29 January 2007

1. "Turkey’s suicide", it's hard to watch an old pal hit the skids, making one disastrous decision after another, throwing away a brilliant future. That's the position we're in with Turkey - a former ally bent on self-destruction.

2. "Turkish mayor sentenced for supporting PKK", the mayor of a province in southeastern Turkey was sentenced on Thursday to two years in jail for supporting the banned PKK in a speech at the funeral of one of its guerrillas, court officials said.

3. "Dink's Case Would Continue in ECHR", assassinated Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink's appeal at the ECHR will perpetuate, says his lawyers. Dink was condemned to deferred 6 months in prison for "insulting Turkishness". He had applied to ECHR ahen the Supreme Court rejected his appeal.

4. "Rehn: Turkey should immediately amend or annul Article 301", the European commissioner for enlargement urged Turkey to immediately amend or annul Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) to attain freedom of expression, stressing that this is the best way to honor Hrant Dink, who devoted his life to freedom of expression.

5. "Rights groups: annulling 301 not enough", to draw attention to alleged human rights violations, two prominent non governmental organizations, the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (HRFT) and the Human Rights Association (IHD), on Friday sent letters of protest to both Turkish and international officials.

6. "Iraqi Kurdish Lawmakers Urge Turkey to Stop Intervention", the National Assembly of Iraq's Kurdistan called on Friday on the United States and the European Union to exert pressure on Turkey to stop meddling in internal affaris of Iraq and the Kurdistan region in the north of the country.

1. - New York Post - "Turkey’s suicide":

27 January 2007 / by Ralph Peters

IT'S hard to watch an old pal hit the skids, making one disastrous decision after another, throwing away a brilliant future. That's the position we're in with Turkey - a former ally bent on self-destruction.

A NATO member ideally positioned to serve as a bridge between the West and the Middle East, Turkey's secular constitution and economic progress should have made it an example for other regional states to emulate. Instead, Turkey has been aping the blighted regimes of the Arab world:

* Exploiting the population's disgust with government corruption, Islamists gained power through the ballot box - and immediately started dismantling the secular legacy of Kemal Ataturk.

* On the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Turkey stabbed the United States - its only dependable ally - in the back, denying passage to our troops in the fateful illusion that Ankara could save Saddam.

* Turkey strangled its (always faint) chance of membership in the European Union with internal repression, ludicrous prosecutions, farcical legislative efforts to Talibanize society and its stubborn denial of the Armenian genocide.

* Instead of winning Europe's approval, the government-sponsored anti-American hate speech poisoning Turkey's media only strengthens European convictions that Turks "aren't our kind."

* Impatient to send Turkish troops into Iraq to attack the PKK Ankara might face a startling military embarrassment, further alienate Washington - and finish off its last prayer of EU membership. (The Europeans just want excuses to keep Turkey out - and Turkey has a genius for providing them.)

* Despite the potential for a mutually beneficial relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan - where Turkish businessmen make substantial profits - the Ankara government obsesses about preventing the emergence of a Kurdish state. Betting on Iraq's Sunni Arabs (who despise the Turks but use them), Turkey has set itself up to lose big if Iraq dissolves.

* With its mischief-making in Iraq, cloak-and-dagger monkey business with Syria and failure to appreciate Iranian deviousness, Turkish foreign policy is in a self-destructive shambles unrivaled since the foundation of te modern Turkish state.

All of this leaves me in sorrow, since I spent decades arguing that Turkey's strategic importance required us to be patient as this land of enormous potential found its way to the future.

For an enthusiastic visitor to Turkey for three decades, it's been heartbreaking to watch its society and economy come to life - only to fall prey to Islamist vampires.

With Salafism - the Saudi brand of radical Islam - biting into the Turkish political jugular, the joke is that the despised Bedouins of Arabia have finally conquered the "Ottoman Empire." The most primitive and backward form of Islam is increasingly at home in the heartlands that had formed the core of the most powerful Muslim state for five centuries.

Now the question isn't whether our old ally can overcome its internal difficulties, but which of its troubles will overwhelm it first. Will the Islamist destruction of Turkish culture continue, or will a rumored military coup plunge the country back into another period of internal violence and political stasis?

For Washington, it's all bad news. The march of punitive Islam (punitive, above all, to Muslims) continues to feed on wild-eyed anti-Americanism - but a military coup could lead to a misadventure in northern Iraq similar to Argentina's Falklands debacle.

Last week's murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink (in which Islamo-nationalists cynically employed a 17-year-old assassin who could only be charged as a juvenile) laid bare the divide in Turkish society: 100,000 Turks turned out to protest the barbarous killing, but the government barely shrugged, since the demagogues now command far greater numbers.

