12
April 2002
2. "REUNITING A DIVIDED ISLAND: Cyprus, north and south", final negotiations about the future of Cyprus began this year; it has been divided since 1974. Cyprus is a contender for EU membership, but to get in, Greeks and Turks will have to agree on its status, and Ankara will have to approve. Brussels has promised substantial funding for the Turkish north.
3. "Iraqi dissidents prepare for a post-Saddam regime", Iraqi opposition representatives wrapped up two days of preparations for a future conference where experts will draft a program for "a better Iraq under a different government," a US State Department official said on Wednesday.
4. "Turkey: Defence minister explains tank modernization project", National Defence Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said on Thursday [11 April] that Turkey will modernize 792 tanks with the technology which will be obtained as a result of the modernization of M-60 tanks by an Israeli company.
5. "'Wrestling with jelly' on Iraq", no-one who heard Tony Blair talk to a thousand Texans at the weekend could be in any doubt: if President Bush decides to go to war to topple Saddam Hussein, he will have the prime minister, and Britain, alongside him.
6. "We are threatening everybody", opinion by Mehmet Ali Birand.
1. - Reuters - "Verdict on Kurd leader Ocalan likely in 2002-court":
ANKARA / 11 April
The president of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said
on Thursday the court was likely to rule this year on an appeal by Kurdish
rebel commander Abdullah Ocalan against his death sentence.
A Turkish security court sentenced Ocalan to death in 1999 for leading the Kurdistan Workers Party's (PKK) violent campaign for a Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey. More than 30,000 people have died since fighting erupted in 1984.
"It would be realistic to say the decision (on Ocalan's appeal) could be made this year," ECHR President Luzius Wildhaber was quoted as saying by state-run Anatolian news agency. His remarks were carried in Turkish.
Wildhaber also said on his visit to Ankara that a decision on the appeal was possible before the court's summer recess.
Ocalan's lawyers have accused Turkey of violating Ocalan's rights beginning with his capture by special forces in Nairobi in 1999 after an international dragnet.
The ECHR, based in Strasbourg, France, agreed to hear Ocalan's appeal in 2000, ruling that his complaints were admissible under several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to life and the right to a fair trial.
Turkey is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, but has never ratified the accord, which outlaws capital punishment.
No one has been executed in Turkey since the mid-1980s, but the death penalty remains on the statute books.
Ankara must abolish capital punishment and overhaul its chequered human rights record for membership talks to begin with the European Union, which Turkey aspires to join.
Fighting between the PKK and Turkish security forces has fallen off steeply since Ocalan's capture. From death row, he has called on followers to withdraw from Turkey and seek greater cultural rights for Turkey's 12 million Kurds.
Ocalan is the lone inmate of an island jail as he awaits
the European court's ruling, which is open to appeal by either side.
2. - Le Monde Diplomatique - "REUNITING A DIVIDED ISLAND: Cyprus, north and south":
APRIL 2002 / by our special correspondent NIELS KADRITZKE *
Final negotiations about the future of Cyprus began
this year; it has been divided since 1974. Cyprus is a contender for
EU membership, but to get in, Greeks and Turks will have to agree on
its status, and Ankara will have to approve. Brussels has promised substantial
funding for the Turkish north. 
We are in the Ledra Palace hotel in Nicosia in Cyprus's UN-controlled
zone. The negotiating table is too small, but the mood is promising.
As is usual among the island's political class, Hussein, Giorgios, Eleni
and Mehmet are all on first-name terms. Sitting knee-to-knee they are
attempting to find the most effective way to build trust between the
Greek and Turkish communities. They look like spiritualists, invoking
a force that might have the solution to the problems of Cyprus.
