• ANKARA/WASHINGTON CRISIS: US ARMY ARRESTS 11 TURKISH SOLDIERS IN SULEYMANIAH  “SUSPECTED OF PLOTTING” AGAINST  KURDISH GOVERNOR OF KIRKUK.  The Turkish Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, said that the arrest by the US Army of 11 members of the Turkish Special Forces in Iraqi Kurdistan has provoked a veritable crisis between the two countries, long time NATO allies. “This affair has provoked the most serious crisis of confidence” between the two countries’ Armed Forces and a veritable “crisis” between the two countries the general affirmed on television while greeting the outgoing US Ambassador to Ankara, Robert Pearson, who had come to say fare well after three years in Turkey.

The Turkish Special Forces soldiers, arrested on 4 July in Suleymaniah in the course of a strong-arm raid on their Head quarters, were released in the evening of 6 July, after two days of intense contacts between Turkish and American leaders. They arrived in Suleymaniah by helicopter and resumed work after passing tow nights in a Baghdad hotel for security reasons. “find it hard to consider this simply a local incident! It has turned into a serious crisis of confidence between the American and Turkish Armed forces and then into a crisis full stop” the general said, adding “we attach great importance to Turco-American links (…) but our national honour and the honour of the Turkish Armed Forces are also important” recalling that the Turks had fought “shoulder to shoulder with the Americans during the Korean war and had always since been loyal allies”.

The reasons for these arrests remain obscure, but an American official in Washington merely stated, off the record, that the Turkish soldiers and several civilians had been arrested “because of suspicions of a plot against Iraqi civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan”. According to the Turkish press, they were suspected of having tried to organise an attack on the Kurdish governor of the city of Kirkuk, an accusation described as “stupid” by the Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. “The American soldiers acted on the basis of information that they (the Turkish soldiers) could have been implicated in suspicious activities” declared the American Foreign Affairs spokesman, Richard Boucher. Mr. Boucher did not want to give any other details on the nature of these activities, satisfying himself with the statement that this matter would be the subject of a joint Americano-Turkish enquiry.  Another senior American official was content to remain allusive: “We had reliable intelligence to the effect that they might be implicated in activities regarding local leaders” he assured reporters off the record. According to diplomats stationed in the Near East, one of the detainees is a Turkish Colonel who has already been twice expelled by British or American forces for “suspicious activity”. Last April, the Americans had seized a large supply of arms in a “humanitarian” convoy of the Turkish Red Crescent bound for Kirkuk and expelled a commando of Turkish Special Forces disguised as civilians in this convoy. In the 1990s the Turkish secret services played as active a role as those of Iran in the destabilisation of Iraqi Kurdistan.

While the tempers rose in Ankara, Washington stressed that the country remained a “strong” ally within NATO and a crucial partner for maintaining stability in Iraqi Kurdistan. “NATO is still strong, as are our relations with all our allies, including Turkey” in that organisation, affirmed Mr. Boucher who refused to “speculate” on the possible consequences of this affair so long as the enquiry had not been concluded. He also suggested that this would not prevent Washington from continuing to work “in cooperation with Ankara” for “stability and security in (Iraqi Kurdistan)”. “We are in close contact with our Turkish ally to resolve this matter. The fact that, when an incident like this occurs, we have all sorts of channels for talking in confidence with our Turkish allies about our concerns and to seek to resolve them is a good and healthy sign” he insisted. Apart from contacts between the Armed Forces of the two countries, this issue was raised three times by ’phone by the US foreign affairs chief, Colin Powell, with his Turkish opposite number as well as by Vice-President Dick Cheney and the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he stressed

The Turkish press, on 7 July considered that the release of the soldiers did not settle the “crisis” in the country, where nationalist passions are very close to the surface especially in matters affecting the Army. According to the daily Hurriyet “the United States have lost even their closest friends in Turkey” while the daily Radikal stated that it could not be simply a matter of a accident, and that this incident put an end to the “strategic relations” between the two countries. Even the pro-Islamic daily Yeni Safak, close to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party government criticised the government’s management of the crisis, accusing it of not having been firm enough with the Americans.

