Untitled Document

14 March 2002

1. "Turkey extends emergency rule in four mainly Kurdish provinces", Turkey's parliament extended on Wednesday a 15-year-old state of emergency in four mainly Kurdish provinces at the heart of a long-standing conflict between Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels.

2. "Turkish general causes controversy with call for Turkey to stop seeking European Union membership", when Turkish military leaders speak, history dictates that the country's politicians take notice.

3. "Most Turks ready to join EU", some 70 percent of Turks are in favour of joining the European Union, but most do not believe this will happen for another 10 years, according to a survey published Wednesday in the daily newspaper Sabah.

4. "Construction giant drops controversial Turkish dam plan", one of Britain's leading construction companies pulled out of the planned Yusufeli dam in Turkey yesterday after environmentalists said it would be the target for protests.

5. "The PKK and Europe", columnist Mustafa Balbay comments on relations between the PKK and some European countries.

6. "Turkey and the European Union: Heading for a break?", Ankara has certainly demonstrated an impressive commitment recently to move forward with structural and political reforms in accordance with the Copenhagen Criteria specified by the EU as an essential precondition for the opening of membership negotiations.

1. - AFP - "Turkey extends emergency rule in four mainly Kurdish provinces":

ANKARA / March 13

Turkey's parliament extended on Wednesday a 15-year-old state of emergency in four mainly Kurdish provinces at the heart of a long-standing conflict between Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels.

Under the decision, emergency rule will continue for four more months counting from March 30 in the southeastern provinces of Diyarbakir, Hakkari and Sirnak as well as Tunceli in the east. A state of emergency was first declared in southeast Turkey in 1987, three years after the now-outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) took up arms for self-rule in the region.

The conflict, which has led to allegations of gross human rights abuses on both sides, claimed some 36,500 lives, stalled economic activity in the region and led to a massive migration to Turkey's urban west. Fighting has declined significantly since September 1999 when the rebels said they would end their armed struggle and pull out of Turkish territory to promote a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The PKK truce -- coming in the wake of peace calls from jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan -- was brushed aside by the powerful army, which called on the rebels to either surrender or face military action.

In a speech to lawmakers, Interior Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen said that despite the PKK's pledge to withdraw from Turkey, there were still some 500 rebels on Turkish soil. "The terrorist organization is still present in the region. The threat they pose is not over," he said. Yucelen said it was Ankara's desire to scrap the state of emergency altogether, but he added that the measure was still needed to "ensure the protection of basic rights and liberties, and the continuation of public order".

The European Union has urged Turkey to end the state of emergency as a mid-term objective in a series of reforms on its way to become an EU member. In a program of reforms to catch up with European standards, Turkey has pledged to end the state of emergency, but has not given a timetable for action.

2. - Eurasia.net - "Turkish general causes controversy with call for Turkey to stop seeking European Union membership":

by Jon Gorvett: / 13 March

When Turkish military leaders speak, history dictates that the country's politicians take notice. So, when General Tuncer Kilic, the secretary of Turkey's powerful National Security Council, in early March said that the country should abandon its efforts to become a member of the European Union and turn towards regional neighbors Russia and Iran, politicians and pundits across the country snapped to attention.

"I believe that the EU will never accept Turkey," said the general. "Thus Turkey needs new allies, and it would be useful if Turkey engages in a search that would include Russia and Iran."

With EU membership a goal of Turkish foreign policy since the 1960s, and major constitutional changes underway to try and bring the country more into line with EU policy, the general's remarks appeared to pull the rug from under the feet of dozens of the country's diplomats and politicians. Not surprisingly then, reactions were swift.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer told reporters that, "We are preparing for full (EU) membership by rapidly completing democratic, social, cultural and economic reforms" - despite General Kilic. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit then added, "We cannot be swayed by the obstacles and difficulties we have faced on the path to EU membership and look for other options."

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz - who is also leader of Motherland, the smallest party in the three-way coalition government, and the administration's EU affairs minister - described a Turkish-Iranian-Russian link up as "a nightmare scenario."

