9 November 2001

1. "EUROPE: Nato partners have defiant Ankara in their sights", Britain and the US are spearheading fresh negotiations with Turkey in an attempt to break a damaging deadlock that prevents access by the Europeans to Nato's planning assets if they carry out a military mission on their own.

2. "Thousands of women are sexually abused in Turkish police stations", "Since then I'm nothing": Thousands of women are sexually abused in Turkish police stations - and whoever helps them is likewise in danger.

3. "Turkey's Islamists move to oust economy minister over crisis", Turkey's pro-Islamic Felicity Party (SP) on Friday submitted a censure motion demanding the dismissal of Economy Minister Kemal Dervis for worsening a severe economic crisis and bringing the country to the point of bankruptcy, parliamentary officials said.

4. "Powell: Iraq next on the line", APPEAL:Blair reportedly urges Bush not to widen the bombing campaign to Baghdad.

5. "The Cyprus in the Caribbean", columnist Oktay Eksi writes on the Cyprus problem. A summary of his column is as follows.

6. "The Initiative must be ours", columnist Sami Kohen comments on the recent developments in Cyprus and different views on the issue.

1. - Financial Times - "EUROPE: Nato partners have defiant Ankara in their sights":

By JUDY DEMPSEY

Britain and the US are spearheading fresh negotiations with Turkey in an attempt to break a damaging deadlock that prevents access by the Europeans to Nato's planning assets if they carry out a military mission on their own.

The talks in London this week come at a delicate time for the European Union's fledgling security and defence policy (ESDP), designed eventually to carry out humanitarian and rescue operations in or beyond Europe.

EU defence and foreign ministers meet in 10 days for a capabilities conference in which member states will be criticised for failing to increase defence expenditure and overcome fundamental shortfalls in capabilities. These include transport, command and control structures, intelligence and interoperability.

To make matters worse, EU defence officials have been dismayed at the bickering in the Italian government over whether it will pull out of developing the A400M transport carrier, an essential element of Europe's defence capability.

Next month Belgium, holder of the EU's rotating presidency, hopes to declare that ESDP will be "operational" by the end of the year - meaning that the diplomatic, political and military structures for crisis management will be in place.

By January 1 2003 the EU is supposed to have in place a rapid reaction force of 60,000 soldiers capable of being deployed within 60 days and sustained for a year.

Such ambitions, however, are being hampered by Turkey, a leading member of Nato, which, in common with the other 18 alliance members, has a right of veto.

That right, said EU diplomats, was now being used as a threat by Ankara. If the Europeans do not give Turkey full participation rights in deciding certain military operations, it could block the EU's access to Nato's planning assets.

Turkish officials claim the September 11 attacks have vindicated their stance. "The attacks on the US confirm what a volatile region Turkey is located in," said Nihat Akyol, Turkey's ambassador to the EU.

2. - Frankfurter Rundschau - "Thousands of women are sexually abused in Turkish police stations":

"Since then I'm nothing": Thousands of women are sexually abused in Turkish police stations - and whoever helps them is likewise in danger

ISTANBUL / By Gerd Hoehler (translated by Kurdish Media)

On 30 June, 1998, 14-year-old Ayda (name changed by editor) is detained by plain-clothed police in Istanbul on an open street. She had been accused of participation in a robbery. The men drag the girl into a car, and the ride takes her to the police station in the Gayrettepe section of the city. There they take Ayda into the so-called "beating room". They tell her that she will now be searched. One of the policemen rips the clothes off her, the others finger her breasts and genitals. One man tries to force her to take his penis into her mouth. Then he urinates on the girl's body.

In the toilet-room, they spray Ayda with a hard, cold stream of water. One of the men tries to stick the hose into her vagina. Then she has to walk naked down the corridor of the arrest section. There they push the girl into a cell with several male prisoners. Ayda creeps into a corner, while the men crowd into another corner and try not to look at her.

