Northern Iraq Observations 3: How do the Iraqi Kurds Perceive the Developing Relations with Turkey? ORSAM

ANALYSIS BY Oytun Orhan, ORSAM Middle East Expert

Northern Iraq Observations 3: How do the Iraqi Kurds Perceive the Developing Relations with Turkey?

Please click on the link below

http://www.orsam.org.tr/en/showArticle.aspx?ID=232

Farewell Helen Thomas

Excerpt:
When Thomas was asked during a White House Jewish Heritage Celebration on May 27 (before the Mavi Marmara massacre) whether she had any comments on Israel, she said without a pause: “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.”
“It’s their land,” Thomas asserted, referring to the Palestinians and baldly challenging the notion that Israel was founded on land that belongs to the Jews. When asked where the Jews should go, she said they should “go home” — to Germany, Poland, America or from wherever else they had emigrated to Israel.

Please click on the link below:

http://boycottisraeltoday.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/farewell-helen-thomas/

Asylum seekers screened for forced deportation

Asylum seekers screened for forced deportation



5.6.2010

Iraqi officials are screening failed Iraqi asylum seekers in UK immigration detention centres to assess whether they will accept forcible deportation back to Baghdad.

The highly unusual procedure, organised by the UK Borders Agency (UKBA), is in preparation for a flight next Wednesday when up to 70 men are expected to be removed from Britain.

The operation, deporting them via the central provinces of Iraq, is in direct contravention of United Nations guidelines. The UN high commissioner for refugees opposes forced returns to the area because of continuing suicide bombings and violence.The UN guidance was explicitly restated last autumn after the UK attempted to deport 44 men to Baghdad.

That abortive operation resulted in Iraqi airport officials refusing to admit all but 10 of the men. The rest were told to reboard the plane and flown back to the UK.As a result of the diplomatic embarrassment, Iraqi officials have been invited to screen potential deportees to ensure that they will not be barred from entering Baghdad when their plane arrives.

The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR), which has spoken to failed asylum seekers detained in the past week, said that some of the men who refused to cooperate with the process felt they had been threatened.

The detainees include a number of those put on the previous deportation flight to the Iraqi capital last October. The Home Office confirmed that Iraqi government officials were taking part in pre-removal interviews in this country.

Among questions being asked of the men is where they were born in Iraq and whether they want to return voluntarily. One of those interviewed in Brook House detention centre at Gatwick, Arevan Mohammed, sent a statement about his experience to the IFIR.

A student studying for an MSc in microbiology and biotechnology in the West Midlands, his partner is four months pregnant.

He said: "The immigration officer from the UKBA told me that I was not allowed to bring my legal representative with me as this meeting was totally private."The [Iraqi officials] spoke to me in Arabic but I started speaking in English as I told them we were living in UK and every one speaks English here."They said they had come from Iraq and were working with the UKBA as ambassadors for them. I said I am from Kirkuk and that there are many people who were from the street and who are now in the new Iraqi government."He become so angry and shouted at me with a loud voice saying 'go out and see what I'm going to do with you and where I'll put you by the time you come back'."

I have contacted my solicitors and Iraqi embassy in London about the threat that I am facing now. I am really worried and fear for my life now. Even in the UK I don't feel secure any more." He was eventually released.

Dashty Jamal, of the IFIR, said: "'This is another tactic by the UK government and the Iraqi government to legitimise their deportation police. The Liberal Democrats promised to sort out the problem of refugees but now they are supporting this inhuman policy and are working with the tribal, religious and nationalist militia groups in Iraq to play with lives of innocent people who tried to escape from the killings, massacres, sectarian violence and war but are now threatened with forcible deportation."

Around 900 failed asylum seekers have been deported to Iraq, virtually all to the relatively peaceful Kurdish north of the country, since deportation flights started in 2005.

Matthew Coats, head of immigration at the UK Border Agency said:"Officials from the Iraqi ministry of interior are interviewing Iraqi nationals who have no lawful basis of stay in the UK, in order to confirm their eligibility for return to Iraq.

In 2008 the courts found that we were able to return people to Iraq.

The security situation in Iraq is significantly better now than it was in 2008 and assisted voluntary returns to Iraq have increased every year since 2007."

by Owen Bowcott, the http://www.guardian.co.uk/

İTC Türkiye Temsilcisi Sadun KÖPRÜLÜ Afyon'da, Türkmen Şölenine katıldı.

07 Haziran 2010, Pazartesi.

Irak Türkmen Cephesi Türkiye Temsilcisi Sadun Köprülü Afyonkarahisar'da, Oğuz Boyu Yörük ve Türkmenler Derneği'nin düzenlediği Türkmen Şölenine katıldı. Çevre ve Orman Bakanı Prof. Dr. Veysel Eroğlu, Afyon Valisi, siyasi parti temsilcileri, bir çok dernek başkanı ve misafirlerin katıldığı şölene ilgi büyük oldu.

