1. "Claims of systematic torture in Turkey", the European Parliament is schedule to discuss Turkey on Tuesday, with debate centred on a report by Dutch Parliamentarian Camiel Eurlings.

2. "Knocking at the door of Europe", in an interview with the Guardian, Turkey's prime minister steps up the campaign for EU membership.

3. "Turkey and the Problem of History", the European Commission recently approved membership talks between the European Union and Turkey. It was a top-down decision. E.U. citizens overwhelmingly oppose the idea of Turkey joining their union. They fear Princeton historian Bernard Lewis may be right when he says that based on demographic trends Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.

4. "Turkey unveils new currency in major money reform move to help battle chronic inflation", Turkey on Monday unveiled the much-awaited design of its new currency, just two months before it goes into circulation, in what officials describe as a major step in the country's battle against chronic inflation.

5. "Millions wasted on bridging Cyprus divide-report", trying to get Greek Cypriots to get on with Turkish Cypriots may be a waste of money, according to a report commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

6. "Kurds take to streets to demand Kirkuk form part of Iraqi Kurdistan", hundreds of Kurds protested Monday in Kirkuk to demand that the oil-rich northern city form part of Iraqi Kurdistan and threatened to boycott the national elections planned in January.

---

1. - NTV / NSNBC - "Claims of systematic torture in Turkey ":

The European Parliament is schedule to discuss Turkey on Tuesday, with debate centred on a report by Dutch Parliamentarian Camiel Eurlings.

26 October 2004

There is systematic torture in Turkey according to claims by the leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP) and human rights campaigner Selahattin Demirtas.

Both Demirtas, the head of the Diyarbakir branch of the Human Right Association (HD), and DEHAP Party Chairman Tuncer Bakirhan told representatives of the European Parliament Human Rights Sub-committee on Monday that systematic torture continues in Turkey.

Bakirhan and Demirtas called for the European Union to vote in favour of starting membership negotiations with Turkey at the bloc’s December 17 summit but criticised the current government for not acting to end the ongoing climate of conflict in the south east of Turkey.

---

2. - The Guardian - "Knocking at the door of Europe":

In an interview with the Guardian, Turkey's prime minister steps up the campaign for EU membership

ISTANBUL / 26 October 2004 / by Helena Smith

When the Turkish prime minister sits down in Berlin today with the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and the French president, Jacques Chirac, he is determined to speak his mind.
"I will stress the importance of the historical relations we have with these countries," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. "I will emphasise the depth of our economic, political, military and cultural relations."

Mr Erdogan is disappointed by the French and German hostility to the prospect of Turkish membership of the EU.

While Mr Chirac and Mr Schröder support Turkey's bid, a poll last month showed that the majority of French people would oppose Turkey's accession if asked to vote on it, and in Germany the opposition Christian Democrat leader, Angela Merkel, has come out categorically against Turkish membership.

"I see hurt in my people. This [negative reaction] was not expected," Mr Erdogan said in an interview at his home overlooking the Bosphorus, the waterway that separates Europe from Asia.

"France has around $5.5bn [£2.9bn] worth of investment in Turkey, nearly as much as Germany.

"Both have factories here and thousands of Turks work in them. Even in our architecture, you can see the influence of France, and there are French words in our language."

Today's talks come as Turkey's Islamic-oriented government is stepping up its campaign to increase support for its application to join the EU.

After 40 years of being kept at Europe's door, Turkey regards the next seven weeks, leading up to the EU's decision on whether to open negotiations, as crucial for the country. Turks, said Mr Erdogan, were undoubtedly frustrated that the country's fate could one day hang on the result of a French referendum.

"I believe prejudices have arisen because [Europeans] don't really know Turkey. Maybe there has been some kind of miscommunication between us."

Once a poor "semi-democracy" on the fringes of Europe, Turkey has changed immeasurably under the neo-Islamists. Since Mr Erdogan's AK party swept to power, casting aside the old ruling class with an unprecedented landslide victory, hundreds of long-overdue laws and reforms have been passed.

The country's 12 million Kurds have been granted linguistic and cultural rights; the death penalty has been abolished; torture officially banned; and an archaic penal code revised to meet European standards.

"We have zero tolerance for torture," Mr Erdogan said. "I know [about torture]. I have paid a price," he snapped, referring to his own stint in prison in 1998 for publicly reciting a poem that was deemed to incite religious hatred.

Under scrutiny

"Over the last two years we have not stopped a second with the EU harmonisation laws. None of these changes could have been accepted, or imagined, five years ago."

Since the EU commission finally decided earlier this month that Turkey had done its homework, it was only fair that negotiations should be allowed to start, he said.