Just one of the 143 cases of torture that Istanbul lawyer Eren Keskin has documented. "Legal help for women who have been raped or otherwise sexually mistreated by the security forces" is the rather unwieldy, but precise, name of the project that Keskin initiated four years ago. Her office in the Sultanahmet section of Istanbul is tiny. The petite, dark-haired woman almost disappears behind the mountain of files that towers on her desk. "What we have documented is only the tip of the iceberg," says Keskin. "There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of such stories, but most of the women who are sexually abused remain silent, out of shame or fear."

Eren Keskin has been practicing for 17 years as an attorney. She acts as a defense attorney in political cases, especially. In addition, she heads up the Istanbul section of the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD). She got the impetus for this project in 1995. She was sentenced at the time to six months imprisonment on account of a critical article she had written on the Kurdish issue. During her time in Istanbul's Bayrampasa prison, she learned during conversations with the women there of numerous cases of abuse. "Sexual torture is particularly employed during interrogations, in order to give the woman a feeling of total helplessness and utter humiliation," says Keskin. Many victims, out of shame, do not even tell their families. "To talk about sexual abuse or rape is almost impossible for women in our culture," says the lawyer. The psychic wounds often never heal throughout one's entire life.

"Since then I'm nothing," said the Kurdish woman Leyla (name changed) to her lawyer as she revealed for the first time, after three years of silence, what had been done to her in 1994 in Diyarbakir [Amed]. Then 18 years old, she had been taken into custody by members of the Counter-Terrorist Unit on suspicion of working with the outlawed PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party]. The officers tortured Leyla for eight days straight with electrical shock, hung her up by her arms for hours at a time, and beat her. On the eighth day, they drove her out into the countryside. In a field the men began to dig a grave. "If you don't talk, then we'll bury you alive here," they threatened. Then they undressed her. One of the men raped her. Eren Keskin used the case in October of 1997 to bring charges, but the prosecutor called off the investigation after a very short time.

Eren Keskin and the other four voluntary workers of the project provide the sexually abused women with no-cost legal representation and possibilities for therapy. Some 42 proceedings for torture rest currently with the prosecutors, and twelve cases are currently on trial, two of them before the highest Turkish court. Keskin has brought a further 27 cases before the European Court of Human Rights after all means of legal recourse in Turkey were exhausted. Accused are 101 police officers, 33 personnel of the para-military Gendarmerie, and 6 so-called "Village Guards", that is, members of state-paid militias, which were to fight in the Kurdish conflict against the rebels of the PKK.

"In most cases it's extremely difficult to identify the perpetrators," concedes Keskin. "In almost all cases the detainees' eyes are blindfolded, so that they can't see those who abuse them." To date, only one of the cases she has brought has ended in a guilty verdict. In the southeastern [Kurdistan] province of Batman, a Village Guard who in 1995 along with two other men had raped a then 17-year-old Kurdish girl was convicted. It was only because the girl became pregnant that the perpetrator could be identified clearly, through a paternity test. The judges, however, convicted him not of rape, because in their view there was no proof of this, and so sentenced him to only 18 months imprisonment for sexual relations with a minor. The other two perpetrators were not punished.

The human rights organization Amnesty International cited a "general climate of impunity for suspects in crimes of torture in Turkey". The official figures of the Turkish Justice Ministry appear to confirm this. Between 1995 and 1999, 577 personnel of the Turkish security forces were accused of torture. But only ten of these were convicted, generally receiving insignificant punishments.

The prosecutors go after those who publicize torture, however, with great zeal, or so at least it seems. And not only journalists who report on cases of torture risk facing criminal proceedings. Even the victims must reckon with criminal charges if they report what has been done to them. Last year, 138 of the women represented by Eren Keskin came out into the open at a human rights conference in Istanbul and related what had been done to them. Charges were brought against 19 of them for "defamation of the Turkish security forces". There are currently five investigations underway against the lawyer herself for this crime. The maximum sentence could be six years imprisonment for every individual instance. But the courageous lawyer doesn't let herself be intimidated. "There is torture in Turkey; it is systematically carried out and tolerated", says Eren Keskin.

