The PKK's goal has been to
establish an independent, democratic Kurdish state in Southeast Turkey,
northern Iraq and parts of Iran and Syria, the U.S. State Department's
Country Reports on Terrorism said.
-----------------
Turkish Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul said that Iraq's neighboring countries have managed to
devise a common and principled policy in dealing with Iraq and underlined
the view that had they acted in the manner of Europe in dealing with the
former Yugoslavia, there would not be a one Iraq today. That is our
biggest contribution to Iraq, he said, adding, Europe should take lessons
from us.
U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice telephoned Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic
Party, on Friday to ask him to finish forming a government as soon as
possible, two State Department officials said Monday.
More
Turkey said on Monday it would fight mounting international pressure to
recognize as genocide the mass $ killings of Armenians under the Ottoman
Empire. "There was no genocide. An all-out effort is needed to expose the
lies of those who say it happened," said Turkey's Justice Minister Cemil
Cicek, reported AFP
Iraq's new President has said the insurgency could be
ended immediately if the authorities made use of Kurdish, Shia Muslim and
other militias. Jalal Talabani said this would be more effective than
waiting for Iraqi forces to take over from the US-led
-----------------
Seven Kurdish civilians working on a US military base were kidnapped late
Sunday in central Iraq after leaving work, a police chief told AFP. Armed
men seized the seven Kurds after stopping their bus as they travelled home
from the base in the Mansuria region to Khanaqin, some 180 kilometres (110
miles) northeast of Baghdad.
-----------------
On Friday, a prominent Sunni Muslim cleric urged Talabani to follow through
on the amnesty pledge. In his weekly sermon, Sheik Ahmad Abdul-Ghafoor
Samarrai, a cleric in the influential Muslim Scholars Assn., said Talabani
should free all Iraqi detainees and refuse to "obey and kneel to pressure"
from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"If the Americans think that
training the Iraqi Army comes before clean drinking water for the people of
Halabja," he said quietly, "then we can't expect anything from them."
More
April 16, 2005
News Snapshot
A Kurdish
television journalist was shot dead Friday in the city of Kirkuk in
Southern kurdistan, reported AFP. Shamal Assad, who worked for the PUK TV
station, was gunned down by armed men in a car lot, said police Colonel Adel
Ibrahim.
-----------------
Almost a third of the members of Iraq's new parliament are women, one of the
highest proportions in the world, but that doesn't mean full-blown
Western-style rights are at hand. Many of the women are conservatives who
want Islamic law to enforce the veil and all that goes with it. The
conservatives' power "might cause a problem in$the future, especially when$
we will start debating women's rights such as dress code and whether they
should wear the veil or not," said Ala Noori Talabani, a secular Kurdish
lawmaker, reported AP
April 14, 2005
News Snapshot
Dr. Mahmoud
Osman said Massoud Barzani's presidency over Kurdistan Region was a historic
requirement for the Kurds. Osman added that Barzani has expressed his
approval to accept the position.
----------------------------------------
Zengene, a Kurdish Alliance
official said in a press statement
that about
100,000 peshmerga will be located in free parts of Southern Kurdistan
according to the agreement between the Shiite and Kurdish Alliances. The
peshmerga will be in command as border guards, national guards, and as the
police.
----------------------------------------
Falah Mustafa Bakir, Minister of$State in the Kurdistan Regional
Government, described his week long visit to London, during which he met
Baroness Symons, the British Foreign Office Minister, as "a success and
another step towards deepening the long-established relations between
Kurdistan and Great Britain". Fron KRG
----------------------------------------
Presidents Ahmet Necdet Sezer of Turkey and Syria's Bashar al-Assad on
Wednesday agreed to boost links between their countries despite US
pressure for Ankara to keep its distance from Damascus. Turkey and Syria
will "develop cooperation and bilateral relations in all economic and
commercial domains", Sezer said after meeting Assad in Damascus,
reported AFP.
April 13, 2005
News Snapshot
The US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld flew by
helicopter to Southern Kurdistan and the mountain resort of Salahaddin where
he held talks with the KDP leader Massoud Barzani.
Rumsfeld said he
came to Kurdistan personally to thank Barzani for his long$record of
cooperation with the United States and his help in defeating Saddam
Hussein's Baathist regime, reported AP
"Some reliable sources are informing us that,
every week around three or four full truck full of arms are being brought
into Turkey, and no one knows about their final destination," said Dogan,
spokesman for the Democratic Movement Society. "A recent report in your
newspaper warned about far-right cells getting ready for attacks against
Kurds in Anatolia. I personally think that MHP is also involved in that
dangerous course of events. More
News Snapshot
Talabani:
For 50 years, I have worked actively
for an alliance between Kurds and Arabs and deployed tremendous efforts to
establish good relations with leaders in the western world and in the Arab
world. We are keen to revive Iraq's real Arab and international role,
bearing in mind that Iraq is a founding member of the Arab League. Iraq will
play an effective Arab role by consolidating Arab solidarity and security
and taking part with its Arab brothers in efforts to find a solution to
crucial issues that as the Palestinian one. From AFP
-----------------
A man
who was an intelligence officer in the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein
committed suicide after news that Jalal Talabani was sworn in as President
of$Iraq. Captain Hatem Ahmad al-Shallal shot himself in the village of
Daqouq, 60 kilometres south of Kirkuk, the source quoted al-Shallal's
relatives as saying, reported www.smh.com.au
Marking the two year anniversary since U.S. troops took control of Baghdad
and toppled Saddam Hussein's statue, supporters of a militant Shiite cleric
filled the capital's streets Saturday and demanded that their American
invaders go home, shouting "No! No, to Satan!"
