SYRIA AND TURKEY RE-AFFIRM  OPPOSITION TO A KURDISH STATEI N IRAQ
On 6 January, the Syrian President, Bashar el Assad, arrived in Ankara with his wife and two children for a State Visit — the first by any Syrian president. On 6 January he met his Turkish opposite number, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, then, in the evening, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The next day he met Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and the Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Hilmi Ozkok before meeting the Arab ambassadors to Ankara.

Syrians and Turks welcomed this “historic” visit, considering that it contributed to the normalisation of relations between the two neighbouring states and to the promotion of inter-regional dialogue.

The Syrian President declared that his official visit to Turkey had exceeded his expectations. Bashar el Assad’s visit has marked a spectacular “thaw” in relations between the two neighbours, which have confronted one another for years over territorial claims, the sharing of the waters of the Euphrates and Damascus’s support of Turkey’s “Kurdistan Workers’ Party” (PKK).

During this visit, Syria and Turkey protested, with one voice, against the United States’ apparent green light to Iraqi Kurdish autonomy. The two countries fear that such a development might incite their own Kurdish populations to claim a similar status for themselves. On 6 January they issued a joint warning against any infringement of the territorial unity of their Iraqi neighbour. “We are agreed that the territorial integrity of Iraq must be protected and its unity maintained” stated Mr. El Assad, following his meeting with President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. “We condemn any aims that might endanger Iraq’s territorial integrity” he added. Mr. Sezer also called for a return of stability in Iraq as soon as possible. In a televised interview on the CNN-Turk channel on 5 January, just before his visit, Syrian President Bashar el Assad had declared his opposition to the creation of a Kurdish state in Iraq, declaring that such an eventuality “would violate the read line” of his country. Asked whether Syria, like Turkey, was concerned at the aspirations of the Kurds to widen their autonomy in Iraqi Kurdistan and advance towards “a possible independent state”, Mr. el Assad replied: “Obviously, we are”. “We are not only opposed to a Kurdish state, but to any action directed against the territorial integrity of Iraq” he declared, considering that any dislocation of Iraq would affect all its neighbours and provoke instability throughout the region. “The future of Iraqis linked to the future of all of us. For this reason any break up of Iraq should be a red line, not only for Syria and Turkey but for all the States in the region” he added.The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will visit the United States at the end of January for a first official visit, broadly devoted to Iraq and, in particular, to its Kurdish parts.

Bashar el Assad, we met businessmen and official in Istanbul before leaving Turkey on 8 January, again declared, during his 72-hour visit, that he was in favour of a Near East without any weapons of mass destruction.

In 1998, Turkey and Syria were on the brink of war, until Damascus expelled Abdullah Ocalan, boss of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Ankara had extorted this gesture from Syria by threatening it with war.

Since then, a gradual warming of relations between Damascus and Ankara has been noticeable. In November 2003 Syria handed over to Turkey 22 people suspected of being involved in the wave of bomb attacks perpetrated in Istanbul.

During Bashar el Assad’s visit, the two countries signed a series of agreements regarding taxation, investments and tourism.

The Turkish and Syrian media welcomed the improvement in bilateral relations and Mr. el Assad’s “historic” visit. “Syria is, henceforth, a country allied to Turkey” headlined the daily paper Radikal on 7 January, stressing that the two countries had signed three important agreements for cooperation, which should form the basis for their economic relations. According to this paper, the two neighbours had turned over a new leaf, setting aside their mutual mistrust and advancing towards a “partnership” on matters of common interest, such as the preservation of Iraqi unity and peace in the Near East.

For its part, the Syrian official press stressed the “solidity” of Syrio-Turkish relations and the “warm welcome” given to Mr. el Assad. This visit constitutes a “strategic turning point in the process of bi-lateral relations”, traditionally very tense, between the two countries, according to the daily paper of the Baath Party, in power in Syria. “It will strengthen Syrio-Turkish co-ordination on security matters, the peace process and the Israelo-Arab conflict” according to this daily.

