15
October 2002
2. "YSK to rule on pro-Kurdish DEHAP tomorrow", the High Election Board (YSK) Chairman Tufan Algan said yesterday that they would decide on Wednesday whether Democratic People's Party (DEHAP), which collects several leftist parties and Turkey's only pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HADEP) under its banner, can stand in upcoming elections.
3. "Turkey: A Rising Islamic Party Gives the West the Jitters", it seems like the last thing the U.S. and Europe need, a pro-Islamist government taking over in Turkey on the eve of a likely U.S.-led attack on neighboring Iraq. But according to public opinion polls, the year-old Justice & Development Party (AKP)--the latest reincarnation of earlier-banned Islamic groupings--could win 30% or more of the popular vote in Turkey's general elections on Nov. 3.
4. "Iraqi Kurdistan a flourishing but fragile state-within-a-state", it is supposed to be Iraq, but no one here calls it that anymore. This state-within-a-state has KurdTel telephones, KurdTV, a buzzing Kurdish-language media and its own road network, police, army and parliament. And many of the wall maps that adorn political offices here are proudly marked "K U R D I S T A N" with such large letters and boundaries that they would give any Turkish general a heart attack.
5. "Turkey to set up "security belt" in northern Iraq if US attacks", Turkey said Monday it would set up a "security belt" in northern Iraq if the United States hits Baghdad, and renewed a threat of military action to prevent the establishment of a Kurdish state in the region.
6. "New Turkey Party Leader Ismail Cem: Cyprus is a clear political factor in Turkey's accession talks with the EU", the leader of the New Turkey Party Ismail Cem in an exclusive interview to RADIKAL answered questions put to him on the Cyprus Problem.
1. - Reuters - "Rights activist Birdal warns against poll ban":
"Barring DEHAP means, 'I don't want a solution to the Kurdish question, I don't want peace, I don't want to join the European Union,'" Akin Birdal says
ANKARA / 15 October 2002
Turkish hopes of winning European Union entry talks will suffer
a fresh blow if authorities bar a pro-Kurdish party from contesting
next month's general election, a party official and leading human rights
activist said.
The European Commission said in a report this week Turkey's poor human rights record excluded it from membership talks, but Ankara is still lobbying for a start date from Brussels when European leaders meet at a December summit in Copenhagen.
With elections fast approaching, electoral officials are now reconsidering a decision to let the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP) run, examining whether it has fulfilled technical criteria. A decision is expected in the coming days.
"If DEHAP is barred from the polls, the election will not comply with European human rights and law, and no negotiation date will be given at the summit," Akin Birdal said.
"Barring DEHAP means, 'I don't want a solution to the Kurdish question, I don't want peace, I don't want to join the European Union,'" he said in a weekend interview with Reuters.
He is campaigning for the left-wing party despite being banned from standing as a candidate because of a 1999 conviction for speeches he made as head of the Human Rights Association.
The party was set up as an auxiliary for the People's Democracy Party (HADEP), which quit the election in September fearing it would be shut down for its alleged ties to Kurdish separatists fighting for a homeland in southeast Turkey.
HADEP has denied those charges, and European officials have urged Turkey not to shut it down. It failed in the last election to clear a 10 percent vote threshold needed to enter parliament, but opinion polls show DEHAP's support approaching the barrier.
Only one established party is seen crossing the barrier in the November 3 polls and one in four say they will vote for the year-old Justice and Development Party (AKP), disdained by the powerful military for its roots in outlawed Islamist parties.
Angry voters
Birdal credits DEHAP's rising support in part to voter anger at government handling of a 2001 financial crisis that left hundreds of thousands jobless, fuelled price rises and led to a multi-billion dollar International Monetary Fund bailout.
"DEHAP is one of the few parties that approaches the vote barrier... Certain circles have seen this and that's why they are acting against it," Birdal said.
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, whose own party falls far short of the vote threshold in surveys, has warned that AKP or DEHAP success would pose "serious problems to the regime".
Nationalists who want to see DEHAP excluded accuse it of being a front for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which launched a violent campaign for independence in 1984. More than 30,000 people died in the fighting.
Osman Ocalan, brother of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, warned this week that excluding DEHAP would be "a call to war".