But there is no magic formula here: the most important negotiations are elsewhere, in the UN headquarters at Nicosia's disused airport, where the Greek Cypriot president, Glafcos Clerides, and the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, have been talking since 16 January. Accompanied by Alvaro de Soto, the UN special adviser on Cyprus to the UN secretary-general, Clerides and Denktash are in a final attempt at breaking Cyprus's 28-year-old impasse. Denktash arrives in a limousine bearing the flag of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), and therein lies the problem. Should Cyprus become a federation, the solution outlined in UN resolutions and by Clerides, or a confederation of two states (the solution of Denktash and Turkey)?
The TRNC, a Turkish protectorate, depends on Ankara financially. It uses the inflation-prone Turkish lira and is watched over by 35,000 Turkish soldiers whose commander also oversees the police and firefighters (1). Denktash says that recognition of his republic is a precondition for any future confederation. The alternative model, a two-zone federation, would have two member states, one Greek and one Turkish, which would be largely autonomous but form a single entity under international law. Opposed to a federation, Denktash walked away from the UN-sponsored negotiations in November 2000, threatening not to return until the TRNC was recognised.
A year later he was back as if he had never issued his ultimatum. His real boss is in Ankara: Turkey's national security council, which withdrew its pawn and then brought it back into play (2). But the council is pragmatic, and Cyprus's impending EU membership is a critical issue. Turkey realised that Brussels would abide by the EU's Helsinki summit declaration of 1999: even if Cyprus's status remains unresolved, it would become an EU member unless the Greek Cypriots sabotaged the negotiations. Since this was impossible while the Turkish Cypriots were boycotting the negotiations, Denktash returned (3).
As a candidate for the next round of EU membership, to be announced in December, Cyprus is on the inside track (4). It is a model candidate, and if it were rejected for political reasons, the EU's enlargement programme could collapse since Greece could then oppose other countries' membership bids. The EU is more worried by this prospect than by the Turkish government's threat to annex the north of the island if only the south is admitted to the EU. Most European leaders see Turkey's threats as an indication of internal disarray; some even see them as a hopeful sign, since Turkey would give up its own membership hopes if it annexed territory belonging, under international law, to an EU member state.
Turkey's pro-Europeans are assessing the risk of the Cypriot impasse and warning against sacrificing the country's prospective EU membership for Turkish Cypriot nationalism (5). Turkey's economic crisis has encouraged this argument, even in the north of Cyprus. Young Turkish Cypriots see emigration as their only way out unless the entire island has EU membership, and claim that the Turkish refusal to negotiate undercut their only hope for the future (the EU has earmarked $182.2m over a three-year period for the north). They greeted the resumption of talks with a mixture of optimism and scepticism. Most Turkish Cypriots long for a European solution, though they doubt Denktash and his masters in Ankara have abandoned their goals.
Until now any change in Turkish strategy seemed unlikely. In March Ismail Cem, the Turkish foreign minister, referred in a letter to his EU counterparts to a global trend toward ethnic separation, saying that the only alternative for Cyprus lay in the creation of "two separate and equal states with sovereignty for each", which would lay the foundations for partner states. He was calling for a loose confederation until further notice (6). So far the talks in Nicosia have disappointed those who had been hoping for a breakthrough, including the UN emissaries, the EU and the Greek government, which hopes to use an agreement on Cyprus to shore up its détente with Turkey. The US does not want to see the candidacy of its strategic Turkish partner compromised. But observers expect that before June de Soto will announce proposals aimed at reviving the diplomatic efforts.
Military are key
Even so, the outcome will ultimately be decided in Ankara, where eurosceptic voices are ever louder in Bulent Ecevit's government and in the ranks of the far-right Nationalist Action party (MHP) (7). But the real key is the military: for the first time, General Tuncer Kilinc, general secretary of Turkey's National Security Council, publicly expressed the anti-European stance of some of the military, who fear that democratisation will undermine their power (8). This could be seen in the activities of the derin devlet (state within the state) — the Turkish police and secret services.
Attempting to stem pro-European sentiment in Turkey, ultranationalists in the secret services made public various emails from the EU representative in Ankara.
