7
September 2004
2. "European Envoy Visiting Turkey to Assess Situation of Kurds", with Turkey's hopes of joining the European Union on the line, a senior European envoy flew to the country's troubled southeastern region on Monday to assess the status of the Kurdish minority and meet with local human rights groups.
3. "Turkey Takes a Step Closer to EU", Turkey's case for joining the EU improved with the publication of a report Monday setting out the advantages this would bring to the bloc.
4. "Two killed in suspected Kurdish rebel attack in Turkey", a policeman and a guard were killed early Tuesday in an attack on a police checkpoint in Diyarbakir, the regional capital of the mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey, local security sources said.
5. "European judges to see hunger strikers in Turkey", judges from the European Court of Human Rights were to begin a three-day visit to Turkey on Monday to investigate claims by 53 prisoners that they suffered brain damage while on hunger strike to protest against conditions in jail, a court source said.
6. "Government Urges for Penalty on Adultery", the Turkish government has announced that it is determined to restore soon adultery like an offence liable to a prison sentence in spite of the reactions of the secular circles and the European Union.
7. "Verheugen Defines His Meeting With Zana As Fruitful", Guenter Verheugen, the European Union (EU) Commissioner for enlargement, defined on Monday his meeting with Leyla Zana, former deputy of the banned Democracy Party (DEP), as fruitful.
8. "Cyprus should not be a block to Turkey’s date", the Cyprus problem should not stand in the way of a date for Turkey’s EU accession talks, EU Enlargement Commissioner Gunter Verheugen said in Ankara yesterday.
1. - AFP - "Verheugen urges Turkey to expand cultural
rights for its Kurds":
TUZLA / 7 September 2004
EU enlargement chief Guenter Verheugen on Tuesday welcomed Turkey's progress in granting cultural rights to its Kurdish minority but said the government should expand liberties in the impoverished mainly Kurdish southeast.
"Since it obtained a European perspective, Turkey has taken steps on giving cultural and social rights for the Kurds," he told reporters while visiting a small village near the regional capital of Diyarbakir.
"More could be done on cultural rights," he added, calling on authorities to allow Kurds to fully exercise their liberties.
After Turkey became an official candidate for EU membership in 1999, the government has allowed its Kurdish minority to broadcast and teach in their mother tongue in a ground-breaking move as part of EU-minded reforms.
Since then, several private centres teaching Kurdish have opened up in the east and southeast of the country, while the state-run broadcasting agency has begun airing Kurdish programmes once a week.
Verheugen made his appeal in the Tuzla village, which was forcibly evacuated in 1995 by security forces as part of measures to cut off supply roots to armed Kurdish rebels holed up in the mountains.
The some 500 residents of the village were given permission to return to their homes in 2000, but some families are forced to live in dire conditions, staying in tents or the village's schools instead of their derelict homes.
Verheugen called on authorities to help displaced people in the region in their return to their former homes.
"Return to the villages should be encouraged. It is more humane for people to live in villages rather than in shantytowns in cities," he told reporters.
Verheugen is in Turkey on a four-day official visit ahead of a crucial report to be released by the European Commission in October, assessing whether the mainly Muslim country has made progress in fulfilling the EU's political criteria.
The report will be the basis on which EU leaders will
decide in December whether to open membership talks with Turkey. 
2. - The New York Times - "European Envoy Visiting Turkey to Assess Situation of Kurds":
ISTANBUL / 6 September 2004 / by Susan Sachs
With Turkey's hopes of joining the European Union on the line, a senior European envoy flew to the country's troubled southeastern region on Monday to assess the status of the Kurdish minority and meet with local human rights groups.
Before setting off, Günter Verheugen, the European
Union's enlargement commissioner, offered tempered praise of Turkey's
frenetic efforts over the past two years to change its laws and its
Constitution to meet the union's criteria.
After meeting government officials in Ankara, Mr. Verheugen said Turkey
had made "impressive progress" that would be taken into account
when the European Commission issues its recommendations on Turkey's
membership bid in early October.
