28 January 2004

1. "Turkey Wages Two-Pronged Diplomatic Offensive to Boost Western Integration Effort", Turkey is in the midst of a crucial two-pronged diplomatic offensive designed to boost Ankara’s Western integration aspirations.

2. "Play shakes audiences where women fall victim to gruesome honour killings", activists urge an end to Turkey's lenient laws on domestic murders.

3. "Turkish EU bid assisted by US, says Cyprus", Cyprus on Tuesday welcomed Turkey’s call for a resumption of substantive UN-sponsored peace talks on the condition that Ankara genuinely meant what it said.

4. "U.S.-Turkish Ties Coming Full Circle", Military Leads Bid to Bolster Relations.

5. "What Bush Should Tell Turkey", your future is in the EU, not in Iraq.

6. "Turkey: Erdogan Expresses Concern Over Greater Kurdish Autonomy In Iraq", Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reaffirmed Ankara's strong ties with the West and expressed his government's concern over greater Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq.

7. "Kurds campaign for federal state", the crisis over elections in Iraq is destabilising the north of the country, where thousands of Kurds were yesterday campaigning for the right to remain autonomous amid fears they would be "sold out" by the coalition authorities.

8. "Barzani threatens to force Turkish peacekeeping force out of N. Iraq", "If Turkey doesn't come forward to solve Peacekeeping Military Force problem, we will take other options in order to dissolve this force," Nechirvan Barzani said.

1. - EurasiaNet - "Turkey Wages Two-Pronged Diplomatic Offensive to Boost Western Integration Effort":

27 January 2004 / by Mevlut Katik*

Turkey is in the midst of a crucial two-pronged diplomatic offensive designed to boost Ankara’s Western integration aspirations. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is visiting the United States, seeking to fully repair a bilateral relationship damaged by differences concerning the US-led invasion of Iraq. At the same time, Turkish leaders are working to produce a Cyprus settlement that would enhance Ankara’s chances of joining the European Union in the near future.

Erdogan arrived in the United States on January 25 on a five-day trip that is designed to attract US investment and mend fences with the Bush administration. Turkish-US ties deteriorated rapidly following the Turkish parliament’s decision in March 2003 not to grant US forces temporary basing rights prior to the offensive that ousted former Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In recent months, Turkish and US officials have made steady progress in restoring political ties. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The highlight of Erdogan’s visit will come on January 28, when the Turkish prime minister holds talks with US President George W. Bush.

The US and Turkish leaders are expected to concentrate on narrowing their differences on the Iraq stabilization effort. Entering a presidential election year at home, the Bush administration is anxious to pick up the pace of the Iraqi stabilization process. Ankara remains concerned that, in Washington’s haste, ethnic Kurds in northern Iraq could end up with broader autonomy. Such autonomy, many in Ankara believe, could provide support for a renewed armed struggle in Turkey by Kurdish separatists. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Turkish officials are keen to eliminate the presence of the militant Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) from strongholds in northern Iraq, and Erdogan is expected to raise this issue with US officials. Turkish leaders have expressed disappointment over Washington’s perceived reluctance to tackle the PKK question.

As for the future shape of Iraq, Ankara prefers a potential federal arrangement that is based on geographical considerations, rather than one based on ethnic factors. Under the geographical variant, Iraq would be divided into 18 administration regions. US officials have indicated that they are giving the geographical plan strong consideration, in part because of worries that an ethnically based division plan might enhance the ability of Sh’ia radicals to exert influence over Iraq’s new government.

Erdogan is also expected to press Bush for a larger share of Iraq reconstruction contracts. In addition, the Turkish PM is likely to seek an easing of the conditions attached to US economic assistance worth up to $8.5 billion. So far, Turkey has been reluctant to access the aid because of a requirement that prohibits potential Turkish intervention in northern Iraq. Given what it sees as the PKK threat in the region, Ankara wants to keep its security options open. Accordingly, Erdogan may ask that the anti-intervention condition be dropped.

Washington has acknowledged Turkish concerns, having placed the PKK on its list terrorist organizations. A major incentive for the Bush administration to harmonize its position with Turkey is the fact that Ankara has positioned itself as a diplomatic go-between in the Middle East. As such, Turkey can potentially play key roles not only in the Iraq stabilization effort, but also in the broader search for Middle East peace.

In recent months, the Turkish government has expanded ties with Islamic states in the region, including Iran and Syria. Erdogan is expected to convey a message on Middle East peace possibilities to Bush from Syrian leader Bashir Assad, who visited Turkey in early January. Erdogan will also brief US officials on his recent talks with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, as well as on the recent diplomatic parlay between Turkish and Iranian leaders.

