5 May 2005

1. "One of Öcalan’s Lawyers, Bekir Kaya, has been taken into custody", Abdullah Öcalan’s lawyer Bekir Kaya has been taken into custody by the Gemlik Gendarmerie Commandership. The lawyers, Hatice Korkut, Bekir Kaya and Feridun Celik, of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan at the time had arrived at Gemlik to realise their weekly visitation with their client.

2. "Schröder Criticizes Turkish Democracy", German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on Wednesday criticized Turkey for a string of deficiencies in its democracy, urging the country to correct them if it wants to join the European Union.

3. "Headscarved Turkish women feel angry, marginalized", as a citizen of this country, did I ever react to the oppression of Kurds, of leftists or protesters dragged onto the streets by the police, or back the rights of homosexuals of whom we disapprove?

4. "Cyprus vetoes Turkey’s EU army deal", CyprusMail yesterday that Cyprus had denied Turkey a say in decision-making procedures inside the EU’s Rapid Reaction Task Force.

5. "Kurds: the key to Iraq", the U.S. thinks Iraq's new Kurdish president is a sign of increasing harmony and democracy. Yesterday's bombing tells a different story.

6. "Northern Iraq: A Kurdish stronghold", the Kurdish people have been victims of torture, of chemical bombardment, of Saddam Hussein's Anfal campaign. But every single time the Kurds have fought back," she said. "And we will fight for what we think is right - democracy, peace and prosperity for Kurdistan and Iraq.

1. - MHA - "One of Öcalan’s Lawyers, Bekir Kaya, has been taken into custody":

ISTANBUL / 4 May 2005 / translated by International Initiative

Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan’s lawyer Bekir Kaya has been taken into custody by the Gemlik Gendarmerie Commandership. The lawyers, Hatice Korkut, Bekir Kaya and Feridun Celik, of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan at the time had arrived at Gemlik to realise their weekly visitation with their client.

Upon the security checks at the Gemlik Gendarmerie Commandership Lawyer Bekir Kaya was taken into custody on the grounds that Istanbul 11th Penal Punishment Tribunal had given a default judgement for his arrest. Lawyers Hatice Korkut and Feridun Celik left for Imrali while Bekir Kaya was kept in custody for approximately an hour. Kaya was later released upon giving his statement to the tribunal.

2. - Deutsche Welle - "Schröder Criticizes Turkish Democracy":

4 May 2005

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on Wednesday criticized Turkey for a string of deficiencies in its democracy, urging the country to correct them if it wants to join the European Union.

"Mistreatment by security forces, limits on freedom of expression and discrimination against women are incompatible with our common values," Schröder said at a speech at Marmara University after official talks in Ankara.

The German leader also spoke of the "necessity of reform" in religious freedoms in this mainly Muslim country, specifically mentioning a meeting earlier in the day with the Istanbul-based spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.

Turkey is under pressure to remove legal obstacles for non-Muslim religious foundations to fully exercise their property rights and to reopen a Greek Orthodox seminary in Istanbul closed down more than 30 years ago.

Schröder, who was receiving an honorary doctorate from the university, called on Ankara to address problem areas before it begins accession talks with the European bloc on Oct. 3 and urged it to swiftly implement reforms it has already adopted to achieve European norms.

Turkey "should not diminish its efforts," he said. "Turkey has achieved many reforms so far but there is still much to do."

3. - Reuters - "Headscarved Turkish women feel angry, marginalized":

ANKARA / 4 May 2005

Muruvvet Aktas, fired from her teaching job for wearing the Muslim headscarf, has not entered a school for years because it makes her feel very uncomfortable.

"Even just walking near a school now and hearing the voices of kids in the playground gives me pain. You ask yourself, 'Why has this happened to me and not somebody else? Am I such a bad person?'," she said.

Her friend Turkan Bakacak also has painful memories of her time as a teacher of mathematics.

"An inspector comes and asks you to remove your headscarf. This is disgusting, it is like being told to get undressed. Your status and respectability in the eyes of the students are destroyed," Bakacak said.

