From: Guven.Guzeldere%STANFORD.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU (hq.ggg)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Saturdays News--Part II
Date: 22 Nov 1992 18:55:44 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
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Part II
    KURDISH GUERRILLAS KILL NINE IN TURKEY
    ANKARA (NOV. 15) - At least four people were killed and
10 injured Sunday night when guerrillas of the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) attacked a tea house in the east Turkish
village of Asagi Alican, the Anadolu news agency reported.
    Near Kulp, the body of the mayor of Agacli village, in
the southeastern province Diyarbakir, was found Sunday with
a bullet wound in the head, officials said. The mayor had
been kidnapped by PKK fighters a week ago.
    On Saturday night near Savur in the southeastern
province Mardin, PKK guerrillas ambushed a vehicle carrying
village watchmen, killing four of them, security officials
said Sunday.

    FOUR TURKISH POLICEMEN SHOT DEAD IN ISTANBUL ATTACK
    ISTANBUL (NOV. 17) - Unidentified gunmen ambushed a
police car in a suburb of Istanbul on Tuesday, killing the
four occupants, a police spokesman said.
    The assailants, who fled undetected, were probably
members of a left-wing underground movement, Istanbul police
chief Necdet Menzir said.

    AZERBAIJAN ESTABLISHES DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH SOVIET
GEORGIA
    BAKU (NOV. 18) - TWO FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS, AZERBAIJAN
AND GEORGIA, AGREED TO ESTABLISH DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS ON
WEDNESDAY.
    A CORRESPONDING PROTOCOL WAS SIGNED  BY AZERBAIJANI
FOREIGN MINISTER TOFIK GASYMOV AND HIS GEORGIAN COUNTERPART
ALEXANDER CHIKVAIDZE.
    BOTH MINISTERS TOLD REPORTERS THAT THE DOCUMENT IS "THE
BASIS FOR  DEVELOPING RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO
TRANSCAUCASIAN REPUBLICS ON  A NEW LEVEL".

    TURKEY TO BUILD 70 BORDER MILITARY POSTS FOR IRAQI KURDS
    ANKARA, TURKEY (NOV. 18) - Turkey will build 70 military
posts inside Iraq as part of a plan to stop Turkish Kurd
guerrillas from entering from the north, the semi-official
Anatolian News Agency said Wednesday.
    Chief of Staff Gen. Dogan Gures said the threat to
Turkey from the guerrillas of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers
Party, or PKK, had been removed by the successful one-month
military operation launched Oct. 16.
    Anatolian quoted Gures as saying Turkey would build 70
military posts in northern Iraq to be manned by Iraqi Kurds,
but if they failed to prevent PKK rebels from crossing the
border, Ankara would not hesitate to launch another
offensive to crush the separatists.
    The PKK, a Marxist guerrilla organization, has vowed to
set up an independent Kurdish state on Turkish soil, and
renewed its attacks on the security forces inside Turkey
after the offensive in northern Iraq ended.
    Gures's disclosure that Turkey is to build the military
posts came after a meeting last week between Turkish
military commanders and Iraqi Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani
and Massoud Barzani.
    The Iraqi Kurds pledged they would position their own
forces in the military posts, but sought Turkish assistance
to build them, the Istanbul newspaper Milliyet said. Ankara
was also expected to provide communications and other
facilities.
    Turkey was reported to be gradually pulling out its
troops from northern Iraq after reports in Ankara said the
Turkish forces killed 1, 800 PKK rebels and wounded or
captured another 2,700 during the recent offensive.
    A military offensive against the PKK inside Turkey will
probably begin shortly in the Mount Cudi area, with the
troops sweeping forward in stages and going cross-country,
rather than restricting themselves to towns, sources in
Ankara said.
    Turkish political sources said there were believed to be
7,000 PKK rebels inside Turkey - twice the number Prime
Minister Suleyman Demirel mentioned at a press conference
last month.
    Some 1,000 PKK rebels were reported to have surrendered
to the Iraqi Kurds during the offensive in northern Iraq,
but PKK commander Osman Ocalan said in a TV interview aired
in Turkey that no surrender occurred.
    He said the PKK merely agreed to move its camps further
inside Iraq, and closer to the Iranian border. Independent
reports in Ankara said only 1,000 PKK rebels may have been
killed in the offensive. Ocalan said only 100 rebels died.

