3
May 2004
2. "Nine Turkish soldiers died in clashes with the Kurdish HPG", People's Defence Forces (HPG) carried out two attacks yesterday and the day before against the Turkish army, killing nine soldiers and wounding eight, several of them heavily.
3. "Syria-Kurds-justice", Twenty-seven Syrian Kurdish minors are being tried on multiple charges in connection with recent ethnic riots in the northeast, Kurdish parties said Sunday.
4. "Syria's Assad says no foreign hand in Kurd riots", Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in remarks aired on Saturday that no evidence had been found linking riots by Syrian Kurds in March to any foreign group.
5. "Turkey Is a Challenge for Expanding EU", Turkey's geographical, cultural identity prevents EU membership; Asian nation has 99% Muslim population
6. "Turks Bear The Consequences", The issue of Cyprus has occupied the Turkish newspapers' front-pages in the past two years.
1. - AFP - "Turkish police detain 41 people for links with Kurdish rebels":
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey / May 2, 2004
Police in this mainly Kurdish southeastern city said Sunday they had detained 41 people with links to armed Kurdish rebels who were allegedly preparing to carry out petrol bomb attacks on government buildings.
Police also seized 25 petrol bombs and "illicit" banners in the operation, a written police statement said.
The detainees are suspected of having links to the Kurdistan People’s Congress (KONGRA-GEL), an offshoot of the former Kurdistan Workers Partywhich led a bloody 15-year armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey’s southeastern corner.
The rebellion -- which claimed more than 36,000 lives -- has largely subsided since 1999 when PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured and the group declared a ceasefire to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Turkish officials, who have brushed aside the PKK truce as a ploy,
estimate that about 5,000 Kurdish rebels have since found refuge in
the mountains of northern Iraq.
2. - DozaMe.org - "Nine Turkish soldiers died in clashes with the Kurdish HPG":
April 30, 2004
People's Defence Forces (HPG) carried out two attacks yesterday and
the day before against the Turkish army, killing nine soldiers and
wounding eight, several of them heavily.
The HPG Central Command said in a statement sent to the Kurdish news
agency MHA, that the attacks were carried out as retaliations for
the death of five Kurdish guerrillas in two different Turkish military
operations in northern Kurdistan last week.
The Turkish army had carried out two military operations in the mountains
of Amanos and Gabar, killing three guerrillas in Amanos and two in
Gabar.
In their first retaliation, the Kurdish guerrillas attacked a military
vehicle near Mila Gurîya on the mountains of Cudi, killing six
soldiers and wounding four. In the second retaliation carried out
on the bridge of Besta Sor between Cizre and Shirnak, three Turkish
soldiers died and four were wounded.
The top HPG commander Murat Karayilan, stated recently that "if
the war of annihilation against our guerrilla forces carried out by
the Turkish army continues, we have no other choice but to spread
our war of defence."
The Turkish army has conducted several major military operations in
northern Kurdistan in a very short time, aiming to annihilate the
Kurdish HPG forces. Sporadic clashes continue in the area.
3. - AFP - "Syria-Kurds-justice":
27 young Syrian Kurds being tried over riots: groups
DAMACUS / May 2, 2004
Twenty-seven Syrian Kurdish minors are being tried on multiple charges
in connection with recent ethnic riots in the northeast, Kurdish parties
said Sunday.
"The juvenile court judge in Damascus has filed charges, including
some criminal charges, against 27 Kurdish minors arrested on March
14," the parties
said a statement received by AFP here.
It said the Kurds, whose ages were not given, are 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."
The youths, who are represented by four lawyers, all pleaded not guilty.
Between March 12 and 17, Kurds and Syrian security forces and Arab
tribes clashed 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 kilometres
(375 miles) north of Damascus, when Arab tribesmen taunted Kurds with
slogans
against Iraqi Kurdish leaders and brandished portraits of deposed
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Since the riots, Syrian Kurdish groups have complained authorities
have continued with a crackdown, making hundreds of unfair arrests.
Syria's Kurds, estimated to total 1.5 million, represent around nine
percent of the country's population and live mainly in the north.
4. - Reuters - "Syria's Assad says no foreign hand in Kurd riots":
DAMASCUS / May 1, 2004
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in remarks aired on Saturday that no evidence had been found linking riots by Syrian Kurds in March to any foreign group.
"The investigations that have been conducted did not prove any foreign intervention...so far we do not see any external link," Assad said in an interview with the Qatar-based television station al-Jazeera.
About 30 people were killed in unprecedented clashes between Syrian Kurds and police in March after a soccer match brawl in the northern town of Kameshli escalated.
Officials suggested that there could be a foreign link in the disturbances but did not accuse any specific group.
Kurdish politicians have said the allegations could drive a wedge between Arabs and Kurds as it suggested that Kurds were traitors to Syria.
