30 Januar 2002

1. "Turkey arrests seven Kurdish activists following demonstrations", seven pro-Kurdish activists were charged Tuesday with involvement in an illegal demonstration and "displaying slogans in the Kurdish language", sources from the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HADEP) told AFP.

2. "Human Rights Violations by Turkish Security Forces Increasing", human rights violations by Turkish security forces are reported to be on the rise again in the country's largely Kurdish southeastern provinces. The reported upturn in rights violations follows a period of marked decline in the number of such incidents.

3. "2002 is a critical year for the EU", it was reported that 2002 was very important for Turkey's adaptation to the European Union (EU), and that the EU membership would be postponed for many years to come if negotiations would not be started in 2002. Pointing out the importance of the laws, which were made to be adapted to the EU, Karen Fogg stated that society should be explained to on how the changes would affect life

4. "MGK discusses Article 312", Kutan: Desire for fascism.

5. "Trying to paint out Cyprus's divisions", hopes for a reunification deal may be high, but it will take years to bring down all the boundaries in Cyprus, writes Helena Smith.

6. "Europe without Turkey", a brief history of Turkish-EU relations.

1. -AFP - "Turkey arrests seven Kurdish activists following demonstrations":

ISTANBUL

Seven pro-Kurdish activists were charged Tuesday with involvement in an illegal demonstration and "displaying slogans in the Kurdish language", sources from the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HADEP) told AFP.

Turkish police on Friday detained 128 HADEP members, following protests in several cities in the mainly Kurdish southeast over the disappearance of two HADEP members last year. Among the seven men charged in the southeastern city of Tarsus Tuesday, are Abdullah Olmez, head of the local regional council, Haci Artes, an elected municipal official, and five other members of the pro-Kurd party, Yusuf Cetinel, the local party president told AFP.

All other demonstrators taken in for questioning in Tarsus had been released Sunday, Cetinel added. Two HADEP activists, Serdar Tanis and Ebubekir Deniz, were detained last year in the southeast town of Silopi following a summons to appear at a paramilitary police station. There has been no word of the two men since then despite separate investigations launched by the government and local authorities. Tuesday's arrests follow the closure the previous day by Turkish authorities of the Kurdish Institute of Istanbul, a privately-funded establishment which publishes documents and runs courses in the Kurdish language.

A HADEP statement regretted the closure which it termed "anti-democratic" and called for its immediate re-opening. The institute's director Hasan Kaya said the decision to close the building had been by direct order from the capital's governor and that he had received no official notification of the ruling.

Last month, charges against Kaya that he was acting in violation of a Turkish law banning the private teaching of the Kurdish language were thrown out. Turkish authorities frequently clamp down on HADEP, detaining or jailing its members on suspicion of links to armed rebels who waged a 15-year armed campaign against Ankara for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey.

HADEP, which campaigns for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question, denies the charges, but nonetheless faces a possible ban for alleged association with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Turkey's normally tense southeast has been relatively calm since September 1999, when the PKK abandoned its armed campaign in favour of seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict following peace calls from its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

"Education in Kurdish becomes the topic of MGK meeting" (Turkish Daily News)

ANKARA

Education in Kurdish question was among the main topics of Tuesday's National Security Council (MGK) meeting.

"In the light of intelligence and security reports, MGK has reviewed the precautions taken or will be taken against the separatist activities especially directed by the terror organization on education in another language than Turkish," the press release issued by the MGK general secretariate after the meeting.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, Chief of General Staff Gen. Huseyin Kivrikoglu, Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli and Mesut Yilmaz, Council-member ministers, Command Forces, Chief of Gendarme and MGK General Secretary attended the MGK meeting.

Ecevit's visit to the United States was also among the topics of the meeting.

Education in Kurdish and petitions demanding elective courses in Kurdish have become a hot issue on the domestic scene.

The State alleges that it is a new strategy of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

2. - Voice of America - "Human Rights Violations by Turkish Security Forces Increasing":

DIYARBAKIR

Human rights violations by Turkish security forces are reported to be on the rise again in the country's largely Kurdish southeastern provinces. The reported upturn in rights violations follows a period of marked decline in the number of such incidents.

Osman Baydemir is a lawyer in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey and chairman of the local branch of the Human Rights Association of Turkey. Mr. Baydemir says human rights violations in the region have risen sharply in recent months. To emphasize his point, the lawyer cites some cases from a thick red file he is holding.

