4 June 2004

1. "12 Turkish soldiers killed in attack on gendarmerie station by Kurdish rebels", the Kurdish HPG (People's Defence Forces) killed 12 Turkish soldiers in an attack on Geman gendarmerie station near the Cukurca-district in the Hakkari-province in northern Kurdistan (south-eastern Turkey.)

2. "Europe Court fines Turkey for torture", the European Court of Human Rights fined Turkey 311,000 euros ($380,300) in compensation for 15 Turks tortured at Istanbul security police headquarters eight years ago.

3. "Turkish Cypriots want seats in Euro parliament, end of sanctions", Turkish Cypriot prime minister Mehmet Ali Talat has urged EU leaders to ensure his people are represented in the European Parliament and that trade sanctions imposed on his breakaway statelet are lifted, the local TAK news agency reported Thursday.

4. "Turkish FM Gul: `It is dangerous to play with Kerkuk`", the Turkish newspaper Zaman has quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as stating, “It is dangerous to play with Kerkuk,” speaking in reference to attempts allegedly being made to change the demographics of the oil-rich, historic city.

5. "Kurds Seek Economic Lift-Off with New Airport", hidden behind hills on a highway leading to the Iraqi town of Sulaimaniya, a futuristic glass and steel building is nearing completion against the unlikely backdrop of the rolling Kurdish countryside.

6. "Denktash: can’t miss a trick", Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash said yesterday that the UN Secretary-general’s report merely thanked the Turkish side for saying yes in the referendum.

1. - DozaMe.org - "12 Turkish soldiers killed in attack on gendarmerie station by Kurdish rebels":

4 June 2004

The Kurdish HPG (People's Defence Forces) killed 12 Turkish soldiers in an attack on Geman gendarmerie station near the Cukurca-district in the Hakkari-province in northern Kurdistan (south-eastern Turkey.) This clash was reported earlier by MHA, but no war-balance or statement was released by the HPG until earlier yesterday.

The HPG said in their statement to the MHA news agency that this attack was a retaliation against Turkish military operations carried out in: May 29, Tendûrek (Agirî); May 29, Apê Musa (Diyarbekir); June 1, Shehîd Kendal (Qulp-Sason); June 1, Gelîye Zap (Hakkari)

The attack on the gendarmerie station was carried out on June 2 at 0100 (1 am.) The HPG destroyed the guard posts and a small group of guerrillas moved into the station yard, destroying 1 APC and 1 military Land Rover. A total of 12 Turkish soldiers were killed in the attack according to hospital sources. An unknown amount of soldiers were also wounded. No guerrillas have been reported killed in the offensive.

The Turkish military closed the main road between Hakkari and Cukurca after the attack. An end to the military operations in the Gelîye Zap area was also announced by the Turkish army.

2. - AFP - "Europe Court fines Turkey for torture":

STRASBOURG / 3 June 2004

The European Court of Human Rights fined Turkey 311,000 euros ($380,300) in compensation for 15 Turks tortured at Istanbul security police headquarters eight years ago.

The court said the 15 suffered ill-treatment in custody, including suspension by the arms and beatings after they were arrested during police action against Turkey's banned TKEP/L communist party in early 1996.

"The violence inflicted on them, taken as a whole and having regard to its purpose and duration, was particularly serious and cruel and capable of causing 'severe' pain and suffering," the court said in its judgment.

It added the treatment amounted to torture within the meaning of the European Convention of Human Rights.

The verdict comes just months before the European Union is due to decide whether to start accession talks with Turkey.

Ankara is lobbying the EU to give it a date to begin entry talks next year when the bloc meets in December. Turkey is the only EU candidate not negotiating entry into the bloc, because of its poor human rights record.

The court said the 15 Turks, accused of crimes ranging from homicide to using explosives, spent between 11 and 13 days in police custody. Apart from one accused, they were released between November 1996 and October 2001.

The court said it could not accept that such a long detention time without judicial intervention had been necessary.

3. - AFP - "Turkish Cypriots want seats in Euro parliament, end of sanctions":

03 June 2004

Turkish Cypriot prime minister Mehmet Ali Talat has urged EU leaders to ensure his people are represented in the European Parliament and that trade sanctions imposed on his breakaway statelet are lifted, the local TAK news agency reported Thursday.

