12
July 2004
2. "20 dead in clashes between Iranian army, Turkish Kurd rebels", sixteen Iranian soldiers and four Turkish Kurd rebels have been killed in clashes in a mountainous region along the Turkish border, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported Tuesday.
3. "Leyla Zana Faces New Threat", Turkish police are pushing for new charges to be brought against four Kurdish former MPs who were freed after a decade of imprisonment a month ago.
4. "Decision on Turkey looms for Europe", the decision is five months hence but it already looms over the European Union: Turkey. In December, after 41 years of prevarication, EU leaders must make up their minds whether Ankara can start negotiations on joining the union.
5. "In Iraq, Showdown Looms Over Self-Rule for Kurds", regional Leaders Say They Will Not Give up Quasi-Independence.
6. "Israeli Minister to Turks: Israel not aiding Kurds", Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Ehud Olmert will carry a message to Turkey’s leaders on Tuesday that Israel is not involved in any way in northern Iraq’s Kurdish zones.
1. - Ozgur Politika / MHA - "Murat Karayylan: HPG and KONGRA-GEL are in the mountains for a solution":
July 2004
The chairman of the Defence Committee of KONGRA-GEL Murat Karay›lan, said that the decision to end the ceasefire was not a declaration of war, and that they had moved to a legitimate defence position in the face of operations aimed at their annihilation.
Karayilan said: " It is stated in the press that we have started an all-out war and that our action is against the European Union. Unfounded claims that the decision for war was taken in conjunction with other groups are being made. None of these accusations is true."
"Our strategy is that of a national democratic political struggle. Based on this we have taken a genuine and legitimate line of defence" said Karayilan. Drawing attention to the fact that the Turkish state and its Military have not ceased their attacks, he said, "KONGRA-GEL and the People¹s Defence Force (HPG) will defend themselves if attacked".
Underlining the fact that, particularly last year and following the spring of this year, the attacks have escalated, Karayilan said "the decision to end the cease fire is not a declaration of war. We have not taken such a decision. A state of war is not under consideration. Under the present circumstances, however, an objective application of the ceasefire no longer exists. In recent days the attacks have increased, operations aimed at our annihilation are taking place, and forces are defending themselves against this. We consider this to be legitimate defence."
HPG and KONGRA-GEL are in the mountains for a solution
Karayilan said that the Turkish press is wilfully trying to misinterpret the facts, adding "HPG and KONGRA-GEL forces are in the mountains in order to give peace a chance and to find a solution. In August a roadmap for peace was presented by us but it was not taken seriously and today it is claimed that a decision to re-start the war has been taken". Karayilan said that they are ready to make every type of sacrifice for a democratic solution and a permanent peace. "Remove the isolation, stop the operations, and the hostilities will cease. After doing this if a single bullet is fired then questions can be asked. If there is a genuine desire on the part of the Turks for the issues to be resolved and peace to be established we call on all peace groups and those in favour of democracy to work for the fulfilment of these conditions. The question is as clear and simple as this, but unfortunately it is being distorted."
Stressing that for their part the Kurds have been proposing peace projects for the past six years, Karayilan stated they are ready to resolve the question by civilized means. "Turkey must stop hoping for a result based on its stance of denial, of violence and of retaining the status quo. It is only by peaceful means that states involved in guerrilla movements have solved their problems. Turkey insists on persisting in its past methods and as long as this is the case the problems will not be resolved " he warned.
''We support membership of the European Union'
Karayilan, reacting to claims that the ending of the ceasefire by KONGRA-GEL was motivated by opposition to Turkey's membership of European Union said, "from 1999 to this day we have supported Turkey's membership of the European Union and our strategy has not changed. We are not against Turkey's membership. We believe that it will lead to a strengthening of democracy in the country".
"Turkey is taking certain things lightly, and is acting in a cunning way" said Karayilan and continued, "On the one hand it allows short broadcasts in Kurdish and releases members of DEP, while on the other hand it aims at our elimination. What Turkey wants is a Kurd without a will of his own, like Mervan G¸l (Mayor of Siirt). Turkey does not want a free Kurd".
