17. April 2002

1. "Kurdish rebel group changes name, but Ankara not impressed", the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said on Tuesday it was changing its name and strategy and continuing its 15-year-long struggle for self-rule in southeast Turkey by legal means, in a move immediately rejected as cosmetic by the Ankara government

2. "Kurd rebels change their name", the movement hopes to become a political force

3. "PKK officially appears with a new face in Europe", "The armed struggle is over," claimed Riza Erdogan, European spokesman of the new Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress, or KADEK, which is the continuation of the terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

4. "Turkey wants 'more resolved attitude' from EU on terrorism", Turkey said on Tuesday [16 April] that it expected a more resolved attitude from the European Union (EU) countries regarding fight against terrorism.

5. "EU expects more steps to be taken on freedom of expression", the 41st Association Council between Turkey and the European Union (EU) was held in Luxembourg, with an emphasis from the EU side on the need to develop the freedom of expression in Turkey.

6. "Step by step towards the EU", Foreign Minister Cem will attend the Partnership Council meeting at the foreign ministers’ level in Brussels and a 23-page report on Turkey will be discussed and most probably approved.

1. - AFP - "Kurdish rebel group changes name, but Ankara not impressed":

ANKARA, April 16

The rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said on Tuesday it was changing its name and strategy and continuing its 15-year-long struggle for self-rule in southeast Turkey by legal means, in a move immediately rejected as cosmetic by the Ankara government.
"The PKK has accomplished its mission... and has ceased all its activities," spokesman Riza Erdogan told a press conference.
Under the decision taken at a PKK congress, the group will from now on be called Congress for Freedom and Democracy in Kurdistan (KADEK). Its leader remains rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned in Turkey since 1999 with a death sentence for treason hanging over his head.
The Turkish government briskly rejected the announcement, saying it had done nothing to change its view of the group as a terrorist organisation.
"We don't believe a change of name brings about a change of nature or essence," Foreign Minister Ismail Cem said in Luxembourg.
"From my optic, there's no change at all."
"Whether the PKK changes its form or name, it continues to be a terrorist organization in our eyes," concurred Industry Minister Ahmet Kenan Tanrikulu.
The death sentence hanging over Ocalan along with Ankara's treatment of its Kurdish minority have been cited by the European Union as a reason for
shutting Turkey, a candidate to join the grouping, out of membership talks for now.
Ocalan was condemned to death in June 1999 for treason, but Ankara suspended the execution of the sentence until the European Court of Human Rights rules on his complaints against Turkey.
Heeding Ocalan's peace appeals, the PKK announced in September the same year it was ending its armed struggle for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey to seek a democratic resolution to the Kurdish conflict, which has claimed some 36,500 lives since 1984.
As a result, heavy fighting in the region significantly diminished, but Turkey, which has downplayed the PKK's peace bid, continues to hunt down the activists, whom it sees as "terrorists."
Many independent observers see the PKK decision as a move to break free from its violent image, circumvent the ban on its activities in several European countries and pursue its goals through democratic, peaceful means.
The PKK has been outlawed in Britain, France, Germany and Turkey and has been branded as "terrorist" by Ankara and Washington. But it does not figure on the European Union's standing list of terrorist groups.
The PKK launched its rebellion against the Ankara government in 1984, as a Marxist-Leninist movement seeking to create a single state of Kurdistan uniting some 20 million Kurds across Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.
Turkey has also condemned the PKK's efforts to transform itself into a political organisation and regularly cracks down on groups thought to be linked to it, including the legal People's Democracy Party (HADEP), which campaigns for Kurdish cultural freedoms.
In Ankara analysts said the rebel movement's move on Tuesday to become a political force posed a major dilemma for the Ankara government on the road to EU membership.
"This will be a test for Turkey's democracy... Turkey will be very much scared that the PKK will become a political force. Its mentality is constructed in a way to fight terrorism," Dogu Ergil, a political sciences professor at Ankara University, said.
Turkey recently passed reforms that authorise the use of the Kurdish language in publications as part of a drive to improve its crippled democracy and boost its bid to join the bloc.
But Ankara has so far been reluctant to legalise television broadcasts and education in Kurdish, fearing that such reforms could fan separatist sentiment
among the Kurds.

