1. "US Announces Talks with Turkey, Iraq On PKK Rebels", a top American diplomat is in Turkey, attempting to calm Turkish concerns over Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

2. "US denies contact with PKK in Kandil Mountains", U.S. officials denied a news report of a meeting between U.S. forces and members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) based in the mountains of northern Iraq. "The United States does not meet with the PKK," an official in Ankara said.

3. "Two Kurdish rebels killed in clash with Turkish army", the Turkish army on Sunday killed two Kurdish rebels in a clash in southeastern Turkey, security sources said in the majority-Kurdish region of Diyarbakir.

4. "French vote on EU pact to be held in the spring", the two aspects of the revision address the fears of some French over Turkey's membership in the EU and over concerns that the EU itself could eat away at the ability of France to act.

5. "Turkey rebuilds ties with Israel", Turkey's foreign minister has spoken of Syria's readiness for peace talks, during a landmark visit to Israel.

6. "Kurds seek to maintain a fragile autonomy", the Kurds have veto power over most laws passed by the central government in Baghdad and have their own 80,000-member military, the pesh merga, whose troops are far better disciplined and skilled than most of their new Iraqi counterparts.

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1. - Voice Of Amerika - "US Announces Talks with Turkey, Iraq On PKK Rebels":

ANKARA / 3 January 2005 / by Amberin Zaman

A top American diplomat is in Turkey, attempting to calm Turkish concerns over Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has proposed three-way talks between Washington, Baghdad and Ankara to work out a plan to deal with Turkish Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq. Some five thousand fighters from the group known as PKK/Kongra-Gel are holed up in the mountains separating Iraq from Iran.

Turkey has long lobbied Washington to take action against the rebels. American officials say the have not, so far, because US forces fighting an insurgency in Iraq are stretched too far to open a second front against PKK/Kongra-Gel.

Perceived U.S. foot dragging on the issue has raised tensions with NATO-ally Turkey.

Relations between Ankara and Washington further deteriorated when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan referred to Iraqi insurgents as "martyrs" and when a Turkish member of parliament characterized the recent American offensive against the insurgent stronghold of Fallouja as "genocide."

Mr. Armitage is the highest-ranking American official to visit Turkey since President Bush visited the country in June. Emerging from talks with Mr. Armitage, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Turkey cherishes its relations with the United States "above all else."

During talks with Mr. Gul, the deputy secretary of state also discussed measures to protect Turkish truck drivers in Iraq. Some 80 Turkish truckers have been killed in separate attacks, so far.

Mr. Armitage also held talks with Turkish Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc and the Chief of General Staff Hilmi Ozkok. Mr. Armitage stopped over in Turkey after a visit to Syria and Iraq.

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2. - Turkish Daily News - "US denies contact with PKK in Kandil Mountains":

ANKARA / 5 January 2005

U.S. officials denied a news report of a meeting between U.S. forces and members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) based in the mountains of northern Iraq. "The United States does not meet with the PKK," an official in Ankara said.

The report, which appeared on a Kurdish Internet site, Newroz, said U.S. forces operating in Iraq have met with members of the group in the Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq.

During the meeting which the report said had taken place less than a week ago, U.S. officials reportedly asked the PKK militants not to target U.S. planes during their exploratory flights over the area. According to the report, there have been three such meetings between the outlawed group and U.S. forces operating in Iraq.

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3. - AFP - "Two Kurdish rebels killed in clash with Turkish army":

DIYARBAKIR / 2 January 2004

The Turkish army on Sunday killed two Kurdish rebels in a clash in southeastern Turkey, security sources said in the majority-Kurdish region of Diyarbakir.

The fighting erupted in the small town of Senoba, close to the border with Iraq, when a group of rebels from the former separatist PKK, renamed the Kongra-Gel, tried to sneak into Turkey, the sources said.

The army operation was continuing on Sunday afternoon. From 1984-1999, the PKK waged an armed struggle for Kurdish independence in the region. They declared a unilateral five-year ceasefire, which they broke on June 1, 2004.

According to Turkish authorities, some 5,000 rebels have taken refuge in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan.

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4. - International Herald Tribune - "French vote on EU pact to be held in the spring":

PARIS / 4 January 2005

France will hold a referendum on the European Constitution in the spring, President Jacques Chirac said Monday, calling on government ministers to work for a "yes" vote.