Aktas and Bakacak fell foul of a strict ban on headscarves in schools and other public buildings in Turkey, a secular but overwhelmingly Muslim country where a majority of women, from the prime minister's wife down, wear the garment.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamist roots, has tried to ease the ban but has run into stiff opposition from Turkey's staunchly secular military and bureaucratic establishment.

Critics say Turkey's ban exceeds restrictions seen in other countries and say it violates individual freedom of expression in a country set to start European Union entry talks this year.

"Turkey does not only ban the wearing of headscarves by civil servants or pupils in state-run schools as in France, but also in private colleges, driving license courses, court rooms and even some hospitals," Ayhan Bilgen, head of the Mazlumder rights group, told Reuters.

QUESTION OF DEMOCRACY

"This is not an issue of minority rights as in Western countries where the majority is not Muslim, but a question of the legitimacy of Turkey's democratic system," said Bilgen.

Political parties, elections and parliament risk losing their legitimacy because parties which take power promising to lift the headscarf ban are not allowed to do so by powers outside parliament, he said.

"It is shameful for Turkey that the headscarved wife of its prime minister is accepted in the White House but not in Turkey's own presidential palace," said Bilgen.
Turkish media last year showed Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's headscarved wife Emine having tea with Laura Bush in the White House but noted she could never do the same thing at the palace of Turkey's secularist President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.

Defenders of Turkey's headscarf ban say it is a legitimate way to counter Islamic fundamentalism, which they say wants to impose its religious symbols on society and to establish a state based on religious precepts.

They also point to a key ruling by the European Court of Human Rights last year which upheld the ban and rejected an appeal from a Turkish student barred from attending Istanbul University because her headscarf broke the official dress code.

Women like Aktas and Bakacak insist they pose no threat to Turkey's secular order and have no wish to see their country go the way of Islamic states such as Iran or Saudi Arabia.

"Their understanding of Islam is different from ours. We belong to different religious traditions. Also Turkey is looking to the West," said Aktas.

Aktas and Bakacak belong to a women's support group in the Turkish capital Ankara. Many of its members once worked in state-run religious vocational schools set up to train future Muslim clerics.

SUFFERING

They said their dress had once been tolerated but after the military pressured Turkey's last Islamist-led government to quit in 1997 even in the religious schools the atmosphere became more repressive.

They said the prospect of Turkey starting EU entry talks gave them little hope of any improvement, noting an increased anti-Muslim sentiment in post-9/11 Europe and the new ban on Muslim headscarves in French high schools.

Despite the passing of time, the women say they still suffer psychologically from their dismissal from jobs they loved.

One said she had become very introverted after losing her job though she had previously been very outgoing. Another said she had become a more aggressive person.

Hatice Guler, a former theology teacher, said the experience had sensitized her to the sufferings of Turkey's minorities.

"As a citizen of this country, did I ever react to the oppression of Kurds, of leftists or protesters dragged onto the streets by the police, or back the rights of homosexuals of whom we disapprove?," Guler asked.

"Before us, there were Kurds and leftists and now it is us. It will be others next," said Aktas.

"No referendum anywhere in Europe will affect Turkey's EU process," he said.

Schröder also backed a Turkish proposal to Armenia to create a joint commission of historians to study allegations that the Ottoman Turks committed genocide against their Armenian subjects during World War I.

"We want Turkish-Armenian relations to improve," Schröder said. "Germany is ready to do its best to help in this issue and open its archives."

Germany and the Ottoman Empire, from which the present-day Turkish Republic was born, were allies during World War I, when the Armenian massacres occurred.

Turkey has come under mounting international pressure to recognize the 1915-1917 killings as genocide; some EU politicians, including the German opposition, argue that Ankara should address the genocide claims if it wants to join the European bloc.

Erdogan, meanwhile, denounced an appeal issued by the German parliament last month calling on Ankara to face up to its history. He said he "conveyed our serious concerns and expectations" on the issue to Schröder.

Support in Cyprus conflict

The two leaders said they also discussed the Cyprus conflict, a major stumbling block to Turkey's EU membership bid. Schröder pledged he would work for the release of a 259-million euro (335-million dollar) EU aid package earmarked for the breakaway Turkish Cypriot community and the activation of measures aimed at easing trade restrictions imposed on the island's Turkish sector.

