Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

Originally Posted by Seaview

On reflection I think it must be recycled. It was in the headlines today. But as I was posting it I thought it seemed odd because he has been ruling for longer than a year.

I usually check the dates but Aswat is usually fairly reliable for up to date news. Sorry, I've been a bit distracted today.

No problem Seaview. I was thinking the same thing to myself (the fact that Maliki had been PM for well over a year now). With the amount of news that you bring to this forum I'm surprised that you haven't gone blind yet from all the reading you must do. LOL

Originally Posted by Cdn Scrooge

No problem Seaview. I was thinking the same thing to myself (the fact that Maliki had been PM for well over a year now). With the amount of news that you bring to this forum I'm surprised that you haven't gone blind yet from all the reading you must do. LOL

I agree with you Scrooge, he puts a lot of time into RolClub for us all.

I may have posted something similar to yesterday - but just in case I didn't.

Iraq threatens to cut off Oil to Turkey if Sanctions approved

The speaker of Iraq's parliament warned Turkey on Thursday that his government would cut off the flow of oil from northern Iraq if Ankara followed through on its threat to level economic sanctions against the country.

Mahmoud al-Mashhadani's comments came a day after Turkey's top leadership agreed to recommend the government take economic measures to force cooperation by Iraqis against Turkey's Kurdish PKK rebels who have been staging cross-border attacks against Turkish troops.

"Northern Iraq cannot be pressured," al-Mashhadani told reporters in the Syrian capital of Damascus. "Iraq is a rich country, and if there are economic pressures, we will cut off the Ceyhan pipeline," he said, referring to two oil pipelines that run from northern Iraq to Turkey's Ceyhan oil terminal on the Mediterranean Sea.

Turkey has threatened to stage an incursion into Kurdistan region 'northern Iraq' if Iraqi Kurds and U.S.-led coalition forces do not crack down on Kurdish rebels based there, particularly following a rebel ambush Sunday that killed 12 Turkish soldiers near the border.

The decision to pursue economic measures was made with the hope of avoiding such an operation, which could have destabilizing effects on the entire region.

The self-ruling Kurdish administration in Iraq's Kurdistan region is relying heavily on Turkish investment for mainly construction works, including building of roads, ho****als and infrastructure.

Ankara is also selling electricity to northern Iraq, and most food sold in markets comes from Turkey.

Al-Mashhadani, who is on a five-day visit to Syria, said Syria is considering mediating between Turkey and Iraq in an effort to end the crisis.

"There is a plan for mediation, and it will be announced at the right time if the conditions are met," he said following talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad and his deputy, Farouk al-Sharaa.

Al-Mashhadani did not elaborate but said Assad expressed readiness to assume a positive role in solving the problem.

The Syrian president, on a trip to Turkey last week, said Ankara has a legitimate right to stage a cross-border offensive against Turkey's Kurdish PKK rebels based in Kurdistan 'Iraq' but added that U.S.-led coalition forces were chiefly responsible for dealing with the guerrilla problem.

Al-Mashhadani said Iraq was "Ready to do everything that would safeguard Turkish national security." He also expressed hope that Turkey would not pursue a military incursion, saying "a political peaceful solution is the best."

The Iraqi official said his talks in Damascus also covered the issue of the more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria.

"Hosting such numbers needs a stand from the Iraqi government," al-Mashhadani said.

Meanwhile, two new health centers were inaugurated Thursday in separate Damascus suburbs to cope with the increasing number of Iraqi refugees, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

One of the centers was opened in al-Sayda Zeinab in southern Damascus while the second was in the western neighborhood of Qudssayah, the group said in a written statement.

The clinics were financed by the French government, UNHCR, the French Red Cross as well as the Syrian Red Crescent, it said.

PUKmedia :: English - Iraq threatens to cut off Oil to Turkey if Sanctions approved

Press Release Issued by America-Kurdistan Friendship League
The America-Kurdistan Friendship League issued a press release about the present border crisis between Iraq and Turkey.
Following is the full text of the press release:

Press Release
America-Kurdistan Friendship League "AKFL"

October 26, 2007
Washington DC
The America-Kurdistan Friendship League condemns Turkey's threat to launch an incursion into Iraq's northern Kurdish region in a bid to crack-down on Kurdish rebels who are battling Ankara. It condemns any violence in the region and urges the PKK to renounce violence and to adopt a peaceful approach to resolving the Kurdish question within Turkey.