Turkey's educated elite is in much the same position as Germany's elite during Hitler's rise to power. Imagining that the Islamists would sputter out, progressive Turks failed to act. Now Turkish civilization - so great for so many centuries - is unraveling the way Germany's did in the 1930s. Turkish intellectuals made the classic error of underestimating the common man's capacity for hatred and lust for blind revenge.

As for the spectacularly virulent and dishonest anti-Americanism in the Turkish media - we need never have a "Who lost Turkey?" debate: The Turks lost it for themselves. Instead of maturing into the Western culture of responsibility, Turks succumbed to the Arab world's culture of blame.

Having looked down on Arabs for centuries, Turks are now becoming functional Arabs, reclining into fantasies of greatness as surreal as a Sufi mystic's hashish dreams. Ataturk's revolutionary vision for a modern Turkish state - betrayed by his own corrupt successors - is fading into the reality of yet another retarded Muslim satrapy.

An even more accurate parallel case than 1930s Germany is today's Pakistan. Turkey is on the way to becoming another extremist-poisoned garrison state held together solely by its military.

On my last visit, I got a madman's lecture from a Turkish customs officer on the resurrection of the Ottoman Empire. But instead of returning to that empire's undeniable glories, 21st- century Turkey appears determined to replay the miserable Ottoman twilight.

I wish we could save Turkey. But we can't. That's up to the Turks.

* Ralph Peters' latest book is "Never Quit The Fight."

2. - Reuters - "Turkish mayor sentenced for supporting PKK":

DIYARBAKIR / 26 January 2007

The mayor of a province in southeastern Turkey was sentenced on Thursday to two years in jail for supporting the banned PKK in a speech at the funeral of one of its guerrillas, court officials said.

The PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party, has been blamed for 30,000 deaths since 1984, when it began its armed struggle for a Kurdish homeland.

The court ruled that Mardin Mayor Cemal Veske had no reason to attend the funeral as he was not a relative or friend of the guerrilla -- killed by Turkish forces in 2005 -- and so his presence amounted to propaganda.

He also said in a speech that the only people who were addressing the Kurdish problem were the PKK, the officials said.

Several other mayors from the region have been tried for supporting the PKK, which broke off a five-year ceasefire in 2004.

The organisation declared another unilateral ceasefire last year, which the Turkish military has not recognised and continues to fight the group in the mountainous southeast.

3. - Bianet - "Dink's Case Would Continue in ECHR":

Assassinated Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink's appeal at the ECHR will perpetuate, says his lawyers. Dink was condemned to deferred 6 months in prison for "insulting Turkishness". He had applied to ECHR ahen the Supreme Court rejected his appeal.

ISTANBUL / 25 January 2007 / by Tolga Korkut

Lawyers of the assassinated Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink told bianet that his family will perpetuate the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Dink had brought the case where he was condemned to "insulting Turkishness" with reference to the preposterous article 301 of the Penal Code.

His lawyer Erdal Dogan noted that the appeal has been registered at the ECHR on January 15.

"I couldn't bear this"

Despite opposing expert testimony, the Supreme Court of Appeal had found Dink guilty of the alleged crime and he had decided to appeal to the ECHR.

Dink explains this process in his column at Agos newspaper on January 19, the day he was gunned down in front of the newspaper's offices in Istanbul.

"(...) Now the verdict was there and all my hopes were lost. From that time on, I was in the most embarrassing situation a man can experience. The judge gave the decision in the name of "Turkish people" and legally registered that I had "insulted Turkish identity".

I could bear everything but not this. In my view, to humiliate people who we live together on the basis of an ethnic or religious difference is called racism and this is something unforgivable. Just under the influence of such a psychology, I told to the members of the press who were waiting for me at the door to check "whether I would leave the country or not" the following statement:

"I will consult my lawyers. I will go to the Court of Appeal for cassation and if necessary I will also apply to European Court of Human Rights. If I am not acquitted at any stage, then I will leave my country. Because in my understanding a person sentenced to punishment with such an accusation does not have the right to live with other citizens whom he has humiliated."

4. - The New Anatolian - "Rehn: Turkey should immediately amend or annul Article 301":

LONDON / 27 January 2007

The European commissioner for enlargement urged Turkey to immediately amend or annul Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) to attain freedom of expression, stressing that this is the best way to honor Hrant Dink, who devoted his life to freedom of expression.
Speaking to the Financial Times on Friday, enlargement chief Olli Rehn stated that he was shocked by the murder of Dink, adding, "I grow impatient to see that Turkey is becoming democratized and a real European country."