    CAUCASUS NATIONALITY CONFLICTS REPORTEDLY CLAIM MORE
LIVES
    MOSCOW (NOV. 19) - Nationality conflicts in the Caucasus
region claimed more lives Thursday as fighting flared in
Abkhazia and in the disputed enclave of Nagorny-Karabakh,
Moscow news agencies reported.
    At least 24 people were killed in Abkhazia which is
seeking to break away from Georgia. Georgian and Abkhazian
units hurled missiles and artillery shells at each other and
tanks were deployed.
    Combat focussed, as on Wednesday, on positions around
the Gumista river close to the Abkhazian capital Sukhumi and
around the Black Sea port of Ochamchire to the southeast.
    Meanwhile, in the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorny-
Karabakh there was renewed fighting between Armenians and
Azerbaijanis Thursday.
    Military authorities in Nagorny-Karabakh said the
districts of Mardakert, Gadrut and Martuni were targetted by
Azerbaijani forces.
    Azerbaijan defence ministry officials said shells fell
on the districts of Agdam and Sangelan. As on Wednesday
there were no details of casualties.
    In the autonomous Chechen republic, where a crisis was
defused Wednesday after Russian and Chechen troops pulled
back from the disputed area of Ingushetia, Moscow placed
units on full alert in a bid to fight a rising tide of
common crime in the region, agencies reported.

    TURKEY INVITES BALKAN COUNTRIES TO CONFERENCE ABOUT
BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
    ANKARA, TURKEY (NOV. 19) - Turkey has invited several
countries in the Balkans to a regional conference to discuss
the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a Foreign Ministry
official said Thursday.
    Ankara took the initiative after expressing
dissatisfaction with the resolution passed in the U.N.
Security Council Monday authorizing an international naval
blockade to enforce economic sanctions on Serbia and
Montenegro, or ''little Yugoslavia.''
    Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Filiz Dincer said the
resolution, prepared by Belgium, the United States and
Britain, ''was far from satisfactory.''
    She said Turkey has invited the Balkan states, including
Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and Greece, to attend a
conference in Istanbul Nov. 25 to discuss the situation in
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
    ''There are two dimensions to this problem,'' Dincer
said. ''One is to immediately stop the bloodshed in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, and the other is the fear that the conflict
might spread to other regions.''
    Earlier, the Foreign Ministry expressed fears the
fighting in former Yugoslavia may spread to Kosovo, where
ethnic Albanian Muslims are seeking to break away from
Serbia.
    Dincer said Ankara would try ''to keep up the momentum''
of efforts to end the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and
would use all the means at its disposal to get the Security
Council ''to pass a more efficient resolution.''
    Efforts would also be made to stop Serbia from making
aggressive moves against its neighbors, she said.
    Ankara has invited Hungary and Austria to attend the
Balkans conference. Though these two countries are not
strictly Balkan states, ''they would be most affected in
case the conflict spreads,'' Dincer said.
    Other states invited included the former Yugoslav
republics of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
    In Athens, government spokesman Vassilis Magginas said
Greece would not attend the Istanbul conference.
    ''Initiatives have already been taken by the United
Nations and the European Community to confront the problems
which have arisen due to the break-up of Yugoslavia,'' he
said.
    ''The Geneva conference is continuing its sessions, and
French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas has additionally
proposed to the European Community a meeting of Community
representatives on the same issue,'' Magginas said.
    For the past few months, Athens has blocked E.C.
recognition of Macedonia if it continued to use the name
''Macedonia'' internationally. Political analysts said
Greece could not attend a conference where the breakaway
state attended under that name.

