26 January 2005

1. "Turkey set to demand extradition of Kurdish rebel leader from Germany", Turkish authorities are making the necessary legal preparations to demand the extradition of a Kurdish rebel leader detained in Germany last week, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said Wednesday.

2. "Kurdish rebels set fire at Turk industrial complex", Kurdish rebels have claimed responsibility for a fire at a warehouse of a leading electronics manufacturer in western Turkey that caused millions of dollars of damage but no casualties. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which launched an armed uprising for an ethnic homeland in 1984, has traditionally conducted guerrilla warfare in rural areas of the mainly Kurdish southeast and has not generally hit economic targets.

3. "Turkey to pay 10,000 euros damages to man electrocuted in police custody", the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ordered Turkey to pay 10,000 euros (12,955 dollars) damages to a man who said he was beaten and electrocuted on the tongue while in police custody.

4. "Four Honor Killings in One Day Across Turkey", who fail to take the necessary legal and administrative measures, are responsible for the deaths of women in "honor killings", protest the IHD. Four women were killed by male relatives in Bursa, Adana, Gaziantep and Sanliurfa in the same day, for "honor".

5. "Cyprus government ready to renew peace talks", Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos declared Tuesday his readiness to resume negotiations that would lead to a "right and viable" solution to Cyprus problem,the semi-official Cyprus News Agency reported.

6. "Turkish army rules out troop withdrawal from Cyprus without settlement", the Turkish army has no intention of withdrawing troops from the breakaway Turkish Cypriot republic before the three-decade-old Cyprus conflict is resolved, a senior Turkish general said here on Tuesday.

7. "PKK-linked parties to participate in Iraq elections", two parties linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are unlikely to be barred from this weekend's election in Iraq, an official from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which oversees Iraqi expatriate voting, said.

8. "Kurds To Decide Who Wields Power", perched like a peaked cap on Iraq's sprawling torso, the Kurdish northern enclave is set to emerge as the strong winner from Sunday's elections and will almost certainly hold the balance of power in the new national assembly.

1. - AFP - "Turkey set to demand extradition of Kurdish rebel leader from Germany":

ANKARA / 26 January 2005

Turkish authorities are making the necessary legal preparations to demand the extradition of a Kurdish rebel leader detained in Germany last week, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said Wednesday.

"Work is under way to secure the extradition to Turkey of that person," Cicek said when asked about Remzi Kartal, deputy chairman of KONGRA-GEL, the new name of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Anatolia news agency reported.

The minister explained that Ankara was preparing the required documents to lodge a formal extradition request and had asked German authorities to keep Kartal in custody in the meantime.

Kartal was arrested in Nuremberg on Saturday on an international warrant issued by Turkey on suspicion of being a member of a terrorist organization.

The PKK, which has waged a separatist war on Ankara, is considered a terrorist group by Turkey as well as the European Union and the United States.

Kartal was among a group of Kurdish members of the Turkish parliament who fled to Europe in 1994 after authorities cracked down on their Democracy Party on charges that it was collaborating with the PKK rebellion.

Four others, including human rights award winner Leyla Zana, ended up in prison and were released only in June, pending a review of their sentences.

Kartal, who was based in Brussels, was in Nuremberg to attend a cultural function when he was detained, according to the Kurdish media.

The PKK took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast in 1984, with the conflict claiming some 37,000 lives since then. The group called off a five-year unilateral truce on June 1, since when it has been blamed for a series of deadly attacks in the southeast.

2. - Reuters - "Kurdish rebels set fire at Turk industrial complex":

ISTANBUL / 26 Januar 2005

Kurdish rebels have claimed responsibility for a fire at a warehouse of a leading electronics manufacturer in western Turkey that caused millions of dollars of damage but no casualties.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which launched an armed uprising for an ethnic homeland in 1984, has traditionally conducted guerrilla warfare in rural areas of the mainly Kurdish southeast and has not generally hit economic targets.

Europe-based Roj TV, a mouthpiece for the PKK, said late on Tuesday the militants had set fire to a Beko Elektronik <BEKO.IS> warehouse in Beylikduzu, outside Istanbul, on Monday after five civilists were killed by Turkish security forces earlier this month.

Roj said the PKK has threatened to launch more attacks in metropolitan areas if attacks on the rebels continue.

More than 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, have died in two decades of conflict with the PKK, but fighting fell off sharply with the 1999 capture of rebel commander Abdullah Ocalan.

Violence has been on the rise in the southeast since June 2004, when the PKK called off its unilateral ceasefire.

A top Beko official was quoted as saying on Tuesday damage from the fire was more than $5 million and between 30,000 and 35,000 products were lost -- around half of them television sets.

Beko, a subsidiary of industrial group Koc Holding <KCHOL.IS>, is one of Europe's leading television manufacturers, producing more than six million sets last year.

