26
February 2004
2. "Kurds Demand Referendum on Their Status in a New Iraq, BBC Says", About 1.7 million Kurds in northern Iraq signed a petition demanding a referendum on their future in a new Iraq, the British Broadcasting Corp. said, citing an unidentified group that collected the signatures.
3. "Scarf conundrum grips Turkey", Turkey is often held up as a model of Islamic democracy. However, it is estimated that as many as 65% of Turkish women cover their heads with a scarf.
4. "Germans reject Turkish EU membership", A majority of Germans oppose allowing Turkey to joint the European Union, a poll showed Wednesday.
5. "EU says Turkey "capable" of meeting talks conditions", The European Commission on Wednesday denied remarks attributed by Turkish newspapers to Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen that he believed the country would meet criteria to start EU entry talks this year.
6. "The key word is 'bizonal'", Talks between Turkish and Greek leaders on the reunification of Cyprus are on a tight schedule, just the way it's taught in conflict resolution courses.
1.
- AFP - "Anti-torture panel demands access for Turkey's No.
1 prisoner":
STRASBOURG / 25 February 2004
The Council of Europe's anti-torture committee Wednesday accused
Turkey of failing to assure that its number one prisoner, Abdulla
Ocalan receives regular visits from his family and lawyers.
The former Kurdish separatist leader has been an inmate at the Imrali
island prison in the Sea of Marmara for four years. His sentence of
death for separatism has been commuted to life imprisonment.
The anti-torture panel visited Turkey one year ago, at a time when
Ocalan had been unable to receive visits for more than three months
because of bad
weather.
"A de facto suspension of the right to visits for more than three
months would be a serious matter vis-a-vis any prisoner, and it is
quite simply unacceptable vis-a-vis a prisoner who has been held in
isolation for a very long period," the committee said.
In a written reply, Turkey said visits had to be cancelled because
of bad weather. It said that for budgetary reasons, it was unable
to supply a more
seaworthy boat to link the island with the mainland, and the prison
organization made it difficult to arrange visits on any day other
than Wednsday.
But the committee said it did not find these arguments convincing.
"They are not indicative of a real determination to overcome
the difficulties faced by the relatives and lawyers of Abdullah Ocalan
in gaining access to Imrali island," it said.
The committee said it was "persuaded that further measures could
be taken to enable visits to Imrali closed prison to take place, without
placing an
excessive burden on the Turkish authorities."
The panel visited Turkey as part of a regular series of inspections
that Turkey is obliged to accept as a condition of its membership
in the Council of
Europe, a democracy watchdog.
Under the rules, Turkey was allowed time to deliver a formal reply
before the report and the reply were jointly published.
2. - Bloomberg - "Kurds Demand Referendum on Their Status in a New Iraq, BBC Says":
26 February 2004
About 1.7 million Kurds in northern Iraq signed a petition demanding a referendum on their future in a new Iraq, the British Broadcasting Corp. said, citing an unidentified group that collected the signatures.
The petition was handed to officials in Iraq's interim Governing Council and the U.S.-led administration, the BBC said, citing organizers. The petition calls for a vote on whether the Kurdish zone should be a federal state within Iraq or declare independence, the BBC said.
Kurdish leaders have pressed for self-government in a federal system in a new Iraq, being built after the overthrow last April of Saddam Hussein. The move is opposed by Iraqi Arabs who say it will be a first step to the country breaking up, the BBC reported.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party
took control of three northern provinces in Iraq after the 1991 Persian
Gulf War. They control the Kurdish Autonomous Region, home to more
than 3.5 million Kurds.
3. - BBC - "Scarf conundrum grips Turkey":
By Tabitha Morgan / Istanbul / 26 February 2004
As France pushed ahead with its planned school headscarf ban, in
Turkey the issue has been the subject of impassioned debate for more
than 20 years.
Turkey is often held up as a model of Islamic democracy.
The separation of public secular identity from private religious practice
is fiercely defended by the country's powerful military.
It's a separation which many here in Turkey are keen to show the world.
They want to present a country which is secular, modern and Western.
It was an image captured perfectly in last year's Turkish winning
entry in the Eurovision song contest. Sparsely-clad Sertab Erener's
song "Every Way That I Can" fused Eastern rhythms and hip-hop
and became the country's first-ever winner.
But that image does not reflect the whole of Turkey.
In fact, it is estimated that as many as 65% of Turkish women cover
their heads with a scarf.
But women wearing headscarves are not allowed to enter state-controlled
areas such as schools, universities, or government offices.
