14
June 2004
1. "Kurdish rebels reject calls to restore ceasefire with Turkey", a top Kurdish rebel leader has rejected calls for the restoration of a truce with Turkish forces and has called instead for an end to the prison isolation for former rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, the pro-Kurdish Mesopotamia news agency reported Monday.
2. "Kurds Attack Turkish Town, Curfew Called", suspected Kurdish rebels killed three security guards in an overnight attack in southern Turkey, the latest in a string of attacks since separatists ended a five-year cease-fire earlier this month.
3. "Freed Turkish Kurd urges rebels to reinstate truce", Kurdish activist Leyla Zana returned home to a hero's welcome Sunday after being released from a decade behind bars, telling tens of thousands of supporters that Turkey's separatist Kurds should reinstate a longstanding truce they broke two weeks ago.
4. "Kurds call on govt to make peace with rebels", thousands of ethnic Kurds rallied in southeastern Turkey on Sunday, calling on the government to make peace with Kurdish rebels who recently escalated their violent campaign for autonomy.
5. "Turkey's EU Membership Drive Enters Critical Phase", with a decision looming by the end of the year on whether or not to start accession talks, Turkey’s drive to gain European Union membership is now in a critical phase. According to some European analysts, Ankara’s recent moves to improve its civil society image have made a favorable impression on EU decision-makers.
6. "Kurd Unrest Spreads to Syria", Kurds within Syria are beginning to demand increasing recognition in the face of the autonomy enjoyed by Kurds within Iraq.
7. "Rebels With a Cause", Iraq's well-armed Kurds could go their own wayBy Babak Dehghanpisheh
8. "DEHAP Calls For Amnesty In Istanbul Demonstration", the supporters of the pro-Kurdish parties have been organizing mass demonstration in Istanbul on Sunday, reported Turkish agency Cihan yesterday.
1. - AFP - "Kurdish rebels reject calls to restore ceasefire with Turkey":
ANKARA / 14 June 2004
A top Kurdish rebel leader has rejected calls for the restoration of a truce with Turkish forces and has called instead for an end to the prison isolation for former rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, the pro-Kurdish Mesopotamia news agency reported Monday.
"It is not possible to completely abandon our defence policies. It is not on our agenda to completely change our decision on the ceasefire," Murat Karayilan, the head of the armed wing of KONGRA-GEL, was quoted by Mesopotamia as telling the Europe-based Kurdish television channel, Roj TV.
KONGRA-GEL, the successor of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), said late last month it was ending its five-year-old unilateral ceasefire as of June 1.
Turkey's main Kurdish-party DEHAP and former Kurdish MP Leyla Zana -- released last week after more than a decade in jail for collaborating with the rebels -- had called this weekend on KONGRA-GEL to restore the truce.
But Karayilan said Ankara must take a number of steps before his group could agree, the first being an end to Ocalan's solitary confinement.
Ocalan has been the sole inmate at the prison island of Imrali in northwestern Turkey since he was captured in 1999 and sentenced to death. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment after Ankara abolished capital punishment.
Karayilan said that Turkey must also stop attacking the rebels and should observe a ceasefire. "Even though we unilaterally observed the ceasefire for five years with much sacrifice on our part, (Turkish security) operations have increased in recent months. There were 700 operations in the last five years," Karayilan said.
"We will respond to efforts against our people which aim to annihilate us," he added. But KONGRA-GEL's decision to end the ceasefire did not amount to "restarting the war", he said. "Nobody has declared war here. The rebels have decided to actively defend themselves and the values they stand by," Karayilan said.
The PKK, which later renamed itself KONGRA-GEL, led a 15-year campaign for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. About 37,000 people have died in the unrest. Following Ocalan's capture, the rebels announced the truce and an estimated 5,000 militants withdrew into the mountains of northern Iraq.
Ankara rejected the truce, but has since undertaken a number of steps to improve cultural rights for its Kurdish minority, such as broadcasts and education in their mother tongue, as it strives to join the European Union.
Fighting in the region has been only sporadic over the
past few years, but has picked up over the past few weeks. 