Kurds make up about two million of Syria's mainly Arab 17 million population. They have often demanded the right to teach their language and the right to Syrian citizenship for some 200,000 stateless Kurds.
Assad said in the interview that Damascus had been working on a solution to the issue of stateless Kurds when the riots and clashes took place.
He said he was fulfilling a promise he made during a visit in 2002 to the northeastern province of Hassaka, home to most of Syria's Kurds, to solve the problem created when a 1962 census left several thousand Kurds stateless.
Earlier on Saturday a lawyer and Syrian Kurdish parties said 27 Kurdish minors arrested during unrest in Damascus in March were facing trial on charges ranging from inciting riots to holding the president in contempt.
They said the youths, under 18, questioned in a juvenile criminal court, denied the charges that also include harming national sentiment and undermining the state's standing.
Syrian officials were not immediately available for comment.
DETAINED AFTER RIOTS
Khalil Maatouk, a lawyer defending the youths, told Reuters they had been detained after riots in Damascus and that their charges carried jail sentences of one month to two years.
He said the detainees should be sent home or held in a juvenile rehabilitation centre pending trial rather than in the capital's main jail.
Syrian Kurds have accused the authorities of arbitrarily arresting hundreds from their community and torturing some to death since the unrest in March in the northeast and Damascus.
Syria has not released its own figures, but officials have said that most of those arrested were held for a few hours only to stop violence.
Kurdish parties said in a statement that families of the 27 detainees had not been allowed to visit them since their arrest.
"We condemn these dangerous charges against them just because they are Kurdish children and reiterate that the state's standing cannot be imposed with repressive means and human rights violations but with democratic reforms," said the statement, faxed to Reuters in Beirut.
Maatouk said the next hearing was scheduled for May 24, but the court was expected to rule on Monday on whether the 27 should be released on bail.
(Additional reporting by Lin Noueihed in Beirut)
5. - Associated Press - "Turkey Is a Challenge for Expanding EU":
Turkey's geographical, cultural identity prevents EU membership; Asian nation has 99% Muslim population
ISTANBUL, Turkey / By JAMES C. HELICKE / May 2, 2004
For teacher Aydin Unesi, Turkey in the European Union means the freedom to study Kurdish, his mother tongue. For Ulku Yukseler, a retiree, it marks the final step in this country's long dream to be accepted as part of Europe. To Erdogan Cece, a sandwich vendor, it simply means cheaper bread.
Only it isn't about to happen. As 10 more countries joined the European Union on Saturday, Turkey was left out, and one of the toughest political and moral challenges to the European superstate-in-the-making remains unresolved.
The issue goes to the core of Turkey's geographical and cultural identity -- an Asian country with a geographical foothold in Europe, and a secular republic whose population of 68 million is 99 percent Muslim.
In Europe, Turkey's ambitions arouse strong passions.
There's Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president charged with writing the EU constitution, saying flatly that Turkey isn't European and its entry would mean "the end of the European Union."
And there's Bavarian Gov. Edmund Stoiber, a leading German conservative, saying "Turkey comes from a very different religious and cultural tradition" and "would disrupt Europe's community bond."
But there's also British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, saying Turkish membership in the overwhelmingly Christian EU could bridge the Muslim-Christian divide and help the war on terrorism.
"Think about the alternative," he says. "If we start to push Turkey away from the European family, where does it then go?"
The Bush administration supports Turkey's ambitions. It views Turkey as a valuable NATO ally and an example of how Islam and democracy can coexist peacefully.
In Istanbul, selling meatball sandwiches from a van for about $1 each, Cece, 50, welcomes the economic benefits Turkey would reap from joining the prosperous EU, but believes that's the only reason Turkey wants to join. "It's not an issue of us loving Europe or them loving us."
And anyway, he says, "They won't take us because we're Muslim."
Of the 11 countries that petitioned the EU for membership in 2002, only Turkey was rebuffed.
The EU will decide in December whether to begin membership negotiations with Turkey. Another snub could severely weaken the government, damage its recovery from economic meltdown in 2001, and throw its whole relationship with Europe into question, says Suat Kiniklioglu, director of the Ankara Center for Turkish Policy Studies.
"No one wants to even talk about that possibility because it's going to be messy," Kiniklioglu said.
It would likely slow reforms pushed through to qualify for EU membership, such as more rights for the Kurdish minority.
Unesi's language school in eastern Turkey last month won permission to teach Kurdish, a language spoken by millions in Turkey but previously outlawed in the classroom.
"Kurdish courses just would have never been possible had it not been for the pressure from the European Union," Unesi said.
To 52-year-old Yukseler, a member of the educated elite who lives in a posh Ankara suburb, "Europe means civilization," and Turkey must work harder on human rights, education and the rule of law in order "to reach that level of civilization and become European."
It's a sentiment that dates at least to the 1920s, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey's great Westernizer, banned Islamic dress, Latinized the Arabic alphabet and transformed the country into a modern, secular republic.
