Turkish Forum

Tag: Kurdish Hizbullah

  • Iraq and Turkey: Regional cooperation will change the region

    Iraq and Turkey: Regional cooperation will change the region

     

    Agustos 12, 2008 tarihli bir TDN makalesi: Ilginize

     

    Tuesday, August 12, 2008

    While Iraq is in great pain because our eastern neighbor has decided to follow Saddam’s path to nihilism, our northern neighbor extends a hopeful hand of friendship, trust and promising prosperity

    Hussain SINJARI
      The last visit by a Turkish PM to our country was in 1990. Eighteen years later, a different Turkish PM comes to Baghdad. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is Islamic yet secular, a modern and open-minded leader who considers the sacred texts to be good for worshipping, more of cultural or spiritual values rather than to do with strategy, economics or the administration of the state. Moreover, he and his party do not interfere in the lifestyle of the people or their choices of belief. He and his party respect the individual freedoms of women and men.
      The government of our country did very well when it received our guest and his delegation in the most welcoming way Baghdad has ever seen so far. This visit made history when both sides signed “The Iraqi-Turkish High Strategic Cooperation Counci,” which is due to meet three times a year chaired by both PMs. The sectors of the cooperation are vitally important and include energy, military industry, security and politics.

    A historic visit:

      We know this historic visit was the fruit of good efforts of both President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nori al Maliki. It came after the obvious success on the ground of the latest military/security operations in different places in Basrah, Baghdad, Ramadi, Mosul and elsewhere where criminal gangs used to terrorize the civilians.

      The visit of Erdoğan could not possibly take place without this security success. The writer of this article is a witness to this improvement through a number of tours and walks during the day and night in Baghdad. In Abu Nawas, the famous Baghdadi avenue with cafes and restaurants on the bank of the River Tigris, universally known for its “mesguf,” or grilled fish, I was very surprised to see hundreds of families out there. A private security company, The Sandi Group, is in charge of the security of the place, checking cars, watching for terrorists and keeping order.

      Turkey is a semi-European country with its democratically elected parliament; free, independent and critical media; active and genuine civil society organizations; and the progress it has made in the fields of agriculture, industry, education, tourism or services. All of this and more shall help to create a unique regional cooperation between Turkey and our country, which has the largest oil reserve in the world and the best human resources in the Middle East. Yet, due to the long decades of dictatorship under which we wasted our national wealth on armaments, the liberation of Palestine, lies of propaganda and other destructive practices, our country is almost a wasteland. This is a sad reality but must be changed. To change it we need this kind of strategic regional cooperation to put energies together to rebuild and reconstruct.

      The Kurdish element:

      Along the Iraqi-Turkish border, the Kurdish people live. This existence could be of a great help and serve as “the bridge” between Turkey and Iraq. The armed insurgency must come to an end and people must follow civilized practices and methods to express themselves, demand rights and demonstrate grievances.  The “State” is not innocent and policies must be revised. And people listened to and cared for. 

      The Turkomen in Iraq and Arabs in Turkey are other examples that diversity could and should be an element for strength and wealth.

      While Iraq is in great pain because our eastern neighbor has decided to follow Saddam’s path to nihilism, our northern neighbor extends a hopeful hand of friendship, trust and promising prosperity.

    Basrah-Istanbul railway system:

      Here I come up with my proposal to both governments of Iraq and Turkey: Put as a top priority to run a most technologically modern and monumental railway between Basrah and Istanbul. And then a very modern highway for transport trucks and personal cars to connect Basrah to Istanbul. These two giant projects will attract large companies to invest while small businesses will flourish along the rail and the highway.

      In this way, Iraq will be linked to Europe via Istanbul and Turkey will be linked to the Gulf via Basrah.

      One does not need more than a glance to realize what a creation of wealth this should bring to the people of the two countries and for beyond — the Gulf and Europe.

      In our globalized world we need more “tolerancy diplomacy.” This new approach and concept means to find out common grounds according to mutual benefits regardless of differences in faiths, ideologies, ethnic or linguistic backgrounds. Iraq and Turkey and other states should explore the benefits of the acceptance of each other and recognition of each other’s rights. This is an application of the “The Turkish-Iraqi High Strategic Cooperation” to set an example for many others who are crippled by the evils of ideology.  

      ………

      Hussain Sinjari is an Iraqi commentator based in Baghdad and the president of Tolerancy International. (www.tolerancy.org)

       

    © 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr

     

  • Gang’s links with PKK, DHKP/C, Hizbullah exposed

    Gang’s links with PKK, DHKP/C, Hizbullah exposed

    This undated photo shows İP leader Doğu Perinçek (R), a chief suspect in the Ergenekon case, shaking hands with PKK members during a visit to a PKK camp. The terrorist group's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, walks next to him.

    Prosecutors in a landmark case over the investigation into Ergenekon, a criminal network suspected of plotting a coup against the government, have uncovered striking links between the gang and some key outlawed groups behind decades of bloody and provocative acts.

    An İstanbul court on Friday agreed to hear the case over the investigation into Ergenekon, in a move that will kick off the trial process for dozens of suspected gang members, including retired army officers, academics, journalists and businessmen.

