6 June 2005

1. "Turkish justice minister opposed to foreign trial for Kurdish rebel Ocalan", Turkish Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said Sunday he was opposed to a retrial of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan taking place in a foreign country, Anatolia news agency reported.

2. "Kurdish rebels kill four Turkish soldiers in ambush in southeastern Turkey", Kurdish rebels ambushed a Turkish commando unit overnight, killing four soldiers and wounding one in southeastern Turkey as the rebel command threatened to escalate the violence across the country, reports said Sunday.

3. "Six Turkish soldiers injured in land mine explosion", a land mine planted by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members exploded under a military vehicle in southeastern Turkey on Friday, injuring six soldiers.

4. "Turkey PM urges curbs on Kurd guerrillas", the prime minister of Turkey, one of Washington’s most important Muslim allies, said Friday he will urge President Bush to clamp down on Kurdish guerrillas who are infiltrating into Turkey from mountain strongholds in northern Iraq.

5. "Turkey still on course to join EU, says Gul", Turkey believes it is still on track to become a full member of the European Union, in spite of last week's referendum defeats for the constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands.

6. "Turkey campaigns against 'honor killings'", victims slain for perceived slights to respectability of their family.

7. "Syria jails Kurdish politician", Syria's Supreme State Security Court has sentenced a Syrian Kurd politician, convicted of seeking secession, to three years in jail.

8. "Kurds wounded in Syria protests over cleric's death", several Kurds were wounded Sunday in the Syrian town of Qamishli in clashes with security forces as they protested to demand an inquiry into the killing of a Kurdish cleric, Kurdish officials said.

1. - AFP - "Turkish justice minister opposed to foreign trial for Kurdish rebel Ocalan":

ISTANBUL / 5 June 2005

Turkish Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said Sunday he was opposed to a retrial of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan taking place in a foreign country, Anatolia news agency reported.

Cicek said he had not received any request to move the trial overseas and that such a move was "inconceivable."

Last month the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Kurdish leader should be retried on grounds that his 1999 trial, in which he was sentenced to death for treason, was unfair. That sentenced was commuted to life in prison in 2002.

Turkish authorities said they would abide by the European court ruling.

But in order for a new trial to take place Ocalan must request it and he has refused to do so on grounds he would not receive a fair trial in Turkey, according to his lawyers.

On Wednesday, Ocalan, who was head of the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), said through his lawyers that he wanted to be tried outside of Turkey by a special tribunal set up by the Council of Europe.

The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and a number of Western countries including the United States. Between 1984 and 1999 the rebels waged an armed struggle against Turkish forces in which about 37,000 people died.

2. - AP - "Kurdish rebels kill four Turkish soldiers in ambush in southeastern Turkey":

ANKARA / 5 June 2005 / by Selcan Hacaoglu

Kurdish rebels ambushed a Turkish commando unit overnight, killing four soldiers and wounding one in southeastern Turkey as the rebel command threatened to escalate the violence across the country, reports said Sunday.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, one of Washington's most important Muslim allies, said in an interview Friday he would urge President Bush to root out bases of Kurdish guerrillas infiltrating into Turkey from northern Iraq.

The increasing violence could threaten the economy of Turkey, which says it has spent about $100 billion fighting the rebels since 1984. It also could make it harder for the government, under pressure from the European Union, to improve the cultural rights and freedoms of its restive Kurdish population.

The rebels opened fire on a small unit of Turkish commandos patrolling the rugged area near the village of Cicekli in Tunceli province. Four soldiers – including a sergeant, corporal and two privates – were killed, while one person was wounded, local officials said. The troops pursued the guerrillas from the air with warplanes and attack helicopters, the Anatolia news agency said.

The overnight attack coincided with a warning from the rebel command to escalate the fight if the army maintained its military drive, the pro-Kurdish Ozgur Gundem newspaper reported Sunday.

"These (military) operations lead the violence to increase and expand to a wider area. This will inevitably not only affect the region but Turkey more strongly," the newspaper quoted rebel commander Bahoz Erdal as saying.

Rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, declared a unilateral cease-fire in 1999 after the capture of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The rebels broke the truce last year, saying the Turkish government had not responded in kind.

Turkey refuses to negotiate with the rebels, whom it calls terrorists. The rebel group also is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the EU.

Turkey is now demanding that U.S. and Iraqi officials crack down on Turkish Kurdish rebels who, for more than a decade, have taken advantage of instability in Iraq to run their rebellion from hideouts in predominantly Kurdish northern Iraq.

