11 January 2007

1. "Recent Study Estimates 1.2 Million Kurds Forcibly Displaced", the recent release of a long-awaited study on the size of Turkey’s population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has refocused attention on this enduring problem, raising questions about Ankara’s dedication to addressing the issue.

2. "Wave of Accusations for 'Insulting Turkishness' Reached Taner Akcam", Turkey has officially launched an investigation against Taner Akçam, the first Turkish intellectual to recognize the Armenian Genocide as such, thus ‘insulting Turkishness', reports The Armenian Reporter, referring to Turkish magazine The Radikal, according to PanARMENIAN.Net.

3. "Cyprus: Turkish Military Angry At Footbridge's Demolition", a decision by officials in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus to make an overture to Greek Cypriots in Nicosia by demolishing a controversial footbridge has provoked a rift with the Turkish military deployed on the island.

4. "Turkey vows more EU reforms", Turkey vowed on Wednesday that 2007 would not be a "lost year" for its relations with the European Union, despite an EU decision to suspend its entry talks in eight policy areas over the Cyprus dispute.

5. "A 16-year cycle of treachery", Iraqi Kurds and the U.S.

6. "Turkish PM warns Iraqi Kurds over Kirkuk", Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday Turkey could not stand idly by if Iraqi Kurds seized control of oil-rich Kirkuk in northern Iraq, though he did not spell out what Ankara might do to prevent such a scenario. Erdogan fears the Kurds want to carve out an independent state in northern Iraq, embracing Kirkuk, which could in turn fan separatism among its own Kurds living in southeast Turkey.

1. - Eurasia - "Recent Study Estimates 1.2 Million Kurds Forcibly Displaced":

10 January 2007 / by Yigal Schleifer

The recent release of a long-awaited study on the size of Turkey’s population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has refocused attention on this enduring problem, raising questions about Ankara’s dedication to addressing the issue.

Turkey’s IDP problem is connected to the turbulence of the 1980’s and 1990’s, when Turkish security forces battled guerillas from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the country’s predominantly-Kurdish southeast region. More than 30,000 individuals on both sides are believed to have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.

In an effort to root the guerillas out of the countryside, Turkish forces forcibly evacuated thousands of villages. The number of those displaced has always been under dispute. The Turkish government insisted that some 350,000 Kurds were forced to move because of the fighting, while Kurdish groups and human rights organization put the number at anywhere from 1 million to 4 million.

Under pressure from the United Nations and the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, Ankara commissioned in 2004 a study to determine the size of the IDP population and their living conditions. After some delay, the government released the study – conducted by the Institute of Population Studies at Hacettepe University in Ankara – in December.

The study estimates the IDP population to be between 950,000 and 1.2 million – almost triple the government’s original numbers. Observers say the study’s data and its population estimate provide a solid baseline measure to assist in the reformulation of aid and development programs for IDPs. It also gives a clearer indication of the severity of the IDP problem.

"You are talking about masses of people who were displaced without any planning and are utterly impoverished. You had entire families emigrating overnight, often without any property, and without any national or international assistance," says Dilek Kurban, a researcher at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), an Istanbul-based think tank that has conducted its own research on the IDP issue. "These people have been displaced and abandoned for the last 10 or 15 years, and only now are we starting to talk about justice and compensation."

The Turkish government insists that it is tackling the IDP problem, pointing to a 2004 compensation law passed by parliament, intended to provide financial restitution to displaced Kurds. Officials also play up the Return to Village and Rehabilitation Project (RVRP), which is supposed to help IDPs make their way back to their homes.

But while describing both the compensation law and RVRP as positive steps, human rights workers and legal experts say there are serious problems with how they have been conceived and implemented. According to the Hacettepe University study, only 53 percent of the IDPs are aware of the compensation law, and 50 percent know about the RVRP. Meanwhile, in a recently released report, Human Right Watch said the compensation law failed to offer the IDPs "fair and appropriate redress."

"Turkey’s compensation law offered hope that the government would finally compensate hundreds of thousands of displaced people for their losses at the hands of the military," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Now these displaced villagers have been victimized yet again by the arbitrariness of a compensation process that was supposedly established to help them."

Legal experts say one of the main problems with the law is that compensation is determined by local assessment commissions in the areas where villages were emptied, and whose members have little experience with legal work or restitution issues. According to the HRW report, this has often led the commissions handing out absurdly low compensation amounts. In one example, the damage assessment commission in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir awarded a family that has had no access to its house, crops, or silkworm business since they were destroyed by soldiers in 1993 an overall total of 5,000 Turkish Lira (TL) (US$3,350).