Turkey's internal battle over Europe will prove more critical for the talks on Cyprus than the wishes of the Turkish Cypriots, who want EU membership as soon as possible. In Cyprus, the Turkish Cypriot opposition is in the majority, and Denktash in the minority (9). The opposition, which includes trade unionists as well as business leaders, considers the name of the new pan-Cypriot political entity of secondary importance, but they know that only a federation will be eligible for EU membership. So they are studying the federal system in Belgium, which contains two distinct communities and language groups (10).
There is one principle that even the opposition stands by: the security of Turkish Cypriots must be guaranteed by maintaining a clear Turkish majority in the north, together with some Turkish military presence, no matter how symbolic. But most Greek Cypriots reject such proposals. Negotiators have spent long hours seeking compromise around the table in the Ledra Palace: the Turkish military, guarantors of security for the north, are seen as a threat in the south. Hence the idea of establishing separate Turkish and Greek contingents within an EU or UN-led protection force that would monitor the Cypriot federation.
The devil is in the details on other issues too. How will the territories be demarcated? Will refugees on both sides have the right to return without a new wave of expulsions? Which mainland Turks will have the right to settle in northern Cyprus? Answers to this will only come from focusing on concrete realities, not abstract principles. It would be unreasonable to establish an absolute right of return since even in a federation few Greek or Turkish refugees would choose to live on the other side. Most refugees have set down such deep roots elsewhere that their former homes do not have the power they once had. And creating two separate zones would generate problems: those on one side of the demarcation line would have to learn the language on the other if they wanted to communicate with neighbours and the authorities. Bilingualism would happen slowly and require much good will since reunification would mean a long period of evolution. For this to succeed, both camps will have to transcend their nationalistic viewpoints (11).
The Greek Cypriot leaders have not been realistic in setting the terms for a new federation either. Few have focused on raising the preliminary political capital (without which the two-zone solution stands little chance) — gaining the trust of the Turkish Cypriots (12). No Greek Cypriot leaders have had the courage to say that a Cypriot federation within the EU would constitute the second republic of Cyprus. This would be a radical change, given the failure of the first republic, for which Greeks and Turks share the responsibility.
The Greek Cypriot lack of interest in the talks reflects the certainty that Cyprus will join the EU whether or not a solution is found to the impasse. EU membership would amount to more than a consolation prize, since those living in the south view the EU as a security force. The desperate optimism in the north is a sign that the Turkish Cypriots' survival is at stake. If the impasse proves insurmountable, their only way out will be to apply for individual EU membership, since they are eligible for Cypriot passports and can become EU citizens. A demographic shortfall in the north would be offset by Turks from Anatolia (13).
Most Greek Cypriots do not appreciate the significance of what is at stake. If the negotiations fail, the island's divisions will become definitive. Even if not formally annexed by Turkey, the north would be transformed, to the point that any desire in the south for reunification would soon disappear. If Greek Cypriots wanted to visit the Turkish zone, they would have to wait for Turkey to become an EU member. But the Greek Cypriots will have no influence since the outcome depends on the success of democratic forces in Turkish society and Europe's willingness to welcome a democratic Turkey.
* Berlin-based journalist
(1) See Niels Kadritzke, Cyprus hostage to Athens-Ankara confrontation, Le Monde diplomatique English edition, September 1998.
(2) The council is the final arbiter on all "questions of national concern". See Éric Rouleau, Turkey's modern pashas, Le Monde diplomatique English edition, September 2000.
(3) Günther Verheugen, the EU commissioner for enlargement, has reiterated this position on several occasions: the Helsinki declaration states that resolving Cyprus's status is not a "precondition" for the island's EU membership, which will be decided "by taking all the facts into account".
(4) The French term acquis communautaire refers to the body of principles, regulations and objectives that prospective member countries must integrate within their own legislative frameworks before they can be considered for EU membership.
(5) The Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association (Tusiad) views resolving Cyprus's status as a prerequisite for EU membership, as do commentators in Istanbul newspapers such as Milliyet, Sabah and the Turkish Daily News, as well as ex-diplomats and political leaders such as the former foreign minister, Ilter Turkmen.