More than 37,000 people have died in the conflict since 1984.

3. - The New Anatolien - "Six Turkish soldiers injured in land mine explosion":

4 June 2005

A land mine planted by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members exploded under a military vehicle in southeastern Turkey on Friday, injuring six soldiers.

The explosion occurred as the soldiers were traveling in southeastern Elazig province, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The six were flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital, the agency said. A military operation was underway in the region.

There has been a recent surge in clashes between the PKK and Turkey's military in the region. Several people have been killed as result of conflict since 1984.

4. - AP - "Turkey PM urges curbs on Kurd guerrillas":

ANKARA / 4 June 2005 / by Louis Meixler

The prime minister of Turkey, one of Washington’s most important Muslim allies, said Friday he will urge President Bush to clamp down on Kurdish guerrillas who are infiltrating into Turkey from mountain strongholds in northern Iraq.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said Turkey would press on with its campaign to join the European Union, arguing that anti-Turkish sentiment was not a major factor in this week’s rejection of an EU constitution by voters in France and the Netherlands.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of his Wednesday meeting at the White House, Erdogan said he wants the guerrilla bands of Turkish Kurds "to be totally taken out of northern Iraq."

At least 14 Turkish soldiers and 49 rebels have died since March in guerrilla attacks after a lull of several years, and the fight is becoming an increasingly sore point in already strained relations between the two NATO allies.

Turkish leaders have repeatedly demanded that the U.S. military move against guerrillas loyal to the Kurdistan Workers Party, which has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey for two decades.

But U.S. forces have their hands full with the Iraqi insurgency. American commanders are not willing to spare soldiers to chase guerrillas from bases in the forbidding terrain of northern Iraq, a Kurdish region that is one of the few stable spots in Iraq.

Erdogan said the problem has to be addressed.

"They are involved in armed training in northern Iraq and they infiltrate into Turkey," he said, sitting in the garden of his official residence. "Unfortunately terrorism which is being nourished there is continuing to create trouble."

Turkish intelligence officials say some 2,000 Kurdish guerrillas have moved into Turkey this year to launch attacks and estimate there are 3,500 more in Iraq. Some 37,000 people have died in the fighting since 1984.

The issue is extremely sensitive for Turks, many of whom blame the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq for the rise in fighting.

Turkish leaders also worry that the growing power of Iraqi Kurds in their home region could encourage the rebels in southeastern Turkey and increase aspirations for a pan-Kurdish state that would take parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Erdogan’s demand for action comes amid a slow recovery in U.S.-Turkish relations that were damaged by Turkey’s refusal to let U.S. troops or warplanes operate from Turkey during the Iraq invasion.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was angered by that rebuff, said in March that Iraq’s insurgents would be weaker if Turkey had permitted American soldiers to open a northern front in the Iraq war.

Erdogan complained that some officials and news commentators began questioning the value of the U.S.-Turkish partnership after the differences over the Iraq war.

"These are steps that are being taken by people with bad intentions who are trying to cast a shadow over our solidarity. We will never allow this to happen," he said.

Erdogan also is certain to talk to Bush about Turkey’s bid for European Union membership, which Washington has strongly supported.

Erdogan said he was disappointed by the French and Dutch referendums, but insisted they were not caused by opposition to EU membership for his predominantly Muslim nation.

He said he expected EU governments to accept Turkey’s bid once his country completes reforms. In 10 to 15 years the EU "will be a place where civilizations meet. ... It will become a global power with Turkey’s accession," he said.

Some opponents of the proposed EU charter have cited Turkish membership as a worry. There is growing opposition in Europe to immigration from Muslim countries and serious questions about whether the EU should allow in a mostly poor, Muslim country of 70 million people.

But Erdogan said fears of Turkish membership were not the primary concern.

"In France there was no anti-Turkish sentiment," he said. "There was some in the Netherlands, but even there, unemployment, economy, security were at the forefront."

Erdogan has largely staked his premiership on winning membership for Turkey, which once was the heartland of the Ottoman Empire but is now a secular state that sees itself as a bridge between European and Asian cultures.

"I would have wished that the results in France or the Netherlands were not as such," Erdogan said. "There is a negative climate prevailing."

But, he added, "an EU which is on its way to becoming a global power will overcome this."

5. - Financial Times - "Turkey still on course to join EU, says Gul":

5 June 2005 / by Haig Simonian

Turkey believes it is still on track to become a full member of the European Union, in spite of last week's referendum defeats for the constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands.

