Turkey denies US pressure influenced withdrawal

Turkey's top general said the Turkish armed forces withdrew its troops from northern Iraq on schedule and dismissed speculation that it had acted under pressure from its NATO ally the United States.Mr Buyukanit also denied any foreign influence on the decision, which had come just one day after US President George W Bush urged a swift end to the offensive and he hailed the eight-day offensive as a success.

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"The armed forces fulfilled their duty with their land and air forces ... They did incredible things there," he said.

The army killed 242 rebels out of 300 targeted in the operation and PKK communications were cut, said Mr Buyukanit.

But Turkish newspapers noted the unexpected withdrawal came a day after US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on a brief trip to Turkey, called for a short and carefully targeted campaign.

"Gates left, the operation ended," the liberal Radikal newspaper headline read on Saturday.

"It has to be accepted that finishing the operation straight after Gates' departure was unfortunate timing," said Murat Yetkin, a columnist for Radikal.

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 6, 2008; A18

BAGHDAD, March 5 -- Five days after withdrawing its troops from northern Iraq, Turkey launched another round of air and artillery strikes on Kurdish guerrilla territory there, a sign that the offensive against the rebels will continue, Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

Turkish warplanes and artillery pounded the Zap area, according to the officials, the same mountainous region in Iraq in which Turkish ground troops fought guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in an eight-day offensive that ended Friday. The area, which civilians have largely evacuated, is the PKK's main base in northern Iraq.

Staff Gen. Omar Sharif of the Iraqi border forces said no casualties were reported in the latest Turkish strikes. The PKK guerrillas are skilled at moving quickly and hiding in the mountains, making it difficult to disrupt their activities.

Abdullah Ahmed, a spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish Pesh Merga military forces in Amadiyah, a Kurdish town near the area that was bombed, said the barrage lasted about 2 1/2 hours.

After months of sporadic bombings and shellings, Turkey sent ground troops into Iraq late last month to confront the Kurdish guerrillas. Many people in the semiautonomous Kurdish region of Iraq saw the incursion as a violation of their sovereignty. Iraqi Kurdish officials also feared that Turkey had designs beyond quelling the PKK, such as damaging the region's economy.

Turkish officials, who did not immediately confirm Wednesday's bombing, said their target was exclusively the guerrillas, who have fought the Turkish government for decades in the name of securing more rights for the millions of Kurds who live in Turkey and neighboring countries.

Also Wednesday, the U.S. military released from custody two former high-ranking Shiite government officials who had been accused of kidnapping and killing Sunnis. They went free following a decision Monday by Iraqi prosecutors to drop the charges against them.

The Iraqi judicial system's handling of the cases against the two former Health Ministry officials -- Hakim al-Zamili, who was deputy minister, and Brig. Gen. Hamid Hamza Alwan Abbas al-Shamari, who led the agency's security force -- drew wide criticism from Sunnis and Americans on the grounds that it showed a sectarian bias in the government in favor of the two defendants because they are Shiites.

May 30, 2008
Iraq-Australia Soccer Given Go-Ahead
By STEPHEN FARRELL

BAGHDAD — Soccer’s world governing body abruptly lifted the suspension of Iraq’s soccer association on Thursday, easing concerns that Iraq’s team, a rare symbol of national unity, would be banned from the 2010 World Cup.

The move was greeted with relief on the streets of Baghdad, where soccer fans feared that the players, who became national heroes after winning the Asian Cup last summer, would fall victim to political wrangling between Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government and FIFA, the sport’s Zurich-based ruling body.

On Monday, FIFA suspended Iraq’s national soccer association, citing an Iraqi government decision to disband Iraq’s Olympic Committee and other national sport federations as “serious political interference” in sport

.After meeting in Sydney, FIFA officials delivered an ultimatum saying that the government had to reverse the decision by midnight on Thursday, Australian time, or the soccer association would be suspended for one year. The timing was crucial as the Iraqi team is scheduled to play Australia in Brisbane on Sunday in the first of four crucial games in June which will determine if Iraq goes through to the next Asian qualifying round of the World Cup.