With three-quarters of Turkey's 70 million people backing their country's quest to join, many were pinning their hopes on Mr Erdogan's charisma eventually carrying the day.

"If he goes on like this and takes Turkey into Europe he will be viewed as the greatest statesman this country has produced since Kemal Ataturk [modern Turkey's founder]," said Fehmi Koru, a columnist with the newspaper Yeni Safak. But 22 months in power has also taken a toll on the former professional footballer. He has puffy bags under his eyes and looks exhausted.

"I sleep six hours a day, that's the only time I relax," he admitted with a sigh.

From their first day in office, the Islamists have been under scrutiny, not only abroad, but also at home.

Many in Turkey's secular elite still regard the religious-minded party, made from the ruins of two Islamist groups previously banned by the army-dominated establishment, as suspicious.

They fear that behind Mr Erdogan's pro-European stance and progressive, pro-western principles lies a hidden agenda.

Although the leader makes a point of publicly distancing himself professionally from his religion, the stories of his days as a hardline Islamist - when he would recoil at the idea of even shaking a woman's hand - are still legendary. Few have forgotten how as mayor of Istanbul he tried to ban alcohol from local municipalities.

"Tayyip Erdogan has learned to be liberal," the political scientist Ahmet Evin says.

"He's now ideologically committed to the EU and that's very good for Turkey, but the bottom line is that he is also a streetwise kid."

In some ways Mr Erdogan's upbringing as the son of a stern sea captain in Istanbul's Kasimpasa slum has kept him close to the people. His present home, a collection of nondescript family flats in the lower-middle-class area of Emniyet, stands opposite a pastry shop and barber.

Mindful of his own childhood days selling sesame rings in Kasimpasa, he still hands out sweets and toys to passing children in the streets.

"Have you seen them?" he enthused as a group of kids scrambled after a box of chocolates outside his home.

But his socially conservative bent, seen most noticeably in his recent and bizarre insistence that adultery should be banned, has also caused concern.

With the exception of the adultery debacle - he was forced to back down in the face of European pressure - Mr Erdogan has so far exhibited restraint, reining in his own instinctive predilections for fear of further alienating secularists.

As long as the prospect of EU membership is dangled before Turkey, analysts believe, he will continue to adopt moderate policies and keep conservative traditionalists at bay.

Outside his private office, among the Islamic art that lines the walls, the prime minister has hung a photograph of cherry blossoms that spell out this message: "There is nothing permanent except change."

"Give Turkey three years," he said "and it will be a totally different country. Whatever happens we are going to change."

---

3. - Tech Central Station - "Turkey and the Problem of History":

25 October 2004 / by Michael J. Totten

The European Commission recently approved membership talks between the European Union and Turkey. It was a top-down decision. E.U. citizens overwhelmingly oppose the idea of Turkey joining their union. They fear Princeton historian Bernard Lewis may be right when he says that based on demographic trends Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.

But there's something else, too. Something that's left unsaid, perhaps even unformed in thought, but there like a chill up your spine when you think you feel someone's eyes on the back of your neck.

Turkey is outside the E.U.'s post-modern End-of-History paradise. Its absorption would push the border of the European Union beyond the continent of Europe itself and deep inside the unofficial "nation" of Kurdistan. Europe wouldn't begin at the former front line of the Cold War. It would begin at the active front line of the Terror War right next to two states, Syria and Iraq, that are not only mired in History but also in Baath Party totalitarianism and Islamist jihad.

Robert Kagan's groundbreaking book Of Paradise and Power brilliantly contrasts the different views of power held by Europeans and Americans. The United States and Europe, he says, have sharply diverging ideas about the role of diplomacy and the use of military force due to the stark differences in historical experience accumulated over the past century.

Europe has never had it so good. After the meat-grinding horror of World War I and the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II, the United States provided a protective security umbrella over Western Europe, under NATO auspices, permitting Europeans to build multilateralist institutions and lavish welfare states. And now, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire on the West's eastern border, Europeans feel they have entered a settled post-historic era where nations can settle differences through diplomacy and the merger of formerly separate bureaucracies. War is seen as an anachronism from Europe's monarchical, imperial, and machtpolitik past.

We Americans, on the other hand, have never felt more threatened. The attack on September 11, 2001, was the worst ever on our own soil. History is far from over for us. Neither Nazi Germany nor the Soviet Union ever struck such a blow against us at home. And because we are militarily powerful we are far more willing to use force than Europeans. Kagan quotes one European critic of America's policy who says "When you have a hammer, all problems start to look like nails." This is certainly true. Kagan's response: "When you don't have a hammer, you don't want anything to look like a nail."

