13
March 2006
1. "Kurdish conference opens in Turkey under tight security", Turkish and Kurdish intellectuals gathered here Saturday under tight security for a major conference to discuss a peaceful resolution to the 22-year-old Kurdish conflict in the country's southeast.
2. "The Conference on the Kurdish Issue", a two-day long conference on the Kurdish issue in Turkey was hosted in the Dolapdere campus of Bilgi University, a private university, in cooperation with the Helsinki Citizens Assembly and the Empathy Group.
3. "Turkish Kurds seek language rights", Turkey's Kurds have complained of police oppression and called for an end to prejudice against their language as crucial steps towards ending a 22-year-old conflict in the southeast of the country.
4. "Kurdish rebel responsible for deadly Turkish blast: PKK", Turkey's main armed Kurdish rebel group said Sunday that one of its militants was behind a deadly suicide bombing this week in eastern Turkey, but underlined that it had not ordered or endorsed the attack.
5. "Turkish Generals and Evil Plots: Panorama", Kurdish War: Current 1999, 2000, 2001, 200, 2003, 2004, 2005.
6. "Syrian, Turkish Kurds Demand Rights", an estimated 200 Kurds staged a rally outside Syrian government buildings in Damascus on Sunday, marking two years to violent riots which broke out in the north.
7. "In Kurdish maneuver, there's hope", lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides.
8. "The infrastructure economy of Kurdistan", as a country, Kurdistan is now open to global commerce.
1. - AFP - "Kurdish conference opens in Turkey
under tight security":
ISTANBUL / 11 March 2006
Turkish and Kurdish intellectuals gathered here Saturday under tight security for a major conference to discuss a peaceful resolution to the 22-year-old Kurdish conflict in the country's southeast.
Police imposed strict security measures after nationalists threatened to disrupt the two-day event, designed to promote ways of ending a conflict that has long impeded Turkey's efforts to join the European Union.
Officers searched participants at the entrance of the venue, the private Bilgi University, and several dozen riot police were on guard outside the campus.
More than 45 Turkish and Kurdish intellectuals, politicians and journalists of various political convictions were taking part in the conference, entitled "The Kurdish question in Turkey: ways for a democratic settlement".
Organizers said the conference could adopt a final declaration on Sunday, appealing to the government for more reforms to resolve the conflict, which has claimed some 37,000 lives since the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) began fighting for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast in 1984.
The conflict has led to allegations of gross human rights violations on both sides, ravaged the already meager economy of the region and forced hundreds of thousands of already poor peasants to migrate into urban slum areas.
A period of relative calm in the region was shattered in June 2004 when the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey, the EU and the United States, called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire with the army.
Since then, Kurdish militants have also carried out deadly bombings targeting civilians in western Turkey.
Speakers at the conference acknowledged significant progress in improving the rights of the Kurds, driven by Turkey's EU membership aspirations, but said more reforms were needed to fully guarantee the minority's cultural and political freedoms.
Many urged the PKK to lay down its arms.
"Some bans (on Kurdish rights) have been lifted, but the essence of the problem is still there," former culture minister Ercan Karakas said.
"The Kurdish question is a question of democracy... The government only makes promises that lead to nowhere."
Ankara has in recent years lifted emergency rule in the southeast and allowed the Kurdish language to be taught at private courses and used in television and radio broadcasts.
It is also compensating villagers who have been displaced and suffered material losses during the conflict.
Activists, however, maintain that the reforms were half-hearted moves undertaken under EU pressure and are calling for bolder steps, including a general amnesty for PKK militants.
In a landmark speech in August 2005, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised that the Kurdish conflict would be resolved with "more democracy". But the government has since failed to introduce any concrete measures and PKK militants have intensified their attacks.
"There is a crisis of confidence between the two sides," Kurdish rights campaigner Sertac Bucak said. "There is a Kurdish phobia in Turkey."
He argued that the ultimate solution lay in a federal settlement that would grant the Kurds autonomy.
"There are also things the Kurds must do," Bucak
said. "The PKK should unconditionally renounce violence because
violence breeds violence and plays into the hands of those who favour
the status quo." 