In a letter to European Parliament president Pat Cox, Talat said EU officials should ensure the two seats allocated for Turkish Cypriots under a failed UN plan to reunify Cyprus are not be filled by Greek Cypriots after the June 13 elections.

"I ask you to undertake efforts to ensure that the Turkish Cypriot people are represented in the European Parliament ... The two seats allocated for Turkish Cypriot representatives belong justly to the Turkish Cypriot people," Talat said in the June 1 letter, TAK reported.

"If Turkish Cypriot representation cannot be ensured under EU law, the two seats should be left vacant for the time being ... Our representatives should at least be granted observer status," said Talat, whose Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) is recognized only by Ankara.

The Turkish Cypriot north of Cyprus was excluded from the EU enlargement on May 1 despite giving an overwhelming "yes" to a last-ditch UN referendum to reunify the long-divided Mediterranean island on April 24.

The settlement scheme was killed off by a massive "no" vote from the Greek Cypriot south, which joined the EU as the internationally-recognized side of the island.

The failed UN plan, which the EU supported, had allocated two of the six seats for Cyprus in the European Parliament to the Turkish Cypriots. But the Euro elections will now be held only on the Greek Cypriot side.

Only 503 Turkish Cypriots have registered to vote in the polls, and only one Turkish Cypriot is running as candidate.

Talat condemned the registration of Turkish Cypriots in the elections on the south as "an unnecessary and harmful" bid by the Greek Cypriots to mislead the international community that both sides were participating.

He also wrote to the prime ministers of EU member countries, urging them to accelerate efforts to lift trade sanctions imposed on the TRNC, as a reward for the strong "yes" that Turkish Cypriots gave to the UN settlement plan.

"We want the release of material and technical support (259 million euros) that we have been promised... to be speeded up," TAK quoted Talat as writing.

"The only way out that will save us from economic isolation is direct trade, including the opening (to international traffic) of our air and sea ports," Talat added.

4. - Kurdish Media - "Turkish FM Gul: `It is dangerous to play with Kerkuk`":

NEW YORK / 3 June 2004

The Turkish newspaper Zaman has quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as stating, “It is dangerous to play with Kerkuk,” speaking in reference to attempts allegedly being made to change the demographics of the oil-rich, historic city.

FM Gul made this and other statements regarding Kerkuk upon returning to the Turkish capital of Ankara from Saudi Arabia, where he reportedly discussed the Cyprus issue and terrorism. In an apparent attempt to justify Turkey’s concern regarding Kerkuk, FM Gul stated, “This issue concerns not only Turkey but all the other neighboring countries. We are conducting a careful study of Kirkuk. We follow closely the developments.”

Less than a day after US forces entered Baghdad, Kurdish forces liberated Kerkuk, which is now under control of the American-led occupation authority and a multi-ethnic city council. The city, known by Kurds as the “heart of Kurdistan” and “Jerusalem of Kurdistan”, is dominated by Kurds politically and culturally. While many Kurdish families previously expelled from Kerkuk by the Arab Ba’athist dictatorship have returned to the city, many others are still waiting to return to their ancestral homes.

During the Iraqi Arab Ba’athist dictatorship’s Arabization campaign, a large number of Kurdish and Turkmen families were expelled from Kerkuk and replaced by families of Arab settlers in an attempt to give the city an Arab majority. The government of the Republic of Turkey has consistently demanded that no change to Kerkuk’s demographics take place. It seems that this statement would mean that the Turkish government demands that both Kurds and Turkmens who lost their homes during the Arabization campaign not be allowed to return – conduct which is unbecoming of a government that claims to look after the interests of Iraq’s Turkmen, a Turkic people related to the Turks of Turkey.

5. - Reuters - "Kurds Seek Economic Lift-Off with New Airport":

SULAIMANIYA / 2 June 2004 / by Seb Walker

Hidden behind hills on a highway leading to the Iraqi town of Sulaimaniya, a futuristic glass and steel building is nearing completion against the unlikely backdrop of the rolling Kurdish countryside.

The terminal is the first stage in a nearly $40-million project to build Iraqi Kurdistan’s first commercial airport out of the airfield that in 1988 sent Iraqi planes to drop chemical weapons on the Kurds of Halabja killing more than 4,000 people.

Kurds hope the new commercial airport on the site which ousted dictator Saddam Hussein used to launch his "Anfal" (repression) campaigns against the minority Kurds will now serve as a focal point for luring investors.

