8 April 2003

1. "Turkey's pro-kurdish Democratic People’s Party demands legalization of KADEK", Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP) released a declaration on April 2. The declaration included the following items: “Turkey should not send troops to South Kurdistan under any cnoditions, Iraq should decide on its fate with peaceful and democratic means, KADEK should be legalized, the sides should agree on a solution overcoming the anxieties on the Kurdish question, the Kurdish identity and culturel rights should be recognized, adjustment laws for the European Union should be passed, a general amnesty should be declared and a conference to be participated by all related instutitions and organiations to solve the Kurdish question should be organized.”

2. "Kurds get lucky, but not out of the woods yet", the Kurds appeared to have been promised their own state in the Treaty of Sevres after the First World War. But there was a catch. Buried in the small print was the requirement that the League must be convinced that they were 'capable' of independence.

3. "Once again, the Kurdish wildcard", as American forces fight their way into Baghdad, many wonder why the front lines in northern Iraq remain so relatively quiet. But given the tightrope America must walk among Kurds, Turks, Iraqis and others, the relative quiet should be viewed as a victory in itself.

4. "Old comrades, new foes", the recent debate on 'National View' fuels the parting time between ruling AK party and Islamists roots as well as giving AK Party leader's rival and mentor of Turkish Political Islam Necmettin Erbakan a tool to strongly criticize the party and its prominent names

5. "Turkey denies shift in foreign policy", Turkey on Monday insisted that a flurry of contacts with Iran and Syria over the war in neighbouring Iraq did not mean it was forming a tripartite grouping with countries viewed with suspicion by the US.

6. "Athens rules out any Cyprus talks outside UN framework", Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis will hear out proposals on disputed Cyprus by his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan when they meet at a regional summit this week, but he stands firm that any formal talks remain within a UN framework, sources close to Simitis say.

1. - Kurdish Observer - "Turkey's pro-kurdish Democratic People’s Party demands legalization of KADEK":

7 April 2003 / by Bermal Kocgiri

Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP) released a declaration on April 2. The declaration included the following items: “Turkey should not send troops to South Kurdistan under any cnoditions, Iraq should decide on its fate with peaceful and democratic means, KADEK should be legalized, the sides should agree on a solution overcoming the anxieties on the Kurdish question, the Kurdish identity and culturel rights should be recognized, adjustment laws for the European Union should be passed, a general amnesty should be declared and a conference to be participated by all related instutitions and organiations to solve the Kurdish question should be organized.”

The main problem is the Kurdish question

Osman Ozcelik, member of DEHAP’s Committee for Reconstruction, made a statement to our newspaper, explaining the needs from which the declaration arouse and its aims. Reminding that DEHAP was elected overwhelmingly by Kurds and democratic groups, Ozcelik stated that the main problem in Turkey was the Kurdish question and it was difficult for a country that could solve it to solve other problems of democratization. “We believe that the Kurdish question must be discussed. The declaration is written for this end,” said Ozcelik.

He continued to say the following:

Conference

“The Kurdish question is one of the main problems in Turkey, and we believe that it should be discussed in detail. We believe that academicians, artists, Krudish intellectuals and everybody who is interested in it and bears a responsibility can participate in it and contribute to it. Therefore we propose a conference.

“We have already started it”

“We have already started it. We are making preparations and send our declaration to hundreds of academicians, journalists, politicians, intellectuals and artists. We open a ground for discussion and wish that it will yield positive results.”

Harmony with Kurds

Attracting attention that Turkey had become alienated by its bans on the language, culture and history of the Kurdish people, Ozcelik said that Turkey faced with the problem internationally and some groups tried to exploit it. He pointed out that Turkey must be in harmony with Kurds to avoid such distresses and it was not a thing to be afraid of.

Conditions and ground are suitable

Ozcelik noted that there was also a suitable ground as far as the timing of the declaration was concerned; “Today Turkey must be hand-in-hand with its citizens instead of looking for different allies. We believe that it should abandon its old policies. We have organize a number of activities like this before but they have not got much sympathy. The solution is not difficult. We want a discussion to start and we think that the conditions, the ground for it are suitable.”