-----------------
Breaking the deadlock over forming Iraqs interim government came down, in
the end, to a simple compromise: Kurds dropped their immediate demand that
the oil-rich city of Kirkuk be added to autonomous region of Southern
Kurdistan, and Shiite Arabs said they wouldnt insist on dismantling
peshmerga, reported the Christian Science Monitor
Talabani's
election led to spontaneous celebrations across Eastern Kurdistan on
Wednesday, with hundreds pouring into streets, dancing and waving Kurdish
flags, said an Iranian Internet news site (www.baztab.com). "Some 40 Kurds
were arrested and 11 policemen were injured during the clashes between
people and police, reported Reuters
-----------------
Jaafari
refused to go into details over the government line-up but one of his senior
aides Maliki said the UIA, with 146 of the 275 Parliament seats will have
the all-important ministries of finance, interior and oil. He said their
Kurdish coalition partners may get the Planning Ministry as a consolation
for oil which they had been fighting to clinch, reported Reuters
"Even though the
laws are changing, the people who are supposed to implement those laws in
daily life are still working in the same old way," said Huseyin Cangir, the
head of the Human Rights Association and the Kaymaz family lawyer. "Turkey
is trying to be a law-based state. But what we still have is a police
state."
More
When asked recently what if the
Kurds decided to go their way, Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari said, We will not
allow [emphasis added] them. Notice the ease with which Mr. al-Jaafari
falls back on the language of tyranny; even though he spent a good many
years in the democratic West, he still cannot bring himself to say, Well
try to persuade them not to do so. Or listen to these words from Ayad
Allawis representative, Abdul Fahd al-Isawi: Kirkuk has never and never
will be a Kurdish city. There is more than an echo of Saddam here; it is a
view shared readily by a great many in the Arab side.
More
April 4, 2005
News Snapshot
The body of a Kurdish
army officer was discovered by the main traffic roundabout in the
Yarmuk
district of Mosul. Lieutenant Colonel Ziro Khalil Yunis was shot once in the
stomach. He was in civilian clothing and carried Iraqi army and Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan identification cards, reported AFP
today
April 3, 2005
News Snapshot
In an
open ballot yesterday, the members of the 275-seat Iraqi National Assembly
voted overwhelmingly to elect Hajem al-Hassani, the current industry
minister, as speaker. Also, Shia's Hussain Shahristani and KDP's Arif Tayfor
were elected deputy speakers.
"We have had a series of meetings with the British Foreign Office and with
Tony Blair's office in the last couple of weeks they understand our
position. We said, frankly, international pressure needs to be put on the
Kurds. They know that, now it is up to them,"
More
Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish leader imprisoned since being captured by
Turkish special forces in 1999, could win a retrial today in a judgment which
may provoke a political crisis in Turkey.
Judges at the European Court of Human Rights will rule in the case which has
far-reaching implications for the government in Ankara and its ambitions to join
the European Union.
The sole inmate of a Turkish island prison, Ocalan has appealed to the court
in Strasbourg, claiming that he has been ill treated and did not receive a fair
trial after he was snatched from hiding in Kenya.
A ruling in his favour would provoke a fierce domestic backlash in Turkey.
The majority of the population regards the former PKK leader as the nation's
most dangerous terrorist. As PKK leader he is blamed for masterminding a
separatist revolt in the south-east during the 1980s and 1990s in which at least
30,000 people were killed.
But failure to observe the ruling would compromise Turkey's claims to have
modernised its judicial system and place a big question mark over its bid to
join the EU. The court's rulings are binding on all 46 members of the Council of
Europe, which include Turkey.
Ocalan - who was seized by a special forces unit and flown to Turkey six
years ago - was originally sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life
imprisonment and capital punishment was abolished in Turkey in 2001.
The former PKK leader claims Turkey breached international rules by treating
him inhumanely on his transfer to the Imrali prison near Istanbul in 1999,
discriminating against him, denying him the right to a fair and independent
trial and barring his legal representatives from contacting him after his
detention. He remains in solitary confinement though the Turkish authorities
argue this is partly for his protection.
The Strasbourg court's ruling comes at a sensitive time for the government of
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who leads the Islamic-based Justice and Development Party
(AKP) and who has pressed ahead with sweeping reforms to try to win EU
membership talks. About a dozen members of parliament have quit the AKP in the
past few months, claiming the government is losing touch with the public.
There are continuing tensions between Mr Erdogan and his Foreign Minister and
political rival, Abdullah Gul, who is seen as more moderate and closer to EU
political values, but the AKP remains well ahead of other parties in the opinion
polls and in any case does not face a general election until 2007.
In an effort to avoid the prospect of legal victory for Ocalan, a proposal
was made to exclude cases dating before 2003 from retrials. But the Turkish
constitution underwrites the supremacy of international law and this is almost
certain to prevail.
The government rode out a storm of protest over the retrial of Leyla Zana and
three other activists last year. They were freed after a Turkish court said the
four did not receive a fair hearing at their original trial in 1994 when they
faced charges of collaborating with Kurdish rebels.
Nevertheless, a ruling in favour of Ocalan would reinforce a growing
impression in Turkey that European institutions are biased against them.
A slump in the proportion of the population in favour of EU membership
reflects the fallout over the compromises made by the government to clear the
path for talks.
Negotiations between the EU and Ankara are due to start in October and the
Turkish government has agreed to extend a customs union to the Greek-controlled
half of Cyprus which became a member of the EU last year.
