6 April 2007

1. "Kurdish politician, rights activist arrested in Turkey", a senior member of Turkey's main Kurdish party and a rights activist were arrested on Thursday on charges of belonging to a rebel group fighting the government, Anatolia news agency reported.

2. "Pro-Kurdish parties set sights on election cooperation", leaving aside their past conflicts, Turkey’s pro-Kurdish parties have decided to set up an alliance for the upcoming parliamentary elections, and three smaller leftist parties will also be invited to join, all in line with advice from jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan.

3. "Prosecutor throws out calls to investigate Turkish PM", a senior Turkish prosecutor rejected on Thursday calls for a judicial investigation into Turkey's prime minister for allegedly praising a Kurdish rebel leader.

4. "Proposal may ban some Turkish Web sites", a parliamentary commission approved a proposal Thursday allowing Turkey to block Web sites that are deemed insulting to the founder of modern Turkey, weeks after a Turkish court temporarily barred access to YouTube.

5. "ECHR charges Turkey to pay 3000 euros to headscarved deputy", the European Court of Human Rights yesterday ruled that Turkey should pay Merve Kavakci, a female deputy from a political Islamist party who attempted to take her oath with a headscarf in 1999, 4000 euros.

6. "Will the Kurds get their way?", Kirkuk: The other Jerusalem.

1. - AFP - "Kurdish politician, rights activist arrested in Turkey":

ANKARA / 5 April 2007

A senior member of Turkey's main Kurdish party and a rights activist were arrested on Thursday on charges of belonging to a rebel group fighting the government, Anatolia news agency reported.

Salih Karaaslan, the provincial chairman in Ankara of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), and Ismet Aras from the Human Rights Association, were remanded in custody over two protests in February and March, at which participants backed separatist Kurdish rebels, Anatolia said.

The court in Ankara ordered the arrest of two other suspects, who were not identified.

DTP members have increasingly become the target of judicial action, mainly on charges of backing the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a bloody two-decade rebellion in the predominantly Kurdish southeast and is listed as a terrorist group by Ankara.

Separately, a court in Diyarbakir, the main city in the southeast, ordered the release of the city's DTP chairman at the first hearing of his trial on charges of sedition.

Hilmi Aydogdu was arrested on February 23 on charges of "inciting hatred" in comments about the ethnically volatile, oil-rich city of Kirkuk in neighbouring northern Iraq, which the Iraqi Kurds claim.

The court agreed to his request to remain free during the trial and set the next hearing for July 26.

About 300 supporters greeted Aydogdu with ovations as he emerged from the courthouse.

He was arrested after media quoted him as saying that Turkey's Kurds would "consider a Turkish attack on Kirkuk as an attack on Diyarbakir."

Ankara has issued harsh warnings over the future of Kirkuk, which the Iraqi Kurds want to incorporate into their autonomous region, even though the city is also home to Arabs and Turkish-backed Turkmens.

Aydogdu's remarks provoked harsh reactions here at a time when Iraqi Kurds are accused of supporting the PKK, whose militants have long taken refuge in the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq.

Ankara fears that Iraqi Kurds may break away from Baghdad and embolden the PKK insurgency in Turkey, which has already resulted in more than 37,000 deaths.

2. - Today's Zaman - "Pro-Kurdish parties set sights on election cooperation":

ANKARA / 5 April 2007 / by Ercan Yavuz

Leaving aside their past conflicts, Turkey’s pro-Kurdish parties have decided to set up an alliance for the upcoming parliamentary elections, and three smaller leftist parties will also be invited to join, all in line with advice from jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan.

Ahmet Türk, leader of Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), reached a deal with Rights and Freedoms Party (HAK-PAR) Chairman Sertaç Bucak and Participatory Democracy Party (KADEP) Chairman Serafettin Elçi on an electoral alliance between the pro-Kurdish political parties.

The Democracy for Freedom Party (ÖDP), the Socialist Democracy Party (SDP) and the Labor Party (EMEP) will be invited to join the pro-Kurdish alliance. The Social Democratic People’s Party (SHP), another leftist party that forged an alliance with the DTP in previous elections, however, is cool towards the idea of an alliance this time.

At its latest congress, for the November polls the DTP decided to pursue a strategy of independent candidates to ensure that pro-Kurdish politicians win seats in Parliament to circumvent the 10 percent national election threshold law that is expected to keep the DTP out of Parliament. But Öcalan, currently serving life in prison at an isolated facility on Imrali Island off Istanbul, has opposed that decision and recommended instead that the party establish an electoral alliance with leftist parties, save the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Heeding the advice, the DTP administration met with HAK-PAR and KADEP leaders at a meeting hosted by the Kurdish Democracy, Culture and Solitary Association (Kurd-Der) last month. Murat Bozlak, the former chairman of the People’s Democracy Party (HADEP) and Feridun Yazar, the chairman of the Kurdish Democracy Forum, also lent support to this pro-Kurdish unity.

