11
June 2007
1. "Kurdish rebels threaten more violence unless Turkey ends military operations", Kurdish rebels have threatened to escalate attacks against Turkish troops unless Turkey ends its military operations against the group, a Kurdish news agency reported Sunday, while fighting in southeast of the country killed five more people.
2. "Bomb kills three soldiers, wounds four in Turkey", three soldiers were killed and four others seriously wounded in an explosion in a Kurdish area of southeastern Turkey, security sources said.
3. "Tensions Grow in Northern Iraq Over Turkish Military Buildup", Iraqi Kurds living near the Turkish border continue to report regular shelling in remote areas in recent days. Turkish generals have threatened strikes inside Iraq to eliminate support networks for Kurdish rebel fighters who operate in Turkey. But U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned Turkey against military action. VOA's Barry Newhouse reports from northern Iraq.
4. "Three Provinces Declared "Security Zones", Turkish General Staff has announced that the three south-eastern provinces of Siirt, Hakkari and Sirnak have been turned into "temporary security zones" from 9 June until 9 September, meaning that civilian entry into these provinces will be restricted.
5. "Human Rights Activists Face Imprisonment", a penal court in Adana, south of Turkey, has sentenced three members of the Adana branch of the Association for Human Rights (IHD) to imprisonment for criticising the "Return to Life" operations of December 2000.
6. "Turkey’s Parliamentary Elections and the Long-Debated Cross Border Operation into Iraq", the timing of the Turkish army’s dramatic, though long expected, military move against the PKK across the Iraqi border has some suspecting that there is more than exigency behind the bold offensive. Considering that the pivotal Turkish parliamentary elections are due next month, is not the northern Iraq offensive really all about channeling the surging ‘patriotism’ of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) to erode votes from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of candidate and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan?
1. - AP - "Kurdish rebels threaten more violence unless Turkey ends military operations":
ANKARA / 10 June 2007
Kurdish rebels have threatened to escalate attacks against Turkish troops unless Turkey ends its military operations against the group, a Kurdish news agency reported Sunday, while fighting in southeast of the country killed five more people.
Turkey's president meanwhile, said the country was determined to fight the rebel Kurds "until the last terrorist is eliminated."
Belgium-based Firat, a pro-Kurdish news agency that Turkey says is a rebel mouthpiece, quoted the rebel group as saying the Turkish military would "pay a high price" unless it stopped offensives against it.
The military should "immediately end operations, return its forces to the garrisons and not impede democratic solutions" to end the conflict, Firat quoted the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, as saying.
There has been a surge in PKK attacks against military targets in southeast Turkey in recent weeks.
Turkey is growing increasingly frustrated and has been building up its forces near the Iraqi border, raising fears it might stage a cross-border operation. It is also carrying out several offensives against rebels in the southeast of the country, moving troops to the area from garrisons in other parts of the country.
The U.S. has warned against a cross-border incursion, fearing it might drag northern Iraq, the country's relatively stable part, into chaos. The Turkish military shelled suspected rebel bases in Iraq's north this week.
The rebel group has been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey since 1984, in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.
On Sunday, three rebels were killed in a clash in the province of Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey while another was killed in Bitlis, further east. A government-paid village guard assisting troops was also killed in the clash in Diyarbakir, local officials said.
In recent attacks on troops, suspected Kurdish rebels detonated a roadside bomb in southeast Turkey late Saturday, killing a Turkish lieutenant colonel, a major and a private.
Earlier this week, a similar bomb claimed lives of four troops. In other attacks, rebels killed seven soldiers at a Turkish military outpost in southeast Turkey last week. On May 24, a bomb believed planted by the PKK killed eight soldiers.
On Sunday, a small bomb exploded on a busy street in Istanbul,
injuring 14 people. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Last month a suicide bomb attack in Ankara killed eight people and injured
dozens of others. Turkish officials blamed the PKK for the attack, but
the group denied involvement. 
2. - AFP - "Bomb kills three soldiers, wounds four in Turkey":
DIYARBAKIR / 10 June 2007
Three soldiers were killed and four others seriously wounded in an explosion in a Kurdish area of southeastern Turkey, security sources said.
The bomb was set off on Sunday by remote control by Kurdish rebels as a military convoy passed by in Sirnak province, on the mountainous border with Iraq, the sources said.
The dead included two officers, they said.