His visit underscored the intensifying foreign scrutiny of Turkey that has been undertaken in preparation for the European Union summit meeting in December, when leaders of the 25 member nations are to vote on whether to begin talks about admitting this mostly Muslim nation.
Even the most optimistic Turkish officials have said they do not foresee that Turkey would be ready to join the union for at least 10 to 15 years. But the government, business leaders and, according to opinion polls, a majority of the public, are hoping to get a firm date, perhaps next year, for the start of negotiations.
Four years ago, European Union leaders raised those hopes when they set specific criteria for Turkey to meet in order to qualify for talks on admission. They said they wanted to see dramatic improvements in human rights, including equality for women and an end to the use of torture by security agencies, as well as freedom for Kurds to express their own language and culture.
The Turkish Parliament responded by picking apart and rewriting the Constitution, changing divorce laws and abolishing the death penalty and repressive security courts. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, backed strongly by Germany and Britain, has also campaigned vigorously in Europe and sent delegations of businessmen and politicians to European capitals to plead Turkey's case.
His efforts have been applauded at home even by Turkish human rights advocates, although they have also complained that the legislative changes have not been reflected in the behavior of the government bureaucracy.
But Mr. Verheugen suggested that Turkey would not be held to an impossible standard.
"We will not hide the fact that there are difficulties in some areas and that of course implementation is not complete," he said. "But that's normal."
Still, there remains significant resistance in many European Union countries, where some politicians have said openly that Turkey does not belong in Europe because it is too populous, too poor and not Christian.
On the other side, there has been growing sentiment that rejecting or postponing a decision on admission talks could alienate Turkey.
"Turkey has undergone a silent revolution in recent years in trying to meet the political criteria necessary for membership of the E.U.," said Maarti Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland and chairman of the panel, in the statement from Brussels. "Further delay would damage the E.U.'s credibility."
During his four-day swing through Turkey, Mr. Verheugen
was scheduled to meet civic leaders in Diyarbakir, the main Kurdish
city in the southeastern part of Turkey that was once a center of separatist
activity.
3. - Inter Press Service - "Turkey Takes a Step
Closer to EU":
BRUSSELS / 7 September 2004 / by Stefania Bianchi
Turkey's case for joining the EU improved with the publication of a report Monday setting out the advantages this would bring to the bloc.
The report was published as European Union enlargement commissioner Guenther Verheugen noted in Ankara that the human rights situation within Turkey has improved. Concerns over human rights have long been an obstacle to Turkey's accession to the EU.
The European Commission, the EU executive, will announce Oct. 6 whether it believes Turkey has met the conditions needed to start accession talks. European leaders will consider Turkey's application at a summit Dec. 17-18 and decide whether to fix a date for the process to begin.
The report "Turkey in Europe: More than a Promise?" recommended Monday that the bloc starts accession talks with Turkey as soon as it meets the Copenhagen criteria – a set of conditions candidate countries must meet before they can be considered for entry into the EU.
These measures include stable institutions, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities, and a functioning market economy.
The report was published by the Independent Commission on Turkey, comprising former heads of state, foreign ministers and European commissioners. The committee was set up in March this year to inform the debate on Turkey's membership.
"Turkey has every reason for expecting to be welcome in the Union, provided it fulfills the relevant conditions," the report says. "The Independent Commission therefore feels strongly that in dealing with this issue the European Union must treat Turkey with all due respect, fairness and consideration."
Launching the report in Brussels Monday, former president of Finland and chair of the commission Martti Ahtisaari said a decision should be made soon.
"Further delay would damage the European Union's credibility," he said. "Turkey has undergone a silent revolution in recent years in trying to meet the political criteria necessary for membership of the EU."
Ahtisaari said fears about Turkish immigration to Europe were "vastly exaggerated." The report anticipates that in the event of membership around 2.7 million migrants could travel from Turkey to the rest of EU in the long term, amounting to 0.5 percent of the bloc's population. Some 3.8 million Turkish migrants already live in the EU.
