10 June 2002

1. "Turkey split on EU demands, official says", Turkey's deputy premier acknowledged Saturday that the government was split over EU-demanded reforms including abolishing the death penalty and giving more rights to Kurds, but he expressed hope that government would last.

2. "Kurdish group says Iraqi opposition favors US help to topple Saddam", the Iraqi opposition wants to topple the regime of President Saddam Hussein even if it has to enlist the help of the United States, one of the two main Kurdish groups sharing control of northern Iraq said Friday.

3. "German human rights report revealed", Germany finds Turkey's human rights situation unsatisfactory.

4. "Turkish press question future of government", Turkish press on Saturday questioned the future of the ruling coalition after ill health forced Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit to miss a key meeting on EU membership and a senior coalition party issued a veiled threat to quit the government.

5. "Turkey's government, opposition issue vague pledge on EU-sought reforms", government and opposition leaders issued a vague pledge Friday to speed up reforms required under Turkey's bid to join the European Union in a summit overshadowed by the absence of ailing Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and a senior opposition leader.

6. "Turkey's poet premier Ecevit, the man who divided Cyprus", Turkey's Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, whose ill health has sparked fears of national instability, is a poet politician whose tumultous 45-year career has been marked by the invasion of Cyprus, the capture of the country's top hate figure and its worst economic recession in decades.

7. "European Rights Court to Rule on Turkey's Treatment of Outlawed Kurdish Deputies", the European Court of Human Rights will hand down a ruling on Tuesday on a suit brought against Turkey by 13 former Kurdish lawmakers including jailed deputy Leyla Zana who were given heavy prison sentences or forced to leave the country, officials said.

8. "Musicians Detained at Diyarbakir Festival for Singing Kurdish Song", the security forces were not able to tolerate the Kurdish songs sung by the Koma Asmin group on the last night of the Diyarbakir Second Culture and Art Festival, whose main theme was "multi-culture."

1. - AP - "Turkey split on EU demands, official says":

ISTANBUL / 8 June 2002

Turkey's deputy premier acknowledged Saturday that the government was split over EU-demanded reforms including abolishing the death penalty and giving more rights to Kurds, but he expressed hope that government would last.

Concern over Premier Bulent Ecevit's health has also been raising questions about the government's survival, with two years to go before elections are due.

"It's true that there are divisions within the government" over the EU's membership criteria, Deputy Premier Mesut Yilmaz told journalists. "But I hope this won't cause the breakup of the coalition government."

On Friday, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer summoned the heads of all parties to discuss the reforms Turkey must implement to start membership talks with the European Union. They include abolishing the death penalty and granting broader rights to the country's 12 million Kurds, including the right to broadcasting and teaching in Kurdish.

But Ecevit, who was hospitalized twice in the past month, couldn't attend.

And the nationalist party that is his largest coalition partner used the meeting to stress its opposition to the EU's demands.

Yilmaz defied calls for Ecevit's resignation, which have intensified as the premier, 77, missed two critical meetings in as many weeks.

"Those who want to turn the prime minister's illness into a state problem should show us which state business has been disrupted," Yilmaz said. "No state business has been disrupted."

Nationalist leader Devlet Bahceli said after Friday's meeting that his party would pull out of the government rather than back the reforms. Bahceli said other coalition partners could push through the EU reforms with the help of opposition parties.

It is not clear if that would work, especially since the two opposition groups who pledged support for the EU's demands are pro-Islamists distrusted by Turkey's powerful military.

Ecevit and Yilmaz appear left with a difficult choice: keep together the coalition at the expense of putting Turkey's EU bid on hold by delaying or abandoning critical reforms.

"Bahceli is saying, either the government or the EU," wrote Ismet Berkan in daily Radikal. "Which will the other coalition partners choose? Short-term stability or [Turkey's] long-term interests?"

Early elections are another possibility for revamping the political power scene.

Business leaders, worried about a recovery after the economy shrank 9.4 percent last year, would like to avoid an early vote. So do the coalition partners, fearing that voters will punish them for the crisis.

But Kemal Dervis, the economy minister and architect of the government's International Monetary Fund-backed recovery program, has stressed that elections won't harm an economy that is now better insulated from political interference.

Some analysts said the limited market reaction to Friday's turmoil -- shares slipped 3 percent, a relatively mild fall by local standards, while the Turkish lira held its ground against the dollar -- showed Dervis was right.