In recent weeks, Turkey has strengthened its military presence on the Iraqi border, with no-go security zones and live ammunition manoeuvres seen as signs of a possible cross-border operation to neutralise the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Iraq lodged an official complaint with Turkey yesterday claiming it had bombarded Iraq's northern Kurdish region and warning that the attack against Kurdish rebels could destabilise the region.
Turkey says the PKK, whose 22-year insurgency in eastern
and southeastern Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives so far, is
acting under the protection of Iraqi Kurds allied to the United States.
3. - Reuters - "Tensions Grow in Northern Iraq Over Turkish Military Buildup":
IRBIL / 10 June 2007 / by Barry Newhouse
Iraqi Kurds living near the Turkish border continue to report regular
shelling in remote areas in recent days. Turkish generals have threatened
strikes inside Iraq to eliminate support networks for Kurdish rebel
fighters who operate in Turkey. But U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned
Turkey against military action. VOA's Barry Newhouse reports from northern
Iraq.
Iraqi Kurdish media have reported near-nightly artillery attacks in the past few days in the rural northwest of the country, near the Turkish border.
Abdullah Salah, an Iraqi parliament member from Kurdistan, told Iraqi television that several villages near the border city of Zakho have been targeted.
He says the locations shelled by the Turkish are north of Zakho. He says they are very close to the Turkish border.
A local Kurdish political leader in Zakho says the shelling has been regular, but the violence has not escalated.
He says frankly, along the border Turkey has been massing their troops and waiting.
Turkey says Iraq's central government, Kurdistan's regional government, and the U.S. military have not done enough to crack down on Kurdish rebel bases inside Iraq. In the past week, 12 Turkish troops were killed in attacks blamed on militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK. More than 30,000 people have died in the conflict since the PKK began its separatist campaign in 1984.
Thousands of Turkish troops have moved toward the Iraqi border and set-up special security zones that restrict movement in Turkey's border areas.
In Iraqi Kurdish villages near Turkey, there is worry of a Turkish invasion similar to 1997, the last time large numbers of Turkish forces crossed the border to fight the PKK. Turkey says the PKK uses mountain hideouts and friendly villages in northern Iraq to train and re-supply.
This woman in Dashati Takhe village, near the border city Zakho says the shelling has forced many people to leave their homes and seek shelter in the city.
She says she asks the Iraqi government to stop this. She says it is hard for the families here and we need to live in peace.
On Saturday, Iraqi officials in Baghdad summoned a Turkish diplomat and lodged an official complaint, claiming the military had shelled areas of Dohuk and Irbil province and warning cross-border attacks could destabilize the region.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday also
warned Turkey, saying a "robust" movement of troops across
the border would not be good for Iraq or Turkey.
4. - Bianet - "Three Provinces Declared "Security Zones":
Turkish General Staff has announced that the three south-eastern provinces of Siirt, Hakkari and Sirnak have been turned into "temporary security zones" from 9 June until 9 September, meaning that civilian entry into these provinces will be restricted.
ANKARA / June 2007
On 6 June, the Turkish General Staff announced that three south-eastern provinces near the Iraqi border, namely Siirt, Hakkari and Sirnak, would become "temporary security zones" as of 9 June, ending on 9 September.
On its official website, coordinates of locations where it will be forbidden to pass are given.
According to the Turkish television channel NTV, which claimed to use military sources, the announcement was a warning for civilian air traffic and ground movements.
Erdogan: We authorised decision
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke on the Haber 24 news channel yesterday night, saying: "Our security forces have declared this sensitive region a space of military activity. For one, this is a routine process every year. "
He was referring to the fact that in many years both PKK and the army stepped up operations towards the summer. Erdogan added that the government had given authorisation.
No state of emergency planned
When asked whether a widening of scope could be expected, Erdogan assured that there would be no return to the state of emergency that was declared in many eastern and south-eastern provinces since the 1980s and only lifted a few years ago.
However, he also defended the right of the army to increase
its presence in the areas, particularly after the recent PKK attack
in Tunceli.
5. - Bianet - "Human Rights Activists Face Imprisonment":
A penal court in Adana, south of Turkey, has sentenced three members of the Adana branch of the Association for Human Rights (IHD) to imprisonment for criticising the "Return to Life" operations of December 2000.
ADANA / 8 June 2007 / by Erol Onderoglu
Three members of the Association for Human Rights (IHD) in Adana, a southern Turkish province, have been sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison.
In a press release they had criticised military operations in December 2000, euphemistically termed "Return to Life", in which prisons with hunger strikers were stormed and over thirty people were killed. They had also demanded that those in charge of the operations be brought to justice.
