ERGENEKON, ELECTIONS, AND THE KURDISH SUMMIT

"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
~ Paulo Freire.

There was actually a fairly decent report on the Ergenekon fiasco from PRI's The World. You can listen here. They do, however, fail to mention that Mustafa Akyol is an Islamist or that Yaşar Nuri Öztürk was recently caught in a sex scandal but, overall, it presents a pretty good minor intro into the Ergenekon show.

Speaking of Ergenekon, recently a piddly little TSK colonel was arrested in connection with JİTEM's acid wells. Please, I thought, a colonel? What was he back in the 90's, an even more piddly little captain? Sure enough. Now who was it that took the fall for Susurluk? Three were eventually convicted and served time for Susurluk but they, too, were nobodies,just like this acid well colonel. The big fish in the Susurluk scandal not only were not arrested, they were later promoted within The System. The same will happen with JİTEM's acid well murders.

Meanwhile there have been more than 250 unsolved extrajudicial murders since the 1990s in Şirnex (Şirnak) province alone. KurdishInfo has more on that here: http://www.kurdish-info.net/News-sid-Deep-Stateund-8217-s-balance-in-rnak-more-than-250-unresolved-assassinations-12795.html

Bloomberg has a piece on how Kurds are spurning Erdoğan, in spite of handouts:

Kurdish tea seller Muharrem Ogur wasn’t impressed when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan built irrigation systems for the fields near his home and ordered the state-run television company to open a Kurdish channel.

What mattered to Ogur was that his favorite politician was reprimanded by Turkey’s parliament for speaking in Kurdish, and that police set upon youths in his neighborhood in Diyarbakir last year for waving the Kurdish flag.

Erdogan, who has made wooing Turkey’s 15 million Kurds a key part of his campaign for local elections on March 29, is finding that political favors don’t overcome decades of tension. Even as he pursues reconciliation, his government is battling Kurdish militants and denying Kurds some rights enjoyed by ethnic Turks.

The net result may be that Diyarbakir and four other cities under Kurdish political control will reject Erdogan’s party.

And so we ardently hope.

Murat Karakas, who grows cotton and wheat on his 30 acres outside the village of Oyali, 30 kilometers west of Diyarbakir, says his vote will go to Baydemir even after Erdogan built an irrigation channel through his fields from a nearby dam.

“Blood is thicker than water round here,” said Karakas, 38. “Water might help us grow more crops, but my vote goes to our Kurdish brothers because of the situation we face in Diyarbakir as Kurds.”

There. That guy has the correct attitude. Too bad he's not running the KRG.

At the same time, police abuse in the region is rising, said Muharrem Erbay, chief of the Diyarbakir branch of the Human Rights Association, Turkey’s biggest human-rights group.

There were 798 reported incidents of torture and mistreatment in the east and southeast of Turkey last year, more than three times the figure for 2007, Erbay said.

Aysu Uraz, a spokeswoman for the human-rights department of Erdogan’s office, declined to comment on the figures, saying data for 2008 will be published in the next two weeks.

I suppose police abuse has been on the rise because 80% of the police are Fethullahçı. For a similar piece that was carried in the Financial Times, see Hevallo's place.

Finally, DTP speaks out some more on the upcoming US-Turkey orchestrated "Kurdish" summit:

"As the DTP, we are disturbed by the agenda of the conference. Thus, we have doubts about the conference. If it will only focus on the liquidation of the PKK, this will cause chaos, and we do not want to take part in this chaos," Selahattin Demirtaş, the DTP’s group vice president to the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

Criticizing Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s approach, which urges the PKK either to lay down their guns or leave Iraq, Demirtaş stated that the organization could not be constrained between these two options. "If you present two options, a third one appears: The PKK rejects and resists. This means clashes," Demirtaş said, adding that the DTP cannot accept such an offer.

"If democratic solutions are developed, the PKK will spontaneously lay down their guns," he argued. He said the solutions included issuing a general pardon in Turkey, putting different cultures and identities under the protection of a constitution, and actualizing democratic autonomy.

Demirtaş also drew attention to the purpose of the conference, which was a need to determine and find solutions to the problems of Kurdish people living in different countries of the Middle East region. According to Demirtaş, the DTP will support a conference that aims to solve problems, but rejects the current one, which is known as a U.S. plan and aims only to liquidate the PKK.

Read the rest, and if you haven't read our position on the "Kurdish" summit, check this post.

ŞIRNEXÎS DEMAND RESIGNATION OF GOVERNOR

"A little rebellion now and then...is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."
~ Thomas Jefferson.

There were interesting developments last week and over the weekend as regards the local elections, part of which includes a demand by the people of Şirnex (Şırnak) that the AKP-appointed governor resign. From Yeni Özgür Politika:

Protests are not ending in Şırnak

There was a big walking protest in front of Silopi's DTP branch building to condemn the attack of village guards against DTP delegates in Uludere, Sêgirkê, and the governor's unresponsiveness to the issue. In the protest, in which DTP's Şırnak parliamentarian Hasip Kaplan attended, thousands of people called for the governor's resignation. Citizens of Silopi shouted "Governor resign", "Damn the governor", "PKK is the people, the people is here", and "Long live Serok Apo", as they assembled for the opening of a DTP election bureau at Sanat Street.

"Erdoğan cannot set a foot in this region"

During the opening at Sanat Street, DTP Sirnak parliamentarian Hasip Kaplan praised the people of Silopi by proving themselves against the system. Kaplan continued, "In Şırnak with the people's power, we received the highest votes. In the local elections we will repeat this victory with a record voting rate. Now the local elections have turned into general elections because the local elections will determine the fate of the Kurdish people". Mentioning that Erdogan cannot dare to come to the Şırnak region, Kaplan said, "We are the ones in Şırnak's square. AKP implements policies dependent on the US and Israel, whereas we implement policies based on our people. When we talk about peace and democracy to Erdoğan, his hair stands on end. He is this much anti-peace. He cannot come to Şırnak region because if he comes, we will give him a sack of coal and send him back. That is why he cannot put a foot in this region.