In September, Mr. Baydemir says, government security forces in the eastern province of Van shot dead a deaf and mute shepherd after he failed to heed their demands to identify himself. The same month security forces allegedly shot dead two brothers in the southeastern province of Sirnak as they were planting their crops.

According to Mr. Baydemir, the security forces claim the brothers were members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Mr. Baydemir says victims' families deny they had any links with the rebels.

Arbitrary detentions and torture are being reported with increasing frequency since the beginning of last year when two officials of Hadep, the largest pro-Kurdish party in Turkey, disappeared in the southeastern town of Cizre after being called in by military police for questioning. The officials have not been heard from since. Those being targeted include members of the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party as well as students who are taking part in a freshly launched campaign to be educated in the Kurdish language.

Kurdish language education is constitutionally banned in Turkey, and government authorities say the language campaign is being orchestrated by the PKK.

Devlet Bahceli, a deputy prime minister in Turkey's coalition government, charges that the PKK is using the campaign and the students to stir up separatist feelings among Turkey's 12 million Kurds.

Muhammed Tasdemir is a biology student at the Dicle University in Diyarbakir. Mr. Tasdemir, who denies any connection with the PKK, told VOA he was detained for four days at the local police headquarters after signing a petition last month calling for the right to be educated in the Kurdish language.

Mr. Tasdemir says he was blindfolded and beaten and forced to listen to Turkish patriotic songs during his detention. He has been released from prison but is awaiting trial on charges of promoting Kurdish separatism.

Mr. Baydemir and other human rights advocates say the crackdown in Diyarbakir and other Kurdish areas represents a shift in government policy. Up until a year ago, they say, there had been a palpable softening in official attitudes. Many here attribute that shift to a unilateral ceasefire called by the PKK following the capture in 1999 of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

Following the ceasefire, the Ankara government appointed officials to senior posts in the southeastern provinces who won praise in the region for their tolerance and efforts to curb abuses by police and other security personnel.

Mr. Baydemir says for a while there was a sharp decline in extra-judicial killings and disappearances allegedly carried out by security forces. So what has changed?

Mr. Baydemir believes there is a link between the latest crackdown, including the campaign against the Kurdish language, and Turkey's importance in the eyes of Western governments since the terrorist attacks in September.

He charges that Western governments are keeping silent about the human rights violations because they need Turkey's cooperation in their fight against global terrorism.

Turkish officials dismiss such claims as nothing more that PKK propaganda and point to a series of constitutional reforms approved in October - after the attacks - by the Turkish parliament. The reforms, among other things, ease restrictions on broadcasting and education in the Kurdish language.

If security forces have become more active in the southeastern provinces, officials in Ankara say there is only one reason for that: increased activity by the PKK.

3. - Turkish Daily News - "2002 is a critical year for the EU":

It was reported that 2002 was very important for Turkey's adaptation to the European Union (EU), and that the EU membership would be postponed for many years to come if negotiations would not be started in 2002

Pointing out the importance of the laws, which were made to be adapted to the EU, Karen Fogg stated that society should be explained to on how the changes would affect life

ISTANBUL / GUZIN YILDIZCAN

With the exception of Turkey, 12 of the 13 EU candidate countries have started membership negotiations with the EU. In order to start membership negotiations with the EU, Turkey must first fulfill short-term political criteria and then progress to mid-term criteria before the end of 2002.

The Economic Development Foundation (IKV) organized a conference yesterday titled "Effects of the EU Adaptation Process on Turkey's Economic, Political and Social Life". It was pointed out at the conference that 2002 was very important for Turkey's accession to the EU. It was stated that if membership negotiations do not commence in 2002, Turkey's opportunity for EU membership would be postponed for several years. At the conference, the importance of passing laws which reflect EU criteria was recognized and it was pointed out that society should be educated on how these changes would affect their lives.

IKV Chairman Meral Gezgin Eris, speaking at the opening of the conference, noted that a preliminary condition for commencing membership negotiations was the fulfillment of political criteria and said, "Our goal in 2002 should be to start membership negotiations with the EU." Eris added the following:

"Before other countries accede to the EU, Turkey should definitely start membership negotiations. Otherwise, it will be difficult for us to catch this opportunity again. We have no luxury to miss this opportunity."

Eris said that the U.S. should provide financial and technical support to Turkey, and noted that the EU's financial support is limited compared to its contributions to other countries. Eris, commenting on the EU decision which excluded the PKK and DHKP-C from its list of terrorist organizations, said it was unacceptable and said "EU should give up its double standard."

