29 July 2004

1. "Turkish policemen killed in a Kurdish rebel attack", a policemen was killed and another seriously wounded in an attack by suspected Kurdish rebels in the centre of Diyarbakir, the regional capital of the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey, local security sources said.

2. "Ordeal of article 236 for Egitim-Sen members!", a total of 11.374 Egitim-Sen members have either been or are being tried under article 236. Izmir takes the first place with 8.500 members. Sentences or fines have usually been deferred except for 465 million liras fined to 14 teachers in 2002. 87 cases ended up with sentences.

3. "European court slaps Turkey with 197,000 euros in fines", the European Court of Human Rights has concluded eight cases against Turkey, sentencing it to pay a total of 197,000 euros in compensation to plaintiffs in the various suits, the Anatolia news agency reported yesterday.

4. "Iraq War Straining U.S.-Turkey Ties", while the image of the United States has sunk to an all-time low in the Arab world, the Iraq war has also had a devastating impact on U.S. ties to another predominantly Muslim power and one of Washington's closest and most strategically situated Cold War allies, Turkey, say experts just returned from the region.

5. "Do Arms Cutback, Description of Israel as “Terrorist State” Signal Change in Ankara?", Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has pro-Islamist roots, is also more keenly aware than many parties that the close ties forged over the years between Israel and Turkey rest uneasily in the minds of Turkish voters.

6. "A little like Cyprus" ,the Greek leaders, who are not absorbing international criticism, hope that by the end of the year, when the EU decides to open talks with Turkey about joining the EU, it will make a good deal better for the Greeks.

1. - AFP - "Turkish policemen killed in a Kurdish rebel attack":

DIYARBAKIR / 28 July 2004

A policemen was killed and another seriously wounded in an attack by suspected Kurdish rebels in the centre of Diyarbakir, the regional capital of the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey, local security sources said.

They said six policemen were in the building at the time of the attack, blamed on members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), recently renamed KONGRA-GEL. It was the first attack in the centre of Diyarbakir since the PKK declared
end to a unilateral truce on June 1.

The PKK rebellion and its repression by the Turkish authorities are estimated to have cost 37,000 lives between 1984 and 1999, when PKK chief Abdullah Ocalan was captured and later sentenced to life in prison.

2. - DIHA - "Ordeal of article 236 for Egitim-Sen members!":

ANKARA / 28 July 2004 / by Sabiha Temizkan

11 members of Egitim-Sen (Education Laborers' Union), who have joined stop-work strike of December 1, 2000, stood before court for 'leaving workplace without permission' under article 236 of Turkish Penal Law. Each of the 11 educators were disqualified from their civil service post for 2.5 months and fined 395 million TLs though they got acquittals in the former cases. Meanwhile, number of Egitim-Sen members tried under article 236 has reached 11.374 since its foundation.

Egitim-sen has been under clamp of jurisdiction since the very day it was founded. Egitim-Sen members, Seckin Alkan, Ayhan Yavuz, Cengiz Alkan, Ali Akkus, Abdulhalim Alankus, Neriman Yigit, Atif Bahceci, Muhsin Turan, Ozgen Sandikci, Selim Yilmaz and Gonul Boyaci, who joined stop-work strike of Labor Platform on December 1, 2000 got acquittals in the first trial. However, court of appeals on 1st July 2003, overruled acquittal verdict on ground that they didn't have "right for strike and slowdown." Egitim-Sen members were disqualified from their civil service post for 2.5 months and fined 395 million TLs in the retrial at 19th Court of General Criminal Jurisdiction of Ankara.

Egitim-Sen objects

One of attorneys of Egitim-Sen, Mahmut Nedim Eldem, issued an objection petition to the court demanding quash of the decision, claiming article 236 violated convention of International Labor Organization (ILO) which Turkey undersigned.

11.000 Egitim-Sen under trial

A total of 11.374 Egitim-Sen members have either been or are being tried under article 236. Izmir takes the first place with 8.500 members. Sentences or fines have usually been deferred except for 465 million liras fined to 14 teachers in 2002. 87 cases ended up with sentences.

Article 236 of the Turkish Penal Code has been a tool of pressure upon education laborers since military coup of September 12.

3. - Turkish Daily News - "European court slaps Turkey with 197,000 euros in fines":

ANKARA / 29 July 2004

The European Court of Human Rights has concluded eight cases against Turkey, sentencing it to pay a total of 197,000 euros in compensation to plaintiffs in the various suits, the Anatolia news agency reported yesterday.