"We're going to hound the governor"

Bringing attention to the attacks by village guards in Sêgirkê, Kaplan said, "After the incident in Silopi's Görümlü town, the other day our party's convoy was attacked by village guards who are paid and given weapons by the state. The instigator of these attacks is Sirnak's governor and the military. With our people, we will go after these incidents. We are maintaining our protests until the weapons of these gangs are taken from their hands and brought to justice." Pointing out that Şırnak's governor is an AKP partisan. Kaplan said, "Since the day Şırnak governor Alii Yerlikaya came to Şırnak, he gathered village guard chiefs and military commanders and visited houses one by one, and he makes AKP's election propaganda. However, we know very well to which house this governor goes and what he eats there. A governor like him, who is not the state's governor, but the governor of a political party, does not have any place in Şırnak. This governor cannot stay here anymore. These people are rebelling against this governor. We will show him what it means to wink at the attack against this people's parliamentarian." Stressing the excavation of Silopi's BOTAŞ wells, Kaplan said, "For years and years many lives were taken from us. The people of Silopi said at that time 'You will face our bones'. Behold today BOTAŞ wells are being opened and they are facing our bones. No one can get away with wickedness against this people. Everyone will be held accountable to this people! No one has the power to play with this people's honor."

Candidate mayor was wounded

On 10 March DTP delegates were attacked by village guards, after DTP went to Sêgirkê town to condemn an attack against them in the same town by AKP. At the entrance of the town the convoy in which DTP Şırnak parliamentarian Hasip Kaplan, Şırnak mayor Ahmet Ertak, DTP Şırnak chief Halil Irmez, and many mayor candidates were present, some 40 village guards attacked them with stones and sticks. Windshields of many of the convoy vehicles were broken and DTP Şırnak mayor candidate Ramazan Uysal was beaten by village guards with the butt of a Kalishnikov and was wounded.

You go, Şirnexîs, you go! And the same for Hasip Kaplan, you go, boyfriend. Drive the rats out!

On the crumbling capitalist front, I could almost give a "Go!" to American Senator Grassley when he said the following about the AIG blood suckers:

"The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them [is] if they would follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I'm sorry and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide," Grassley told WMT radio.

I say I could almost give a "Go!" but I don't because now the senator is claiming that he was only being rhetorical. In my opinion, suicide is too good for these vermin. I'm waiting to see the Czar Nicholas II solution applied.

Speaking of rats . . . the AKP-appointed Amed (Diyarbakır) governor Hüsayin Avni Mutlu is going to distribute 1,200 Turkish Lira and appliances to selected families in the Amed region, just as happened in Dersim a few weeks ago and just as the Higher Election Board (YSK) has forbidden. Apparently, the same scenario is being played out by AKP in the CHP stronghold of the Tekirdağ area. What this means is that the AKP is absolutely desperate, terrified, and they should be because if they lose The Southeast, the paşas, who have been patiently biding their time, are going to go after AKP with a vengeance.

For more on rats and vermin, you can check a little update on the JİTEM acid wells at Zaman. Apparently dozens of bones have been found in acid wells in the Cizîr (Cizre) region. Remember, Turkish Hezbollah was a tool of the state and operated by JİTEM.

SISTER CITIES AND EXCAVATIONS

"The wells date back 15 to 20 years. It is possible that there is some remnant if the amount of acid used was not too much. An exhaustive forensic examination could yield some results."
~ Ali Çerkezoğlu, Forensic Medical Council.

Three years ago DTP's Amed (Diyarbakır) mayor Osman Baydemir made a visit to the US which included a stop in Nashville. This week we see some of the fruits of that visit. Yesterday there was a cultural event in Nashville which introduced Amed as a prospective sister city of Nashville. Here's something from the press release:

SISTER CITIES OF NASHVILLE TO HOST DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY CULTURAL EVENT AT TSU

NASHVILLE (Feb. 27, 2009)…Mayor Karl Dean will be the special guest speaker at a free cultural event to showcase the city of Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeastern Turkey, on Wednesday, March 11 from 5 to 7 p.m. at TSU’s Avon Williams downtown campus, 330 10th Ave. N. The event, which also will feature authentic music, food and cultural presentations, is presented by Tennessee State University (Dept. of ??) and Sister Cities of Nashville. The cultural showcase is free and open to the public.

Situated on the banks of the Tigris River, Diyarbakir is a historic city, encircled by walls typical of the military architecture of medieval times. At 5.5 kilometers, they are the second largest and best preserved walls in the world after the renowned Great Wall of China. “Diyarbakir: The Mystery of the Stones” is a special video about the city that will be presented at the event, which is being organized by Dr. Kirmanj Gundi, a professor of XXX at TSU and a member of the Sister Cities of Nashville board of directors. Diyarbakir is a prospective sister city for Nashville.

Sister Cities of Nashville, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1990, is an active volunteer organization promoting peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation among citizens of Nashville and other international communities through educational, cultural, professional, commercial and municipal exchange programs. It is a chapter of Sister Cities International which developed from a program begun in 1956 by President Dwight Eisenhower to promote international goodwill through citizen diplomacy.

Nashville’s official sister cities are Belfast, Northern Ireland; Caen, France; Edmonton, Canada; Madgeburg, Germany; Mendoza, Argentina, and Taiyuan, China.

You can also check the Sister Cities of Nashville website.

Meanwhile, closer to Amed than to Nashville, more bones have been unearthed in the JITEM acid well excavations in Silopî:

The excavation of wells located in Silopi, Şırnak province, continued yesterday in search of the remains of victims who were allegedly killed in the 1990s by an illegal group inside the gendarmerie, with more bone fragments unearthed.

Heavy diggers and workers using picks and shovels continued digging a site near the Sinan facility of the state-owned Turkish Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ) yesterday. Bone fragments, pieces of hair, remains of a sack and clothing were found during excavation on Wednesday. They were sent to a forensic lab for analysis to determine if the remains were human.

The excavations in BOTAŞ facilities for around a week now have resulted in the discovery of several bone fragments and clothing. The families of dozens of missing people residing in the Kurdish-populated Southeast believe the excavation will give significant clues about the whereabouts of their loved ones.

There's a little more from Eurasianet.org:

There are no reliable figures for the number of civilians murdered or disappeared by state-backed paramilitary groups amid the conflict between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a war that has claimed more than 40,000 lives since it started in 1984. Official statistics put unsolved murders between 1991 and 1995 at 1,412. Human rights groups reckon that at least 5,000 died, including over 1,000 missing persons who are presumed dead.

Getting convictions for murders committed by security personnel remains nearly impossible, says Tahir Elci, a prominent human rights lawyer. He says he can remember only one case - that of a sergeant sentenced to life in 2007 for ordering the 1994 murder of a Kurdish businessman. Turkey’s system, he adds, "protects its murderers."