    KURDS IN EUROPE VOTE FOR "NATIONAL PARLIAMENT"; TURKEY
PROTESTS
    COLOGNE, GERMANY (NOV. 20) - Primary elections for a
planned Kurdish ''national parliament'' in Turkey's Kurd-
populated areas began in Germany and 10 other European
countries Friday amid protests by the Turkish government.
    Kurds living in Europe and at least 18 years old have
three days to cast their ballots for a European conference,
which is to then choose 10 of its number to send to the
parliament.
    Turkey says the vote is illegal.
    In a statement released in Cologne on Friday, a Kurdish
''General Electoral Commission-Europe'' said the vote would
''pave the way for Kurdistan's representation on an
international level''.
    It said the balloting was the third historic step in
Kurds' fight for independence in Turkey after the founding
of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in 1978 and the
''beginning of the armed struggle'' in 1984.
    A spokesman for the Turkish embassy in Bonn said Friday
that the vote was organised by ''offshoots of the PKK'' and
violated the Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe.
    The guerrilla war by Kurdish fighters seeking to
establish an autonomous Kurdish state has so far claimed the
lives of about 1,000 soldiers and policemen, 1,200 civilians
and 2,000 active or suspected Kurdish separatists.

    TURKISH JOURNALIST SHOT DEAD IN DIYARBAKIR
    ANKARA (NOV. 20) - A Turkish journalist was shot dead in
a street in the provincial capital of Diyarbakir Friday -
the tenth journalist to be murdered during the unrest this
year in Turkey's eastern and south-eastern provinces.
    The murdered journalist, Namik Taranci, worked for the
left-wing weekly Gercek. The unidentified attacker, believed
to be about 18 years old, managed to escape.
    Near Sason, in the eastern Turkish province of Batman,
guerrillas belonging to the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK)
kidnapped 21 people after stopping several vehicles,
security forces said Friday. The guerrillas later freed 12
of the hostages in the incident Thursday evening.

    INDIA JOSTLES WITH ISLAMIC NATIONS FOR ROLE IN CENTRAL
ASIA
    NEW DELHI (NOV. 20) - Slow off the starting block, India
is moving quick to gain a foothold in central Asia - a gold
mine for economies in quest of markets and a region of
immense strategic importance.
    Trailing behind Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
which a year ago extended hands of economic and religious
friendship, New Delhi has sent ministers and officials
darting between Kazakhstan, Kirgistan, Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan.
    During the long years of communist rule, India had
little direct contact with the region on the underbelly of
the former Soviet Union.
    Now as religious and ethnic links shape alliances in
Central Asia, New Delhi worries there will be new voices in
world fora to back Pakistan's claims to the muslim-majority
northern Indian state of Kashmir if it does not seal
friendships.
    Indian Junior Foreign Minister Raghunandan Lal Bhatia
and deputy Commerce Minister Salman Khurshid visited the
region within a week of each other renewing ties that could
also be economically beneficial for India in years to come.
    Khurshid, who returned last week says while India will
not be able to match credits up to $600 million being
offered by the republics' rich Muslim neighbors and even
Pakistan, Indian businessmen have established their
presence.
    Vikram Chopra, a member of the business delegation that
accompanied the minister, says his company Shaw Wallace has
clinched a deal to set up a distillery in Uzbekistan and
numerous contracts to supply Indian liquor.
    Turkey has given $200 million each to Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan. We can't compete at that level," says a senior
foreign ministry official.
    India's contribution to the mineral-rich but cash-
strapped region has been less than modest. Khurshid
announced credits of $10 million each to Uzbekistan and
Kazakhstan and half that amount to Kirgistan and
Turkmenistan.
    With the only available access to landlocked Central
Asia through the Black Sea port of Odessa, Indian exporters
face higher freight costs which eat into their comparative
advantage.
    Last week in New Delhi, officials discussed a possible
route through the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas with the
country's visiting Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati.
    India is helping iran lay a 200-km railway line between
Bandar Abbas and Ashkabad on its border with Turkmenistan.
    Officials and journalists who have travelled to Central
Asia speak of the tremendous emotional goodwill for India.
Links between the two region's are traced back to many
centuries.
    However, in the newly independent region where Islam has
replaced communism, there is no denying that it is a rocky
road to strong political ties.
    Pakistan, sandwiched between India and Central Asia, has
already opened shop with an embassy in all the five states.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has visited Uzbekistan, and his
minister of economics has called on government officials in
every country.
    Experts here say Pakistan has an edge with Azerbaijan,
Tajikistan and Turkmenistan in the Islamic common market
grouping of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), and
two of the three represented in the Organization of Islamic
Countries (OIC).
    Pakistan has a natural yearning for united functioning
of the Islamic countries in the region," comments S.K. Singh
former Indian ambassador to Islamabad, warning that any such
regional coalition will be inimical to Indian interests.
    K.R. Singh, professor of international relations at the
Jawaharlal Nehru University, suggests, "India should evolve
a policy for the region as a whole. Bilateral relations
would ultimately become the foundation on which an effective
regional policy can be based."
    While the region's governments are still more secular
than Islamic, some officials feel that Central Asia's
religious identity could color relations with India vis-a-
vis Pakistan.
    But there are others who caution against reading too
much into the 'Islamization wave' in Central Asia. Madhavan
Palat, an expert in Soviet studies, says the assertion of
Islam is "to establish their independent identities."
    And an editorial last week in "The Hindustan Times"
adds, "the dominant desire of the Central Asians seems not
to court Islamic fundamentalism...India's response should be
positive and free from any ideological inhibitions."

