19 June 2003

1. "Turkish parliament set to debate rights reforms to boost EU bid", Turkish lawmakers were to debate Thursday a package of human rights reforms aimed at strengthening the mainly Muslim country's hand in its struggling bid to join the European Union.

2. "Denktash under friendly fire", Turkey’s foreign minister launched an unusually harsh attack on Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in a newspaper interview printed yesterday, accusing him of displaying unreasonable intransigence on the Cyprus peace talks.

3. "PKK member blames Greek politicians for Ocalan's capture", separatist organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) member Semse Kilic, who helped chieftain of PKK Abdullah Ocalan to enter Greece after he was expelled from his former base in Syria, said that Greek politicians were responsible for the capture of Ocalan by Turkish security officials.

4. "Playhouse raided as Turkish police sees red... green and yellow", Police in southeastern Turkey raided a playhouse to seize a multi-coloured screen showing a little too much red, green and yellow -- traditional Kurdish separatist colours -- newspapers reported Thursday.

5. "AKP facing dispute with business dynasty", dispute centers on companies owned by leader of major opposition party.

6. "US and Kurds Issue Heavy Weapons Ultimatum", the US and Kurdish authorities in Iraq on Tuesday issued a joint ultimatum for all groups in the north of the country, other than the two main Kurdish parties, to give up their heavy weapons.

1. - AFP - "Turkish parliament set to debate rights reforms to boost EU bid":

ANKARA / 19 June 2003

Turkish lawmakers were to debate Thursday a package of human rights reforms aimed at strengthening the mainly Muslim country's hand in its struggling bid to join the European Union. The government is hoping to swiftly push through the measures to prove Ankara's determination to catch up with European standards before Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan flies to the EU summit in Greece on Friday.

"I believe the package will be adopted in the general assembly today (Thursday) with backing from the opposition party," Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin told the NTV news channel hours before the parliament session was to begin. "This will present a very positive image of Turkey if Erdogan leaves as the representative of a state which has taken this step," he added.

The reform package has not been without controversy however: some of the changes have attracted the ire of the powerful army on the grounds that they could encourage Kurdish separatism in the country, which put down a 15-year armed rebellion for Kurdish self-rule in 1999. But the government, viewed with suspicion by the secular elite and the military for its Islamist roots, has dug its heels in on the reforms, and is set to follow it up with more changes that could create tension with the powerful generals.

If approved, Thursday's reform package will allow private radio and television stations, along with state television, to air programmes in the Kurdish language and lift restrictions on the country's largest minority to give their children ethnic names. But, most importantly, it would also abolish an infamous article on "propagating separatism", a catch-all provision which has been widely used to jail advocates of Kurdish rights.

This article causes particular unease in the army, which officially supports the country's EU membership bid. Some generals are said to frown upon the change on the grounds that it could play into the hands of Kurdish separatists and radical Islamists, impeding the fight against "terrorism". The package also narrows the scope of terrorist acts, arguing that an act has to involve force and violence to be considered terrorist.

Other changes would allow non-Muslim foundations to buy property in Turkey, ease media restrictions during election time and abolish a penal code article largely used to keep the perpetrators of honour killings from receiving heavy jail terms. Sahin told NTV that the cabinet planned to submit another reform package to parliament to complete all the political requirements of the EU before the end of the year.

He refused to give details on the planned changes, but reports have indicated that the reforms aim to rein in the army's influence in politics, a key EU demand. Such reforms could anger the military, a key player in determining government policy through the National Security Council. But Sahin made clear the government's determination to catch up with all EU norms and denied it was seeking tension with the army.

"We could never have the aim of causing friction with or confronting constitutional bodies... We want to have the same political criteria as EU members or candidate countries," he said. "If we claim to have special conditions and ask for different arangements, then we would not install trust in the other party, overshadow our own efforts and block our own path," he added.

Turkey, an EU candidate since 1999, is the laggard among the 13 candidates and the only one yet to start accession talks with the Union. The EU has said that Ankara must overhaul its crippled democracy and rights record before December 2004, when EU leaders will decide whether to sit down at the negotiating table with the country.

