1. "Access to Imrali Island Prison Denied for IHD", Ministry of Justice remains silent for Human Rights Association's request to examine the prison conditions of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. A group of IHD officials were denied access to the Imrali island. by the land officers in Gemlik.

2. "Rice gives Turkey assurances over Iraq’s unity, Kurdish rebels", Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said here Sunday that Washington was committed to Iraq’s unity and to combatting Turkish Kurd rebels hiding in northern Iraq as she sought to soothe Turkey’s growing unease over US policies in its war-torn neighbor.

3. "Rice smooths relations in Turkey", Turkey has warned that it could take action if Iraqi Kurdish attempts to change the demography of Kirkuk lead to ethnic clashes.

4. "Top soldier warns war still a threat", despite the thaw in cross-Aegean relations, the prospect of Greece going to war with Turkey is still fairly realistic, the outgoing head of the Greek Joint Chiefs of Staff warned in an interview with the Sunday Kathimerini.

5. "After Strong Showing In Election, Kurds Debate Whether Their Next Step Should Be Independence", some say that would draw wrath of Turkey and Iran.

6. "Kurds Disgruntled With Kurdish Parties", today, in fact, Kurdistan resembles a Soviet satellite state. Intelligence agents lurk everywhere, and those who threaten party power may find themselves languishing in prison.

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1. - Bianet - "Access to Imrali Island Prison Denied for IHD":

Ministry of Justice remains silent for Human Rights Association's request to examine the prison conditions of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. A group of IHD officials were denied access to the Imrali island. by the land officers in Gemlik.

ISTANBUL / 3 February 2005

The Human Rights Association (IHD) is yet to get a response from the Ministry Of Justice since 31st of January.in order to examine the conditions in Imrali Prison where PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan serves his lifetime sentence.

“Unfortunately the Ministry of Justice did not respond to our request, either positively or negatively, which has been the case in our previous applications too,” says lawyer Yusuf Alatas, head of IHD.

IHD Board has decided to form an investigation committee of 12 to visit Imrali Prison upon a recourse by the lawyers of Abdullah Öcalan who are concerned for their defendant’s conditions in the prison.

Alatas says: “Our committee was in Gemlik, Bursa on Wednesday. They negotiated with the military officials there. But the officials did not permit them to make an investigation. The Ministry of Justice had the authority to give a permission, not them, they told.”

According to Alatas, lawyers of Abdullah Öcalan to were not permitted to go to the island due to bad weather conditions.

“The committee had a talk with the deputy Chief Prosecutor in charge of Imrali Prison. Yet he too said that the Ministry of Justice had the authority and they could do nothing about the issue.

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2. - AFP - "Rice gives Turkey assurances over Iraq’s unity, Kurdish rebels":

ANKARA / 6 February 2005

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said here Sunday that Washington was committed to Iraq’s unity and to combatting Turkish Kurd rebels hiding in northern Iraq as she sought to soothe Turkey’s growing unease over US policies in its war-torn neighbor.

"We will work on the underlying difficulties that we face. ... Friends have differences from time to time but the important thing is that we remember we are still friends," Rice told reporters following talks with Turkish leaders.

Rice’s two-day visit to the Turkish capital followed charges from Ankara that Washington is turning a blind eye to Kurdish moves in northern Iraq aimed at paving the way for future Kurdish independence in the region, Turkey’s long-standing bete noire.

The accusations come at a time when the two NATO allies are already struggling to repair their ties in the wake of a severe diplomatic crisis ahead of Iraq’s invasion in March 2003 when Ankara stunned Washington by denying US troops access to Turkish territory to attack Iraq from the north.

"I reiterated the commitment of the United States to a unified Iraq which is at peace with its neighbors ... an Iraq in which all Iraqis are welcome and respected," Rice said.

The prospect of major Kurdish political gains in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk following the January 30 elections has irked Ankara, which suspects that the Kurds want to make the ethnically mixed city the capital of an independent Kurdish state.

Such a state, Ankara fears, would fuel separatism among the restive Kurds of adjoining southeastern Turkey, sparking regional turmoil.

