2
February 2005
1. - "Turkey may need to retry Öcalan", The Council of Europe may ask Turkey for Öcalan’s retrial if the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights decides that Öcalan did not receive a fair trial.
2. - "Turkey's Erdogan Calls on U.S. to Halt Kurdish Push", The U.S. has failed to halt a push for power in northern Iraq by the Kurdish minority that threatens stability in the region, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
3. - "Parties in Iraqi Kurdistan accuse each other of election fraud.", Kurdish parties, including the two main political groups, are accusing each other of ballot violations in the wake of their first democratic elections in decades.
4. -- "Kurds stage unofficial independence vote", Organisers of poll fear Iraqi Kurdistan will lose its autonomy if local leaders become too deeply embroiled in Baghdad politics.
5. - "Kurds set to win two-thirds of vote in tense Iraq oil city", The main Kurdish alliance is set to win two-thirds of the vote in Iraq’s tense northern oil centre of Kirkuk, reports said Tuesday, fanning Turkish fears about Kurdish ambitions for the ethnically divided region.
6 .- Genocide: "Turkish Scholars seek to engage Armenian counterparts in historical debate", As Turkey prepares for what promises to be a lengthy European Union accession process, officials in Ankara are striving to remove obstacles that stand in the way of their integration ambitions.
7. - "Papadopulos threatens to end Ankara’s EU negotiation process", The leader of the Greek Cypriot administration has threatened to block Turkey’s European Union accession process if Ankara does not formally recognise his state.
8. - "Does Turkey Belong In the European
Union?", a survey by Antero Leitzinger
1. - Turkish Daily News - "Turkey may need to retry Öcalan"
The Council of Europe may ask Turkey for Öcalan’s retrial if the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights decides that Öcalan did not receive a fair trial
ANKARA / 2 February 2005
The European Court of Human Rights is expected to rule this month on whether Turkey failed to respect human rights in two separate cases considered to be of crucial importance since one of them may lead to the retrial of outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan and the other is viewed as a "pilot case" for thousands of Greek Cypriots.
The 17-judge Grand Chamber of the court in Strasbourg listened to the views of Öcalan's lawyers and the Turkish government last June. It is to decide whether to accept Öcalan's lawyers' appeal on grounds of not having had a fair trial concerning the then Turkish security court's decision in 1999.
In its March 2003 decision the court decided there was no violations occurred in the circumstances under which Öcalan was sentenced to death. Turkey lifted the death penalty in 2002 within the framework of reforms inspired by the European Union harmonization process.
The Council of Europe may ask Turkey for Öcalan's retrial if
the Grand Chamber decides that Öcalan did not receive a fair
trial. It had also asked for a retrial of the now-defunct Democracy
Party's (DEP) former deputies -- Leyla Zana, Orhan Dogan, Selim Sadak,
Hatip Dicle -- after the court in Strasbourg decided they hadn't received
a fair trial.
2. - AINA / Bloomberg - "Turkey's Erdogan Calls on U.S. to Halt Kurdish Push"
2 February 2005
The U.S. has failed to halt a push for power in northern Iraq by the Kurdish minority that threatens stability in the region, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
"Turkey won't allow the region to be thrown into a chaos," Erdogan, 50, told his party at the Ankara-based parliament today. "If these ambitions, which threaten to block democratic solutions in Iraq, are not prevented today, we fear they may lead to clashes and delay peace in the region for many years."
Turkey's military last week accused Iraqi Kurds of attempting to seize political control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq by moving 350,000 Kurds into the town. Kurds may move to break up Iraq by making Kirkuk the capital of an autonomous state in the north, Turkey fears.
"The forces who say they came to the region to bring democracy, unfortunately, preferred to remain indifferent to these anti-democratic ambitions," Erdogan said.
The government is concerned that Kurds will demand a homeland in the southeast of Turkey, which borders northern Iraq. Turkey, a U.S. ally, keeps hundreds of troops just inside northern Iraq in a deployment it says is required to stop Turkish Kurdish militants from crossing the border to mount attacks against targets in Turkey.
