Untitled Document

14 September 2004

1. "Will Turkey join the EU club?", Giscard says 'a rule we can't change' hurt Ankara's chances.

2. "Women's Rights, Turkish Style", as part of a slate of reforms aimed at securing membership in the European Union, Turkey's ruling party has proposed a major overhaul of the country's criminal code.

3. "EU Gives Turkey One Month to Scrap Adultery Clause", the European Union has given Turkey one month to scrap its proposal to reinstate a prison punishment for adultery as the country awaits a crucial October 6 report by the EU Commission that will recommend whether or not to launch membership talks, a leading British newspaper reported Monday, September 13.

4. "Turkey threatens to end 'cooperation' with U.S. if ethnic Turks are harmed in Iraq", Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Monday he had warned U.S. officials that Ankara would stop cooperating with the United States in Iraq if American forces continued to harm the Turkish minority in northern Iraq.

5. "Breakup of Iraq into three countries a possibility: Powell", a civil war in Iraq followed by its breakup into three countries on sectarian lines is a possibility but may not happen, the US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said.

6. "Live Shields: We don’t want to die and we don’t want to kill", the basic aim of this platform is to solve the Kurdish problem via organised demonstrations and actions. This platform seeks to create a means to find and improve ideas to find solutions to the Kurdish problem.

1. - International Herald Tribune - "Will Turkey join the EU club?":

Giscard says 'a rule we can't change' hurt Ankara's chances

PARIS / 13 September 2004 / by Katrin Bennhold

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the father of Europe's new constitution, has acknowledged that the wording of the draft charter effectively diminishes Turkey's chances of success in its 40-year quest to join the European Union.

In an interview with the International Herald Tribune, Giscard suggested that a key provision of the constitution, known as double-majority voting, could kill Turkey's effort to join because the country's projected population at the time membership talks could be completed, in 10 to 15 years, might exceed that of every other member state.

Turkey's large pool of inhabitants would automatically accord it enormous weight in EU decision making, and that could discourage member states from allowing Turkey into their club. The current system relies less on demography.

"This is a rule we can't change," said Giscard, who presided over the 18-month convention that drafted the charter. He said the consequences of Turkish membership under the new system would be "much greater" than under current rules. "With accession, Turkey would become the most populous country in the EU with the greatest voting power in the council," he said.

While he stopped short of saying that the new voting rule had been designed to make it harder for Turkey to join the EU, others who worked with him on the constitutional treaty suggested that it had.

"I would say that the proposal was not tabled in innocence, and having been a member of the convention, I know what I'm saying," Ana Palacio, the former foreign minister of Spain and a member of the draft committee, said in an interview in April. "I strongly believe that it is in the EU interest to have Turkey as a member, but under the double-majority arrangement, Turkey has no chance of ever joining."

With the fate of the constitution itself still unknown, pending referendums in several EU countries, the issue remains theoretical for the moment.

But with the European Commission due Oct. 6 to submit its verdict on opening official membership talks with Turkey, the remarks are bound to add to a gathering controversy.

Political momentum seemed to be gathering for a favorable verdict next month, but several high-profile European politicians have voiced doubts in recent days. Last week, Frits Bolkestein, the EU's internal market commissioner from the Netherlands, and his colleague, Franz Fischler, an Austrian who is in charge of the commission's agricultural portfolio, became the latest ones to make public their concerns.

Turkish officials dismissed Giscard's analysis, saying that the argument that Turkish entry would upset the balance of power in the EU was largely a fig leaf for other concerns, they said.

"Of course you can always say that France and Germany founded the EU and now there is a country that you're not sure is really European - but the world has changed, sorry," said Engin Solakoglu, first secretary of the Turkish Embassy in Brussels.

The debate so far has focused mainly on Turkey's human rights record and its compatibility with Europe's Christian and cultural heritage, but Giscard suggested that the country may simply be too big to join.

The constitutional treaty, which was agreed on by leaders in June but still must be ratified by all 25 member states, links decision-making in the union more explicitly to population than does the current voting system, giving bigger countries more power than their smaller neighbors.

