14 January 2004

1. "US makes good on pledge to blacklist PKK under new name", the United States on Tuesday made good on a two-month old pledge to add the latest incarnation of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to its terrorism blacklists. In addition the Kurdistan People's Congress, the names "People's Congress of Kurdistan" and "KONGRA-GEL" were also added to the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations as well as a Treasury Department blacklist.

2. "The Kurdish Question", on Monday, Kofi Annan will have a chance to play "a vital role" in Iraq that the U.S. has promised.

3. "A green light for federalism", In the basic law, Kurdistan will have the same legal status as it has now”, he told journalists, referring to the region that has enjoyed virtual autonomy since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

4. "IHD: Rights violations up in Southeast for 2003", the Human Rights Association (IHD) has claimed that human rights violations increased in southeastern and eastern Anatolia in 2003.

5. "Reforms underway for local administrations", local administrations will be granted more powers, greater city council members to be elected by the public, municipalities with populations below 2,000 will be abolished.

6. "Little Turkish delight as Assad looks for new friends", Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Naji al-Otari brought a little gift with him when he visited his Turkish counterpart: an abstract of protocols of interrogations conducted by Syrian security forces with Kurdish detainees suspected of membership in the Kurdish Democratic Party, which is the new name of the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party.

7. "Syria and Turkey defy the United States", last week’s visit to Turkey by Syrian President Bashar Assad, the first by a Syrian head of state since World War II, was of considerable geostrategic significance.

8. "Military Junta Has No Chance this Time", at a time when important steps are being taken for European Union (EU) membership and Cyprus, junta discussions are resurfacing.

1. - AFP - "US makes good on pledge to blacklist PKK under new name":

WASHINGTON / 13 January 2004

The United States on Tuesday made good on a two-month old pledge to add the latest incarnation of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to its terrorism blacklists.

The State Department, which had pledged in mid-November not to allow the chameleon-like organization to escape US sanctions by changing its name, formally amended its regulations to list the Kurdistan People's Congress as an alias of the PKK.

The United States "has concluded that there is a sufficient factual basis to find that the Kurdistan Workers' Party, also known as the Freedom and Democracy Congress of Kurdistan and other aliases, has changed its name to the Kurdistan People's Congress (KHK)," it said in a notice published in the Federal Register.

In addition the Kurdistan People's Congress, the names "People's Congress of Kurdistan" and "KONGRA-GEL" were also added to the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations as well as a Treasury Department blacklist.

Inclusion on the lists subject members of the group to travel and financial sanctions, including a freeze on any assets they might have in the United States or that are held by institutions subject to US jurisdiction.

On November 12, the Iraq-based group, which has waged a 15-year separatist war on Ankara, announced that it was disbanding in order to set up a more democratic Kurdish organization. But Turkish officials and observers quickly dismissed the group's move as a tactic to shrug off their violent image and ward off a possible US clampdown on their bases in northern Iraq.

Later, the group -- which had already changed its name from the PKK to the Turkish Congress for Democracy and Freedom in Kurdistan (KADEK) in an unsuccessful bid to thwart sanctions -- said it was no longer fighting for self-rule in Turkey and urged Ankara to open dialogue. But, it said it would not disarm.

The PKK, which declared a ceasefire in September 1999 after the capture of its leader Abdullah Ocalan in February of that year, changed its name to KADEK in April 2002 and vowed to pursue democratic means to resolve the conflict with Turkey.

Turkey holds the group responsible for the death of some 36,500 people, many of them rebels, killed in fighting since 1984 when the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast.

2. - The New York Times - "The Kurdish Question":

14 January 2004 / by William Safire

On Monday, Kofi Annan will have a chance to play "a vital role" in Iraq that the U.S. has promised. Iraqi, U.S. and British representatives will troop into his New York office with a request: inform the Shiite leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, that the world body supports a reasonable timetable for Iraqi elections, not a premature election that would amount to a coup by Iraq's Shiite majority.

As the U.N thus demonstrates its nation-building usefulness, the U.S. will face its own delicate task: to persuade the Kurds in the north not to demand so much autonomy that it may endanger the nation's unity.