The AKFL calls upon President Bush to intervene and to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict by encouraging dialogues among Turkey, KRG, and Iraq. Furthermore, we call upon the US administration to support the US Senate resolution encouraging Iraq to create three ethnic-themed regional governments comprising groups of provinces electing to band together, invoking Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution.

The AKFL urges the US administration and the world community to put an end to maintaining the status quo or ignoring the Kurdish question in the Middle East. The AKFL calls upon President Bush to invite the representatives of the Kurds from each part of Kurdistan (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Russia and Turkey) to a US-sponsored peace summit scheduled to take place in Annapolis, Maryland, in late autumn. The AKFL considers any comprehensive peace deal in the Middle East or brokered therein to be destined for failure if it does not address the Kurdish issue. It is now necessary to address the fate of 40 millions Kurds living in the region at the same intensity as that being provided by Palestinian Arabs.

PUKmedia :: English - Press Release Issued by America-Kurdistan Friendship League

A Missed Moment in Iraq

The Bush administration has only itself to blame for the quandary it faces with Turkish forces poised to intervene in northern Iraq. The Turks want to retaliate against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), whose insurgents killed 12 Turkish soldiers Sunday. A massive retaliation would be a major misfortune for Turkey, Iraq and the United States.

First, it would undermine the stability of the only part of Iraq where the United States is welcome. Second, it could plunge Turkey into an Iraq quagmire of its own.

Sadly, this crisis was predictable and predicted. U.S. officials have long known that a Turkish incursion was just one terrorist event away. As tensions mounted, the administration had numerous opportunities to engage in preventive diplomacy. A combination of lack of imagination, incompetence and sheer lack of knowledge at the State Department has caused this impasse. To make matters worse, on Tuesday the department tried to shift the blame to the Iraqi Kurds, expressing unhappiness over their inaction.

Granted, tensions between Turks and Iraqi Kurds are not easy to manage. For the Turks the problem extends beyond the PKK. They are petrified that an independent Kurdistan will emerge from the chaos in Iraq and become a beacon for their own Kurdish minority. The PKK, which has waged an insurrection for more than 20 years, has been using northern Iraq as a haven, training ground and headquarters. Its bases along the Turkish border are mostly isolated and rudimentary. Its headquarters is perched high in the Qandil Mountains, near the Iranian border and safe from Turkish artillery.

Turks blame the United States and Iraqi Kurds for their lackluster approach to the PKK's terrorist infrastructure in areas they control. Considering that Washington is engaged in a "war on terrorism," their complaint hits a nerve. The Kurdish question is not new to Turkey; Kurds, in search of cultural and political rights, have been in some form of rebellion or political agitation since the inception of the Turkish republic in the 1920s. The PKK and a legal political party are just the latest manifestations of this phenomenon.

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is the party that has come closest to starting a process of reconciliation between Turks and Kurds. It faces two big hurdles. The first is its own military establishment, which is at odds with the mildly Islamic AKP and considers it anathema to its hard-line secularist principles. The civil-military discord has hampered Turkey's Iraq policy. The AKP government, having recently been rewarded at the polls for its successful governance, finds itself on the defensive on northern Iraq and the PKK, its Achilles' heel. Sensing its reluctance to intervene, the secular establishment has marshaled tremendous pressure on the AKP.

The other hurdle is the PKK itself. With its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in prison, the organization has become nothing more than a cult intent on using the passions of Turkey's Kurds to find a way of getting him released.

The irony is that both Iraqi Kurds and the AKP government directly or indirectly signaled the Bush administration that they were interested in a deal. I know that senior Iraqi Kurds have forwarded ideas to U.S. officials. The AKP, on the other hand, sought to test the waters first by sending its intelligence chief two years ago to talk to the Kurds -- something the government is loath to do officially -- and by organizing a private meeting this year between the Kurdish Regional Government's prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, and then-Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. The chief of the Turkish general staff, Yasar Buyukanit, who in a fiery speech warned the government not to talk to the KRG, scuttled Gul's meeting.

The Bush administration missed an opportunity when it failed to see and support the desire for such dialogue and use its good offices to construct a "grand bargain" between the Iraqi Kurds and Ankara. At minimum, such a bargain would have required the Iraqi Kurds to dislodge the PKK from Iraq and for the Turks to offer guarantees on trade and security to the Iraqi Kurds.

For the United States, this would have meant the consolidation of northern Iraq; paradoxically, a Kurdish north at peace with Turkey is the best antidote to separation from Iraq. In short, this would have been a winning situation for all.

The best the administration can hope for now is to persuade the Turks to engage in a limited cross-border military operation. That might contain public anger and assuage a vitriolic press.

