30 October 2002

1. "Sitting Here in Limbo", Turkey is anxious to be a full partner in the European dream, but is it unrequited love?

2. "EU says it eyes election results ahead of Copenhagen summit", diplomacy between Ankara and the EU intensifies, as high-level EU diplomats are expected to arrive in Ankara later this week for talks with Turkish authorities, ahead of the critical Copenhagen summit.

3. "Turkey agrees to have observers for the parliamentary elections for first time", international observers will watch Turkey's national election next week, a human rights group said Monday, the first time Turkey has agreed to monitors.

4. "EU force and Cyprus", although the precise content of the compromise reached at last weekend’s extraordinary summit in Brussels over the issue of Europe’s nascent rapid reaction force has not been made public yet, current information leads to the conclusion that the settlement is rather unfavorable for Greek interests.

5. "Human Rights Watch calls on Ankara to help displaced Kurds return home", Human Rights Watch Wednesday called on Turkey to help Kurds displaced from their villages in the southeast of the country during the recent insurgency to return home.

6. "No let up in Turkish State`s pressure on the Kurdish region", Dr David Morgan reports on a recent visit to North Kurdistan where DEHAP is hoping for an electoral breakthrough.

1. - The Times Magazin - "Sitting Here in Limbo":

Turkey is anxious to be a full partner in the European dream, but is it unrequited love?

BRUSSELS / 29 October 2002/ by James Graff

Since Turkey formally sought E.U. membership in 1987, the country has been caught in a kind of purgatory between admission to the club and permanent outcast status. Despite carrying out major political and economic reforms under pressure from Brussels, including the abolition of the death penalty and of restrictions on Kurdish-language broadcasting, the Turks' chances are slim of getting exactly what they want at the December E.U. summit in Copenhagen — a firm date to start negotiations. For years, the E.U. has been smiling on the idea of Turkey's eventual admission while doing nothing to bring it about, because of opposition from members who feel the country just isn't European enough. That ambiguous stance has encouraged Turkey to reform. But, says Nathalie Tocci, a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, "We're approaching a time when ambiguity could be destructive."

The Turks aren't blameless, having aimed high in seeking an unconditional date. "We need to do more than just go around in circles," says Oguz Demiralp, Turkey's ambassador to the E.U. But since the European Commission ruled in early October that Turkey still "doesn't fully meet the political criteria" for membership, E.U. diplomats predict their leaders will make any date conditional on Turkey's further progress in assuring fundamental rights and freedoms.

That political judgment will be influenced not only by the Nov. 3 elections, but also by Turkey's stance on negotiations to end 28 years of Greek-Turkish ethnic division on Cyprus. The island, partitioned by the U.N.-patrolled 'Green Line' since Turkey invaded the north in 1974, is sure to get the nod in Copenhagen to join the E.U. in 2004, whether or not Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and his Greek Cypriot counterpart, President Glafkos Clerides, can agree on some form of political union. The lure of E.U. membership was supposed to entice the rivals to cut a deal, and some voices from Turkey have been encouraging. But complications after Denktash's heart surgery have narrowed the chances of an accord before the Copenhagen summit.

The question of Turkey's membership goes to the heart of what the European Union is all about. The British argue alongside the U.S. that Europe's strategic interests will be served by assuring that Turkey continues to look West. Others, such as Martin Schulz, a senior German Social Democrat and Member of the European Parliament, say that letting in such a large, impoverished country with different cultural attributes will slow political integration — "which is what the British want anyway," he says. A resolution is unlikely in Copenhagen, which means that Turkey's time in purgatory will continue.

2. - Turkish Daily News - "EU says it eyes election results ahead of Copenhagen summit":

ANKARA / 30 October 2002

Diplomacy between Ankara and the EU intensifies, as high-level EU diplomats are expected to arrive in Ankara later this week for talks with Turkish authorities, ahead of the critical Copenhagen summit.

Results of the Nov. 3 elections will be a major factor to be taken into consideration by the European Union leaders in Copenhagen summit in mid-December, said Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the 15-nation bloc.

Turkey eyes the critical summit, hoping that the EU leaders will set a date for the beginning of its accession talks, now that it has achieved many major reforms to meet the membership criteria, such as abolishing death penalty and allowing teaching and broadcasting in Kurdish.

An annual progress report issued earlier this month by the EU Commission and a final declaration announced following a more recent summit of the EU leaders in Brussels frustrated Ankara, as both declined to mention a date, saying Turkey has not taken all the needed steps.

