12
April 2007
1. "Kurdish Activists Begin Hunger Strike for Rebel Leader Ocalan", supporters of imprisoned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan on Wednesday began a hunger strike outside the offices of top European human rights watchdog The Council of Europe in Strasbourg. The activists are protesting the detention in solitary confinement since 1999 of Ocalan, whose lawyers claim he is being poisoned.
2. "Kurds begin hunger strike over Ocalan "poisoning" claims", Ahmet Gulabi Dere of the National Congress of Kurdistan (KNK) told AFP they wanted the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture to send a team of independent experts.
3. "Turkey reiterates right to cross-border offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq", Turkey has the right to chase Kurdish guerrillas inside Iraq if Baghdad is not powerful enough to fight them itself, Turkey's foreign minister said Wednesday.
4. "Tensions over role of Islam in politics dominate Turkey's presidential elections", Turkey's staunchly secular president ends his seven-year term next month, and lawmakers are preparing to elect his successor in a contest that highlights the divide among Turks over the role of Islam in politics.
5. "Ankara ‘concerned’ over European initiative to combat racism and xenophobia", Turkey has expressed ‘concerns’ over a new German initiative to combat racism and xenophobia with a template European law that could spread moves in France and elsewhere to criminalize any denial of the Armenian Genocide.
6. "French election overshadows Turkish EU bid", with their EU entry bid at stake, Turks are likely to be watching the results of the French presidential elections almost as closely as the French themselves.
7. "Turks Seek Solace In Ataturk At Time Of Tension", seven decades after his death, growing numbers of Turks are flocking to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
8. "Kurdistan’s Covert Back-Channels", how an ex-Mossad chief, a German uberspy, and a gaggle of top-dollar GOP lobbyists helped Kurdistan snag 15 tons of $100 bills.
1. - AKI - "Kurdish Activists Begin Hunger Strike for Rebel Leader Ocalan":
STRASBOURG / 11 April 2007
Supporters of imprisoned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan on Wednesday began a hunger strike outside the offices of top European human rights watchdog The Council of Europe in Strasbourg. The activists are protesting the detention in solitary confinement since 1999 of Ocalan, whose lawyers claim he is being poisoned. "Ocalan has been held for the past eight years in the island prison of Imrali [off Istanbul]. He is the victim of heavy metal poisoning over a long period, his lawyers have testified," the Kurdistan Information Office in Italy said in a statement.
"Abdullah Ocalan's condition is a source of great concern to the Kurdish people. This hunger strike aims to draw the [Council of Europe's] Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT)'s attention to his plight and send an international delegation of medics to carry out a full examination of Ocalan," the statement continued
A laboratory in the Swedish capital, Oslo, has confirmed the findings of analyses of Ocalan's hair carried out in France and Italy that have shown levels of chromium seven times higher than the average as well as very high levels of strontium, according to his Italian lawyers. "Such poisoning can only have occurred through his food or water," the lawyers said, quoted by the Kurdistan Information Office in Italy.
"Since 1999, Abdullah Ocalan has not ceased his search for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question, despite his denial of the usual rights of all detainees. The Turkish state's behaviour is unacceptable. and Kurds consider Ocalan's poisoning to be a crime against humanity," the Kurdistan Information Office in Italy said.
The Turkish authorities last month dismissed as "complete lies" allegations by Ocalan's Italian lawyers that he is being poisoned, saying that tests on Ocalan showed no signs of this. Ocalan's Italian lawyers alleged that an analysis of his hair showed large amounts of strontium and chromium, both of which are toxic in high doses. It was not clear how the lawyers acquired the samples or what prompted the analysis, though Ocalan's lawyers have frequently complained about his conditions in confinement.
Ocalan's lawyers in Turkey called for an investigation by an independent group of doctors and for testing at "a laboratory with sufficient technical equipment."
Ocalan is serving a life sentence on Imrali - where he is the only prisoner - for leading a bloody war for autonomy in Turkey’s southeast that has claimed the lives of more than 37,000 people since 1984.
Ocalan, 58, remains an influential figure for many of
Turkey's disaffected Kurds, and an object of intense hatred for many
Turks. 
