20 June 2007

1. "Political fighting may stall reforms", feuding among Turkey's politicians threatens to stymie planned reforms and exacerbate the country's internal conflict.

2. "More News from the Election Front", Turkish elections are just over a month away. Several uncertain candidates have been able to confirm their candidacies. Control of the media during pre-election period will increase. Istanbul independent candidates have launched their election campaign

3. "The election campaign in Turkey begins in a febrile atmosphere", some even fear that the court may now be tempted to launch proceedings to ban AK on the grounds that it is steering Turkey towards religious rule. For the time being, though, the opposition's strategy is to play on mounting public fury in the face of stepped-up PKK rebel attacks that have claimed the lives of dozens of Turkish soldiers in recent months.

4. "One soldier, three rebels killed in eastern Turkey", one soldier and three militants were killed in two separate clashes in eastern Turkey overnight, security officials said on Tuesday.

5. "Diyarbakir prosecutor launches probe into Barzani’s remarks", acting upon a criminal complaint filed by the Diyarbakir branch of the Kemalist Thought Association (ADD), the Diyarbakir Prosecutor's Office has launched an investigation into Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani on charges of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), NTV news channel reported on Monday.

6. "Terrorist" actions against Turkey from Iraqi soil unacceptable: Rice", the United States and Iraq are against any "terrorist" actions conducted in Iraqi territory against Turkey, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday.

1. - The Washington Times - "Political fighting may stall reforms":

NICOSIA / 18 June 2007

Feuding among Turkey's politicians threatens to stymie planned reforms and exacerbate the country's internal conflict.

In an atmosphere punctuated by bombs planted by Kurdish extremists, the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced last week that regardless of whether the constitutional court or the parliament blocks the reforms, general elections will be held as scheduled on July 22.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has called for a national referendum on whether the Turkish president should be elected by popular vote or continue to be chosen by the parliament. It is not certain whether such a referendum would be held separately or with the parliamentary election.

The hectic political activity is accompanied by an increasingly acerbic debate between the secular forces and those favoring a more Islamic tone in Turkey's democracy and by the army's frustration with its inability to attack bases of the extremist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Iraq.

Mr. Erdogan's governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), described by the opposition as having an Islamist agenda, feels that a direct vote for the president would help elect its candidate and thus strengthen its dominant role in the country. The candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, was defeated by the parliament last month.

All major players -- the president, the constitutional court and the parliament -- have the means to block or defeat legislation by different maneuvers, creating political confusion at a time when Turkey clamors for more effective action against Kurdish terrorists.

Under strong pressure from the United States and European Union, Mr. Erdogan appears to have postponed any thrust into Iraq. He has said his government will concentrate on fighting the separatist PKK at home.

West European analysts say that striking at Kurdish bases in Iraq would create "nothing but disaster" for Turkey, annoying its Western allies and provoking the Arabs, who resent any encroachment on their territory.

It also could doom Turkish hopes of joining the European Union, where its bid is already opposed by several European leaders, including newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Efforts to revive Turkey's stalled membership negotiations were further marred by warnings that Ankara was thinking of withdrawing its substantial military support from future EU peacekeeping missions.

Some Turkish units have been pulled out from Bosnia, Kosovo and Congo. Turkish diplomats have complained that although the European Union wants Turkish military assets, it does not reveal its plans to them because Turkey is merely a candidate and not a full EU member.

Turkish analysts say Mr. Erdogan's immediate strategy is concerned with the country's mood before the approaching elections. Publicly delaying action against the Kurdish rebels, they say, would undermine Mr. Erdogan's nationalist credentials and damage his party.

At the same, Western diplomats in Turkey feel that if the crisis is further inflamed, it could spill outside Turkey's border in a notoriously volatile region, including Iran and Iraq.

2. - Bianet - "More News from the Election Front":

Turkish elections are just over a month away. Several uncertain candidates have been able to confirm their candidacies. Control of the media during pre-election period will increase. Istanbul independent candidates have launched their election campaign.

ISTANBUL / 19 June 2007

The Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) has revised the decision of the Province Electoral Board to reject the candidature of former prostitute Ayse Tükrükcü. She had applied as a candidate for Istanbul's second constituency and will now enter the elections as an independent candidate. Tükrükcü has vowed to campaign for more women's shelters.

Current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's candidacy had also been objected to because of his conviction under Article 312/2 of the old Turkish Penal Code, but the objection was overruled. Former Secretary of State in the Ministry of Education, Necat Birinci, and Numan Kurtulmus, a member of the general administrative board of the Islamist Saadet Party, have also managed to persevere in their candidacies.

