17
September 2002
2. "Three Turkish parties in bid to change election rules", three Turkish parties, fearing a possible loss of all their parliamentary seats at the next election, are planning a joint bid to recall parliament from recess to discuss changing the electoral rules, parliamentary sources said here Monday.
3. "Turkey's Dervis says poll delay would hit economy", former economy minister Kemal Dervis, architect of Turkey's $16 billion IMF pact, said on Tuesday moves to alter election laws and delay November polls would damage the country's crisis-hit economy. Turkish markets have slipped in recent weeks on fears some politicians, facing dispatch into the political wilderness, might seek to postpone the November 3 polls, which investors see as essential to smooth implementation of the IMF pact.
4. "Poll shows Greek Cypriots see bumpy ride to Europe", Greek Cypriots believe Cyprus is in for a bumpy ride as it heads towards the European Union and are sceptical that an agreement to reunify the island will be reached soon, poll results showed.
5. "Larger aim in Iraq: alter Mideast", any US effort to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein could end up changing much more than one nation's governing regime. In fact, some administration officials believe that a successful anti-Hussein operation could tip the geopolitical balance of the entire Middle East in the US favor. It might spread democracy throughout a region that has seldom experienced it before, optimists say, while easing Israeli-Palestinian violence and lowering the price of oil, in the bargain.
6. "Ups and downs of Erdogan", once again Erdogan faces a serious setback in his quest to win a seat in Parliament and lead the country. The columnist comments on the many contradictions of the Turkish judicial system and their influence on the forthcoming polls.
1.
- AFP - "Turkish PM orders government to speed up EU work, focus
on torture":
ANKARA / 16 Sept 2002
Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has ordered ministers to speed up work to implement recently-adopted democracy reforms aimed at paving the way for membership talks with the European Union. In a statement released on the government's web page on Monday, Ecevit also urged government agencies to increase efforts to combat human rights violations and particularly torture, for which the country has often been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights.
"Measures should be taken to effectively put into practice by November 15 all pledges" that Turkey has made in order to meet the EU political criteria, but has so far failed to realize, Ecevit said. He ordered the ministers of justice and the interior to set up high-level commissions to investigate complaints of human rights violations, and especially torture, and make their findings public. The Turkish parliament recently adopted a series of far-reaching reforms, including abrogation of the death penalty in peace time, in a bid to bolster its democracy and obtain a date for the opening of membership talks, a matter due to be discussed at the EU's Copenhagen summit in December.
The EU has welcomed the reforms, but has said it will watch how effectively
Turkey implements them before taking its decision. Turkey's EU bid
has been at the core of frequent disputes in Ecevit's three-party
coalition, whose far-right member, the Nationalist Action Party (MHP),
opposes some key EU requirements. Overriding MHP opposition, the parliament
in August passed a raft of reforms, including an end to the death
penalty and legalization of courses and
broadcasts in the Kurdish language.
But a new crisis hit last week when Ecevit's other partner, the pro-EU
Motherland Party, accused the MHP of impeding efforts to put the reforms
into practice and said a new government should be formed without them.
ANAP's proposal was accompanied by a suggestion to delay by a month
early elections scheduled for November to give the new government
time to focus on advancing the country's EU bid.
2.
- AFP - "Three Turkish parties in bid to change election rules":
ANKARA / 16 September 2002
Three Turkish parties, fearing a possible loss of all their parliamentary seats at the next election, are planning a joint bid to recall parliament from recess to discuss changing the electoral rules, parliamentary sources said here Monday.
The ruling coalition's center-right Motherland Party (ANAP), the opposition New Turkey (YT), recently formed by defectors from Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's party, and the opposition Islamist Saadet Party are expected to submit a petition on Tuesday calling for a special parliamentary session, a YTP member of parliament told AFP. The move could also herald a bid to postpone the November 3 polls as none of the three parties currently expects to garner the necessary 10 percent of the vote required to win seats in parliament, according to observers.
According to recent opinion polls, only two of some 20 parties running in the election have a chance of clearing the 10 percent threshold and nine parties currently represented in parliament risk losing all their seats. The front-runners are the opposition Justice and Development Party, a moderate Islamist movement, and the center-left Republican People's Party, which failed to win parliamentary representation at the last election, but which recently won seats when two independent deputies joined its ranks. Changing the election rules less than two months ahead of elections might prove impossible however due to lack of time to implement any decision.
The three parties seeking to change the rules want the 10-percent
threshold cut to five percent. They also want to see the current ban
on parties forming electoral alliances lifted, the YT official said.
ANAP, the minor partner in Ecevit's three-party coalition, has already
suggested that the polls be delayed until December 15 on the grounds
that Turkey will gain time to advance its bid to join the European
Union. The party has also asked for the formation of a new government,
arguing that its coalition partner, the EU-hostile Nationalist Action
Party, was impeding efforts to boost Turkey's chances of winning a
date for the opening of membership talks at the EU's Copenhagen summit
in mid-December.
