SOUTHEAST TURKEY PRESS SUMMARY FOR AUGUST 9-10, 2007

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ADANA 000104 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PINS PGOV PHUM TU SUBJECT: SOUTHEAST TURKEY PRESS SUMMARY FOR AUGUST 9-10, 2007 ¶1. This is the Southeastern Turkey press summary for August 9-10, 2007. Please note that Turkish press reports often contain errors or exaggerations; AmConsulate Adana does not vouch for the accuracy of the reports summarized here. POLITICAL: ¶2. HURRIYET: The Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, gave a "Red Dossier" to his Iraqi counterpart Hosyar Zebari, who accompanied the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri El Maliki on his visit to Turkey. The dossier, which contains the names of 150 top PKK militants and the El Kaide operatives who had undertaken actions in Turkey, has the following information: there are between 3,640 to 4,300 PKK terrorists on Iraq's soil; the Kandil Mountain is used as a base, with more than 500 terrorists operating out of it; the terrorists in the Kandil Mountain possess more than 10,000 hand grenades and mines, and more than 3,000 weapons; the terrorists also have small camps around the Kandil Mountain; the terrorists have built electric plants on creeks near the Ayhan and Harun camps; and the terrorists have political training schools, archives and food storages in Harun Camp. Lolan, Hakurk, Zap, Metina, Hinere, and Havasin are other important camps and the terrorists pursue organizational activities in the Hakurk camp. The number of terrorists in the Hakurk camp is around 550-700; the militants have a fully equipped hospital with 6-7 doctors in Kanicenge; and the organization [PKK] is getting its main food supply from Rania village. ¶3. RADIKAL/CUMHURIYET: Observers have reported that the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri El Maliki, wanted to include in the text of the security agreement a "General Amnesty" clause for the PKK militants while Turkey insisted on extradition of militants to Turkey and joint operations against the PKK. Since Turkey dismissed Iraq's proposal and demanded recognition of the bilateral agreements signed during Saddam's reign, which allowed Turkey to penetrate 75 kilometers into Iraq to form a "security belt," the two governments failed to reach an agreement. The Iraqi Government's Speaker, Ali Debbag, said that Saddam's era was over and that Turkey should work on signing new agreements with the new Iraqi Government. Debbag stressed that his country would not accept an incursion by Turkey into Iraq and that the new Iraqi Government was compelled to take the demands of the Kurdish Administration into consideration. ¶4. EVRENSEL/GUNDEM: The 7th Munzur Culture and Nature Festival starts today in Tunceli. The DTP affiliate Tunceli Mayor Songul Erol Abdil expressed wishes for "peoples' brotherhood to flow from the Munzur River and nature to be allowed to survive." Mayor Abdil said the festival aimed at unifying people against the construction of dams over the Munzur River. The Tunceli Governorate did not allow two documentaries about Tunceli to be played, on the grounds that they did not have the proper copyrights. ¶5. EVRENSEL/CUMHURIYET: A six-person European Union (EU) delegation visited Diyarbakir and met with the Mayor of Sur district and city council members, all of whom were dismissed from office for supporting multilingualism and multiculturalism in municipal services. The delegation will prepare a report about the case. The Diyarbakir Mayor, Osman Baydemir, prepared a tourist guide of historical sites in Diyarbakir in Kurdish, Turkish, English, German, and French languages under the GAP Cultural Heritage Development Project financed by the EU. ¶6. GUNDEM: The Tunceli Public Prosecutor pressed charges against Yasar Kaya, the Tunceli Central District Chairman of EMEP Party (Toil Party),and EMEP members, Haydar Yildiz and Huzeyin Guzel, and the Municipal Board member, Ali Tutmez, for using the letter "w" in the "Newroz" [Nevruz] handouts they had delivered. The Prosecutor said that the letter "w" was not a Turkish letter and that using it was a violation of the Letter Law. He added that the phrase "the brotherhood of Turkish and Kurdish people" could not be used, according to article 81 of the Political Parties' Law, which states that "Political parties cannot claim that there are national, or religious, or cultural, or sectarian or ethnically based minorities in the Turkish Republic. The Representative of the Tunceli Branch of the Human Rights Association, Attorney Baris Yildirim, said that articles concerning minority rights existed in the Constitution of the Turkish Republic and that Turkey had signed international agreements concerning the topic but that the Political Parties' Law contradicted the Constitution. ADANA 