Since 1997, when the ban came to be more strictly enforced, growing
numbers of these women have been travelling abroad to pursue a university
education.
After 24-year-old Semra Batur was excluded from her Turkish university,
she and many of her fellow students continued their studies in Azerbaijan.
"Of course it was difficult but we had to do it," she says.
"I did what I had to do, because I wanted to continue my education.
"We have the right to an education."
Special responsibility
Mazlumder is an Islamic organisation that helps women like Semra.
They say that since the headscarf ban was enforced, more than 10,000
women in Istanbul alone have been excluded from universities.
These women and their families expressed their frustration in general
elections in 2002, when they voted Turkey's AK Party, which has its
roots in Islamist politics, into power.
Now they say their government is not doing enough to help them.
"This government, because of its nature, has more responsibility
to solve the problem," says Mazlumder official Gulden Sonmez.
"Even Prime Minister Erdogan suffers - his daughters wear the
headscarf.
"But he has the money to send them to the United States to be
educated, so they can keep wearing the scarf.
"People are hugely frustrated."
The election of a government with roots in political Islam has made
the issue more complex.
The government declined to speak on the subject, but an AK Party spokeswoman
said it considered the headscarf problem to be one of human rights
- if Turkey's overall human rights record improved, the issue would
be resolved.
Confrontation risk
Privately members of the AK Party may wish to remove the headscarf
ban.
The wives of cabinet ministers have themselves been criticised for
covering their heads at official state functions.
But the AK Party is also anxious to avoid alienating the powerful
Turkish military - and with some cause, since the last Islamist government
was quietly deposed by the army in 1998.
And many staunch secularists like Cuneyt Akalin of Istanbul's Marmara
University also remain suspicious of the government's Islamic roots.
They support the recent French ruling and believe the headscarf ban
in Turkey must continue.
"In a public space, people should act according to the rules,"
Mr Akalin says.
"I teach at a public university. In a public space I have some
obligations, and so do the students.
"I totally defend it there is no other way of it."
Mr Akalin also thinks the Europeans do not have a clear view of the
situation in Turkey.
"We have been fighting for this for 200 years," he says.
"Turkey was the pioneer of this struggle."
Wigs
Many young Islamist women attempt to reconcile their personal religious
beliefs with their desire for an education by removing the headscarf
outside the university gates and wearing a wig instead.
But is this purely a question of individual conscience?
Political scientist Nilufer Narli of Kadir Has University believes
the headscarf wearers are making a very public political statement.
"In the modern urban context, it is more a political symbol,"
she says.
"It is a sign of solidarity with the Islamist groups."
Ms Narli thinks if these young women can prove they are part of an
Islamist network, their access to jobs and future career are guaranteed
in one way or another.
"But also maybe it's a type of protest," she adds.
"They are protesting against the modernisation programme in Turkey,
in the same way that they were protesting in France against what they
saw as a failed integration programme."
Despite internal tensions, Turkey's cherished secularism is not likely
to change, at least while the military continues to support it.
As long as this is the case, the law will discriminate against those
women who believe, for whatever reason, they have no choice but to
cover their heads.
It will also have the potential to radicalise Islamists, both women
and men, across the country.
4.
- DPA - "Germans reject Turkish EU membership":
BERLIN / 25 February 2004
A majority of Germans oppose allowing Turkey to joint the European Union, a poll showed Wednesday.
The Stern magazine/RTL TV poll showed 57 percent against allowing Turkey into the EU, with 38 percent in favour and 5 percent saying they were unsure.
Based on a survey of 1,005 people the poll has a 3 percent margin of error.
Earlier this week German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder visited Turkey and expressed support for Turkish EU membership provided Ankara met the bloc's standards for human rights, rule of law and minority protection.
Germany's opposition Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU) mainly opposes Turkish EU membership and the issue will likely be raised in coming German regional and June European Parliament elections.
EU leaders are due to decide at a December summit in Brussels whether
to open membership negotiations with Turkey.
5. - Reuters - "EU says Turkey "capable" of meeting talks conditions":
BRUSSELS / 25 February 2004
The European Commission on Wednesday denied remarks attributed by Turkish newspapers to Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen that he believed the country would meet criteria to start EU entry talks this year.
The EU executive quoted Verheugen as saying Turkey had the ability to meet the criteria and that a report this year would determine whether it had done. Milliyet and Sabah newspapers had cited him, in indirect speech, as saying, more strongly, that he believed Turkey would meet the conditions.
