7
June 2004
2. "Austria says Turkey and EU not ready for Turkish membership", The Austrian government signalled over the weekend that it will oppose Turkish membership of the EU in the near future.
3. "Why now?", The declaration of the end of the five-year ceasefire by Kongra-Gel (Kurdistan People’s Congress), formerly know as the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), brings with it the question: “Why now?”
4. "Liberated Kurds Find Little Freedom", Since the creation of the Kurdish autonomous area in 1991, Kurds have been doing everything they can to create their own society. But that does not mean they get their news in Kurdish.
5. "Mosque and State in Turkey", It was a disappointment recently when Turkey's president vetoed a law that would grant graduates of religious high schools equal access to the nation's secular universities.
6. "UN plan still basis for deal", Athens and Nicosia yesterday pledged their determination to persist with efforts to reunite Cyprus, while acknowledging that the undertaking might take some time.
1. - Reuters - "Turkish Kurd rebels renew fight from Iraqi mountains":
By Seb Walker / 7 June 2004
NEAR RANIA - Turkish Kurd rebels holed up in the mountains of northern Iraq said they had ended their five-year ceasefire with Turkey and would renew their fight for a Kurdish homeland that has cost 30,000 lives.
Known as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) till 2002, the rebels suffered a body blow in 1999 when Turkey captured their leader Abdullah Ocalan and largely retreated to the remote peaks of north Iraq, vowing to give up the armed struggle.
But Turkey’s army never let up in its campaign to crush the PKK and US forces in Iraq have said they would hunt down the rebels in their mountain stronghold near the Iranian border.
Iraqi Kurd groups are also hostile to their Turkish cousins.
“The Turkish state has never complied with the ceasefire — up until now their operations are continuing,” said Zubeyir Aydar, president of KONGRA-GEL (Kurdistan People’s Congress), the PKK’s latest reincarnation.
“During the ceasefire, they have not made a step forward, but instead taken a harder line.” He said some 500 rebels had been killed by Turkish forces in the last six years. Some 30,000, most of them Kurds, were killed in the conflict up until 1999.
Far from the fighting in central and southern Iraq, the entire eastern swathe of northern Iraq’s Kurdish zone is officially controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), an Iraqi Kurdish group allied with Washington.
But north of Rania, a small town at the foot of the Qandil mountains, PUK peshmerga checkpoints thin out and disappear.
After a two-hour drive through spectacular scenery of dizzying ridges and deep mountain gorges filled with crystal-clear water, there is a sudden indication of why the road is eerily devoid of vehicles and PUK peshmerga militia. A huge mural depicting Ocalan is etched onto the hillside — a sign that this is PKK territory.
Aydar said there had been an upsurge in fighting in the mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey between Turkish forces and rebel fighters. Ankara says hundreds of the 5,000 PKK fighters thought to be in north Iraq have returned to Turkey in recent months.
Aydar said civilians would not be targeted although the group has
also warned foreigners against traveling to Turkey. “We will
adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Any forces that don’t will
be condemned by us,” Aydar told Reuters.
2. - EUobserver - "Austria says Turkey and EU not ready for Turkish membership":
By Mark Beunderman / 7 June 2004
The Austrian government signalled over the weekend that it will oppose Turkish membership of the EU in the near future.
Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner said during a debate on Sunday (6 June), "Our honesty obliges us to say that Turkey is not ready yet today for EU membership. But the EU is not ready for such a step either. Because this is what it comes down to as well - namely that the Union must also be able to accomodate the (Turkish) accession."
According to reports in the Austrian press, the Austrian Prime Minister Wolfgang Schüssel backed Ms Ferrero-Waldner, stating that both Turkey and the EU were unprepared for Turkish membership.
Greek prime minister supports Ankara
However, during the same debate in Austria, the Greek Prime Minister
Kostas Karamanlis defended the Turkish application to join the EU,
saying, "I believe that a European Turkey will be to the advantage
of us all".
Mr Karamanlis told Die Presse that he was confident that secpticism towards Turkish membership in countries such as Austria and Germany could be overcome.
Praising the current pace of democratic reforms in Turkey, Mr Karamanlis said, "The movement which is taking place now will convince many".
Is the EU ready for Turkey?
EU leaders will decide during a summit in December whether or not to start formal accession negotiations with Turkey.
They will base their decision on a crucial report by the European Commission on the democracy and human rights situation in the country, to be released in mid-October.
But recently, the debate has not only focused on the readiness of Turkey to join the EU.
Increasingly, sceptics of Ankara's application stress that the EU is not ready to welcome Turkey either.
