24 February 2004

1. "Schroder lends support to Turkey's EU talks", Gerhard Schröder, German chancellor, gave strong backing on Monday to Turkey's ambition of joining the European Union, saying the country "can definitely count on" Berlin's support this year when the EU decides on whether to set a date to start talks on Turkish membership.

2. "Turkish court rejects release of jailed Kurdish activists", a Turkish state security court on Friday rejected an appeal for the release of human rights award winner Leyla Zana and three other former Kurdish lawmakers during their re-trial here on charges of helping Kurdish separatist rebels, the Anatolia news agency reported.

3. "Implementing EU reforms proves difficult", the Supreme Board of Radio and Television warns ATV for broadcasting news on a Kurdish singer.

4. "Two Syrian Kurd leaders sentenced to 14 months, freed with time served", two leaders of an unlicensed Syrian Kurdish party were each sentenced to 14 months in prison Sunday on separatism charges, but were released with time served, a rights activist told AFP.

5. "Cyprus : Make-or-break talks on reunification", the leaders of Cyprus’ Greek and Turkish communities last week had a first round of make-or-break talks on reunifying their divided island before entry into the European Union on May 1.

6. "Kurd autonomy demand could delay Iraq's interim constitution", differences between Iraq's Kurds and Arabs over Kurdish demands for autonomy in northern Iraq could stall an interim constitution needed before an American handover of power to Iraqis, Kurdish officials say.

7. "Kurds Reject Key Parts of Proposed Iraq Constitution", Kurdish leaders are refusing to accept key provisions of an interim Iraqi constitution drafted by the Bush administration and instead are demanding far broader autonomy, including the right to control military forces in Kurdish areas and the freedom to reject laws passed by the national government, Kurdish officials said Friday.

8. "A Kurdish State Might Be Established", on the former Israeli Foreign Undersecretary Alon Liel's recent statement on the possibility of the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq.

1. - Financial Times - "Schroder lends support to Turkey's EU talks":

ANKARA/BERLIN / 23 February 2004 /
by Vincent Boland and Hugh Williamson

Gerhard Schröder, German chancellor, gave strong backing on Monday to Turkey's ambition of joining the European Union, saying the country "can definitely count on" Berlin's support this year when the EU decides on whether to set a date to start talks on Turkish membership.

During a visit to Turkey - the first by a German chancellor for 11 years - Mr Schröder said EU membership would strengthen Turkey's democratic and economic reform process. He praised Ankara's contribution to getting talks restarted on the reunification of Cyprus, the success of which will be crucial to Turkey's hopes of joining.

2. - AFP - "Turkish court rejects release of jailed Kurdish activists":

ANKARA / 20 February 2004

A Turkish state security court on Friday rejected an appeal for the release of human rights award winner Leyla Zana and three other former Kurdish lawmakers during their re-trial here on charges of helping Kurdish separatist rebels, the Anatolia news agency reported.

This was the 11th time the panel of judges had rejected bail conditions because of the "nature and character of the crime". The court said the next hearing would be held on March 12. The ruling against Zana, winner of the European parliament's Sakharov prize, and her three former colleagues was immediately criticized by a member of the European parliament who said releasing the defendants would boost Turkey's struggling bid to join the European Union.

"I think the government understands the release of Zana and her colleagues would mean an important step for Turkey," Joost Lagendijk, co-chairman of the EU-Turkey joint parliamentary committee, told reporters outside the court building after Friday's hearing.

"I understand it is difficult for them to influence the judges, but I do think they are responsible for creating a climate where also the judges understand that Turkey is moving on and the judges cannot stay behind," he added.

Defence lawyers for Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak have asked the court to release the defendants in every hearing since the trial began in March last year. The four activists were sentenced to 15 years in jail in a much-criticized verdict in 1994 for collaborating with armed Kurdish rebels fighting for self-rule in the country's southeast.

In 2001, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that their trial had been unfair because the accused were unable to have key witnesses questioned and were not informed in time of changes to the charges against them.

They were allowed a re-trial under democracy reforms adopted by Turkey in order to catch up with European reforms to boost its bid to join the EU. But the new process has been criticized at home and abroad for being a copy of the previous trial.

Human rights is one of the areas the European Union has asked Turkey to address as a condition for membership of the bloc. EU leaders will decide in December this year whether to begin accession talks with the mainly Muslim nation after assessing its progress in meeting west European standards.