Yet despite this broad condemnation, there were some voices raised in support of the general's views - and some notable silences. Principle among the later was Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the coalition's second largest group, the rightist National Action Party (MHP). The MHP has long had a problem with the kind of reforms the EU is demanding Turkey make before membership talks can begin. These include greater rights for minorities, abolition of the death penalty and some shift towards an end to the de facto division of Cyprus. They also include measures to radically reform Turkey's massive state bureaucracy and often discredited legal system.

All of which runs counter to the MHP's deepest nationalistic beliefs. In recent weeks, there has been an increasingly heated argument between Bahceli and Yilmaz over further steps towards reform, with Bahceli alleging that the Motherland leader was "playing a dangerous game" and exploiting people's desire for EU wealth. But while Bahceli may have party political reasons for attacking Yilmaz, his concern over the EU does also touch a nerve in the country at large - and in the military in particular.

"Terrorist groups targeting Turkey are currently being supported by some European countries," Chief of the Turkish General Staff General Hüseyin Kivrikoglu said recently, referring to the Kurdish separatist PKK and armed Turkish leftist faction, the DHKP-C, which continue to operate legally in some EU member countries.

This underscores a widespread perception in Turkey that the EU cannot be trusted to uphold Turkey's national interests. Many Turks also feel that the Union operates a double standard against them, as while East European countries that only 10 years ago were under Soviet rule are now about to join, Turkey has pressed its membership claim since the early 1960s. "The EU is a Christian club," Kilic also said, referring to another widespread feeling in Turkey that the Turks are being discriminated against because of their Muslim beliefs.

Turkish-EU relations have gone through many troubled patches. Most recently, the private emails of the European Commission chief in Ankara, Karen Fogg, were hacked into and published in a leftist newspaper. Although the editor of the paper and the chief of the party it was affiliated to have now been taken to court, the case caused more hostility towards the EU than sympathy for Fogg over the violation of her privacy. Nevertheless, in opinion polls, some three-quarters of Turks regularly favour EU membership.

"The entire society is confused," says leading columnist Mehmet Ali Birand. "But for the first time, the Turkish public is beginning to reveal its doubts and worries regarding the EU."

As for Russia and Iran, both are traditional rivals. The General Staff itself had also issued a report only the week before accusing Iran of backing fundamentalist terrorist groups in Turkey. Kilic's message most likely had a purely Brussels address then, rather than a Moscow or Tehran one. "His is the kind of approach that does bring to mind the fact that Turkey too has bargaining chips in the EU process," wrote columnist Fikret Bila in the mass circulation daily Milliyet.

Yet the value of those chips may also be on the way down, according to Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, who has been central in pushing forward Turkey's EU bid. "This turn of events has started doing harm both to ourselves and to our relations with the EU," he told journalists after Kilic's remarks. "We are cutting the bough we stand on."

Editor's Note: Jon Gorvett is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.

3. - AFP - "Most Turks ready to join EU":

ANKARA / March 13

Some 70 percent of Turks are in favour of joining the European Union, but most do not believe this will happen for another 10 years, according to a survey published Wednesday in the daily newspaper Sabah.

The survey was published shortly after a Turkish general openly questioned his country's bid to join the 15-nation pan-European bloc. General Tuncer Kilinc said last week, "Turkey has not received the slightest help from the EU on any issue regarding its national interests. The EU takes a totally negative view of issues that impinge on Turkey's interests." Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit then had to reassert Turkey's candidacy for EU integration which was first officially recognised in December 1998.

The poll, conducted by market research organisations AC Nielsen and Burgu, found that while nearly three out of four Turks favored joining the EU, 51.1 percent of those questioned felt it would happen before 10 years. Of the remaining 1,417 Turks questioned, 26.1 percent thought the opposite and 22.4 percent were undecided.

Turkey has not yet begun negotiations for its EU entry because it is first bound to respect political and human rights criteria for EU membership established in Copenhagen in 1993.

4. - The Independent - "Construction giant drops controversial Turkish dam plan":

By Saeed Shah / 14 March

One of Britain's leading construction companies pulled out of the planned Yusufeli dam in Turkey yesterday after environmentalists said it would be the target for protests.

The move by Amec avoids a big embarrassment for the Government, which has been asked to underwrite the firm's involvement in the £590m scheme, highlighted by The Independent this week.