But first, the two houses of France's Parliament will gather in March at the Palace of Versailles to vote formally on a revision of the French Constitution needed to accommodate the expanded powers of the European Union, Justice Minister Dominique Perben said.

Chirac has ensured that the bill revising the French Constitution will include a major new element making a referendum obligatory whenever the EU expands.

Article 3 of the bill enables Chirac to make good on his promise to let the French have "the last word" on whether Turkey, with its majority Muslim population, becomes an EU member, a commitment he reiterated Monday.

Chirac told ministers at the first cabinet meeting of the year that the bill would also strengthen the Parliament's "intervention powers" in setting down European legislation.

The two aspects of the revision address the fears of some French over Turkey's membership in the EU and over concerns that the EU itself could eat away at the ability of France to act.

The heads of state and government of the 25 EU member states signed the treaty creating a European constitution on Oct. 29 in Rome. However, it must be approved by individual countries.

Chirac said that 2005 would be a "decisive" year for Europe, and he urged ministers to "commit themselves personally" to a "yes" vote for "this great European design."

"The European project is at the heart of our national interest," Chirac said. "On choosing Europe anew, France increases its chances for the future and gives itself the means to have more weight in the world."

In a televised New Year address, Chirac said: "I have decided that the European Constitution will be submitted to you by referendum before the summer. You, the sovereign people, will be called on to choose your own destiny."

He said that choice would be "decisive" for the future of France and Europe.

By approving the constitution, he said, French voters would "allow Europe to be more democratic, more determined and more powerful," making it capable of faster economic and social progress.

"And you will allow France to have greater weight inside the Union," Chirac said.

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5. - BBC - "Turkey rebuilds ties with Israel":

4 January 2005

Turkey's foreign minister has spoken of Syria's readiness for peace talks, during a landmark visit to Israel.

Abdullah Gul is meeting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other Israeli leaders in Jerusalem to discuss the prospects for reviving Middle East peace talks.

Syria "expressed willingness to resume negotiations without preconditions" with Israel, he was quoted as saying.

Mr Gul is also on a mission to repair Israeli-Turkish ties after a chill last year over Israel's crackdown in Gaza.

He is the most senior Turkish politician to visit Israel since the Justice and Development Party - a moderate movement rooted in Islam - came to power in Turkey November 2002.

Tensions escalated last May, when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned as "state terror" an Israeli raid in the Rafah area of the southern Gaza Strip.
Before the row erupted Turkey was a close regional ally of Israel. They signed a military co-operation agreement in 1996.

Referring to the row, Mr Gul said "we need to put all that behind us".

'New atmosphere'

Mr Gul began his Jerusalem itinerary with a visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, the third holiest site in Islam which is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount. He then met Israeli President Moshe Katsav.

On Wednesday, he is due to visit Ramallah in the West Bank for talks with Palestinian officials, including Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the man widely tipped to win the Palestinian presidential elections at the weekend.

Mr Erdogan paid a high-profile visit to Damascus in late December and, according to Mr Gul, "the Syrian signals are serious and their intentions are good".

Mr Gul spoke of a "new atmosphere" concerning the stalled Middle East peace process, saying "contributing to this process would be Turkey's greatest duty".

Mr Sharon insists that Syria close the Damascus headquarters of the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad before Israel will consider resuming peace talks.

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6. - The New York Times - "Kurds seek to maintain a fragile autonomy":

ERBIL / 3 January 2005 / by Richard A. Oppel Jr.

Iraq Even at night, the sedan is an easy mark for the Kalashnikov-toting police at the checkpoint on a busy thoroughfare in this Kurdish city. It has Baghdad license plates and, more alarmingly, Arabs in the front seat. "What are you doing here?" the police demand, motioning the car to the side.

It was a routine exchange, but one that reveals how far Erbil and the entire Kurdish region have drifted from the rest of Iraq and toward an informal but unmistakable autonomy that Kurdish leaders are determined to preserve.

Residents in northern Iraq already call the area Kurdistan. The territory, stretching from Kirkuk on the region's southern edge to the Tigris River in the west and to Turkey and Iran in the north and east, is patently a world apart from the rest of Iraq.

There is a building boom, with new apartments, hospitals and shopping centers. The gleaming 10-story Hotel Erbil, opened in October, is often sold out, its 167 rooms renting for the equivalent of $68 to $193 a night.