As Rice sought to allay Turkish misgivings, organizers of an informal referendum on Kurdish independence that was conducted alongside the January 30 Iraqi elections announced that nearly 99 percent of respondents supported secession.

In an interview with Turkey’s NTV news channel, Rice said it was up to the Iraqis to decide on the future status of Kirkuk, but stressed that the ethnically volatile city should be a place where "all Iraqis will live together without fears."

Ankara has warned that it could be forced to take action if the city, which is also home to Turkish-speaking Turkmens, plunges into ethnic turmoil.

Rice also said that "Iraq’s territory should never be a place from where terrorism can be committed against its neghibors."

She was responding to Turkish frustration over the seemingly unimpeded presence in the mountains of northern Iraq of some 5,000 Turkish Kurd rebels who found refuge in the region before the US invasion and who last summer ended a five-year unilateral ceasefire with Ankara.

Turkey has long been disappointed over US reluctance to take military action against the guerrillas, members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Washington considers a terrorist organization.

Rice told NTV that trilateral security meetings between Turkey, Iraq and the United States should continue and that the parties should also seek to use non-military measures such as cutting off sources of financing for the rebels.

She stopped short of pledging military action against the PKK, highlighting the difficult security situation in other parts of Iraq.

Rice also urged Turkish leaders "to speak out about how important this (Turkish-US) relationship is to both of us" amid concerns here that differences over Iraq have fanned anti-US sentiment in Turkey, a secular Muslim nation which Washington values as a model of co-habitation between democracy and Islam.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul praised Turkish-US ties as "an alliance which has been tested throughout history," but also called for more intensive dialogue between the two sides.

"I believe we will follow up on the issues we discussed and have much deeper consultaions as two allies," he said.

The two officials also discussed the Cyprus conflict and efforts to revive the Middle East peace process.

Rice flew next to Israel the latest leg of her first international tour since her appointment last month, a whirlwind tour of eight European capitals and the Middle East.

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3. - BBC - "Rice smooths relations in Turkey":

6 February 2005

Condoleezza Rice has told leaders in Turkey that the US is "fully committed" to achieving a "unified Iraq".

The new US secretary of state was in Ankara on the fourth leg of a tour of Europe and the Middle East.

Turkey fears Kurds in Iraq are vying for political authority and that the Iraq war may lead to the creation of a Kurdish state in the north.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said relations with the US were at a "positive and mature point".

Independence vote

During the flight to Ankara from Poland, Ms Rice told reporters: "I'm here really in part to say to the Turks that we are fully committed, fully committed, to a unified Iraq."

The BBC's Pam O'Toole said relations cooled recently over what Turkey sees as Washington's failure to curb Iraqi Kurdish political ambitions, particularly in the oil-rich and ethnically-mixed northern city of Kirkuk.

The Kurds are pressing for the creation of a Kurdish region in Iraq, with Kirkuk as its capital - even though it currently lies outside the area they control.

It has resulted in a war of words between Iraqi Kurdish leaders and Turkey's government.

In recent weeks a ruling allowed around 70,000 Kurds who returned to the region - after being evicted under Saddam Hussein's Arabisation campaign - to vote in provincial elections.
Kurds, who in northern Iraq make up 15% of the national population of 27 million, voted almost unanimously in an informal referendum for independence from Iraq.

The unmonitored poll was conducted during last weekend's official Iraq elections, with Kurds surveyed as they emerged from polling stations.

Some 95% supported independence, organisers said.

Rivalry

Turkey has warned that it could take action if Iraqi Kurdish attempts to change the demography of Kirkuk lead to ethnic clashes.

Kurds turned out in their hundreds to vote in Iraq's election, hoping that the proportional representation system would win a bloc of seats for Kurdistan in the new government in Baghdad.

It meant doing away with rivalry for the main Kurdish parties - the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) who formed a United Kurdistan Coalition with Turcoman, Assyrian, Islamic and other parties.

The election result is expected later this week.

Ms Rice's eight-day tour is focusing on European ties and the prospects for peace in the Middle East.

