Interesting Kurdish perspective

[Gavur]

Either a revolution in Turkey or change of the old (western) guard is needed.

[Joseph]

ZNet | Mideast

A Talk with Haluk Gerger:
The Northern Iraq Operation and Entering a New Era in the Kurdish problem

by Haluk Gerger and Taylan Dogan; December 11, 2007
Taylan Dogan, interviewed Haluk Gerger on how Turkey’s insistence on solving the Kurdish problem through military means is going to shape the process ahead. We are here presenting the interview held on November 22nd, with a historical count of the evolution Kurdish Problem in Turkey in last ten years.


Historical background

In 1999 Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish Liberation Movement, PKK (Kurdistan Worker Party), was captured by an operation conducted allegedly by CIA and handed over to Turkey.

In his trial, he called on the Kurdish Movement to abandon the armed struggle against the Turkish state and to pursue a peaceful, civil rights struggle in order to obtain the basic identity and cultural rights of Kurds living in Turkey.

The Movement responded positively to his call and the civil war which started in 1984 and had continued for 15 years was terminated unilaterally by the Kurdish Liberation Movement about eight years ago.

The Kurdish guerrilla forces did not abandon their arms, but they withdrew beyond the Turkish borders and located themselves in Northern Iraq. They demanded of the Turkish state that an amnesty should be declared and channels opened that would enable them to participate in peaceful political activity in Turkey.

As the process of membership negotiations with the European Union sped up, hope for a peaceful solution increased. The Turkish state made minimal improvements of regulations in the area of cultural rights, but during this eight-year period, not much progress was made concerning the Kurdish problem and the military operations continued uninterrupted.

Between 1999, when Ocalan asked for removal of armed guerilla forces from Turkey’s territories to Northern Iraq and 2004, when PKK decided to escalate armed struggle, Kurdish Movement passed through a period in which legal and democratic struggle was the primary strategy.

However, the Kurdish Movement could not succeed in establishing a democratic and participatory struggle, in which the political activity of the masses is channeled through participatory political institutions to a legal political process. As originally proposed by Ocalan, this process aimed constitutional recognition of the existence of Kurds, their language and cultural rights and a general amnesty for all political prisoners and guerillas to facilitate their inclusion into this political process.

There are three basic dynamics that has been determining the evolution of the Kurdish problem in Turkey for last four years: 1) the rise of a Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq, 2) the political stance of the European Union towards Turkey and 3) the change of balance of political forces in Kurdish regions of Turkey.

The rise of the Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq is conceived as the violation of the “red lines” of the military-bureaucratic establishment of Turkish state. It has been thought that an autonomous or federal Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq will appeal to the national desires of the Kurds living in Turkey.

The European Union made it clear that a full membership of Turkey to the Union will not be realized in the foreseeable future, and this gave a strong hand to the military-bureaucratic establishment for increasing the repression within the country.

The last elections held in July 2007 showed a change of balance of the political forces in the Kurdish regions of Turkey. The political parties that are supported by military-bureaucratic establishment lived through a shameful defeat, and showed almost no presence in Kurdish regions. The pro-Kurdish party DTP, has lost significant votes as compared to the previous elections. The lost of electoral dominance of DTP and the defeat of the parties supported by military-bureaucratic establishment has shown that the period of warfare has not yielded favorable outcomes for warring parties.

The pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), which used to be at odds with the military-bureaucratic establishment, won by an absolute majority of 48 percent in July 2007 elections, with a substantial increase of votes in Kurdish regions. The electoral propaganda adopted by Prime Minister Erdogan was clearly against a cross-border operation to Northern Iraq which was vehemently wanted by the Chief of Staff.

During the 2004-2007 period, PKK moved to overcome the stalemate that the Kurdish Movement was living by escalating the armed struggle. The increase of causalties of Turkish armed forces inflicted by PKK is exploited and manipulated by the military-bureaucratic establishment to engineer a “mass reaction against terror” which culminated in mass demonstrations. This pressure is directed towards the newly elect government, and the government yielded to the political pressure and asked the parliament for a warrant to cross-border operations. The parliament gave the authorization to the government, and hence the military is now free to organize a military campaign to Northern Iraq.

The escalation of the armed struggle by PKK and the increase of causalties is just what Turkish military wanted. This has given an excuse to the Turkish military to crash down the Kurdish Movement led by PKK in Turkey together with the Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq. The mass protests are directed against the Kurds living in Turkey, as well as the Kurdish Regional Government. The spokespersons of the military-bureaucratic establishment were talking about “teaching Barzani a lesson” whom they think is harboring PKK and inspiring the national desires of Kurds in Turkey.