2. - Kathimerini - "Denktash under friendly fire":

19 June 2003

Turkey’s foreign minister launched an unusually harsh attack on Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in a newspaper interview printed yesterday, accusing him of displaying unreasonable intransigence on the Cyprus peace talks.

According to an Athens News Agency report from Nicosia, Abdullah Gul’s comments were carried in the Turkish-Cypriot Yeni Duzen paper, which reprinted an interview in the Turkish press. Gul was quoted as saying that Denktash had backtracked from an agreement — which Ankara had pressed him into accepting — to put the adoption of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s peace plan to referendum. The plan, submitted late last year, was accepted by the Cypriot government but rejected by Denktash in March.

Gul was quoted as saying that Denktash changed his mind when it became apparent that his community would vote for the UN peace blueprint. The foreign minister was also quoted as saying that, when Denktash told him he wanted to follow the model of the Palestinian intifada, Gul countered that while Palestinian children were throwing stones at Israeli tanks, Denktash himself had become a target for verbal assaults by young Turkish Cypriots protesting outside his residence.

Gul also allegedly remarked that Ankara had not played its hand well on Cyprus, “buttering the bread” of the Cypriot government.

Denktash has come under increasing criticism by American and European Union officials for rejecting the idea of new peace talks.

Yesterday, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Guenter Verheugen told journalists in Nicosia that Denktash had turned down an EU plan to ease the effective trade embargo in place against the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus.

3. - Turkish Daily News - "PKK member blames Greek politicians for Ocalan's capture":

ANKARA / 19 June 2003

Separatist organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) member Semse Kilic, who helped chieftain of PKK Abdullah Ocalan to enter Greece after he was expelled from his former base in Syria, said that Greek politicians were responsible for the capture of Ocalan by Turkish security officials.

Athens Higher Criminal Court yesterday continued hearing the case through which 12 people including Ocalan, are accused of endangering Greece's safety in the ill-fated operation to shelter the latter after he was expelled from Syria.

Testifying to the court, Kilic defined herself as an active militant of PKK in military and diplomatic fields and said that Ocalan was brought to Greece within the knowledge of the Greek government.

Kilic said that Ocalan was not seeking political asylum in Greece but he just wanted to feel relieved for a while. She said Greek politicians did not allow him to feel relieved.

Kilic noted that Ocalan knew Andonis Naxakis, who brought him into Greece, for 14 years, adding that Naxakis was a patriot who fulfilled the orders of the Greek government. She noted that former PASOK deputy Costas Baduvas was the key player of the plot and conveyed government's orders to Naxakis.

According to Kilic, Ocalan has been on good terms with Greece since the office of Andreas Papandreou and that these relations continued during Costas Simitis' term of office at the Prime Ministry.

Emphasizing that Simitis was responsible for Ocalan's capture, Kilic stated that George Papandreou also knew of the operation. She claimed that Ocalan was the victim of an international plot.

Kilic will continue testifying to the court, which will then hear the defendants.

Naxakis, and two of Ocalan's Kurdish associates face felony counts. Ocalan is charged on a misdemeanor count of entering Greece illegally. Another nine Greeks faced misdemeanor counts of assisting or sheltering Ocalan.

Ocalan was smuggled into Greece in January 1999 by sympathizers, led by Naxakis, after the government said he was not welcome. Fearing conflict with Turkey, authorities were forced to move Ocalan to a Greek diplomatic compound in Nairobi, Kenya. Terrorist chieftain Ocalan was ambushed by Turkish commandos after he left the compound.

The Ocalan crisis led Premier Costas Simitis to fire three cabinet members, including then Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos and Public Order Minister Philipos Petsalnikos, and almost resulted in a government collapse.

Ocalan is serving a life sentence for treason and is held on the Turkish prison island of Imrali off Istanbul. His death sentence was converted to life in prison last year amid legal changes by Turkey to fulfill criteria for joining the European Union.

