sep-22-1996

sep-22-1996 EU aid ban highlights shaky Turk rights record 08:04 Sep 22, 1996

ISTANBUL, Sept 22 (Reuter) - Turkey's shaky human rights record is in the spotlight again after a European decision to block aid for lack of democratic progress, but analysts and activists are not holding their breath for any improvement.

``The human rights situation here is a complete disaster,'' said Levent Tuzel, one of the lawyers representing the family of journalist Metin Goktepe, who was beaten to death in police custody in January.

``But I really don't think the decision will change anything. The Turkish republic will carry on as it sees fit,'' Tuzel said.

The European Parliament, angered by what it sees as Turkey's reneging on promises to improve its rights record, said in a resolution on Thursday it would block hundreds of millions of dollars of European Union aid to Ankara.

The EU was due to give Turkey 375 million Ecus ($470 million) by year 2000 to help it adapt to customs union.

``Since customs union was established (in January 1996) Turkey seems to have relapsed into its bad habits,'' a Western diplomat told Reuters. ``It even seems to be a little worse.''

Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller, who as prime minister fought to persuade the European Parliament to approve customs union amid human rights concerns, said the decision was biased. Turkish rights activists support the resolution.

``Starting with the right to live, all basic rights are being abused and this is becoming more systematic,'' said Akin Birdal, head of the Ankara-based Human Rights Association. ``If Turkey continues on its own bent, it will be left out by the West.''

The catalogue of abuses cited by activists includes police torture, deaths in detention and bloody and sometimes fatal crackdowns against a series of protests by students and others.

According to Human Rights Association figures, 21 people died of extrajudicial executions, in detention or of torture in August this year, compared with 12 in August last year, before customs union was approved. There were 37 cases of police torture in August 1996, against 22 for the same period in 1995.

Birdal said the number of people in jail under Turkish laws that effectively restrict the freedom of expression had risen to 170 from 90 before customs union was approved in December 1995.

Next week an Istanbul court will continue to hear the case of some 100 writers and intellectuals, on trial after they put their name to a publication banned under these laws in an act of protest. Just after customs union went ahead, renowned writer Yasar Kemal was tried under one of these laws for two essays.

A Turkish court last month indicted 41 top members of a Kurdish party for forming an armed separatist gang. They face up to 22 1/2 years in jail.

Four MPs from the pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP), including Nobel Prize nominee Leyla Zana, are still in jail serving out their 15-year sentences given at their 1994 trial.

Earlier this year, 48 police were charged for killing Goktepe and another 10 for the torture of a group of mostly teenaged students held for leftist activities. The indictments prompted faint hopes of justice at last.

But the Goktepe case has yet to come to court after it was transferred from Istanbul to the western town of Aydin. Likewise, the teenage torture case is crawling along.

After the DEP case outraged Europe, Turkey was pressed to improve its rights record for customs union.

It altered its 1982 military-era constitution and made promises of further improvement on rights, democratisation, its Kurdish problem and Cyprus -- divided between Greek and Turkish communities since a 1974 Turkish invasion in response to a coup engineered by Athens.

The 12-year-old battle with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) separatists rages with no sign that the government is seeking an alternative to its military-only tactics.

In Cyprus, tension has risen considerably in the past month following the killings of two Greek Cypriots demonstrating against the Turks in the buffer zone. On September 8, a Turkish Cypriot sentry was shot dead at his post close to the ceasefire line.

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Turkey Denies U.S. Report it Encouraged Iraq 09:27 Sep 22, 1996

ANKARA (Reuter) - Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan Sunday denied Turkey had encouraged Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to assert control of northern Iraq and crush separatist Turkish Kurds based there.

Erbakan said Turkey does not interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries.

``We reacted with surprise to the Arbil incident, which developed suddenly,'' the state-run Anatolian news agency quoted Erbakan as saying. ``We would not ask anyone to come and take Arbil...''

