15 June 2007

1. "Independent Candidates Hope for Change", the independent candidates of the left and of the pro-Kurdish DTP have got clear ideas about their mission, should they be elected into parliament.

2. "Turkish Kurds demand justice", at the side of a dusty main road close to Turkey's border with Syria two trees have just been planted on the spot where a child and his father were killed. Ugur and Ahmet Kaymaz were shot by policemen in this mainly Kurdish region in November 2004. Ugur was just 12 years old. The officers say they returned fire in self-defence during an "anti-terrorist operation" targeting the Kurdish PKK.

3. "ECHR Considering Turkish Cases", today, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is to start hearing the appeals of several Turkish journalists who have been penalised with prison sentences or publishing bans for their news and articles.

4. "Turkey: Soldiers Killed In Clashes", a Turkish army corporal was killed in an overnight clash with Kurdish guerrillas near the town of Karakocan in Elazig province, state-run Anatolia news agency reported June 14. Separately, an army major and two soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in Yuksekova, Hakkari province. Meanwhile, Turkish units shelled mountain paths used by Kurdish rebels.

5. "Keep forces out, Iraqi Kurds warn Turkey", incursion won't be tolerated, region's president declares.

6. "On the border of disaster", Diplomacy is key fo Turkey, Kurdistan.

1. - Bianet - "Independent Candidates Hope for Change":

The independent candidates of the left and of the pro-Kurdish DTP have got clear ideas about their mission, should they be elected into parliament.

ISTANBUL / 14 June 2007

In an interview with the left-leaning Birgün newspaper, Levent Tüzel, the former leader of the Labour Party (EMEP) and now independent candidate for the left in Izmir, a city on the Aegean coast, commented on his candidacy.

Collaboration between Left and Kurds not perfect

Tüzel has been chosen to represent the left in Izmir's first constituency, and the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) has promised the support of the "Kurdish vote".

The interviewer, Ahmet Tulgar, then pointed to the problematic situation in Istanbul's second constituency, where the left and the Kurdish party had not been able to reach agreement on a common candidate. Thus, there are two independent candidates standing, Prof. Dr. Baskin Oran for the left, and Dogan Erbas for the DTP, thus splitting the votes of those hoping to bring new voices into parliament.

Tüzel pointed to the short time that the left and the Kurdish DTP had had to organise their candidate lists before the deadline of 4 June, and acceded that the process had not always been ideal. However, he pointed to the importance of overcoming these kind of issues in order to bring representatives of democracy into parliament.

Need to address all inequalities

For Tüzel, the "Kurdish issue" is one of the priorities of the independent candidate movement, but he also considers poverty, unemployment, tax inequalities, corruption and privatization policies important issues. The fact that the DTP and the left have cooperated, says Tüzel, does not mean that only the Kurdish migrants to the metropoles will be considered. Inequalities affecting all people, regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation, are the real issue.

In Hakkari hope for solution to "Kurdish issue"

In the light of the recent announcement of the General Staff that Hakkari (and two other south-eastern provinces) has been declared a "temporary security zone", two independent candidates for the pro-Kurdish DTP in Hakkari, Hamit Geylani, a lawyer, and Hatem Ike, a former mayor of Yüksekova (a district in Hakkari), discussed their candidacies.

Geylani described the current situation as "desperate", and accused the government of not having a clear stance towards the military decision. "What we experience now, is the result of an antidemocratic system." He argued that if the roots of the problem were not dealt with, there would be no solution. Geylani said that the aim of the independent candidates was to "create a parliament in which anyone, irrespective of language, religion, gender, without discrimination of identities" could express themselves freely.

Ike said that people in the region were hopeful about the independent candidates. He emphasised that he was not "of a tribe" (implying hierarchical power structures), but rather "of the people". His aim is to work towards the democratisation of Turkey and the end of war in the east of Turkey. He argues that if the "Kurdish issue" was solved, Turkey could move ahead.

2. - BBC - "Turkish Kurds demand justice":

KIZILTEPE / 14 June 2007 / by Sarah Rainsford

At the side of a dusty main road close to Turkey's border with Syria two trees have just been planted on the spot where a child and his father were killed.

Still little more than twigs, they are surrounded by concrete blocks for protection.