Ecevit's absence from Friday's meeting and Bahceli's uncompromising stance "have made an election inevitable," wrote commentator Gungor Uras in daily Milliyet.

2. - AFP - "Kurdish group says Iraqi opposition favors US help to topple Saddam":

DUBAI / 7 June 2002

The Iraqi opposition wants to topple the regime of President Saddam Hussein even if it has to enlist the help of the United States, one of the two main Kurdish groups sharing control of northern Iraq said Friday.

"The Iraqi opposition, including the Kurds, wants to overthrow the dictatorship in Baghdad, even if this necessitates outside help, including from the United States," an official from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) told AFP. "We seek radical change which would bring about a democratic, peaceable regime that recognizes the Iraqi people's rights," Latif Rashid said, stressing that the PUK wants to safeguard "Iraq's unity and territorial integrity."

Rashid, the PUK representative in London, said PUK chief Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the other main group controlling the Kurdish zone in northern Iraq, had discussed ways of implementing a 1998 US-brokered peace deal between their rival factions during a mid-April meeting in Germany. But he flatly denied press reports that Talabani and Barzani had paid a "secret visit" to Washington last week during which they demanded control of the oil-rich northern Kirkuk region in return for supporting Saddam's overthrow.

The United States has threatened to take military action against Iraq and to try to unseat Saddam unless he allows UN arms inspectors back into the country to check Baghdad's claim that it no longer harbours a programme to build weapons of mass destruction. According to an Iraqi Shiite opposition figure, both the KDP and PUK were holding talks Friday with State Department officials in Washington. The Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), the main Shiite Muslim opposition faction, and the National Accord Movement, which groups mainly former Iraqi army officers, were also attending the talks, the opposition figure said.

3. - Turkish Daily News - "German human rights report revealed":

Germany finds Turkey's human rights situation unsatisfactory

ANKARA / 8 June 2002

German Foreign Minister Joska Fisher revealed the "6th Human Rights Report in Foreign Affairs and Other Political Areas," organized by the federal government, yesterday in the capitol, Berlin.

The section of the report focussing on Turkey said that the human rights situation in the country was not satisfactory.

The report claimed that torture still took place in police stations, human rights violations were still being directed toward Kurds and that there were still restrictions on press freedom.

The report also said that "Turkey should fulfill the Copenhagen criteria, strengthen the rights to freedoms of expression and demonstration, demolish the death penalty, increase the capabilities for evaluating complaints about human rights violations, and improve the situation in Southeastern Anatolia, in order to be a European Union member."

It was pointed out that Turkey has made many positive reforms within the context of EU membership, particularly in regards to debating the death penalty issue.

The report mentioned that the hunger strikes were being followed in the international area, noting that police have, on occasion, intervened severely, sometimes even causing deaths.

Democratic rules must not be violated in the fight against terrorism

Fisher said that human rights form the basis of a government's foreign policy and the democratic rules must not be violated in the fight against terrorism.

Fisher also commented on the human rights situation in the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus and said that they have made many attempts to improve the human rights situation in the Balkans and the Caucasus and that the human rights situation in Chechnya was particularly uneasy. Fisher added that high-ranking officers who violate human rights in the region must be punished.

Fisher stated that government policies on Afghanistan would pave the way for positive improvements, adding that the Yugoslavia policy also contributed to democracy in Macedonia. Fisher also characterized the establishment of the European Court at the Hague as extremely important for international human rights issues.

4. - AFP - "Turkish press question future of government":

ANKARA / 8 June 2002

Turkish press on Saturday questioned the future of the ruling coalition after ill health forced Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit to miss a key meeting on EU membership and a senior coalition party issued a veiled threat to quit the government.

A number of editorials declared Ecevit's absence from Friday's summit of all coalition partners and opposition parties meant "the end of any glimmer of hope" for the coalition's continuation until the 2004 elections. Friday's meeting had been called by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to break a deadlock over reforms required for EU membership.

A government official insisted that Ecevit, 77, who has spent the past month either in hospital or at home with a long list of ailments, was well, but had decided to continue resting in line with advice from doctors. But observers said Ecevit's absence showed he was no longer fit for office. Sabah newspaper said in order to end the political instability, the government should now move to hold elections before the July parliamentary vacation.