'International governments should not share in Turkey's mistakes'
"The question of the KONGRA-GEL is the question of a people, of the Kurds," said Karayilan, reacting to Turkey¹s search for support against the Kurds at the NATO summit. "The Kurds are an important factor both for the change and transformation, and for the re-formation of the region. This being the case, it is absurd that those in authority inside the Turkish establishment should urge the USA and Bush for a military approach with regard to KONGRA-GEL." Pointing to the fact that such a development would be contrary to the strategy of the USA in the region Karayilan called on Turkey saying: "The Turkish state must stop insisting on these tactics and set about resolving its own problem² and added, "on the one hand they say Œwe have finished it¹, while on the other hand they are calling on international forces to attack us. This is a contradiction."
"Instead of making mistakes as Turkey did, Karayilan
said "International governments should recognise the objective
truths and adopt policies that lead to a solution", and he made
the call, "If NATO wants to be a stabilising force for peace then
it must take on the resolution of the Kurdish issue which is central
for the establishment of the security and stability of Turkey and the
region. The approach to this issue should not be one of terrorism but
one that aims at its solution". 
2. - AFP - "20 dead in clashes between Iranian army, Turkish Kurd rebels":
DIYARBAKIR / 6 July 2004
Sixteen Iranian soldiers and four Turkish Kurd rebels have been killed in clashes in a mountainous region along the Turkish border, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported Tuesday.
Turkish security sources confirmed the clashes, saying they were part of a "large-scale" operation that the Iranian army has launched against rebels from the former Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on their territory.
"There are at least 10 dead," a Turkish official told AFP in Diyarbakir, the center of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. The Germany-based MHA news agency, which is close to the rebels, reported that Iranian security forces had launched "a comprehensive operation" against the armed wing of the PKK last week. The first clashes occurred on Friday.
The Iranians used helicopters and heavy weapons, it said, adding that the operation was continuing. Iranian security forces also carried out raids -- apparently on PKK targets -- in the towns of Salmas and Khoy, near the Turkish border, MHA said.
The former PKK, now known as Kongra Gel, have long used the mountainous border regions of Iran and Iraq, which are difficult to guard, as a springboard for attacks on Turkish territory.
Most of the group's militants are believed to have taken refuge in northern Iraq after the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire with the Ankara government in 1999. The group ended its truce on June 1.
The PKK has waged a 15-year war for self-rule in mainly
Kurdish southeast Turkey, with the conflict claiming some 37,000 lives.
Turkey and Iran have in recent years intensified cooperation on security
matters, including the PKK, after a chilly period during which the two
sides accused each other of sheltering their respective dissidents.
3. - BBC - "Leyla Zana Faces New Threat":
9 July 2004
Turkish police are pushing for new charges to be brought against four Kurdish former MPs who were freed after a decade of imprisonment a month ago.
A police spokesman accused them of making separatist speeches at rallies in south-eastern Turkey last month.
The four - including award-winning rights activist Leyla Zana - are also accused of speaking Kurdish at the rally in violation of Turkish law.
Their release last month was welcomed by the EU and human rights groups.
The four - Ms Zana, Orhan Dogan, Hatip Dicle and Selim Sadak - were sentenced to prison in 1994 for their ties to the now-defunct Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which advocated a violent campaign for Kurdish self-rule.
Despite their release, an appeal against their initial conviction is still pending and a decision is expected on 14 July.
The police spokesman, Ramazan Er, said the appeals court reviewing the sentences had been informed of the new claims against them.
Ceasefire call
Er's remarks came a day after a top army general accused authorities of laxity in allowing Zana and her friends to speak at political rallies while they were still subject to a pending lawsuit.
"We believe there are some deficiencies in the implementation of legal rules relevant to this issue," the deputy chief of the general staff, Ilker Basbug, told a press conference on Thursday.
Mr Er said the four former MPs had also broken traffic and meeting regulations at the rallies last month.
The police's plan to bring charges follows remarks by a top Turkish general criticising the four for participating in political rallies.
Gen Ilker Basbug, deputy head of the Turkish military, said the four had made speeches proposing "a separatist terrorist organisation stop its activities for six more months".
At one of the rallies, Ms Zana, who has long argued for a peaceful struggle for greater Kurdish rights, reportedly called upon the new version of the PKK - Kongra-Gel - to resume its ceasefire with the Turkish state.
Clashes between Turkish security forces and Kongra-Gel guerrillas have increased since the group ended its 5-year-old ceasefire in June.
High-profile dissident
Ms Zana rose to prominence in Turkey in 1991, when she spoke in Kurdish during her oath of allegiance to parliament.