The jailing of Turkish soldiers has given rise to demonstrations in the streets of Istanbul. Nationalists took part in a sit-in in front of the US Consulate and clashes took place between the police and other demonstrators who tried to enter the building. The Iraqi crisis has severely put relations between Washington and Ankara to the test, especially since Turkey, the only member of NATO sharing a border with Iraq, opposed the transit of American forces on its soil.

This serious crisis comes only a few weeks after the Kurdistan Parliament voted a resolution calling for the withdrawal of the several hundreds of Turkish troops still stationed in Iraqi Kurdistan, who no longer have any reason for remaining there other than to arm and organise a minute Turkmen faction, the Turkmen Front (a minority even in the Turkmen minority there) in an attempt to sow disorder and hinder the advance of the Kurds and Iraqis towards a federal regime. Furthermore, Washington and several European capitals have been active trying to persuade Ankara rapidly to decree an amnesty that would allow the bulk of the some 4,000 PKK fighters (at present based in refugee camps on the borders of Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan) to return to Turkey and finally turn the page on armed struggle and engage in a political process for settling the Kurdish question in Turkey as well.

These developments worry the Turkish “hawks” who are multiplying their provocations and seem to be placing their hopes on the destabilisation of Kurdistan and Iraq to precipitate the departure of the Americans — an objective not only shared by those Iraqi Baath groups that have gone underground but also the Iranian secret services that are active amongst the Shiites of Southern Iraq.

The breach is thus deepening between the Turks and the Americans. The latter did not expect to see their “strategic allies” of yesterday bringing grist to the mill of their declared enemies of the “axis of evil”.

• NECHIRVAN BARZANI VISITS ANKARA, JALAL TALABANI IN DAMASCUS AND MOSCOW. On 2 July, Nechirvan Barzani, Prime Minister of the regional Government of Kurdistan, met Turkish leaders in Ankara to discuss questions of security. Mr. Barzani left Turkey the day after his discussions.

This visit comes after differences with the Iraqi Kurds in June 2003 which led to Turkey’s closing, for two days, its only frontier post with Iraq. Turkey had closed the border post of Habur after the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) had prevented a group of Iraqi businessmen from going to Turkey because they had no travel documents. The KDP, in the end, allowed them to cross the border.

Meanwhile the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Jalal Talabani, had meetings on Iraq with several Syrian leaders in Damascus on 2 July. Mr. Talabani, who arrived at the Syrian capital the evening before, had separate meeting with Syrian Vice-President Abdel Halim Khaddam and the Baath Party N° 2, Abdallah al-Ahmar, about means of “strengthening relations” and “developments on the Iraqi and Kurdish scenes”. After several days in Damascus, Mr. Talabani went to Moscow where he was met by the Foreign Affairs Minister, Igor Ivanov, in particular. On this occasion, he invited Russia to turn over a new leaf by forgetting the past and playing a more important role in the political and economic reconstruction of Iraq.

The “Council of Seven” leaders of the former opposition in Iraq met on 7 July at Salaheddin, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to examine the country’s political future. In a communiqué published after this meeting, the representatives of the seven principal Iraqi organisations “welcomed the project of a Government Council, seeing this as a step in the right direction towards the creation of an Iraqi transitional government”. The leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Massud Barzani, of the Iraqi National Council. Ahmed Shalabi, as well as representatives of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the National Understanding Movement, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Islamic Al-Dawa Party and the Iraqi Democratic Movement (Sunni) took part in this meeting.