The content of the declaration

Pointing out that steps must be taken to improve the conditions mentioned in the declaration, Ozcelik added that there must be legal adjustments.

The declaration asked for the legal adjustments to allow KADEK members to abandon their weapons and return to Turkey.

The declaration called out to the government, saying “We are ready to do everything to solve the Kurdish question.”

It underscored that the sides that paid enourmous costs during the 15-year-war, saying the following: Therefore we wish that all sides avoid stances that will lead the country to a conflict once again and make efforts to solve the question based on the brotherhood of the peoples.”

The declaration also stated that there were no legitimate justifications for Turkey to send troops to South Kurdistan. It stressed that it was well-known from bitter expreiences that the Kurdish question could not be solved militarily.

Center of attraction

The declaration shed light on the matter that possible Kurdish state or federation in South Kurdistan might affect the Kurds living in Turkey, be a “center of attraction”. It emphasized that on the contrary Turkey could be a center of attraction in case that it renew its policies on the Kurdish question. It also said that if the question was solved wholly and peacefully, Turkey would be a “leading force” in the region.

“Solution is within our boundaries”

The declaration drew attention that as long as the traditional policies were not abandoned it would be difficult to slip out of the existing sitution and continued with following words: “It must be seen that the solution is within our boundaries and it is not difficult to solve. Turkey must look after the solution not in sending troops but in eliminating the interregional inequality, meeting the demands of its citizens living Van or Diyarbakir.”

Solution of Kurdish and Palestinian questions

It stressed that prepequisite of a lasting peace and stability in the Middle East was to solve the Kurdish and Palestinian questions: “Solving the Palestinian question will bring peace between Arabs and Israelis. Similary a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question will open the way to democratic development for turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria by bringing them a lasting peace and stability.”

“A conference can be a first step”

The declaration noted that they wanted to share their opinions and propositions with other parties, academicians, official institutions and non-governmental organisations and proposed a conference as a first step.”

2. - The Guardian - "Kurds get lucky, but not out of the woods yet":

LONDON / 8 April 2003 / by Nick Cohen

In a memo to the League of Nations in 1930, an astonished Foreign Office official said that the idea the great powers should be made to keep their promises was 'a conception which is almost fantastic'.

The Kurds appeared to have been promised their own state in the Treaty of Sevres after the First World War. But there was a catch. Buried in the small print was the requirement that the League must be convinced that they were 'capable' of independence.

Our men at the FO implied that the Kurds were Kipling's 'White Man's Burden' - 'fluttered folk and wild/Your new-caught sullen peoples/Half devil and half child'. It was preposterous to think that they might be capable of governing themselves.

"Although they admittedly possess many sterling qualities, the Kurds of Iraq are entirely lacking in those characteristics of political cohesion which are essential to self-government. Their organization and outlook are essentially tribal. They are without traditions of self-government or self-governing institutions. Their mode of life is primitive, and for the most part they are illiterate and untutored, resentful of authority and lacking in any sense of discipline or responsibility. In these circumstances it would be unkind to the Kurds themselves to do anything which would lend encouragement to the sterile idea of Kurdish independence."

Being cruel to be kind to Kurds has become a habit since. They are the largest people on earth without a state of their own. Spread across Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey - and oppressed in all four countries - their fate in the twentieth century was to be played with and persecuted.

In the early 1970s, the Iraqi Baathist regime was getting too close to the Soviet Union for America's liking and threatening the Shah of Iran, a US client.

Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon encouraged the Iraqi Kurds to revolt. Saddam Hussein responded to the pressure and came to terms with Washington. American, Israeli and Iranian advisers pulled out of Iraqi Kurdistan. Saddam sealed the borders and slaughtered. The standards of the Cold War were lax, but America's betrayal of an ally was still shocking.

