13 September 2004

1. "Rights group says torture still systematic in Turkey", torture at the hands of security forces continues to be widespread and systematic in Turkey despite government efforts to eradicate the practice, Turkey's leading human rights organisation said Friday.

2. "No to the extradition of Nuriye Kesbir", the Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner on 7 September agreed to a request from Turkey to extradite leading Kurdish woman activist Nuriye Kesbir, who has been seeking political asylum in The Netherlands.

3. "European Union warns Turkey over law on adultery", the European Union has given Turkey one month to scrap its proposals to outlaw adultery, or face a setback in its decades-long quest to join the Union.

4. "Outcry as Turks plan law to ban adultery", a country shocked by the alleged honour killing of a young mother is torn by its Islamic traditions

5. "Turks wait anxiously at gates of Continent", in less than a month, the future direction and political fate of Turkey, the key strategic nation of the Middle East, will become clear.

6. "European Union Struggles To Contain Turkey Accession Debate", the European Commission’s carefully choreographed strategy to keep internal debate over Turkish accession silent until October 6, when an initial decision must be made, is coming unraveled.

7. "Europe fears 'gobbling Turkey'", listen hard to Europe — particularly the French, Germans and just recently, one fulminating Dutchman with an important Brussels job — and this is what it is brokenly repeating to itself.

8. "Syria hands over Kurds to Turkey", Syria has turned over a senior Kurdish leader and six other rebels to Turkey in a sign of closer security cooperation between the former rivals, a Turkish security official said on Friday.

1. - AFP - "Rights group says torture still systematic in Turkey":

ANKARA / 10 September 2004

Torture at the hands of security forces continues to be widespread and systematic in Turkey despite government efforts to
eradicate the practice, Turkey's leading human rights organisation said Friday.

"Torture is widespread and systematic," said the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) in a statement, saying it received 692 complaints of torture in the first half of this year, compared to 1,391 cases for the whole of 2003.

Although they are becoming rarer, traditional methods such as the falanga -- beating the soles of the feet with a stick -- and electrical shocks are still widespread, said the statement from the IHD's director Husnu Ondul.

Human rights groups say torturers have begun to resort to more sophisticated forms that leave no visible trace, such as sleep or food deprivation, since the government announced a series of measures to end the mistreatment of suspects.

Ondul suggested that to become truly effective, anti-torture legislation should punish not only the torturer but his or her superiors as well.

In a bid to adapt to the norms of the European Union, which it hopes to join, the Turkish parliament has enacted "tolerance zero" laws against torture and imposed jail sentences -- rather than simple fines as in the past -- on security force members found guilty of mistreating suspects and convicts.

The EU Commissioner for enlargement, Gunther Verheugen, said at the end of a four-day fact-finding visit to Turkey this week that although the reforms adopted by Turkey were impressive, inefficiency in their application was a shortcoming.

After seeing figures provided by the IHD, he advised in particular that acts of torture "should be punished as severely as possible."

2. - Peace in Kurdistan Campaign - "No to the extradition of Nuriye Kesbir":

LONDON / 9 September 2004

The Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner on 7 September agreed to a request from Turkey to extradite leading Kurdish woman activist Nuriye Kesbir, who has been seeking political asylum in The Netherlands.

She is now appealing against the decision and will remain in the country until the outcome of this action. If her legal bid for an injunction fails, the final step will be to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Nuriye, a Yezidi Kurd, has herself been the victim of repression, but she won respect from the Kurdish people for her struggle for their rights. She was elected to the Executive Council of KONGRA-GEL which is waging a peaceful struggle.

Nuriye first sought asylum in The Netherlands in 2001. She was detained in Zwolle prison between September 2001 and December 2002 following Turkey¹s request for her extradition. A court in Amsterdam, having found that the evidence put forward to justify extradition was unreliable, ordered the release of Nuriye in December 2002.

