30
January 2007
1. "The EU Report on Turkey and Turkey’s Negotiating Tactics", the European Union (EU) Progress Report on Turkey released November 8, 2006 is highly critical of Turkey on practically all matters dealing with Turkey’s accession negotiations.
2. "Kurdish Broadcast Rights Slow to Be Implemented", Turkey’s bid to join the European Union has ushered a flurry of reforms. Among them are measures that enable the country’s long repressed ethnic Kurds to broadcast and publish in their formerly banned language. But the new freedoms have yet to be felt in some of the predominantly Kurdish regions.
3. "Turkish Nationalists Surface After Dink's Funeral", thousands marched in assassinated Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink's funeral. Nationalist and racist reaction rises following chanted slogans "We're all Armenians". Debate on article 301 continues as five suspects get arrested on the case.
4. "Statistics on honor-killings and suicides among women shock Ankara", as a result of question posed by CHP Aydin MP Ozlem Cercioglu to State Minister Nimet Cubukcu, statistics on so-called "honor killings" and suicides among women in Turkey over the past 5 years have been revealed, causing wide upset among officials in Ankara and citizens alike.
5. "Attackers stone church in north Turkey", unidentified attackers threw stones at a church in the northern Turkish town of Samsun on Sunday in the latest attack on Christians in predominantly Muslim Turkey, Anatolian news agency said.
6. "Military Intervention in Iraq: A Disastrous Idea", speculation that Turkey is preparing for a military intervention in northern Iraq abounds. Last Tuesday the Turkish Parliament held a closed session to debate developments in Iraq.
7. "Tension on the rise between Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs over Kirkuk’s fate", when Abdul-Karim Wadi, a Shiite Arab, got what amounted to thousands of dollars cash and a free apartment to move to Kirkuk from Baghdad 18 years ago, he says he didn't know he was a tool of Saddam Hussein's campaign to flood the ethnically mixed, oil-rich city with Arabs.
8. "Turkey warns Iraq not to involve Iraqi Kurdish administration in oil trade", Turkey warned Iraq Monday not to involve the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq in oil business between the two countries.
1. - Greek News - "The EU Report on Turkey and Turkey’s Negotiating Tactics":
29 January 2007 / by Gene Rossides*
The European Union (EU) Progress Report on Turkey released November 8, 2006 is highly critical of Turkey on practically all matters dealing with Turkey’s accession negotiations. First I will discuss the report and then comment of Turkey’s response and negotiating tactics.
There was no surprise in the comments that were included in the EU progress report on Turkey which covers the period of 10/1/05, when accession talks opened, until 9/30/06.
Cyprus
As it relates to Cyprus, the report is very blunt regarding Turkey’s failure to implement its commitments towards Cyprus which she is obligated to do when she signed an “Additional Protocol [The Ankara Protocol] extending the EC-Turkey Association Agreement to the ten Member States that acceded on May 1, 2004, which it [Turkey] had signed in July 2005 and which enabled the accession negotiations to start.”
Mr. Olli Rehn, the union’s expansion commissioner in sending a stern message to Turkey over its failures regarding Cyprus stated, “Failure to implement obligations will affect the overall progress of negotiations…” (NYTimes, Nov. 9, 2006, p.11.)
The report further states:
Under the negotiating framework and the Accession Partnership, Turkey is expected to ensure continued support for efforts to find a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem within the UN framework and in line with the principles on which the Union is founded, whilst adapting the Ankara Agreement to the accession of the 10 new EU Member States including Cyprus; and the concrete steps for the normalization of bilateral relations with all Member States, including the Republic of Cyprus, as soon as possible.
The report continues.
Turkey has continued to deny access to its ports to vessels flying the Republic of Cyprus flag or where the last port of call is in Cyprus. Such restrictions on shipping often preclude the most economical way of transport and therefore result in a barrier to free movement of goods and trade. They infringe the Customs Union agreement. Similar restrictions continued to apply in the field of air transport.
Turkey’s Relation with Greece
Regarding Turkey’s relation’s with Greece the report states that the Negotiating Framework includes the following requirement against which progress will be measured:
Turkey’s unequivocal commitment to good neighbourly relations and its undertaking to resolve any outstanding border disputes in conformity with the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with the United Nations Charter, including if necessary jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, and to other requirements against which progress will be measured.