The Congressional select committee on intelligence said that "the President, Dr Kissinger and the Shah hoped that (the Kurds) would not prevail. They preferred instead that the insurgents simply continue a level of hostilities sufficient to sap the resources of (Iraq). The policy was not imparted to our clients, who were encouraged to continue to fight. Even in the context of covert operations, ours was a cynical exercise."

In 1988 Saddam killed somewhere around 100,000 Kurds in the 'Anzal' campaign to Arabize northern Iraq. The scale of the killing was such that no one knows the precise death toll, but for once, the overused word 'genocidal' was an accurate description of his policy.

After the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurds along with the rest of Iraq took George Bush (senior) at his word and rose up when he called on the 'Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands'. They were massacred again. In 1996, they fought among themselves. Kurds being wiped out was a staple of international relations. The truth of the Kurdish proverb, 'we've no friends but the mountains', was indisputable.

The change in the Iraqi Kurds' fortunes since 1996 has been remarkable. It's foolish to make predictions in such fluid times, but it does look as if history is at last being kind to the Kurds. Consider their position. Despite the enmity of Turkey, Saddam, Iran and fundamentalists, they managed to build a reasonably decent autonomous government in the no-fly zone of northern Iraq.

At the start of the war, it looked as if the Turks would occupy their mini-state to stop its own Kurds getting the idea in their heads that they might govern themselves. But because Ankara refused to cut a deal with Washington, the threat has receded and American troops have become the Kurds' protectors. The clever Kurdish leadership has put its guerrillas under US control to emphasize that the Kurds at least are an ally America can rely on. Fear that they will be attacked with poison gas again is receding as the Iraqi regime weakens. Every day last week, there were small reports of the Kurds retaking villages which had been ethnically cleansed by Saddam.

It's as if the Palestinians were to wake up and find that the world's only superpower was on their side and land they thought they had lost forever was back in their possession. The comparison isn't meant frivolously. What Baathism has created in northern Iraq is a West Bank, and even friends of the Kurds are worried about what will happen when the regime falls and the ethnically cleansed go home.

Human Rights Watch and the Kurdish authorities estimate that 120,000 people have been driven from the Kirkuk area since 1991. The government confiscated documents proving the ownership of property. As far as the paperwork is concerned they never lived in Kirkuk and have no rights. It seems a matter of basic justice to allow the exiles to return, but their houses have been taken by Arab families, some of whom have been in Kirkuk for two or three generations and know no other home.

The 'untutored' Kurds are no different from anyone else. If you found someone else in your home, you would demand they left and become aggressive, possibly violent, if they refused because they had nowhere else to go. The Kurds may have got lucky for the first time since the First World War, but they're not out of the woods yet.

3. - MSNBC - "Once again, the Kurdish wildcard":

NEW YORK / 7 April 2003 / by Rick Francona *

As American forces fight their way into Baghdad, many wonder why the front lines in northern Iraq remain so relatively quiet. But given the tightrope America must walk among Kurds, Turks, Iraqis and others, the relative quiet should be viewed as a victory in itself.

AS A NEW Iraq emerges, it is fully expected that an integral part of the post-Saddam nation will be a true autonomous region for the Kurds. The United States, which has helped coordinate military moves by Kurdish forces in the north since the war began, knows it will have to ensure that a postwar Kurdish autonomous region does not take on the trappings of a state, a development that Turkey fears may ignite nationalist sentiments among the huge population of Kurds there who fought a decades-long guerrilla war against Turkish rule that only ended five years ago. Complicating it all is Kirkuk’s large ethnic Turkomen minority. Defending the future of this minority group is regarded by Turks to be a kind of sacred national obligation. A tightrope walk, to be sure.

Operation Iraqi Freedom has strained numerous facets of U.S.-Turkish relations. From an American standpoint, the most obvious friction emerged when the Turks refused to allow the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division to traverse Turkish territory and open up a northern front against Iraq.