Northern Iraq policy uniting Kurds?

Commenting on the alliance efforts, DTP Deputy Chairman Sirri Sakik said the party was ready to abandon the independent candidate strategy if the alliance initiative succeeds. “Our primary goal was to unite all pro-Kurdish parties and left-wing parties. A first step was taken to this end. If we manage to secure the comprehensive unity we planned, we might abandon the independent candidate strategy,” he told Today’s Zaman.

Analysts say the government’s hardening rhetoric against Iraqi Kurdish leaders and bold statements denouncing Kurdish efforts to control the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk have served to melt the ice among the pro-Kurdish parties, which have remained bitterly divided on several issues to date.

With an electoral base of Kurdish people who harbor more religious sentiments, HAK-PAR has been accusing the DTP of being too dependent on Abdullah Öcalan who, they claim, has been betraying the Kurdish cause. KADEP’s criticisms directed at the DTP and similar parties are attributable to differences of opinion with respect to Kurdish expectations.

Having accomplished the first stage of what Öcalan advised, the leaders of pro-Kurdish parties will meet again to decide under which party’s name they will work. ÖDP Chairman Hayri Kozanoglu, SDP Chairman Akin Birdal and EMEP Chairman Levent Tüzel will also be invited to join the alliance.

3. - AFP - "Prosecutor throws out calls to investigate Turkish PM":

ANKARA / 5 April 2007

A senior Turkish prosecutor rejected on Thursday calls for a judicial investigation into Turkey's prime minister for allegedly praising a Kurdish rebel leader.

Ankara's deputy chief prosecutor, Hikmet Onen, said he had not found any "incriminating elements" in remarks made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during an interview with an Australian radio station seven years ago.

He also ruled that the interview in which Erdogan referred to rebel Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan as "Sayin" -- a word meaning esteemed or honorable but which also doubles for "mister" -- fell under the statute of limitations.

Several politicians from the country's main Kurdish party have been indicted or jailed for referring to Ocalan as "Sayin". Under the Turkish penal code, praising a crime or criminal offender is punishable by up to two years in prison.

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and several individuals petitioned the prosecutor last week for the investigation. Erdogan categorically rejected the allegations.

Ocalan is the head of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

Considered by many as the country's public enemy number one, he is serving a life sentence for treason and separatism as the sole inmate on a prison island since being convicted in 1999.

4. - AP - "Proposal may ban some Turkish Web sites":

ANKARA / 6 April 2007

A parliamentary commission approved a proposal Thursday allowing Turkey to block Web sites that are deemed insulting to the founder of modern Turkey, weeks after a Turkish court temporarily barred access to YouTube.

Parliament plans to vote on the proposal, though a date was not announced. The proposal indicates the discomfort that many Turks feel about Western-style freedom of expression, even though Turkey has been implementing widespread reforms in its bid to join the European Union.

On Thursday, lawmakers in the commission also debated whether the proposal should be widened to allow the Turkish Telecommunications Board to block access to any sites that question the principles of the Turkish secular system or the unity of the Turkish state — a reference to Web sites with information on Kurdish rebels in Turkey.

It is illegal in Turkey to talk of breaking up the state or to insult Ataturk, the revered founder of modern Turkey whose image graces every denomination of currency and whose portrait hangs in nearly all government offices.

Ataturk is held to be responsible for creating a secular republic from the crumbling, Islamic Ottoman Empire.

Several prominent Turkish journalists and writers, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, have been tried for allegedly insulting Ataturk or for the crime of insulting "Turkishness."

European calls for free speech have angered some nationalist Turks, who view the recommendations as interference in their internal affairs.

Last month, Turkey blocked access to the popular video-sharing site YouTube after a complaint that some videos insulted Ataturk. The ban was lifted two days later.

5. - The New Anatolian - "ECHR charges Turkey to pay 3000 euros to headscarved deputy":

ANKARA / 6 April 2007

The European Court of Human Rights yesterday ruled that Turkey should pay Merve Kavakci, a female deputy from a political Islamist party who attempted to take her oath with a headscarf in 1999, 4000 euros.

