3 December 2002

1. "U.S. Presses Turkey's Case on Europe and Cyprus Issues", the United States, in an unusually direct move into the politics of European integration, is campaigning vigorously to advance Turkey's prospects for entering the European Union and is encouraging a settlement of the long-standing Cyprus dispute.

2. "Turkey, Cyprus and the European Union", three complex and closely related issues are moving rapidly toward dramatic showdowns at the Dec. 12-13 European Union summit in Copenhagen. By Richard C. Holbrooke, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was President Bill Clinton's special envoy for Cyprus from 1997 to 1999.

3. "Turkey Courts EU Membership; Human Rights Record Remains an Issue", the European Union is approaching a moment of truth on the sensitive issue of whether it should give Turkey a date to begin negotiations aimed at eventual Turkish membership in the bloc. The predominantly Muslim country's efforts to join the EU have set off a debate within Europe on whether Turkey is really a European nation and qualified to become a member of what, until now, has been a Christian club.

4. "Key Aide Seeks Military Pledge From Turkey", Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz today launched a mission to press Turkey to allow the United States to use its military bases and to provide military assistance for a possible war with Iraq. By winning a formal pledge of cooperation, Wolfowitz would complete the lineup of regional allies ready to help in an attack against the government of President Saddam Hussein.

5. "Turkey: Trouble behind the veil", the scarf has become a renewed political issue in Turkey after the wife of new parliament speaker Bulent Arinc wore one at an official ceremony for President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. By Nadire Mater.

6. "HADEP denounces steps to cut back reforms", 'Political stance of government and opposition parties create suspicions on whether radical reforms Turkey needs will be implemented,' says the party in a statement

7. "Death toll in Turkish prison hunger strike rises to 61", the death toll in a two-year hunger strike against controversial high-security jails rose to 61 on Sunday when two prisoners starved themselves to death, human rights activists said.

8. "Iraqi Kurds downplay Turkish invasion threat", Turkey has signalled that it would not take advantage of a US-led war against Iraq to move troops into Kurdish- controlled areas in the country's north , provided that the Kurds there don't declare independence or try to seize the oil production center of Kirkuk.

1. - The New York Times - "U.S. Presses Turkey's Case on Europe and Cyprus Issues":

LONDON / 2 December 2002 / by Michel R. Gordon

The United States, in an unusually direct move into the politics of European integration, is campaigning vigorously to advance Turkey's prospects for entering the European Union and is encouraging a settlement of the long-standing Cyprus dispute.

Bush administration officials say the effort — which aims to settle the issue before a European summit meeting starting Dec. 12 — is motivated by longstanding foreign policy considerations.

But American officials acknowledge that the diplomacy is also an important element of Washington's effort to secure Turkey's backing for a potential military campaign against Iraq.

In London today, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz urged European Union nations to set a date for initiating negotiations on Turkey's eventual membership. His speech, which dwelled heavily on Turkey, came a day before he was scheduled to leave for Ankara to try to discuss planning for a possible military campaign in Iraq.

"The decision on E.U. members is, of course, Europe's to make," Mr. Wolfowitz said at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "But history suggests that a European Union that welcomes Turkey will be even stronger, safer and more richly diverse than it is today. The alternative, exclusionary choice is surely unthinkable."

His comments stood in marked contrast to recent remarks by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president, who is heading an effort to draft a constitution for a newly integrated Europe. Mr. Giscard d'Estaing, reflecting a sentiment not uncommon in Western Europe, told the newspaper Le Monde last month that Turkey was not a European country and that inviting it into the European Union would mean "the end of Europe."

Some American officials said they realized that trying to overcome European resistance to Turkey's integration into Europe in the next 10 days is something of a long shot.

Even so, Mr. Wolfowitz said a move to indicate that Turkey would eventually be welcome in the European Union would encourage continued political and economic change in Turkey. He added that it could also send a signal to Islamic nations that there is not a fundamental clash between the West and nations with a Muslim majority.

"Turkey offers a valuable model for Muslim-majority countries striving to realize the goals of freedom, secularism and democracy," Mr. Wolfowitz said. "Those who would criticize Turkey for its problems confuse what is challenging with what is fundamental. They focus too much on the problems Turkey is struggling today and ignore where it is heading."