But with the Iraqi team so popular at home and abroad after its giant-killing triumph over Saudi Arabia in the final of the 2007 Asian Cup in Indonesia, neither side appeared to want to see it fall victim to a legal dispute.

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see irrelevant toon at top...

KIRKUK, Iraq — The phone rang, and it was answered by a Kurdish security commander, Hallo Najat, sitting in his office in this deeply divided city. On the line, he said, was a United Nations official wanting to know whether it was true that the Kurdish militia, the pesh merga, had left its bases in northern Iraq and was occupying Kirkuk.

No, Mr. Najat told the caller. But after hanging up, he wryly revealed the deeper truth about Kirkuk, combustible for its mix of ethnicities floating together on a sea of oil: the Kurds already control it.

“It’s true,” Mr. Najat said. “What is the need for the troops?”

Of all the political problems facing Iraq today, perhaps none is so intractable as the fate of Kirkuk, a city of 900,000 that Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens all claim as their own. The explosive quarrel over the city is one major barrier to creating stable political structures in the rest of Iraq.

Beyond that, it demonstrates that despite a recent decline in violence, Iraq’s unsettled ethnic and regional discord could still upend directives emanating from Baghdad and destabilize large swaths of the country — or even set off a civil war.

This month, legislation in the national Parliament to set the groundwork for crucial provincial elections collapsed in a bitter dispute over Kirkuk, as Arabs and Turkmens demanded that the Kurds be forced to cede some of their power here. But with the Kurds having already consolidated their authority in Kirkuk, there seemed little chance — short of a military intervention — of that happening.

Kurdish authority is visible everywhere in the city. In addition to the provincial government and command of the police, the Kurds control the Asaish, the feared undercover security service that works with the American military and, according to Asaish commanders, United States intelligence agencies.

Asaish officers are often the first to the scene of an attack and, other Kurdish officials concede, seem always to have the best intelligence. The leaders of the Asaish report only to the dominant Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

“He’s my boss,” said Mr. Najat, the commander of the K.D.P. Asaish force in Kirkuk, glancing at a picture of Masrur Barzani, the head of intelligence for the K.D.P. and the son of the party’s leader, Massoud Barzani.

The Kurds’ control over the security forces — and their ability to use it for political purposes — was evident three weeks ago, rival groups say, after a suicide bomber attacked Kurdish demonstrators, igniting a riot that left dozens dead and hundreds wounded.

After the attack, a mob of Kurds set upon a Turkmen political headquarters, eventually firebombing the building. At some point, the Turkmen guards inside fired at the crowd. All in all, American officials say they believe, far more people were killed and wounded in the riot than in the bombing that touched it off.

Yet, while the police quickly arrested 13 Turkmens at the headquarters, charging them with firing on the crowd, they did not apprehend any of the Kurds who burned the building. One of the Turkmen guards wounded in the fighting was quickly interrogated at the hospital by the Asaish and the police. A video, in which the guard says he was ordered to fire on the crowd, soon appeared on Kurdish television.

Kurdish police commanders promise an impartial investigation of the bombing and its aftermath, overseen by officers from all of the city’s ethnic groups. But the senior Turkmen on the force, Maj. Gen. Turhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef, fears a whitewash.

“I don’t think we will have a result,” he said, describing the broadcast showing the wounded Turkmen guard as “illegal.”

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read more at the NYT and see toon at top...

from Al Jazeera...

Turkish fighter jets have bombed dozens of Kurdish separatist targets in northern Iraq, local television has reported.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni have taken part in a football match to highlight the plight of war crime victims.

The event, in the Ugandan capital Kampala, comes ahead of a conference reviewing the progress of the International Criminal Court.

An international treaty establishing the court was signed in 1998.

Many Ugandans have been victims of war crimes, notably at the hands of the notorious Lords Resistance Army (LRA).

The LRA has been indicted by the international criminal court over massacres and abductions perpetrated over almost two decades.