While in Turkey, she met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for a working dinner. On Sunday she heads to Israel.

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4. - Katherimini - "Top soldier warns war still a threat":

7 February 2005

Despite the thaw in cross-Aegean relations, the prospect of Greece going to war with Turkey is still fairly realistic, the outgoing head of the Greek Joint Chiefs of Staff warned in an interview with the Sunday Kathimerini.

General Giorgos Antonakopoulos, whose three-year term in office ends on February 16, also argued that the fact of Turkish aggressiveness in the Aegean was more important than whether this behavior stemmed from political or military officials in Ankara.

«Given Turkey's continued questioning of our sovereign rights, I cannot agree with the view [that the possibility of war of the two countries going to war no longer exists],» Antonakopoulos said.

Greece and Turkey came very close to blows over the ownership of two uninhabited eastern Aegean islets in the January 1996 Imia crisis. Since then, though Greek and Turkish air force pilots regularly engage in tense simulated dogfights as a result of Aegean air space violations - and despite minor tension around the Imia islets - relations between the two governments have greatly improved.

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5. - The Los Angeles Times - "After Strong Showing In Election, Kurds Debate Whether Their Next Step Should Be Independence":

Some say that would draw wrath of Turkey and Iran

CHAMCHAMAL / 6 February 2005

A cane leans on the door, and the old tribal leader sits in the sun below the citadel. With a whisper, he could summon 1,000 armed men. He chooses not to.

Nevertheless, he says, the time has come for the Kurds to grab the oil fields, seal the northern mountain passes and seize their independence.

Karim Agha is a proven ally of the United States, but he is also part of a growing number of Kurds whose push for an independent state could splinter Iraq and undermine U.S. policy in the region.

Despite a strong showing in last Sunday's election that would give them unprecedented influence in a new national government, Kurds are debating whether it's time for them to declare their own state.

"The war against Saddam Hussein is over, and everyone has their freedom except the Kurds," Agha said, a gun resting against his wall, prayer beads laced through his fingers. "We are surrounded by enemies, and we can wait no longer for our own nation. It would be a great shame for the U.S. to abandon us."

Fearing that a bid for independence would draw the fury of neighboring Turkey and Iran, which have restive Kurdish populations, the main Kurdish political parties say they are committed to a unified Iraq. But many Kurds think the chaos across the country creates a prime opportunity for them to claim the contested oil city of Kirkuk and break away.

More than 1.7 million Kurds, or about 45 percent of their population, signed a petition for independence that was delivered to the United Nations recently.

The struggle is between pragmatism and a centuries-old dream. It suggests that the influence held by Kurdish politicians and U.S. allies such as Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani might be diminishing. Men such as Agha, chief of the Hamawand tribe, are more willing to fight than to equivocate in the face of international pressure, especially when it comes to independence and the fate of Kirkuk.

"Talabani and Barzani must not give up Kirkuk," Agha said. "If they do, the people will split with them. We won't accept that. We want it to be solved peacefully. But if not, we've already lost a lot of lives over Kirkuk, and we're willing to lose a lot more. The oil of Kirkuk will sustain us, and we will not abandon it."

Kirkuk critical

What unfolds in Kirkuk in coming days and weeks is as crucial to the stability of Iraq as the struggle between Shiite and Sunni Muslim Arabs to the south. The Kurds' goal has been to win a majority in the local elections in Kirkuk and claim the multi-ethnic city as part of their semiautonomous state in the north. The next step, Agha and others say, would be for the Kurds to demand independence.

The Kurds hope the votes of about 70,000 of them, expelled from Kirkuk under Hussein and seeking to return, will give them the edge in a local council now balanced among Kurds, Arabs, Turkmens and Assyrian Christians. They appear to be close to that aspiration. Arab voter turnout in Kirkuk was 25 percent to 40 percent, and Kurdish participation was more than 70 percent, according to local political parties.

A surge in Kurdish power would anger Turkey, which is worried that Kurdish control of Kirkuk and its oil reserves would embolden and create instability among Turkey's disadvantaged 13 million Kurds. That could create regional problems if Kurds in Iran and Syria also demanded more autonomy.