Here is what we owe the Iraqi Kurds, targets of genocide, as demonstrated in Saddam's poison-gas massacre of 5,000 innocents in Halabja:

(1) We abandoned Kurds to the shah in the 70's, after Mullah Mustafa Barzani placed his trust in America. We double-crossed them again after the gulf war, when their forces rose at our instigation and were decimated by Saddam's gunships. Despite this double duplicity, Kurds fought on our side with little equipment and great valor against Saddam for over a decade.

(2) After we protected this non-Arab people in a no-flight zone, Kurds overcame tribal differences to establish a working free-enterprise democracy in Iraq's north, now a model of freedom for the rest of the country.

(3) Despite casualties elsewhere in the post-victory war, not a single U.S. soldier has been killed (knock wood) in the area called Iraqi Kurdistan and patrolled by the pesh merga, its battle-hardened Kurdish militia. (But in a blunder, Kurdish leaders suspicious of Turkey blocked the contribution of 10,000 Turkish troops to help us put down the Baathist insurgency.)

The Kurds owe their American ally plenty, too: U.S. and British air forces, from bases in cooperative Turkey, secured the Iraqi Kurds from Saddam's predations for a decade. And last year we freed all Iraqis from that dictator forever.

Now Americans and Kurds need each other's understanding. The U.S. is committed to helping to build a unified Iraq, with no path to secession, and with representation based on geography, not ethnicity. The Kurds, a 20 percent minority in Iraq, are committed only to autonomy within a federal Iraq: they refrain from declaring independence, but require constitutional and security guarantees that they will not be tyrannized again.

"We cannot afford another Halabja," says Barham Salih, the articulate Kurd who would make Iraq's most effective U.N. representative. "Surely Americans grasp the value of states' rights, and remember how all states had to ratify your Constitution."

Commitments to unity and autonomy may not be in conflict, but they are not in accord. Though Arab Iraqis are happy to let the Kurds continue to run their local affairs in what used to be the no-flight zone, many find trouble arising in other Kurdish lands seized by Saddam, who drove Kurds from their homes and moved in his supporters to "Arabize" the area.

The key is the city of Kirkuk, which Iraqi Kurds consider their capital. But Arab colonists and indigenous Turkmen dispute that hotly, as does Turkey, worried about a rich Kurdistan attracting Turkish Kurds. Kirkuk sits atop an ocean of oil holding 40 percent of Iraq's huge reserves.

Determined to reverse Saddam's ethnic cleansing, Salih insists that "Kirkuk is not about oil." (I think of Senator Dale Bumpers's line during impeachment: "When you hear somebody say, `This is not about sex' — it's about sex.")

Our Paul Bremer told Kurdish leaders brusquely last week to forget the past U.S. autonomy policy and get with the unity program; they suggested he stick that in his ear. He has since modified his demeanor, and Washington is reviewing our policy reversal. Mollified Kurds then met constructively with Iraqi Arabs, and Salih meets tomorrow with "our friends to the north [Turkey]."

The solution should include relocation funds for Arabs displaced by returning Kurds; a referendum to decide status within a Kurdish or other Iraqi "governorate"; legal protections in Kirkuk for Turkmen, Christians and other minorities; and the pesh merga's place in Iraq's national military command.

"The oil is part of the national treasure," says Salih, in autonomy's concession to unity. "We just want to make sure that Iraq's oil wealth is never again used against Kurds."

3. - Monday Morning (Lebanon)- "A green light for federalism":

13 January 2004

“In the basic law, Kurdistan will have the same legal status as it has now”, he told journalists, referring to the region that has enjoyed virtual autonomy since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

Nurradin said the council had decided that the basic law, to be adopted by March 1, will formally recognize the principle of federal Iraq, preserving the Kurds’ legal right to autonomy over the long term. “The Governing Council has agreed that federalism be included in the basic law... The Kurds will have the same rights they have now”.

The decision came after the 25-member council’s five Kurdish members refused to budge on the issue during heated discussions.

“Some Governing Council members asked that details about federalism be delayed until after elections and the writing of a constitution, but we Kurds refused it and we said everything must be worked out now”, Nurradin indicated.

“When the constitution is written and elections are held, we will not agree to less than what is in the fundamental law and we may ask for more”.

The current agreement would apply only to the provinces of Suleimaniya, Dohuk and Arbil.

The fate of the highly-contested provinces of Diyala, Nineveh and oil-rich Tamim, from which Saddam Hussein expelled Kurds in large numbers, will be delayed until 2005 and possibly 2006 after a national census is conducted, Nurradin said.

