11 September 2001

1. "Far-left group claims Istanbul suicide bomb against jail reform", a far-left underground group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Istanbul that killed two policemen and injured about 20 people, in a statement faxed to AFP on Tuesday.

2. "Turkey warns of intervention in hunger-strike after bombing", Turkey warned Tuesday that security forces could intervene to end a months-long hunger-strike by prison inmates after a far-left group behind the protest claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing.

3. "TUSIAD calls for reforms to increase freedom of expression", TUSIAD set out a package of legal and constitutional reform aimed at ending restrictions on freedom of expression and helping Turkey meet the EU's membership criteria.

4. "Turkey's EU bid under pressure over rejection of Cyprus talks", Turkey's smooth progression to EU membership could be the principal casualty of a no-show by Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in New York when peace talks on divided Cyprus resume on Wednesday.

5. "Bad Vibrations Worrying Turkey", Archaeologists Condemn Use Of Ancient Sites for Concerts.

6. "Syria, Turkey sign security cooperation pacts", Syria and Turkey signed security cooperation agreements Monday aimed at tackling drug smuggling and terrorism, an interior ministry spokesman said.


1. - AFP - "Far-left group claims Istanbul suicide bomb against jail reform":

AKARA

A far-left underground group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Istanbul that killed two policemen and injured about 20 people, in a statement faxed to AFP on Tuesday. The statement, by the Brussels office of the far-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), said the attack on Monday was committed by "one of our soldiers" to protest new jails with tighter security, known as F-type, which triggered a deadly hunger strike last October.

Referring to a controversial security raid on hunger-striking inmates in December, the statement said that "those who burned us alive and maintain the brutality in the F-type prisons will pay the price for it." The four-day operation left 30 prisoners and two soldiers dead, but failed to end the protest with some 200 inmates still pursuing the hunger strike. The crackdown has come into question with pathology reports contradicting the government's account of how the deaths occurred during the raids, in which security forces demolished prison walls and used tear gas to break sometimes armed resistance by inmates.

The DHKP-C, which aims to spark a working class revolution, is accused of masterminding the hunger strike, which has so far claimed 33 lives. The strikers, backed by a number of civic groups, say the new jail design, where cells for up to three people replaced dormitories housing dozens, alienates inmates from fellow prisoners and leaves them more vulnerable to mistreatment and torture. But Ankara categorically refuses a return to the dormitory system, arguing that the packed compounds were the main factor behind frequent riots and hostage-taking incidents in its unruly jails.

The DHKP-C statement identified the suicide bomber as Ugur Bulbul and said he had recently been released from an F-type prison near Ankara. The bomber blew himself up in Istanbul's Taksim district, a commercial center and a popular area for tourists. The statement said he targeted riot police, stationed as a regular security measure at the spot, some 100 metres (yards) from the German consulate. The violent explosion, in which limbs and lumps of human flesh were scattered around, came after a long lull in violence in Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city of about 12 million people, where several outlawed groups operate.

The last suicide bombing took place in January when a man walked into a police station and set off explosives, killing himself and an officer and injuring seven people. That attack was also claimed by the DHKP-C, which said the bombing was in retaliation for the December crackdown against the hunger-striking prisoners.


2. - AFP - "Turkey warns of intervention in hunger-strike after bombing":

ISTANBUL

Turkey warned Tuesday that security forces could intervene to end a months-long hunger-strike by prison inmates after a far-left group behind the protest claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing. "For the past three months we have shown a lot of tolerance, but if necessary we will use the authority bestowed on us by law... if necessary we could intervene," Interior Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen told reporters here. Yucelen was speaking at Ataturk airport upon his arrival from Damascus, where he cut short an official visit after a suicide bomber blew himself up in Istanbul on Monday, killing two policemen and injuring about 20 people.

The attack was claimed by the underground People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which Ankara blames for masterminding the prison hunger strike against new jails with tighter security. In a statement faxed to AFP by the DHKP-C office in Brussels, the group said the attack was committed by "one of our soldiers" to protest the new jails, which triggered a deadly hunger strike last October. Thirty-three people -- prisoners and relatives of inmates hunger-striking in solidarity -- have starved themselves to death so far with some 200 prisoners still pursuing their deadly protest.

Yucelen on Tuesday issued what he described as a "last call" to the prisoners and their families to end the hunger strike. "I call on them to cooperate with the state and discontinue their illegal act. I have a few words to those who forced them into starving themselves: the state will no longer show tolerance to those who upset the state," he said.


