15 April 2003

1. "Turkish Kurd leader drops separatism and seeks Washington talks", Turkey's formerly separatist Kurdish Workers' party (PKK), regarded by the US as a terrorist organisation, wants to establish a dialogue with Washington on joining its campaign of democratisation in the Middle East, according to a member of the movement's collective leadership.

2. "Abdullah Ocalan: Democracy for Turkey, freedom for Kurdistan!", KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan stated that unity of Turkey passed through the freedom and democratization and the crisis could be solved only by them. Ocalan underscored that the message “democracy for turkey, freedom for Kurdistan” was not against any unity.

3. "Turkey shows restraint on northern Iraq issue, but tension persists", for months, Turkish political and military leaders had warned that in the event that Kurdish irregular forces entered the northern Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, Ankara would feel compelled to intervene. When it came to crunch time, however, Ankara blinked.

4. "US plans to divide Iraq: Kurd official", the United States plans to divide Iraq into three parts and rule over the country for two years, a Kurdish official said on Monday.

5. "Kurdish leader warns US to give Iraqis control of their country or face resistance", a Kurdish leader has urged the US to grant Iraqis control of their country as soon as possible or face increasing resistance as an occupying power.

6. "UN blames Turkish Cypriot leader for failure to reunify Cyprus", the UN Security Council has blamed Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash for failure of UN-brokered talks with his Greek counterpart Tassos Papadopoulos on reunification of the island and urged for using the UN plan to reach a settlement on the issue.

1. - The Financial Times - "Turkish Kurd leader drops separatism and seeks Washington talks":

ARBIL / 15 April 2003 / by Harvey Morris in Arbil

Turkey's formerly separatist Kurdish Workers' party (PKK), regarded by the US as a terrorist organisation, wants to establish a dialogue with Washington on joining its campaign of democratisation in the Middle East, according to a member of the movement's collective leadership.

Nizamettin Tas, a member of the nine-member leadership council, has outlined a radical shift in the strategy of a movement that fought a 14-year war against Turkish forces in the south-east of the country, which cost 30,000 lives.

Mr Tas, interviewed by the Financial Times in northern Iraq, said the movement had shelved its ambitions for a unified state for all Kurds and would instead campaign for equal rights for all citizens in Turkey.

The shift in policy has been under way since the movement's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was captured by Turkey and sentenced to death in 1999.

The PKK changed its name last year to Kadek, Congress for Freedom and Democracy, although Mr Tas sticks doggedly to the old initials.

After his capture, Mr Ocalan called on his supporters to lay down their arms and turn to political activity.

But Mr Tas said the movement had 10,000 fighters in the mountains of northern Iraq, ready to resume the armed struggle if nec-essary.

Their presence has created an uneasy relationship with Iraqi Kurdish parties and the PKK has fought them in the past.

Mr Tas claimed Turkey tried to persuade the PKK three months ago to renew the conflict with the Iraqi Kurds in order to provide Ankara with a pretext to intervene in northern Iraq. In return, the government offered to make political concessions to Turkish Kurds, he said.

"We said they should first give us freedom and then we would act as responsible Turkish citizens."

Mr Tas's comments reflect both the PKK's belief that the US controls the fate of the region since the overthrow of the Iraqi regime and its desire to be seen as being on the winning side.

"The Kurds can play a big role in favour of democracy, not only in Iraq but also in Syria, Turkey and Iran," he said.

"We believe the US cannot work on its own. It also needs us."

Explaining how the traditionally Marxist-Leninist PKK could seek an understanding with the US, he said: "Middle East politics has changed. Old enemies are now friends and friends are now enemies. It's not only we who have changed. The US supported Saddam for 15 years and they also changed."

The PKK wants to play on US disillusionment over Turkey's lack of co-operation in the Iraq war to urge Washington to push for an end to anti-Kurdish discrim-ination.

"Turkey has no democratic tradition," said Mr Tas.

"They can't believe the Ottoman empire is over. They try to assert their own rights in the Balkans and yet they don't even want the Kurds to have their rights in Iraq.

