27
February 2004
2. "The Ankara-Erbil Axis", One of the greatest headaches facing the U.S. in Iraq is how to address the aspirations of the long-repressed Iraqi Kurds, who work closely with U.S. forces, while not antagonizing its longest-standing ally in the region, Turkey.
3. "Iraq: Kurds Demand Vote On Independence", Kurdish activists have collected 1.7 million signatures on a petition demanding a referendum on the future status of northern Iraq's Kurdish region.
4. "Turkey's Erdogan hails major boost in ties with Greece", Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday hailed a major improvement in his country's tumultuous relationship with long-time rival Greece, particularly over the disputed Aegean Sea which divides them.
5. "Denktash ‘making progress impossible’, President Tassos Papadopoulos yesterday accused Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash of trying to reduce the current round of talks to a process of exchanging extremist positions, making it impossible to make legitimate changes to the Annan plan.
6. "The Greek Cypriots' Stance", Yesterday’s meetings showed that the Greek Cypriot administration doesn’t want to accept that there are two nations on the island.
1. - The Financial Times - "US hits out at Turkey on human rights despite reforms":
February 27, 2004 / By Vincent Boland in Ankara
Turkey's human rights record has drawn strong criticism from the US, despite extensive reforms passed by parliament as the country attempts to join the European Union.
In its annual reports on human rights, published on Wednesday, the US State Department said "torture, beatings and other abuses by security forces remained widespread" in Turkey in 2003.
Arbitrary arrests and detentions continued, although their incidence was declining, and the lack of convictions for perpetrators "continued to foster a climate of impunity".
Separately, a leading human rights monitor has called on Turkey to take "immediate steps" to ease the isolation of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the PKK Kurdish guerrilla movement that waged a bloody conflict with security forces in the 1980s and 1990s.
Mr Ocalan is the only inmate at a closed prison on the island of Imrali, in the Sea of Marmara.
The Council of Europe urged the authorities to allow greater access for his family and his lawyers. Most Turks have no sympathy for Mr Ocalan.
Turkey's human rights record is under a particular spotlight this year as it seeks a date for the start of EU membership negotiations. Its candidacy is expected to dominate an EU summit in December.
The State Department acknowledged that the government had passed extensive human rights legislation in anticipation of EU entry, and human rights monitors said the country's record was improving.
Jonathan Sugden, a researcher for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch, said: "There has been determined progress in the past 18 months, and we are convinced that there is a genuine process [of reform] going on that is having an impact."
Turkey has abolished the death penalty. Parliament has also approved measures to reduce the time suspects can be held for questioning, to allow broadcasting and teaching in languages other than Turkish, to promote fair trials, and to improve access to lawyers.
But rights monitoring organisations, as well as the US and the EU, said implementation of the reforms was haphazard.
Association, said: "Mental attitudes remain a problem. All the incidents [cited in the State Department report] are true. They are not just scenarios."
He claimed that torture was "still systematic all over Turkey".
The Turkish parliament's human rights committee declined to comment on the State Department report.
But, speaking during a visit to Moscow, Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, said the government would "not tolerate human rights abuses and torture".
Respect for human rights is among the criteria on EU membership that Turkey is obliged to meet.
Mr Sugden said: "Considering that this is Turkey's EU year,
the government should be much quicker to address the human rights
situation. That would be the best insurance for getting a positive
result in December."
2. - National Review - "The Ankara-Erbil Axis":
America's Turkish and Kurdish allies are cooperating.
ERBIL (IRAQI KURDISTAN) / By Andrew Apostolou / February 26, 2004
One of the greatest headaches facing the U.S. in Iraq is how to address the aspirations of the long-repressed Iraqi Kurds, who work closely with U.S. forces, while not antagonizing its longest-standing ally in the region, Turkey. A year ago Turkey was threatening to invade Iraqi Kurdistan, whether the U.S. liked it or not — prompting the Iraqi Kurds to threaten to fight both Baghdad and Ankara simultaneously. Much has changed in the last year, but few Americans reading the op-ed columns or listening to the Beltway pundits would know this. The belief that Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds are almost at daggers drawn is still widely held. The reality, as seen from Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, is that the two U.S. allies are drawing closer together.