With 70 million inhabitants, Turkey is already the second-most populous country in the region, behind Germany with 82 million; by 2020, Turkey's population is projected to reach 85 million, while Germany's is expected to ease slightly, United Nations forecasts show.

The question at the heart of Giscard's argument is this: Even if Turkey is given a date to begin accession talks later this year, how likely would it be that it would win the required unanimous approval from all existing EU members a decade from now, when it would carry the most weight in EU decision making from the start?

"If you bring in a new member that accounts for 16 or 17 percent of the European Union population, it changes the system completely," Giscard said in his ornate office on the Left Bank of Paris late last week. The former president, who has been at the heart of the European project for 30 years, has made no secret of his opposition to Turkish entry, which he notably said two years ago would be "the end of Europe."

The key to the debate is Article 25 of the 349-page constitution, which outlines what is known as the double-majority voting system. All decisions that do not require unanimity - many matters, especially foreign policy and taxation, still do - must be backed by at least 65 percent of the EU population and 55 percent of member states. Put another way, any country would need support from 35 percent of the EU population and 45 percent of member states to block a proposal it did not like.

Under the current system, an eleventh-hour bargain struck in December 2000, votes and population are more loosely linked. Germany, France, Britain and Italy each have 29 votes, although the latter three each have about 60 million inhabitants, compared to Germany's 82 million. Even more strikingly, Spain and Poland, each with a population of less than 40 million, have 27 votes.

Asked whether the double-majority voting system will make Turkish entry less probable, Giscard answered, "Yes. Because this is a rule that we can't change, and the consequences would be much greater." He added: "It would give Turkey a significant weight in blocking decisions."

As Europe struggles to integrate its large and growing Muslim population, attitudes about Turkish membership in the EU remain highly skeptical. A poll last week showed only 16 percent of respondents favored the idea in France and 33 percent in Germany.

Those who favor Turkey's accession, like Palacio, say that at a time when the West is perceived as arrogant and dismissive in parts of the Muslim world, accepting Turkey into the EU would be an important strategic gesture.

Governments that support Turkish entry include Spain, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands, which holds the Union's rotating presidency and is likely to push for others to offer Turkey a date to begin negotiations some time next year.

But opponents say the country's religious and cultural heritage is incompatible with that of the EU. They cite doubts about Turkey's human rights record and its democratic reforms, and they warn that it could cost billions of euros in subsidies.

On Friday, Fischler, one of the main contributors to the commission's upcoming report on Turkey, became the latest critic publicly known to express variations of these arguments. In a letter to fellow commissioners that was leaked to the Financial Times, he said Turkish membership may cost E11.3 billion, or $13.9 billion, in agricultural subsidies per year and claimed that Europe risked "imploding" with such an influx of Islamic inhabitants. Several politicians from member states, especially conservative Christian Democrats, have also made their misgivings known.

Giscard said he would rather see an arms-length strategic or economic partnership with Turkey. "We have boxed ourselves in a corner," Giscard said. "There are a lot of formulas outside the pure and simple membership, like a strategic partnership or a Nafta-like economic partnership."

But some EU observers questioned whether Turkey would really have so much say as a member of the EU. They note that voting weights are of limited importance, given that the most sensitive decisions in the Union still require unanimous approval.

"We don't vote that much in the EU - the EU is a consensus-driven organization," said Steven Everts of the Center for European Reform in London.

Everts also pointed out that even if the demographic projections make Turkey the most populous country in the region, it would not be able to block any decisions alone; it would need the populations of at least two other big countries to meet the required 35-percent mark.

With at least nine European nations planning referendums on the constitution, there is still a possibility that double-majority voting never will be implemented. One failed referendum would be enough to kill formal adoption of the document, and in some countries, notably Britain, the likelihood today is that it will be rejected.

Despite the risks, Giscard said that in principle he was in favor of referendums in all member states. "The advantage of a referendum is to address the basic issue of distance between the people and the states," he said. "If you have a big project like this, it should be normal to ask the opinion of the citizens."