"But what has Turkey got to do with what happens in Mosul or in Arbil?"

2. - The Kurdish Observer - "Abdullah Ocalan: Democracy for Turkey, freedom for Kurdistan!":

KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan stated that unity of Turkey passed through the freedom and democratization and the crisis could be solved only by them. Ocalan underscored that the message “democracy for turkey, freedom for Kurdistan” was not against any unity.

FRANKFURT/MHA 14 April 2003

KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan stated that national states that based on old national emancipation failed completely in the example of Saddam Hussein and stressed that for the Kurdish question the democratic line must be mobilized. The Kurdish leader pointed out that America played around with a uni-centered empire.

Ocalan said that the US-led attack on Iraq created a new situation and the alternative against its uni-centered empire was global democracy of peoples”. The Kurdish leader continued with following words: “The democratic line must be mobilized against the nationalistic line as far as the Kurdish question is concerned, Kurds must develop all possible alliances and diplomatic relations, they must develop a line for unity with others including the neighboring states. They must position themselves as to defend themselves, democracy and peace, and not to attack other states.”

He wanted for the activities from economy to culture based on these main realities to be developed and had this to say: “A nationalistic line is tried to develop. The Turkish-Kurdish nationalism may be developed. There may be conflicts like those between Israel and Palestine. We shall not implement a second PKK experience under these new conditions. Many claim the Kurdish nationalism. I call on the Turkish intellectuals, do not ignite your own nationalism! I say the Kurdish intellectuals, do not be nationalistic! Become a democrac, unite. Unite against both domestic and foreign usurpers and merchants. Unite for peace and democracy. Struggle for democracy is of extreme importanca. Unite with the peoples in the Middle East.”

Brotherhood

“I call on the government to dialogue for a democratic resolution. If forces of legitimate defense are attacked, there will be blodshed. And they will be responsible for all the negative consequences that will be result from this situation, not those who defend themselves,” said Ocalan.

The President also made a call to the Turkish army, saying the following: “Do not attack Kurds aiming at destruction and denial. I call on you to forgive each other like brothers. There must be brotherhood between the two peoples. It will be the only way to resist against the siege. Kurds must organize the line for unity, freedom and peace everywhere including quarters and villages. Read my defense statements. I consider the matter in detail. I make a call for asimilation. It is the only way to slip out of the existing crisis.”

Methods of Enver Pasha are not a solution

Ocalan underscored that the message “democracy for Turkey, freedom for Kurdistan” was not against unity and it was first used by Sultan Sancar. The Kurdish leader continued with words to the effect: “As Clinton came into power, he sent us messages. We will contribute to the resolution of the Kurdish question, he said. But Germany supported Kurdish nationalism against us. It excluded us and banned us.”

He stated that the unity and integrity of Turkey passed through the freedom and democratization of the Kurdish people and the crisis could only be solved as such. “Welfare in the Middle East and Central Asia can be achieved as such, not by methods of Enver Pasha. It will be achieved in a democratic and modern Turkey. Only a strategic alliance between Turks and Kurds can make a unity and expansion to the Middle East possible. Now we must succeeded what Mustafa Kemal had succeeded at 1920s. We shall make it with a modern and democratic alliance. It is the patriotic line of Turkey. There are debates over sending troops to Iraq. It is the line of Enver Pasha, it is the Turanist line. They say, we must occupy. If you pay attention, Mustafa Kemal has not allowed Enver Pasha and turanists to enter into Anatolia. If there is no strategic unity between Turks and Kurds there will be no place for neither Kurd nor Turk.”

Ocalan considered the existing views on Ataturk and Kemalism wrong and stated that Kemalism of 20s had been for enlightenment and against imperialism but subjective and objective conditions of the time caused the country to be in a deadlock.

USA struggles to be an emperor

The KADEK President said in his thesis, “The attack on Iraq by USA, the final representative of the class civilization, motor force of capitalism has created a new situation. USA struggles to be an emperor. It aims at a uni-centered empire. It outclassed the Soviet Union in 1990s and now the European Union. What is important is that it bypasses national state and use the concept of ‘costaricazation’. In this sense the Costa Rica model is important. It is called the 51. state of USA. They will create Costa Rica-type states all around the world.”