From Europe's perspective, that's the problem with Turkey. It's a nail.

Turkey is a relatively liberal secular democracy, but it is no post-historic paradise. The government in Ankara is in a precarious balance of terror with its Kurdish minority in the East, where a civil war raged throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Last year the armed forces threatened the right-wing Islamic government with a military coup if the secular constitution isn't respected. Though the Turks have initiated serious liberal reforms and have improved their human rights record, troubles still lurk in the shadows. Troubles with the whiff of war.

The jihad in Iraq could spill out of its borders. Iraqi Kurds could declare independence from Baghdad and kick off civil wars inside any number of neighboring states (including Turkey) where the Kurds have long wished for a sovereign homeland. Israel could get drawn into yet another shooting war with Syria (which borders Turkey) over Syria's support for Hezbollah and other international terrorists.

The E.U.'s recent experience with metastasizing violence on the Balkan peninsula knocked the ideological struts out from beneath its conflict resolution system. It can't function with warmongering dictators in its midst, nor can it handle thugs on it borders. While Slobodan Milosovic massacred hundreds of thousands, Europeans averted their eyes and wished the problem away. The very idea of an armed intervention threatened the pacifist belief system that permits the E.U. to exist in the first place.

Europeans tried everything they are supposed to be good at: summits, diplomacy, an arms embargo, sending in the U.N., and a "peace process." All failed. Civilians were massacred even inside the U.N. "safe areas." Only armed intervention put a stop to the violence. Something similar or even worse could puncture the perimeter of the E.U. itself if it moves its border next to states more violent and volatile than Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia.

The problem is not -- or at least not exclusively -- that Turkey is Islamic or that it borders front line states. Middle Eastern wars reverberate inside Europe even from a distance. The second Palestinian intifada was matched by the largest wave of anti-Semitic violence in Europe since the Holocaust. Europeans do have sound reasons to fear being drawn into these conflicts.

But History is coming again no matter what Europe does. In the era of high-tech globalization the world can't be walled off. The West can push into the East. And the East can push back.

The Weekly Standard's Christopher Caldwell quotes Bassam Tibi, Germany's most well-known moderate Muslim: "Either Islam gets Europeanized, or Europe gets Islamized." This may be an overstatement. Mr. Tibi relies on the assumption that the increasingly Islamization of Europe will continue indefinitely. He doesn't take into account possible countermeasures such as the restriction of immigration. In any case, it will be far better for the world if Islam becomes Europeanized. The Middle East -- part of it anyway -- could become at least seemingly post-historic and settled as Europe is now.

Turkey is at a crossroads, physically and politically. Most of it is in Asia, its capital is in Asia, and its culture is Asian -- sort of. There is no such thing as "Asian culture" per se. But Asia has many cultures, and Turkey's is one of them. Turkey also has a small toehold in Europe at the tip of the Balkan peninsula. Politically it is moving as much as it can toward the liberal-democratic tradition born in the West.

If the fear of History, fear of the "other," or some combination of both prevent Turkey from joining the union, the danger is that Turkey may drift, like a spurned would-be lover, away from the Europe it aspires to join. If it turns from the West, it can only turn back to the East. Turkey, then, is in play.

Europe is at a crossroads, too. It can wallow in stasis and passivity. Or it can the initiative and act.

Europe can still have a role, if not as a super-power then at least as a civilizing soft power. What better way to carry out that mission than to admit Turkey into the union, to "Europeanize" at least one part of the House of Islam, and to set up a permanent Western camp on the edge of the Middle East itself.

Annexation is risky. But there will be problems in the Turkey-Iraq-Syria border region whether Europe moves into the neighborhood or not. Europeans should act while they can instead of waiting to be acted upon. They can handle it, in theory. But not unless and until they burst their psychological bubble where they pretend History is over.

* Michael J. Totten is a TCS columnist. Visit his daily Web log at http://michaeltotten.com.

---

4. - AFP - "Turkey unveils new currency in major money reform move to help battle chronic inflation ":

ANKARA / 26 October 2004

Turkey on Monday unveiled the much-awaited design of its new currency, just two months before it goes into circulation, in what officials describe as a major step in the country's battle against chronic inflation.

The New Turkish Lira - or YTL, as it is now called - takes effect Jan. 1, 2005, scrapping six zeroes from the current money, which has been a source of national shame as a symbol of economic failure and 30 years of hyperinflation.

The smallest coin today is worth 25,000 lira ($0.01), while the biggest banknote is 20 million lira ($13).

