17 January 2007

1. "Turkish army gathered on the Kurdistan’s boarder ready for attack", the Turkish army have gathered and intensified its forces on the Kurdistan’s boarder ready for attack, reported local sources on Tuesday.

2. "One Turkish soldier, 3 Kurd rebels killed in clash", three Kurdish rebels and one soldier were killed on Tuesday when they clashed in rural area of southeast Turkey, security officials said.

3. "Turkish parliament to convene for general debate on Iraq issue", Turkish Parliament is expected to convene for a general debate on the Iraq issue on Thursday, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported on Tuesday.

4. "Turkey mulls action against PKK", Turkey fears that Kurds in Iraq are moving towards establishing an independent state.

5. "Cyprus president says Turkish election year could stall talks", Cyprus' president does not expect substantial progress on efforts to reunite the island until after Turkish general elections due in November, he said Tuesday.

6. "Turkey to press on with EU reforms", Turkey has adopted a new strategy to try to de-politicise its European Union membership bid by quietly pressing ahead with adopting EU laws despite the partial suspension of its entry talks, its EU envoy says.

1. - Kurdish Media - "Turkish army gathered on the Kurdistan’s boarder ready for attack":

LONDON / 16 January 2007

The Turkish army have gathered and intensified its forces on the Kurdistan’s boarder ready for attack, reported local sources on Tuesday.

While Turkey is holding a conference on Kirkuk without the participation of the Kurdistan Regional Government or any Kurdish political party, Turkey has intensified its forces on the Kurdistan’s border. Some Turkmens, Arabs and a high number of Turkish MP’s have participated in the conference. It was revealed by local sources that only Turkish flag displayed in the conference.

Radio Nawa stated that the Turkish army ready for zero o’clock to attack Kurdistan.

The speaker of Kurdistan Parliament, Adnan Mufti, condemned the meeting and dismissed it as the interferences on Kurdistan’s affairs.

The Kurdistan Presidential Council led by Massuad Barzani has not made any statement regarding the Turkish conference on Kirkuk or the Turkish army’s gathering on the Kurdistan’s border.

2. - Reuters - "One Turkish soldier, 3 Kurd rebels killed in clash":

DIYARBAKIR / 16 January 2006

Three Kurdish rebels and one soldier were killed on Tuesday when they clashed in rural area of southeast Turkey, security officials said.

It was the latest in a series of clashes between troops and rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the region around Lice district, near the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in fighting between Turkish security forces and the outlawed PKK since the group launched an armed campaign for an ethnic Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

The PKK called a unilateral ceasefire last October but Turkey has dismissed the move as irrelevant and clashes have continued, though at a lower intensity than before.

3. - Xinhua - "Turkish parliament to convene for general debate on Iraq issue":

16 January 2007

Turkish Parliament is expected to convene for a general debate on the Iraq issue on Thursday, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported on Tuesday.

Some lawmakers of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) submitted a motion to the parliament and asked it to convene in a general session, the report said.

In their motion, the lawmakers said that some negative developments have been occurring in Iraq for a long time and it would endanger Iraq's integrity and the future of its people.

Underlining that Turkey is closely interested in Iraq, the lawmakers said instability in that country will affect Turkey and other neighboring countries, adding that maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity is of vital importance for its neighbors and the region.

On Sunday, Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party ( CHP) leader Deniz Baykal called on the government to debate a possible cross-border operation against the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) based in northern Iraq.

"We are ready to support the government regarding this matter," he said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has noted recently that a referendum in Kirkuk, planned for 2007, will cause ethnic tensions in Iraq and can trigger "very dangerous developments " both in Iraq and neighboring countries and in the entire region.

Ankara fears that an independent Kurdish homeland in northern Iraq would spark separatism among its own Kurdish minority in Turkey's southeastern regions.

The PKK has been fighting for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey since 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.

4. - Al Jazeera - "Turkey mulls action against PKK":

Turkey fears that Kurds in Iraq are moving towards establishing an independent state

15 January 2007

The leader of Turkish largest opposition party has said he would support the government if it chose to launch a cross-border offensive against Turkish Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq.

Deniz Baykal, leader of the Republican People's Party, also called on the government to urgently debate taking military action against northern Iraq.

"We're ready to back the government on this issue," Baykal told his supporters on Sunday.

"We're planning to invite parliament to debate this."

Baykal's promise to support the government came just days after Turkey's prime minister called for the US to act against separatist Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq.

Several thousand heavily armed members of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) are believed based in Kurdish-ruled northern Iraq.

