28 October 2002

1. "Turkey On The Spot", next week Turks choose a new government. But as a crucial player in a war against Iraq, the country must also choose between East and West.

2. "Turks tangled in politics of scarves", one week ahead of national elections, Turkey's ban on head covering is fueling controversy.

3. "Turkey, US Up Pressure on EU Application", talks with ten candidate countries continue on Monday, but one country keen on membership will be missing - Turkey, which warns that relations with the EU will be severely damaged if a date for accession is not set soon.

4. "Big nations boost Turkey's hopes for EU accession", Europe's five leading countries yesterday gave a boost to Turkey's ambitions to join the European Union by agreeing in principle to consider at the Copenhagen summit in December giving Ankara a timetable for starting accession negotiations.

5. "Turkish PM urges Berlin to 'be patient' over spy charges", Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit on Saturday urged Berlin to be patient, after a Turkish prosecutor indicted several German political groups on charges of spying.

6. "Turkey Grows More Worried Every Day About a U.S. Attack on Iraq", barely a day goes by without Turkey's prime minister, Bulent Ecevit, saying just how little he wants a war with his neighbor Iraq. He complains about being "caught in the middle." He bluntly raises Turkey's importance to the United States, on the map and as the only Muslim country in NATO.

1. - The Times Magazin - "Turkey On The Spot":

Next week Turks choose a new government. But as a crucial player in a war against Iraq, the country must also choose between East and West

27 October 2002 / by Andrew Purvis

The streets of the ancient city of Diyarbakir in south-eastern Turkey teem with vegetable hawkers and oxcarts, men in baggy cotton pants and women in silver-fringed headscarves. At the Ottoman bazaar, you can sip sugary tea and watch goldsmiths mold trinkets by lamplight. To the south lie the plains of Syria and the Middle East; to the east, the craggy mountains of northern Iraq. It all seems a long way from Europe. As the guidebooks say, here begins Asia.

Don't tell that to the Turks. Suleiman Ates, 57, a grizzled herder from a small village in the hills north of town, insists he lives elsewhere. "Europa! Europa!" he cries when asked whether he feels more European or Asian. For someone who has spent his life herding cattle in the remote valleys of the upper Euphrates, Ates displays an amazing grasp of Brussels minutiae. "Turkey will have no problems if she meets the Copenhagen criteria" for European Union membership, he says over a plate of yoghurt and honey.

Turks remain passionately, indiscriminately pro-European, even though Brussels has made it clear it's none too keen to have them join the E.U. From Kurds in the southeast to imams in central Anatolia to U.S.-educated stockbrokers in Istanbul, nearly 70% see joining the European Union as the solution to their many problems: an economy that shrank by 9% last year and is still mired in its worst crisis since World War II; a threatened war with Iraq that could not only scuttle a recovery but also cause a new flare-up with Kurdish separatists in the southeast; and a ruling coalition that has been a shambles since it collapsed amid bitter infighting in July.

Turks may look to the E.U. as their savior, but solutions are more likely to come — if they come at all — from the Nov. 3 general election. The vote may provide the latest answer to the eternal question of whether this staunch Western ally and sole Muslim member of NATO is drifting toward Islamic rule. It will tell markets and frightened investors whether economic reforms imposed by the International Monetary Fund as a condition for a $16 billion loan package are likely to stay on track. And it could even give an indication of whether Turkey's nationalist forces are more likely to rattle their sabers in coming months in Iraq or on Cyprus, the island that has been yanked by a 28-year tug-of-war between Turkey and Greece but is now set to enter the E.U. long before Turkey ever does.

One thing is sure. The old bums are out. Voters will vent their anger against the incumbents — whose tenure was marked by charges of corruption and economic mismanagement — by turfing out every party in the current coalition. The Democratic Left Party (DSP) of Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, for example, has managed just 1.5% in the most recent polls, nowhere near the 10% threshold required to enter the Turkish parliament. The Republican Peoples' Party (CHP), founded in 1923 by Kemal Atatürk and joined recently by the urbane former Economy Minister Kemal Dervis, is doing a lot better with 17.2%.