The European Commission said Turkey had not done enough to safeguard freedom of expression, end torture and guarantee other rights, despite passing reforms this year widening Kurdish cultural rights and abolishing the death penalty in peacetime.
"The EU progress report is a clear picture of the state of human rights in Turkey," Birdal said. "The reforms were a step, but Europe recognises that implementation needs to happen.
Birdal still has a number of legal cases pending that could spell jail time for comments he has made calling for greater rights for the country's estimated 12 million Kurds.
"It's like walking through a minefield. It's impossible to know when one will explode. One day I can say something, the next it will launch an investigation," Birdal said.
The 54-year-old human rights campaigner walks with a limp
after being shot in a 1998 right-wing assassination attempt. 
2. - Turkish Daily News - "YSK to rule on pro-Kurdish DEHAP tomorrow":
ANKARA / 15 October 2002
The High Election Board (YSK) Chairman Tufan Algan said yesterday
that they would decide on Wednesday whether Democratic People's Party
(DEHAP), which collects several leftist parties and Turkey's only pro-Kurdish
People's Democracy Party (HADEP) under its banner, can stand in upcoming
elections.
The chief prosecutor Sabih Kanadoglu has petitioned the YSK, which has the final say in who can run in the November 3 snap polls, to reconsider the DEHAP bid, alleging it has not fulfilled technical criteria. DEHAP is an auxiliary party HADEP, which quit the election last month fearing it would be shut down by the Constitutional Court for its alleged ties to Kurdish separatists.
Algan yesterday told reporters that the DEHAP issue was unprecedented and that it was also important from the political and democratic perspectives and carried much weight legally.
"We'll announce our decision when we come to the point of making a decision that will be in line with both the law and democracy," Algan said.
Although a delay just weeks ahead of the crucial election appears unlikely, barring DEHAP cast doubt on whether the election can go ahead on time, since the party is already listed on ballots and expatriate votes have been cast at border gates. However, Parliament Speaker Omer Izgi stated yesterday that the YSK might cancel DEHAP's name and emblem on the ballot papers, stressing that there was no need to print new ballot papers.
According to some opinion polls, DEHAP has a chance of
reaching a 10 percent vote threshold needed to enter parliament.
3. - "Bussiness Week - "Turkey: A Rising Islamic Party Gives the West the Jitters":
21 October 2002 / by John Rossant in Paris, with Stan
Crock in Washington
It seems like the last thing the U.S. and Europe need, a pro-Islamist
government taking over in Turkey on the eve of a likely U.S.-led attack
on neighboring Iraq. But according to public opinion polls, the year-old
Justice & Development Party (AKP)--the latest reincarnation of earlier-banned
Islamic groupings--could win 30% or more of the popular vote in Turkey's
general elections on Nov. 3. That would make the AKP the Parliament's
majority party, since smaller parties are excluded if they score under
10%. And it would mark a key shift away from the secular parties that
have traditionally held power in Turkey.
That's leading to nervousness in Washington, on Wall Street, and in European capitals. Some diplomats and analysts worry that the AKP's conservative Islamic populism may lead to more instability just when the strategically important nation is least prepared for it. Turkey is only haltingly recovering from its worst-ever slump, thanks to a $17 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. The fear is that an AKP government might be ill equipped to reform the economy and a difficult ally against Iraq. The Islamists' previous period in power, for 12 months in 1996 and 1997, was marked by tensions with the staunchly secular military. "With an economy on life support and a war across the border, we're not facing the most promising situation," says Bulent Aliriza, a specialist on Turkey at Washington's Center for Strategic & International Studies. "There's a whole different feel about these elections."
What's different is the spectacular rise of the AKP and its charismatic leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 48, a former Istanbul mayor. He has been banned from running in the election because of a conviction for inciting religious strife in 1998, but he would play a role advising an AKP Prime Minister--perhaps party co-founder Abdullah Gul. The AKP is benefiting from dissatisfaction with Turkey's corruption-ridden secular parties, three of which have shared power under aging Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit since early 1999.
To capitalize on the discontent, AKP leaders are stressing their goals of fighting corruption, streamlining government, and making the economy more efficient. The AKP will work closely with the IMF and move as quickly as possible to meet requirements for talks on joining the European Union, says Ali Babacan, an economic policy coordinator for the party. An AKP government would "be cooperative" with the U.S. on Iraq, he adds.