(6) See Ismail Cem, "A common vision for Cypriots", International Herald Tribune, Paris, 14 March 2002.
(7) The MHP has worked closely with Denktash for decades.
(8) See the Turkish Daily News, 8 and 9 March 2002. On the influence of nationalist interests and ideology, according to which Ankara is a Euro-Asian power and a strategic ally of the US, see Murat Belge, "Europa 2030", Südosteuropa Mitteilungen, Munich, 2002, special edition vol 1; and Heinz Kramer, "Die Türkei und der 11 September", Südosteuropa Mitteilungen, vol 4, 2001.
(9) The opposition parties include the Republican People's party (CHP), the Communal Liberation party (TKP) and the Movement for Patriotic Unity (YHB).
(10) Belgium also contains a small German-speaking population.
(11) Postponing the refugees' right of return was set out in previous UN initiatives and would also be acceptable as an exceptional measure in the eyes of the EU.
(12) Former President Giorgos Vassiliou, chief negotiator for EU accession talks with the Republic of Cyprus, has conspicuously refrained from engaging in nationalistic discourse, thus boosting his credibility among Cyprus's Turkish population.
(13) Thousands of Turkish Cypriots have applied for Cypriot passports at the Republic of Cyprus's embassies over the past few years and their numbers are growing: in the first three months of this year, more than 2,000 Turkish Cypriots filed passport applications.
3. - AFP - "Iraqi dissidents prepare for a post-Saddam regime":
WASHINGTON / 12 April 
Iraqi opposition representatives wrapped up two days of preparations
for a future conference where experts will draft a program for "a
better Iraq under a different government," a US State Department
official said on Wednesday.
The meeting discussed procedural aspects of the broader conference, which is likely to be held in coming months at an as-yet undetermined venue, the State Department source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"The purpose (of the planning is for) is an experts’ conference, a broad gathering, to discuss the practical steps for a better Iraq under a different government. It is not an opposition conference, but an experts’ conference," said the source.
The meeting was sponsored by the State Department, whose representative was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Near East Affairs Ryan Crocker. It was organized by the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank represented by David Mack, former deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs (1990-1993).
A participant told AFP that the nine Iraqi groups who intended to send a representative were the US-backed Iraqi National Congress, the National Accord Movement, the two main Kurdish factions -- Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdistan Democratic Party -- in addition to a pro-monarchy group and independents.
The main Iraqi Islamist opposition group, the Tehran-based Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, had earlier declined to send a delegate to Washington.
The proposed broad-based opposition conference will be "more technical than political," the Iraqi source told AFP. State Department officials said on March 26 that Washington would spend five million dollars to fund the conference, which would focus on issues such as a post-Saddam Hussein justice system, public health and education, eliminating corruption, the role of the Iraqi military and rebuilding the economy. However, the conference will not attempt to decide upon a post-Saddam leadership.
A final decision on the venue hinges on consent from the
host country. The United States has threatened to take military action
against Iraq and try to overthrow Saddam unless Baghdad readmits UN
arms inspectors to verify that it no longer has weapons of mass destruction.
4. - BBC Monitoring Service - "Turkey: Defence minister explains tank modernization project":
ANKARA / 11 April
National Defence Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said on Thursday
[11 April] that Turkey will modernize 792 tanks with the technology
which will be obtained as a result of the modernization of M-60 tanks
by an Israeli company.
Cakmakoglu spoke about the modernization of M-60 tanks after opposition parliamentarians brought the issue onto the agenda in the parliament.
Cakmakoglu pointed out that they wanted the Turkish defence industry to produce all its own needs, and noted that Turkey has the ability to make tank modernization. He said modernization of Leopard tanks were given to Aselsan and Machinery and Chemical Industry (MKE).
Recalling that some of the M-60 tanks were more than 33 years old, Cakmakoglu said modernization of M-60 tanks were given to the Israeli company as there was not such a technology in Turkey.
