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

I
INTERNATIONAL HERAW TRIBUNE, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY Il, 1993
Turkey Causes Worry
The assassination two weeks ago of a
prominent liberal newspaper columnist in
Ankara was the 12th killing of a Turkish
journalist since the beginning of 1992.That
is the highest casualty rate for journalists of
any country in the world during that time -
even the Bosnian nightmare did not produce
a higher one - and it is disturbing to reflect
that this grisly record was set in a country
whose continued stability is an essential cornerstone
of much U.S. and NATO policy,
from Iraq to the Caucasus and the Balkans.
The death of Ugur Mumcu, killed bya
car bomb in front of his home on Jan. 24,
preceded a visit to the United States by
President Turgut Ozal, who, in meetings
and public statements, has been stressing
Turkey's importance as a model - secular
democracy, stable free-market economyfor
other Islamic countries. Previous administrations
have acknowledged that importance,
and President Bill Clinton's meeting
with Mr. Ozal on Monday suggested
that he does, too. The Turks may also be an
important bridge to the ethnically Turkic
republics that stretch across ex-Soviet Central
Asia and 'are now deciding between
Western and fundamentalist models. All
that makes Turkish violence and unrest
more than a domestic Turkish concern.
Much of the current strain stems from
the long war in thl: southeast against the
PKK, a Kurdish separatist guerrilla group
that the Ankara government has been trying
since 19R4 to crush. Casualties now
total nearly 2,000, but the corrosive effect
has been broader: widespread allegations of
human rights abuses, assassinations, growing
fear among journalists and human
rights lawyers for their own safety and
consequent political self-censorship. The
Gulf Warmade matters more complicated
by the establishment of a de facto Kurdish
state on the Iraqi side of the border; confusingly,
the Iraqi Kurdish forces are supposed
to be cooperating with the Turkish government
against the PKK.
The PKK itself pursues goals shared by
few Turkish Kurds, but it has gained wider
support among them because of the severity
of the government's repressive measures
against Kurds in the southeast and its longstanding
suppression of Kurdish language
and culture. Until 1990 it was illegal to
speak Kurdish in public; earlier a deputy of
the parliament was briefly jailed for stating
that there were Kurds in Turkey (they make
up a fifth of the population). Although
these laws have been eased, military abuses
in the southeast are widely alleged. The
international Committee to Protect Journalists
cites evidence of state involvement
in some of the killings.
Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel,
whose party took over power in the parliament
from MT. OzaI's in November 1991,
promised then to make prison walls "like
glass" and to end torture; Mr. Demirel has
also repeatedly said tJtegovernment will use
any means necessary to subdue the PKK.
But he has presided twice before over governments
that were overturned by a mili-
.tary coup after they failed to brake rising
disorder. Although Mr. Ozal no longer exercises
much direct power in Turkey, where
the president's role is mostly as a figurehead,
his new, Clinton-era contacts ought
to make clear to him that any erosion of
Turkish democracy is cause for worry.
- THE WASHINGTON POST.
ObeyUN,
Moscow
Tells Iraq
Rrulers
BAGHDAD - A Russian diplomat
said here Wednesday that
Moscow expected Iraq to comply
with Gulf War cease-fire terms 11Dposed
by the United Nations.
"Russia's position is firm," said
Igor Melekhov, deputy head of the
Foreign Ministry's Middle East department.
"Russia believes that the
situation requires that Iraq complies
with Security Council resolutions."
Mr. Melekhov arrived Monday
on the first high-level visit by a
Russian envoy since the Gulf War.
Baghdad had seized on recent
statements by President Boris N.
Yeltsin and his foreign minister as
a sign that Moscow's backing for
Western policy on Iraq was waning
after U.S.-led air and missile attacks
last month.
Mr. Meiekhov said he would
press Iraq to comply with all the
UN resolutions levJed against it after
its defeat in the war.
He said that Moscow was anxious
to preserve the good relations
that the former Soviet Union had
with Baghdad, its closest Middle
East ally until the war.
Moscow endorsed the U.S.-led
campaign to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.
It also supported the initial
strikes last month to force Iraqi
compliance, but said that later
raids were out of proportion to
Baghdad's actions. Mr. Yeltsin
criticized what he called Washin~ton's
tendency to "dictate condItions"
over international policy toward
Iraq.
Inquiets du sépal'atisme
kurde
La Syrie, l'Iran et la Turquie
réaffirment leur attachement
à l'intégrité territoriale de l'Irak
Tout en « incitant le gOl/vernement
irakien à obtempérer al/x
résollllions dl/ Conseil de sécl/rité
de l'ONU», la Syrie, la Turquie et
l'Iran ont affirmé, mercredi
10 février, que le peuple irakien
« ne devrait pas être sOI/mis indéjiniment
à des sanctions pal' la fäl/te
dl/ régime de Bagdad», et ont
réitéré leur attachement à
l'intégrité territoriale de l'Irak.
Les ministres des al1àires étrangères
syrien, M. Farouk AI Chareh
turc, M. Hikmet Cetin, et iranien:
M. Ali Akbar Velayati, ont
exprimé cc poinl de vue dans un
communiqué, à l'issue d'une réunion,
à Damas, consacrée à la
situation dans le nord de l'Irak à
majorité kurde. Les trois voisins 'de
l'Irak sont inquiets d'une éventuelle
contagion séparatiste au sein
de leurs propres minorités kurdes.
après l'adoption. à l'automne dernier,
par le « Parkment» kurde ira.
kien, du principe d'un Etat fédéré
kurde. «Notre rél/nion est I/n message
à cel/X ql/i pel/vent injll/er SI/I'
l'I/nité de /'Irak, mais nOl/s n'avons
aas l'intention de prendre des
mesl/res militaires Il, a affirmé •
M. AI Chareh. ~
De leur côté, les ministres ira- 0)
nien et turc ont minimisé les diver- ...
gences entre leurs deux pays - .ê
Ankara accuse certains milieux ira- .ä;
niens de soutenir « le terrorisme ....
intégriste'» en Turquie (le Monde C".I
du 6 février). M. Velayati a affirmé "0
que son pays «est déterminé à ren- ~
forcer ses relations avec la TI/rql/ie "0
et les pays voisins Il. Il a précisé ~
que Téhéran avait demandé aux >
dirigeants turcs de transmettre « les •
renseignements en lellr possession Il ~
pour pouvoir « enqllêter» sur les c::
assassinats d'opposants iraniens et 0
de journalistes turcs réeemmènt :2
perpétrés en Turquie. - (AFP.) ~
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