But Turkey’s unwillingness to countenance an American invasion from its territory was about more than public opinion. Turkey is deeply concerned about events in northern Iraq, and indeed, reports of Kurdish forces advancing toward northern Iraq’s largest cities, Kirkuk and Mosul, are greeted with alarm. Turkey has threatened to intervene in the Kurdish-controlled area of northern Iraq should the Kurds attempt to establish an independent state or impose Kurdish rule on the Turkomen population of Kirkuk. Such an intervention would upset the fragile relationship between the United States and two major Kurdish political factions in Iraq — themselves prone to violent clashes. This is a wrinkle the United States can ill afford at a time when Kurdish cooperation is essential to American military operations in the oil-rich areas of Kirkuk and Mosul.

THE KURDISH DIVISIONS

The Kurds, ethnically distinct from Arabs, Persians, Turks and their cousins, the Turkomen, inhabit the area where Turkey, Iraq and Iran meet, and extend west into northeastern Syria and north into the former Soviet republics. Despite their desires and efforts, there has never been an independent Kurdistan, and there is unlikely to be one in the foreseeable future.

As far back as the 16th century, Kurds were allowed to exist in virtual autonomy, serving as a buffer between the Ottoman Turkish and Persian empires. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, borders creating new nations were drawn without consideration for the Kurds, formalizing their absorption into the new countries.

Interestingly, the Kurds were divided along Kurdish language dialect lines — the Sorani-speaking tribes were in Iran and Iraq, while the Khurmanji-speakers were mostly in Turkey. While both groups are Kurds, they maintain separate identities based on the language groups.

Turkey and Iraq tried to assimilate the Kurds into their societies, or to at least bring them under some sort of control. The Turks refuse to even use the name Kurds, and instead refer to them as “mountain Turks,” an attitude that helped foment an extremely violent guerrilla war inside Turkey. In Iraq, the Kurds staged periodic uprisings against the central government in Baghdad, including in the 1970s with support from the United States and Iran.

The Baath Party promised autonomy to the Kurds as early as 1974. This was formalized when Saddam Hussein came to power. In 1980, he created — on paper — the Kurdish Autonomous Region. But this arrangement was short-lived as he later began an “Arabization” program — transplanting entire Arab villages from the south and replacing them with Kurdish villages from the north. Despite this, the Iraqi Kurds — who number 4.5 million to 5 million — have preserved their cultural heritage and ethnic identity through their language.

KURDISH POLITICS

There are two major Kurdish parties in northern Iraq, most often at odds — if not conflict — with each other:

Kurdistan Democratic Party — The party was formed after World War II as a nationalist group seeking an independent homeland for the Kurds. The party is currently led by Masoud Barzani, the son of the group’s legendary founder, the late Mullah Mustafa Barzani. The group governs a little more than half of the Kurdish-controlled area of northern Iraq, along the Turkish and Syrian borders.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party has worked both with and against the Saddam Hussein regime. Although it would prefer an independent Kurdistan, the party is pragmatic enough to realize that there is little chance of this happening. It favors the existence of a Kurdish autonomous region. The party has a well-trained military force that has caused problems for the Iraqi army in the past.
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan: The group was formed in the 1960s by its current leader, Jalal Talabani, as a breakaway from the Kurdistan Democratic Party. The union governs just less than half of the Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, along the Iranian border. It is made up of urban, educated Kurds who envision an independent homeland. Although Talabani has said he is willing to accept a Kurdish autonomous region inside Iraq, this may be to appease the United States, from whence much of his financial support comes. In the end, Talabani will likely continue to struggle for a separate Kurdistan.

While the Kurds possess substantial military capability, they do not have an organized, mechanized military force like the Iraqi army and cannot be expected to take on the Iraqi armed forces without substantial American airpower. Although fighters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan were not able to defeat the Al-Qaida-linked Ansar Al-Islam, they were successful with the addition of American missiles and precision-guided munitions.

OUTLOOK

Despite the best efforts of the United States, the divisions among the Iraqi Kurds remain deep. However, both have pledged to cooperate on their common goal of removing Saddam’s regime. In return for substantial funding, both have agreed they will respect the “territorial integrity of Iraq” — in other words, not try to form a Kurdish state.