2. - AFP - "Kurds begin hunger strike over Ocalan "poisoning" claims":
STRASBOURG / 11 April 2007
Some 70 Kurds began a hunger strike Wednesday in front of the Council of Europe over allegations that Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan is being poisoned in his prison cell in Turkey.
The group want a team of independent doctors to investigate the claims made last month in Rome by Ocalan's lawyers that their client was being poisoned.
Turkey's prosecutors office have already dismissed the claims, citing toxicology tests carried out by the three experts sent by the Istanbul coroner's office that showed no evidence of poisoning.
But Ahmet Gulabi Dere of the National Congress of Kurdistan (KNK) told AFP they wanted the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture to send a team of independent experts.
Until that happened, he said, 17 of the hunger strikers were committed to hold out for an indeterminate period.
The hunger strikers include Remzi Kartal, the Kurdish ex-deputy of the Party for Democracy (DEP) and a founding member of the KNK. They will stay at the Franco-Kurdish cultural centre in Strasbourg.
About a hundred Kurdish activists including the hunger strikers demonstrated peacefully in front of the Council of Europe building Wednesday.
Ocalan's lawyers say the 58-year-old has been experiencing breathing and skin problems, as well as pains severe enough to interrupt his sleep.
The leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), he has been serving a life sentence for treason since 1999.
The PKK has waged a bloody campaign for independence in the mainly Kurdish southeast since 1984.
Representatives from the Council of Europe have visited
Ocalan several times and found his health to be "satisfactory",
although they recommended giving him some relief from his isolation.
3. - AP - "Turkey reiterates right to cross-border offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq":
ANKARA / 11 April 2007
Turkey has the right to chase Kurdish guerrillas inside Iraq if Baghdad is not powerful enough to fight them itself, Turkey's foreign minister said Wednesday.
Turkey increasingly is feeling the sting of Kurdish rebel attacks originating from northern Iraq, with clashes with guerrillas leaving around 20 people dead since Saturday.
Turkey has complained that neither Iraq nor the United States have taken steps to clamp down on the rebel bases, despite repeated Turkish calls and assurances to do so.
"If Turkey is harmed, then its neighbors should do whatever is necessary to prevent it. If they are powerless to do so, then international laws enable" Turkish intervention, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said.
Guerrillas belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. Turkey insists it has the right to fight "terrorists" wherever they are.
Washington has cautioned Turkey, a NATO ally, against any unilateral action, fearing that such a move could destabilize northern Iraq, the most stable region in the country.
Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, head of Turkey's powerful military, was scheduled to address the issue during a news conference on Thursday.
Turkey's military has not ruled out a cross-border operation and was beefing up its troops on the Iraqi border to prevent the infiltration of the guerrillas, made easier by warm weather that melted snows on mountain paths.
Turkey has made clear that it expects urgent Iraqi action against guerrillas holed up in mountain camps across the Turkish border.
Although Iraqi President Jalal Talabani assured Turkey of his country's commitment to stop the guerrillas from using Iraq as a staging point for attacks, Iraqi Kurds who run the areas close to Turkey are reluctant to fight.
Gul emphasized that Turkey was not looking to provoke a fight with the Kurds by interfering in Iraqi internal affairs. Turkey is concerned over the fate of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which Iraqi Kurds want to incorporate into their semiautonomous region in the north of Iraq.
Turkey fears that if unchecked, Iraqi Kurds could form an independent Kurdish state, which would in turn incite Turkey's own Kurds toward an outright rebellion. Iraqi Kurds accuse Turkey of meddling in Iraqi affairs.
More than 37,000 people have been killed since Turkish
Kurdish rebels took up arms against Turkey in 1984.
4. - International Herald Tribune - "Tensions over role of Islam in politics dominate Turkey's presidential elections":
ANKARA / 11 April 2007
Turkey's staunchly secular president ends his seven-year term next month, and lawmakers are preparing to elect his successor in a contest that highlights the divide among Turks over the role of Islam in politics.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose tenure ends May 16, is likely to be replaced by someone from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party, and perhaps by Erdogan himself. Supporters of the 66-year-old president plan to demonstrate in the capital, Ankara, this weekend to protest the idea of an "Islamist" taking over the post.
Turkey's secularists, who include the military, fear that if Erdogan — or someone close to him — wins the presidency, the government will be able to implement an Islamic agenda without opposition.
