7
May 2003
2. "Wolfowitz: US could not find expected support from Turkish army", one of the leading decision makers of the U.S., Paul Wolfowitz, said the U.S. could not find the support that it was looking for from the Turkish army during the Iraq war, and it seems Turkey's Incirlik airbase will lose its importance, though the U.S. had not reached a decision to leave this airbase.
3. "Cyprus euphoria dented by Denktash", Island's barriers eased, but not for those on blacklist
4. "Solution to the 'Kurdish problem'", since the establishment of the British Mandate of Iraq in 1921, the Arab Sunni community — some 15 percent to 17 percent of the population — has ruled with an iron hand over a multiethnic, multireligious society.
5. "Fatal Vision", can we control the forces of religion unleashed by the war in Iraq?
6. "Between the US and the EU", Turkey should prepare for negotiations with the European Union, but it should do this by working to improve its relations with the US.
1. - IHD Today - "Raid on the Human Rights Association of Turkey":
ANKARA / 6 May 2003
Police and the State Security Court (SSC) prosecutor raided the Human
Rights Association of Turkey (IHD)’s central offices and Ankara
branch’s buildings. After a three-hour search, they confiscated
some documents and hard disks.
This search was held on the pretext of an investigation about IHD,
accused of "helping terrorist organizations" by issuing
some press releases.
Ender Buyukculha, chair for the IHD Ankara branch, stated that documents and other publications that were seized were not recorded properly. Buyukculha said that they were not informed about the reasons for the search, they could only learn that the search was conducted under Articles 169 and 312 of the Turkish Penal Code and Anti Terror Law.
These articles punish "praising, helping and harbouring terrorists."
Mr. Sanar Yurdatapan, spokesperson of the Initiative for Freedom of Expression, stated that this practice had begun after a declaration by former Minister of Justice, Mr. Hikmet Sami Turk, to all state porsecutors during the discussions on hunger strikes at the prisons Type-F (High security isolation prisons).
After his message, the cases have been opened against who opposed the Types-F. This anti-democratic practice went on with cases against the students who gave petitions for demanding that Kurdish should be an optional lesson.
Mr. Turk’s idea was very clear: "Who may benefit from those kind of suggestions? Undoubtedly, terror organizations. This is the reason for that such statements should be defined as praising terrorist organizations and helping and sheltering terrorists, and cases should be opened under the said articles."
Husnu Ondul, president of IHD, protested against this practice by drawing attention to a coincidence:
"Today, at 3 p.m. we were invited to a meeting in which the
Ulusal Belge (National document -the answer to EU’s plan for
Turkish adhesion-) should be discussed. When a part of the Turkish
State takes a step towards democracy, the other part of the same State
makes immediately something in the other direction as an response
and a threat."
2. - Turkish Daily News - "Wolfowitz: US could not find expected support from Turkish army":
ANKARA / 7 May 2003
One of the leading decision makers of the U.S., Paul Wolfowitz, said the U.S. could not find the support that it was looking for from the Turkish army during the Iraq war, and it seems Turkey's Incirlik airbase will lose its importance, though the U.S. had not reached a decision to leave this airbase.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defence Wolfowitz, speaking to private CNN Turk television, said that the Turkish army did not play a leadership role and did not say `Turkey's interest is in supporting the U.S. in this war', which was expected from it.
The Turkish government had failed to pass a motion from Parliament that was to allow the deployment of U.S. troops in Turkey and opening of a northern front. The failure of the government motion strained relations and U.S. officials had said that they felt frustrated.
The U.S. might have guaranteed the security of northern Iraq more quickly with Turkey's assistance and from now on Turkey and the U.S. should work together to guarantee stability in northern Iraq, said Wolfowitz.
Leaders of Kurdish factions in northern Iraq, Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani, are in Baghdad and they are trying to play an important role in the future of Iraq. This is a positive development and the U.S. should work together with them, stated Wolfowitz.