Concurrent with Erdogan’s US visit, Turkish diplomats are striving for a breakthrough on a United Nations-backed plan to foster the reunification of Cyprus. Turkey’s National Security Council, which includes top military leaders, has endorsed a government call to resume reunification efforts. The Turkish Cypriot leadership has additionally expressed its readiness to resume negotiations. Erdogan met with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, urging the UN to take the lead in the reunification effort. The UN has floated the idea of holding a referendum in Cyprus on reunification, regardless of whether Greek and Turkish leaders have resolved their political differences.

During an appearance in New York on January 26, Erdogan called on Greek Cypriot officials to show a similar commitment to reunification. "We will not be the side running away from the [negotiating] table," the Anatolia news agency quoted Erdogan as saying in New York. Provided his talks on bilateral US-Turkish do not hit any unexpected snags, Erdogan could formally request that Washington act as a mediator on the Cyprus issue.

The Turkish desire for a resumption of reunification talks is driven in large measure by the pending Greek Cypriot accession to the EU in May. Ankara hopes that if a reunification deal can be struck before then, it will boost Turkey’s chances of opening accession talks with the EU in the near future.

Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash recently visited Turkey to coordinate his negotiating position with officials in Ankara. He has questioned whether a reunification plan can be finalized by May, while stressing that he will make every effort to do so. In 2003, Denktash’s reluctance to back the UN plan helped cause a halt in the negotiation process.

Resolution of the Cypriot issue would remove a major obstacle blocking Turkey’s efforts to join the EU. A mid-January visit by EU Commission head Romano Prodi to Turkey raised Ankara’s accession hopes. During the visit, Prodi pressed Turkish leaders to strengthen democratic reforms that would bring Ankara into compliance with EU standards, but emphasized that "Turkey is on the right track." The EU is expected to decide in late 2004 whether or not to open formal accession talks with Turkey.

* Editor’s Note: Mevlut Katik is a London-based journalist and analyst. He is a former BBC correspondent and also worked for The Economist group.

2. - The Guardian - "Play shakes audiences where women fall victim to gruesome honour killings":

Activists urge an end to Turkey's lenient laws on domestic murders

DIYARBAKIR / 28 January 2004 / by Helena Smith

The drama of the death of Semse Allak has not been forgotten. This winter it has come back to haunt the people of Diyarbakir. But re-enacting it has not been easy. First, the Turkish Kurdish theatre troupe needed stones, lots of them. Then they needed knives; sharp knives to be thrust with wilful abandon into the pregnant, unwed Semse by her entire extended family.

In the event, the actors opt for flattened pitchforks which they poke furiously into the peasant woman's crumpled body; so furiously that, the audience is told, she will stay in a coma for seven months.

The reason for that brutal attack was another harrowing scene; Semse's rape.

When that act is depicted, Diyarbakir's municipal theatre goes dark as Hilal Acil, a much older man, prepares to do the deed that will lead to the "honour killing", and a death as painful as it is protracted.

"We're only acting, but that's the moment when in my heart I feel really guilty," says Vural Tantekin, the amateur actor who portrays Acil in the Kurdish-language play. "I know I am going to be the reason for her terrible fate."

The play, based on a true event, opened the theatre's "human rights week" and has taken Turkey's troubled south-east by storm. Since its first performance, spectators in the predominantly Kurdish region have been confronted with the dark side of their most cherished traditions: chastity and honour, and the gruesome killings happening in their name.

Audiences sit uncomfortably as the plot unravels: after the rape and unwanted pregnancy, there will be a desperate attempt by Semse to flee; a family assembly to plot her death; and then the decision of her father, cousins, uncles and siblings to throw the stones and lunge with the knives that will smash at her body.

After taking seven months to die, Semse, aged 30, was buried in a pauper's grave in Diyarbakir last June.

"At the end of the play we hope every single member of the audience will be feeling guilty," says Hasan Elhakan, a director at the theatre. "This is a true story, these are our traditions."

Cleansed

But more than eliciting guilt, the hope is that the play will educate. "After Diyarbakir, we'll tour cities across Anatolia," said Tantekin, the actor. "And then we'll go to Sweden and Germany to enlighten the Kurdish communities there."

Turkey is not the only Muslim country to experience crimes of honour: every year they take place in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan and, according to the UN, they are also increasing in countries as disparate as Britain, Italy, Brazil and Uganda. But Turkey, which is hoping to join the EU, is the first country to tackle the taboo issue up close.

In an unusual move, authorities have allowed the play to be performed in Kurdish, a language which until recently was banned in public. Mehmet Farac, the author of the book Women in the Grip of Tribal Customs, said: "It's very important because all the signs are that honour killings are on the rise in Turkey. This is a problem that stems from a lack of education, a clash of lifestyles, poverty and very old mindsets."

For centuries, such practices were confined to rural areas. Across Turkey's poor south-east, in the muddy villages of lands seemingly untouched by time, women are still viewed as the ultimate reservoir of traditional Islamic values. Any stain on their honour, no matter how inflicted, is automatically punished by killing.