2. - AP - "Kurds Attack Turkish Town, Curfew Called":
ISTANBUL / 14 June 2004 / by Selcakn Hacaoglu
Suspected Kurdish rebels killed three security guards in an overnight attack in southern Turkey, the latest in a string of attacks since separatists ended a five-year cease-fire earlier this month.
The government-hired guards were killed in a village in Hatay province, about 440 miles southeast of the capital, Ankara, Hatay Gov. Abdulkadir Sari told the Anatolia news agency.
Sari said the men were guarding a crew that was building a road when the rebels opened fire. Another guard was injured and a bulldozer operator was shot in the knee, he said. An operation was under way to capture the rebels, he said, but provided no details.
On Sunday, rebels launched a rocket attack on a military officers' club in the southeastern city of Bingol, and troops killed two rebels in the ensuing clash. The Turkish military imposed an overnight curfew in the area.
Two soldiers were killed Saturday when their vehicle was attacked in nearby Tunceli province.
Kurds make up about 20 percent of Turkey's 68 million people, but are not officially recognized as a minority. Kurdish rebels fought a 15-year war for autonomy in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast before declaring the cease-fire in 1999, shortly after the capture of rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. Some 37,000 people were killed in the fighting.
Under pressure from the European Union, which Turkey wants to join, Turkey recently granted the right for Kurdish-language broadcasts and is allowing private schools to teach the language.
On Sunday, more than 20,000 demonstrated for peace in
Diyarbakir, the largest city in the southeast. Former lawmaker Leyla
Zana, a Kurdish activist who was recently freed from prison, urged the
rebels to resume the truce.
3. - AFP - "Freed Turkish Kurd urges rebels to
reinstate truce":
DIYARBAKIR / 13 June 2004
Kurdish activist Leyla Zana returned home to a hero's welcome Sunday after being released from a decade behind bars, telling tens of thousands of supporters that Turkey's separatist Kurds should reinstate a longstanding truce they broke two weeks ago.
"We have shown our patience for centuries. If we have to show even more patience and self-denial we will," she told her supporters in Diyarbakir, the main city in the Kurdish-majority southeast of the country.
She was answered by a cheering crowd waving banners in the red, yellow and green colors of the Kurdish movement and placards in Kurdish, which only last week was allowed on state radio and television.
"Above all, I am a mother, and I consider your children to be my children. I am one of those who think that from now on the youth of this country should not die any more," she said. And she called on the United States and Britain to help prevent Turkey from becoming "another Palestine, another Lebanon."
Zana, 43, spoke in Kurdish and Turkish from the open back of a bus flanked by three other activists and former legislators like her, all jailed in 1994 for 15 years on charges of collaborating with separatist Kurdish rebels and released Wednesday pending an appeal.
The reprieve for Zana, Hatip Dicle, Selim Sadak and Orhan Dogan was a surprise twist in one of the most politically charged cases in EU-hopeful Turkey, now under scrutiny to implement promised reforms and reverse its shaky human rights record.
The four are seen as prisoners of conscience in the European Union, whose European Parliament awarded its Sakharov prize for human rights to imprisoned Zana in 1995.
The Turkish government is hoping that EU leaders will give a positive review of its democratization process and set a date for the start of accession talks when they take up the issue in December.
"I address this call to KONGRA-GEL," Zana said, using the acronym of the Kurdistan People's Congress, the new name for the main armed separatist group, the outlawed PKK or Kurdistan Worker's Party which took up arms against Ankara in 1984.
"The ceasefire should not be broken for at least six more months. KONGRA-GEL must (pass on) this call to all forces linked to it."
The group renounced a unilateral, five-year ceasefire early this month after a series of bloody encounters with Turkish security forces. The release of the four legendary figures in the peaceful fight for Kurdish rights brought crowds singing and dancing into the streets of Diyarbakir in a heady week for the Kurdish struggle.
Crowds were so dense it took the homecoming bus an hour-and-a-half to move three kilometers (nearly two miles), under a shower of flowers from nearby windows and balconies.