Nuriye has always believed that as a European democracy, The Netherlands holds to the principles of equality and justice and human rights. She appeared at the hearing on 5 March 2004 despite the risk of detention. She was indeed detained before she entered the courthouse and held in Breda prison. Nuriye has however behaved impeccably during her stay in The Netherlands.

It should never be forgotten that the Turkish state behaved with the utmost brutality during fifteen years of war against the Kurds and it carries on in the same way despite its quest for admission to the EU. Turkey still does not recognise the rights of the Kurdish people as grounded in international treaties. Indeed, it does not adhere to those treaties despite it being a signatory to them. The Dutch Justice Minister nevertheless has now decided to extradite Nuriye accepting the word of the Turkish state that she will be granted a fair trial and would not be tortured.

However, the actions of Turkey speak far louder than its words. Amnesty International in a press release of 13 February 2004 pointed to the problems in the implementation of legal reforms. This has been echoed by Human Rights Watch.

All impartial reports stress emphatically that torture continues and fair trials are absent in Turkey. Degrading treatment of detainees continues and the peoples¹ rights to express themselves are blocked. The cases of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdish people, and of the ex-MP Leyla Zana and her three colleagues, led the ECHR to rule that they were not tried fairly in Turkey and re-trials were ordered. If Turkey cannot provide fair trials for such wellknown figures then how can Nuriye Kesbir receive a fair trial?

Torture clearly awaits her on her return to Turkey. That is self-evident to anyone who has followed closely the treatment metyed out to political prisoners, particularly Kurds. Kurdish women especially have suffered torture, assault and other indignities at the hands of the Turkish interrogators, police and soldiers.

Even at this late hour, there is still time to save Nuriye from the fate that awaits her if she is extradited. We urge the decision makers in The Netherlands to think again, show humanity and reverse its decision.

3. - Financial Times - "European Union warns Turkey over law on adultery":

BRUSSELS / ANKARA / 13 September 2004 /
by Daniel Dombey and Vincent Boland

The European Union has given Turkey one month to scrap its proposals to outlaw adultery, or face a setback in its decades-long quest to join the Union.

The proposals, which would make adultery a crime punishable by imprisonment, will be debated by the country's parliament tomorrow. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the socially conservative prime minister, argues it would serve to protect women.

But the European Commission has told Turkey that the adultery proposals could hurt Ankara's plans for membership talks with the EU.

The Commission is scheduled on October 6 to pronounce on Turkey's fitness to join membership talks and EU leaders are due in December to decide on whether and when to start negotiations.

The Commission recommendation will be based on Turkey's progress on human rights and democratic reforms, and many officials are worried that the adultery proposals are intolerant and invasive. Although the legislation applies equally to men and women, critics argue it would be used mostly against women. If Turkey has not renounced or abandoned it, the Commission will probably deny Ankara the clear endorsement it seeks, people close to the issue say.

That could result in a delay in the start of negotiations or even a move by EU leaders to defer the decision over whether to begin talks.

"The adultery proposal is clearly a tactical mistake by the Turks," said one EU official. "If they pushed this through a couple of weeks before the Commission recommendation, it would simply make things more complicated for them."

Günter Verheugen, EU enlargement commissioner, who has just returned from a trip to Turkey, has indicated that if there is not sufficient progress on reforms, talks may not begin immediately. That would be a blow to Ankara, which has demanded that talks start in the first three months of 2005.

In an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Saturday, Mr Verheugen said that after 40 years of promises the EU could not refuse Ankara's application, but added Turkey would not join before 2015.

However, some of Turkey's supporters fear that if the adultery-law controversy continues, EU member states may avoid making a firm decision in December - and instead set further conditions for the start of talks.

Austria and Cyprus have reservations about Turkey's membership bid, though without further allies they are unlikely to block a decision to start talks. There has also been controversy within the Commission, with outspoken criticism of Turkey's bid voiced by two commissioners and concerns held by at least four more.