Turkey's desire to enter the European Union and hostility between the Turkish and Greek populations on the island of Cyprus have long been seen as second-order foreign policy issues in Washington.

But a number of new factors have combined to push the issues toward the top of the American policy agenda. They include the recent change of government in Turkey and a new plan by the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, to resolve the Cyprus issue, a plan the United States shaped behind the scenes and encouraged the United Nations chief to present. The plan calls for a loose confederation among the Greek and Turkish populations on the divided island and a reduction of the territory under Turkish control.

Another key factor in bringing Turkish issues to the fore in Washington is the Pentagon's desire to solidify relations with Ankara.

Mr. Wolfowitz said today that the goal should be to achieve a breakthrough on Cyprus and fix a date for talks on Turkish membership in the European Union by the time the leaders of the 15 member nations gather in Copenhagen for a summit meeting focused on expanding the union.

The American position is being supported by the British, who are anxious to put together a deal on Cyprus, where they maintain a military presence. The British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, is flying to Turkey on Tuesday to seek Ankara's help in achieving a settlement.

Mr. Wolfowitz is headed to Ankara to consult with the new government that came to power after the Justice and Development Party, a Muslim-based party led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, won the parliamentary elections last month. But Mr. Wolfowitz has a somewhat different agenda from Mr. Straw's.

In the event of a conflict with Iraq, the Pentagon would like to open a northern front so Iraq's forces would have to deal with multiple attacks.

Bush administration officials say they are aware that the new Turkish government is still settling in. It held its first national security council meeting on Friday.

But the Pentagon needs to complete its military planning so that it will be prepared to act if Iraq is deemed to be failing to cooperate with United Nations demands for a full accounting of its weapons of mass destruction.

An American official said one message that would be delivered in Ankara was "that you need to be realistic about us."

"We are developing military plans that have a certain momentum," the official continued. "It is not possible to keep all of our options open."

If the European Union set a date for talks over Turkey's membership, the negotiations might not begin for a year or so. It could take the better part of a decade before the European Union, which is to expand to include several formerly Communist nations, Malta and possibly Cyprus beginning in 2004, decided that Turkey qualified for membership.

Charles Grant, the director of the Center for European Reform, said Mr. Wolfowitz had presented a number of good arguments on why Turkey should eventually quality to join the European Union. But Mr. Grant also said he doubted that European nations would agree to set a date to start talks with Turkey on membership, as Mr. Wolfowitz suggested. The Europeans, Mr. Grant said, may be willing only to set a date to review Turkey's case.

American officials have highlighted Turkey's progress, including a decision by the new government to lift the state of emergency in two Kurdish provinces. But while American officials say European unease over admitting a large Muslim state is a major obstacle to Turkey's bid to integrate, some Europeans say Washington's desire to enhance its strategic relationship with Ankara has made it too eager to overlook human rights issues and other problems in Turkey.

"Generally when Americans push the E.U. to let in Turkey, Europeans tend to get a bit prickly," Mr. Grant said. "Partly that is because it is our internal business. Wolfowitz was right to make his points, but there is still a lot of work to do in Turkey that he did not dwell on."

Even if European nations fail to set a date for membership talks with Turkey, American officials say they hope Ankara gives them credit for trying to push the issue.

2. - The Washington Post - "Turkey, Cyprus and the European Union":

Drama in Copenhagen

WASHINGTON / 3. Dezember 2002 / by Richard C. Holbrooke*

Three complex and closely related issues are moving rapidly toward dramatic showdowns at the Dec. 12-13 European Union summit in Copenhagen. The American stake in them is immense; their outcome could affect the forthcoming conflict with Iraq and long-term relations between Turkey's 70 million Muslims and the rest of the Western world. After years of discussion and negotiation, it is unclear whether the EU will grasp the need to act.

At stake are three things: Cyprus's application for EU membership, Turkey's desire to start talks on its own EU membership, and the long-stalled talks on the future of the divided island of Cyprus itself.

