9 May 2006

1. "Minors on trial in Turkey over Kurdish riots", twenty-three minors went on trial Monday in this mainly Kurdish city over deadly rioting that shook Turkey's restive southeastern region a month ago.

2. "Married to the cause, Kurdish rebels leave love behind", for this Kurdish teenager, joining a quasi-socialist rebel movement deep in the mountains on the Iraq-Iran frontier was a way to escape becoming a Muslim housewife in ultra-orthodox Iran.

3. "Turkey Takes on the P.K.K.", Turkey has escalated security operations against the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or P.K.K., in the face of that militant group's attacks.

4. "Meanwhile, Turkish and Iranian Troops Mass on the Border", the four month political deadlock, over who will be the new prime minister, has been resolved. A Shia Arab, Jawad al Maliki, is the man. He has 30 days to appoint ministers and get going. The delay has been expensive, as many Sunni factions that are willing to negotiate peace deals, had no one to negotiate with. Until the new government is formed, a lot of people are putting a lot of plans, including reconstruction, on hold. They have to know who they will be dealing with for the next four years.

5. "Lagendijk: End Military operations In Southeast Turkey", the European Union is against the military operations being carried out by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in the east and southeast, said EU Joint Parliamentary Commission Co-Chair Joost Lagendijk over the weekend.

6. "Turkey Recalls Envoys Over Armenian Debate", Turkey has recalled its ambassadors to France and Canada to protest moves in both countries to recognize the mass killings of Armenians by Turks in the early 1900s as genocide.

7. "Turkey urged to stick to reform commitment", an EU official today expressed concern that Turkey’s reforms were slowing and urged the government not to lose its commitment to the European Union.

8. "Seven hurt by bombs in Iranian Kurd city", two small bombs exploded in government offices in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah on Monday, wounding seven people, official media reported.

1. - AFP - "Minors on trial in Turkey over Kurdish riots":

DIYARBAKIR / 8 May 2006

Twenty-three minors went on trial Monday in this mainly Kurdish city over deadly rioting that shook Turkey's restive southeastern region a month ago.

They are the first batch out of 80 youths to appear in court on charges ranging from membership of an armed group -- a reference to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -- to violating the law on demonstrations.

The remaining minors were expected to be brought to court in groups throughout the week.

Only the parents of the accused were allowed into Monday's hearing since the defendants were all minors.

Defence lawyers said they expected some of their clients to be released on bail.

If convicted, the minors face jail sentences of between nine and 24 years in prison.

Apart from the youths, prosecutors have also indicted 185 adults on similar charges and have called for sentences of between three years and life.

Riots erupted in Diyarbakir, main town of the Kurdish region, on March 28 after youths demanding vengeance attacked the police following the funerals of PKK rebels killed in fighting with Turkish armed forces.

A total of 16 people, including three small boys, were killed when security forces opened fire and used tear gas to disperse crowds, which attacked the police with petrol bombs and vandalised public buildings and shops.

Three women were crushed to death in Istanbul when Kurdish rioters set a city bus ablaze with a petrol bomb.

Turkish officials have accused the PKK, which has fought for Kurdish self-rule in the region since 1984, of deliberately pushing hundreds of children into clashes with the police in a bid to discredit the government.

The Kurdish conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the southeast.

2. - AFP - "Married to the cause, Kurdish rebels leave love behind":

MOUNT QANDIL / 9 May 2006

For this Kurdish teenager, joining a quasi-socialist rebel movement deep in the mountains on the Iraq-Iran frontier was a way to escape becoming a Muslim housewife in ultra-orthodox Iran.

Three months ago, Shilan ran away from her family in Iran to walk across dangerous mountain passes in order to reach Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) camps at their hideouts in Iraq.

The 18-year-old said that after a neighbor in the Iranian city of Meriwan introduced her to the ideologically charged literature of the Turkish-Kurdish PKK guerrilla movement, she decided to join them to achieve "emancipation" and escape married life.

"I don't want to be controlled. In Iran you can't speak freely, a woman can't walk alone, you can't listen to music," the doe-eyed fighter said as she pushed long brown locks away from her face.

Dressed in a gray tunic, baggy pants and the PKK's trademark yellow sneakers, Shilan spoke with a Kalashnikov rifle slung over her shoulder as a fellow woman fighter leaned her weapon, a heavy machine gun, against a boulder to listen in.