Two years ago, Recve Aslan was killed by her brother when her family discovered she had "dishonoured them" by being raped - seven years earlier, at the age of 11.

Local media frequently report "honour crime" victims, as young as 12, being shot, drowned and having their throats slit. There are thought to be about 200 honour killings a year in Turkey. But the figure might be much higher since the crimes often stay hidden in areas where women officially do not even exist (many of the unschooled women do not hold identity cards).

"The concept of modesty in women is very strong in these parts," said Nilufer Narli, a sociologist who has studied honour killings in Turkey. "Often young girls ... only become 'someone' once they marry and bring in generous baslik, bride money. So, any suggestion of a woman being immodest, even the rumour of it, throws a shadow over the entire family, who come under great pressure to do something about their 'bitch'."

Away from these badlands, human rights groups have also voiced growing concern about the rise of honour killings in urban areas. The surge follows the migration of ethnic Kurds bent on escaping rural tedium and poverty. Since the second world war, about 75% of Turkey's rural population has decamped to cities - carrying their tribal customs in their baggage.

"Often there is a big clash," said Mr Farac, "between the culture of the parents who belong to the older generation and the modern lifestyles of children who are more and more exposed to the outside world."

He pointed to the abnormally high suicide rate in the south-eastern cities of Diyarbakir and and Batman as evidence of this clash. Between 1998 and 1999, suicides in Batman rose to more than 2,000. "Nearly all were girls. It's just too much of a coincidence. Many believe their deaths are covered-up honour killings. Once a family has committed the crime it feels cleansed."

In the village of Yalim, Semse Allak's father, Sait, now walks with his head held high. Semse, he says, was a good girl and dutiful daughter. After her mother had died she had brushed aside suitors, refusing offers of marriage so that she could look after him. Still, the old man did not regret anything. After the sexual encounter, he argued, his daughter had become "stained". Her body was so tainted none of the family could bring themselves to collect the corpse.

Respected

Observers of the practice say that some families commit honour killings also driven by the knowledge that Turkey's penal code is particularly lenient about such crimes. "Often a family will get a minor to do the dirty work in order to get a lighter sentence," said Dr Narli. "And in prison they are respected and saluted because they have murdered someone in the name of honour."

Under EU pressure, the government recently revoked a law that allowed judges to reduce sentences on the basis of "provocation" - which could have meant something as little as a girl having an engaging smile. But the Islamic-leaning ruling party has refused to amend a statute allowing sentences to be lessened if "extenuating circumstances" are invoked. Turkish activists say the refusal underlines the government's extremely traditional approach to women's rights in general, starting with its sanctions of domestic violence and marital rape.

"The issue of honour killings cannot be resolved until it is clearly stated in the penal code that there can be no penalty reduction for such crimes," said Pinar Ilkkaracan, who leads the Women for Women's Human Rights group in Istanbul.

Ms Ilkkaracan was among women's rights lawyers who met government officials recently to try to get the penal code reformed. A draft law on a new penal code is expected soon.

In Diyarbakir, at least, the hope is that the drama of Semse Allak will haunt audiences enough to bring about a stop to the killing.

3. - The International News - "Turkish EU bid assisted by US, says Cyprus":

NICOSIA / 28 January 2004

Cyprus on Tuesday welcomed Turkey’s call for a resumption of substantive UN-sponsored peace talks on the condition that Ankara genuinely meant what it said.

Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos also said Ankara’s charm offensive was being backed by Washington, as American policy in the region was geared to ensuring that Turkey joined the European Union.

"I hope there is genuine political will from Turkey, and our side would welcome it," Papadopoulos told reporters before departing for Strasbourg. "We are ready whenever the UN secretary general invites us, without us placing preconditions, for substantive negotiations on the bases of the Annan (UN) plan," he added.

He was referring to a settlement plan put forward by UN chief Kofi Annan in late 2002. However, Nicosia is awaiting confirmation from the UN on what exactly Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Annan about reviving negotiations on reuniting the Island.

"There are conflicting statements, which is only causing confusion about what Turkey actually wants to achieve," claimed Papadopoulos. But the Greek Cypriot leader suggested that Turkey had gone on the diplomatic offensive after coming under intense international pressure, especially from the EU, to help broker a deal on Cyprus.

"It is perfectly clear that Turkey wants to polish up its image in view of its EU aspirations," he said. Papadopoulos said Washington was a key player in trying improve Turkey’s standing on the international stage. "It’s well known that it’s US policy to assist Turkey’s EU entry, and to achieve that it must help in polishing up the image that Turkey has," he said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Tuesday that the short time remaining before the Island’s entry into the European Union should not deter Cyprus’ rival communities from holding peace talks.