As they have in every election over the past 12 years, Turks are ready to embrace the unknown. The front-runner, with 29.6%, is Justice and Development (AK), a brand-new party with no government experience made up mainly of Islamists — people who favor a society based on Islamic principles — who insist, confusingly, that they are nothing of the kind. The AK's charismatic leader is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former mayor of Istanbul and the country's most popular politician. But in a further twist of Turkey's conflicted relationship with Islam — the nation's secular rulers have for decades used draconian laws to forestall the rise of fundamentalism — Erdogan was last week banned from standing as a candidate owing to a 1998 conviction for violating Turkey's secular laws.

That hasn't hurt his party's standing; it may have even helped. If current trends hold, the AK party will help lead a coalition government with the CHP and Kemal Dervis, or possibly the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). An outside contender is the Young Party, led by media and mobilephone tycoon Cem Uzan, which is campaigning on an anti-IMF platform and the promise of no taxes and free medicine.

Erdogan's ascent has been closely watched in Turkey and abroad. His critics, notably in the country's staunchly secular establishment, say the party has a hidden Islamist agenda that it would try to impose on Turkey, especially if it won a majority. They say this might include the banning of alcohol in public places or the outlawing of swimsuit ads, though the AK party platform contains no hint of such measures. Critics also point to Erdogan's prominent role in the former Welfare Party, which was banned in 1998 for inciting religious hatred. And they remind voters of Erdogan's 1998 conviction for inciting hatred — during a political rally he recited a poem that reads in part "minarets are our bayonets, mosques are our barracks, believers are our soldiers." He served four months in prison, and was banned from holding public office for life.

Erdogan has gone to considerable lengths to distance himself from the Islamist label. The AK party's insignia features a modern-looking lightbulb symbolizing, as one party worker helpfully explained, "light." The sanitized headquarters in Ankara resemble an insurance office more than a den of fundamentalism. Speaking to Time dressed in a crisp blue suit and red tie, Erdogan insisted that he was a moderate in all things, and that he has no interest in imposing Shari'a, the strict form of Islamic law, in Turkey, even if it were permitted by law. And he denies outright that the AK is an Islamist party. "I am a Muslim, but I believe in a secular state," he says. "The expression Islamic party is disrespectful of Islam itself. Parties are fallible and Allah is not."

2. - The Christian Sience Monitor - "Turks tangled in politics of scarves":

One week ahead of national elections, Turkey's ban on head covering is fueling controversy

ISTANBUL / 28 October 2002 / by Ilene r. Prusher

Elif Erdogan has a dream: someday, she won't be forced to take off her headscarf in order to enter a classroom.

Ipek Calislar has a nightmare: someday, women in Turkey will be required to cover themselves in headscarves, as they are in some Muslim countries – in her eyes a "catastrophe."

Yet the two women, a future math teacher and a veteran journalist, share one thing: a mutual skepticism for the way Turkey's politicians are using the issue of the "turban" – as scarves covering a woman's hair and neck are called here – to attract voters before national elections on Sunday.

What is ensuing in Turkey is more than a hubbub over headwear. The line between those who cover and those who don't marks one of the many fissures in Turkish society – deepened by the fact that those who do cannot work in government offices, hold an elected seat in parliament, or attend a state school or university.

Scarves – and religious garb in general – have been considered off-limits in official offices of the Republic of Turkey since founding father Kemal Ataturk introduced state secularism 79 years ago today. But after elections in 1995, when the Islamist Welfare Party – predecessor of the AKP or Justice and Development Party – tried to undo some of the pro-Western tenets embraced by Ataturk, the no-headscarf policy was extended to many schools and universities as well.

A week ago, the Islam-centric AKP spoke up for the first time on the issue, though their supporters basically knew where they stood.

"Nov. 3 will be the day when the torture of girls and women will end," Bulent Arinc, an AKP candidate, told a rally in Kahramanmaras, a city in southeastern Turkey. "Our students, because of their dress, cannot even enter the yards of their schools. I can only call this torture," he said. "We swear that this is going to be solved, and we'll do everything possible to solve this."