4. - AFP - "Playhouse raided as Turkish police sees red... green and yellow":

ANKARA / 19 June 2003

Police in southeastern Turkey raided a playhouse to seize a multi-coloured screen showing a little too much red, green and yellow -- traditional Kurdish separatist colours -- newspapers reported Thursday.

Tuesday's raid in the town of Hakkari came after a teacher watching a play rehearsal told police of the screen, used as part of the scenery, the liberal Radikal daily said. The three colours are those of the banner of a Kurdish rebel movement, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which led a 15-year armed campaign for self-rule in Turkey's southeast. Displaying such colours has often led to accusations of propaganda and support for the rebels.

Following the raid, the actors, who were taken in to testify before the local prosecutor, cancelled the show, the liberal Milliyet said. One of them, Mahir Gunsiray, denied the play had anything to do with Kurds. The play entitled Gavara, a term from the Black Sea region meaning trouble which appears suddenly, the play depicted events from the life of a man from his childhood to early adulthood, he said.

"We are very surprised that the screen has been seized," Radikal quoted him saying. "I believe this incident is bad luck especially at a time when parliament is working on reforms to join the European Union," he added. Turkey's poor human rights record is one of the main obstacles to its struggling bid to become a member of the pan-European bloc.

5. - The Daily Star - "AKP facing dispute with business dynasty":

Dispute centers on companies owned by leader of major opposition party

ISTANBUL / 19 June 2003 / David O’Byrne

ISTANBUL: A dispute between Turkey’s moderate Islamist government and a controversial business dynasty could escalate into a full-scale political confrontation.

The dispute started last week when Turkish Energy Ministry officials and the country’s independent energy market regulator seized two electricity companies, Kepez Elektrik and Cukurova Elektrik, owned by the controversial Uzan family, which is headed by Cem Uzan, the leader of one of Turkey’s best-supported opposition parties.

Turkish television news aired the live coverage of senior management from the two companies being frog-marched out of their offices ­ and their jobs ­ by senior officials of Turkey’s state power generation company TEAS, to which control of the companies has been transferred.

The seizure came about after the companies, which generate and distribute electricity in southeastern Turkey, were warned for months that they were in breach of anti-monopoly regulations introduced last September prohibiting companies owned by the same group from generating and distributing electricity in the same region.

The Uzans have objected that their legal challenges to a court ruling instructing them to hand over their electricity distribution operations to the state or face seizure had not been completed. Their lawyers announced they will take the case to the Council of State, Turkey’s highest court.

Turkish officials have repeatedly stated that the seizure by the board of the Energy Market Regulatory Authority, which acts independently of government control, was legal.

“The laws apply equally to everyone. No one is above the law,” stated Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

The seizure met with the approval of Turkey’s powerful businessmen and industrialists association TUSIAD, which issued a statement describing the act as an attempt to “restore competitive market conditions.”

Businessmen in the regions served by the companies have long complained of high electricity prices.

There have also been complaints from employees of the two companies, who have reported receiving letters instructing them to report for duty at the “new” company headquarters or face dismissal.

Their situation has been complicated by the discovery that their actual legal employer was a third Uzan-owned company that has not been seized.

Despite the sanctioning of the takeover of the two firms by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose approval is a legal requirement for such moves, its timing has raised eyebrows, as the Youth Party, headed by Uzan, has been receiving increased support in opinion polls.

Having only attracted 7 percent of the popular vote in last November’s general election, a ratio insufficient to take the party to Parliament, recent polls show that 15 percent of the population supports the Youth Party ­ only slightly behind the governing Justice and Development Party, which in November scored a landslide victory, forming Turkey’s first majority government in over a decade.

This sudden rise in popularity for the Youth Party has stemmed largely from the new government’s inability to significantly improve living standards for ordinary Turks.

Forced to maintain strict budgetary controls by the International Monetary Fund, which is funding a $16 billion bail-out for the economy, the government has little capacity to counter the Youth Party’s deliberately simplistic policies of slashing income taxes and ending the relationship with the IMF.

The timing of the seizure is also in question, coming a week after another Uzan-owned company won the tender for the privatization of state-owned petrochemical company Petkim.

The Uzan bid of $605 million was far below the figure the government had hoped for, and their win prompted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to announce that Turkey’s Competition Board would launch an investigation into the sale.

“Inevitably there is a political angle,” said Cengiz Candar, columnist for the pro-Islamist daily Yeni Safak, “if only because Cem Uzan funds his political activities from his corporate interests ­ including Kepez and Cukurova.” Uzan himself has accused Erdogan of attacking his business interests in order to weaken his political power.

In a speech addressed to a Youth Party rally in Bursa, Uzan described the seizure of his companies as “treachery,” a statement that could land Uzan in court if prosecutors decide it to be an insult to the institution of government in Turkey.

Whether this will lessen the popularity of the Uzan family, who also hold Jordanian nationality, remains to be seen.

During a long business career which saw them establish an empire that includes television stations and newspapers among numerous other business interests, the family has seldom been far from controversy.

Uzan and other leading family members are being pursued through courts in the United States, the United Kingdom and Turkey by mobile phone equipment suppliers Motorola and Nokia, both eager to reclaim over $3 billion in vendor financing after Telsim, the Uzans’ mobile phone company, defaulted in 2001.

Motorola and Nokia claim their loans were guaranteed against a majority stake in Telsim, which was later illegally “diluted” to a small minority stake by issuing thousands of new Telsim shares to Uzan family members. The debt, together with accumulated interest, now exceeds $7.5 billion.

The controversy last year cost the jobs of US-based Motorola’s senior management, which had approved the loan.

Legal actions in the UK scored a significant success earlier this year when a British court handed down a 15-month prison sentence in absentia to Uzan for failing to comply with an order calling for the freezing of his assets in the UK.

As extradition treaties don’t cover civil offenses, it’s unlikely Uzan will serve the sentence unless he visits the UK.

News of the Uzan empire’s difficulties in Turkey is likely to be welcomed by Motorola and Nokia, as well as by the US government, which has been pressuring successive Turkish administrations to help the companies recover their lost loans.

Turkish-US relations are at an all-time low following Turkey’s failure to allow US troops to invade northern Iraq through its borders.

US government officials have gone on record as stating that Turkey needs to apologize for its actions if it wants relations to improve.

6. - Financal Times - "US and Kurds Issue Heavy Weapons Ultimatum":

17 June 2003

The US and Kurdish authorities in Iraq on Tuesday issued a joint ultimatum for all groups in the north of the country, other than the two main Kurdish parties, to give up their heavy weapons.

This extends a new weapons regime that came into force in the rest of Iraq on Sunday, but its implementation faces a special challenge in a mountainous region that was outside the control of the Baghdad regime after 1991 and where many factions have substantial arsenals.

The order - which lists a number of proscribed weapons including the BKC machine-gun, the Dushka anti-aircraft gun, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and artillery - is based on "law number three" of the coalition forces in Iraq and on a 1993 decree of the Kurdish parliament.

"These are very close, parallel documents," said Colonel Harry Schute, head of the US-led civil affairs administration in northern Iraq. "The Kurdish parliament law has been in effect for 10 years but has been loosely enforced due to the special circumstances that existed until very recently."

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the two Kurdish parties that each administers part of the Kurdish region, will keep their heavy weapons, which they recently augmented with supplies from the disintegrating Iraqi army.

The two parties have agreed with the Americans that their forces will be later integrated into a new Iraqi army.

Among the other groups currently holding heavy weapons are the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party. Two Kurdish parties from neighbouring countries - the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) of Turkey and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran - also have heavy arms at bases inside northern Iraq.

"We are giving these groups 15 days to be aware of the policy," said Colonel Schute.

The nature of Tuesday's announcement suggests that the KDP and the PUK will enforce the order with the threat of US back-up.

Colonel Schute refused to specify what would happen if any groups kept their heavy weapons. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there," he said. "I'd like to give them an opportunity to comply with the programme."

Turkey’s hard-pressed Islamist government may be hoping that moving against the controversial Uzans may help break the ice with Washington.