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Gus: the final score was 126-341 in favour of the dead players.  But here on YD we already had Ban Ki-Moon playing on the field — as the blind referree mind you — back in two thousand something (see toon at top).

Sometimes (all the time) I wonder about referees... Take for example the local rugby game between West Harbour and Eastern Suburbs today (10/07/10)... I did not watch the whole thing on the box, I was busy working around the place... but with about 30 seconds of the game to go, the referee awarded a penalty to Easter Suburb for what was a solid but legal tackle by a West Harbour team player... Another referee with his eyes opened would have awarded a penalty to West Harbour for "obstruction by an East player who took one defender away from the man carrying the ball" in the SAME play.

Same caper in the world cup for footbol (soccer)... Not only there are one referee and two assistants — they are basically all blind AT THE MOST CRUCIAL MOMENTS. Let's hope that refereeing will not decide the world cup... but I don't really care... Just stating facts when illusions decide. Sure the Eatern Suburbs/West Harbour referee might have been fair during the rest of the game, but at one second to midnight made an awful decision that favored one of the teams...

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In regard to the Palestinian/Israel conflict, the US President tries to act like a referee but in fact plays the ball, firmly against the Palestinians. It's a hundred-players-against-one in the game!... And the assistant referee of the UN does little more than saying nothing of real value...

Let's hope that Baroness Amos can sort a bit more than the result of biffo and trouble, and can make contribution to chastise the offenders — the real offenders, that is... But will she be allowed? And does she know?... She might know but might be too diplomatic...

FIFA's choice of Englishman Howard Webb to take charge of the World Cup final has irked Spain as he was the man in charge of their opening loss to Switzerland, media reports noted Friday.

"Bad news - Webb will referee the final," trumpeted sports daily Marca, while AS sports daily described the choice of Webb as "debatable", given that he had "made two mistakes" which cost Spain against the Swiss, shock 1-0 winners over the reigning European champions in their first group match.

Marca noted that Webb had not given what appeared to be a clear penalty in favour of David Silva and then gave Gelson Fernandes's goal despite more than a hint of offside.

Marca said it would thus be a "challenge" to win the match and take the trophy back to Spain for the first time.

Webb brings back "bad memories for La Roja (Spain)", noted Barcelona-based sports daily Mundo Deportivo.

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I have seen some bad referees and some blatantly slanted in favor of one team... And what this has to do with 'democracy"? Well, I might say, referees do not have to answer to anyone, except an obscure body that NEVER discuss or admit to an obvious ridiculous referee's mistake. Teams are well aware of this and even a blatant referee error cannot be commented on the spot, without a card (red or yellow) being issued by the said mistaken referee defending his erroneous decision, nor can the team's coach discuss it publicly without being penalised with a hefty fine... We have some fair referees, but more often than not they seem to turn into little Hitlers on the field..

We have some of these in politics. Too bloody many of them.

English referee Howard Webb says he has no regrets over his handling of Sunday's World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands.

Webb was criticised in some quarters after booking 13 players including the sending off John Heitinga in a match marred by frequent foul play.

"We felt satisfied that we'd done a tough job in difficult circumstances to the best of our abilities," he said.

"It was an extremely challenging match to handle."

Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk, who saw eight of his players pick up bookings, was unhappy with Webb's performance at Soccer City in Johannesburg.

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I can understand the Dutch. See articles above and toon at top..

The donkeys had been sent across Turkey's south-eastern border with Iraq to ferry vats of smuggled diesel and cigarettes. On Thursday when they came back it was with bodies wrapped in carpets lashed to their sides: the victims of a Turkish air raid that killed up to 35 villagers from this remote region.

In a major embarrassment for Turkey's government, it was forced on Thursday to admit that the dead, originally described by the Turkish army as Kurdish separatist fighters from the banned PKK, were civilians, misidentified by Turkish drones and then bombed on Wednesday evening as they travelled close to the Iraqi border.

A Turkish ruling party spokesman, Huseyin Celik, said the victims "were not terrorists" but smugglers, adding that officials were investigating possible intelligence failures that led to the strikes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/29/turkish-air-strikes-iraq-border