The EU promised the aid last year as a reward for the strong support Turkish Cypriots gave to a UN peace plan, which was killed off due to an overwhelming "no" by the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot side. The measures have been blocked, however, because of opposition by the Greek Cypriots, who joined the EU last year.

4. - Cyprus Mail - "Cyprus vetoes Turkey’s EU army deal":

4 May 2005

CyprusMail yesterday that Cyprus had denied Turkey a say in decision-making procedures inside the EU’s Rapid Reaction Task Force.

According to state-run television, Cyprus vetoed Turkish attempts at securing participation in “administrative decisions” by the task force.

The reason given by the national broadcaster was that the government could not agree to this while Turkey blocked Cyprus’ participation in EU-NATO cooperation organisations.

The same reports said further discussion of the matter was referred to the next meeting of COREPER.

Meanwhile this mutual sabotaging by Cyprus and Turkey was creating problems for the intended creation of an informal forum for cooperation between the EU and NATO. CyBC said the upcoming British presidency of the EU would look into ways of breaking this deadlock.

Cyprus does not take part in actual operations by the European task force, with its role limited to the administrative level.

5. - Globe and Mail - "Kurds: the key to Iraq":

The U.S. thinks Iraq's new Kurdish president is a sign of increasing harmony and democracy. Yesterday's bombing tells a different story, says analyst ANDRÉ GEROLYMATOS

5 May 2005 / by André Gerolymatos*

The suicide bombing yesterday in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil at the offices of a Kurdish party is a cruel reminder that the war in Iraq is far from over -- and could degenerate into a full-scale civil conflict. For the Kurds, it underscores the fact that their safety cannot be secured by the new Iraqi state.

Amid the ever-rising death toll in Iraq, a new political establishment seeks to give the country its first coalition government. The appointment of a veteran Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani, as President of Iraq is part political compromise and part wishful thinking. Ultimately, it reinforces the myth that, with enough time and rigorous application of democracy, the United States can transform Iraq into a united federation.

There is no doubt that some Iraqis of different political, religious and ethnic backgrounds are now prepared to work together -- if only to get the Americans out of their country. Distaste for the United States does not include the Kurds, however. Unlike the rest of Iraq's disparate communities, the Kurds are decidedly pro-American and willing participants in the fight against militant Islam. They're prepared to keep the Americans in the region as long as possible, believing that a U.S. military presence in Iraq is the primary guarantee for their hard-fought autonomy and future independence. This, in and of itself, sets the Kurds apart from the rest of the Iraqis.

But the election of a Kurd as president or the recasting of Iraq as a federation cannot substitute for the ultimate desire among Iraq's Kurdish people for independence. The Kurds have been a sovereign people-in-waiting far too long to accept anything less than eventual complete independence. Most Kurds hope that the reconfiguration of Iraq into a federation is merely the first step toward the establishment of an independent Kurdistan.

The establishment of such a state would place the U.S. in a quandary. Realistically, the alliance with the Kurds offers the only practical option for the United States to implement a forward policy in the region and provide a stable area to maintain substantial American forces in the Middle East. It is no accident that the U.S. is constructing several large military and intelligence facilities in Kurdish Iraq, and also undertaking to arm and train Kurdish militias and special forces.

A united pro-American Iraq still remains a forlorn hope for U.S. policy-makers. Many in the Bush administration wish to believe that the swearing in of Mr. Talabani will serve to persuade the Kurds, Shiites and even Sunnis to take part in the creation of a federal Iraq. Mr. Talabani's presidency, however, has only papered over historic divisions among Iraq's embittered minorities and may ultimately even widen the religious and ethnic schisms.

The disposition of oil-rich Kirkuk, for example, remains an intractable issue. The Kurds claim it as their own historic territory and demand that it remain part of the autonomous Kurdish region. They also insist that they have the right to maintain armed militias. Most Iraqis, especially the predominant Shiites, assume the contrary and expect that the country's president (even though the post is ceremonial) will support the territorial integrity of Iraq. How Mr. Talabani will reconcile Kurdish ambitions and Iraqi centrist tendencies remains a crucial open question.