•  PKK THREATENS  HOSTILITIES AS DEHAP PRESENTS PETITION CALLING FOR GENERAL AMNESTY.  Murat Karayilan, one of the leaders of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK — renamed KADEK) threatened to resume hostilities in Turkey, rubbishing the extent of the amnesty measures proposed on 29 June by the government to the fighters, according to the German-published pro-Kurdish daily Ozgur Politika. “The (amnesty) Bill imposes repentance. It says: we will annihilate you if you don’t surrender, if you don’t inform on others” considered Murat Karayilan, top leader of the PKK, according to an article published in the daily on 30 June.

If the Turkish government “insists on annihilation and renunciation, we will have only one option. This is war for the our honour” added Murat Karayilan. “Any new war would not be like the old one. If war begins, all economic, political and social life will be paralysed” he warned.

On 3 July, another high-ranking leader, Mustafa Karasu, declared in the same paper under the heading “Either a solution or war” that “Four years have gone by! What is on the agenda is either a solution or legitimate defence. Thus we are going towards a critical point”.

The Bill before Parliament, as announced by the Turkish Minister of the Interior, Abdelkadir Aksu, provides pardon for those who surrender and have not committed any blood crimes and some reduction in sentences for others — on condition that they inform on their organisation.

The government’s offer, the eighth of its kind, was again attacked by the principal pro-Kurdish party in Turkey, the People’s Democratic Party (DEHAP), which has called for a general amnesty in a petition with a million signatures it has presented to Parliament. “It is necessary to have a political amnesty to secure social peace” indicated Osman Ozcelik, DEHAP’s Vice-President. He stated that the government’s proposal was degrading, because it called on the fighters to repent and inform on their organisation to the authorities.

• SIX KILLED IN CLASH BETWEEN PKK AND TURKISH ARMY: FIGHTING BETWEEN PKK AND IRANIAN ARMY REPORTED IN TURK PRESS.  Separate clashes in Turkish Kurdistan, between the Turkish Army and Kurdish fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK — renamed KADEK) resulted in 4 deaths, one of which was a Turkish soldier.

One of these operations, in the Tunceli region, caused the death of a conscript, and three other soldiers were seriously wounded, as against one PKK fighter killed. According to Hurriyet of 6 July. Near Bingol, two distinct operations each ended in the death of a Kurdish activist, according to the same paper. Hurriyet further reports that violent clashes between PKK members leaving Iraqi Kurdistan to settle in Iran resulted in 31 deaths amongst the Iranian security forces and 22 amongst the Kurdish fighters.

• OCALAN ACQUITTED IN GREEK ILLEGAL ENTRY CASE: An Athens court acquitted ten Greeks, including a retired Admiral, tried in the case of the clandestine stay in Greece of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), on 27 June. A. Ocalan, who is at present serving a life sentence in Turkey, as well as two other Kurds, who accompanied him in 1999, was also acquitted.

The case had aroused an uproar in Greece and resulted in the sacking of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, of Public Order and of the Interior, Theodoros Pangalos, Philippos Petsalnikos and Alecos Papadopoulos. All three gave evidence in Court as witnesses. The retired Admiral, Antonis Naxakis, well known for his ultra-nationalist views, was the principle Greek accused in the trial. He stated before the Court that he had been “used” by the socialist government of the time to deliver A. Ocalan over to the Turkish authorities. Mr. Pangalos, declared to the Court that Admiral Naxakis had been “misled” and thought “that is would be a simple matter to obtain political asylum” for Abdullah Ocalan — a measure for which 100 Greek members of Parliament had launched an appeal. Admiral Naxakis, had only played a “technical” role in this affair and “those who brought Ocalan into Greece were not in the dock” declared the former Foreign Minister.

On 2 July Turkey attacked the acquittal and said it was “surprised” at it. According to the Turkish Ministry’s communiqué, the verdict of the Athenian Court “does absolutely not answer to the expectations of the international community regarding the antiterrorist struggle and does not satisfy Turkish public opinion”. A. Ocalan had sojourned illegally in Athens on 28 and 29 January 1999. He had then been evacuated to the Greek Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, with the help of the Greek Intelligence Services.