00000104 002 OF 003 ¶7. GUNDEM/EVRENSEL: In order to protest the disappearance, while in jandarma detention, of HADEP administrators Serdar Tanis and Ebubekir Deniz in the Silopi district of Sirnak in January 2001, the DTP's Siirt Provincial Office held a silent sit-in protest in April 2001. Police arrested 41 demonstrators on charges of violating the Demonstration Marches Law. 30 of the detainees were acquitted and 10 persons served varying sentences. The DTP's Provincial Chair for Siirt province, Abdurrahman Tasi, was given 15 months of imprisonment. Tasci appealed his case but the Supreme Court endorsed the court's decision. Tasci has been incarcerated in Siirt's E-type prison. ¶8. ZAMAN: The TGS has been signaling a potential cross-border operation into Northern Iraq by increasing its demining activities along the routs to be used by troops. A Special Demining Unit cleared mines in the Caliskan village of Silopi, in the Habur-2 border region, and the surrounding of the Bestler valley and Besta Military Outpost in Sirnak province. The Demining Unit is currently engaged in demining activities in the Hakkari, Cukurca and Yuksekova regions. According to the data by the Human Rights Association, 838 people lost their lives and 937 were wounded in 512 mine explosions. 394 civilians, 244 children, 334 security officials, and 3 PKK terrorists fell victim to mine explosions. ¶9. SABAH GUNEY: Mehmet Aslan, the President of Chamber of Commerce of Gaziantep, stated that he had discussed, with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki in Ankara, the problems that Turkish and Iraqi businessmen had encountered in their trade with Iraq. Aslan announced that Maliki had promised to open a Consulate General in Gaziantep. SECURITY ¶10. SABAH GUNEY/CUKUROVA HURRIYET: The Security Director of Mardin province, Ismet Tashan, announced that 41 clips and 55 bullets for 28 US-made weapons of various calibers, which had been reported missing, were seized in Mardin. Tashan stated that the weapons had been smuggled into Turkey from Northern Iraq. 7 of the 8 persons arrested for alleged connections with smuggling the weapons were imprisoned by the court. The terrorists' connections with the seized weapons are being investigated. Based on a tip that drugs would be dispatched from Mardin to Mersin, police launched an operation in Mardin on August 3, seized 1.8 kilos of heroin, and detained 3 people. One of the detainees, named in the paper as "F.E.," was imprisoned by the court. ¶11. ZAMAN: The Turkish General Staff (TGS) announced that two soldiers were killed by a PKK mine in the rural Sirnak and that a large scale operation had been launched to capture the terrorist perpetrators. The TGS said that 43 of the 79 soldiers martyred in 2007 had been killed by PKK mines and added that the mines were remotely activated by "jammers" when soldiers were passing by on their return from operations. ¶12. RADIKAL/GUNDEM: The 7th Corps Command's Military Court freed Chief Sergeant Gultekin Sutcu, who had solicited the kidnapping and killing of Mehmet Serif Avsar in Diyarbakir in ¶1994. The 3rd Felony Court of Diyarbakir had asked for life imprisonment for Sergeant Sutcu and had sent the file to the Military Court due to jurisdiction issues. Avsar's attorney, Sezgin Tanrikulu, stated at a press conference that he would appeal the decision and indicated that JITEM members (Jandarma Intelligence Center) had been involved in hundreds of mysterious killings in the region. Tanrikulu added that jandarma involvement in this case had been made concrete for the first time. ¶13. GUNDEM: The PKK announced that 7 soldiers had been wounded in clashes in the rural Mergezer region of Hakkari on August 5. The body of PKK militant Kemal Civandag, AKA Deli Pir, was taken from the Tunceli State Hospital to his hometown of Erzincan for burial. CRIME & LAW ENFORCEMENT ¶14. BOLGE: 22 Somali, Palestine, Syrian, and Iraqi nationals, who had illegally passed into Turkey, have been arrested in the rural Gorentas village of Yayladag district of Hatay province, which borders Syria. Officials said the foreign nationals would be deported after their depositions. ECONOMY ADANA 00000104 003 OF 003 ¶15. CUKUROVA HURRIYET/BOLGE: Mersin Governor Huseyin Aksoy and a technical committee have been looking for a proper place for an airport for Mersin. State Minister Kursat Tuzmen had brought up the issue of constructing an airport in Mersin during the July 22 General Election campaign. ¶16. SABAH GUNEY: Vedat Kahyalar, Director of the Haci Sabanci Organized Industrial Zone in Adana, announced that a Specialized Agricultural Industrial Zone, which will not use soil but other mixtures such as perlite, turf, coconut fiber, and rock wool for growing potting plants, would be built on 912 acres in Adana, creating more than 10,000 jobs. GREEN