Untitled Document

2 November 2006

1. "An undiplomatic conflict of interest", most people would agree that it's bad ethics for government officials to invest in companies that they regulate. But what about a US special envoy to a Middle East trouble spot who happens to be a director of an arms company selling weapons to one of the parties in the conflict?

2. "Turkey accession threatened by EU report on human rights", emergency talks have been planned for this weekend to try to stave off the collapse of Turkey's bid to join the EU, as Ankara faces scathing criticism over its record on civil rights.

3. "EU gives Turkey bad grades", a new European Union report is set to give Turkey low grades on its democratic reforms and further delay the country's EU accession, a process already under scrutiny by most of Europe.

4. "Turkey's migrant workers describe woes of displacement", in the 1990s, the army used a scorched-earth policy to try to flush out PKK guerillas, burning farms and villages suspected of having links to the rebels, considered a terrorist group by the US and the EU.

5. "Turkey's government under fire for Islamic business scandal", Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan strongly rejected accusations Wednesday that his Islamic-rooted government was protecting an Islamic business whose chairman is allegedly wanted in Germany on suspicion of swindling more than US$1 billion (€800 million) from Turkish workers.

6. "Kurds have right to self-determination", self-determination is the right of the Kurdish people and they exercised their rights by electing their Parliament in federal Iraq, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani told French daily Le Figaro in an interview published on Tuesday.

1. - Boston Globe - "An undiplomatic conflict of interest":

1 November 2006 / by Kevin McKiernan

MOST PEOPLE would agree that it's bad ethics for government officials to invest in companies that they regulate. But what about a US special envoy to a Middle East trouble spot who happens to be a director of an arms company selling weapons to one of the parties in the conflict?

That's the case of retired Air Force General Joseph Ralston, who was appointed by the Bush administration in August to help US ally Turkey counter the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK , the Kurdish rebels who are seeking autonomy from Turkey and have bases in northern Iraq. Ralston, a former NATO supreme allied commander, has been negotiating with Turkish generals and Iraqi leaders since his appointment to develop measures to eliminate the bases.

The problem is that General Ralston is on the board of Lockheed Martin, the world's largest arms maker, which just last month finalized a $2.9 billion sale for advanced F-16 fighters that may well be used in the Kurdish region (the State Department acknowledges that F-16 s were involved in human rights abuses in Turkey in the 1990s). This gives the ex-general the appearance of holding a financial interest in his shuttle diplomacy.

The administration hopes the Ralston appointment will boost US-Turkish ties, which soured on the eve of the Iraq war after Turkey refused to allow American troops to deploy from Turkish soil. But the issue of PKK guerrillas, who have been battling the US-equipped Turkish army for 22 years, is complicated, and efforts to impose a military solution without causing more regional instability may backfire.

The Kurdish uprising in the 1990s in Turkey accounted for approximately 37,000 deaths, most of them ethnic Kurds. Whatever happens next will be closely watched by the restive population of 25 million stateless Kurds who spill across the borders of Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria.

Both the United States and the European Union regard the PKK as terrorists, but the group finds support among Turkey's long-abused Kurds. At the same time, Kurds who hoped the Turkish government would grant educational and broadcasting rights were disappointed in 2004 when the PKK ended its unilateral, five-year cease-fire and went back to war.

Now Turkey and the Kurds appear to be on a new collision course, and Lockheed Martin, General Ralston's company, may play a pivotal role. Last spring, Turkey moved 200,000 troops to its southern border, and its generals have been pressing Washington for a green light to enter Iraq to attack the rebel sanctuaries. Iraq's government opposes the threatened incursion, arguing it would only add to existing chaos in the country.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders fear local Kurds would join Turkish Kurds to fight the Turkish army -- the largest NATO power (after the United States) -- and the result would be a Kurdish bloodbath. Privately, Iraqi Kurdish leaders complain that the issue of PKK bases is only a pretext. They claim that Ankara's real target is Kirkuk, the multiethnic, oil-rich city that Iraqi Kurds vow to incorporate into their semi-autonomous zone by 2007.

Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, recently played a key role in behind-the-scenes negotiations to disarm the guerrillas. The result was a cease-fire announcement on Oct. 1 by the rebels, who also declared they might hand over weapons to US forces in Iraq in exchange for Turkish concessions that include human rights reforms and amnesty for rebels. In a speech in Istanbul last month Ralston opposed amnesty and dismissed the cease-fire, declaring he would never "negotiate with terrorists."

General Ralston is on the board of the American Turkish Council, the powerful Capitol Hill lobby, and he is vice chairman of the Cohen Group, a corporation founded by former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, with close ties to the Turkish military. Unfortunately, Ralston carries too much baggage to be special envoy, and he should step down before he alienates the Kurds of Iraq, the best -- and perhaps only -- friend the US government has in the country.