The best evidence of burgeoning Turkish-Iraqi Kurdish relations is the traffic jam on the road to the Turkish-Kurdish border crossing at Habur. Until last year the only trade in this region was illicit: smuggled oil from Iraq, and the usual shipments of cigarettes, whiskey, and bootleg films from Turkey. There were U.N. sanctions on Iraq while Turkey applied its own partial embargo against the Iraqi Kurds.
Now the border is open and trade is flourishing, giving the underdeveloped southeast of Turkey a significant lift. Getting to the border can be tricky. The roads are narrow and the snow has been deep in recent days. The biggest challenge is weaving your way through the line of hundreds of tankers and trucks that stretches for a couple of dozen miles on both sides of the crossing point. Turkey sells Iraq gasoline, liquefied natural gas, and consumer goods. In return, Turkey buys Iraqi diesel and fuel oil. Perhaps the strangest sight on the road going north out of Iraq is of trucks carrying broken-down Iraqi armored cars, made in Russia but now heading for Turkey where they will be turned into scrap.
The growing Turkish-Iraqi Kurdish rapprochement is based on the notion that by cooperating commercially the two sides can build confidence politically. Turkish companies are winning contracts all over Iraqi Kurdistan. With a healthy appetite for the sort of risky environments in which U.S. companies barely dare to dream to operate, working in places like Iraqi Kurdistan is second nature for Turkish firms. For their part, the Iraqi Kurds are keen to open the door to foreign investors. The unquestioningly pro-U.S. Iraqi Kurds have created the most secure region in Iraq and their administration works more efficiently than any other in Iraq, including that of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.
One of the most important deals between the two sides is to develop an oil field at Taq Taq in the center of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Taq Taq contract was signed by a Turkish company and the Iraqi Kurdish administration of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (one of the two dominant Kurdish parties) based in Suleimani. The Taq Taq field could contain a couple of billion barrels in oil reserves. By way of comparison, Britain, with all its North Sea oil wealth, only has total national oil reserves of five billion barrels of oil. Development of the field is currently on hold pending approval by the U.S. and Iraqi authorities in Baghdad. Far from objecting to one of its companies striking an oil deal with the Iraqi Kurds, the Turkish government has been thoroughly supportive, lobbying the U.S. government to sign off on the contract so that work can begin.
Publicly, the Turkish government has said that it rejects the idea of an autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, fearing that this could lead to the breakup of Iraq. Turkish officials also avoid referring to Iraqi Kurdistan or the Kurds, preferring to talk of "northern Iraq" and the "northern Iraqi people." Turkey has also had discussions with Iran and Syria, not countries well respected in Washington, D.C., to build a diplomatic front against a possible independent Iraqi Kurdish state.
Yet while the careful choice of language seems to mask latent hostility to the Kurds, an inability to acknowledge that they are a separate ethnic group, Turkish officials stress their years of help to the Iraqi Kurds. Claiming that Turks and the "northern Iraqis" are relatives, Turkey was involved in reconciling the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties after bloody infighting in the mid-1990s. The reconvening of the Kurdistan parliament in October 2002, the most democratically elected body in Iraq's recent history, was facilitated by patient Turkish diplomacy.
The Turkish desire to stress good intentions, not ethnic hostility, was made clear when Turkey stepped in with medical assistance following the al-Qaeda-linked suicide bombing in Erbil on February 1, 2004. The worst suicide bombing in Iraq to date, the Erbil atrocity claimed more than 100 lives and injured scores. The Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, made a point of visiting the wounded in Turkish hospitals, drawing praise from the Iraqi Kurds.