The report also notes that the “casus belli” reference remains “unchanged.” …
Religious Freedom (Ecumenical Patriarchate)
The reports language regarding religious freedom violations towards the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP) are rather tempered. Religious freedom is a cornerstone of the values and principles of the European Union and its members, yet Turkey has made no progress in this regard. If anything, things have gotten progressively worse for the EP, especially as it relates to the properties of the Patriarchate, many of which have been confiscated.
The only reference in the 78 page report to the Ecumenical Patriarchate is the following:
…restrictions on the training of clergy and on foreign clergy to work in Turkey remain. Turkish legislation does not provide for private higher religious education for these communities. The Greek Orthodox Halki (Heybeliada) seminary remains closed. The public use of the ecclesiastical title of Ecumenical Patriarch is still banned.
The report should have demanded that reforms must be implemented to safeguard the Ecumenical Patriarchate and to call on Turkey to open the Halki School of Theology within a reasonable time period.
The Other Issues
It’s important to note, however, that the issues covered in the report go well beyond the Cyprus problem, bilateral relations with Greece and religious freedom, all three of which cover only a few pages of the 78 page report. The other issues address Turkey’s compliance and adaptation to all of the 33 Chapters that are part of the accession negotiations.
The report follows the same format for all candidate and potential candidate states. Contrary to Turkey’s and to Washington’s claims, the EU has raised in the past all the issues addressed in the report. There are no new conditions introduced in Turkey’s accession negotiations. The issue of the EU’s “absorption capacity” reflects the assessment of the state of the union made following the latest EU accession (2004), the two new states that will likely become members in 2007, and the evaluation of the reasons that led to the rejection of the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands.
`The Report (pp. 1-24) examines the relations of Turkey with the EU and reviews (a) the enhanced political dialogue and the political criteria for membership; (b) democracy and the rule of law;(c) human rights including women’s rights and the protection of minorities including the Kurds; (d) regional issues and international obligations; (e) economic criteria.
The Report (pp. 24-30) reviews the Copenhagen criteria for the accession of new members (adopted by the EU a decade before its latest expansion); the functioning of a market economy; the country’s capacity to cope with economic forces within the EU; the ability to assume the obligations of membership.
The Report (pages 30-74) expands on the section on the “ability to assume the obligations of membership”. This section provides a substantive review of Turkey’s compliance/implementation of laws and policies on each of the 33 Chapters of the acquis communautaire that form the foundation of the accession negotiations for all applicant states. Topics range from the free movement of goods to fisheries, from intellectual property law to employment policies, etc. Critical are issues having to do with human rights, minority rights, the implementation of the Customs Union Agreement, external and good neighborly relations, justice, freedom and security. This important section has been well known to Turkey as it was also the foundation for the accession talks of the last 10 states that joined the EU in 2004.
Findings and Conclusions
Based on the analysis of the 33 chapters of the acquis and the Copenhagen accession criteria, the report presents a balanced but negative review of the progress made in Turkey since the start of the accession talks in October 2005. It also points to the slowing down of the reform process in Turkey and to the risks involved for Turkey’s accession talks if Turkey fails to comply with its contractual obligations.
The Report points to the progress made by the introduction and approval of some reform legislation as required by the EU. It also shows the lack of implementation of key reforms especially in the area of human rights and minority rights, the unfulfilled commitments made on trade and the removal of trade barriers and on the critical issue of civil military relations.
The Report is also explicitly clear on the burden Turkey has to improve bilateral relations and good neighborly relations (for example, the continued issue of the “casus belli” with Greece), to recognize the Republic of Cyprus, and to fully implement the Customs Union Agreement with Cyprus without linking this contractual obligation to other extraneous issues (such as the alleged “isolation of the Turkish Cypriots,” which isolation is actually caused by the Turkish military occupation of 37% of Cyprus and the Turkish barbed wire fence across Cyprus).
