation fosters towards the bureaucrats in Brussels, and they'll tell you many are thought of as rich, arrogant fat cats who lead decadent, immoral lives.

Even after 40 years of attempts to get closer, Brussels and Ankara are still strangers. That could be due to the fact that many correspondents don't know Turkey and the Turks from first-hand experience. For many Germans, the image of Turkey is still dominated by their experience of Turkish immigrants, many of whom came from rural areas of Anatolia with limited education and a tendency to stick closely to their own cultural circles.

Even for those in Brussels who've actually been to Turkey, the image doesn't improve much, often limited to the stereotype of gold-chained rip-off artist who preys on tourists in resort hotels.

Few know much about Turkey's up-and-coming business elite, the new hipsters with money to burn, the students in Istanbul's trendy neighborhoods or the successful businessman, who exports his products throughout the world.

Add to all that a hysterical fear of an emergent, "dangerous" Islam, and the picture loses any semblance of truth.

Qualms brushed off

It's only now that accession talks are getting serious that people are beginning to consider what it will mean when the Turks are part of the day-to-day workings of Europe. Turkish will become one of the official languages of the EU, and Turkish civil servants will move into the Brussels high-rises. When Turkey joins, it will likely be the most populated country in the EU and have a weighty voice when it comes to decisions. The carefully balanced structure of the Big Four -- Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy -- could start to sway.

Those politicians who are deciding the fate of the EU and Turkey often dispense with such concerns with remarks such as "Well, at least you and I won't be around to see that. Anyway, Turkey won't actually join for another 15 years." In other words, they aren't that convinced themselves, but have a devil-may-care attitude about it all.

When the EU's founders held out the carrot to Turkey some 40 years ago, they probably had their own doubts, but the thinking was likely: "why worry about it anyway, it's so far away…" Now the chickens have come home to roost. Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxemburg's prime minister, formulated it well when he said: "no one is very enthusiastic, but no one has the heart to say it."

6. - BBC - "Analysis: Turkey's US embrace":

14 December 2004 / by Paul Reynolds

The United States hopes that Turkey will develop into a strategic ally as a democratic moderate Muslim country locked both into Nato, as now, and into the European Union one day.

In the Cold War, Turkey stood on the front line against the Soviet Union.
In the war on terror, Washington wants it to stand firm against Islamic extremism and to be part of the Bush administration's project to spread democracy in what is called the Greater Middle East.

"In the Cold War, Turkey was important for where it was. Now it is important for what it is," said Omer Taspinar, Director of the Turkey Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"It is led by a moderate, Muslim government which is largely pro-West. The United States believes that Turkey is a model for its Middle East project."

"Turkey will not become an Islamic state. The military would not permit it. Ataturk lives on," he said.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, first president of the republic in 1923, was the architect of the modern secular Turkish state.

Bush intervention

So keen has President George Bush been on supporting Turkey's application to join the EU that he upset some European governments at a Nato summit in Ankara in June 2004.

"I believe you ought to be given a date by the EU for your eventual acceptance into the EU," he told the Turks.

Mr Bush annoyed French President Jacques Chirac, who responded: "It is not his purpose and his goal to give any advice to the EU, and in this area it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico."
Some European governments fear that Turkey might be a Trojan horse, strengthening - with Britain at its side - the Atlanticist position.

France has only recently come round to supporting Turkish membership of the EU, largely because of its concerns that Turkey might otherwise slip into hostility to Europe.

However, a national referendum will be held in France before a final decision is taken. In some other countries, notably Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, serious doubts remain.

Concerns

At the same time, opposition within Turkey to the war in Iraq has recently shaken the long-held American view of Turkey as a reliable ally.

"Some neo-conservatives outside the administration have argued that it is not necessarily in US interests for Turkey to be in the EU and thereby get closer to the French and Germans over issues like the Middle East," said Omer Taspinar.

"They are concerned that this might loosen ties with the United States and with Israel."

A sign of Turkey's willingness to express criticism of the United States came when the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyid Erdogan phoned US Vice-President Dick Cheney to complain about the attack on Falluja, an Iraqi insurgent stronghold.