The court ruled against Turkey in a complaint filed by Kemal Agdas, who claimed that his brother, Irfan Agdas, was killed after security forces opened fire on him. Turkey now has to pay 15,000 euros to Kemal Agdas for violating Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding observance of the right to life and Article 13, which says people have the right to an effective solution under the law even if a violation to their human rights and freedoms is committed by someone in authority (e.g., a policeman).

In two other cases, Turkey was sentenced to pay 27,500 euros to four citizens whose names were not disclosed and 50,000 euros to the father and brother of Mehmet Sah Ikincisoy, who was killed by security forces.

In another case, Turkey now has to pay 30,000 euros to 13 people who filed a joint complaint with the court for being held in detention for an extended period of time. Turkey was said to have violated Article 5 of the convention, which provides the right to arrest as stipulated by law.

Turkey opted for a "friendly settlement" in a case filed by a couple, Ismail and Hanim Celik, whose son was killed during a clash between security forces and outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants. Turkey will now pay 60,000 euros to the couple.

Turkey was also sentenced to pay court expenses in the amount of 1,500 euros to Emrah Irey -- who had been tried for being a 'member of a terrorist organization' -- for violating Article 6 of the convention regarding the right to a fair trial. In a similar case, Turkey will pay 8,000 euros to Mehmet Salih Karakas and three friends.

The court ruled that Turkey had violated Article 10 of the convention, which deals with freedom of expression, in a case filed by Ertugrul Kurkcu. Kurkcu was convicted by a Turkish court because of an international organization report he had translated. Turkey will pay 5,500 euros to Kurkcu plus court expenses.

4. - LewRockwell.com - "Iraq War Straining U.S.-Turkey Ties":

28 July 2004 / by Jim Lobe

While the image of the United States has sunk to an all-time low in the Arab world, the Iraq war has also had a devastating impact on U.S. ties to another predominantly Muslim power and one of Washington's closest and most strategically situated Cold War allies, Turkey, say experts just returned from the region.

Ties between Turkey and Israel – countries that have long considered themselves strategic allies against hostile Arab states – have also become deeply strained as a result of recent events, according to former U.S. ambassador in Ankara, Mark Parris, who also served for several years as the number two in the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.

"There's been lots of news, and most of it is not good," he told a meeting Tuesday at the Nixon Center here, noting that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly referred to Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank as "state terrorism," an assessment that is now shared by 82 percent of the Turkish population, according to a recent poll cited by Zeyno Baran, director of the international security and energy program at the center.

While the shifts in Turkish public opinion toward both the United States and Israel are wreaking havoc with political relationships, they have not yet seriously damaged the core strategic relationships, in part because the military in Turkey retains considerable autonomy, but it very easily could over time, according to the analysts. Another survey released in the past week showed that 75 percent of Turks wanted "no" relationship with Israel.

Aside from the Iraq war, which has spurred distrust in Ankara about U.S. aims in the region, the Bush administration appears to have misjudged the impact of the sweeping electoral victory that brought the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power in 2002.

"People here didn't fully appreciate how big a difference the AKP is in worldview," according to Parris, who stressed that Erdogan has consulted more closely with Arab governments than previous Turkish leaders and, in a major coup, Turkey last month saw its candidate, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, elected secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the global caucus of predominantly Muslim nations.

The other major factor in the growing alienation is rising expectation that Turkey will be given a certain date for joining the European Union (EU) at the body's meeting in December, according to Geoffrey Kemp, a top Middle East aide under former President Ronald Reagan (1981–89) who directs the Nixon Center's regional strategic programs.

"Becoming part of Europe is the overriding strategic objective," said Parris, who served in Ankara in the mid-1990s. On issues regarding the Middle East, Israel and Iran, the views of both religious and secular Turks "are now much closer to mainstream European perceptions than to mainstream American positions," he added.

The growing estrangement between Turkey, on the one hand, and the United States and Israel, on the other, is particularly ironic because Washington's biggest boosters of war in Iraq – mainly neoconservatives who favor Israel's governing Likud Party, such as former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who played a key role in promoting trilateral ties – had seen the ouster of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and the installation of a pro-U.S. government there as key to decisively transforming the balance of power in the region in favor of an alliance of secular, relatively democratic states, specifically Israel, Turkey and a new Iraq, backed up by Washington.

"It hasn't turned out to be that way," noted Kemp, who said that, if anything, the war has created unprecedented instability and uncertainty throughout the region in ways that could well bring about a major realignment in the area, but not of the kind desired by the neoconservatives.

