27 February 2002

1. "Turkish politicians at loggerheads over PKK wanting to be legal", Politicians within Turkey's ruling coalition came to loggerheads Tuesday over whether Ankara should allow Kurdish rebels to reorganize themselves in a legal political party.The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a 15-year war for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey, recently launched efforts to transform itself into a legal organization as part of a 1999 peace initiative.

2. "ANAP keeps an eye on Kurdish votes", MHP reacts harshly MHP's prominent names openly react against the statements of ANAP's Kececiler and hint that this may destroy the harmony of coalition. ANAP draws back Kececiler says his words are his personal views and ANAP officials deny the allegations of an alliance between ANAP and HADEP.

3. "Armenian genocide accusations on European Parliament's agenda", the European Parliament will discuss today a draft resolution that urges Turkey to "create a base for compromise" regarding the accusations of the killing of Armenians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the Anatolia news agency said.

4. "Turkey Plods on Long Road to EU", the Kurdish language is one issue Turkey needs to tackle before it gets EU membership.

5. "Swiss bank pulls out of controversial Turkish dam project", the Swiss bank UBS said on Wednesday that it is ending its involvement in financing the controversial Ilisu Dam project in Turkey because of a lack of measures to tackle the social and environmental impact.

6. "Turkish economy minister says worst of crisis is past", Turkey has overcome the worst of a severe economic crisis plaguing the country since February last year, Economy Minister Kemal Dervis said on Wednesday.

1. - AFP - "Turkish politicians at loggerheads over PKK wanting to be legal":

ANKARA

Politicians within Turkey's ruling coalition came to loggerheads Tuesday over whether Ankara should allow Kurdish rebels to reorganize themselves in a legal political party.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a 15-year war for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey, recently launched efforts to transform itself into a legal organization as part of a 1999 peace initiative.

But the government, which sees the PKK as a terrorist organisation, has played down the peace bids.

However, a minister from the liberal Motherland Party, the minor partner in the three-way government of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, triggered debate on the isssue when he said the PKK would cease to be a threat if allowed into politics.

"They'd rather be in politics than in the mountains (and) we will beat them at the ballot-box," state minister for customs Mehmet Kececiler said in an interview with the Aksam daily over the weekend.

On Tuesday, Kececiler told the Anatolia news agency that "instead of expressing their opinions brutally by killing people, they should express their thoughts through politics."

But the minister stressed he did not mean that separatist PKK militants should be allowed to challenge the country's unity in the political arena.

In 1999, the PKK announced it was abandoning its armed struggle for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast to seek a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question, heeding peace calls from its leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is on death row.

The suggestion of Kececiler, whose party has recently urged comprehensive reforms to embrace EU democracy norms, was quickly rebuffed by the government's far-right partner, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

"It is not possible for us to accept the politicization of a terrorist organization by it changing its cover," Defense Minister and MHP member Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, told reporters.

In a statement earlier this month, the PKK ordered its members to halt all activities under the name of PKK.

"All kinds of changes and innovations which are part of our democratic transformation, including our name, will be ultimately decided at our forthcoming party congress," the statement said, without giving a date for the gathering.

Ensuring cultural freedoms for its Kurdish minority is among the conditions Turkey, an EU membership candidate, is required to fulfil before starting accession talks with Brussels.

But many in the government fear that such rights could fan separatist sentiment among the Kurds and rekindle fighting in the southeast, which has claimed some 36,500 lives since 1984.

2. - Turkish Daily News - "ANAP keeps an eye on Kurdish votes":

MHP reacts harshly MHP's prominent names openly react against the statements of ANAP's Kececiler and hint that this may destroy the harmony of coalition

ANAP draws back Kececiler says his words are his personal views and ANAP officials deny the allegations of an alliance between ANAP and HADEP

ANKARA / Kemal Balci

Junior coalition partner, the Motherland Party (ANAP), which has been taking courageous steps and making bold statements regarding the democratization issue for the last two years, recently had to take a step back. ANAP's State Minister Mehmet Kececiler surprised many people when he said, "It would be better for the PKK to be in politics rather than out in the mountains. People would not elect them. We would beat them at the ballot box." However, just a day later, Kececiler stated that, "those words were my personal ideas and my party should not be held responsible for my statements."