2. - BBC World - "Kurd rebels change their name":

The movement hopes to become a political force

Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has formally announced a change of name and strategy, saying it wants to campaign peacefully for greater Kurdish rights.
"The PKK has accomplished its mission and ceased all its activities ", said spokesman Riza Erdogan.
The group, which launched an armed campaign in 1984 for a Kurdish homeland, will now be known as the Congress for Freedom and Democracy in Kurdistan (KADEK).
The change of name, adopted by a recent party congress, comes two years after the PKK announced it was ending its armed struggle.
However, Tuesday's move was immediately denounced as cosmetic by the Ankara government.
Correspondents say the name change is widely seen as an attempt by the PKK to distance itself from its violent past in an effort to circumvent the ban on its activities and be accepted as a legal party inside Turkey.
The PKK has been outlawed in Britain, France, Germany and Turkey, and branded as "terrorist" by Ankara and Washington.

'Democracy and Freedom'

"The PKK has accomplished its mission and ceased all its activities," spokesman Riza Erdogan told a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday.
" I do not give much consideration to the question of how terrorist organisations might change "
Foreign Minister Ismail Cem
The new group's aim, he said, was: "Democracy for Turkey and freedom for the Kurds. Federalism for Iraq and freedom for the Kurds. Democracy for Iran and freedom for the Kurds."
A statement from KADEK leaders also denounced terrorism.
But the move was rejected by Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem.
"We don't believe a change of name brings about a change of nature or essence," he said.
Asked what it would have to do to acquire political legitimacy, he replied: "I do not give much consideration to the question of how terrorist organisations might change."
The new group will be led by the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
He was condemned to death for treason in June 1999, but the Turkish Government suspended execution pending a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
Following his arrest and appeals for peace, the PKK announced in September 1999 it was ending its armed struggle for self-rule in south-eastern Turkey.
Heavy fighting in the region has significantly diminished since then. However Turkey, which has downplayed the peace efforts, continues to hunt down activists.
The European Union has demanded that Ankara grant its 12 million strong Kurdish minority more rights if Turkey is to become a member state.


3.- Turkish Daily News - "PKK officially appears with a new face in Europe":

Ankara, Apr 17

The Kurdish terrorist group that carried out a 15-year terrorist campaign against Turkey announced a name change and shift in strategy on Tuesday, claiming it now wants to campaign peacefully for greater Kurdish rights.

"The armed struggle is over," claimed Riza Erdogan, European spokesman of the new Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress, or KADEK, which is the continuation of the terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). At a news conference, Erdogan claimed that KADEK would replace the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

However Erdogan said the PKK's armed wing would not disband unless Turkey granted amnesty to its fighters and abolished the death penalty. Renamed the People's Defense Units, the militants would only act in self-defense.

Turkey has already denounced the widely expected move to rename the PKK as an effort to gain favor with the European Union, which is debating whether to include the group on a list of terrorist organizations.

The United States said last week a name change by the PKK would not enable it to escape penalties called for as an officially designated foreign terrorist organization.

Under U.S. law, Americans cannot provide financial help to groups on the foreign terrorist organization list. Members of such groups also are barred from entering the United States.

Erdogan and the new organization would no longer seek to break away from Turkey, but instead struggle peacefully for greater rights for Kurds in Turkey as well as in Iran, Iraq and Syria.

"We have no intention of changing the borders of the countries where the Kurdish people live," he claimed.

KADEK called on Turkey and its neighbors to respect the rights of their Kurdish minorities. In a statement, he said Kurds would follow campaigns of civil disobedience and "peaceful political uprising" to secure their goals.

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, in a weekend television interview, said the PKK continued to pursue its separatist goals and still had armed terrorists based in Iran and Iraq.

"They tell foreign countries, 'We've finished with terrorism now,' but the aim of the terrorists was to divide Turkey, and that aim is still there," Ecevit told private NTV television. "Terrorism is waiting in the wings."

In Ankara on Tuesday, Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said that the name change "doesn't matter much. What matters is that they pay for what they have done in the past."

Cakmakoglu belongs to a far right party which has long opposed granting any concessions to the terrorist organization.