Of greatest concern is what is taking place in Iraq itself, particularly in the northern Kurdish region, where 5,000 members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Turkish insurgency that just ended a five-year unilateral ceasefire, have been based. Despite repeated urgings by Ankara, U.S. occupation forces have not moved to disarm the guerrillas, nor have they asked Iraqi Kurds to do so, despite the fact that the PKK is listed by the State Department as a "terrorist" organization.

"If you make a discrimination among terrorist groups," according to one Turkish diplomat who attended the Nixon Center meeting, "then the war against terrorism will never work."

"The Turks told the U.S.: 'Either do something about it or let us do something about it,'" said Baran, who added that Washington has adamantly opposed any direct Turkish presence in Iraq, in contrast to its attitude during the 1990s when Ankara maintained a virtual continuous presence in the northern part of the country, close to its border.

Turkey is also concerned that Iraqi Kurds may break away from Baghdad, a step that would almost certainly spur direct military intervention by both Turkey and Iran, who worry that an independent Kurdistan would provoke Kurdish uprisings within their borders. Those fears have resulted in Turkey drawing closer to both Syria, which also has a significant Kurdish population, and Iran, where Erdogan himself is being hosted for a two-day summit this week.

"There is a real concern that, regardless of who wins the [U.S.] elections [in November], the United States is not up to fixing Iraq," Baran noted, adding there is also "fear that the U.S. is going to get involved militarily in Syria and Iran" in ways that could further destabilize the region.

These concerns, as well as the sour taste left by U.S. pressure on the Turkish parliament to approve the use of its territory to launch an invasion of Iraq from the north, the occupation and the widespread publicity about abuses by U.S. soldiers against Iraqi detainees, according to Baran, "has led Turkish people to feel closer to their Arab neighbors. Until a few years ago, Turks would feel much closer to Israel.”

But Israel's actions – particularly the similarity of the television images of its occupation of Palestinian territories and the U.S. Occupation in Iraq – have also resulted in a dramatic rise in anti-Israeli sentiment, she added.

Among other ominous developments for the relationship, according to Parris, in the past few months Israeli arms sales to Turkey have been canceled.

And two weeks ago, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Ohmert, who said he was bearing a special message from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for Erdogan, was snubbed by the Turkish prime minister. Although Ohmert was warmly received by other senior officials, Parris called it "devastating [that] he couldn't talk to the top guy," given the long-standing close relationship.

Israel's intentions in Iraq have become a subject of growing suspicion, particularly since the publication in the The New Yorker magazine in June of a much-disputed story by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that asserted Israel had infiltrated scores of "intelligence and military operatives" into Iraqi Kurdistan to train and supply the 50,000-strong peshmerga militias and conduct operations against targets in Kurdish areas of Syria and Iran.

The story, which was leaked in advance to a Turkish opposition newspaper, fueled concerns about Kurdish secession and the possibility of a Kurdish seizure of Iraq's major oil-production center of Kirkuk, where ethnic tensions between Turkmens, Kurds and Arabs have already resulted in fatal clashes.

While the Kurds and Israelis strongly denied Hersh's account, and some independent experts have cast doubt on it, "there is still huge distrust," said Baran. "They simply don't believe [the denials]."

Israeli and Turkish militaries are still carrying out joint exercises and U.S. forces are still using Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey to help supply the occupation in Iraq, but whether the fundamental strategic interests that the three countries share can long endure in the face of growing Turkish anger and distrust remain uncertain.

It will be difficult to reverse current negative trends, according to Baran, so long as Sharon and Bush remain in power, although even their successors may find it difficult to improve ties given Turkey's strategic reorientation toward Europe and the degree of alienation that will need to be overcome.

* Jim Lobe is Inter Press Service's correspondent in Washington, DC.

5. - Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - "Do Arms Cutback, Description of Israel as “Terrorist State” Signal Change in Ankara?":

28 July 2004 / by Jon Gorvett

With Turkey’s prime minister reportedly declaring Israel a “terrorist state” and Foreign Ministry chiefs in Ankara mulling over whether to recall their ambassador to Tel Aviv, May seemed to be a bad month for Turkish-Israeli friendship. A major cutback in Ankara’s arms procurement plans also seemed to hit Israel’s hopes of modernizing Turkey’s army—yet may have cast more light on the continuing tensions between Turkey’s government and its powerful military.

Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan reportedly made his remarks during a May 25 meeting in Ankara with Israeli Infrastructure Minister Joseph Paritsky, who told reporters afterward that he had been “astonished” by the Turkish leader’s comment.

But the following day, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul appeared to follow up by suggesting that Turkey might recall its ambassador in Tel Aviv “for consultations,” while boosting its representation with the Palestinian Authority by appointing a diplomat with ambassador status to Turkey’s consulate in Jerusalem.