Although largely ceremonial, the president enjoys some power — and Sezer has used it to block Erdogan initiatives that he viewed as threatening Turkey's secular foundations.
With the opposition too weak to block Erdogan's majority in parliament, Sezer vetoed a record number of bills deemed unconstitutional and blocked the appointment of hundreds of officials believed to have Islamist tendencies.
Bills vetoed by Sezer included a public administration bill that some believed would have eased restrictions on the wearing of headscarfs in government offices, and a university bill that would have favored religious school graduates.
The president is elected for a single term by parliament, which is now dominated by lawmakers from Erdogan's Justice and Development Party. Erdogan, 53, has not said if he will stand; he was expected to announce the party candidate for the position this month.
The prime minister is a polarizing figure because of his Islamist background — and even his wife's decision to wear an Islamic style headscarf has political implications. Secularists are aghast at the prospect of a first lady wearing the religious symbol in the presidential palace once occupied by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern, secular republic.
"Are you aware of the danger?" the staunchly secular Cumhuriyet newspaper has warned in an anti-government campaign that claims "clocks will be turned back 100 years on May 16."
Erdogan denies his party has an Islamic agenda. Since coming to power in 2002, his government has promoted Turkey's European Union membership bid, which resulted in the start of accession talks in October 2005.
But many in the military, which views itself as the protector of Turkey's secular identity, distrust Erdogan. In 1999, Erdogan was jailed for reciting an Islamist poem at a political rally. Fiercely secular generals have led three coups since 1960 and pressured a government out of power in 1997 for what they saw as an excessive Islamist bent.
Today, the military is more acquiescent in the face of civilian authority, and unlikely to stage a coup over the presidential election. But politicians step carefully when they deal with the military, which commands widespread respect in Turkey.
Although some party supporters would want Erdogan to become president, others worry that without the popular politician to steer it into general elections, the party would not do so well and might have to share power. Turkey must hold general elections by Nov. 4.
Prominent business groups have indicated they would like to see Erdogan remain prime minister for the sake of stability. Under Erdogan's government, Turkey's economy has grown by around 7 percent annually.
As tensions rise ahead of the presidential vote, the opposition center-left Republican People's Party has threatened to boycott parliament, which would leave the governing party short of the two-thirds majority needed to vote in the president.
Secular groups, including several unions and associations, will hold a mass demonstration on April 14 to pressure Erdogan not to stand and to nominate a less controversial candidate.
"We want a president who has embraced the main tenets of the republic and has proved it in his past," said rally organizer Ali Ercan.
If he does not run himself, Erdogan could nominate moderate figures such as Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul, Mehmet Aydin, the minister in charge of religious affairs, or lawmaker Koksal Toptan. Their wives do not wear Islamic headscarves.
Sezer, a former High Court judge, has been criticized
for appearing distant and uncaring. But a survey published in Milliyet
newspaper this week showed that nearly 65 percent of Turks said they
approved of his presidency. More than half of the respondents said Sezer
was right or partially right to harbor concerns over the future of Turkey's
secular system.
5. - PanArmenian.Net - "Ankara ‘concerned’ over European initiative to combat racism and xenophobia":
11 April 2007
Turkey has expressed ‘concerns’ over a new German initiative to combat racism and xenophobia with a template European law that could spread moves in France and elsewhere to criminalize any denial of the Armenian Genocide.
The draft framework, essentially a recommended legal blueprint for European Union governments to follow, is very likely to serve as a recipe for other countries to follow the example of a French vote last October when a bill criminalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide was endorsed, the Turkish Daily News reports.
This is a very wrong draft, which excludes a UN convention and brushes aside freedom of expression and academic studies, government spokesman Cemil Cicek told reporters after a Cabinet meeting late on Monday.
The draft negotiating framework penalizing the denial of genocide and sentencing deniers up to three year in prison will appear on the agenda between April 18 and 19 under the German presidency of the European Union, Cicek said.
He said Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul had conveyed Turkish
concerns over the draft to Germany during a visit last week, adding
that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would bring the issue onto
the agenda when he had talks with German officials during a planned
visit to Germany over the weekend.