2. - DIHA - "The Conference on the Kurdish Issue":
ISTANBUL / 12 March 2006
A two-day long conference on the Kurdish issue in Turkey was hosted in the Dolapdere campus of Bilgi University, a private university, in cooperation with the Helsinki Citizens Assembly and the Empathy Group.
Described sometimes as the Southwest issue or Kurdish problem, speakers, most of whom are influential figures on their fields, tried to find a common ground to discuss the problem. The opening of the conference witnessed hot debate between Ahmet Turk, the former deputy of the defunct Democratic Party (DEP), and Umit Firat, one of the organizers of the conference during the second session titled “Organizations and Experiences” that took place in the morning. Mr. Turk criticized Umit’s interview with Hurriyet, a daily newspaper that contained angry statements over not inviting Leyla Zana. While Firat responded by refuting Hurriyet’s news the reporter of the news Sefa Kaplan claimed he had evidence to confirm the news article published.
Sertac Bucak, the founder and former president of the International Center for Human Rights of the Kurds, called PKK, the Kurdish Worker’s Party, for disarmament during the first session titled “The Evolution of Kurdish Issue and its Historical Background” and added “Armed resistance fits well in with the policies of status quo in Turkey. However, anyone who acknowledges the existence of the Kurdish issue should not be claimed as separatist.
During the session on nationalism, Professor Ahmet Insel claimed that nationalism is an exclusionist discourse when he said: “Nationalism is the non-modern part of the modern human being and all kinds of nationalism such as good or bad, vulgar or sympathetic are on the same continuum. Nationalism is an identity given to the human being and separates one from another. Therefore, those claiming themselves as nationalist can not talk about a peace. The nationalism of both the winner and loser are modern but the black sheep of the modernism. Just as the nationalism of Ataturk contains the discrimination in it, the nationalism of the Kurds does the same thing.” He further deepened his speech saying “the burden on the shoulders of the Kurds is more than that of the Turks.” One of his strongest emphasize was on the militarism and disarmament. He proposed to develop a new consciousness to solve the problem saying “there should be no loser and winner.”
Mumtaz’er Turkone, professor at Gazi University, started to his speech paying attention on the concepts’ not being understood by the sides. He claimed that the Turkish nationalism is not created by the Turks. “Perhaps the Kurds contributed more to the Turkish nationalism than the Turks did,” said Turkone, “It is the Macedonians and Circassians who founded the Republic and they created the nationalism in order to protect the state. Ziya Gokalp, the author of The Basics of Turkish Nationalism, was also of Kurdish origin.” He categorized the kinds of nationalism into three saying “there is the nationalism of Ankara, Diyarbakir and Istanbul and I thing the problem should be approached with the nationalism in Istanbul.”
Another speaker Hasan Yildiz, author and expert on philosophy
of politics, said the problem should be discussed freely in Turkey,
rather than trying to searching for the external provocation. His another
emphasize was on the Sevres Convention. He claimed that the Sevres,
on the articles 62, 63 and 64, does not say how a Kurdistan be founded
but rather shows why a Kurdistan can not be. Everybody says the British
provoked the Kurds against the Turks but nobody talks about the provocation
of the Turks against the British.”
3. - Al Jazeera - "Turkish Kurds seek language rights":
12 March 2006
Turkey's Kurds have complained of police oppression and called for an
end to prejudice against their language as crucial steps towards ending
a 22-year-old conflict in the southeast of the country.
As a two-day conference on the conflict wrapped up, Kurds on Sunday called on the government, which wants to take Turkey into the European Union, to make Kurdish an official language.
Nilufer Akbal, a popular Kurdish singer, pleaded for an end to prejudices against her language, which linger even though singing in Kurdish has been allowed in Turkey since the early 1990s.
"I have always been 'the other', the one who is different" from Turks, said Akbal, who has a wide fan base in mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey.
"When I tell people that I am involved in Kurdish music, they look at me in a strange way, as if I am a terrorist," the official jargon for the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been fighting the Ankara government since 1984, Akbal said.
Like other Kurdish artists, she also complained of police oppression.
"The police keep tabs on Kurdish artists. Whenever we are to give a concert, we are required to get official documents from the prosecutor's office to prove that we do not have a criminal record," Akbal said.
