23 January 2006

1. "Abdullah Ocalan's Life is Under Threat", the Turkish state is daily applying new humiliating penalties on Abdullah Ocalan.

2. "Turkey drops case against writer Orhan Pamuk", a Turkish court dropped a controversial case against best-selling author Orhan Pamuk for insulting Turkish identity after the justice ministry said it had no authority to try him, CNN Turk TV said on Sunday.

3. "Kurdish Demonstrators Clash With Police In Istanbul", protesters calling for the release of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan clashed with police Sunday in a working-class district of Istanbul, an AFP photographer reported.

4. "Army Launches Winter Operation on PKK", the Turkish Armed Forces launched a massive operation in the rural city of Tunceli against the PKK, or the Kurdish Workers’ Party.

5. "Turkey's Erdogan says pushing ahead with European Union reform", Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said today Turkey would push ahead with political reforms required to join the European Union, rejecting suggestions that the reform process was slowing down.

6. "Villepin: Turkey has no 'natural' right to join EU", French PM de Villepin, whose country appears against Turkey's EU membership and whose citizens appear to resist EU enlargement process by rejecting proposed EU constitution last year, states that Union-aspiring countries, including Turkey, have no natural or historical right to join bloc.

1. - KNK - "Abdullah Ocalan's Life is Under Threat":

19 January 2006 / Press Release by the Kurdistan National Congress

The Turkish state is daily applying new humiliating penalties on Abdullah Ocalan. We have learnt that before the 20-day cell punishment, which amounts to isolation within isolation, Ocalan earlier suffered the same punishment but for one week. Ocalan, after only being able to meet with his lawyers for the first time in months, expressed concern that his life was in danger, as he was being threatened and had received death threat letters.

The Kurdish people view Ocalan as their champion of peace and freedom, but such actions and threats are being perpetrated before the eyes of the world. These measures against Ocalan are quite contrary to all international law and agreements, but the EU and other Western states remain silent and make no response, so we are prompted to ask if they are complicit in these practices? With each passing day, the Kurdish people believe this to be the case. The Turkish state launched an intensified attack on the Kurdish people immediately after it was given a date for the start of accession negotiations with the EU. Not content with releasing the culprits of the 9 November Semdinli incidents, although they were caught red handed, and they were military officers, it has started violent military campaigns throughout Kurdistan.

Following a short period on from the visits to Turkey of US and EU officials, during press conferences and in the meetings of the State Security Council there was talk of all-out struggle. Immediately the offensive was stepped up. During 1990s after having gained the support of the Western powers, the Turkish state ratcheted up the war against the Kurdish people. As a result more than three million Kurds were forcibly displaced, four thousand villages were razed to the ground, thousands were tortured, thousands more were arrested and tens of thousands killed. So we ask this question, if a similar decision is once again adopted, is a repetition of this period not likely?

At least all the evidence indicates that Mr. Ocalan's life is in real danger given the harsh measures imposed on him. We call on all sides to act responsibly; we call on Turkey to end the recklessly dangerous policies that it is adopting and we call for a political solution to the Kurdish question. An immediate answer must be given to these calls of the Kurdish people for democracy, peace and a political solution. The Kurdish people see an attack on their leader Mr. Ocalan as an attack on themselves.

2. - Reuters - "Turkey drops case against writer Orhan Pamuk":

ANKARA / 22 January 2006 / by Selcuk Gokoluk

A Turkish court dropped a controversial case against best-selling author Orhan Pamuk for insulting Turkish identity after the justice ministry said it had no authority to try him, CNN Turk TV said on Sunday.

Ruling on a case that has been condemned by the European Union, the justice ministry told Istanbul's Sisli court it had had no authority under the revised penal code to pursue the trial.

Pamuk was charged under article 301 of the new penal code, which forbids insulting the Turkish identity, after he said in a Swiss newspaper interview that no one dared discuss the massacre of a million Armenians in Turkey during World War One.

The EU had said the case raised concerns over freedom of speech in Turkey as it seeks to win EU membership by demonstrating its commitment to European values.

The Istanbul court adjourned Pamuk's trial shortly after it began on December 16 and asked the justice ministry for a legal opinion on whether he could be tried under the new penal code.

Pamuk made the remarks last February, before the new penal code came into force. The court decided to drop the case following the statement from the ministry, CNN Turk said.

Discussing the killings of Armenians in World War One is highly sensitive in Turkey. Ankara rejects charges that Ottoman forces committed genocide against Armenians, but under EU pressure has called historians to debate the issue.

If convicted Pamuk, 53, could have faced up to three years in jail, although similar prosecutions in the past have more often resulted in fines, acquittals or reprieves.

Pamuk is one of dozens of writers and scholars facing charges brought by state prosecutors for insulting Turkish identity, state institutions and the revered founder of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The author of best-sellers "My Name is Red", "Black Book" and "Snow", Pamuk is seen as a Nobel Literature Prize contender.

His novels deal with the clash between past and present, East and West, secularism and Islam -- problems at the heart of Turkey's modernisation.

Pamuk, his publisher and lawyers were not available for comment.

3. - AFP - "Kurdish Demonstrators Clash With Police In Istanbul":

ISTANBUL / 22 January 2006

Protesters calling for the release of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan clashed with police Sunday in a working-class district of Istanbul, an AFP photographer reported.

About 100 demonstrators, shouting slogans in support of the jailed leader of the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), threw stones at an equivalent number of riot police who had come to disperse the protest.

