31 March 2006

1. "Protests escalate, more deaths today in Amed", today the protests are continuing, and sources in Amed indicate that approximately 100,000 people are protesting today in all parts of the city, chanting slogans in favor of the PKK and imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan as well as slogans praising recent martyrs and calling for freedom.

2. "Boy shot during Kurdish riots in Turkey dies", a seven-year old boy shot in the chest during a third day of sustained rioting by Kurds in eastern Turkey died overnight, a hospital source said Friday.

3. "High tension as Turkish riot victims buried", about 2,000 Kurds gathered here Thursday for the funerals of three victims of clashes between Kurdish youths and the police as unrest spread to other regions in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.

4. "Death toll rises to 6 in South East Turkey clashes", six people have been killed so far in days of clashes between Kurdish protesters and police in Diyarbakir, the main town of Turkey's troubled southeast, its mayor said on Friday.

5. "Turkish prosecutors probe politicians in Kurdish southeast", prosecutors in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir have opened an inquiry into allegations that pro-Kurdish politicians there have backed the Kurdish insurrection, a legal source said Thursday.

6. "A crescent that could also wane", even admirers of Turkey's mildly Islamist prime minister are beginning to worry about his increasingly reckless political tactics.

1. - Kurdish Media - "Protests escalate, more deaths today in Amed":

NEW YORK / 30 March 2006

Yesterday in Amed (Diyarbakir), northern Kurdistan, 3 people were killed as thousands or protestors clashed with Turkish security forces. Following the funerals of a number of the 14 PKK fighters killed in recent clashes with Turkish soldiers, mourners clashed with police and took out their anger on government buildings and banks.

Today the protests are continuing, and sources in Amed indicate that approximately 100,000 people are protesting today in all parts of the city, chanting slogans in favor of the PKK and imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan as well as slogans praising recent martyrs and calling for freedom. 3 additional deaths have been reported today, including the death of a 6 year old. Police and military presence is being increased in Amed. In response to the clashes, police from Mardin, Batman, Urfa, and Adiyaman have arrived in Amed. The number of armored vehicles deployed in the streets of the city has also increased.
Protests have been reported in other parts of northern Kurdistan, including Batman, Siirt, Mardin, Kiziltepe, and Nusaybin. While some have been wounded outside of Amed, no deaths have been reported. 4 wounded were transported from Batman to the Amed hospital, and 1 wounded was transported to Amed hospital from Siirt.

2. - AFP - "Boy shot during Kurdish riots in Turkey dies":

DIYARBAKIR / 31 March 2006

A seven-year old boy shot in the chest during a third day of sustained rioting by Kurds in eastern Turkey died overnight, a hospital source said Friday.

The child was fatally wounded Thursday when some 10,000 angry protesters took to the streets of Diyarbakir, Turkey's largest Kurdish-majority city, for the funerals of three people killed during the earlier clashes with police.

Police shot into the air during the confrontations, according to witnesses. Local authorities did not provide any details on the circumstances of boy's death.

More than 250 people have been injured during clashes, more than half of them police and security personnel.

Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu arrived in Diyarbakir late Thursday, after demonstrators vandalized numerous stores and attacked public buildings in a third day of rioting.

The situation was relatively calm Friday morning, and most stores had reopened, an AFP correspondent on the scene reported.

The violence erupted Tuesday after the funerals of four of 14 rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), killed by the army during fighting at the weekend.

Hundreds of Kurdish youths went on the rampage in Diyarbakir on Tuesday and Wednesday, attacking police with stones and petrol bombs and vandalizing shops and public buildings.

The violence spilled over Thursday to the nearby town of Batman, where the rioters fire-bombed a bank and ransacked the office of a far-right nationalist party, the Anatolia news agency said.

Beside the seven-year old boy, three other people were killed during this week's urban demonstrations: a protestor, a nine-year-old boy hit by a bullet while watching from a roof, and a man killed in a traffic accident while running from the melee.