The report acknowledges there would be problems in integrating such a large member state into EU decision-making procedures, but says these are not insurmountable.
Turkey has a population of 70 million, which is about as much as that of the 10 countries that joined the EU in May. There are also concerns that the entry of 66 million Muslims will change the face of the EU.
The new report says Turkey's heritage could promote EU interests in the Middle East and the Balkans, and improve ties with the Islamic world.
"In spite of its size and special characteristics, and although it would unquestionably increase the Union's heterogeneity as a member, Turkey would be unlikely to fundamentally change the EU and the functioning of its institutions," the report says. "Turkey's entry may accentuate existing divergences on the future of the integration process, but it would not cause a qualitative shift in the debate."
Speaking in Ankara Monday, Verheugen said "the moment of truth" had come for Turkey.
"We've agreed that there's now certainly sufficient critical mass on the table to allow us to make a final judgment," he said after a meeting with Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul. "It'll be a clear and firm decision."
Verheugen said it was his understanding that torture was no longer being used systematically by the police. "We won't hide the fact that there are difficulties in certain areas," he said. "Implementation is not complete, but that's normal."
Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot whose country currently
holds the rotating presidency of the EU said last week that Turkey is
likely to start EU entry talks next year on the strength of a "positive"
assessment of its progress on human rights.
4. - AFP - "Two killed in suspected Kurdish rebel attack in Turkey":
DIYARBAKIR / 7 September 2004
A policeman and a guard were killed early Tuesday in an attack on a police checkpoint in Diyarbakir, the regional capital of the mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey, local security sources said.
Unidentified assailants opened fire on the checkpoint, located about a kilometre (half a mile) away from the entrance of the city, before fleeing, the sources said.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack but initial suspicion fell on armed Kurdish rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have been active in the region for years and have often carried out similar attacks on government targets.
The group, now also known as KONGRA-GEL, ended a five-year unilateral ceasefire with the government on June 1, raising tensions in the country's predominantly Kurdish eastern and southeastern regions.
Some 37,000 people have been killed since the PKK took
up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the region in 1984.
5. - AFP - "European judges to see hunger strikers
in Turkey":
STRASBOURG / 6 September 2004
Judges from the European Court of Human Rights were to begin a three-day visit to Turkey on Monday to investigate claims by 53 prisoners that they suffered brain damage while on hunger strike to protest against conditions in jail, a court source said.
Three judges, accompanied by five court officials, were to visit prisons in Turkey's main city, Istanbul, and in the nearby towns of Tekirdag and Kocaeli.
Three court-appointed medical experts were to follow, with visits between Wednesday and Saturday, the source said.
The 53 prisoners say that for the past three years they have been suffering from a loss of brain functions known as Wernicke-Korsakoff's syndrome, resulting from a deficiency of vitamin B1.
They were among more than 1,000 left-wing detainees who launched a nationwide hunger strike in Turkish prisons in October 2000 after they were moved out of large dormitories containing dozens of inmates and locked up in two and threes.
The hunger strikers said that putting them in cells made them more vulnerable to mistreatment by prison guards.
They also alleged that keeping them locked up while on hunger strike was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
More than 60 prisoners died during the protest.
6. - Bianet / info-turk.be - "Government Urges for Penalty on Adultery":
The Turkish government has announced that it is determined to restore soon adultery like an offence liable to a prison sentence in spite of the reactions of the secular circles and the European Union.
BRUSSELS / 6 September 2004
According to a project of reform to be moved by the Turkish governmnet, to the Parliament from September 14, adultery will be reintroduced in the penal code with a prison sentence -- for the two sexes -- of which the deputies must still define the term.
However, it is well known that many leaders or militants of this Islamist party are married with several women on the basis of polygamy authorized by the Islamic law (Sharia).