Tarhan Erdem, a polling expert with Konda Ltd., says that if AKP chooses headscarves as one of its first battles, Turkey will be enmeshed in crisis soon. "If they unleash this thing," says Mr. Erdem, opponents will say the Islamists are trying to change the secular constitution. "There could be a real clash over this issue, and that would make military intervention more likely."

Meanwhile, last Wednesday, Turkey's chief prosecutor applied to ban the AKP, despite the fact that it is the country's most popular political party and is slated to get about 30 percent of the vote. In September, an elections board barred AKP's charismatic leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from being a candidate for prime minister. He was convicted of sedition five years ago after he read from a poem that used the mosque as a metaphor for militancy.

Analysts say that the prosecutor's case against the AKP is unlikely to be resolved in time for the elections. Moreover, the last-minute effort to keep AKP away from the polls might serve only to shore up even more sympathy among Turkey's mostly conservative voters.

Among them, however, will not be Ms. Erdogan, who is not related to Turkey's hottest politician by the same name. Each day, when she goes to Istanbul University to attend class, she peels off the headscarf she now wears firmly wound around the edges of her face. She does it reluctantly. She finds it embarrassing and paternalistic.

"When I get to the door, I take it off, and then when I leave, I put it back on. It really bothers me," says Erdogan, who is studying to receive a bachelor's degree in math.

However, she will not vote for AKP or the other Islamic party, Saadet. "I'm against those who use this as a matter to win votes," she says. "That is why they [the AKP] have problems, because they're making a big controversy of it."

Erdogan, who plans to become a teacher, says her family was "sad" when they realized that she would have to take off her scarf each day to attend courses. But they respected her decision to continue her education. Her husband, a teacher of Islamic studies, felt the same.

"The government does not tolerate me as much as my family does," says Erdogan, who sat on a stone bench outside Istanbul's New Mosque to chat before a class. "My family leaves it up to me to decide whether to cover. The government doesn't."

In the last elections, in 1999, one woman tried to enter parliament with her head covered, just as she did while campaigning; she was promptly removed.

The result, Erdogan says, is that religious women are kept away from higher education and prominent jobs. She compromises by taking her scarf off for class only to prove the authorities wrong. "They want to show that religion is putting people back. They think everyone who is covered is a threat to the state, and that's not true," she says.

Erdogan won't say for whom she will vote next Sunday. "I don't really trust any party in Turkey right now," she scoffs. But if the state's constraints on religion get any tighter, she may – she regrets to say – one day vote for a party like AKP.

Ms. Calislar is a liberal thinker, and a prominent journalist and editor at Cumhuriyet, the country's oldest newspaper. In theory, she thinks women should have the right to choose what they want to wear – and whether they want to cover their hair. In practice, she suspects that most who do so don't have a choice.

"When you don't let a 17-year-old girl go to university because of what she wears, that's a kind of violence." says Calislar, who wears bohemian glass beads around her neck, and her golden hair tied in a bun.

Still, it bothers her to see other women – far more than there used to be – under wraps. "As an ideology, I'm against it. Mostly it's the husbands and fathers who force the young women to do it," says Calislar, sitting in the paper's newsroom, buzzing with as many women as men – and none of them covered.

She admits, however, that those who dress according to codes that some Muslims believe is prescribed by the Koran are living in a different reality than hers. "I don't believe in a religion, so that woman who wears a scarf, perhaps I can't understand her."

Turkey's urban intelligentsia, as well as the military, do not mask their desire to keep Islam's influence on public life to a minimum. When Calislar looks to Turkey's neighbors, for example, she sees Iran, and worries that Islamist politicians here want the same. "People don't really know what is coming from them, and we feel we are in danger," she says.

Were the AKP really concerned about women's issues, she charges, they would have put more women on their list of candidates for parliament. "The turban is a tool of propaganda," she says. "If they were trying to support women, they'd have more of them as candidates."

3. - Deutsche Welle - "Turkey, US Up Pressure on EU Application":

27 October 2002

Talks with ten candidate countries continue on Monday, but one country keen on membership will be missing - Turkey, which warns that relations with the EU will be severely damaged if a date for accession is not set soon.