3. - Turkish Daily News - "TUSIAD calls for reforms to increase freedom of expression":

TUSIAD set out a package of legal and constitutional reform aimed at ending restrictions on freedom of expression and helping Turkey meet the EU's membership criteria

The Association of Turkish Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSIAD) has presented its package for the elimination of obstacles to freedom of expression in Turkey, the Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. The package consists of two works covering "Perspectives on Democratization in Turkey" and "The EU Copenhagen Political Criteria" and was presented at the Ankara Sheraton. The package included amendments TUSIAD considered needed to be made to everything from the Constitution to the Anti-terrorism Law. It stated how the leading section of the Constitution and the relevant articles should be interpreted within the context of freedom of expression.

The package recommended abolishing the general limitations in connection with this, the introducing of special limits for each and every right and freedom, the abolition of the reference "prohibited language" and the abolishing of the reference "Banning distribution as a precautionary measure," which the package stated was tantamount to censorship.

The package also called for amendments to be made to the Turkish Penal Code and the Anti-terrorism Law as well as these laws: Press Law; Law on the Establishment of Disciplinary Tribunals, Trial Procedure, Disciplinary Crimes and Punishment; Associations Law; Law on Harmful Publications; Basic Law on National Education; Law on Military Armed Intervention Against Domestic Enemies; Police Duties and Establishment Law; Law on Radio and Television Institutions and Broadcasting; Law on Martial Law; Law on Cinema, Video and Musical Works; Political Parties Law; Law on Meetings and Protest Marches; Military Criminal Law; and the Law on Publications in Languages Other Than Turkish.

Presenting the package was Prof. Ersin Kalaycioglu of Bogazici University International Relations and Political Sciences Department. He gave a brief history of democracy and explained the role of opposition parties in ensuring painless and necessary change. He said that people's freedom of access to information and their right to choose were definitions of democracy but that this was where the problem lay in Turkey. He said this natural process was occasionally held up. "Different or contrary ideas are the motor for renewal and change," he said and noted that in advanced democracies freedom of expression was limited to exclude slander, dissent and blasphemy.

Also speaking was Dean of the Bahcesehir University Faculty of Law Prof. Suheyl Batum, who said there were many legal arrangements in Turkey concerning freedom of expression but that these were all blanket arrangements that encompassed everything or nothing as the occasion required. Stating that valid arrangements had been shown by the European Court of Human Rights, Prof. Batum said, "When ECHR verdicts are looked at, it becomes clear that freedom of expression is not limited to those ideas that work for us, but also covers those thoughts that are shocking, damaging and abhorrent to us as well." He said they had to do away with blanket arrangements and make laws that were appropriate to conditions in Turkey. "The ECHR makes it clear that speeches inciting hatred or violence or those rejecting the rules of democracy can have restrictions imposed on them. However, the location and means with which they are voiced should be taken into account. Those people who have prepared publications inciting uprisings yet which have not been published are still judged under the same articles. Only judges can really resolve this issue, but they have not been able to and for specific reasons.

Mustafa Koc told journalists that talks they had held with political party representatives regarding constitutional amendments had gone exceedingly well and that both opposition and ruling parties had expressed their support. Meanwhile TUSIAD board of directors chairman Tuncay Ozilhan said the agreement reached by the All Party Constitution Accord Committee was a positive and meaningful development. He called on all political parties represented at Parliament to contribute to bringing about changes that would open the way up for Turkey.

On the topic of freedom of expression, Koc said that apart from expressions assaulting an individual's rights or inciting crime, no thought actually prevented democracies from functioning, in fact they increased tolerance and social accord. He further mentioned the need to diligently preserve freedom of the press. He said that putting journalists, academics and writers on trial and jailing them brought the level of democracy down and damaged respect for the country.

Ozilhan also said that the EU was always the point of reference in Turkey's globalization project both for democracy, at the level of rule of law and human rights, and for the structure of the market economy. He said the road to full EU membership looked a difficult one but that this was the result of the problems being encountered when trying to apply EU standards. He said this situation had as much to do with structural reasons as it did a lack of political will and the fact that certain circles were reluctant to join the EU.

Ozilhan said one point that had always been ignored was that a country which had a strong competitive power, which provided its people with a good standard of living, good education and health and which had democracy, peace and individual freedoms could easily face any threat be it external or internal.

Drawing attention to the importance of Sept. 17, Ozilhan said that consensus over the constitutional amendments package would hold historical significance for Turkey. "We want to believe that all the political parties in Parliament are genuine when it comes to EU membership and democratization and to see that they are resolved to contribute to making changes that will open the way up for Turkey," he said.