Kurdish politicians have blamed the riots on Ankara's failure to meet their demands for greater freedoms.

Keen to boost its bid to join the European Union, Ankara has made a series of gestures to the Kurds, including allowing Kurdish-language broadcasts and private language courses, but activists want broader rights.

The conflict has claimed some 37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast in 1984.

3. - AFP - "High tension as Turkish riot victims buried":

DIYARBAKIR / 30 March 2006

About 2,000 Kurds gathered here Thursday for the funerals of three victims of clashes between Kurdish youths and the police as unrest spread to other regions in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.

Dozens of riot police, backed by armored vehicles, were deployed near the Diyarbakir mosque where a religious ceremony was performed for the dead -- a demonstrator, a nine-year-old boy hit by a bullet while watching the trouble from a roof and a man killed in a traffic accident while running away from the melee.

Commandoes armed with automatic rifles and wearing black ski masks kept watch in the streets.

In the worst street battles in the southeast for years, hundreds of Kurdish youths went on the rampage in Diyarbakir, the central city of the region, on Tuesday and Wednesday, hurling stones and petrol bombs at the police and vandalizing shops and public buildings.

Some 250 people, half of them police officers, were injured in the two days of rioting and 200 demonstrators were detained, officials said.

The violence spilled over to nearby Batman Thursday, where rioters fire-bombed a bank and ransacked the office of a far-right nationalist party, the Anatolia news agency said.

Television footage showed black smoke billowing from a building in the city as riot police fired pepper gas at protestors hurling stones and petrol bombs.

Clashes also took place in an Istanbul suburb late Wednesday.

In Diyarbakir, mourners brandished flags of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought Ankara since 1984, chanted slogans in favor of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and occasionally hurled stones at journalists covering the event.

The violence broke out Tuesday following the funerals of four of 14 PKK rebels killed in fighting with the army over the weekend. Angry mourners shouting "vengence" attacked the security forces.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some 37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast in 1984.

4. - Reuters - "Death toll rises to 6 in South East Turkey clashes":

DIYARBAKIR / 31 March 2006 / by Mert Ozkan

Six people have been killed so far in days of clashes between Kurdish protesters and police in Diyarbakir, the main town of Turkey's troubled southeast, its mayor said on Friday.

An seven-year-old child died overnight in hospital. A man and a child were shot dead on Wednesday and a second man was crushed under a police armored car. It was not immediately clear when or how the other two people died.

"Six people have died, 200 people are wounded," Mayor Osman Baydemir told a news conference amid the worst social unrest in the impoverished region in decades.

Thousands of Kurdish protesters lobbed stones and Molotov cocktails at Turkish police on Thursday in a third day of street battles in which three people were killed and more than 250 others wounded.

The fresh fighting erupted during funerals for two young men and an eight-year-old boy killed during Wednesday's clashes in Diyarbakir, the main city of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.

The boy and one man were shot dead. The other man was crushed under a police armoured car, witnesses said. An investigation into the deaths, has begun, the governor said.

Some mourners, ignoring appeals for calm from local officials, attacked a police station. Police fired warning shots into the air with AK-47 assault rifles and sprayed tear gas.

"We are angry about the three people killed yesterday, that's why we are here," said a masked man in his 20s.

The nearby town of Batman also saw street battles between riot police and up to 3,000 protesters on Thursday. CNN Turk television said 10 people had been hurt in those clashes.

Police have detained at least 200 people in Diyarbakir since the violence began on Tuesday during funeral ceremonies for 14 guerrillas of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), killed by security forces last weekend.

In Diyarbakir, a city of nearly one million, most shops and offices remained shut on Thursday and roads were blocked by barricades of burning tyres. The army deployed armoured vehicles in suburbs to discourage protesters.

Paramilitary police protected key buildings, including the governor's office. Protesters have already targeted banks, shopping centres and offices of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

TENSION

In a sign of increasing political tension, Turkey's Interior Ministry said it was investigating comments by Diyarbakir Mayor Osman Baydemir expressing sympathy for the protesters.