Language status
Turkey, which began membership talks with the European Union in October, allowed Kurdish to be taught in private language courses and spoken in state television and radio broadcasts in 2003 as part of a major refom drive to ease its entry into the bloc.
But Turkey's Kurdish community, estimated at about 12 million in a population of some 70 million, say the reforms were not enough and are calling on the government to give their language an official status.
Turkey's constitution recognises Turkish as the sole official language of the country and bans any other language from being used in state institutions and official affairs.
Last week, Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), urged the government to make Kurdish an official language, a demand that has fallen on deaf ears.
Ahmet Turk, DTP deputy chairman and former Kurdish lawmaker, told the conference: "We insist that the Kurdish language be taught in schools and be given an official status."
Reform
Several private centres teaching Kurdish opened across southeastern provinces after Ankara introduced the EU-driven language reform, but all have since closed down due to a lack of interest and financial problems.
Salih Akin, a Kurdish academic from Rouen University in France, said: "The Kurdish language does not have any social prestige."
Akin has done research on the Kurdish language.
"People know that they cannot use it (Kurdish) in state institutions and in commerce but only at home, and thus do not send their children to private courses teaching the language," he said.
Akin said the Turkish government should amend the constitution in order to make Kurdish the "second official language" of Turkey.
Armed struggle
But observers say such a move is unlikely while the PKK, blacklisted by Turkey, the US and the European Union, does not abandon its armed struggle.
About 37,000 people have been killed since the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the country's southeast.
A period of relative calm in the region was shattered in June 2004 when the rebels called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire with the army.
Since then, Kurdish fighters have also carried out deadly
bombings targeting civilians in western Turkey.
4. - AFP - "Kurdish rebel responsible for deadly
Turkish blast: PKK":
ANKARA / 12 March 2006
Turkey's main armed Kurdish rebel group said Sunday that one of its militants was behind a deadly suicide bombing this week in eastern Turkey, but underlined that it had not ordered or endorsed the attack.
In a statement published on its website, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said that a 29-year-old rebel had carried out the March 9 bombing in Van "on his own initiative and decision" and had "accidentally" set off the explosives "before reaching his target."
The suicide bomber left a letter behind in which he said his action was in protest of the solitary confinement of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on a prison island in Turkey and what he called "state terror" against the Kurdish community, the statement said.
The rebel group underlined that it had nothing to do with the suicide bombing and that it does not carry out attacks which target civilians.
"We extend our condolences to the families of the victims and apologise to the people of Van," the statement read.
The explosion in central Van wrecked a municipal police vehicle parked near the governor's office, killing a city worker, a passerby and the suicide bomber. Nineteen people were injured in the blast.
Local security sources said initial suspicions fell on the PKK, which has waged a armed campaign in the country's eastern and southeastern regions since 1984.
The PKK has in the past conducted countrywide bomb attacks.
Violence in Turkey's southeast has escalated since June
2004, when the rebels called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire and
ended a period of relative calm in the region.
5. - Strategy Page - "Turkish Generals and Evil Plots: Panorama":
Kurdish War: Current 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Ful Source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/kurdwar/articles/20060313.aspx
March 12, 2006: Turkish sources argue that the PKK has increased the number of anti-government attacks in order to put pressure on the government to negotiate with the organization. The Turkish government categorically refuses to negotiate with "terrorist organizations"-- and it classifies the PKK as a terror organization. There is no indication Turkey will change this policy. Turkey's parliament is continuing to investigate the Semdinli incident (November 2005), where Turkish special security troops are accused of bombing a bookstore in Semdinli. The incident kicked off three weeks of riots in Kurdish areas. It grew into a major investigation that --according to a Turkish prosecutor-- indicates senior Turkish military officers "stoked" the "Kurdish issue" in order to undermine Turkey's bid to join the European Union.
March 10, 2006: Turkey reported that a PKK suicide bomber killed himself and two other people in a suicide bomb attack in the city of Van.
March 9, 2006: In Diyarbakir a court sentenced a Kurdish student to ten months in jail because he help up a sign picturing the PKK flag. The PKK flag is outlawed in Turkey.