``Turkey does not interfere in anyone's domestic politics. Our basic policy is peace,'' said Erbakan in reply to a question on a U.S. newspaper report that Turkey invited Saddam Hussein into northern Iraq.

Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller also denied the New York Times newspaper report.

``We have never asked that the Iraqi government sent troops to the region of the no-fly zone, we did not even imply this was what we wanted,'' Ciller said in a statement.

``We prefer that Mr (Massoud) Barzani's forces remove the terrorists from this area. Turkey is prepared to help him in this cause,'' she said.

Saddam allied with Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) troops in an attack against a rival Kurdish faction to take the main northern Iraqi city of Arbil on August 31.

In an offensive that followed, Barzani took control of most of northern Iraq, which has been protected since the 1991 Gulf War from Saddam by an allied air force based in Turkey that patrols the no-fly zone covering most of the Kurdish region.

The U.S. responded to Saddam's interference with cruise missile attacks early this month.

The New York Times newspaper, in an interview with Ciller, quoted her Saturday as saying Ankara would drop its plan to create a ``security zone'' inside Iraq if President Saddam Hussein took steps to crush Turkish Kurds waging a guerrilla war against Ankara from camps in northern Iraq.

``We are still talking to him, and we are interested to see what he can do or is prepared to do. If he can establish a degree of rule there that puts an end to terrorist infiltration, that would be fine with us,'' the paper quoted Ciller as saying.

The New York Times said senior U.S. administration officials were ``dismayed'' by the remarks.

Ciller issued a statement to clarify Turkey's position on Iraq following the interview, in which she said some statements attributed to her could create ``serious misunderstandings.''

``Turkey supports Iraq's territorial unity and sovereignty as expressed in the U.N. Security Council resolution. Until Iraq regains its sovereignty over the whole of its northern territories, there is need for an effective local authority.''

``To regain its authority in northern Iraq, Iraq must fulfil all the conditions of the various U.N. Security Council resolutions,'' Ciller said in the statement.

Turkey announced plans early in September to create a security zone in northern Iraq up to six miles (9.6 km) deep, and Washington said it would not object if Ankara went ahead with the scheme.

Ankara said the cordon would deter infiltration from Iraq by guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), fighting for self-rule in Turkey's mainly-Kurdish southeast.

Saddam Praises His Troops

By HAMZA HENDAWI Associated Press Writer Sunday, September 22, 1996 4:01 pm EDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Turning up his rhetoric while scaling back his actions, Saddam Hussein lavishly praised his army for ``liberating'' part of northern Iraq and firing at U.S. warplanes patrolling the skies.

Speaking during a Cabinet meeting late Saturday night, Saddam again said he no longer recognized the ``no-fly'' zones over northern and southern Iraq that a U.S.-led alliance has been enforcing.

But he didn't say whether Iraqi forces would resume firing missiles at American and allied warplanes, a move that almost certainly would lead to renewed confrontation with the United States.

The latest trouble between the two countries began after Iraqi troops stormed into the north Aug. 31 to help a Kurdish faction defeat a rival group. Tensions have eased since Iraq announced Sept. 13 that it no longer would fire at planes enforcing the no-fly zones.

Iraq also hasn't used air defense radar systems to track U.S. warplanes since Thursday, military spokesman Lt. Col. Andrew Bourland said Sunday.

U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, speaking on a flight from Finland to Sweden, said Sunday that Iraq appeared to be ``backing off'' its threatening moves of a week ago. One of two U.S. aircraft carriers in region might return to its homeport next month, he said.

Still, the U.S. military buildup continued, with 600 more American soldiers arriving in Kuwait on Sunday and others on the way, said Lt. Col. Thomas Nickerson, another military spokesman.

The last of 3,500 soldiers arriving from Fort Hood, Texas, were expected by midweek, Nickerson said. The United States has some 30,000 soldiers, 200 planes and 35 ships in the region.