Yesterday, Cemil Cicek, Turkey's justice minister, said in a newspaper interview that the government would take criticism of the adultery proposal into account in the debate on changes to the penal code tomorrow. He said "deficiencies" in the draft changes would be removed, although he did not suggest that the adultery proposal would be dropped.

Adultery was a crime in the Turkish penal code until it was deleted for men in 1996 and for women in 1998.

Some observers in Ankara said the attempt to reinstate it as a crime was being led by religious conservatives in Mr Erdogan's broad-based Justice and Development party. who believe that social reform has gone far enough in the blizzard of constitutional changes adopted to meet EU entry criteria.

4. - The Guardian / The Observer - "Outcry as Turks plan law to ban adultery":

A country shocked by the alleged honour killing of a young mother is torn by its Islamic traditions

ISTANBUL / 12 September 2004 / by Jonny Dymond

Outside a courthouse in Bakirkoy, an unfashionable neighbourhood of Istanbul, a dozen or so women gathered in the brittle autumn sunshine. They had come to demonstrate at the first hearing in the trial of the killers of Guldunya Tore, a 22-year-old woman shot dead in the city in February.
Guldunya had fled her home in Bitlis, south-east Turkey, after she fell pregnant to her cousin's husband. Her family sent her to live with relatives in Istanbul. Soon after her child was born she was shot in the street and left for dead, but she survived. In hospital she asked for police protection. It was refused. Later, gunmen burst into her room and killed her.

Her two brothers are charged with her murder in an 'honour killing'. Friday was the first day of their trial.

For the demonstrators the link between Guldunya's murder and a proposed adultery law, due to be voted upon in the Turkish parliament on Tuesday, is terrifying. They believe the criminalisation of adultery will effectively legitimise honour killings. The government gives every impression of being baffled by the uproar that has followed its proposed law. But this week, as news of it began to leak out into the international media, ministers began to feel the heat.

Asked what he thought of the new law, the EU's Enlargement Commissioner, Gunther Verheugen, gave the Eurocrats' version of 'no comment'. Standing next to the Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, he was in the capital Ankara on his final trip to Turkey before the EU Commission gives its verdict on the country's once appalling human rights record. When the commissioner met the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an official revealed he'd told him to dump the proposed law. Europe, he said, was different when it came to these matters.

There is a dark irony surrounding these events, because this government has done more than any other to bring Turkey to the edge of EU membership. It forced the military to relinquish privileged positions within government. It applied pressure to persuade the Turkish Cypriots and the military to accept a compromised Cyprus reunification plan.

The state broadcaster TRT was even made to broadcast Kurdish language programming.

All of this took considerable nerve, which makes the move over adultery hard to fathom, coming as it does less than a month before the Commission's report.

Rusen Cakir, a journalist who has written extensively on the Islamist movement, believes the governing Justice and Development party (AK) has miscalculated: 'They couldn't foresee that the Europeans would show such a big reaction. If they thought it would be taken very seriously they wouldn't have done it.'

As with previous proposed reforms on headscarf regulations and religious schools, Cakir believes the adultery law is an attempt by AK to prop up its core constituency, the 20 per cent of its voters who are religious conservatives.

The logical thing to do now might be to look for a tactical retreat, but most people think it is too late for that. 'If they take a step back they'll lose prestige in the country,' said Cakir. 'And if they take a step back this will be because of the EU, not because of the people's reaction.'

'The problem is,' said Soli Ozel, Professor of International Relations at Istanbul's Bilgi University, 'that it gives ammunition to those [in the EU] who say "Turkey is not like us".'

Ozel is not a fan of the proposed law: 'If we want to join the EU we have to accept that it is a set of norms, not just political norms, but also about the rights of the individual, equality between men and women, and the sanctity of private life.'

Turkey's poor may adore the AK - the latest opinion poll gives the party more than half of the vote - but the secular middle class, the bureaucrats and the military fear it. They don't believe the government has embraced secularism. Every time the government moves on a religious issue they cry foul, with much of the media behind them.