The bottom line is sad and simple: Greek-Turkish relations and Cyprus are important problems confronting the relations of Turkey with the EU. The many other problems facing the accession talks are serious and deep. This is affirmed in the report. It shows the long and difficult road that Turkey has to cover before reaching the end of the accession talks. The burden is on Turkey not on the EU. Turkey needs to reform, to implement these reforms, address bilateral and domestic issues like civil military relations, and meet all contractual obligations if the accession talks are to move forward.
The problems that Turkey has encountered in her European Union accession process, and that have been highlighted in the EU report, have been of her own making. She refuses to implement the Ankara Protocol, which she signed, to extend its customs union to Cyprus, an EU country, and she has not made any significant progress relating to democracy, religious freedom and the rule of law.
Turkey’s Response and Negotiating Tactics
Turkey’s response to the EU report was typical of her negotiating tactics- admit nothing and attack, attack and attack. Turkey’s foreign minister, Abdullah Gul led the charge stating that Turkey would not succumb to “blackmail” in its dispute with the EU over Cyprus. The EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn responded: “We have had enough talk of ‘red lines’ and ‘blackmail,’” and urged Turkey to accept Finland’s proposal for trade from Cyprus.
The EU has stated repeatedly that Turkey must meet its obligation to trade with Cyprus by opening its ports and airports to planes and ships from Cyprus. Turkey signed the Ankara Protocol “extending the EC-Turkey Agreement to the ten Member States that acceded on May 1, 2004, which it [Turkey] signed in July 2005 and which enabled the accession negotiations to start.”
Commissioner Rehn told the European Parliament the compromise proposed by Finland, the current EU presidency holder was “a major confidence-building measure towards a comprehensive settlement” of the division. He said Turkey risked squandering what may be the last chance for years to resolve the division and also keep its EU membership ambitions on track. Under the Finnish compromise plan, Turkey would open its ports to planes and ships from Cyprus. To boost trade with the Turkish-occupied part of the island and end its so-called economic isolation, Famagusta would be opened to free trade under EU supervision and Turkey would return Varosha to its Greek Cypriot owners. Rehn said trade with Cyprus was an EU issue.
The EU has set a December 6 deadline for Turkey to accept the compromise plan. If not, the EU ministers, meeting the following week in Brussels, may well suspend Turkey’s accession talks.
Turkey’s negotiating aim is obvious. She wants to change the rules on requirements for accession negotiations and admission to the EU. Neither the Erdogan government or the Turkish military are interested or willing to meet Western standards of democracy.
Turkey cannot renegotiate its contractual accession terms and cannot link its compliance to these contractual obligations to other issues. No other EU candidate state has attempted to dictate its own accession terms. Let us not forget it is Turkey seeking accession to the EU and not the reverse.
U.S. continued appeasement of Turkey
Washington’s lobbying in Brussels on behalf of Turkey, despite its failure to meet contractual obligations, raises serious questions about US motives. Can Washington tell the EU what its accession criteria should be and who should be its members? That tactic failed in the past. In November 2002 Washington lobbied hard in order to get a date for Turkish accession talks at the EU meeting in Copenhagen. The tactic backfired.
When is Washington going to stop the double standard on the rule of law for Turkey?
When is Washington going to stop appeasing Turkey?
When is Washington going to condemn Turkey’s intransigence?
When is Washington going to call for (1) the removal of Turkish illegal forces and (2) illegal setters from Cyprus and (3) the tearing down of Turkey’s barbed wire fence?
Achieving the goals of genuine democratic freedoms, political stability and economic progress, will require fundamental changes in Turkey’s governmental institutions. The U.S. shares in these interests as well. To promote these interests, the U.S. should more forcefully exert it influence with Turkey, including the Turkish military. We need to be pressing for fundamental changes now, regardless of Turkey’s EU aspirations. It will be good for Turkey; good for Turkey’s neighbors; and good for U.S. interests.
Fortunately President Tassos Papadopoulos and the Greek Cypriot leaders are holding firm to their position. The U.S. in its own self-interest should openly support the position of the Cyprus government, particularly after Cyprus’ extraordinary efforts in the evacuation of 14,000 Americans from Lebanon.