Washington has been pressuring Kurds not to break from Iraq. The two mainstream Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, want to avoid angering their most powerful ally. They say the political reality is that the United States will side with its NATO partner Turkey over a mountain people who have been denied independence for generations.

"It favors the Kurds to be with the Arabs in a united Iraq," said Nesherwan Mustafa, a senior political adviser to Talabani. "The Kurds in Iraq are a small population, so it's better for us to remain with the Arabs. Arab populations control 22 countries in the region, so it's in our political and economic interests to stay within Iraq. But at the same time the young are asking us, 'What is your achievement in Iraq since the fall of Hussein?'"

Kurdish leaders such as Talabani, who fought for decades in the mountains against Baghdad's armies and is a contender for president of Iraq, have made spectacular progress in the country. But strides in recent years have made other Kurds more determined to break away.

Sherko Bekas, a poet, is one of them. His cigarette ash lengthens as he speaks of his people's history of suffering.

Bekas tells how the Kurds were forced into Iraq by the Allies after World War I. Since then, he said, the Kurds have been politically oppressed and massacred by successive Iraqi governments.

He is a founder of the Referendum Movement, which last Sunday placed unofficial ballot boxes outside polling stations, asking Kurds whether they supported independence.

"So now we want to remove ourselves from the attachment that is Iraq," Bekas said, adding that Kurds had enjoyed democracy and capitalism for 12 years as they were protected from Hussein's forces by the U.S.- and British-patrolled "no-fly zone" imposed after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

"It is an impossible fit to try and push the Kurds and Arabs together. We know geography and history are against us. But if the U.S. allowed it, we could have independence."

Bekas and other Kurdish intellectuals once strongly backed Washington. During the U.S. invasion, the Kurds gave the U.S. land for airfields, mountain fighters for guides and use of their 50,000-strong militia. But that support is waning among many Kurds, who think the United States has overlooked them so as not to incite the Arab population.

Disappointed with U.S.

"I'm disappointed in U.S. policy toward the Kurds," Bekas said. "The U.S. is not reading Iraq accurately."

Goat paths are scattered over the winter mountains. On some hilltops are Iraqi army bunkers singed from bombing by U.S. planes two years ago.

In the valley, Chamchamal, a town of grays and browns, unfolds in its everyday rhythms: boys hawking black-market diesel, the creak and thrum of donkey carts.

Agha is lean, a mountain fighter with a keen political mind. He sits in a room filled with sunlight. A black-and-white scarf tied around his head, Agha sips coffee and slices fruit. This is the room where tribal disputes are resolved, where marriages are arranged and where muffled voices pay homage and seek forgiveness. It is the room where Agha likes to talk about a new nation.

A map on the wall shows the way he thinks an independent Kurdistan should look. The borders stretch from deep inside Turkey across northern Iraq and into western Iran. That would unsettle the Bush administration, but it is an old warrior's dream. Agha says he would like to leave such a place to his grandchildren.

"My grandfather fought against the Turks long ago. We've all fought against the Iraqi regimes," he said. "We've been victimized and killed, and still we have no self-determination. Look at Kuwait. It is a small country, smaller than Kurdistan. Yet, Kuwait has a seat at the United Nations, and millions of Kurds have no seat."

Like many clan leaders in this rugged country, Agha understands the nuances of power. Allies, he says, are more important than rash judgments. There is a time to fight, he says, but often a way not to.

"We are a small people, but we are friends of the American people, and we hope they keep their promises," Agha said.

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6. - The New Republic - "Kurds Disgruntled With Kurdish Parties":

3 February 2005 / by Annia Ciezadlo

To see what Iraq will look like after January 30, just look north: Here in Kurdistan, the election is already over, even before anyone has cast a ballot. The two ruling parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), have carved out most of the seats in Kurdistan's regional parliament. And, in the upcoming national election, most people here will vote for the two partners' combined slate; few have even heard of the independent tickets. "The only thing I know is that the election is between ethnic groups like Kurds and Arabs," says Dashne Khaled, an 18-year-old Kurd from the northern city of Irbil, which is controlled by Massoud Barzani's KDP. "So, if you're a Kurd, you vote for the Kurds, and if you're an Arab, you vote for the Arabs." And, in the PUK-controlled slice of Kurdistan, an old woman declares her loyalty to "Uncle Jalal," PUK leader Jalal Talabani, with an eerie echo of Saddam Hussein's old campaign slogan. Throwing her hands heavenward, she intones, "With my fingers, with my hands, with my whole body, I will vote for you, Talabani!"

