VZCZCXRO8652
RR RUEHDA
DE RUEHDA #0104/01 2251106
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 131106Z AUG 07
FM AMCONSUL ADANA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4594
INFO RUEUITH/AFOSI DET 521 ANKARA TU
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA 1139
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL 0987
RUEKJCS/OSD WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/AFOSI DET 522 INCIRLIK AB TU
RUETIAA/DIRNSA FT MEADE MD
RUEHDA/AMCONSUL ADANA 1197

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