In recent years, as the EU has expanded, the nation has been like a come-from-behind athlete exercising furiously to get into shape for the major leagues. The results -- foreign businesses and imports, ATMs, glassy skyscrapers and cell phones -- are evident among the majestic mosques and labyrinthine bazaars of Istanbul.
The cause is so popular that religious conservatives who once were staunchly opposed are among the strongest backers. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who used to belong to a pro-Islamic party, has made it his top priority.
Richard Whitman, an analyst with the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, says Turkish membership brings into question where the bounds of Europe are drawn. With Turkey inside, they would reach Syria and Iraq. Also, Turkey would be the EU's biggest member and its second most populous.
"It will be a country that carries the same weight as Germany,"
Whitman said. "That will be much more difficult to digest."
6. - Dar Al-Hayat (Beirut) - "Turks Bear The Consequences":
by Marc Sayegh / 2 May 2004
The issue of Cyprus has occupied the Turkish newspapers' front-pages in the past two years. The matter is no longer about a small divided island, or about tens of thousands of Turks who migrated from Anatolia to form a "shield" for the Turkish part of the island. For Turkish media, the Cyprus issue has become the wide gateway to the European continent and its institutions. It was no coincidence that the Cypriot referendum on the future and unity of the island, according to the plan of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, coincided with the anticipated European decision to open the dialogue with Ankara concerning its possible accession to the EU one day, as a full fledged member. Turkish media with all their susceptibility, from the nationalist like Hürriyet, to the liberal like Milliyet and Posta, as well as the Islamic moderates such as Zaman and Yeni Safak, and a large number of magazines, websites, and television programs, like that of prominent Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand on CNN Turk TV, suggested reuniting the island, from a relief angle, or in order to limit the impasse that separates the Ottoman heir from the European continent. This impasse created clashes within the Turkish society, and led to unexpected surprises.
Hürriyet, which is excessive in its secularism and love of the army, opposed the concessions made by Erdogan's Islamic government concerning the issue of Cyprus, abandoning President Rauf Denktash of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), who is opposed to uniting the island, and Europe, which was in the near past the role model of secular Turks. It wrote: they wish to sell Cyprus, and tomorrow, we will be discussing the Aegean Sea…
These writings expressed an historical Turkish fear, which is somewhat similar to the fear that we see in the countries of the Middle East. However, this does not reflect the majority of the Turkish public opinion; especially since the discussion of the European matter in Turkey, has reached an irreversible depth; like discussing issues of culture, human rights, centralization of army, and getting rid of the picture of the "leading father" Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
At the beginning of the year, Milliyet wrote: finding a solution for Cyprus might lift off an important obstacle in the road of Turkey towards democracy. Those who are against any democratic change in Turkey are the supporters of the current situation in Cyprus, and the island has become their last stronghold. If this stronghold falls, the doors of EU would open for Ankara… there is an organic relation between a political solution for Cyprus, and the project of reviving democracy in Turkey...
Yeni Safak confirmed that the biggest obstacle for resolving the Cypriot issue is on the Turkish side… on the side of Rauf Denktash who enjoys Turkish protection, and takes his power from Ankara, rather than from his Turkish Cypriot citizens… Moreover, non-national Turkish media expressed its comfort in summer 2002, when the local elections in the Turkish part of Cyprus, showed the desire of Turkish Cypriots to unite the island, join Europe, and get rid of the presence of the Turkish army. This desire also included the Turks who migrated to Cyprus in the 1970s… The problem is that even during the latest Cypriot elections, the Turkish media believed that the key to a solution is up to the Turkish side.
This is why the latest results (75% of Greek Cypriots voted against Annan's plan), came as a slap for Turkey. "The dream is over," wrote Zaman. However, problems ensued: will the EU recognize the Turkish part of Cyprus, knowing that so far, only Ankara recognizes the TRNC?
As for the Turkish side, how could Ankara open the European file, when its army occupies a part of a European country? How could Ankara accept that a Greek Cypriot embassy and flag be located on its territory? Will the EU ask Turkey to pay indemnities for the Greek Cypriots who migrated from the Turkish part of the Island?
The intrigue in this thorny issue, and in the way media outlets in
Istanbul deal with it, is its restriction on two sides: Turkey and
Europe; and the absence of any allusion about the real obstacles which
led to the results of the Cypriot elections, and to the European firmness
in starting dialogue with Ankara. The Middle East, with its wars,
fundamentalists, and violence, was absent from the discussion, although
it is the principal reason for the Greek Cypriots' refusal of the
idea of coexistence with a Muslim minority, and for the European refusal
that a country like Iran, Iraq, or Syria, becomes on its borders,
because of the ignition of violence that this might cause. The democratic
secular Turkish example could not by itself hide the dangerous Middle
East. In other words: Arab fundamentalists act, and Turks bear the
consequences…