Party leaders recently visited London and the U.S. to convince investors the AKP has moved away from religious politics. But will the markets bite? Since the election was called in August, the Istanbul Stock Index has fallen 15%. Investors might feel reassured if the new government were to include Kemal Dervis, who organized Turkey's economic rescue. But Dervis is a candidate for the center-left Republican Peoples' Party, which may not win enough seats to force a coalition.
So the elections could well open a new era in Ankara. Turkish voters, investors, and political leaders in the U.S. and Europe will be watching to see if it's for good or ill.
(EDITED BY Edited by Rose Brady)
4. - AFP - "Iraqi Kurdistan a flourishing but fragile state-within-a-state":
ARBIL- Iraq / 15 October 2002
It is supposed to be Iraq, but no one here calls it that anymore.
This state-within-a-state has KurdTel telephones, KurdTV, a buzzing
Kurdish-language media and its own road network, police, army and parliament.
And many of the wall maps hat adorn political offices here are proudly
marked "K U R D I S T A N" with such large letters and boundaries
that they would give any Turkish general a heart attack.
"But our football teams still sometimes play in the Iraqi league," joked one senior official from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), one of the two main groups running this enclave. "But that is just sport, and this is politics." Off-limits for Saddam Hussein since the end of the Gulf War in 1991 and protected by United States and British air patrols, Iraqi Kurdistan has brought long-awaited freedoms to 3.6 million people who for decades have been literally dying to express their Kurdishness. Eighteen percent of Iraq's oil revenue has been funnelled into regional development by a huge United Nations operation that administers the oil-for-food programme, on top of which illegal oil exports to Turkey and commercial links with Iran has created something of a bustling regional trading hub.
One merchant, Talat Hawramani, who exports televisions across the Turkish and Iranian borders, described it as part of "a new Silk Road". There are Internet cafes, some 30 licensed political parties -- including Islamists, communists, Turkomens and Assyrians -- and locals boast of freedoms not seen in any neighbouring country.
"The changes here have been incredible," recounted Mustafa Khawar, a senior telecoms engineer here in Arbil, Iraqi Kurdistan's main administrative centre. "You know most of the children born after 1991 don't even speak Arabic. But as soon as Saddam is sorted out, it'll be even better. We just want it over and done with."
Despite the new-found freedoms it is a fragile state of affairs, and Iraq's Kurds are no strangers to fleeing oppression, attack and near-genocide. The enclave is land-locked by Syria, Turkey and Iran, countries that do not want to see Iraq's Kurds serve as an example for their own minorities.
Just a short drive to the south are Iraqi troops who in the past have not hesitated to unleash poison gas on Kurdish civilians. And especially after Turkey's threat last week that it could use force to prevent any further step to Kurdish statehood, the word "independence" has become something of a taboo for the enclave's slick officials.
"What we want is a democratic, pluralistic and federal Iraq" is the official line offered in a briefing from Ibrahim Hassan, a media-savvy public relations official from Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Just talking about independence, officials here repeat over and over again when privately pressed on the issue, "is not in our interests" -- even if they assert that the region's estimated 23 million Kurds are the Middle East's largest ethnic group without their own country.
And Iraq's Kurds have good reason to exercise even more extreme caution than ever before. With the United States gearing up for war and Saddam Hussein facing "regime change", on the horizon is a major upset in a dispensation the
Kurds are only beginning to prosper under. To prepare for an impending war, the two main factions here -- the KDP and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) -- have attempted to bury their differences that over the years has seen thousands die in internecine fighting.
With their leaders exchanging combat fatigues for suits and ties and their Kalashnikovs for satellite telephones, they have been busy seeking to reassure their neighbours that they are a part of Iraq, and cautiously support the United State against Baghdad while keeping an opportunistic eye on Kirkuk and Mosul -- ethnic Kurdish cities situated in a belt of Baghdad-controlled northern Iraq where a third of the country's oil is produced.
As Salah Dalou, a KDP official exiled from Kirkuk explains,
pragmatism is the watchword as the enclave plays a delicate balancing
act between dreams of independence and mere survival. "We are at
the mercy of the United States," he said. "We've been betrayed
by the Americans before, but hopefully this time Saddam will go quickly."