6. - EUpolitix - "French election overshadows Turkish EU bid":
PARIS / 11 April 2007 / by Chris Jones
With their EU entry bid at stake, Turks are likely to be watching the results of the French presidential elections almost as closely as the French themselves.
Most of the leading candidates oppose Turkish EU entry – with the exception of Socialist Ségolène Royal, who nonetheless has some serious concerns – and many Turks are worried about further delays to the accession process.
According to a report in Les Echos, Turks are particularly concerned that their EU entry bid could become a key campaigning issue, as it did during the vote on the constitution in 2005.
So far, this has not been the case, but the Turkish media notes that the French public remains fiercely opposed to Ankara’s entry bid.
The principal reason for this opposition is seen as Turkey’s refusal to accept its role in the genocide of Armenians during WW1 – a crime under recent French legislation.
Both Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right candidate, and Liberal François Bayrou, have called for Turkey to have a “privileged partnership” with the EU rather than full membership.
But the Turks argue that this would be little more than the customs union they already have.
Some observers believe that Sarkozy’s stance could soften as a result of his close relations with Washington – which backs Turkish entry.
But his current stance – including his calls for
a ministry of immigration and national identity – is described
by one Turkish observer as “flirting with racist ideas”.
7. - Reuters - "Turks Seek Solace In Ataturk At Time Of Tension":
Seven decades after his death, growing numbers of Turks are flocking to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
ANKARA / 11 April 2007
Seven decades after his death, growing numbers of Turks are flocking to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, revered founder of modern Turkey, to pay their respects and affirm their loyalty to his republic.
This year some 10 million people are expected to visit the tomb of Ataturk, which means 'father of the Turks', and the museum documenting the independence war and Ataturk's feats -- up from 8.2 million in 2006 and 3.8 million in 2005.
This increased interest reflects anxiety over Turkey's direction as presidential elections loom, say visitors to the massive stone sanctuary in the heart of the capital Ankara.
Turkey, a secular but Muslim country spanning Europe and Asia, is deeply divided over whether Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a former Islamist who says he has broken with his past and is now a centre-right politician, should run for president.
"We (students) personally organised the trip to the mausoleum because of Turkey's recent developments. We wanted to remember the past," said Ercin Senturk, an 18-year-old civil engineering student at Ankara's METU university.
For most Turks the presidential post is closely tied up with their identity because it is the position that was first held by Ataturk.
Ataturk, who died in 1938, enjoys heroic status in Turkey due to his battlefield successes against occupying forces during the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War One.
Independence in 1923 and a series of radical social reforms aimed at turning Turkey into a European-style democracy also guaranteed Ataturk's unique place in Turkish hearts.
PATRIOTISM
The Guner family, who strongly revere Ataturk and his secularist legacy, travelled hundreds of miles (km) to make their first visit to the mausoleum with their six-year-old daughter Oyku, who attends a school teaching the basic "Kemalist" principles of the republic.
Kemalism, its name taken from Ataturk's surname, represents secularism, nationalism and a centralised state -- the principles Ataturk founded the republic on.
Ataturk is remembered for building a secular nation on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, giving women the right to vote, modernising the education system and adopting a new alphabet.
"We are here for Ataturk ... He's our saviour and our leader. He's the person who shows us the way," said neurosurgeon Alp Ilhami Guner, 37, as he wiped away tears.
His wife Ebru, who is also a doctor, wanted their daughter to see how their country achieved freedom against the odds.
"If one day she (Oyku) fights for the republic she will not be frightened of death," Ebru said, standing next to a wax model of Ataturk.
The admiration and patriotism he inspires may surprise some, but for many Turks who are taught from early childhood of his achievements, Ataturk is the glue holding Turkey together.
"Now we are worried about the collapse of the Kemalist state," said Mustafa Ozbek, head of the powerful Turkish Metal Union. "Erdogan wants to turn Turkey into an Islamic state."
"A person who has kneeled at the feet of a radical Islamist cannot occupy the seat of Ataturk," said Ozbek, referring to a visit Erdogan paid in 1985 to a militant leader in Afghanistan.
Erdogan's AK Party, formed by former members of a banned Islamist party, denies any Islamist agenda. Since winning a general election in 2002 it has presided over strong economic growth and the launch of European Union entry talks.
AK PARTY PRESIDENT?