3. - Reuters - "Turkey's Dervis says poll delay would hit economy":
ISTANBUL / September 17, 2002
Former economy minister Kemal Dervis, architect of Turkey's $16 billion
IMF pact, said on Tuesday moves to alter election laws and delay November
polls would damage the country's crisis-hit economy. Turkish markets
have slipped in recent weeks on fears some politicians, facing dispatch
into the political wilderness, might seek to postpone the November
3 polls, which investors see as essential to smooth implementation
of the IMF pact.
They consider Dervis as the best guarantee of economic stability in
NATO member Turkey, which is working to emerge from its worst economic
slump since 1945 in the aftermath of a February 2001 financial crisis.
"Delaying elections will damage the economy. This uncertainty
must be eradicated immediately," Dervis was quoted by Anatolian
news agency as saying.
The former World Bank economist resigned from Prime Minister Bulent
Ecevit's three-party government shortly after elections were called
in late July. He joined the Republican People's Party (CHP) amid efforts
to unite the fractured centre left.
Many investors hope Dervis and the CHP, running second in many opinion
polls, can help combat the popularity of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice
and Development Party (AKP), which leads polls but is suspected by
the army of Islamist leanings.
Dervis said he opposed moves by deputies of three mainstream parties
to cut the threshold for entry to parliament to five percent from
10 percent, saying legal changes should wait.
"I would be worried about anything that would threaten polls
being held in a healthy manner...It would be useful to take a long
term perspective in changing election and political party laws,"
he said.
Ecevit, whose Democratic Left Party currently polls well under 10
percent, has denounced the moves as immoral saying they would cause
instability in Turkey, a candidate for European Union membership and
a key U.S. ally in its war on "terrorism".
4. - Reuters - "Poll shows Greek Cypriots see bumpy ride to Europe":
NICOSIA / September 17, 2002
Greek Cypriots believe Cyprus is in for a bumpy ride as it heads
towards the European Union and are sceptical that an agreement to
reunify the island will be reached soon, poll results showed.
Some 68 percent of people asked thought Cyprus's entry to the EU would
not be a "smooth one" with 27 percent saying they thought
it would go ahead without a glitch, according to the poll conducted
by RAI Consultants and commissioned by Mega TV.
The results, which included a sample of 1,012 people and conducted
September 13-15, were made public on Monday night.
The survey gave presidential candidate Tassos Papadopoulos a 13 point
lead over his main challenger to date, socialist leader Yiannakis
Omirou, who garnered 32 percent. More than 20 percent of respondents
were undecided.
Presidential elections are due by February 2003.
The east Mediterranean island is a frontrunner for EU membership but
is in the meantime scrambling to settle its division to avert accession
of a partitioned country.
Brussels is to decide in December which countries are to be invited
to join the next wave of enlargement, slated for 2004.
Turkey invaded the northern third of Cyprus in 1974 in response to
a brief Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the military then ruling
Greece.
Some 46 percent said they did not think there would be a settlement
before EU accession, with 36 percent saying they were slightly optimistic
and 6 percent very optimistic.
5. - The Christian Science Monitor - "Larger aim in Iraq: alter Mideast":
Underlying the campaign against Hussein is US goal to stabilize the region by planting the roots of democracy.
WASHINGTON / 16 September 2002 / By Peter Grier, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Any US effort to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein could end up changing
much more than one nation's governing regime.
In fact, some administration officials believe that a successful anti-Hussein
operation could tip the geopolitical balance of the entire Middle
East in the US favor. It might spread democracy throughout a region
that has seldom experienced it before, optimists say, while easing
Israeli-Palestinian violence and lowering the price of oil, in the
bargain.
In contrast, pessimists hold that a move against Hussein could light
fires throughout one of the most flammable areas of the world, threatening
pro-Western autocrats in Jordan and Saudi Arabia while turning ordinary
Arabs against America for years to come.
Much depends on how the campaign against Hussein develops from here.
But right now it seems possible that, one way or another, US intervention
in Iraq could be a defining geopolitical event equal in import to
the fall of the Shah of Iran or the 1967 Arab- Israeli War.
"What [the Bush administration] has in mind is a broad vision
... which really involves changing the character of the Middle East,"
says Meyrav Wurmser, director of the Center for Middle East Policy
at the Hudson Institute.
In Washington it's clear that the faction of the administration
most interested in pursuing military action against Saddam Hussein
has goals for change that goes beyond Iraq's borders.
In a speech in August, Vice President Dick Cheney argued that the
removal of the threat posed by Saddam would lessen tensions throughout
the Middle East, including those between Israel and surrounding hostile
Arab states. Those interested in more freedom and democracy in the
region would find their hand strengthened, Cheney argued before the
Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Projections for such positive developments rest crucially on two things:
the nature of any post-Saddam Iraqi government, and the way surrounding
nations view such a new regime.
Iraq, like virtually all nations in the region, has no history of
democracy. Its current borders are a creation of British colonial
rulers, who melded together areas dominated by Kurds, Shiite and Sunni
Muslims, and other sometimes antagonistic groups into one state.
