8
June 2004
2. "Kurdish attack in Turkey rekindles fear over rebels", The attack on government troops by Kurdish militants last week--one day after rebels ended a 5-year-old cease-fire -- has prompted concern among diplomats and analysts of renewed violence in the southeast and other parts of Turkey.
3. "PUK and KDP agreed to disarm their militants!", The PUK and the KDP, according to the agencies, have agreed to disarm peshmerga forces and peshmerga forces are labeled militia forces, a name that the PUK and KDP are not comfortable with.
4. "Iraq's unity at risk if Kurdish demands not met", Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani warned that Iraq's unity could be at risk if a forthcoming U.N. resolution did not endorse autonomy granted to Kurds under the present interim constitution.
5. "Prosecutor demands reversal of DGM verdict", The prosecutor's office calls for annulment of a DGM decision to imprison four former DEP deputies
6. "Turkey temporarily recalls envoy to Israel", Turkey has temporarily recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations following sharp exchanges with its ally prompted by an increase in violence in the Middle East, an official Turkish source said on Tuesday.
1. - AFP - "Four soldiers wounded after clash with Kurdish rebels":
DIYARBAKIR (Turkey) / June 7, 2004
Four Turkish soldiers were wounded Monday in a clash with Kurdish
rebels in eastern Turkey, security sources in the mainly Kurdish town
of Diyarbakir said.
A security sweep was launched after the fighting at Bingol, the sources
said.
Turkish soldiers killed four militants of the separatist group Kongra-Gel,
formerly known as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), last Friday in
Ovacik.
One soldier was wounded in another clash in Elazig.
The Kurdish separatists ended a nearly five-year-old ceasefire last
Tuesday. They had declared the truce after their leader, Abdullah
Ocalan, was arrested in 1999. The group has also warned foreigners
against travelling to Turkey.
The unrest comes as the country prepares to host a NATO summit on
June 28-29, to be attended by US President George W. Bush.
Turkey has never acknowledged ceasefires declared by Kongra-Gel, 5,000
of whose militants are hiding out in the mountains of northern Iraq.
Little fighting had been reported in Kurdish-majority southeastern
Anatolia since 1999.
2.
- Chicago Tribune - "Kurdish attack in Turkey rekindles fear
over rebels":
DIYARBAKIR (Turkey) / By Catherine Collins / June 8, 2004
The attack on government troops by Kurdish militants last week--one day after rebels ended a 5-year-old cease-fire -- has prompted concern among diplomats and analysts of renewed violence in the southeast and other parts of Turkey.
The concerns were underscored by the rebels' warning to foreign tourists and business people to stay out of Turkey as they renew their fight.
The feared escalation of violence comes at a crucial time for the Turkish government. Ankara has improved its human-rights record and granted new freedoms to the Kurdish minority in an attempt to win approval in December to start negotiations to join the European Union.
The militant group, known by various names over the years, including the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, and more recently as KONGRA-GEL, ended open hostilities with the government in 1999 after 15 years of conflict that took 37,000 lives on both sides. But the cease-fire was marred by constant, low-intensity skirmishes.
Clashes had escalated in recent months. Selahattin Demirtas, head of the Diyarbakir Human Rights Association, said 26 rebel fighters and soldiers have been killed in the past two months, the bloodiest period since 1999.
While a statement from the militants said they were responding to increased attacks from the government, some observers said the violence may reflect a last-ditch effort or a change in tactics by the rebels.
"The PKK is considerably reduced as a fighting force, so maybe now they have in mind a different sort of violence, less confined to the southeast and more in line with recent conventional terrorist efforts," said Ian Lesser, vice president of the Pacific Council on International Policy, which is based in Los Angeles.
"Maybe the PKK thinks that this is the time to push their own case. But in doing this, they are demonstrating to the world at large that they are a terrorist group, just as Turkey has claimed all along," Lesser said.
A U.S. official in Turkey said the end of the cease-fire was not significant because the insurgents never observed the peace anyway.
"The point is that the PKK or KONGRA-GEL are terrorists, and short of disbanding themselves there is nothing that can be done to change that," the official said. "They have used the cease-fire only as a propaganda tool."
Even after the militants declared the cease-fire, the Turkish government refused to negotiate with them. The government, which regards the group as terrorists, vowed to continue its military campaign until all militants surrendered or were killed.