Turkey's Iran and Syria policy should be in harmonization with U.S. policy. The U.S. is thinking that they should change their attitude, said Wolfowitz.
Wolfowitz said that the U.S. Secretary of State conveyed a very stern message to Syria that it should give up supporting terrorism. Turkey and U.S. efforts on the issue should be in coordination with each other.
Asked on the importance of Turkey's Incirlik airbase, that hosts British and U.S. planes, Wolfowitz said that it seems Turkey's Incirlik airbase will lose its importance but the U.S. had not reached a decision on leaving this airbase.
Wolfowitz also answered CNN Turk's question about press reports on Turkish soldiers reportedly taken into custody and deported by the U.S. forces, reportedly giving arms to Turkmens, who have ethnic and historic ties with Turkey.
This action was a violation of the rules that the U.S. voiced very clearly, but everyone should forget this since Mr. Gul and Mr. Powell made the necessary discussions on the issue, he said.
Answering a question on the terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), that has militants in northern Iraq and embark on many terrorist activities in Turkey, Wolfowitz said that the PKK is a terrorist organization and the U.S. cannot approach this organization with tolerance.
Wolfowitz said that he cannot give the answer of how the U.S. will deal with the problem at that moment, but Turkey, Kurdish groups and the U.S. said the PKK is a terrorist organization and we don't need such a problem in the region.
Asked on Turkey's role in an international stability force in Iraq that is being planned to be established, Wolfowitz said there are some difficulties in Turkey's taking part in the stability force, sourcing from Ottoman history.
Wolfowitz also said that Turkey should accept that it made a mistake, and should embark on helping the U.S. from now on. This is important for Turkey, since Turkey is the country that will benefit from the positive developments in Iraq very much and quickly.
There is serious frustration regarding Turkey's attitude but we have an opportunity to correct the mistake. There is a chance for cooperation, he said.
Wolfowitz added that if the U.S. and Turkey work together in the democratization project of an Arab country and they achieve this, then all the damages in relations will be fixed.
Wolfowitz concluded that by the way of democratization of Iraq, Arabs
will see that democracy may be implemented in Arabic countries.
3. - The Guardian - "Cyprus euphoria dented by Denktash":
Island's barriers eased, but not for those on blacklist
ATHENS / May 7, 2003
by Helena Smith
The euphoria surrounding the easing of travel restrictions on the long-divided island of Cyprus took a blow yesterday after the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, demanded that a number of "undesirable" Greek Cypriots be blacklisted from crossing into his self-declared state.
The veteran politician, who astonished peace mediators two weeks ago when he unexpectedly ordered the lifting of the barricades that divide the island, said the blacklist was now necessary to "prevent trouble".
The blacklist is expected to include Greek Cypriots known to have murdered their compatriots during the inter-communal strife that preceded the 1974 Turkish invasion, and gunmen from Eoka, the group that campaigned in the 50s and 60s for union with Greece.
"A blacklist should be in front of every policeman," Mr Denktash told the local BRT television channel.
"Such people will not pass. Something might happen, and trouble might be caused. We had said in the past that we should give blacklists to each other for freedom of movement to exist. Now the time for it has come."
Mr Denktash said he ordered police to prepare the list from "past documents" after a Greek Cypriot refugee who was returning to his village in the breakaway north was almost lynched amid accusations that he had murdered two Turkish Cypriots in 1974.
But many Turkish Cypriots - echoing resident diplomats - said the step would only spell trouble.
Since the restrictions were lifted, more than 160,000 islanders have crossed the ceasefire line in an exchange that has been noticeably free of violence.
Yesterday the blacklist, which has yet to be implemented, was roundly denounced by Mr Denktash's opponents.
Many said it would incite the Greeks to follow suit - President Tassos Papadopoulos was a prominent member of Eoka in the 50s - destroying the climate of goodwill that the mingling of the two communities had generated so far.
"Greek Cypriots killed us but Turkish Cypriots killed them as well," Feder Soyer, an MP with the opposition Republican party, told the Guardian from the Turkish half of Nicosia.
