29
January 2004
2. "Turkey thanks US for move against PKK", Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, yesterday thanked President George W. Bush for listing a new affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) as a terrorist organisation.
3. "U.S. Plans for Iraq Worry Some Kurds", There is growing concern among Iraq's Kurds that the United States will once again abandon them midway in their age-old aspiration to set up a federal Kurdish state.
4. "Kurds, divided, face new future", Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan will meet with President Bush Wednesday; Iraq's Kurds will be on the agenda.
5. "The Kurds' Best Hope", Iraq needs the Kurds, who have, over a dozen years, built and managed a viable if imperfect regional administration based in part on elections and constituency politics.
6. "Turkey seeks US help over divided Cyprus", Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Wednesday for the United States to help find a speedy solution to the decades old division of Cyprus.
1.
- AFP - "US-led coalition blacklists Kurdish-Turkish group
as terror group in Iraq":
BAGHDAD / 28 January 2004
A US decision to blacklist a Kurdish-Turkish military group as a
terror organisation will be applied to its operations in Iraq, US
chief civilian administrator Paul Bremer said here Wednesday.
"The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its aliases the Kurdistan
Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK) and the Kurdistan People's
Congress (Kongra Gel) are terrorist organizations and have been designated
as such under US law," Bremer confirmed in a statement.
"Coalition forces and Iraqi security forces will treat the PKK/KADEK/Kongra
Gel as terrorists. There is no place for terrorism or terrorist organizations
in the new Iraq," he added.
In November 2003, the Iraq-based group, which has waged a 15-year
war on Ankara, announced that it was disbanding in order to set up
a more democratic Kurdish organization.
But Turkish officials 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, the group vowed 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.
2. - The Financial Times - "Turkey thanks US for move against PKK":
Washington / 29 January 2004
By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Charles Clover in Baghdad
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, yesterday thanked President George W. Bush for listing a new affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) as a terrorist organisation following signs that the US could take action against the group's bases in northern Iraq.
"It has indeed made us very happy," Mr Erdogan said of the US decision, announced on January 13, to add the Kurdistan People's Congress (Kongra Gel) to its terrorist watchlist.
Mr Bush described Turkey as a "friend and important ally" of the US, words intended to put differences over the war on Iraq behind them as the two Nato allies focus on the common threat of militant Islamists and the shared problem of stability in Iraq.
Mr Bush assured Mr Erdogan that the US wanted a "territorially intact" Iraq, the standard phrase used by the administration.
Officials said Turkey remained unhappy with the degree of autonomy and control of the oil-rich and ethnically mixed town of Kirkuk demanded by the Kurds within a federal Iraq. The Kurdish parties are pressing for guarantees of an autonomous Kurdish homeland to be written into Iraq's transitional law, due to be passed by the Governing Council on February 28.
Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Baghdad, yesterday issued a statement declaring the PKK and its affiliates which use northern Iraq as a safe haven would be treated as terrorist organisations by coalition troops.
"President Bush has committed to end the use of Iraq as a terrorist haven. There is no place for terrorism or terrorist organisations in the new Iraq," he said, singling out the Turkish PKK, which fought a long guerrilla war against Turkish forces.
A US official did not rule out joint action by US forces, together with the two main Kurdish factions in northern Iraq, against small PKK areas following signs that the PKK was preparing to use Iraqi territory to renew operations in Turkey.
In a deal reached last October to facilitate Turkey's agreement to send peacekeepers to Iraq, the US said it would "subdue the terrorist threat that might exist in this area". In the event, the US told Turkey not to contribute troops because of opposition from Kurds and other factions on the Governing Council.
A coalition move against the PKK in Iraq would be likely to anger
Iraqi Kurds. "These people are not terrorists. They are simply
asking for their rights in Turkey," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent
Kurd and member of the US-appointed Governing Council. "The US
took this step only to satisfy Turkey."
3. - Associated Press - "U.S. Plans for Iraq Worry Some Kurds":
IRBIL (Kurdistan) / By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI
There is growing concern among Iraq's Kurds that the United States will once again abandon them midway in their age-old aspiration to set up a federal Kurdish state.
Kurdish leaders and many others in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq are convinced that Washington promised, just before invading Iraq 10 months ago, that the Kurds would be granted autonomy under a federal system after the fall of Saddam Hussein. U.S. officials say no such guarantees were made.
The Kurds, who established a semiautonomous area in Irbil, Sulaimaniyah and Dohuk provinces in northern Iraq under U.S. and British protection following the 1991 Gulf War, were among the strongest Iraqi supporters of the war that toppled Saddam Hussein.