The first issue seems all but formally settled. At Copenhagen, Cyprus will be invited to join the EU, along with nine other countries, effective in 2004. This is the correct outcome to a battle in which the Greek Cypriot government was supported initially only by the United States and Greece.

But when the Clinton administration embarked on its efforts to bring Cyprus into the EU in early 1995, it was only one part of a three-pronged American strategy. Regrettably, the other two are still stalled or uncertain: (1) giving Turkey a specific starting date to begin its own EU membership process and (2) getting Turkey to pressure the Turkish Cypriots toward a settlement of the long-running Cyprus problem, which has created continual tension between two critical NATO allies, Greece and Turkey.

Everyone, including the Turks, acknowledges that EU membership for Turkey is many years away, given its weak economy and the need for progress on human rights. But for years the EU has refused to start formal talks on membership, thus sacrificing the leverage it holds over Turkey in the very areas it complains about.

The EU cites not only human rights concerns but also the fear of being swamped by cheap Turkish labor. (In case you haven't guessed the real underlying reason for European opposition yet, see below.)

Meanwhile, the United Nations has put forward a detailed proposal for Cyprus: a single international state with two self-governing zones. While the details are not acceptable to either side, it does form a useful starting point for negotiations, as the Greeks have indicated privately.

But to the powerful Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, everything is personal. An old and embittered man who has fought for more than a half-century for his vision of Cyprus, Denktash has refused for years to engage in serious talks unless he first obtains international recognition for his part of the island as "The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" - something that he knows is not achievable. By his rigidity, Denktash has done great damage not only to the 200,000 Turks in Cyprus but also to the 70 million people of Turkey. The most consequential part of this historic European moment is Turkey's application to join the European Union. The newly elected government in Turkey is controlled by an Islamic party, and this has set off alarm bells among moderate Turks and in Europe. But since the election, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamic leader who stunned Europe with his victory, has skillfully lowered fears about his party's intentions, especially with a tour of European capitals to plead his country's EU case. He has even suggested a more forthcoming policy toward Cyprus.

Enter, seemingly out of nowhere, the former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. On Nov. 8 he used his new platform as chairman of an EU convention drafting a European constitution to declare, in a blistering interview in Le Monde, that Turkey was "not a European nation" and its entry into the EU would be "the end of the European Union." It was well understood that what he meant was that the EU was a Christian club whose values and culture would be threatened by the admission of Muslim Turkey. Merci, Monsieur Giscard. By saying in public what many Europeans have long said in private, he inadvertently did the Turks an enormous favor. Since his comments, almost every other public figure in Europe has been scrambling to disagree with him and to deny that anyone in Europe could possibly harbor racist feelings toward Turks or other Muslims.

Yet the furious Turkish reaction to Giscard's comment only served to underscore Europe's dilemma: Keep Turkey out and risk the eventual creation of a radical or fundamentalist regime at the very gates of the European Union.

It was for this reason that President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s embarked on a major effort to persuade the EU to open the door to Turkey. Clinton argued eloquently that starting the EU process would give Turkey an incentive to continue to develop in the direction of the Western-oriented secular state that its founding genius, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, envisioned, and to turn its back on the more radical and fundamentalist regimes to its east and south. But Europe resisted, rejecting several opportunities to open the door.

After a slow start, President George W. Bush and his colleagues have followed the same policy, using the recent NATO summit in Prague to urge the Europeans to give Turkey a starting date for talks. To succeed, they must also press Ankara to push Denktash into starting discussions on the UN proposal immediately, before the EU summit in Copenhagen.

If all goes perfectly, Cyprus will be invited into the EU at Copenhagen, Turkey will be given a starting date for its negotiations, and the two parts of Cyprus will start serious talks on the basis of the UN plan. That would be a real trifecta. It is unlikely to happen unless Europe's leading nations make a bold leap past the kind of not so secret fears so openly uttered by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

* The writer, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was President Bill Clinton's special envoy for Cyprus from 1997 to 1999. He contributed this comment to The Washington Post.