5. - AFP - "Turkey to set up "security belt" in northern Iraq if US attacks":
ANKARA / 14 October 2002
Turkey said Monday it would set up a "security belt" in
northern Iraq if the United States hits Baghdad, and renewed a threat
of military action to prevent the establishment of a Kurdish state in
the region.
Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said in an interview with NTV television that if a US operation against Iraq triggered a refugee exodus, Turkish troops would move into northern Iraq to stop the wave within Iraqi borders.
"This will be a force of a number sufficient for such a job. This will at the same time (ensure) our border security and constitute a security belt," Cakmakoglu said.
Turkey, which suspects Iraqi Kurds of wanting to set up an independent state, has acknowledged it is already keeping several hundred troops in northern Iraq.
Ankara fears that a Kurdish state in the region could incite its own Kurds to separatism at a time when a 15-year Kurdish rebellion for self-rule in adjoining southeast Turkey has abated.
"The Turkish armed forces are a deterrent force both with respect to its size and its weapons ... If this deterrent force impedes the situation we do not want in Iraq, it will have have completed its objective," Cakmakoglu said.
"But if we do not get a result through this deterrent force, then we have to move one step forward. This could be a show of force if necessary, or an intervention," he added.
Cakmakoglu spoke about a number of military options available to Turkey, while stressing that parliamentary approval was required for operations outside the country.
"I do not see the possibility of a war at present, but we will have to bring the issue to parliament and take a decision, be it a dispatch of soldiers, a (military) exercise, or even a show of force to indicate that we are balancing the situation," he said.
Iraqi Kurds have ruled northern Iraq outside Baghdad's control and under the protection of a US-enforced no-fly zone since the 1991 Gulf War.
The two main factions in the area -- the Patriotic Union of Kurdistanand the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) -- recently mended fences after years of animosity and their joint parliament, dormant since 1996, reopened earlier this month.
They also drafted a constitution for a future Iraqi federation made up of an Arab and a Kurdish region, the latter to have as its capital the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which is currently under Baghdad's control.
Cakmakoglu said it was "unacceptable" for Turkey that Kirkuk should become the center of any "Kurdish movement."
Kurdish control of regional oil resources could make an independent Kurdish state in the mountainous and landlocked area a viable option.
Allowing the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq would mean "saying yes" for possible moves by the Kurds of Turkey, Iran and Syria to join it afterwards, Cakmakoglu said.
"I do not think there is even a probability neither
for us nor Syria and Iran and even Iraqi officials... to say yes to
that," he said.
6. - Radikal - "New Turkey Party Leader Ismail Cem: Cyprus is a clear political factor in Turkey's accession talks with the EU":
14 October 2002
The leader of the New Turkey Party Ismail Cem in an exclusive interview
to RADIKAL answered questions put to him on the Cyprus Problem, as follows:
Question: We have also a very serious Cyprus Problem. Could Cyprus be an obstacle before our EU membership?
Answer: Legally it cannot. Today Cyprus is not a legal condition in the relation with the EU. However; it is clearly a political factor in Turkey^Òs accession talks with the EU. Denktas has done the maximum that was expected from us. He has put forward an acceptable conciliatory model. We have, may be, to further and continue our reconciliatory and constrictive stance on certain points. Only in this way we could minimize the negative effects of the situation existing in Cyprus to our EU procces.
Question: Do you think that our interests in Cyprus are more important than the advantages that an EU membership will provide to Turkey?
Answer: Turkey could not take the risk of being face to face with events like killing of the Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus. A possible new conflict in Cyprus could put Turkey in a very difficult situation and could force Turkey to be in an intervening position. For this reason we should not look into this problem of what kind of advantages we have in Cyprus.
Question: Could an EU member Greece or Greek Cypriot Administration engage in killings as in the past? Would EU permit this?
Answer: This kind of incidents do not occur with the permission of the EU or Greece or even with the permission of the Greek Cypriot Administration. In case, with a wrong reconciliation formula the two communities are brought together without any guarantees, of incident of a personal dimension could pave the way for major incidents. And these incidents could put Turkey in a very difficult situation. Turkey could not take this risk.