5
March 2001
1. "Turkey Welcomes U.S. Change
on Iraq Sanctions", Turkey, a key U.S. ally that shares
a 205-mile border with Iraq, last week welcomed the Bush administration's
"correct and refreshing attitude" toward revising economic
sanctions against Iraq by tightening an embargo on weapons materials
and loosening controls on civilian trade.
2. "Turkey's new economy chief looks to summer",
Turkey's new economy "superminister" said on Sunday the country
faced a decisive month ahead but with "hard work" could struggle
out of its financial crisis by the summer.
3. "Conflict is only a matter of time",
stating that PUK (Kurdistan Patriotic Unity) and Turkey were preparing
an intensive war against PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), member of PKK
Party Assembly Kani Yilmaz said "As far as we see, Newroz will
pass with armed conflicts".
4. "Many defense contractsa could be wrecked in
Turkey", Turkish military contracts linked to the lira
risk being torpedoed amid the sharp drop in the currency.
5. ""Dialogue and Peace Conference" in
Stockholm", "Dialogue and Peace Conference, organized
by Sweden Kurdish Institute in Stockholm, started the other day. Intellectuals,
representatives of Kurdish organizations and associations give seminars
on a number of subjects.
6. "Dervis faces challenge from corruption lobby",
all banks and economy related departments affiliated to the DSP are
linked to Dervis while the MHP and ANAP refuse to allow the new economic
super-minister to control banks and departments under their supervision.
1. - The Washington Post - "Turkey Welcomes U.S. Change on Iraq
Sanctions"
:
ANKARA
Turkey, a key U.S. ally that shares a 205-mile border with Iraq, last
week welcomed the Bush administration's "correct and refreshing
attitude" toward revising economic sanctions against Iraq by tightening
an embargo on weapons materials and loosening controls on civilian trade.
"The new look of the administration at targeting only Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction and alleviating the suffering of the Iraqi people
is something we welcome," a senior Foreign Ministry official who
is familiar with the evolving U.S. policy change said Friday. "We
can go along with it."
Because Turkey is a front-line state that could be threatened by Iraq's
military, but which is potentially a vital trade conduit, its support
is critical to the success of any change in the sanctions, imposed by
the United Nations after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The massive
cross-border smuggling between Iraq and its neighbors, Turkey, Syria
and Jordan, played a large part in convincing the Bush administration
that the current sanctions are not working and should be revamped.
Other key factors, particularly complaints that the sanctions were hurting
Iraq's people but having little impact on its government, had contributed
to flagging support among key countries, particularly U.N. Security
Council members France, Russia and China. Human rights activists say
the sanctions have left Iraq impoverished and contributed to the deaths
of more than 1 million people.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last week completed a swing though
the Middle East, where he found strong support for replacing the broad
economic sanctions with ones that would strengthen controls on weapons-related
materials and ease restrictions on commercial items intended for civilian
use.
"The approach that we have taken in the past is not working today,"
Undersecretary of State Edward S. Walker Jr. said at a news conference
Thursday here in the Turkish capital, where he briefed officials on
the U.S. desire to "re-create the consensus in the region where
all the countries are working together to achieve the same objective."
"We want to control development of weapons of mass destruction.
We want to stimulate trade so that the people of Iraq will not be hurt,"
he said. "Our guiding principle is that whatever we do, we do not
want the impact to be borne by the neighboring states."
Turkey has abided by the U.N. sanctions, but officials complain that
doing so has cost the country $35 billion in commerce with Iraq, and
they have long argued for some type of relief.
The U.N. sanctions were designed to limit the amount of oil that Iraq
can export and to steer proceeds to a tightly controlled escrow account
that it may use only for food, medicine and other humanitarian purposes.
Independent analysts say Iraq exports about 400,000 barrels of oil a
day in violation of the sanctions, about one-quarter of which allegedly
goes to or through Turkey. The total covert oil trade puts more than
$1 billion a year directly into Iraqi coffers, experts estimate.
The senior Turkish official denied that his country was taking in 100,000
barrels of Iraqi oil a day, saying it was physically impossible. Nonetheless,
he said, "complaints that the sanctions are like Swiss cheese might
be true, but smuggling has been a part of life in this area, and it's
impossible to bring it to zero."
In addition, Turkey is concerned about becoming a target of Iraqi retaliation
for allowing U.S. and British planes to use one of its air bases to
patrol a "no-fly" zone over northern Iraq. The zone is designed
to prevent Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's air force from attacking
the area's dissident ethnic Kurds.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf said in New York on Monday
that his country would not permit the return of U.N. weapons inspectors
to verify that Iraq is no longer developing weapons of mass destruction
-- a key condition for lifting the sanctions.