The secularist establishment, including the armed forces, has tried hard to stop Erdogan from running for president and may yet succeed.
But the AK Party has a large enough majority in parliament to nominate him and then vote him in to the seven-year post. The party is expected to make public its candidate on April 18.
"They can't stop him. A lot of water has already passed under the bridge," said Fikret Baskaya, a left-wing academic and author who has spent 2.5 years in jail for his views.
Critics accuse hard-line Kemalists of using Ataturk and his legacy to prevent Turkey becoming a more modern, tolerant and open-minded society.
"Secularism is a pretext (for Erdogan's opponents). It's about power and control of state institutions," Baskaya said.
The Kemalist Thought Association, headed by a former general now under investigation for an alleged coup plot, has called for a mass pro-secularist protest in Ankara on April 14.
But some Kemalists are resigned to Erdogan taking over, even though in this post he would be able to appoint judges, university rectors and other top officials. The president is also commander of the country's armed forces.
"The government will not listen (to us)," the association's deputy head, Dursun Ali Ercan, said.
Retired teacher Halil Karakus, 71, said that even though he preferred a president who would unify this country of 74 million people, he doubted Erdogan's election would trigger turmoil.
"I think the new president should be someone looking
to the future... (because) the real problems in Turkey are health, unemployment
and the economy," said Karakus, while looking at an oil painting
depicting Ataturk directing his troops into battle.
8. - Mother Jones - "Kurdistan’s Covert Back-Channels":
How an ex-Mossad chief, a German uberspy, and a gaggle of top-dollar GOP lobbyists helped Kurdistan snag 15 tons of $100 bills.
11 April 2007 / by Laura Rozen
In June 2004, journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker that Israelis operating in northern Iraq under the guise of businessmen were in fact cultivating Kurdish proxies to gather intelligence in preparation for possible future action against Iran. About the same time, I too was hearing about Israelis operating in Kurdish northern Iraq. First, from a former senior American diplomat who was invited by an Israeli American businessman to advise the Kurds on how to get billions of dollars they believed they were owed from the Saddam Hussein-era United Nations Oil-for-Food program. The diplomat gave me the Israeli’s name—Shlomi Michaels—and phone numbers for Michaels in Beverly Hills, Turkey, and Israel. The diplomat had walked away from the project, put off by Michaels’ temper, and also, he said, by doubts about what Michaels was really up to, and who he might really be working for.
So I was intrigued when, last summer, I read in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Shlomi Michaels had become the subject of an Israeli government investigation for allegedly operating in Iraq without the required authorization from the Israeli authorities. Not only had I known about Michaels for two years, I had spent about as long trying to understand if the Bush administration would embrace the regime-change policy of its Iran hawks, who believe that the solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions is to promote mass uprisings of ethnic minority and dissident groups such as the Kurds.
For much of the past year, I have been digging into the story of Shlomi Michaels’ operations in Kurdistan, and his connections in Israel, the United States, and around the world. My investigation took me to Israel early last fall, shortly after the Israeli war with Hezbollah, to talk with Israeli officials investigating Michaels, as well as one of Michaels’ long-time American associates, and Michaels’ business partner, the former Mossad chief Danny Yatom.
What I found was not the story I had expected. Instead of Michaels being part of a covert operation to set up anti-Iranian proxies in Kurdish Iraq, I discovered that Michaels and his associates were part of an effort by the Kurds and their allies to lobby the West for greater power in Iraq, and greater clout in Washington, and at the same time, by a group of Israeli ex security officials to rekindle good relations with their historical allies the Kurds through joint infrastructure, economic development, and security projects. It was, in other words, a story about influence-building, buying, and profit, albeit with subplots that were equal parts John le Carre and Keystone Kops, and a cast of characters ranging from ex-Mossad head Yatom to a former German superspy, with Israeli counterterrorism commandos, Kurdish political dynasties, powerful American lobbyists, Turkish business tycoons thrown in—not to mention millions of dollars stashed in Swiss bank accounts.