4. - AFP - "Turkey's EU bid under pressure over rejection of Cyprus talks":

NICOSIA

Turkey's smooth progression to EU membership could be the principal casualty of a no-show by Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in New York when peace talks on divided Cyprus resume on Wednesday.

Denktash pointedly and publicly declined a personal invitation from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for further discussions to resolve the question of Cyprus, which has been split since a 1974 Turkish invasion. "It has repercussions for Ankara's EU process," a diplomatic source here told AFP. "If anybody thinks Turkey can join the EU without a solution to the Cyprus problem, they are mad."

Turkey's accession terms to join the European Union include facilitating a solution to the problem of Cyprus, where the internationally recognised state of President Glafcos Clerides holds only the southern two-thirds of the isle. Denktash already abandoned so-called "proximity" talks with Clerides last November, demanding his breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) be given equal status with the south by the United Nations. Many analysts, like Neophytos Chrysochos of the European Institute think-tank, believe Denktash would not have been able to snub the latest talks without receiving the green light from Ankara.

"There is an internal struggle in Turkey on whether it wants to be part of the EU," Chrysochos told AFP. "It wants to join the EU on its own terms and is not ready to give concessions on the Cyprus problem." He added: "It will take a long time for a decisive political shift." UN special envoy Alvaro de Soto, who had extensive talks with Denktash in August, said last week that Annan would not have extended the public invitation to both sides unless he was certain of a "positive" response. But less than an hour after the UN chief invited Clerides and Denktash for another round of negotiations on how to break the 27-year impasse, the Turkish Cypriot leader held a press conference to say he would not attend. His gambit caught the international community off guard and miffed Britain and the United States, who are actively engaged in trying to find a settlement to the island's division.

"We are deeply disappointed by Denktash's failure to accept the secretary general's invitation," the spokesman for the British High Commission here, Jonathan Allen, told AFP. Clerides left for New York on Monday, telling reporters that if Denktash fails to show, "then it's up to the UN and the EU to express who bears responsibility for the lack of progress." "It's obvious that Mr Denktash is not interested in negotiating a solution," government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou told AFP. "We are ready to talk."

The United Nations said Denktash's decision was "regrettable" but added it hoped he would turn up sometime this week -- offering a window to reconsider by dropping the Wednesday deadline. The Turkish army rolled in and occupied the northern third of the island in July 1974 following a coup in Nicosia aimed at joining Cyprus to Greece. The TRNC is recognised only by Turkey. Meanwhile the island's own EU accession bid is moving full steam ahead, and Cyprus remains a leading candidate for the first wave of European enlargement.

If the island is not reunited before it joins Europe, earmarked for 2004, the EU has agreed Cyprus can join without a settlement in place -- which has left many Turkish Cypriots scrambling for Cyprus Republic passports. Applications from Turkish Cypriots have topped 800 so far this year, doubling the 1999 figure. "Cyprus passports are very much in demand by Turkish Cypriots who view EU membership as offering better financial, education and health prospects," said Chrysochos.

"Nothing can be won by not going to the talks," the diplomatic source said. "Everybody felt Denktash was going to go and the fact that he hasn't is a dampener and doesn't help the situation.".


5. - Washington Post - "Bad Vibrations Worrying Turkey":

Archaeologists Condemn Use Of Ancient Sites for Concerts

BELKIS / by Molly Moore

The 1,800-year-old Aspendos amphitheater here has survived gladiator fights, wild animal combat, pillaging armies and collapsing empires.

Now, archaeologists warn, one of the best-preserved antiquities of the Roman Empire faces new threats: pop music stars, wall-rattling decibel levels and frenzied, stone-stomping fans.

"We don't need to wait until the stones start falling," said Nevzat Cevik, an archaeologist and professor at Mediterranean University in the nearby southern coastal city of Antalya. "It's already clear -- when 10,000 people are jumping at the same time, it's an earthquake."

Across Turkey this summer, Roman theaters, ancient Ionian cities and Ottoman fortresses -- which normally provide picturesque settings for sedate classical music and opera -- were opened to pop stars and dance extravaganzas as never before in an effort to draw more tourists and their cash to this financially foundering country.

The activity has ignited a blistering debate involving the government, which is eager to show off Turkey's unique historical sites, production companies that are vying for access to dramatic settings, and archaeologists who are concerned about the impact of 21st-century loudspeakers and unruly fans on fragile, if not crumbling, ruins.

"We want to bring these sites to life, make them living places," said Mustafa Erdogan, art director and choreographer for "Sultans of the Dance," a lavish Turkish dance production currently performing at the Aspendos theater on Turkey's southern Mediterranean Sea coast. "They [archaeologists] would prefer to leave them ruins."