This nationalistic hysteria which climaxed by plundering of shops owned by Kurds, or lynching attempts directed to youngsters listening Kurdish music has now calmed down. The aggressiveness has been deflated by the same people who engineered its inflation. The main reason for this retract is the realization by the military-bureaucratic establishment that a cross-border operation to Northern Iraq to crash down PKK, which would also include a “lesson” to Kurdish Regional Government, is impossible since it will never be authorized by United States who hardly controls Iraq, and found its only ally in Northern Iraq. Given the difficulties it is encountering in Iraq, United States does not want to open a new front by attacking PKK as demanded by Turkish military. US can also see that a military campaign by Turkish army will destabilize Northern Iraq where a relative stability is established as compared to rest of the country.

The plan possibly proposed by United States, is suffocating PKK by cutting logistic supplies, and providing intelligence to Turkish military to carry out targeted operations. Turkish military is now has to satisfy itself and the nationalistic public hysteria with “point operations”, not a full-scale war against Kurds. Another reason for the deflation of the nationalistic hysteria is the realization, again by the military-bureaucratic establishment, of a prospect of bloody ethnic conflict between Kurds and Turks in Turkey, which may possibly claim several lives.

Now it is claimed that the war is declared not against Kurds, but specifically against PKK. The legal representative of the Kurdish Movement, DTP which has 20 members in the parliament is asked to distance itself from PKK by declaring PKK a terrorist organization. A lawsuit is brought against DTP with an indictment of being “the focus of separatist activities” and demanding the closure of the party and immediate banning of most political activities of the party and its members as a precautionary measure.

The relationship of PKK and DTP is like the one which used to be between IRA and Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, and they have overlapping popular grassroots support in Kurdish regions of Turkey. PKK can only be channeled to an unarmed legal political process by negotiating with DTP, as it had happened in Northern Ireland. It seems that Turkey is loosing that chance once again.

We are know discussing this issue with Dr. Haluk Gerger, who is a dissident intellectual in Turkey, Dr. Gerger is a well-known intellectual and a respected writer on nuclear weapons and strategy. He was educated at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of John Hopkins University in Washington, DC, Stockholm University in Sweden, and Herford College in Oxford, England. A founding member of the Turkish Human Rights Association, Dr. Gerger has written extensively on the Kurdish issue and has criticized governmental policies. He has likened the Turkish government's treatment of the Kurds to Serbia's ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia. He has been imprisoned and heavily fined by Turkish courts for writing letters and articles expressing his political opinions. He can be reached at [email protected]

Taylan Dogan: Mr Haluk Gerger, In recent years, the Kurdish problem has begun to be presented in a different way in Turkey. “Cursing terror” demonstrations involving the participation of hundreds of thousands of people are being held, the likes of which we hadn’t seen even in the most intense periods during the civil war in our country in the 90’s. In fact, going beyond the anti-PKK statements of organisations close to the state, a propaganda mechanism that can easily be turned to anti-Kurdish statements is widely being employed. Indeed, in some places, attacks on Kurds have become an issue. How do you explain this change?

Haluk Gerger: I think this aggressive chauvinism in Turkey is not new. Likewise, neither are features such as dependence on militaristic values, addiction to violence, or seeing all those who are different as enemies. These features, the roots of which extend back to the Union and Progress period of the Ottoman era and forming a part of the “values system” at the foundations of the Republic, have, especially in the last 20 years, that is, with the rise of the PKK, been systematically brought more to the fore by the state.

The difference must therefore, be sought in the attitude of the state. Until recently, the state would keep provocations under some control to keep them from getting to this point. However, now it is actually organising the developments which you mentioned. Previously it was necessary, from the hegemonic viewpoint of reducing the issue to “terror”, to portray the Kurdish problem, especially to the outside world, as a simple policing matter and to restrain chauvinist attacks and provocations that had the potential to generate clashes creating “civil war” images to a certain degree. Moreover, it was feared that collective attacks could create a “Kurdish defensive reaction” giving rise to uncontrollable tendencies in the Western metropolises, which could then come to be reflected back in the Kurdish regions. The system trusted that, against all these pressures, the Kurdish problem would be kept under control on a regional basis through Arab Baathism, Turkish militarism, Iranian religious fundamentalism and imperialist support. When this status-quo changed, the system’s attitude also began to change. Plans for an external war, tightly interwoven with a civil war began to be implemented. In other words, the existence of Southern Kurdistan and the regional situation created by the American occupation have created strategic effects.

It is, moreover, necessary to connect this situation to the internal struggle for political power. In order to squeeze the AKP government and to move for an election under the shadow of the gun, the military party and its allies considered, as one solution, filling the streets with chauvinist reactions. This was, at the same time, useful from the point of view of creating the social base for a fascist coup, especially from among the middle class. Without a doubt, the AKP’s position on the Kurdish problem was no different from that of the opposition; however, as a government they had to shoulder the burdens of escalation and were responsible for the negative reactions of their imperialist supporters and thus were left highly vulnerable in the face of these kinds of developments.