The question of Turkey’s application to join the European Union is returning to centre stage as the United States upped its pressure on EU members to proceed and Turkey threatened to review its relations with the EU if a 2003 date on accession talks is not established at an EU summit in Copenhagen this December.

A draft for proceedings at the Copenhagen summit did not include discussion of setting a date for Turkish accession. And EU President Romano Prodi said last week that this would not be discussed in December.

Nonetheless, the support for a discussion on setting a date to begin talks with Turkey is growing. The news agency Reuters reported that the five biggest EU member states – Germany, France, England, Italy and Spain wanted the issue to be addressed in December.

Threats from Turkey

On Friday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Sukru Sina Gurel was quoted by the state-run Anatolian news agency as saying, “Turkish-EU relations will be greatly damaged and Turkey will be forced to review relations with the EU in every respect if the EU side does not give it a date to begin membership talks in 2003.”

The biggest opposition comes from Scandinavian states, who say Turkey has not made enough changes on the human rights front to warrant a discussion.

In August, the Turkish Parliament adopted a number of reforms, including the abolishment of the death penalty (except in times of war). It also stopped a ban on teaching or broadcasting in the Kurdish language.

While these reforms have been applauded by EU members, many say it’s too soon to tell how effective they will be.

In addition, there will be federal elections in Turkey in November, and many in the EU are waiting on these results before making up their minds on Turkey’s application status.

Strategic location

In any case, it’s clear that the times – and opinions – are changing as Turkey’s strategic location as a gateway between Europe and the Muslim world gains importance. Many now see Turkey as a key ally in the Western fight against terrorism.

“There are many countries – including Germany – that want to send positive signals to Turkey,” German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said at last week's EU gathering in Brussels.

But at the same time, public statements by a leader of the German Christian Social Union exemplify some opponents’ views. CSU leader Michael Glos said in an interview published in the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel that Turkey belongs in “another cultural region.”

Shift in thinking expected

At the EU meeting, another diplomat told Reuters: “There will be a strategic shift between now and the end of the year on Turkey”, adding however, that Turkey still may not get a date until after the 10 leading candidates have joined in 2004.

The candidates expected to join in 2004 are Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus and Malta.

Indeed, there may well still be hopes for Turkey. last week, EU coordinator for foreign policy Javier Solana criticized EU President Prodi’s hard-line stance on Turkey.

In addition, the German news agency DPA reported that EU officials believe the issue may well be addressed at a March 2003 meeting in Thessaloniki, Greece.

4. - The Financial Times - "Big nations boost Turkey's hopes for EU accession":

BRUSSELS / 26 October 2002 / by Judy Dempsey

Europe's five leading countries yesterday gave a boost to Turkey's ambitions to join the European Union by agreeing in principle to consider at the Copenhagen summit in December giving Ankara a timetable for starting accession negotiations.

Diplomats said the informal accord by Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain amounted to a psychological boost for the reformers in Turkey ahead of parliamentary elections there on November 3.

It may also revitalise stalled talks over the divided island of Cyprus, one of the 10 countries that will join the EU in 2004. Its northern part was occupied by Turkey in 1974.

Greece, which takes over the EU's rotating presidency in January, had wanted EU leaders to go further at Copenhagen by giving Turkey a specific date for starting negotiations.

Several countries said they preferred to take stock of the election result and the pace of reforms and set a "rendezvous" clause at the summit.

"There we will set a date to meet and finally give the timetable for starting accession talks," said a senior EU diplomat.

Much also depends on Turkey meeting the "Copenhagen criteria" - a set of conditions, including the rule of law and human rights standards, candidate countries have to meet before starting negotiations.

The mood among EU leaders marks a significant shift, motivated in part by pressure from the US and an awareness that Brussels was obliged to give Turkey some incentive to meet the Copenhagen criteria as well as recognition over reforms already undertaken.