The Mediterranean island, represented by its internationally recognised Greek Cypriot side, is set to become an EU member on May 1, leaving less than four months to negotiate an end to its 30-year division. Many, including Denktash, have warned that the calendar may be too tight to conclude a settlement.

"This is a fact that everybody knows. But the Turkish side is trying to do and is doing everything it can to overcome this difficulty," Gul told reporters at Ankara airport before leaving for the United States. "We hope that the Greek Cypriot side and the Greek side will answer Turkish demands and that (peace) negotiations start at once," he added.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey occupied the northern third of the Island in response to a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at uniting it with Greece.

In a major development after months of diplomatic stagnation, Erdogan asked Annan Saturday to revive negotiations on reuniting the island. This put international pressure on the Greek Cypriots who had, until then, avoided it. Denktash announced on Monday that he was ready to return to the negotiating table, but expressed doubts that a settlement could emerge by May.

Gul is set to join Erdogan in Washington for talks with US President Bush and senior US officials on a wide range of issues, including Ankara’s push for peace on Cyprus.

The foreign minister said that talks in Washington could lead to a development on Turkey’s demands for a high-level mediator for the peace talks. "We need the support of important countries on an issue like Cyprus. The United States is one of them. I hope there will be a development on this matter," he said.

A Turkish source close to the government said on Monday in New York that Turkey would like to see the United States take on the job. The source did not give any names, but US Secretary of State Colin Powell and James Baker, who was former president George Bush’s chief diplomat, are reportedly being considered.

Kurdish politician urges EU entry for Turkey: Prominent Kurdish politician Leyla Zana, jailed in Turkey since 1994, has urged the European Union to start membership talks with Ankara to keep the country on the path of reform.

In a letter to European Parliament speaker Pat Cox, Zana said that delaying EU accession talks would play into the hands of anti-European forces in Turkey and hamper democratisation efforts.

EU leaders are to decide in December whether Turkey, the laggard among the membership aspirants, has fulfilled the required democracy criteria to win a seat at the negotiating table. "A definite date for the beginning of accession negotiations to be given to Turkey at the end of the year will break the resistance of EU opponents,"

Zana said in the letter, dated January 26 and faxed to AFP on Tuesday.

"Continued uncertainty or the delay of the negotiations perspective will drag Turkey, and therefore the region, into chaos," she warned.

Zana and three other former Kurdish legislators were imprisoned in 1994 on a much-criticized 15-year sentence for aiding armed Kurdish rebels.

The European Parliament awarded Zana its Sakharov freedom of thought prize while she was in prison in 1995. "I would like to emphasise that I would prefer to be a captive in a Turkey which has started membership talks with the EU to being free in a Turkey to which the EU has closed its doors or a Turkey which is distancing itself from EU values," Zana wrote.

Scandal hurts Greece’s ruling socialists: Less than six weeks before a key general election, Greece’s ruling socialists has been hurt by the fallout from a parliamentary scandal involving a controversial tourist development project, according to a nationwide poll released on Tuesday.

The survey by Metron Analysis showed that only 27 percent of respondents believed the ruling socialist party, also known as PASOK, would win the March 7 vote, down 10 percent from a poll by the same organization in mid-January. By contrast, 46.4 percent of those queried in the telephone poll of 850 people said they thought the opposition conservative New Democrats (ND) would be the winner.

The weekend poll was the first conducted since Deputy Economy Minister Christos Pachtas resigned Friday amid accusations of sleaze, triggering the firing of another nine PASOK deputies.

4. - The Washington Post - "U.S.-Turkish Ties Coming Full Circle":

Military Leads Bid to Bolster Relations

ANKARA / 27 January 2004 / by Karl Vick

Just six months ago, as relations between Turkey and the United States scraped toward their lowest point in decades, Washington offered Ankara a bit of quiet advice: Keep your distance from Syria and Iran.

Two weeks ago, Syria's president paid a state visit to Turkey. A week later, Turkey's foreign minister was in Iran. Yet Turkey's relations with the United States appear to have improved.

On Wednesday, Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will be received at the White House, officially signaling the rehabilitation of an alliance that has come almost full circle in barely a year.

"That's a symbol in itself that things are back on track," said a Western diplomat here in the Turkish capital. "If they weren't, he wouldn't be going."

Turkey, a Muslim country that has been a NATO ally for half a century and a democracy for three decades longer, fell out of favor last March after its parliament effectively blocked the Pentagon's plans for a northern invasion of Iraq. On the Fourth of July the strain turned to rancor when U.S. soldiers detained Turkish special forces troops in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah. The Turkish public was outraged to learn that U.S. paratroops had pulled bags over the heads of Turkish officers accused of ferrying arms for use against ethnic Kurds.

"Yes, hurt feelings on both sides," said Mehmet Dulger, a leading ruling party lawmaker.