Turkish intelligence forces estimate that 4,500 Kurdish militants are hiding in northern Iraq and that hundreds have slipped back into Turkey in recent months. The Turks have pressed Washington to crack down on the militants in Iraq, but so far U.S. troops have not taken significant action, according to Turkish officials.
The government used the new threat to appeal for international support in fighting the rebels.
"We expect countries committed to the fight against international terrorism to strengthen solidarity and cooperation in this field," Namik Tan, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said last week.
For their part, the insurgents argue that the government is using the conflict in Iraq to attempt to eradicate the group and its supporters in Turkey.
"The cease-fire's political and military meaning has been lost with the Turkish state's destructive operations," said a KONGRA-GEL statement on the Web site of the pro-Kurdish, Germany-based Mesopotamia news agency.
As the heart of Turkey's Kurdish region, Diyarbakir has not experienced the prosperity that might have been expected to follow the cease-fire five years ago. The city is overcrowded with people displaced from their villages during years of conflict, and the economy is in tatters. The sight of long army convoys carrying hundreds of soldiers to conflict areas is increasing tension among the people of the region.
Demirtas, the human-rights official, praised the government for recent reforms but said the road to peace requires that rebels be allowed to relinquish their weapons and return home with full amnesty.
At the office of the Democratic People's Party, the only Kurdish
political party in Turkey, Chairman Celalettin Birtane claimed KONGRA-GEL
no longer is fighting for a separate Kurdish state and only wants
recognition of its cultural rights. He said the increased fighting
was only the group's "active self-defense."
3. - KurdishMedia - "PUK and KDP agreed to disarm their militants!":
London / 7 June 2004
The US-imposed Iraq’s interim Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, has announced that the Kurdish peshmerge are amongst nine of the country’s major "militias" that will be disbanded, with militia members either joining the country’s security service or re-entering civilian life, reported news agencies on Monday.
The PUK and the KDP, according to the agencies, have agreed to disarm peshmerga forces and peshmerga forces are labeled militia forces, a name that the PUK and KDP are not comfortable with.
The US have bowed to Muqtada Al-Sadir’s pressure and the US have dropped its demand for the cleric’s arrest. Al-Sadir, unlike PUK and KDP, refused to disarme his Mahdi Army.
Kurds believe that the beginning of the end of the nearly 13-year-old
Kurdistan de facto state has started.
4. - Reuters - "Iraq's unity at risk if Kurdish demands not met":
Nechirvan Barzani says U.N. should endorse interim constitution and Kurdish rights in Iraq
ERBIL / 8 June 2004 / by SEB WALKER
Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani warned that Iraq's unity could be at risk if a forthcoming U.N. resolution did not endorse autonomy granted to Kurds under the present interim constitution.
The latest draft does not mention the interim constitution, which includes a clause that would allow Kurds to veto any attempt to encroach on their autonomy in northern Iraq.
But the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has objected to any Kurdish veto and says he will not back a U.N. resolution that endorses the constitution.
Kurds have enjoyed autonomy from Baghdad in their northern enclave since the 1991 Gulf War, but many fear the government that will take over from the U.S.-led administration on June 30 may try to bring them back under central rule.
Barzani said the Kurdish leadership would withdraw from central government in Baghdad if the the U.N. resolution did not recognise the interim constitution protecting their autonomy.
"It would be a great disappointment for the Kurdish people -- we would not oppose the Americans, but we would not participate in Baghdad," Barzani told Reuters in an interview, adding that the unity of Iraq was "certainly at risk".
"We are not bluffing here, we are serious -- it's the right of our people," said Barzani, who is head of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil.
U.N. ambassadors are due to discuss the latest draft of a resolution sponsored by Britain and the United States, hoping to overcome objections to earlier versions from other members of the Security Council.
The resolution is needed to give international endorsement to Iraq's interim government.
Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush a few days ago threatening to boycott national elections due in January and, in effect, secede from Iraq if the United Nations did not recognise the interim constitution.
The interim constitution contains a clause included at the insistence of the Kurds that would allow a permanent constitution to be vetoed if enough Iraqis in one region rejected it. The clause effectively allows the Kurds to veto any attempt to undermine their autonomy.