Ankara suspects Baydemir, whose Democratic Society Party seeks more cultural and political rights for Turkey's estimated 12 million Kurds, of having links to the banned PKK.

Political analysts say this week's riots are rooted in high unemployment, poverty and a belief among the Kurds of the region that Ankara is not seriously interested in improving their lot.

Under pressure from the European Union, which it hopes to join, Turkey has removed some restrictions on Kurdish language and culture, but critics say it is too little too late.

The PKK blamed Turkey for ignoring its peace overtures and called for more demonstrations.

"We are calling on ... the Kurdish people to carry on indefinitely their struggle through legitimate democratic action until a democratic solution is brought about," it said in a statement on a Web site used by the PKK.

The government is also under fire from Turkish nationalists who view the concessions to Kurds as rewarding terrorism.

Erdogan infuriated nationalists last summer when he visited Diyarbakir and said Turkey had made mistakes in the past in its handling of what he called the "Kurdish problem".

5. - AFP - "Turkish prosecutors probe politicians in Kurdish southeast":

DIYARBAKIR / 30 March 2006

Prosecutors in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir have opened an inquiry into allegations that pro-Kurdish politicians there have backed the Kurdish insurrection, a legal source said Thursday.

Those being investigated include Osman Baydemir, the mayor of the city and a member of the main pro-Kurdish organisation, the Party for a Democratic Society (DTP), who earlier this week told young rioters he respected their "courage" but asked them to stop defying the law.

Two provincial leaders Ahmet Cengiz and Murat Avci are also being investigated.

Diyarbakir, the capital of the Kurdish-dominated southeast with some 550,000 people, is facing the worst street violence in years, which has seen clashes between supporters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Turkish security forces.

The violence erupted after several thousand demonstrators confronted police following the funerals of four of 14 PKK rebels killed in clashes with the military Saturday.

Five people were killed and more than 250 injured in violence Monday and Tuesday. On Thursday hospital sources said two people, one of them a boy, were seriously hurt in new incidents.

Kurdish politicians have blamed the riots on Ankara's failure to meet their demands for greater freedoms.

Keen to boost its bid to join the European Union, Ankara has made a series of gestures to its ethinic Kurdish population, including allowing Kurdish-language broadcasts and private language courses, but activists want broader rights.

The conflict has claimed some 37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast in 1984.

6. - The Economist - "A crescent that could also wane":

ANKARA / 30 March 2006

Even admirers of Turkey's mildly Islamist prime minister are beginning to worry about his increasingly reckless political tactics.

“I DON'T see what all the worry is about.” With those breezy words, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, flew to an Arab League summit in Sudan this week, after failing to defuse a spat about who should be the next central-bank governor—a row, moreover, which has rattled the markets badly.

For all his nonchalance, Mr Erdogan must know there is much to worry about in Turkey these days. Alarm bells are sounding over the economy. Relations with the European Union have soured over Cyprus. With Kurdish uprising, some meddlesome generals are rattling their sabres once again.

In short, the unprecedented financial and political stability ushered in by Mr Erdogan's three-year-old government is starting to look vulnerable—and many blame his erratic behaviour. Take the central-bank affair. Even Mr Erdogan's allies could not explain his choice of Adnan Buyukdeniz, the head of an interest-free Islamic finance house who has denounced the International Monetary Fund, as central-bank chief. The nomination was rejected by the firmly pro-secular head of state, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who is thought to have favoured keeping the outgoing governor, Surreya Serdengecti. The presidential veto coincided with a firm scolding for Turkey from the IMF.

The fund's managing director, Rodrigo de Rato, said the country's market credibility had been put at risk by a decision last month to slash the value-added tax paid by textile exporters and to raise public-sector wages. Both measures breached the terms of a $10 billion IMF credit line.