The rally was organized by the People's Democracy Party (DEHAP), the top pro-Kurd party in mainstream politics which has shunned ties with Kurdish rebels but which broke a taboo on Saturday with its first direct appeal to separatists to end the armed struggle and reinstate the truce.
Turkey has feared granting Kurdish demands could fuel
nationalist sentiment among the minority and be seen as a reward for
the PKK. Some 37,000 people, mostly rebels, lost their lives in the
20-year battle
for an independent Kurdish homeland in the southeast.
The PKK called the ceasefire in 1999 after the capture of its chief, Abdullah Ocalan, whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1999 after Turkey abolished the death penalty under EU pressure. His brother and sister, Mehmet and Fatma Ocalan, were at Sunday's rally, where some of the placards called for their brother's release.
Zana, married at 14 to a Kurdish activist who introduced her to politics, became the first Kurdish woman to win a seat in Turkey's parliament in 1991. She immediately drew Ankara's wrath by wearing a headband in the Kurdish colors at the swearing-in ceremony and defiantly vowed in Kurdish to continue the struggle so Kurds and Turks could live together in democracy.
Her husband Mehdi was Diyarbakir's mayor for three years
before being arrested and jailed for 10 years. He now lives in Sweden
with their two children. After Diyarbakir, she and the three others
will tour 12 other cities in the region.
4. - AP - "Kurds call on govt to make peace with
rebels":
DIYARBAKIR / 14 June 2004
Thousands of ethnic Kurds rallied in southeastern Turkey on Sunday, calling on the government to make peace with Kurdish rebels who recently escalated their violent campaign for autonomy.
Police estimated that more than 20,000 demonstrators gathered in Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeastern Turkey, some brandishing flags of red, green and yellow - the traditional colours of the Kurdish people.
The demonstration, one of the largest in the predominantly Kurdish city in recent years, was organised to celebrate the release of four Kurdish lawmakers jailed for alleged ties with the KONGRA-GEL rebel group, who fought a 15-year war for autonomy and have been branded terrorists by Turkey and its allies.
It came amid an upsurge in separatist violence in southeastern Turkey, home to most of the nation's ethnic Kurds.
Earlier this month, the KONGRA-GEL rebels said they were ending a self-imposed truce announced five years ago. Two Turkish soldiers were killed Saturday in an attack on a military vehicle.
Organisers of Sunday's rally called it "Peace and Democracy." Demonstrators applauded Leyla Zana, a prominent Kurdish activist and former parliamentarian, and three other former lawmakers who were released from prison Wednesday after spending 10 years behind bars for alleged ties to the rebels.
One of the four urged the military in interview last week to end its campaign against the Kurdish rebels.
But Turkey has ruled out any talks with KONGRA-GEL, which it regards as a terrorist organisation trying to divide the country along ethnic lines.
About 20 per cent of Turkey's 68 million people are Kurds, though they are not officially recognised as a minority.
The rebels declared a unilateral cease-fire in 1999 after their leader was captured by Turkish forces. Some 37,000 people died in the fighting.
Zana and the three other jailed Kurdish lawmakers - Hatip Dicle, Selim Sadak and Orhan Dogan - were freed amid mounting external pressure on Turkey to improve its human rights record.
The European Union is to decide later this year whether
Turkey is ready to begin talks to join the regional organisation.
5. - Eurasianet - "Turkey's EU Membership Drive Enters Critical Phase":
11 June 2004 / by Mevlut Katik*
With a decision looming by the end of the year on whether or not to start accession talks, Turkey’s drive to gain European Union membership is now in a critical phase. According to some European analysts, Ankara’s recent moves to improve its civil society image have made a favorable impression on EU decision-makers.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul recently vowed that Ankara would “provide the EU with no excuse” to exclude Turkey. The Turkish government has backed up Gul’s rhetoric with a series of moves that should help Turkey meet to so-called Copenhagen criteria, a set of civil rights standards that the EU has established as a pre-condition for the opening of membership talks.