Every government, even that of the current leftist nationalist Bulent Ecevit, in power since mid-1999, has promised to bring an end to the practice of torture. But despite all the protestations of the politicians, no noticeable decline in the cases can be seen, says Eren Keskin. "I constantly hear reports from women that shock and traumatize me in new ways. We mustn't be silent about what is happening. We have to bring about a widespread discussion of this, and break the taboos."

Parliamentarian Sema Piskinsut wanted to do just that. Until late September she had been a member of the Democratic Left Party of Prime Minister Ecevit. As Chairwoman of the Human Rights Committee in the Turkish Parliament, she developed noteworthy activities. Instead of merely studying files, she visited prisons and interviewed victims of torture. Instead of arranging conferences, she made unannounced inspections of police stations, including at night. "We arrived at three in the morning," recalls Piskinsut of one of these visits. "I tried to open a door, but it was locked. The policeman on duty said it was a storage room, to which he had no key. After a lot of back and forth I pushed the door panel in, and it was clear that it was an interrogation room. In a room facing it we discovered a frame on which people were hung up."

Last year, at a press conference in the Parliament, Piskinsut displayed torture equipment that she had taken from 30 different police posts in 14 different provinces of the country: truncheons, high-pressure hoses, hooks, and electro-shock equipment. That was going too far. Shortly thereafter, Sema Piskinsut was removed as Chairwoman of the Human Rights Committee. Her successor was a politician from the rightist-extremist Nationalist Action Party (MHP). He announced that, henceforth, the Committee would focus more on human rights violations in other countries.

Piskinsut's revelations have a juridical sequel. Not for the torturers, however, but rather for the parliamentarian herself. Because she refused to provide the names of the torture victims whom she had interviewed, the state prosecutor's office brought charges of "supporting criminals" against her. Piskinsut remains unbowed. She refuses to give the names of the victims, to whom she had promised anonymity. Now the Parliament has to decide whether or not the immunity of this parliamentarian will be lifted.

Piskinsut knows that, to many, she is a traitor. "Whoever stands up for human rights in Turkey is seen as an enemy of the state," she says. She advises the state prosecutor to wait a bit, until her book on the torture methods in Turkish police stations appears in the next few days. "If you read the book, you'll have even more material to use against me," says Piskinsut. In late September she announced her resignation from the governing party. The coalition run by Ecevit, she said in justification, hasn't fulfilled its campaign promises.

3. -AFP - "Turkey's Islamists move to oust economy minister over crisis":

ANKARA

Turkey's pro-Islamic Felicity Party (SP) on Friday submitted a censure motion demanding the dismissal of Economy Minister Kemal Dervis for worsening a severe economic crisis and bringing the country to the point of bankruptcy, parliamentary officials said.

The motion accused Dervis of pressuring the government into taking every decision he wished for and nonetheles failing to meet any of the targets foreseen in a tight economic recovery programme. "Foreign currency exchange rates, inflation and state debt have multipilied, businessmen have gone bankrupt and thousands of workers have been laid off," said the motion, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

A banking sector crisis forced the government in February to abandon a pegged exchange rate regime, disrupting a disinflation programme backed by the International Monetray Fund. Since then, the lira has lost more than 50 percent of its value against the dollar.

In May, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's three-party coalition put into force a programme of tight reforms to bring the economy back on track with multi-billion dollar aid from the IMF and the World Bank. The Felicity Party also claimed that the governmnet's decision to send soldiers to Afghanistan upon a request by key ally Washington was a deal in return for cash.

The motion claimed that the entire government was responsible for the economic crisis, but said that the primary guilt lay on Dervis. "Dervis has cost the Turkish public a great deal. It will take years to heal the wounds he has opened," it said. "For these reasons, it has become essential for our country's interests to
remove Dervis from his ministerial post," it added. Friday's motion is the first one brought against Dervis, a former World Bank vice president who took over Turkey's economy in March, a month after the crisis broke out.