Which means, of course, don't get your hopes up. Digging for evidence has not been a completely smooth operation. Last week, the state attempted to stop the digs before they got started, citing "security reasons". If the state were truly concerned with the security problem in The Southeast, it would remove the biggest terrorists of all, the TSK. I mean, you seriously have to wonder about the security situation when at least some of JITEM's acid wells are located on a military installation.

Yeah. Security issues. Does TSK guard every military installation as well as it guarded Bezele? Or is this an admission that TSK really is the cause of security problems in The Southeast?

CEASEFIRES AND STATE TERRORISM

"These enemies of humanity who believe that the state authority has weakened and turned their guns on our innocent citizens will definitely drown in the hole that they have fallen into. Such attacks which are against the existence of the Turkish Republic prove how just we are in the struggle against terrorism."
~ Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller on the Güçlükonak Massacre.

Well, we all know Ergenekon goes east of the Fırat. Now they are finding out. From Özgür Gündem:

Ekmen confessed it: The Güçlükonak massacre was conducted by the state


The former state minister responsible for human rights, Adnan Ekmen, had important statements about the Güçlükonak massacre. These statements shed light on the reasons for leaving the Kurdish question unresolved and point out the who provoked, and why, the declared ceasefire.

The confession came after 13 years

The minister responsible for human rights in the 52nd government, in which Tansu Çiller was prime minister and Deniz Baykal was foreign minister, Adnan Ekmen made statements to Yeni Aktüel magazine by saying, "My conscience makes me uncomfortable": "Although we knew the background of the event, unfortunately we could not explain it to the public. According to the hearings from the region and from the relatives of the people who were killed, we realized that the situation was not the same as the security forces were talking about. The event that took place was in a location where the security forces had full control anyway; It was impossible for PKK to conduct an operation. Yet the ID cards of the murdered were in the hands of the security forces, people were burned; however, somehow, their ID cards were never damaged. Apparently the people who burned them took their ID cards before burning them. To me, this was the point that exposed them.

"We sat and talked about what we could do together with the ministry's bureaucrats. I called a village guard chief and tribal leader who I trusted, and told him what I had heard. He said to me, 'I cannot lie to you; whatever you heard is true. The official statement ofthe security forces does not reflect the truth.' I asked him whether he would be willing to tell us the truth if we went to Güçlükonak; 'This is not possible. If we tell the truth we cannot protect ourselves, and neither can you,' he said. After he said that we changed our minds about going to Güçlükonak.

"I offered Deniz Baykal the things that I knew, to tell Prime Minister Çiller. When he said 'It is up to you, but the Prime Minister is very busy nowadays,' I changed my mind."

"I told the event to the chairman of CHP, of which I was a member, and I told him that I wanted to share what I heard with the public. He asked me why they were putting the blame on PKK. In Europe there would be a very important vote about the Kurds. By blaming this incident on PKK, I said to him that they might want it to give a message to the association which would hold the election."

First ceasefire, first provocation

Özal wanted it, a ceasefire was declared.

President Turgut Özal conveyed his ceasefire demand to PKK through the PUK leader Celal Talabani. The Kurdish people's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, responded to Özal's demand positively. On 17 March 1993 in Lebanon's Bar Eliyas town, Öcalan and PUK leader Celal Talabani, as mediator, came out in front of the press and declared a 25-day ceasefire.

Özal expressed his satisfaction to Talabani, who visited him after the ceasefire, by saying: "For ten years it is the very first time I slept peacefully." After Özal's positive reaction, one day after the limited ceasefire, on 16 April, in Bar Eliyas, Öcalan came out in front of the press one more time and declared that they had extended the unilateral ceasefire indefinitely.

Özal's suspicious death and the 33 soldiers incident

Özal, who had sympathy for most of the demands that were mentioned in the ceasefire, including a general amnesty, died suddenly, one day after the indefinite ceasefire, on 17 April 1993. It was stated that Özal suffered a heart attack. However, many people, primarily his family, and including Öcalan, said "Özal was murdered". On 24 May 1993, the news of the massacre came. Şemdin Sakık, who blocked the Bingöl-Elazığ highway and killed 33 unarmed soldiers, declared the end of the first ceasefire. Öcalan said that incident of the murder of 33 soldiers was not related to them [PKK] and he refused to take responsibility. Öcalan mentioned this truth many times on İmralı and he called for the enlightenment of this incident.

Second ceasefire, second provocation

This time Çiller wanted it

After Özal's death, Süleyman Demirel became president and Tansu Çiller became prime minister. Çiller sent a letter to Öcalan, again through Talabani, and wanted Öcalan to declare a ceasefire. After that, PKK declared the second unilateral ceasefire on 15 December 1995.

11 villagers were raked with gunfire and burned

One month after the ceasefire, on 16 January 1996, this time the news came from Şırnak's town, Güçlükonak. The Koçyurdu minibus, which contained 11 villagers, was raked with gunfire and the corpses were then burned. The general staff and government officials declared the operation was conducted by PKK. PKK, on the other hand, defined the incident as "provocation through state-related contra groups" and despite this incident, declared the "continuation of the ceasefire". However, for the very first time the general staff took journalists, including foreign journalists, to the scene and made anti-PKK statements. However, the general staff did not let the journalists talk to the villagers.

Intellectuals blamed the state

The Together for Peace Working Group members, intellectuals, and journalists, went to the scene twice and found clues. They focused on the fact that the incident was related to the state. They sued, however not only did they receive no result, but also they were countersued by the charge of "insulting the army" and were convicted to ten years in prison.

Two days after the massacre, the EU parliament would assemble for a ceasefire

During the Güçlükonak incident, the European parliament had assembled for an important agenda. Turkey conducted its military operation despite the PKK's unilateral ceasefire. However, the ceasefire issue became a hot debate in the international arena. The European parliament called PKK and Turkey for a democratic solution to the Kurdish question on 13 December 1995. The ceasefire decision was given as a response to this call. In fact, a proposition related to Turkey was accepted unanimously during the 18 January 1996 session. One of the articles in the proposal was about the ceasefire: "The European parliament greets the unilateral ceasefire declared by Öcalan and accepts this initiative as a positive response to the European parliament's decision on 13 December 1995. At the same time it [the European parliament] hopes Turkey considers this gesture as a step towards a peaceful solution and accepts it as an opportunity to initiate a national-level dialog to overcome the problem in the Eastern Anatolian Region." Just two days before the meeting at which this decision was made, the Güçlükonak massacre took place.