"The law was a political step," says Ilhan Bal, general secretary of the Istanbul office of Goc-Der, the main IDP advocacy group. "It didn’t work to solve the real problem of the IDPs; it was merely done for appearance’s sake."

The IDP issue goes beyond compensation, other experts contend. The IDPs – mostly farmers in their previous lives – have largely migrated to Turkey’s big cities, where many have become part of the chronic underclass. "In terms of integration into urban areas, the government has not done anything," says TESEV’s Kurban. "There is no plan to deal with these people, who need training, housing, education. They need everything."

Tamer Aker, a professor of psychiatry at medical school of Kocaeli University, near Istanbul, says the IDP population also presents a public mental health challenge that needs to be addressed. "The migration and displacement process have been very difficult for them. This was an involuntary migration. They didn’t want to leave," says Aker, who has worked closely with IDPs in the Kocaeli area.

"There are so many traumatic issues. The problem is widespread and needs community mental health solutions," Aker continued.

In an Istanbul neighborhood mainly populated by IDPs, the offices of a branch of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) serve as the regular meeting point for a group of former villagers from the southeast. A 38-year-old who would only give his name as Ramazan says he has only been able to find sporadic work as a day laborer since being forced out of his village 18 years ago.

"I’m simply trying to survive in Istanbul. I’m in the big city and it’s very difficult. I come from different earth," he says. "In the village, I was working the land and raising cattle. I just haven’t been able to catch up to the technological life in the city."

His village, near the city of Tunceli in the southeast, is still considered an off-limits military zone, Ramazan says. Still, he longs to return. "My children haven’t seen our village. I hope they get the chance," he said.

According to the Hacettepe study, close to 50 percent of IDPs said they would like to return to their villages. But Goc-Der’s Bal says there are still serious hurdles that are keeping the IDPs from returning. Security in the southeast remains questionable, with clashes between government forces and the PKK militants resuming after a lull of a few years. Many cleared out villages are now surrounded by mine fields that need to be cleared, while their infrastructure -- roads, schools, sewage and electricity – would have to be rebuilt.

"I think if the state did the necessary things, people would go back to their villages," Bal says. "These people need to be able to decide their own fate."

2. - Yerkir - "Wave of Accusations for 'Insulting Turkishness' Reached Taner Akcam":

YEREVAN / 10 January 2007

Turkey has officially launched an investigation against Taner Akçam, the first Turkish intellectual to recognize the Armenian Genocide as such, thus ‘insulting Turkishness', reports The Armenian Reporter, referring to Turkish magazine The Radikal, according to PanARMENIAN.Net. The Istanbul newspaper Radikal has reported that an official investigation has been opened against University of Minnesota Akçam, who claims that, the Armenian deportations of 1915 and following constituted genocide. Radikal broke the story on January 9, 2007.

In an October 6, 2006, newspaper column in the Turkish Armenian journal Agos, Akçam criticized the prosecution of Agos managing editor Hrant Dink for using the term `genocide,' thereby `insulting Turkishness' under the notorious Article 301 of Turkey's penal code. Highlighting the term `genocide,' Akçam declared himself an accessory to the charges against Dink, and urged readers to join in Dink's support.

Akçam is the author of A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, which has been widely and positively reviewed in the United States, and has brought a great deal of public attention lately to the author and the subject of the Armenian Genocide.

3. - AKI - "Cyprus: Turkish Military Angry At Footbridge's Demolition":

ISTANBUL / 10 January 2007

A decision by officials in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus to make an overture to Greek Cypriots in Nicosia by demolishing a controversial footbridge has provoked a rift with the Turkish military deployed on the island. Work to dismantle the footbridge situated at Lokmaci gate, in the heart of the Cypriot capital, began on Tuesday. The bridge, used by Turks, had stirred controversy as one side of the structure lay in an area Greek Cypriots say is off-limits. Knocking it down is regarded as a first step towards opening Ledra Street, the traditional heart of Nicosia's commercial district, giving Greek Cypriot access to Turkish shops.

Turkish Cypriot president Mehmet Ali Talat said he intended the demolition as a good-will gesture.

But Turkish military commanders have complained against Talat's decision. The president of the Turkish Republic of Nothern Cyprus - a state only recognised by Turkey - flew to Ankara last Friday for talks with Turkey's foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, who has tried to mediate between Talat and the Turkish chief of staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit.

Dozens of local people as well as members of the press gathered at the site on Tuesday to watch the demolition. Police boosted security measures at the base of the structure on the bisected Ledra Street.