Yet Turkey devoted the second half of the year reestablishing its reputation as a reliable military ally of the United States. In October, the same parliament voted to authorize the dispatch to Iraq of 10,000 Turkish troops at Washington's signal.

Iraqis protested the proposed deployment, and that U.S. signal did not come. Then, when the Pentagon faced a bottleneck this winter in rotating its entire Iraq occupation force, Turkey opened its air base at Incirlik for the transit of tens of thousands of American troops, despite widespread opposition in the Turkish heartland, where anti-American sentiments still run high.

"Turkey is starting to see the light," said M. Faruk Demir, chairman of the Center for Advanced Strategy in Ankara, a pro-American research group. "Now, they understand what it means to be with the U.S. versus not with the U.S. It's a new picture."

But it is not yet a complete picture. The rapprochement was led by Turkey's general staff, which has a long history of military cooperation with Washington. Senior officers have exchanged visits between Ankara and the Pentagon, rebuilding trust damaged by the Sulaymaniyah detentions and the March 1 parliamentary rebuff.

Turkey's civilian government has been comparatively less attentive. "Somehow they are very sensitive, very tentative," said Demir, an observation also offered by other analysts. Some said the military's relative eagerness to win favor with Washington suggested a desire to isolate Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, known here as AKP.

In addition to being Turkey's preeminent military institution, the general staff also wields considerable political power. As protectors of Turkey's secular tradition, the generals are wary of AKP, which grew out of an openly religious party that in the late 1990s tried to steer Turkish foreign policy toward the Islamic world. That history figured in the U.S. warnings last year to give Syria and Iran a wide berth.

Turkish officials acknowledge that while the vote denying U.S. access to its bases elevated Turkey's standing with other Muslim countries, AKP leaders have pleased U.S. officials by using their enhanced status to advocate democratic reform. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who privately lobbied against the base access, was praised by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell for issuing a public challenge to embrace democracy at an Islamic convention in Tehran last spring.

And Erdogan last week dismissed the concept of an "Islamic common market" at a meeting of Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia. "Whatever happens, we will not base relations on ethnic or religious roots or geography," he said. "Polarization will begin if we start to form institutions like that."

Those appeals, along with the demonstrated appetite for reengagement with Washington, took the edge off this month's meetings with Syria and Iran.

Turkey's past relations with both neighbors could hardly be called close. Iran's theocracy stands in stark contrast to the image of Turkey's secular state. And Turkey threatened war with Syria in the late 1990s over its harboring of a Turkish Kurd separatist leader.

But concerns over Kurdish separatism are drawing Turkey's neighbors closer. An estimated 26 million Kurds live in regions of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey. For 12 years, Iraq's Kurds have essentially ruled themselves in a northern enclave that was protected by U.S. and British warplanes enforcing a "no-fly" zone against the forces of the now-deposed president, Saddam Hussein. And as U.S. occupation officials prepare for a transfer of political power to Iraqis, Iraqi Kurds are pressing for a constitutional structure that would preserve much of their autonomy.

"When you have a fire in your neighborhood, the other neighbors will be consulted as well," said Dulger, chairman of the Turkish parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. "Because the United States will not stay there, but we will be here eternally."

Turkey, which is home to about half of the region's Kurds and fought a protracted civil war in the 1990s against Kurdish separatists, remains the most vocal opponent of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq. Erdogan reportedly warned Kurds last week against "playing with fire," referring to Kurdish demands to include the oil-rich, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk in their section of a federated Iraq. And a senior Turkish general publicly warned that an Iraqi federation constituted along "ethnic lines" would make the future "difficult and bloody."

A year ago, however, Turkish officials said that any federation in Iraq would justify a Turkish invasion. The softening of that stance, officials and diplomats say, demonstrates that Turkey has learned the hard way that the way to get Washington's ear is by staying close. "After a fairly quick war, they found themselves on the outside looking in," a Western diplomat said.

The Pentagon was embittered by the vote that prevented the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division from invading northern Iraq through Turkey. Ironically, that refusal led the relatively small U.S. force that made it into northern Iraq to work closely with Kurdish militias there.

As a result, many Turks still view the American forces in Iraq as siding with the Kurds.

"If ethnic hostilities break out in Kirkuk, the Americans are to be blamed; not the Arabs, the Assyrians, the Turkmen or the Kurds," said Sedat Ergin, a columnist for Turkey's largest newspaper, Hurriyet. "They paved the way for maximalist Kurdish demands."

Erdogan is expected to broach the topic with President Bush on Wednesday. He may also renew Turkey's request that U.S. forces move against the several thousand guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, who have taken refuge in mountaintop redoubts in Iraq after being driven from Turkey.

But more broadly, he appears intent on restoring faith with Washington. "Erdogan wants to be the most welcome Islamic leader recognized by the West," Demir said.

5. - National Review Online - "What Bush Should Tell Turkey":

Your future is in the EU, not in Iraq.

