16
February 2004
1. "Thousands On Kurdish Streets in Protest Against The Prison Conditions Of Kurdish Political Leader Political Leader", tensions are high in the country as members of Ocalan's banned rebel group are worried about Ocalan's fate. Turkish authorities have for 11 weeks prevented his lawyers from traveling to the prison island off Istanbul, citing bad weather conditions.
2. "Dozens detained in Turkey in Ocalan protest", Turkish police Sunday arrested dozens of activists in demonstrations marking the anniversary of the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, Anatolia news agency reported.
3. "Free Ocalan demand Kurds", thousands of Kurds held a protest in France's eastern city of Strasbourg yesterday to call for the liberation of former rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been held in Turkey since 1999.
4. "Deadly Turkish lies and misconceptions of the Apoci movement", false statements from oppressive regimes are nothing new.
5. "The Kurdish satellite channel Medya TV closed down", press statement by The Kurdish Centre for Human Rights.
6. "German Opposition Stays Tough on Turkey's EU Bid", Angela Merkel, head of Germany's Christian Democrats, is in Ankara to discuss Turkey's EU bid. Her party opposes full membership for the largely Muslim nation, and has instead called for a special EU partnership.
7. "Kurds seek to turn back clock in push for independence", many carried Kurdish flags, others held bunches of flowers in remembrance of the victims of Saddam Hussein's brutal Anfal campaign against the Kurds. In all, perhaps 10,000 students, teachers, engineers and activists marched on Saturday through Suleimaniya, one of the twin capitals of Kurdish northern Iraq.
8. "Turkey pleased with reunification talks on Cyprus", Turkey believes it has scored a major diplomatic victory with the revival of peace talks in long-divided Cyprus, confident that it will boost the Muslim country's struggling bid to join the EU.
1. - kurdistan aktuell special - "Thousands On Kurdish Streets in Protest Against The Prison Conditions Of Kurdish Political Leader Political Leader":
DIYARBAKIR / by Mahmut
Carrying banners of a militant Kurdish rebel group, about 1,000 demonstrators
threw stones at stores, banks and vehicles Saturday in a protest timed
to the fourth anniversary of the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah
Ocalan. Police detained dozens of protesters.
Tensions are high in the country as members of Ocalan's banned rebel group are worried about Ocalan's fate. Turkish authorities have for 11 weeks prevented his lawyers from traveling to the prison island off Istanbul, citing bad weather conditions.
Ocalan is the sole inmate of the prison island of Imrali
and is serving a life sentence for leading a 15-year war for autonomy
against the Turkish army that left 37,000 people dead.
His brother and a senior rebel commander, Osman Ocalan, on Saturday
threatened to end a four-year unilateral cease-fire in the face of what
he said \"the isolation\" of the rebel chief.
\"The isolation is making war inevitable,\" the web site of pro-Kurdish daily Ozgur Politika quoted Osman Ocalan as saying.
A renewal of guerrilla warfare could affect U.S. plans
to station tens of thousands of troops in Kurdish-dominated southeastern
Turkey to open a northern front in an Iraq war.
Kurdish protesters on Saturday unfurled posters of Ocalan and red, yellow
and green banners of the rebel group before they shattered windows of
stores, banks and buses in the Asian part of Istanbul.
The Kurdish demonstrators, some wearing masks, were among thousands
of anti-war activists who protested a possible U.S.-led attack on Iraq.
Police in an apparent move to avoid clashes with the Kurdish youths initially watched the violence from a distance and armored vehicles only began to roll into the area as the demonstrators began to disappear in allays.
Elsewhere in Turkey, Police broke up similar protests by Kurds in the southern cities of Mersin and Adana on Saturday, reports said.
The demonstrations followed a wave of firebombings by Kurdish militants in several cities in the Kurdish-dominated southeast overnight. Some shopowners, heeding calls from the rebel leadership, did not open their stores in protest Saturday.
Earlier this week, the rebels warned Turkey it had until Saturday to end Ocalan's isolation and take practical steps toward a peaceful solution of the Kurdish problem, such as declaring a full amnesty for political prisoners.
Turkey has so far rejected calls by the rebel group and has vowed to maintain its military crackdown until all rebels are surrendered or killed.