2. - The New York Times - "Women's Rights, Turkish Style":

12 September 2004

As part of a slate of reforms aimed at securing membership in the European Union, Turkey's ruling party has proposed a major overhaul of the country's criminal code. There is much value in the effort. Prompted by a coalition of women's groups, it includes stronger laws against rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. Unfortunately, several other provisions affecting women are dangerously regressive, seeking to codify in law beliefs and practices that reflect the party's own conservative Islamic roots rather than the European Union's modern vision of human rights.

The most objectionable laws would criminalize adultery, allow a loophole whereby men could continue to receive reduced sentences for "honor killings" of female relatives, penalize consensual sexual relations between teenagers aged 15 to 18 and neglect to explicitly ban and criminalize virginity testing. The adultery clause is especially backward, given that Turkey decriminalized adultery - for men, in 1996; for women, in 1998 - on the grounds that the law discriminated against women. As for honor killings, the new code would prohibit reduced sentences for "killings in the name of customary law," but Turkish rights' advocates say the wording is more likely to apply to vendettas in which a family decides to avenge a crime, and not necessarily to the murder of a wife by a husband who feels dishonored by her behavior.

The proposed laws could work together in a pernicious way. If adultery or teenage sex is a crime, they could be interpreted by a judge as a provocation. If a victim provokes violence, the perpetrator generally has a chance for a reduced sentence.

A recent report by Amnesty International estimated that at least one-third of Turkish women are victims of domestic violence in which they are "hit, raped and, in some cases, killed or forced to commit suicide." Turkey must demonstrate a political willingness to end such abuses. The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, should postpone sending the new penal code to Parliament, which he is scheduled to do this week, until his party officials revise it - deleting laws against consensual sex and including explicit protections for women. Otherwise, he is handing Europeans who scorn Turkey's European Union membership bid a big reason to vote no in December, when the union will decide whether to start formal accession talks with Turkey. In that unfortunate event, Mr. Erdogan would have no one to blame but himself.

3. - Central Daylight Time - "EU Gives Turkey One Month to Scrap Adultery Clause":

13 September 2004

The European Union has given Turkey one month to scrap its proposal to reinstate a prison punishment for adultery as the country awaits a crucial October 6 report by the EU Commission that will recommend whether or not to launch membership talks, a leading British newspaper reported Monday, September 13.

The deadline came as Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the father of Europe's new constitution, has acknowledged that the wording of the draft charter effectively diminishes Turkey's chances of success in its 40-year quest to join the euro block.

EU officials warned that if Turkey has not renounced the adultery clause, the Commission will probably deny the country the clear endorsement it seeks, well-placed sources told the British Financial Times newspaper.

“The adultery proposal is clearly a tactical mistake by the Turks,” one EU official told the British daily.

“If they pushed this through a couple of weeks before the Commission recommendation, it would simply make things more complicated for them.”

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 sources added.

The Commission’s 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”.

The recommendation will serve as a basis for a final decision on December 17 by European leaders on whether to set a date for the start of negotiations.

Günter Verheugen, EU enlargement commissioner, openly and strongly criticized the adultery clause during a fact-finding trip to Turkey last week.

“I cannot understand how a measure like this could be considered at such a time,” Verheugen said. “It can only be a joke... It would be a mistake to try to restore it (adultery) to the criminal code.”

In an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper Saturday, September 11, Verheugen said that after 40 years of promises the EU could not refuse Ankara 's application, but added Turkey would not join before 2015.

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

The Islamic-oriented ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party has proposed reinstating the prison punishment.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a devout Muslim who says the measure aims to “protect the unity of the family,” has so far refused to back down despite the national and international uproar.

Crucial Session

Yet, the Turkish Parliament is set to start Tuesday, September 14, a crucial session to address the adultery proposal and amend nearly all 348 articles of the penal code copied in 1926 from that of Benito Mussolini's Italy.

Although it has seen several changes in the past, the code remains an obstacle to Turkey's European aspirations and the new draft provides for greater individual freedoms, bans torture and provides heavy sentences for “crimes of honor”, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The adultery clause has already caused a furor among liberals, feminists and most of the media.

Within the same context, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said Sunday, September 12, in Brussels that passage of the bill as it stands would be a “serious obstacle” to Turkey's EU bid, because it “doesn't correspond with joining” the Union.