"In the last 12 years, we've had a free and democratic atmosphere. It's impossible for the Kurds to accept one scintilla less than what they have enjoyed," Neschirwan Barzani, the prime minister of the Irbil, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Irbil is controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Party, one of the two major Kurdish factions. The other faction, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, controls Sulaimaniyah. The two provinces along with Dohuk together are home to most of Iraq's Kurds, who make up 15 to 20 percent of Iraq's 25 million people.
The Kurdish goal is to formalize their existing autonomy under a federal system and even expand it to the oil-rich area around Kirkuk, historically a Kurdish city. Saddam expelled Kurds from Kirkuk and resettled the area with Arabs.
Barzani, who is nephew of KPD leader Massoud Barzani, said no political party has the right to accept anything less than federalism "because the Kurdish public and the Kurdish people will not accept it."
The Kurdish Parliament in Irbil has sent a proposal for a federal solution to the U.S.-installed Governing Council in Baghdad and to L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator.
Bremer has indicated that he prefers a federal system, but one based on geographical boundaries rather than ethnic composition.
Barzani said that during meetings between U.S. officials and anti-Saddam opposition groups and Kurdish leaders before the war, "it was confirmed that the Kurds will get a lions share in the new Iraq."
"And things gradually changed. After the war, they forgot everything. ... They came out with a new idea about how to run the situation. This in itself has become a problem," he said.
Barzani said "historically, geographically" there has been an area called Kurdistan made up of areas with majority Kurdish population.
"What we say is this: The borders of the federal union should be made up of areas that are called Kurdistan," he said, reiterating a demand made often by Kurdish leaders.
The Kurdish aspirations have alarmed neighboring Turkey, Syria and Iran, which fear that granting Iraqi Kurds an ethnic enclave could incite separatist sentiments among Kurdish minorities within their own borders.
Barzani also demanded that Arabs, who were settled in Kirkuk and other Kurdish areas, should be asked to leave.
After that, these Arabs should vote in a referendum on whether or not they want to be part of the Kurdistan federation, he said.
In recent days, Kurds have been collecting petitions from citizens calling for a referendum on a federal solution.
"The petition is to put pressure on the coalition authority, the Governing Council and human rights groups to take notice of the wishes of the Kurdish people that they want to determine their own fate," said Haval Abu Bakr, a professor at Sulaymaniyah University.
"We know the Turks, the Arabs and the Americans very well," said Ferhad Pirbal, a writer and professor at Salaheddin University in Irbil. "They might do the same again and betray us, like they did in the past. Americans understand the feelings and emotions of Iraqi nationalism and can use that against us."
His wife, Tarza Jaff, a teacher and a novelist, agreed.
"We are all afraid that America will betray us again," she said.
Kurds felt let down in 1991 after the U.S. government urged them to rise against Saddam but did nothing to help them when they were brutally crushed by the Iraqi army.
The Americans, however, say they planned to keep Iraq intact.
"When we came we said it's going to be one nation," and that "we will keep the status quo for now until we can establish a government with a constitution," said Lt. Col. James Bullion with 404th Cvivil Affairs Battalion in Irbil.
He said the issue of Kirkuk was yet to be resolved and the Coalition Provisional Authority will set up a property claims commission in Irbil, Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah in the coming weeks for people who were evicted from their towns.
Bullion had advice for the Kurds who were among the people who suffered
most under Saddam: "This is the best opportunity for them to
achieve their goals. But they have to be realistic. If they push too
hard, they may lose that opportunity," he said.
4. - The Christian Science Monitor - "Kurds, divided, face new future":
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan will meet with President Bush Wednesday; Iraq's Kurds will be on the agenda.
DIYARBAKIR (TURKEY) / By Nicholas Birch / 28 January 2004
"Iraq's future can't be entrusted to Iraqi Kurds - they're just a bunch of backward tribes."
Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani "couldn't tell a democratic system from the back of a cow - all he's interested in is dollars from Washington."
Off-the-cuff remarks from incautious Turkish officials?
No. The men speaking, Abdulaziz and Seyhmus, are members of Turkey's 15-million-strong Kurdish minority. Unemployed, they spend most of their time at this cafe in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir. Like most of the people here, they are farmers the Turkish Army expelled from their villages during its 15-year war with the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Yet, while they understandably have little affection for Ankara, the depth of their contempt for their ethnic brothers beyond the border 100 miles to the south would surprise anyone who assumed a natural bond between Turkish and Iraqi Kurds.
Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan is visiting the White House Wednesday, in part to dissuade President Bush from giving too much autonomy to the Kurdish parties running northern Iraq. Ankara claims that if other states give their Kurds an inch, Turkey's own much larger minority will try to take a mile. But the antipathy between Turkish and Iraqi Kurds calls into question the basis of Ankara's continued opposition to Iraqi Kurdish calls for a federal Iraq.
The reasons for the lack of solidarity between Turkish and Iraqi Kurds are numerous. They have been divided by borders for over 80 years. Most Iraqi Kurds speak a dialect incomprehensible to the Kirmanci-speakers in Turkey's southeast.
Above all, though, Turkish Kurdish perceptions of Iraqi Kurds have been clouded by memories of their own nationalist struggle. As Mahmud, sitting next to Abdulaziz in the cafe, puts it: "We have no faith in [Iraqi Kurdish leaders] Talabani and Barzani - the Kurds' only real hope is in prison in Imrali."
He's referring to PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, in solitary confinement since 1999 on an island off Istanbul, and largely remembered as a violent advocate of Kurdish separatism. An ex- Marxist, he targeted not just the Turkish authorities, but also local tribal leaders he considered responsible for southeastern Turkey's poverty.
In the eyes of many Turkish Kurds still sympathetic to Mr. Ocalan, Massoud Barzani, son of a charismatic tribal leader, symbolizes the feudal, tribal structures they would like to see eradicated from Kurdish society.
The distaste is mutual. PKK fighters have been based in northern Iraq since the early 1990s, unwelcome guests of the Kurdish authorities there. Angered by PKK demands on their civilians, and pressured by Turkey, Iraqi Kurdish leaders collaborated several times with Ankara's attempts to flush the PKK out of its Iraqi mountain bases.
But the PKK is now weak and isolated, with an estimated 4,000 fighters holed up in camps 150 miles south of Turkey on the Iran-Iraq border. That it manages to maintain its hold on so many Turkish Kurds is due, in large part, to the innumerable satellite dishes clustered on roofs throughout the region.
Eighteen months since Ankara passed laws permitting limited radio and television broadcasts in minority languages like Kurdish, Turkish television is still exclusively in Turkish. Most Kurds couldn't care less. Since 1994, anybody with the $150 necessary to buy a satellite dish and decoder has been able to watch Kurdish TV 24 hours a day, beamed in from Europe. "I sold one of my three cows to buy the equipment," says Sabri Hatipoglu, a villager in the north of Diyarbakir province. "It's the only channel that deals with issues relevant to me and my people."
"Like its predecessor Med-TV, [Kurdish TV channel] Medya is the mouthpiece of the PKK," says Celal Baslangic, an expert on Kurdish issues for the liberal daily Radikal. "Most people only watch it because there is nothing else on."
"I wouldn't be surprised if Medya was working with Ankara," says Bayram Bozyel, the Diyarbakir representative of a small Kurdish party that has always strongly criticized the PKK's left-wing ideologues, half-joking: "By presenting Kurds in Iraq as the enemy, people not supporting the PKK as the enemy, Medya has done an excellent job dividing the Kurdish people."
Across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan, Garwent Akray agrees. Head of Kurdistan TV - affiliated with Barzani's party - since its launch in 1999, he admits that part of the reason his satellite channel was set up was "to give audiences here an alternative to Medya's negative coverage of Iraqi Kurdish leaders."
"Medya indoctrination is stronger the further you get from the
Iraqi border," adds Kendal Nezan, president of the Kurdish Institute
in Paris. "Down in the frontier region, families overlap the
border, and years of close economic links have brought the two sides
together."
5. - The Washington Post - "The Kurds' Best Hope":
By Jim Hoagland / January 28, 2004
"Iraq is our fate," a visiting Kurdish political leader said the other day, as unhappily as a lifer describing a prison term that stretches before and beyond him. But in this resigned acceptance of Iraq's territorial integrity stands a chance for the country's political reconstruction.
Iraq needs the Kurds, who have, over a dozen years, built and managed a viable if imperfect regional administration based in part on elections and constituency politics. The Kurds' ideas about -- and need for -- a loose federal structure that protects racial and religious minorities should help shape a new Iraq.
And the Kurds need Iraq. They need to belong to a modern state that can wear away the remaining feudal and tribal practices of their homeland in the Zagros mountains of northern Iraq. They need internationally recognized frontiers to shelter them from the predatory instincts of neighbors who covet their oil or want to destabilize Iraq.
The Kurds in essence need to transform Iraq from being their fate into being their destiny. Fate is what happens to them. Destiny is what they can accomplish. They must pull together with their Arab co-religionists and neighbors to create a state that is not authoritarian and intolerant, as most governments in the region are.