Turkey has repeatedly said that it will not tolerate the creation of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq. Military officers have spoken of the possibility of sending in troops to prevent this from happening.

PM criticises US

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, severely criticized the US this week for not keeping its promises to take action against Kurdish guerrillas holed up in the northern Iraqi mountains.

The US has been cooperating with Turkey against guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, but Turkish officials increasingly have found the level of cooperation unsatisfactory.

"We want solid results," Erdogan said earlier this week during an interview with private NTV television.

Asked about past threats of a possible invasion, Erdogan said, "When the time comes, Turkey will do whatever is necessary against those threatening our country with terror".

In the last 20 years, more than 37,000 people in Turkey have died in the fighting between Kurdish groups fighting for independence and the Turkish military.

Turkey has also warned that rival ethnic groups in the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk must share power, amid growing fears that Iraq's Kurds plan to seize control of Kirkuk as part of a push for an independent Kurdish state there.

5. - AP - "Cyprus president says Turkish election year could stall talks":

NICOSIA / 16 January 2007

Cyprus' president does not expect substantial progress on efforts to reunite the island until after Turkish general elections due in November, he said Tuesday.

"It is my belief ... that 2007, even if does not offer itself for a breakthrough, (could) certainly be a most useful year in preparing the ground for future talks," President Tassos Papadopoulos told foreign correspondents in Nicosia.

European Union-member Cyprus has been divided into a Greek Cypriot south — representing the internationally recognized government — and a Turkish Cypriot north since 1974, when Turkey invaded following a short-lived coup by supporters of union with Greece.

Shortly before the island joined the bloc in 2004, Greek Cypriot voters rejected a U.N. settlement proposal. Turkish Cypriots endorsed the plan.

"We want a solution, which will reunify our country and by reunification we mean reunification of territory, society, economy and institutions," Papadopoulos said.

He added: "We want an agreement, which will function, will be workable and be accepted by the people who eventually will live under it and make it work," he said.

6. - Al Jazeera - "Turkey to press on with EU reforms":

16 January 2006

Turkey has adopted a new strategy to try to de-politicise its European Union membership bid by quietly pressing ahead with adopting EU laws despite the partial suspension of its entry talks, its EU envoy says.

After months of crisis over Turkey's refusal to open its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus, the bloc last month formally froze about one quarter of the negotiations and imposed a go-slow on the rest.

Volkan Bozkir, a Turkish ambassador, said in an interview: "After absorbing the shock, we have decided we are not going to argue politically but will handle this at a professional level. Politics won't add more to an already fragile situation."

Ankara eschewed the temptation to retaliate by reducing its own co-operation with Brussels, for example on the EU's common foreign and defence policies, as some hardliners had proposed.

"The retaliation idea has gone," he said.

Instead, the government has instructed ministries to draft plans by the end of this month to adopt EU legislation in all policy areas to be ready for accession by the end of 2013.

Bozkir said: "There's a kind of fatigue on both sides [EU and Turkey], so we decided to proceed without waiting for the EU to open each negotiating chapter by doing our own homework in Ankara."

Turkey would enlist the advice of the European Commission to ensure its legislation was EU-compatible.

"So when the EU decides or has a more permissive environment to open chapters, Turkey will start more ready. So time will not be lost," he said.

Welcomed initiative

Aides to Olli Rehn, the EU enlargement commissioner, welcomed the Turkish initiative.

Negotiations are divided into 35 so-called "chapters" or policy sectors. Turkey has completed only one chapter - science and research - since it began talks in October 2005.

Cyprus blocked the opening of any other negotiating chapter last year and it is uncertain whether Nicosia will now allow talks on some of the policy areas not suspended to go ahead.

Bozkir made clear there would be no early move to comply with the EU's demands on trade with Cyprus, or to amend a disputed penal code article used to prosecute journalists and intellectuals for "insulting Turkishness".

A presidential election in May and parliamentary polls due in November make such sensitive political gestures unrealistic, and the EU's partial suspension had removed any time pressure.

"There is no hurry any more," he said.

Moving forward

Instead, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, who's AK party is rooted in political Islam, wants to keep the EU accession process moving forwards below the political radar screen.

Bozkir acknowledged it would be politically easier to make sometimes painful EU-driven reforms if there were the political reward of opening and closing ceremonies for chapters that are the milestones on the accession path.

But he said the new strategy had the advantage of making clearer to public opinion that Turkey was adopting these laws for its own benefit and not under pressure from Brussels.