25 May 2004

1. "Court frees 27 young Syrian Kurds being tried over riots", a Damascus juvenile court freed 27 Syrian Kurdish minors being tried on multiple charges in connection with recent ethnic riots in the northeast, a Kurdish party said Monday.

2. "Turkey Will Start Broadcasts in Kurdish to Satisfy EU", Turkey will begin broadcasting in the Kurdish language on state-run television, lifting a major barrier to starting membership talks with the European Union, the foreign ministry said.

3. "Patten: EU handling of Turkey crucial to avert Islam-West clash", external relations Commissioner Chris Patten yesterday (24 May) said that the EU's handling of the Turkish bid for EU membership is a crucial factor in avoiding a clash between the West and the Islamic world.

4. "The Kurds' Angel", Charmaine Jamieson arrived in the Kurdish border town of Zakho in April without a plan. "I just came with open hands," she said. She has returned with a message for the American people. "The Kurds want us to stay. They need us. They are our friends,” she said.

5. "Lack of opportunity for girls could affect Turkey's EU hopes", whenever Turkey claimsa great leap forward in its efforts to join the European Union, whether on constitutional reform or its stand on Cyprus, girls such as Eylem Yel raise their hands in schoolrooms across much of the country and ask: "What about me?"

6. "Turkey must satisfy EU: Gül", further steps will be taken regarding broadcasts in mother tongue languages and on the rights of non-Muslim Turkish citizens, the Foreign Minister said.

1. - AFP - "Court frees 27 young Syrian Kurds being tried over riots":

DAMASCUS / 24 May 2004

A Damascus juvenile court freed 27 Syrian Kurdish minors being tried on multiple charges in connection with recent ethnic riots in the northeast, a Kurdish party said Monday.

"The juvenile court judge in Damascus asked the parents to come and collect their children who were arrested on March 14," Aziz Dawd, secretary general of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party, told AFP.

The Kurds, whose ages were not given, had been accused "of provoking trouble and attacking the image of the state, insulting the head of state, harming national sentiment, damaging state property and breaking car windows."

They all pleaded not guilty when they appeared in court on May 1.

Between March 12 and 17, Kurds clashed with Syrian security forces and Arab tribes in the north of Syria. Kurdish sources said 40 people were killed, while Syrian officials put the toll at 25.

The trouble broke out at a football match in Qamishli, 600 kilometresmiles) north of Damascus, when Arab tribesmen taunted Kurds with slogans against Iraqi Kurdish leaders and brandished portraits of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

After the riots, Syrian Kurdish groups complained authorities continued with a crackdown, making hundreds of unfair arrests, but some 300 have been freed in the past two weeks.

President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview earlier this month with Al-Jazeera television that the issue of Syrian nationality for the Kurds was being resolved.

"The Kurds are Syrian citizens who live among us, and Kurdish nationalism is part of Syria’s history," he said.

The Kurdish community has long demanded the return of the identity cards which were confiscated from almost 200,000 Kurds in 1962.

Former defence minister Mustapha Tlass said in an interview published Friday that some 20,000 Kurds would be granted Syrian nationality.

Tlass, who played a conciliatory role in calming the riots, told the Arabic daily Al-Hayat that Assad had promised them nationality because "they are really Syrians."

But he added that tens of thousands had come from Iraq and Turkey and were not Syrian.

Syria’s Kurds, estimated to total 1.5 million, represent around nine percent of the country’s population and live mainly in the north.

2. - Bloomberg - "Turkey Will Start Broadcasts in Kurdish to Satisfy EU":

24 May 2004

Turkey will begin broadcasting in the Kurdish language on state-run television, lifting a major barrier to starting membership talks with the European Union, the foreign ministry said.

The EU has called on Turkey to allow programs to be aired in Kurdish ahead of a summit in December, where Europe's leaders may vote to begin the talks. Foreign investment in Turkey would rise if negotiations begin, the government says.

``It's not only state-owned TRT, but a couple of other channels that are in the pipeline to begin broadcasting in Kurdish,'' Ahmet Acet, who heads an EU department at the ministry, said in a telephone interview. ``I think we now stand a very good chance of winning a date to start membership talks.''

The EU should start the negotiations with Turkey if the bloc wants to embrace all the countries of Europe and complete an enlargement that accepted 10 new members on May 1, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. Romania and Bulgaria are due to join the bloc in 2007.

While praising recent laws strengthening the nation's democracy, the EU says Turkey must press ahead with implementation, including more cultural rights for the nation's 12 million Kurds. TRT's executive board will meet tomorrow to decide what format the broadcasting in Kurdish will take, CNN Turk television said, citing Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

Watching Ratings

``The EU will be watching the television ratings to see if they're broadcasting programming that is attractive to Kurds,'' said Tolga Ediz, an analyst at Lehman Brothers in London. ``They really need to have a proper Kurdish channel, one that has a reasonable Kurdish content.''