Friends of the Earth had been due to start a campaign outside Amec's London headquarters today. The project had been called "Ilisu 2", after another controversial Turkish dam that was to have been built by a British company, Balfour Beatty.

Critics say the new dam would displace 30,000 people by flooding the area around Yusufeli in north-east Turkey. It would also destroy the habitats of endangered species and wash away important archaeological sites, campaigners argue.

Nick Welsh, a spokesman for Amec, said it was "coincidence" that the company's decision came just before protests were due to begin. Amec has been working on the scheme for nearly three years. It said it had abandoned the project for purely commercial reasons.

In November, Balfour Beatty dropped out of the consortium planning to construct the Ilisu damafter a three-year protest campaign said to have seriously damaged the company's reputation. Like Amec, Balfour Beatty had sought export credit guarantees from the Department of Trade and Industry against non-payment by the Turkish government.

At Ilisu, the Kurdish minority who live in the area would be displaced, while at Yusufeli, members of Georgian minority would be flooded out. The Turkish government is still trying to press ahead with both schemes.

Kerim Yildiz, the director of the Kurdish Human Rights Project, said: "For minorities on the ground whose homes, livelihood and ways of life are threatened by this project, this a huge victory."

Tony Juniper, the director-designate of Friends of the Earth, said the Government had again been saved from having to make a policy decision on a project that raised fundamental human rights issues. "Ministers must set a framework so that companies don't waste their money getting involved in projects that don't meet the standards of society."

5. - Cumhuriyet - "The PKK and Europe":

Columnist Mustafa Balbay comments on relations between the PKK and some European countries. A summary of his column is as follows:

March 14

Prior to its so-called eighth congress, the terrorist organization PKK got in touch with certain European countries in order to set the agenda for that meeting's decisions. What emerged from that congress shows how closely the two are working together.

Last month, Belgium Parliament Deputy Speaker Jam Meri Bigen and parliamentarians Predy Willems and Vinsit Vankiyulin met with Osman Ocalan in northern Iraq. During the meeting the Europeans reportedly suggested to the PKK the following: - To work on its relations with the Kurdish people, - To abandon its weapons, but not to disband its militant groups, - To drop the "PKK" name and adopt a new label. The new name should not offend anyone but should also set an image for the group, - To push for cultural rights, - Since Iraq's future is would also the PKK's interest, to avoid using words like "Kurdistan."

Following up on those suggestions, the PKK took the following decisions at its so-called congress and sent word of them to its European supporters: - To refrain from illegal activity in Europe or Turkey, - To regroup the PKK's branches under new labels, namely the ones used by groups in northern Iraq, - To refrain from any action in Europe which would threaten public safety, - To disarm all its armed forces in northern Iraq. If Turkey lets it enter the politic arena, to give up its weapons, - Following disarmament, to announce to the public that it was abandoning its campaign of armed attacks, - To not aim at dividing Turkey, but also to leave open a discussion of confederation.

We can clearly see that there are many similarities between the European suggestions and the PKK's final decisions. What should we do in response? Turn back to the European Union? The problem is, whatever we do we must act within the accepted conventions of international relations. We should act with our intentions not our feelings, and try to think with our brains not our hearts. In the 1990s, Turkey paid the price of a failing economy to overcome its terrorism problem. It didn't let this terrorism become an ethnic issue.

Various Turkish groups, and especially the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), played a significant role in this process. Now we are in a position that may look easier but is in fact more complex to address. There are two basic conditions: One, to not forget the past. Two, to not darken our future.