The EU is now expected to dispatch high-level delegations to Ankara, as an indicative of the intensifying EU-Turkey diplomacy ahead of Copenhagen summit. News reports said Tuesday that high-level EU diplomats from the EU's "troika", that is from current term president Denmark, next president Greece, and the EU Commission and the Council, are due to arrive in Ankara later this week for talks.

Speaking at a press conference after a summit of EU candidate countries' leaders, Rasmussen said the issue of setting a calendar for Turkey's accession was due to be decided upon in the upcoming Copenhagen summit by the EU leaders, declining to comment any further.

But when asked whether election results would be taken into consideration while making a decision in the summit, Rasmussen said the results would be a major factor to be considered.

EU Commission President Romano Prodi, attending the same conference, added the EU leaders would most probably take into consideration the reforms carried out in Turkey last summer.

In the Copenhagen summit, the EU is expected to approve membership of ten candidate countries, including the Greek Cyprus, in 2004. Turkey believes the summit could be its last chance in order not to miss the EU train before the accession of ten more countries, all unwilling to share scarce EU funds with a country the size and population of Turkey, complicates its accession process.

Solana may be on the way to Ankara for talks on ESDP

In addition to EU diplomats, Javier Solana, the union's high representative for common foreign and security policy, may also be on his way to Ankara to remove hitches on the way of implementation of a deal on a proposed EU defense force agreed upon by the union at the Brussels summit last week.

At the same news conference with Rasmussen and Prodi, Solana, when asked, said he could visit Ankara for talks on the deal, which has come to be dubbed as "the Brussels Document", if necessary.

Solana said important steps had been taken towards resolution of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) in the Brussels summit and, therefore, hopes for a final settlement increased. He added he hoped that the deal would be given serious consideration by Turkish authorities.

The Brussels Document envisages that the EU's proposed force would not be used in any operation against any NATO country and, reciprocally, NATO forces cannot be used against any EU country.

Foreign Minister Sukru Sina Gurel said recently that there were elements in the Brussels Document that bothers Turkey.

3. - AP - "Turkey agrees to have observers for the parliamentary elections for first time":

ISTANBUL / 28 October 2002

International observers will watch Turkey's national election next week, a human rights group said Monday, the first time Turkey has agreed to monitors.

Polls show that a party with Islamic roots is poised to oust Turkey's longtime secular leadership in the Nov. 3 balloting. The group, Human Rights Watch, charged that election abuses have already begun. Turkish officials were not available for comment Monday, a holiday.

Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch, said security forces have warned villagers in the mainly Kurdish southeast not to vote for a pro-Kurdish party, DEHAP.

"International monitoring of this year's elections is clearly warranted," Andersen said. "We hope that the presence of the Council of Europe and the OSCE (news - web sites) will help ensure that they are free and fair."

Turkey's agreement to international monitoring would reflect increasing pressure from the European Union (news - web sites) to observe rules of democracy and improve its human rights record, marred by allegations of torture and abuse of police power. A clean bill of human rights health is seen as a critical part of Turkey's efforts to join the EU.

In a statement Monday, Human Rights Watch said, "On the invitation of the Turkish government, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were expected to send their first-ever election observation missions to Turkey this week."

Human rights groups have accused Turkey of election violations in the past. Human Rights Watch official Jonathan Sugden cited charges of detaining Kurdish activists to prevent them from voting, or forcing people to cast their votes in the open instead of in secret. Also, he said he saw burned voting ballots after the last elections, in 1999.

4. - Kathemerini (Greece) - "EU force and Cyprus":

30 October 2002

Although the precise content of the compromise reached at last weekend’s extraordinary summit in Brussels over the issue of Europe’s nascent rapid reaction force has not been made public yet, current information leads to the conclusion that the settlement is rather unfavorable for Greek interests.

The original agreement between the United States, Britain and Turkey has been modified, but its overall spirit remains the same. Ankara will have a say on the Euroforce given that this will not have its own defense infrastructure and will use NATO assets instead.

We should not rush to criticize the Greek prime minister and his foreign minister for their handling of the issue. The issue of NATO relations with the Euroforce is, institutionally speaking, irrelevant to Cyprus’s future EU membership. However, some of Greece’s EU peers made a clear attempt to draw a political connection between the two, indirectly and informally.

In other words, they called on Athens to maintain a more flexible stance that would open the way for the formation of the EU force. Most essentially, Greece was reassured that the removal of the current deadlock would have a positive effect on the overall climate and forestall any obstacles to Cyprus’s accession. The crucial issue is whether Athens has extracted any concrete payoffs or reliable guarantees.