The European Commission, the EU's executive, will publish a report in October on Turkey's accession prospects, which EU leaders say will play a central role in deciding whether talks should begin.

Europe should welcome Turkey, located on the borders of Iraq, Iran and Syria, to prove its committed to a continent of diverse cultures and religions, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder say.

Some European politicians, including Germany's opposition Christian Democratic Union, ahead of Schroeder's Social Democrats in opinion polls, say Turkey isn't European enough and propose a ``special relationship'' with the country instead.

Other Channels

Acet said Turkey's media regulator, which oversees television and radio broadcasts, may shortly allow ``a couple of other channels'' to broadcast in Kurdish. The channels include Gun TV, based in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, he said. The regulator has held up permits for regional broadcasting, Acet and other Turkish diplomats have said.

The commission expects Turkey to pass laws guaranteeing the rights of non-Muslim groups to own property before its October report. Turkey should appoint a civilian to replace the military officer who acts as general secretary of the National Security Council, a body dealing with security issues, the Brussels-based commission says.

Turkey would also improve the chance of starting accession talks by reducing torture, giving defense lawyers equal rights to the prosecution in the nation's courts and freeing Leyla Zana, a Kurdish former parliamentarian jailed on charges of aiding Kurdish militants, the commission has said.

Turkey first applied to join the EU four decades ago and became a candidate for membership in 1999.

3. - EUobserver - "Patten: EU handling of Turkey crucial to avert Islam-West clash":

25 May 2004 / by Mark Beunderman

External relations Commissioner Chris Patten yesterday (24 May) said that the EU's handling of the Turkish bid for EU membership is a crucial factor in avoiding a clash between the West and the Islamic world.

Speaking at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Mr Patten argued that the correct treatment of Turkey by the EU would help avert the scenario of a "clash of civilizations" between the western and Islamic world - as famously predicted by the political scientist Samuel Huntington in 1993.

Mr Patten said, "We cannot help but be conscious of the symbolism, at this time, of reaching out a hand to a country whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim".

Underlining the strategic importance of the upcoming Commission report on Turkey, which will be released next autumn, the Commissioner stated, "I look forward to the debate preceding the Commission’s opinion on the matter in the autumn. In making it, we will be conscious that we potentially pave the way for a very different EU – and that should be squarely and honestly confronted".

"We need to open the debate", Mr Patten urged, "recognising that the beginning of negotiations with Turkey, whatever the uncertainty of the outcome, would lead to a very different Turkey and very different relations between Europe and the Islamic world".

In his speech, the UK commissioner avoided predicting the exact content of the Commission's report, which will evaluate whether Ankara complies with the EU's criteria on human rights and democracy.

Europe: not to be defined by religion

But he strongly rejected defining the EU as a "Christian" club - which would make it impossible for Turkey as an Islamic country to join.

"The proposition that Europe can be defined by religion is a false one, not to say dangerous. In many ways, the European Union is a reaction against the idea that we can define ourselves by religion or ethnicity, and thus define others as beyond consideration".

On the basis of the Commission's opinion in the autumn, EU leaders will decide during a summit in December whether or not to start formal accession negotiations with Turkey.

4. - FrontPageMagazine.com - "The Kurds' Angel":

25 May 2004 / by Jennifer Verner

Charmaine Jamieson arrived in the Kurdish border town of Zakho in April without a plan. "I just came with open hands," she said. She has returned with a message for the American people. "The Kurds want us to stay. They need us. They are our friends,” she said.

Ms. Jamieson began her special relationship with the Kurds in 1991, when thousands of Kurdish refugees poured into Nashville after the first Gulf War. The city's 7,000 Kurds now make up the largest Kurdish community in the United States. She began by adopting one Kurdish family. "Helping the Kurds became my calling" said Jamieson.

Saeed Chalky, who works with Jamieson in Nashville, has a life's narrative that is very common among Kurdish refugees. Chalky lost 17 close relatives to Saddam Hussein in 1988. "There is not a Kurdish family in the world that has not lost a loved one to Saddam" says Jamieson.

The task Charmaine Jamieson has undertaken can be almost overwhelming. She is currently employed as the public relations coordinator of Kurdish Human Rights Watch. One of her major projects is finding medical care in the US for children who cannot receive necessary treatments in Iraq that could easily be found in an average American hospital.

A large album on her desk has photographs of children who need to be brought to the states, including heart patients, children suffering with debilitating skin diseases and victims of landmines. "KHRW had around 400 files before I left in April", says Jamieson, "and I came home with several more. We have around 70 files in our Nashville office."