    TURKEY SIGNS MILITARY COOPERATION AGREEMENT WITH ALBANIA
    ANKARA, TURKEY (NOV. 20) - Turkey, worried that other
ethnic wars may break out if Serbian attacks on Muslims in
Bosnia-Herzegovina spread to other groups in the region,
signed a military cooperation agreement with Albania,
diplomatic sources said Friday.
    The agreement was signed in Tirana, Albania, Thursday by
Turkish Defense Minister Nevzat Ayaz and his Albanian
counterpart Seffet Jaluli.
    Diplomatic sources said the pact was the first to allow
military cooperation between Albania and a non-communist
country since World War II. Albania has also signed a
similar agreement with NATO, of which Turkey is a member.
    The agreement, originally drafted in July, was signed
during Ayaz's visit to Tirana Wednesday and Thursday. The
trip was the first by a Turkish defense minister to Albania.
    Turkey's semi-official Anatolian News Agency said in a
dispatch from Tirana the agreement allowed Albanian military
officers to be trained in Turkish military schools and for
Albania to receive technical assistance from Turkey.
    Under another agreement signed Thursday, the two
countries are to exchange information on defense matters.
    Wednesday, Julali told reporters in Tirana the Albanian
army needed external military assistance, particularly from
Turkey.
    He said Albania wanted peace in the region, but there
was a threat of war in Kosovo, a province of Serbia where
Albanian Muslims are seeking independence from Belgrade.
    Julali also mentioned tension in neighboring Macedonia.
The former Yugoslav republic broke away earlier this year
from the federation and is also considered to be under
threat of attack by Serbia.
    Anatolian quoted Ayaz as saying at a press conference in
Tirana that if the conflict in former Yugoslavia spreads to
Kosovo or Macedonia, it could spark a Balkans war. He said
the problem should be resolved through dialogue.
    Turkey has called for a conference in Istanbul next week
to discuss the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina, after the
Turkish Foreign Ministry expressed fears the conflict may
spread.
    Ankara has invited the Balkan states of Bulgaria,
Romania, Albania and Greece to attend the conference, along
with the former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia.
    Two non-Balkan states, Hungary and Austria, were also
invited to attend because they may be affected if such a
conflict broke out. Greece, which has refused to recognize
Macedonia and maintains friendly ties with Serbia, has
declined to attend.