With the looming threat of civil or even wider war in the region, the United States needs a skilled, disinterested negotiator to resolve the PKK issue, while finding a peaceful solution to legitimate Kurdish grievances.

Our new man in Ankara will be seen as an arms merchant in diplomat's clothing. He should be replaced.

* Kevin McKiernan has covered the Iraq war for ABC News. He is the author of "The Kurds: A People in Search of Their Homeland."

2. - Independent - "Turkey accession threatened by EU report on human rights":

BRUSSELS / 1 November 2006 / by Stephen Castle

Emergency talks have been planned for this weekend to try to stave off the collapse of Turkey's bid to join the EU, as Ankara faces scathing criticism over its record on civil rights.

Leaked excerpts from a crucial report, due to be published next week, reveal concerns over Turkey's drive to match European standards on freedom of speech, and highlight its refusal to open up ports to ships from Cyprus, which joined the EU in 2004.

Aware that the criticism will provoke a backlash in Turkey, Finland, which holds the EU presidency, wants to pre-empt the European Commission report by pushing for a deal on the neuralgic issue of Cyprus.

It has invited foreign ministers from the interested countries to Helsinki to try to forge an agreement.

Last night Turkey had not confirmed its attendance. The country has been warned that, if it fails to relax restrictions on Cyprus by the end of the year, its negotiations on EU membership will be suspended.

Finland's plan would open some Turkish ports, but also allow goods from Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus - which is not internationally recognised - to be exported to and from the port of Famagusta under EU supervision. As a quid-pro-quo the Greek Cypriots would be able to rebuild the abandoned resort of Varosha.

If progress is made, the EU might postpone a final deadline for Turkey to accept Cypriot vessels, and it would affect the final wording of next week's report.

Without progress on the issue, Turkey faces acute criticism. Excerpts from a draft of the document show acute concern about freedom of speech and the continued prosecution of writers.

The document says that "prosecutions and convictions for expression of non-violent opinion... are a cause for serious concern." It adds that "cases of torture" are still being reported.

Emergency talks have been planned for this weekend to try to stave off the collapse of Turkey's bid to join the EU, as Ankara faces scathing criticism over its record on civil rights.

It has invited foreign ministers from the interested countries to Helsinki to try to forge an agreement.

If progress is made, the EU might postpone a final deadline for Turkey to accept Cypriot vessels, and it would affect the final wording of next week's report.

Without progress on the issue, Turkey faces acute criticism. Excerpts from a draft of the document show acute concern about freedom of speech and the continued prosecution of writers.

The document says that "prosecutions and convictions for expression of non-violent opinion... are a cause for serious concern." It adds that "cases of torture" are still being reported.

3. - UPI - "EU gives Turkey bad grades":

BERLIN / 1 November 2006 / by Stefan Nicola

A new European Union report is set to give Turkey low grades on its democratic reforms and further delay the country's EU accession, a process already under scrutiny by most of Europe.

An unnamed EU official told the Financial Times Germany newspaper he was surprised that Turkey was so significantly behind in its democratization process.

"We would have hoped that Turkey would have delivered a lot more during the past 18 months, certainly since the beginning of negotiations in October last year," the official said. "If Turkey had been moving more, if there was greater freedom of expression, if there wasn't any torture, things would be a lot more promising."

The official report, which the newspaper said it has seen, will be presented next week. It said "prosecutions and convictions for the expression of non-violent opinion ... are a cause for serious concern," although on the weekend, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he has no plans to change the penal code for such cases, the newspaper reported.

Such bad grades for Turkey are by no means a surprise, experts say.

"Since the beginning of the accession negotiations, Turkey and the EU have constantly distanced themselves from each other," Heinz Kramer, Turkey expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a Berlin-based think tank, told United Press International. "That's also because the accession process within the EU has not much or only half-hearted backing."

Public support for Turkey's EU membership is at an all time low, with less than one in three Europeans supporting it.

"Large parts of the population and -- mostly conservative -- political elites feel that Turkey does not belong to Europe," Kramer said.

A country with unsolved regional conflicts and roughly 70 million citizens, nearly all of them Muslims, Turkey is seen by many European governments as a burden, rather than an asset to the EU.

France, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Slovakia are among the most outspoken opponents, with Paris speaking loudest. In what observers say was a bid to bank on anti-Turkey sentiments, France earlier this month adopted a bill that makes it a crime to deny that an Armenian genocide occurred in Turkey during World War I, a move that was criticized in most of Europe. France is home to roughly 500,000 people whose families came from Armenia, many of them descendants of families that experienced the 1915-1923 violence that killed some 1.5 million people. Turkey denies that genocide took place.