The Turkish official, who declined to be quoted by name, said being
able to monitor Iraq's weapons programs is crucial. "We are not
after weapons of mass destruction, and we don't want to live in an area
where our neighbors are producing weapons of mass destruction."
2. - Reuters - "Turkey's new economy chief looks
to summer":
ANKARA
Turkey's new economy "superminister" said on Sunday the country
faced a decisive month ahead but with "hard work" could struggle
out of its financial crisis by the summer.
But the weekend brought an early setback for Kemal Dervis, the World
Bank official who was lured home last week from Washington, where he
has lived for the last 20 years, to restore international confidence
in Turkey and steady markets.
Zekeriya Temizel, charged with overseeing the shaky banking sector seen
as the greatest threat to the economy, resigned on Saturday in protest
at seeing his Banking Supervisory Board subordinated to Dervis.
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, whose row with the president triggered
the current crisis, said he had urged him to stay.
"First shock to Dervis," read the Milliyet daily's headline.
Over the course of this week, coinciding with the long Muslim Feast
of Sacrifice holiday, Dervis and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials
must draw up a convincing economic plan to replace the three-year IMF-backed
program destroyed by market gyrations in the last two weeks.
Ecevit also wants a multibillion-dollar foreign loan deal to follow
$7.5 billion granted after a crisis last December.
This time any cash would certainly be more closely linked to reform
of a banking sector which, by its distorted structure, contributes to
high interest rates and a dramatically widening rift between rich and
poor.
Diplomats say the United States is particularly alarmed at the implications
of instability in a key ally on the fringes of the Middle East and is
inclined to be sympathetic.
"If we can overcome the next three to four weeks, our path will
be open afterwards," Dervis told CNN-Turk television news. "We
believe we will be successful, but we must all work hard."
Dervis, adviser to Ecevit when he was premier in the 1970s, told the
Sabah daily: "I think things will start getting better by early
this summer ... I know there are sackings and average wages are low,
but we must back this all together as a nation."
The Turkish public will be eager for any crumbs of comfort at the start
of a weeklong holiday, or Bayram, soured by fears of higher import prices,
soaring inflation and bankruptcies since the lira lost 25 percent of
its value against the dollar.
Some companies, eager to pay back loans and avoid punitive interest
rates, failed to pay wages ahead of the Bayram. Prices for energy, telephone
calls, salt, cigarettes and other items were increased -- inflation
"sucked in" by higher import prices.
Statistics released on Saturday gave a tantalizing insight into what
might have been for Turkey if it were not for the vagaries of its political
culture.
Consumer price inflation fell to an annual 33.4 percent in February,
before Ecevit and his president fell out so publicly over the pace of
the premier's anti-corruption reforms, rocking the stock market and
sending interest rates soaring.
Year-end targets of 10-12 percent -- compared with the levels of up
to 100 percent that kept foreign investment at bay in the 1990s -- had
admittedly seemed out of reach. But now analysts expect a level around
50 percent.
Dervis said the February figures were pleasing. "They won't be
like that in the next two months, but after that we hopefully will see
better," he told the Anatolian news agency.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said in a holiday message to the nation
that crisis measures would be doomed if government did not heed the
complaints of industry and the people.
The appointment of Dervis, with broad powers especially in the area
of banking reform, was generally welcomed in Turkey. But Ecevit's coalition
partners resisted pressure to hand the key planning and privatization
portfolios to him -- something that could herald future political conflict.
For those who believe in the need to "clean up" banks and
root out corruption, he has the advantage of having spent 20 years out
of the quagmire of graft and being beholden to no one.
But for those, including leading trade unions, who see the IMF and the
World Bank as bent on humbling Turkey, he may represent nothing less
than foreign interference.
World Bank and IMF officials in Ankara to hammer out an economic program
to reassure markets when they begin reopening at the end of the week
see the chief problem as the faltering system of payment between banks.
Turkey's top 10 banks account for over 70 percent of loans, deposits
and total assets. Beneath this tier are many weak institutions that
have been making "easy money" through trading in government
debt at times of high inflation. The fall in inflation put some in trouble,
making the larger ones reluctant to lend to them -- the origin of a
crisis last December.
Twelve banks have been taken into administration by the banking watchdog.
But the continued proliferation of smaller banks, forced to pay higher
interest rates for deposits, still poses a threat to the balance of
the system as a whole.