The penal court in Adana, had decreed that the three accused had "incited the people to hatred towards the state".
The three men on trial are the IHD branch president Ethem Acikalin, the branch secretary Mustafa Bagcicek and the branch accountant Hüseyin Beyaz. In a hearing today (7 June), the court decided that the sentences wouldn't be postponed "due to current conditions in the country".
Acikalin also faces Article 301 trial
Furthermore, branch president Acikalin faces a trial under Article 301 at an Adana peace court for taking part in protests against the killings of civilians in Adana and Diyarbakir (south-east Turkey).
In Adana, sixteen-year old Feyzi Abik had been killed, and in Diyarbakir 11 people died. The trial started today, and the charge under Article 301 is "denigrating the state's law-enforcement officers"
In a response to the trials, the Adana branch of the IHD has released a written statement, stating that "this has shown again that in a state governed by the rule of law it is considered a crime to demand the punishment of people responsible for events".
Referring to the changes Turkey has been making to its
legislation in order to conform to EU standards, the Adana IHD said
that the concept of "crimes of thought" nevertheless persisted.
6. - Balkan Analysis - "Turkey’s Parliamentary Elections and the Long-Debated Cross Border Operation into Iraq":
9 June 2007
The timing of the Turkish army’s dramatic, though long expected, military move against the PKK across the Iraqi border has some suspecting that there is more than exigency behind the bold offensive. Considering that the pivotal Turkish parliamentary elections are due next month, is not the northern Iraq offensive really all about channeling the surging ‘patriotism’ of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) to erode votes from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of candidate and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan?
Ever since the Turkish military’s digital intervention with the civilian administration on April 27th, there has been no shortage of political crises, each one causing the democratic process in the country to falter. The generals’ e-memorandum followed the halted parliamentary voting for president out of which the Republican People’s Party (CHP) managed to produce a regime threat. Then came the military’s insistence for an immediate cross-border operation against the Kurdish PKK camps in Northern Iraq, which is nowadays pronounced to possibly deal with the Barzani government as well.
At the same time, Turkey has gone into pre-election mode, and those parties who are bashing the AKP government for its alleged inability to deal with the most severe national security threat, most notably the MHP), now the main contender, have boosted their popular support. The phenomenon of politically expedient MHP nationalism has much less to do with the PKK or the so-called independent Kurdish state than it does with the parliamentary elections of July 22.
Secular vs. Islamist – OUT / Islamist vs. Nationalist – IN
For a long time, Turkish society was easily split and polarized along the lines of the secular-minded vs. the Islamists. However, the AK Party’s record over the last four and a half years has changed the whole equation, thereby making it less possible, if not impossible, to identify an Islamist counterpart or threat against the secular regime of the Republic.
This record has been noted by Western observers as well. “Mr. Erdogan’s government has been Turkey’s most successful in half a century,” argued the Economist in May. “After years of macroeconomic instability, growth has been steady and strong, inflation has been controlled and foreign investment has shot up. Even more impressive are the judicial and constitutional reforms that the AK government has pushed through. Corruption remains a blemish, but there is no sign of the government trying to overturn Turkey’s secular order. The record amply justifies Mr. Erdogan’s biggest achievement: to persuade the EU to open membership talks, over 40 years after a much less impressive Turkey first expressed its wish to join.”1
Nevertheless, ethnic Turkish vs. Kurdish nationalism fomented by the surge of PKK activities in the southeastern border of Turkey still provides fertile ground to polarize the country and evenly split the electoral vote. Given the hitherto conciliatory attitude of the mildly Islamist AK Party towards the secular establishment, its unprecedented economic and political successes, and finally its deliberate effort to avoid hot button issues such as the wearing of the head scarf depleted options for many in the ultra-secular circles to attack the AK Party.
Nevertheless, the PKK question and the possibility, perceived as a looming threat, of an independent Kurdish state have always been the weak spot of the AK Party, whose very legitimacy both at home and abroad is pretty much dependent on its continuous commitment to the EU and the United States- both of which seem profoundly allergic to any sort of cross-border military operation by the Turkish military. Therefore, the matter of dealing (or not dealing) with those two imminent threats is literally the only ground on which the AK Party government’s popular prestige could be undermined.
A less effective, but not totally ignorable, issue to be exploited is that of corruption. Yet given all the other parties’ records on corruption, it would be futile to attack the AK government with such allegations. It would in fact prove ineffective, especially so for the Nationalist Action Party, whose former minister has recently been sentenced with the highest corruption charges in the Republic’s history.