"Today I gave a speech in parliament saying that such measures will only cause problems, not solve them. Terrible things always happen in war but if the two sides want real reconciliation they are the things we have to forget."
Mirroring remarks made by President Papadopoulos, the Turkish Cypriot politician said that the lifting of the ban did not signal the end of the last dividing wall in Europe.
"What is happening is beautiful but it is not enough," Mr Soyer said. "We have to find a solution. Like this, there are no rules, and anything could happen."
Mr Denktash, the focus of international criticism for obstructing UN attempts to reunify the island this year, has ruled out restarting the peace process.
Allowing Cypriots to cross the divide that has separated them for
almost 30 years is simply aimed at boosting confidence between the
two communities, he maintains.
4. - The Washington Times - "Solution to the 'Kurdish problem'":
7 May 2003
by Carole A. O´Leary
In what might be called a tragic irony, Wajeeh Barzani, a son of
the late Kurdish leader Mula Mustafa Barzani, was critically injured
in a friendly fire incident in northern Iraq April 6. It is tragic,
because as he and his Kurdish peshmergas — "those who face
death" — were advising U.S. special forces about Iraqi targets
in the moments before the attack, the foreign ministers of Iran and
Turkey were meeting in Ankara to conspire against his people —
the long-suffering Kurds of Iraq.
Wajeeh Barzani and thousands of Iraqi Kurds have literally put their
lives on the line to assist American forces in liberating Iraq. They
have done so because they believe that President Bush will keep his
promise to liberate the Iraqi people and ensure that a federal, pluralistic
and democratic system of governance emerges out of the ashes of Saddam's
Iraq.
As President Bush rightly recognizes, regime change in Iraq does not
assure the end of dictatorship and aggression; it does not guarantee
a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq at peace with its own citizens and its
neighbors. Any roadmap for a peaceful transition in Iraq must take
into account the multiethnic, multireligious nature of Iraqi society.
Iraqis and their American partners in liberation must commit themselves
to establishing a system of governance rooted in the principle of
pluralism.
Since the establishment of the British Mandate of Iraq in 1921, the
Arab Sunni community — some 15 percent to 17 percent of the population
— has ruled with an iron hand over a multiethnic, multireligious
society in which Kurds outnumber Sunni Arabs and Shi'as form the largest
communal group. Turkey and Iran — who see eye to eye on very
little with respect to foreign policy concerns — are in complete
agreement when it comes to their mutual obsession with what they perceive
as their common "Kurdish problem." Why? Turks and Iranians,
who have yet to provide full political and cultural rights for their
own Kurdish communities, fear that the decade-long Kurdish experiment
in democracy and self-rule which has flowered in the Kurdish autonomous
enclave in northern Iraq will be institutionalized through a federal
arrangement with a new central government in Baghdad.
A new Iraq in which Kurds express their internationally recognized
right to self-determination through a federal arrangement with Baghdad
constitutes an existential threat to states like Turkey and Iran whose
vision of national identity is rooted not in concepts of citizenship,
pluralism or common values but in exclusionism. Reza Pahlavi and his
son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in Iran and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey
adopted a late variant of European nationalism — known as "official
nationalism" — in which national identity was constructed
on the basis of ethno-linguistic factors — Persian language and
culture in the one case and Turkish in the other. Constructing a national
identity on this basis in a homogeneous society is one thing —
imposing it on a heterogeneous reality is yet another. Thus, as recently
as the early 1990s, Turkish diplomats in Washington were still referring
to Turkey's large Kurdish community as "mountain Turks."
A key question here is whether the current model for maintaining stability
in the Middle East, predicated on U.S. support for friendly autocratic
states, will cause the Bush Administration to back away from the challenge
of constructing a federal, pluralistic and democratic Iraq. There
is a precedent for this. In 1991, the first Bush administration made
a strategic decision not to support the Iraqi uprising due to concerns
about the stability of key U.S. allies in the region — Turkey
and the oil-producing Arab states. U.S. troops in Iraq stood on the
sidelines as Saddam's security apparatus brutally crushed the uprising
that was spearheaded by Kurds in the north and Shi'a in the south.