Abdullah Ocalan had also this to say: “National states based on old national emancipation

failed completely in the example of Saddam Hussein.” He suggested the following as an alternative against USA: “Class, gender, ethnic, environmental etc problems can be solved only by global democracy. Global imperialism and democratic imperialism can only be resisted by global democracy of peoples. Its method must be legitimate defense. I have said it for KADEK. It can also include the Zapatist line. The legitimate defense line must be developed not only in military but in every are including politics, local administrations and non-governmental organizations. The global imperialism can be resisted only on this ground.”

Democracy must be developed in the Middle East

Ocalan continued to say the following: “Nationalistic regimes in the Middle East whether they are islamist, real socialist or racist are going to be liquiated. But democrats must prepare themselves to replace them.” Stressing that there were two ways in front of the Kurdish people, Ocalan added the following: “The first is nationalism and it is a dead end that is tried in North Iraq. Not only there but a number of old rightist and leftist lines represent it. And it is supported by imperialism but its end is cul-de-sac. The other is democratic solution. The aim is not to establish a state but to find a democratic solution in the related countries including Kurdistan.”

The President emphasized that the nationalist line was imposed in South Kurdistan and behind it were USA and EU. “But KADEK leads to a democratic drive and unity,” said he.

Ocalan also pointed out that not only Turkey but Syria too could not be advance in its existing state. “I have analyzed Iran, I have analyzed Israel. The Palestinian question could be solved during the Barak process. Then Hafiz (Esad) was alive. I warned them. If they advocated for a democratic solution they would solve it. But the blind nationalist mentality of Arabs could not be a force for a solution. Now Palestine sheds tears of blood. I have developed the Confederation of the Democratic Middle East for a solution to all problems in the region.”

His two main strategic and tactical thesis:

1 The attack on Iraq by USA, the final representative of the class civilization, motor force of capitalism has created a new situation.

a. USA struggles to be an emperor. It aims at a uni-centered empire. It outclassed the Soviet Union in 1990s and now the European Union. What is important is that it bypasses national state and use the concept of ‘costaricazation’. In this sense the Costa Rica model is important. It is called the 51. state of USA. They will create Costa Rica-type states all around the world.

b. National states based on old national emancipation failed completely in the example of Saddam Hussein

c. Class, gender, ethnic, environmental etc problems can be solved only by global democracy. Global imperialism and democratic imperialism can only be resisted by global democracy of peoples. Its method must be legitimate defense. I have said it for KADEK. It can also include the Zapatist line. The legitimate defense line must be developed not only in military but in every are including politics, local administrations and non-governmental organizations. The global imperialism can be resisted only on this ground. Here the aim is not to establish a state based on nationalism. Democracy is not equal to state.

2. Nationalistic regimes in the Middle East whether they are islamist, real socialist or racist are going to be liquiated. But democrats must prepare themselves to replace them.

3. There are two ways in front of the Kurdish people, Ocalan added the following: “The first is nationalism and it is a dead end that is tried in North Iraq. Not only there but a number of old rightist and leftist lines represent it. And it is supported by imperialism but its end is cul-de-sac. The other is democratic solution. The aim is not to establish a state but to find a democratic solution in the related countries including Kurdistan

4. the nationalist line is imposed in South Kurdistan and behind it are USA and EU. But KADEK leads to a democratic drive and unity.

Tactical principles

1. The democratic line must be mobilized against the nationalistic line as far as the Kurdish question is concerned, Kurds must develop all possible alliances and diplomatic relations, they must develop a line for unity with others including the neighboring states. They must position themselves as to defend themselves, democracy and peace, and not to attack other states.