Thirdly, the fact that the pressure on the system from the Kurdish problem has finally reached its apex has had a huge effect. In this situation, the emergence of an ineluctable necessity to push towards a final stance concerning the problem, has given birth to a need among the hegemonic forces to move on to the realisation of “solution” scenarios. In other words, “the sea has come to an end” at last and everyone is faced with the need to drop the stones from their skirts. The hegemonic system’s mainline “solution” project has, since the beginning, been to create a kind of “Armenian model” using unlimited force, or, if not that, was at least on the way to using the sword to cut the knot to make a 40-50 year breathing space for itself. This was also, as I said, a quest for a way out through combining the external and internal war. From the point-of-view of these forces, the fact that the system’s vulnerability and deep crises in other areas were becoming obvious, made a violent internal -external assault more appealing. In this way, the sword aimed at the Kurds could also provide an excuse and legitimacy for attacks on the working class, labour organisations and all foci of opposition (especially those outside the system) at the same time. This would win for the system, the tactical-strategic flexibility to implement anything from martial law through to direct military coups.

Why did the US occupation in the Middle-East in 2003 resulted in fundamental changes in Turkey’s classical approach to the Kurdish problem? What fundamental transformations in Turkey’s relationship with its neighbours did this give rise to?

The two fundamental external pillars of Turkey’s Kurdish problem have been the alliance formed with regional militarist regimes since as early as the 1920’s and imperialist support. At the root of the latest developments lie serious changes in both of these factors. Firstly, the regime in Iraq was destroyed and moreover the foundations for a Kurdish state have been laid there. Secondly, Syria and Iran have been besieged by imperialism. Finally, the Turkish hegemonic system’s monopoly on collaboration with imperialism has been broken by the presence of a plethora of other actors, the Kurds among them. Lastly and above all, as demonstrated by the “hood incident” [arrest of a squad of Turkish special forces in Northern Iraq by US troops] , the basis on which the relationship with the US was founded, has been shaken and become fragile; that is, the rulers have become afraid of the terrain beneath their feet slipping. The rulers have become as hopeless and crippled as someone awaiting their fate in a rotten house built on a tectonic fault-line. These developments made the occurrence of panic attacks in Turkey inevitable and that’s exactly what’s happened.

[Joseph]

Part 2 ZNet article

The ultimate result of this situation has been the renunciation of the classical assimilation policy. The need to recognise the “Kurdish reality” in this manner and secondly, the need to directly turn to imperialism for shelter has been the reason for the emergence of a clear lines in the form of two factions. In the final analysis, one of these approaches based on enmity to the Kurds and violence on several levels, certainly with American support and essentially acting as US’s hit-man, is the viewpoint advancing the idea I mentioned previously, of an “internal-external war” approach. The second however, again backed by imperialism in exchange for doing the dirty work, is to extend “Turkish hegemony” over Northern Iraq’s Kurds on the basis of the US’ “Red Lines”, and keep them bottled up, breathless and under pressure in a vice without escape; after violently liquidating the PKK. The goal can be described as one of creating a vehicle for Turkish capitalism’s low-quality power and, through the dirty business of the lumpen layer, the ultimate extension of hegemony over the Southerners. In the North, a “Kurdish Orientalism” influenced by “Turkish modernisation” and with its face turned towards the European Union will dissolve the traditional structure of the South, Turkey will then use its petrol, broaden its market share and create its own kind of “Ottoman style imperialism”. In the case of both viewpoints, they ultimately believe they are pursuing different paths to the realisation of their “Mosul-Kirkuk dreams”.

The struggle is continuing, in the end, between two streams; chauvinist aggression and liberal cunning, however, if in the event of “over-egging the pudding”, they will unite and seek violent remedies tantamount to suicide.

The official powers in our country and the “non-governmental organisations” dependent on them have, claiming that US is supporting the PKK, begun an anti-American propaganda campaign. In a country such as Turkey, that is dependent, in so many ways, on the US and which is seeking American support for its “war on terror”, how should this propaganda, created through official policy, be interpreted?

Turkey, from the end of World War II until the present, has essentially remained standing due to imperialist support. Of course, if you pay some attention to the imperialist support given to the foundation of the state after the First World War, it is easier to understand the vital characteristics of imperialism better. Looking at all the features of the system, the fact that they all carry the imprint of imperialist, especially US support, is an undeniable fact and the essential pillar of all actors in the “solution package” to the Kurdish problem, is imperialism; essentially the USA and secondarily, the European Union. The contradiction you pointed out today is that, from the angle of reciprocal demands to the Kurdish problem, the emergence of disagreements is to do with lack of compatibility. Turkey is disgruntled with the US withdrawal of the old kind of support on the Kurdish question. That is, immoderate “Anti-Kurdish enmity” is the source of the conflict.