The police fired tear gas grenades and plastic bullets against the protesters, but no one was hurt in the melee in Dolapdere, located in Istanbul's western side.

On the eastern bank of the Bosphorus Strait, in Umraniye district, pro-PKK demonstrators torched a city bus with a petrol bomb, slightly injuring its driver, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Last year, Ankara introduced restrictions on Ocalan's meetings with his lawyers, whom it accused of carrying orders from the rebel leader to his militants who have recently stepped up their armed campaign.

4. - Cihan News Agency - "Army Launches Winter Operation on PKK":

DIYARBAKIR / 19 January 2006

The Turkish Armed Forces launched a massive operation in the rural city of Tunceli against the PKK, or the Kurdish Workers’ Party.

The Turkish military reported the operation was launched over secret news that the Kurdish rebels may be in preparation for a possible armed uprising before the March 21 Newroz Feast, as well as the anniversary of Abdullah Ocalan’s detention, February 16. This operation is meant to destroy the hide-outs of rebels, relying greatly on Skorsky-type helicopters and a specially trained squad of commandos. The Tunceli District Command of Gendarmerie started the operation when Special Forces squads were taken by Cobra and Skorsky type helicopters to the regions of Kutuderesi, Zage and Alibogazi, to the Ahpanos Valley of the Ovacik district, and to the Dokuzkayalar area of the Nazimiye district.

5. - Reuters - "Turkey's Erdogan says pushing ahead with European Union reform":

ANKARA / 20 January 2006

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said today Turkey would push ahead with political reforms required to join the European Union, rejecting suggestions that the reform process was slowing down.

Diplomats have said recently Turkey's reforms had stalled and were concerned the entire accession process could grind to a halt if key issues such as Cyprus, minority rights and freedom of expression are not resolved.

''We know concerns are voiced sometimes to the effect that our work on political reforms has slowed or our determination has dwindled. I want to stress strongly that our reform work will accelerate,'' Erdogan said in a speech to EU ambassadors.

Turkey started long-delayed entry talks in October, but since then there have been repeated calls for Ankara to step up reform.

Critics also cite Ankara's refusal to reopen an Orthodox Christian seminary near Istanbul.

''Both our parliament and government are aware of the need to find a solution to the problem of religious foundations' properties that have been transferred to third parties,'' Erdogan said in the text of the speech.

A senior European diplomat said recently that unless Turkey presses on with reform, it will find few EU allies to help it if problems arise such as conflict with Greece over divided Cyprus.

But analysts say Erdogan is concerned about carrying out controversial reforms at a time when the opposition is gathering strength and calling for early elections.

A poll this week showed that support for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had slipped just below 30 per cent, from 34.3 per cent in the November 2002 election. Although AKP would win more than twice the votes of any other party, the Vatan newspaper poll showed it would have to rule in coalition.

Scepticism is growing among voters and officials over the price of EU membership, making reforms and relations with Cyprus even trickier.

Turkey backs a breakaway Turkish Cypriot enclave in northern Cyprus while the EU regards the Greek Cypriot government in the south as the sole representative of the Mediterranean island.

Political analysts say some members of AKP, which has roots in political Islam, are also disillusioned after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey's ban on women wearing headscarves in universities did not contravene human rights.

Erdogan said the court had no right to rule on the issue.

6. - The New Anatolian - "Villepin: Turkey has no 'natural' right to join EU":

French PM de Villepin, whose country appears against Turkey's EU membership and whose citizens appear to resist EU enlargement process by rejecting proposed EU constitution last year, states that Union-aspiring countries, including Turkey, have no natural or historical right to join bloc.

Villepin stresses that decision on whether to admit Turkey must remain open until end of talks that began Oct 3.

PARIS / 21 January 2006

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin cautioned aspiring European Union members, including Turkey, that there is "no natural right or historical right" for countries to join the 25-nation bloc.

Villepin stressed late Wednesday that a decision on whether to admit Turkey must remain open until the end of the negotiations.

"More generally, we must embark quickly on a reflection on the general enlargement strategy of the Union, its pace and its conditions. There's no natural right, no historical right to enter the Union -- and the promise of enlargement cannot be the only instrument for the stabilization of regions neighboring Europe," Villepin said in a speech at Berlin's Humboldt University ahead of a meeting with new German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Underlining that the EU doesn't today have the vocation to expand indefinitely, Villepin called for Europe to be "demanding and ambitious" in pressing ahead this year with efforts to adapt European institutions to the bloc's expansion.

President Jacques Chirac has already signaled France's intention to suggest ways of pushing the EU forward in 2006 and overcome the French and Dutch rejections of the EU's draft constitution in referendums last year.

Skepticism over continuing EU expansion, in particular membership talks with Turkey, were widely regarded as a major factor in the charter's defeat.

French voters, Villepin argued, believed Europe "did not protect us sufficiently against the consequences of globalization."

"France did not say 'no' to Europe. It said 'no' to a Europe whose vocation it no longer understood and in which it was no longer able to imagine its role, its place," he added.

Villepin said a solution to the constitutional impasse should strengthen the role of national Parliaments and strengthen Europe on the international stage.

He urged it to "choose zones of priority for our actions -- the Balkans or the Middle East for example."

The prime minister also called for Europe to set up an "intervention force" of experts to help prevent the spread of bird flu and suggested that Germany and France take the first step toward "a real European police" by setting up a joint border force.

Chirac will hold a meeting of selected ministers to prepare French initiatives on Europe ahead of the next summit in March, government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said Wednesday.