6. - Turkish Daily News - "Turkey and the European Union: Heading for a break?":

Ankara has certainly demonstrated an impressive commitment recently to move forward with structural and political reforms in accordance with the Copenhagen Criteria specified by the EU as an essential precondition for the opening of membership negotiations. However, skeptical Turks claim that the EU has been "moving the goal posts" by pressuring Turkey to make additional constitutional changes with respect, in particular, to the rights of ethnic minorities and the abolition of the death penalty

2002 certainly began with a new spirit of optimism on the EU as well as the economy. Towards the end of last year, Turkey had taken steps to tackle long-standing difficulties bedeviling relations with the EU over European Security and Defense Policy and Cyprus. The EU summit at Laeken in December 2001 had encouraged Turkish hopes of finally beginning accession talks with the EU. Accordingly, Ankara quickened its democratic reforms aimed

The EU officials have continued to warn Turkey against blocking Greek Cypriot accession without a settlement and to argue that "annexing" Northern Cyprus in response would only obstruct Turkey's own chances of eventually joining the EU. Soon after Verheugen reiterated the EU position during his visit to Ankara, the current president of the European Council, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain, visited Cyprus where he underlined the determination of the EU to proceed to its decision on Cyprus' accession "irrespective of the progress or outcome of the talks."

by Seda Ciftci, Research Assistant Turkey Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) / 14 March

It has long been clear that 2002 will be a crucial year in determining Turkey's relationship with the European Union (EU), and the current indications are far from favorable. By the end of the year, the EU will almost certainly proceed with the accession of 10 applicant countries, while Bulgaria and Romania as well as Turkey itself will be asked to wait. It also seems highly probable that the EU will not be able to give a precise date for the start of accession talks with Turkey. Having resumed serious pursuit of the goal of entry into the EU since the Helsinki Summit of 1999, Turkey seems to be heading instead toward the kind of disappointment that will prompt a review of its goal of integration with Western Europe.

After emerging successfully from a very difficult and costly 15-year war with the PKK which ended with the capture of its leader Abdullah Ocalan, Turkey's influential military establishment and nationalist politicians have been reluctant to sanction further movement on these issues, which touch on Turkey's long-standing concerns on the integrity of the state. They are equally disturbed by the EU's willingness to admit the Greek Cypriots in South Cyprus in the name of the entire island, even without a settlement, in the next wave of EU enlargement in 2004.

Reforming for accession and growing tensions 2002 certainly began with a new spirit of optimism on the EU as well as the economy. Towards the end of last year, Turkey had taken steps to tackle long-standing difficulties bedeviling relations with the EU over European Security and Defense Policy and Cyprus. The EU summit at Laeken in December 2001 had encouraged Turkish hopes of finally beginning accession talks with the EU. Accordingly, Ankara quickened its democratic reforms aimed at bringing its national legislation closer to European democratic criteria.

In early February, the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) approved a "mini-democratization" package of reforms covering freedom of statement and thought, while pursuing a deadline for achieving all short-term commitments by the end of March. Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz of the Motherland Party (ANAP), who has overall responsibility for coordination of the EU effort in the government, reiterated Turkey's "hope to start negotiations with the EU in 2003 and join to the bloc in 2007."

However, the EU continued to resist Turkish demands for a pledge on a specific date for Turkey's accession negotiations and to argue that Turkey's reform steps were not sufficient to satisfy the Copenhagen Criteria. Guenter Verheugen, the EU Commissioner responsible for enlargement, visited Ankara on February 14 and stated that, although the reforms were an improvement in "the Turkish context," they were "inadequate from a European perspective." He said, "We expect that the next steps will address issues [that] were not addressed in areas like death penalty and education." Emphasizing the need for "full implementation" of the political criteria, Verheugen said that "the negotiation process and the timing are completely related [to] the progress seen in the country."

Research for "Turkey-EU agenda 2002," carried out by the Turkish-European Foundation in February, confirmed that 68 percent of the Turkish public supported the goal of EU entry. Clearly the majority of Turkish citizens see the EU as the solution to the country's grave economic problems as well as the culmination of its national mission to modernize and Westernize. The coalition government headed by Bulent Ecevit of the Democratic Left Party (DSP) has publicly been reaffirming its commitment to the same goal even as the strains prompted by the EU issue brought to the surface deep divisions in its ranks. In fact, the government increasingly began to give the impression of being pulled in different directions by Yilmaz and the ANAP and Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli and his Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

While Yilmaz went so far as to say, "In opposing the EU, no one should try to hide behind the military," Bahceli has been bitterly critical of the idea of trying to get entry into the EU "at any cost." The two coalition partners have been at loggerheads, in particular, over the controversial issue of the abolition of the death penalty, which Bahceli claims is designed to prevent the implementation of the death sentence against Ocalan.