Yatom met me in the lobby of the Tel Aviv Sheraton at 7:30am on a Sunday, the beginning of Israel’s work week. The ex-Mossad chief turned Labor Party member of parliament was on his way to his office at the Knesset after a stop at the gym, dressed casually in a white button down shirt and black jeans. He spoke openly about his business relationship with Shlomi Michaels and the Kurdish venture they’d developed together, noting that he was no longer involved in its operations; after being elected to the Knesset in 2003, he’d put his business interests in a blind trust, as required by Israeli law.
Yatom said he and Michaels were introduced to key Iraqi Kurdish players by a European intelligence official whom he wouldn’t name; interviews with his associates revealed that it was Bernd Schmidbauer, West Germany’s intelligence chief in the 1990s. Dubbed “008” for his intelligence adventures during the waning days of the Cold War, Schmidbauer—now a member of the German parliament—did not respond to numerous messages left with his offices in Berlin and in Heidelberg.
Shlomi Michaels was similarly elusive, despite messages left at several of his far-flung residences. Fifty-two years old, six feet tall, and built, according to an acquaintance, “like a brick shithouse,” with the commando’s trademark shaved head and a black belt in karate, Michaels splits his time between Israel and the United States, with detours to Switzerland, Turkey, and Kurdistan. The elite counterterror officer turned entrepreneur and multimillionaire is well networked in Tel Aviv, Washington, and New York, where he taught a counterterrorism course at Columbia University in 2003. For a time, according to one source, he even ran a security consulting business in Los Angeles.
When the United States was preparing to invade Iraq, Michaels evidently saw an opportunity: According to his business associates, as well as public records and Israeli media reports, he reached out to contacts in Washington, seeking high powered lobbying help to get the Kurds a greater share of United Nations Oil-for-Food Program money, a fund set up by the UN in 1995 to use Iraq’s oil revenues to provide Iraqis humanitarian supplies during international economic sanctions against Iraq. During Saddam Hussein’s rein, the Oil-for-Food “revenue was spent in Arab parts of Iraq but not in Kurdistan,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “Kurdistan’s share of the fund was set at 13%. At least $4 billion accrued in Kurdistan’s name, Kurdish officials say, and some contend that the amount could be as much as $5.5 billion.” The paper reported that in late June 2004, just five days before he turned Iraq back over to domestic rule and flew out of Iraq, then-top US official in Iraq Paul Bremer ordered the transfer by three U.S. military helicopters of $1.4 billion in 100 dollar bills to Kurdistan—his calculation of the Kurds’ share of Oil-for-Food funds; but the Kurds and their advocates believe they are owed a few billion more. It was so much cash—15 tons’ worth—the paper further reported, that no bank could be found in which to deposit it.
Even as he helped connect the Kurds to those who lobbied for them to receive more money, Michaels positioned himself to be in line for some of the cash. A year before the invasion of Iraq, Yatom and Michaels had formed an investment and security consulting company called the Interop Group (short for international operations group) that has since done millions of dollars of business in Kurdish Iraq. Michaels’ main business in Iraq is a joint venture called the Kurdish Development Organization, or KUDO. One American source describes Kudo as a joint venture between Michaels’ company and the Barzani part of a Kurdish governmental entity. According to a second American source (who has at times offered differing accounts), KUDO is a venture between Michaels, Schmidbauer, Yatom, and members of the powerful Barzani Iraqi Kurdish political family. According to this source, KUDO serves as a general service contractual liaison between the Kurdish Regional Government and the contractors for the massive $300 million project to build a new international airport in the Kurdish city of Irbil. The main contractor on the airport project is a Turkish company called Mak-yol. A third Michaels’ company, Coloseum Consulting, is registered in Switzerland as an affiliated company of Interop, according to Swiss federal corporate registration papers.
More covertly, the Israeli newspapers Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz have reported, Michaels has also brought in former Israeli military officers to provide counterterrorism training to Kurdish security forces at a secret “camp Z” in Iraq. Sources say the contract was mere “bupkas”—a few million dollars—and Michaels undertook the work out of friendship with then-Kurdish Minister of Interior and security chief Karim Sinjari, and also because the Kurds faced a threat from al Qaeda.
