6 January 2004

1. "Kurds pay price for 'Mr' remark", two members of Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party have been arrested for calling Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan "Mr Ocalan".

2. "Turkish army denies rift with government over Cyprus", Turkey's influential military Monday denied reports of a rift with the government over ways of resolving the thorny question of the division of Cyprus.

3. "US hopes to ease Turkish concerns about Iraqi Kurds during PM's visit", the United States hopes to assuage Turkey's concerns about the future of Iraq, particularly the status of its Kurdish minority when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits later this month, a senior US official said Monday.

4. "Kurdistan will be virtually independent", the year 2003 turned out to be very good for Iraq’s Kurds. As the year started, the Kurdistan region of Iraq was entering its twelfth year of de facto independence, thanks to the peshmerga (the Kurdish military), and the US-British no-fly zone. For many Kurds, these 12 years were a golden era. For the first time in their history, the Kurds governed themselves, having elected a Kurdistan Assembly and government in 1992.

5. "Syria warns against Kurdish entity in Iraq", "This is a red line and should be (seen as such) by all countries in the region, especially Iraq's neighbours," he said in an interview with CNN Turk television. Syria, like Iraq and Turkey, has a Kurdish minority.

6. "Israeli 'water for arms' deal with Turkey", Israel and Turkey have agreed an extraordinary "water for arms" deal which will see millions of gallons of fresh water shipped in giant tankers across the eastern Mediterranean and into Israeli ports.

1. - BBC - "Kurds pay price for 'Mr' remark":

5 January 2003

Two members of Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party have been arrested for calling Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan "Mr Ocalan".

The remark came on Saturday in a press statement about prison conditions by two local officials of the Democratic People's Party.

They referred to Abdulllah Ocalan as "sayin", which also means "respected and esteemed" in Turkish.

They are now accused of "propaganda in favour of a terrorist organisation."

Condemnation

Nedim Bicer, head of the party's branch in the south-eastern town of Bismil, and his aide Sadiye Surer will be charged under Turkey's recently revamped anti-terror laws.

Turkey's Human Rights Association has condemned the arrest, saying that it violated both the Turkish constitution and the European Human Rights Convention.

Mr Ocalan is the head of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party, PKK, which has fought a 15-year war for Kurdish autonomy in south-eastern Turkey.

The conflict claimed more than 30,000 lives.

He was captured in 1999 and is serving a life sentence on a prison island in north-western Turkey.

2. - AFP - "Turkish army denies rift with government over Cyprus":

ANKARA / 5 January 2003

Turkey's influential military Monday denied reports of a rift with the government over ways of resolving the thorny question of the division of Cyprus.

The Cumhuriyet daily had reported Monday that the army was unhappy with a settlement proposal being drafted by the foreign ministry to end the 29-year-old division of the Mediterranean island, where Turkey maintains about 30,000 troops.

Cumhuriyet said the army believed the foreign ministry draft, based on a peace plan drawn up last year by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, would "upset the Turkish-Greek balance in the eastern Mediterranean" and constitute a "surrender" by Turkey on the Cyprus issue.

"The report does not reflect the truth," a general staff statement said. "The Turkish armed forces believe in the importance and necessity of finding a just and durable solution to the Cyprus problem through negotiations," it said.

Tensions between the Turkish army and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) are not unusual, mainly because the secularist generals suspect the governing party of harbouring an Islamist agenda.

The European Union is pressing Ankara to help reunite the island's Turkish and Greek communities by May 1, when Cyprus is to join the pan-European bloc. The foreign ministry has yet to unveil its peace proposal, which reportedly envisages modifications to the Annan plan.

The UN blueprint has been shelved since March when both the Turkish and Greek Cypriots raised objections to the proposed settlement. The UN and the EU, however, have mainly blamed the Turkish Cypriots for the breakdown.

The international community wants the parties to resume talks on the Annan plan to reach a settlement by May. The EU says it will admit only the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot south if the island is not reunified by then.

Such a prospect threatens to damage Turkey's own hopes of joining the EU as its troops in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north would be deemed occupiers of EU territory.

The Annan plan envisages the island's reunification in a two-state federation, territorial adjustments in favor of the Greek Cypriots and the gradual withdrawal of Turkish troops.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey seized its northern part in response to an Athens-engineered military coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece.

3. - AFP - "US hopes to ease Turkish concerns about Iraqi Kurds during PM's visit":

WASHINGTON / 5 January 2003

The United States hopes to assuage Turkey's concerns about the future of Iraq, particularly the status of its Kurdish minority when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits later this month, a senior US official said Monday.

Erdogan is to arrive on January 26 and will meet President George W. Bush at the White House on January 28, the official said, adding that the prime minister would likely make stops in other US cities besides Washington.

"I am sure the whole discussion about Iraq will be a major part of the discussion between the prime minister and the president," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. In addition to Iraq, other topics expected to be covered in the talks are the war on terrorism, economic issues, Cyprus, Turkey's role as host of the annual summit of NATO leaders in June and its efforts to join the European Union, the official said.