"I like the military life. But I'm not here just for myself, I'm fighting for all of Kurdistan," she told AFP.

Joining the PKK, whose declared goals are to forge an independent Kurdistan out of the majority Kurdish areas of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria through a "socialist democratic" revolution, is not without its restrictions.

Sexual relations among the atheist ranks are strictly forbidden, as is the consumption of alcohol, while members are required to cut links with the outside world and leave personal possessions behind.

"We are married to our cause. It's something that's very hard for an outsider to understand. We are here to fight," said fighter Qasim Engin.

"Those who can't live with this have to go back home," said Engin, a guerrilla with piercing eyes from Turkey's southeast and a veteran of 18 years spent fighting Turks, Iranians, Arabs and sometimes rival Kurdish factions.

"I don't regret that I won't have a family. If I got married in Iran I would be stuck in the same situation for the rest of my life," added Shilan.

The green, cloud blanketed valley houses one of an unknown number of camps that lace the valleys and mountain sides of an area where Iraq, Turkey and Iran meet.

Turkey says some 5,000 armed PKK militants have found refuge in northern Iraq.

Despite recent tensions in the region, fighters were relaxed enough to take up a game of volleyball in between political lessons and mandatory readings from some of the dozens of books written by imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Ocalan is serving a life sentence in a Turkish prison.

Teenage recruit Dilbirin described the strictly regulated daily routine of a rebel in training.

The day begins at 4:45 am with sports, then breakfast, rest, political lessons, lunch, more political lectures, followed by political reading and radio broadcasts.

In a few weeks time, the recruits will move on to military training, he said.

The organization was founded as a political party in the 1970s by Ocalan and a handful of 'Havals', or comrades, but transformed itself into a guerrilla movement that initially targeted land-owning Kurds deemed to be "collaborating" with the Turkish authorities.

It has since taken on the Turkish army in a conflict that has claimed some 37,000 lives, most of them in majority-Kurd southeastern Anatolia, while the PKK has moved much of its fighting force to Kurdish-controlled areas of Iraq since the 1980s.

They are respected and romanticized by ordinary Kurds for their dedication to their cause.

3. - VOA - "Turkey Takes on the P.K.K.":

WASHINGTON / 8 May 2006 / by Jeffrey Young

Turkey has escalated security operations against the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or P.K.K., in the face of that militant group's attacks.

Turkey, especially its southeastern region, is dotted with the rubble of conflict between government forces and the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or P.K.K. The violence began in 1984 and has since claimed at least 30,000 lives. Recently, the Turkish government has escalated its security operations in an effort to crush the P.K.K. But so far, the insurgents continue to fight back.

This year, the clash between the group and government forces rose sharply in March, when funerals for insurgents in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir led to anti-government demonstrations. Security forces responded, killing three civilians and further inflaming regional anger.

Turkey-Iraq Border Security

Ankara now has more than 200-thousand troops along its border with Iraq and elsewhere in the southeast to counter the P.K.K., a contingent larger than all of the U.S. forces now in Iraq. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul says Ankara's troops are trying to prevent P.K.K. insurgents from using the mountains of northern Iraq as a base from which to attack Turkey.

In Istanbul, Turkish political commentator Cengis Candar says border security is only one of Ankara's objectives. "This is how the government legitimizes its troop buildup in the southeast. It has, of course, a very strong element of intimidation - - to deter any kind of opinion that through violence, the 'Kurdish question' can be addressed in a better way," says Candar.

What is often called the "Kurdish question" is that ethnic group's struggle for cultural recognition and greater political participation, and the Turkish state's response to those demands.

In Washington, Kurdish Human Rights Watch Director Pary Karadaghi says there are long-standing problems in southeastern Turkey that the P.K.K. uses to gain a measure of sympathy for its attacks. "From Diyarbakir to the Iraqi-Turkish border, we see a lot of poverty. We don't see economic development. We don't see jobs. We don't see health clinics. You do see the [government] roadblocks. You see how many times the cars are stopped and the people are frisked [i.e., searched] and I.D.'s are requested. You know, the kinds of things you see in southeastern Turkey, you don't see elsewhere [in the country]," says Karadaghi.