Turkish markets are highly sensitive to any remarks by European politicians and officials on Ankara's prospects of getting at the end of this year a date for opening accession talks. Turkish external debt, quoted in London, rose on the newspaper reports.
The Commission in Brussels quoted Verheugen, often critical of Turkey in the past, as saying in his interview with German radio: "I have a mission to present a report at the end of this year on whether Turkey meets the conditions or not.
"I would not have been asked to produce a report if people thought it was completely excluded."
When asked if he agreed with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's recent remarks that Turkey could meet the conditions, he said: "Everyone things Turkey is capable of meeting the criteria, otherwise no one would have asked the Commission to prepre a report by the end of 2004."
Turkey's progress in implementing legislative reforms, especially
in the area of human rights, is being closely monitored by EU countries.
6.
- Ha'aretz (Israel) - "The key word is 'bizonal'":
By Meron Benvenisti / 26 February 2004
Talks between Turkish and Greek leaders on the reunification of Cyprus
are on a tight schedule, just the way it's taught in conflict resolution
courses. Rule No. 1: Set a hard and fast deadline, to create the sense
of urgency and the concern over missing a chance that won't return.
The local leaders are prompted by a sense of extreme urgency: If they
don't reach an agreement within a month, Greece and Turkey - the "guarantor
nations" - will intervene. And if that doesn't help either, Kofi
Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations, will put his plan
to unite the island to a referendum to be held within the two Cypriot
communities on April 21.
The leaders of Cyprus are taking tough stands and raising sensitive,
value- and principle-laden issues. After all, the Turkish-Greek conflict
arises out of issues of ethnic identity, bonds with the homeland and
the ancestral soil, exile and the right of return, settlement, ancient
historic narratives that are violent and bloody, hundreds of years
of oppression, interreligious hatred, a "clash of civilizations,"
economic competition and military prestige. Left to their own devices,
the local leaders would surely continue to clash, using a mutual exchange
of battered slogans from the past, and a 30-year-old status quo that
has become institutionalized and does not create the internal push
for radical change.
However, the future of Cyprus touches on powerful global interests, which those involved will not permit local elements to sabotage. No uprooted Greek Cypriot farmer or Turkish settler from Anatolia, not even a boastful Turkish general or pan-Hellenic nationalist will be able to stand up in the face of the American need to present some achievement in the Middle East, finally, and in the face of the Turkish need to make progress on the chance to join the European Union.
Some will disparage the historic significance of the Cyprus reunification agreement and will see it as a special case, created only because a number of factors converged on a one-time basis, and therefore without bearing on other cases of intercommunal strife. But the fact is, the international community, whatever its motives, is lining up behind the achievement of an arrangement based on a united Cyprus, and not a perpetuation of its division.
The plan backed by all is for a "bizonal" federation, which its supporters say has a better chance of managing relations between the two communities than squaring off behind the concrete walls that slice across the land and the capital. And even if this is still only a fond desire, there are some exciting formulations in the draft agreement (known as the "Annan Plan"): "Cyprus is our common home ... we resolve that the tragic events of the past shall never be repeated ... acknowledging each other's distinct identity and that our relationship is not one of majority and minority but of political equality ... deciding to renew our partnership on that basis and determined that this new bizonal partnership shall ensure a common future in friendship, peace, security and prosperity in an independent Cyprus."
The Annan Plan describes a federated "bizonal" republic "modeled on the status and relationship of Switzerland," made up of two states, each of which "sovereignly exercises all powers not vested by the constitution in the federal government, organizing themselves freely under their own constitutions."
The key word here is "bizonal," with the borders between the Turkish and Greek zones (after certain changes) left open, and all fences, walls and obstacles removed.
The comparison between Cyprus and the situation here almost begs to be made: What is the difference between the physical and geopolitical separation here and the two-nation federation in Cyprus? How is it that international peace-seekers mobilize the prospect of membership in the European Union to achieve unification in Cyprus, and here they offer membership in the European Union to Israel as an incentive for dividing the land into two states?
Are not the values in the Annan Plan of a common home, recognition of separate identities and the obligation to prevent the tragic past from ever repeating itself, applicable in Israel/Palestine, with only the separation fence serving as a symbol of the refusal to dream of a "bizonal" partnership?
There may be a message in the fact that the enlightened world (after
Bosnia and Northern Ireland) is united again around a plan that negates
fences and ethnic separation, and resolves to create a federated structure
as a solution to intercommunal conflict. And don't tell us that the
Turkish-Greek conflict is less serious than the Israeli-Palestinian
one.