Many speculate that Turkish troops could go after Kurdish rebels if they move into northern Iraq in a war against Iraq to stop an influx of refugees. The rebel group, which last year changed its name from Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, to the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress, or KADEK, withdrew to bases in northern Iraq when it declared the cease-fire in 1999.
Turkey does not recognize its 12 million Kurds as an official
minority but recently lifted a ban on Kurdish-language education and
television. 
2. - AFP - "Dozens detained in Turkey in Ocalan protest":
ISTANBUL / 15 February 2004
Turkish police Sunday arrested dozens of activists in demonstrations marking the anniversary of the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, Anatolia news agency reported.
A group of 21 protestors were detained in a downtown area in Istanbul after they ignored orders to disperse and hurled stones, sticks and molotov cocktails at the security forces, the agency said.
One of the firebombs hit a police vehicle, television footage showed.
Several shops and cars in the neighborhood also sustained damage, the NTV channel reported.
Another 17 people were taken into custody in Diyarbakir, the central city of the mainly Kurdish southeast, on the grounds that did not have prior permission from authorities to hold demonstrations, Anatolia said.
Kurdish activists have held protests to demand Ocalan's release on February 15 each year since 1999 when the head of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was seized by Turkish agents in Kenya.
The rebel chieftain was sentenced to death for leading the PKK's bloody 15-year campaign for self-rule in southeast Turkey.
However, his sentence was commuted to life in prison in
2001 after Turkey abolished capital punishment as part of reforms to
bring the country in line with European Union norms.
3. - Gulf Daily News - "Free Ocalan demand Kurds":
STRASBOURG / 15 February 2004
Thousands of Kurds held a protest in France's eastern city of Strasbourg yesterday to call for the liberation of former rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been held in Turkey since 1999.
Police put the turn-out at15 ,000, while organisers said40 ,000 participated in the demonstration, an annual event which gathers Kurds from across Europe to mark the anniversary of Ocalan's capture.
The rally marched through the city holding photos of Ocalan towards a huge parking area where speeches and other activities were to take place.
Ocalan used to head the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an armed group banned by Ankara for its bloody struggle to establish a Kurdish homeland in south-east Turkey and northern Iraq.
He was arrested in Kenya in 1999 and taken to Turkey where an initial death sentence was commuted to life behind bars after Ankara abolished capital punishment in2002 .
His lawyers say his health is suffering from the poor
conditions in his prison on the island of Imrali.
4. - KurdishMedia - "Deadly Turkish lies and misconceptions of the Apoci movement":
15 February 2004 / by Agit Can
False statements from oppressive regimes are nothing new. However, it is difficult to know if these false statements are intentional lies or unintentional misrepresentations of facts. The most extreme and obvious example of this phenomenon can be found in Saddam’s Iraq, where the now deposed dictator surrounded himself with advisors who, like all Iraqis, feared that the dictator may put their lives to an end at any moment. As a consequence of this terrible fear for their lives, Saddam’s advisors frequently told him what he wanted to hear rather than what was true. Thus, we find some political analysts hypothesizing that Iraqi buffoon Mohammed Said Sahaf may have believed that he was frequently, if not always, telling the truth as he spoke of the dire fate of the coalition forces invading Iraq, for military commanders may have been scared to report the true state of affairs to a high official of the regime.
Moving a few hundred kilometers north, I wonder if the same phenomenon is not present in Turkey and Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. Since the inception of the most recent stage of the Kurdish national liberation movement in northern Kurdistan by Abdullah Ocalan, the Turkish regime has consistently espoused a party line concerning the nature of the this movement that was based almost exclusively on fabrication. As the Turkish regime’s lies concerning the Kurdish national liberation movement have been repeated time and time again for years, one must wonder whether the Turkish regime is intentionally waging a campaign based on disinformation or if it has bought into its own gospel of lies and is now stating what it believes to be true.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was founded on November 27 ,1979 . The PKK was reformed and renamed the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK) in April2002 . In November2003 , KADEK dissolved itself and the Kurdistan People’s Congress (KGK/Kongra-Gel) was formed. While each of these parties set forth a different program and ideology, all three recognized that Abullah Ocalan, Serok (the Leader) Apo, as their leader and the national leader of Kurdistan. Thus, I will refer the three parties as distinctly separate but related incarnations of a movment that has dominated the recent stage of the Kurdistan national liberation struggle in northern Kurdistan, the Apoci movement.