They claim that Turkey, a relatively poor country with a large population, would absorb many of the EU's structural funds.
At the same time, the country would become the second largest EU
state, allowing Ankara potentially to block many of the EU's decisions
taken by qualified majority.
3. - KurdishMedia - "Why now?":
7 June 2004
The declaration of the end of the five-year ceasefire by Kongra-Gel (Kurdistan People’s Congress), formerly know as the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), brings with it the question: “Why now?”
It is true that the Turkish armed forces have continued to launch operations against the organisation despite its unilateral ceasefire. But then Turkey never actually accepted the ceasefire and has always had the policy of “not negotiating with the terrorists.”
Furthermore, during the past five years the PKK has attempted to transform itself, i.e. changing the name of the organisation and bringing in new faces etc. The message that it was sending to the world was that the organisation had now abandoned armed struggle and that it would fight through “democratic means”, in line with Ocalan’s project of Turkey becoming a "Democratic Republic". Thus, ending the ceasefire goes against the past five-year "metamorphosis" of the organisation, contradicting its declared aims and ideals.
Let us recall that the PKK launched an armed struggle to establish a Kurdish state. Since this is not the objective of PKK/Kongra-Gel anymore, is the resuming of the armed struggle solely for the purpose of self-defence of the organisation? A further question to pose regarding this decision could be whether it is an attempted quick fix to the crisis that the PKK has found itself in since the capture of its leader?
But more importantly, considering the recent developments in southern Kurdistan, is it really in the interest of the Kurdish nation to resume armed struggle at this very moment, notwithstanding the efficiency of armed struggle in solving the Kurdish question? Considering that the Kurdish people in north Kurdistan suffered the most from the conflict and that everyone has welcomed the end of the fighting, is it really the best option to re-launch the armed struggle?
Even more importantly, Turkey has recently been passing several reform packages. Although they do not even satisfy the basic Kurdish demands and that there is a serious lack of implementation, it is at the very least a start in the right direction. Looking back a decade ago, when even the word "Kurd" was a taboo and its utterance could have one thrown in jail, the current slow and painful transformation of Turkey is significant. Especially from the point of an organisation that aims for a "Democratic Republic" and for a solution "within the boundaries of Turkey."
Finally, during the past months Turkey’s policy towards southern Kurdistan has undergone a slow shift. Turkey has realised that its policy towards Iraq and southern Kurdistan does not correspond to the reality on the ground and that it does not have an influence in the decision making process unlike other regional powers. The "red lines" it draws are not being respected. Also, while Iran influences the Shias and Arab states influence the Sunni Arabs, Turkey lacks a close ally in the country due to its animosity towards the Kurds. Thus, keeping in mind the need of Iraqi Kurds for a strong ally in the region and the economic potential of Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey seems to change its attitude towards southern Kurdistan from enemy to allies. A symbolic sign of this shift came from the Turkish foreign minister who called and congratulated Barham Saleh for his appointment as a deputy prime minister.
These developments are welcome and something that the Kurds are in
much need of. Starting an armed struggle is bound to damage all these
different developments negatively from a Kurdish perspective.
4. - Inter Press Service (IPS) - "Liberated Kurds Find Little Freedom":
ARBIL (Iraq) / by Aaron Glantz / June 4, 2004
Fruit and vegetable vendors push their carts around a street market in Arbil, the seat of governance of Iraqi Kurdistan. The city is very different from Baghdad. Kurdish is spoken here, and written large on shop windows. Also, there is no visible American troop presence.
The streets are patrolled not by American soldiers in tanks and humvees, but by kalashnikov-carrying Peshmerga guerrillas on foot patrol.
Since the creation of the Kurdish autonomous area in 1991, Kurds have been doing everything they can to create their own society. But that does not mean they get their news in Kurdish.
Kurds of all ages crowd around the television in Arbil's Machko Cafe as al-Jazeera broadcasts news of Iraq's interim constitution.
A big reason we are watching al-Jazeera and al-Arabia is the fact that they focus on breaking news, says 63-year-old writer Kerem Sheharizah. Recently there is another channel opened by America called al-Hurra (the freedom) and we can benefit from that by getting another perspective.
Kurdish broadcasters have been unable to build a network of reporters to compete with al-Arabia and al-Jazeera. That is partly because Kurds do not have as much money as their counterparts in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates where the satellite news channels are based.
But it is also because Kurdish broadcasters have a different goal. The nightly news on Kurdistan Television is essentially a summary of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani's day.