3. - Turkish Daily News - "Implementing EU reforms proves difficult":

The Supreme Board of Radio and Television warns ATV for broadcasting news on a Kurdish singer

ANKARA / 24 February 2004

While Turkey is ardently preparing itself to pass harmonization packages through Parliament to make itself ready for the December 2004 EU summit, it still can not eliminate the effects of current regulations and practice.

The Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK) has issued a warning to the popular ATV channel for broadcasting news on singer Omer Ipek, known as 'Tarkan of Mardin,' who sings Tarkan's and Davut Guloglu's songs in Kurdish.

On Jan. 10, 2004, ATV channel news contained zoomed pictures of the singer Ipek's cassettes and mentioned that "Tarkan of Mardin's cassettes are selling quickly."

RTUK based its warning on Article 4 of its laws, which says that "radio and TV broadcasting cannot be in breach of the general principles of the Turkish Constitution, the supremacy of law, the basic rights and freedoms, the national security and the principle of serving the public in accordance with the public morale," despite the fact that broadcasting in Kurdish language was legalized by the 6th harmonization package passed in the Parliament on June 2003.

Interestingly, the other paragraph of the same Article 4 also legalizes broadcasting in Kurdish language. The paragraph says that "public and private TVs can broadcast in traditional languages and dialects used by Turkish people in their daily life."

This latest event is just another example of how the harmonization packages conflict with Turkey's current regulations and old habits.

He was the latest high-profile visitor to Turkey as Ankara pursues an intensive diplomatic push to win backing for its demand that the EU must set a firm date for the start of membership negotiations. The issue is set to dominate an EU summit in December.

Turkish officials said at the weekend that a further diplomatic drive would come later in the year focusing on most of the 10 states due to join the EU on May 1.

Mr Schröder's remarks pleased Turkish officials, some of whom had been sceptical of receiving wholehearted German backing.

Angela Merkel, leader of Germany's opposition Christian Democrats, irritated Turkish leaders last week when she rejected the idea of Turkey becoming a full EU member and offered instead a "privileged partnership".

Ms Merkel and other German conservative politicians have argued that Turkey is not ready for the EU and that the EU does not have the capacity to integrate it as a new member. Mr Schröder has attacked this stance as "opportunistic electioneering", but it has also made the government's position more difficult to defend.

Turkish groups in Germany welcomed Mr Schröder's positive comments, arguing that, after years of mixed signals from the EU, Ankara deserved "fair treatment" in its membership bid.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, said the country was doing all it could to meet the political and social criteria for EU membership. But he cautioned that Ankara expected only a date for the start of entry negotiations, not an explicit date for joining, at the December EU summit.

4. - AFP - "Two Syrian Kurd leaders sentenced to 14 months, freed with time served":

DAMASCUS / 22 February 2004

Two leaders of an unlicensed Syrian Kurdish party were each sentenced to 14 months in prison Sunday on separatism charges, but were released with time served, a rights activist told AFP.

The Yakiti party's Hassan Saleh and Marwan Uthman were "initially sentenced to three years in prison, but the state security court decided to reduce their sentences to a year and two months and free them," lawyer and rights activist Anwar Bunni said.

The pair were arrested in December 2002 after Yakiti held a peaceful demonstration in front of the parliament demanding that Syria's Kurdish minority receive equal treatment with the Arab majority.

They were charged with trying to separate parts of Syrian territory and annex it to an unspecified foreign country. The court's verdicts cannot be appealed. Bunni said he believed the limited sentences were "an attempt to polish the image" of Syria, which has faced international criticism for its suppression of opposition groups, but that they also showed "its determination to condemn any political activity."

He said the pair had been defended by a team of 18 lawyers. While the sentences were being handed down, some 150 largely Kurdish protestors chanted slogans outside the courthouse in both Arabic and Kurd demanding more freedoms for the minority.

Several foreign diplomats, including ones from the United States, Europe, Canada and the Netherlands, observed the protest. More than one million Kurds live in Syria, mainly in the north, on the border with Iraq.

Some of them refused to be counted in a 1962 census to avoid military service, resulting in them and their descendants being denied Syrian citizenship. The Kurds have also repeatedly asked that the authorities return the identity cards of nearly 200,000 Kurds that were withdrawn in 1962.