Kececiler has been known for his "Islamist-conservative" views since the establishment of the ANAP. He began his political life in the National Salvation Party, the only political Islamist party at the time, which was closed down by the 1980 military coup. Kececiler has also served as Mayor of Konya. In light of his political background, his statements about the PKK have surprised everyone, but he later felt it necessary to correct his words. Political experts stated that was not an unexpected move.

ANAP leader Mesut Yilmaz has been seeking a new strong grassroots since the April 1999 elections, as his party's vote has decreased to under 13 percent. Yilmaz has faced the fact that relying on his hometown Black sea votes in a possible upcoming election would bring nothing but failure. In every public opinion poll conducted by the ANAP, it has been revealed that the party would fail to exceed the 10 percent national threshold necessary for a party to enter Parliament.

Yilmaz has therefore decided to focus on ethnic Kurdish people with the intention of increasing votes, believing that they have been searching for a party to represent them in the political arena, as parties formed by people of Kurdish origin have been banned by the Constitutional Court.

Six months after he became a partner in the three-way coalition government, Yilmaz began his tour of Anatolia in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. On Dec. 16, 1999, in an unexpected speech, Yilmaz said that the road to the European Union would pass through Diyarbakir. Yilmaz voiced these words while addressing a crowd of people of Kurdish origin holding yellow flags of the People's Democracy Party (HADEP). His words have disturbed scores of Turkish people, who have lost some 30,000 people in a 15-yearlong PKK terror.

Yilmaz's historical words: "Democracy, rights and freedoms, as well as wealth are the rights of all people living in Turkey. Democracy is for both Turks and Kurds. Steps to be taken in order to amend the laws limiting freedom of speech and thought will the first and most important steps towards full-membership in the European Union. We are here, as we believe that the road to the EU is passing through Diyarbakir."

The ANAP administration has continued to make similar statements on the behalf of democratization and freedoms, in order to gain the support of the Kurdish grassroots. Each of these had caused an outcry, and on every occasion they have had to take a step back and have felt it necessity to correct their words. The ANAP administration, which has chosen the symphonies of Beethoven as the theme for their election campaign, has taken two steps backward for every one step forward in their actions. The contradiction between their promises and their actions has dimmed the sincerity of the party in the eyes of their grassroots.

Considering the sensitivity of his coalition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), on this issue, Yilmaz has let prominent names in his party take steps instead of making them on his own. Yilmaz, serving as deputy prime minister in the current Cabinet, has urged his party's Diyarbakir deputy, Sebgattullah Seydaoglu, to announce proposals that will help the ANAP gain the sympathy of Kurds, and which are viewed as necessary steps in the democratization process. Yilmaz has aimed at not becoming the person to damage the harmony of the coalition. Seydaoglu, in a previous speech at an ANAP group meeting at Parliament, asked for the release of currently jailed deputies of the defunct Democracy Party (DEP), which was formed by a group of ethnic Kurds. ANAP's proposal to release imprisoned DEP deputies for health reasons has caused unrest in the coalition, especially in the MHP wing of the government. Meanwhile, DEP deputies, especially Leyla Zana, have announced that they would not accept a pardon for health reasons. They said that they would accept release only if it was the result of a step in the democratization process.

The ANAP administration, once more, had to take a step back. The administration later announced that these words were the personal views of Seydaoglu, and that his speech should not be accepted as party policy.