* Gene Rossides is President of the America Hellenic
Institute and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 
2. - VOA - "Kurdish Broadcast Rights Slow to Be Implemented":
29 January 2007
Turkey’s bid to join the European Union has ushered a flurry of reforms. Among them are measures that enable the country’s long repressed ethnic Kurds to broadcast and publish in their formerly banned language. But the new freedoms have yet to be felt in some of the predominantly Kurdish regions. For VOA Amberin Zaman has details from the province of Hakkari that borders Iran and Iraq.
From a cramped apartment overlooking Hakkari’s gritty main boulevard the mournful sound of a popular Kurdish pop song fills the airwaves. Its called “Esmer” or “Dusky One,” and, like so many Kurdish tunes, it is about unrequited love. The apartment is the headquarters of Hakkari FM, the town’s first and only radio station.
Hakan Tas, who founded the Hakkari FM nine years ago, says half jokingly that Esmer’s lyrics reflect his relationship with government officials here.
Tas says most officials treat him and his colleagues as outlaws. The reason is simple, he explains: It is because his station broadcasts in Kurdish.
There is nothing illegal about that. Bowing to EU pressure, Turkey’s conservative government approved legislation last year that paves the way for private radio and television to broadcast in Kurdish. The content of Kurdish language broadcasts is strictly vetted for possible “separatist” propaganda and cannot exceed 45 minutes per day.
Operating on a shoe string budget and staffed by volunteers, Hakkari FM, Tas says, sticks by these rules. Turkish authorities take a different view. Tas has been slapped with several court cases, some of them on charges of promoting Kurdish nationalism. He believes the legal assaults are calculated to muzzle his radio station.
Rojbin Tugan, is a prominent human rights lawyers and, like many here, a diehard fan of Hakkari FM.
She says the station plays a key role in keeping locals informed of their rights.
Tugan and fellow rights defenders have used air time to talk about a government compensation scheme, for tens of thousands of Kurds, who were expelled from their villages by security forces at the height of a Kurdish rebel insurgency in the 1990’s.
In the neighboring town of Yuksekova, Necip Capraz and his younger brother Erkan run an award winning online newspaper called Yuksekova Haber. The website is considered as one of the most reliable sources of independent reporting from the far flung Kurdish region. Capraz says his aim is to provide an alternative viewpoint to the mainstream national press, which often espouses official thinking on Turkey’s festering Kurdish problem.
Capraz boasts that his website is visited by an average one million readers a month. The paper achieved national fame in November 2005 when it broke news of the bombing of a Kurdish nationalist bookshop in the neighbouring town of Semdinli by rogue elements of the security forces, who are now in jail.
Capraz, who frequently receives anonymous threats, says
that a fair share of his information comes from ordinary citizens. Naturally,
he adds, such information is rigorously filtered and doublechecked before
it makes its way onto the pages of Yuksekova Haber.
3. - Bianet - "Turkish Nationalists Surface After Dink's Funeral":
Thousands marched in assassinated Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink's funeral. Nationalist and racist reaction rises following chanted slogans "We're all Armenians". Debate on article 301 continues as five suspects get arrested on the case.
ISTANBUL / 29 January 2007 / by Erhan Ustundag
Repercussions of the assassination of Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink and his funeral, where hundreds of thousands of people gathered to condemn the killing, continue.
Dink was gunned down in front of the offices of his newspaper Agos on January 19.
The killing suspect was caught the following day and several people who were claimed to solicit the murder have been taken under custody.
Governor removed from office
The Black Sea port of Trabzon, the hometown of Dink killing suspect Ogun Samast continues to dominate the headlines last week.
Samast and four others were arrested on three different charges, including manslaughter, affiliation to an armed group and breach of armed weapons act last Thursday.
The prosecution didn't classify the murder as a terror act, which would result in heavier penalties for the convicts.
The government removed chief of police and the governor of the city for their lack of control over the rising politically motivated crimes by nationalists.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs also commissioned two inspectors to interrogate on administrative failures to prevent such crimes in the city.
An Italian priest was murdered in 2005 in Trabzon and members a leftist group, Solidarity Association of Prisoners' Families (TAYAD) faced public lynching several times in 2006 during street protests.