The latest Turkish initiatives concerned the country’s decades-long struggle against Kurdish nationalists [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Rights abuses associated with the Kurds’ armed struggle to establish a homeland have been a source of contention in the Turkey-EU dialogue. On June 9, Turkish authorities released four Kurdish activists were released from prison pending appeals of 1994 convictions. The EU had contended that the prominent activists had not received fair trials. In addition, Turkey’s state television channel TRT recently aired broadcasts in Kurdish.
In early May, the Turkish parliament passed constitutional amendments that appeared tailored to satisfy the EU’s Copenhagen criteria. Perhaps the most prominent change was a decision to abolish the military’s role as watchdog in the sphere of higher education. Another amendment guaranteed that women would enjoy the same rights as men.
Ankara’s recent action has drawn praise from top EU officials. Nevertheless, Turkey’s EU bid has encountered strong resistance in recent months from some members, in particular France. Some political analysts contend that the flurry of Turkish moves is swaying opinion in favor of Ankara’s accession. Steven Everts of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank, told EurasiaNet; “There has been a ground shift in political elite opinion over benefits and costs of Turkish membership in the EU. Political momentum favors taking a decision in December to open negotiations with Turkey.”
Ultimately, Everts added, the decision on whether to begin accession talks will be a political one, based on several criteria, including Turkey’s efforts to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria. Even if a decision is made to move forward on a political level, there is “a great deal of effort to be made to erode hostility towards the Turkish membership amongst the European public opinion,” Everts cautioned.
Influential EU officials have spoken out recently on the political necessity of embracing Turkey, making vague references to the growing tension between the West and the Muslim world, generated in large part by the US conduct of its war against terrorism. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. During a May 24 speech at Oxford University, EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten said; “how we [the EU] handle Turkey’s aspirations for EU membership” was one of four policy areas that could potentially aggravate tension between the West and Islam.
He urged the EU to hold out its hand to Turkey. Regardless of the outcome, it would cost the EU little, in political terms, to set a formal date for the start of negotiations with Ankara, Patten suggested. “We cannot help but be conscious of the symbolism, at this time, of reaching a hand to a country whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim,” he said. At the same time, Patten acknowledged that Turkish membership in the EU “may well be politically difficult to envisage and administratively gruelling to manage.”
An EU report on Turkey’s efforts to comply with accession pre-conditions is due to be completed this fall. The report is expected to exert considerable influence over the EU’s December decision. Some observers believe opponents of Turkish membership in the EU to may try to raise the issue of implementation in an attempt to force a December rejection.
Concern lingers over whether the Turkish laws and constitutional changes adopted recently can be effectively implemented. According to an Anatolia news agency report June 10, a group of prominent international rights organizations, including Amnesty International, issued a statement in which they welcomed “many of the legal reforms that have been introduced in the recent past.” The statement, however, added; “concerns continue about shortcomings in current legislation and the implementation of the reforms.”
Many Turks believe that lingering EU opposition to Turkish membership is rooted in prejudice against Islam. Even so, Everts said “the Turks need to develop a response to that [implementation factor]. They should say, ‘here is how we respond to the issue of implementation.” Gul insisted the government is doing just that. “If necessary, parliament will work day and night before the summer recess. It is government’s prime duty to implement reforms most effectively,” he said in late May.
Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently indicated that Turkey’s desire for EU membership does have limits. “We are ready to abide by the rules of the game. However, we cannot, and will not abide prejudice,” Erdogan said during a May 28 speech at Oxford.
He went on to emphasize that Western and Muslim values can harmoniously coexist within the EU. “Today, Islam has become a reality for the EU. Over 10 million Muslims reside in the EU countries,” he said. “We in Turkey have reconciled our traditional Islamic culture with our secular and democratic structures. We have demonstrated that a country with an overwhelmingly Muslim population could turn its face to and integrate with the western world. We have shown the true progressive and modern face of Islam. There should be no doubt that Turkey’s full membership will reinforce the desire and will for co-habitation between the Christians and Muslims.”
* 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.