2. A nationalistic line is tried to develop. The Turkish-Kurdish nationalism may be developed. There may be conflicts like those between Israel and Palestine. We shall not implement a second PKK experience under these new conditions. Many claim the Kurdish nationalism. I call on the Turkish intellectuals, do not ignite your own nationalism! I say the Kurdish intellectuals, do not be nationalistic! Become a democrac, unite. Unite against both domestic and foreign usurpers and merchants. Unite for peace and democracy. Struggle for democracy is of extreme importanca. Unite with the peoples in the Middle East.

“The Declaration is a positive suggestion”

KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan also put emphasis on the declaration recently released by DEHAP and said that it was a positive suggestion but might be developed further. Ocalan also added that his suggestion to establish an umbrella party might be processed further. “I have suggested a Coordination for a Democratic Society. It can include representative from every non-governmental organisation, trade union etc. It can be launched by a few people. The President added that the coordination could be consisted of 50-100 intellectuals, democrats and leftists.

3. - EurasiaNet - "Turkey shows restraint on northern Iraq issue, but tension persists":

14 April 2003 / by Nicolas Birch *

For months, Turkish political and military leaders had warned that in the event that Kurdish irregular forces entered the northern Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, Ankara would feel compelled to intervene. When it came to crunch time, however, Ankara blinked.

Kurdish forces entered Kirkuk on April 10. Yet Turkish officials, after some instant diplomatic huddling with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, refrained from carrying out the threat to send troops into northern Iraq. Instead, Powell helped broker an arrangement under which Ankara committed to dispatching 15 military observers to monitor the Kurdish withdrawal from Kirkuk. The withdrawal was virtually complete by April 13, according to media reports.

Ankara’s reticence on the northern Iraq issue is understandable. Turkey’s fragile economic condition pushes Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to seek accommodation with the United States. Turkey’s refusal early in March to allow a full-scale US military deployment had cost the country billions of dollars in economic aid. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. With foreign and internal debt at a massive $160 billion, Turkey can ill afford to risk losing the smaller $1 billion package that Washington is offering on the condition that Turkish troops stay out of Iraq.

A recent poll showed a majority of Turks oppose intervention. However, not everyone is amenable to non-intervention arguments based on economic pragmatism. Many Turks expect Ankara to still defend the interests of their ethnic cousins in Iraq, the Turkoman. Differing expectations within Turkey on the northern Iraq issue could still emerge as a source of international tension in the coming weeks.

On April 10, large crowds gathered outside the Ankara headquarters of the Iraqi Turkoman Front (ITF), a strongly pro-Turkish group representing Iraq’s Turkish-speaking minority, to protest the alleged killing of 50 Turkoman in Kirkuk. They also called bay for Turkish intervention. "The clear aim of this [Kurdish] incursion is to expel Turkoman [residents] from Kirkuk," ITF’s Ankara spokesman, Cuneyt Mengu, told CNN-Turk television.

The nature of the protests is indicative of the dilemma that northern Iraq poses for Turkey. Strategically, the Turkish establishment’s overriding fear is that the oil fields of Kirkuk and Mosul could provide the economic backbone to Iraqi Kurdish dreams of an independent state, separatist dreams which Turkish officials say could rub off on Turkey’s own Kurdish minority. [For background information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The oilfields around Kirkuk produce about 40 percent of Iraq’s oil.

In practice, analysts say, Ankara’s policy towards northern Iraq has undergone a very recent transformation. "After 1991, Turkey’s Iraqi policy was two-pronged," says Tarik Oguzlu, an expert on Iraqi-Turkish relations at Bilkent University in Ankara. It exerted considerable influence over newly autonomous northern Iraq, and backed Saddam as guarantor of regional stability, Oguzlu said. But as war loomed after September 11th, "Turkey upped its support for the Turkoman as a means of countering the growing power of the Kurdish authorities there."

Turkey insists its concern for the Turkoman in Iraq is no different from its support during the 1980s and 1990s for ethnic Turks in Bulgaria oppressed by the Communist authorities then in power in Sophia. But Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is skeptical of such an argument. "Don’t forget most Turkoman live in areas until now controlled by Saddam [Hussein]," he said. "What did Turkey do for Turkoman affected by his Arabization campaigns around Kirkuk and Mosul in the 1980s and 1990s? Zip. This is purely political."

