The European Union will likely rebuff a U.S. request to freeze the assets of some Kurdish and Palestinian organizations with suspected links to terrorism in Turkey and Israel, highlighting the difficulty the U.S. faces in blocking funds around the globe. The U.S. last month froze the assets of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, and about 40 other organizations with no apparent links to the Sept. 11 attacks. In a letter sent to the heads of government of the EU's 15 member nations, President George W. Bush asked them to follow the U.S.'s lead.
But while EU officials say they might move against the assets of some of the 40 groups, they won't do so against all. "Our concern is that it shouldn't be a list of names supplied by George Bush," says Graham Watson, a British Liberal Democrat member of the European Parliament. "Terrorist organizations in one country can be freedom fighters in another." In the case of the PKK, for example, Washington's decision to freeze its assets in the U.S. pleases Turkey, a key North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally that the U.S. would like to see play a role in Afghanistan. But many EU countries have large Kurdish populations and are critical of Turkey's human-rights policies in suppressing the Kurdish separatist movement in its eastern regions. Some EU countries are tolerant of the PKK and several other far-left Turkish groups, which Turkey says have links to terrorism. Asked about the U.S. list, a Dutch diplomat said the PKK isn't illegal in Holland and it isn't clear what purpose would be served for the EU to publish a list of terrorist organisations. EU members also are reluctant to freeze the assets of groups such as Hezbollah, which has a record of launching attacks on Israel from its base in south Lebanon but also holds a large share of the seats in the Lebanese parliament and runs schools and hospitals.
"Hezbollah could play a major role in regional stability," says Gunnar Wiegand, the European Commission's external relations spokesman. The EU is also reluctant to take action against the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, arguing it also plays an important social-welfare role in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. The EU did quickly follow the U.S. decision to freeze the assets of al Qaeda and the Taliban because those sanctions are backed by United Nations resolutions on the Sept. 11 attacks. When the EU publishes a wider list of groups whose assets should be restricted it would likely cover more extreme outfits such as the Egyptian group Islamic Jihad, which is active in the Palestinian territories, as well as homegrown organizations such as the Basque-separatist group ETA and the Real Irish Republican Army.
The European debate over which groups' assets should be frozen is part of the post-Sept. 11 wrangling over how the 15 countries of the EU can coordinate their often-divergent antiterrorism policies. When they next meet on Dec. 7, EU police and justice ministers will likely agree on the procedure for freezing assets and also on a proposal for a faster system of cross-border arrests and extradition for terrorism and other serious crimes. The proposal leaves it up to national police departments to decide which suspected terrorist groups should be kept under surveillance and whether a specific act qualifies as terrorism. Bureau Report