At the end of the meeting, Eris spoke to the press about the "mini democracy package", which was part of the adaptation process to the EU and discussed in Parliament. Eris stated that if changes, which were made in Article 312 of the Turkish Penalty Code relating to freedom of expression, become law in their current form, it will be a law which restricts freedoms but I want to believe that they will be suitable to the EU criteria after discussions.

'Turkish public should be provided with an explanation of the advantages of EU membership'

Fogg, stated that 2002 should be a year during which advantages of the EU membership are explained to the Turkish public and noted that EU membership would concretely affect the daily lives of people. Pointing out the importance of Turkish society's participation in the EU accession process and interest in it, Fogg complained that the media did not do its best on this issue. Fogg, who noted that the Turkish Parliament had been working rapidly and added: "Reforms should be undertaken rapidly but not hastily and carelessly. They should be explained to the public well."

Stating that the EU legal system would provide guidance to Turkey during the reform process, Fogg said, "People can become adapted according to their own country's conditions." Fogg, commenting on Eris's criticism of the EU terrorist organizations list said: "Terror and the anti-terrorist struggle is a new matter for us and now we are taking preliminary steps to establish a common policy. Therefore, some issues might have been misunderstood. This list will be reorganized in the future."

EU General Secretary of the Prime Ministry Volkan Vural, who stated that adaptation to the EU norms would bring the Turkish public to a more contemporary and more competitive level and that this change would be difficult but noted that the changing process has started. Noting that Turkey has progressed in the process of adaptation to the EU norms over last 10 months, Vural said, "Reforms relating to the law and economy, which could not have been made for years, were made but at this time we should not overlook changes in the EU, in 2002 the EU will determine memberships of 10 candidate countries starting from 2004."

4. - Turkish Daily News - "MGK discusses Article 312 ":

Leaders will once more meet at the beginning of next week

Pertaining to the freedom of expression, the mini democratization package, which led to a "mini" crisis among the coalition partners, was also discussed yesterday at Turkey's all-powerful National Security Council (MGK). As the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)'s resistance could not be broken at Monday's leaders summit, which was held in order to resolve different opinions on the package, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit had asked his partners to meet once more at the beginning of next week, after yesterday's MGK meeting.

Junior coalition partner the Motherland Party (ANAP) demands amendments to the draft law, which was adopted in its initial form, upon the reactions of the European Union management. ANAP's stance is also supported by Democratic Left Party (DSP). DSP officials noted that certain views that were included in the rationale of the bill would be inserted in the bill's text, and thus it would become more clear with the resolution of the uncertainties. However, coalition partner MHP rejects any small amendment to the bill, which was prepared by professor Sulhi Donmezer and supported also by the military circles. MHP plans to satisfy both its extremist nationalist party base floor and military circles.

Despite MHP's resistance, Ecevit asked his partners, with the aim of gaining extra time to amend the bill, to discuss the bill first of all in their groups at Parliament and then at the leaders summit, which was scheduled to meet at the beginning of next week. If Ecevit's plan comes true, the concept of "possibility of danger," which is included in Article 312, will be replaced with a more exact expression, while new expressions, which will narrow the scope of the Article 159, will be included in the bill.

Since people focused on rather Article 312, the amendment to Article 159, which expands the scope of the related article, has been overlooked. The bill aims to increase the state institutions and corporations, defined in the mentioned amendment, with the inclusion of expression, "parts that represent these corporations and institutions." For instance, a political criticism toward a Deputy may be counted as an insult against the state, rather than being a crime of individual insult. This situation will narrow the area of politics and function as a second shield for deputies that protect them against the political parties, which could not enter Parliament. The limits of freedom of thought will also be narrowed since the media will have to impose a kind of auto-censor.

Upon the resistance of MHP, the efforts to make the bill more concrete at leaders summit, bore no fruits, while the MGK held its longest meeting yesterday. Under the light of the talks at MGK meeting, the issue is targeted to be given a shape until the end of this week and be discussed at next week's leaders summit in order to provide an agreement among coalition partners.

On the other hand, a "mini democratization package" also topped the agenda of opposition parties. Below are the responses of the opposition to the package:

Kutan: Desire for fascism

Saadet (happiness or contentment) Party (SP) leader Recai Kutan has opposed the government bill amending certain articles of the Turkish Penal Code related with the freedom of expression, and said: "This is a desire for fascism and dictatorship. These (people) should be stopped."

Addressing his group at Parliament on Tuesday, Kutan said that hunger, unemployment and poverty had gained great dimensions, and added: "Democracy and freedom are as important as bread. Those who do not have freedom, do not have bread either."