The party line of the Turkish regime since the initiation of the Apoci movement has been that this movement is a terrorist movement nurtured from abroad by enemies of Turkey. As such, so states this line of thought, the movement does not have much popular support and is not an expression of the feelings of a large segment of the Kurdish population living within Turkey’s borders. Rather, it is a group of Kurds (and others) who are being used by enemies of Turkey, including, at least at some point in time, the Greeks, Syrians, and Armenians. Nothing could be further from the truth. The PKK, during the height of its armed struggle, did of course have bases and representatives in countries that were not friends of Turkey. It is common knowledge that the PKK soldiers trained in Lebanon and Syria, and had offices in Greece. However, it is also true that the Apoci movement has a great deal of popular support among the masses in northern Kurdistan; indeed, it is a popular movement. Without the support of the masses, the Apoci movement would not exist.
The people of northern Kurdistan, having lived for years under military occupation and government-sanctioned martial law (i.e., OHAL), are not disposed to speaking of politics with strangers. However, if one can gain the trust of a Kurd in northern Kurdistan, they can learn a lot about the true feelings of the Kurdish people. Support and admiration for Serok Apo and the leaders and foot soldiers of the Apoci movement is nearly universal in region. Indeed, there is a true cult of personality surrounding Serok Apo. A great portion of the masses is personally thankful to Serok Apo, as they believe that he personally awakened the Kurdish identity and national movement in the north.
The words of the PKK martyr Zilan (Zeynep Kinaci) refer to the pride that the PKK returned to the Kurds of the north:
“…The Kurdish Front, the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan, is bringing together Kurds for the challenge at hand. The Kurdish Parliament in Exile, for example, is now going around with the Kurdish message of peace and friendship.... This is the first time that we have been able to challenge our adversaries in a most serious manner. The Kurds can smile now. They don’t need to walk with their head down. Others respect us when they see that we are fighting for ourselves. I am happy to share a generation with the likes of Mazlum who had a horrible but honorable death in Diyarbakir Military Prison to prevail over torture, indignity and indifference. ...countless others, such as Berivan and Beritan fill our hearts with pride.”
This talk of returned pride can be heard from the majority of Kurds in northern Kurdistan, as can talk of personal indebtedness to Serok Apo for leading this movement that gave the Kurds of the north a sense of pride and self-worth. It would be no exaggeration to say that millions would die for Serok Apo.
When the Turkish government refers to the Apoci movement as a mere terrorist organization with foreign sponsorship, it is implying that it can simply eliminate the “terrorists” and the problem will be solved. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Apoci movement enjoys great popular support and lives in the hearts of millions of Kurds living under Turkish occupation, not to mention those in Europe and elsewhere in exile. If the Turkish government murdered one thousand Apoci soldiers, two thousand would head to the mountains to take their places.
Now that the political landscape of the region is changing radically with each day, and the Apoci movement has halted its armed struggle, the Turkish regime must speak to the leaders of the movement if it really desires peace within the borders of present-day Turkey – borders that Serok Apo and the Apoci movement have already pledged to respect. If the Turkish regime continues to refer to the Apoci movement as a mere foreign terrorist group and acts as if it believes this lie, peace will never come to Turkey. The Apoci movement cannot be defeated unless Turkey is willing to murder millions of Kurds, and, thankfully, it seems that the international community will probably not allow another genocide to take place in the region. The Turkish regime must realize that the demands of the Apoci movement are the demands of the Kurdish masses, and not the demands of a handful of Kurds being used as foreign mercenaries.
Does Turkey really believe its party line concerning the Apoci movement? It is difficult to say. Either the Turkish generals and politicians are saying what hey are supposed to say, or they are saying what they believe is true. Either way, their misconceptions and lies of the Apoci movement are responsible for years of hatred and continue to send young Turkish men to their deaths. In his Second Treatise on Government, John Locke stated:
“People have the right to dissolve their government, if that government ceases to work solely in their best interest. The government has no sovereignty of its own--it exists to serve the people.”