Welcome to free Kurdistan, supposedly a thriving democracy in northern Iraq. According to The Washington Post, Iraq's Kurdish region is a "flourishing quasi-state" with "democratic elections and institutions." Other major U.S. media offer similar assessments, and Kurdish party leaders like to tell foreign journalists that their region can be a model for the rest of Iraq. They're right--but it's hardly a positive example: In fact, the region is actually a warning to the rest of Iraq. Kurdistan is a case study in what happens when nationalist political parties consolidate too much power, depriving citizens of what they really want--which, in Kurdistan, is independence.

In early December, the two Kurdish parties announced that they would run together for the national assembly and for the autonomous Kurdish parliament. Together, they formed a unified, unbeatable ticket--giving Kurds about as much choice as if, in last year's presidential election, George W. Bush had decided to merge with the Democrats and make John Kerry his vice president.

As a result, instead of making Kurdistan more democratic, the upcoming national elections are cementing the rule of the dominant parties here--a trend being repeated across Iraq. "Kurds, when they go to vote on January 30, are not going to vote for whoever protects their interests," says Hiwa Osman, a Kurdish political analyst. "They're going to vote for whoever is powerful enough to protect them from Arabs. Shiites are not going to vote for whoever has good governance--they are going to vote for whoever can protect them from the Sunnis."

Kurdistan is still recovering from its last election, held in 1992, when the region was protected from Saddam by a U.S. no-fly zone. After smaller parties were disqualified, the PUK and the KDP both claimed victory, and, in 1996, their simmering hostilities erupted into a full-blown civil war. In the next two elections, for municipal and student body governments, the two parties brutally suppressed any other groups. University students campaigning for Islamic parties were told bluntly by their professors--themselves installed by hacks from the two major parties--to back off or flunk their exams. "The tactics were quite ruthless. They ranged from arbitrary detentions of candidates for several days to beatings--quite severe beatings--of people planning to run against them," says Christoph Wilcke, a Kurdistan analyst for the International Crisis Group, adding dryly that support for parties other than the PUK and the KDP "might be broader than what is apparent."

Today, in fact, Kurdistan resembles a Soviet satellite state. Intelligence agents lurk everywhere, and those who threaten party power may find themselves languishing in prison. Everything is taxed. Party-run satellite channels broadcast endless footage of the party leaders and their press conferences. Independent candidates are virtually unknown. And, if you want a job, from hotel clerk to college professor, you would do well to join your local ruling party. In fact, there are few democratic institutions in Kurdistan. Even the 105-member Kurdish parliament is little more than a rubber stamp; party leaders make the real decisions in the KDP stronghold of Salahuddin--carefully maintaining a continual state of negotiated deadlock--and then notify the supposed lawmakers. "No parliament has power over these parties," says Shwan Mahmood, political editor of the independent Kurdish newspaper Hawlati. "Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani see themselves as above parliament." According to Amnesty International, both parties committed gross human rights violations throughout the '90s, from torture to summary executions.

Hawlati is a rarity in Kurdistan, where the media landscape is choked with shamelessly partisan newspapers like Khabat, which proclaims without irony that it is the "Party Organ of the KDP." Both Khabat and its PUK counterpart, the region's only dailies, revel in excruciatingly detailed accounts of their patrons' activities. Criticism of the party leaders is rare; deviation from the party line is almost never permitted. After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the parties warned journalists not to call coalition troops "occupying forces," ordering them to say "liberators" instead. "They were calling themselves `occupation authorities,' so why should we avoid using that term?" laughs Azad Seddiq, host of the popular TV talk show "Didar" ("Interview") on Kurdsat, the PUK's satellite channel. "Unfortunately, we are repeating some of the worst habits of the Baathist regime."