Villagers were detained

It was revealed that some of the villagers who were murdered were detained and were held in the Taşkonak Jandarma Battalion, and some of them were taken from their homes on the day of the incident. Among the people who were killed, Halit Kaya's daughter from Yatağankaya village, Ramazan Oruç's son, and Ali Nas's nephew from Çevrimli village had previously joined the PKK guerrillas.

Third ceasefire, third provocation

Everyone wanted a ceasefire

Prime minister Erdoğan made moderate statements related to the Kurdish question in 2005 and showed attempts to make PKK declare a ceasefire. Many parties, including the US, the EU, KDP, PUK, AKP and DTP, made various attempts toward this issue. On 1 October 2006, PKK declared a ceasefire. However no improvement was made after the ceasefire.

Massacre in the first year of the ceasefire

One year passed and the ceasefire was still in effect. On 29 September 2007, the news of the massacre came from Şırnak's Beytüşşebap. Twelve people in a minibus going to Beşağaç (Hemkan) village were ambushed. The general staff and the government made a statement that "PKK did it" about the massacre, which resembled the Guclukonak incident. PKK on the other hand declared that "the massacre was committed by JITEM, which is linked to the army". Villagers also said that the incident was conducted by village guards and JITEM; the information received confirmed this claim. After this date, not only did the hope for a solution to the Kurdish question weaken but it was also the start of the cross-border operations. Thus the policies of violence entered a new stage.

Kaplan: The state prosecutor must act

DTP's Şırnak parliamentarian Hasip Kaplan expressed his views regarding the statements made by the former minister responsible for human rights at that time, Adnan Ekmen, and wanted the state prosecutor to take action. Kaplan said, "The investigation and evidence previously found by the intellectuals and the NGOs is today confirmed one more time by the statements of someone who has been at the ministry level. The prosecutor must immediately begin an investigation, listen to Minister Ekmen, the intellectuals, and the NGOs who have previously made such investigations. Because this is a massacre case, a case of provocation, the case must be reopened." Mentioning that they would take this issue to the parliament's attention, Kaplan said: "Previously we had given question and investigation proposals to the parliament regarding extrajudicial murders and massacres. We are going to keep a close eye on these. We will bring up this incident too."

Now tell me again, who are the real terrorists? Who are the real "enemies of humanity", as Çiller so boldly put it? What is this bullshit "struggle against terrorism" really all about?

SPEAKING OF CHANGE

"I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed."
~ George Carlin.

Speaking of change, here's what might be required as a basis of convincing the world that change has really arrived:

The USA has a history of crimes, but also of positive change. It has the potential for changing the world, both for the worse or for the better. One of the greatest achievements of the American people, if not the greatest, has been the abolition of slavery. This liberated the black people and gave hope for millions of others under oppression. One wonders if there will be real change with the new American administration, with President Obama. The USA has still the power and the potential to abolish slavery in the Middle East.

However, any real change must address the injustice camouflaged under the name “US foreign policy”. The policy of change needs to be concrete and clear. It must end the support for despotic and fascist regimes, even if they are "US allies" or NATO members. The USA must abolish its system of client states, which is a modern and global form of slavery. It must not accept and allow pseudo democracies and racist regimes to continue committing crimes against humanity. It must stop applying the term “terrorism” to liberation movements of indigenous peoples; but instead openly support their rights, including the right for self-determination.

Cooperation with puppet regimes and parasitical elites that prevent progress, freedom and democracy in the region must end. In a new US foreign policy, trust and friendship with other nations should come before profits. A new strategy must be developed that does not divide the world into spheres of influence and leads to more wars for territory or resources. In that new strategy, principles of justice should dominate rather than military power.

One of the main obstacles for global justice and peace has historically been the fight for resources between groups or states. It is high time that the raw materials and energy sources of the world should belong to everyone instead of being in the hands of a few or prey to corporate competitors. A new American policy should lead to an international agreement that will manage our depleting resources in the name of and for the benefit of mankind alone.

The first test of change may be coming up soon:

Amidst reports that Turkey has been negotiating with Russia for the purchase of around 32 Mi-28 attack helicopters as a stop-gap measure to meet its urgent needs in the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Pentagon has developed a formula that will allow it to sell four or five Cobra attack helicopters to Ankara.

Under this new formula, the US-based Bell Helicopter firm will interrupt the Cobra production currently under way for the US Marine Corps and instead use the production line to manufacture helicopters for Turkey, according to well-informed Turkish defense industry sources in Ankara.

Top Pentagon officials will submit this plan for approval by the new administration under Barack Obama, who took office yesterday as the 44th US president, Today’s Zaman has learned.

The US had turned down a Turkish request made early last year for the purchase of AH-1W “Whiskey” Super Cobra attack helicopters as a stop-gap measure for the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), which has a shortage of Cobras in its inventory. The US had cited the unavailability of Cobras and offered instead Boeing-made Apache attack helicopters, which were turned down by Ankara.

Turkey has six AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters ready for combat from its original 12, while the remaining six either crashed or are no longer in service.

Yeah, six Cobras "crashed or are no longer in service",but there's no mention of why they "crashed or "are no longer in service". I can give you the answer in one short abbreviation: PKK.

There's something else here, too, from the I-Told-You-So Department:

Turkey expects its relations with Israel, which strained due to the Gaza operations, will return to its normal course shortly as Ankara continues to play an active role in the Middle East. The Turkish president could soon pay a visit to Israel.

. . . Turkey had considered cutting diplomatic relations with Israel and suspending a defense deal. Still it is very unlikely Turkey will take any of these steps.

. . . Turkish President Abdullah Gul may pay a visit to Israel in the near term.

The Turkish foreign ministry says [i.e. claims] it has made a major contribution to the peace process and will continue its pro-active foreign policy strategy. Therefore relations with Israel are expected to normalize in the short term.

And one other, from the same Department:

Diplomatic sources denied and slammed reports that the political spat between Israel and Turkey has been deepening despite the ceasefire in Gaza.

An Israeli newspaper reported on Tuesday that a request by the Turkish prime minister's special representatives to meet the head of the political-security bureau at the Israeli Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, was rejected and that Egypt also refused to have Turkey present during the ceasefire talks with Hamas.