Parliament will now schedule a vote to decide whether the motion should be taken up for a debate. Opposition moves against the government have little chance of success since the three coalition parties in the coalition hold a comfortable majority of 337 seats in the 550-member house. The Felicity Party, created in July by a conservative faction of the outlawed Islamist Virtue Party, holds 49 seats.

4. -Reuters - "Powell: Iraq next on the line":

APPEAL:Blair reportedly urges Bush not to widen the bombing campaign to Baghdad

WASHINGTON

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States will turn its attention to Iraq and its weapons programs once it had dealt with the al-Qaeda organization and the Taliban through its military campaign in Afghanistan.

"With respect to our activities in Afghanistan, that is our first priority. We must defeat al-Qaeda, we must end (al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden's terrorist threat to the world and deal with the Taliban regime who has given them haven," Powell said.

"After that ... we will turn our attention to terrorism throughout the world, and nations such as Iraq, which have tried to pursue weapons of mass destruction, should not think that we ... will not turn our attention to them," he told reporters after talks with a Kuwaiti minister.

Blair appeal

The British media reported on Thursday that Prime Minister Tony Blair has appealed to U.S. President George Bush not to widen the bombing campaign to Iraq in response to demands from U.S. hard-liners such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Britain fears such action would jeopardize the international coalition formed after Sept. 11.

The Independent quoted a senior British minister as saying: "There are people in Washington who want to use this to finish off (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein. We don't think it's a good idea."

The United States began bombing Afghanistan one month ago in an attempt to stop the Taliban rulers protecting bin Laden and al-Qaeda, which Washington accuses of planning the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 4,800 people.

The bombing is part of a war against terrorism the United States says will eventually target all terrorist organizations of "global reach" and their supporters.

Powell, standing alongside Deputy Prime Minister Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah of Kuwait, was answering a question about reports Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz had again asserted an Iraqi claim to neighboring Kuwait.

The Iraqi invasion and brief annexation of Kuwait in 1990 and 1991 led to the Gulf War in which the United States and its allies drove out Iraqi forces and restored the Sabah family to power in Kuwait.

Iraq predicts attacks

"Mr. Tariq Aziz has been making these rather ridiculous and threatening statements for many years, so I take them all with a grain of salt," Powell said.

Aziz said in an interview last month he expected the United States and Britain to launch attacks on Iraq, using the war against terrorism as an excuse to try to oust President Saddam Hussein.

Babel, the newspaper run by Saddam's son Uday, said a few days later that the attack on Iraq could begin after the Western allies suspend operations against the al-Qaeda organization and the Taliban in Afghanistan because of winter.

The State Department has Iraq on its list of seven "state sponsors of terrorism," although its annual report says Baghdad has not attempted an attack on Western interests since an alleged plot to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush during his visit to Kuwait in 1993.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, some have lobbied for attacks on Iraq to make up for the past three years in which U.N. weapons inspectors have not been allowed to visit the country.

Under U.N. resolutions passed after the Gulf War of 1991, the U.N. inspectors were meant to dismantle Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and make sure the government did not try to revive them.

The U.N. Security Council has a chance to review U.N. sanctions and weapons inspections when the current U.N.-run oil-for-food program expires at the end of the month.

A State Department official said on Tuesday he expected the United States to back a six-month extension of the current system, without changes.

Earlier in the year, Powell tried to ease the restrictions on Iraqi imports of civilian goods while tightening the controls over military-related imports. Iraq and Russia opposed the proposals.

Americans back war on terrorism

Nine out of 10 Americans believe covert military operations and bombing raids remain the most effective weapons in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, according to a recent poll.

Even as Bush warned this week that attempts by bin Laden's network to acquire nuclear weapons posed a threat "to civilization itself," 54 percent of Americans said they believed that the deployment of strategic nuclear weapons would be effective in fighting the war.

