Last Saturday, The Los Angeles Times reported that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's trip to the Persian Gulf is intended to strengthen ties with Arab allies, rally support for penalties against Iran, and promote democracy and security across the Middle East. The article reads that Clinton's trip to the Gulf will be her second in as many months. She also attended an international security conference in Bahrain in December. While Iran is always high on the agenda during such visits to the region, her focus this time will be broader. However, during the visit Clinton declared that revised estimates of Iran's ability to build a bomb should not mean easing sanctions and other efforts.
The same news agency states that in Turkey, emboldened Kurds are pushing hard for broader rights to speak their once-banned language. The article starts with the example of Emrah Kilic, who was raised by parents who shed their ethnic roots to blend in with the Turkish mainstream, and who now finds himself in a quandary. "I am confused about whether I should pursue my roots," he says. "But I am scared that it will change things, open a Pandora's box." Turkey's 20 percent Kurdish minority has been a traditional target of state discrimination and the more militant among them have waged a 26-year insurgency, which has killed tens of thousands. The violence has ebbed for now, but ahead of parliamentary elections in June, the nationalists worry that the escalating push for language rights masks a more ambitious goal — autonomy. Most Kurds are scattered over four countries and enjoy varying levels of freedom. Kurdish and Arabic are official languages in Iraq. Iran recognizes Kurdish as a regional language but keeps a tight lid on Kurdish political activism. Syria imposes harsh restrictions on the language. But Selahattin Demirtas, chairman of pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, is impatient: "From now on, we will not wait for the state to make legal arrangements," he recently told reporters. "The menus in the restaurants should be in two languages. The names of shops should be written in two languages."
The LA Times also followed the issue of an American woman, alleged to have been arrested in Iran: Iranian officials confirmed the arrest while the US government denies it.
The New York Times also published an article on Turkish-Kurdish relations. It states that for years, Kurds in Turkey knew better than to air demands for more rights in public. In a country that has often valued loyalty to the state above free speech, discussion of placing any distance between the Kurds and the state was tantamount to a prison sentence. Still, it is clear that the public mood is shifting, as people have been getting used to the relative calm since the P.K.K. declared its cease-fire.
Recently, thousands of Turks staged an unusual gathering in central Istanbul to demand peace with banners that read, “End the operations, establish peace,” and “Embrace your brother, let the peace be.” “Democracy, for us, is indispensable, and the resolution should definitely be a political one,” Cesim Soylu, a member of the pro-Kurdish party, said, and he warned against violence in case politics failed. “If the deadlock deepens, it is inevitable that forces other than our political party would resort to other methods, which surely also worries us.” The Guardian published an article entitled ‘Call of the wild in Georgia’ describing its reporter's journey to Georgia. The author concludes that a horse-riding holiday in a remote part of Georgia seemed the perfect antidote to urban life – but then he got a bigger adrenaline rush than he'd bargained for. The reporter describes his interesting journey in the breathtakingly beautiful Georgian countryside and some of the traditions of Georgian hospitality, although darkened by a terrifying incident during a horse trip through a mountain river. The Hurriyet press-agency published an article touching upon the situation in the South Caucasus. It states that, after the simultaneous publication of information contained in classified U.S. military documents by major international newspapers last summer, the Pentagon issued a statement, warning the WikiLeaks operators that the leaking of such secret documents could “damage the trust of allies” and it seems that this assumption has eventually materialized. The article refers to the Azerbaijan newspaper’s article ‘USA: perverted liberty’, attacking US foreign policy. The same agency also issued several articles concerning Turkish-Greek relations, trying to answer the question: did the two leaders “trade barbs,” or did they confirm their policy of friendship? The author concludes that both prime ministers had their own particular reasons for publicly “crossing their swords” but not necessarily while aiming at each other.