U.S. Reaction
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher denied the U.S. government was indifferent to the actions of Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
"We have made clear our position on terrorism and the PKK in the north, we're not in any way countenancing their activities," Boucher said. "And we continue to work, ourselves, against terrorism throughout Iraq, as well as coordinating closely with the Turkish government."
Iraqi Kurds backed a united Iraqi government Jan. 30 by participating in the national legislative election in which Kurdish politicians were candidates. Northern Iraqi Kurds also run a regional government granted by Iraq's interim constitution, with an administrative capital in Arbil.
The U.S. and Turkey have "had some differences over Iraq, and those differences have caused problems," Douglas Feith, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters in Ankara today. The two countries "have strong common interests in preserving Iraq's territorial integrity, the unity of the country."
Turkish officials should "work to explain the value of the alliance" with the U.S. to the Turkish people, Feith said. Most Turks opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Turkish parliament rejected a U.S. request to use Turkey as a staging area for the attack, which President George W. Bush said was needed to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.
Turkey's military has fought militants of the Kurdistan Workers'
Party, the PKK, in the southeast of the country for two decades at
the cost of more than 30,000 lives, most of them Kurdish. Turkey says
the U.S. hasn't done enough to deal with thousands of PKK rebels now
holed up in the mountains of northern Iraq.
3. - IWPR / Kurdish Media - "Parties in Iraqi Kurdistan accuse each other of election fraud."
IWPR / Sulaimaniya / 01 February 2005
Kurdish parties, including the two main political groups, are accusing each other of ballot violations in the wake of their first democratic elections in decades.
The two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, KDP, have been trading barbs since the polls opened on January 30.
The Kurdistan Democratic Islamic Union and the independent Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party also joined the fray.
The PUK, KDP and the Kurdistan Democratic Islamic Union came together to form the Kurdish Alliance List coalition to run in the elections for the 275-member transitional National Assembly. But for local elections, including a new 111-member Kurdish parliament, the parties each campaigned separately.
Aso Ali, head of the PUK’s Sulaimaniyah branch, said at some polling stations, voters were encouraged to vote for a certain party, which he declined to name.
“There have been [electoral] violations in Erbil, but we don’t want to make the process ugly by talking about it,” Ali said.
Erbil is the regional capital of the KDP-controlled area of Iraqi Kurdistan in the west while the eastern part is controlled by the PUK, and its regional capital is Sulaimaniyah.
Arif Taifoor, a senior KDP official in Sulaimaniyah, said the KDP will be holding a meeting with other parties about voter fraud, but the PUK will not be invited. He also blamed the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, IECI, saying, “They did not support us, and we have a word to say about their representatives.”
A senior official of the electoral commission office in Sulaimaniyah, who declined to be named, said the commission started receiving complaints from parties all the way through election day.
“We followed up the breaches and some were true and some were untrue,” the election official said. “But we don’t have any tangible evidence and there is no smoke without fire. There might be some fraud, but how much, we don’t know.”
Jabar Mahmood, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party, said his party was aware of many breaches and they intended to submit a document detailing the violations to the electoral commission office.
“There were blank votes in the ballot box that were later marked in favour of the ruling party or for the Kurdish Alliance List,” he said.
Mahmood admitted his party also committed fraud, as one of their party election observers offered to turn a blind eye to violations by other parties in exchange for three votes for his party.
The Sulaimaniyah electoral commission official also criticised the PUK and KDP for announcing preliminary results of the election in some cities of Iraqi Kurdistan.
“We haven’t announced any official statements,” he said. “Only the IECI in Baghdad is allowed to announce results officially.”
Despite the accusations by the Kurdish parties, one independent election monitor in Sulaimaniyah said voting was a success.
“There were no breaches from any party,” said Rizgar Mahmood Ali. “The process went very well.”
This story has not been bylined because of concerns for the security
of IWPR reporters.
4. - IWPR / Kurdish Media - "Kurds stage unofficial independence vote",
Organisers of poll fear Iraqi Kurdistan will lose its autonomy if local leaders become too deeply embroiled in Baghdad politics.
Sulaimaniyah / 01 February 2005
A small orange tent and a simple box covered with a Kurdish flag was set up 100 metres from a polling station in Sulaimaniyah on election day. Outside the tent, young volunteers were asking voters to take part in an unofficial referendum.