Firstly, Turkey is, from the point of view of the objective structure of today’s power relations, making unrealisable demands on the US. Even if they wanted to, today they could not fight the PKK on the mountains. The US today could not, even if they wanted to, do without the support of the Kurds in Iraq. It can not take sides against the Kurds as a whole. Moreover, irrespective of power relations, in the realisation of current US “national interest”, Southern Kurdistan holds strategic importance and it can not be sacrificed for Turkey’s sake. As a corollary, Turkey’s attempt to drum up “anti-American” sentiment, due to the end of the old “Cold-War” “blackmail” and its monopoly on collaboration, is not effective. The US has the option of “managing” both sides through fear and it will continue to use this leverage to the end. As a result, besides the “anti-Kurdish enmity” becoming obvious in the form of an anti-American discourse, the hegemonic system is full of great panic and fear manifested in social delirium. It is clear that this has no relation to anti-imperialism. On the contrary, its dependency on American support and great demands in this direction, greatly strengthen the US’ hand, a Turkey prepared to act as a trigger-man affords imperialism great strategic flexibility. The translation of Turkey’s hopeless words are thus: “For ten years we’ve served you faithfully; today we share all your strategic goals and values in their entirety. Is this then our reward?”

The trump in the negotiations during this process is this: The two factions, in relation to the military duties the Americans are thinking of giving to Turkey, claim that there is a widespread and active opposition in the society and claim that, in order for this to be “neutralised” or “pacified”, it is necessary to present concrete concessions to the society on the Kurdish problem. In return for this, they say there will be no obstacle for Turkey being the US hit-man in a region from Lebanon to Iran. One faction, stressing the eventual role of violence in the American strategy and that this opposition may only be able to be put down through violence, has claimed a monopoly on violence for themselves and thus seek support for their internal struggle for power. The other faction however, believing that the necessary opportunities can only be provided through a basis of support in society created through social manipulation and thus lobby to present themselves as trust worthier collaborators. In other words, in neither faction is there an anti-imperialist attitude; quite the contrary, the question is entirely one of embracing US.

Of course, it should also not be forgotten that, from the point of view of the hegemonic forces, as an ideological attack, fake anti-Americanism is a kind of cost-benefits approach.

When the Chief of Staff in Turkey is saying that a comprehensive operation absolutely must be undertaken in Northern Iraq, who do you believe he’s targeting? Is the target the PKK or is it instead, more broadly, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG)?

This is now obvious, an open secret. Furthermore the authorities feel no need to even hide it. “Either we take Mosul or we lose Diyarbekir” is essentially the slogan of the official cheer-squad. The target is doubtless both the PKK, and the Kurdish Regional Government, and even, from the “crazy Turk” point of view, Mosul-Kirkuk. Likewise, just yesterday, a journalist with a good relationship to the military Fikret Bila, explained his observations after speaking with some retired commanders thus: “Most commanders have anxieties about being divided. This is also a problem concerning Northern Iraq. They are of the belief that a Kurdish state will not be set up in Northern Iraq but, should it be set up ... in that event they see it as a survival [of Turkish state] issue. That is, they may dare to risk a war, because in ranking threats they do not put the PKK first. The first is an independent Kurdish state. The second is the status of Kirkuk. The third, as one aspect of these, is the PKK. The division of Iraq's territory will also destroy the integrity of Turkey’s territory. Because the issue between both territories is one of demographic permeability “the actual risk is this” they say.”

Turkey says it wants to create a buffer-zone on the Iraqi border. What kind of a process is this expected to be? Is it possible to draw a parallel with Israel’s creation of a buffer-zone through its long occupation of Southern Lebanon?

Certainly there are similarities, and also differences. Israel, in essence, wants to divide Lebanon. As opposed to this, Turkey wants to keep Northern Iraq in a tight vice under strict scrutiny. From both positions, the word “buffer” conjures up more neutral connotations although, in essence, their intentions are not defensive but aggressive. At least, if we take account of the issue from the aspect of resources, Israel has its eyes fixed on water and Turkey on petrol. The most important thing, from the political-strategic angle, is the matter of targeting certain peoples to bring them under control. Both countries moreover, seek to set their enemies against each other. Israel, stirs up the right-wing Christians against Hezbollah while Turkey, on one side wants to use the Southern Kurds to steamroller the PKK while, on the other hand, it tries to use the Turkomans against the Southerners. Both however, aim to control the region for the sake of their own narrow, “national” interest, and realise this in a form absolutely consistent with American aggression and conforming to the status quo. Turkey, from this perspective, is not as powerful or fortunate as Israel and would like to be in a similar position at the US’ side.

How do you interpret the efforts to erect an embargo against the Kurdish Regional Government? Given the Kurdish Regional Government enjoys other options such as Iran, could Turkey be the loser here?

These kinds of embargo have no meaning at all. These things just help to blur public opinion. Nothing serious is actually being done. In the end both sides can be damaged, but with its fragile economy, Turkey trying to play the tough guy like this has no credibility.

In your opinion, what was the real result of the Bush/Erdogan meeting in the USA? Would you please evaluate the possible effects on the evolution of the Kurdish problem in the region?