3. - AFP - "Turkey to pay 10,000 euros damages to man electrocuted in police custody":

STRASBOURG / 25 January 2005

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ordered Turkey to pay 10,000 euros (12,955 dollars) damages to a man who said he was beaten and electrocuted on the tongue while in police custody.

The court found that Huseyin Sunal, 29, had suffered inhumane and degrading treatment while in police custody on the night of April 1, 1996 after being arrested on suspicion of car stealing.

Sunal said he was beaten about the head, face and body and received electric shocks to different parts of his body including the tongue.

The Turkish government said Sunal was under the influence of alcohol and drugs and had injured himself.

At around 1 am, Sunal was taken to hospital where a doctor found a wound on the back of his skull and cuts and bruising on the lips, back and left shoulder.

Released on April 2 without charge, Sunal took legal action for ill-treatment against the police who had held him for questioning.

The same day, at the request of the prosecutor, Sunal was examined by another doctor who found numerous wounds and bruises. A biopsy of the tongue had revealed a "wound on the tongue caused by burning from an electric shock".

But no charges were laid against the police officers.

The European Court of Human Rights said Sunal had not had the right to an appeal after his complaints about police ill-treatment were ignored, and ordered Turkey to pay 10,000 euros (12,955 dollars) in moral damages and 3,000 euros (3,886 dollars) in legal costs.

In December, Turkey was invited by the European Union to begin membership talks in October. But the country was advised that it must ensure that recent legislation adopted to improve human rights was applied at all levels.

The president of the European Court of Human Rights Luzius Wildhaber recently declared that Turkey's once widely faulted legal practices were approaching European standards.

4. - Bianet - "Four Honor Killings in One Day Across Turkey":

Who fail to take the necessary legal and administrative measures, are responsible for the deaths of women in "honor killings", protest the IHD. Four women were killed by male relatives in Bursa, Adana, Gaziantep and Sanliurfa in the same day, for "honor".

ISTANBUL / 25 January 2005

Human Rights Association (IHD) protests the murder of four women, victims of “honor killings”, in the same day in Bursa, Adana, Urfa and Antep provinces.

The IHD calls on state officials take necessary measures to stop honor killings.

"The perpetrators are not only those who committed the act of murder. The authorities who failed to take the necessary legal and administrative measures in time are also responsible for these murders,” says the IHD in a written statement.

IHD underlines the necessity to guarantee women's right to live. They also call on the state establish women's shelters and take all the administrative measures to protect women.

All four were killed by their male relatives: Elmas S. from Bursa by her brother-in-law; Kadriye A. from Sanliurfa by her male relatives; Ayfer C. from Adana by her husband; and Kadriye U. from Gaziantep by her brother.

5. - Xinhua - "Cyprus government ready to renew peace talks":

26 January 2005

Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos declared Tuesday his readiness to resume negotiations that would lead to a "right and viable" solution to Cyprus problem,the semi-official Cyprus News Agency reported.

Papadopoulos made the remarks at the Larnaca airport on his departure for Athens, where he will hold talks with Greek officials on the latest development of the Cyprus issue.

He told reporters that the key word is not to find a solution, but to find a correct and viable solution, stressing that his government continues to be ready and willing for a resumption of talks, always under UN auspices.

The latest round UN sponsored peace talks failed in April last year when the majority of the Greek Cypriots voted against a UN peace plan aimed at reunification of the island in a referendum while Turkish Cypriots approved it.

As a result, the internationally recognized Greek-Cypriot government joined the EU last May with Turkish-Cypriot dominant northern Cyprus which is only recognized by Turkey left outside.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey sent troops to take control of northern part of the island following a failed Greek Cypriot coup seeking union with Greece.

Repeated efforts by the international community to reunite the country have so far failed to yield any results.

6. - AFP - "Turkish army rules out troop withdrawal from Cyprus without settlement":

26 January 2005

The Turkish army has no intention of withdrawing troops from the breakaway Turkish Cypriot republic before the three-decade-old Cyprus conflict is resolved, a senior Turkish general said here on Tuesday.

"We keep armed forces in Cyprus to ensure the security of the Turkish Cypriots," said Yasar Buyukanit, head of the Turkish land forces. "Not even a single soldier will go before a definite and lasting settlement is reached."

The general was speaking during a visit to the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Ankara, to inspect the some 30,000 Turkish troops stationed there.

Turkey's military presence in northern Cyprus dates back to 1974 when it invaded and occupied the northern third of the Mediterranean island with the stated aim of protecting its kinsmen there in the wake of an Athens-engineered coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece.

The intervention sealed the island's division between its Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities. Proponents of reunification have often called on Ankara to pull out troops from the north as a gesture of goodwill.

The Cyprus conflict is a major stumbling block for Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

The most recent international effort to reunite the island failed last April when the Greek Cypriots voted down a UN peace plan, while the Turkish Cypriots, long seen as an obstacle to any settlement, overwhelmingly endorsed it.

The outcome ensured that only the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot south joined the EU on May 1, leaving the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north out in the cold.