3. - Voice of America - "Turkey Courts EU Membership; Human Rights Record Remains an Issue":

BRUSSELS / 2 December 2002 / by Roger Wilkison

The European Union is approaching a moment of truth on the sensitive issue of whether it should give Turkey a date to begin negotiations aimed at eventual Turkish membership in the bloc. The predominantly Muslim country's efforts to join the EU have set off a debate within Europe on whether Turkey is really a European nation and qualified to become a member of what, until now, has been a Christian club.

Turkey's new government is racing against time to push through radical human rights reforms by December 12, in the hope of winning a date to begin EU membership talks.

That is the day an EU summit in Copenhagen is expected to announce that accession negotiations with 10 Eastern European and Mediterranean countries have been wrapped up, thus paving the way for them to join the bloc by 2004.

But what to do about Turkey remains a dilemma for EU members.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the head of Turkey's new ruling party, toured EU capitals last month, in an effort to press his country's case for membership. But, despite laws enacted earlier this year that abolish the death penalty in peacetime and give cultural rights to the Kurdish minority, EU leaders told him that Turkey still has to do more to satisfy the bloc's human rights criteria.

The government of Prime Minister Abdullah Gul has gone into high gear in an effort to meet that challenge, drawing up legislation in the last week that would make it easier to prosecute police for torture, which the EU regards as one of the main obstacles to Turkish membership. The legislative package would also make it harder to ban political parties, and allow some political prisoners to have their cases retried.

The government has also lifted a 15-year-old state of emergency in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey.

Although it still insists it wants to see implementation of the legislation before it gives Turkey the green light to begin negotiations, diplomats in Brussels say the EU is inching toward granting Turkey a conditional date for opening negotiations.

Polls in Turkey show that 70 percent of the country's citizens favor EU membership. Sami Kohen, a political columnist for the Turkish daily Milliyet, said Turks know that it may take them at least 10 years to join the club, but that all they want now is a date to begin accession talks.

"Perhaps the date will not be announced, but a kind of rendezvous may be announced where, for instance, the date could more explicitly be given sometime next year," he said.

Mr. Kohen said the EU's Big Five - Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain - all appear to support giving Turkey some kind of positive signal. "They seem to be very favorable now to the idea that there should be some kind of a decision that would satisfy Turkey, or that would not alienate Turkey," he said.

That view is shared by analyst Heather Grabbe at London's Center for European Reform. Ms. Grabbe said the EU recognizes that it must do something to reward the progress Turkey has made over the past few months in improving its human rights situation. "The question is whether to go for what they call a rendezvous clause, or to go for an actual date starting negotiations. Now, the rendezvous clause would basically be an agreement to meet again in 2003, possibly early 2004, and discuss Turkey's progress, and to set a date then. So, that would be sort of a date for a date. But there are other people in the EU who say we should move faster, and we should actually set a date for Turkey to start negotiations, a tentative date, one that's conditional on Turkey meeting the political conditions, but one which at least gives Turkey something to aim for," she said.

In spite of what Ms. Grabbe sees as a desire to accommodate Turkey's aspirations for EU membership, there are those within the Union who think it should not join at all.

Former French President Valery Giscard D'Estaing, who heads a convention that is drafting an EU constitution, declared last month that Turkey is neither geographically nor culturally European, and that its accession would mean the end of the European Union.

Analyst Heather Grabbe said Mr. Giscard struck at the heart of a perception among much of the European public that Turkey is an outsider. "Giscard is reflecting the views of many that, although Turkey might meet all of the formal conditions for joining, it's just too different from the rest of the EU to join. And that's because of its geographical location. It's because its population is predominantly Muslim. It's also because Turkey has a large agricultural sector. And it's a big country. It's got a population of 69 million people, and it's a young population, that's growing fast, so it might overtake Germany in size before it actually comes into the Union. So, all of those questions are uppermost in people's minds, even though the EU's formal position is that Turkey simply has to be a democracy and a market economy in order to join," she said.

Mr. Giscard's remarks spurred a lively debate about the identity and final frontiers of Europe, and prompted Romano Prodi, the head of the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, to argue that countries like Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Egypt and Morocco should never join the bloc, but be offered instead a special relationship with the Union.