The chairman of the Turkish parliamentary Human Rights Commission, Mehmet Elkatmis, said of the United States in Iraq: "The occupation has turned into the genocide of Iraqi people''.

Mr Erdogan also called Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories "state terrorism".

Vision remains

Whatever the current doubts, however, the long-term American strategic vision of Turkey is unlikely to change.

Meanwhile, the process of negotiations for entry into the EU is seen as a brake on any tendency towards extremism, over Cyprus and the Kurds for example.

An American nightmare would be a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq to crack down on any Kurdish unrest that might spill over into Kurdish regions of Turkey itself.

Nobody in Washington or elsewhere expects there to be a final decision on EU entry for several years.

By then, it should become clear which way Turkey is heading.

7. - Turkish Daily News - "US, Turkey readying for trilateral talks on PKK":

The Turkish-US-Iraqi meeting will discuss measures to eliminate the group’s presence in northern Iraq; the timing is yet to be set

ANKARA / 15 December 2004

Turkish and U.S. authorities have agreed to address the presence of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq through a meeting that will also involve the Iraqi side, said Turkish and U.S. officials.
The agreement came when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman Monday night.
Turkish, U.S. and Iraqi officials recently held a trilateral meeting to discuss measures for the safety of Turkish truck drivers operating in Iraq. There was no information on when the planned meeting on the PKK would take place or on the level of participation. However, officials said there was consensus on Monday night between Erdogan and Edelman that it would be “better sooner than later” and commented that the meeting was likely to be attended by different officials than those who had attended the first meeting concerning the safety of drivers.

The Erdogan-Edelman meeting came six weeks after Edelman requested an appointment with the prime minister, sparking media reports of an appointment crisis between Ankara and Washington.

Both Turkish and U.S. officials said the meeting was constructive and positive, which included no “surprise or earthshaking” discussion.
In remarks to the press after the meeting, Edelman thanked Erdogan for finding the time to meet him amid his busy schedule.
Turkish criticism of a U.S. operation in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which even included a Turkish deputy accusing the United States of “genocide,” paved the way for a cool atmosphere in ties. However, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül emphasized in an interview with Hürriyet newspaper on Monday that Turkey wanted its “strategic partnership” with the United States to continue and acknowledged that Ankara might have paid less attention to its ties with Washington because it was too preoccupied with its EU course.
Erdogan and Edelman discussed the overall situation in Iraq, with the Turkish side reiterating its wish to see elections take place on Jan. 30 as scheduled.

On Turkey’s EU bid, Edelman said Washington was supporting Turkey’s accession bid but both sides agreed that this support should remain low profile in order not to irritate the Europeans.
There was no discussion on the controversial “ecumenical” title of the Istanbul-based Greek Orthodox patriarch. Erdogan barred state officials from attending a U.S. Embassy reception because invitations referred to the patriarch as “ecumenical,” a title that Turkey rejects.

8. - AFP - "Mass grave found in Kurdish region":

SULAIMANIYAH / 14 December 2004

Iraqis who lost loved ones during Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule rushed Tuesday to a site in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq that Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said was a mass grave containing some 500 bodies.

They went to the site at a village near the city of Sulaimaniyah after building workers noticed human skulls and torn clothes as they were digging.

Allawi told the interim national assembly in Baghdad that "according to initial estimates, (the site) contains the remains of 500 martyrs".

Fatima Ali, one of those who rushed to the mass grave, said Saddam’s henchmen had taken her husband away in 1990 after accusing him of collaborating with the peshmerga, or Kurdish fighters.
"I was unaware of his fate till today," the 36-year-old told AFP.

"Whenever I hear on TV or radio that a mass grave has been discovered anywhere in Iraq, I go and check. Today I found his clothes and his ID was still in his pocket," she said.

"My son was taken away because he was a deserter in the early 1990s," said Mohammed Salay. "It was not until today that I knew about his fate. I found him among the dead."

Local Kurdish officials said the site appeared to date from 1990 and included the remains of women and children.

Estimates of the number of those killed or who disappeared during Saddam’s rule range from 300,000 to over a million. The country is littered with mass graves containing possibly tens of thousands of bodies dumped by the regime.