Turkey played an active role, led by the prime minister's special representative, Ahmet Davutoglu, during the crisis that erupted after Israel's aggression against Gaza that has left more than 1,100 dead, mostly civilians.

"The story in the Israeli newspaper is incorrect and it is a mistake. A meeting was scheduled with the Israeli officials to discuss the course of the ceasefire process. But the meeting could not be held due to a lack of time and the Israeli official apologized for the situation," a source said on Tuesday.

On Monday, Davutoglu had said that Turkey convinced Hamas to agree to a ceasefire during Turkish officials’ shuttle diplomacy. The Turkish diplomats held talks with Hamas officials in Cairo and with the group’s exiled leader in Syria.

And a former JITEM dirtbag gets his due:

An alleged member of JİTEM, a clandestine and illegal gendarmerie intelligence unit whose existence has thus far been officially denied, was found dead yesterday afternoon in his Ankara home.

Maj. Abdülkerim Kırca, believed to be a higher up in JİTEM, had replaced Maj. Cem Ersever, a former major who left the army after Gendarmerie Commander Gen. Eşref Bitlis was killed in a suspicious plane crash. Ersever, in a confession made to the press after he left the army in 1993, provided accounts of JİTEM activities. Ersever's confessions were later compiled in a number of books by author Soner Yalçın. Before his assassination, the major also said he was in charge of JİTEM's operations in the Southeast.

Ersever's body was found in Ankara on Nov. 4, 1993. His girlfriend and right-hand man were also killed, and his archive disappeared.

Numerous allegations from families of the victims of hundreds of unresolved murders accused Kırca of being behind most of the murders committed in Turkey's East and Southeast in the '90s. An upsurge in the number of unresolved deaths in the region does coincide with the term he served in the region.

[ . . . ]

In a report prepared by the Prime Ministry on the 1996 Susurluk affair, Kutlu Savaş, the author of the report, had referred to Kırca as the "planner and executor" of most of the incidents.

The paşas claim it was suicide. Oh, right, I know I believe them. It's ridiculous, naturally, especially since, in Turkey, particularly in The Southeast, women are more likely to "commit suicide". But you know that if the paşas stick their big, fat noses in it, it's going to be hilarious, and it is:

The Turkish army slammed some media organs, saying their coverage relating to former military officers violates basic human rights, and urged them to act responsibly.

BOO-HOO-HOOOO!

Violates basic human rights?!! That's rich! Notice how the issue of basic human rights only applies to TSK. My only complaint is that PKK only managed to put Kırca in a wheelchair and not in his grave, and may this son-of-a-bitch burn in hell.

There, I hope I've sufficiently violated his "basic human rights".

JITEM'S ACID WELLS IN CIZRE

"If the Ergenekon investigation doesn't pass east of the Euphrates, the Kurdish problem will never be solved."
~ Ahmet Türk.

A month ago Nuh Gönultaş at Bugün wrote about some interesting information from supreme Ergenekon weirdo, Tuncay Güney, in a piece titled, "Where are JITEM's acid death wells?":

The black box, Tuncay Güney's life story and his relations, is not known whether or not it is real. He, who first disclosed Ergenekon and has become a legend.

Güney's most important trait is his close nine-year relationship with Veli Küçük, who was the deep paşa of the 1990s.

The book written by journalist Faruk Arslan, who lives in Toronto, titled Black Box: Ergenekon's Unknown Name Tuncay Güney, in which the mysterious witness makes shocking statements.

Güney claims that thousands of Kurdish citizens, who were killed by JITEM as extrajudicial murders for harboring PKK, were thrown into acid-filled wells, in which their corpses dissolved. Thus their bodies were never found.

This is quite an original and new information.

Güney advises looking at the BOTAŞ complex which JITEM had used in the Southeast in the 1990s, to find acid-filled death wells.

For years no one knew where the graves were of more than 18,000 citizens, most of whom were Kurdish and were killed by "unknown perpetrators"; no one questions or dares to question.

Güney claims that although there are very few people who know where these acid-filled wells are located in the Southeast, and Veli Küçük is one of them, but Küçük does not tell.

However, Güney gives a specific address in the book: "The places where JITEM and Kucuk's group used were these places. For a clear address, when you go towards the Habur border, close by Mardin's old town Cizre, on the left there is a complex that is guarded by soldiers. If you dig there, there will be a lot of bodies. BOTAŞ has enterprises in Diyarbakır, Batman, Adıyaman and these places should also be checked."

As a response to the question where did they find the acid, Güney replied in a classic way: "There are several factories in İzmit. Even Küçük's greeting is an order for them. Besides, for drug-trafficking they needed acid. They had become experts in bringing acid."

For more on that, see 32. Gün from November 2008, in which Güney reiterates the claim about the acid-filled wells. Note that I've provided the link for the first in a series of fourteen videos of that particular edition of 32. Gün.

Now it looks like the Şırnak state prosecutor is going to investigate the claims of the acid-filled wells.

The complaint was initially made by the head of the Şırnak Bar Association, based on the book by Faruk Arslan, mentioned in the Nuh Gönultaş piece . Before the state prosecutor's decision to go ahead with the investigation of the acid-filled wells, the Şırnak Bar Association vowed to move to open the wells at the first opportunity as soon as their exact locations were identified. The bar association will now be able to do just that. From Zaman:

Şırnak Bar Association chief Nuşirevan Elçi says: "This situation gave us hope. Turkey must face its past in order to have a bright future. If there are illegal implementations, these must come before the judiciary. The relatives of those murdered by unknown perpetrators don't know whether or not they are dead these last 15-20 years. This situation puts those people in pain. If this event is disclosed, these people will cease hoping. For Turkey's bright future, these kinds of works must be done. Especially within this context I see the Ergenekon investigation as a new era."

In the past, DTP has said that unless Ergenekon was investigated east of the Euphrates, their would be little hope for a solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey. Now let's wait and see how much of this is truly investigated and the results revealed. Then we'll find out, too, if Ergenekon's mysterious "black box" has any credibility.

JITEM'S BLACK FACE

"Beginning on 14 January 1994, almost a hundred people were individually picked up by commandos wearing uniforms and travelling in police vehicles. They were then killed somewhere along the road from Ankara to Istanbul, in the "satanic triangle" of Kocaeli, a fiefdom of the far-right mafia and a focal point for the trafficking of heroin into Europe."
~ Kendal Nezan.