In truth, there can be no enlargement without Cyprus. But this does not mean that the accession of the Mediterranean island is a foregone conclusion. The Simitis administration is rightly trying to resolve all outstanding issues so as to put all its weight behind this crucial national issue.

The EU’s Copenhagen summit in December, which will make the final decision on expansion, will not be merely procedural. Nearly all of Greece’s EU partners are reluctant to inherit the Cyprus dispute. However, the overwhelming majority agree that in light of the Helsinki decision and Cyprus’s adaptation to the acquis communautaire, the island has to join the EU.

Simitis’s tour around EU capitals is aimed at softening objections and dispelling concerns. He is seeking reassurances from his EU peers so as to avoid any nasty surprises at Copenhagen. A lot, however, will depend on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s settlement proposal on Cyprus that is due after Turkey’s parliamentary polls on November 3. Athens is worried that it may be too unfavorable for Cyprus to accept. In such case, some states may use the opportunity to torpedo Cyprus’s accession.

5. - AFP - "Human Rights Watch calls on Ankara to help displaced Kurds return home":

ISTANBUL / 30 October 2002

Human Rights Watch Wednesday called on Turkey to help Kurds displaced from their villages in the southeast of the country during the recent insurgency to return home.

"Although active hostilities ceased in 1999, it appears that no more than 10 percent have ventured home," the non-governmental organisation said in a report released here, adding that reasons ranged from "inadequate government assistance to continued violence by Turkish security forces and their paramilitaries".

Estimates of the number of those displaced range from 380,000 to 1,000,000, most of whom were forced out of their homes by Turkish security forces and paramilitary village guards determined to deprive People's Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK) guerrillas from access to food, shelter and recruits, the report said.

"This human rights problem directly affects more people in Turkey than any other single human rights issue," according to Human Rights Watch Turkey researcher Jonathan Sugden. "Many villages remain off-limits, with local or regional authorities forbidding return. In other cases, return is officially permitted, but returning villagers are greeted with harassment, detention and attacks by the gendarmerie and village guards," the report said.

A government programme, announced in March 1999, to help villagers return "has yielded nothing more than a feasibility study for return to 12 model villages," the organisation said. Human Rights Watch quoted one villager, burned out of his home in Diyarbakir province in 1993, as saying authorities had asked those wanting to return to sign a form saying the village was burned by the PKK.

"The local governor said to us, "If you say the government did it, we will not let you go back," according to the villager. Lack of government transparency has also limited the amount of aid international organisations might be prepared to extend to help returning villagers, Human Rights Watch said. The organisation called on the government to help rebuild the villages and disband village guard paramilitaries which were set up to help the army fight the guerrillas during the 15-year war.

6. - Kurdish Media - "No let up in Turkish State`s pressure on the Kurdish region":

28 October 2002 / by David Morgan

Dr David Morgan reports on a recent visit to North Kurdistan where DEHAP is hoping for an electoral breakthrough.

Turkey has a long way to go before concerns for human rights violations are allayed, a delegation of British trade unionists has found.

The group of three union and human rights activists just back from a visit to the southeast region of Turkey, where they met fellow trade unionists and other civil organisations, are shocked and angered by the intense level of repression that ordinary people continue to face.

The small delegation, consisting of a member of the London region of MSF-Amicus union, a member of the Lanarkshire regional council of UNISON and a human rights activist with special interest in Turkey, had anticipated that the pressure from the authorities on civil groups would be lightened given Turkey’s stated commitment to a programme of democratic reform as it makes a bid for full membership of the European Union.

The delegation is keen to stress that this is emphatically not the case; if anything the pressures had increased since the cessation of armed resistance by the PKK, they dismayingly discovered. A strong message that came across to them from almost everyone that they met was that the EU must do more to ensure that Turkey complies with democratic norms and standards.

An immediate concern was the fair conduct of the forthcoming elections due to take place on 3 November. The delegation heard repeated calls for monitoring teams from Europe, including Britain, to visit to ensure that some of the worst abuses of the electoral procedure are averted.

DEHAP, the new alliance of HADEP, Labour Party EMEP and Akin Birdal’s Socialist Party, is hoping to see an electoral breakthrough to surpass the 10% barrier and win seats in parliament despite all the obstacles against them.

Local officials want as many groups as possible, including trade unionists, to go to Turkey during the election period. Facilities will be provided to enable them to observe effectively.

The trade unionists heard how the authorities were clamping down in numerous ways on progressive political parties in the election. DEHAP, launched after HADEP (the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party) was blocked from fielding candidates because of legal moves to close it down, was now itself facing administrative obstacles to stop it campaigning effectively.