Bunni added that the verdicts for another seven Kurds facing charges similar to Saleh and Uthman would be handed down on April 11. The seven, arrested in June during a demonstration in Damascus where they demanded to be given Syrian nationality, have denied the charges against them, according to rights groups.

5. - Monday Morning (Lebanon) - "Cyprus : Make-or-break talks on reunification":

23 February 2004

The leaders of Cyprus’ Greek and Turkish communities last week had a first round of make-or-break talks on reunifying their divided island before entry into the European Union on May 1.

Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash met with Alvaro de Soto, Cyprus envoy of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a former terminal at Nicosia’s defunct international airport in the UN-manned buffer zone between the two sides.

The first session, which lasted some two hours, came after a small bomb damaged the home of Mehmet Ali Talat, prime minister of Denktash’s breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which controls a third of the island with Turkey’s military backing.

All previous negotiations aimed at resolving a division dating back 30 years have failed, and both leaders have strong reservations over Annan’s plan for a Swiss-style confederation of two autonomous regions with a relatively weak central government.

With the EU entry deadline looming and the prospect of only the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot-held part of the island being admitted on May 1, the two sides agreed to try again for a settlement only under strong pressure from the United Nations, the European Union, Greece and Turkey, which itself has ambitions to join the European bloc.

Denktash arrived first at the talks venue, shortly before the scheduled starting time of 10:00 a.m. and shook hands with de Soto before going into the building. He was followed five minutes later by Papadopoulos.

Papadopoulos was accompanied by his chief diplomatic adviser, Tassos Tzonis, and Denktash by his son Serdar and Mehmet Ali Talat, foreign minister and prime minister of the TRNC respectively, as well as other aides.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen was also present at the talks. An EU official said the commissioner would be meeting later with de Soto, Denktash and Papadopoulos.

A home-made bomb exploded overnight outside Talat’s home in the northern coastal town of Kyrenia, damaging the front door and shattering windows, but there were no casualties.

“This is an attempt at intimidation, to frighten us, but it will not work; we are not going to deviate from our road”, Talat said.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied the island’s northern third in response to a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at uniting the country with Greece.

The two leaders were expected to meet several times a week with the aim of concluding their negotiations by the end of March.

Papadopoulos will focus on the “functionality and workability” of a settlement and try to ensure constitutional arrangements are compatible, as far as possible, with EU law, sources said.

Greek Cypriots are worried about being left to pay billions of dollars for a solution and want to work out the exact cost and see where the money is going to come from.

They also want the number of settlers from mainland Turkey in the Turkish-occupied North who will remain on the island reduced to a minimum and their flow into Cyprus stopped.

The Greek Cypriots have also told Annan that core issues of refugees, property and territory will be entered into if the other side raises them.

Denktash may demand a permanent presence of Turkish troops on the island and try to reduce the number of Greek Cypriots living under a Turkish Cypriot administration. He also wants strong powers for the Turkish Cypriot constituent state at the expense of the central federal government.

They have until March 22 to resolve their differences. If not, Turkey and Greece will be brought in to push them forward.

If that fails to secure a deal by March 29, the two sides have agreed that Annan will “fill in the blanks” to produce the draft accord that will be voted on in separate referendums in April.

There is still no guarantee that the referendums will approve the accord, and de Soto has warned that if this happens, “there is no plan B”.

How a reunited Cyprus would join the EU

The European Union, using the model of Germany’s reunification, stands ready to embrace the impoverished Turkish zone of Cyprus if the island overcomes its division in time for EU membership on May 1.

Verheugen arrived for the talks last week accompanied by a team of legal experts whose task would be to examine any peace accord closely to ensure it is broadly compatible with EU legislation, in particular that it will guarantee Cyprus a unified voice in Union affairs.

The accord would also have to comply with EU banking and tax laws. But the rest of the hefty EU legislative obligations facing the Turkish zone of Cyprus would be left until later.

Without a settlement, only the internationally-recognized Greek-Cypriot government will join the EU in May, along with nine other states, leaving the Turkish Cypriots in the cold.

Such an outcome would present a legal minefield. Turkey, which is itself striving to join the EU and which alone recognizes the breakaway TRNC, would be in the position of illegally maintaining troops on the territory of an EU member state.

To encourage a peace settlement, the EU has dangled the carrot of 259 million euros in development aid over 2004-2006 for the TRNC.