These are some of the same sites where, nearly two millennia ago, thunderous crowds egged on roaring lions or gladiators in bloody battles to the death or where wild beasts were set against each other for the benefit of screaming mobs. In fact, the government only recently banned camel wrestling at the 2,000-year-old amphitheater set amid the marble and stone of Ephesus, Turkey's most famous ancient city on its southwestern Aegean coast.

"These are ruins," said the archaeologist Cevik, 38, who has spent much of the past 13 years surveying archaeological sites in southern Turkey. "They are like an old man. After 1,800 years, they are very tired. They aren't so strong as when they were young."

While Cevik concedes that pop concerts alone won't bring down the walls of the antiquities, he and other archaeologists say the wear and tear of frequent performances will add to the threats that the sites already face from weather exposure, the trampling feet of millions of tourists and the encroachments of modern civilizations' highways and urban sprawl.

"Damage to the structure of the monuments is caused by vibrations of the deep basses transmitted by amplifiers," said Fritz Krinzinger, who heads the Austrian excavation team working on restorations at Ephesus. "These are especially harmful to the mortar filling already disintegrated by salt and air pollution. More damage is caused by the thousands of people who do not care about where they sit, what they drink, or how they dispose of their garbage."

Krinzinger said that during a concert several years ago at Ephesus, a stone fell from the upper part of the amphitheater, nearly injuring some people in the audience.

Although the government's Culture Ministry, which is responsible for the preservation of historic sites, several years ago barred the use of ruins for rock concerts and stage extravaganzas, officials this summer began granting high-profile exceptions.

Elton John played to a packed amphitheater at Ephesus in July. Turkey's top pop icon, Tarkan, performed before a gyrating throng at Aspendos last month and at the 15th-century Rumeli Hisari Fort in Istanbul recently. The "Sultans of the Dance" staged shows at Ephesus and recently at Aspendos theater as well.

"The institutions organizing these events are making a lot of money using the ancient monuments," said Krinzinger, noting the issue is creating controversy in dozens of countries with ancient ruins. "The people in charge often do not respect the balance between the requirements of the monuments . . . and the needs of the mass of visitors who expect security, space, refreshments, and sanitation."

In a news release responding to criticism of its decision to allow this summer's shows, the Culture Ministry said it supported using historical sites for cultural and art activities. "This practice contributes significantly to better recognition of our antique treasures, cultural tourism and the artistic improvement of our country."

But some ministry officials say that by relaxing the rules on what is acceptable for centuries-old stages, the integrity of historic structures is being threatened.

"Sounds cause vibrations," one ministry official said. "It is not possible to say these kinds of big productions are not damaging. The only thing that can be debated is how much damage."

An architect named Zeno is believed to have designed the soaring Aspendos theater in about 161 A.D., when the city by the same name sat at one of the major commercial crossroads of its time. Archaeologists describe it as the best-preserved Roman theater in Turkey, if not in all of the former empire. Like all the theaters of its day, it was built with such perfect acoustics that a whisper at a certain spot center stage could carry to the highest seats in the coliseum.

Zeno never envisioned a Tarkan -- Turkey's 29-year-old reigning king of pop -- when he created such a sound-sensitive natural acoustical setting.


6. - Reuters - "Syria, Turkey sign security cooperation pacts":

DAMASCUS

Syria and Turkey signed security cooperation agreements Monday aimed at tackling drug smuggling and terrorism, an interior ministry spokesman said.

He said the pacts, signed by visiting Turkish Interior Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen and his Syrian counterpart Mohammed Harba, also called for joint cooperation to combat organized crime and expel illegal immigrants.

"According to the first deal, the two sides will take the necessary measures to prevent any terrorist activities that might be directed against the security of the other party," the spokesman said.

"The deal goes in line with the security cooperation protocol that was signed by the prime ministers of both states in 1987," he said.

The pact also calls for cooperation to combat trafficking in narcotics. Syria and Turkey are major transit points for Asian drugs smugglers who direct their activities to Europe and the rest of the world.

The Syrian spokesman said the second deal called for cooperation to preserve security at the joint borders and to prevent any illegal crossing of persons through the border.

Relations between Syria and Turkey, long strained over security and water-sharing problems, have improved in the past two years since Damascus expelled Turkish Kurd rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Ocalan, whose Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) led a campaign to establish an independent state in southeast Turkey, was arrested a year later and sentenced to death for treason by a Turkish court.

The sharing of the Euphrates river that winds through Syria before entering Iraq, has long troubled ties between Turkey and its downstream neighbors.