But in Turkey's case, EU officials acknowledge that a decision to allow it to join the bloc has already been made in principle. The only question is when accession talks will start, and that, they say, depends on how fast the Turkish government meets EU requirements.

4. - The Washington Post - "Key Aide Seeks Military Pledge From Turkey":

LONDON / 3 December 2002 / by Vernon Loeb

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz today launched a mission to press Turkey to allow the United States to use its military bases and to provide military assistance for a possible war with Iraq. By winning a formal pledge of cooperation, Wolfowitz would complete the lineup of regional allies ready to help in an attack against the government of President Saddam Hussein.

Still putting the finishing touches on its war plans, the Pentagon badly wants authorization to launch combat aircraft and ground forces from bases in Turkey, which lies just north of Iraq. This would complement agreements already in place with Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain to the south, rounding out the array of military launching pads and forcing Iraq to defend against a two-front invasion.

Wolfowitz, who travels Tuesday to Ankara, the Turkish capital, is also expected to seek a promise from the Turkish military that it would use its own forces to assist the United States in the event President Bush decides on military action, with Turkish troops possibly helping to police refugees from northern Iraq or guard prisoners of war, U.S. officials said.

"The more support we can get from Turkey, the less likely that there will be a war and the greater the chances are of resolving this thing peacefully," said a senior Bush administration official. "If it does come to the use of force, the more support we get from Turkey, the shorter the war can be."

The new Turkish government, with a ruling party rooted in political Islam, is expected to drive a hard bargain. The country still suffers economically from sanctions placed on Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. It wants a substantial aid package, U.S. help in gaining membership in the European Union and an ironclad pledge from the United States that it will not support a Kurdish state in northern Iraq.

The U.S. officials said they believe that, with a good U.S. offer, Turkey ultimately will grant basing rights and contribute troops and other assistance to the war effort. This help is more critical than ever, according to military analysts, because Saudi Arabia is hesitant to allow the United States to launch combat troops or aircraft from Saudi bases, as it did in 1991.

"Given Turkey's record and given the importance of this relationship to both our countries, I have a certain underlying confidence that at the end of the day, we'll come to agreement," the senior administration official predicted. But he said "we're not there yet" when asked what the Bush administration was planning to offer in return.

While the administration must be patient with Turkey's new government, elected only last month, the official said, the Turks must be realistic as well. "We are developing military plans which have a certain momentum of their own," he said. "We don't have a lot of time."

Seeking to cultivate favor in Ankara, Wolfowitz called on the 15 members of the European Union to give Turkey a firm date for beginning talks on accession when they meet next week in Copenhagen. In a speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies here, Wolfowitz called exclusion of Turkey "surely unthinkable."

Analysts in Turkey said the new government there may embrace the opportunity to demonstrate cooperation with the Turkish military and the United States, seeking to dispel fears about its Islamic roots. Many leaders of the ruling Justice and Development Party were members of an Islamic government that collapsed under military pressure in 1997 after flirting with the notion of moving the NATO member into alliances with the Muslim world.

Turkey has made no secret of its concerns about a U.S.-led campaign against Iraq. The paramount fear in Ankara is that a war will result in the dismemberment of Iraq, with Kurds in the country's north looking to turn the informal autonomy they have enjoyed since 1991 into an independent state. Turkey fears that would tempt Turkish Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of a population of 67 million, to resume a separatist guerrilla war that has subsided only in the past three years.

Pentagon officials have said they believe they would be able to launch a successful invasion of Iraq without using Turkish bases. There are already 60,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in the Persian Gulf, with heavy armor and other equipment flowing in. Officials are working off two sets of war plans, only one of which includes Turkey.

In Kuwait, the Pentagon has 12,000 troops, 24 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, heavy equipment for two armored brigades and the headquarters units from the Army's V Corps and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. Fighter aircraft operate from two Kuwaiti air bases, Al-Jaber and Ali Salem.

Dozens of combat aircraft and aerial tankers fly out of the Al Udeid air base in Qatar, the likely U.S. Central Command headquarters in a war. A new aerial command-and-control center is also nearing completion at Al Udeid, in case U.S. forces cannot use their control center in Saudi Arabia. And about 1,000 personnel from Central Command are now arriving in Qatar for an annual exercise called Internal Look, which will serve as a dry run for invasion scenarios.