Nationalist reaction to Dink's funeral
The slogans voiced at Dink's funeral on January 23, "We're all Hrant, we're all Armenians" caused a stir in nationalist circles.
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) vice chair Mehmet Sandir described the funeral as "an insult to the Turkish people and a daring challenge to the Turkish state". "We're all Turks and this is Turkey", he added.
Daily Tercuman's headliner read "We're all Turks" the day following.
Hurriyet newspaper conducted a survey regarding on its website where 463 thousand people participated and 47 percent voted to favor the slogan and 52 percent objected.
36 year old Nihat Acar kidnapped a ferry that run on the Dardanelles for three hours on Saturday night, in protest for the slogan "We're all Armenians". He was arrested as he gave in waving a Turkish flag.
During a first division football game played yesterday between Trabzonspor and Kayserispor, supporters chanted nationalist and racist slogans.
Threats continue
Nationalist and racist reactions are most evident and harsh on the Internet.
Agos newspaper received a bomb threat by e-mail, signed as Turkish Revenge Brigade (TIT), a notorious clandestine group responsible for several killings of leftist militants during 1980's.
Dink murder suspect Samast's friend and alleged sollicitor of the killing Yasin Hayal threathened writer Orhan Pamuk as he was taken under custody.
Article 301 debates
On another account, NGO's and activists continue to voice their requests for the abolition of the article 301 of the Penal Code, which defines a charge of "insulting Turkishness", punishable by prison sentences.
Lastly, a local journalist from Sinop filed a complaint on article 301 for those who attended Dink's funeral.
Hrant Dink was condemned to a deferred 6 months prison sentence in relation to this article. Numerous journalists and writers -including 2006 Nobel Literature laureate Orhan Pamuk- also stood trial on this article.
The government hinted a possible reform on the article but commentators say it's not likely to realize given the general elections in November this year.
Such a change would harm nationalist votes, they claim as the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) stands by the existing article.
CHP leader Deniz Baykal as well as popular columnists
like Emin Colasan say that the removal of the article would excuse treasonous
comments and insulting the Turkish state.
4. - Hurriyet - "Statistics on honor-killings and suicides among women shock Ankara":
29 January 2007
As a result of question posed by CHP Aydin MP Ozlem Cercioglu to State Minister Nimet Cubukcu, statistics on so-called "honor killings" and suicides among women in Turkey over the past 5 years have been revealed, causing wide upset among officials in Ankara and citizens alike.
According to the statistics quoted by Minister Cubukcu, there have been 1,806 women killed in honor killings over the past 5 years, and another 5,375 suicides by women in the same period of time.
Responding to the dramatic statistics provided by Cubukcu,
who is herself the AKP-appointed cabinet minister in charge of Women
and Family Affairs, MP Cercioglu said "Seeing these figures, we
realize we face a scary tableau. What is the result of the struggle
we have made so far against honor killings? These results are not acceptable.
It is clear that the primary responsibility here lies with the government.
I call on everyone, starting with Minister Cubukcu, to get involved
in a more serious and decisivie struggle against these incidents. And
with the suicides, there must be research done into the sociological
aspects to this."
5. - Reuters - "Attackers stone church in north Turkey":
ISTANBUL / 29 January 2007
Unidentified attackers threw stones at a church in the northern Turkish town of Samsun on Sunday in the latest attack on Christians in predominantly Muslim Turkey, Anatolian news agency said.
Windows were broken but Mehmet Orhan Picakcilar, a priest at the Agape Church, was quoted as saying there were no casualties.
“This does damage to Turkey. This attack depicts Turkey in a bad way before international public opinion,” Picakcilar said.
The attack happened hours after a nationalist protester with a handgun made a brief attempt to hijack a commuter ferry in the Dardanelles strait on Saturday.
Passengers said he had been angered by pro-Armenian sentiment in Turkey after the Jan. 19 killing of the Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink, which prompted large pro-Armenian protests.
Growing nationalism among young people from Turkey’s Black Sea towns has come under the spotlight since the teenager suspected of killing Dink and his alleged supporters were found to have come from the town of Trabzon.