Parliamentary Treshold

When the P.K.K. ended its five-year cease-fire in June 2004, part of that group split away to promote political action to advance the Kurdish agenda, instead of going back to violence. But for years, Turkey has held that a political party has to get at least 10 percent of the vote nationally to hold seats in parliament.

Analyst Fadi Hakura, at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, says Ankara set that high threshold to encourage unity. "The Turkish state is very much worried about factionalism, separatism and division. They wish to promote cohesion within the country. So they have this rule to try to promote stability, especially in the national parliament," says Hakura.

In Ankara, Nazmi Gur, Vice Chairman of the Democratic Society Party, says the 10 percent threshold effectively prevents his and other small political movements from having a hand in governance. "We have got more than 50 percent of the vote from the southeast. Totally, [though], we have 6.22 percent of the vote nationally. But just because of this national threshold, we couldn't get seats in the parliament," says Gur.

Since Turkey and the European Union have begun discussions regarding Ankara's possible membership, Turkey has said that it will restudy the 10 percent parliamentary threshold, perhaps lowering it to allow direct representation by smaller parties.

A Political Solution

Some observers say Turkey should look to the example of Northern Ireland and how decades of violence by the Irish Republican Army was essentially ended by the 1998 Belfast or "Good Friday" agreement. That pact opened up Northern Ireland's government to political factions that had never shared governance before.

Turkish commentator Cengis Candar says there has to be a similar gesture by Ankara. “The discourse is quite different from what we have with the Irish question, but there has to be a political solution to be found involving the Kurds in the political process. And one has to be innovative, creative, and flexible," says Candar.

Since the founding of the Turkish state in 1920, the military has served as the underpinning of the government. Typically, no major policy decisions are made in Ankara without the military's input.

Fadi Hakura, at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, says that despite the Turkish military's long record of using force to address problems, it now agrees that there has to be a better way, so long as the state itself isn't threatened. "The Turkish military does recognize and has stated very clearly that a political solution has to be found to this problem. [But] what the Turkish military is worried about is instability, to maintain the territorial integrity and cohesion of Turkey and law and order," says Hakura.

While a political solution is seen as a better way to resolve the conflict, military force in the face of insurgent violence is still today's reality, and it has complications. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul says his forces should be able to cross the Iraqi border, if necessary, to pursue the P.K.K. That has prompted a strong reaction from Iraq's President, Jalal Talabani, who says Iraq, not other countries, will control its border.

Meanwhile, Turkey and Iran have been discussing the P.K.K. problem both countries face, a move Kurds throughout the region are watching warily. Many observers say the U.S. - led coalition in Iraq, which has enjoyed relative calm in the Kurdish-dominated north, may wind up in a new field of conflict if Turkey's effort to quell the P.K.K. insurgency spills across its borders.

4. - Strategy Page - "Meanwhile, Turkish and Iranian Troops Mass on the Border":

8 May 2006 / by James Dunnigan

The four month political deadlock, over who will be the new prime minister, has been resolved. A Shia Arab, Jawad al Maliki, is the man. He has 30 days to appoint ministers and get going. The delay has been expensive, as many Sunni factions that are willing to negotiate peace deals, had no one to negotiate with. Until the new government is formed, a lot of people are putting a lot of plans, including reconstruction, on hold. They have to know who they will be dealing with for the next four years.

While Iraqis wait, U.S. troops have been chasing Islamic and Sunni Arab terrorists around. The terrorists have fewer and fewer places to hide. But the constant action has doubled the death rate for American troops (from last month). Several hundred terrorists have been killed or wounded, and several senior al Qaeda and Sunni Arab terrorist leaders were caught. In many ways, the Sunni Arab terrorists are more lethal than the al Qaeda groups. Most of the Sunni Arab groups are remnants of Saddam Hussein's security forces. These fellows have lots of blood on their hands, and fear retribution, either in the form of war crimes trials, or simply revenge from the kin of the many people they killed. Vengeful Kurds and Shia Arabs know exactly who they are looking for, as Saddam's thugs never hid their identities. So the desperate thugs go on killing, in hopes of getting an amnesty deal. But to make a deal, they need someone to deal with. That won't happen until the new government is in place. In the beginning of the year, American commanders held their fire, but then it was decided to keep going with the anti-terrorist operations, as it appeared that the Iraqis were deadlocked on forming a new government. So May will be a bloody month as well.