"I don't feel that people fully understand what Saddam did to the Kurds," said Jamieson. The final fate of 182,000 of Saddam's Kurdish victims is still unknown. Jamieson visited Rizgardi, a site where she was told one hundred thousand Kurds were killed- the victims of Saddam's arabization project in 1988.

"Everyone has heard of Halabja," said Jamieson, "but Rizgardi has never been visited, much less, documented by western journalists. They need to come and tell this story. They told me that I was the first American to come and visit this village, one of many destroyed by Anfal. I was saddened by this."

The Kurds have made progress in re-building their society since the "no-fly zones" were established in 1991, but they started from nothing. For decades, Saddam's soldiers would routinely level Kurdish villages.

"They would rebuild their homes, and then the army would return and do it again." said Jamieson. Chalky's home was demolished five times between 1979 and the day he became a refugee in the early 1990s. "My experience is not unusual," said Chalky, "every Kurdish family had their houses destroyed".

"One of the striking things about walking around Kurdish cities is the number of people who have been maimed," said Jamieson. "So many people are on crutches, missing arms, or eyes. It is an indication of the horror the people have been through. I don't know how they were able to survive." And there will continue to be casualties of Saddam's atrocities. He spent 35 years laying the mines and it may take another 35 years to remove all of them. Landmines kill or injure an average of one person per day.

With Saddam gone, there is hope. Liberation has brought change, but life is still hard. Kurdish Iraq lacks basic infrastructure and healthcare. Schools are only meeting for four hours a day. "The Minister of Education is begging for educators from the US to come and participate in workshops to train their teachers," said Jamieson. Even with all the obstacles, Jamieson sees opportunity. "One of the things that excited me the most were the sheep- they were everywhere. Saddam had killed all the herds in 1988 in an attempt to destroy the livelihood of the Kurds."

Jamieson was treated like a celebrity as she traveled from Zakho to Suleymania. Happy Kurdish Children greeted her with "Haji Bush Haji Bush, Thank you America for making a monkey out of Saddam." People from all walks of Kurdish society welcomed her. They encouraged her to go and tell America the Kurd's story- the atrocities, the thankfulness, and the hope.

Her reputation as an angel of mercy, well known among Iraq's Kurds, opened doors. "Who would ever think that a farm girl from Ashland City, Tennessee, with a country accent, would be meeting with high ranking officials in the Kurdish Government, talking about a permanent military air base, phone services, and roads," she marveled.

The message she received was clear and consistent. The Kurds need not only American protection, but also American talent. "They need everything," said Jamieson, from experts to establish an efficient postal service, to computer technicians, to teachers to help rebuild the educational system. Nurses, doctors and medical equipment are in critically short supply.

Charmaine Jamieson has a vision for the Kurds in Iraq. "I don't think contracts will be enough," she said. "We need programs for American professionals. Individuals who are motivated by a sense of compassion and responsibility and who are willing to help rebuild Kurdish society need to get involved. What the American people need to understand is that the Kurds have been our friends. The peshmerga are protecting Northern Iraq for us. They deserve our loyalty and our help.

"My shoulders are so small, and the needs are so great," she said through tears. As the Kurds know, Charmaine Jamieson's small shoulders are supported by a lion's heart, and a boundless will to help her adopted people. With so much at stake in building a free and democratic Iraq, it is time for more Americans to join her in carrying the weight.

5. - The Financial Times - "Lack of opportunity for girls could affect Turkey's EU hopes":

25 May 2004 / by Vincent Boland

Whenever Turkey claimsa great leap forward in its efforts to join the European Union, whether on constitutional reform or its stand on Cyprus, girls such as Eylem Yel raise their hands in schoolrooms across much of the country and ask: "What about me?"

Eylem, aged 12, attends a primary school in Gevas, an outlying area of the eastern city of Van, about 100km from Turkey's border with Iran. She is, by agreement of her classmates, the brightest girl in the class, perhaps in the school. Yet in two years' time, Eylem's education will more than likely end, at the insistence of her father.

On the surface, it appears that the decision to keep her at home is being taken because her family cannot afford to send her to high school. But religious and social prejudices against the education of girls run deep in this poor, isolated, mountainous, predominantly Kurdish region. "I would like to be a teacher," said Eylem, "but I think my father doesn't want to send me to high school. It will be terrible for me if I cannot go, but if I don't I will stay at home and help my mother."

Eylem and the thousands of girls in her situation are an uncomfortable reminder to secular Turks of the cultural divide that separates them from much of rural Turkey. As the country modernises in its push for EU entry, the plight of uneducated girls is becoming more visible. Cultural discrimination against girls is unlikely to cost Turkey EU membership, but it is the sort of fundamental social issue that could loom large in talks if the EU agrees in De-cember to begin entry talks.