What follows is not exactly news because it's typical behavior of JITEM with which Kurds in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan have long been familiar. But this news did come out in a Turkish daily and, according to the article, the information is contained in one of the Ergenekon files. This is the tip of the iceburg and shows that DTP politicians, such as Ahmet Türk and Emine Ayna are correct in their calls for the Ergenekon investigation to be expanded to the east of the Fırat (Euphrates).

This news is also at odds with the Bush regime's recent attempt to blacken PKK with charges of drug-trafficking, especially since it's widely known that the Ankara regime has long held a regional monopoly on the processing of heroin, a fact which has been a recurring theme in the Sibel Edmonds case.

From Bugün:

Here is JITEM's black face


An important document was found in the house of [Adnan] Akfırat, who has been arrested in the Ergenekon case. In the document, activities of troops on duty on the border [in The Southeast] between 1981 to 1990, were outlined in detail.

In Ergenekon's documents, which are noted as "The Writings of a Non-Commissioned Officer Who Wrote Additional Information for JITEM Files to Be Given to the Jandarma Headquarters Command", the duties that were carried out by the troops which were on duty between 1981 to 1990 in Şırnak, Diyarbakır, Van, and other border regions, including some soldiers ranked as field grade officers, were listed in detail.

This informant document about JITEM was found in Adnan Akfırat's house, who was the news manager of [Doğu] Perinçek's magazine, published in the 1990s, called Toward 2000. According to the NCO who wrote the document, high-ranking soldiers conducted illegal drug-trafficking and arms sales with Village Guards in conflict areas like Diyarbakır, Van, and Şırnak.

Narcotic and human trafficking

In the informant document, it is mentioned that the soldiers and Village Guards who smuggled weapons and tons of narcotics to Iraq earned huge sums of money. Human trafficking, the weapons and narcotics trade, and the rape of refugee women are some of the crimes committed by JITEM personnel. Despite being caught, they [JITEM personnel, soldiers, and Village Guards involved in this business] were protected by MİT.

They sold weapons to PKK

The informant document, which is in the Ergenekon indictment's 208th evidence file, mentions that Major Kamber O, Lieutenant Colonel Reşit D, Major İsmail A, First Lieutenant Cihan B, First Lieutenant Kemal Ş, Sergeant İbrahim K, Diyarbakır JITEM Group Commander Major Nurettin, established a group which included also Village Guards, and conducted human and narcotics trafficking, and weapons smuggling.

150,000 weapons collected

The claims in the informant document are terrifying:

First Lieutenant Cihan B was the commander of the 4th Border Company in Ortabağ, which was under the command of the Şenoba Border Battalion. Some Village Guards were among his men. From time to time, he sent these men to Iraq to buy TVs, videos, tapes, electronic games, and electronic devices. He sold these in Diyarbakır's Japan Bazaar. During the Gulf War, he assisted Iraqi refugees in crossing the border into Turkey, for a price. There were approximately 300,000 refugees. He collected around 150,000 weapons.

Sergeant İbrahim K shared money and gems that he collected from the refugees, with the battalion commander. He forced refugee women to have sexual relations.

First Lieutenant Kemal Ş smuggled flocks of sheep and tons of flour to Iraq during the war.

Now I know you noticed the sub-headline mentioning the sales of weapons to PKK, but there was no other mention of PKK in the entire article. If there were sales of weapons to PKK outlined in the informant document of the Ergenekon file, there would have been more information about that included in the Bugün article. Instead, what we have in the sub-headline is nothing more than gratuitous crap.

Most of the information here is pretty mild compared to the horrors that were visited upon the Kurdish population from 1990 onward. Those years must also be investigated and the information published in every Turkish daily.

HPG STATEMENT ON BEYTÜŞŞEBAP MASSACRE

"There is no connection between the recent incident [in Beytüşşebap] and the guerrillas."
~ HPG Headquarters Command.

The Turkish Army Is Responsible for the Beytüşşebap Massacre


To the Press and Public:


On the day before yesterday, in the district of Beytüşşebap, province of Şırnak, twelve persons, including seven Village Guards, died by the strafing of a minibus. For notice, those responsible are the Turkish army and the illegal military organization, JİTEM.

Our freedom movement proclaimed a unilateral ceasefire one year ago on 1 October 2006. The Turkish military increased the intensity of its attacks for this proclamation and used all conceivable dirty methods of warfare.

Within this year, the Turkish army carried out 483 military operations. Chemical weapons and cluster bombs were used, as well as the systematic burning of forests. It came to war crimes before the eyes of the world public.

This war concept, which was intensified after the elections of 22 July, is a result of an agreement between the government party AKP and the military. Previously, it was already announced by military circles that the "extermination of terror" is attainable at the earliest by aiming at the "collaborators". Thus almost the entire society was set as the target. For this reason, after that, the course of action which followed showed that this method was implemented.

The dirty relations between institutions of the state, the army, and the government were uncovered by the the bomb attack on a bookshop in Şemdinli by the resident population. Those caught red-handed again implemented the network of gangs, JİTEM, informers, and the use of terror in Kurdistan, in order to intimidate the population. As strengthened Kontras were used in the form of Hizbullah in the mid-1990s, so today there are more organizations such as JİTEM and TİT.

The purposes of this approach are to isolate the guerrillas and to damage the prestige of the PKK. In Beytüşşebap, Village Guards were deliberately selected as the target of attack in order to break the passivity of these circles and turn them against the Kurdish movement.

In the consciousness of this reality, our HPG guerrillas put an emphasis on attacks against JİTEM in their latest actions. There is no connection between the recent incident [in Beytüşşebap] and the guerrillas. We call upon the public of Turkey to place no faith in this war propaganda which twists the facts. In addition, we continue to request the political parties, human rights associations, and democratic-civil-social organizations to examine the incident, and to find and to call to account its true authors.


HPG Headquarters Command

DIRTY WATER, A MASS GRAVE, AND OIL

"The government is primarily responsible for my mother's death.If we had had clean drinking water, my mother would still be alive."
~ Shadan Mohammed, university student, Silêmanî.

The first cases of cholera have appeared in Baghdad and Basra. While Silêmanî, Hewlêr, and Kerkuk have had just over a thousand confirmed cases, there have been almost 25,000 suspected cases in the Kurdish region. The Kurdish minister of health predicts more cases if the KRG does not clean up the water:

"If the government doesn't fix the dirty water problem, the cholera outbreak will continue and a huge disaster will occur," said KRG minister of health Zryan Osman.