The US State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, considered that the United States and Turkey had a common approach to the problems of the region and denied that this visit might worry Washington.

The Arab diplomats, who met Mr. el Assad in Ankara, considered that Turkey and Syria had concentrated, during this visit, on strengthening their cooperation, especially economic, by avoiding touching on their differences, in particular on Syrian claims to the region of Hatay — formerly Alexandretta, which Turkey annexed in 1939.

R.T. Erdogan’s Islamist government, like that of his predecessor N. Erbakan, is actively seeking to improve Turkey’s relations with the Arabo-Moslem world. The perspective of an autonomous Kurdistan in Iraq cements Ankara’s entente with Syria and Iran, all of which have large populations of Kurds, deprived of their cultural and linguistic rights. Despite their many differences, these countries have always known how to agree at the expense of the Kurds.

EUROCOURT FINDS TURKEY GUILTY OF INHUMAN AND DEGRADING TREATMENT, BURNING DOWN  HOMESOF KURDISH VILLAGERS
On 8 January, the European Court for Human Rights found Turkey guilty of “inhuman and degrading treatment” inflicted by policemen on three men arrested in 1994 and 1995 on suspicion of membership of the Kurdish PKK organisation.

The Court awarded 12,000 euros damages to Abdullah Colak and Omer Filizer, respectively 34 and 39 years of age, and 5,000 euros damages to Sadik Onder, 34 years old, for violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (forbidding torture and inhuman or degrading treatment).

In the first case, the petitioners, suspected of membership of the PKK, had been placed in detention in April 1995.According to Mr. Colak, during the six days of his detention in the premises of the anti-terrorist section of the Istanbul police Directorate, he was throttled, beaten, kicked and kept hanging by his arms and threatened by the police.

Mr. Filizer, for his part, stated that he was blindfolded and then beaten on the head, stomach and belly, and left hanging by his arms. They also crushed his testicles and he was subjected to electric shocks, on both his genitals and his toes.On 2 May 1995, the two men were forced to sign depositions regarding their activities in the PKK.

On the second case, Mr. Onder had, according to his evidence, been undressed and hung by his arms, subjected to electric shocks threatened and insulted. In this latter case, the Court specified that the violation of Article 3 consisted of the fact that “no effective official enquiry was conducted” following the petitioner’s complaints of ill treatment.

Furthermore, on the same day, Turkey was sentenced to paying 185,000 euros damaged to five Kurds, whose homes and goods had been burnt down by security forces in October 1993, because, according to them, they were suspected of sympathising with the PKK organisation. The petitioners, aged between 37 and 69 years, were living, at the time of the events, in the town of Lice, in the region of Diyarbekir.

According to their evidence, between 22 and 23 October 1993 their homes and goods were burnt down in the context of an operation, planned by the security forces beforehand, so as to punish the inhabitants of the town for their alleged sympathy with the PKK. They had lost everything and been forced to leave the town of Lice. During the hearing, the Turkish government had stated that the security forces were defending the town against PKK attacks at the time.

The Court granted between 20,100 to 26,200 euros to the five petitioners for material damages and 14,500 euros each for moral damages.

It established that Articles of the European Convention forbidding inhuman and degrading treatment, and protecting the respect of private life, of private property and the right to effective recourse had been violated.

LOCAL DEHAP LEADERS SUED FOR “MR.". OCALAN REMARK AND ANOTHER KURD CHARGED FOR PAINTING HOUSE FORBIDDEN COLOURS
On 5 January, two local leaders of a pro-Kurdish party were charged and incarcerated by the Diyarbekir State Security Court for having called the chief of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, “Mr. Ocalan”.Edim Bicer and Sadiye Surer, local leaders of the People’s Democratic Party (DEHAP) in the small town of Bismil, about fifty Kilometres East of Diyarbekir, were charged and incarcerated under an Article of the Anti-Terrorist Act which forbids “terrorist propaganda”.They had referred to “Mr. Ocalan”, using the Turkish word “sayin” can carry a shade of meaning implying respect, during a press conference to denounce the lack of Human Rights in Turkish prisons.