Nimet Cubukcu, 39, an AK party founder, helped draft the new penal code and sits on parliament's constitutional committee. 'Of course, Turkey's image is important,' she said. 'But we have to remember who we are and what we are. Our law is not degrading people's human rights and the punishment is not degrading people's honour. The punishment will either be money, a fine or imprisonment. We are not talking about stoning anyone here.'

One poll suggests eight out of 10 Turks think adultery should be a criminal offence. Many of the reforms of recent years have passed over the heads of the people, coming down from the EU to the government. Now debate has been joined. Europe may not hear quite what it expected.

5. - The Australian - "Turks wait anxiously at gates of Continent":

13 September 2004 / by Nicolas Rothwell

In less than a month, the future direction and political fate of Turkey, the key strategic nation of the Middle East, will become clear.

The European Union is poised to release a report on Turkey's suitability for membership, in advance of a decisive vote by EU member states in December.

Turkey will finally learn whether its Government's strenuous attempts to overhaul the national constitution and judicial system have been sufficient to open the door into Europe.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, who last week made his final trip to Turkey before the release on October 6 of his crucial report, says the "moment of truth" is approaching in relations between Europe and Turkey.

Most observers expect the EU's report to be favourable, and believe there is a strong chance the member states might soon vote for the first time to expand their union beyond Europe's accepted geographic and cultural borders.

The central figure behind the transformation of Turkey over the past two years is the country's ultra-popular, and distinctly Islamist, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a nationalist prepared to reinvent his nation for its long-term interest.

Erdogan has presided over sweeping changes since coming to power in a landslide election win in November 2002: laws and constitutional amendments have been passed to abolish the death penalty, relations with Greece have been improved, while radical changes have begun in the Kurdish regions of east Turkey.

Minority rights and freedom of speech have been guaranteed, and the military budget has been placed under civilian control. Reforms to the penal code, expected to pass through parliament this month, will largely complete the adjustment to EU criteria.

These are drastic changes, and come after a period of political stagnation and deadlock in Turkey.

They are widely seen as positive steps, but the Turkish public is adamant that the time for Europe to admit them to its club has now arrived – and an EU vote against moving towards Turkish membership could trigger deep, almost cataclysmic dismay across the nation.

In an attempt to gauge the public mood as this crucial date in the country's modern history looms, The Australian travelled through provincial Turkey, interviewing politically informed and independent figures.

Their views provide a picture of Turkey's current condition, full of anticipation, alarm and hope, as a group of potential partners prepare to pass judgment on the nation's culture, economy and society.

While the centre of gravity of this "political class" is strongly in favour of joining Europe, there is also a feeling that Turkey stands at a crossing of the ways: and if the route westwards is barred, then the country should seek a new identity as a regional power.

Prominent author and philologist Celal Taskiran, from the southern coastal city of Siflike, believes the time has come, 80 years after the creation of the secular Turkish republic, for a new foundation of the Turkish state:

"Either this new Turkey will be based on Islamism, or on the entry to Europe," he says.

"For me, the only good path and aim is to become a member of Europe. We must have reforms, economic and social, so we reach the level of Europe.

"Europe has been forcing the Government to make reforms, and it is making them. It has been an extraordinary time in our national affairs – although passing laws is one thing, changing the mindset of a whole society another."

Taskiran, a free thinker who was once forced out of the country on suspicion of communist sympathies, is convinced Turkey will eventually become part of the EU – in years, or in decades.

But he also fears that the Turkish people support this path simply because they believe "happiness and prosperity will follow right away" – a dream that will end in disappointment.

Indeed, expectations are so high that leading Turkish writers and commentators have begun warning the public they should remember a yes vote means nothing more than the beginning of a protracted negotiation, which might lead to full membership in a decade or more.

Already, the dance between Ankara and Brussels has lasted 17 years, since when prime minister Turgut Ozal made a formal application for membership – an application that was only considered seriously after a summit held in Helsinki five years ago.