Cakmakoglu said some firms created problems regarding the export licence and that some others put forward some conditions, noting that modernization of the tanks were given to the Israeli company to make Turkish Armed Forces to obtain the technology it needed.
Cakmakoglu said 792 other tanks, apart from 170 M-60 tanks, would be modernized, stressing that "Turkey will modernize 792 tanks with the technology which will be obtained as a result of the modernization of M-60 tanks by an Israeli company".
Criticizing that modernization of the tanks was considered as bidding, Cakmakoglu said the decision was taken by Defence Executive Committee headed by Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.
Cakmakoglu said: "I understand the timing of the
criticisms," noting that a country like Turkey, which is strong
in its region, needs some weapons to make its armed forces deterrent.
5. - BBC - "'Wrestling with jelly' on Iraq":
By Andrew Marr / 11 April
No-one who heard Tony Blair talk to a thousand Texans at the weekend
could be in any doubt: if President Bush decides to go to war to topple
Saddam Hussein, he will have the prime minister, and Britain, alongside
him. Mr Blair's language could hardly have been less equivocal - he
would not be a fair weather friend or an unreliable one.
Saddam's regime was despicable and a danger to the world; one way or another, weapons of mass destruction would be dealt with.
Nor, in any material way, did Mr Blair change his tune when confronting sceptical Labour MPs - as well as a few sceptical Liberal Democrats and Tories - in the Commons.
There is a steely determination in the prime minister on the subject you would have to have wooden ears and glass eyes to miss.
Yet Number 10 is undeniably concerned about how to manage political and public opinion.
Not 'precipitate'
The spin on the Texas speech emphasised the demand that UN weapons inspectors must be allowed into Iraq - "any time, any place" - and that any action would be measured and not "precipitate".
That could be misheard as a gentle backtrack, while the Middle East continues to flame.
It is nothing of the kind. Neither the US nor the British administrations expect Saddam to accept their UN inspectorate demands; indeed they would be briefly disconcerted if he did.
And no-one expects "precipitate" action. There is a huge agenda of political, diplomatic and military preparation to be accomplished before any move against Baghdad is possible.
It includes trying to bring the Arab world to some kind of acceptance of the justice of such action.
It would mean working hard particularly with Turkey. With its Kurdish population Turkey would be both essential to an attack, and very worried about it.
Basic questions
It means finding some plausible successor to Saddam, a problem over which the State Department and the Pentagon are now squabbling.
Should it be the Iraqi opposition politicians in London and Washington or can they find some dissident general?
It means answering basic questions about whether Iraq would be allowed to partly disintegrate.
And, if not, how to dissuade the Iranians from occupying southern areas, or the Kurds trying to establish an independent Kurdish state in the north.
And all that's before the military problems - where would Western ground troops start from; how would Saddam be prevented from using missiles against Tel Aviv, and so on.
Politicians and diplomats studying all this, while admitting that there is a real Saddam threat, find it hard to imagine any action until well into next year.
Precipitate? Not a chance.
'Sweetly reasonable'
For those Labour MPs determined to oppose any action, that poses a serious problem.
For the time being they are wrestling with jelly, or heckling Mr Blair's sweetly reasonably words.
They know they're against it, but they don't quite know what "it" is.
The dissidents' main organisation, Labour Against the War, is distributing its detailed rebuttal of the argument that the Iraqi regime presents an imminent threat.
They say there is no evidence of Iraq's attempt to rebuild weapons of mass destruction since the inspectors left in December 1998, and the US should drop its explicit policy of changing the regime.
The government keeps promising its evidence soon.
Meanwhile, although Mr Blair won't quite say that "regime change" - a polite expression for ousting Saddam - is now his official policy, it certainly sounds that way.
The Tory strategy is to back him every inch of the way, loudly, in the hope of flushing out the maximum number of Labour dissidents.
Their ideal would be to split Labour opinion so badly that any war against Iraq would be one in which Mr Blair had to rely on opposition votes.