Another unresolved issue involves the Republic of Cyprus.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said that if Turkey wants to be accepted into the EU, Ankara would have to open its ports to Cypriots and recognize the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member.

Cyprus, a popular Mediterranean tourist destination, has been divided into a Republic of Cyprus -- the Greek Cypriot south -- and a Turkish-occupied north since a 1974 Turkish invasion.

Merkel has been critical of Turkey's EU accession and favors the model of a "privileged partnership" instead, although her coalition government officially endorses the accession process.

Finland, which currently holds the rotating the EU presidency, has been beefing up efforts to prevent a possible escalation of the Cyprus crisis, wanted by "neither the EU nor Turkey," Kramer said.

Within the EU, the supporters of a Turkey membership, including Spain and Britain, argue Turkey could serve as a bridge to the Islamic world, and fuel democratization efforts in the region. Most EU governments, however, feel the enlargement process, with Croatia becoming a member soon, has reached its limits, and pointing to Turkey's reform shortcomings is an easy way out of a quick accession.

But the EU, with its half-hearted support of the Turkish accession process, is also to blame for the lack of reforms in Turkey, Kramer said.

"In Ankara, politicians think: 'Why should we make all these efforts if in the end, nothing comes out of it,'" he told UPI. "From how it looks now, it may only be a question of time until the whole process becomes deadlocked."

4. - Brunai Times - "Turkey's migrant workers describe woes of displacement":

1 November 2006

IN LATE August, Serhan Korkmaz and his family rode 500 kilometres from their adopted home of Mersin to the central Anatolian plain on the back of a truck, carrying the tarpaulins that would shelter them during the onion harvest.

Settlements of plastic tents supported by wooden poles sprout up across the Turkish countryside during the harvest months, when an estimated six million workers travel long distances to work on commercial farms. Many of Turkey's cheap seasonal workers like Korkmaz started working as hired hands after they were displaced from southeastern villages during violence between Kurdish guerillas and the army.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party took up arms to fight for an independent homeland in 1984, turning many villages into battlegrounds. Human Rights Watch estimates one million people were displaced by 1999, while the government puts the figure at 378,000.

Today, the makeshift lives of migrant workers, marked by want and precarious living conditions, highlight the government's failure to deal with its displaced populations.

``They (farmers) don't consider us people, they consider us animals and because we're Kurdish we can't defend our rights,'' said Korkmaz, sheltering under plastic sacking from the intense Anatolian sun. Under Turkish law, labour intermediaries or contractors are responsible for negotiating salaries and conditions between workers and farmers.

``But there are intermediaries who are unlicenced,'' said Osman Zaim, project director of the International Labour Organisation in the capital Ankara. This leaves workers vulnerable to exploitation. Turkey's displaced populations are a cause for concern for the European Union. Plastic tents shudder at the top of a small sun-baked and windswept plateau several kilometres from where Korkmaz and other migrants work in Omerlerkoy. A single empty water tanker stands at the edge of the settlement. Only 10 days into their contract, a chronic lack of water has hospitalised two workers. Farmers, with whom they have negotiated contracts, are responsible for bringing water and deciding on where the migrant labourers can pitch their camps.

``They don't let us come close to the village, there's a well there, but they don't let us use it. We can't bathe, we can't wash, we don't have enough to drink,'' said Korkmaz.

Some Kurds blame the decades-long conflict between the PKK and the army for the discrimination they say they face and for the state's failure to fully recognise their rights. Farmers say labourers must accept that the work is hard, especially when agricultural reforms are cutting into profits. And they say water supplies run short because they must also provide for the migrant labourers' families.

``These people come from nature, they're used to having many kids. They are uneducated, and have no other skills. If there's no work, of course they're going have problems, there's only so much we can provide,'' said Cetin Akyar, a farmer who employs migrant workers to harvest onions.

The European Union has said economic underdevelopment in the east and southeast, the absence of basic infrastructure, the lack of capital, limited employment opportunities and the security situation have held up the return of displaced people.

In the 1990s, the army used a scorched-earth policy to try to flush out PKK guerillas, burning farms and villages suspected of having links to the rebels, considered a terrorist group by the US and the EU.

The reform-minded ruling AK Party has initiated compensation programs for lands lost and property damaged, but the schemes have been criticised for being ineffective and unfair. Government officials did not respond to requests for information, but Abdurrahman Kurt, chairman of the AK Party in the southeast's main province, said efforts were underway to fix shortcomings. ``We're building dams and water pipes for some US$2 billion ($3.1 billion) to US$3 billion to bring to the agricultural areas. That will solve much of the problems,'' he said.

5. - AP - "Turkey's government under fire for Islamic business scandal":

ANKARA / 1 November 2006

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan strongly rejected accusations Wednesday that his Islamic-rooted government was protecting an Islamic business whose chairman is allegedly wanted in Germany on suspicion of swindling more than US$1 billion (€800 million) from Turkish workers.