6. - Inter Press Service - "Kurd Unrest Spreads to Syria":
DAMASCUS / 14 June 2004 / by George Baghdadi
Kurds within Syria are beginning to demand increasing recognition in the face of the autonomy enjoyed by Kurds within Iraq.
Kurds number about 1.5 million in a Syrian population of 17 million. A total of 20 million Kurds are scattered across several countries. Turkey has about half the Kurd population, Iraq about five million, and the rest are distributed within Iran and Syria.
New Kurdish demands in Syria include citizenship for up to 200,000 Kurds living within the country. They are also demanding the right to register their land, and for the Kurdish language to be recognised.
Turkey too has accepted several Kurdish demands, including recognition for Kurdish language.
Syrian officials fear the new demands could lead to a push for Kurd autonomy or even to Kurds breaking away to join an Iraqi Kurdistan.
Kurdish unrest following a football match in March in Qameshli 680km north-east of Damascus left about 30 people dead and more than 100 injured.
The Syrian government's concerns are reinforced by the fact that Kurds live in the area that is the source of most oil and gas resources. The area, a fertile plain between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, is known locally as Al Jazeera, or The Island.
The Syrian government has moved to contain Kurdish unrest by ordering all unlicensed parties to stop political activities or face a ban, according to a statement by a human rights activist obtained by IPS. The Syrian government has not officially announced the ban.
”The regional leadership of the (ruling Ba'ath) party has taken a decision to ban all political, cultural and media activities, and to prosecute those who do not heed this,” human rights activist and lawyer Anwar al-Buni said in a statement.
”This decision impacts on all political parties and associations in Syria,” he said. ”In the absence of a law governing political activity, it is up to the security services to set the political agenda in Syria.”
Buni said Kurdish leaders Faud Aliko, Aziz Daoud and Saleh Kado have been summoned by the secret police and informed of the new orders.
Daoud, secretary-general of the Kurdish Progressive Democratic Party said the ban would not deter Kurdish groups. ”The Kurdish political parties are patriotic movements,” Daoud said in a statement. ”They will not halt their political activities.”
The tightening of control on Kurds is a part of increasing control on opposition political groups. This includes members of the National Progressive Front, which has been a part of a seven-party ruling coalition.
President Bashar Assad sent out several reformist signals since taking over as president from his father Hafez Assad who died in 2000 after 30 years of autocratic rule since taking power in a military coup.
Bashar Assad granted amnesty to more than a thousand political prisoners.. Political meetings known as salons flourished.
Civil rights activists and liberal lawmakers gather at these salons to demand more freedom and democracy, and to criticise corruption and nepotism. But a crackdown on reformists last year has curbed many of these activities. Syria is inching along the path of economic reforms but hopes for political reform have been effectively quashed.
The ruling clique seems in no mood to allow the extent of political reform demanded by the opposition. The government is emphatic in stifling new demands being made by Kurd groups.
The crackdown underlines the struggle for control in Syria
between a well-entrenched old guard and a new generation of reformers.
”There was a lot of hope before the crackdown,” a liberal
activist says. ”But the way they came down on these groups has
left the country depressed.”
7. - Neewsweek - "Rebels With a Cause":
Iraq's well-armed Kurds could go their own wayBy Babak Dehghanpisheh
June 21 issue
At first glance, Ari Nasser seems like a splendid guardian
for Iraq's future. In recent months the tall, crisply uniformed Kurd
and other recruits in the newly formed Iraqi Civil Defense Corps have
patrolled Kirkuk, helping U.S. forces keep order in the volatile northern
city. The local troops have earned high marks for their professionalism;
many of them, like the 24-year-old Nasser, got years of military training
in the fight against Saddam Hussein with the peshmerga guerrillas of
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. That's where Nasser's loyalty remains,
he readily admits. "I'm still a peshmerga," he says, laughing.
"I only wear this uniform because our party's leadership told us
we have to join the ICDC." How long they'll tell him to stay is
an open question. "If our leaders decide to pull out of the government,"
he says, "we will leave with them. It will be easy for us to go
to the mountains and fight the new government."
