Ankara To Better Tackle PKK.

The government is to amend the anti-terror law in a bid to strengthen its hand against the Kurdish rebels who have stepped up the violence, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said in a newspaper interview published on July 22 by the daily Vatan. Cicek said: "The preparations are in the final stage. We will send the draft to parliament as soon as it reconvenes" on Oct. 1 after the summer recess.

Ankara now is alarmed at mounting unrest in the country's mainly Kurdish south-east, where the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terrorist group by the US and EU, has intensified its attacks on the army after calling off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004. Kurdish militants have targeted civilians: earlier in July they blew up a train, killing five, and bombed a seaside resort, leaving 20 people injured. But the PKK has denied involvement in the July 16 attack at Kusadasi.

The new measures, Cicek said, will not curb the expanded individual freedoms and human rights introduced over the past several years as part of Turkey's efforts to meet the democracy norms of the EU. Turkey's anti-terror law was only recently purged from infamous restrictions on the press and the freedom of speech as part of the EU-inspired reforms. Cicek told Vatan EU states themselves were reviewing their anti-terror legislation. He added: "We are examining the new measures taken up in Spain and Britain in the wake of the Al-Qaeda attacks there. We will also introduce some measures in that framework".

Prime Minister Erdogan has confirmed that Ankara was to set up a government agency specialising in terrorism-related issues. The army has called for a new institution, attached to Erdogan, which would determine strategies and co-ordinate the combat against terrorism.

Turkish troops recently clashed with Kurdish rebels in the south-eastern. A soldier and two rebels were killed, the Anatolia news agency reported. Rebels, using sniper rifles, opened fire on troops patrolling in the predominantly Kurdish province of Van, killing one soldier and injuring another, the agency said. The soldiers returned fire, killing two rebels.

At least 105 Turkish soldiers and 37 civilians have died in PKK-related violence over the past year, according to army figures released on July 19, which did not give the PKK death toll.

Whether or not the PKK itself has links with Al-Qaeda affiliated groups in Turkey or in northern Iraq is unclear. Most of Al-Qaeda related groups active in Iraq's Sunni Arab Triangle have Kurdish and Turkoman members.

Ansar Al-Islam, one of the main groups in Iraq, has many Kurdish members and is believed to be led by a Wahhabi Kurd from northern Iraq allied to Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian/Palestinian terrorist who heads the Al-Qaeda Organisation for Jihad in Mesopotamia. Jaysh Ansar Al-Sunna was once part of Ansar Al-Islam, and co-ordinates with Zarqawi's organisation.

The Iraqi Kurdistan Factor: In Iraq, meanwhile, Kurdish leaders on July 21 presented a redrawn map with a larger Kurdistan to the Iraqi National Assembly for consideration in the new constitution, The Associated Press reported from Kirkuk on July 22.

This came as Iraq's Sunni Arab decided to boycott deliberations for the drafting of a new permanent constitution for the country, which must be passed by the National Assembly in Baghdad by Aug. 15 and approved by a referendum by Oct. 15, so that general elections for a government and new parliament are held by Dec. 15.

The boycott followed the assassination of two Sunni Arab members of the constitutional committee in front of a central Baghdad restaurant on July 19. Their Sunni Arab colleagues have since complained that the Shiite-led government of Ibrahim Al-Ja'fari had not provided them with adequate security.

AP on July 22 quoted Mullah Bakhtiyar, a senior official with the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) as saying: "The Kurdistan Parliament and Kurdish parties have ratified and agreed on this [greater Kurdistan] map", which includes the oil-rich Kirkuk region.