27 January 2004 / by Zeyno Baran & Andrew Apostolou*

The visit of Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House on January 28 is an opportunity for the U.S. to help an important ally set a new strategic course. Erdogan will come with the usual list of concerns. He will request assistance for counterterrorism and support for Turkey's EU membership bid. Erdogan will worry about the future of Iraq and express opposition to autonomy for the Kurds in that country.

That Turkey needs help in defeating terrorism will be uncontroversial following the Istanbul bombings of November 2003. The problem will be the usual Washington temptation to pick off items in detail, to concede a little here and demand a little there. Such a traditional diplomatic approach would be mistaken. Instead, President Bush should declare that he has a grand vision for U.S.-Turkey relations, of the U.S. supporting Turkey's EU ambitions as firmly and unambiguously as it opposes Turkish interference in Iraq. He should state that the entry of predominantly Muslim Turkey into the EU would be a major U.S. foreign-policy success on a par with the democratization of Iraq, a development that Turkey so loudly fears.

By tightening the bond between Turkey and the EU, the U.S. can support Turkey's secular state in the face of the new terrorist challenge. Above all, after a year in which Turkey's key external alliances, with the U.S., the U.K., NATO and the EU were sorely tested by the war in Iraq, the last thing that is needed is for Turkey to feel cut adrift just when it is under terrorist attack. To defeat terrorism and secure a peaceful, stable, and more democratic Middle East, the western alliance, the U.S. and its EU partners, needs to work together rather than bicker bilaterally.

In his meeting with Erdogan, President Bush should show that he understands how deeply divided the U.S. and Turkey are over the future of Iraq. The Iraq war threw Turkey's external ties into turmoil. The relationship with the U.S. was shown to be structurally unsound, a Cold War anachronism. For too long, the U.S. treated Turkey as a convenient but unloved ally, reliable but unpleasant. Despite 51 years of alliance, Turkish and American views of Iraq were radically different. Turkey preferred the certainty of the status quo, with Saddam and the Iraqi Kurds both seemingly contained, to the risks of change. Aware of its dependency on the U.S., the Turkish government avoided stating its opposition to U.S. policy outright. Instead, the government used Turkey's strategic position to impede a war that many in the U.S. administration felt was both inevitable and desirable.

As a result, Turkey did not play straight with the U.S., while too many U.S. policymakers proved to be deaf to what Turkish ministers were telling them. Enraptured by the notion that Turkey was a "reliable ally" and a "model," many in Washington proved woefully unable to read the signals of unease in Ankara.

That profound difference of opinion has tempted Turkey to bolster its ties with Middle Eastern states that harbor nothing but hostility towards the U.S. and a democratic Iraq. Turkey held four top-level meetings with Iran during 2003, with a similar number of reciprocal visits between Turkey and Syria. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria was in Turkey from January 6 to January 8, the first time that a Syrian head of state has made an official visit to Turkey.

What unites Turkey with Syria and Iran is the fear that the Iraqi Kurds, the Iraqi community with the closest ties to the U.S., will achieve autonomy and, in time, a separate state. What all three countries refuse to understand is that if the Iraqi Kurds are denied the autonomy that even dictatorial regimes in Baghdad have been offering them on and off for 40 years, then they will have every incentive to seek an independent state under cover of the ongoing U.S. presence. The options on Iraq are now autonomy or independence — the Iraqi unitary state is long dead.

Such political maneuverings by Turkey are worrisome for the U.S., even if they make short-term political sense to policymakers in Ankara. President Bush should therefore tell Erdogan that Turkey is better served in the EU than in Iraq. They should put aside the disagreements of 2003 and recognize that Turkey unwittingly did all sides a favor by staying out of Iraq. Turkish involvement in the invasion of Iraq would have set a precedent for intervention. Similarly, sending Turkish troops to help patrol Iraq would also have been an error. The short-term imperative of avoiding American casualties in the Sunni triangle would, at best, have been assuaged with Turkish body bags, causing even greater anti-Americanism in Turkey. With the effects of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq yet to play out, the best strategy for the U.S. is to insulate Iraq as much as possible from its neighbors, which for the moment will include Turkey.

The job of repairing Turkey's frayed ties to the West has already started thanks to the best friend of both Turkey, and the U.S., Tony Blair. Despite Turkey having rudely barred British troops from transit into Iraq in March, the British prime minister has been notably forgiving. Twice since the fall of Baghdad, and with undoubted sincerity, Tony Blair has spoken of the significance of Turkey joining the EU. George Bush should ensure that Erdogan knows that the U.S. will, as far as possible, promote Turkey's reforms that make it fit to join the EU while keeping an important ally out of the dangerous swamp of Middle Eastern politics.