"We can now say that after this summit that the government is now closer to forming a new government," said an editorial in the mass circulation newspaper, Hurriyet. Adding to the prime minister's woes was a covert threat from his far-right coalition partner, Devlet Bahceli of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), to withdraw from government if the other two partners "frequently" seek alliances with the opposition.

Bahceli's threat came after the summit made a vague pledge that the government and the opposition would work together to endorse fundamental EU norms such as the abolition of the death penalty and legalizing broadcasts and education in the language of the Kurdish minority.

"Mr Bahceli is playing his trump card," declared liberal newsaper Radikal, adding that Bachelli is clearly not going to make a concession. "The government lives if this is what we can call life," the paper said.

5. AFP - "Turkey's government, opposition issue vague pledge on EU-sought reforms":

ANKARA / 7 June 2002

Government and opposition leaders issued a vague pledge Friday to speed up reforms required under Turkey's bid to join the European Union in a summit overshadowed by the absence of ailing Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and a senior opposition leader.

Ill health forced Ecevit, who has spent the past month either in hospital or at home with a long list of ailments, to miss the meeting. Senior centre-right opposition leader Tansu Ciller boycotted the talks and said Ecevit's ill health had created a "government vacuum," echoing widespread concerns that Ecevit's ill health could drag the country into political turmoil.

The meeting, chaired by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, aimed at solving a rift over key reforms such as the abolition of the death penalty and legalization of education and broadcasts in the language of the Kurdish minority. Presidential spokesman Tacan Ildem said after the meeting that the leaders agreed to "urgently finalize parliamentary work aimed at the development of new openings" that will align Turkish law with European norms.

The meeting however failed to break resistance against these reforms by the ruling coalition's far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which has already opened a rift in Ecevit's three-way government. The MHP wants the execution of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, already on death row for treason and separatism, and argues that minority freedoms could encourage Kurdish separatism.

The chairman of the pro-Islamic opposition Felicity Party, Recai Kutan, told reporters after the summit that MHP leader Devlet Bahceli reiterated his opposition to the reforms. At one point he even threatened to quit the government "if necessary," Kutan said. The leaders however decided parliament should have the final say on the reforms and agreed to bring the required draft laws to a parliamentary vote as soon as possible, with or without the backing of the MHP, which is the second biggest force in the house, Kutan added.

Turkey, the only candidate among the 13 EU hopefuls that has so far failed to open accession talks with the Union, aims to get a date for the start of negotiations by the end of the year. Already slim hopes of a breakthrough at Friday's summit were delivered a blow earlier when officials announced that Ecevit would not attend "in line with the advice of doctors."

The joint declaration issued after the summit also urged the EU to display "the required care and sensitivity in return for the steps that Turkey will undertake" to catch up with EU standards.

6. - AFP - "Turkey's poet premier Ecevit, the man who divided Cyprus":

ANKARA / 7 June 2002

Turkey's Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, whose ill health has sparked fears of national instability, is a poet politician whose tumultous 45-year career has been marked by the invasion of Cyprus, the capture of the country's top hate figure and its worst economic recession in decades.

Born in 1925 in Istanbul, Ecevit, left journalism for the political arena in 1959 as a member of the Republican People's Party (CHP). He became chairman of the centre-left party in 1972. Following victory in the 1973 elections, he set up a short-lived coalition government with an Islamist-leaning party, which undertook a historical move in Cyprus that has permanently marked Ecevit's career and international politics.

In the wake of a military coup by Greek Cypriots, engineered by the military junta then ruling Athens with the aim of uniting Cyprus with Greece, Ecevit ordered Turkish troops into the eastern Mediterranean island in July 1974. They took control of its northern third. The move led to the 28-year division of the island and earned Ecevit, whose trademark is his black bushy moustache and blue cap, the title of the "Cyprus conqueror".

In November 1974, his unlikely coalition fell due to internal differences and his second government, which took office in June 1977, lasted only a month. But Ecevit was back at the helm in January 1978 with a new government which tried to rule amid the chaos sparked by a deepening economic crisis and political violence involving street battles between left- and right-wingers. But he resigned after only 21 months. His political career was abruptly interrupted by the 1980 military coup -- the army's third and last interference -- which resulted in a ban on most political parties and saw him imprisoned for three months.