The visit, Erdogan's first to the United States since becoming prime minister in March, comes amid continuing efforts to try to repair strains in relations caused by Turkey's rejection last year of a US request to use its territory as a springboard for the invasion of Iraq.

Although those tensions have eased considerably, Turkey remains deeply wary of the situation in neighboring Iraq, particularly the role of the Kurdish minority, which is set to return to self-rule in June after the US occupation administration ends.

Iraq's Kurdish population -- estimated at between four and five million -- was brutally repressed by Saddam Hussein, but its leaders have been brought into the US-appointed interim governing council and some have voiced demands for self-government in an autonomous region in the north.

Turkey, which has long fought Kurdish aspirations for an independent state on its own territory, is vigorously opposed to broad self-rule for Iraq's Kurds and Erdogan's government has made no secret of its position.

"Their concern is disproportionate Kurdish influence (in Iraq) will potentially lead to fragmentation and an independent Kurdistan emerging which they would regard as a threat to their territorial integrity and national security," the US official said.

"Their main point is that they think that there ought to be in whatever arrangements are made for the administrative division ... they have told us very strongly that they do not believe that ethnicity ought to be the basis," the official said.

The official stressed that the United States agreed with that position but noted that the geographic and demographic layout of Iraq often overlapped on that score.

4. - Bitter Lemons International - "Kurdistan will be virtually independent":

4 January 2004 / by Peter Galbraith

The year 2003 turned out to be very good for Iraq’s Kurds. As the year started, the Kurdistan region of Iraq was entering its twelfth year of de facto independence, thanks to the peshmerga (the Kurdish military), and the US-British no-fly zone. For many Kurds, these 12 years were a golden era. For the first time in their history, the Kurds governed themselves, having elected a Kurdistan Assembly and government in 1992.

In spite of later splitting into two Kurdistan Regional Governments--one in Irbil headed by Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and one in Sulaimani headed by Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)--the Kurdistan administrations have had real accomplishments. In 12 years they tripled the number of schools in the region, opened two new universities, and helped rebuild some 4,000 villages destroyed by Saddam Hussein’s forces in the 1980s. Kurdish culture and identity flourished, and a generation grew up with no sense of being Iraqi.

In early 2003, the looming war between the United States and Iraq threatened to undo much of what the Kurds had achieved, including their self-government. With Kurdistan’s three largest cities, Irbil, Sulaimani and Dihok all within artillery range of Iraqi positions, many Kurds feared both conventional and chemical attacks. As war approached, cities emptied.

Politically, the Kurds feared being sacrificed in a bigger strategic calculation. In February, the Bush administration promised Turkey it could send thousands of troops to Iraqi Kurdistan, in exchange for access by the US Fourth Infantry Division to northern Iraq through Turkey. Barzani and Talabani protested vehemently, but to no effect. Both men feared that Kurdistan’s independence would become the price of getting Turkish troops out.

Finally, the Kurdish leaders knew that the Pentagon civilians harbored ambitious plans for remaking Iraq as a unified democratic Arab state that might reshape the entire Middle East. Within this grand plan of nation building, there was little place for a self-governing Kurdistan.

Perhaps for the first time in their history, the Kurds were lucky. The Turkish parliament narrowly voted against allowing US troops to cross its territory, and it did so in a manner that maximized American anger at Turkey. The Kurdish peshmerga took over the role intended for the Fourth Infantry Division, creating a northern front in cooperation with a small number of US Special Forces. The Kurds, who sustained more casualties than any other US ally, consolidated their unique status as America’s best friend among the peoples of Iraq. They also took control of Kirkuk, and virtually all other historically Kurdish territory in Iraq, while carting an ample supply of Iraqi heavy weapons into the mountains.

American plans for the rapid reintegration of Kurdistan into a new Iraq quickly foundered as the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) struggled to establish itself, and as the US administration dealt with the consequences of having failed to plan for the day after. The peshmerga were quietly exempted from the general order to disarm Iraqi militia. After asking the Kurds to dismantle the checkpoints between their territory and the rest of Iraq, the CPA asked them to re-establish the border in the interests of security.

The creation of an Iraqi Governing Council enabled the Kurds to consolidate their special status. Five of the 25 council members are Kurds, and Barzani and Talabani are its most powerful members, having an unambiguous political and electoral base. They have used their power well, securing recognition of Kurdistan’s separate status in the way Iraq is governed. Laws passed by the Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad do not apply in Kurdistan unless specifically approved by the Kurdistan Assembly. To date, only a handful of such laws have been applied in Kurdistan. Thus, Kurdistan has its own legal system, its own investment code, and a tax regime separate from Iraq’s, with different rates from those in the rest of the country. Iraqi ministers do not exercise authority in Kurdistan, but instead work with the ministries of the respective Kurdistan regional governments.

Not all of this sits well with the American occupation authorities, who would like to bring the Kurdistan region more under the control of the central government. With just 200 US troops in Kurdistan (which remains the only reliably pro-American part of the country), the CPA has almost no power to make this happen. And, with so much going wrong elsewhere in Iraq, no one wants to create a new trouble spot. More importantly, the Kurds know full well that they can outlast Ambassador Bremer and his administration, whose termination date is less than 200 days away.