Furthermore, according to the Turkish daily Milliyet of 6 January, an inhabitant of Hakkari was placed in detention on 12 December by the province’s Gendarmerie commander and is being charge before the Van State Security Court for having painted his house red, green and yellow …

ANKARA SIGNS PROTOCOL N°13 OF EU RIGHTS CONVENTION ABOLISHING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN WARTIME
On 9 January, Turkey signed Protocol N°13 of the European Convention on Human Rights, regarding the abolition of capital punishment in all circumstances, including wartime.

The document was signed in Strasbourg by the Turkish Ambassador to the Council of Europe, Numan Hazar. A year ago, Turkey had already signed Protocol N°6, abolishing the death sentence in peacetime, after a vote in the Turkish Parliament in August 2002, abolishing capital punishment except in wartime. The document was ratified last November, in the hope of seeing Turkey come closer to the standards of the European Union.

Protocol N°13 covers the abolition of capital punishment “in all circumstances”, even for “actions committed in times of war or in the imminent danger of war”, passed last July, has, however, still not been signed by Russia, Armenia or Azerbaijan.

PRODI AND ZANA ON THE SAME DAY!. As Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, prepares to visit Turkey on an official visit, some journalist are expressing surprise that this visit is planned to take place on the same day as the 10th hearing of the trial of Leyla Zana and her colleagues of the Party for Democracy (DEP). Yalçin Dogan, a journalist on the daily Hurriyet, expressed, under the headline “Prodi and Zana on the same day! ”, his doubts about this coincidence in timetabling. Moreover, during a visit to Berlin on 11 January, the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had not hesitated to compare his three months imprisonment with Leyla Zana’s situation, declaring“Where was the European Union when I was imprisoned for reading a poem?”.Was the Turkish Prime Minister, who seemed to forget the 9 years in prison of the Kurdish M.P.s, seeking revenge on the E.U. in this way? Here are extensive extracts from Yalçin Dogan’s article of 13 January:

“ … The President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, will be in Ankara on Friday (Ed. Note: the 16th January). To tell the truth, this visit is symbolic: the messages he intends to deliver are almost entirely known already. Having said this, like Verheugen (Ed. Note: the European Commissioner responsible for the enlargement of the Union) he makes positive statements one minute and then rather negative ones the next. However, Brussels’ news and expectations are, this time more favourable. Prodi intends to use the European thesis supporting Turkey’s European destiny, and thus deliver a message giving it the green light. The most outstanding issue is, undoubtedly, the Cyprus question…

Nevertheless, the date of this visit is not normal! There is a curious coincidence. On Friday 16 January, the hearing of Leyla Zana’s trial is taking place in Ankara.

After the democratisation package, the former members of Parliament of the Party for Democracy (DEP — dissolved) will again appear before the Court. And this is not very important (Ed. Note: 16 January will see the 10th hearing of this retrial, which began in March 2003).

The most important thing is that seven or eight Members of the European Parliament are coming to attend the trial as observers (Ed. Note: So far, MEPs have attended several hearing of the trial). The MEPs who are due to come are members of the mixed Turkish-European Union Parliamentary commission. That is observers who know Turkey.

It is not their visit that is important, but its reason, because Turkey is used to receiving this sort of observer at this sort of trial. But this time there is more.

Last year Leyla Zana received the Sakharov Prize (Ed. Note: in fact she was awarded this Prize in 1995) and the European Members of Parliament want to come to Ankara to give her prize in prison, but turkey does not see things this way. Thus they are coming to the hearing to see Leyla Zana. Will they want to give her the Prize in the courtroom? Can they do this? Will they do it? No one yet knows.

This situation of intrigue is putting Ankara’s hair on end. Yet another problem, suddenly springing up from nowhere!…

On the same day as Prodi’s visit — Friday 16 January!…

There is no coincidence as suspect as this!

There will be fireworks on Friday!…