She became known as a high-profile dissident when she was awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov Peace Prize in 1995 - a year after her conviction.
Ms Zana and her PKK colleagues had their sentences confirmed in an earlier retrial this year, but European institutions warned that their continued imprisonment would affect Turkey's efforts to join the EU.
The European Commission is to issue a report in October
on whether Turkey is ready to start EU entry talks.
4. - The Financial Times - "Decision on Turkey
looms for Europe":
12 July 2004
The decision is five months hence but it already looms over the European
Union: Turkey. In December, after 41 years of prevarication, EU leaders
must make up their minds whether Ankara can start negotiations on joining
the union. In the half century or so of the European project's existence,
rarely has there been a more important and fateful strategic decision.
They must get it right.
Turkey, the republic resurrected from the debris of the Ottoman empire
by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, has been in Europe's ante-room since it first
applied for membership in 1963. It was formally recognised as a candidate
at an EU summit in Helsinki in 1999. If it is to enter the club - probably
not before 2015 - this big new member state will be a real challenge
to absorb: populous, poor and predominantly Muslim. Is this a realistic
proposition?
As they start to digest the EU's biggest enlargement this May, European leaders who reacted so gracelessly to their new partners in south and central
Europe show little appetite for a debate about Turkey. This meanness of spirit and underlying pessimism is unworthy and unjustified - not least, because there is a great deal to be confident about in the EU.
Successive enlargements since 1973 - there have been five and a half, including Germany's reunification - have shown an incomparable ability to spread stability and prosperity. Rarely a pretty sight, the EU is nonetheless a very powerful machine for inducing generally positive reform. Not only has its new framework for the pursuit of national interest ended centuries of intra-European warfare but its expansion helped sweep away the residue of fascist dictatorships in south Europe and communist regimes in east Europe. The EU's legions of critics seem unable quite to account for its irresistible magnetic pull or the way it has spread wealth and self-confidence across hitherto underdeveloped countries from Spain to Ireland. Is Turkey so different that it is beyond the reach of the EU's most successful policy, enlargement?
In principle, the decision hinges on whether Ankara has adopted and implemented a range of democratic reforms and human- and minority- rights provisions. These are all set out in the 1995 Copenhagen criteria, which spell out the political rules of the club. Measured against these criteria, Turkey has already journeyed far towards the EU's values. Under the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a series of legislative packages has enshrined freedom of expression and association, abolished the death penalty and criminalised the hitherto widespread use of torture, and begun to give Turkey's Kurds their rights. Above all, by a deft mix of constitutional reform and political acuity, Mr Erdogan has curbed the power of the generals who, suspicious of his Islamist roots, had tried to prevent him coming to power.
Just as impressively, the Erdogan government has navigated what could have been a perfect storm, pulling the economy out of crisis against a threat of financial disaster, keeping Turkey out of the deeply unpopular Iraq war and reversing decades of policy on Cyprus, where Greek rather than Turkish Cypriots now obstruct reunification.
Most important, the vast majority of Turks see EU membership as their national project, while the army sees it as fulfilling Ataturk's vocation to modernise and westernise the country.
Sceptics and opponents of Turkish entry acknowledge that these changes have been induced by the prospect of EU membership but maintain Europe cannot establish a community of identity with a big, poor Muslim country on the frontiers of the Middle East.
Against that, forseeable EU budgetary transfers to Turkey would be in line with the amounts earmarked for this year's new member states. The experience of previous enlargements, moreover, suggests Turkey will attract significant streams of inward investment once eventual membership is no longer in doubt. EU fears of sudden immigration surges, furthermore, can be dealt with by negotiating transition periods. There is no place in this argument for religious cant and bigotry.
Nor should too much attention be paid to federalist fears that Turkish accession will destroy the "soul" of Europe by making further integration impossible. The EU, especially after the latest Big Bang enlargement, is already well into the territory of "variable geometry", where like-minded members form inner core groups such as the euro or the Schengen arrangements dispensing with border controls.
But it is, above all, a strategic decision the EU must make. At a time of gathering conflict between Islam and the west, Turkey has the ability to be a great beacon - a Muslim democracy, a secular republic and an advancing economy. Slamming the gates of Brussels, by contrast, would leave Turkey's pro-western consensus in tatters, uncage the darker forces of the Turkish right and push it towards a Middle East mired in despotism and failure.