But Kurds have bitter experience with past “pledges” made by superpowers and empires. Whether their own pledge to remain inside a postwar Iraq is a lasting one may depend on the shape Iraq takes after the war, and on internal Kurdish dynamics, which have proven tremendously resistant to outside influence for centuries.

* Rick Francona, an NBC News analyst, served as U.S. military attaché in Baghdad during the 1980s and with U.S. intelligence in northern Iraq during the Clinton administration.

4. - Turkish Daily News - "Old comrades, new foes":

The recent debate on 'National View' fuels the parting time between ruling AK party and Islamists roots as well as giving AK Party leader's rival and mentor of Turkish Political Islam Necmettin Erbakan a tool to strongly criticize the party and its prominent names.

ANKARA / 8 April 2003 / by Esra Erduran

Although AK Party denies its Islamist tools, it is known that almost half of its deputies come from the "National View" and it based its establishment on this concept. Recent debate on the "National View" fueled the parting time between the ruling Justice and Development Party and its Islamist roots, as well as giving its rivals a good tool to criticize it and its prominent members.

As a ruling party holding an overwhelming majority of seats in Parliament, AK party does not have problems with opposition parties but it suffers from opposition groups within itself.

The recent debate on the "National view" that emerged after the Government branded the National View as a radical terrorist organization while presenting a fighting terrorism and organized crimes agreement between Turkey and Germany to Turkish Parliament for approval on Friday, the differing views within the party reached a peak.

"Radical Islamist groups the National View and Islamic Federated State of Anatolia have activities against Turkey and in Germany," said the government while presenting the agreement to Parliament.

AKP group was shocked with this agreement signed with Germany. Cumhuriyet newspaper quoted Prime Minister and AK Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu as saying that they were unaware of the content of the agreement, which further surprised AKP deputies.

National view as old as political Islam in Turkey

The National View is a concept that was invented by veteran politician and mentor of political Islam in Turkey, Necmettin Erbakan in an effort to find a common ground between various different Islamist sects in the 1960s.

And this effort of Erbakan came at a time when political Islam was on the rise all over the world.

Before Erbakan, different influential Islamist sects were supporting different center-right parties but mainly Suleyman Demirel who at the time was a young but promising politician.

In 1970, Erbakan founded his first political party, the National Order Party (MNP), and "National View" was the party's main policy. In May 1971, MNP was disbanded by the Constitutional Court after accusations arose that it was anti-secular. Erbakan exiled himself in Switzerland. But this was only the beginning of the stormy political path of Erbakan and his "National View."

Parties change, national view remains

Erbakan is a politician that does not easily give up fighting. In October 1972, the National Salvation Party (MSP) was formed by Erbakan's close aides. He returned to Turkey and took its leadership. In 1973, MSP won 11.8 percent of votes in general elections, winning 48 seats in the 450-member Parliament. Between 1974-1977, MSP joined three successive coalition governments as a junior partner. Erbakan served as deputy prime minister each time.

The party survived until September 1980, when the military took over with a coup after factional fighting. All political parties were abolished and party leaders placed under house arrest.

In October of 1980, Erbakan and 21 MSP officials were imprisoned on charges of acting against secularism. They were released one year later and acquitted. But his political ban remained.

MSP survived longer than MNP that was also founded by Erbakan. Just like Erbakan's first political party, MSP was also based on "National View" ideology.

The names of the political parties were changing but the National View was surviving as the umbrella.

Despite the ban on the party and its leader, the national view concept didn't die, instead it raised a number of politicians who are currently serving the country to ministers.

Welfare Party, revival of National View

The National View remained behind the curtains until the founding of the Welfare Party in July 1983. It was founded by Erbakan's close aides while he remained banned from politics. And in October 1987, the ban on former political leaders was lifted, allowing Erbakan to take over the RP leadership.

Until 1995, parties that were founded on the "National View" idea were getting around 11-17 percent of votes in general elections. The 1995 elections were a shock for secular parts of the state as the party won 21 percent of votes and became the largest party in Parliament with 158 seats in a further-expanded 550-member Parliament.