Turkey, which opposed the Iraq war, now says that it backs the U.S. policy of democratizing the Middle East. The best example of how pluralism can be promoted in the Middle East has been the experiment in democratization in Iraqi Kurdistan, which began during the northern "no-fly zone" years between 1991-2003. The "no-fly zone" could not have existed without Turkish support.
For all the occasionally barbed rhetoric between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds, both parties know that they are the two Muslim nations in the Middle East with the closest links to the U.S. Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds look at the rest of the Islamic Middle East with ill-disguised dismay. Both favor the emancipation of women and a predominantly secular political system. Close to a year on from the liberation of Iraq, the promise of trade, rather than the threat of war, between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds shows how the Middle East can change for the better.
Andrew Apostolou is director of research at the Defense Foundation
for the Democracies. He is presently traveling in the Middle East
and went into Iraq with an engineer working on the Taq Taq oilfield.
3. - Radio Free Europe - "Iraq: Kurds Demand Vote On Independence":
Prague, 26 February 2004 / By Valentinas Mite
Kurdish activists have collected 1.7 million signatures on a petition demanding a referendum on the future status of northern Iraq's Kurdish region. Organizers want the opportunity to decide whether the region should declare independence or become a part of federal Iraq.
Iraqi Kurds have taken a step toward their goal of achieving an independent state.
Yesterday, a Kurdish popular movement delivered a petition to the Iraqi Governing Council. They group claims the petition, which demands the right to hold a referendum on the future of the Kurdish region, bears 1.7 million signatures. The group, called Referendum Movement, was established following the ouster of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein last spring.
Referendum Movement spokesman Halkaut Abdullah says the signatures were collected in a relatively short time, between 24 January and 15 February. Only Kurds aged 18 and over and living in the Kurdish autonomous region of Iraq were permitted to sign the petition.
Mahmud Uthman is an independent Kurdish member of the Iraqi Governing Council. He told RFE/RL the Referendum Movement has also appealed to the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, the United Nations, and other international bodies for support. "They [informed] the coalition forces [about the petition], they gave [the signatures] to our GC [Governing Council]," he said. "And they appealed to the United Nations, to the European Union, and to other outside organizations -- even to the Arab League."
Uthman says the main aim of the Referendum Movement is to give Kurds the possibility of deciding their future for themselves -- an opportunity they have been denied since the founding of the Iraqi state. He says the group wants to get a clear picture of what the Kurdish people want -- to remain a part of Iraq, or to be an independent state.
"They have gathered those signatures and they ask for a referendum to be held in Kurdistan to ask the Kurdish people what they really want. And they think they should have this right, because since the establishment of the Iraqi state in 1921 this right has not been given to the Iraqi Kurds," Uthman said.
Uthman says the Referendum Movement is not a political party but a grassroots organization with no official ties to the main Kurdish political parties. "Officially, there is no relation to the main Kurdish political parties but obviously the main Kurdish political parties are also part of the Kurdish population," he said. "They can't go against such a demand, which is quite a fair demand. There is nothing wrong with it."
Sami Shoresh of RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq says the main force behind the Referendum Movement are not politicians but intellectuals like Asso Karim, a well-known publisher and journalist. Poet Sherko Bekes and journalist Saro Kard also took part in the petition drive. He says many Kurds support the idea of a referendum, and notes several large demonstrations were held in Al-Sulaymaniyah and Irbil last week to support the plebiscite.
Shoresh says recent terrorist attacks in Kurdistan have heightened anxiety about the region's political future. The continued refusal of neighboring Turkey and Iran to grant their own Kurdish populations autonomy have further intensified the desire among Iraqi Kurds for the right to self-determination.
Uthman says the Referendum Movement is seeking to hold the plebiscite before the future of Iraq is decided and a basic law is adopted.
The Coalition Provisional Authority has yet to comment on the Kurdish petition. The proposal, however, could complicate U.S. efforts to transfer power to an Iraqi interim government.
Yahia Said of the London School of Economics and Political Science says the demands for a referendum could seriously destabilize the country. "Obviously it won't be a positive development, especially if the referendum will lead to a demand for independence," he said. "I think it will play into the hands of forces that are trying to ignite civil strife in Iraq."
Said says normally a referendum is the best way to gauge public opinion. But, he says, it is not a process that can be used effectively or fairly in present-day Iraq. "First of all, there has to be an Iraqi government in place. Iraq is under occupation, in a transitional setup," he said. "The decision about Kurdish [independence] -- if it is about Kurdish independence -- would have, somehow, to involve the rest of Iraq -- and the rest of Iraq is incapable at this point of addressing this issue."
Said says the organizers of the referendum did not formulate in which
parts of the country a referendum will be organized.
"There are tens of thousands of Kurds in Baghdad," he noted.
"Will they be given an opportunity to vote? Will the Kurds, living
in Kirkuk, an oil-rich town, vote? Will Kirkuk be a part of an independent
Kurdistan?"
To questions like these, Said says, there are no answers.
4.
- AFP - "Turkey's Erdogan hails major boost in ties with Greece":
ANKARA / February 26, 2004
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday hailed a
major improvement in his country's tumultuous relationship with long-time
rival Greece, particularly over the disputed Aegean Sea which divides
them.
"There is a very favourable improvement in our ties with Greece,"
Erdogan told NTV television. "In the past, no one would have
believed such a
development."
He highlighted a settlement over the Aegean Sea, including a moratorium
during the summer on military manoeuvres in the area, but gave no
further
details.
Greece and Turkey, both NATO members, have long been at loggerheads
over the ethnically divided island of Cyprus as well as over air control
and
territorial rights in the Aegean but are seeking to resolve their
differences.
The two countries launched a policy of rapprochement under their foreign
ministers George Papandreou and Ismail Cem in 1999.
Since 2002 the two have held a series of high-level meetings to resolve
their differences, although no results have so far been announced.
Ankara and Athens were also close to armed conflict in January 1996
in a dispute over the sovereignty of a tiny Aegean island, named Imia
by Greece and Kardak by Turkey, but the row subsided after intervention
by Washington.
Erdogan welcomed a deal signed in December to build a pipeline between
the two countries that will carry natural gas from Azerbaijan and
other areas to western Europe.
"All these are positive developments. ... We want this atmoshere
to continue," he said.
5. - Cyprus Mail - "Denktash ‘making progress impossible’":
By Jean Christou / 26 February 2004
President Tassos Papadopoulos yesterday accused Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash of trying to reduce the current round of talks to a process of exchanging extremist positions, making it impossible to make legitimate changes to the Annan plan.
Papadopoulos was speaking before yesterday’s negotiations where
the Greek Cypriot side submitted its written response a nine-page
list of demands put forward by Denktash on Tuesday.
In his document Denktash demanded, in addition to a host of requests
related to population and other such issues, that Cyprus’ accession
to the EU be re-negotiated or at least have accession postponed until
EU Commission member states re-ratified the Treaty for the new state
of affairs on the island. The EU immediately dismissed the notion
saying the Treaty already accommodates a Cyprus solution and the integration
of the north.
"I would consider this an attempt to undermine the procedure to a process of exchanging views on extreme positions that do not allow for changes to be made to the Annan plan," Papadopoulos told reporters on his way to the talks yesterday morning.
''We have our positions, we outline the changes we want so that it will be decided whether it is possible to go on to the last phase of the process that is the referendum.”
Separate referenda are to be held on the Annan plan around April 21 following three more weeks of talks between the leaders and also a possible intervention by Turkey and Greece. If all efforts fail by March 31, UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan has been given the green light to fill in the gaps on unresolved issues before the referenda are held.