The tensions within the government and the Turkish political system were aggravated by a scandal on February 10, relating to the unlawful acquisition and publication of hundreds of e-mail messages of Karen Fogg, the EU Representative in Turkey. The leaking of the messages, which revealed the scope and details of Fogg's efforts to nudge and cajole the Turkish political establishment towards satisfying the EU demands, further galvanized those opposed to the process.

Addressing his MHP colleagues on March 2, Bahceli said, "If some businessmen, politicians, and media circles had lobbied for the interest of Turkey in the EU as they had lobbied for the EU administration in Turkey, our relations with the EU would have been in a much more advanced stage than at present." Claiming that there was a well-concerted campaign by a pro-EU lobby in Turkey and EU officials, Bahceli continued, the "debates on our Cyprus cause and the democratic reforms packages were brought to the forefront through campaigns [that] were highly interesting and disturbing."

Following angry denunciations by EU officials and a formal demarche to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, an investigation was duly launched to identify "the hackers" while the Turkish General Staff and the Turkish intelligence service denied any involvement in the incident. Nevertheless, the pro-EU editor in chief of Turkey's leading newspaper Hurriyet, claimed that the leaking of Fogg's e-mails came from anti-EU elements "within the state."

The Cyprus crunch

For some time it seemed likely that the intensifying debate on the EU issue in Turkey would come to a head on the Cyprus issue. In fact, prior to the resumption of talks in January between the Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktas and Greek Cypriot leader Glafcos Clerides, Turkey and the EU were on an apparent collision course over Cyprus. Turkey had made clear that it would proceed with "political integration" with the Turkish Cypriots if only the Greek Cypriots were admitted to the EU. Greece had threatened to use its veto power to block the entire EU enlargement if the absence of a settlement prevented Greek Cypriot accession. For its part, the EU said that, although it desired a settlement and hoped that the prospect of imminent entry to the EU would encourage reconciliation, the absence of a solution would not prevent accession by the Greek Cypriots. While talks have been taking place in Cyprus between the two sides, the positions of the parties have not changed.

In fact, the Cyprus problem has been eluding a solution for decades and the two sides are still far from an agreement on such critical issues as power sharing, refugees, and territory. With the Greek Cypriot side assured of accession even if there is no settlement, it unfortunately seems all too likely that the EU and Turkey will find themselves having to call each other's "bluff" on Cyprus with all the unavoidable negative consequences for their relationship before the end of 2002.

Growing divergence

In any case, the apparent malaise in the EU-Turkish relationship extends far beyond Cyprus. On March 4, Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem warned during a Turkish TV interview focusing on the EU, "If things continue in this fashion, all the efforts would go down the drain, and the country would hit the wall in the end." However, it is far from clear how Cem, or even his leader in the DLP, Prime Minister Ecevit, will reverse the slide in relations. Just three days later, General Tuncer Kilinc, the Secretary General of the National Security Council, said that the efforts to join the EU "were doomed to fail."

Commenting that Turkey had "not seen the slightest assistance from the EU and the EU has a negative view on the problems that concern Turkey," Kilinc said that Turkey needed new allies and that it would be "useful if Turkey engages in a search that would involve Russia and Iran" while taking care not to disregard the United States.

Although Ecevit responded by saying that Kilinc's comments reflected only his personal views and that "relations with the EU are progressing smoothly," Kilinc's words underlined the growing opposition in the Turkish political/military establishment. It is worth recalling that a few weeks earlier, on February 15, the normally taciturn Turkish Chief of Staff, General Huseyin Kivrikoglu had publicly denounced the willingness of EU countries to tolerate the presence of terrorist organizations opposed to Turkey on their territory and claimed that since the creation of the Turkish Republic, Western Europe had wanted to weaken Turkey. Given the airing of such grave Turkish suspicions, which were previously latent, it is difficult to see the EU-Turkish relationship getting back on track easily and it may be wise for both sides to use the remaining months of 2002 to seek ways to limit the likely damage.

It may also be time for the United States, which has been supporting Turkish integration into the EU, to clarify its position to both Ankara and Brussels.