Unicef, the UN Children's Fund, says more than half of all girls aged seven to 13 do not attend school in some Turkish provinces. In some rural areas more than 60 per cent of girls aged 11 to 15 have not been enrolled.

This is despite the facts that an eight-year basic education programme is compulsory and free and that equal rights are protected by the constitution. One reason for keeping girls at home is that fathers do not want their daughters travelling in the same buses as boys. Muhyettin Mantas, imam of Atalan, a village near Gevas, says: "Often the schools are very far away, so we prefer to keep the girls at home. They can't go to school by themselves."

Turkey's education system fails many of its pupils. Some experts say there is a vast inequality between the sums spent on educating an elite group of students who become multilingual and often work abroad, and on educating the rest, a large majority of the 20m Turkish youngsters in the school system, from primary upwards, who endure run-down schools, poor facilities and a rigid curriculum acquired through rote learning.

Mostly, however, it fails girls such as Eylem. Securing a full education for girls "is the most important issue facing our education system", said Salih Celik, deputy undersecretary at the education ministry. "When we can get one more girl educated [over fatherly objections] it's a success for us."

Much is being done to address the system's shortcomings. A campaign aimed at the education of girls was launched by Unicef and the Turkish government in June last year. About 1,000 new schools were opened in 2003 in the most problematic regions, which include not just the rural east and south but also Istanbul and Ankara.

The World Bank is spending some $600m (€500m, £336m) on schools and facilities, including buses to bring children to school. These efforts are starting to pay off. The number of girls enrolling and staying on in school is slowly rising, although nobody is yet claiming victory in the war on ignorance.

Refika Kiye, a 17-year-old girl at the Fevzi Geyik school in Van with aspirations to become a doctor, is one of the lucky ones. She says the men in her family and society are "too protective" of ambitious girls such as her. Her mother strongly supports her continuing education but her brothers are against it. "If I didn't have my mother to back me up, my older brothers would not have allowed me to go to school," she said.

6. - MSNBC - "Turkey must satisfy EU: Gül":

Further steps will be taken regarding broadcasts in mother tongue languages and on the rights of non-Muslim Turkish citizens, the Foreign Minister said.

25 May 2004

Turkey cannot afford to give the European any excuses not to set a date for the opening of accession negotiations, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül said Monday.

While Turkey had been moving rapidly to put in place legislation and regulations to bring it into line with EU requirements, every effort must be made to ensure there are no grounds for the EU to reject the Turkish request for a firm date to start membership talks, Gül told a press conference.

The EU is scheduled to make a decision on whether to give Turkey a date to open accession negotiations at its December summit.

Speaking after a meeting of the EU Reform Follow-up Group, the government body established to monitor Turkey’s efforts to comply with the bloc’s membership requirements, Gül said the country had reached a very important point in its relationship with the EU.

“Accession talks should start at the end of the year,” he said. “In fact, the EU decided to open accession talks with Turkey in 2002. The date of opening of accession talks will be set during the EU’s summit in December. The EU Commission’s progress report for Turkey will have a significant impact on EU’s decision.”

“The EU will assess whether or not Turkey has fulfilled the political criteria in its progress report. Turkey has made a series of constitutional amendments and adopted a number of laws. It is the government’s prior duty to put them into practice in the best way.”

The parliament still had to amend some laws to bring them into line with recent constitutional amendments, Gül said, and new legislation, including a revised Penal Code, would be tabled shortly.
“It is very important to pass those laws complying with the Constitution, but there are also other laws after Turkish Penal Code is passed from the parliament. In fact, those laws have been prepared, but we wait for Turkish Penal Code to be passed, like appellate courts. We speed up this issue. There is also another law that has been submitted to the parliament on people who suffered from terrorism. Parliament will pass those laws in time. Parliament is working on those laws day and night.”

Another issue to be addressed was broadcasting in mother tongue languages, the Foreign Minister said.

“We have also taken some decisions on this issue,” Gül said. “We also had a meeting with State Minister Besir Atalay, responsible for the state-run Turkish Radio and Television Agency (TRT), Turkey’s secretary general for EU, the Radio and Television Higher Board (RTUK) chairman and TRT director general on Sunday. We took some measures to speed up this issue. We will make them public soon.”

“There are also some problems regarding non-Muslim Turkish citizens. We also took decisions on solution of their problems. Those issues are related to implementation. Everyone is aware of changes concerning implementation in Turkey. A part of implementation will continue during negotiation process and some of them will continue after we join the EU. We aim to further improve democracy and freedoms to the highest standards in Turkey.”