Ankara sees a settlement as a way out of its increasingly difficult position as an EU membership candidate which does not recognize a member nation.

7. - Turkish Daily News - "PKK-linked parties to participate in Iraq elections":

ANKARA / 26 January 2005

Two parties linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are unlikely to be barred from this weekend's election in Iraq, an official from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which oversees Iraqi expatriate voting, said.

Sandra Khadhouri, chief of external relations of the IOM's Out-of-Country Vote Program in Turkey, said the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party and the Iraqi Restructuring Party were still on the ballots. Turkey has recently urged Iraqi authorities to prevent the two parties from running in elections, saying they are linked to the PKK.

Khadhouri told the Anatolia news agency that the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq was in charge of deciding which parties are eligible to run in elections. She added that the commission's decisions could not be changed.

The names of some 111 political parties are to be on the ballot, and Khadhouri said these names are not likely to change.

Iraqi authorities are cool towards Turkish demands to bar the two parties from running in Jan. 30 elections, and Turkish officials say they are very likely to run in the polls. But diplomatic efforts are still continuing to prevent their participation.

Turkey is one of 14 countries where expatriate Iraqis are set to vote in the Jan. 30 elections. Khadhouri said the OIM is encouraging all Iraqis outside Iraq to vote, saying the elections are a very important step toward the creation of a democratic Iraq.

8. - news.com.au network - "Kurds To Decide Who Wields Power":

26 January 2005 / by Nicolas Rothwell

PERCHED like a peaked cap on Iraq's sprawling torso, the Kurdish northern enclave is set to emerge as the strong winner from Sunday's elections and will almost certainly hold the balance of power in the new national assembly.

Although Kurdistan has only a fifth of Iraq's population, its two main regional parties have combined for the poll and are running a unified list of Kurdish candidates.

"Kurds know more than anyone in Iraq the importance of this election as a factor in their future," says local political organiser Mustafa Omer.

"They understand how crucial it is that they assert their place as the second-largest national group in the country.

"They have suffered in the struggle they waged for their rights for 10 years under Saddam Hussein, and they have had the experience of voting in local elections, so they are already well-educated in democracy."

The expected upshot, according to observers in the regional capital of Suleimaniyah, is that Kurds will turn out in large numbers on polling day. And their votes should help bring into being an Iraqi government strongly influenced by the pro-Western Kurdish leadership.

The newly established Iraqi national assembly will have 275 members. The Kurdistan Alliance is expected to win at least 40 to 50 seats, returned by voters in the three northern provinces of Suleimaniyah, Arbil and Dohuk.

And the figure may be significantly higher if voter turnout in the rest of the violence-torn country are low.

Kurdistan, protected by 80,000 peshmerga fighters, is relatively peaceful and prosperous. As The Economist magazine put it recently, locals like to say visitors from the rest of Iraq are leaving a state of emergency and entering an emerging state.

Kurdish political analyst Tofiq Abdol expects the Kurdish bloc in the new parliament to swing behind the centrist current in Iraqi politics once the post-election horse-trading begins, and believes this support will strengthen the hand of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

"My conviction is that Kurdish politicians will align themselves with the forces in Iraq, led by Allawi, that have secular tendencies," he says.

There is a high level of co-operation between Allawi and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani. And Iraq's interim president, Sheikh Gazi Al-Yawar, a Sunni, is a frequent visitor to the Kurdish enclave, and married to a Kurdish politician.

These connections form the groundwork for a post-election compact that shape shape the agenda of Iraqi politics over the next year, while a new constitution is being drafted.

Given the probable arithmetic of the parliamentary assembly, no single political group will be able to form a government. This is because the majority Shia population, which makes up 60 per cent of the electorate, will divide its support between Allawi's secular Iraqi List party and the Shia House group backed by religious leader Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani.

The Sunnis, who make up the remaining fifth of the electorate, may not be inclined to vote in large numbers, given the security crisis in their region and the high-profile calls to boycott the poll by their leading parties.

But the consensus of observers in the north is that strong security will encourage a moderate participation rate. "I predict in the southern regions of Iraq, the Shia and Sunni areas, voting levels of 50 to 65 per cent, with the Shia vote running stronger," Abdol says.

Such figures point to the complex coalition-building ahead. To create a stable governing majority, the next prime minister will need an alliance that reaches well beyond the Kurdish bloc and a single Shia party.

If Allawi's group performs well, it will still need to gain the support of the Shia House, and a Sunni party. Hence the future Iraqi government will be developed on the basis of wide co-operation between the different ethnic groups that compose the country.

"It should be a mixture, the new parliament," Abdol says. "It has been designed in such a way that no single group can form the government on its own, and so it will have to proceed as a coalition of interests, with give-and-take on all sides."

And so, as Iraq heads for its assignation with electoral freedom, its leaders are nervously aware that demography condemns them all to a path of compromise.