Dr. Osman said that 13 people have died of cholera in the northern provinces of Sulaimaniyah, Erbil and Kirkuk. The minister reported that 430 people in Sulaimaniyah and 270 in Erbil have been diagnosed with the disease. And Salah Ahmed Ameen, a senior health official in Kirkuk, said 450 people are infected with cholera there.

[ . . . ]

Osman noted that the spread of the deadly disease appears to be slowing. But he said that health officials are concerned that cholera could emerge in new areas where the water is not clean and basic services are poor.

"The water systems need to be cleaned, and then we can control the disease," agreed Sherko Abdullah, head of healthcare in Sulaimaniyah province. "The problem isn't with the healthcare, it's with the services."

[ . . . ]

People in Iraqi Kurdistan maintain that the government is not providing even basic services despite its relative stability and growing oil revenues. Many argue that the cholera outbreak is an example of how the regional authorities - which have a high level of autonomy from Baghdad - have failed them.

"The government is primarily responsible for my mother's death," said Shadan Mohammed, a 25 year old student at the University of Sulaimaniyah, whose mother recently died of cholera.

"If we had had clean drinking water, my mother would still be alive."

[ . . . ]

[A] video posted on Google that shows a man shovelling large amounts of dirt and sludge out of a huge water tanker in Sulaimaniyah has become popular viewing in the north. Some argue that the video provides evidence that authorities are not properly monitoring and managing the water supply.

"The drinking water sources in the city [of Sulaimaniyah] are so dirty that any disease could come out of them," said Osman. "The drinking water is mixed with sewage."

"The current water system in Sulaimaniyah can provide only 30 percent of residents with water," maintained Abdullah. "The system is old, the tankers are not regularly cleaned, and not enough chlorine is added to the water."

Funny you should mention chlorine. The crowning glory of the spread of this disease throughout Iraq is that a big shipment of chlorine has been held up at the Jordanian border:

A shipment of 100,000 tons of the water purifier has been held up at the Jordanian border over fears the chemical could be used in explosives. Baghdad, which has doubled the amount of chlorine in the drinking water, now has only a week's supply.

So people either die of cholera or of chlorine bombs? Yes, this is what's known as "spreading democracy in the Middle East."

You would think Blackwater could come up with a nice, little, overpriced, no-bid contract to secure the convoy of chlorine and ensure that it didn't fall into the hands of "insurgents." But I guess the mercenaries are too busy protecting American carpetbaggers or the stray US congressman who wanders over to Iraq for a photo-op.

Someone is purposely holding up the chlorine in order to cause more death and destruction in South Kurdistan and Arab Iraq. This by no means lets the KRG--the euphemism of unity for the two main Southern Kurdish parties of the KDP and PUK--off the hook for their own complete disregard of basic services for the Kurdish people. But even they are now hindered by someone higher up the food chain--those who rule this outpost of Empire from inside the Green Zone.

Business as usual.

Meanwhile, in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, HPG released some busy little bees who happened to whack three--count 'em, three--JITEM. See DozaMe on that here, here, and here.

DozaMe also has a post on a mass grave uncovered in a Turkish military compound in the Kurdish capital, Amed (Diyarbakır). As far as I know, the news first appeared in Özgür Gündem last Friday and there are photos accompanying the article.

Hevallo has been keeping up with the Hunt Oil deal, including possible Bush ties and his own poll. Now, apparently, Hunt Oil has taken a sudden interest in Hevallo.

Anyone who's interested in researching global government corruption should check out Transparency International. It's a one-stop shop for everything on who's dirty and who's not.

JITEM AND HRANT DINK

"They were both in the system and in the file. What should really be asked is why they [Kucuk and Agar] were not captured. If you are going to get a result on Susurluk they should be brought on the agenda".
~ Fikri Saglar.

UPDATE: The media's in a frenzy with Samast's adolescent remark that he murdered Dink because Dink said "Turkish blood is dirty," and I guess everyone will eat that up too, because a Turkish kangaroo court convicted him of it, right? Wrong. For the record, here's an explanation of what Dink really said:

It is ironic that Dink got into trouble for suggesting to diaspora Armenians that it was time to rid themselves of their rage against the Turks. "Armenians, especially of the diaspora, tend to have a problem associated with the role of other that the Turk has played in forming the Armenian identity", Dink says. "There is a certain history. A trauma. The Turk has become such a source of pain that it "poisons the Armenian blood", as the Anatolian saying goes. In my article, I was addressing the Armenian world and saying: "There are two ways of getting rid of this poison. One way is for the Turks to empathise with you, and take action to reduce your trauma. At the moment this seems unlikely. The second way is for you to rid yourself of it yourself. Turn your attention towards the state of Armenia and replace the poisoned blood associated with the Turk, with fresh blood associated with Armenia.'

It was the Turkish media that hyped the lie about Turkish blood being dirty, and that twisting of truth in order to incite the Turkish population and create an atmosphere which accepts assassination as a legitimate means of silencing "The Other" is the feeding of the monster that Ismet Berkan referred to in his column in Radikal over the weekend. The Turkish media was an accessory to the crime of the assassination attempt on Akin Birdal years ago and it is an accessory to the murder of Hrant Dink now.

In other news from the rabbit hole . . . According to Hrant Dink's brother, Orhan Dink, notorious JITEM member Veli Kucuk made an appearance at one of Hrant's trials. The mere appearance of a filthy JITEM vermin like Kucuk is enough to send a message--a message Hrant Dink clearly understood:

Orhan Dink told reporters that his brother told him he became worried when Veli Küçük, a prominent member of Turkey’s controversial Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele (Gendarme Intelligence and Counter Terrorism organization), the JITEM, came to the trial and that the affair was “turning into a dangerous one”.

Hrand Dink said, ‘I am being pointed at as the target’, Orhan Dink told reporters.

Orhan Dink said that Küçük never threatened his brother directly.

“After Küçük came, we suspected that the bullet might have followed, and it did. … We were speaking within the family… What can we do? Should we leave [the country] or should we stay? Sometimes we would decide to leave. But then we would say that this nation is ours.”, Orhan Dink said. He added, “I wish they killed us all. We are no longer doves, we are now falcons. We love the people of Turkey. We will not let a bunch of people to take over. And we are not considering to leave any more. We gave our sacrifice. In order to stay, we can give more. We consider leaving as a treason against our brother.”

