·  IMF ANNOUNCES A $ 16.3 CREDIT FOR TURKEY. On 5 February, the
International Monetary Fund declared that Turkey had met the conditions
required of a fresh agreement for a $ 16.3 loans over three years. The tug
of war between the Turkish President, Ahmet Nejdet Sezer, who have several
times vetoed the bank reform that Parliament and the three party government
had voted had delayed, for a while, the reforms demanded by the IMF.
However, observers note that this IMF aid is not unconnected with Turkey's
opposition to Iraq. To date, Turkey is the principle receiver of IMF aid,
which, however, continues turning a deaf ear to Argentine's plight.
 

· NOAM CHOMSKY IN ISTANBUL FOR TRIAL OF  PUBLISHER,
THEN TO DIYARBAKIR. Professor Chomsky will visit Turkey
on 12 February to attend the trial of his publisher, Aram, and of
Initiative for Freedom of Expression, which is led by Sanar Yurdatapan,
which are both being charged with having published a booklet by N. Chomsky
entitled "Perspectives for Peace in the Middle East".

In the course of his three-day visit, Noam Chomsky will meet academics,
representatives of Human Rights organisations, as well as Turkish and
Kurdish intellectuals. He will also visit Diyarbekir, the capital of
Turkish Kurdistan to "test Turkey in Diyarbekir" regarding Human Rights.
 

· CHRONICLES OF AN IMPENDING WAR: BULENT ECEVIT SENDS OLD FRIEND
SADDAM HUSSEIN LAST WARNING. On 4 February, British and American planes
patrolling the Iraqi Kurdistan air exclusion zone bombed Iraqi
anti-aircraft defence systems as a reprisal for shots fired at their
planes, according to an American official. The official Iraqi news agency
stated that four people had been killed by the air raid at Mossul. This is
the first time that Anglo-American air Forces have bombed the region since
the 11 September bomb attacks, insisted Captain Brian Cullin, spokesman for
the Euro-American Command in Stuttgart, Germany. The bombs were released
after a routine-air-patrol was targeted by Iraqi North East of Mossul, the
Command specified in a written communiqué.

British and American planes, based on south-eastern Turkey, have been
patrolling Iraqi air space since 1991. France, which took part in this
mission initially, withdrew in 1996. Washington and London state that this
surveillance aims at protecting the Kurdish population living in the area
from Saddam Hussein.

This attack comes at a time when a debate is raging on the possibility of
extending the American "anti-terrorist war" to Iraq. American officials
have clearly given their allies to understand that they were prepared to go
it alone. According to them, Iraq, pin-pointed along with North Korea a
constituting what the US President described as the "axis of evil" is so
dangerous that preventive action may be necessary. "If the world, or
someone, fails to show what a danger their represent to their own people
and for their neighbours, they will act freely" declared the US Defence
Minister in an interview on 3 February on the PBS Television network. "They
could invade Kuwait again, that's certain. They could even invade Saudi
Arabia". Furthermore, Paul Wolfowitz, under-secretary for Defence has
stated "What the President has done is to identify the problem . We are far
from having taken any decisions on what we must do".

The Turkish Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, a faithful friend of Saddam
Hussein, has, for his part, sent a letter to the boss of Baghdad,
extensively reproduced by the Turkish press on 2 February. The Turkish
Prime Minister calls on Saddam Hussein to be more cooperative with the
United Nations and to authorise the arms inspectors to return to Iraqi soil
and to stop developing weapons of mass destruction. B. Ecevit asks the
Iraqi leader "not to miss the opportunity of protecting the regions
stability and not to subject the region to gun fire". "This is an important
message. I hope Saddam Hussein will take it seriously" It is no longer
necessary to continue a solitary and senseless resistance against the rest
of the world" Bulent Ecevit continued, speaking at a meeting of his party's
Parliamentary group.

For his part, the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has announced that he
will be making an official visit to the Middle East next March.
 

·  PKK ANNOUNCES "TRANSFORMATION", INCLUDING HALT TO ALL
ACTIVITIES UNDER ITS PRESENT NAME. According to the pro-Kurdish paper Ozgur
Politika in its 9 February issue, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has
decided to stop all its activities under its present name, in Turkey and
Europe, to advance towards a legal platform. "Our Party's assembly
considers it necessary to stop all political, organisational and practical
activity under the PKK label in the territory of the Turkish Republic and
the countries of the European Union" stresses a communiqué published at the
end of a PKK meeting held at the end of January (probably on the
Iraqi-Iranian borders) Ozgur Politika indicated. This decision is part of
the strategy of "restructuring and transforming"  the PKK into a legal
political organisation, the communiqué said.