Each voter was given a card with two sentences: Do you want Kurdistan be part of Iraq? Or do you want an independent Kurdistan?
The tent was one of dozens set up by the Referendum Committee movement outside polling stations in cities with large Kurdish populations such as Sulaimaniyah, Erbil, Kirkuk and Dahuk.
The Referendum Committee was established by a group of Kurdish intellectuals and independent politicians last year, in response to the main Kurdish parties joining the Iraqi government.
Ethnic Kurds, who make up 20 per cent of Iraq’s population, have governed themselves since Saddam Hussein lost control of northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. The region is administered by a joint government formed by the two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Members of the Referendum Committee worry that the Kurds will lose their autonomy, and hopes of an independent Kurdistan, if they become too deeply embroiled in Iraqi politics.
Kner Abdullah, a senior member of the Referendum Committee, said the referendum voting cards will be scanned and sent to the United Nations and the European Union.
"This is a preliminary step for Kurds’ self-determination, so that the UN can come in the future and hold an official and legal referendum, as has been held for many oppressed peoples in the world," she said.
Last year, the movement collected almost two-million signatures in support of a referendum on Kurdish self-determination. Copies of those signatures also were sent to the UN and the EU.
Voters in Sulaimaniyah voiced support for the referendum effort.
"So far we cling to the Arabs and they oppressed us, it is now the time to tell them we no longer want you," said driver Ibrahim Qadir.
Some voters said they thought the referendum could turn out to be more important than voting for the Iraqi National Assembly.
"If the result of the referendum shows that the majority of the people want independence for Kurdistan, it will be more important than the current elections," said policeman Najmaddin Omer.
Others thought it simply was not the right time to push the issue of Kurdish independence.
"As we take part in the Iraqi national elections, it means that we want to stay part of Iraq," said civil servant Hussein Muhammed. "This referendum is a demand of our long-term future."
This story has not been bylined because of concerns for the security
of IWPR reporters.
5. - AFP - "Kurds set to win two-thirds of vote in tense
Iraq oil city"
SULEIMANIYAH / 1 February 2005
The main Kurdish alliance is set to win two-thirds of the vote in Iraq’s tense northern oil centre of Kirkuk, reports said Tuesday, fanning Turkish fears about Kurdish ambitions for the ethnically divided region.
The alliance is also set to take a quarter of the seats overall in Iraq’s new national assembly giving the long-oppressed minority a major say in the drafting of a new post-Saddam Hussein constitution, one of its leaders told a Kurdish daily.
With just one district still to complete its count of Sunday’s ballots, the Kurdish alliance has won 68 percent of the vote in Kirkuk, the Kurdish weekly Hawlati (Citizen) reported.
If confirmed, the result would give the Kurds 26 of the 41 seats on the provincial council, the paper said.
The leader of one of the two factions that make up the alliance -- the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan -- said a higher than expected turnout across Kurdish areas was set to give it a quarter of the seats in the new assembly.
"Turnout exceeded our hopes and reached 90 percent in some areas," Jalal Talabani told his party’s Kurdistani Nwe (New Kurdistan) newspaper. "We’re expecting to take 25 percent of the seats."
But Talabani sounded a conciliatory note towards Iraq’s other ethnic and religious groups, promising that the Kurds would not abuse their weight in the new assembly.
"Its most important task will be to draw up a constitution and we are counting on it taking into account everybody’s wishes," he said.
The two former rebel factions are determined to consolidate their hard-won autonomy in northern Iraq and extend it to all traditionally Kurdish-inhabited areas, including Kirkuk.
But Ankara is vehemently opposed to Kurdish amibitions to make the city the new capital of their autonomous region, fearing the province’s oil wealth will give them the resources to break away.
In a newspaper interview, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned Ankara would not stand idly by while Kurds took control of the city, which also has a significant Turkmen minority.
"We are observing that the situation has reached dangerous proportions," Gul told the English-language Turkish Daily News.