Columnist Mehmet Ali Birand, writing in the leading daily Hurriyet, was this week speaking of further "sacrifices" to come in the time ahead, and pointing out that the speed of Turkey's entry would depend on the nation itself.

Mehmet Kahraman, a keen supporter of the governing Justice and Development Party, from the southeastern industrial city of Mersin, believes Europe has a virtual obligation to admit Turkey.

"My position as a Turkish nationalist is that the Prime Minister has done everything he can, short of bending the knee to Europe," he says.

"Europe relies on Turkish labour, Europe uses us as a holiday destination, we have been a loyal member of NATO, we assist Europe in every way. The time has come for Europe to give us something back – and if there is no move on that front, I genuinely fear Turkish people will turn away and look to somewhere else.

"We always hear Europeans saying we are an Islamic nation, and this makes us different from them. But we are not primarily an Islamic nation – we have made ourselves a democratic nation, with the same democratic values as European countries."

In Side, a Turkish tourist town overrun, for much of the year, by Germans on package holidays, college lecturer Erhan Kilik believes the question of Europe has come to dominate the Turkish imagination.

"We feel it is only just that we become part of Europe. We have been waiting for decades, and asking questions about ourselves: are we doing well enough, in social reforms, in human rights?" he says.

"It has created in us almost a slave-like desire to please, and I think the time has come to make the decision. We have shown how keen we are to change, and membership in Europe will be the most effective means of bringing change to Turkey.

"Let me tell you, the people are for Europe, 90 per cent: everyone, from the intelligentsia down to the labourers. This is the right step for Turkey to take at its present level."

But Kilik also warns of other options.

"If it can't happen now, then we will have to come to the realisation that it never will – and Turkey, as a strategic country, has the possibility of combining with the other Turkic nations of the region, or with our Islamic neighbours."

There is another, more subtle argument in favour of Turkey's accession to the EU – one made often in the provincial cities of the south, where contact with European tourists is intense and prices are often simply given in euros, the EU's shared currency and symbol of its prosperity.

This is the argument that Europe needs Turkey as much as Turkey needs Europe – both to prove its openness to the Islamic realm, and to forge a broader identity as a political bloc of world standard.

This, of course, is an argu ment that resonates with the times. Europe's vote on December 17 may mark the climax to an agony of Turkish waiting – but it is a decision that will influence the future of the EU as much as it shapes its suitor's fate.

6. - EurasiaNet / RFE/RL - "European Union Struggles To Contain Turkey Accession Debate":

12 September 2004

The European Commission’s carefully choreographed strategy to keep internal debate over Turkish accession silent until October 6, when an initial decision must be made, is coming unraveled. Recently, Dutch commission member Frits Bolkestein, who is responsible for internal markets and taxation and customs-union issues, made his reservations about Turkish membership clear. Then, on September 10, the "Financial Times" referred to a skeptical letter sent by the Austrian agriculture commissioner, Franz Fischler, to the commissioner in charge of enlargement, Guenter Verheugen.

The letter by Franz Fischler is dated 30 July.

It is not the letter’s existence, but the timing of the leak, that makes the whole affair highly embarrassing for the European Union. The revelation comes in the same week as candid remarks questioning Turkey’s credentials made in a speech on September 7 by Commissioner Frits Bolkestein. It also comes one day after Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen of Germany wrapped up a four-day tour of Turkey that appeared to be geared toward soothing Ankara’s anxieties.

Fischler’s letter presents a wide range of questions he believes the EU has yet to address before it can decide Turkish membership.

Commission officials struggled to contain the controversy.

Spokeswoman Amelia Torres parried reporters’ questions, saying the time to discuss the issue will not come before October 6, when the European Commission is scheduled to reveal its recommendation about whether Turkey is ready to start accession talks.

"The time to discuss the question of Turkey’s accession to the EU and whether it meets the political criteria or not can only take place on the basis of a report which is being prepared by the commission and which is not ready yet," Torres said. "And since that report is not yet ready, since it has not been submitted to the members of the college, I believe that the time has not come for us to answer questions."