"We see all these things linked with each other," said Tom Weston, the US State Department's envoy to Cyprus. "What we want to see is a Cyprus settlement, no backsliding on economic reform in Turkey, and implementation of reforms. For these things, the EU could recognise what Ankara is doing."

EU leaders shied away from discussing Iraq in any detail, even though it was on the agenda.

"We did not want [the summit] to become a divisive session," said a diplomat. "The action is in New York among UN Security Council members." Neither of Europe's two Security Council members - France and Britain - was enthusiastic about Iraq dominating the foreign policy agenda in Brussels, he added.

Greece and Turkey have agreed to postpone military exercises planned on the disputed Mediterranean island of Cyprus, George Papandreou, Greek foreign minister, said yesterday, Reuters reports from Brussels.

"Each year military exercises normally take place in Cyprus," he told a news conference. "Greece and Turkey have agreed. .. to postpone all military exercises planned in Cyprus for the foreseeable future."

Mr Papandreou said Greece wanted the military exercises to be postponed as a goodwill gesture and to help bring peace to the region.

5. - AFP - "Turkish PM urges Berlin to 'be patient' over spy charges":

ANKARA / 26 October 2002

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit on Saturday urged Berlin to be patient, after a Turkish prosecutor indicted several German political groups on charges of spying.

"I believe the strong character of Turkish-German relations will not be affected by the procedure," Ecevit said in a statement, stressing that the two states were linked by a deep friendship. He asked the German government to be patient and trust in the independence of the Turkish legal system while awaiting the outcome of the affair. A state security prosecutor has charged representatives of several German foundations which work to promote democracy with spying and seeking to undermine the Turkish state.

If found guilty, 15 senior foundation members could get between eight and 15 years in jail. Germany has strongly criticised the decision and the affair could cast a cloud over bilateral relations just as Berlin appeared to be giving Ankara stronger backing in its bid to join the EU. "These are well-established and respectable organisations ... that have been active in our country for a long time," Ecevit stressed, in a bid to distance himself from the indictment.

Turkish Justice Minister Aysel Celikel also cast doubt on the espionage charges, calling for concrete evidence, newspaper Radikal reported on Saturday. She stressed the "need for a strong legal base and conclusive proof in a sensitive case affecting international relations".

"I hope that this is the case here and that the prosecutor's act of accusation is based on solid arguments," she said, adding that she had not studied the charges. The indictment targets four German political organisations seeking to promote civil society and bilateral cooperation -- the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, the Heinrich Boell Foundation and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Two other groups are believed to have been indicted -- an Istanbul-based scientific body called the Orient Institute and the Foodfirst Information and Action Network, a German-based international organisation for the right to food. According to Anatolia news agency, the foundations were working to promote a federal system of government for Turkey, which has a sizeable Kurdish minority.

6. - The New York Times - "Turkey Grows More Worried Every Day About a U.S. Attack on Iraq":

ISTANBUL / 27 October 2002 / by Ian Fisher

Barely a day goes by without Turkey's prime minister, Bulent Ecevit, saying just how little he wants a war with his neighbor Iraq. He complains about being "caught in the middle." He bluntly raises Turkey's importance to the United States, on the map and as the only Muslim country in NATO.

"We know that the United States cannot carry out this operation without us," he said last week. "That is why we are advising that it abandon the idea. We're telling Washington that we are worried about the matter."

In the end, there seems little doubt that Turkey, however reluctantly, would side with its big friend and patron. But months into the American drive for support against Iraq, Turkey's leaders are still withholding their wholehearted support, and their discomfort grows daily.

So unanimous are Turks against a war in Iraq that it has hardly been raised in the campaign for parliamentary elections on Nov. 3. The election looks certain to expel the coalition led by Mr. Ecevit in favor of an untried party with roots in political Islam, which worries many here as a threat to Turkey's secularism.

Still, even the leaders of that party, Justice and Development, repeat the same conflicted refrain: Yes, Saddam Hussein is a menace. Turkey, they say, will probably support the United States in the name of its long and broad friendship, as well as its own strategic interests.

But Turkey, concerned that war could worsen an already dire economy and inflict new problems of refugees and Kurdish separatism, is not eager to play the role Pakistan did in the war in Afghanistan.