    Prosecutors in the Ergenekon investigation have demanded that retired Brig. Gen. Veli Küçük, Cumhuriyet daily columnist İlhan Selçuk, Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate press spokeswoman Sevgi Erenerol, former İstanbul University Rector Kemal Alemdaroğlu and Workers’ Party (İP) leader Doğu Perinçek — believed to be leaders of the gang — each be sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and an additional 164 years. These five suspects will face various charges, including, but not limited to, “establishing a terrorist organization,” “attempting to overthrow the government of the Republic of Turkey by force or to block it from performing its duties,” “inciting the people to rebel against the Republic of Turkey,” “openly provoking hatred and hostility,” “inciting others to stage the 2006 Council of State shooting,” “attacking the Cumhuriyet daily’s İstanbul office with a hand grenade” and other similar crimes.

    The almost 2,500-page-long Ergenekon indictment has revealed serious connections between Ergenekon and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) and the Turkish Hizbullah (no relation to Lebanon-based Hezbullah).

    The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by a large majority of the international community, including the European Union and the United States, uses northern Iraq as a base from which to make attacks on Turkish soil. Turkey blames the PKK, which is fighting for an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey, for the deaths of 40,000 people over the past 25 years.

    The PKK has been behind many provocative attacks, some of which have been claimed by the organization itself, while others have been claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a PKK-affiliated group known largely for its terrorist attacks in big cities. A destructive explosion last year was set off by the PKK in Ankara. A powerful explosion in front of the Anafartalar shopping mall in the capital’s busy Ulus district during rush hour killed 10 and injured more than 100 on May 22, 2007.

    In October police forces averted a disaster in Ankara at the last minute after finding a van packed with explosives near a multistory parking lot. The van was loaded with hundreds of kilograms of explosives. PKK involvement in that incident had also been confirmed.

    The DHKP/C is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union and has claimed responsibility for a number of assassinations and bombings since the 1970s. The organization was originally formed in 1978 by Dursun Karataş.

    “It is being understood — from evidence in the investigation file, the interrogations and the documents that have been seized — that Küçük, one of the leaders of the Ergenekon terrorist organization, had a close relationship with the DHKP/C terrorist organization, used it in line with the goals and targets of the Ergenekon terrorist organization and kept it under control,” the indictment alleges.

    Turkish Hizbullah is a Kurdish, Sunni fundamentalist organization that arose in the late 1980s in southeastern Turkey. In the early 1990s, when the Turkish government’s conflict with the PKK was at its most fierce, Hizbullah began attacking suspected PKK sympathizers.

    “Pseudo-terrorist organizations should be established,” says a document allegedly belonging to Ergenekon and included in the indictment. The same document notes that Ergenekon doesn’t aim at destroying certain terrorist organizations, but at taking them under control and using them for its own purposes.

    The indictment includes testimonies from two confidential witnesses who had previously been in PKK camps. According to their testimonies, the coup against the elected civilian government on Sept. 12, 1980, which installed a military-civilian cabinet while proclaiming martial law, was announced beforehand to the outlawed PKK. Upon receiving this information, the PKK warned its members through brochures it published and made them flee abroad in groups while and bury its weapons beneath its shelters.

    One witness, codenamed “Deniz,” provided information about meetings between Ergenekon and intelligence officers of from other countries and explained that the now-jailed founder of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, left Turkey before the 1980 coup because he had been informed about it beforehand.

    Deniz said journalist Yalçın Küçük, also a suspected member of Ergenekon, went to Damascus to meet with Öcalan in 1993 and 1996. He explained that the Küçük guided Öcalan in his armed activities. Stressing that Küçük was like Öcalan’s brain, the witness said in 1996 it was Küçük who saved Öcalan from an assassination in Damascus.

    Deniz added that Hizbullah members were trained at the Gendarmerie Command. A reporter who took photographs of this training was later killed, the witness said.

    Perinçek is among the founders of the PKK

    In the indictment, it is claimed that İP leader Perinçek, who is currently under arrest, often met with Öcalan in Bekaa Valley and that he was among the founders of the PKK. The report also highlights an exchange of views between Perinçek and Öcalan’s attorneys.

    In a classified document prepared by Capt. Ceyhan Karagöz on Oct. 25, 1994, it is said that the PKK was founded on Oct. 27, 1978 in the village of Ziyaret in the eastern province of Diyarbakır by 25 people, including Öcalan and Perinçek.

    There are other documents indicating a relationship between Perinçek and the PKK. A letter addressed to Perinçek found at the house of journalist and Tuncay Güney, who now lives in Canada and works as a rabbi, a witness in the Ergenekon investigation, features a PKK seal and reads: “In our hard struggle, it is impossible to express your sacrifice and contributions in political, economic and arms-related terms with words. The Kurdish community, which has been exploited and exposed to the massacres of fascist Turkish armies, needs brave people like you who are respectful to human rights, struggle in the war for freedom and support our party without any reservations. … In the periods ahead, our party will be honored to cooperate with people like you. Revolutionary greetings.”

    The indictment also reveals that Güney said shipments of weapons to northern Iraq were also related to Perinçek.

    Zaman: Today’s Zaman, 28 July 2008