It goes without saying that the Kurds of Turkey, long oppressed, raped, and murdered by the government of Turkey, have a right to dissolve “their” government, by which I mean the occupying Turkish authority. However, from a Turkish perspective, this statement also provides legitimacy for the Turkish masses to protest against the regime. The Turkish government is not serving the people. The same government that does not enforce building codes, leading to the deaths of hundreds in earthquakes, is failing to convey the true nature of the Apoci movement to its people.
In misinforming the people about the state of the Kurdish
citizens of Turkey and their true demands, the Turkish government is
continuing to send young Turkish boys to their deaths while stoking
the flames of hatred between the Turkish and Kurdish peoples.
5. - Doza Me (Kurdish Newsportal) - "The Kurdish satellite channel Medya TV closed down":
Press statement by The Kurdish Centre for Human Rights
GENEVA / 15 February 2004 / Translated by KSC
The transmission licence of Medya TV, which had been broadcasting since 30 July 1999, has been revoked by CSA, (the French Licensing Authority), on the grounds that it was the successor organisation to Med TV. The station¹s lawyers appealed against the decision, but this morning the French Appeal Court confirmed the decision of the CSA. News of the judgement was given to the Paris office of Medya TV today.
Together with the judgement, an order from the Appeal Court was served on ABSAT, the satellite operator, instructing it to cease transmission immediately. The broadcaster was thus immediately silenced without even the chance to make a statement to its audience.
It seems that all Kurdish institutions and organisations can expect to be banned, as their development interferes with the interests of certain circles. While in Turkey legal political parties like HEP, DEP and HADEP, and newspapers, magazines and civil society organisations are constantly being shut down, this is the second time that Kurdish TV has been silenced via the courts in Europe. Not long ago at Turkey¹s behest the Kurdish People¹s Congress (KONGRA-GEL) was put by the USA on to its list of terrorist organisations. For five years Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan has been held on the prison island of Imrali, and this too has been done with the active complicity of the West. It is true that formally the death sentence on him has been lifted, but to the eyes of the public an execution is being carried out by inches.
This short list should be sufficient to show the international dimensions to this repression that the Kurdish people are subjected to.
Disagreeable questions also arise from observation of the fact that the decision to close down Medya TV was made just before the anniversary of the international conspiracy against Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan (15 February), as well as the local elections in Turkey on 28 March, and in the context of the latest efforts to solve the Cyprus question. A legitimate suspicion arises that the decision was a political one and not a legal one.
How credible can any efforts for a solution in South Kurdistan be, when every effort towards democratic opening up and institution building in the Turkish part of Kurdistan, which has the largest Kurdish population, is nipped in the bud? For years the Kurdish people¹s most basic rights have been sacrificed by the West for its own political and economic interests, and today we are confronted by this sharp reality yet again. These decisions only assist in the policy of denial of the Kurdish people.
Medya TV was broadcasting to 77 different countries and was the voice of the Kurdish people and indeed of all peoples of the Middle East. In addition to the three main Kurdish dialects, programmes were also put out in Turkish, and Arabic. The cultural, social and political programmes enjoyed support from the Turkish and Arabic people as well as from the Kurdish people.
We support the statement made by the management of the
broadcasting company that the closing down of Medya TV infringes human
rights as well as restricting broadcasting freedom. We therefore call
on all people who believe in democracy to protest against this decision.
The voices that support freedom, peace and democracy cannot be silenced
by political decisions.
6. - Deutsche Welle (Germany) - "German Opposition Stays Tough on Turkey's EU Bid":
16 February 2004
Angela Merkel, head of Germany's Christian Democrats, is in Ankara to discuss Turkey's EU bid. Her party opposes full membership for the largely Muslim nation, and has instead called for a special EU partnership.
On Monday the leader of Germany's conservative opposition is expected to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minster Abdullah Gül to discuss the country's application for membership to the 15-nation EU bloc. But given the fact that the Christian Democrats (CDU) have been vocally opposed to Turkey entering the EU, Merkel's views are unlikely to be well received in Ankara.