Meanwhile, members of the pro-Iran Badr militia are showing up in the northern oil city of Kirkuk. That's odd, because Shia Arabs are a small minority up there, where the most numerous groups are Kurds and Sunni Arabs (plus Turks and Iraqi Christians.) In Kirkuk, Kurdish civilians continue to move back to the city, and, with the assistance of Kurdish militias, try to force out Sunni Arabs moved in over the last two decades by Saddam (who forced out the Kurds who are now returning.) American troops and Iraqi police will interfere with blatant attempts at ethnic cleansing, but it goes on anyway, just more slowly, quietly and sort of out of sight. The Kurds want to make Kirkuk, and all its oil (some $30 billion worth a year), part of the Kurdish controlled north. Ultimately, that has to be decided by the Iraqi parliament, and the Kurds are ready to deal on this point. The Sunni Arabs see themselves as the big losers, because the rest of Iraq's oil is in the south, where Shia Arabs are very much the majority, and in control.

While the Kurds lust after Kirkuk, they are being threatened by the Turkish and Iranian armies. That's because of Kurdish support for PKK radical rebels. The Kurdish government in the north has tolerated the presence of several thousand PKK fighters. The PKK is fighting for "Greater Kurdistan" (including southeast Turkey, northern Iraq, parts of Iran and Syria.) This sort of thing is very popular with most Kurds, thus the Kurdish leaders feel they cannot crack down on the PKK (as the U.S. and Turkey constantly demand). This year, the PKK has been very active just across the border in Turkey and Iran, attacking police and army units. The Turks and Iranians are fighting back. There are already over 2,000 Turkish troops inside Iraq. This sort of presence has been tolerated for years, as long as the Turks were just looking for PKK camps in remote areas. But the Turks have over 50,000 troops on the border, and appear ready to expand their operations in northern Iraq. Meanwhile, to the east. Iranian troops are moving to the border, and Iranian artillery is being fired into Iraq, at areas believed occupied by the PKK.

The Kurdish government in northern Iraq basically tells the PKK, "you're on your own." But if the Turks and Iranians do serious damage to the PKK (by finding and destroying many of the PKK camps, which are often disguised as civilian villages), many of the PKK fighters will just flee to Kurdish government controlled areas and blend into the civilian population. This would tempt the Turks to just keep going. The Turkish army has been fighting, and defeating, Kurdish irregulars for centuries. No big deal. Many Turks believe that northern Iraq really belongs to Turkey (it was taken away from defeated Turkey after World War I, so that Turkey would not have access to the newly discovered oil in the area.) Iraq does not want to give up the north, but they cannot defeat Turkish troops. Only the U.S. can. For the moment, the Americans are telling the Turks to stick to hunting PKK, and forget about lost provinces. For the moment, anyway.

5. - The New Anatolian - "Lagendijk: End Military operations In Southeast Turkey":

ANKARA / 8 May 2006

The European Union is against the military operations being carried out by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in the east and southeast, said EU Joint Parliamentary Commission Co-Chair Joost Lagendijk over the weekend.

Attending a roundtable discussion in Diyarbakir for a project entitled "Civilian Rights in the Southeast," Lagendijk also condemned attacks committed by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

He said that there's no room for violence where the improvement of Kurdish rights is concerned, and underlined that all forms of violent activities should be condemned.

Stressing that there are differences between Turkey and Europe's definition of "minority," Lagendijk acknowledged that he's aware that the Kurds don't define themselves as a minority.

Lagendijk stated that, according to the EU definition, the Kurds are a minority because many rights have not been granted to them. First of all, he said, the same rights granted to minorities in Europe should be granted to the Kurds.

"Your definition of a minority is different from ours; there's a different perception of the concept. For us, minorities have a right to their own TV channels, courses in their own languages and their own language rights," he said.

Lagendijk explained that the EU is working towards finding a way for solutions found for Turks living in France and Germany to become valid for minorities in Turkey.

According to Lagendijk, democracy is the only way to solve the Kurdish problem, adding that there's no room for violence in a solution to the problem.

Lagendijk said that another controversial issue is whether there are enough people in Parliament to represent the Kurds.