There is even less agreement among Iraqis on the role of Islam in the proposed new federation. For many, Islam remains the source of all political, social and cultural organizations. This belief will have an impact on how Iraqi democracy can be reconciled with religious ideology. In this context, the appointment of a leading Shia politician, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, as Prime Minister underscores Washington's anxieties over the role of Islam in Iraq. Iraqi politicians of various stripes may have engaged in horse-trading to establish a government, but it remains to be seen whether all Iraqis can ever vote outside their religious and ethnic blocs.

These uncertainties over the future of Iraq further highlight the significance of the Kurds to the Americans. In the short term, the autonomous Kurdish territory has enabled the U.S. to concentrate its forces in central and southern Iraq, safe in the knowledge that the Kurds control the northern part of the country. It has also been a reminder to Turkey not to take American friendship for granted, and a not-so-subtle warning to Iran and Syria (both countries have substantial Kurdish minorities) that the U.S. has the means of using these minorities to instigate serious unrest.

Twice in the last century (in 1946 and 1979), Iranian Kurds tried to break away from Iran; it would not take much to instigate another uprising. Fundamentally, the Americans see the Kurds as a means to counter the pro-Iranian Shiites and keep Iraq away from the clutches of the mullahs in Tehran. The appointment of Mr. Talabani, albeit a singular accolade for the Kurds, is more an exercise in the machinations of the democratic process and less an indicator of the political direction of the Iraqi state. The Erbil bombing simply underscores the difficulties in forging a federation of Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis.

* André Gerolymatos is chair of Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University and the author of Red Acropolis, Black Terror: The Greek Civil War and the Origins of Soviet-American Rivalry

6. - BBC - "Northern Iraq: A Kurdish stronghold":

NORTHERN IRAQ / 5 May 2005 / by Pam O'Toole

Northern Iraq - where at least 50 people in Irbil have been killed in a suicide bombing - has been largely autonomous since the 1991 Gulf War.
The two main Iraqi Kurdish parties - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party - have ruled the area between them, protected, for much of that time, by an international air umbrella.

Internal security has been provided by their own militia, the peshmerga.

Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, UK representative of the Kurdistan regional government, condemned Wednesday's bombing as "a cowardly attack".

She sees it as part of a wider campaign to destabilise Iraq.

"The region is relatively safe and calm and the Kurdistan regional government has the co-operation of the public in dealing with security issues" she told the BBC.

"This is really an attempt to destabilise that, as well as part of the wider attempt to destabilise Iraq."

Fighting back

Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman has bitter personal experience of this kind of incident.

In February last year, her father, a prominent Iraqi Kurdish politician, was killed when suicide bombers attacked the headquarters of the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties.

However, she warned that those carrying out such attacks should not underestimate the Kurds.

"The Kurdish people have been victims of torture, of chemical bombardment, of Saddam Hussein's Anfal campaign. But every single time the Kurds have fought back," she said. "And we will fight for what we think is right - democracy, peace and prosperity for Kurdistan and Iraq."

Independence goal

There is no love lost between the Kurds and radical Islamist groups.

The Kurdish leaders have long been close allies of the US and are supporters of a democratic, federal, secular Iraq.

Last year, there were a string of abductions and beheadings of Kurds in areas outside the self-rule region, some of which were claimed by the Jordanian militant Islamist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In the past he has accused both the Kurds and Shias of betraying their religion.

The Kurds, long oppressed under Saddam Hussein, won the second largest bloc of seats in the new Iraqi national assembly, giving them considerable influence during the protracted negotiations on the formation of the transitional Iraqi government.
They have already managed to attain one of their political aims by securing a clutch of important posts, including the presidency.

However, negotiations on other crucial issues still lie ahead, as the transitional government moves to start discussing a permanent constitution for Iraq.

Perhaps the most important of these, for the Kurds, is the issue of federalism.

The Iraqi Kurdish leadership, anxious to retain a high level of autonomy in the north, is determined to push for a federal Iraqi state and wants that to be enshrined in the new, permanent, constitution.

The leadership itself is under internal pressure on this issue.

During Iraq's national elections in January, large numbers of Kurdish voters in the north also signed a separate, unofficial, petition calling for outright independence for Iraq's Kurds.