3. - Ozgur Politika - "Conflict is only a matter
of time":
Stating that PUK (Kurdistan Patriotic Unity) and Turkey were preparing
an intensive war against PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), member of PKK
Party Assembly Kani Yilmaz said "As far as we see, Newroz will
pass with armed conflicts".
NEWS CENTER
Taking part to the REWS program in Medya TV, member of PKK Party
Assembly Kani Yilmaz stated that there was a gradual tendency to a war
which would contain all the region. Yilmaz said Turkey which was in
a deep crisis and PUK tried to get rid of their contradictions by way
of a war, adding that now there was a PUK delegation in Ankara trying
to convince Turkey for a military operation. Emphasizing that the developments
showed that Newroz would pass with armed conflicts, Yilmaz said words
to the effect: "At the time being PUK positioned a part of its
forces to the high regions. A delegation consisting of 15 people is
planning preparations of a war in Ankara. They want to depopulate Keladizê
district entirely. There are rumors that the people living in Keladizê
would be placed to Karadag. A group of experts from Turkey train peshmerges
(South Kurdish guerillas)."
"We are warning England"
Kani Yilmaz pointed out that the attempts in question
of reactionary forces in Turkey and South Kurdistan were supported by
other powers, adding, "The stance of Europe is also provoking them.
Taking Armenian genocide to the agenda has played such a role."
Stressing that the latest stance of England was worth to be taken under
consideration at such a critical and tense period, Yilmaz said, "England
placed us to the 'terrorist organizations' list. This is not a coincidence.
They encourage Turkey to war with such a stance. It has no right to
do this. In fact England has played an important role as far as international
conspiracy against our Leadership was concerned. We have given no damage
to them. We are warning, they should give up their stance."
4. - Middle East Newsline - "Many defense contractsa
could be wrecked in Turkey":
ANKARA
Turkish military contracts linked to the lira risk being torpedoed
amid the sharp drop in the currency.
These contracts include projects for the Turkish procurement
of ammunition, military vehicles, software and spare parts.
The losses will affect contracts by Turkish agents for
U.S. and Western defense firms. The contractors themselves usually sign
supply deals in dollars, rather than in liras.
Over a two-day period late last month the lira dropped 57 percent. The
lira has been slowly rising since, but it not expected to return to
its former levels.
Confidence in the lira has also been hurt by the political
crisis that has accompanied the economic collapse. On Saturday, a key
Turkish banking regulatory official, Zekeriya Temizel, resigned in what
was believed to have been the result of pressure from the World Bank,
which has loaned billions of dollars to Ankara.
5. - Kurdish Observer - ""Dialogue and Peace
Conference" in Stockholm":
"Dialogue and Peace Conference, organized by Sweden Kurdish
Institute in Stockholm, started the other day. Intellectuals, representatives
of Kurdish organizations and associations give seminars on a number
of subjects.
ZANA SERIN
The conference began with a speech of Dr. Huseyin Xaliqi.
Xaliqi stated that such conferences aimed at taking people of different
groups and thoughts together and strenghtening the national dialogue,
adding that such activities could contribute to development of democratic
culture for Kurds.
After the opening speech, the first seminar was given
by Tahiri Xaliqi.
The seminar called "Relationships Between Kurds Living
Abroad and Liberation Movement in Kurdistan" considered the affects
of diaspora on the liberation movement.
"Kurdish language should become widespread on internet"
A seminar, called "Internet Language and How Much
the Kurds Use Internet", by Murat Ciwan took up the matter of how
ban on the Kurdish language could be overcome by means of internet.
He said that indifference of new generations to their mother tongue
could be overcome through internet facilities and use of Kurdish could
become widespread.
Naile Aras, giving a seminar on "Civil Society and
Kurdish Democratic Movement", stated that where there was violence
civil disobedience would be a suicide, adding that PKK (Kurdistan Workers'
Party) has created a climate for civil disobedience in North Kurdistan
within the last two years. Emphasizing that for civil disobedience to
be successful, it would need the solidarity of peoples, interest of
media and international watch, Aras added that actions of civil disobedience
would be more effective in Turkish metropolitan areas than in Kurdistan.
Chairman of Sweden Kurdish Institute Mirhem Yigit will
give a seminar on new strategy and policy of PKK, and Serefhan Ciziri
on "HADEP (People's Democracy Party) Experience in Democracy and
Human Rights Struggle in Turkey, Siyahos Guhdevzi on "A Study on
Medya TV", Ahmet Iskenderi on "Pluralism and Democracy."