They say the region has managed a degree of stability that has eluded much of Iraq, providing a hopping off point for ventures in infrastructure, tourism and farming.

"The runway was built in 1985 for the transportation of government troops to carry out Anfal operations," said site operations manager Tahir Qadir.

"Now it will be used for tourism, trading, and making relationships between Kurds and the world."

The joint venture between local Kurdish authorities and the Turkish construction company AGS will be able to handle four flights a day to Istanbul or Amman, according to officials, with the first passenger planes due to take off in January 2005.

Half of the laborers and engineers involved in the project are from neighboring Turkey, while the other half are Kurds hoping to gain valuable construction experience which they can put to work on projects springing up in Kurdistan’s cities.

"We have a capacity gap in our technical knowledge since our engineers were never allowed to go out of the country," said Herish Muharam, chairman of the Agency for Reconstruction and Development, which handles projects for the Kurdish administration in Sulaimaniya.

"I’m now preparing tenders for a sports stadium, for tunnels through the mountains," he said. "These things have never been constructed here, and we don’t know about many of the technical aspects -- but we’re keen to learn."

ATTRACTING INVESTMENT

Officials see the project as the backbone of a wider plan to attract foreign investment to Kurdistan, which has avoided the kinds of clashes seen in other Iraqi cities ahead of the June 30 handover of power to an Iraqi government by the U.S.-led administration.

Apart from suicide bombings in February which killed more than 100 people in Arbil, the three Kurdish regions have been calm, a far cry from the uprisings and hostage-taking which are driving some companies out of Baghdad.

Kurds point to their region’s experience with autonomy for its roughly 5 million people as another bonus for investors, saying it makes it more amenable to a free market than the rest of Iraq, where there was a higher degree of state control.

The Kurds, who have run northern Iraq under U.S. protection since breaking away from Baghdad’s rule after the 1991 Gulf War, say they are doing their best to attract foreign capital to fuel economic growth.

Though much of the economy is based on livestock or fruit production in the mountainous region, cities are enjoying a relative economic boom.

The Board of Promoting Investment for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Sulaimaniya helps potential investors by providing services from providing security to preparing official documents and helping to cut through local bureaucracy.

Two months ago, the administration in Sulaimaniya, controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, implemented a new law granting a raft of sweeteners to foreign investors.

These included exemptions from all tax and customs duty for five years, free land leases for big projects and the right to take all profits out of the country.

"Even in Arab Gulf countries you don’t have this kind of flexibility and we’re ready to be more flexible," said Adil Karim, director of the newly-created investment promotion board.

Karim said persuading foreign business that the Kurdish zone was safer than other parts of Iraq remained a challenge, but the new law had helped attract increasing levels of investment from businesses in Turkey and the Gulf.

There are almost 200 private construction projects in Sulaimaniya, land prices have risen about 300 percent since the U.S.-led invasion, and most factories have been rented to foreign firms including British and Dutch companies, Karim’s office says.

Kurdish officials anticipate a large influx of investors to the region following the completion of the airport project, scheduled for December 21.

"After we open the airport many more people will come," Karim said. "Kurdistan will be the starting point for investment in Iraq."

6. - Cyprus Mail - "Denktash: can’t miss a trick":

4 June 2004

Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash said yesterday that the UN Secretary-general’s report merely thanked the Turkish side for saying yes in the referendum. Denktash, who was sidelined by the international community and refused to attend the last phase of negotiations, said the report was inadequate for the Turkish side. He said the Greek Cypriots, who were heavily criticised in the report, had

“played their tricks and preserved their bargaining power”. “Those who induced us into saying yes with false promises are now looking on us from afar and confining themselves to only saying that they will try to help us,” he said.

“Secretary-general Annan, who applauded Greece's non-interference in the affairs of the Greek Cypriots, merely extended a thanks as a reciprocation for Turkey's great role in persuading us into saying yes.’ Denktash, who had campaigned openly for a ‘no’ vote in the north because he wanted two separate states, said he would issue a more detailed statement when he had read the report more carefully.

“No Turkish Cypriot can break into smile today,” he said. “This is the day when the Turkish Cypriots should do some serious thinking. It is very saddening that the people, deceived by the promise of recognition, villas, peace and integration with the world, have been thrown into such a situation. The remedy lies in standing up, forcefully and persistently, for our own state and sovereignty.”