Mr. Masoud Barzani has so many activities and he visits so many places and we have to broadcast it, KTV station manager Shiwan Amurr Yusuf says.
This channel is related to the Kurdistan Democratic Party so although we have freedom to do what we want, we also have to bring the viewer all the breaking news about this party, he adds.
Masoud Barzani's KDP effectively serves as the government of half of Northern Iraq. The other half of Iraqi Kurdistan is controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which owns and controls the only other Kurdish television station in the area, KurdSat.
PUK members say the party has good reason to control the news broadcast on KurdSat. Hakim Umar from the PUK's foreign office says the media is a major tool for propaganda in keeping Iraq from splitting apart.
If you let the people talk themselves, they will ask for independence from Iraq, he says. But the media that has been talking to them for many years helps them come back to federalism because federalism is the best way for us. That's the meaning of Kurdish media. We got a message for our people that it is the right thing to live in Iraq with federalism.
It is hard to find people here willing to talk openly against either of the ruling Kurdish parties. While nowhere near as oppressive as Saddam's regime, the U.S.-backed Kurdish leaders of Northern Iraq have virtually banned dissent.
The area even has its own secret police, the Asayeech, to keep people in line. Kurds outside Iraq are often critical of this, but most of them see the current leadership by the two armed factions as a temporary step on the road to ultimate separation from Iraq.
We're not as dumb as people think we are, or as dumb as certain Kurdish leaders think we are, says Kani Xulam, director of the Washington-based American Kurdish Information Network, who favours independence. Federalism may be the only option now, but you need to give the people the benefit of the doubt and say 'we'll have to ask them what it is they want'.
Xulam points out that a small Kurdish newspaper dedicated primarily
to cultural news opened recently in Northern Iraq, the first media
voice that is independent of the local Kurdish leaders. He hopes it
will be the first of many, not the last of its kind.
5. - The New York Times - "Mosque and State in Turkey":
June 6, 2004
When looking for hopeful signs that Islam and democracy can indeed coexist, the international community turns to Turkey. So it was a disappointment recently when Turkey's president vetoed a law that would grant graduates of religious high schools equal access to the nation's secular universities.
The veto is a setback to religious freedom and equal opportunity in Turkey, preconditions for a flourishing democracy. That said, the debate over education reform is itself encouraging as it engages the central problem of Turkish democracy — how to build an inclusive secular state when the majority's religion, as interpreted and practiced in much of the world, does not recognize a separation of mosque and state.
The education bill was passed by the conservative, Islamist-leaning majority in Turkey's Parliament, in power since 2002. It was opposed by Turkey's staunchly secular elite, a group that includes the military and has long dominated virtually all walks of Turkish life.
This elite fears that religiously trained university graduates may become a farm team for conservative, even fundamentalist, political parties. But in their fear, they run the risk of undermining Turkey's democracy. More secular education, not less, is the best protection from fundamentalism.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who graduated from a religious school himself and supports the education reform, assumed office in 2003 on a wave of popular support but under a cloud of suspicion for his Islamist roots. Those fears have proved unfounded. Mr. Erdogan has worked hard to prepare Turkey for talks on joining the European Union, and displayed skillful diplomacy on Cyprus.
When the education reform was passed in May, Turkish financial markets dropped on fears that the military might intervene to defend the secular order. The worst didn't happen. The president vetoed the bill on legalistic grounds and the ruling party plans to redraft the proposal.
The issue needs addressing. Turkey's 536 religious schools are coeducational
and, with the exception of Koran study, teach the same curriculum
as nonreligious schools. Their 64,500 students are as much Turkey's
future as are the sons and daughters of the secular elite.
6. - Kathimerini (Greece) - "UN plan still basis for deal":
5 June 2004
Athens and Nicosia yesterday pledged their determination to persist
with efforts to reunite Cyprus, while acknowledging that the undertaking
might take some time.
Following a meeting in Athens with his Cypriot counterpart, Giorgos
Iacovou, Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis said Greece would “always
stand by the side of Cyprus.”
“Our target always remains to reunite Cyprus on the basis of
the Annan plan,” Molyviatis said. “I believe some time will
be required before the conditions arise that will allow the effort
to restart.” In a referendum on April 24, one week before the
island’s European Union entry, Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly
rejected the peace plan drafted by United Nations Secretary-General
Kofi Annan. At the same time, Turkish-Cypriots approved the deal.
Following talks with Annan in New York late on Wednesday, Cypriot
President Tassos Papadopoulos said the UN plan should be the basis
of any new talks, adding that any attempt to resubmit the document
to referendum as it was “would constitute a great insult to our
people.”