It's no idle threat. Iraq's Kurds have spent many years rebelling against
the Baghdad government, and recent developments have intensified the
ethnic disputes that could ultimately rip apart Iraq. Behind-the-scenes
intervention barely averted a revolt last week within the new interim
government after language guaranteeing Kurdish rights was excised from
a U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq. The Kurdish deputy prime
minister, Barham Salih, threatened to quit even before being sworn in,
and the leaders of the two main Kurdish political parties sent a letter
to President George W. Bush warning that the Kurds would boycott the
new interim government if it reneged on Kurdish rights.
The political threats are backed by muscle. The peshmerga have an estimated troop strength as high as 75,000, by far the largest independent fighting force in the country. Unlike most other Iraqi groups, their troops are professionally trained, tightly disciplined and heavily armed with tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery. They are reluctant to relinquish that power: before last week's U.N. vote, U.S. and Iraqi authorities announced an agreement to disband Iraq's "legal" (noninsurgent) militias, including the peshmerga—but Kurdish leaders quickly said their forces were exempt.
If the Kurdish-rights dispute bursts into war, it's likely to center on the Kurds' traditional capital, Kirkuk. Saddam tried to "Arabize" the city, which stands atop an estimated 6 percent of the world's oil reserves. He leveled entire neighborhoods to drive out the Kurds and encouraged Arab tribes to relocate from southern Iraq. Now the Kurds want the place back. In the days after Saddam's fall, the peshmerga evicted some 2,000 Arabs from homes in and around the city. Since then the Kurds have begun using less violent tactics, setting up land offices to help displaced Kurdish families buy out the Arabs. One local real-estate agent calculates that 5,000 or so Arabs have sold their homes to Kurds in the past year. "For 12 years we fought Saddam for one reason: to get Kirkuk," says Nasser. "The central government can have everything south of Kirkuk. The rest is Kurdistan."
Most of all, Kurds don't want other Iraqis telling them what to do. For more than a decade they effectively ruled their own territory, with U.S. air power shielding them from Saddam. Now, while Shiite and Sunni Arab leaders in the south gather for emergency talks on ways to stop the insurgents, Kurdish leaders are discussing how regional airports can be expanded to accommodate commercial traffic. They managed to get serious guarantees of Kurdish rights written into the "transitional administrative law," the interim constitution that was approved by U.S. and Iraqi authorities in March. The constitution recognized Kurdish as an official language. It allowed the Kurdistan regional government to retain control over local security forces, and it promised that victims of Saddam's Kirkuk relocation campaign would get their homes back or be given compensation.
The Kurds don't trust their countrymen to keep the deal.
In an effort to give the constitution international standing, Kurdish
leaders tried to get it mentioned in last week's Security Council resolution.
The attempt was foiled by the objection of one man: Iraq's most influential
Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. "The law, which was
written by an unelected council under occupation... is rejected by the
majority of the Iraqi people," he warned. With the June 30 deadline
for Iraqi sovereignty less than three weeks away, no one had time to
argue. The reference was dropped. The country's new interim prime minister,
Ayad Allawi, acknowledged the Kurds' trepidations. "There are reasons
[for the Kurds] to be concerned," the Shiite politician said. "Absolutely.
It's something I sympathize with." But sympathy won't mollify the
Kurds for long.
8. - Kurdistan Observer - "DEHAP Calls For Amnesty In Istanbul Demonstration":
14 June 2004
The supporters of the pro-Kurdish parties have been organizing mass demonstration in Istanbul on Sunday, reported Turkish agency Cihan yesterday.
Thousands of people including members of pro-Kurdish Democrat
People's Party (DEHAP), Free Party and Socialists
People Party gathered in the Caglayan Area in demonstration named "Isolation
to War, Dialogue for Peace."
The supporters of organizers parties from neighboring cities including Tekirdag, Bursa and Kocaeli also arrived in Istanbul to attend the demonstration.
The demonstrators chanted slogans in favor of the leader of the PKK Abdullah Ocalan serving his life sentence in Imrali Prison.
The demonstrators waived the placards read, "Dialogue
for Ceasefire", "Amnesty for social peace".