DEHAP was being denied access to the media, unlike the other major parties. Party activists were harassed and prevented from canvassing, particularly in the villages. The delegation learned how villagers were facing severe intimidation from security forces and village guards who were warning them not to cast one vote for DEHAP, or else the village will be destroyed.

For example, while the delegation was visiting the city of VAN, they discovered that three local DEHAP candidates had been arrested that same day and many party workers had been beaten by security forces. Some sustained very serious injuries leading to hospitalisation, they were informed.

The delegation travelled from Diyarbakir, to Batman, Lake Van and Mardin. They met regional leaders of all the main union federations, TURK-IS, DISK, KESK, as well as members of professional bodies such as architects and engineers. They spoke to lawyers from the human rights association, IHD, in all the cities, in addition to students facing prosecution for handing in a petition asking for mother tongue (Kurdish) education classes.

In Diyarbakir and Van the delegation met the HADEP mayors of the municipalities and heard about the desperate economic crisis in the region. However, despite limited resources, the municipalities were carrying out important projects, such as the restoration of the city walls in Diyarbakir, which could become a wonderful tourist landmark for the city in normal circumstances.

The message from the very diverse range of groups was unanimous; that civil organisations operated in an atmosphere of intense pressure and oppression, where fear of prosecution, detention and dismissal were daily hazards for individuals taking part in activities taken for granted throughout Europe.

The students that the UK delegation met in Diyarbakir, for example, were terrified of having their photographs taken and were reluctant to give their names lest the authorities should do something to them.

Trade union officials in Van expressed concern that they might be detained or exiled simply for attending an open meeting with a foreign delegation. Such actions had been taken in the past.

The UK visitors were deeply shocked that trade unions were not permitted to operate effectively to defend their members. They attended a trial outside Diyarbakir of about 70 teachers from the union EGITIM-SEN who last year had taken part in a strike for better pay. They were now threatened with exile and imprisonment.

The delegation, consisting of Stephen Smellie (UNISON), Alain Hertzmann (MSF-Amicus) and David Morgan (human rights activist) are now calling for maximum solidarity from the British trade union movement with their struggling colleagues in Turkey and are asking for support for a planned visit by Kurdish and Turkish trade union officials in the new year.

They will be writing a full and extensive report which they intend to widely circulate in the country.

Other points that they are trying now to raise include:

- Drawing attention to an alarming increase in suicides over recent months throughout the Kurdish region. This was occurring mainly among women displaced from the villages who were finding it impossible to adjust to urban life as a result of the severe economic conditions in the region. Human rights groups in the region are asking for funds to undertake detailed research on the very serious issue.

- Dispossessed people were desperately trying to return to their villages to rebuild their lives after the ending of the conflict but they were prevented by the presence of village guards who were occupying people’s land. The delegation heard calls for the disbandment of the village guards now that the armed conflict had ceased. They were concerned that the security forces, who were observing their progress all the time, seemed especially anxious to make sure that no detour was possible to enter any of the villages.

- The individual case of Diyarbakir teaching union secretary, Abdullah Demirbas, who has been outrageously dismissed from his job and left without a wage to bring up a family of four children. His only offence was to issue a speech in support of the right to mother tongue education, which was his union’s policy anyway. Protest letters should be sent to the Turkish Embassy in London.

- The impact of IMF regulations on the local economy in the region. The delegation was told that Turkey had agreed not to produce tobacco and sugar beet in exchange for an IMF loan and this was having a crippling effect on local farmers and the local economy. A real social explosion was feared if action was not taken to seriously address the escalating economic crisis which was worse in the Kurdish region than elsewhere in Turkey because the central government deliberately under-invested to impoverish the people as a form of punishment for past resistance.

- The strength of popular opposition to any proposed war on Iraq was extremely impressive. Everyone that the delegation met spoke of the likely disastrous impact of any war on the political and economic situation. A war would enable the state to turn the screws even tighter on the local population; it would be a disaster for the local economy where 85% unemployment was the norm already in places like Van, for instance; a human tragedy resulting from an influx of refugees was an alarming prospect, as occurred after the Gulf War. The municipalities in the region simply did not have the facilities to even look after the many thousands of displaced people who were there already.

The delegation was deeply moved and impressed by the determination and courage of local people to stand up for their rights and campaign peacefully when confronted with the most intolerable conditions, the youth in particular, whether as DEHAP activists or students asking to be educated in Kurdish, were an inspiration.