In the first comprehensive comments by a senior official, Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, said potential Turkish membership had not played a big role in the emphatic No votes.

"Turkey wasn't the reason for a No in these referendums. It wasn't about full Turkish membership of the EU," he said.

By contrast, the leaders of Austria and Slovenia, two EU member states with the biggest doubts about Ankara's accession, showed clear reservations in the wake of last week's decisions.

At the annual European Forum organised by the Lower Austria state government, Wolfgang Schüssel and Janez Jansa, the Austrian and Slovenian leaders, were conspicuously silent about Turkey, while stressing the need for the EU to embrace Romania, Bulgaria and the western Balkans.

The idea of Turkish membership is deeply unpopular in Austria and Slovenia, partly because of the predominantly Islamic state's relative proximity to countries on the EU's eastern fringes.

Mr Schüssel had been among those expressing caution in the run-up to the decision to open accession talks with Ankara next October. "I think we should go forward unemotionally, professionally and step by step," he said.

Mr Jansa said Turkish membership should be made subject to a referendum, and criticised the French government for not grasping the degree of anti-Turkish sentiment, which had helped swing the No vote in France.

Mr Gul said: "We will continue to live up to the expectations of our people and deliver on further reforms."

He argued that Ankara remained committed to encouraging free speech and addressing difficult issues in Turkey's past, in spite of the cancellation of an academic conference on the alleged genocide of Armenians under the Ottoman empire.

Mr Gul said the conference, organised by Istanbul's Bosphorus University, had been "postponed" and that the importance of the meeting had been exaggerated abroad, as such issues had already been widely discussed in Turkey.

The conference, bitterly attacked by Turkish nationalists and a senior minister, had been widely seen as a breakthrough on what has been a taboo subject.

Armenians, backed by a number of governments, describe the events of 1915 as a genocide in which up to 1.5m people were killed. Turkey recognises large numbers died, but alleges atrocities took place on both sides and puts these in the context of the chaos of the first world war and the twilight of the Ottoman empire.

6. - New York Times - "Turkey campaigns against 'honor killings'":

Victims slain for perceived slights to respectability of their family

ISTANBUL / 5 June 2005 / by Sebnem Arsu

In a nondescript building in a remote part of Istanbul, a young woman sat in front of a television on a recent day watching a chilling scene unfold.

Panning across the dank walls of a cave, the camera stopped on a primitive drawing of a female form, then dissolved into a modern crime scene showing the chalk outline of a woman's body on a road.

"Every year, dozens of women fall victim," said the menacing voice of Atilla Olgac, an actor who plays the most fearsome character on Turkey's most popular television drama. "Don't be a part of this shame; don't turn a blind eye to murders committed in the name of honor."

The video is part of a nationwide campaign in Turkey to bring an end to so-called honor killings, in which a woman is killed by her husband or a male relative for behavior that is perceived as a slight to the dignity and respectability of her family.

Rights organizations in Turkey and abroad have long denounced the practice as brutal and unfair to women; men who engage in the same activities are not held accountable.

The 24-year-old woman was watching a preview of the television spot with officials from a women's shelter. She had been staying there for three days, the latest stop in a series of moves intended to keep her at a safe distance from a family that had decided she must return to her abusive husband or die.

Identified by shelter officials only as Nazan, she was married against her will when she was 15 and had three children.

Nazan said she fled her home after years of physical abuse and returned to her family declaring that she wanted a divorce. She begged to stay with her father for safety, but she said he considered her actions an affront to the family honor, and in an effort to force her back to her husband became abusive himself, leaving knife scars on her arms, legs and back.

According to official records, 43 women in Turkey were victims of honor killings in 2004. But human rights activists say the number is far greater than that, with families reporting deaths as suicides or simply filing missing persons reports.

"Women's groups have been active in raising consciousness to prevent honor killings in the past few years but what they needed was a national campaign to support their work," said Nilufer Narli, a sociologist from Kadir Has University in Istanbul.

She praised the campaign, which also includes billboards and fliers. "Panels and conferences reach the elite, but you need television and movies to reach people in the street."

The media campaign in Turkey is the first combined effort on the issue of honor killings involving both governmental and nongovernmental groups.

Turkey, in hopes of being granted entry into the European Union, is working to bring its human rights standards in line with those of the West.