According to this statement, the PKK calls on its members in Europe to
continue to work with groups affiliated to the PKK and urges its members in
Turkey to organise themselves "in conformity with the decisions of the
leadership" of the party. The document stresses that the efforts of
"transformation", including the abandoning of the name PKK will be
"finalised" at the PKK's 8th Congress, whose date has not been specified,
but which should take place in the course of the year.

Furthermore, the PKK accuses Turkey of wanting to oppose all changes in the
world and turning a deaf ear to Kurdish claims. "The present structure of
Turkey is contrary to the realities of the 21st Century and to democratic
civilisation", according to the communiqué. It states that the Kurdish
people's "patience" for a settlement of the Kurdish conflict has "limits",
warning the Turkish authorities who have rejected the previous PKK calls
for peace.

The PKK, moreover, supports the demonstrations organised in Turkey calling
for Kurdish language teaching which the Turkish leaders categorically
oppose. "We will never abandon our humanitarian demands" the document adds.
The campaign to demand teaching in Kurdish began in November in Istanbul
University where hundreds of Kurdish students have signed petitions to this
effect, and the movement has spreads to other establishments. The Turkish
authorities consider the movement as part of the PKK's determination to
politicise itself.

Some people do not hesitate to consider that this decision presages the
approaching dissolution of the PKK, which has waged a 15-year guerrilla
struggle against the Turkish State for the creation of an independent
Kurdish State in Kurdistan.
 

· TON OF EUROPE-BOUND  MORPHINE SEIZED.
On 7 February, the Iranian police seized 1.2 tonnes of morphine
which was been transported to Europe via Turkey. "The morphine, seized a
week ago on two lorries in Teheran, came from the Southern part on the
province of Khorassan and was intended to go to Europe via Turkey" the
Assistant Chief of the Teheran Police, Ghader Karimi, indicated. According
to Mr. Karimi, this quantity of morphine has a sale value of "$ 8.75
million abroad".

Iranian territory is a major route for the transit of drugs, which enter
Iraq for local consumption but are also destined to Europe, Central Asia
and, increasingly, to the countries of the Persian Gulf. The Islamic
Republic of Iran represents 80% of the total quantity of opium and 90% of
the morphine seized in the world. According to year 2000 report of the
International Drug Control Organisation. Iran imposes the death sentence
for any person found in possession of more than 30 grams of heroin or more
than 5 Kg of opium.
 

· NEW EARTHQUAKE: 45 DEATHS AS NEGLIGENCE AND
CORRUPTION CONTINUE. The Turks of the Afyon region, afflicted by a an
earthquake that reached 6 degrees on the Richter scale and caused more than
45 deaths, made great efforts to observe the Moslem tradition of burying
the victims within 24 hours. Widely criticised for their slowness in
reaction to the two major earthquakes of 1999, the Turkish authorities
rapidly undertook to deliver food, campaign kitchens, tents, blankets,
pre-fabricated houses and First Aid kits to the homeless victims. The
slowness Bulent Ecevit's government to react at the time of the 1999
earthquakes, which officially caused 18,000 deaths (Editors note: a highly
disputed figure, since many speak of over 40,000 deaths) in one of the most
densely regions of north-western Turkey, greatly undermined its popularity,
and the extend of the damage had been laid to the door of its negligence in
the area of town planning. The same causes are said, today, to be at the
root of the same controversy, if one can judge by the headlines of the mass
circulation papers: "The return of the Nightmare" (Hurriyet, 4 February)
and "Rotten buildings kill" (Milliyet).

Legal enquiries have been initiated against the builders of certain
building which collapsed. The Tavsanoglu Company, which built the Cay
Industrial Zone, (completely flattened by the earthquake) is particularly
involved in this enquiry. Two other building firms are ared due for
investigation. Cay, as well as the neighbouring small town of Eber,
virtually wiped off the map to the earthquake, are build on unstable and
marshy land, and the press is asking how the local councils could have
obtained permission to build an industrial estate in such a place.

Several dozens of tents have been set up, by the Red Crescent, for the
2,000 odd inhabitants in the school courtyard. First Aid teams have saved
several heads of cattle (the only sources of income of the village farmers)
from the ruins of the wood and straw houses. The sub-prefect of the town
(population 55,000) Sukru Yildirim, has made an urgent call for help,
particularly of medicines, and oil stoves to help the homeless survive the
night-time temperatures of -5° C. Meanwhile the government is acting a Bill
providing for prison sentences for all shanty town builders is being planned.