He said that he believes there are many pro-Kurdish deputies in Parliament and that he wasn't specifically referring to Kurdish-origin deputies since there have to be other politicians working for the Kurds' rights. He stated that the 10 percent national election threshold prevents politicians who work for the improvement of Kurdish rights from winning seats in Parliament, and recalled that the European Parliament has asked Turkey to make it possible for parties that get 5-6 percent of votes to be represented in Parliament.

Lagendijk suggested that Kurdish politicians should encourage a policy which rules out violence because as long as it continues there will be no investment in the region.

Calling on the government to implement long-term economic projects in the region, Lagendijk suggested that the government should cooperate with local mayors on projects designed for the region.

6. - AP - "Turkey Recalls Envoys Over Armenian Debate":

ANKARA / 8 May 2006

Turkey has recalled its ambassadors to France and Canada to protest moves in both countries to recognize the mass killings of Armenians by Turks in the early 1900s as genocide.

The ambassadors were recalled for a short time to discuss what Ankara calls the "baseless allegations of Armenian genocide" in France and Canada, Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said Monday. They would return to their posts following the consultations, he said.

Armenians say that 1.5 million of their people were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, which Armenians and several nations around the world recognize as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey denies that the massacres were genocide, saying the death toll is inflated and Armenians were killed in civil unrest as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

Turkey, which has no diplomatic ties with Armenia, is facing increasing pressure to fully acknowledge the event, particularly as it seeks membership in the European Union. The issue is extremely sensitive in Turkey, and Turks have faced prosecution for saying the killings were genocide.

Turkey has recently criticized Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for remarks he made in support of recognizing the mass killings as genocide, and warned that such statements threatened Turkish-Canadian relations.

Turkey has also warned French legislators not to approve a bill to be considered next week that would make the denial of the Armenian genocide a crime. It is already an offense in France to deny the Holocaust of World War II.

In 2001, Turkey canceled millions of dollars worth of defense deals with French companies after lawmakers in France recognized the killings as genocide.

The United States, which has a large Armenian diaspora community, has not declared the killings a genocide.

7. - Ireland Online - "Turkey urged to stick to reform commitment":

9 May 2006

An EU official today expressed concern that Turkey’s reforms were slowing and urged the government not to lose its commitment to the European Union.

European Commission Vice President Siim Kallas said, however, that it was not uncommon among EU candidates for reforms to come in spurts.

“There have also been slowdowns and more active periods,” among other candidate countries, said Kallas, noting that his homeland of Estonia was one fiftieth the size of Turkey and spent seven years in talks with the EU.

“The concerns that there is a slowing down exist,” Kallas said at a news conference in Ankara. But he added that “you can never lose the commitment.”

Kallas, whose portfolio includes administration and the struggle against fraud, said he was in Ankara “to encourage the Turkish leadership to continue with the reforms”.

In October, Turkey realised one of its historic dreams when it became the first Muslim country to open official negotiations for full membership with the EU.

The EU has called on Turkey to continue with sweeping reforms that have already reduced the power of the military in politics and expanded rights for minority Kurds.

But many Turks have been questioning their commitment to reform as resistance in Europe has grown to accepting a huge, poor Muslim country.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Turkey would continue with EU-oriented reforms, but added that he hoped that negotiations would be “conducted in a positive spirit and on the basis of the principles which were applied to other candidate countries”.

8. - AFP - "Seven hurt by bombs in Iranian Kurd city":

TEHRAN / 8 May 2006

Two small bombs exploded in government offices in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah on Monday, wounding seven people, official media reported.

The first bomb went off at around 1:50 pm (10:20 GMT) in the Kermanshah governor's office. A second bomb went off minutes later in another government office for commercial affairs.

Kermanshah is dominated by Iran's Kurdish minority, but it was not clear if the blasts had any connection to ethnic-related violence.

The attacks come amid rising tensions between Iraqi Kurds and Iran and Turkey, both of which have Kurdish minorities and have been battling Kurdish militants from the PKK and its offshoots.

For around a year, Iran has been battling infiltrations by Pejak, a Kurdish group linked to the PKK. On Sunday, Baghdad accused Iranian forces of entering five kilometers (three miles) into Iraq and shelling PKK positions.

Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan province, situated further to the south, has also been hit by a wave of bombings linked to ethnic Arab separatists.

Officials in Tehran have blamed the United States and Britain for the border area unrest.