Privileged partnership instead of full membership
On the eve of her two-day visit, Merkel stressed in a German television interview that the CDU remains against full EU membership for Turkey, but is in favor of a special privileged EU-Turkey partnership. "We should be honest with each other," Merkel said. She acknowledged that Turkey naturally had a European perspective, and added, "We’re offering it a privileged partnership."
Merkel explained that with the upcoming expansion of the EU, the bloc is already facing "massive problems." The inclusion of 10 new, mainly former communist Eastern European countries is placing a great strain on Brussels, she said.
In light of the budgetary problems that will inevitably arise with EU expansion, Merkel added, "We know what it would mean if an additional 25 million Turkish farmers came along." The CDU leader said it was best not to mince words on the issue. "One can live with differences of opinion among friends," she stressed.
Turkish EU bid a divisive issue in Germany
With some two million Turks, Germany has the largest Turkish minority in the European Union -- a fact that has made Turkey’s EU bid a divisive issue among German politicians.
While Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his government have remained some of the strongest backers of Turkey’s EU aspirations, arguing that it would provide a bridge to the Islamic world and greatly improve European security, the opposition insists that Turkey with its predominantly Muslim population and its radically different cultural and religious sensibilities would jar with European reality.
"We should not give Turkey any false promises, because then there will be disappointment," Merkel said last month at a congress of the European People’s Party (EPP), which brings together conservative parties from across the EU.
"We want a special partnership, a third way with Turkey, because for security and geopolitical reasons it is very important for us to have very close relations with Turkey," she said.
German conservatives have now announced that the issue of Turkey’s membership will play a pivotal role in European Parliament elections in June.
Membership talks still distant for Turkey
Turkey first sought to join the bloc in 1963, but has
yet to start accession talks with the EU which cites human rights as
the main concern blocking negotiations. Brussels has now offered to
grant an audience to Turkey at the end of 2004 to decide whether the
bloc should open negotiations for possible EU membership.
7. - The Financial Times - "Kurds seek to turn back clock in push for independence":
16 February 2004 / by James Drummond
Many carried Kurdish flags, others held bunches of flowers in remembrance of the victims of Saddam Hussein's brutal Anfal campaign against the Kurds. In all, perhaps 10,000 students, teachers, engineers and activists marched on Saturday through Suleimaniya, one of the twin capitals of Kurdish northern Iraq.
Unusually, there was no obvious sign of the region's dominant political movements, the Kurdistan Democratic party or the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, among the marchers. But there was no mistaking their main demand.
"We are asking for independence," said Nawroza al-Khaffaf, chairman of the Kurdistan Contractors' Union. "We thank the US and the coalition for freeing us from the dictator and ask those people to aid us and to give us that hope [of independence]," he said.
Mr Khaffaf and the Suleimaniya marchers are part of a growing protest movement in Iraqi Kurdistan which sees a chance to right a wrong that they believe was done to the Kurds 80 years ago when British colonial officials bound Kurdistan into Arabic-speaking Iraq.
Organisers say the movement has gathered 1.5m signatures - 30 per cent of Iraq's estimated total Kurdish population - on a petition asking Jalal Talebani and Massaoud Barzani, the leaders of the two main parties, to submit any constitutional agreement they negotiate in Baghdad to a referendum in the north. According to the organisers, more than 85 per cent of the signatories chose full independence, when asked how they would like to define their relations with Iraq.
"We would like to have our own independent country but right now the only thing which we can demand is federation," said Jamal Abdu, a former minister of culture in the Kurdish regional government and one of the organisers of the referendum campaign.
"Our aim right now is to get the voice of the Kurds to the [US-appointed interim] Governing Council and to raise the consciousness of the people," he said.
Iraqi Kurdistan has operated autonomously since 1991, when Saddam Hussein was forced to withdraw his tanks in the face of threats from the US and UK. As a result, most of the area's young people have no knowledge of wider Arabic-speaking Iraq.
The protests in the north follow a series of large protest marches by Iraq's Shia majority last month. The Shia demonstrators' main demand was for direct elections to an interim national assembly which would go on to write a new Iraqi constitution. But they also protested against the long-standing Kurdish demand for a federal Iraqi state.