There could hardly be anything more destabilising than
for the EU to withhold its most successful export - the stability conferred
by membership - and to leave Turkey isolated and growling on the borders
of Europe.
5. - The Washington Post - "In Iraq, Showdown Looms Over Self-Rule for Kurds":
Regional Leaders Say They Will Not Give up Quasi-Independence
IRBIL / 11 July 2004 / by Edward Cody
Karzan Kanabi, whose clothing shop attracts young men with its cheap bell-bottom pants, never went to Baghdad, never learned Arabic and never felt the desire to go anywhere he would have to mix with Iraq’s Arab population.
"We want Kurdistan to be an independent country," said Kanabi, 18, who had his Washington-brand jeans trucked in from Turkey, just to the north. He does no business with the rest of Iraq. "We only need Kurdistan."
The nationalist sentiments voiced by Kanabi and many others in this prosperous Kurdish city 200 miles north of Baghdad have become the leading edge of a storm looming over Iraq. After 13 years of quasi-independence -- the only regime Kanabi and his peers have known -- the 4 million Kurds living under their own government here in the grassy plains and jagged mountains of historical Kurdistan have resolved never to relinquish the self-rule bestowed on them by the United States after the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
"Iraq is made up of two nationalities, Kurds and Arabs," Massoud Barzani, one of the region’s two legendary leaders, said in an interview Thursday in nearby Salahuddin. "Kurds have no less a place than Arabs in Iraq."
Kurdish determination, however, has run up against a resolve widely shared by Iraq’s new leadership and its backers, including the United States, to preserve a unified country even without the iron fist of former president Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. Iraq, they have pledged, is to be organized as a majority-rule democracy, which would redistribute power among its 25 million inhabitants -- roughly 60 percent Shiite Arabs, 20 percent Sunni Arabs and 20 percent Kurds.
So far, with a bloody anti-U.S. insurgency their primary concern, the new leaders in Baghdad and their sponsors in the Bush administration have postponed the showdown over the Kurdish issue, hoping a crisis can be avoided. But with elections scheduled for January, Kurds here said, the time has drawn near to deal with some of the most explosive issues, particularly the status of the city of Kirkuk. In addition, plans to write a permanent new constitution after the January elections, Kurdish leaders warned, are likely to bring the country face to face with the question of Kurdistan’s long-term legal relationship with the central government in Baghdad.
"We have been patient for over a year," said Falah Mustafa Bakir, Barzani’s foreign relations adviser. "Now is the time to address it."
Kirkuk, about 150 miles north of Baghdad, lies just outside the Kurdish region as defined over the last decade. The Kurdish leadership, citing historical ties, has demanded that the city and its surrounding oil fields be incorporated into the autonomous Kurdish zone and its special rule. The demand is opposed by leaders of the Arab majority and has been under discussion ever since U.S. troops overthrew Hussein and occupied Iraq 15 months ago.
With the organization of elections about to begin, the Kurdish demand has gained new urgency. Who lives and votes in Kirkuk, Kurdish leaders point out, is a question that will help determine the outcome of the vote -- and who is at the controls -- in a region they regard as theirs.
"This issue is a time bomb," Barzani said, speaking softly and wearing a brown uniform with the Kurds’ traditional baggy pants and red-and-white headdress.
Kirkuk has been part of Kurdish folklore from time immemorial, with songs and poems heralding its place in the Kurds’ tortured history. But others have long lived there too, including Arabs and Turkmens. More Arabs were brought in by Hussein’s government to help smother Kurdish separatism, which had led to three secessionist uprisings in 20 years.
The Kurdish leadership has insisted that Iraqis who were brought in to Arabize the area must be returned to their homes, many of them in southern Iraq. Those leaving should be treated humanely and compensation should be paid, they said in interviews, but the newcomers must leave. At that point, they added, a referendum could be held allowing the city, its Kurdish majority restored, to vote whether to stay in the Arab part of Iraq or join the Kurdish autonomous region.
"We can’t make any concessions on Kirkuk," Bakir said. "For us, it’s very important."
But the new leaders in Baghdad have made it clear they too regard Kirkuk as very important. Its oil fields have contributed to Iraq’s national prosperity for 80 years. Moreover, they have said, readjusting the ethnic composition of cities or regions is not the way Iraq should begin its new political life.