March 8, 2006: A senior Turkish general is believed to be using Turkey's "Kurd War" as a way to keep Turkey out of the European Union. The accusations are complex but worth considering. The November 2005 Semdinli bombing and subsequent riots are part of the accusations and the story. The British Independent (one of several papers carrying this story) said that a Turkish prosecutors believes General Yasae Buyukanit (head of Turkey's land forces) set up a clandestine military unit that kept Turkey's Kurdish region "stoked." Buyukanit apparently did not want Turkey joining the EU. Indictments of three men involved in the Semdinli incident led to the investigation of Buyukanit's activities and the accusation that Buyukanit believed criticism of Turkey's treatment of the Kurds would insure that the EU would not let Turkey join. Meanwhile, the Turkish government said that it would probe the prosecutor.
March 6, 2006: Four Turkish police were killed
in the city of Batman (southeastern Turkey) where attackers ambushed
their vehicle.
6. - The Media Line - "Syrian, Turkish Kurds Demand Rights":
13 March 2006
An estimated 200 Kurds staged a rally outside Syrian government buildings in Damascus on Sunday, marking two years to violent riots which broke out in the north.
Protesters were demanding compensation for people injured in the riots and asked that those responsible for the eruption of violence be held accountable.
Students who were expelled as a result of the riots should be allowed to return, and political prisoners should be released, protesters said.
In 2004 a riot during a football game in the Syrian town Qamishli sparked protests by Kurds across the country. Dozens were killed by Syrian security forces, and riots soon spread to neighboring districts.
Kurds are a non-Arab ethnic group numbering between 25 and 30 million people, although some put it to closer to 40 million. They inhabit a mountainous region known as Kurdistan, spanning northwest Iran, northeast Iraq, east Turkey, northeast Syria and a small community in Armenia.
The Kurds constitute a minority in all these countries and have been oppressed, to varying degrees, in all areas.
Syrian Kurds number less than one million people and constitute between 8 and 10 percent of the Syrian population.
According to the London-based A-Sharq Al-Awsat, clashes broke out between the protesters and the security forces during the demonstration.
Meanwhile in Turkey, Kurds are complaining of police oppression and are calling on the government to recognize Kurdish as an official language.
Both Syria and Turkey have reasons to respond to international demands to grant more rights to their Kurdish minorities. Syria is under international pressure over Damascus’ alleged involvement in the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri.
Turkey began membership talks into the European Union in October and needs to soften policies towards the Kurds to appease the international community.
Turkey, with a population of 70 million, accommodates
an estimated 12 million Kurds.
7. - The News Observer - "In Kurdish maneuver, there's hope":
12 March 2006 / by Charles Krauthammer
Lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is
an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides. In
the first parliament after the first set of elections, they allied themselves
with the Shiite slate to produce the current Shiite-dominated government
led by Ibrahim al-Jafari.
Now the Kurds have joined with the opposition Sunni and secular parties
to oppose the Shiite bloc. The result is two large competing coalitions:
(a) the Kurd-Sunni-secular bloc, which controls about 140 seats in the
275-seat parliament and would constitute the barest majority, and (b)
the Shiite bloc, which itself is a coalition of seven not-always-friendly
parties, and which controls 130 seats, slightly less than a majority.
If only it were that simple, Iraq would have a new secular-oriented government. But to protect minorities and force the creation of large governing coalitions, the Iraqi constitution essentially requires a two-thirds majority to form a government.
If we had that requirement, we might still be trying to settle the 2000 election. In Iraq, the result for now is stalemate, which could lead to disaster if the whole system disintegrates because of the impasse. Or it could lead to a more effective, less sectarian government than Jafari's.
The key question is who is going to control the two critical ministries: interior and defense. In Iraq, as in much of the world, interior does not control the national parks. It controls the police. And under the current government it has been under Shiite control and infiltrated by extreme Shiite militias. Some of these militias launched vicious reprisal raids against Sunnis after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, jeopardizing the entire project of a national police force exercising legitimate authority.
THE MAIN OBJECTIVE of U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who worked miracles in Afghanistan, is to make sure that the Interior Ministry is purged of sectarianism by giving it to some neutral figure, perhaps a secular Sunni with no ties to the Baath Party. Similarly with the Defense Ministry, which controls the army. The army has, by most accounts, handled itself well following the mosque bombing and later riots. It is essential that it not get into sectarian hands.