"It is in the nature of Turks to be convinced easily but react when they realize that they have been cheated," warned Abdullah Gul, a top Justice and Development leader who is in the mix to become Turkey's next prime minister. "Therefore, Turkey should be listened to and understood over her interests and concerns."

So the real issue is not whether Turkey will ultimately go along in an operation against Iraq, say Turkish officials, analysts and diplomats. Rather it is salving the nation's worries to prevent any long-term damage to relations between the United States and Turkey, the kind of moderate Muslim country Washington would like to encourage.

"Both nations will take extreme care not to have an open conflict over what happens in Iraq," said Ilter Turan, a political science professor and a former rector at Istanbul Bilgi University. "But if the United States intervenes and if you have a prolonged struggle, a prolonged military role in Iraq, probably quite a number of problems might crop up."

The election has injected a further note of uncertainty in the form of the Justice and Development Party, which is currently drawing as much as 30 percent in the polls. The question mark is whether its leaders, though they have disavowed political Islam, will be any less of an ally to the United States, particularly on the question of Iraq.

Mr. Gul and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the party's popular leader, who have played down their pasts as Islamic activists, say the relationship would likely stay the same, and Mr. Gul has been quoted as saying that they would leave any decision on Iraq to Turkey's military. Most experts say they would have no choice, at least in the short term; in 1997, the military eased out the last Islamic-leaning party to govern Turkey.

Zeyno Baran, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said it was highly unlikely they would change the alliance with the United States. "Absolutely not," she said. "Because this will be the grounds for the military removing them."

With elections a week away, Turkish and American officials are reportedly deep in negotiations about an assault on Iraq and how the United States would safeguard Turkey's concerns. Last week, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of the United States Central Command, and Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, supreme allied commander in Europe, visited Turkey for talks with its top commanders. On Wednesday, President Bush called President Ahmet Necdet Sezer for a discussion the White House said covered the "United States-Turkey strategic partnership."

Officials from both nations say there has been no formal request, like a role for Turkish troops in a ground operation in Iraq or the use of air bases here, seen as indispensable for American bombing runs on Iraq. Several reports suggest that any plan might include having Turkey send thousands of troops into northern Iraq — in addition to the 2,000 to 5,000 already there chasing Kurdish rebels — to stem the flow of refugees or defeated Iraqi fighters.

Turkey, though, is decidedly wary, and officials say Washington is frustrated that it has withheld firmer support, partly out of worry that Mr. Hussein will take full advantage of disunity in the region.

But Turkey's own worries stretch back over a decade, to the last time it was asked to help in an attack on Iraq. Turkish officials complain that Operation Desert Storm cost tens of billions in dollars, in military expenses, trade with Iraq and lost revenue from tourism. The no-flight zone enforced since then over northern Iraq also led to what they believe is something close to an independent Kurdish state there, a longstanding worry for Turkey, with its own restive Kurdish population.

Government officials here complain loudly that they do not fully trust American assurances that there will be no actual Kurdish state and have even threatened to take Iraqi territory if Kurds seize the oil city of Kirkuk, which Turkey says is populated mostly by ethnic Turkmen.

But many experts say there is a greater worry about a new war: money. Turkey remains in a deep economic crisis, eased only recently and with pain through a new program with the International Monetary Fund. Many Turks see their real interest not in war with Iraq, but in talks to join the European Union, which this month spurned Turkey once again by not setting a firm date for talks on joining the organization.

If the United States wants Turkey's support, many here say, it must be sure Turkey does not lose again, and reportedly a financial package worth roughly $5 billion is being discussed. Some experts suggest that it would also help if the United States pushed the European Union to set a date for entrance talks at a meeting of ministers of the European Union in December. Iraq may, otherwise, remain a hard sell here.

"The country is already in trouble, and an external crisis is all we need," said Ahmet Atici, 37, who sat reading a book in his empty shoe store at an upscale mall in Ankara, the capital. "We have no customers. We close down with pitiful figures every night. So we should only be concerned about our own national interests."