The saddest irony of all is that, free of any need to answer to the public, the parties can afford to ignore the Kurds' most burning desire: independence. While it's hardly a practical goal at the moment--neighboring Turkey, Syria, and Iran have made it quite clear they would respond drastically to such a move--the majority of Kurds want a government that will at least acknowledge that desire. And, before the national elections, it seemed Kurdistan was beginning to liberalize and even to consider acknowledging the popularity of independence. After the Iraq war, a group of Kurdish doctors, lawyers, poets, and exiles founded a mass movement to demand that Kurdistan hold a referendum asking Kurds if they want independence. In two weeks in February 2004, the movement gathered 1.7 million signatures--about half of Kurdistan's population of approximately 3.6 million--supporting a referendum. Their plan was to deliver the signatures to the United Nations that summer and simultaneously hold demonstrations. Many of the referendum movement's leaders also dared to criticize Kurdish party leaders, publishing articles on pro-independence websites. It seemed as though Kurdistan's closed civil society was slowly breaking open.

But then the run-up to the national elections began. The parties cracked down on the referendum movement, banning more mass demonstrations and preventing the local organizers from delivering the signatures abroad. When the United Nations finally deigned to welcome the stateless Kurds, on December 22, 2004, the quiet handover of their petitions garnered barely any attention--just as the parties had planned. "The PUK and KDP are afraid that, if there are mass demonstrations, it will look to the Americans like they don't support the elections," says Kamal Mirawdeli, one of the movement's organizers. "So they put pressure on people in Kurdistan not to have demonstrations."

At the same time, the parties were busy convincing homegrown opposition groups outside the referendum movement to close ranks. The national elections gave the Kurdish parties an airtight argument against dissent: the Shia. By skillfully invoking the specter of Iranian-style theocracy, the two parties have convinced most Kurds-- including smaller parties opposed to the PUK and the KDP--that it was their patriotic duty to join with the unified ticket and avoid splitting the Kurdish vote. "Separate lists would lead to internal conflict--and, in the long run, could hurt all of us," says Muhammad Haji Mahmud, head of the independent Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party, which had originally planned to run independently. "If Kurds run in one list, it will help determine their percentage in Iraq, so that everybody knows their numbers, and there will be no split in the vote."

Not exactly the flowering of democracy the Iraqi elections were supposed to encourage. When the United Nations selected Iraq's electoral method, proportional representation, one of its selling points was that it allowed for minority representation. But the necessity of running in a national election, combined with the U.N.'s other choice--making Iraq into a single electoral district--transformed that strength into a weakness. Because the formula discriminates against independent candidates, it encourages small players to form coalitions instead of going it alone. The hope was that, by joining together, parties would join in that great parlor game of democracy, "coalition-building." It worked all too well, with Kurds and Shia congealing into two massive mega-slates based solely on religious and ethnic identity. And, just as the Shia super-slate forced smaller parties to join or risk losing the chance of getting any seats, the combined Kurdish ticket effectively forced all the smaller parties to align themselves with the PUK and the KDP or be lost.

What can be done as Iraq prepares for elections that appear certain to harden internal divisions and keep undemocratic parties in power? Some experts think Iraq's nascent democratic movements would fare better in local elections. In fact, local elections in Kurdistan are the one exception to party hegemony: While smaller parties like Mahmud's joined the combined Kurdish ticket for the regional and national elections, they are running independently on the local ballot. "Iraqis would vote for different candidates if other sects were not going to be a threat," says Osman. "They would vote for alternatives, and you would see moderate elements begin to emerge. Hard-liners of each group would have to move to the center. Instead, because of fear of dominance, we're electing warlords."

Or worse. "For me, it's no different whether we have an Arab Saddam or a Kurdish Saddam," says Mirawdeli. "We need a real, genuine civil society. We don't want nationalism to mask some kind of dictatorship, which is what is happening in Kurdistan."