Television channels punished

Two private television channels, CNN Türk and Meltem Tv, have received a punishment of a three-programme ban for broadasting the Prime Minister's speech at the opening of the Social Housing Department (TOKI).

The Supreme Radio and Television Board (RTÜK) has organised an educational meeting for local radio stations and television channels in order to inform them about laws regarding propaganda and broadcasts in the pre-election period. According to RTÜK president Zahid Akman, the Board will decide this week how to proceed with parliamentary candidates who appear on television.

TKP worker candidates

According to the General Secretary Kemal Okuyan, 205 of the candidates for the Turkish Communist Party (TKP) are workers, 30 of whom are metal workers.

Ufuk Uras and Baskin Oran, two independent candidates for the left standing in Istanbul's first and second constituencies respectively, have begun their election campaigns.

Baskin Oran's first gathering was attended by around 2,000 people, among them writers Yasar Kemal and Adalet Agaoglu. Journalist Aydin Engin was presenting at the rally and said "We are breaking the mould by being the voice of those being oppressed because of their ethnic, religious or sexual identities".

Yasar Kemal thanked Baskin Oran for accepting the difficulties and told people to vote for Oran. Academic Baskin Oran said his decision to stand as an independent candidate had been motivated by the need to bring different voices into parliament.

Ufuk Uras launched his campaign with a boat trip across the Bosphorus. He spoke about "digging a tunnel", referring to the strategy of the independent candidate project to circumvent the 10% electoral hurdle put in place by the military regime of the early 1980s.

* Some of the information in this article is taken from ntvmsnbc.com and Radikal newspaper.

3. - The Economist - "The election campaign in Turkey begins in a febrile atmosphere":

ANKARA AND GAZIANTEP / 15 June 2007

UNTIL a few weeks ago, Mehmet Simsek, a British-educated economist, earned a six-figure salary as a banker in London. But he has dropped all that to run as a parliamentary candidate for the ruling AK Party in Gaziantep, which borders Syria. He is standing “because I want to serve my country,” he says.

Born into grinding poverty in Batman, a mainly Kurdish town, Mr Simsek did not speak Turkish until he was six. Yet he then clawed his way to success. He is the poster boy of the 150 new candidates whom the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is fielding in the July 22nd election. His presence thins out the religious firebrands within the mildly Islamist AK ranks.

Turkey's meddlesome generals are not impressed. Having hinted at a possible coup in late April, they remain eager to stop Mr Erdogan returning to power alone. Indeed, in some ways, the contest is now between AK and the army. “The military hates AK, and that's the foundation of everything,” says one Western diplomat. But opinion polls suggest that Mr Erdogan's party may do better than the 34% it took in the 2002 election.

The secularist opposition is fragmented. A planned merger of the conservative True Path Party with the centre-right Motherland Party collapsed amid bickering over numbers of candidates from each side. A survey commissioned by AK suggests that the main secularist CHP opposition party may get 22%; and the ultra-nationalist MHP, 11%.

At least 30 candidates from the pro-Kurdish DTP are also expected to win seats; the Kurds have fielded 40 independents to get round the minimum 10% threshold for parties to have parliamentary representation. No other party is likely to get in, so AK might well be able again to form a government alone, says a top party official. “That is, if the elections take place at all,” he adds gloomily.

Yet Armagan Kuloglu, a retired air-force general, insists that, as long as AK picks a “reasonable” presidential candidate (meaning one whose wife does not wear an Islamic headscarf) to replace Ahmet Necdet Sezer, things will return to normal. It was Mr Erdogan's nomination of his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul (whose wife wears the headscarf) to succeed Mr Sezer that prompted the generals' threat to intervene on April 27th. A defiant AK responded by ramming through a law to allow a direct election of the president. This law was quashed by Mr Sezer. Few believe it will get past the constitutional court, which extraordinarily ruled invalid parliament's attempt to elect Mr Gul.

Some even fear that the court may now be tempted to launch proceedings to ban AK on the grounds that it is steering Turkey towards religious rule. For the time being, though, the opposition's strategy is to play on mounting public fury in the face of stepped-up PKK rebel attacks that have claimed the lives of dozens of Turkish soldiers in recent months.

On June 8th the army exhorted the Turkish public to exert its “popular reflexes” to counter terrorist threats. The call posted on the general staff website was seen by some as an invitation to attack the Kurds. This forced the generals to explain that they wanted the national resolve to be expressed through strictly peaceful means.