Former Tourism Minister Erkan Mumcu, currently a member of the ANAP administration, is now in charge of developing new tactics for becoming the center of attraction in the eyes of Kurds. He made surprising statements under the name of his party's deputy leader, but later, when he saw that he had gone too far, admitted that his style was wrong and drew back. Most recently, he has harshly criticized the government draft on thought crimes. He even said that there was a difference between the draft law approved by Cabinet and the draft law sent to Parliament. His statement caused a reaction from Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and the MHP. He has been made to keep silent, instead of making speeches, after a warning from his leader, Mesut Yilmaz.

Mehmet Kececiler who has long been a member of the party administration, has became the first minister to directly highlight the Kurdish question. His statements have been viewed as proof that his party wants the PKK to become a political movement.

A day after Kececiler made his statement, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli reacted harshly by saying, "We may review our position in the coalition if needed." ANAP's statements, viewed as part of its election tactics, have reached a point which threatens the future of the government.

MHP's State Minister Resat Dogan said that his party does not want the abolishment of capital punishment before the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, is hanged. Meanwhile, parliamentary speaker Omer Izgi from the MHP, directly responded to Mehmet Kececiler, saying: "The PKK is an organization formed to stage terrorist activities with the intention of forming a separate state. In this light, it is not possible for it to become a part of Turkish political life."

MHP deputy group chairman, Mehmet Sandir, called on Mehmet Kececiler to resign.

"Kececiler is a minister of this government. It is not acceptable for a minister of this government to prepare a base for the PKK to become a political movement. Was it ANAP's view or was it Kececiler's personal approach? We have to find out," Sandir said.

Meanwhile Kececiler said that his words did not reflect the views of his Party and added that he made the statement without the knowledge of leader Mesut Yilmaz.

ANAP officials on Tuesday denied the allegations that their party and HADEP have formed an alliance.

For now, Mesut Yilmaz is waiting for a calmer atmosphere and is silently expecting the reaction to be settled. Yilmaz will travel to the southeastern city of Tunceli on March 8. Tunceli is a city with a low population, but which is overwhelmingly Kurdish. Yilmaz will be accompanied by his wife, Berna Yilmaz, during his visit to Tunceli on World Women's Day. Following the lead of party administrators and cabinet members, maybe it is Berna Yilmaz's turn to make a bold statement, and then take it back.

ANAP and the MHP are at two different poles on the same issue. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit who is urged to play the role of go-between, is faced with a difficult task. Ecevit is obligated to get along with both parties. Being aware of this fact, both parties are trying to pull him in two different directions. It is not possible to predict whether Ecevit is powerful enough to resist the pressure of these two parties. However, all sides are aware that if they break the rope, they will have only one way to go; the snap polls. However, it is highly possible that they will all fail to exceed the national threshold.

3. - Turkish Daily News - "Armenian genocide accusations on European Parliament's agenda":

ANKARA

The European Parliament will discuss today a draft resolution that urges Turkey to "create a base for compromise" regarding the accusations of the killing of Armenians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the Anatolia news agency said.

The agency said the legislative body for the European Union would also hold a general debate on candidate Turkey during which the EU term presidency and European Commission officials would inform the lawmakers about the country's domestic political issues.

Swedish Parliamentarian Per Gahrton, who belongs to the Greens group in the European Parliament, had prepared a report named "The Caucasus Report" which included accusations of Armenian genocide, Anatolia said.

It said that a draft resolution linked to the Caucasus report reminded of a 1987 Parliament resolution that recognized the killings of Armenians as "genocide." If approved by the Parliament general assembly, the resolution would ask Turkey to take appropriate steps in line with its desire to be a part of Europe and urge Ankara to "create a base for compromise" regarding the genocide claims.

Such a request will clearly anger Ankara, which strongly rejects the genocide accusations and says both sides suffered from losses during the sporadic fighting in early 1900s. Turkey protested France two years ago when the French Parliament adopted a similar bill accusing Turks of massacring Armenians.