Vice President Ibrahim Jafari, a Shiite Muslim of the Dawa party, said in a recent interview that the rights of Kurds must be respected in the new Iraq. The history of their oppression must be taken into account in whatever arrangement is worked out, he added. But he also emphasized that Iraq must remain a unitary nation, true to its history and traditions, and said the rules of democracy must be followed.
Behind his comment lay a tension that has run throughout the debate over what to do about the Kurds and the north. For Iraq’s Shiites, long overshadowed by the Sunnis who dominated the Baath Party, representative democracy is a way to gain a measure of power proportionate to their majority share of the population. There is no reason, in their view, for the country’s Kurdish minority to oppose majority rule now that Hussein’s tyranny has been eliminated.
Quasi-Independence
For more than a decade, U.S. warplanes flew regular patrols to prevent Hussein’s forces from venturing north of the 36th parallel and into the 17,000-square-mile Kurdish-controlled zone of northeastern Iraq. Left alone for the first time in generations, Kurds constructed a flourishing quasi-state, with democratic elections and institutions to underpin the traditional leadership of Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party, and his rival to the east, Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Along the road north from Baghdad, what they built is readily apparent. Northward from Kirkuk, the Iraqi flag has disappeared, replaced by the green, white and red colors of Kurdistan, with a blazing yellow sun in the center. The Arabic language has withered away, replaced by the Kurds’ own tongue.
Security checkpoints to control traffic have been erected by Kurdish fighters, called pesh merga, only a few of whom wear uniforms of the U.S.-trained Iraqi National Guard. Barzani’s headquarters, atop a steep bluff just outside Salahuddin, is guarded by his party’s militia.
"We will not agree to having the Iraqi army here," said Mohammed Sharif Ahmad, dean of the law and political science department at Salahuddin University. "We have our pesh merga. They are organized like an army."
Together, Barzani and Talabani field more than 70,000 armed men, twice the planned strength of the Iraqi national army and several times its current roster, according to a U.S. tally. Each of the two Kurdish leaders has built his own military academy to turn out officers in two-year courses.
A decree issued by Iraq’s interim government in Baghdad banning militias has had no noticeable effect here. For Kurds, making the pesh merga illegal would be like trying to reverse generations of history and undo the emergence of a new national entity over the last dozen years.
"This is my land," said Goran Nuri, who runs a bookstore in the shadow of a fortress built by Salahuddin, a Kurd, after his conquest of Jerusalem.
Nuri has laid in stocks of dictionaries, English language courses and science texts, scattered haphazardly around his narrow little shop. But what his customers really want and buy, Nuri said, are Kurdish-language modern novels, literature of their own.
The only Arabic-language tome that attracts buyers, he said, is the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
Fearing the Future
The word that has come to dominate the debate over Kurdistan is federalism. Kurds and Arabs alike have suggested that reorganizing Iraq in an association of states could give Kurdistan room to retain self-rule while staying within a unified Iraq. The Kurdish parliament has voted to forgo total independence in return for loose federalism.
But there is little agreement on how Kurdistan should be defined in the new constitution. Ahmad, the jurist, said putting off the debate is the best idea, to give the new Iraq time to jell. Meanwhile, he suggested, Kurdistan would retain its semi-independence.
But Barzani said the Kurds can wait only so long and that writing the new constitution will force a decision. "My approach is to put all these issues on the table and solve them as much as possible," he said.
Much will depend on how the United States comes down when the crunch arrives, probably next year, he said. Two recent decisions by the Bush administration have inspired doubts.
The first was rejection of a Kurdish demand for the post of either president or prime minister in the interim government, reflecting the Kurdish contention that Iraqi society is divided into Arabs and Kurds. The second was refusal to put into the Security Council resolution underpinning the new Iraqi government a condition that any important decision must be agreed on by consensus among Iraq’s political and ethnic factions.
At the Kurds’ insistence, U.S. occupation authorities included such a proviso in the Temporary Administrative Law governing Iraq pending its new constitution. But Shiite leaders, including Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, objected that this amounted to a Kurdish veto, frustrating majority rule. Eager for votes at the United Nations, the Bush administration dropped the language from the resolution.