* Zeyno Baran is director of international security and energy programs at the Nixon Center. Andrew Apostolou is director of research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

6. - Radio Free Europe - "Turkey: Erdogan Expresses Concern Over Greater Kurdish Autonomy In Iraq":

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reaffirmed Ankara's strong ties with the West and expressed his government's concern over greater Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq.

NEW YORK / 27 January 2004 / by Nikola Krastev

Speaking yesterday at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based policy institution, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government does not believe in a federal state in Iraq based on religious or ethnic divisions:

"The demand in northern Iraq is the demand for federation, as you know. Our basic principle here is the following -- ethnic or sectarian federations, these types of federations, are not welcomed by us. We do not view them favorably. In democracies, these are not healthy approaches, and they do not serve for the formation of a healthy political structure. It will put Iraq in an even more difficult position in the future, and it will create negative development as far as our expectations for Iraq are concerned," Erdogan said.

Erdogan is due to hold talks in Washington tomorrow with U.S. President George W. Bush and has said he will raise Turkish concerns about Iraq.

In his remarks yesterday, Erdogan said one of the main points of departure in Turkey's foreign policy is its participation in the structures of the Western world. "The Muslim identity of the Turkish population has not prevented it from acting intensely with the West, in general, and with Europe, in particular, or from becoming an effective member of European institutions and organizations," he said. "In this context, Turkey has always been a strong advocate of the trans-Atlantic partnership. The successful conclusion of Turkey's accession into the European Union will represent the harmonization of a Muslim society with the peoples of Europe on the basis of common universal and democratic values."

As a secular country with a 98 percent Muslim population, Erdogan said Turkey's foreign policy in the 21st century will be guided by the understanding that the Islamic world should address its problems in a realistic manner and should assume responsibility, rather than blame others.

Erdogan said a significant aspect to Turkey's foreign policy is Ankara's active engagement with its neighbors. "We place a lot of importance on peace in the Middle East because they are our neighbors. Any instability in our neighboring countries is a cause of concern for us, so we would like to see our region all in peace," he said. "And we would be willing to do with great pleasure what we could do to achieve that kind of peace. And we also have good relations with all three countries -- Syria, Palestine, and Israel. And we hope our good relations with these countries will help in any effort we may have to mediation."

Erdogan said Turkey's prominent economic role in Central Asia will be increased and that he looks forward to the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. "Our country has a vested interest in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline venture that will tap the vast oil reserves of the Caspian basin," he said. "The transportation of this energy resource to world markets via Turkey by early 2005 will have important implications for the economic development of the region and, consequently, for its stability."

Asked to comment on the Cyprus situation, Erdogan said Turkey welcomes the good offices of the United Nations and its mediating role and is considering a plan put forward by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. But so far, Erdogan said, there is no significant progress on the issue. "With regard to Cyprus, the developments so far unfortunately have been negative. Our government from the very beginning has said that having no solution is 'no solution.' And at the moment, following the 14 December 2003, elections in Cyprus, a new government has been established, and we are working with this new government, and we have to make good use of the process until 1 May," he said.

Just before his New York appearance, Erdogan acknowledged in Davos, Switzerland, that Turkey has approached the UN about reopening Cyprus talks. He said Ankara will make every effort to conclude an agreement before 1 May, when Cyprus is scheduled to become a member of the EU. The benefits of EU membership will be limited to the Greek Cypriot south if the island is not reunited by then.

7. - The Guardian - "Kurds campaign for federal state":

ARBIL / 28 January 2004 / by Michael Howard

The crisis over elections in Iraq is destabilising the north of the country, where thousands of Kurds were yesterday campaigning for the right to remain autonomous amid fears they would be "sold out" by the coalition authorities.

Most Iraqi Kurds, who make up an estimated 15-20% of the country's 25 million people, have enjoyed virtual independence under a US and British air umbrella operating from Turkey since the Gulf war in 1991.

They are now reluctant to give up their freedom to an as yet unspecified central government in Baghdad.

In a series of public meetings, phone-ins, newspaper adverts and cultural events to mark "referendum week", Kurds in the northern self-rule area have been urged to sign a petition in support of the "right to determine their future".

Hundreds queued in the rain outside a tented booth blaring Kurdish pop music near the foot of Arbil's ancient citadel yesterday to sign the petition, which will be sent to the UN, the US-led coalition provisional authority and the Iraqi governing council.

Thousands more signed it in the cities of Sulaimaniya and Dohuk.

"We want to convince the coalition authority and the United Nations of a referendum for the people of Kurdistan, without outside interference," said Azzad Mohammed, 23, a university student.

Organisers are calling for mass demonstrations in Iraqi Kurdistan's major cities on February 28, the day the "basic law" that will guide Iraq through the transitional period to national elections is published.

"We want to show the rest of the country and the world that federalism is the very least of our rights," said Sherko Bekas, a poet and a founding member of the referendum movement.