"If our brothers (the Turkmens) are not treated well, if they are subjected to oppression, such developments will hurt us deeply and, in a democratic society, administrations cannot remain indifferent."
Ankara has been bitterly opposed to Kurdish moves to reverse Arab settlement of Kirkuk carried out under Saddam’s regime in a bid to undermine Kurdish claims to its oil resources.
Turkish military commanders have warned that they regard the future of the region as a vital strategic interest and have consistently championed the cause of the minority Turkmens.
The US undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, held talks in Ankara Monday to try to assuage Turkish concerns, promising that Washington would not allow the fate of Kirkuk to be determined by any one ethnic group.
"The issue of Kirkuk is an important one ... It is going to be worked on by the Iraqis from the point of view that this is not a matter for one group or another but for the Iraqi people in general. We support that view," Feith said after talks with Gul.
He underlined Washington "strongly believes that it is crucial
that the territorial integrity of Iraq be preserved ... and that problems
like Kirkuk be solved in a way that reinforces the unity and territorial
integrity of the country".
6. - Eurasianet - "Turkish Scholars seek to engage Armenian counterparts in historical debate"
2 February 2005 / by Igor Torbakv
As Turkey prepares for what promises to be a lengthy European Union accession process, officials in Ankara are striving to remove obstacles that stand in the way of their integration ambitions. Accordingly, authorities appear to be welcoming a research project by Turkish historians designed to shed additional light on the circumstances surrounding the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians from 1915-1923.
Armenian leaders have campaigned for international recognition of what they insist was genocide committed by Turkish forces amid the chaos of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Yerevan’s calls have received support in the capitals of some influential EU capitals, in particular France, which has a sizeable Armenian émigré population.
In early January, the Turkish Historical Society – a semi-official institution founded in the beginning of the 1930s – announced that it had finished a large research project commenced in 2001. The result of the historical exploration is four volumes of documents in which "the allegations made by Armenians are answered one by one," according to a Turkish journalist familiar with the research. The project marks the first comprehensive attempt by Turkish scholars to challenge the Armenian version of the tragic events of the past.
Armenian officials and historians assert that the Young Turk government in power in Istanbul in 1915 ordered the systematic slaughter of Armenians. Turkish leaders have insisted the mass deaths of Armenians did not constitute genocide, alleging that Armenians were largely victims of a vicious partisan struggle during and after World War I.
The authors of the recent four-volume study appear to endorse the mainstream Turkish view of events. They also advocate the continuation of research, calling for a multi-national inquiry into the events. Professor Yusuf Halacoglu, head of the Turkish Historical Society, said in a January 12 interview with the Reuters news agency that the commission should comprise scholars from Turkey, Armenia, the United States, France and Britain.
Turkey is due to start EU accession negotiations on October 3, while on April 24 Armenians throughout the world will mark the 90th anniversary of what they call the "first genocide of the 20th century." Many Turkish officials and experts believe Yerevan may attempt to engage Ankara in a "battle over history." According to Turkish media reports, commemoration activities will include conferences, meetings, exhibitions and new publication projects. A few Turkish commentators are urging the Turkish government to adopt a more pro-active stance in the ongoing debate. "Saying ‘we never committed genocide’ is no longer enough. We will be forced to pay the price for inactivity. We need to do something," wrote Mehmet Ali Birand in a commentary published by the Turkish Daily News on January 4.
Right after EU leaders agreed last December to open accession talks with Turkey, both the European Parliament and France, urged Turkey to recognize the 1915-1923 killings of Armenians as genocide. "We will raise all the matters, including the Armenian genocide, to hear Turkey’s response in the course of accession negotiations, which will be very long and very difficult," French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier was quoted as saying.
Halacoglu, the Turkish historian, believes that France’s stance can be viewed as an "opportunity." "Armenian and Turkish historians should sit down and debate the matter," he said in a December 15 interview published in the daily Milliyet. "This has nothing to do with the EU. Let the historians resolve the matter."