Other clauses in the section of the draft dealing with “crimes against the family” are also a source of controversy, such as one providing up to two years' jail for sexual relations between minors under the age of 18.

Slim Chance

More disappointing news forTurkey , d'Estaing has acknowledged that Turkey stands a slim chance to join the newly-enlarged union.

In an interview with the International Herald Tribune, d'Estaing suggested that a key provision of the constitution, known as double-majority voting, could kill Turkey's effort to join because the country's projected population at the time membership talks could be completed, in 10 to 15 years, might exceed that of every other member state.

“This is a rule we can't change,” said Giscard, who presided over the 18-month convention that drafted the charter.

He said the consequences of Turkish membership under the new system would be “much greater” than under current rules.

“With accession, Turkey would become the most populous country in the EU with the greatest voting power in the council,” he said.

While he stopped short of saying that the new voting rule had been designed to make it harder for Turkey to join the EU, others who worked with him on the constitutional treaty suggested that it had.

“I would say that the proposal was not tabled in innocence, and having been a member of the convention, I know what I'm saying,” said Ana Palacio, the former Foreign Minister of Spain and a member of the draft committee.

“I strongly believe that it is in the EU interest to have Turkey as a member, but under the double-majority arrangement, Turkey has no chance of ever joining.”

With 70 million inhabitants,Turkey is already the second-most populous country in the region, behind Germany with 82 million; by 2020, Turkey 's population is projected to reach 85 million, while Germany's is expected to ease slightly, according to United Nations estimates.

4. - AP - "Turkey threatens to end 'cooperation' with U.S. if ethnic Turks are harmed in Iraq":

ANKARA / 13 September 2004

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Monday he had warned U.S. officials that Ankara would stop cooperating with the United States in Iraq if American forces continued to harm the Turkish minority in northern Iraq.

Gul said he spoke to Secretary of State Colin Powell "and told him that what is being done there is harming the civilian population, that it is wrong, and that if it continues, Turkey's cooperation on issues regarding Iraq will come to a total stop."

"We have conveyed this very openly. ... Of course we won't limit ourselves to words. We never shy away from carrying out whatever is necessary," he added.

American troops and Iraqi forces on Sunday overran Tal Afar, one of several Iraqi cities they say had fallen into the hands of insurgents, after a nearly two-week siege that forced scores of residents to flee.

Residents said corpses were scattered across orchards and that essential services such as water and electricity had collapsed. They described a trail of devastated buildings and rubble.

Gul did not elaborate and it was not clear if he was hinting that Turkey might intervene in the region. Gul also did not say when the conversation with Powell took place.

Hundreds of Turkish trucks haul goods for U.S. soldiers and for the Iraqi people each day from Turkey.

U.S. officials have said the United States was taking efforts to avoid civilian casualties and to insure that humanitarian aid can reach the area.

Turkey has expressed concern of late about what it views as efforts by Iraqi Kurds to claim northern cities, such as Tal Afar and Kirkuk – where ethnic Turks are concentrated – in the run-up to a scheduled census in October.

Turkey has fought for decades to suppress a Kurdish uprising in the southeast of the country, which borders Kurdish regions of Iraq.

5. - Kaumudi Online - "Breakup of Iraq into three countries a possibility: Powell":

WASHINGTON / 14 September 2004

A civil war in Iraq followed by its breakup into three countries on sectarian lines is a possibility but may not happen, the US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said.

"It is always a possibility. But I don't think it is going to happen", Powell told NBC-TV yesterday when asked whether there could be a civil war in Iraq followed by a breakup of the country into three States.

"We have leaders in the interim government who represent every element of Iraqi society. We have Kurds, Shia, Sunnis; they are all working together to end the insurgency, to build up Iraqi security forces so that they can take care of their own security, and to get ready for an election," he said.

6. - www.demokratikgenclik.org / Kurdish Media - "Live Shields: We don’t want to die and we don’t want to kill":

13 September 2004 *

Due to social and political developments, the Diyarbakir youth organisations were obliged to form a common movement resulting in the establishment of the Diyarbakir Democratic Youth Platform one and half years ago.