Kurdish leaders repeatedly said they would never forget U.S. help in setting up the quasi-independent Kurdistan they have had since 1991. But they also have not forgotten what happened in 1975, when the United States, along with Iran and Israel, withdrew support for an earlier secessionist revolt and stood by while Iraqi troops crushed the pesh merga, who were then commanded by Barzani’s late father, Mustafa Barzani.
"We have every right to have fears about the future,"
Barzani said.
6. - The Jerusalem Post - "Israeli Minister to
Turks: Israel not aiding Kurds":
12 July 2004 / by Herb Keinon
Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Ehud Olmert will carry a message to Turkey’s leaders on Tuesday that Israel is not involved in any way in northern Iraq’s Kurdish zones.
There have been persistent rumors in Ankara over the last few months that IDF and Mossad teams are working in northern Iraq and supporting Kurdish commandos.
The issue, a red-flag for the Turkish government which is concerned that any Kurdish independent movement in Iraq may spill over into its territory as well, is believed to be one of the reasons behind the recent strain in relations between Ankara and Jerusalem.
Olmert told The Jerusalem Post that he will take a message to Ankara that "there is no Israeli activity in the north of Iraq, not covert, overt, or anything."
Last month The New Yorker published a story by Seymour Hersh alleging that Israeli officers were training Kurdish commandos in northern Iraq and using that region as a jumping-off point for Mossad agents to enter Iran and spy on its nuclear installations.
Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper reported last month that Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul – whom Olmert is scheduled to meet – was apparently behind the information given to Hersh. Turkish spokesmen denied that report.
In addition to meeting Gul and Turkish President Ahmet
Necdet Sezer, Olmert, who will begin a two-and-a-half day visit to Turkey
on Tuesday, had hoped to meet Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
but was informed that the meeting will not take place because of scheduling
problems.
Olmert played down the cancelation, saying that Erdogan relayed a message
to him that he would like to meet, but will be on vacation when Olmert
arrives.
Olmert said Erdogan offered to meet a day earlier, but that this is not possible because of a previous commitment Olmert has in Belgium.
Olmert said that if the meeting with Erdogan had been canceled for political reasons, and not logistical ones, the meetings with Sezer and Gul would not be taking place.
Israeli officials said they are working on getting a meeting
with Erdogan back on the agenda.
"What is maddening about the cancelation," one diplomatic
official said, "is that while Erdogan canceled his meeting with
Olmert, he will be meeting on the same day with visiting Syrian Prime
Minister Naci Otri."
In Erdogan’s one-and-a-half years in power, he has moved Turkish-Israeli ties forward, while, at the same time, casting a dark shadow over Turkish-Israeli relations through a series of harshly anti-Israel statements.
Olmert’s visit, slated to deal primarily with economic issues, comes at a time of tense relations between the two countries, following Erdogan’s critical statements and the recent cancelation of El Al flights to Turkey for 10 days because of disagreements over security arrangements.
Israeli officials hope that Olmert’s visit will succeed in putting an end to this period of tension. In the last two weeks, Erdogan has not made any public statements against Israel, following a period where the Turkish prime minister – who heads the Islamic-based AKP Party – slammed Israel on almost a weekly basis. Israeli diplomatic officials say that Erdogan may have gotten the message – delivered through regular diplomatic channels, as well as by American Jewish officials – that he had "gone too far" in his criticism.
These officials said there may be a number of reasons why Erdogan canceled his scheduled meeting with Olmert.
They suggested that it was in response to the manner in
which criticism he made about Israel and Sharon to then-national infrastructure
Yosef Paritzky in a meeting was leaked to the press.
Olmert, who will be heading a business delegation to Turkey, is to take
part in the annual joint economic council that deals with bilateral
issues.
In addition, other issues on Olmert’s agenda are the participation of Israeli firms in a massive Turkish economic development project in southeastern Anatolia called GAP, as well as moving the long-discussed Israeli agreement to buy water from Turkey to the implementation stage.
In what appears to be a "peace offering" to the Turks, the cabinet Sunday approved work permits for 800 Turkish workers. Diplomatic officials said that the Turkish government was irritated that Israel had promised these work permits in the past, but had not delivered on them.
Olmert was originally slated to visit Turkey last April, but that meeting was unexpectedly canceled at the last minute by the Turkish government.
Israeli officials said that cancelation did not have to
do with Turkish anger over Israeli policies, as was widely reported
then, but rather because it was slated to take place before the historic
referendum in Cyprus, which was preoccupying the Turkish political leadership
at the time.