The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet has its headquarters in Bahrain, and there are 3,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Oman, where airfields and ports serve as important transshipment points for materiel flowing into the Gulf region.

But even with this solid perimeter south of Iraq, Pentagon officials want the use of Turkish bases, given a war plan that calls for Special Operations forces and airborne troops to move swiftly into northern, southern and western Iraq.

"You've got essentially a two-front war if you stage up in Turkey, so the Iraqis have got to look north and south," said Rick Raftery, a retired military intelligence officer with experience in northern Iraq. "Otherwise, they know all the firepower would be coming from the south."

When U.S. forces went to the aid of Iraqi Kurds in May 1991 in the aftermath of the Gulf War, Raftery said, they staged from bases inside Turkey.

A basing agreement with Turkey would also be critical for providing air support to those forces. Dozens of fighters are based at Incirlik, a major air base that serves as headquarters for flights patrolling the "no-fly" zone over northern Iraq. If fighter jets were limited to bases south of Iraq, they would require substantial aerial refueling to bomb targets in northern Iraq, according to retired Air Force Col. John Warden, who helped plan the air war against Iraq in 1991.

Anthony H. Cordesman, a former defense official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, noted that 11 of 23 bases used during the Gulf War for launching combat troops and aircraft were in Saudi Arabia. This time around, Pentagon officials are not counting on those bases for combat forces. The Saudis have indicated a willingness to allow their bases to be used only for non-combat activities, command and control, search and rescue, refueling and reconnaissance flights.

"If you want intense combat operations and rapid sortie rates and you want minimal logistical problems, Turkey becomes of great value," Cordesman said. "If the only other area you're going to be operating out of is Kuwait, it does limit your ability to use surprise."

Correspondent Karl Vick in Istanbul contributed to this report.

5. - Asia Times - "Turkey: Trouble behind the veil":

ISTANBUL / 3 December 2002 / by Nadire Mater

The scarf has become a renewed political issue in Turkey after the wife of new parliament speaker Bulent Arinc wore one at an official ceremony for President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.

Munevver Arinc's choice of a scarf became more than a matter of personal preference. Scarves symbolize strict adherence to Islamic ways, and the choice called to question the Islamic roots of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which since its election on November 3 has been trying to distance itself from its Islamist origins.

Islamization is a serious political issue in secular Turkey. In 1997, the army issued a memorandum against Islamization, which led to the dismissal of Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan. Strict laws were introduced after 1997 prohibiting women from wearing scarves in public offices, parliament, universities and schools.

Arinc said that the kindness of the president and the first lady toward his wife at the ceremony heralded a new era of tolerance among secularists, but within two days the president cautioned people against any diversion from the secularist establishment. "The scarf issue is closed once and for all, there is no place for scarves in the public sphere," said Sezer, formerly the chief justice of the constitutional court.

Deniz Baykal, leader of the opposition Republican People's Party raised the matter in parliament. "The government should refrain from quarrelling with the state," Baykal warned. "You should keep the president's warnings in mind."

AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been touring European capitals to push Turkey's bid for European Union membership, knows what it can mean to cross swords with the secularist establishment spearheaded by the army. When mayor of Istanbul in 1999, Erdogan was given a 10-month sentence for "inciting religious hatred". He was barred from elections and forced to remain out of parliament for the subsequent criminal record he owned.

"The scarf issue is not on my agenda," Erdogan says. But the debate on the scarf has resurfaced to divide the Turkish public. Meric Velidedeoglu, spokeswoman for a group opposed to Islamization, says that the "scarf is a symbol of reaction against secularist reforms," but that it has "now been granted a stately status under the AKP government".

Emine Senlikoglu, a veiled Islamist woman writer, says that such charges are raised by "domestic and external enemies of the AKP government". Senlikoglu says that "an artificial agenda is being forged" as a part of a global conspiracy against the new government.

"Schools should not be considered the public sphere," Senlikoglu says. Women have a right to wear the veil, she says. "Many widows are doomed to live in misery because they are denied jobs for being veiled," she added.