In spite of severe criticism, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has defended the bill. In an interview published Saturday by the daily Sabah, Erdogan indicated that Turkey should not always blindly imitate Europe. "The family is a sacred establishment for us. The stronger the family is, the more the country is strong. If the family is weakened, this country is condemned to the destruction, "said Erdogan.
The chief of the Turkish diplomacy Abdullah Gul estimated Saturday that the discussed project should not make forgotten the pro-European reforms implemented by Ankara.
"It is a proposal of reform among the others (...) It should not shade all the reforms which were already made or will be made," he told journalists during a meeting with his counterpart at the EU in Valkenburg (south-eastern of the Netherlands).
However, on Saturday, the spokesman for the Commissioner on Enlargement, Mr. Jean-Christophe Filori declared that this plan could tarnish the image of Turkey and make more difficult its adhesion to the European Union.
The article on adultery appears in a vast reform of the penal code that the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Islamist, wishes to make adopt counting on its large majority at the National Assembly.
The declared goal of this reform is to increase the chances of the country to obtain a green light of the European leaders, in December, for starting the negotiations on adhesion to the EU.
But the question of the extra conjugal sexual relations supplanted all other reforms.
The women organizations and the secular circles qualify this bill scandalous and accuse the government of social regression and attack to the private life whereas the country has to make still much to ensure a true equality between men and women, claimed by the EU.
"It is a return back with regard to the European criteria. This provision exists only in the countries where there is Sharia!" abolished after the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the lawyer Senel Sarihan says.
She also says convinced that the EU will never accept such a "retrograde" law.
"Whatever do I, the State does not have anything to see in my sleeping-room!" Lebibe Taskin, 55-year old retired teacher declared to AFP. She recalled that the civil code already represses adultery by regarding it as a cause of divorce. "Why then they insist to include it in the penal code?" she said.
The Turkish constitutional Court had abolished in 1996 the provisions of the penal code on adultery, considering them contrary to the equality of the sexes.
By this initiative against the respect of private life
and the equality of sexes, the Turkish government comes against the
universal values of the humans right and already gives a sign what it
can impose on the society once the door of the European Union is opened
to Turkey during this Islamist power.
7. - Anadolu Agency - "Verheugen Defines His Meeting With Zana As Fruitful":
DIYARBAKIR / 6 September 2004
Guenter Verheugen, the European Union (EU) Commissioner for enlargement, defined on Monday his meeting with Leyla Zana, former deputy of the banned Democracy Party (DEP), as fruitful.
After the meeting, Verheugen stated that Zana supported Turkey's democratization and modernization as well as its integration with the EU.
Verheugen said, ''we both think that preservation of democracy and rule of law in the region is important.''
On the other hand, Zana said that they exchanged views
in their meeting, and added, ''he was interested in our case for years.
He expressed their sensitivity about this matter in our meeting. We
discussed general problems and future of this country. We don't think
differently. We exchanged views about our efforts on the road to the
EU and what we should do. Our meeting was very fruitful.''
8. - Cyprus Mail - "Cyprus should not be a block to Turkey’s date":
7 September 2004
The Cyprus problem should not stand in the way of a date for Turkey’s EU accession talks, EU Enlargement Commissioner Gunter Verheugen said in Ankara yesterday.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, Verheugen said the Cyprus problem and the decision as to whether or not Turkey would be given an EU accession negotiation date were “two separate issues”, adding that “the Cyprus problem must not influence the EU’s decision” on Turkey.
He added that following the April 24 referendum, when the vast majority of Greek Cypriots rejected the Annan plan while most Turkish Cypriots voted ‘yes’, a lot of promises had been made to the Turkish Cypriots “and these promises must be materialised to put an end to the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots”.
Asked whether Turkey should recognise the Republic of Cyprus, the EU Commissioner expressed the opinion that the matter would not pose an obstacle for Turkey.
The matter was not discussed during the meeting with Gul, said Verheugen.
“(Nevertheless) I believe that a solution will be
found to this issue soon,” he said.