The results allowed Erbakan's greatest ambition to come true. In 1996, he formed a coalition government with Tansu Ciller and finally became the prime minister of Turkey. But his happiness didn't last long and in June 1997, he had to resign due to mounting pressure from the secularist military. This period is called a "post-modern coup," by some circles.

1998 didn't bring good luck to Erdogan. His RP was disbanded by the Constitutional Court and prosecutors launched an investigation against Erbakan on charges of insulting the Constitutional Court.

RP was the successor of other parties of Erbakan and its establishment and its success meant the revival of national view in Turkish politics. But the party's closure didn't mean that the national view also ended.

In 1998, Erbakan's comrades re-launched their potent cause under a new banner, after their former flagship the RP was officially outlawed by the Constitutional Court. More than 100 former RP deputies, including Islamist policy-makers, join the newly formed Virtue Party (FP) which inaugurated its parliamentary life at a meeting in a chamber of the National Assembly, as well as its policy of National view.

In line with the "Post-modern coup" the pressures on the Islamist party and its members were increasing. In 1999, Chief Prosecutor Vural Savas asked the Constitutional Court to ban the FP on charges that was the successor of RP.

As well as fighting judicial hardships, the party was also suffering from winds of division. The people loyal to Erbakan and reformists were the two main groups in the party. Both were from the national view tradition. On the other hand, there was a minor group coming from different center-right parties and they were not members of the national view tradition accordingly. Different groups within FP stayed united until the closure of the party.

National view on the crossroads

The closure of FP unearthed the differing views of the loyals and reformists and the national view was at the crossroads. While loyals founded the Saadet (happiness or contentment) party, the reformists established AK party.

Rather than becoming the new address of Political Islam, the party aimed to become the new umbrella to merge the center-right. It denied its Islamist roots and claimed to become the new center-right party of Turkey while Turkey's two main center-right parties of Turkey were falling from grace.

But it is true that almost all prominent names of the party, as well as almost more than half of AK Party deputies, were from National View. It is also known that AK Party won a landslide victory in the 2002 elections by getting Islamist votes as well as some center-right votes.

Since it came to power, AK Party has been bombarded with criticisms for its failure in various fields, including the rejection of the motion that was going to allow U.S. troops deployment on Turkish soil and the failure in taking needed economic measures.

The AK Party government's recent move on the National View is a golden opportunity for Erbakan to carry out fierce opposition in public.

Erbakan, who is still influential over the Islamist grassroots, has returned to active political life after his ban was lifted. Now, he has a golden tool to criticize former comrades strongly.

5. - The Financial Times - "Turkey denies shift in foreign policy":

ANKARA / 7 April 2003 / by Leyla Boulton

Turkey on Monday insisted that a flurry of contacts with Iran and Syria over the war in neighbouring Iraq did not mean it was forming a tripartite grouping with countries viewed with suspicion by the US.


After meeting his Iranian counterpart on Sunday, Abdullah Gul, foreign minister, is due to travel to Damascus this weekend. But Mr Gul on Monday stressed that such contacts were driven by the war in Iraq, which has a border with all three countries.

"It is very natural to consult [with each other]," he said. "Bilaterally we consulted with Iran and we will meet with Syria. For the purposes of stability we will continue bilateral consultations."

All three countries have made clear they would not countenance the emergence of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq - a recurrent fear dismissed as unfounded by both the US and Iraqi Kurds.

Some diplomats also suggested that Syria and Iran might be trying to insure themselves against being next in line for a US policy of "regime change" by aligning themselves closely with Turkey, a Nato member.

After failing to approve the deployment of US troops for a second front against Iraq, Turkey has taken tangible steps to repair relations with the US.

A visit to Ankara last week by Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, was followed by announcements that Turkey would step up non-military aid to US troops and expel three Iraqi diplomats for spying.

But the subsequent contact between the Turkish government and Iran and Syria sparked suggestions on Monday of a foreign policy shift by the newly elected AKP, the justice and development party, which says it has eschewed its Islamist roots. .