Erdogan then backed up his earlier comments, telling the Israeli paper Haaretz on June 3 that the Sharon government’s actions agains the Palestinians constituted “state terrorism.” This was despite a stern rebuke from the Israeli Foreign Ministry for his earlier remarks.

With nightly portrayals of Israeli brutality in Gaza and the West Bank showing on Turkish TV screens, such moves by the government undoubtedly strike a major chord with Turkish public opinion.

Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has pro-Islamist roots, is also more keenly aware than many parties that the close ties forged over the years between Israel and Turkey rest uneasily in the minds of Turkish voters.

As a result, the AKP has tried publicly to disassociate itself from Israel as much as possible. Recently, this was demonstrated by the water issue. Ankara has continuously postponed longstanding plans to supply Israel with fresh water from Turkey’s Manavgat River—despite repeated claims from Israel that a deal has been agreed to.

In this, however, Erdogan’s government is none too different from previous Turkish administrations. All recent governments in Ankara have felt uneasy about the relationship with Israel.

“They’ve all denounced Israel at some point or other,” noted Ferhat Erkmen, a Middle Eastern analyst with the Ankara-based policy think tank, AVSAM. “But then they don’t really do very much,” he added. “Any actions they do take aren’t designed to have any real effect.”

Most analysts see something similar this time. As an example, the meeting at which Erdogan made his denunciation also saw the signing of an $800 million deal between Israel’s Dorad Energies and Turkey’s Zorlu Holding for the construction of three natural gas power stations in Israel.

The close ties forged over the years between Israel and Turkey rest uneasily in the minds of Turkish voters.
Behind much of this relationship lies the fact that Turkey long has eyed its Arab neighbors with suspicion. In the past, it has with some justification accused countries such as Syria of supporting Turkey’s Kurdish guerrillas. Ankara also has disputes over water with both Damascus and, in the past, Baghdad. Iran also long has been seen as a source of extreme Islamist influence and as a rival in the Caucasus. All this has made Israel a natural regional ally for Turkey.

The question now, however, is whether all this is changing. Certainly, one event during May seems to indicate that it is. This was the dramatic slashing of Turkey’s military procurement budget.

This $11 billion scheme to modernize the country’s armed forces originally had included a planned purchase of 1,000 Main Battle Tanks and 145 attack helicopters. Russian, U.S., German and Israeli firms competed in bidding for these. AWACS airborne surveillance aircraft and eight submarines also were listed, although the military did eventually drop plans for several aircraft carriers.

But this enormous arms program met its Waterloo mid-May in the form of the Justice and Development Party government, which had earlier passed constitutional amendments requiring—for the first time ever—that the military account for its budget. The government announced that the procurement had been slashed down to $5 billion, with only 250 tanks and 50 attack helicopters up for bid. The AWACS and submarine plans also were reportedly under review.

Of two widely drawn conclusions, the first was that this was evidence of a major rethinking of the country’s strategic situation. Traditionally, Turkey has seen every country with which it has borders as a potential aggressor. Yet now, this position has grown quite untenable. The collapse of the Soviet Union, rapprochement with Greece, Syria’s efforts to mend fences with Ankara, Iran’s internal weaknesses and the collapse of the Saddam regime have left Turkey with no conceivable threats on its frontiers. It is hard to think of any other time in Turkey’s history when this has been true.

Under these changed circumstances—or, more specifically, given the fact that these changed circumstances finally have been recognized—the government also may be reconsidering how much it really needs its Israeli alliance.

Neighborly Overtures

Already, Ankara has been attempting to make overtures to its Arab neighbors, with major diplomatic initiatives undertaken both prior to and after the invasion of Iraq last year. So far, these have been fairly fruitless—yet for many the perception is that this is the direction in which the government would like to go, if only the Arab states would respond in the way Ankara would wish.

The other conclusion drawn from the military cutbacks was that the government once again was flexing its political muscles against the politically powerful generals. In this, the timing of the announcement was significant, coming a few days after the military had hit out at government plans to introduce a new education law.

The proposed law would have ended discrimination against graduates from religious high schools in the country’s university entrance exams. While this may seem a minor adjustment, it was widely interpreted as a major challenge to the nature of Turkey’s secular state. It also prompted a stern warning from the generals.

“Circles and institutions which are undoubtedly loyal to the basic characteristics of the Republic should not be expected to adopt this draft [law],” read an early May statement from the General Staff.

The statement caused a slump in Turkey’s currency and stock markets, with university rectors protesting that the law would lead to the country’s campuses being flooded with religiously minded students.