There are also seminars called "National Conflicts and Armed Struggle",
"Peace Culture", "National Unity", "Philosophy
of Zoroaster", and "Nationalism and Literature". Representatives
of Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) and Berlin Kurdish Institute will
make speeches.
6. - Turkish Daily News - "Dervis faces challenge
from corruption lobby":
MHP, ANAP UNHAPPY - All banks and economy related departments affiliated
to the DSP are linked to Dervis while the MHP and ANAP refuse to allow
the new economic super-minister to control banks and departments under
their supervision
CORRUPTION LOBBY - Leading business circles fear the corruption lobby,
composed of certain politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen who have
resisted meaningful and deep rooted economic structural changes will
try to undermine Dervis
ANKARA
Turkey's new economic super-minister in charge of leading Turkey out
of the financial turmoil will face an uphill battle in days to come,
not only because of the ongoing chaos but because of the challenges
that will be put up against him by the corruption lobby, Turkish analysts
say.
Minister Kemal Dervis has already said the next three to four weeks
will be crucial in his efforts to overcome the economic turmoil. Leading
business circles in Istanbul and political experts in Ankara say, however,
that the more devastating challenges may come from the corruption lobby
which is opposed to meaningful structural reforms which Dervis will
have to implement to end the crisis.
They say the departure of banking regulatory body chief Zekeriya Temizel,
who had declared an all out fight against corruption and thus was instrumental
in the jailing of so many businessmen who had plundered private bank
assets, may have heartened the corruption lobby. However, the fact that
Dervis has arrived to launch a new drive for more substantial banking
reforms, which may even end the system that allows the bailing out of
banks and lead to the downfall of more banks and corrupt businessmen,
may be a source of great discomfort for the corruption lobby which will
do its best to undermine the efforts of Dervis, a leading business source
said. He asked not to be identified.
The state has bailed out 12 private banks in two years. Turkey has some
80 banks, many of them small private institutions fighting to survive
in the market.
"They will try to undermine Dervis by laying political landmines
on his path. They will spread false rumors about him and try to weaken
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's support for him. They may even use bureaucrats
to mislead him," the source warned.
One such report were claims that Dervis was quoted as speaking on his
cellular phone to an unidentified person telling him "they have
ruined the government. Please tell Ecevit I cannot handle this situation.
Even I can't save the economy." Reporters allegedly did some lip
reading as Dervis was speaking on his cellular phone. Later Dervis denied
the report which also appeared in newspapers on Sunday and said: "I
did not speak in Turkish. I was speaking in English so all the reports
were false."
Meanwhile, the Turkish Daily News learnt that big business circles in
Istanbul are giving Dervis all out backing and want him to launch a
full scale overhaul of the system. They are concerned, however, that
the two coalition partners the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and
the Motherland Party (ANAP) are not in the mood to cooperate with Dervis.
The MHP controls the State Planning Organization, the Undersecretariat
of Foreign Trade as well as the state owned Emlakbank, and ANAP controls
the Finance Ministry as well as the Privatization Administration. The
two parties refused to give Dervis powers over these state organizations.
Dervis was given power over the treasury and central bank as well as
the capital markets board, the banking watchdog, two big state banks
and the Turkish Development Bank -- all previously assigned to Ecevit's
Democratic Left Party (DSP).
There were claims that MHP leader and Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli
had threatened to dissolve the coalition rather than give up his party's
economic responsibilities. Bahceli was quoted as saying he supported
the appointment only out of "courtesy to the coalition," but
at least Dervis might help Turkey win new loans.
"I don't know Dervis very well. But his being in close contact
with world money markets can provide us with the money we need in a
short period of time," he was quoted as saying.
ANAP is said to be rather unhappy with the Dervis appointment and wanted
its own members to be in charge of economic ministries and departments.
ANAP, like the MHP, gave its unenthusiastic consent for the appointment
of Dervis.
However, analysts say it would be practically impossible for Dervis
to solve anything without meaningful cooperation from the ministries
and departments controlled by the MHP and the ANAP.
Dervis met with leading academicians in Istanbul on Saturday to pick
their brains on Turkey's economic, social and political problems. He
also met Foreign Minister Ismail Cem who pledged his all out backing
for Dervis.
Dervis returned to Ankara on Sunday and attended a meeting at the Treasury
in the afternoon. He is expected to continue a series of meetings and
then fly back to Washington on Thursday to end his World Bank career
and tie up the loose ends there before he returns to Ankara.