When it comes to exploiting popular sentiment over the Kurdish secessionist issue, however, the MHP has proven by far the most suitable contender against the AK Party. In his public rallies, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli frequently accuses the AKP government of being sluggish and dependent on the United States and the European Union to deal with the most severe national security threat, the PKK.2 Bahceli’s inflammatory and nationalistic speeches seem to be paying off. Recent polls about the upcoming parliamentary elections and the long debated cross-border military operation in Northern Iraq indicate that the new fault lines of “Islamists vs. nationalists” have already taken shape, rapidly closing the gap between the AKP and MHP constituencies.
The Polls: Changing Numbers
Two recent online polls, conducted by Turkish polling groups Turkiyesecimleri.com and Secimsonucu.com asked the participants to identify which political party they would vote for in the upcoming July 22 parliamentary elections, indicating a sharp increase in the expected vote count for the MHP, a slight increase or decrease respectively in the AK Party votes and an absolute decline in the Republican People’s Party (CHP) votes.
According to the first poll, which surveyed some 159,897 people, the top-three ranking is as follows: the AK Party (39.19%), the MHP (24.6 %), and then the CHP (12.72%). Compared to the November 3rd 2002 election results, which brought the AK Party into office with a sweeping electoral majority (34.38%) while making the CHP have to be content with 19.39% and leaving the MHP outside the parliament with only 8.36% (below the 10 % threshold), the poll shows a plummeting in the CHP votes whereas a sharp, almost incomprehensible, surge in the MHP votes has been registered. The second poll, to which some 224,328 people responded, demonstrates the same pattern of change: the AK Party in the lead at 32%, followed by the MHP with 21%, and finally the CHP at 16%.
What can possibly explain this pattern? Why did not the decline in the CHP votes, the main rival to the AKP, reflect as an increase in votes for the latter? And what caused such a radical increase in the popularity the MHP, which today offers essentially nothing more than it ever has, and which could not even get into the parliament five years ago?
The recent presidential election process, which was eventually aborted and delayed until after the parliamentary elections, has in fact been a political showdown between the AK Party and the CHP. The latter’s extreme tactics, such as invoking military intervention to halt the AKP majority parliament voting for the president, and making it a matter of regime threat have alienated a substantial number of its own constituency. These tactics have in fact also resulted in the resignation of some of the party’s deputies. They have publicly stated that the reason for their resignation was their party’s anti-democratic attitude toward the presidential elections. The public opinion polls were at the same time hinting that a growing number of people from center left and center right parties were gravitating toward the AK Party, thereby hinting that a second reactionary vote explosion would almost double the AKP votes.
However, that old standard-bearer of nationalism, the MHP, has instead emerged as a main contender to the incumbent AK Party, thanks to leader Bahceli’s inflammatory speeches. They have played on wounded pride among the Turkish people over the Iraq invasion and resulting deterioration of the security situation in the border area, and so fueled popular unrest against the AK Party government. Essentially, the MHP leader is accusing the government of being a mere puppet in the hands of the United States and the European Union, unable or unwilling to assert itself to safeguard national security against Kurdish insurrectionists.
An example of this rhetoric manifested in a recent rally speech in the eastern Anatolian town of Erzurum, a place well known for the strength of its nationalist sentiment. Bahceli urged PM Erdogan to unleash the army in order to erect the Turkish flag at the top of Mount Qandil, where the PKK rebels are based in Northern Iraq.3
According to another poll carried out by the website Turkiyesecimleri.com, to which some 10,211 people responded, 72.12% of Turks support military intervention in Northern Iraq, while 13.42% oppose it outright, A slightly higher figure (14.46%) prefer a diplomatic solution. Simultaneous developments such as the confrontation between Ankara and Iraqi Kurdish leader Barzani, the AKP Government’s hopeless wait for action from the United States against the PKK, and the surge in the MHP votes, show that fanning the nationalistic sentiments against the AKP government who seem sluggish to deal with the most imminent national security threat is the best strategy to garner popular support nowadays.
It is hardly difficult to realize that neither can the Nationalist Action Party win the elections simply by bashing the AK Party for its failure to deal with the PKK, nor can the Republican People’s Party (CHP) prevent the AK Party from retaining office by portraying it as a major threat to the secular regime.
However, their concerted effort before the elections and in a future parliamentary coalition after the election will dramatically curb the AK Party’s ability to govern. The result will likely manifest itself not only in a slowdown in the EU accession process, but also in a more consistently aggressive attitude toward the Kurds of Northern Iraq. In this equation the Turkmen minority of that region, whose rights Turkey claims to be protecting, will also assume greater importance.