High-level visits to Libya and Iran played a role in the downfall in 1997 of Necmettin Erbakan, Turkey's last Islamist prime minister, who was forced to resign by the Turkish armed forces.

Foreign diplomats in Ankara were more sanguine about the latest developments. At most, they said, the (AKP) was playing to the gallery of public opinion, generally hostile to the war, and its own grassroots political supporters.

The impression that Turkey is not wholly dependent on its links with the US is likely to go down well with nationalistic sections of the arch-secularist establishment, who mistrust the AKP and US intentions in Iraq.

Even the general who heads the National Security Council suggested last year that Turkey, as an alternative to pursuing membership of the European Union, should develop relations with Iran and Russia. The war in Iraq has stirred latent antipathy towards the US within the same circles.

6. - AFP - "Athens rules out any Cyprus talks outside UN framework":

ATHENS / 8 April 2003

Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis will hear out proposals on disputed Cyprus by his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan when they meet at a regional summit this week, but he stands firm that any formal talks remain within a UN framework, sources close to Simitis say.

"We expect nothing to come out of the meeting. We will of course listen to Mr. Erdogan and we'll discuss all the issues preoccupying the two capitals," one source said. The meeting in Belgrade Wednesday "will simply be an ordinary meeting on the sidelines of a regular meeting of the Balkan countries," a diplomatic source said.

Erdogan announced last week that Turkey would initiate its own bid to end the 29-year division of the Mediterranean island after a UN effort failed on March 11. He called for talks with Greece and hinted they could take place outside the UN framework.

Simitis on Monday dismissed the initiative as a bid to move the Cyprus peace process away from the UN plan. "These proposals cannot be accepted," he said in a televised speech. He also warned that Turkey would not enter the European Union as long as Cyprus remained divided.

EU hopeful Ankara is feeling the pressure over Cyprus -- one of the 10 new countries invited to join the European Union -- after the 15-member body said that without a peace deal, it would admit only the internationally recognized Greek south of the island.

The UN talks were considered a last-ditch attempt before the Greek Cypriots are due to sign an EU accession treaty on April 16. In a report this weekend, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan blamed Turkish
Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash for the failure of this latest attempt, which envisaged a Swiss-style loose federation of two component states.

Cyprus has been divided since July 1974 when Turkish troops occupied the northern third of the island in response to a Greek Cypriot coup that sought to unite the island with Greece. "We agreed to this meeting in the interest of the good climate between our two countries," said Greek government spokesman Christos Protopapas, stressing that such bilateral meetings were common.

Erdogan's proposal hinted at sidestepping the United Nations by holding rapid negotiations among what he called Cyprus' three guarantor states -- Turkey, Greece and Britain -- as well as the Turkish and Greek Cypriot sides. But the source close to Simitis on Monday said "it's the elected government of the Republic of Cyprus, which we support, that has to discuss with the leaders of the Turkish Cypriots, not us with Ankara."

At any rate, any settlement "must go through the United Nations. Mr. Denktash can in no way avoid this framework," the source said. Political commentators were also pessimistic. "I don't expect much from the meeting, there will be nothing of substance," said Yannis Kartalis, a specialist in Greek-Turkish relations on the influential To Vima daily.

He said Greece, the current EU president, was too preoccupied at the moment by the war in Iraq and the EU accession treaties to be signed on April 16. A unilateral Greek Cypriot entry to the EU could prove problematic for Turkey, by making its 30,000 soldiers in the north an "occupying force" on EU territory.

The absence of a solution could also hurt Ankara's own struggling bid to join the 15-nation bloc, not to mention jeopardize an EU pledge of 273 million euros for the impoverished Turkish side of Cyprus following reunification. Feeling the crunch, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul on Saturday voiced hope that Cyprus peace efforts would not be undermined by the Greek Cypriot government's signing of the EU accession treaty this month.

"April 16 isn't the end of everything," he said. Kartalis suggested Athens revive Cyprus talks once the Iraq war is over. But Kyra Adam, a political analyst for the Eleftherotypia daily, stressed "there was no way Athens would accept trying to settle the Cyprus question outside a UN framework."