"These people [the Shia] are demanding elections right now because they want to cheat us," said Mr Abdu bluntly.
Mr Abdu said the bombings in Arbil, the other Kurdish capital, two weeks ago when suicide bombers killed more than 100 of Kurdistan's most senior leaders, had hardened opinion on the Kurdish streets.
Another larger series of marches across other Kurdish towns in northern Iraq is due next Saturday to coincide with the report of Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, on the feasibility of holding elections in Iraq before the handover of sovereignty by the US.
Kurdish ministers say they have played no role in organising the referendum protests. They also insist that they are committed to the political process that is due to produce a fundamental law which, they say, will flesh out Iraq's federal structure.
But Barham Salih, the prime minister of the eastern part of Iraqi Kurdistan, hinted at frustration among Kurdish negotiators: "I would have liked to have seen the concept of federalism . . . accepted more readily than what we see today," he said in an interview in his Suleimaniya office.
Other Kurdish officials say privately that the PUK and the KDP are feeling let down by their former partners in opposition to the Ba'athist regime.
In particular, they feel that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), an important Shia grouping on the Governing Council, is not living up to commitments made in opposition.
There is a widespread view in the Kurdish areas that since the death of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the Sciri leader, in a bomb attack in the southern city of Najaf in August, the party has fallen further under the influence of Iran.
"On a human level I can tell that I am disappointed by some of the statements that I have seen and some of the actions of the political elites in Baghdad. I do not want to characterise it as Shia," Mr Salih said.
"We have a written agreement with Sciri affirming
the right of the Kurdish people to self-determination within Iraq's
unity and we expect Sciri to live up to that commitment," Mr Salih
said.
8. - Taipei Times - "Turkey pleased with reunification talks on Cyprus":
ANKARA / 16 February 2004
Turkey believes it has scored a major diplomatic victory with the revival of peace talks in long-divided Cyprus, confident that it will boost the Muslim country's struggling bid to join the EU.
Ankara made unprecedented efforts for the resumption of negotiations on the island, pressuring hardline Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash to agree to the tight conditions set by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for the peace process.
The EU has warned Turkey, which has held the Turkish Cypriot northern third of the island since 1974, that its own membership bid will suffer if Cyprus is not reunified by May 1 when it is set to become an EU member.
"The process which is now to begin is a process that will lead to Turkey's EU membership," Ugur Ziyal, the undersecretary of the Turkish foreign ministry, told Anatolia news agency in New York late Friday.
He was speaking after the Turkish- and Greek-Cypriot sides agreed to return to the negotiating table on Feb. 19.
And Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul expressed confidence that a solution in Cyprus would persuade EU leaders to open accession negotiations with Turkey, the only membership candidate which has so far failed to do so, when they take up the issue in December.
"Our expectation is obvious. We need to complete several other [democracy] reforms. When we finish everything and when the Cyprus issue is settled, nobody can say no to the start of [accession] negotiations," Gul told journalists on his way to a regional meeting in Kuwait, Anatolia reported.
He cautioned, however that "there is a long way to go and a lot of work to do" before Cyprus is eventually reunified.
At the end of talks in New York, the Cypriot leaders agreed on a formula drawn up by Ankara to get Turkey and Greece involved in the talks on issues which they fail to resolve by March 22.
If the two motherlands also fail to iron out the differences by March 29 then Annan will become the final arbiter.
Both Cypriot sides had earlier objected to Annan's arbitration and the tight timetable.
Amid reports of behind-the-scene bickering with Denktash, Ankara managed to force him to toe the line, particularly after the influential Turkish army also gave its blessing to the settlement scheme.
Turkey and Denktash have taken most of the blame for the failure of international efforts to reunify Cyprus over the years.
Observers here said that with the latest peace push, the Turkish pair has finally succeeded in cornering the Greek Cypriots, who have never wholeheartedly endorsed Annan's peace plan either.
"The agreement on revival of talks is the first political and diplomatic gain that the Turkish side has won over the Greek Cypriots in recent years," the liberal Radikal daily wrote.
Ankara has long accused the EU of encouraging intransigence
on the Greek Cypriot side by promising it membership regardless of whether
Cyprus is reunified in time or not.