Ugur and Ahmet Kaymaz were shot by policemen in this mainly Kurdish region in November 2004. The officers say they returned fire in self-defence during an "anti-terrorist operation" targeting the Kurdish PKK.

Ahmet's death alone might have passed without remark, but Ugur was just 12 years old. Forensic evidence showed he was shot repeatedly in the back at close range.

The subsequent trial of four policemen was widely seen as a test case of whether Turkey could hold its powerful security forces accountable.

It was announced as Turkey was gearing up to begin accession talks with the European Union. Since then, the political climate has changed.

The Kaymaz family learned recently that all four defendants had been acquitted.

"Are we not citizens of this country?" Resat demands at his home in Kiziltepe, close to where his brother and nephew died. "Is our sin to be Kurdish? We wanted justice, but justice here is only for some people."

Backlog of cases

Some 100km (62 miles) away in Diyarbakir, the family's lawyer is following dozens of human rights cases stretching back to the 1990s, when the fight between Turkish troops and the PKK was at its fiercest. It was a dirty war, on both sides, which cost many civilian lives.

Tahir Elci says the bodies of hundreds of Kurds are still missing, believed murdered, but only a fraction of those responsible have been punished.

"In my opinion 90% of complaints against the security forces do not come to court. Maybe 10% of the other 10% ended in conviction," the lawyer says.

In almost all the cases he has brought, and seen dismissed, here in Turkey, Mr Elci says the European Court of Human Rights later ruled in favour of his clients and ordered the state to pay compensation.

"It is unusual for us that security officers are punished here. They are the strongest institution in Turkey," he shrugs.

Renewed tension

The fact the Kaymaz case even came to court suggested things might be changing. Turkey was en route to the EU, with judicial reform high on the agenda.

But two years on, the military is ever more outspoken and influential. Renewed clashes between the PKK and troops in the south-east are fuelling calls for a major incursion into northern Iraq to target the PKK there. Negotiations with the EU are in difficulty.

"In all the debates about reforms in 2003 and 2004, Turkey told us not to worry. They said officers would be brought to trial, that this sort of thing would stop," says Joost Lagendijk, chairman of the Turkey delegation in the European Parliament. He says initial optimism has gone.

"For the moment it looks like we're still in the 1990s when it comes to the security forces and impunity. No-one believed that boy was carrying a gun and shooting. I think it's a great disappointment."

Mr Lagendijk points to another alleged case of extrajudicial killing that the EU followed closely in Semdinli. Last month Turkey's highest appeals court overturned a 39-year sentence against two paramilitary policemen convicted of bombing a Kurdish-run bookshop there.

The case has now been referred to a closed military court.

Governor defiant

Regional Governor Mehmet Kiliclar rebuffs any suggestion of bias in Turkey's judicial system. He is unconcerned about the lack of convictions.

"So what? In this region 30,000 people have been killed. It's a big issue," he says from an armchair in his official residence in Mardin.

"If some separatists want to get land from your state, the state will react. This is normal. Of course the measures must be legal, but every state has the right to defend itself."

But on the streets of the shabby migrant town where Ugur Kaymaz was killed, the verdict in his case has added to feelings of resentment and alienation.

"It sends the signal that whatever the police want to do with us Kurds, that's fine," says one young man. "They declared a 12-year-old kid a terrorist."

Within moments three plain-clothes policemen arrive to listen in.

Back on the main road, schoolchildren passing the spot where Ugur died recount what happened in the language of adults.

"If there were any laws in this country, they would not set those people free," one former classmate shouts. He is not old enough to remember the worst fighting in this region, but he has been brought up with an acute sense of injustice.

"If things go on like this, Kurdish nationalism will increase, people will join the PKK," Resat Kaymaz tells me.

"If the police had been punished, Ugur would still be a symbol for the next generation. But at least they would see that the state did what was right, in the end."

3. - Bianet - "ECHR Considering Turkish Cases":

Today, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is to start hearing the appeals of several Turkish journalists who have been penalised with prison sentences or publishing bans for their news and articles.

STRASBOURG / 14 June 2007

The ECHR is going to decide whether Turkey has violated the right to freedom of expression by putting editor Hünkar Demirel of the pro-Kurdish "Gündem" newspaper and Fevzi Saygili and Tuncay Seyman of the left-leaning "Evrensel" newspaper on trial. In Demirel's case, it will also be considered whether his trial was a violation of the European Human Rights Agreement's Article 6/1.