It appears that the factions are agreed on the question of accepting the US’s “red lines” in Southern Kurdistan in return for a targeting of the PKK. More correctly, the US has reined Turkey in and has had to draw its own line. In any case, given Turkey’s dependency and obvious weakness it doesn’t really have much choice. Some insane scenario is still on the cards but it’s clear that the state has, for now, fallen back on deliberation.

Finally, how do you see Baykal’s [main “opposition” party leader] opening to Northern Iraq. Does this reflect a change in official policy towards the KRG? If there has indeed been such a change, what do you connect its coming up on the agenda now to?

I do not think that Baykal’s opening up is independent from the state. That is, it’s like the idea of obstinacy to the American line and an enraged, all-out, internal-external war was anticipated. It’s like, while waiting for a response to “satisfy” Turkey on the PKK issue, the bait on the hook is being displayed. Turkey, on one hand is being directed to shake the hand it couldn’t bend while on the other, it is waiting for this response on the PKK question. However, it’s too early to pass certain judgements on these matters. While the hegemonic system in Turkey’s unwillingness and inability to solve the “Kurdish Problem” continues, it is full of instability and what will happen is unknowable. This situation is creating such objective and subjective dynamics that, in the end, Turkey’s decision makers and controllers are becoming hostages of the processes. Unimaginable adventures in the swirls of intractability, hopelessness and fear will drive them into an inconclusive, swamp of simplistic violence.

[Joseph]

http://www.huntingtonnews.net/column...nskurdish.html

Dec. 3, 2007

COMMENTARY: Is U.S. Going from Enabler to Participant in Kurdish Genocide?

By Nicholas Patler
Special to Huntington News Network

In a recent White House meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, President George W. Bush promised U.S. military force to fight the Kurdistan Workers Party, better known as the notorious PKK.

The PKK, a militant faction from the Kurdish part of Turkey located in its impoverished southeast region, has been using the mountains of northern Iraq to launch raids into their homeland, which has for years endured political and military repression at the hands of Ankara.

After the latest attack last month that left twelve Turkish soldiers dead, the Erdogan government has been threatening to chase down the PKK by launching a military operation across the Turkish border into Iraqi territory, sending Washington into a desperate scramble to prevent any more warring factions from spilling into their Mesopotamian pot-o-mess, which is already boiling over.

President Bush’s commitment to using military force against this most recent “enemy of America,” as he calls the PKK, adds a deadly twist to previous U.S. policy supporting Turkey. Before this, the American government just provided Turkey with the most advanced military weaponry and training on the planet, including missiles, bombs and tanks.

Indeed, Turkey is one of the largest recipients of U.S. military assistance in the world, as revealed annually in the “Section 655” reports published online by the Pentagon and State Department, using a vast array of American made lethal toys, along with death tactics learned from special operations forces, to commit genocide against their Kurdish minority as Washington looks the other way.

Evidently, maintaining Turkey as a strategic U.S. airbase has been worth the price of hundreds of thousands of murdered, displaced and jailed Kurds and the destruction of thousands of their villages and hamlets.

Yet as disturbing as this is, using American firepower to battle it out with the PKK, relying on skewed Turkish intelligence to finger “hideouts” and chasing guerilla troops throughout the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Turkey will easily spill over into more violence and oppression against innocent Kurdish communities.

Instead of placing the gun in the hands of the perpetrator as we have done for years, the U.S. may very well be pulling the trigger as war-weary troops storm villages and homes in search of these newly branded “terrorists” and U.S. missiles obliterate PKK strongholds that turn out to be Kurdish farming communities. And this will no doubt embolden the Turkish military to step up its ongoing campaign of genocide in the relatively sealed off Kurdish region.

The ill-fated message we have been sending to Ankara is the same one we sent to Baghdad in the 1980s: as long as you appease U.S. interests, we will not only turn a blind eye to your terror against the Kurds, but we will give you money, weapons, diplomatic support and now direct U.S. military force. We certainly know what Saddam Hussein did with our help to the Kurds in Halabja and other areas of northern Iraq.

Of course, “with our help” is still censored—Collin Powell made sure of that when he ripped out 8,500 pages of the U.N. Iraqi weapons report before it went public back in 2002. But at least the killing and disappearance of Kurds in northern Iraq slowly made it through a blockhead press whereas the Turkish oppression of the Kurds, documented for years, is still squelched by much of the mainstream media in the U.S.

If all this was not bad enough, President Bush has also added an unequivocal warning to his commitment to flush out the PKK. This one is aimed at the U.S. Congress: do not even think of passing an impending resolution recognizing the genocide of the Armenians at the hands of the Turkish government during WWI.