Faced with a 10-year ban on his political activities, Ecevit spent his time writing articles condemning the military's heavyhanded approach to politics, in addition to his own poems and translations into Turkish of T.S. Eliott and Rabindranath Tagore. When the political ban was lifted following a public referendum, Ecevit re-emerged as chairman of the Democratic Left Party (DSP), set up in 1985 by his wife Rahsan. By now there was a marked nationalistic fervour to his traditionally leftist views. In January 1999, he came back to power at the head of a minority government with the sole task of taking the country to elections in April, from which his DSP came out as the leading party.

His election victory was largely influenced by his announcement in January 1999 of the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, Turkey's number one enemy, whose Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) led a bloody 15-year armed campaing for self-rule in Turkey's southeast. He forged an unlikely coalition with a centre-left and a far-right party, which became the longest-lasting government since 1987. The government's popularity soared in December 1999 when the European Union accepted Turkey as a candidate for EU membership. But the tide turned when financial turmoil struck in November 2000 and February 2001, dragging the country into a severe economic crisis.

The upheaval sent the government running for massive loans from the International Monetary Fund in return for pledges to implement a strict economic recovery programme. The stability of Ecevit's government was undermined in May this year when the 77-year-old leader was hospitalised, triggering increasing calls for him to call it quits. The veteran leader, who has been married to his high-school sweetheart since 1946 but has no children, has so far dismissed the calls, arguing his departure from office would set back the country's economic programme and its id to join the EU.

7. - AFP - "European Rights Court to Rule on Turkey's Treatment of Outlawed Kurdish Deputies":

7 June 2002

The European Court of Human Rights will hand down a ruling on Tuesday on a suit brought against Turkey by 13 former Kurdish lawmakers including jailed deputy Leyla Zana who were given heavy prison sentences or forced to leave the country, officials said.

The Kurds, former deputies of the outlawed pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP), have accused Turkey of violating the Council of Europe's human rights charter, which Turkey has signed.

A key complaint of the deputies is that they were stripped of their parliamentary mandates when their party was banned.

Five of the defendants -- Ahmet Turk, Mehmet Atip Dicle, Orhan Dogan, Selim Sadak and Leyla Zana -- were condemned by an Ankara court in 1994 to 15 years in prison for belonging to an armed group.

Seadt Yurttas received seven and a half years for aiding and abetting an armed group, and a seventh deputy, Sirri Sakik, received three years for separatist propaganda in the same year.

The six others fled Turkey to escape charges of encouraging separatism and engaging in anti-state activity.

Turkey's highest court of appeals in 1995 overturned two of the 15-year sentences, freeing the deputies provisionally, but upheld the other sentences.

The European court earlier this week condemned Turkey for violating the rights of a half-blind lawyer and writer, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1985 for giving a pro-Kurdish speech.

The court will also hear arguments next week on another rights case involving the government's dissolution of the Islamist party Refah.

8. - Ozgur Politika - "Musicians Detained at Diyarbakir Festival for Singing Kurdish Song":

4 June 2002

The security forces were not able to tolerate the Kurdish songs sung by the Koma Asmin group on the last night of the Diyarbakir Second Culture and Art Festival, whose main theme was "multi-culture." Conducting a raid on the concert hall, the security forces detained the group. Three plays were banned on the first day of the festival on grounds that they were in the Kurdish language. Furthermore, the security forces also raided a slide show and detained photograph artist Yucel Tunca.

On the last day of the festival, which began on 25 May, a street concern was given by the Kamkarlar, an Iranian Kurdish music group; the opening of the bust of Ahmet Arif, a famous poet from Diyarbakir, was conducted and prizes were distributed in memory of Arif; a panel entitled "Third Teacher Ahmede Xani" was held; and writers signed books. During the performance of the Koma Asmin music group, the enthusiasm reached its peak.

The members of the Koma Asmin group, which performed on the last night of the festival and which conducts activities within the framework of the Mesopotamia Culture Center, were detained for singing songs in the Kurdish language. Performing on the last night of the festival, the Koma Asmin group sang the "Herne Pes" song at the request of the masses. As a result, the police raided the concert hall and detained eight female members of the group.

The detained Koma Asmin members were taken to the DGM yesterday afternoon. Detained group members Besime Yagi, Kadriye Senses, Gulbahar Kavcu, Serap Sonmez, Nurcan Degirmenci, Yesim Coskun, Arife Duztas, Zelal Gokce, Kader Bastas, Ruken Gokce, and Selda Sezgin were taken to the DGM Public Prosecutor's Office today in the afternoon. The Koma Asmin group members were still being questioned when our newspaper was published.