Contrary to the model of stability embraced by the first Bush Administration
in 1991, real stability emerges from meeting the basic human needs
of a society, including political and cultural rights for all ethnic
and religious communities.
While regime change can open the door for transition to a pluralistic
democracy in Iraq, the transition process will only succeed in the
long run if it is an indigenous process — rooted in the active
participation of a broad spectrum of Iraqis in the political process.
Although no one can yet speak for some 20 million newly liberated
Iraqis, the 4 million Iraqis in the Kurdish autonomous zone have been
free to express their views for a decade. They overwhelmingly support
a democratic and federal Iraq and are now debating the fine points
of a new Iraqi constitution in their regional parliament. Likewise,
since 1992, the Iraqi opposition in exile — including the Iraqi
National Congress — has been consistent in its support for a
democratic and federal Iraq, precisely because it recognizes that
Kurds and Shi'a must have a place at the table and that federalism
is the best framework for governance in a pluralistic society.
The creation of the Kurdish safe haven and northern no-fly zone in
1991 produced a unique situation in which democratization and civil
society-building have begun to take root through the efforts of the
Kurdistan regional government and the millions of Iraqis who live
in the protected region. The Kurdish experiment in democracy can provide
a model for the rest of Iraq in the transitional phase. Moreover,
there are important lessons to be learned from it. The critical role
of Turkey and Iran in fueling the intra-Kurdish civil war during the
mid-90s should be revisited by American policy-makers and Iraqis alike.
Likewise, there are lessons to be drawn from examining how pressure
from below — the role of ordinary citizens — influenced
the process of negotiation and compromise between the Kurdish leaders
that resulted in the power-sharing arrangement that exists in the
safe haven today.
Given the failure of the United States, Europe and the states in the
region to confront the regime's history of crimes against the Iraqi
people, a pluralistic, democratic and federal post-Saddam Hussein
Iraq is a clear moral imperative for the United States.
Carole A. O'Leary is an adjunct research professor with American
University's School of International Service.
5. - The Atlantic - "Fatal Vision":
Can we control the forces of religion unleashed by the war in Iraq?
May 1, 2003.....
M y brother-in-law fought in Vietnam for the domino theory. His son fought in Iraq for a new domino theory—the notion that a U.S.-sponsored democracy there will release a democratic "tsunami" that will topple the authoritarian governments of the Arab world. Domino Theory One was based on a strategic misconception: that we were containing expansionist international communism in Vietnam instead of resisting a nationalist, albeit Leninist-led, revolution rooted in the struggle against French colonialism. Domino Two is based on the theory that the Arab "regimes" are our enemy in what James Woolsey, the former CIA chief and ubiquitous TV hawk, calls "World War Four"—because their domestic repression stokes Islamist terrorism, which the regimes then deflect toward the U.S. But Shiite anger at the U.S. and the baffled response it has met with from U.S. officials who expected our forces to be hailed as liberators suggest that religion may be to Domino Two what nationalism was to Domino One—its fatal blind spot. Isaiah Berlin captured the nature of religious-based resistance to foreign domination in his metaphor for the political dynamics of nationalist resistance that swept us out of Vietnam—"the bent twig," which snaps back harder the further it is pushed.
The paranoid logic of the Cold War rendered Domino One persuasive. To save San Francisco, we had to make a stand 12,000 miles away. Domino Two, however, has an a priori logical flaw that awaits merciless testing by experience. The democracy we prescribe for Iraq could be an iatrogenic cure. An Iraqi exile I talked to recently said that the scenario that moderate Shiites like his family fear most is that Iraq's first free elections will be its last—that the Shiite majority will come to power and install a theocratic state under the sway of Iran. Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, U.S. policy in the Gulf has sought to prevent revolutionary Shiism from threatening the stability of the Gulf states and the U.S. national interest in a secure supply of oil. That is a domino theory that the neoconservatives driving Bush Administration policy seem to have forgotten in their fixation on the threat to those countries and resources posed by Saddam Hussein.