A similar move by the European Parliament could deal a fresh blow to Turkish-European Union relations, already tense over the hacking and distribution of the e-mails of a top EU diplomat based in Ankara.

4. - Deutsche Welle - "Turkey Plods on Long Road to EU":

The Kurdish language is one issue Turkey needs to tackle before it gets EU membership

Time is running out for Turkey. By March 19, the country has to comply with criteria for accession to the European Union, failing which it jeopardises its chances of being accepted to the EU fold.

Turkey is under pressure. After much wrangling and lobbying, the country has finally been accepted as an official candidate for the European Union.

But it first needs to fulfill criteria laid down by the EU and get working on fast-track reforms.

Some of the Copenhagen political criteria include constitutional guarantees for freedom of opinion, assembly and religion, the abolition of the death penalty, the prevention of torture and guarantees of the cultural rights of all citizens irrespective of their origin.

But most of the fundamental reforms are still nowhere in sight.

Turkey falters on penal code changes

Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit says, "We have almost entirely fulfilled the short-term obligations. In face we fulfilled most of them well ahead of time. We will now continue our work to attend to our middle-term obligations."

But in reality Turkey has not made much progress in fulfilling promises within the given time frame. Political criteria it must realise include making 26 laws and changing 32 existing ones. In the long run, Turkey must make and implement almost 90 laws and change an equal number.

Vice President Mesut Yilmaz an advocate of Europe in the three-party coalition assures that Turkey will fulfil all criteria "on time". But even he is aware naturally that there's a huge gap between wish and reality.

"I don't want to think about what we'd miss out on - on the political, economic and democratic level- if we don't manage to acquire EU membership", he says.

Turkey has already changed paragraphs 312 and 159 in the penal code that restrict freedom of speech and thought. Similarly paragraph 7 and 8 of the controversial Anti-terror law have also been changed.

But human right activists, lawyers and international observers condemn the perfunctory changes as a "farce". They argue that the drafts of the new laws have in reality led to further clamps on individual freedom.

On a recent working visit to the country, EU commissioner Günter Verheugen responsible for EU expansion matters was candid: "The question of EU membership for Turkey does not arise unless the necessary progressive laws are implemented", he said.

"The so-called "Mini Democracy Package" - making changes to the constitution, which in turn will be implemented by changing the laws - a process which one is still waiting for, doesn't live up to the expectations of Europe", he says.

Abolishment of death penalty a vexed problem

The biggest problem is the death penalty.

The conservative Mesut Yilmaz and the Centre-Left nationalist Prime Minister Ecevit advocate its unconditional scrapping. But the Right-wing Nationalists in the government supporting Devlet Bahceli have put up conditions.

The death penalty was last enforced in 1984. Ever since, the death penalty has not been dealt with in the Turkish Parliament and has automatically been translated into lifetime imprisonment.

The Right-wing Nationalists vow that they too are in favour of doing away with the death penalty, but only when in one last case, the "number one enemy of the state" Abdullah Öcalan is hanged.

But it's clear that the execution of Abdullah Öcalan would spark much criticism by the EU, especially considering that the death penalty would then finally be erased from the constitution.

The deputy fraction chief of the Right-wing Nationalist MHP party, Ismail Köse is convinced that the abolishment of the death penalty will not be achieved without the support of his fraction.

"I don't believe that the constitutional change will be carried through once it comes up for discussion in Parliament. I think that there are several members of Parliament such as those from the MHP, who are against it".

The abolishment of the death penalty is not difficult only because of the inner political resistance. The death penalty is incorporated in four Turkish penal paragraphs that include a total of 41 statutory offences.

Ankara has already agreed to the scrapping of the death penalty by signing international protocols and conventions. But in addition to changing the law paragraphs, it also needs to change the constitution and the law order of the parliament - a difficult manoeuvre.

Turkey undecided on Kurdish language issue

A further problem is the Kurdish language.