The bill was, however, passed by parliament—but then vetoed by the president. In the meantime, the government had come eyeball-to-eyeball with the military, a position both have been at pains to avoid until now. As June began, Erdogan signaled that he would go no further with the issue for now, but would return to it in the fall.

Many things have changed since the last time a government and the military clashed over education. That was back in 1997, when the religious high schools became a trigger for that year’s “soft coup.” Back then, the AKP’s pro-Islamist predecessor, the Welfare Party, had been ejected from office in a military-organized political coup.

Few expected anything similar this time around, although education remains a crucial “line in the sand” for the country’s secularists. On this issue—as with many others—it may well be that by the time it is returned to, additional reforms will have further weakened the military and establishment base. This may be good news for Turkey’s European Union membership bid—but also may be bad news for the long-term outlook of Turkish-Israeli relations.

* Jon Gorvett is a free-lance journalist bassed in Istanbul.

6. - Ha'aretz - "A little like Cyprus":

29 July 2004 / by Yossi Melman

The thrill reached a climax when George Dalaras broke into "Ton Athanaton," ("The Immortals"), a melancholy song that praises those who sacrificed their lives, and declares that all the grateful living can do is raise a glass of wine. The event was July 20, the day of the Turkish invasion, in the Markios III Amphitheater in Nicosia. Most of the audience joined in singing the song, and many waved flags decorated on one side with the Greek flag and the other with a map of Cyprus. Those nationalist flags were carried by the followers of Enosis, the pan-Hellenic unity movement that came out of the EOKA, the underground that fought the British. They would have prefered a pan-Hellenic union with Greece over an independent Cyprus.

Some 3,000 people, young and old, gathered to hear the popular Greek singer and take part in the ceremonies marking 30 years since northern Cyprus was captured by Turkey and the island was divided. At the end of the concert, which was dedicated to "no to occupation, yes to unification" - against the division of Cyprus, and for the cancelation of the results of the Turkish occupation - the crowd dispersed quietly and was swallowed up in the warm Nicosia night.

Aside from identifying with the song and raising the flags, it's difficult to notice any expression of political protest in Cyprus. Not in the concert that was the main event marking the historic anniversary, nor in the days leading up to it. Television showed images from the Turkish invasion. The politicians and media tried to wake up the public with a call to take part in memorial services, tedious seminars and discussions about whether it would have been possible to avoid the Cypriot tragedy. But most of the 600,000 Greek Cypriots prefer to look into the future with hope, rather than into the past with anger.

The presence of 35,000 Turkish soldiers on their land, and the fact it is in effect divided into two states, doesn't keep many awake, however. They prefer the daily routine and await the prosperity that is supposed to shower down on them with Cyprus' entry to the European Union.

On the eve of the country's entry to the EU three months ago, the residents - Greeks in Cyprus and the Turks in the occupied area - voted in a referendum on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's peace plan. The plan proposed turning Cyprus into a federation of two political entities, defined geographically and ethnically. But more than it was meant to achieve a fair settlement, the intention was to remove the Cyprus issue from the international agenda, which for the Greeks meant that there were a lot of holes left in the plan.

The results of the referendum were disappointing for the initiators of the plan. Most of the Turks supported it, but 76 percent of the Greeks opposed it. Cypriot Defense Minister Kyriakos Mavronicolas, and former Cypriot ambassador to Israel Petros Eftychiou, explained that their people could not agree to a plan that perpetuated the occupation and rewarded the aggressor.

As far as they were concerned, by virtue of agreeing to a federation they were conceding the unified state. In the Annan plan, it says that a certain percent of the Greek refugees who were exiled would be allowed to gradually return. But the Greek Cypriots weren't satisfied with that, and especially feared that the Turks would not keep their promises on this matter.

Through Israeli eyes, there are principles in the plan that could be brought to bear on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There's an end to the occupation, right of return, and rehabilitation of refugees.

Turkish spokesmen have different explanations about why the Greeks rejected the plan. They think that the Greeks simply don't want a federation with their poor neighbors.

Seemingly, the conflict has reached a dead end. However, there's no sign of despair in Cyprus, on either side. The mood seems to swing between apathy and optimism. The Turkish side now hopes to enjoy the benefits of saying yes. It's expecting a quarter-billion euros from the EU in aid, and a lifting of the economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation enabling the low standards of living to rise. The Greek leaders, who are not absorbing international criticism, hope that by the end of the year, when the EU decides to open talks with Turkey about joining the EU, it will make a good deal better for the Greeks.