Kutan noted that people would object to the corruptions in a free country, and those who rob and exploit the country's sources, would not feel comfortable. "In a free country, there cannot be any supreme board, capital and bureaucracy domination. Freedoms are dangerous for capital and bureaucratic dictatorships, and for those who want to make the people their slaves and covet the treasuries of the country, and for the political parties which cooperate with such people. The crime of danger and threat is this. This is what Article 159 and 312 are. What they want to protect in the name of 'public order' is the order of making the nation their slaves. They cannot tolerate the possibility of disruption of this order. They believe the possibility of disruption of this order is a threat," said Kutan.

Recalling Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's words, "Wanting elections does not match with good will," Kutan said those people wanting elections would be tried with the crime of debasing public authority or inciting people to enmity and hatred in a way that will disrupt public order. Stressing that the basic problem of the nation was the cost of living, Kutan emphasized that Turkey's bread had been taken out of its hands in an environment where democracy was harmed and freedoms were limited.

AKP: Let's put to a referendum

Justice and Development Party (AKP)'s Deputy Group Chairman in Parliament Huseyin Celik claimed that Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) was resisting to the public. According to Celik, most of the scholars, pundits, top judges, and nongovernmental organizations (NGO) did not like the current version of the Penal Code's Articles 159 and 312, which are included in the mini democratization package, but they reached an agreement that the package should not pass Parliament in this form, and that only the MHP resisted the public.

Celik suggested putting the issue to a referendum if the government really wanted to know what the people thought about the package. Calling on the MHP deputies, Celik said: "History is full of corpses of administrations which did not give any rest to people with bans. The understanding, which hosted its followers in palaces and its opponents in dungeons, cannot stand any tremor and collapses."

According to Celik, people cannot see a poor country whose democracy is excellent. "There cannot be individuals without free minds. There cannot be a healthy society without individuals. No powerful country can arise from a society which is dominated by fears and was forced into hypocrisy," Celik noted.

Claiming that the government had turned the country and Parliament into slaves, and that the ruling wing had been supporting and approving government bills without any hesitation or thought, Celik called on the deputies to respect themselves and Parliament, and restore the credibility of the politics.

DYP: The aim is to silence the public

True Path Party (DYP) Deputy Group Chairman in Parliament Ali Riza Gonul accused the government of insincerity, and said, "We believe that their aim is to silence the public, press and opposition.

Gonul said that the DYP would not look positively on the bill unless the worries are eliminated, and added: "A legislation, which is obscure and prone to debate and different implementations, will be legislated. This is extremely dangerous in terms of public will and supremacy of law."

According to the Gonul, the lack of harmony among the coalition partners emerged during the discussion of the bill at the Parliamentary Justice Committee, and that one of the leaders of the coalition criticized the bill claiming that it limited freedoms, although he too signed that bill. Referring to Motherland Party (ANAP) leader Mesut Yilmaz, Gonul questioned why he had signed the bill if he regarded the bill to be contradictory with human rights, European Union norms, and individual freedoms.

5. - The Guardian - "Trying to paint out Cyprus's divisions":

Hopes for a reunification deal may be high, but it will take years to bring down all the boundaries in Cyprus, writes Helena Smith

A "magic map" has adorned the septic strip of no man's land that divides Cyprus for as long as Greeks and Turks have faced each other on the island behind enemy lines.

But keeping the well-known tourist attraction - painted behind an observation post in Nicosia by Greek Cypriot conscripts when the island was partitioned in 1974 - in its original condition has not been easy.

Indeed, for the UN troops who patrol the bunkered ceasefire line that splits Nicosia, ensuring that the map is not altered has become a full time job; one that is indicative of the edgy peace they are also mandated to protect.

"Whenever we weren't looking, the Greek national guard would get out their paint brushes and add an inch or two, advancing their front line a little more into the buffer zone," said UN Captain Louise Burt, standing before the blue and white outline of Cyprus on the ground.

"The Turkish Cypriots do exactly the same; it might sound petty, but it's the sort of potentially explosive, day-to-day thing we have to deal with here."

Almost 28 years after Ankara invaded the island, in response to an Athens-inspired coup aimed at unification with Greece, the bitter legacy of war still hangs over Cyprus.

For Greeks, who make up 80% of the population and Turks, who control 37% of the island's territory, the rotting, rusting, "green" line that divides Cyprus remains the most visible reminder of the state of mind that still keeps its two feuding communities apart.