Such a direct dialog on the "genocide" issue between Turkish and Armenian historians actually began last year when researchers from the Turkish Historical Society and their colleagues from Armenian Academy of Sciences and Yerevan’s Genocide Museum formed the so-called Vienna Armenian-Turkish Historians’ Platform (VAT). At VAT’s first meeting held in Austrian capital in July 2004, the two sides started exchanging archival documents pertaining to the events of 1915-1923. But VAT’s next meeting, reportedly scheduled for last December, was cancelled. And in mid-January, the Anatolia news agency reported that a VAT meeting due to take place in May 2005 had also been cancelled.
Whatever the reason for VAT’s difficulties, it appears that the work of this bilateral forum has virtually come to a standstill. This may explain why Turkish researchers and pundits urge the formation of an international commission of inquiry. This commission, in Halacoglu’s opinion, would ideally work under the auspices of the United Nations, or another international body, to help ensure impartiality and to encourage all states to open up their archives to the panel. "The Armenian archives, which are closed, should also be opened to the public," Halacoglu said.
The idea of forming an international commission appears to be part of Ankara’s broader strategy of seeking rapprochement with Armenia. As Birand points out, "If these ["genocide"] studies are initiated, we will gain time. In addition, while this process continues, Turkey can broaden its economic relations with Armenia and open the border gate."
In the meantime, however, Turkish historians are getting ready to debate their Armenian colleagues on the basis of their latest research. Speaking January 5 on the CNN-Turk television program, Hikmet Ozdemir, head of the Turkish Historical Society’s Armenian Desk, said a publicity campaign would be launched in February.
Editor’s Note: Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist and researcher
who specializes in CIS political affairs. He holds an MA in History
from Moscow State University and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy
of Sciences. He was Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian History,
Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan
Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington
DC; a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York; and a Visiting
Fellow at Harvard University. He is now based in Istanbul, Turkey.
7. - NTVMSNBC - "Papadopulos threatens to end Ankara’s EU negotiation process"
2 February 2005
The Greek Cypriot leader called on the European Union to take on
a greater role in resolving the Cyprus dispute.
The leader of the Greek Cypriot administration has threatened to block Turkey’s European Union accession process if Ankara does not formally recognise his state.
Speaking to representatives of the Greek Cypriot and foreign media, Tasos Papadopulos said that as Turkey has signed the 1996 Customs Union agreement with the EU, it had to abide by the requirement of the deal to recognise new members of the bloc. The Greek Cypriot state became a full member of the EU in May last year.
“It either signs it or the negotiation process does not start,”
the Greek Cypriot leader said.
Papadopulos said that signing the protocol would be the first step
to normalising relations between Ankara and Greek Cypriots. He added
that this would contribute to the resolving of the dispute on the
island.
He also called on the EU “to take a proactive role” in any
renewed reunification negotiations, though added he did not expect
UN attempts to restart talks to start any time.
8. - Global Politician - "Does Turkey Belong In the European Union?"
2 February 2005 / By Antero Leitzinger
Turkey applied for membership in the EEC as early as in 1970s, when she had been indisputably and for a long time a democratic market economy, one of the founding members of the Council of Europe, and a country with a decent record on human rights, compared with the military dictatorships of Greece, Spain and Portugal, let alone the countries of Eastern Europe. The upheavals of Southern Europe in the mid-1970s, the intensified internal political situation of Turkey, and the military regime of early 1980s, as well as the surprising membership of Greece in the Western European community sidelined Turkey for two extra decades to wait for acceptance.
Finally during Finland's chairman period in 1999, Turkey was finally accepted as an applicant country for the European Union. This encouraged Turkey to make legal reforms, which have been carried out for three years now, despite the hard economic crisis. Guerrilla war in the Kurdish districts is past now, and on 30th Nov. 2002, even the last province was officially returned to normalcy. The PKK has abolished itself, and the death penalty of the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan has been changed into life imprisonment. Turkey's prisons have been reformed according to the EU norms, lots of inmates have been amnestied, and previously used parts of the criminal law have been overruled. In allowing media and school teaching in Kurdish languages, Turkey has exceeded France and Sweden in the progression of her minority policy.