    WEU TO PLAY PART IN TOUGHER NAVAL BLOCKADE OF ADRIATIC
COAST
    ROME (NOV. 20) - The Western European Union (WEU)
decided Friday to take part in operations in the Adriatic
Sea to make the United Nations-imposed naval blockade
against Serbia and Montenegro more effective.
    Action agreed at a one-day meeting of WEU foreign and
defence ministers in Rome included "stop and search"
operations and "other measures as necessary", the WEU said
in its closing declaration.
    The declaration expressed dismay "at continuing acts of
aggression and violence in Bosnia Herzegovina" and "at the
unacceptable practice of ethnic cleansing as well as the
gross violation of human rights".
    WEU operations will be "carried out in close co-
ordination with NATO" (the North Atlantic Alliance), the
declaration said.
    The WEU also appealed to the Danube riverine states "to
ensure the strict application of the relevant U.N. security
resolutions" and added that it was prepared to offer
"expertise, technical assistance and equipment to those
states to prevent the use of the river Danube for the
purpose of ... breaking sanctions".
    The WEU also officially accepted Greece Friday as the
its tenth member and granted associated membership to
Turkey, Iceland and Norway. Denmark and Ireland received
observer status, the only two EC countries to remain outside
the grouping.

    SERBS CLOSER TO OPENING CORRIDOR TO SARAJEVO
        By Hugh Pain
    SARAJEVO, Nov 21, Reuter - Serb forces have scored fresh
military gains after launching a heavy artillery assault on
the Bosnian town of Travnik in an apparent attempt to open a
new corridor towards Sarajevo.
    The Bosnian Serbs' news agency SRNA said Serb forces on
Friday captured the villages of Sesice and Potkraj near
Travnik, and consolidated their positions. Sarajevo, the
Bosnian capital, is only some 80 km (50 miles) to the south.
    A Reuter correspondent with British U.N. troops in
nearby Vitez said a barrage of constant shelling could be
heard from noon onwards from the direction of the town, a
major refugee centre defended by Moslem and Croat fighters.
    The offensive was launched as the French commander of
U.N. peace-keeping forces in Bosnia met Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic to urge the Serbs to honour a collapsing ceasefire.
    A Croat military commander admitted two days ago that
Serb forces had broken through the front line near Travnik
and had the town, 80 km (50 miles) west of Sarajevo, at
their mercy.
    Journalists in Vitez said Turbe, a suburb of Travnik,
suffered the brunt of the bombardment but four shells also
hit the previously unscathed centre of the town, dating from
the days of Ottoman Turkish rule.
    Bosnian military commanders in Sarajevo refused to
comment on the attack, which could presage a tightening of
the seven-month Serbian siege of the Bosnian capital.
    Diplomats said the fall of Travnik would give the
Bosnian Serb army an open road to Sarajevo's western
approaches.



    Former Polish prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who
visited Bosnia earlier for the commission, said all three
sides were guilty but Moslems were the most frequent
victims.
    Turkey, concerned by the plight of Bosnia's Moslems,
called for the special session with United States support.
    NATO and Western European countries agreed to enforce a
full naval blockade in the Adriatic to prevent oil and
strategic materials reaching the remaining Yugoslavia
republics of Serbia and Montenegro.


Western European Union Meeting

    ROME, Nov 20, Reuter - Greece on Friday became the 10th
member of the Western European Union (WEU) defence grouping,
an Italian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
    Rules about the defence of any WEU member that is
attacked had to be changed last June to make sure the group
was not drawn into any conflict with Greece's historic
rival, Turkey.
    This had long been the main obstacle to Greek
membership. On Friday, Turkey became an associate member of
the WEU.
    The Greek entry will not become official until it has
been ratified by the parliaments of the other nine members.
The WEU parliamentary assembly warned on Wednesday that
ratification would depend on Greece's record in enforcing
U.N. sanctions against the rump Yugoslavia.
    Norway and Iceland also became associate members while
Ireland and Denmark were given observer status. All 14
European members of NATO and the 12 members of the European
Community now have some link with the WEU.
    Neutral Ireland is the only non-NATO country in the
grouping.
    Italy, which took over the WEU presidency in July, says
the enlargement makes it both the future defence arm of the
EC and the European pillar of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation).

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Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish