28
March 2003
2. "Eighty years on, Turks defend Ataturk's legacy", Turks have been rallying around Kemalism, their country's guiding ideology drawn up by founding father Kemal Ataturk, after a European Parliament report accused it of being an obstacle to Ankara's bid to join the EU.
3. "US-Turkey tensions ease amid signs of greater collaboration", Military chief says Turkey will send more troops into N. Iraq only if threat escalates - and in coordination with US.
4. "Analysis: Turkey's losing aid streak", in emphasizing its "special relationship" with Turkey, the United States conveniently overlooked the fact -- confirmed yet again by a recent Pew Global Attitudes Project survey -- that 84 percent of Turks view America "unfavorably."
5. "US weighs cost of lost friendships", while the US establishment remains fully confident of winning the war in Iraq, there is a growing perception that victory will come at the price of too many broken friendships.
6. "EU sets aid demands for Turkey", the European Commission yesterday proposed doubling aid to Turkey over the next three years but said its EU candidacy would be jeopardized if it intervened in Iraq or halted its political reforms during the crisis.
1. - AFP - "Four ex-Kurdish MPs set for retrial in Turkey":
ANKARA / 27 March 2003 / by Burak Akinci
Kurdish human rights award winner Leyla Zana and three other former
Kurdish MPs face a retrial Friday, hoping that Turkey's efforts to
embrace EU norms will help them regain their freedom after more than
eight years in jail.
Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak were given 15-year jail sentences in 1994, at a time of high tension between Ankara and its restive Kurdish minority, on charges of supporting Kurdish rebels fighting for self-rule in southeastern Turkey. The new trial, which has drawn much media attention, will start at 0700 GMT on Friday before an Ankara state security court in the presence of European MPs.
Zana, 42, the first Kurdish woman to win a seat in Turkey's parliament, has long been a focus for international rights campaigners who insist that her conviction was a result of Ankara's determination to silence even peaceful activists advocating Kurdish freedoms. She won the European Parliament's Sakharov freedom of thought award when she was in prison in 1995. Several European MPs and officials have since paid her visits in jail.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2001 that the trial of the Kurdish politicians was unfair, saying they were not able to have key witnesses questioned and were not informed in time of modifications to the charges against them. The four were able to ask for a judicial review under reforms that Turkey has recently adopted to improve its crippled democracy and expand the rights of its Kurdish minority in the hope of boosting its chances of joining the European Union.
The law now allows convicts to seek retrial under certain conditions if their sentences have been criticized by the European Court of Human Rights. Zana and her colleagues, members of the Democracy Party (DEP), entered parliament in 1991 on the ticket of a center-left party and caused uproar by taking their oaths in Kurdish instead of Turkish, the official language.
At the ceremony, Zana wore a headband in yellow, green, and red, the colors of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), whose campaign for self-rule has claimed about 36,500 lives since 1984. The DEP was outlawed in 1994 for collaborating with the PKK and parliament then lifted the immunity of the DEP MPs. Police arrested and handcuffed Zana and her MPs as soon as they emerged from the parliament following the session.
The mid-1990s marked the bloodiest period of the PKK campaign, which
triggered an equally tough response from Ankara, with clampdowns not
only on the rebels, but on Kurdish politicians and intellectuals campaigning
peacefully for cultural freedoms. The climate has notably thawed since
1999 when the PKK said it was ending its armed struggle in favor of
a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question
following the capture of its leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Eager to advance its EU membership bid, Ankara, for its part, has legalized broadcasts and courses in the Kurdish language as part of a series of reforms expanding human rights. Many of the amendments have yet to be implemented in daily life and certain restrictions to individual freedoms remain, but Zana's lawyer Yusuf Alatas acknowledged that Turkey had made progress towards reconciling with its Kurds.
"Today's conditions are not the same as in 1994. The Turks and
the Kurds have changed. Everybody has moved forward," Alatas
told AFP. "The Kurdish question is no longer a taboo," he
added. Zana and her three colleagues are currently serving their sentences
in a jail in Ankara. Two other former Kurdish deputies who were imprisoned
in 1994 were released the following year.
2. - AFP - "Eighty years on, Turks defend Ataturk's legacy":
ANKARA / 28 March 2003 / by Burak Akinci
Turks have been rallying around Kemalism, their country's guiding
ideology drawn up by founding father Kemal Ataturk, after a European
Parliament report accused it of being an obstacle to Ankara's bid
to join the EU.
Kemalism, named after Ataturk, who lived from 1881-1938, remains hugely popular with Turks. "It's Turkey's raison d'etre ... it's definitely not an obsolete ideology," said Seyhan Karaba, a 50-year-old pensioner pay respects with his daughter at Ataturk's tomb, housed in a magnificent mausoleum overlooking Ankara.
"It's thanks to Kemalism that Turkey's face is turned towards the West," he added, referring to the doctrine which defends Western values and the principle of a secular state. A few metres (yards) further is a towering pillar inscribed with one of Ataturk's most celebrated dictums: "Sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the people".
Mustafa Kemal, better-known as 'Ataturk' (father of Turks) won a
place in the hearts of all Turks when in 1923 after a four-year war
he fought off Greek, British, French and Italian armies to carve modern
Turkey out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire. As a political leader
he introduced secularism to Muslim-majority Turkey. Religion was separated
from politics, Turkish men were told to look European
and shave their moustaches.
Before Ataturk, the country was run by Sultans claiming to be God's direct representatives on earth. Ataturk made it the army's job to ensure the principle of secularism was upheld. Every time they believed this principle was at stake, Turkey's generals intervened to defend it most recently in 1997 when they forced Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan to resign.
There are few critics in Turkey today of Ataturk's legacy, with one rare voice of dissent being writer Nedim Gursel. "Kemalism was shaped in the mould of fascist unitary parties in 1930s Europe. To democratise, we have to demilitarise and dekemalise. And in order to do that, Turkey has to be integrated in Europe," he wrote in December.
But a European Parliament draft report released on Tuesday said that Kemalism was a hindrance to Turkey's joining the European Union. "Kemalism ... entails an exaggerated fear of compromising the country's territorial unity ... the army's role is a brake to Turkey's development towards a pluralist, democratic system," the report signed by Christian-Democratic Euro MP Arie Oostlander said.
Turkey has applied to join the European Union, and the EU is to decide by the end of 2004 whether to open membership negotiations with Ankara. The Turkish foreign ministry was quick to criticise the report, urging the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, to "eliminate (any) prejudices" it contained.
"Can anybody seriously think that Turkey could possibly give up Ataturk's heritage and secularism just because some Dutch idiot says it should," fumed former Turkish Foreign Minister Coskun Kirca. "If Europeans try to violate our most fundamental values, I don't see why we should go into their union," says Karaba, noting that it was Ataturk who granted women the right to vote in 1934, long before other European countries.
The army is still the most respected institution in the country, polls say, with politicians trailing far behind. Generals have the upper hand in the National Security Council, Turkey's highest decision-making body. "Rejecting Kemalism is just another way of saying: 'sorry, we're not going to let you in," said Hasan Unal, professor for international relations at Ankara University.
The EU is looking for a pretext to prevent Turkey from joining the
Union, Unal said, pointing to Brussels' demands that Turkey settles
the Cyprus question first and that it refrain from sending troops
in northern Iraq. Many Turks have accused the Europeans of blocking
Turkey's bid to preserve the Union's character as a Christian club.
3. - The Christian Science Monitor - "US-Turkey tensions ease amid signs of greater collaboration":
Military chief says Turkey will send more troops into N. Iraq only if threat escalates - and in coordination with US.
DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY / 27 March 2003
by Ilene R. Prusher
Turkey's top military chief said yesterday that Turkey was actively preparing to send more troops into northern Iraq, but that it would do so only if the threat against Turkey escalates - and in coordination with the United States.
The comments by Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, the armed forces chief of general staff, comes amid signs of an easing of the tense standoff between Ankara and Washington, which has grown strident in its insistence that Turkey stay out of the war in Iraq. Ozkok's rare statements to the press come a day after President Bush made a surprise offer of $1 billion in economic grants to Turkey, which could be used to secure loan guarantees of up to $8 billion.
The US and Turkey, which have been on a collision course since Turkey delayed and then failed to win approval for a plan to base thousands of US troops here, now appear closer to collaborating - rather than competing - as the war edges into northern Iraq.
However, Turkey says it maintains its right to beef up its troop presence in northern Iraq, in particular if it sees increased threats to Turkish national security, or to Turkey's troops already posted there. The US has grown increasingly concerned that a large Turkish military presence in northern Iraq would lead to clashes with Iraqi Kurdish groups, some of whom say Turkey's troops would not be welcomed.
Ozkok yesterday set out to allay those fears, but also seemed to warn the US that it might someday find itself keen to have the Turkish military in northern Iraq to stabilize a situation it says could spiral out of control.
"Our actions would be coordinated with the US, and we will take other measures so that there will not be any misunderstandings," Ozkok said, speaking to journalists at a heavily guarded military base in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey's southeastern corner, nearest Iraq. "If one days things go out of control, I hope our friends will not have to ask us to do what they are opposing now."
Ozkok laid out the events that would lead Turkey to send more troops into Iraq. A massive flow of refugees toward Turkey, attacks on Turkish troops already stationed in Iraq, or fighting between various opposition factions in northern Iraq would be treated as a justification for sending in reinforcements, he said.
"We shall not fight unless we are attacked. We will only use our right of self-defense. We don't have any secrets aims," he said. "No one should have any doubt that this authority given to the armed forces would be utilized in the best way to protect our national security and maintain regional stability."
Ozkok's statements set out to clarify what he said were great "misunderstandings" about Turkey's intentions. Coming on the heels of the Bush administration's unveiling of plans to include aid to Turkey in its $75-billion war package, observers say the two countries are taking steps to back away from the brink of a diplomatic meltdown.
"Hopefully, this will set the stage for some kind of cooperation that wasn't there before," says Bulent Alireza, the director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
"Frankly, the Turks are very worried about the tactical cooperation that is about to materialize between the US and Kurds," says Mr. Alireza, speaking in a phone interview during a visit to Ankara. "The general [Ozkok] has lowered the level of tension between Turkey and the US, and had raised the possibility of cooperation."
That, many here say, could still involve the use of bases for stationing or giving support to ground troops that US-led coalition forces may still need in their drive to secure the north of Iraq, where various opposition groups and guerrilla organizations have flourished in the years since the no-fly zones made the region virtually autonomous.
Markets in Turkey, in a downhill slide after it became apparent that a $6-billion aid package from the US had been withdrawn, rallied yesterday on expectations that Washington would provide aid to debt-mired Turkey after all - and that the US and Turkey might yet iron out their differences.
Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said the aid Bush proposed was not contingent on a troop agreement. "The aid that will be provided by the US is not dependent on any conditions," Mr. Gul told reporters. "There is no new offer from the US about that," he said of the failed basing plans. But leading Turkish media outlets yesterday raised the likelihood of the AK [Justice and Development] Party government introducing another parliamentary motion to allow in US troops.
Members of parliament say that Turkey's plan to go into northern Iraq has been widely misunderstood, and are hoping Ozkok's statements will clear up concerns.
"All sides have to better read our intentions," says Egemen
Bagis, a member of parliament and adviser to the prime minister. "Turkey
is not there to bash Kurds. Turkey is not going there for oil. We
are not going there to harm US interests. Our existence there will
advance US interests."
4. - UPI - "Analysis: Turkey's losing aid streak":
SKOPJE, Macedonia / March 27, 2003
by Sam Vaknin
In emphasizing its "special relationship" with Turkey, the United States conveniently overlooked the fact -- confirmed yet again by a recent Pew Global Attitudes Project survey -- that 84 percent of Turks view America "unfavorably."
According to the Anadolu news agency, the Chairman of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges in Turkey, Rifat Hisarciklioglu, cajoled his countrymen on Monday to rid themselves of their dependence on "foreign" assistance -- a common euphemism for handouts from America and, as the Turks
firmly believe, its long arm, the International Monetary Fund.
A country's foreign policy stature, he averred, is conferred by its domestic product. Somewhat implausibly, he pegged Turkey's war-related damages this year at $16.2 billion and between $70 billion and $150 billion in the next decade. It will have to resort to more expensive alternative sources of oil. Tourism, its second largest foreign exchange earner, will wither.
If true, Turkey's refusal to be used by U.S. troops as a launch pad for a second front in northern Iraq was nothing short of suicidal.
Turkey could have ended up with $30 billion in sorely needed aid and loan guarantees -- now reduced, perhaps, to a mere $8.5 billion in commercial debt in return for overflight rights. Moreover, future IMF aid and even disbursements from an existing standby agreement are in jeopardy.
Last year, at the behest of the United States, Turkey received another dollop of $17 billion in multilateral funds to shore up its ailing economy. According to the Washington Post, it already owes the fund five times the ordinary borrowing limit under the lending agency's rules.
The country's finances are in dire straits. Its foreign debt has catapulted from $50 billion after the first Gulf war to more than $130 billion in the run-up to the second. The government's economic policies are still based on the obsolete assumption that U.S. aid will be forthcoming despite Turkey's denial of service.
Inflation, at more than 25 percent, is rising as are real interest rates -- at 30 percent above inflation -- and an already unsustainable $95 billion in domestic public debt, a sizable chunk of it extremely short term.
Financial markets and the currency are plummeting. Yields on Turkish bonds are a stratospheric 70 percent to 80 percent. An incredible three quarters of the budget is earmarked for debt repayments.
The country should service $80 billion in obligations in the remainder of this year. Not surprisingly, Standard and Poor's is contemplating a lowering of Turkey's country rating, currently below investment grade at B1. Fitch reduced Turkey's rank to B minus with a negative outlook to boot -- akin to destitute and near-default Moldova.
According to Stratfor, the strategic forecasting consultancy, risk premiums on Turkish treasuries leaped 90-122 basis points on March 17 alone -- to 9.5 percent above comparable U.S. bonds. This spread narrowed by 95 bps the following day when Turkey came up with the offer to allow U.S. planes to use of its airspace.
Closer integration with the European Union, warned EU enlargement commissioner, Günter Verheugen, will be adversely affected by any unilateral Turkish move in northern Iraq. The acrimonious breakdown of reunification talks between the Greek- and Turkish-sponsored parties in Cyprus didn't help, either.
Turkey has been allocated $1.1 billion by the EU as pre-accession aid. Unruly behavior on its part might endanger this carrot as well. To complicate matters further, America might drop its political and pecuniary support for the Baku-Ceyhan Main Export oil Pipeline.
Nor is the domestic situation less ominous.
The new, hitherto popular, prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, vowed on Sunday "carefully and diligently" to implement the IMF's agonizing austerity program which calls for spending cuts of $2 billion by the end of the month, privatization of the tobacco and alcohol monopolies and tax reform. The 2003 budget envisages a primary surplus of 6.5 percent of gross national product. It also aims to raise revenues by $5 billion and cut expenditure by $3 billion.
Such prescriptions ill-fit with promises to help the poor and boost growth through fiscal measures. But a mid-April IMF loan tranche of $1.6 billion -- of the $3.5 billion remaining to be disbursed -- depends on strict adherence. Nor is a new agreement with the IMF in the offing without considerable U.S. pressure or its implicit guarantee, both now unlikely.
The threat of dispatching troops to northern Iraq is Turkey's last, desperate card in a depleted deck. To avoid this cataclysmic scenario, the United States may yet, teeth gnashing, revive the moribund economic aid package it seethingly withdrew.
The alternative is an Argentina-style default with a shock wave cruising
through a volatile and ignitable Middle East -- or a military dictatorship
in Ankara.
5. - The Financial Times - "US weighs cost of lost friendships":
WASHINGTON / 27 March 2003
by Guy Dinmore
While the US establishment remains fully confident of winning the war in Iraq, there is a growing perception that victory will come at the price of too many broken friendships.
Colin Powell, secretary of state and the most respected figure in
the Bush administration, was given a sombre reception at a congressional
budget committee this week.
"It is with deep sadness about our current world situation that
I welcome you here," Jose Serrano remarked. Dropping his planned
opening statement on Mr Powell's proposed budget, the Democrat plunged
into his concerns about "strong anti-American feelings worldwide".
This week, Mr Powell has sought to address the Islamic world through interviews with several television networks, including al-Jazeera, despite its being criticised by the Bush administration for airing footage of US dead and prisoners. The US, Mr Powell said, did not want this war but it would free people from dictatorship and return their country to them with the help of the UN. "We have got to get that message out. We have got to do a better job of it," he said.
Some traditional allies were not on board, but new ones were, in a growing coalition that numbers 47 so far, Mr Powell said, admitting many were too small to deliver a military contribution.
No names were mentioned, but President George W. Bush's "coalition of the willing", which includes such far-away nations as Rwanda, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands (population: 65,000), has been openly derided by former senior diplomats.
In the corridors of the state department, the concept of reconstruction is often applied to how the US needs to rebuild vital but wrecked alliances, rather than the rebuilding of Iraq.
Perceptions of strategic partnerships have been stood on their heads in a matter of weeks. That other governments are more beholden to their public opinion than President George W. Bush, despite the controversy over his own election victory,was not appreciated in the White House, say US diplomats.
The country of greatest concern is not France or Germany, but Turkey and its new Islamic-oriented government, now led by prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The US, presenting its $75bn war budget, gave battered Turkish markets some relief this week with the surprise allocation of $1bn in grants for Ankara, despite its refusal to give access to US troops bound for northern Iraq.
Analysts in Washington have described the months of diplomatic efforts that led up to that rejection as a fiasco with far-reaching consequences. Some even fear that a rise in anti-American, Islamist sentiments in Turkey could even lead to the downfall of one of the region's few democratic states, should the military decide to step in again.
Members of Congress warned Mr Powell that he would need all his "persuasive powers" to get approval for that $1bn. Mr Powell replied that Turkey remained a "good friend" but also noted that the money might not be extended, depending on economic conditions.
Philip Gordon, analyst at Brookings Institution, noted that Turkey had been an "absolute strategic partner" for decades. "It would be a Pyrrhic victory indeed if we do finally manage to change the regime in Iraq, but the result of that is instability in northern Iraq and destabilisation in Turkey."
While Mr Powell, the most committed but outgunned multilateralist of the Bush administration, spoke positively of the future of US-Turkish ties, there was a sense of a deeper hurt in his comments on France and Germany.
As a former soldier who had guarded Germany's cold war frontier,
he said Germany's refusal to support its old ally would not be soon
forgotten.
6. - Reuters - "EU sets aid demands for Turkey":
BRUSSELS / 27 March 2003
by Paul Taylor
The European Commission yesterday proposed doubling aid to Turkey over the next three years but said its EU candidacy would be jeopardized if it intervened in Iraq or halted its political reforms during the crisis.
European Union Enlargement Commissioner Gunter Verheugen told a news conference Turkey must do more to eradicate torture, promote cultural rights for minorities - a code phrase for Kurds - and enforce civilian control over the military.
''I would like to point out to Turkey that we see deficits in implementation at the moment, both in fighting torture and in implementing cultural rights, freedom of expression, and also religious freedom,'' he said.
''It would be fatal if the Iraq situation were to lead to the reform process being suspended or even moving backwards,'' Verheugen said. ''If there were to be some kind of invasion or crossing the border [into Iraq], this would have serious consequences on relations with the EU.''
Turkey has said it may send troops into northern Iraq to supplement a smaller Turkish force long in place there. Trucks and armor are standing ready on the frontier.
The commission listed strict political and economic terms that Turkey must meet by December 2004 to win a recommendation from the EU executive to open entry talks.
Preaccession assistance would be more than doubled to 1.05 billion euros ($1.12 billion) in 2004-2006, reaching 500 million euros a year in 2006 if the 15 member states agree.
Although the increased aid is not explicitly tied to conditions, Verheugen said it was subject to annual programming, ''so there's no risk of these funds being firmly committed and thereby contradicting our political aims.''
Among the political priorities listed is strong support for diplomatic efforts to reunite the divided island of Cyprus, which is due to join the European Union next year.
The United Nations blamed Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, and his backers in Ankara, for the collapse of peace efforts earlier this month.
Verheugen said the EU report was a clear signal that Turkey needed to revisit the issue between the end of the Iraq war and the December 2004 decision on its membership negotiations.
The role of the politically powerful military in Turkey was completely out of line with the position of the armed forces in all EU member states, he said.
In a phrase that may offend many Turks, he said that position must change ''so that the government and parliament in Turkey control the military rather than the military controlling the government and parliament.''
The commission said Turkey should adopt a revised national program to bring its legislation into line with EU standards.
This would involve measures to eradicate torture and improve legal and practical guarantees for prisoners, reform the justice system, expand media freedom, and guarantee freedom of association, religion, and peaceful assembly.
EU leaders promised last December to open accession talks without delay if Turkey met the same political and economic criteria applied to all candidate countries.
Ankara has suffered setbacks in the last month with the collapse of the Cyprus talks, the outlawing of the main Kurdish political party and tension over Iraq.
But Verheugen, noting that Turkey, though larger, received far less
money from Brussels than central European candidate Poland, said he
saw no reason to withhold EU aid.