A Catholic priest was killed in his church in Trabzon last February by a Turkish teenager. The killing was believed to have been part of protests in Islamic countries against cartoons in Danish newspapers that mocked Prophet Muhammad.
Christians in secular Turkey – Armenians, Greeks,
Syriacs, Catholics, some Evangelical denominations and Jehovah’s
Witnesses – make up less than 1% of the country’s 72mn people.
6. - Zaman - "Military Intervention in Iraq: A Disastrous Idea":
29 January 2007 / by Sahin Alpay
Speculation that Turkey is preparing for a military intervention in northern Iraq abounds. Last Tuesday the Turkish Parliament held a closed session to debate developments in Iraq.
The intervention is thought to have not one but several declared and undeclared objectives: to finish off the Kurdistan Workers? Party (PKK) in Iraq, to prevent Kirkuk from becoming a Kurdish city, to protect the rights of the Turkmen minority and to stop the Iraqi Kurds from advancing on the road to independence.
According to a report by Lale Sariibrahimoglu, the Bush administration is about to allow the Turkish military to cross into northern Iraq for an operation against the PKK in the region. The operation will last no more than two weeks and is expected to take place in late February or early March. The cross-border operation is to be carried out by airborne Turkish troops supported by attack helicopters. The US administration believes that the Iraqi Kurdish leadership will not object to such a US-coordinated intervention. (Today's Zaman, Jan. 22, 2007.)
What results can we expect from an operation targeting the PKK in Iraq. During the 1990s the Turkish military conducted a number of operations in northern Iraq, all with the support of the Iraqi Kurdish leadership, but the objective of finishing off the PKK could not be achieved. Today the Iraqi Kurdish leadership considers a Turkish military intervention in the region to be a threat to its autonomy and aspirations of eventual independence. They are not at all happy with the existence of the PKK but they want to avoid a war pitting Kurd against Kurd. They tell Ankara that the best way to render the PKK ineffective is to take measures that would enable militants to return to normal, civilian life. In these circumstances a military operation, even if it is carried out with the approval of the US, is not likely to be any more effective than previous ones. Sariibrahimoglu reports that in fact neither Ankara nor Washington are convinced that the operation would achieve its objective. The Turkish military, however, thinks if something is not done about the PKK in northern Iraq, this would damage the confidence the Turkish people have in the military. On the other hand, the Bush administration's intentions behind allowing the operation are to make up for some of the lost credibility in Turkish public opinion.
For a moment, let us take the supposition that Turkey will intervene for the sake of Kirkuk seriously. Ankara may be justified in insisting that Kirkuk belongs to all its ethnic groups, that Kirkuk's oil is owned by all Iraqis, and that the territorial integrity of Iraq must be preserved. It is certainly entitled to say so and should do all in its power to achieve these objectives by diplomatic means. Iraq's future, however, is eventually going to be decided by its people and not by any outsiders. It is evident that even the superpower that could invade the country, topple the regime and destroy the state is unable to shape the future of Iraq.
There are good reasons to believe that the vast majority
of Turkey's Kurds do not want to separate from Turkey but want to gain
full democratic rights within Turkey. Turkey's Kurds, however, just
like the Turkmen of Turkey, are concerned with the fate of their kinsmen
in Iraq. They certainly do not want the Kurds of Iraq to once again
fall under dictatorial rule. Turkey has so far avoided any involvement
in the invasion of Iraq. Such involvement carried the risk of a ?war
within a war,? that is to say, a Turkish-Kurdish war with disastrous
consequences for Turkey's democracy and economy, which so far the PKK
has not been able to provoke. A Turkish military intervention in Iraq
for the sake of Kirkuk today would almost certainly lead to such disastrous
consequences. The most effective way for Ankara to achieve its objectives
in Iraq is to win the trust and friendship of the Iraqi Kurds. Turkey's
most effective power is not its military but its soft power; its ability
to attract and persuade others to adopt its norms and goals. If Turkey
continues to strengthen and consolidate its democratic regime and thus
serve as a model, the broad autonomy or eventual independence of Iraqi
Kurds may not be against but in favor of Turkey's interests.
