From mail06672@pop.net Fri Sep 22 15:59:37 1995 Received: from relay4.UU.NET (relay4.UU.NET [192.48.96.14]) by locust.cic.net (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) with SMTP id PAA07629 for ; Fri, 22 Sep 1995 15:59:30 -0400 Received: from alterdial.UU.NET by relay4.UU.NET with SMTP id QQziih16780; Fri, 22 Sep 1995 15:59:02 -0400 Received: from [205.230.244.3] by alterdial.UU.NET with SMTP id QQziih22092; Fri, 22 Sep 1995 15:58:30 -0400 Message-Id: X-Sender: mail06672@alterdial.uu.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 16:03:17 -0500 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: mail06672@pop.net (AKIN) Subject: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Staff Report On Turkey Status: RO FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE STAFF REPORT ON TURKEY (United States Senate - September 15, 1995) [Page: S13655] Mr. PELL. Mr. President, during the August recess two members of the Foreign Relations Committee minority staff traveled to Turkey at my direction to assess a range of issues related to United States-Turkish bilateral relations. Turkey, one of the largest recipients of United States military assistance, is an important United States ally in a dangerous and unstable region. It is therefore, incumbent upon us to take a close look at what is occurring in Turkey--the threats to its security, its political struggles, and its human rights situation. In particular, I asked my staff to focus on Turkey's Kurdish problem, which has broad implications for regional stability, as well as Turkey's relations with the West. Among the staff's findings is that the Kurdistan Workers' Party [PKK] poses a grave threat not only to Turkey, but to regional stability as well. At the same time, the Government of Turkey is unable--or unwilling--to distinguish the genuine threat posed by the PKK from the legitimate rights and aspirations of the Kurdish people. Turkey is responding with a heavy-handed, indiscriminate military campaign against the Kurds, even as it shuts off opportunities for nonviolent, Kurdish political expression. Consequently, Turkey may be fomenting, rather than preventing Kurdish separatism. I believe this report makes an important contribution to the Congress' consideration of the United States approach toward Turkey. I ask unanimous consent that the `Summary of Key Findings' be placed into the Record at this point, and would commend the full report, which is a available at the Foreign Relations Committee office, to my colleagues' attention. Summary of Key Findings Turkey, which places a high priority on good relations with the West in general and the United States in particular, is an important U.S. ally in a dangerous and unstable neighborhood: Three of its immediate neighbors--Iran, Iraq, and Syria--are on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism; it is engaged in an economic and political competition with Russia for influence in and access to the resources of Central Asia and the Caucasus; there is ongoing conflict to Turkey's north--in Georgia and between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Turkey is not, however, a disinterested in neutral party, it is openly sympathetic to Azerbaijan's position, and although it has opened an air corridor to Armenia, Turkey maintains a road and rail blockade; it continues to spar with Greece over Cyprus and other issues, in particular, a dispute over maritime boundaries in the wake of Greece's ratification of the Law of the Sea treaty threatens to bring Turkey and Greece into outright conflict. The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) poses a grave threat not only to Turkey, but to regional stability as well. The PKK--which employs deadly terrorist tactics against innocent noncombatants in Turkey and against innocent civilians elsewhere in the Middle East and Europe--bears direct responsibility for much of the tensions in southeast Turkey and for prompting the recent Turkish invasions of Iraq. Operation Provide Comfort, the allied humanitarian and security operation in Northern Iraq, is a critical element of U.S. and Western strategies with regard to Iraq, and may be the only thing preventing tens of thousands of Kurds from pouring into southeastern Turkey. Although some Turkish officials recognize these facts and military officials at Incirlik have provided splendid cooperation to their British, French and American counterparts, other Turkish military and political officials (including parliamentarians) argue that Provide Comfort offers the PKK protection and cover in Northern Iraq. This rather schizophrenic view of Provide Comfort makes Turkey appear a relucant participant in the allied effort, which Turkey has exploited to its advantage in dealings with its allies. In keeping with traditions established during the days of Mustafa Kemal Attaturk, Turkey has an almost paranoid fear of losing its Turkish identity. The government of Turkey accordingly is unable--or unwilling--to distinguish the genuine threat posed by the PKK from the legitimate rights and aspirations of the Kurdish people. As a result, Turkey refuses to engage in a political dialogue with nonviolent Kurdish representatives, and is executing a heavy-handed, indiscriminate military campaign to eradicate what it views as a monolithic threat to the unity of the country. The city of Diyarbakir, which symbolizes the ethnic difficulties that persist within Turkey, has become a haven for rural Kurds forced to evacuate neighboring towns and villages destroyed by the Turkish military. By some estimates, the city's population has grown from roughly 300,000 to more than 1,500,000 during the past five years. Although Turkish officials, local residents, and some independent observers suggest that tensions have subsided during the past two years, it is evident that any existing calm is tenuous and the result of Turkey's overwhelming--and at times oppressive--security presence, which has exacted a high cost in terms of human rights violations. Turkey's government refuses even to acknowledge that there is a `Kurdish problem,' and thereby is ignoring the real issue. By equating all Kurdish aspirations with the terrorist designs of the PKK, Turkey effectively has eliminated outlets for nonviolent Kurdish political or cultural expression. As a consequence, Turkey unintentionally may be contributing to the PKK's appeal. Turkey desperately wants to join the European Union's Customs Union, and is making some effort to meet the European Parliament's minimum demands regarding democratization and human rights in order to achieve membership. It may even make some modifications to Article 8 of the Anti-Terror law (which prohibits the advocacy of separatism). Turkey will not, however, take any action which it perceive as comprising the Turkish identity, so there are limits to the amount of genuine change it will make to gain membership in the Customs Union. It is equally unclear that the West would have much impact on Turkish behavior by withholding benefits such as Customs Union membership. Despite claims that it regards fundamentalism as a threat to its secular heritage, the government of Turkey appears to be encouraging and even sponsoring Islamic activities in an attempt to bind the country together and defuse separaist sentiment. Such a strategy--which parallels efforts of governments in the Near East seeking to counter radical lefist groups during the 1970s and early 1980s--could backfire and inadvertently provide a foothold for Islamic extremists. ---- American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) 2309 Calvert Street, NW Suite #3 Washington, DC 20008-2603 Tel: (202) 483-6444 Fax: (202) 483-6476 Email: mail06672@pop.net