To give this some context, let's do a little review:

Filthy JITEM vermin Kucuk was involved with Susurluk, too, a minor detail that was noted in the wake of the Council of State attack, from Bianet:

Possible connections between the armed attack on Turkey's State Council during which one judge was killed and four others were wounded surfaced after relations were uncovered linking one of the suspects, retired officer Muzaffer Tekin, to retired general Veli Kucuk who was named in the Susurluk File.

Kucuk, who was a Brigadier General during the period where the Susurluk relations flourished, had refused to testify before the Parliament Investigation Commission on Susurluk.

But there are two other links in the Susurluk folder that have so far, in the last connection with the State Council attack, not been mentioned.

Mehmet Agar, politician-turned-policeman who not only chairs the True Path Party in the following years but serves directly in all operations as Turkey's National Police Chief in the Susurluk buildup. And the highest level security organ in the Turkish system: The National Security Council (NCS) which journalist Ismet Berkan identified as the supreme structure "that authorised the irregular war gang that was revealed with Susurluk".

On Kucuk and Agar, Saglar said "Both of them were in the operations. One of them from JITEM (Gendarme Intelligence) and the other as the Police General Director" and argued that Agar's becoming chairman of the True Path Party (DYP) "does not erase from history what he has done."

"They were both in the system and in the file. What should really be asked is why they [Kucuk and Agar] were not captured. If you are going to get a result on Susurluk they should be brought on the agenda".

[Note: The Mehmet Agar mentioned in connection with Deep State is the same Mehmet Agar who's now running in the Turkish election campaigns for the DYP.]

More, from DozaMe:

What Mr Elkatmis, as the Chair of the Susurluk Investigation Commission, has said still goes without notice. He said in a manner of questioning our “bloody history ?:

“There are three bases to the [organized] gang. First is the police, second is the [state] bureaucrats and third is the military. We can question the police and some of bureaucrats, but we cannot question the military. Ibrahim Sahin [police officer involved in Susurluk] was accused of setting up an illegal gang based on his photographs with Abdullah Catli [Turkey’s most wanted assassin killed in Susurluk crash]. We also have documents proving that Brigadier General Veli Kucuk made several telephone calls to Abdullah Catli. Why weren’t these documents accepted as evidence and there has not been an investigation against Veli Kucuk. Who ever finds him/herself in a difficult situation can claim that it is national security and would not turn up to give a statement in a court. Only if some people speak in Turkey can we get to the bottom of the investigation ?. . .

Ibrahim Sahin was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment, but Brigadier General Veli Kucuk was promoted to Major General in August, the same year.

Yet more, from TNA:

Hanefi Avci, who was then the police intelligence department acting head and now is Edirne police chief, best described the Susurluk connections. In his testimony at the parliamentary commission probing the Susurluk scandal, he claimed that there was an "illegal" organization established within the state to fight terrorism. He also said this organization then became a gang, which was established within the MIT, the police and Gendarmerie Intelligence (JITEM). Mehmet Agar, Korkut Eken, Ibrahim Sahin from the police, Mehmet Eymur, Duran Firat and Kasif Binbasi from the MIT and Lt. Col. Veli Kucuk from JITEM were in this organization and involved in numerous illegal actions under the leadership of Ahmet Cem Ersever, who was later killed by Kemal Uzuner (a.k.a Cubuklu), a driver working at JITEM, said Avci.

[Note: Mehmet Eymur is the bastard who was in charge of MIT's "counter-terrorism" department. He's been in "exile" in the US for some time, apparently after having some kind of trouble with the really big bastards behind the Deep State. Word on the street now is that he's been given some kind of reprieve, and that he's assisting Mehmet Agar in his campaign. Why is the United States protecting mass murderers like Mehmet Eymur? Inquiring minds want to know.]



Today, according to Firat News, through TNA, it looks like Kucuk is expanding his operations . . . into Azerbaijan:

Speculations regarding the murder of Dink, an Armenian-origin Turkish journalist, have been growing, raising further questions, while the media has been looking into the killer's possible link with a notorious ex-general, Kucuk. However, photos released by a pro-PKK media organ, the Firat News Agency, formerly the Mesopotamia News Agency, showed Kucuk with some other important figures.

Kucuk's name entered into Dink's murder investigation when the late writer's lawyers told officials that Kucuk had threatened Dink. They also also said that Ogun Samast, who confessed to the murder, was threatened by circles close to Kucuk.

In a photo taken two years ago Kucuk was seen with gunman Arslan at the Azerbaijan Congress held in Stockholm. After the bloody Council of State attack, Kucuk said he didn't knew Arslan. He also said after Dink's murder that he had no connection with the murder or suspect.

In another photo, Kucuk was seen with Muzaffer Tekin, said to be the mastermind of both the Council of State and daily Cumhuriyet attacks, and Association of Lawyers' Union head Kemal Kerincsiz, a high-profile ultranationalist figure known for filing complaints against writers and journalists, including Dink.

[ . . . ]

Furthermore, the news agency claimed that Kucuk was organizing nationalist circles in Azerbaijan and established a murder network against Armenians. The agency said it based this claim on information obtained in 2001 from Turan A., the nephew of Azerbaijan's then Interior Minister Siyavuz Mustafa . The news also accused Turkey's Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) of illegally training soldiers with Kucuk in Azerbaijan.

The Firat News article can be viewed here. It contains a link near the bottom to Mesopotamian News, which carries the photos.

So what's the deal with Kucuk and Azerbaijan? Well, the claim is that Yasin Hayal, Ogun Samast's handler, learned how to make bombs with Chechen militants in Azerbaijan. See Sunday's post for more on that, and remember, Azerbaijan is one of America's new best buddies. Ken Silverstein at Harper's has done some digging in that dirt. Take a look at what he unearthed here and here to see how badly all of DC is sucking up to the Baku regime, and why. I guess these DC movers-and-shakers will look the other way at a little Turkish ultra-nationalist terror crossing the border, as long as they're only targeting an Armenian in Istanbul.

In the meantime, certain TBMM deputies have begun bitching about why Kucuk doesn't have any state protection--see the TNA article for that. In my opinion, Kucuk should be sent to Beytussebap to head up the JITEM office there, so that he can experience the same Kurdish hospitality the last JITEM chief enjoyed last September.