But he made clear the Kurds would not settle for less than Tamim’s main city, Kirkuk, as the future capital of a Kurdish autonomous zone.

The Governing Council’s committee drafting the basic law had made a deal on federalism and Kurdish autonomy about 10 days earlier, Nurradin said.

Among the committee members are Shiite council members Iyad Allawi, Abdelaziz Hakim and Ahmad Chalabi; Sunnite members Mohsen Abdelhamid and current Governing Council president Adnan Pachachi; Assyrian Christian member Yunadam Kanna; and Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani, Jalal Talabani and Nurradin.

Although Pachachi endorsed federalism earlier last week in a televised address, he cautioned that federalism should not be guaranteed until the drafting of a constitution in 2005 by a democratically elected constitutional convention.

But Nurradin dismissed Pachachi’s speech as his “personal views” and emphasized that the Governing Council had already agreed on federalism for the transitional period leading up to national elections.

Paul Bremer, the US pro-consul in Iraq, had consulted Kurdish leaders Barzani, whose Kurdistan Democratic Party rules Arbil and Dohuk, and Talabani, whose Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, controls Suleimaniya, three times in the space of a week about the controversial issue.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Kurdish territory in the North must remain part of the country when it returns to self-rule later this year, but did not rule out the possibility it would be afforded some form of autonomy.

Many Iraqis fear that federalism of the kind envisaged may open the door to an eventual partition of the country.

Sunnites bolster ranks

As the Kurds confirmed their possession of three provinces, Iraq’s Arab Sunnites took further steps last week to bolster their ranks, launching a new committee responsible for issuing fatwas, or religious edicts.

The announcement was made at the Al-Nida Mosque in Baghdad, in the presence of Adnan Dulaimi, the head of Iraq’s Sunnite religious administration, or Wakf, and representatives of other Sunnite movements like the Islamic Brotherhood and the Sufis.

Sheikh Abdelkader Ani, who was chosen to chair the committee, said the new body “will not be a political party, but will focus on uniting Sunnite ranks to support sober Sufi religious teaching and thinking”.

He called for unity among all Iraq’s ethnic groups -- Sunnites, Shiites, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen -- “in ending occupation and the transfer of power to Iraqis”.

The latest move by the Sunnites came after the formation of a unified council on December 25 to represent the interests of Iraq’s Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen Sunnite communities.

Iraq’s minority Sunnites, who have held the reins of power in modern Iraq since its creation in the 1920s as a successor-state of the Ottoman Empire -- itself a Sunnite-dominated entity -- and from whose ranks Saddam Hussein hails, reportedly feel marginalized under the post-war situation.

4. - Turkish Daily News - "IHD: Rights violations up in Southeast for 2003":

IZMIR / 14 January 2004

The Human Rights Association (IHD) has claimed that human rights violations increased in southeastern and eastern Anatolia in 2003.

The IHD's Diyarbakir branch on Monday released the "Human Rights Report 2003" covering southeastern and eastern Anatolia. According to the report, 6,472 human rights violations were reported in Turkey's East and Southeast in 2003. The report disclosed that 104 people lost their lives in armed clashes, while 31 were wounded. The report also claimed that 80 people were victims of unsolved murders, while 22 were wounded in attacks by unknown parties.

The report noted that 2,797 people were taken into custody in 2003 and that 489 of them were victims of torture carried out by gendarmes, security forces and village guards.

"A total of 159 people were investigated and punished because of their thoughts. A nongovernmental organization called the Elazig Basic Rights and Freedoms Association was shut down, and 18 newspapers and books were banned," said the report.

The report also underlined the threat posed by land mines in the region, saying that 19 people had been killed and 37 injured by land mines.

IHD's Diyarbakir branch chairman Selahattin Demirtas highlighted the reasons for the increase in the number of human rights violations in the area and said: "The administrative and military bureaucracy is consciously insisting on not implementing EU harmonization laws; however, our citizens have a similar consciousness in insisting on their rights. And thanks to this awareness of the need to protect their rights, these people have applied to our association much more frequently than in the past when their rights were violated."

Complaining about the attitudes of authorities towards human rights associations, Demirtas also alleged, "Most violations in the region stem from the Kurdish issue."

5. - Turkish Daily News - "Reforms underway for local administrations":

Local administrations will be granted more powers, greater city council members to be elected by the public, municipalities with populations below 2,000 will be abolished

ANKARA / 14 January 2004

Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu revealed yesterday that the details of the draft concerning the "Local administration bill" that envisages a series of reforms on the functioning of these administrations.

Briefing the press at the Prime Ministry residence, Aksu said the draft bill was prepared in a way to meet all public needs, adding it will be discussed by the Cabinet after consulting civil society organizations and other institutions in early February and later will be brought to the agenda of Parliament.

Aksu expressed that according to the bill, "guardianship practices" by the central administration that pose strict supervision of procedures for local administrations will be lifted and instead, local governors will be granted the right to apply to courts for the abolition of city council decisions that they claim are against the law.

He also noted that with the bill a population of 5,000, instead of 2,000 will be enough to form a municipality and municipalities having a population below 2,000 will be eliminated.

New supervision for local administrations

The interior minister said that they had introduced a new approach in the supervision of local administrations in the bill.

He said the Supreme Court of Public Accounts (Sayistay) will be responsible for the supervision of financial accounts decisions made by the city council and other procedures will be monitored by the Interior Ministry.

"Supervision Reports will be brought to city councils and made public so as to maintain transparency," Aksu said.

The Interior Ministry will intervene in local administration affairs only if there is an inadequacy or inefficiency in public services said Aksu. "Two months will be given to the relevant local administration to solve problems in public services, and also that the municipality will be warned to correct the problems. If the problems are not solved, a new administrator, for a 6-month term, will be appointed to solve the problem. For the third stage, other local administration officials will be given powers to solve the problems," Cihan news agency quoted Aksu as saying.

Other provisions in the bill foresee that greater city council members will be directly elected by the public, all municipalities will have to prepare strategy plans determining short term and long term targets, local successful officials will be granted promotions twice a year.

6. - Haaretz - "Little Turkish delight as Assad looks for new friends":

14 January 2004 / by Zvi Bar'el

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Naji al-Otari brought a little gift with him when he visited his Turkish counterpart: an abstract of protocols of interrogations conducted by Syrian security forces with Kurdish detainees suspected of membership in the Kurdish Democratic Party, which is the new name of the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party.

Al-Otari assured his Turkish hosts they would have a chance to study all of the protocols as soon as the Syrians completed their investigation and drew their conclusions. Even before last week's historic visit by Syrian President Bashar Assad to Ankara, Syria quickly extradited to Turkey 22 suspects in last November's bombing attack on two Istanbul synagogues. Some of the men were released immediately after their interrogation in Turkey; one remained in custody. All of them had studied at a Muslim madrassah - religious seminary - in Syria.

The history of security cooperation between the two states stretched far beyond the preparations for Assad's current visit. Prime Minister al-Otari is quite familiar with the representatives of the Turkish security services, from the days when he attended the Syrian Military College in Aleppo. According to Lebanese sources, it was the younger Assad who persuaded his father to alter his Turkish policy, as opposed to the stand taken by Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam and Ghazi Kanaan, the former head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon who is now responsible for political intelligence in Syria.

Assad Jr.'s successful persuasion campaign began shortly after the period in 1998 when Syria seemed to be on the brink of war with Turkey, after PKK leader Abdallah Ocalan was given refuge in Syria. The threatened Hafez Assad responded by deporting Ocalan, and shortly afterward announced the closure of the PKK office in Syria. From then on, relations between the two countries began to develop, culminating in last week's visit by Assad to Turkey.

No land or water talks

Assad directly handles three major diplomatic portfolios: the Iraqi, the Turkish and the Lebanese. For Iraq, he personally appointed the deputy director of the general administration of the State Security Ministry to be responsible for contacts with the Shi'ite religious leadership in Iraq. Assad's deputy, Abdul Halim Khaddam, is responsible for contacts with leaders of the tribes and parties in Iraq, and Foreign Minister Farouk Shara is responsible for official contacts with the Iraqi governing council.

As for Turkey, Interior Minister Ali Hammoud is responsible for security cooperation, both because Syria's internal security apparatus answers to him and because he is a former director of the Syrian intelligence office in Aleppo and is therefore quite familiar with the Turkish connection. All of these individuals directly report to Assad, not to army Chief of Staff Hassan Turkmani.

Turkey is a strategic diplomatic objective for Syria, particularly in the wake of the war in Iraq. This helps to explain why Assad was especially interested in granting an air of importance to his visit in Turkey. As opposed to his customarily brief visits to Arab states, he spent three full days in Turkey, brought along his wife Asma, and declared that relations between the two countries had "undergone a dramatic change."

Conversely, Turkey was divided between those who favored a heavily covered showcase visit and those afraid of angering Washington. A Turkish government source explained, "Turkey has still not formulated a new foreign policy for the post-war period. There are a few permanent foundations that will not change in the foreseeable future. For example, the close relationship with the U.S. and the aspiration to make every effort to join the EU are policy mainstays, even under the new government headed by Recep Erdogan; the same is true for the status of Turkish relations with Israel. Any second thoughts that are being entertained have to do with Turkey's policy toward the Arab Middle East."

Turkey's new policy

The showcase visit by the Syrian president may be evidence that Turkey is beginning to formulate a new policy. "Everything is being carried out in coordination with the American administration," says the Turkish source. This is substantiated by the positive note sounded by the U.S. State Department spokesman in commenting on the visit. Bashar Assad needed nearly three-and-a-half years to decide that the time had come to make a state visit to Turkey, after having received the original invitation from Turkish president Necdet Ahmet Sezer when the latter attended the funeral of his father, Hafez Assad.

Like the Syrians, the Turks took pains to proclaim that two subjects were not discussed in the current visit: the status of the Al-Iskandaron region, and the issue of water. "This is more than an attempt to engineer a successful visit, by choosing not to raise two burning issues in a state visit," says one Lebanese commentator. "This is a strategic Syrian decision, according to which it will be possible to carry on good relations with a neighboring state and to leave a few items for continued discussion in the future." According to the commentator, as far as Syria is concerned there should be no real difference between the Golan Heights and the Al-Iskandaron region taken from it in the 1930s, or between the status of the Sea of Galilee and that of the sources of the Turkish waters that also pass through Syria; "It is only a question of deciding how you deal under certain circumstances to the fundamental problems."

Syria understands that Al-Iskandaron and water sources notwithstanding, there is no good reason to start a quarrel with the Turks. Syria is aware that Turkey will not modify its policy on Israel and that Syria is not an alternate ally. Why is it, then, that the new Syrian position on Turkey is now being discussed?

"It is not a new position," explains a Turkish Foreign Ministry official. "Since 1999, and especially since 2000, Syria and Turkey have signed agreements for trade and security cooperation. Syrian ministers have paid dozens of visits to Turkey, and last summer, the former prime minister Mohammed Mustafa Miro also visited; in July, Syrian chief of staff Hassan Turkmani observed several military maneuvers in Turkey, and an anti-drug trade cooperative agreement was signed."

Skepticism and suspicion

However, official Turkish sources have been watching all of these agreements with a hint of skepticism and even suspicion. They described Miro's visit to Turkey as a "colorless visit of an official, who was not authorized to give answers to anything." This is not the case for Assad's current visit. Syria reads the signs on the diplomatic map that may or may not be formulating in the Middle East, and wants to be an important part of it.

The possibility of Iran growing closer to the U.S. and achieving the same status as Libya, compels Syria to find more friends in the neighborhood. The same holds true for the fact that the new Iraq is not squarely in Syria's pocket - the restored relations between Iraq and Syria that evolved in the five years that passed under Saddam's regime did not help Syria to maintain its status in Iraq for even a single day after the war's end. "We have here a geo-strategic development that is compelling Syria to re-examine its policies, and not only because of direct American pressure," says the Lebanese commentator. "After all, Syria was being pressured even beforehand. Sanctions were imposed on it and it had no American investments. But it would be inaccurate to speak of Syria in terms of its isolation. Its relations with Britain and France are good, as are its relations with most of the Arab states. Syria is trying to find its place in the new puzzle."

But this visit is no less important to Turkey than it is to Syria, explains a Turkish Foreign Ministry official. "If you add in the intention to host Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Mohammed Khatami in Turkey this year, you can see that this is an attempt at a more widespread Turkish diplomatic campaign."

It might be best to consider this assessment in light of Turkey's past experience. To date, Turkey has not succeeded in reinventing itself as a regional diplomatic focal point that might be capable of intervening in and influencing the course of regional disputes. It is always willing to be helpful, by hosting delegations or summits, say, but it lacks the leverage that Egypt or Syria have, for example. It is a Muslim country that is not Arab, secular and not religious; attached at the hip to the United States, which has now occupied Iraq, and is a close friend of Israel's.

It is conceived - too much so - as a country in crisis that is in constant need of economic aid, and whose domestic political scene - at least until the most recent election - was corrupt. Nor is Turkey a threatening country like Iran, or a regional policy shaper, as Saudi Arabia or Egypt sometimes are. Turkey is a "non-aligned" country, as a Turkish commentator once described it, a member of NATO but distant from the EU, a friend of America that opposed the war against Iraq, having good relations with Iran but suspicious of it, a member of the Organization of Islamic Conferences but wary of the effects of religion within its own borders.

It is doubtful that closer bonds with Syria will make Turkey a new adopted state among the Arab states. But at least Turkish merchants will benefit from the addition of an important market. Trade between the states now totals approximately $1 billion annually, and the intention is to treble it within a few years. Syria could also be a good bypass for the Iraqi market without having to ask for help each time from the Kurds, who control the border zone between Turkey and Iraq. Nevertheless, the Syrian visit passed without changing the skin or the status of Turkey.

7. - The Daily Star (Lebanon) - "Syria and Turkey defy the United States":

14 January 2004 / by Patrick Seale

Last week’s visit to Turkey by Syrian President Bashar Assad, the first by a Syrian head of state since World War II, was of considerable geostrategic significance. It took place in close coordination with Syria’s ally Iran, whose foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, was in Damascus on the eve of the visit, while Turkey’s foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, visited Tehran on Saturday.

The three countries are intent on sending a firm message to the United States about its policy in Iraq. They are telling Washington that Iraq must remain a unitary state and that they will strongly oppose any attempt to break it up into three mini-states ­ Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite ­ as several influential Americans have recently been recommending. Above all, they are warning the US not to encourage the Kurds to seek permanent autonomy, let alone independence.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, also said last week that the dismemberment of Iraq would be a threat to his country’s security.

This is the first time that the major states bordering Iraq have publicly joined forces to check what they see as a dangerous American temptation, strongly supported by Israel, to seek to permanently weaken Iraq by rebuilding it on a federal basis, without a strong center ­ thereby dealing a blow to the entire Arab system.

No one in the region is seeking a confrontation with the US. On receiving the new American ambassador to Syria this week, Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa went out of his way to stress Syria’s desire for dialogue and cooperation. Assad sent a similar message in a recent interview with the New York Times. Iran, in turn, has seized the occasion provided by the devastating earthquake at Bam to signal that it is ready for friendlier relations with Washington.

Every state in the region has recognized that America’s armed intervention in Iraq ­ and its declared intention to remain there for several years ­ has profoundly altered the strategic environment. But Syria and its neighbors want to remind the US that they, too, have interests that cannot be ignored. Syria, Turkey and Iran believe they can help the United States to stabilize Iraq, but only if it recognizes their security interests and concerns.

The United States invaded and occupied Iraq, following 13 years of punitive sanctions, not because of the alleged danger from Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, nor because of his gross abuses of human rights, but because a strong and independent Iraq was seen as a threat both to the Western-dominated political order in the Gulf and to Israel. The Washington hawks who pressed for war made no secret of the fact that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was only the first move in an ambitious project to reshape the Middle East. Their hope was that, once Arab nationalism, Islamic militancy and Palestinian resistance had been defeated, the Arab world could be remade on “democratic” lines, under a sort of US-Israeli protectorate.

The region’s states are now rebelling against this geopolitical fantasy, which they see as fundamentally hostile to their interests and aspirations. This was the meaning of Assad’s trip to Turkey, and it is also why Iran and Egypt are considering resuming diplomatic relations after a breach of nearly a quarter of a century.

The states share a profound apprehension about the future intentions of the United States and Israel. Do these powers want peace and stability or are they planning further aggression? How will the US deal with the resistance faces in Iraq? What will happen next June when it plans to hand back authority to the Iraqis? How long will it maintain its armies at the heart of the Arab world? Can the US, now in the hands of dangerous ideologues, be counted on to behave rationally?