A new penal code, ratified in September 2004, eliminated "protection of family honor" as a mitigating circumstance in murder trials and introduced heavier penalties in honor killing convictions.

7. - Reuters - "Syria jails Kurdish politician":

5 June 2005

Syria's Supreme State Security Court has sentenced a Syrian Kurd politician, convicted of seeking secession, to three years in jail.

Ahmad Qasem was sentenced to five years in jail but his term was commuted to three years.

"The charge is belonging to a group that seeks to split territory off from Syria," said Faisal Badr, a lawyer who attended Sunday's court session.

Qasem belonged to the banned Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party in Syria and has been in custody for 30 months, Badr said.

He questioned the validity of the ruling because it was made by a court formed under an emergency law introduced in 1963.

Syrian human rights activists have sought an end to the emergency law, but the government links the law to the country's war with Israel and not to internal affairs.

Kurdish rights

Several banned Kurdish political groups in Syria, which has an estimated two million Kurds, demand the right to teach their language.

"Ahmad Qasem was sentenced to five years in jail but the term was commuted to three years. The charge is belonging to a group that seeks to split territory off from Syria"

They also demand citizenship, which is required for state education and employment, for about 200,000 Kurds classified as stateless based on a 1962 survey.

Three Kurds belonging to another banned faction were sentenced to 30 months in jail in May on similar separatist charges.

Later on Sunday, riot police dispersed a demonstration by hundreds of Syrian Kurds in the northeastern town of Kameshli, residents said.

The demonstration was organised by two other banned Kurdish parties, Yikiti and Azadi Kurdish Party in Syria.

Deadly football brawl

A Kurdish politician in Damascus said thousands had taken part in the peaceful demonstration seeking an end to what he described as extraordinary treatment of Syrian Kurds. He said several Kurds were injured.

"They used tear gas after some of the demonstrators fired shots toward the police," said a non-Kurd resident by telephone from the town.

Officials were not immediately available for comment.

In 2004, about 30 people including policemen were killed in Kameshli when a brawl after a football match triggered riots and clashes with the police.

President Bashar al-Assad pardoned 312 Syrian Kurds accused of taking part in the violence in March.

8. - AFP - "Kurds wounded in Syria protests over cleric's death":

DAMASCUS / 5 June 2005

Several Kurds were wounded Sunday in the Syrian town of Qamishli in clashes with security forces as they protested to demand an inquiry into the killing of a Kurdish cleric, Kurdish officials said.

"The clashes took place in the east of the city between security forces and demonstrators who wanted to join in with the other demonstrators," said Aziz Daud, head of the Democratic Progressive Kurdish Party.

Three demonstrators were wounded by gunshots while others, including women were hurt after being hit by members of the security forces, who shot in the air to disperse the demonstrators, he told AFP by telephone.

"At the end of the clashes, fifty shops belonging to Kurds were gutted and pillaged by Baathist militias or their sympathisers," he added.

The secretary general of the Kurdish Yakiti party, Hassan Saleh, told AFP that young Kurdish demonstrators had been wounded and spoke of dozens of arrests.

The death of popular Islamic leader Mohammed Maashuq Khaznawi, was announced Wednesday by a Kurdish political leader, following the cleric's disappearance on May 10.

The Syrian government announced it had arrested two of a five-member "criminal gang" charged with kidnapping Khaznawi, but Kurdish officials and Khaznawi's family remained sceptical and have called for a complete investigation.

The demonstrators wanted to march through Qamishli, the northeast Syrian town 680 kilometres (420 miles) from Damascus where the cleric was born, but were prevented by Syrian security forces, said Daud.

He said the demonstrators were able to walk 500 metres (540 yards) before they were dispersed.

The demonstrators called for the formation of "an impartial commission composed primarily of Kurdish lawyers."

The 46-year-old Kurdish cleric was vice-president of the Centre for Islamic Studies in Damascus and was held in high regard by Kurds and Syrians alike.

He was a staunch defender of Kurdish rights in Syria and harshly criticised the Syrian state.

Shortly before he disappeared, Khaznawi took a trip to Europe where he met with Kurdish officials as well as Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanuni, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Islamist group is banned in Syria.

The Kurdish population in Syria is estimated at 1.5 million, about nine percent of the population.

Some 200,000 Kurds have been denied Syrian citizenship, which makes it difficult for them to find work in the socialist, government-controlled economy.

In March 2004, several days of violent clashes pitted Kurds against Arabs and Syrian security forces. Kurds claimed 40 were killed, Syrian sources said 25.