7. - AP - "Tension on the rise between Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs over Kirkuk’s fate":
KIRKUK / 29 January 2007
When Abdul-Karim Wadi, a Shiite Arab, got what amounted to thousands of dollars cash and a free apartment to move to Kirkuk from Baghdad 18 years ago, he says he didn't know he was a tool of Saddam Hussein's campaign to flood the ethnically mixed, oil-rich city with Arabs.
Now, Wadi says, Kirkuk is home and he has no plans to leave. He's trying to ride out the increasing outbreaks of ethnic tension, a symptom of a deeper struggle for the city's future - a complex tangle of ancient ethnic antagonism and hardball 21st century struggle for oil resources.
The Arab and Turkmen population in Kirkuk are fighting Kurdish efforts to join the city - they call it the "Jerusalem of the Kurds" - to the their semiautonomous region just to the north. Thrown into that ethnic cauldron are Armenian and Assyrian-Chaldean Christian minorities.
Turkey, Iraq's northern neighbor, has compounded the troubles over Kirkuk as it exerts heavy pressure on the Iraqi government to protect the interests of the Turkmen, ethnic Turks who once were the majority in the city. Ankara seeks to assure that Kirkuk remains a part of Arab Iraq.
Turkey's motivation is simple. It continues to face harassing attacks by Kurdish guerrillas who cross freely from Kurdish regions in northern Iraq to fight with their ethnic brethren who live in southeastern Turkey and have been fighting a secessionist war since 1984.
Turkey fears that the economic boom to Iraq's Kurdish region, should it gain control over the Kirkuk oil fields, could further embolden Kurds inside Turkey in their bid for autonomy or statehood.
Iraqi Kurds, including some who hold high positions in the Baghdad government - President Jalal Talabani for one - have accused Turkey of interfering in Iraqi internal affairs through recent statements that Kirkuk must not be annexed to the Kurdish region in Iraq's north.
On Sunday, Barham Saleh, a Kurd who is deputy prime minister, met Turkey's ambassador to reject the Turkish stand.
"The fate of Kirkuk and other local issues will be dealt with through the will of the Iraqi people and the constitution," Saleh's office said in a statement.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, also a Kurd, met in Switzerland Friday with Abdullah Gul, his Turkish counterpart, and rejected what he called Turkish interference in the Kirkuk and statements about the rights of the Turkmen, saying both were "a purely Iraqi matter."
Since the ouster of Saddam Hussein nearly four years ago, Arabs and Turkmen have accused the Kurds of moving thousands of their people back into the city to gain a majority in a referendum later this year to determine Kirkuk's future.
The last census in Iraq that showed ethic breakdowns was in 1957, well before Saddam began his program to Arabize Kirkuk. That count showed 178,000 Kurds, 48,000 Turkmen, 43,000 Arabs and 10,000 Assyrian-Chaldean Christians lived in the city.
Kirkuk, an ancient city that once was part of the Ottoman Empire, subsequently witnessed a major deportation of Kurds in conjunction with the forced influx of Arabs during Saddam's 23-year rule. He forced Kurds into refugee camps in the Kurdish provinces of Sulaimaniyah, Irbil and Dahuk.
Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, tens of thousands, perhaps as many as 100,000, of those deported have returned to their hometown, local officials say.
Kirkuk is the capital of Tamim province, where the population is estimated at 1 million. There are no good figures today about ethnic percentages that make up that total, although most officials agree that Kurds are now the majority, with Turkmen and Arabs about tied for second position.
Those estimates are based on the results of the December 2005 election in which Kurds took 26 seats on the 41-member Provincial Council. Turkmen had nine, Arabs five and Assyrian Christians one.
Arab and Turkmen members suspended participation in the provincial council in November, charging unfair Kurdish dominance.
Article 140 of the new Iraqi constitution stipulates that Kirkuk's status must be resolved by the end of the year. No date has been set yet for the referendum, and Arabs and Turkmen reject the constitutional directive. Kurds want it enforced in hopes of annexing Tamim province and, therefore, Kirkuk, to the Kurdistan semiautonomous region.
The U.S. Iraq Study Group, headed by former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton said in its report released in December that "given the very dangerous situation in Kirkuk, international arbitration is necessary to avert communal violence. A referendum on the future of Kirkuk would be explosive and should be delayed."