In his letter, Fischler notes there has been "no opportunity for a proper debate" and asks for his views to be taken into account when the report is drafted.

One official said Verheugen found the letter "interesting," while adding that there is "no war" between the two. Verheugen, however, is known to resent public intrusions into what is essentially his field of responsibility.

Spokeswoman Torres appeared to indicate that this is also the view of the majority of the commission:

"We are in a democracy, and the commission itself is a collegiate body," Torres said September 10. "And, of course, I do find that the commissioners have, obviously, to have an opinion on such an important subject [as Turkey’s accession]. Whether they make it public or whether they should make it public is another issue."

Fischler warns in his letter that the costs of accommodating Turkey’s sprawling farm sector in the EU’s current agricultural policies would dwarf the costs of the last enlargement. He puts the annual overall cost of Turkish membership in agricultural terms at more than 11 billion euros ($13.4 billion). He notes it is likely that current member states may not want to assume that extra burden.

Praising the benefits of cultural diversity, Fischler says Turkey is a "sui generis society, far more oriental than European." He says that while the Turkish elites look to Europe, the vast majority of Turks are "unaware" of and "uninvolved" in the government’s European project.

Fischler claims Turkey’s secularism is only skin deep. He says Islam continues to enjoy public preference, adding that the role of religion will not be settled in Turkey "for a long time." There is also "no guarantee" against a fundamentalist backlash.

Fischler goes on to say that the remoteness of Turkey, as well as its deep social divisions, would weaken the EU’s "common identity." He also mentions widespread problems with gender equality and religious tensions as adding to a "complex mosaic" unknown in any European society.

Fischler casts doubt on whether Turkey’s recent human rights reforms are sufficient, or whether they are even being implemented. He points to "smoldering tensions" with Turkish Kurds.

Fischler notes that many of the strongest supporters of Turkey’s accession – "first among them the US and the UK" – proceed primarily from security and political considerations. But he says many such advocates do not ask if Turkey’s membership could undermine the EU’s political integration, adding that it "may even be on their wish list."

Fischler then repeats the point made earlier this week by another commissioner, Bolkestein. If Turkey did join, countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and even Russia could lay their own claims to membership. He observes that their credentials "are generally more European than Turkey’s in terms of culture, geography and history."

Fischler points to the complications that would inevitably follow once Iran, Iraq and Syria were to acquire a common border with the EU. All three also form part of what Fischler calls the "Kurdish problem," which he says a Turkish EU entry would "import."

Fischler says there has been little or no debate among commissioners. He quotes a string of articles that have appeared in the "Financial Times" in the course of this year, all stating that Turkey’s accession is inevitable. He notes: "It is as if the ’FT’ knew more than the college or I know."

The commissioner points to low levels of public support for Turkish membership in the EU and notes widespread skepticism among political elites.

He concludes by warning against a hasty decision by the EU – saying that admitting Turkey without solid arguments would be embarking on a "march of folly." What Europe needs now, he says, is a "Plan B" addressing ways of helping Turkey other than membership.

7. - The Times of India - "Europe fears 'gobbling Turkey'":

12 September 2004 / by Rashmee Z. Ahmed

Listen hard to Europe — particularly the French, Germans and just recently, one fulminating Dutchman with an important Brussels job — and this is what it is brokenly repeating to itself. "What does a turkey say? Gobble, gobble, gobble?"

In effect, Europe is almost childishly fearful Muslim, fast-multiplying Turkey could swallow it whole if it is allowed into its favourite club, the European Union (EU). From gobbling to cobbling, the all-points alarm has been sent out — Europe faces being ingested and then casually regurgitated as a bit of cold weather Islam and the completion of Muslim ambitions to colonise the Christian West.

Could anything be more infantile? Might anything be more hidebound in a Europe loudly, loftily and legislatively committed to human rights of free association, non-discrimination and tolerance?