Political success in Iraq rests heavily on these two institutions. Which is why these negotiations, tiresome and endless as they seem, are so important.
The immediate issue is the prime ministership. An internal ballot among the Shiite bloc chose, by a single vote, another term for Jafari. The critical vote putting him over the top was the faction controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr, the radically anti-American and pro-Tehran cleric whose home base is the Shiite slums of Baghdad. For Sadr, a weak and corruption-ridden government that allows conditions to deteriorate would be the perfect prelude to his gaining power.
Not all parts of the Shiite coalition are happy either with Jafari's ineffectiveness or with his political dependence on Sadr. Splits are already appearing in that uneasy alliance. But the most important challenge to Jafari is the Kurds. They are wary of Sadr and unhappy with Jafari, under whom everything -- services, security, trust -- is deteriorating.
ADMITTEDLY, PART OF THEIR CALCULATION is sectarian. This is, after all, Iraq. Jafari has impeded Kurdish claims on Kirkuk and infuriated the Kurds by traveling to Turkey (which opposes all Kurdish ambitions) without their approval and with a traveling party that did not include a single Kurd.
The Kurd-Sunni-secular bloc wants a new prime minister who will establish a national unity government. Because the U.S. wants precisely the same outcome, the Kurd defection is very good news in a landscape of almost unrelenting bad news. The other good news is a split in the Shiite bloc, with a near majority that favors a more technocratic prime minister and is chafing at Sadr's influence. Additionally, the Sunni insurgency is in the midst of its own internecine strife between the local ex-Baathists who are not particularly religious and want power, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's foreign jihadists, for whom killing Shiites combines sport and religion, and who care not a whit for the future of the country. There are numerous reports of Sunni tribes declaring war on these foreign jihadists and of firefights between them.
The security situation is grim and the neighboring powers
malign. The one hope for success in Iraq is political. The Kurdish defection
has produced the current impasse. That impasse has contributed to the
mood of despair here at home. But the defection holds open the best
possibility for political success: an effective broad-based national
unity government which, during its mandatory four-year term, presides
over an American withdrawal.
8. - Kurdish Media - "The infrastructure economy
of Kurdistan":
12 March 2006 / by Khasro Pirbal
As a country, Kurdistan is now open to global commerce. To rebuild the economy and to establish a strong infrastructure demands planning and budgeting. The arrival of international support that is geared purely for economic activities must be handled in a scientific manner. It is necessary to achieve a streamlined process of coordination among the different ministries, so as to avoid duplication of programs and personnel. The country lacks a system which can be applied to the management of the economy. Developed countries in the West and Europe possess an efficient system to control their economic machinery.
To rebuild the infrastructure of the Kurdistan economy, the following points are recommended.
1. To create a national database system akin to that found in developed countries. Each citizen is assigned a personal identification number (PIN).
2. To revamp the hiring practices of law enforcement personnel and government employees.
3. To encourage the development of agriculture industry and to persuade Kurds to return to their villages in order to cultivate the soil.
4. To provide identical government services to cities
and villages alike.
5. To establish a trade association for each profession, which would
provide training and development services to members.
6. To allow universities and institutions of higher learning to share their studies and research with the scientific community.
7. To provide universities and institutions of higher learning an active role in the policy formulation and development of Kurdistan.
8. To improve land and air transportation system by construction of new roads and railways to link cities and ports.
9. To build a bridge between Kurdistan and Syria so as to facilitate more commerce. In this connection, the Kurdish government could secure the assistance of Turkey to provide technical support.
10. To create a national banking system in order to encourage national and foreign investors to utilize services available in commercial banks.
11. To acquire the active participation of the chamber of commerce in assimilation of information relative to the availability of banks and banking services.
12. Working Culture: To abolish the practice of registering individuals as salaried employees when they do not perform any work at all.
13. To identify Kurdistan as a separate entity from Iraq so as to attract foreign investors, capital and businesses. We to need emphasize that Kurdistan offer relative security, stability, economic and cultural advantages.
14. To seek the active support of friendly countries in
upgrading the Kurdish economic infrastructure.