Nilufer Narli, from the sociology department at Istanbul's Marmara University, says that the dispute around the scarf arises from a conflict between the "center" and the "periphery".

"Turkey's socio-political center comprises the military, the bureaucracy, the intellectuals and the industrialists and businessmen," Narli says. "However, the center has been fragmented over the last three decades under pressure from the periphery, as the latter gained social mobility and moved towards the center."

The periphery valued religious beliefs and demanded an expression for them in the public sphere, she says. These people have backed the AKP for that reason, and the scarf is therefore being seen more frequently in public now, she says.

"The scarf is the AKP's underbelly," says political analyst Rusen Cakir from Istanbul. "I fear the debate will become even [more] tense in the near future," he said. "The Islamist girls' problems might have been resolved if they could be handled as a part of improving the human rights situation," he says. "But it has gained a political character."

The scarf is at the center of the dispute because "it symbolizes the schism between secularism and the shariatism," says Cakir, referring to Islamic law. The AKP could not keep the scarf off its agenda for long, he says. "The daughter of the prime minister goes to university wearing a wig, the daughters of the AKP leader Erdogan have gone to the United States to study as they have been denied the opportunity here," he says. "This is a weird situation."

6. - Turkish Daily News - "HADEP denounces steps to cut back reforms":

'Political stance of government and opposition parties create suspicions on whether radical reforms Turkey needs will be implemented,' says the party in a statement

ANKARA / 3 December 2002

Pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HADEP) denounced plans to cancel proposed reforms to allow retrial in domestic courts when required by the European Court and issue an amnesty for students dismissed from universities for violating school disciplinary codes.

HADEP's criticisms were specifically directed at the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which the party said did not fulfill its responsibilities as a social democratic party in Parliament.

The government's three ministers have been preparing a package of proposed reforms in an attempt to bring Turkish laws into line with European Union standards ahead of a critical summit of the EU in December, which Turkey wants to set a date for the beginning of its accession talks.

Media reports said Monday that the government had decided to take out some proposed reforms from the package, including those to issue a student amnesty, allow retrial on the basis of the European Court decisions and lift a time limitation to bring legal action against the crime of torture.

The decision to cancel these reforms was made in the course of talks with the opposition CHP.

In a statement faxed to newspapers, HADEP said AK Party and CHP had a special responsibility to represent almost half of the society that voted for parties not represented in Parliament, forcing them to act in a more sensitive and careful manner.

"Serious troubles will be inevitable for Turkey if they ignore demands of those segments that are left out of Parliament," said the HADEP statement.

It criticized CHP statements against plans to allow retrial because this would pave the way for retrial of Leyla Zana, a former deputy of a now-defunct pro-Kurdish party who is in jail for "assisting a terrorist organization."

"Does the CHP not believe that efforts to correct the situation of Leyla Zana and her friends will be steps taken in the direction of democratization?" asked the statement.

It said CHP leader Deniz Baykal's moves to take the said reforms out of the reform package were tantamount to his putting a barrier for the development of both his party and Turkey.

AK Party's failure to stand by its reform package is also unacceptable, said the HADEP statement.

"Political stance of the government and opposition parties create suspicions on whether radical reforms Turkey needs will be implemented," it went on.

The reform package is expected to be taken up by Parliament this week.

7. - AFP - "Death toll in Turkish prison hunger strike rises to 61":

ISTANBUL / 1 December 2002

The death toll in a two-year hunger strike against controversial high-security jails rose to 61 on Sunday when two prisoners starved themselves to death, human rights activists said.

Zeliha Erturk, 25, died overnight Saturday at the Sisli Etfal hospital in Istanbul, said a spokesman for Turkey's Human Rights Association. Erturk had been arrested in 2000 during a police crackdown against the extreme leftwing group Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C), the spokesman said.

Erturk had been in hospital for several months, the spokesman said. In Izmir in western Turkey, another prisoner died in a hospital on Sunday as a result of a hunger strike, the Anatolie news agency reported. Feridun Yucel Batu, 33, had been imprisoned for his involvement in the DHKP-C, Anatolie said. The DHKP-C is believed to be main instigator of the hunger strike, which was launched in October 2000 by mainly left-wing inmates to protest the introduction of new jails in which one to three-person cells replaced large dormitories for dozens of inmates.