There is no sign of that yet. The opposition is sceptical, questioning and restive, so far, rather than openly defiant.
Nor has it spread far beyond the usual left-wing and ex-ministerial suspects.
But if it does there is no sign either that Mr Blair will
flinch. He made his mind up a long time ago.
6. - Turkish Daily News - "We are threatening everybody":
Opinion by Mehmet Ali Birand / 12 April 2002
The rhetoric we use, especially in foreign policy, contains threatening
words. We project to the world the image of a country that is trying
to make its demands accepted through the use of force. This is not the
way to conduct a policy
We see it as something natural. It is as if our ears do not hear what we are saying and how we are saying it. Even when we do hear our own words we fail to assess the meaning of our rhetoric.
In both domestic politics and foreign policy, the rhetoric we use is different than the practices in the contemporary world and the accustomed international standards.
Pay attention and you will see that we keep using "threatening" sentences about our interlocutors. This may not be upsetting us, but our approach is of a kind that is extremely upsetting to the "other party."
This is a habit we have formed in our daily lives, and this habit gets reflected in domestic politics. In our domestic relations this approach may not be a cause of distress for us. However, in foreign relations, this approach increasingly causes us to lose "points."
The official statements, the speeches made by various politicians even when they are not acquainted with the topic at hand, newspaper articles and certain expressions used by TV commentators, upset many. All these cause Turkey to be seen as a country that wants to solve its problems with a militaristic approach rather than through politics.
Here are a few examples of the comments I am referring to:
* "If the Greek Cypriots join the European Union on their own, there will be turmoil in Cyprus and we will know how to get what is the Turkish side's due."
* "If the EU admits the Greek Cypriots while leaving the Turkish side out, both Cyprus and the Aegean will be in turmoil. Turkish-EU relations would be damaged irreparably and the EU would pay a high price for this attitude."
* "If the EU fails to give Turkey a date for the start of accession talks, it will lose Turkey, and we would abolish the customs union."
* "If the U.S. Congress gives the Armenian theses its support, the use of bases will not be permitted, and there will be no participation in the intervention against Iraq."
* The establishment of an independent Kurdish state in Northern Iraq would be a cause for war. Turkey would intervene."
* "Twelve miles in the Aegean would mean a declaration of war. Turkey would take action."
* "Unless it changes its stance, the Armenian state will meet with a strong reaction from Turkey. Their airspace would be closed and Armenia would be strangled."
This list can go on and on...
I want to draw your attention to the underlying tone, the style of this rhetoric. The message being given is, "If you do not do this or that, something bad is going to happen." We keep intimidating, issuing threats.
So what? Aren't we going to protect our interests?
I can almost hear my readers say, right at this minute:
"What are you saying? Are we not supposed to protect our interests? Should we bow down to everybody? Shall we not say what would happen if they conducted the kind of policies that contradict our own policies?"
Of course we will protect our interests. Who can possibly say we should not do that. This is not the point.
What I am talking about is the "warped" aspect of our rhetoric.
In cases of conflict, the "threat" element is naturally present, however, that approach gets adopted only in the end. All the other paths get tried, various initiatives get taken, and when the "knife touches the bone", the two sides start exchanging threatening words. The military rhetoric is used only in the final stage. If you resorted to "threatening" and "military rhetoric" so much, you would not be plausible anymore.
If we look around us we can see that "contemporary" countries try to solve their differences by using a different kind of language, that is, without issuing threats.
And that is called "politics."
In both domestic issues and external issues, "imposition" is something that emerges in the advanced stages, not in the initial stages. Yet, we proceed to that later stage right from the start, while the first steps are being taken. All of a sudden we blurt out what would happen to the other side if our demands are not accepted.
From now on, we must attain the international standards especially in foreign policy.
If we do have no intention of changing these habits then we should not get angry when we hear criticism coming from other countries.
Let us know ourselves.
By looking at the negative image that has gotten stuck on us, don't let us say, "They do not like us." Let us admit that part of the problem stems from us.