On both sides, there are now two generations who have no memories or experience of their compatriots across the ethnic divide.

On both sides, there are those who concur with Gustave Feissel, the sunshine destination's former UN representative, that it is "stuck together with Scotch tape".

But now - less than a short drive away from the "magically" changing map - both the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Glafcos Clerides, 83, and Rauf Denktash, 77, have embarked on a new, intensive round of UN-brokered negotiations.

Their aim: to reunify the island in a loose bizonal, bicommunal federation by the time it formally enters the EU at the end of the year.

Rarely have hopes been as high for the settlement of the Cyprus problem - a diplomatic dispute that has long bedevilled western peacemakers and do-gooders.

With the clock ticking louder than at any other time since 1974, there is an air of expectancy around the longtime leaders' decision to resume talks.

These are the first, face-to-face negotiations since 1997 between the aged politicians, both of whom have been plagued by ill health in recent years.

Auspiciously the two men - whose association dates back more than half a century as lawyers on opposing sides under British rule - wasted little time swapping jibes at the start of the talks.

All agree that finally cracking the Cyprus issue would not only relieve Greek-Turkish relations of their biggest thorn, but ease tensions on Nato's edgy south-eastern front, as well as head off a potentially catastrophic confrontation between Ankara and the EU.

Turkey has threatened to integrate Denktash's impoverished, breakaway republic in the north of the island if Cyprus enters the EU without a solution. Greece has threatened to veto the accession of any other state if Cyprus's candidacy is rejected by Brussels.

But while the negotiations have engendered a sense of euphoria - and in the internationally isolated north, jubilation - they are not without critics, or cynics.

"The idea that Clerides and Denktash will solve it this year, simply because they are getting on and have known each other for five decades, is naive to say the least," said veteran socialist politician Vassos Lyssarides.

"The Cyprus problem will only be solved when a settlement is produced that satisfies both sides."

Although Clerides has shown a startling willingness to think outside the box, going further than any of his advisers in terms of concessions, and while the Greek Cypriots have agreed to a decentralised form of power sharing, few believe the Turkish Cypriots will ultimately satisfy their desire to retrieve enough territory for an estimated 200,000 refugees.

Even worse, say cynics, the very nature of the Cyprus state has yet to be resolved.

All of which has caused prominent Greek and Turkish Cypriots to take their fate into their own hands.

"On both sides there is the fear that these talks are not being conducted on a human, problem-solving level but in a vacuum," said Greek Cypriot businessman, Dinos Lordos, the guiding light behind a bicommunal economic forum that will seek to forge a "real bridge" between the two sides.

"First of all we have to cross the line, pull down the barrier, have face-to-face contact just as they do everywhere else in the world," he said.

"Then we have to look at all aspects of socio-economic life on this island and think of a paradise principle when we try to align them to the ideal sort of solution that might emerge. That won't take days, but years. "

6. - Turkiye - "Europe without Turkey":

A brief history of Turkish-EU relations.

by Yilmaz Oztuna

Greece became a member of the European Uinon on Jan. 1, 1981, even before Spain, Portugal, Austria, Sweden and Finland. Turkey began talks for official membership at the foundation of the EU in 1959. Prime Minister Inonu continued the initiatives launched by Menderes before him by signing the Rome agreement.

In 1974, both Turkey and Greece were invited into the Union. Greece accepted the invitation but Turkey asked for ten years' more time. This was the greatest mistake, blunder and error made in the twentieth century by the Turkish Republic. Looking at the situation in Turkey today, we can see what we have lost by this decision.

However, Europe has also lost with this decision. Yet Europe without Turkey cannot see what it has lost. It didn't raise academics or politicians who could understand this. Some Europeans who say that Turkey wasn't a European country are forgetting the fact under the 1856 Paris Agreement that they accepted Turkey as one of the seven greatest states in the world.

There is no need to mention that Turkey is a great market, or has the youngest population or the most powerful army or an important geostrategic location. Europeans are known for not getting along with people from other cultures. They have seen people of other cultures as masses bound to be exploited. T

hey have put forth pretty-sounding principles but have been hard pressed in impelementing them. In the last century it tried to destroy itself twice over 20 years, lost half of the continent to communism, and ceded world leadership to the US.

Turkey is the most convenient, sound bridge which will help Europe to adopt a humanistic view. Turkey, as it has lost the EU membership, has also harmed the EU. However, it is in Europe's hands to make up for this loss. There are those in Europe who are now thinking about it.