I didn't use --disable-nls and configure seems to be trying to use nls:
checking whether NLS is requested... yes checking for GNU gettext in libc... no checking for iconv... no, consider installing GNU libiconv checking for GNU gettext in libintl... no
Do I need to install gettext or gettext-devel to use translations?
Yes.
For runtime, you'll need libiconv2 and libintl2. For development (that is, to compile/link your package) you'll also need the libiconv-devel and gettext packages. You'll only need the gettext-devel package if you need to re"compile" .mo message files as part of your build process.
-- Chuck