Dursun Uyar, Chairman of the Board of the Yimpas Group, which is involved in a broad range of activities from construction to clothing, was reportedly wanted by Germany on an international warrant for swindling tens of thousands of Turks there. The German Embassy in Ankara could not immediately confirm the Turkish newspaper reports.

Switzerland was investigating possible international fraud by the Yimpas Group, Jeanette Balmer, spokesman for the federal prosecutors office in Switzerland, said Wednesday.

Turkey's constitution bars the country from extraditing its citizens to other countries, but makes provisions for a person to be tried at home.

Authorities have so far not taken any action against Uyar, who has made several public appearances recently, including at the recent funeral of a legislator where he was photographed praying shoulder-to-shoulder with several government ministers, officials from the opposition Republican People's Party charge.

The scandal surfaced after Hurriyet newspaper published Uyar's photograph at the funeral.

Opposition leader Deniz Baykal said Tuesday that Erdogan's Justice and Development Party "doesn't have the courage, or its connections don't permit" it to take action against Uyar.

Earlier this week, the opposition suggested that Erdogan's party had accepted funds from Yimpas when the party was formed in 2001, in exchange for a quota of around 20 parliamentary seats for company executives.

The Republican party submitted a motion to parliament asking the party to reply to these charges and accusations that Yimpas officials or their relatives were promoted to key bureaucratic posts.

Erdogan responded angrily Wednesday, saying: "Not a penny from (Yimpas) can be found" in the party's coffers.

"It is so ugly. Nobody has the right to launch a defamation campaign against the Justice and Development party while there is no arrest warrant (in Turkey) for that person," Erdogan said.

Yimpas, founded in 1982, is one of several Islamic-oriented companies — dubbed the "Anatolian Tigers" that sprung up in central Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s and helped transform the largely rural region into a home for economic powerhouses.

The Islamic companies raised funds from pious Turkish guest workers in Europe who were not willing to put their money into banks and were attracted by companies like Yimpas, which offered investor shares and high dividends instead of interest, as well as the opportunity to invest in Turkey.

Islam prohibits interest but permits dividends that are considered part of a company's profits and where payment is not guaranteed.

Financial authorities began to closely scrutinize the Islamic companies after some officials were caught at customs hauling money or gold into Turkey in suitcases.

Turkey's capital markets board, which oversees stockmarket trading, cracked down on Yimpas and other Islamic businesses for not properly registering with state authorities and trading shares informally instead of on the Istanbul stock exchange.

Yimpas' fortunes began to unravel during Turkey's economic crisis of 2001, when investors began to ask for their money. Thousands of investors were allegedly told they could not be paid.

Turkish newspapers reported that Yimpas funds allegedly ended up into the bank accounts of private individuals.

Appearing on CNN-Turk television late Tuesday, Uyar said all of the company's activities were legal and said the group was being unfairly hounded.

"We are the victims here; we are all victims," he said.

In an interview with Milliyet newspaper, former Yimpas board member Kadir Sohret admitted the company had collected up to €2 billion (US$2.5 billion) from pious Turks outside of mosques in Europe.

6. - The New Anatolian - "Kurds have right to self-determination":

PARIS/ 1 November 2006

Self-determination is the right of the Kurdish people and they exercised their rights by electing their Parliament in federal Iraq, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani told French daily Le Figaro in an interview published on Tuesday.

Iraqi President Talabani, who embarks on an official visit to France today, expressed his hope that there will be agreement among Iraqi government and regional governments on recent controversy on the share of oil incomes, adding that the oil resources are operated by regional governments and the central government.

On the discussions about a U.S. troop withdrawal, Talabani said that in Iraq there is a consensus among political forces that an immediate withdrawal would have catastrophic results for their country, as well as the Middle East and the entire world.

He said that the international coalition will only withdraw when Iraqi security forces are ready to take over on their own the challenge of maintaining law and order, adding that international splits should not rebound on Iraq.

Discussions should focus "not on the drawing up of a timetable for withdrawing American troops but on the goals that should be set for Iraqi forces so that they may continue to take over security in the regions," he said.

Talabani also said that Iraqi political leaders understood violence was not an option and so civil war can be avoided. Foreign terrorists allied to groups linked to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein are in part to blame for the daily violence in Iraq, he added.

The Iraqi leader also said that al-Qaeda was on the decline and that Sunni tribes in the Anbar province had started fighting the group, which had received support from pro-Saddam groups and unnamed foreign forces.

In related news, Le Figaro reported yesterday that France will open a diplomatic representative office in northern Iraq.

According to the daily, Talabani expressed his appreciation for the opening the office.

Talabani is expected to meet President Jacques Chirac today during his official visit to France.