Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
everyone is dealing with and taking seriously, whereas
we're not dealing with Iranians seriously and we're not
dealing with them as a powerful state. We're pushing
them into a corner."
Compounding Arab concerns is that Iran, which is Muslim
but not Arab, is poised to become the region's second
nuclear power, after Israel.
"Certainly I wouldn't like to see an American policy that
would shift 180 degrees and jump into the arms of the
Iranians. But we have to engage with Iran, and we have
to be sure Iran should understand they can become a
better society and better country and better state without
having nuclear power," said Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed al-
Nahayan, the United Arab Emirates information minister.
Top Iranian officials insist their nuclear program is for
peaceful purposes, and that their goal is to be a regional
team player and not to impose their will on Iraq or any
other Middle Eastern country.
"It's not to Iran's advantage to impose on Iraq the way
America did," Rezaei said. "After this, the Iraqi people will
look to a regional solution with the help of the countries in
the region."
Iran's new sense of self-confidence has been felt most
recently in European capitals, where leaders were warned
of a chill in relations with the oil-rich nation if they refused
to remove impediments to its pursuit of nuclear power.
In a rare diplomatic outburst against its Arab neighbors,
Iran recently clashed repeatedly with the United Arab
Emirates over fishing rights near islands that both claim.
Soon thereafter, on Monday, Iranian authorities arrested
eight British sailors in three boats that were patrolling the
Shatt-al-Arab near the southern Iraqi city of Basra. They
entered what Iran insisted was its territory. The sailors
were released four days later.
Iran has kept a low profile in Iraqi affairs. It has embraced
each coalition-approved Iraqi council, while echoing
widespread Iraqi calls for timely free elections.
The Iranian strategy has gone far to win over Iraq's longoppressed
Shiite Muslims. Their ties have been
strengthened as Iraqis watched security slip,
reconstruction falter and elections delayed under the
U.S.-led occupation.
The Islamic fundamentalist tone of Iraqi insurgents also is
in tune with Iran's increasingly hard-line government.
Iranian troops reportedly guard a leading Iraqi Shiite
cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, and
Iranian agents are suspected to have crossed into Iraq
with the mass pilgrimages of ordinary Iranians to the
Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, and they appear to
wield some control over Shiite insurgents, according to
diplomatic officials in the region.
How much influence Iran will have in Iraq is uncertain. For
one, Iraq is teetering on the brink of civil war, with Kurds
and Sunni Muslims determined to limit the Shiites' role in
the new government. Squabbles among Shiite factions
are another threat.
There also is widespread resistance to Iranian-style rule
by religious leaders among Iraqi Shiites, who prefer
Sistani's approach, in which religious leaders offer
guidance from behind the scenes. '
. Nevertheless, Iran will likely be the social, political and
economic center of Shiites from Lebanon to Afghanistan,
who share a powerful sense of historical oppression.
That's discomforting to many Arab leaders in the region,
who have long abandoned their support for Iran's Islamic
revolution. Iran's ruling Shiite clerics have made little
secret of their disdain for pro-Western Arab rulers who are
Sunni Muslims. The Islamic republic's founder, Grand
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared Saudi Arabia's
rulers unfit to be guardians of Islam's holiest cities, Mecca
and Medina.
Turkey's head scarf ban
is upheld by rights court
From news reports
certain fundamentalist religious move-
STRASBOURG: Banning Muslim ments frompressuring students who do
head scarves in state schools does not not practice the religion in question or
those belongingto another religion can
violatethe freedom of religion and is a be justified" '
valid way to counter Islamic funda- Bans issued in the name of the sepamentalism,the
European Court of Hu- ration of church and state could thereman
Rightssaid Thesday.
fore be considered "necessary in a
The court unanimously rejected ap~
peals by a Thrkish student barred from democratic society," said the court,
attending the Istanbul Universitymed- which is part of the Strasbourg-based
ical school in 1998because her head- Council of Europe, whose 45 members
, scarf violatedthe officialdress code. include Thrkey.
The court decision,which takes pre- The ruling was a,victory for Thrkey,
cedence over national court rulings, an overwhelmingly Muslim society
could help the Fre~chgovernment face that has imposed a rigidly secular syscourt
cases it. expects to be filed' in, tem since the 1920sand faces growing
September against a headscarf ban it scrutinyabout Islam as it movestoward
plans to imposein state schools. the membership it seeks in the Euro-
The Union of FrenchIslamic Organi- pean Union. ,
zationsdenounced the ruling as politic- The governin, Justice and Developal
and saidMuslimswouldconsider it a ment Party, WhIchhas Islamist roots,
formof persecution. has consideredtrying to end the ban but ,
In its ruling, .the court said: "Mea- backed off after opposition from the
sures taken ,in universities to.prevent stronglysecutill military.
The ruling also lends support to the
French government's argument that its ,
head scarf ban counters possible pres-
. sure on unveiled Muslim schoolgirls to
join a religious revival evident among
some of France's 'fivemillion Muslims,
the larges'tIslamic minority in Europe.
. Lhaj Thami Breze, president of the
. Union of French Islamic Organizations,
said, "The courts are starting to follow
,the politicians." Breze argues that freedom
of religion allows Muslim schoolgirls
to wear scarves.
The decision could affect cases in
Germany, where Muslim teachers are
appealing against laws barring them
from coveringtheir heads. (Reuters, AP)
International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, June 30,2004
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