However, Turkey has traditionally had dedicated enemies in Europe. As early as in 1800s, conservative Christian and idealist liberal civil movements, acting on behalf of the Christian minorities of the Balkans, were organising lecture and newspaper campaigns and demonstrations against Turkey. The ancient Greece was adored under the banners of philhellenism (1821), and medieval myths were revived by telling horror stories of the "Bulgarian atrocities" (1876). The propaganda war culminated in the after-play of the First World War in 1920s, but was again revived from 1965 onwards, on the initiative of third generation Armenian emigrants of France and America, who were inspired and directed by Soviet Armenia.
Nowadays it is hard to believe that Turkey could anyhow get released from the constant criticism by human rights organisations, since criticising Turkey has become the lifeline of many of them. For many international human rights organisations, regular campaigns against Turkey have become the most successful kind of activity, and Turkish illegal immigrants willingly participate them in order to base their asylum applications. International organisations, researchers and media outlets are using Turkish extremist groups as their sources, but the credibility and relevance of the information they provide is very low. For this reason, the criticism against Turkey often repeats echoes from years away. In its latest issue, Der Spiegel (50/9th Dec. 2002) added to its article on Turkey a picture of a Kurdish demonstration from 1992.
Turkish asylum seekers still refer to the destruction and evacuation of frontier villages in mid-1990s. Although repatriation of these villages has been started, the Human Rights Watch report predicts the return to fail, because it would be too late without EU support (i.e. many who have moved to cities, are reluctant to return to the periphery).
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/turkey/
Neue Zürcher Zeitung (28th Nov. 2002) tells that torture became more common in Turkey during the short military reign of 1980s. After that the government tried to get rid of the phenomenon by sending the cruel policemen from cities to the countryside, which, however, spread the problem especially to the Kurdish districts. Accusing the policemen was made difficult by a law that demanded acceptance of the superior to rise a court case. The fact that many trials were taking more than five years caused that many accusations became obsolete. The new government has suggested a legal reform that would correct these problems, and enable overruling existing verdicts on political crimes.
Against this background we have to understand the interest of the Turks in the question, whether they are Europeans in the others' eyes, or if they fall outside Europe already in principle. When the Westernisation that has prevailed in Turkey for 80 years becomes questioned by other Europeans, the nationalist and pan-Islamic alternatives become stronger. Same kind of development was experienced already in early 1900s, when the originally liberal Young Turks changed into ferocious nationalists and rushed into the First World War. In today's Turkey, many people think that if the EU will turn her back to Turkey, Turkey must turn towards Arab countries, Iran, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. In co-operation with Pakistan, Turkey could develop her own nuclear weapon. The successful military co-operation between Turkey and Israel would be endangered. The 300-year rivalry between Turkey and Russia over the borderlands would intensify.
Turkey is a bit poorer than Romania, when the GNP per capita is compared, but the reason is the very rapid growth of Turkish population. It is estimated that after 10 years there will be 90 million inhabitants in Turkey, more than in Germany. In one way or another, that will compensate the shrinking population of Europe and Russia. Chronic inflation plagues the Turkish economy, but economic growth has been strong for a long time, and there is plenty of potential. Unemployment (8,5 %) is lower than in most of the countries of Eastern Europe, and industrialisation is more developed than in Bulgaria and Romania. (Der Spiegel, 50/9th Dec. 2002)
Political Islamisation of Turkey would influence Europe especially through the 2,5 million Turkish-originating immigrants residing in Germany. It is hard to imagine how the EU could isolate herself from Turkey and the Middle East. The EU can, however, choose, whether she will passively surrender to be a side theatre of the problems of the Middle East and the whole Islamic world, or whether it takes an active initiative to support moderate Muslims and Turkey in her relations to her neighbours.
It is expected that the attitude towards Turkey, the Turks, Muslims and foreigners in general, will become a hot election issue in the election of the German state of Hessen in February. Both radical right and radical left oppose the EU membership of Turkey. The present red-green government has tried to balance between the views and the former Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl had a Turkish daughter-in-law. Compared to these, future seems more controversial. Already half million of the German Turks have German citizenship, and their votes for the left and for the Greens was decisive in favour of the present government in last national election.
Antero Leitzinger is a political historian and a researcher for
the Finnish Directorate of Immigration. He wrote several books on
Turkey, the Middle East and the Caucasus.