The basic aim of this platform is to solve the Kurdish problem via organised demonstrations and actions. This platform seeks to create a means to find and improve ideas to find solutions to the Kurdish problem.

The platform includes 12 institutions. These institutions are:

• DEHAP (Democratic People Party) Youth Branch
• EMEP (Labour Party) Youth Branch
• OTP (Free Society Party) Youth Branch
• ESP (Socialist Platform of the Oppressed) Youth
• EDUBBA Social Science Academy
• Pir Sultan Abdal Culture Association
• Youth Culture Centre
• RAMAN Culture Centre
• Youth Wiev Magazine
• TIGRIS Magazine (Tigris University Press)
• TIGRIS University Students Association
• TUHAD-DER (Prisoners Families Solidarity Association)

The activities of this platform are as follows:

(After 1st of June)
The press explanation is to inform society about the isolation on Kurdish national leader and all political prisoners. The platform invited the sides to observe a ceasefire.

Members of platform went to Ankara to warn the trade unions and press institutions about the operations and fights. They informed political Parties, trade unions and press institutions about “Live Shield” campaign of the Diyarbakir Democratic Youth Platform.

On the last day of Hevsel operation (which occurred in the city centre of Diyarbakir on 28 July 2004 and continued 13 days), the Platform issued a press explanation regarding the destruction of the Hevsel Gardens and harm to the people who live near the operation area .The platform held a demonstration to highlight the damage to the people who live close to the area where the operation occurred and damage to the nature at Hevsel Gardens which was caused by state forces.

From 20 August 1 September, the Platform opened a peace tent to inform the society about the Kurdish problem, operations, fights and politics. In the tent some performances were given which showed the pain of war, and there were musical activities performed by the youth. Close to the tent we opened a white big cloth 250 meters long to write emotions, hopes and wishes about peace.

On the night of 31 August 2004, we mounted a peace guard with candles till morning of 1 September. The peace guard remembered Zeynel Durmus, who lost his life during 1 September world peace day activities at 2003. (The police attacked people during world peace day activities at 2003 and Zeynel Durmus fell to his death from the top of the DEHAP Istanbul Zeytinburnu branch building.)

On 1 June 2004, when fighting started once again the people begin to worry very much. The youth believe that we will be reliving the same experiences as we had seen during last 15 years of the state’s dirty war. This means that damage to our people and nature will continue to increase beyond that experienced during the 15 year long dirty war. During this 15 year war, thousands of villages were destroyed, thousands of people were displaced, tens of thousands of political murders occurred and over 30,000 people lost their lives. A repeat of this war means that these inhumane practices will be once again be part of our lives, and the Kurdish youth worry.

According to the youth, war means death and murder. We believe that. during the war, enough blood flowed. For us, war isn’t the solution. People see the war as a damage. The solution shouldn’t be military operations. There is only one way of reaching a solution, which is through peace and dialogue. This action of the youth, the live shield campaign, aims to open ways to peace and dialogue. This action is a civilian struggle. To stop war the youth are ready to lose their lives by acting as live human shields. This action does not have any political aim; it is based in humanity.

The live shield action began as a symbolical movement with 35 live shields on 10 Spetember 2004. The youth will go to a village near the Gabar Mountains, the place that the military operations are taking place at the present time and where there has been a forest fire for the last four days. The state has set the fire to clear the area to more easily see guerrillas, and they do not want to extinguish this fire. The live shields will go to the village to be shields and protect villagers and nature against the damages of fight. With this first move, they aim to increase their membership and protect many villages at same time. The youth aim to turn live shield action not only as an action of the youth, they will work to develop the platform with the addition of Turkish writers, poets, artists, academics, etc.

Everyone who is against the war or who feels himself/herself to be human must go to areas of the military operation to make known their hopes of peace directly to all sides involved. We believe that people who are against the war will organise themselves to work against promoters of war with the slogan of “We don’t want to kill and die.”

Mesut CETIN
Member of Diyarbakir Democratic Youth Platform
One of live shields

Note: For more information and to contact us, you can use internet address below: www.demokratikgenclik.org

* English translation edited for clarity by KurdishMedia.com