The membership of Kavakci was quashed by Parliament led by a coalition government under Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit. Kavakci was then also stripped of her Turkish nationality on the ground that she had acquired U.S. nationality without the prior agreement of the Turkish authorities.

The court also charged Turkey to pay other members of the now defunct Virtue Party (FP) Mehmet Silay 3000 euros and Nazli Ilicak 5000 euros.

However the court dropped case of the FP due to the application of Recai Kutan, then the leader of the party, to the court to drop the case. Kutan, now leader of the political Islamist Felicity Party (SP), branded court decisions political and expressed disbelief in its rulings.

Founded in December 1997, FP obtained 15.5% of the vote in the general elections in 1999. When it was dissolved.

6. - The Economist - "Will the Kurds get their way?":

Kirkuk: The other Jerusalem

KIRKUK AND BAGHDAD / 4 April 2007

AS YOU drive through the city of Kirkuk, with its drab buildings, dusty and rubbish-strewn streets and general decrepitude, you wonder why it stirs such anguish at the heart of Iraq's national-unity government in Baghdad. One big answer is the huge, sprawling oilfields on the city's western fringe.

But for Kirkuk's Kurds and their brethren in the autonomous Kurdish region to the north, it is about far more than just oil. Kirkuk is a symbol, they say, of everything Kurdish: their people, their land, their history. They say they can be reconciled with their Arab compatriots, both Sunni and Shia, only if Saddam Hussein's “Arabisation” campaign—the settlement of tens of thousands of Arabs in Kirkuk during his three decades in power—is reversed.

Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd from Kirkuk, called the city “our Jerusalem”. But while the status of the real Jerusalem looks set to remain disputed for many years, most Kurds now think that Kirkuk's fate will be satisfactorily sealed this year. Most Arabs still disagree. But the tide may be flowing the Kurds' way.

Last week, Kurdish leaders threatened to quit the government in Baghdad, where they are allied to the main Shia block, unless the cabinet of Nuri al-Maliki stopped dragging its feet over Kirkuk. A deal was then struck: thousands of Arabs who had settled in Kirkuk would be compensated with land and money if they went back to their original homes, mainly in the south.

The justice minister, Hashem al-Shibli, said that those who left would be paid about $15,000 and given land in their former home towns. Mr Shibli, who has been chairing a committee looking into the issue, said that Kirkuk's authorities would soon begin giving out forms to Arab families to assess who was eligible for resettlement, which would be voluntary.

The minister then surprised everyone by resigning, citing differences with the government and his own political block, led by a former prime minister, Iyad Allawi, partly over Kirkuk. The controversial Article 140 of Iraq's new constitution provides for several things: the return of Arab “settlers” and a redrawing of the boundaries of Kirkuk province, surrounding the city; a census; and then, by November 15th this year, a referendum on whether Kirkuk should join the present Kurdistan federal region. Kurds calculate that, once enough Arabs have left, the vote will go their way. One Arab member of parliament says that 12,600 families, which means around 90,000 people, have already agreed to go.

The referendum's exact terms have yet to be drafted. Among other things, the Kurds want to adjust the borders of Kirkuk province to bring back four Kurdish-populated towns (Chamchamal, Kalar, Tuz Kermatu and Kifri) which Saddam had put into other provinces to shift Kirkuk's demographic balance against the Kurds. They also want the Kurdish region to include a string of mostly Kurdish towns, in a loop running from Sinjar, west of (mainly Arab) Mosul, through Makhmur, south-west of Arbil, to Mandali in the south-east near the Iranian border. The Kurds' geographic borders, they say, should roughly follow the line of the Hamrin mountains.

Many of Kirkuk's Arabs and Turkomen fiercely object to all such ideas. The Turkomen say they are Kirkuk's original rulers, while most Arabs say Kirkuk is Iraqi and should stay so. Sunni Arab nationalists elsewhere in Iraq, plus followers of the populist Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, have denounced the plan to push Kirkuk's Arab families to move south. Few Arabs or Turkomen trust the city's Kurdish-dominated authorities to treat them fairly. Turkey's government, facing elections this year, rejects the Kurds' claims to Kirkuk and says it may have to intervene militarily if the city's Turkomen are threatened. The Americans say Kirkuk is an internal Iraqi issue and are urging the Turks to stay out.

So there are fears that tensions may yet boil over in a city where Kurds, Arabs, Turkomen and Christians edgily co-exist. This week a massive bomb hit a police station in a mainly Kurdish district, killing 15 people, including children at a nearby school. Such attacks, presumably by Sunni insurgents, may increase, in the hope that the Kurds delay the referendum. But as things stand, they are determined to hold it.