The periodic genocidal campaigns that Saddam Hussein conducted against the 4 million Iraqi Kurds, in which he used chemical weapons on civilians and burned Kurdish villages to the ground, convinced me in the 1980s that regime change was necessary in Iraq. The murderous intentions of Hussein's Baathist regime toward the Kurds were unchanging over the years.
The Arab chauvinism and racial hatred that Hussein stirred -- and that, to their eternal disgrace, his fellow Arab rulers condoned or actively supported -- was as flagrant and destructive as apartheid in South Africa. As long as his regime was in power, territorial integrity was simply an excuse for mass murder. The Kurds were justified in opting out to run their own affairs under U.S. overflight protection after the Persian Gulf War of 1991.
Now the Kurds, who joined the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Baathists in April, have both the opportunity and the duty to help organize a new political system that will make Iraq worth keeping together. If they fail, so will those of us who have for years argued for them to be given this chance. Moreover, if the Kurds and Arabs in Iraq do not succeed in transforming fate into a common destiny, President Bush's "forward strategy of democracy" for the Middle East will not get off the ground. Turkey's promising moves to entrench a moderate Islamic democracy and eventually become a European Union member will be put at grave risk. Iran will use the north of Iraq as a springboard for subversion.
To placate Turkey and disarm Iran politically, the Bush administration has insisted that Iraq's territorial integrity cannot be called into question. But Iraqis know better. They know that the Kurds have great interest in prolonging the status quo of isolation from Baghdad and waiting for things to fall apart in the south. That explains why a high-level delegation from Iraq's Governing Council traveled to the Kurdish city of Salahuddin on Jan. 8 to say this to Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, the principal Kurdish leaders:
"You have earned the right to self-determination and you can declare independence if you want. We will not fight you over that. We will recognize you. What we do not want is a quarrelsome secessionist state inside the belly of Iraq. Decide, and put your heart into your decision."
Kurdish and Governing Council officials say the historic "get in or get out" message was stated bluntly by Ahmed Chalabi and echoed by aides to Abdul Aziz Hakim and Adnan Pachachi. The Governing Council officials consulted the Kurds in advance of their high-level meetings with U.N. and U.S. officials last week.
The Kurdish leaders immediately pledged in Salahuddin to support Iraq's unity and territorial integrity -- but neither agreed to go along to the United States to discuss Iraq's future directly with Kofi Annan or George W. Bush.
The past dozen years have been a golden age for Iraq's Kurds, crowned
by the overthrow of a Baghdad regime that systematically murdered
them in the name of Arab nationalism. Their hesitations on giving
up full autonomy now are understandable. But the Kurds should not
miss this opportunity to choose destiny over fate. Their active participation
in a new, democratic Iraq will show that territorial integrity in
the multiethnic Arab state does not have to be achieved or maintained
by organized terror.
6.
- AFP - "Turkey seeks US help over divided Cyprus":
WASHINGTON / 28 January 2004
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Wednesday for
the United States to help find a speedy solution to the decades old
division of Cyprus.
Erdogan pressed the case for US intervention during a meeting with
President George W. Bush at the White House.
"We said that efforts were necessary to help the process,"
Erdogan told a press conference, adding that Bush had asked Secretary
of State Colin Powell to recommend a neutral figure with "political
weight" who might help.
The island has been split since 1974 between Greek Cypriot and Turkish
Cypriot sectors. An end to the division has become essential with
Cyprus due to join the European Union on May 1, along with nine other
European nations.
But UN efforts to reunite the island have failed to bring agreement.
Erdogan, who is on his first official visit to the United States,
reaffirmed Turkish support for efforts by UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan to bring the two sides together.
Annan said Wednesday he still hopes to broker an agreement to re-unify
Cyprus in time for it to join the European Union on May 1, but warned
time was running out.
He said after talks with European Commission president Romano Prodi
in Brussels that an accord needs to be settled by March, to leave
time for votes on the peace deal.
The UN plan envisages the island's reunification in a two-state federation,
territorial adjustments in favor of the Greek Cypriots and the return
of displaced Greek Cypriots to the north under certain restrictions.
"Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus will do all
they can for a solution," Erdogan said.
The self-proclaimed republic was set up after the 1974 division when
Turkey occupied the north in response to an Greek-engineered military
coup aimed at bringing the island under Greece's control.
The Turkish leader said his government would respond positively to
"any favourable step" taken by Greek Cypriots. "We
will always be one step ahead of the Greek Cypriots," he declared.