While extensive areas of Iraq remain plagued by violence, the Kurdish sector is calm, with tight security maintained by swarms of Kurdish police officers and militiamen. Reconstruction projects, lagging in many parts of the country, are moving briskly ahead.

The Kurds have veto power over most laws passed by the central government in Baghdad and have their own 80,000-member military, the pesh merga, whose troops are far better disciplined and skilled than most of their new Iraqi counterparts.

In many places it is impossible to find an Iraqi flag. But the Kurds' red, white and green standard with a shining sun in the middle flies everywhere, even atop an Iraqi border guard compound in far northeastern Iraq.

Yet while the Kurdish region may appear to be, for all practical purposes, a separate country, it can preserve its shaky independence only by denying it, and not just to Baghdad. Powerful neighbors, particularly Turkey and Iran, which both have substantial Kurdish populations, are highly sensitive to the slightest hint of Kurdish nationalism. And the United States rejects any idea of independence, which has wide support among Kurdish residents.

The Kurds' desire for autonomy promises to tear at the unity of the new Iraq that the election planned for late January is supposed to help build. The voters are to choose a legislature to write a new constitution. But some Iraqi leaders have already expressed resentment at the most important safeguard of Kurdish independence: the power to veto the new constitution.

For now, Kurdish officials appear unwilling to coexist on anything but their own terms, which means bolstering their autonomy and preventing outside interference, whether from Baghdad or another country.

Hamid Afandi, the minister of the pesh merga for the Kurdish regional government based in Erbil, outlined one possible strategy: Take control of Kirkuk - the disputed oil city north of Baghdad, where Kurds are even now wresting land from the Arabs who were settled there by Saddam Hussein - grab a far larger share of Kirkuk's oil revenue than the Kurds now get and use that to triple the size of the pesh merga force.

"We are ready to fight against all forces to control Kirkuk," Afandi said. "Our share is very little. We'll try to take a larger share." So far, the Americans have blocked those ambitions, Afandi said. "If they would permit us, we could control Kirkuk," he said, "but it is forbidden."

Kurdish officials say they will take part in the writing of the new constitution on the assumption that if they do not like what emerges, they have a veto. According to the existing temporary constitution, the public referendum on the new charter will be defeated if it is rejected by two-thirds of the voters in the three provinces of the Kurdish-dominated region of northern Iraq.

But other Iraqi leaders have in the past suggested that the temporary constitution would no longer be operative after the January election. To avoid losing their veto power, the main Kurdish political parties have joined forces to offer a unified slate of candidates. And the Kurds finished a huge voter registration drive in early December in hopes of packing the new Parliament with as many representatives as possible.

But it has been a difficult process, compounded by the region's deep mistrust and suspicion of Arabs.

Up to 90 percent of the voter registration forms in Erbil Province contained errors, according to Kurdish officials. "Those people in Baghdad did this deliberately!" said Muhammad Salah Salim, an elderly former member of the pesh merga, as he stood in a line of more than 100 people at the Fatima Zahar primary school here, waiting to get his registration form corrected. "They want to trick the Kurdish by doing this."

Officials with the party that controls the western and northern Kurdish areas, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, say they are concerned about whether the rolls will be corrected and whether the mistakes were, in fact, deliberate.

The top official in Erbil Province for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, Kamal Hussein Khambar, said in an interview that similar mistakes had been made throughout Iraq, but acknowledged that the errors were worse in the Kurdish areas. He said the problem with the voter lists was being remedied and predicted that 750,000 people would vote in Erbil Province alone.

There is no doubting the Kurds' intense interest. An art teacher at the Fatima Zahar school, Nawal Abdul-Karem, who is doing double duty as an election coordinator, sums up what many hope to achieve. "There should be federalism," she said, using the code word for regional autonomy from Baghdad. "And we should have Kirkuk."

Kirkuk is a volatile city of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens. Kurds who were evicted by Saddam's government are now returning by the thousands, pushing for permission to enter the city and reclaim what Kurdish leaders say are properties that were stolen from them.

Privately, the leaders have admitted in the past that some Kurds are simply grabbing property, evicting Arabs - many of whom were forcibly relocated - from their homes of 20 or more years.

As many as 100,000 Arabs have fled, American officials have said, and many are now living in refugee camps across central Iraq. Kurdish leaders have threatened to boycott the provincial elections unless the Arabs are resettled.