This is not only a double whammy in sacrificing both the Kurds and Armenians for U.S. interests in Turkey and Iraq, but, ironically, it brings us back to where it all began. The immoral aspect of our contemporary foreign policy was built upon the murdered corpses and skeletons of the Armenians in the post-WWI period. Rather than holding Turkey accountable for “crimes against humanity,” where it is estimated that over one million Armenians perished from massacres or starvation and disease as a result of forced deportations, the U.S. sheltered a genocidal government and muted the cries of its victims for justice to get its foot in the Turkish oilfields.

And as we were maneuvering our way into the land of blood oil, Turkey brazenly massacred over a hundred thousand Greeks in Smyrna literally right in front of our eyes, destroying everything except the Standard Oil Compound (A few years before that, they had murdered and displaced 700,000 Greeks in the Black Sea city of Pontus, as they would later do to the forgotten Assyrians in the Syrian province of Hatay Alexandetta).

This set a significant moral precedent for the rest of the century in which the thirst for global resources and power would take precedence over any genuine concern for the peoples living in the lands we coveted. Sadly, here at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we still so desperately covet that Turkish real estate, that we are willing to ignore the plight of the Kurds, wipe out a militant group that is simply an extreme manifestation of Turkish abuse and American neglect, and act as guardians to the enduring legacy of Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide.

Staunton, Va. author Nicholas Patler is a biographer and historian. On this site last April, David M. Kinchen of HNN reviewed his “Jim Crow and the Wilson Administration: Protesting Federal Segregation in the Early Twentieth Century,” republished earlier this year in a quality paperback edition by the University of Colorado Press.

[Joseph]

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg214651.html

KURDISH LEADER SAYS TURKS WANT TO DESTROY IRAQI KURDISTAN'S STABILITY

Iraqi Independent Weekly Awene, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
Dec 12 2007

Text of interview with Nizamettin Toguc in Cirnak, northern Kurdistan,
by Shirin Ali Yunis entitled: "Nizamettin Toguc: Turkish governments,
including Erdogan's, are enemies of the Kurdish people"

Nizamettin Toguc is a former DEP member of the Turkish parliament for
the city of Batman. In 1991, Toguc, Leyla Zana, Ahmet Turk, Orhan Dogan
[died of a heart attack in June 2007] and Zubeyir Aydar were elected
and formed a Kurdish parliamentary group. In 1993 he was seriously
injured in an attack by a Turkish chauvinist group.

Subsequently, he went to Brussels with a group of six Kurdish
parliamentarians and set up an office to defend the rights of DEP
parliamentarians and later established the Kurdistan parliament
abroad, laying the foundations for the Kurdistan National Congress,
KNK. He is now a member of the KNK leadership responsible for the
Kurdish community in Europe. We asked him a few questions about the
current status of Kurdish parliamentarians, the AKP [ruling Turkish
Justice and Development Party] policies and the recent crisis.

[Awene] What is the current status of Kurdish parliamentarians in
the Turkish parliament?

[Toguc] As you know, 22 members of the Turkish parliament are Kurds and
have immunity. They have set up a faction called Democratic Society
Party [Turkish: Demokratik Toplum Partasi], DTP, and are engaged in
a civil and democratic struggle for the settlement of the Kurdish
issue in a peaceful and democratic way. Regrettably, however, they
have been put under pressure from the outset by the Turkish regime
since they decline to describe the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] as
terrorist because the children or cousins of the parliamentarian are
guerrillas and they cannot describe their own children as terrorists.

[Awene] Do you consider the [government of the] Justice and Development
Party better equipped than previous governments to find an appropriate
solution?

[Toguc] The Justice Party has assumed power under a new guise and
wishes to regenerate Ottoman policies to annihilate the Kurdish
people. It continues efforts to establish an Islamic current in
northern Kurdistan to crack down on the PKK. I believe that Erdogan
follows a soft Islamic policy which is the most threatening policy
to eliminate opposition, particularly the Kurdish people. Therefore,
we do not see any difference between Erdogan's government and previous
Turkish governments: they are all arch enemies of the Kurdish people,
but the previous government's hostility was open while Erdogan's is
more subtle.

[Awene] How does the Kurdistan National Congress view Turkish
hostilities?

[Toguc] The presence of the PKK in southern Kurdistan is not new since
the PKK guerrillas have been in southern Qandil [mountain range on
the Iraq-Turkey border] and the main PKK leaders are in Kani Cheng
(Qandil). The Turkish army has crossed the Kurdistan Region border
many times without achieving anything, and the Turkish government
had reached an agreement with the Ba'thist regime against the Kurdish
national liberation movement. The Erdogan government is well aware of
these facts but it has chosen to ignore them. I can confidently say
that Turkey uses the attacks to put pressure on the USA, particularly
following the US Congress resolution on the genocide killing of
Armenians. Therefore, Turkey's objective may not be the PKK but the
Kurdistan regional government.

