25 June 2007

1. "Peace on hold in the PKK’s Iraq hideouts", Kurds in Iraq say that while Turkey’s civilian government – particularly under the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan – has made considerable strides towards solving that country’s “Kurdish problem”, many people still face harassment from a military and security apparatus that considers any manifestation of Kurdish identity to be treasonous against the Turkish state.

2. "Eight killed in fresh violence in Turkey", Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels stopped an oil-laden truck late Saturday in the eastern province of Tunceli, and a militant armed with bombs boarded next to the driver in an attempt to carry out a suicide attack against a military outpost.

3. "Turks march against PKK violence after army call", Thousands of Turks marched silently through Istanbul on Saturday to protest against Kurdish guerrilla attacks after a call by the army for a public show of opposition to separatist violence.

4. "RSF Condemns Use of Article 301", RSF condemns the decision to prosecute Arat Dink, the son of slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, and three other journalists employed by his newspaper, the weekly Agos, for "insulting Turkishness".

5. "Makhmur camp braces for new wave of Turkish Kurds", the Makhmur camp, southwest of Arbil, is bracing for a new wave of refugees as a result of growing tension along the Iraq-Turkey border, camp officials have said.

6. "Saddam cousin sentenced to hang for killing 180,000 Kurds", an Iraqi court has sentenced a cousin of the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to death by for the murder of some 180,000 Kurds in 1988.

1. - Financial Times - "Peace on hold in the PKK’s Iraq hideouts":

21 June 2007 / by Steve Negus

At the crest of a winding gorge, beneath the crags of northern Iraq’s Qandil mountain range, stand two flagpoles marking the entrance to territory controlled by the Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK. Keeping watch from a hillside above is a concrete portrait of Abdullah Ocalan, the rebel leader now imprisoned by the Turkish government.

Farther up the valley, a cinderblock village house contains the PKK’s improvised public relations bureau, where officials occasionally meet the foreign press. This is as far as outsiders are allowed to go – for the time being.

The PKK guerrillas apologise that they cannot take a visiting FT correspondent on the usual press tour of their mountain encampments. With Turkish forces threatening to attack, “security concerns” make such a trip impossible.

Their Qandil base, and two smaller enclaves closer to Turkey, have for the past two months been drawing world attention, with the Turkish military saying it is ready to strike across the border at the PKK as soon as it gets the green light from Ankara’s civilian leaders.

Dozens of Turkish soldiers have been killed in recent months in clashes with the PKK inside Turkey, and the Kurdish guerrillas have been blamed for bombings that have caused civilian casualties, prompting the calls for a military assault.

Both the Iraqi government and the US have urged Ankara not to attack.

Qandil is close to the Iranian border, whose highly defensible mountain valleys have traditionally been used as strongholds by Kurdish dissident groups.

On the other side of these mountains are the bases of the PJAK, an Iranian Kurdish guerrilla group, linked to the PKK, which many Kurds suspect receives US backing to put pressure on the regime in Tehran.

Rustem Cudi, a soft-spoken Syrian Kurd who sits on the PKK’s executive committee, denies that the movement – which declared the latest in a series of a unilateral ceasefires last week – stages military operations from its Iraq bases, maintaining that they were used only for political and media work.

Iraqi Kurdish officials also deny there are cross-border incursions, but say privately that they have no love for the PKK which, during its hardline Marxist days, condemned them as traitors.

They urge Ankara to pursue a political solution – to what they characterise as a Turkish domestic problem – with the PKK by offering an amnesty to combatants and generally improving Turkey’s record on Kurdish human rights. For its part, the PKK says it will require more than an amnesty to get its fighters to lay down their weapons. “We didn’t go to the mountains [just] to be forgiven,” says Mr Cudi.

Kurds in Iraq say that while Turkey’s civilian government – particularly under the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan – has made considerable strides towards solving that country’s “Kurdish problem”, many people still face harassment from a military and security apparatus that considers any manifestation of Kurdish identity to be treasonous against the Turkish state.

Mr Cudi says a real breakthrough would probably require some “fundamental changes” in the Turkish state, in which a highly nationalist military that is traditionally hostile to Kurdish identity is still largely unaccountable to the civilian government.

But the PKK is, none the less, trying to change its image from the hardline separatist organisation of the 1980s and 1990s, when its reputation for brutality, including attacks on fellow Kurds, resulted in it being designated a terrorist organisation by the US and and the European Union.

Shortly after Mr Ocalan’s capture by Turkish intelligence in 1999, the movement dropped its call for separatism and said it would strive for Kurdish rights through peaceful politics. The PKK is believed to have ties with leftwing Kurdish parties in Turkey, and says it would welcome dialogue with other Turkish groups.