Hundreds Kurds demonstrated in Kirkuk against the report.
Rizgar Ali, a Kurd who heads the provincial council, also criticized what he called Turkish interference in Iraq's affairs, saying "the question of Kirkuk has solutions and mechanisms that the Iraqi politicians and people agreed to according to article 140 of the Iraq constitution. This is an internal Iraqi affair and no country should stand against that."
"These countries should stand with our democratic project not to block it," said Ali, an official in Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Jamal Abdullah Chan of the Iraqi Turkmen Front accuses the Kurds of trying to drive ethnic Turks from the city with bomb attacks on predominantly Turkmen that have killed or wounded scores.
"There is a political plan to force Turkmen to leave Kirkuk in order to empty it from its people, even though we see Kirkuk as an Iraqi city with Turkmen culture," Chan said.
Unlike Kurdish officials, Chan sees Turkey's stance "as supportive to Iraq's unity especially that Kirkuk is a regional and international matter because of its multicultural nature."
He said paragraph 140 of the constitution should be excised or its implementation delayed.
Arabs in the city see the plan to annex Kirkuk to the Kurdish region as part of a campaign to divide Iraq.
"The stance of Arab countries and Turkey is aimed at salvaging Iraq from the increasing violence and attempts to tear it apart," said Abdul-Rahman Munshid al-Asi, an Arab tribal leader in the city.
Wadi, the Shiite Arab who settled here 18 years ago, insists - along with many others in the polyglot city - that the referendum and Kirkuk's final status won't force him to abandon his 18-year roots.
"Kirkuk is a beautiful city. It's pleasant to live
here. It is not easy for a person to leave it. If they ask me to leave,
I will say 'no' even if they annex it to Kurdistan," Wadi said.
8. - AP - "Turkey warns Iraq not to involve Iraqi Kurdish administration in oil trade":
ANKARA / 29 January 2007
Turkey warned Iraq Monday not to involve the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq in oil business between the two countries.
The warning came after Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization asked Turkish companies to seek permission from the Iraqi Kurdish government when doing deals with Iraq's oil-rich north.
State Minister Kursad Tuzmen, who is in charge of foreign trade, said Turkey would only deal "with the central Iraqi government" and not with Iraqi Kurdish authorities, adding that he has sent Iraqi authorities a "strong letter," outlining Turkey's stance.
Tuzmen's warning to Iraq came amid unconfirmed reports that Turkey has halted or slowed down export of oil products to neighboring Iraq in alleged retaliation after Iraq's state oil company, SOMO, asked Turkish firms, whose contracts were about to expire, to deal with local Iraqi Kurdish authorities to obtain new contracts earlier this month.
Turkey is concerned about the growing power of Iraqi Kurds and has repeatedly warned Iraqi Kurdish groups against trying to seize control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, saying Turkey will not stand by amid growing tensions among ethnic Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds in Iraq's oil-rich north.
"If Turkey is ... tested, then the price of it would be dear," Tuzmen warned. "If there is a serious state, it must stand behind its signatures."
Tuzmen said Turkish authorities have failed to contact Iraqi oil officials at SOMO despite repeated efforts to seek clarification on the issue. Turkey had suspended sales of oil products to Iraq on Jan. 19, 2006 after SOMO's debts to Turkish companies exceeded $1 billion. The suspension was lifted in April.
Iraqi Kurds, who claim the region as their own and hope to eventually include Kirkuk in a region of self-rule in northern Iraq, accused Turkey of interfering in Iraqi internal affairs.
Turkey fears Iraq's Kurds want Kirkuk's lucrative oil to fund a bid for independence that could encourage separatist Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey, who have been fighting for autonomy since 1984.
Kirkuk, an ancient city that once was part of the Ottoman Empire, has a large minority of ethnic Turks as well as Christians, Shiite and Sunni Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians.
Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, thousands of Kurds pushed out of the region under Saddam Hussein's rule have returned.
Kirkuk lies just south of the autonomous Kurdish region
stretching across Iraq's northeast. Kurdish leaders want to annex the
city, and Iraq's constitution calls for a referendum on the issue by
the end of next year.