Şölen davetli konukların konuşmları ile başladı. Irak Türkmen Cephesi Türkiye Temsilcisi Sadun Köprülü'de bir konuşma yaptı. Şölene davet edenlere teşekkür ederek konuşmasına başlayan Köprülü, Irak Türkmenleri'nin en samimi sevgi ve selamlarını getirdiğini söyledi.

Irak Türkmenleri'nin yaşamış olduğu zorluk ve sıkıntılara rağmen kimliklerini kaybetmediklerini, nesilden nesile kültürlerini aktararak baskı ve zulme karşı ayakta kalmayı başardıklarını söyledi. Kerkük'te, Erbil'de Telafer'de ve diğer tüm Türkmen yerleşim bölgelerinde yaşayan Türkmenler'in gözünde ve gönlünde Türkiye'nin yeri hep ayrı olmuştur diyen Köprülü, her zaman yanımızda olan Türkiye ve Türk halkına teşekkür ediyorum diyerek sözlerini tamamladı.

Şölen süresince bir çok Yörük ve Türkmen dernek yöneticisi ile ikili görüşmeler yapan Köprülü, Irak Türkmenleri, ve Irak Türkmen Cephesi hakkında bilgi verdi.

TURKUMANI CULTURE IN IRAQ, by Lahib Jaddo

ART IS ACTIVISM. Culture, Language and Place
TURKUMANI CULTURE IN IRAQ
By Lahib Jaddo

My cultural roots rise from northern Iraq. I am Turkumani I was born and raised in this Islamic Culture. Thirty years ago I was transplanted to America. I am an artist. My paintings are an expression and a search for an affirmation of my heritage.

The Turkmen of Iraq were always the privileged ones in northern Mesopotamia during the Ottoman rule because of their common Turkish language. World War I defeated the Ottomans and the Arabs took power. Turkmen became second class citizens and their language was systematically taken away. This act was continued in Saddam’s regime. After the demise of Saddam and the Bath party, the Kurds replaced all the other oppressors to continue negating Turkman identity in Iraq.

Turkish language continues to be spoken in Turkmen homes, but in the decades since the language ban of 1923, generations of Turkmen became illiterate to the written language. The mother tongue was spoken not written or read (except secretly). The decision of Ataturk (the founder of modern Turkey after WWI) to write Turkish in Latin script, modernized Turkey and disconnected her from other Turkic groups in the east (including Iraqi Turkmen).

In my paintings architecture is a cultural signifier with multiple meanings in history, politics, and personal identity. The human figure is juxtaposed on the cityscape to create a dialogue. The absence of architecture exaggerates the sense of exile or lack of belonging.

The Turkish text written in the Arabic script is the language I claim. The paintings are animated with poetry, songs, or stories from the Turkumani culture.

Among the most important cultural expressions of a people are its art, language and architecture, I use all these in order to reclaim, recreate and assert Turkumaniness.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/42162407/The-Citadel-Of-Kirkuk-Architecture-In-Art-As-Cultural

NITAR

Hollanda Irak Türkmen danışma kurulu 17 -05 -2010 tarihinde resmen kuruldu.

Uzun zamandan beri Hollanda deki Irak Türkmen uruluşlarını tek çatı altında Birleşmeleri ve işbirliği içinde olmaları için yapılan birlik sözleşmesi Hollanda resmi Makamlarca kayıt ve tasdik olundu.

Kuruluşun amaçları arasında, Hollanda da Irak ürkmenlerini her mahfilde temsil etmek, içtüzüğe uygun olarak Türkmenlerin ırak’ın içinde ve dışında haklarını savunmak.

Kurulu oluşturan kuruluşlar ve aydın Türkmen kişiler ise:

1- Irak Türkmen kültür vakfı.

2- Sosyal ve sağlık derneği.

3- Gök Hilal Irak Türkleri derneği.

Türkmen aydın kişiler ise ;

Sayın Dr. Azgar Bayatlı .

Sayın Y.Ziraat Mühendisi Sabah Merdan.

Sayın Mehmet Koca .

Sayın Dr. Cengiz Sabir.

Kurulun Başkanlığına sayın Dr. Azgar Bayatlı

Sekreterliğine sayın z. y.mühendis Sabah Merdan.

Muhasebe işlerine Elektrik mühendisi Sayın A.Kerim Abdullah.

Bu Kuruluşların dışında kalan diğer Türkmen kuruluşlar ve aydınların bu birliğe katılmalarını diliyoruz, iç tüzüğe uyup ,tek çatı altında kişisel çıkarlardan arınmış ve Türkmen’e hizmet bayrağı altına çalışmak.

Hedeflenmelidir