"With the YTL, our country's longing for low inflation is coming to an end - with the YTL, our currency's longing for prestige is coming to en end," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a ceremony introducing the new currency, attended by Cabinet ministers and financial authorities.

After the reform, the banknotes in circulation will be one, five, 10 and 2O YTL, which correspond to today's one million, five million, 10 million and 20 million notes and which will be almost identical in design.

There will also be two newcomers: 50 YTL and 100 YTL, which, as is the case with the other notes, will carry portraits of the country's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, on the front and pictures from Turkey's cultural and natural heritage on the back.

The new notes also introduce several anti-counterfeiting measures.

The reform will also re-introduce the kurus, which disappeared from circulation more than two decades ago. One YTL will equal 100 kurus.

The biggest coin will be one YTL and the smallest one kurus. The new coins will all have a crescent and a star - the symbol on the Turkish flag - on one side and a portrait of Ataturk on the other.

"We are launching a money reform in Turkey. It is already clear that the Turkish people, hungry for stability after years of inflation, will adapt easily to the YTL," said Economy Minister Ali Babacan.

He brushed aside fears that inflation may rise as tradesmen round off amounts upwards with the new currency, as was the case in some EU countries after the adoption of the euro.

"The smallest currency will be one kuru rather than 25,000 thousand liras. That will decrease the already rampant rounding off of figures," Babacan said.

Both new and old currencies will remain in circulation during a transition period until Dec. 31, 2005, with labels carrying prices in both denominations.

Central Bank governor Sureyya Serdengecti said distribution of the new notes and coins to banks would begin in December and that the transition would be up to 95 percent complete by February.

The government last year announced plans to knock six zeroes off the currency as it dramatically pulled down inflation under an International Monetary Fund backed austerity program.

The Turkish economy began its downward slide after a massive devaluation against the dollar in 1970.

The current program, backed by a $16 billion IMF loan, was signed in 2002 after turmoil in the banking sector plunged the economy into its worst recession since World War II. In exchange for the aid, Ankara implemented far-reaching reforms that helped stabilize its banking system, decrease inflation and boost growth.

The program expires in February 2005 and is expected to be followed by a new three-year stand-by deal, currently under discussion between Turkish officials and a visiting IMF team.

Annual inflation, which surpassed 100 percent in the mid-1990's, now stands at about 9 percent.

---

5. - Reuters - "Millions wasted on bridging Cyprus divide-report":

NICOSIA / 26 October 2004

Trying to get Greek Cypriots to get on with Turkish Cypriots may be a waste of money, according to a report commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, said 35-45 per cent of some $6.4 million the agency had given local non-governmental organisations on both sides of the divided island had done little or nothing to foster rapprochement.

It questioned whether the so-called Bi-communal Development Project (BDP) was worth continuing.

Turkish Cypriots voted 'yes' in a referendum on a U.N. reunification blueprint in April, while Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly voted 'no'.

"With the Greek Cypriot rejection of the plan, it is not clear whether there will be, or should be a continuation of the BDP or any other foreign grant programming dedicated to convincing the Greek Cypriots to 'vote for peace'," the report said.

"The factors which caused these citizens to reject a settlement may well be too powerful for any such programme to succeed."

Cyprus has been divided in to ethnic Greek and Turkish areas since Turkey invaded in 1974 in response to an Athens-backed coup.

The evaluation report was completed the day after April's referendum.

"For a $6.4 million-dollar investment, a better effort should have been made to evaluate and track progress on Turkish and Greek Cypriot NGO's," the report said.

---

6. - AFP - "Kurds take to streets to demand Kirkuk form part of Iraqi Kurdistan":

KIRKUK / 25 October 2004

Hundreds of Kurds protested Monday in Kirkuk to demand that the oil-rich northern city form part of Iraqi Kurdistan and
threatened to boycott the national elections planned in January.

"The demonstration is a message to those who want to marginalise the Kurds and refuse them their rights," said a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) who was taking part in the demonstration.

The protesters also threatened to boycott elections unless the Arabs who were resettled in Kirkuk by the former regime of ousted president Saddam Hussein left the city.

Kurdish residents were expelled under the Saddam regime to tip the demographic balance in favour of Arabs.

Massoud Barzani, the head of the KDP, one of two main Kurdish political parties, said earlier this month that he was certain Kirkuk would be linked to Iraqi Kurdistan in the north of the country after a referendum.

The two main Kurdish parties want Kirkuk incorporated in an enlarged autonomous Kurdish region but reject the idea of independence, knowing it would be unacceptable to Iraq's neighbours which have Kurdish minorities of their own.