The government does not look favourably upon Kurdish language lessons. But it is more flexible in the case of Kurdish language media because its free existence is a precondition laid down in the Copenhagen criteria of the EU for candidate countries.

Vice President Yilmaz says, "Programmes in all languages apart from the mother tongue is one of the elements in the Copenhagen criteria. In Turkey there are no restrictions along these lines as far as print media go. But there is a special law for radio and television and there is a media watchdog authority RTÜK. The Parliament has discussed the topic and come to a consensus. Kurdish programmes will be allowed, though it's not yet clear how that will be worked out. But the problem will be solved shortly..."

This is what Yilmaz said last month. But there's still no solution in sight for this problem.

Yet Yilmaz is aware that if Turkey does want to keep to its own deadline and enforce reforms by March 19 in order to join the EU later, urgency is of utmost importance.

5. - AFP - "Swiss bank pulls out of controversial Turkish dam project":

ZURICH

The Swiss bank UBS said on Wednesday that it is ending its involvement in financing the controversial Ilisu Dam project in Turkey because of a lack of measures to tackle the social and environmental impact.

"The decisive factor behind this termination is that the general progress of the project has been unsatisfactory in recent years," UBS said in a statement. Environmental and human rights groups have said that the dam would deprive

30,000 people in the mainly Kurdish region of south-eastern Anatolia of their homes or land. They have also warned that the dam would lead to the flooding of hundreds of valuable archaeological sites and create health hazards such as breeding grounds for malaria.

"Until now there has been no definite decision on what accompanying measures are to be taken to minimise the social and environmental impact of the project," UBS said. The Swiss bank said it would pull out of its mandate to arrange financing as well as other consultancy services for the Turkish project, which is expected to cost about 1.9 billion dollars (2.2 billion euros). British engineering firm Balfour Beatty announced last November that it was withdrawing from the Ilisu Dam project for similar reasons.

6. - AFP - "Turkish economy minister says worst of crisis is past":

ANKARA

Turkey has overcome the worst of a severe economic crisis plaguing the country since February last year, Economy Minister Kemal Dervis said on Wednesday.

"The point we stand today is this: we have come out of heavy crisis conditions, we have beaten the heavy crisis," Dervis told a conference in the Middle East Technical University (ODTU). "I want to underline that we will not fall back into a crisis like the one in February 2001," the minister said.

Turkey's long-standing economic problems, aggrevated by a turmoil in the weak and crowded banking sector in November 2000, culminated in a full-blown crisis in February 2001, dragging the economy into one of its worst recessions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which began supporting Turkish recovery efforts in late 1999, has so far allocated some 30 billion dollars (34.5 billion euros) for the country.

The most recent loan -- of 16 billion dollars -- was approved by the Fund earlier this month under a new three-year stand-by deal. Dervis said the ability of Turkey to roll over its hefty debt stock was no more a concern on the world markets. "The attention is now focused on issues such as whether Turkey will start growing, what the inflation will be," the minister said. Turkey aims to reduce its chronic inflation, which stood at 68.5 percent in terms of consumer prices in 2001, to 35 percent in 2002, 20 percent in 2003, and 12 percent in 2004.

It aims at an economic growth of three percent this year and at least five percent in 2003 and beyond. Economic contraction in 2001 is estimated to hit 8.5 percent. Dervis said that the free-floating exchange regime was a guard that would prevent economic difficulties from growing into crises "if adverse developments take place at home or abroad" in the future.

"It is not possible for Turkey to go back if negative things happen... not in the very long term maybe, but this is not possible in (the next) 18-24 months," he said. Frequent wrangling in the three-way ruling coalition has often impeded

economic reforms. The country also fears that a possible US military operation against its southern neighbour Iraq could deal a blow on its economic recovery. At Wednesday's conference, a group of leftist students posed a brief embarrassment for Dervis as they sharply criticized the government's economic policies, charging that they led to deeper social injustices.