Erdogan said a congress of almost 300 PKK delegates approved the name change, and elected PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan as president of KADEK.

"With the decision taken at the PKK congress, all of the PKK's activities have ended," Osman Ocalan, a senior PKK member and brother of the jailed terrorist leader, said on satellite television channel Medya TV, which acts as a mouthpiece for the rebels.

"After this, activities will be carried out under the roof of the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Party," Ocalan said, in a rare interview speaking live by telephone from northern Iraq, where the PKK has been holding a congress.

"The European Union putting the PKK on the terrorism list is a grave mistake," Ocalan said, speaking in Turkish.

"Putting the PKK on this list would portray the Kurdish people as terrorists...and means the leaders of the Kurdish people are terrorists.

"The European Union should certainly not accept this pressure from Turkey," he claimed. "Putting the PKK on this list means war is wanted, not peace."

Europe-based Medya TV, which broadcasts in Kurdish and Turkish and is viewed by many people in the southeast of Turkey, broke into its programming to show the interview.

Abdullah Ocalan has been in a Turkish prison since he was captured in Kenya and is appealing against the death sentence handed down by a Turkish court.

Turkey does not consider its estimated 12 million Kurds an official minority, and outlaws the use of the Kurdish language in schools, official events and broadcasts other than music.

The government fears that giving in to Kurdish demands could break up the country along ethnic lines.

However, Turkey is under pressure to grant greater minority rights as a condition for its bid to join the EU.


4. - BBC Monitoring Service - "Turkey wants 'more resolved attitude' from EU on terrorism":

New York, April 16, 2002

Turkey said on Tuesday [16 April] that it expected a more resolved attitude from the European Union (EU) countries regarding fight against terrorism. Turkey's permanent representative to the UN, Umit Pamir, conveyed Turkey's views during the "Fight against international terrorism" meeting held in Security Council.

Pamir said terrorists should not be protected in any way in the territories of those countries and brought onto the agenda the drawbacks of making different treatments to terrorist groups.

Pamir said the EU common position document dated 27 December 2001 did not include some of the known terrorist organizations and described this as deficiency. Pamir said, "We hope those organizations will be added to the list."

Pamir said Turkey expected a resolved attitude from the EU in line with the philosophy included in the document which it issued.

Pamir in his speech stressed that terrorism could not be shown as rightful in any way, pointing out that Turkey this time did not participate in the speech made in Security Council on behalf of the EU countries.

Pointing out that terrorism constituted a great danger for the civilizations, threatened human rights and a type of suppression method, Pamir said, "There is nothing like a better terrorist than the others. It is not possible to see the case defended by the terrorists as rightful. The method they preferred makes the results they wanted to reach unjust."

Pamir said Turkey supported antiterrorism committee established with the decision of the Security Council and that it cooperated with other states and international organizations in its region in fight against terrorism. Pamir called on consultations regarding "Effective fight against international terrorism convention" and "Suppression of nuclear terrorism convention" to be completed soon.

5. - Turkish Daily News - "EU expects more steps to be taken on freedom of expression":

The 41st Association Council between Turkey and the European Union (EU) was held in Luxembourg, with an emphasis from the EU side on the need to develop the freedom of expression in Turkey.

EU Commissioner responsible for enlargement Gunter Verheugen stated that accession talks can be started if Turkey fulfills the Copenhagen criteria.

Verheugen reiterated the EU's concerns over Turkey's human rights record, saying Ankara had to go further in buttressing the rights of ethnic minorities.

The EU also wants Ankara to abolish the death penalty and curb the political influence of the army.

"We feel deeper, more far-reaching reforms are needed in, for example, the area of freedom of expression and of association," Verheugen said.

Foreign Minister Cem stated that Turkey should not lose the chance for something which it had not been applying for years, hinting at the need for the abolishment of the death penalty.

Briefing the Turkish Daily News, EU sources commented that the abolition of the death penalty, which only referred to Abdullah Ocalan in many fields, was not a prior topic stressed by the union.

"Freedom of expression is more important for the EU side, such as the new law of the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK),."

The Association Council coincided with a press conference held by the representatives of outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to announce a change in the name and the strategy of the organization.