In move to brush aside suggestions of a "privileged partnership" for Turkey instead of the country's full membership in the European Union, Rehn said, "Turkey is a candidate state that is conducting negotiations with the Union to become a member. Our common goal is Turkey's accession." Rehn, however, he underlined that membership is not an automatic process but depends on Turkey.

Asserting that the EU enlargement policy will make the bloc a "powerful world player," through expanding peace, stability and democracy, Rehn said, "It is obvious that Europe needs a democratic and stabilized Turkey and Turkey needs Europe in economic and political means. Therefore, we have started membership talks with Turkey."

Touching on the Cyprus dispute, Rehn state that a comprehensive solution is "urgent and necessary" on the island, adding that the Union supports United Nations' efforts to find a solution. "The current division of Cyprus is unacceptable for the EU," Rehn said.

5. - The New Anatolian - "Rights groups: annulling 301 not enough":

ANKARA / 27 January 2007

To draw attention to alleged human rights violations, two prominent non governmental organizations, the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (HRFT) and the Human Rights Association (IHD), on Friday sent letters of protest to both Turkish and international officials.

In a letter to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, HRFT head Yavuz Onen reminded the premier that since the assassination of journalist Hrant Dink the freedom of speech issue had started to be discussed in relation to the Turkish Penal Code's (TCK) Article 301.

"Through the constitutional amendment realized on Oct. 17, 2001, many positive steps were taken in terms of democratization, but in the last year these steps stopped and even deteriorated," said Onen in the letter, explaining that they were trying to draw the prime minister's attention to the issue.

Onen said that human rights problems in Turkey are discussed concerning the evaluations of other countries and that is the Turks who have to pay a grievous cost. "This is both woeful and thought provoking," he said in the letter.

"Claiming that freedom of speech can be realized through annulling Article 301 or amendments is not only pointless but also flippant," he said. "Of course amendments regarding Article 301 will be a very important step. However, this step should be taken not due to the suppressions or demands of other countries, but it should be taken as it's a very important step for the democratization of Turkey."

Addressing the premier, Onen stated that changing articles one by isn't sufficient since following a change in one article considered an obstacle to freedom of speech another is substituted.

"There are at least 14 articles in the TCK that can be a substitute for Article 301, besides the Anti-Terror Law, Law to Protect Ataturk, Press Law and the Supreme Board of Radio and Television Law have a restrictive character," he said. "Limiting the human rights concept with freedom of speech or discussing only Article 301 means that we take democratization as an image on the way to the European Union."

Onen also criticized the premier by saying that not maintaining communication with human rights associations is one of the major deficiencies of their government. "Not making an attempt to open investigations into some officials is also thought provoking. In a country where the officials uttering the statements below continue in their posts, expecting the protection of human right values is only a dream," said Onen. He also cited a statement by Governor of Trabzon Huseyin Yavuzdemir scolding a far left group that distributed banners advocating further rights for prisoners but was attacked by a mob in 2005. "The group unfurled a banner. If I knew who they were, I'd have shot them," Rize Mayor Halil Bakirci was quoted as saying about the events.

Onen closed the letter by saying, "You were talking about replacing the current Constitution with a more participatory one and you promised to take the ideas of all sectors of society. Yet, your government hasn't kept its promises for the last four years."

IHD members march to UN office

Members of the IHD claimed in their letter presented to the United Nations Turkey Representative office that there has been a serious deterioration in the situation for human rights advocates in Turkey.

Gathering in front of the IHD's headquarters in the capital's Tunali Hilmi Sk., members of the association marched through the Karum shopping mall to protest a lack of measures for the protection of human rights advocates in Turkey.

IHD head Yusuf Alatas claimed that human rights advocates are constantly under threat. "No preventive steps are taken to protect these people, yet human rights advocates will continue their struggle," he said.

Afterwards, members of the association marched to the UN Turkey Representative office and presented the letter and a file to Hina Jilani, UN human rights advocates' special rapporteur.

6. - KUNA - "Iraqi Kurdish Lawmakers Urge Turkey to Stop Intervention":

ARBIL / 26 January 2007

The National Assembly of Iraq's Kurdistan called on Friday on the United States and the European Union to exert pressure on Turkey to stop meddling in internal affaris of Iraq and the Kurdistan region in the north of the country.

The parliament, in a statement, urged the Turkish Government to hold negotiations with the local authorities to resolve border problems, in line with international laws.

"The parliament of Kurdistan rejects all forms of Turkish intervention in the affairs of Iraq and the province that does not serve the good neighborliness ties between the two countries," the statement said.

Turkey has expressed concern at cross-border activities by Kurdish rebel militias and status of Iraqis of Turkish origin living in the Kurdish northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk and towns in the region.