This is the Europe that raps Turkey on the knuckles about its appalling treatment of the Kurds.

This is the Europe that acts schoolmasterish and severe about Narendra Modi’s conduct in Gujarat, Pakistan’s stop-start democratic process and the killing fields of Darfur. And yet, it is the very language and the very views of an EU commissioner, the Dutch politician Fritz Bolkestein.

He has let fly, barely three weeks before Brussels formally issues a long-awaited report on Ankara’s "European vocation". The report is widely expected to back Turkey’s negotiations for accession to the 25-member EU. By year-end, European heads of government will be forced to a final decision on Turkish membership. If they say ‘yes’, 10 years later, Europe will stretch to the borders of Iraq and will have added an estimated 80 million Muslims to its population.

This point appears unduly to worry Bolkestein. Demography, he warns, is the "mother of politics".

Sixty-eight million is 68 million Turks too many. And they are growing still. With a runway rate of growth, Turkey is projected to hit the 83-million mark by 2010. This would make it the biggest hitter in decision-making EU councils of ministers.

Germany and France would be forced to trail forlornly behind Turkey and Britain would languish in distant fourth place.

Careless of his lurid imagery and hot-button historical references, Bolkestein warned that Turkish entry would finish the job of the Ottoman Empire, "the liberation of Vienna would have been in vain". It was a tactless reference to a remarkable European victory in 1683, when Polish, German and Austrian armies freed Vienna from a siege led by Ottoman Turks.

So, the Turks are being blamed for actions three centuries old. One might as well castigate - and cast out of Europe - the British, Dutch, French, Germans and Belgians for past imperial excesses.

History and high-handed interpretations of European identity are all very well. The truth is Europe is running scared of the gobbling turkey. It would rather Ankara fall down on a point of principle, such as insufficient Kurdish human rights or Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s controversial new law criminalising female adultery.

Europe would so much rather Ankara fall than be pushed. It looks better that way and would be entirely consistent with European Human Rights laws.

8. - Reuters / Al Jaazera - "Syria hands over Kurds to Turkey":

10 September 2004

Syria has turned over a senior Kurdish leader and six other rebels to Turkey in a sign of closer security cooperation between the former rivals, a Turkish security official said on Friday.

Separately, fighting in southeastern Turkey killed three soldiers and three Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels late on Thursday, another official said.

Syrian police detained the PKK's Hamili Yildirim, who has evaded capture since 1996, and the others in July as they tried to cross into Turkey from Syria, a police official said.

They were based in a PKK stronghold in northern Iraq and were heading for the Turkish city of Tunceli, where armed violence has been on the rise, newspapers said.

Improving ties

Turkish police have been interrogating the men in a prison in Hatay province, bordering Syria, since taking them into custody on 4 September after weeks of talks with Syria, the official said.

Diplomatic and commercial ties between the neighbours have improved considerably since a low point in 1998, when Turkey threatened to invade its smaller Arab neighbour if it did not expel PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Ocalan had led the PKK's armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey since 1984. More than 30,000 people, mainly Kurds, have died in the conflict.

Turkey captured and convicted Ocalan the following year and violence dropped sharply. But fighting has increased since the PKK called off a unilateral, six-year ceasefire in June.

Iraq fears

Besides improved trade links and efforts to improve cultural ties, Ankara and Damascus are also united by fears the conflict in Iraq will encourage Iraqi Kurds to secede, stoking separatism among their own restive Kurdish minorities.

Intense fighting in the mountainous district of Pervari in Siirt province that broke out on Thursday is just the latest in an upsurge of violence since the PKK said it would once again target Turkish interests.

Three soldiers were killed after clashes broke out, a security official said.

About 1000 security forces backed by helicopter gunships were continuing operations against 100 fighters, he said.

"Operations backed by air support are continuing. There is a large number of PKK in the region. We are expanding our operation to target them," he said.