The press conference held by the participants of the Association Council, passed the questions from the foreign reporters posed to Foreign Minister Cem on the new strategy of the PKK.

The council was attended by EU Commissioner Responsible for enlargement Gunter Verheugen, Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, Danish Foreign Minister Stig Der Moller and the Greek Foreign Minister Yorgo Papandreu.

Cem shrugged off the decision by the PKK to cease its activities and regroup under a new name, saying it remained for Ankara a "terrorist" organization.

"We don't believe a change of name brings with it any change in its essence," Ismail Cem told a news conference after talks with senior European Union officials.

"We do not think this means any change at all," he said.

Pressed on what the PKK, now renamed the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Party, would have to do to earn political legitimacy, Cem said: "I do not give much consideration to the question of how terrorist organizations might change."

Terrorism list

Turkey has accused some European countries of providing PKK members with a safe haven, and has pressed the EU to include the terrorist groups on their terrorist list. Germany and the Netherlands have so far resisted this call.

Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, who chaired Tuesday's talks with Turkey, said the EU recognized the PKK issue was an extremely sensitive one for Turkey, which is a candidate for membership of the 15-nation bloc.

"We are ready to review the list (of terrorist groups)... by early May," Pique said. He did not say whether the PKK would be added.

In an interview with CNN TURK and TDN's Mehmet Ali Birand soon after the Association Council, Cem said that it was not right to talk much about the issue of the terrorist list, as a mechanism has been working for the issue, in a clear criticism against an earlier statement by deputy prime minister Mesut Yilmaz that the Turkish terrorist groups would be included in the list.

Cyprus was also broadly debated during the informal part of the meeting, Cem said during Birand interview.

Cem said Turkey was doing its best to meet the EU's political criteria for opening negotiations, and repeated his call for the Union to name a date for the opening of the accession negotiations.

The Association Council was not expected to be a stage for a sharp reaction from the EU over Turkey fulfilling its short-term political criteria.

The main evaluation will be made during the Copenhagen EU Council to be held at the end of the Danish presidency in December.


6. - Milliyet - "Step by step towards the EU":

April 16 / by Sami Kohen

On the long, hard road leading to Turkey’s integration with the EU, another important step will be taken today.
Foreign Minister Cem will attend the Partnership Council meeting at the foreign ministers’ level in Brussels and a 23-page report on Turkey will be discussed and most probably approved.
The report expresses waxes positive over the recent political and economic reforms made in Turkey.
However, it also notes that even though steps have been taken to conform with the Copenhagen criteria, the expected progress on controversial issues such as freedom of expression, Emergency Rule (OHAL) in southeastern Anatolia and the use of Kurdish have not been seen.
In the section regarding Cyprus, it is stated that the start of negotiations is a positive development; however it is also put forth that these talks should yield some results by the month of June.
In general it is a balanced and objective report. It doesn’t block Turkey’s path, on the contrary it lends hope that accession negotiations can start at the end of this year or the beginning of 2003, if the well-known conditions are fulfilled.
During today’s meeting, Foreign Minister Cem will insist on setting the date for accession negotiations by year’s end.
The stance of the Partnership Council is important but not decisive. In fact there are other milestones to cross on our way. The decisive development will be the ‘Progress Report’ to be released in October or November.
In other words, it is the report which will guide the decision to start negotiations with Turkey.
Turkish officials hope that this decision will be finalized at the summit to be held in Copenhagen during Denmark’s term presidency. If not, the issue will rest in the hands of the Greek term presidency in 2003.
This would weaken Turkey’s chance to begin accession negotiations with the EU as part of the enlargement process. That is why both Foreign Minister Cem and Deputy Prime Minister Yilmaz are frequently saying that we must not miss the train this year. Notwithstanding all the hesitations and discussions, it is a fact that both the government and the Parliament have taken important strides for political reforms.
However, will these be enough for the EU to give a green light to Turkey at the end of the year? Or will it insist that all the EU conditions be met unconditionally?
In principle it may be so. However, it should not be forgotten that the issues will be finalized at the end of lengthy discussions and compromises in the EU.
If the next seven or eight months are used well, a decision in favour of Turkey’s EU membership could well come true.