Turkey has always had three practical objectives that it dreams
about: firstly, to attack the PKK with the cooperation of the USA;
secondly, to destroy the stability in the Kurdistan Region and wipe
out the achievements made by the regional government; and thirdly,
to support the Kirkuk Turkomans in establishing an independent Turkish
region in the name of the Turkomans.

[Awene] Do you believe that Turkey will be able to cross the border
with the Kurdistan Region?

[Toguc] I do not believe so because it will backfire, since the whole
world has expressed its displeasure. It may launch air raids against
guerrilla positions but that will be of no consequence. I believe
that if Turkey crosses the border into Kurdistan, the region will
turn into another Vietnam.

[Awene] How do you assess the stances taken by NATO, Russia, China,
the USA and most of the major countries in the world, which are
against a military move by Turkey?

[Toguc] These are good and essential stances because a border-crossing
by Turkey will destroy the stability in southern Kurdistan, which is
the most stable area in Iraq. Furthermore, terrorist organizations
will replace the PKK if it moves out of Qandil and this will create
a big problem for the USA and the regional government.

[Steph]

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg214651.html

KURDISH LEADER SAYS TURKS WANT TO DESTROY IRAQI KURDISTAN'S STABILITY

Iraqi Independent Weekly Awene, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
Dec 12 2007

Text of interview with Nizamettin Toguc in Cirnak, northern Kurdistan,
by Shirin Ali Yunis entitled: "Nizamettin Toguc: Turkish governments,
including Erdogan's, are enemies of the Kurdish people"

Nizamettin Toguc is a former DEP member of the Turkish parliament for
the city of Batman. In 1991, Toguc, Leyla Zana, Ahmet Turk, Orhan Dogan
[died of a heart attack in June 2007] and Zubeyir Aydar were elected
and formed a Kurdish parliamentary group. In 1993 he was seriously
injured in an attack by a Turkish chauvinist group.

Subsequently, he went to Brussels with a group of six Kurdish
parliamentarians and set up an office to defend the rights of DEP
parliamentarians and later established the Kurdistan parliament
abroad, laying the foundations for the Kurdistan National Congress,
KNK. He is now a member of the KNK leadership responsible for the
Kurdish community in Europe. We asked him a few questions about the
current status of Kurdish parliamentarians, the AKP [ruling Turkish
Justice and Development Party] policies and the recent crisis.

[Awene] What is the current status of Kurdish parliamentarians in
the Turkish parliament?

[Toguc] As you know, 22 members of the Turkish parliament are Kurds and
have immunity. They have set up a faction called Democratic Society
Party [Turkish: Demokratik Toplum Partasi], DTP, and are engaged in
a civil and democratic struggle for the settlement of the Kurdish
issue in a peaceful and democratic way. Regrettably, however, they
have been put under pressure from the outset by the Turkish regime
since they decline to describe the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] as
terrorist because the children or cousins of the parliamentarian are
guerrillas and they cannot describe their own children as terrorists.

[Awene] Do you consider the [government of the] Justice and Development
Party better equipped than previous governments to find an appropriate
solution?

[Toguc] The Justice Party has assumed power under a new guise and
wishes to regenerate Ottoman policies to annihilate the Kurdish
people. It continues efforts to establish an Islamic current in
northern Kurdistan to crack down on the PKK. I believe that Erdogan
follows a soft Islamic policy which is the most threatening policy
to eliminate opposition, particularly the Kurdish people. Therefore,
we do not see any difference between Erdogan's government and previous
Turkish governments: they are all arch enemies of the Kurdish people,
but the previous government's hostility was open while Erdogan's is
more subtle.

[Awene] How does the Kurdistan National Congress view Turkish
hostilities?

[Toguc] The presence of the PKK in southern Kurdistan is not new since
the PKK guerrillas have been in southern Qandil [mountain range on
the Iraq-Turkey border] and the main PKK leaders are in Kani Cheng
(Qandil). The Turkish army has crossed the Kurdistan Region border
many times without achieving anything, and the Turkish government
had reached an agreement with the Ba'thist regime against the Kurdish
national liberation movement. The Erdogan government is well aware of
these facts but it has chosen to ignore them. I can confidently say
that Turkey uses the attacks to put pressure on the USA, particularly
following the US Congress resolution on the genocide killing of
Armenians. Therefore, Turkey's objective may not be the PKK but the
Kurdistan regional government.

Turkey has always had three practical objectives that it dreams
about: firstly, to attack the PKK with the cooperation of the USA;
secondly, to destroy the stability in the Kurdistan Region and wipe
out the achievements made by the regional government; and thirdly,
to support the Kirkuk Turkomans in establishing an independent Turkish
region in the name of the Turkomans.

[Awene] Do you believe that Turkey will be able to cross the border
with the Kurdistan Region?

[Toguc] I do not believe so because it will backfire, since the whole
world has expressed its displeasure. It may launch air raids against
guerrilla positions but that will be of no consequence. I believe
that if Turkey crosses the border into Kurdistan, the region will
turn into another Vietnam.