Mr de Rato added that despite robust growth and the taming of inflation, Turkey's economy remained fragile because of high public debt. He might have also mentioned a high current-account deficit (see chart). Record tourism revenues and short-term foreign investment have plugged the gap so far. But with the bird flu outbreak earlier this year deterring visitors, and higher interest rates in America shifting global liquidity away from emerging markets, foreign inflows are set to drop. The IMF, meanwhile, is refusing to disburse the fourth $800m tranche of its standby facility until a social-security reform is finally adopted.

Apparently unfazed, Turkey's controversial finance minister, Kemal Unakitan, said on March 28th that further tax breaks for different sectors were being considered. His comments pushed the Istanbul Stock Exchange's main index down; he then said only tourism would get rebates.

On the EU front too, the government seems to have lost much of the reforming zeal that helped it, last October, to win the prize of membership talks. This week the EU's enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, cautioned that relations with Turkey could be heading for a “train crash” over Cyprus by the end of the year.

Turkey is obliged to open its ports and airports to Cypriot-registered ships and aircraft under an agreement extending its customs union to the ten governments, including the Greek-Cypriot one, which joined the union in 2004. But Mr Erdogan has ruled out taking this step until the EU eases its trade embargo on the Turkish-occupied north of the island.

Many Turks share his view that the EU is hiding behind the Cyprus issue to sabotage their country's membership. Disillusionment with the EU is reflected in polls that show support for membership among Turks slipping from a high of 74% to 58% last month.

Instead of working to salvage his country's ties with the EU, Mr Erdogan has recently paid more attention to cultivating Arab and African leaders. Among them was Khaled Mashal, a senior figure in the Hamas movement who would hardly be welcome—in view of the Palestinian Islamists' refusal to renounce violence—in any other NATO capital.

Mr Mashal was received by the foreign minister, Abdullah Gul—and had it not been for stiff American warnings, the visitor would have met Mr Erdogan. Israel said the damage inflicted by Turkey's embrace of Hamas would be “hard to repair”. But ignoring America's objections this time, Turkey issued an invitation to another Islamist firebrand, the Iraqi Shia cleric, Muqtada Al-Sadr.

Such moves have given rhetorical fuel, at least, to Mr Erdogan's pro-secular enemies who say he is bent on making Turkey an Islamic state. Nominating an Islamist central banker was “only one of the indications”, the secular-minded daily Cumhuriyet said in a front-page editorial.

The risks of chasing votes

A more likely explanation for the prime minister's new carelessness is the desire to haul in votes ahead of parliamentary elections next year. Lowering taxes, raising spending and snubbing Israel and America are sure vote-catchers in a country where unemployment has reached 11.2% and pro-Islamic feelings are on the rise.

But Mr Erdogan would be well-advised to weigh the risks carefully. Much of the undeniable success of his government has been rooted in its strict adherence to the IMF programme and its embrace of Turkey's EU goals. The turmoil that would follow any break with the IMF or the EU could allow the Turkish army to recover lost political ground. General Yasar Buyukanit, the hawkish land-forces commander, who is set to take over as army chief, has already traded blows with the government over a nasty affair in Turkey's wildish east: a prosecutor's indictment of three members of the security forces, accused of blowing up a Kurdish nationalist bookshop in the town of Semdinli.

The prosecutor called for the general to be investigated on charges of setting up an armed gang in the south-east to provoke tension with the Kurds and torpedo Turkey's progress towards the EU. In a statement that read like an indictment of the government, the general staff then accused the prosecutor of harbouring a political agenda, and of targeting the secular foundations of the state. The prosecutor now faces charges of abusing his office.

With that sort of unpleasantness brewing, the government would be ill-advised to alienate the EU, whose blessing is its best insurance against the army.

As many of his qualified western admirers see things, Mr Erdogan still has the potential to bring Turkey closer to real democracy than it has ever been; but he could also go the way of many of his predecessors, as a populist failure. Perhaps the best thing about him—shown by a row in 2004 over moves to criminalise adultery—is that he can change his mind.