The fate of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation, suffering appalling hardship and daily killing in the face of apparent American indifference, is another huge factor of uncertainty and instability, not least because of the passions it arouses among the Arab and Muslim publics.

The Middle East peace process was among the subjects discussed last week by Assad and his Turkish hosts, with the suggestion that Turkey might play a mediating role between Syria and Israel. Assad recently called on the US to revive the Syrian track of the peace process, and indicated he is ready to resume negotiations at the point at which they were broken off. But few observers believe Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is ready to return the Golan, which is the price of a deal with Syria, or that the US, preoccupied with Iraq, will energetically promote an Israeli-Syrian settlement.

Both Syria and Turkey have no love for the neoconservatives now in power in Washington or for their policies of preventive war and “regime change.” US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz offended Turkey by pressuring it to allow American troops through its territory to attack Iraq last March. Syria, in turn, believes that the neocons have no interest in a regional peace, but would rather see the Syrian regime overthrown.

Such is the context for the current striking improvement in Syrian-Turkish relations. As it follows a visit by the Syrian president to Athens last month, it shows that Syria is seeking to strike a balance in its relations with Greece and Turkey. Syria had previously tilted strongly towards Greece, largely because of Turkey’s close ties with Israel. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also seeking to strike a balance in Turkey’s relations with Israel and the Arab states, and distance himself from Sharon’s aggressive policies toward the Palestinians and Syria. Turkish sources say that Erdogan has been angered by reports that Israeli agents have been encouraging Kurdish separatism in northern Iraq.

Two subjects were not raised in Ankara because they would have spoiled the cordial atmosphere. The first concerns the Turkish province of Hatay, formerly the Syrian Sandjak of Alexandretta, which France, then the mandatory power in Syria, ceded to Turkey on the eve of World War II. The Syrians have not forgotten or forgiven this flagrant act of political immorality, but few Syrians can hope the territory will ever be recovered. The Turks have their own, even older, grievance dating back to World War I, when, they would claim, the Arabs, lured by false promises of independence by Britain, “stabbed the Ottoman Empire in the back.”

The second question not raised in Ankara has been a burning issue for years. Syria’s contention is that Turkey’s large-scale program of dam-building and irrigation in southeast Anatolia is depriving it of a fair share of Euphrates waters, vital to the life of Syria’s Jazira Province. In retaliation, Syria for many years gave shelter to the Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, and provided his men with training camps in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. War between Turkey and Syria was averted in 1998 only when Syria agreed to expel Ocalan, who now languishes in a Turkish prison.

Today, united in their joint defense of Iraq’s territorial integrity, the two neighbors have decided resolutely to put such disputes behind them and look to their joint interests in a dangerously unsettled region.

*Patrick Seale, a veteran Middle East analyst, wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR

8. - Zaman - "Military Junta Has No Chance this Time":

ISTANBUL / 13 January 2004 / by Mustafa Ozge

At a time when important steps are being taken for European Union (EU) membership and Cyprus, junta discussions are resurfacing.

As were the circumstances that led to the February 28 incident, the method used by groups who oppose the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) progress on these two very important issues, is news and commentary. Journalists, in particular, perceive the Cumhuriyet Daily's views of the military as having a 'junta' element.

Commenting on the issue, Prof. Toktamis Ates stated that there has always been a junta element within the military, but said, "now they do not have any chance".

Radikal Newspaper Executive Editor Ismet Berkan said he did not suspect a junta in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) but acknowledged the existence of anti-EU former socialist groups who sought to influence the military.

Ertugrul Ozkok commented on the junta discussions in his column in the Hurriyet daily. Berkan, Hasan Bulent Kahraman from Radikal, Ekrem Dumanli and Etyen Mahcupyan from Zaman also analysed the junta discussions. The writers agree that the government will face marginal opposition on the Cyprus issue and EU membership, and that the discussions, if anything, will damage the TSK's integrity.

The discussions started with the article, 'Young Officers are Uneasy' and then images of AK Party deputies at a Ramadan special fast-breaking dinner, captured by a hidden camera. Land Forces commander Gen. Aytac Yalman statement that there was a deep rift between the military and the government on Cyprus issue in the Cumhuriyet daily also stirred up tension. Although General Staff subsequently denied the reports, the newspaper has come forward with clippings, submitting them as documented proof.