By the end of 2003, Kurdistan’s leaders can see their way clear to getting what they want. This includes not only the continuation of their institutions of self-government, but also clear recognition of the supremacy of Kurdistan’s laws within Kurdistan, as well as acceptance of Kurdistan’s right to defend itself (for 70 years, the Iraqi army has been the only enemy most Kurds have ever known, and few believe one year of American-directed reforms has transformed that institution).

Almost all Iraqi Arab political leaders now endorse federalism, and many accept that Kurdistan will be virtually independent. Most important, Iraq’s Kurds are increasingly confident of their own power. They can live with the status quo and know no constitution can be applied to them without their consent.

At the end of the year, Kurds celebrated gleefully as Saddam Hussein, the man responsible for the deaths of more than 300,000 of their number, was captured and revealed as a coward. For a people long the doormat of the Middle East, life does not get much better.

* Peter Galbraith is on the faculty of the National War College, Washington, DC. He has served as US ambassador to Croatia and as a senior adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He documented Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s, contributing to the decision to create a safe-haven for the Kurds.

5. - Al Jazeera - "Syria warns against Kurdish entity in Iraq":

6 January 2004

"This is a red line and should be (seen as such) by all countries in the region, especially Iraq's neighbours," he said in an interview with CNN Turk television. Syria, like Iraq and Turkey, has a Kurdish minority.

Al-Asad was answering a question about Syria's stance towards the creation of any form of Kurdish entity in Iraq - an issue US authorities say is up to Iraqis alone.

"Any division of Iraq will not affect Iraq or Turkey alone as some do believe. This would have an impact on all (of Iraq's) neighbours," said Al-Asad, who starts a state visit to Turkey on Tuesday, the first there by a Syrian head of state.

Analysts say Turkey and Syria share the concern that the creation of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq could ignite secessionist aspirations among their Kurdish minorities.

Syria has traditionally sought to blend its minorities, both ethnic and religious, under a national unity umbrella. The official position of Syrian Kurdish groupings is not to pursue sectarian goals, but to safeguard their cultural identity.

"If Iraq is not united, the occupation will not end and without Iraq's unity, there will not be stability for Iraq or our countries," Al-Asad said.

Kurds at loggerheads

Iraqi Kurds are at loggerheads with US occupation authorities over a future autonomous Kurdish state in the north of the country.

A source close to the Kurdish bloc in Iraq's Governing Council told Aljazeera.net on Monday the US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, was stalling over Kurdish federalism proposals.

According to the source, Bremer asked Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Massud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), to be patient in calling for Iraqi federalism.

The US governor wants the "situation" in Iraq to return to normal and a constitution to be agreed upon before Kurdish autonomy is considered.

But the source said: "Bremer's position didn’t satisfy the ambition of the two Kurdish leaders who think that opportunities will be narrowed as time goes by.

Kurdish media reaction

"Bremer was talking about a new federal democratic Iraq without stating the form of federalism and whether it was the same federalism the Kurds have proposed.

"Kurdish media in Arbil considered Bremer's announcements an evasion from an answer awaited by Kurds."

The current president of the 25-member council, Adnan Pachachi, has also urged the Kurds to be patient.

He said: "We have accepted federalism in principle, but there are different forms of federalism in the world and I cannot tell you for the moment what the final form will be in Iraq."

6. - The Guardian - "Israeli 'water for arms' deal with Turkey":

6 January 2004 / by John Vidal

Israel and Turkey have agreed an extraordinary "water for arms" deal which will see millions of gallons of fresh water shipped in giant tankers across the eastern Mediterranean and into Israeli ports.

In a series of linked agreements expected to have long-term strategic implications throughout the Middle East, the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and Turkey's energy minister Zeki Cakan reached the water deal at a meeting in Jerusalem yesterday.

An official in Mr Sharon's office, said Turkey tied the arms deal to the water agreement.

It will involve Israel building a fleet of giant water tankers to ship 50 million cubic metres of water a year for 20 years from the river Manavgat in Anatolia, and Turkey buying an unspecified number of Israeli tanks as well as air force technology.

Although the amount of water to be imported only amounts to 3% of Israel's current needs, it is expected to cement the growing relationship between the two countries and lay the foundations of long-term water security for Israel.

In the barren Middle East, water is a strategic issue as well as one of survival. Turkey hopes to become a fresh water superstate, being the only country in the region with major water reserves.

Sales of the resource could boost its position as a regional power, bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in hard currency, and act as a peace bridge between countries, says its government .

Israel, which uses far more water per capita than any other state in the region, is already desperately short and expects to need much more in the next 20 years for farming and industrial development.

Israel's hydrological service says the country's water reserves are in real danger of becoming salinised, and the levels of its reservoirs and major freshwater lakes often fall to dangerously low levels.

Turkey already delivers water by tanker to Turkish Cyprus and wants to sell Manavgat water to Malta, Greek Cyprus and Crete. It has held talks on selling water to Jordan.

The cost of importing water from Turkey is estimated at slightly above $1 (56p) a cubic metre - twice that of other means, such as desalination.