"We didn't fight against Baghdad, and suffer for all these years, simply to be swallowed up because our demands are not expedient to the powers that be."

Although many Kurds are enthusiastically pro-American after the removal of the hated Ba'athist regime, they are suspicious that political expediency and the US presidential elections will result in hasty decisions on Iraq's future which could mean the country is handed over to Shia clerics who claim to represent the majority of Shia Arabs in the south.

Clerics in the south are demanding direct elections to the transitional government, something many Kurds, as well as Sunni Arabs, reject as being impractical.

Kurdish leaders on the Iraqi governing council in Baghdad want a guaranteed federal region which would include historically Kurdish areas formerly under the control of Saddam Hussein to be written into the basic law.

But the dispute over federalism is one of many problems facing the coalition as it prepares to hand sovereignty to a transitional government on July 1.

Paul Bremer, the chief administrator, has been reluctant to grant the Kurds the system they desire, suggesting they divide their autonomous region into three parts.

A UN fact-finding team is expected in the country soon to help the occupation authorities resolve the dispute.

Opponents of the Kurdish federal plan, including a number of Shia and Sunni Arab leaders, believe such decisions should be left until a permanent constitution is drawn up after national elections.

Others say a federal state would be the first step to the ethnic and sectarian partition of Iraq, or to the creation of an independent state - a move which would alarm the country's neighbours.

Thousands of demonstrators at a weekend rally in Sulaimaniya chanted slogans calling for a referendum and carried banners supporting federalism.

"Is this the reward we get for our help to the Americans?" asked Alaa Barwari, a 20-year-old dentistry student. "The Kurds are always handy as victims, but when we start demanding our historic and national rights, even if within a unified Iraq, we are deemed to be nuisances."

· The Kurdish government in northern Iraq's Irbil province has threatened to close the offices of a Turkish-led peacekeeping force if Ankara does not pull it out voluntarily.

AP reports that the provincial parliament wrote to Washington, London and Ankara last October saying the Peace Monitoring Force, which patrols a line separating rival Kurdish groups, should leave the area as it was no longer needed because of the collapse of Saddam. The three countries have not yet responded.

8. - The Associated Press - "Barzani threatens to force Turkish peacekeeping force out of N. Iraq":

"If Turkey doesn't come forward to solve Peacekeeping Military Force problem, we will take other options in order to dissolve this force," Nechirvan Barzani said

ARBIL / 28 January 2004 / by Scheherezade Faramarzi

The Kurdish government in northern Iraq's Arbil province threatened Tuesday to close down the offices of a Turkish peacekeeping force if Ankara did not pull it out voluntarily.

The Kurdish Parliament in Arbil sent a letter last October, London and Ankara saying the Peacekeeping Military Force to leave the Kurdish area because it was no longer needed following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's rule, according to Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the parts of northern Iraq controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Turkey send the force to northern Iraq in the last decade to patrol a line separating rival Kurdish groups - the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

"We asked for a meeting to be held for this subject to be determined and for the dissolution of PMF," Barzani told The Associated Press.

But, he said, the three countries have yet to respond to the request.

"If they don't come forward to solve that problem, and we very seriously mean it, we will take other options in order to dissolve this force," he said through an interpreter.

Asked what the Kurds would do, he replied: "Like demonstrations and protest... and we will close their offices.

"We have been patient but since they have not responded to our letter, then all the possibilities will be open," he added.

"Once again, I reiterate my request to UK, US and Turkey to immediately respond to our letter," he said.
But Lt. Col. James Bullion with the U.S. Army's 404th Civil Affairs Battalion in Arbil said it was unlikely that the Kurds would resort to force to expel Turkish troops.

If they do, he said, "it will be a major, major international incident and they are not going to do that," Bullion said.

For the moment, he said, there are other priorities and the Turkish peacekeepers would leave when there is a full merger between the two main Kurdish factions in Iraqi Kurdistan.

A united Kurdish government is expected to be established in the spring, said Barzani, with himself as its prime minister. A PUK official would be his deputy.

Turkey is deeply concerned about the situation in Kurdish areas of Iraq because of repercussions in parts of Turkey where Kurds predominate.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to raise those concerns with President George W. Bush during a meeting this week at the White House. In advance of the meeting, Erdogan has said his government opposes any "ethnically-oriented" federation in postwar Iraq.

Turkey, a key U.S. ally in the region, fears Iraq's Kurdish population could exert substantial control over resources, such as oil pipeline transit fees, and strengthen the independence aspirations of Turkey's own Kurds. Turkish Kurds fought a 15-year insurgency seeking to establish their own state.

During a speech Monday in New York to the Council on Foreign Relations, Erdogan said Kurdish autonomy in Iraq "does not serve Turkish interests."

"Any "ethnically-oriented or sectarian federation ... is not welcome by us. It is not favorable to Turkey," Erdogan said.