Meanwhile, Mr Erdogan is resisting pressure to order a cross-border operation against PKK bases in northern Iraq. This has enabled his critics to portray him as an American stooge. Crowds at the recent spate of funerals of Turkish soldiers killed in battle have taken to booing Mr Erdogan and any cabinet members who dare to show up. Mr Simsek may soon be yearning for his cushy London life again.

4. - Reuters - "One soldier, three rebels killed in eastern Turkey":

TUNCELI / 19 Jun 2007

One soldier and three militants were killed in two separate clashes in eastern Turkey overnight, security officials said on Tuesday.

They said the soldier was killed in fighting with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas in the province of Gumushane near the Black Sea, outside the rebels' normal area of activity in southeast Turkey.

In a separate gun battle in Erzincan province, three Maoist rebels were killed and five soldiers were wounded when a military team on patrol stopped a truck carrying some 10 militants. Two rebels were captured and the others escaped.

Small leftist militant groups operate in eastern Turkey, sometimes in coordination with the PKK.

The latest violence comes amid speculation that Turkey will launch a military incursion against PKK rebels based in the mountains of northern Iraq.

Turkey is currently carrying out major military operations against the guerrillas in the southeast, where it has stationed some 150,000 soldiers in a major military build-up.

Ankara considers the PKK a terrorist organisation and blames it for the deaths of 30,000 people since 1984, when the PKK began an armed fight for an ethnic homeland in Turkey.

5. - Today's Zaman - "Diyarbakir prosecutor launches probe into Barzani’s remarks":

19 June 2007

Acting upon a criminal complaint filed by the Diyarbakir branch of the Kemalist Thought Association (ADD), the Diyarbakir Prosecutor's Office has launched an investigation into Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani on charges of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), NTV news channel reported on Monday.

The Diyarbakir ADD last week asked the Diyarbakir Prosecutor's Office to open a public case against Barzani and also to freeze the assets of Barzani and his family in Turkey. Since Barzani and his family live abroad, the procedure regarding the issue will be different than customary ones, thus the Diyarbakir Prosecutor's Office will first decide which prosecutor's office will conduct the investigation. Then the prosecutor will investigate whether Barzani's remarks amounted to support for PKK. It will then be possible to determine whether there are grounds for opening a public case against Barzani.

Barzani, president of the de facto autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, said in remarks broadcast early April that Turkey must not interfere in the Iraqi Kurds' bid to attach the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to the Kurdish zone in the north, adding threateningly that if they were deterred by Turkey, Iraq's Kurds would retaliate by intervening in Turkey's Southeast. "Turkey is not allowed to intervene in the Kirkuk issue and if it does, we will interfere in Diyarbakir's issues and other cities in Turkey," Barzani said then.

Asked if he meant to threaten Turkey, Barzani responded that he was just telling what would happen "if Turkey interferes." He said Turkey had military and diplomatic clout, but that the Kurds had survived through the Saddam Hussein regime.

6. - AFP - "Terrorist" actions against Turkey from Iraqi soil unacceptable: Rice":

WASHINGTON / 18 June 2007

The United States and Iraq are against any "terrorist" actions conducted in Iraqi territory against Turkey, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday.

Turkey has charged that the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) based in northern Iraq and linked to a two-decade-old insurgency in eastern and southeastern Turkey is acting under the protection of Iraqi Kurds who are allied to the United States.

Violence increased in recent months as rebels hiding in the rugged mountains of northern Iraq slipped back across the border to attack Turkish troops, effectively ending a unilateral ceasefire the PKK declared in October 2006.

The PKK subject was part of talks in Washington Monday between Rice and Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari.

"We discussed the importance of not allowing Iraqi territory to be used for acts of terrorism against neighbors in this case, particularly against Turkey," Rice told reporters after the talks.

She underlined the importance of a trilateral security mechanism that Iraq, the United States and Turkey had set up some time ago and "the importance of accelerating" its work "because the Iraqis do not want and we do not want their territory to be used for terrorist acts against their neighbor."

The PKK, regarded as a terrorist group by the United States and much of the international community, has fought for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

Turkey has repeatedly demanded tougher action from Iraq and the United States against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and refuses to rule out acting unilaterally if its demands are not heeded.

Zebari, noting a Turkish defense buildup along the border with Iraq, warned Sunday that any military incursion by Ankara into the Kurdish north of Iraq would undermine Iraq's sole haven of stability and was in no one's interest.

Zebari, himself a Kurd, said Baghdad was in consultation with the Turkish government to ease tensions.