Whatever the reasoning, the execution of the “Camp Z” project was problematic. In 2004, according to Israeli media reports, Michaels’ team brought in dozens of Israeli combat veterans through the Turkish-Iraqi Kurdish border, traveling on Israeli passports whose details were duly noted by Ankara. Soon the Turkish government grew alarmed that Israeli military types were moving into northern Iraq, claiming to be agriculture advisers and the like. The story made it to Israel, whose nationals are prohibited from doing business in Iraq without explicit government permission. “There is a legal state of war between Israel and Iraq,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told me. “It is therefore illegal for Israeli nationals to visit Iraq. Hopefully that will change one day.” But since it has not yet, the news about Michaels’ operation caused a stir; making matters worse were Michaels’ alleged feuds with his business partners over money. One disgruntled former Israeli employee went to the Israeli press in the fall of 2005, revealing with documents and photographs the extent of Michaels’ involvement in Kurdistan.
The story kicked up controversy—Israeli operations are a source of paranoid fascination in the region—and led to two separate Israeli government investigations. Exposure has also led to the necessary departure of almost all of the Israelis working for Michaels from northern Iraq. (Speculation was further fanned by Seymour Hersh’s 2004 New Yorker report that Israel is forging a “plan B” for Iraq that includes training Kurdish commandos and use them to infiltrate Iran and Syria.) One of those probes—by the Israeli ministry of defense, which wanted to know why it had never been approached for export licenses for the Israeli defense and secure communications equipment sold in northern Iraq—has since been referred to the Israeli police and “will continue as long as necessary,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told me in an email last fall.
Skeptics dismiss the probe as a PR gesture aimed at the Turks, whose goodwill is critical to Israel and who resent any moves to arm the Kurds on their border In fact, notes one former senior U.S. diplomat, “Michaels said to me… he had the explicit approval of the Israeli government” for his private business activities in Kurdish Iraq. “What they were trying to do is develop influence in the Kurdish area.”
None of this activity has geopolitical implications, insists the Kurdish government’s polished young representative in Washington, Qubad Talabani, who happens to be the son of Iraq’s president, and whose family has been the historic rival of Michaels’ partners in the Barzani clan. In an interview in his offices on I Street, Talabani told me any Israeli business development activities in Kurdistan were “purely private sector activities,” and that “Kurdistan is open for business.”
As Talabani walked me out after my interview, we passed a poster advertising a new bi-weekly direct Austrian Airlines route from Vienna to Irbil, site of Michaels’ airport project—a town of 990,000 people until recently served only by regional air carriers and charter flights. “We will become the gateway to Iraq,” Talabani told me.
Plenty of non-Kurds would like to help—and make a little profit along the way. According to lobbying records, the high powered, White House-connected lobbying firm, Barbour Griffith & Rogers, LLC has earned $800,000 promoting the Kurdistan Regional Government’s interests since 2004; before hiring the firm, two U.S. sources say, Michaels had approached Jack Abramoff about representing the Kurds, but the discussions never went beyond the initial stages.
Russell Wilson, a former senior professional staffer for the House international relations committee who helped advise the Kurds on Washington representation and who was formerly listed as a non equity officer in Interop, notes that Kurdistan has many of the things the rest of Iraq lacks: “It’s safe, secure, it’s geographically rich”—features include plenty of unexplored potential oil and natural gas reserves—”and the people are extremely nice.” Wilson says it was he who recommended in the spring of 2004 that the Kurds hire Ed Rogers, a former political director in the Bush I White House, of Barbour Griffith & Rogers as their Washington lobbyist.
In the end, Yatom and Michaels’ business activities may well be evidence, as much as any covert U.S. interests, of the Kurds’ superb gamesmanship, pragmatism, and sense of opportunity—instincts honed to a fine art by a people that, lacking durable proximate allies, has learned how to cultivate the enemies of its enemies. The Mossad’s former Irbil station chief, Eliezer Geizi Tsafrir, told me that like the Israelis, the Kurds regard themselves as an historically stateless people surrounded by hostile nations. Back when Tsafrir served in Irbil, he even helped set up a Kurdish intelligence service, in cooperation with the Barzani patriarch, Mustafa Barzani. “They [the Kurds] approached us, saying they had nobody to help them in the world, and our people had suffered too,” he said. “We supplied them with cannons, guns, anti-air equipment, all sorts of equipment, and even lobbying. The contacts between us, and the sympathy, will last for generations to come.”
Reporting for this project was supported by the Nation
Institute.