"In contrast, 39 percent say strategic nuclear weapons would be 'not at all effective,' and 6 percent are not sure," polling firm Zogby International said.

The firm, based in Utica, New York, reported in its "America at War" daily tracking poll that 80 percent of Americans believed that attacking Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein would be effective strategies, while 64 percent backed a change in U.S. policy in the Middle East.

5. - Hurriyet - "The Cyprus in the Caribbean":

Columnist Oktay Eksi writes on the Cyprus problem. A summary of his column is as follows.

The Cyprus issue has heated up again. It not only heated up, but when Foreign Minister Ismail Cem told the Parliament Planning and Budgetary Commission that, 'Turkey may have to make a final decision .

We must know that this decision will lead to a high price. However, we have to make this decision' then our relations with Greece got cooler. Cem was in Athens yesterday. The climate of friendship between the two ministers gave way to a more formal approach. Leaving this aside, I would like to give excerpts from a reader's recent letter to the editor.

He mentions the resemblance between the situation of Haiti and the Dominican Republics and the Cyprus problem. 'For several years these two states lived together on an island called "Hispaniola". However, the coexistence of these two communities of different origins was not very sturdy, and did not last long.

The Haitians were blacks who spoke Creole. The Dominicans spoke Spanish and were mixed racially, or mulatto. There were two separate communities, and they continually complained the US and the UN that the other was trying to gain territorial superiority. Although the leaders of the two countries held talks in 1936 and agreed on some points, when the Dominican dictator Trujillo killed 37,000 Haitians along the border, all relations between the two states were cut off for a very long time.

In 1966 they began talks again. 60 years had passed and two generations had changed. Some of these talks were completed with success, but the others failed. The situation in Cyprus resembles this.' Haiti and the Dominican Republic are living as independent states on the same island. No one remembers to ask them why there are two different states on the island.

6. - Milliyet - "The Initiative must be ours":

Columnist Sami Kohen comments on the recent developments in Cyprus and different views on the issue.

Last September former State Minister Mehmet Ali Irtemcelik put forth a new idea which brought a new viewpoint to the solution of the Cyprus and Aegean problems. He suggested that Turkey and Greece should discuss the Cyprus deadlock in parallel negotiations along in a comprehensive manner by Turkey and Greece.

Such a method would lead to the softening of the rigid approaches seen in Cyprus talks and to the bringing of compromise solution formulas to the table. The relative stagnancy seen in the Cypriot and Turco-Greek relations was been disrupted by Ankara's recent harsh statements, and a period of new tension has begun. Irtemcelik said that thus such a formula was needed now more than ever. Diplomat turned politician Irtemcelik believes that , Turkey has to take the initiative and play its cards right. This time the Greek Cypriots may be the side rejecting the proposals.

Touching upon Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou's statement that we should act with vision for a common future, he says that although these words were right they should be supported by compromise, not left as mere breath. The presence of Foreign Minister Ismail Cem in Athens these days must lead to the dispersing of clouds seen hovering over relations between the two countries, and new steps must be taken an the issues creating this unfavourable atmosphere.

Athens and Ankara must pave the way for a solution the critical stage reached in the Cyprus problem. Otherwise, there may be a return to the old days in Turco-Greek relations. At the moment, the EU is preparing to admit the Greek Cypriot administration as if it represents the entire island, with or without a solution. The reason is that the EU is following an enlargement policy which includes Central and Eastern European countries.

As Turkey continues to say that the EU cannot admit the island into the Union as is, the EU replies that if it doesn't, Greece might use its veto and the enlargement policy would be derailed. But if Greece did not insist on vetoing the enlargement policy, the EU might freeze the full membership of the Greek Cypriot administration for a while. This may give some time for new efforts in solving the problem and a solution may be reached. Greece may accept such a proposal if it sees that Turkey is ready to take a serious initiative. If it does not, it will be the side rejecting the proposal.