However, it has not relinquished its armed forces. Mr Cudi says they will stand by to defend the organisation. And while the movement may have renounced an “ethnic-based state” – an independent Kurdistan – it may yet return to its separatist roots.

“If other states [with a Kurdish minority] continue to solve the problem through violence, then we will rethink this,” he says. “We still have the possibility, and we have the power, in order to establish such an ethnic-based state.”

For the time being there is little likelihood that the PKK will be able to achieve the entry into peaceful Turkish politics that it claims to seek.

Mr Erdogan may not be enthusiastic about the army’s calls for an attack into Iraq, but he has backed the military campaign to “dissolve the shelter of terrorism inside Turkey”.

The prime minister is facing a landmark parliamentary election on July 22, in which his Islamist-leaning Justice and Development party faces a strong challenge to its nationalist credentials. Few Turkish politicians would risk looking soft on an organisation that most Turks still view as irredeemably terrorist.

The PKK and its guerrillas will probably not be forced out of their mountain stronghold by military action, but they will also probably not be coming down peaceably any time soon.

2. - AFP - "Eight killed in fresh violence in Turkey":

DIYARBAKIR / 24 June 2007

A Kurdish rebel and a civilian were killed in a botched suicide attack in eastern Turkey while fighting elsewhere left five rebels and a government militia member dead, local security sources and officials said Sunday.

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels stopped an oil-laden truck late Saturday in the eastern province of Tunceli, and a militant armed with bombs boarded next to the driver in an attempt to carry out a suicide attack against a military outpost.

Paramilitary troops on duty at the station opened fire on the truck as it was approaching the building at which point the vehicle exploded, killing the driver and the rebel.

After the blast, rebels positioned in the vicinity opened fire on the building with long-range assault rifles.

There were no losses on the Turkish side.

Tunceli has recently seen an increase in violence between PKK rebels and the army. Earlier this month, seven soldiers and a PKK member were killed when the militants attacked another military outpost there with hand grenades and firearms.

In the southeastern province of Hakkari, which borders Iran and Iraq, Turkish soldiers killed three PKK rebels late Saturday during a security operation, the governor's office said in a statement.

In Diyarbakir, also in the southeast, two Kurdish rebels and a government militia member were killed in a clash that erupted late Saturday, the local governor's office said.

A second militia member was wounded, it added.

The militia are local men employed by the government to help in the fight against the PKK.

The PKK has stepped up attacks this year and the Turkish military has called for an incursion into adjoining northern Iraq where the rebels have bases.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Ankara would focus on fighting the rebels inside Turkey and seek dialogue with Baghdad to resolve the issue.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up arms for self-rule.

3. - Reuters - "Turks march against PKK violence after army call":

ISTANBUL / 23 June 2007

Thousands of Turks marched silently through Istanbul on Saturday to protest against Kurdish guerrilla attacks after a call by the army for a public show of opposition to separatist violence.

Protesters marched in temperatures of around 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), waved Turkish flags and carried posters with the pictures and names of soldiers killed fighting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

"No to terror" and "We are all martyrs for this country" read their placards. Police and organisers did not give figures but reporters estimated the crowd at around 2,000.

Attacks by the PKK, which has been fighting for a Kurdish homeland since 1984, have increased in recent months and dozens of soldiers have been killed.

Army figures on Saturday showed guerrillas carried out 76 attacks with mines or other explosives in the past six months.

A deadly suicide bomb attack in a shopping centre in Ankara last month was also blamed on Kurdish rebels.

Turkey's popular and powerful army has called for an incursion into northern Iraq to fight militants based there.

In a statement earlier this month, it vowed to respond to militant attacks as necessary and urged Turks to show a mass response to the violence.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who faces an election next month, has said he agrees with the army over northern Iraq and a cross-border operation could be launched if necessary. But he has not reconvened parliament to approve an operation.

Erdogan was quoted as saying on Saturday that Ankara was waiting for a response from the United States which has said it opposes any operation in relatively stable northern Iraq.

"We are waiting for a response from Washington. After that I will call President (George W.) Bush. After that, according to the result, we will decide on what steps must be taken and take action," he was quoted as saying by Vatan newspaper.

4. - Bianet - "RSF Condemns Use of Article 301":

RSF condemns the decision to prosecute Arat Dink, the son of slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, and three other journalists employed by his newspaper, the weekly Agos, for "insulting Turkishness".

ISTANBUL / 22 June 2007

In the current case against the son of murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Arat Dink, and three other journalists of the weekly Agos newspaper, the Istanbul prosecutor's office requested a six-month prison sentence for Arat Dink when he appeared in court yesterday in Istanbul as his father's successor as editor of Agos.

The three other Agos journalists charged with him are Serkis Seropyan, Aydin Engin and Karin Karakashli. Dink's father was gunned down outside the newspaper on 19 January this year.