[Awene] How do you assess the stances taken by NATO, Russia, China,
the USA and most of the major countries in the world, which are
against a military move by Turkey?

[Toguc] These are good and essential stances because a border-crossing
by Turkey will destroy the stability in southern Kurdistan, which is
the most stable area in Iraq. Furthermore, terrorist organizations
will replace the PKK if it moves out of Qandil and this will create
a big problem for the USA and the regional government.

turkey has never forgiven the West for the loss of these lands following WW1,
destabilisation of Iraqi Kurdistan is a prerequisite for their planned re-acquisition of these areas, regardless of the detrimental effect on the entire region, or deaths of troops from turkey's NATO allies.

[Steph]

turkey cranking up the propoganda machine

US comes to see Iraqi Kurds as problem, say Turkmens
Thursday, December 20, 2007



US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice 'taught a lesson' to the Kurdish leadership in northern Iraq during a snap visit, says chief Turkmen representative in Ankara

FULYA ÖZERKAN
ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

The United States has begun to understand the Kurdish-controlled administration in northern Iraq is becoming a problem, said the chief representative of the Iraqi Turkmen Front in Turkey Wednesday.

�The Kurdish leadership is both sheltering terrorists and attempting to seize the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk,� Ahmet Muratlı told the Turkish Daily News.

He said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice �taught a lesson� to the semi-autonomous administration in the north during a snap visit to Kirkuk Tuesday.

The unannounced visit by Rice coincided with the Turkish military's small-scale ground operation in hot pursuit of outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists, who use northern Iraq for attacks against Turkey.

The border problem has soured U.S. relations with the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurds. Rice did not hold a separate meeting with the Kurdish leadership while in Kirkuk, and Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani refused to attend a meeting with her in a show of protest against the U.S. position that limited cross-border attacks are legitimate. Rice later traveled to Baghdad for talks with senior Iraqi politicians.

In Kirkuk, Rice met with the Turkmen, Arab and Kurdish communities in the face of long-standing Kurdish demands to incorporate the oil-rich city into their autonomous region.

Muratlı told the TDN that Rice urged all the parties in Iraq to put aside their personal interests and see Iraq as a whole, something that runs contradictory to Iraqi Kurdish aspirations to own Kirkuk's oil resources and establish a separate state.

�This is a top-level message. The United States has demonstrated sensitivity about Kirkuk with this high-level visit and taught a lesson to Iraqi Kurds,� he said.

Rice's visit came a day after the Kurdish-controlled administration in the north agreed to put off for six months a promised referendum on the future of Kirkuk.

On referendum, Rice said the decision belongs to the Iraqis and called on all the parties concerned to reach a decision after democratic discussions, said Muratlı.

�This is a political opening,� he added.

Kathy Schallow, spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, repeated Washington's position on a referendum to determine the final status of Kirkuk.

�This is a decision for the Iraqis to make and we hope this decision will aid the reconciliation in the country,� she told the TDN.

Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution stipulates that the referendum be held by the end of this year.

Kirkuk, an ancient city that was once part of the Ottoman Empire, is home to Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds. Turkey repeatedly called for a delay in the planned vote in the face of Iraqi Kurdish claims for Kirkuk, which they hope to include in their region of self-rule. Turkish Foreign Ministry officials were not available Wednesday for further comments.

[Khorovatz]

Are you serious?

Kurds want eastern Turkey?! Those lands rightfully belong to Armenia and Kurds not even in their sweetest dreams will ever lay hand to those lands that rightfully belong to Armenians.

Kurds enjoy kissing butt to Armenians, because they have NO ONE in this world that supports their magical world of "Kurdistan". Turks, Iranians, and Iraqi's (Sunni's and Shia's) all have issues and conflicts with Kurds even today! Maybe they should be pointing the finger at themselves.

Kurds enjoy using Armenians as a defensive mean when they verbally attack Turkey. They are trying to ally themselves with us, to use us against the Turks.

Armenians should never ally themselves with Kurds nor Turks. Their brutality and hostility against Armenians will never be forgotten.

In 1894, in the village of Sassun (next to Mush; 40 miles west of Lake Van), Kurdish savages destroyed and raped Armenian villages. They brutally massacred Armenians. Not because "Turks told them to" but because of the rich resources that were in of Sassun and the Kurds were envy and jealous of those Armenian lands.

Thanks to General Antranig, we were able to defend ourselves against the Kurds and Turks.

Kurds have been wanting Armenian lands since 1894. By supporting an independent "Kurdistan", we are actually betraying our ancestors. We are finishing where the Kurds left-off.

[Khorovatz]

This is the kind of B.S. I am talking about..

http://kurdisharmenian.blogspot.com/

A website full of sheer lies and fantasy.

FYI, there is no such thing as "half-Kurdish and half-Armenian" which is claimed by the creator of the website

[xabi]

do you mad? please rememeber ASALA.