But Iraq also has a generally well-educated urban population and a
tradition of entrepreneurship. Optimists say that democracy and capitalism
could thrive there if allowed to take root.
"[Iraqis] have the potential to be the Japanese of the Middle
East," says Jay Davis, national security fellow at the Lawrence
Livermore National Lab and a former UNSCOM inspector in Iraq.
With a beachhead in Iraq, democracy might then spread throughout the
region, in the view of some in the administration. In particular it
might lead to more openness and accountability in the Palestinian
Authority, and a corresponding Israeli receptivity to a renewed peace
process.
By sending money to the families of suicide bombers and generally
urging Palestinian extremists to confront Israel, Saddam has contributed
to the cycle of israeli-Palestinian violence. His elimination alone
could brighten prospects there for peace.
It might also make Saudi Arabia less important to the United States.
Iraq could serve as a Gulf region base, replacing US installations
on the Saudi peninsula. Iraqi oil reserves could replace Saudi ones
in the US geopolitical calculation.
"The goal at the moment is Iraq, but the ripple effects of this
mean that, for the first time, one will have an American relationship
to the Middle East based on the interests of the populations in the
region, as opposed to dealing with autocratic regimes like Saudi Arabia
and Egypt," said Kanan Makiya, a noted Iraqi dissident and Brandeis
professor of foreign relations, following a conference of Iraq opposition
figures near London on Sept. 6.
Of course, similar optimistic projections of regional change were
after the first Gulf War, over ten years ago. Few came to pass. James
Baker, then-Secretary of State, made a concerted push for progress
on the Israeli-Palestinian question in the year following the US victory,
for instance. Progress was but incremental.
Some go so far as to call the optimistic outlook overly romantic –
the unrealistic dream of Cheney of Arabia. Iraqi ethnic factions are
so hostile they could make a post-Saddam Iraq a seething political
caldron. Afghanistan, by contrast, might look as serene as Vermont.
Surrounding nations, fearing for their own safety due to the instability
across the Iraqi border, might well become more autocratic, not less.
Turkey fears Kurdish claims on its territory, for instance. Iran,
which fought a grinding war against Iraq in the 1980s, fears its reemergence
as a strategic competitor.
Palestinian extremists, seeing the loss of a prime backer and the
rise of the US in the region, could become even more violent. Their
rage could sweep into Jordan, threatening a key US ally whose population
is generally pro-Hussein.
"If we have any illusions about this ... transforming the Middle
East into a democratic place, let's think about that a little more,"
said Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at the University of Maryland,
during testimony before the Senator Foreign Relations Committee last
month.
6. - Turkish Daily New - "Ups and downs of Erdogan":
Once again Erdogan faces a serious setback in his quest to win a seat in Parliament and lead the country...
ANKARA / 17 Septober 2002 / by Ilnur Cevik
One day news came that Tayyip Erdogan, the leading moderate Islamist
in Turkey, had to go to prison simply because he had read out a poem...
He had allegedly violated the penal code article 312 by inciting the
crowds to hatred. Erdogan was removed from office as the popular mayor
of Istanbul.
Months passed and Erdogan lost his appeals and had to serve four months
of a one-year prison sentence. He was out because of good behavior
and the automatic reduction of his sentence.
But his one-year prison sentence has stuck with him ever since despite
the fact that the article 312 of the penal code was amended and the
crime that Erdogan allegedly committed became a non-crime...
The judicial authorities are divided. Some say Erdogan should be treated
as if he was not convicted at all while others claim Erdogan should
be treated as an ex-convict who committed a serious crime...
The key is the one-year prison sentence. A person who has been convicted
of article 312 and has received a one-year jail term is not allowed
to become a deputy... But that is not all. Erdogan became the leader
of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) last year and the
Constitutional Court decided that because of this prison sentence
he could not be one of the founding members of the party.
But Erdogan helplessly tries to tell the judicial officials that the
amendments to article 312 show he has not committed a crime in the
past and thus he should be treated so.
The State Security Courts in Diyarbakir were divided over the issue
and one court decided Erdogan was wrong while the higher decided he
was right. So Erdogan and his followers were relieved and went ahead
naming him as candidate. But on Monday the supreme court of cassation
in Ankara decided that the Diyarbakir higher court was wrong and that
Erdogan should be treated as an ex-criminal.
Once again the equations have gone all wrong. The supreme court has
disqualified Erdogan which means the electoral board has to also disqualify
him...
Erdogan is just not anybody. He leads the party that is slated to
win the next elections and thus the ruling turns everything into a
mess.
This also shows the rather awkward state of our judicial system where
there are too many contradictions as well as ifs and buts.
They can disqualify Erdogan and increase tension needlessly in Turkey
but they will not be able to dampen the determination of the masses
to vote for the AK Party and make it the leading political force in
the next Parliament.
Can we blame the European Union for saying they simply cannot give
us the benefit of the doubt about our sweeping reforms and that they
want to see them applied? What has been done to Erdogan shows we are
lagging behind in the application of our reforms...