"Once again we have to denounce the use of Article 301 of the criminal code, which is a threat to freedom of expression," Reporters Without Borders said. "A prosecution was also initiated against Erdal Dogan, one of the Dink family's lawyers on 7 June."

Agos' staff is being prosecuted for republishing an interview Hrant Dink gave to Reuters in July 2006 in which he referred to the 1915 Armenian genocide and urged Armenians "to turn now towards the new blood of independent Armenia, which alone is capable of freeing them from the weight of the Diaspora."

Prior to his murder, Hrant Dink received a six-month suspended sentence for these comments, which the newspaper reproduced as part of a series entitled "The Armenian Identity."

The trial of 18 people accused of participating in Hrant Dink's murder is due to open in Istanbul on 2 July.

5. - Gulf News - "Makhmur camp braces for new wave of Turkish Kurds":

BAGHDAD / 23 June 2007 / by Basil Adas

The Makhmur camp, southwest of Arbil, is bracing for a new wave of refugees as a result of growing tension along the Iraq-Turkey border, camp officials have said.

The two-square kilometre camp, which is run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is home to Kurdish refugees from Turkey who fled their villages following clashes between the Turkish troops and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters.

"We have taken more measures to meet further and possible large-scale refugee movement across the border," Salar, an employee at the Makhmur refugee camp, told Gulf News.

"Turkish Kurds living in the mountainous areas close to Kurdistan border may escape from military operations carried out by Turkish troops in the coming weeks and flee to Makhmur camp," he said.

"Few days ago, villages in Arbil mountains were bombarded by Turkish air and artillery units which forced Turkish Kurds to cross into Iraqi Kurdistan and seek asylum in the camp," Salar said.

"If the tension prevails in the region, our camp will receive hundreds of families and this is a grave problem for Iraq as well as the international community."

Integration

Over the years, Turkish Kurds in Makhmur camp have integrated into the Iraqi Kurdistan society.

"I am a Kurd from Turkey and I married an Iraqi Kurd. We have been living together in Arbil for eight years now," Ceyhan Turbal, a Turkish Kurd told Gulf News.

"There are strong social and humanitarian ties and I think if the Iraqi Kurdistan region obtains its full constitutional rights, it will become a safe haven for many Turkish Kurds who face continuous human rights violations by Turkish troops," she said.

According to sources in Arbil, the capital of Kurdistan territory, the Iraqi Kurdistan government facilitated humanitarian asylum for Turkish Kurds. Hundreds more are waiting to obtain Iraqi citizenship, particularly those who are married to Iraqi Kurds.

6. - BBC - "Saddam cousin sentenced to hang for killing 180,000 Kurds":

24 June 2007

An Iraqi court has sentenced a cousin of the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to death by for the murder of some 180,000 Kurds in 1988.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for using poison gas in the Anfal campaign, was convicted of genocide.

In a similar incident, two fellow defendants were equally sentenced to death while two others received life prison sentences.

The late Saddam had also been on trial for the Anfal campaign when he was executed in December 2006 for other crimes.

BBC's Jim Muir reports from Iraqi capital Baghdad that while many Kurds would have liked to see Saddam himself executed for the crimes, Majid personified Anfal for them and was thus a good second-best.

Shaheen Mahmoud, a Kurdish civil servant in the northern city of Sulaimaniya, said news of the death sentences had made him shout with joy.

"I was ecstatic... but the bigger joy would be to see Majid executed in Kurdistan [northern Iraq]," he told Reuters news agency.

Majid stood impassively as his death sentence was pronounced.
But others shouted they were innocent and Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, also sentenced to hang, declared to the court: "We defended Iraq and we were not criminals."

The death sentences were automatically sent to appeal. If the appeals fail, they will be hanged within 30 days of that ruling.

According to Sunday's verdicts:

•Ali Hassan al-Majid ("Chemical Ali"), ex-Baath leader in northern Iraq, was sentenced to death for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity
•Sultan Hashim Ahmed, former defence minister, was sentenced to death by hanging for war crimes and crimes against humanity
•Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, ex-Republican Guard head, was sentenced to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity
•Farhan al-Jibouri, ex-military commander, was sentenced to life in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity
•Saber Abdul Aziz, ex-intelligence chief, was sentenced to life in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity
•Taher Muhammad al-Ani, ex-governor of Nineveh province was cleared of war crimes and crimes against humanity for lack of evidence.

The chief judge, Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah, told Majid that he had ordered troops to kill or persecute Kurdish Iraqi civilians.

"You subjected them to wide and systematic attacks using chemical weapons and artillery," he said in the televised trial.

"You led the killing of Iraqi villagers. You restricted them in their areas, burnt their orchards, killed their animals. You committed genocide."

Many of the Kurds killed in 1988 were buried in mass graves, only some of which have been discovered.