The only other thing to hope for is bad weather. With the onset of winter and dwindling military activities, Washington will perhaps have the diplomatic window of opportunity it almost closed. Three years late, it will be much harder to succeed.

PUKmedia :: English - A Missed Moment in Iraq

Wrong Estimation

Looking at the recent developments in Turkey, one can say that events have gone as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) hoped they would. Although the recent turn of events was not part of the PKK's strategy, developments have worked to their advantage.

When we consider events in Turkey since the day the backlash against the PKK's attacks began, it is painful to see that the PKK has gotten all it is after. First of all, it caused enough chaos to pull ahead of all the democratic developments in the country. Secondly, a terrorist organization that was fading away awakened once again. Thirdly, the PKK has put advertisements -- which it normally would be unable to do even for millions of dollars -- on television, in schools, on the streets, in newspapers and in stadiums. And it raised our reaction and directed it toward the Kurdish people, thus paving the way for the PKK to find more supporters among them. Lastly, by raising the nationalist voice, the PKK also created another source that it could feed upon.

In return for the abovementioned PKK actions, Turkey's approach cheered the social reactions and raised the tension in the country, thus helping the PKK inadvertently. It isn't understandable to think that the terror could be defeated by social enthusiasm. What kind of a strategy organizes social reaction instead of making the best military decisions and preventing PKK activities remains a mystery. A few hundred brigands attack the soldiers, martyr 12 of them and worse, kidnap eight of them, and we expect help from primary school students marching and protesting. Those equipped with all the military armaments and charged with fighting the enemy can't overcome this situation, but children of 12 or 13 can solve the problem by marching, right? Isn't it wiser to root the terrorists out of the mountains instead of condemning the terrorism on squares, in schools and stadiums? Damn the terror as much as you want, but you can't prevent a disappointing consequence unless you fight against it properly.

Could protest of the martyred soldiers' deaths prevent young children from dying on the mountain in any way? This society has been attending to its martyrs for centuries. It is meaningless even to talk about it. Hoping for help from the public's reactions is nothing more than a weakness. Will we save tens of soldiers from dying when a 12-year-old child protests? Or will the PKK not kidnap our soldiers when Sivasspor football team coach Bülent Uygun makes a military salute after his team wins a match? Does the public's protection of the martyrs mean they won't fall pretty to ambush anymore?

Unfortunately, there is such an atmosphere in Turkey that people believe all the problems will come to an end and that the terror be completely rooted out if Turkey is launches an operation against northern Iraq. Hasn't Turkey entered this region? Nothing has changed. I am afraid that again, nothing will change. Turkey has just begun to take the right steps in the Southeast matter, after many years, but the cloud of conflict has risen once again. The steps of the president and the government steps stumbled and failed.

What will happen to the public after this enthusiasm, will there be no more terrorism? Our soldiers will no longer fall under ambush? Will everything be alright when we go to northern Iraq and kill a few hundred people? Of course not. Those who insist on an operation into Iraq wouldn't know that the PKK isn't doing what it does based on its own strategy, but that there are other powers behind the PKK and Barzani. Our rulers take daily steps, instead of working on solutions that can completely root out the terror problem. This is very bad.

PUKmedia :: English - Wrong Estimation

Iraqi Government, KRG Delegation Return from Turkey

After several sessions between Iraqi Government Delegation and Turkey in the presence of KRG Delegations to discuss PKK issue, the delegation will return Iraq today.

Emad Ahmed a member in KRG delegation said to PUKmedia that "KRG delegation expressed their view point on the issue. There are differences and the discussions are remained open."

PUKmedia :: English - Iraqi Government, KRG Delegation Return from Turkey

Time to Rename the Kurdish Problem

Remarks are exchanged between the government, Turkish political parties and the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP); these are familiar to most of us. They circle around the core of problem, with no one quite reflecting it. The real problem is the future of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The meaning of “democratization of Turkey” in “Kurdish language” is that Turkey should accept Kurds as a partner and declare a general amnesty for those nested on Kandil Mountain without any prior condition. It is very clear that the DTP cannot be what it should be as long as the PKK does not lay down its guns and come down from the mountains to the cities. Because of the fact that the Kurdish problem has turned into the PKK problem, the electorate of the DTP accepts PKK members as the real side of Kurdish problem. So, DTP is entrusted as mediator between the PKK and the state.