Turkoman leaders are also wary of ITF expressions of concern. "Do we have to open our umbrellas here just because it’s raining in Ankara," asks Walid Sharika, leader of the Iraqi Turkoman Brotherhood Party in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil. Describing the ITF as "a creature of Turkish diplomacy," he believes Turkey’s support for it is exacerbating ethnic tensions in Iraq.

Nowhere are those tensions likely to be higher than in Kirkuk, which Iraqi Kurdish leaders characterize as the "Jerusalem of the Kurds." Turkish sensitivities over the city boiled over last August, when Iraqi Kurds proposed it as the capital of their portion of a new, federal Iraq. Turkey responded by closing its borders to the semi-illicit oil trade propping up northern Iraq’s UN-controlled economy. "Northern Iraq," Turkey’s then defense minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu asserted, "was forcibly separated from Turkey during the War of Liberation" after 1920.

Erdogan’s government seems less tempted by irredentism than its nationalist predecessor. But there is still the vexed and highly political question of Kirkuk and Iraq’s demographic structure. Extrapolating from figures from the 1957 Iraqi census, the last time Iraqis were asked to specify their ethnicity, ITF insists Turkoman today number 3 million. The group also claims that Kirkuk is historically a Turkish city. While a significant portion of Turkey’s media seems to accept such claims, experts are less sure.

Turkoman may have been 9 percent of the population in 1957, some say, but lower birth rates and Saddam’s Arabization campaigns have taken their toll since then. "My eyebrows start to go up when estimates rise much above 1 million," Clawson said.

The danger of such exaggerations is that they risk upsetting the post-war stabilization and repatriation process in Mosul and Kirkuk. For decades, both cities have been subject to massive Arabization campaigns. In the last ten years alone, the Washington-based Human Rights Watch estimates that 120,000 people, mainly Kurds, were forced to flee to Kurdish controlled northern Iraq. Now many want to return.

Despite twice warning that "we will not allow armed Kurds, or civilians, to destroy the demographic situation in the Kirkuk region," Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, along with the military leadership, has so far shown restraint. What remains to be seen, however, is how Turkey intends to combine support for the Turkoman with its stated willingness to cooperate with a US-led commission to address the property claims of families displaced under Saddam.

* Editor’s Note: Nicolas Birch is a journalist specializing in Turkish affairs.

4. - HiPakistan - "US plans to divide Iraq: Kurd official":

SULEIMANIYAH/TEHRAN / 15 April 2003

The United States plans to divide Iraq into three parts and rule over the country for two years, a Kurdish official said on Monday.

Mohammad Haji-Mahmud, head of the Kurdish Social Democratic Party, said Iraq was to be divided into central, northern and southern sectors and be ruled by three Americans and at least three former Iraqi ministers - but without the presence of the two main Kurdish leaders.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Suleimanyah has not yet commented on the claims by the Kurdish socialist leader. But there was reportedly annoyance on the part of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) in Arbil over the reported American plans.

Haji-Mahmud further told the Iranian news agency IRNA that the three Iraqi ministers would be Adnan Pachachi for finance, Salah Shaykhli as spokesman and Ahmad Hobubi as interior minister.

The three Americans would be Jay Garner for the northern, a woman identified as Glasby for the central and another General named Vincent for the southern part of Iraq. Coalition forces commander Tommy Franks would act as military commander for the whole country.

5. - ChannelNews Asia - "Kurdish leader warns US to give Iraqis control of their country or face resistance":

15 April 2003 / by Ali Aslan

A Kurdish leader has urged the US to grant Iraqis control of their country as soon as possible or face increasing resistance as an occupying power.

This is the warning from Massoud Barzani, leader of one of the two main parties in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq.

Neighbouring Turkey is watching very closely what Iraqi Kurds are saying, fearing the repercussions on its own Kurdish minority.

The fortunes of a post-Saddam Iraq may have been decided less in the Battle for Baghdad than in the Battle for Kirkuk.

Kirkuk has emerged at the center of the increasingly complex geopolitical situation in Northern Iraq where Turkey and the Kurds are staking competing claims and opening historic wounds.