Saddam said his troops were welcomed when they stormed into the northern Kurdish city of Irbil last month. ``The marvelous reception of our valiant army reflected their authentic patriotism,'' he said.

With the help of the Iraqi army, the Kurdistan Democratic Party swept through the north and now controls virtually all of the Kurdish ``safe haven'' established by the United States and its allies in 1991 to protect the Kurds against Saddam's aggression.

The United States responded with missile strikes on Sept. 3 and 4 and expanded the southern no-fly zone.

The Iraqi army fired several missiles at U.S. warplanes patrolling the zones Sept. 11 and 12, but didn't hit any.

``The people of Iraq and their armed forces have foiled the conspiracies of the foreigner and his attempts to partition Iraq through the (no-fly zones),'' Saddam said.

``The fighters of the air defense corps represented the whole of Iraq when they challenged the American aggression, despite (America's) advanced technology and weapons.''

The allied jets have continued their patrols, flying as many as 100 sorties a day over the northern and southern zones. For a few days, Iraq continued to track the planes on radar, although that apparently has stopped.

``They are very quiet,'' Bourland said of the Iraqis. But, he added, ``their moves are something we need to watch closely, all the time ... and that's exactly what we are doing.''

Perry said the question of whether to pull the USS Carl Vinson from the Middle East next month and return it to Bremerton, Wash., its home port, would be addressed closer to that time.

``When it gets to the date of decision for it to go, we'll look carefully at what's going on in Iraq,'' he said.

In other developments Sunday:

--Iraqi Kurdish radio claimed Iranian forces shelled the outskirts of Qal'at Dizah in northeastern Iraq on Friday evening, damaging houses and property. There was no mention of casualties.

``Voice of Iraqi Kurdistan'' supports the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which now controls northern Iraq. There have been several reports of shelling on both sides of the border in recent days.

--Iran has set up another refugee camp near its Bashmaq border post in the northwest to accommodate Kurdish refugees leaving northern Iraq.

Some 400 refugees a day are entering Iran via Bashmaq, the main border crossing in the area, according to Ali Yari, governor of the western border city of Marivan. About 40,000 Kurdish refugees have fled to Iran, he said.

Back to the top

Kurds Seek Western Protection

By TONY SMITH Associated Press Writer Monday, September 23, 1996 6:07 pm EDT

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) -- First they asked for Saddam Hussein's help in routing a rival Kurdish faction. Now they want the United States to protect them from Saddam.

Roj Nouri, a leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, appealed Monday for financial and military aid from the West to help it consolidate its power in northern Iraq.

``We must convince the international community, particularly the United States and the allies, that we still need their support and their protection,'' Roj Nouri told The Associated Press.

The KDP is seeking to create its own government in northern Iraq. That puts the group in an awkward position vis-a-vis Saddam, the Iraqi president, who is historically an enemy of the Kurds but who helped the KDP overpower the Iran-backed Patriotic Union of Kurdistan this month.

KDP leader Massoud Barzani has insisted that the alliance with Saddam had been only temporary.

``Until a democratic regime takes over in Iraq, we are very concerned about security,'' Nouri said.

The United States and its allies established a safe haven for Kurds in northern Iraq after Saddam crushed a 1991 rebellion, and U.S. warplanes have patrolled the skies over northern Iraq since. Western aid groups were active on the ground until the recent tensions, which led to U.S. cruise missile attacks on Iraq.

Barzani recently appointed Nouri ``prime minister'' of the region, which has had an elected Kurdish government since 1992 even though it is not an independent state. Nouri was previously deputy prime minister.

``Our aim is a federal state,'' said Nouri. ``Our views and the views of the Iraqi central government are different.''

Nouri said his first job would be to make the streets safe again and he is working on a plan to demobilize some militiamen, or integrate them into a regular army of peshmergas, or Kurdish soldiers.

Of the estimated 1 million Kurds of working age, only about 200,000 have regular jobs, and many haven't been paid in three months.