Turkish Cypriot Interior Minister Ozkan Murat and presidential undersecretary Rasit Pertev were also among those who watched the demolition on site. Murat said the demolition showed goodwill on the part of the Turkish side. “The ball is now in the court of the Greek Cypriot side,” he said to reporters.

Talat first announced his decision to demolish the bridge on 28. December. Greek Cypriots have argued that the bridge, erected in 2005, encroached on the U.N.-controlled buffer zone separating the two sides. But the Turkish army, which has been deployed in northern Cyprus since 1974, raised objections on the grounds that the structure, inside a military zone, should not be removed without reciprocal steps from the Greek Cypriot side.

The Turkish government, in an apparent move to ease the tension, said it was up to Talat to make the final decision. Speaking to reporters after his ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) parliamentary group meeting, prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “Doesn't [Northern Cyprus] have a president and a government? They make the final decision. We only respect it. Turkish Cyprus has made its decision.”

According to veteran Turkish Cypriot columnist Metin Munir, the Turkish government showed that its stance is more moderate than that of the military by saying that it is up to the Turkish Cypriot authorities to take the initiative to pull down the bridge.

In Ankara, Germanay's ambassador Eckart Cuntz, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, hailed the Turkish Cypriot move and urged the Greek Cypriots to respond in kind. “I do think that I should welcome and the European Union would welcome any move to bring together the two parts of the island,” he said at a news conference.

Turkish Cypriot officials, however, were doubtful that the Greek Cypriots would follow suit.

“The Greek Cypriots are dragging their feet. ... It seems our efforts will remain unanswered,” said Talat's spokesman, Hasan Ercakica.

4. - Reuters - "Turkey vows more EU reforms":

ANKARA / 10 January 2007

Turkey vowed on Wednesday that 2007 would not be a "lost year" for its relations with the European Union, despite an EU decision to suspend its entry talks in eight policy areas over the Cyprus dispute.

The EU last month decided to partially freeze talks after Ankara refused to open its ports and airports to traffic from EU member Cyprus, a country Turkey does not recognise.

"The government will continue to follow the path of reform and will submit its reforms to parliament during 2007... 2007 will not be a lost year for Turkey," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told a televised meeting of senior officials.

"Turkey needs the reforms. They are necessary to raise the living standards of our people," Gul said.

Some analysts have said they expect the government to avoid any difficult political and economic reforms ahead of general elections set for November.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's ruling centre-right AK Party is expected to win re-election but may face a strong challenge from nationalists keen to exploit growing voter disillusion with the EU, seen here as biased against Turkey.

Turkish officials are now preparing a new roadmap for its relations with the EU lasting until 2013.

Ankara, which began EU entry talks in October 2005, must bring its laws into harmony with those of the Union in 35 "chapters" or policy areas before it can join. The talks are expected to last many years.

Turkey says it will open its ports and airports to Cyprus only if the EU makes good on promises to lift all EU trade restrictions against the breakaway Turkish Cypriots in the north of the divided Mediterranean island.

Cyprus has been split on ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkey invaded the north in response to a brief Greek Cypriot coup backed by the military junta then ruling Greece. Turkey still keeps around 35,000 troops in northern Cyprus.

5. - International Herald Tribune - "A 16-year cycle of treachery":

Iraqi Kurds and the U.S.

WASHINGTON / 10 January 2007 / by Diane E. King

The United States abandoned the Kurds in 1975 and again in 1991. Sixteen years separated these first two betrayals. Another 16 years have elapsed, and America may be on the verge of another betrayal, however unintended and inadvertent, of the residents of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Iraqi Kurds (and members of other ethnic groups in the Kurdistan region) have been unflinching allies of the U.S. forces in Iraq. Some of their support has entailed acting under a Kurdish banner, like when Kurdish fighters, the peshmerga, provided logistical support and hospitality to paratroopers landing in the north as the war began.

But much more of their support has been under an Iraqi rubric. On my several trips to Iraq since 2003, I have observed that at least in the northern part of the country, Iraqi troop composition is very heavily Kurdish. I also saw strong evidence of a warm, cooperative relationship between Kurdish Iraqi and U.S. soldiers. Statistics on the makeup of the Iraqi Army released in late 2005 also suggest that ethnic Kurds are probably the heaviest participants, proportionally, in the Iraqi military.

Such close Kurdish-American cooperation in Iraq is potentially dangerous for the Kurdish people in Iraq, and it puts a moral onus on the United States to protect them.