It is obvious that the DTP cannot deny its raison d'etre by coming out against the PKK, which is accepted as “guerillas” fighting for the rights of the Kurdish “nation” among the uneducated people and rural areas in the overwhelmingly Kurdish southeastern Turkey: The DTP received 45.1 percent of the votes in Diyarbakır in the general election on July 22 while the Justice and Development Party (AKP) received 43.3 percent. The cause of the DTP's loss of votes to AKP is varied. However there is one ultimate outcome of this election: DTP has been losing its support.

If the DTP distanced itself from the PKK, there would be two consequences; the first is that it would mean denial of their raison d'etre because, assuming the DTP is seen as a party under the control of the PKK, 45.1 percent of the people in Diyarbakır, 14 percent in Adıyaman, 39.4 percent in Batman, 13 percent in Bingöl, 56.6 percent in Hakkari, 39.5 percent in Mardin, 21.2 percent in Şanlıurfa, 48.7 percent in Şırnak, 32.1 percent in Van etc. reflected this view by voting for the party in the July 22 elections.

The second is that they begin to compete with the PKK to win the hearts and minds of the Kurdish people. This will also result in forcing the party to find a solution to the PKK, as the core of the problem. In this case, a problem will arise where electorate/supporters/ sympathizers cast votes for the DTP while supporting or feeling sympathy for PKK.

There is the fact that the supporters of DTP cast votes for them not because the party was seeking to extend their rights but because they saw the DTP as a kind of political wing of PKK. In any case, the DTP has mostly focused on the democratization process of Turkey, not on the basic problems of Kurds, the most important of which is unemployment.

Profile of a city:

The population of the city, which that continues to receive migration from villages, is more then 1.5 million. One out of two is jobless. There are 36,000 civil servants, 6,000 people are working in private sector, and the rest is involved in agriculture sector, which is in dire straits. According to the local education bureau, there are 400,000 children between the ages of seven and 14, 40,000 of whom don't go to school. In five years, they will be between the ages of 12 and 19. This city is Diyarbakır and has all the necessary reasons to become the recruiting ground for the PKK.

The most important problem seems to be the economic crippling of the southeast as part of the struggle against the PKK. The sources of livelihood in the region such as animal husbandry and agriculture slid into recession because farmers and herders could not carry out their duties during the fight against the PKK.

There was a hiatus of five years in the PKK's activities after the capture of its leader, Abdullah Öcalan in 1999. Right now, terror is besieging the entire region, with businessmen seeking profit turning away from the region.

The government is trying to create jobs in the region but has failed to do so.

Turkey has strengthened its hand by passing laws to improve human rights and allowing broadcasts and education in Kurdish as part of its European Union harmonization initiative. Still, these are not enough. The Kurdish identity, education, broadcasting in Kurdish language, which were the basis of number of reforms, are no longer on the agenda.

Only one issue remains and that is the question of what will happen to those who form the PKK and Abdullah Öcalan.

The division of Turkey is out of question for the silent majority of Kurds, as well as the rest of the country.

Accept it or not, those who voted for the DTP see the PKK as the real side of the issue and most have a relative in the outlawed group. The PKK has emerged as the core of the problem, with the rest just fading away.

PUKmedia :: English - Time to Rename the Kurdish Problem

US: We do not Fight PKK

The US army has no plans to fight PKK, Major General Mixon Commander of the Multi-National Division in Northern of Iraq said.

Mixon also said that he has no information about PKK’s bases and has not been authorized to launch military operations against PKK.

He also clarified that those activities which the PKK elements are conducting are not falling under the area of his authority and he has not sent any extra forces to the border areas that PKK elements exist.

PUKmedia :: English - US: We do not Fight PKK

Turkish Official: We hope for a Political Solution to Address the Issue of PKK

Turkish Ambassador in Amman, Hussein Derioz, affirmed that his country repeatedly asked the Iraqi government to put an end to the activities of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Turkish territory.

"But did not receive a serious positive signal, therefore, the Turkish government decided to deal with this reality in order to ensure its security." He told the Al-Arab today Jordanian newspaper on Saturday.

”Northern Iraq is a serious threat to Turkey because of the terrorist attacks of the PKK, Derioz said in response to a question about the Turkish army's intervention in northern Iraq “Kurdistan Region.”

"We and the Iraqi government hope to reach a political solution without resorting to a military solution." He added.

"We reassure everyone that our relations with the Iraqi government and its people are good and our priorities towards Iraq remain unchanged, which is the unity of its population, soil and stability." He said as well.

PUKmedia :: English - Turkish Official: We hope for a Political Solution to Address the Issue of PKK