The feeble economy in Iraqi Kurdistan has been squeezed by two sets of sanctions: the comprehensive U.N. embargo imposed on Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and an unofficial ``border'' that's restricted trade and movement between the north and the rest of Iraq for the past five years.

Iraqis can now travel to and from the north, but this has made the region more accessible to Saddam should he try to reassert control.

Nouri said his new administration would include Islamic and Communist parties and representatives of Assyrian and Turcoman ethnic minorities. But the PUK rivals that his KDP defeated would not be invited to take part, he said.

``The PUK has tried to divide the region, tried to gain power by force and created an internal war for the past two years,'' he said. ``Until they change their attitude ... I don't think there will be an opportunity for them to share power.''

PUK leader Jalal Talabani and many of his top lieutenants have fled to neighboring Iran.

Meanwhile, Turkish troops backed by bomb-dropping jets, helicopters and tanks, chased some 250 rebel Turkish Kurds in eastern Turkey, the Anatolia news agency said. No casualty reports were available.

Rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party have been fighting the Turkish government for autonomy in the southeast of the country since 1984. More than 21,000 people have died in the conflict, and attacks are often staged from inside Iraq. Turkey's East-West approach goes round in circles 08:34 Sep 23, 1996

ISTANBUL, Sept 23 (Reuter) - Turkey's foreign policy is coming apart at the seams in the aftermath of the Iraq crisis, exposing confusion in the Islamist-led coalition's dual approach to East and West, analysts and diplomats say.

Tansu Ciller, billed as the Western face of the new government, has made several high-profile U-turns as the coalition's junior partner and foreign minister.

At the same time, Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan has little to show for the Eastern vocation he has pledged would bring Moslem but secular Turkey closer to the Islamic world.

He too has reversed himself publically on key issues, dropping pledges to cancel a military accord with Israel and to expel the U.S.-led air force patrolling northern Iraq from a Turkish base.

The net results, say analysts, are conflicting signals to Turkey's friends and foes alike.

``In short, it's a muddle all around,'' said one senior Western diplomat.

``Turkish foreign policy is shaped according to the morning weather,'' Kamran Inan, a former minister and veteran Turkish diplomat, told Reuters. ``There is no strategy, no long-term policy.''

Nowhere is that more apparent than in Turkey's approach to Iraq, its big southern neighbour and once its third largest trading partner, after the United States and Germany.

Ciller told the New York Times at the weekend that Ankara would drop its latest attempt to create a ``security zone'' inside Iraq if President Saddam Hussein took steps to crush Turkish Kurds waging a guerrilla war from camps in the north.

``If he can establish a degree of rule there that puts an end to terrorist infiltration, that would be fine with us,'' the paper quoted Ciller as saying in English.

Three weeks ago, Saddam dispatched troops in a successful bid to support one Iraqi Kurdish faction against another, gaining his first foothold in the rebel north since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

Ciller's invitation to Saddam -- quickly disavowed by both Erbakan and the foreign minister herself -- is at direct odds with the policies of Turkey's NATO allies to restrict his power.

The New York Times said U.S. officials were dismayed by Ciller's remarks.

However, it was clear they struck a chord in Baghdad, where Iraq's ambassador to Ankara said on Saturday his country was ready to negotiate a border security deal with Turkey.

``We thought that Turkey had an Iraq policy, but now we see it has not,'' said political commentator Bilal Cetin. ``Turkey does not even know which step to take.''

The confusion over Iraq comes at a critical moment, both for Turkey and its U.S.-educated foreign minister.

Ankara, in need of transit fees and trade dollars, is eager to see U.N. approval of a stalled $2 billion oil-for-food deal with Baghdad that would send Iraqi crude down Turkish pipelines for the first time in five years.

It is also increasingly frustrated at its inability to choke off the 12-year-old separatist insurgency of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), partly based in Iraq. More than 20,000 people have died in Turkey in PKK battles with security forces.