But while the Greek-Cypriot state has successfully completed the arduous process of transposing thousands of pages of EU legislation onto its statute books, the TRNC has done next to nothing in this regard.

To get around that problem, Northern Cyprus would be given several years to implement the body of EU law -- the acquis communautaire in EU-speak -- after it joins the bloc.

“The commission still remembers the precedent of East Germany, which progressively integrated the acquis communautaire after Germany’s reunification [in 1990]”, an EU official told journalists.

“We would adapt Cyprus’ accession treaty as necessary and work out how the acquis could be applied. Obviously it could not be done overnight, but it would be done progressively for the TRNC”, he said.

The old East Germany also benefited from large cash handouts from the EU to aid its development towards the norms enjoyed by the West.

Should the pieces fall into place for Cyprus before May 1, the EU would adopt Turkish as an official language. That would undoubtedly help Turkey’s own EU bid, in practical as well as symbolic terms.

While a deal on Cyprus is not a precondition for the country’s long-running membership application, EU leaders have made clear that they expect Turkey to do all it can to bring about a settlement.

The reunification of Cyprus would then remove one of the biggest hurdles standing in the way of a favorable decision by EU leaders when they meet in December to discuss whether to open accession talks with Turkey.

6. - Reuters - "Kurd autonomy demand could delay Iraq's interim constitution":

23 February 2004

Differences between Iraq's Kurds and Arabs over Kurdish demands for autonomy in northern Iraq could stall an interim constitution needed before an American handover of power to Iraqis, Kurdish officials say.

Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council faces a February 28 deadline to approve the interim constitution, which would be key to the functioning of a transitional body to which Washington intends to hand sovereignty on June 30.

Kurds negotiating the constitution said their autonomy plan, which was published by the Kurdish regional government on Friday as an appendix to the draft constitution, had left a rift between them and Iraq's majority Arabs that could cause delays.

"When it comes to the federalism proposal and its place in the constitution, they (Arabs) are saying 'You are elected and have a mandate from your people; we are not and have to wait maybe for an elected parliament to approve this'," said one Kurdish negotiator.

Before and since the war on Iraq, US officials have backed a federal government for Iraq, without endorsing Kurdish demands for power in the region they have run since 1991. Both Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs say those demands could split the country.

Under their plan, Kurds would retain the parliament and governing bodies they set up in the zone they pulled from Baghdad's grip after the 1991 Gulf War. Their militias would come under a proposed Kurdistan national guard that would be deployed in the region instead of the central government's army.

The plan would also grant the north a share of oil revenue proportionate to its population and give the area ownership of its resources. But Arab council members want all Iraq's provinces to have the same relationship to a central government.

More autonomy for Iraqi Kurds would be anathema to Turkey, which fears it could rekindle separatism among its own Kurds. The sentiment is shared by Iraq's other neighbours including Iran and Syria, which also have large Kurdish populations.

Iraqi Kurds - who survived a military campaign by Saddam Hussain that aimed at crushing separatist ambitions, included the use of chemical weapons and killed over 100,000 people - see autonomy as insurance against a repeat of that experience.

"The Kurds have been oppressed since the establishment of the Iraqi state, genocide was committed against them," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish Council member. "They are anxious about the future. Yes, we trust this government today, but what happens tomorrow?

"I don't think we can finish the interim constitution before February 28." Missing the deadline would further undermine the US handover plan, already facing calls from the majority Shiites' top religious authority for elections first.

The United Nations has echoed Washington's view that that is impossible, and has delayed recommendations on the shape of an interim government.

One senior official of the US-led occupying authority suggested some of the details of federalism might have to be left for later. The official suggested the Kurds had made ambitious demands to ensure getting at least the minimum.

"They say that they are trying to balance strong sentiment in the population that they must have safeguards with compromise, and that this sentiment, which they have let express itself partly for leverage, is intense enough that it might not accept reasonable compromises," the official said.

7. - Washington Post - "Kurds Reject Key Parts of Proposed Iraq Constitution":

BAGHDAD / 21 February 2004 / by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Kurdish leaders are refusing to accept key provisions of an interim Iraqi constitution drafted by the Bush administration and instead are demanding far broader autonomy, including the right to control military forces in Kurdish areas and the freedom to reject laws passed by the national government, Kurdish officials said Friday.