The strikers say the new cells leave them socially isolated and more vulnerable to maltreatment. The protestors have been fasting on a rotating basis, taking only liquids with sugar and salt as well as vitamin supplements to prolong their lives. Despite the rising death toll, the government has categorically ruled out a return to dormitories in prisons, arguing that the set-up led to frequent riots and hostage-taking incidents in the country's unruly jails.

8. - International Herald Tribune - "Iraqi Kurds downplay Turkish invasion threat":

PARIS / 1 December 2002 / by Keith B. Richburg

Turkey has signalled that it would not take advantage of a US-led war against Iraq to move troops into Kurdish- controlled areas in the country's north , provided that the Kurds there don't declare independence or try to seize the oil production center of Kirkuk.

The often-quarrelsome leaders of Iraq's two main Kurdish factions, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), speaking together in a rare show of unity here, predicted that a war would not produce another exodus of Kurds into Turkey, such as the one following the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Such mass emigration could trigger Turkish intervention in Iraq.

"We think there will be no reason for Turkey to send troops inside Iraq because there will be no Kurdish independent state," said PUK leader Jalal Talabani. Turkey worries that its own Kurdish minority might want to join such a state.

Answering a question from a Turkish reporter at a press conference about the possibility of Turkish intervention, Talabani said, "I have been told by your government that they don't want to interfere in Iraqi Kurdistan."

Peter Galbraith, a former American diplomat with long experience in the region, said Turkey had laid down "two red lines" that could prompt intervention - the declaration of an independent state, or Kurdish troops moving to Kirkuk. But he said to the gathering: "I am told by senior leaders in the Pentagon that Turkey will not intervene."

The Kurdish leaders expressed frustration about being left out of US planning for a possible military strike. They also complained about being left out of planning for the post-war construction of Iraq. They were hostile to a plan reported in US newspapers to set up a temporary American military government in Iraq if President Saddam Hussein is overthrown.

"The Iraqis should rule themselves," said Massoud Barzani of the KDP. "We don't want to see any military rulers ruling Iraq, whether it is an Iraqi military dictator or a foreign military ruler."

"We need everything to be clear and transparent, especially in the post-Saddam era," said Talabani.

Saddam's government should be replaced by a democratic and federal system, of which Kurdistan would be a part, Kurdish leaders said.

Repeating a theme voiced by several speakers at the day-long conference, Talabani said, "Turkish intervention will lead to Iranian intervention, to Arab intervention, to chaos." He said the new Turkish government led by the Justice and Development Party would likely be "more positive and better understand the situation of Iraqi Kurdistan."

Barzani of the KDP added, "Even if (Turkish) military intervention was for extending humanitarian assistance, it would be groundless also. We have a viable administration" in northern Iraq and dozens of private aid agencies working there. In the event of a humanitarian crisis caused by war, Barzani said, "We can deal with it and handle it. We don't see any possibility of a mass exodus as in 1991. Things are different from 1991, when there was no infrastructure whatsoever."

But while saying Turkish intervention was unlikely and unnecessary, Talabani added that "there is not, in politics, a guarantee."

Turkey has emerged as a pivotal front-line player as the Bush administration prepares for a possible military campaign against Saddam. Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz travels to the Turkish capital Ankara this week to try to enlist the country's support in the event of war.

At the same time, an any participation by Turkish troops in Iraq would be problematic. One often-repeated scenario is that in the event of a US-led war, Iraqi Kurdish troops could move south out of their zone of control to seize the city of Kirkuk, located in a major oil-producing area. The area and its income would be added to the Kurdish autonomous zone, allowing 300,000 displaced Kurds to return home there. But because many Turks feel Kirkuk belongs to their country, the Turkish government might send troops there first as a pre-emptive move.

Barzani said, "it's a geographic and historical reality that (Kirkuk) is a part of Kurdistan." But he said the city "could be open to all Iraqi people."