The constitution was adopted in March against the wishes of leaders of the 60 percent majority Shi'ite community, especially Sistani, who opposes any endorsement of the document in the U.N. resolution.
Kurds overlooked
Kurdish leaders are concerned the guarantees to their autonomy could be overlooked in the same way they say Kurdish candidates were overlooked for the top posts of prime minister and president in the new interim government named last week.
Barzani said the shape of the new interim government was a sign that Kurdish demands were not taken seriously, pointing out that even former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein had appointed Kurds to some positions of power.
"Under Saddam's rule we also had a Kurdish vice-president. (Saddam) never had the conviction that the Kurdish question should be solved -- today it's the same thing," he said.
"The U.S. wants to satisfy and appease others at the expense of the Kurds, but there is no doubt the Kurds can also create problems."
Barzani said the Kurds had information that Sistani had backed the new Iraqi government only on condition that there would be no reference to the interim constitution in the U.N. resolution.
"Democracy? New Iraq? These are slogans - we want something
we can rely on," he said.
5. - Turkish Daily News - "Prosecutor demands reversal of DGM verdict":
The prosecutor's office calls for annulment of a DGM decision to imprison four former DEP deputies
ANKARA / 8 June 2004
The Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor's Office has asked for the annulment of a sentence handed down to former Democracy Party (DEP) deputies Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak by the Ankara State Security Court (DGM). The reason for the annulment was cited as administrative.
The Ankara DGM in a retrial had approved once again the sentences imposed on the four former deputies on Dec. 8, 1994. The prosecutor's office forwarded its decision to the 9th Criminal Bureau of the Supreme Court of Appeals.
The European Court of Human Rights had decided that the previous sentences and the DGM trial were unfair and had called for a retrial, citing the existence of a military member in the court.
The Turkish government removed the court's military member before the DGM approved the previous court's decision. In a recent move to harmonize with European Union norms, the government passed several constitutional amendments, including one that abolished the DGMs, thus paving the way for the release of the former deputies as demanded by the EU.
The prosecutor's office noted that the removal of the military member of the DGM had necessitated a repeat of the entire court procedure during the retrial, which was not done.
A list of the violations was included in the prosecutor's office statement. Despite the European court decision for a retrial, the DGM decided that a reading of the court's decision and the solicitation of comments from the involved parties were sufficient. The witness statements and press and police reports that were heard in the first trial were not read out in the retrial. The statement also noted that the court's refusal to hear all witnesses produced by the defendants was a violation of their right to a defense.
The court's refusal to ask for a re-examination of a tape recording by objective experts showing the defendants' alleged involvement in a terrorist organization was also cited as a violation. The office said the European court's objection raised against the reliability of witnesses Sedat Edip Bucak and Halit Aslan, whose statements were read at the first trial, should have been sought by the court in order to provide new statements.
If the Supreme Court of Appeals finds in favor of the prosecutor's office decision, the defendants will be retried. However, this time around, they will face the specialized organized criminal courts that will be set up to replace the DGMs.
If the Supreme Court of Appeals Ninth Criminal Bureau finds in favor
of the DGM decision, the defendants have the right to appeal. The
prosecutor's office can also appeal the ninth court's decision at
the Supreme Court of Appeals General Assembly, whose decision cannot
be appealed.
6. - AFP - "Turkey temporarily recalls envoy to Israel":
ANKARA / June 8, 2004
Turkey has temporarily recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations
following sharp exchanges with its ally prompted by an increase in
violence in the Middle East, an official Turkish source said on Tuesday.
Turkish Ambassador to Tel Aviv Feridun Sinirlioglu and the consul
general in Jerusalem arrived separately in Ankara "for regular
and ordinary consultations", a Turkish official told AFP speaking
on condition of anonymity.
They are due to return to their posts "in the course of the week",
the official added.
Turkey has been Israel's chief regional ally for almost a decade.
But tensions have risen in relations between the two after unprecedented
harsh criticism by Turkish officials of crackdowns on the Palestinians
in the
Gaza Strip, which claimed many civilian lives.
Last month, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described
Israel's military operations as "state terror". Israel riposted
saying the comment was "extremely regrettable".
Turkey then tried to temper the exchanges saying there was no change
in its ties with Israel.
Bilateral relations reached their peak in 1996 when the two countries
signed a military cooperation accord to the great chagrin of the Arab
world.