But Turkey does not want to upset the United States, its most enthusiastic patron. Washington is in no hurry to see Saddam regain control of northern Iraq or begin a return to world oil markets.

For Ciller, her precarious position as Turkey's top envoy to the West is in jeopardy.

Diplomats say they are still reeling from her move in June to form a coalition with the Islamists after selling herself to the electorate and the world at large as the last barrier to what she called the ``dark forces'' of the Moslem-based Welfare Party.

Later she told Ankara-based diplomats the prime minister would not be travelling to Iran, a country he has praised consistently throughout his career. Soon Erbakan was in Tehran, where he signed a $23 billion gas deal.

``Her credibility has been declining pretty rapidly over the course of this year,'' said one NATO diplomat.

The latest flap over her New York Times interview, he said, ``leads people to wonder how much they should ever have trusted her statements. All her words are devalued.''

A headline in the liberal Yeni Yuzyil daily was more direct: ``Which of Ciller's words is true?'' it asked. Turkey, U.S. agree to curb Saddam role in N. Iraq 14:27 Sep 23, 1996

NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Reuter) - Turkey and the United States agreed on Monday to try to curb Baghdad's role in northern Iraq and said Turkey's foreign minister had been wrongly quoted as suggesting Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein should have a free hand there.

U.S. officials said the strategy now being developed by Washington and Ankara was to have the Kurds and the Turkmen minority take control of security in the Western-protected area, filling the void left by Iraq's intervention there.

Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller denied that Ankara would be ready to cancel a security zone it declared this month in northern Iraq if the Iraqi president acted against rebel PKK Turkish Kurds in the enclave.

``We are not ready to cancel the security zone because we fear the influx of refugees and the PKK has stationed themselves right next to our borders,'' she told reporters before meeting U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

The New York Times on Saturday quoted her as saying Turkey would be prepared to drop the security zone if Saddam Hussein would ``put an end to terrorist infiltration.'' The remark, implying Ankara might give Saddam a free hand in northern Iraq following his military incursion there last month, was later denied in Ankara in a statement attributed to Ciller, who said on Monday it had been a ``misunderstanding'' with the Times.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns told reporters the reported remark ``caused some anxiety'' in Washington that Turkey, a NATO ally that played a major role in the anti-Saddam coalition, was weakening in its backing of U.S. efforts to contain him. U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Marc Grossman had made inquiries in Ankara about it, Burns said.

Clearly anxious to lay the remark to rest, Ciller said: ``We want to stop the influx of refugees through our borders, but we cannot ask Saddam to do that for us because we have always respected the U.N. resolutions.''

Ciller, in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly, said six-mile (10-km) security zone, which would allow Turkish troops based inside Turkey to make strikes into northern Iraq against the PKK, ``must be temporarily a danger zone.'' The United States has said it does not object to the zone.

Burns said Washington was satisfied with the denials. ``I think as a result of today's meeting Turkey and the United States firmly agree that Saddam's influence in northern Iraq should be minimised, it should not be encouraged in any way.

``On the contrary, we ought to support the efforts of the Kurds and the Turkmens to provide for their own political stability, and that's really what the crux of this meeting was about,'' Burns added.

Saddam restored at least indirect control of large areas of northern Iraq when he joined forces with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to attack the rival PKK faction and take the main northern Iraqi city of Arbil on Aug. 31.

Burns made clear that despite KDP collaboration with Baghdad, the United States saw the party's leader Massoud Barzani as key to retaining Western influence. A senior State Department official met Barzani in Ankara last week to try to encourage him to sever ties with Saddam.

Burns also dismissed statements attributed to Ciller in the New York Times that Turkey was talking to Saddam about action against the PKK, which is fighting for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. He said he did not believe there was any serious dialogue under way.

Northern Iraq has been been protected from Saddam since the 1991 Gulf War by an allied air force based in Turkey that patrols a no-fly zone covering most of the Kurdish region.

The United States responded to Saddam's interference with cruise missile attacks early this month.