Kurds and Turks share 1,000 years of common Selcuk and Ottoman history.

The Ottoman Turks ruled a huge empire with hundreds of distinct national, ethnic and religious communities, making it extremely vulnerable to foreign-sponsored rebellion and defections.

The founder of modern-day Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, learned a lesson from the Ottoman collapse that tolerance and diversity can be exploited by national enemies to undermine the unity and power of the nation.

To Ataturk, separatism meant weakness and the threat of humiliation the Ottomans had suffered.

In 1919, when the World War I allies proposed an independent Kurdistan in the Treaty of Sevres, Ataturk saw another European attempt to partition his nation.

But after what became known as the Turkish War of Independence, Ataturk's victories in the battlefields forced the allies to renegotiate the treaty in 1923.

And the final settlement made no mention of Kurdistan.

This time it was the Kurds who felt betrayed.

Ataturk went on to create a secular state of many nationalities but only one undifferentiated citizenship.

To this day, Turkey offers the Kurds full citizenship - but as Turks - and many Kurds have accepted political assimilation.

They have been members of parliament and there have even been Kurdish prime ministers.

But Turkey refuses to concede to the Kurds a separate status.

Over the years, the Turks have seen their national rivals - notably Greece, Iran, Armenia and Syria - play the Kurdish card against them - inciting or sponsoring Kurdish rebellion.

Throughout much of the 80's and 90's, Turkish armed forces clashed with the PKK, a Kurdish militia group which supports terrorism to gain national autonomy for the Kurds.

The fighting claimed the lives of more than 30,000 people and only ended with the capturing of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999.

These days, Turkey's concern is to counter the ambitions of Iraq's Kurdish nationalists.

Although, Iraqi Kurds officially deny that they will seek an independent state, that goal has long been an organizing principle of local Kurdish politics.

Kirkuk is claimed by some local Kurdish leaders as the 'Kurdish Jerusalem' and viewed as the economic and political hub of any future Kurdsih entity or state.

Ankara fears that greater Kurdish autonomy or independence in Iraq would revive secessionist movements among its own Kurdish minority and surpress the claims of Iraq's tiny Turkman minority.

With Kurdish leaders now in full control of both Kirkuk and Mosul, Turkey is considering the option to deploy more troops into Northern Iraq.

Despite assurances from Washington and Kurdish leaders that Kurdish peshmerga will eventually relinqish control of the two oil-rich cities, Ankara remains very much on the alert.

It still remembers the lesson from World War I, and that is Turkey must only rely on itself to preserve its territorial unity.

6. - Zee News (India) - "UN blames Turkish Cypriot leader for failure to reunify Cyprus":

United Nations / 15 April 2003

The UN Security Council has blamed Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash for failure of UN-brokered talks with his Greek counterpart Tassos Papadopoulos on reunification of the island and urged for using the UN plan to reach a settlement on the issue.

In a unanimous resolution yesterday, the council called for continuing the discussions and urged the parties to use Secretary General Kofi Annan's "carefully balanced" plan to reach a comprehensive settlement on reunification of Greek and Turkish Cypriot.

But an earlier formulation that Annan's plan provides the basis for a solution was dropped in face of opposition by Russia and China. The US and Britain had supported it.

Annan had wanted the reunited Cyprus to sign the treaty for joining European Union in Athens tomorrow. But the failure of talks would now mean only the Greek Cypriot would sign the pact that would enable it to join the Union in may next year.

Annan's plan had envisaged reunification of Greek and Turkish parts of Cyprus with a weak central government.

But the plan floundered when Denktash rejected it mainly because of land swaps and the provision for the return of 200,000 Greek Cypriot refugees to areas under the control of Turkish Cypriots.

The council voiced regret that due to the "negative approach" of the Turkish Cypriot leader it was not possible to reach an agreement to put the plan to simultaneous referenda, thus precluding the opportunity to the Turkish and the Greek Cypriots to decide for themselves on a plan that would have permitted the reunification of Cyprus.