The position adopted by the Kurds, an ethnic group that accounts for about 20 percent of Iraq's predominantly Arab population, threatens to block approval of the interim constitution by Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council and deal another setback to the Bush administration's effort to create a sovereign transitional government. Arab leaders oppose almost all of the Kurds' demands, which would effectively preserve an autonomous Kurdish mini-state in northern Iraq with its own army, laws, tax system, judiciary and parliament.

Although the Bush administration also opposes many of the Kurdish demands, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, has spent the past week holding urgent meetings with Kurdish and Arab politicians to forge a compromise. But neither side appears willing to make substantial concessions, according to Kurdish and Arab officials. Iraqi Arabs contend that the Kurds should not receive special privileges; Kurds insist they are unwilling to give up many of the rights they enjoyed during 12 years of virtual independence that began after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

"Our side is seeking a voluntary union with Iraq, but this voluntary union comes with the precondition that the system of government in Iraq is both federal and democratic, allowing us to maintain the local control we have had for more than a decade," said Qabad Talabani, the son of Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani.

Iraqi Arabs view the Kurdish proposal as the first step toward the division of Iraq into separate states. "These ideas don't strike me as leading to one integrated nation," said Faisal Istrabadi, a senior aide to Adnan Pachachi, an Arab member of the Governing Council.

The interim constitution being considered by the council was written by Bush administration officials in conjunction with Istrabadi, a trial lawyer who lives in the Chicago area, and Salem Chalabi, a lawyer who is a nephew of former exile leader Ahmed Chalabi, another council member.

Drafters of the document plan to meet on Saturday to discuss the Kurdish demands and a variety of other changes suggested by Arab council members. The Bush administration wants the interim constitution to be completed by Feb. 28, although several Iraqis involved in the process have said they believe negotiations will continue beyond the deadline.

"We have reached some of the most contentious issues about the future of our country," one participant on the drafting committee said. "Reaching an agreement will not be easy."

While the administration remains committed to a federal system of government for Iraq, Bremer and other U.S. officials want the Kurds to soften their position on autonomy out of concern that a hard-line stance will alienate Iraq's two main groups of Arabs. Sunni Muslim Arabs, who live predominantly in provinces directly south of Kurdish areas, are worried about Kurdish demands to reestablish control in areas where former president Saddam Hussein's government moved large numbers of Arabs during a decades-long campaign to drive out Kurds. Shiite Muslim Arabs, who live farther south and comprise about 60 percent of the country's population, fear that the Kurdish position will weaken Iraq's eventual national government, which the Shiites expect to control.

"Finding a way to accommodate the Kurds without angering the Arabs is the essential challenge in keeping Iraq whole," said a U.S. official involved in the political transition.

"What kind of federalism will we have? How strong will autonomy be?" asked Ghazi Yawar, a Sunni Arab member of the Governing Council. "It's like a medicine. If you take the right amount, it can cure you, but if you overdose on it, it can kill you."

The Kurdish demands were outlined in a four-page proposed additional chapter to the interim constitution that was posted Friday on the Web site of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

A central component of the document is the retention of local control over Kurdish militiamen, known as pesh merga, who would be organized into a new force called the Iraqi Kurdistan National Guard. The proposal calls for the Kurdish parliament to "raise, regulate, recruit and officer" the national guard. Although Kurdish leaders are willing to allow the guard units to fall under the nominal authority of a civilian defense minister in Baghdad, effective command would rest with the Kurdish regional government.

The document also bars the deployment of soldiers from other parts of the country in Kurdish areas without the approval of the Kurdish parliament.

"It is a guarantee for the self-defense of the Kurdish people," said Rowsch Shaways, the president of the regional parliament, the Kurdistan National Assembly.

The pesh merga, which mounted a long-running resistance to Hussein's government, have been the only armed Iraqi force in the Kurdish areas since the areas became autonomous. Because U.S. troops could not enter Iraq from Turkey during last year's war, the pesh merga provided a northern front in the military campaign to topple Hussein's government. Since the war, the pesh merga have continued to provide security in Kurdish areas.

During three decades in power, Hussein ordered his army to conduct a series of military operations against the Kurds, whom he deemed subversive. Kurdish officials say that more than 180,000 Kurds were killed in the attacks, some of which involved chemical weapons.