Iraqi society has as its sociopolitical bedrock a patron-client system. A rich patron provides for, protects and lends identity to clients, who pledge loyalty in exchange. By participating vigorously in the American project in Iraq, many Kurds may have initially thought they were hitching their wagon to a star patron.

But Kurdish leaders' grumblings of discontent over their relationship with the United States began long before their terse responses to the Iraq Study Group's report. Some wondered aloud whether overt displays of allegiance have been worth it, and what they will yield in the long run.

Since the great powers denied the Kurds a state in which they were the majority after World War I, Kurds have sought patrons outside the boundaries of their own states. With Iraq's Shiites turning to Iran, and Sunni Arab Iraq turning to the Sunni Arab world outside Iraq, to whom will Iraqi Kurds turn when the United States scales down its presence in Iraq? Turkey?

Although Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan have long cooperated economically and even militarily (against PKK guerrillas), their relationship is fraught and unpredictable. No other realistic regional partners exist for the Iraqi Kurds.

Iraqi Kurds will badly need a friend. Their strong participation in the Iraqi military has not gone unnoticed by the many Arab Iraqis who see them as doing America's bidding. When America scales down its presence or leaves entirely, retribution will follow.

The victims will not so much be Kurdish fighters, who by virtue of their membership in the peshmerga or Iraqi Army will be able to protect themselves, but civilian Kurds living in areas with large non-Kurdish populations. This has already happened on a small scale.

In 1975, Henry Kissinger uttered his famous rebuttal — "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work" — after the United States first supported then withdrew its support for Iraqi Kurds in their conflict with Baghdad. A bloodbath followed and the Kurdish resistance movement collapsed.

Sixteen years later, President George H.W. Bush encouraged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein. Kurds and Shiites took this to heart, revolting with the expectation that the United States would go the rest of the way and unseat their oppressor. But it did not, and the Iraqi Army began another bloodbath (especially in Shiite areas).

The United States and its allies' response of a humanitarian effort in the north and no-fly zones over the northern and southern portions of the country fell far short of the dreams of the uprisers.

Sixteen years later, America must not repeat these mistakes. It must recognize the responsibility it has taken in depending so heavily on the people of Iraqi Kurdistan for its mission in Iraq, and consider what will happen to them when it significantly scales back its military presence.

Diane E. King, a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on Kurdistan is currently a fellow with the Howard Foundation of Brown University and a researcher at Washington State University.

6. - Reuters - "Turkish PM warns Iraqi Kurds over Kirkuk":

ANKARA / 9 January 2007

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday Turkey could not stand idly by if Iraqi Kurds seized control of oil-rich Kirkuk in northern Iraq, though he did not spell out what Ankara might do to prevent such a scenario. Erdogan fears the Kurds want to carve out an independent state in northern Iraq, embracing Kirkuk, which could in turn fan separatism among its own Kurds living in southeast Turkey.

Ankara has accused the Kurds of deliberately boosting their numbers in Kirkuk, at the expense of Arabs and Turkish-speaking Turkmens, to ensure the city votes in an eventual referendum in favour of being incorporated into Iraq's Kurdish region.

"There are efforts to alter the demographic structure of Kirkuk. We cannot remain a bystander to such developments," Erdogan told members of his ruling AK Party in a televised address in parliament.

Erdogan said the developments could lead to a more intense level of civil war in Iraq that could harm the wider region.

He did not say how Turkey might act. Analysts rule out any military intervention by Turkey, a NATO ally of the United States, but say Ankara is likely to increase it diplomatic and commercial pressure on the Kurds. Turkish territory provides crucial land routes for Iraqi oil exports to the West.

Turkey wants any future referendum on Kirkuk's status to lead to power-sharing between its ethnic groups and to confirm the city's place within a politically united Iraq.

"Turkey will continue to support Iraq's political unity and territorial integrity and its efforts to restore stability and establish a state structure in which Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims can live together," Erdogan said.

He also reaffirmed Ankara's support for its Turkmen ethnic kin in Iraq.

"The pictures of Saddam (Hussein's) execution have confirmed our fears (of civil war)," Erdogan said, referring to the increased tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites sparked by last month's hanging of the former Iraqi dictator.

"We are worried that this incident will lead to further dangerous polarisation in Iraq," he said.

Erdogan has said Iraq's stability is a greater national priority even than Ankara's efforts to join the European Union.

During a visit to Washington last month, Erdogan urged President George W. Bush to set a timetable to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. This week, Bush is expected to announce an increase in troop numbers to combat the sectarian violence.