What is at Stake for the AKP, the US and the EU?
Unless the United States and the European Union change their course against the PKK and provide substantial assistance to the AKP government to tackle the terrorist organization, Turkish democracy, which has so far managed avoiding a repeat of the lively old tradition of the military coup, will be exposed to a civilian one. That is, the AK government will simply be punished by a sizeable moderately nationalist vote at the ballot box, just because of its compliance with the United States and the European Union, and its seemingly sluggish approach to the national security threat.
No matter what will be considered as the reason for the AK Party losing its mandate and Turkey returning back to the chronically ineffective coalition governments that preceded this government, for majority mainstream voters in Turkey and for the moderate majority in the broader Muslim world, the reason for the democratic failure will be simple: the United States and the European Union, whose support for democratic change in the Muslim world is perceived simply as shallow rhetoric. Jamal Khashoggi, editor of Saudi Arabia’s al-Watan newspaper, says the Turkish experience has broader implications: “If that experience fails,” he writes, “it will be a setback for modern Islamist movements and it will be a disaster for the western dream of encouraging a secular form of Islam.”4
Certainly, there are and will be interest groups in both Washington and Brussels whose primary objective is not to make sure a sustainable democracy takes root in Turkey but to secure a government in Ankara that would be more compliant with their narrow interests than the AKP government has been. However, policy makers in both capitals should act according to their respective country’s and Union’s long-term interests. In his 1997 tome, The Grand Chessboard, the veteran American diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski provided a definitive account of how the United States’ and the European Union’s long-term interests are tightly intertwined with sustainable stability in Turkey: “Turkey’s evolution and orientation are likely to be especially decisive for the Caucasian states. If Turkey sustains its path to Europe – and if Europe does not close its doors to Turkey – the states of the Caucasus are also likely to gravitate into the European orbit, a prospect they fervently desire. But if Turkey’s Europeanization grinds to a halt, for either internal or external reasons, then Georgia and Armenia will have no choice but to adapt to Russia’s inclinations.”5
Recent developments prove that Azerbaijan could also face a similar fate. In complete disregard for what Baku has to say about it, Russian President Vladimir Putin counter-proposed his American counterpart George W. Bush’s proposal to install aEuropean missile defense shield in a facility in Azerbaijan, which was built during Soviet times, and is still available for Russia’s use under a continuing agreement between Russia and Azerbaijan.6 Paralyzed with its own chronic problems and likely to experience major blunders over its EU accession with France’s Nicholas Sarkozy, Ankara is far from recognizing the possible political and security implications of Moscow’s growing influence in the region, let alone somehow being able to counter it.
Finally, Ofra Bengio’s reminder about the background of the rising National Action Party (MHP), whose supporters were active recently to publish and distribute Metal Firtina, the fiction prophesizing a major war between Turkey and the United States, hints at what we can expect regarding the possible changes in the Turkish public opinion: “[m]ost of the parties or groupings had in their background anti-Semitic tendencies. This was especially true of the Republican Peasants’ and National Party (Cumhuriyetci Koylu Millet Partisi, CKMP), which later became the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), headed by Alpaslan Turkes. In the 1930s the Turkish ultranationalists were strongly influenced by Nazi propaganda, and anti-Semitism became one of their trademarks… Hitler’s Mein Kampf was published and extensively distributed by Turkish nationalists.”7
1 “Turkey: The Battle for Turkey’s Soul”, The Economist May 3rd 2007 available at http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9116747 (accessed on June 6, 2007)
2 “Bahceli, AK Parti’ye yuklendi”, Zaman available at http://www.zaman.com.tr/webapp-tr/haber.do?haberno=547628&keyfield=6465766C65742062616863656C69 (accessed on June 5, 2007)
3 “Bahceli, AK Parti’ye yuklendi”, Zaman available at http://www.zaman.com.tr/webapp-tr/haber.do?haberno=547628&keyfield=6465766C65742062616863656C69 (accessed on June 5, 2007)
4 “Arab Islamists view Turkey crisis as test for democracy”, Financial Times May 15 2007
5 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Basic Books 1997, p.149
6 “Russian President Putin proposes Azerbaijan for US missile defense shield”, Today’s Zaman June 8 2007
7 Ofra Bengio, The Turkish-Israeli Relationship: Changing
Ties of Middle Eastern Outsiders, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, May
2004, p.76