The talks, which began a week ago and which are a last-ditch attempt by the international community to usher a reunited Cyprus into the EU on May 1, have not been going well and according to sources only one real day of work has been put in so far. The absence of a news blackout has also given the leaders – who both say they want to keep their respective peoples informed – the freedom to engage in tit-for-tat statements.
”The issues Denktash brings up are outside the framework of the this type of negotiations, as determined in New York,” Papadopoulos said yesterday. ''Denktash's efforts must be considered as a means to undermine the process.”
Speaking after yesterday’s two-hour meeting the President said that Denktash had touched on the core issues, which both sides had agreed in New York to leave well enough alone.
“There are issues that are unacceptable for us and we are not going to get entangled in the framework to which Denktash wishes to lead this process,'' he said.
''I believe the points Denktash raises cannot remain unanswered, this however does not mean that we accept that they become topics of discussion at the negotiating table. We have no intention of getting involved in discussions about his vision.”
Papadopoulos said the Greek Cypriot side was still ready to enter substantive negotiations to bring about the changes it deems necessary to render the Annan plan functional.
''If we follow his (Denktash’s) course, if the negotiations
are led to where Denktash wants to lead them, this would undermine
the entire negotiating process and instead of having substantive negotiations
to amend the plan, the process would be led to a repetition of his
vision and his former positions.''
But Papadopoulos said despite the Turkish side’s efforts to undermine
the talks, the Greek Cypriot side had no intention of leaving the
table.
Asked by journalists what UN Secretary–general's special adviser Alvaro de Soto’s opinion was on the Denktash document, Papadopoulos said: "What can he say? Is De Soto a judge? Mr de Soto chairs the meetings.''
A senior Turkish official in Ankara shrugged off the Greek Cypriot complaints. "It is normal of them to say all this because they are the ones who are responsible for the talks not going well," he told Reuters yesterday.
"Denktash made serious proposals for serious talks and he wants
to have a solution," he said, adding that Turkey's priority was
to entrench any final agreement in EU law. Turkish newspapers accused
the Greek Cypriot side of using "delaying tactics" because
they had no incentive to strike a deal before May 1.
6. - Milliyet - "The Greek Cypriots' Stance":
By Fikret Bila
For the Turkish public, the Greek Cypriots’ positions on Cyprus
have been overshadowed by the Turkish side’s. This has kept the
Turkish public preoccupied with domestic conflicts and relegated the
Greek positions to the back burner. However, the Greek Cypriots should
be watched closely.
Yesterday’s meetings showed that the Greek Cypriot administration
doesn’t want to accept that there are two nations on the island.
They reject the approach of two different sovereign nations consisting
of the Turkish and Greek Cypriots. The Greek Cypriots’ stance
takes two founding nations as a basis. Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus (TRNC) President Rauf Denktas has said openly that Greek Cypriot
leader Tassos Papadopoulos is digging in his heels on this issue.
This signals that the principles of strengthening bizonality and taking
two equal sovereign nations as a basis, considered sine qua nons by
Denktas and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will be rejected.
At least it seems no result will emerge with just the TRNC and Greek
Cyprus talking. Would the situation change if Turkey and Greece get
involved after March 22?
We’ll see then. However, clearly the Greek Cypriot administration
won’t accept any solution fitting Turkey’s suggestions before
May 1. After this stage, it seems Ankara is hopeful about pressure
coming from the EU. Erdogan has laid out three key conditions for
Ankara, namely strengthening bizonality, Turkey’s guarantorship,
and a straight border. He emphasized that failure to implement these
might cause problems. According to the New York agreement from earlier
this month, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will lay things down from
now on. A referendum will be held on the basis of a text determined
by him. If Ankara doesn’t favor the current shape of the plan
and attaches great importance to the sine qua nons, it should move
quickly so serious pressure and sanctions can be put on the Greek
Cypriots. Otherwise they won’t accept Turkey’s sine qua
nons. For this reason, Ankara should stand with Denktas, not against
him, in order to push the Turkish side’s suggestions.”