Monomania talks a good game. It comes to a premature and foreclosing clarity using self-reinforcing facts and arguments. It is bad thinking that sounds good. Practical men like Colin Powell are always at a disadvantage in rebutting idea-driven policies. They know the world resists mono-causal accounts of what's wrong with it and how to set it right, but their chattering-class opponents easily spin their skepticism as defeatism. In fact that skepticism represents what Sir Lewis Namier, the British historian, called the "crowning attainment of historical study ... an intuitive sense of how things do not happen."
A U.S.-imposed democratic revolution from above, the neoconservatives contend, will prove stronger than an Iran-sponsored Shiite revolution from below fed on a millennium of martyrdom and focusing popular resentments against a century of Western imperialism. But the historical precedents they cite—the guided democraticization of Germany and Japan after World War II—do not apply to Iraq, as historians like John Dower, who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the U.S. effort in Japan, have argued. The differences between Iraq and Japan are fundamental. Japan is an island that could be sealed off from destabilizing foreign influences, and the Japanese possessed cultural and ethnic unity. Even so, reconstructing Japan and readying it for democratic self-rule took 250,000 U.S. servicemen and officials six years. And there was not a single act of terrorism committed against the American occupiers.
The U.S. occupation of Iraq has some commentators reaching for a
more troubling model—the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon
that began twenty years ago. Initially the Israelis were greeted as
liberators by the Shiite majority for driving out the PLO "state
within a state" that had tyrannized them for years. But the honeymoon
soon ended. Israeli tanks entered a village in the midst of a religious
ceremony honoring the foundational martyr of the sect. The Shiites
blocked their way and tried to tip over their vehicles. The Israelis,
defending themselves, fired on the crowd, igniting a guerrilla war
that took hundreds of Israeli lives and finally drove the Israelis
out of Lebanon altogether. That incident, one expert wrote in The
Boston Globe, was a "tipping point" from welcome into violent
rejection. In two incidents this week U.S. soldiers killed Iraqi demonstrators
in Falluja, a Sunni city. Shooting into a Shiite crowd could have
been—and could yet prove to be—a tipping point. In Lebanon
the Shiites threw flowers at Israeli tanks, but in Iraq there were
no flowers and there will be more incidents. We have won the war,
but who will win the peace?
6. - Turkiye - "Between the US and the EU":
by Yilmaz Oztuna
Columnist Yilmaz Oztuna comments on Turkey’s relations with the European Union and the US.
Turkey should prepare for negotiations with the European Union, but it should do this by working to improve its relations with the US. US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld recently visited Incirlik Airbase but had no contact with officials in Ankara, which shows how our strategic ally was offended by Turkey. Rumsfeld visited the US’ tiny allies in the Persian Gulf to thank them, but he passed through Turkey almost in anger. In addition, US Secretary of State Colin Powell recently travelled to Albania to thank it for participating in the Iraq operation with just 100 soldiers. Our friend in Oceania, Australia, as well as Poland, which we have been supporting for many years in Central Europe, have a place at the table where the new order in Iraq will be formed. In addition, for some reason Turkey didn’t even send Turkish Red Crescent aid to Kirkuk.
Our relations with the EU aren’t easy to handle either. Many people in Turkey don’t believe that the European criteria represent the level of modern civilization. They still have failed to comprehend that there’s no level besides the EU that can save us. There are still some people in every institution, organization and party remain dead set against modernization. They defend today’s corrupt order and are afraid that their status quo will be spoiled. They are incapable of doing anything but barking orders. If they had been able to do anything else, our situation would have been different now.
These people have a strong hold in today’s political power structure.
They don’t believe in the EU or else they believe they can use
it to advance their own ideology. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan should
work to overcome these forced. Concessions cannot be made in terms
of reforms and revolution.