"The people of Kurdistan will not accept the new Iraqi army to be deployed in the region of Kurdistan at this moment in time," Qabad Talabani said. "It's an unfortunate reality we face."

The interim constitution as drafted would ban any armed group that is not part of the country's official security services. The Bush administration wants the pesh merga to be folded into the new Iraqi army or civil defense units, both of which would be controlled by the national government.

Although U.S. officials said they acknowledge the contributions of the pesh merga in fighting Hussein's army, they contend that placing the Kurdish militia under local control could set a precedent for other parts of the country, particularly in the Shiite-dominated south, where more than 10,000 militiamen affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq have resisted U.S. calls to disband.

"The [Kurdish] proposal up to this point has essentially amounted to having two states with two standing armies but without a unified command structure," Istrabadi said. "That doesn't strike me as an outstanding idea."

Kurdish leaders are also insisting that laws that do not pertain to foreign policy or other subjects clearly in the domain of the national government must be ratified by the Kurdistan National Assembly before they can take effect in Kurdish areas. Kurdish leaders, who adhere to a relatively liberal school of Islam, said they want the freedom to reject any legislation passed by the national government based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

"It's our insurance against extremism," Shaways said. "If the majority of people in Iraq want a religious government, we should have the right to keep our secular government if our population wants that."

Kurdish leaders want to maintain their own judiciary with its own penal code. They also want to require that Iraq's permanent constitution, which will be put to a national referendum, also receive the approval of a majority in Kurdistan.

Two other Kurdish demands are of particular concern to Iraqi Arabs: local control of oil revenue and efforts to redress the eviction of Kurds from their homes by Hussein's government. The Kurds' proposal stipulates that all natural resources in Kurdistan belong to the Kurdish regional administration, which would receive a share of Iraq's oil sales in proportion to the number of Kurds in the country's population.

Kurdish leaders also want the interim constitution to codify a process for displaced Kurds to return to their homes and for redrawing the boundaries of the disputed province of Kirkuk, which was gerrymandered by Hussein's government to reduce its Kurdish population. "We need to reverse Saddam's ethnic-cleansing policies," Talabani said.

That goal has provoked angry complaints from Sunni Arabs. "What they're proposing is a very dangerous land grab," Yawar said.

Kurdish leaders said they were under intense pressure from their constituents not to compromise during the negotiations. Talabani said nearly 2 million Kurds had signed a petition calling for a referendum on independence.

"We have a street to worry about," he said. "We can't be seen to be selling out."

8. - Radikal - "A Kurdish State Might Be Established":

24 February 2004 / by Murat Yetkin

On the former Israeli Foreign Undersecretary Alon Liel's recent statement on the possibility of the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq.

Alon Liel is a foreign policy expert and former Israeli foreign undersecretary who once served in Turkey. Last weekend he addressed a meeting in Antalya entitled 'Searching for Tomorrow', after which he spoke to the daily Radikal about Iraq's future. Liel stated that should Iraq break down, the establishment of a Kurdish state would not be incongruous with Israel's national interests.

However, he also added that Israel doesn't currently support such a prospect precisely because of its close relations with Turkey, since it attaches the greatest importance to Ankara's opposition to an independent Kurdish state in the region. Yet, Liel further argued that since a Kurdish state would probably be backed by the US and the EU, Turkey must gird itself to greet such a development rather than viewing it as a casus belli.

Liel's words, which are very likely to cause a stir, are as follows:

* Israel wants to see a democratic, united Iraq. However, if this proves impossible, then at least a part of the country should be democratic, in all likelihood the northern Kurdish region. A democratic Kurdish administration would be politically closer to Turkey than any other country in the region.

* If Iraq is divided, Israel will welcome the establishment of a Kurdish state. However, Turkey firmly opposes such a development. It would be madness for Israel to side with or encourage such a formation unless Ankara changes its mind. Which is why I hope there's no one in Israel now daring to support the Kurdish efforts, because we don't want to ruin our relations with Turkey.

* If Israel now avoids abetting the Kurdish efforts, it is because Turkey and the US don't want the Kurdish groups to form an independent state. However, I personally believe that Turkey must be ready for all possible developments, including the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in the region.

These words seem to contradict Israel's official stance, since it has recently displayed a willingness to smooth out its relations with Syria and the Palestinians. Now Ankara has the right to demand an official explanation from Israel about its attitude towards ethnic Kurdish groups in northern Iraq.