Furthermore, in appeals by Mehmet Colak, Mehmet Selim Okucuoglu and Tuncay Seyman, the ECHR is to decide whether there had been a fair trial.

Last year, the ECHR demanded that the Turkish government pay 398,000 YTL (around 223,160 Euros) in compensation fines. This year, due to a decrease in appeals to the ECHR, Turkey has only been sentenced to paying 18,000 YTL (around 10,090 Euros) compensation.

4. - Stratfor - "Turkey: Soldiers Killed In Clashes":

14 June 2007

A Turkish army corporal was killed in an overnight clash with Kurdish guerrillas near the town of Karakocan in Elazig province, state-run Anatolia news agency reported June 14.

Separately, an army major and two soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in Yuksekova, Hakkari province. Meanwhile, Turkish units shelled mountain paths used by Kurdish rebels.

The fighting occurred a day after the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party declared a unilateral cease-fire against Turkey, though the group said it still has the right to defend itself.

5. - The Ottawa Citizen - "Keep forces out, Iraqi Kurds warn Turkey":

Incursion won't be tolerated, region's president declares

SALAHUDDIN / 14 June 2007 / by Susan Mohammad

The president of the Kurdistan region of Iraq has warned Turkey against pursuing Kurdistan Worker's Party fighters into Iraqi territory.

In an interview with the Citizen, President Massoud Barzani made it clear that movement by Turkish forces into the Kurdish region of Iraq would not be tolerated.

He made his statement from his headquarters in Salahuddin, about 45 minutes from the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil.

He was responding to a statement made Tuesday in Ankara by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said Turkey should concentrate on fighting rebels inside Turkey.

The prime minister said Turkish forces should enter northern Iraq only as a last resort.

Mr. Barzani agreed that the best resolution was a peaceful one.

"For the last 23 years (Turkey) has been working through military operations to solve this problem, but it won't succeed," said Mr. Barzani.

"It has been proven that they cannot solve this with military force. Whatever they do in Turkey is their internal problem and has nothing to do with us, but at the same time we do not accept the Turks putting their crisis into the Kurdistan region."

On Tuesday, the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, declared a ceasefire in battling Turkish forces massed along the border of southeastern Turkey ahead of a security meeting in Ankara.

However, the group said it would continue to defend itself against Turkish forces, the Firat News Agency reported.

The politically powerful Turkish military has been pressuring the government to consent to a cross-border operation for months, despite strong objections to such actions by governments in Washington and Baghdad.

The stance by the Turkish government to cross the border only as a last resort comes after recent aggressive actions taken by the military in sending a massive amount of forces along the border to neighbouring Iraq.

6. - Newsday - "On the border of disaster":

Diplomacy is key fo Turkey, Kurdistan

14 June 2007

Could things actually get a lot worse in Iraq? They could, if a major regional power were sucked into the vortex of Iraq's deepening chaos. Turkey almost was. And it still could be, if cooler heads in Ankara, Kurdistan and Washington can't manage to quell dangerous tensions between Turkey's military and separatist Kurdish guerrillas, who have been attacking Turkey from safe havens across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan.

For the past two weeks, Turkey's troops have massed along the mountainous border between the two nations, threatening a major incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan to crush the guerrillas. But just before tensions escalated into a military attack with potentially dire results, both sides backed down. That was thanks in large part to intense behind-the-scenes U.S. diplomacy with all parties.

On Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan opposed in the strongest terms his military commanders' demand for a major offensive. That same day, the leaders of Kurdish separatist rebels declared a "unilateral cease-fire" and said they were ready for peace negotiations.

A Turkish invasion of Kurdistan would have been disastrous. It could have sparked a wider conflict involving the well-armed militias of Iraq's Kurdistan and possibly even U.S. forces. And Turkey, a key U.S. ally in NATO, could have jeopardized its efforts to attain membership in the European Union. Such a conflict might even suck in separatist Kurdish groups from Iran and Syria. This is a hornet's nest that should be kept dormant. The Bush administration should keep up the diplomatic pressure so that sanity can prevail.