8
September 2004
2. "'Moment of truth' nears for Turkey's EU membership", Günter Verheugen, the European Union enlargement commissioner, began a symbolic visit to Turkey yesterday as the EU prepares its final assessment of the country's reform efforts before deciding whether to invite it to join.
3. "Turkey's Muslim millions threaten EU values, says commissioner", a European commissioner set off a furious row yesterday after warning that Europe's Christian civilisation risked being overrun by Islam.
4. "Release of Kurdish Parliamentarian Leyla Zana ends awkward episode for Ankara", after a 10-year campaign for her release, Kurdish politician Leyla Zana finally walked free from an Ankara courtroom in early June. Freed along with her, pending an appeals court ruling due mid-July, were Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak—thus ending, many hoped, one of the most politically embarrassing and disturbing imprisonments of Turkey’s recent history.
5. "Dutch agree to extradite Kurdish leader to Turkey", Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said Tuesday he had agreed to a request from Turkey to extradite Nuriye Kesbir, a senior member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who is wanted for attacks on military targets.
6. "Donner approves extradition of PKK 'terrorist'", Dutch Foreign Minister Piet Hein Donner has decided to extradite Kurdish PKK leader Nuriye Kesbir to Turkey. Many Kurds have backed her in mass demonstrations and Kesbir went on a month-long hunger strike earlier this year in protest against her looming extradition.
7. "EU frowns on Turkey's adultery ban", Turkey's plan to outlaw adultery has raised concern in the European Union over whether the move breaks its human rights policy, The Independent said Tuesday.
8. "Iraqi Kurdish leaders in Ankara", Barzani reiterates in Ankara that Iraq's territory will not be used to threaten neighbors' security.
1. - BBC - "EU Presses Turkey on Kurd Rights":
7 September 2004
The EU's Enlargement Commissioner, Guenter Verheugen, has said Turkey must do more to improve the cultural rights of its Kurdish minority.
"What we have seen so far can only be the beginning," he said on a visit to the Diyarbakir region, in the mainly Kurdish south-east of Turkey.
Mr Verheugen is on a fact-finding tour ahead of an EU Commission report next month on Turkey's EU membership bid.
EU leaders will decide in December whether to open EU accession talks.
Mr Verheugen, quoted by Reuters news agency, said Turkey needed to step up efforts to help displaced Kurds return home.
"I think one should strongly support the wish of people to return to their villages," he said.
Rights abuses
The Turkish military was blamed for widespread human rights
abuses carried out during a campaign against Kurdish militants in the
1980s and 1990s.
Kurdish rights have improved since fighting subsided
Tens of thousands of Kurds fled or were evacuated from their homes during the heaviest fighting, which largely subsided after the capture of Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999.
Constitutional and judicial reforms undertaken by Turkey in recent years are now under close EU scrutiny.
On a visit to a women's centre in Diyarbakir, Mr Verheugen stressed the need for Turkey to improve women's rights.
"Democracy cannot be realised without gender equality," he said.
Mr Verheugen said that it was important that the reforms should continue.
After Turkey's accession the EU will not easily be able to pursue the current farm and regional policy - Europe would implode
In June, Turkey allowed the first, very limited Kurdish-language broadcasts on state radio and television.
Kurds, who form some 12 million of Turkey's 70 million population, are also pushing for Kurdish language education in schools.
The commission's job is to make sure that Turkey conforms with the political criteria laid down by the EU as a precondition for membership. There is much focus now on how the reforms are being implemented.
Mistreatment of those in police custody was one concern that many held about Turkey.
Concern in Brussels
A heated debate about Turkey continues to rage in Brussels, the BBC's Oana Lungescu reports.
EU internal market commissioner Frits Bolkestein said in a speech this week that Turkey's accession could make the EU "implode" and would render the entry of other countries such as Ukraine and Belarus inevitable.
In a speech at Leyden University about the decline and fall of empires, the Dutch liberal politician said Turkey would have to change its identity completely before it could join the EU.
After the accession of Turkey, Mr Bolkestein said, Europe could no longer carry on with its current farming and regional subsidies.
Our correspondent says Mr Bolkestein reflects wider public unease about a poor, populous, Islamic country joining the EU.
At least two other EU commissioners - Spain's Loyola de
Palacio and Austria's Franz Fischler - are expected to voice their opposition
in a month's time, when the EU executive is due to publish its crucial
report on Turkey. 
2. - Financial Times - "'Moment of truth' nears for Turkey's EU membership":
ANKARA / BRUSSELS / 7 September 2004 / by Vincent Boland and Daniel Dombey
Günter Verheugen, the European Union enlargement
commissioner, began a symbolic visit to Turkey yesterday as the EU prepares
its final assessment of the country's reform efforts before deciding
whether to invite it to join.
Mr Verheugen said Turkey had made "impressive progress" on
social, constitutional and human rights reforms in the last 18 months,
but had to ensure they were implemented in full.
"The moment of truth is arriving for Turkey," he said after meeting Abdullah Gul, the Turkish foreign minister.
The European Commission's report, to be issued next month, on whether Turkey has met the "Copenhagen criteria" of minimum social and democratic norms would be "objective, fair and honest" and would not be fudged, he said.
That report will be passed to the EU's political leaders, who will decide at a summit in December whether to take the historic step of beginning negotiations over Turkey joining the bloc.
Mr Verheugen's remarks coincided with the publication of a report by a group of European politicians which concluded that the EU could lose credibility if it failed to begin talks with Turkey once the Copenhagen criteria had been met.
The group, chaired by Martti Ahtisaari, former Finnish president, said the EU would benefit from Turkish membership. It played down suggestions that admitting a poor and overwhelmingly Muslim country would lead to large-scale economic migration to the west.
Mr Verheugen is on a four-day visit to Turkey, his last before the Commission prepares its report. After meeting Turkish leaders, he flew to Diyarbakir, the main city in south-east Turkey. A conflict there between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish security forces in the 1980s and 1990s cost an estimated 30,000 lives and led to accusations of human rights abuses against both sides.
Turkish commentators said Mr Verheugen's trip to the south-east, where he will meet local officials and representatives of non-governmental organisations, was a crucial part of his fact-finding mission. Recognition of the cultural and civil rights of Turkey's large Kurdish minority has loomed large in the EU negotiations process so far.
Mr Ahtisaari's report is also likely to influence the
debate in Brussels on Turkey's candidacy.
3. - Daily Telegraph - "Turkey's Muslim millions threaten EU values, says commissioner":
BRUSSELS / 8 September 2004 / by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
A European commissioner set off a furious row yesterday
after warning that Europe's Christian civilisation risked being overrun
by Islam.
Fritz Bolkestein, the single market commissioner and a former leader
of the Dutch liberals, said the European Union would "implode"
in its current form if 70 million Turkish Muslims were allowed to join.
He predicted that Turkish accession would overwhelm the fragile system and finish off any lingering dreams of a fully-integrated European superstate.
In a speech at Leiden University, he compared the EU to the late Austrian-Hungarian empire, which took so many different peoples on board in such a haphazard fashion that it eventually became ungovernable.
Calling demography the "mother of politics", he said that while America had the youth and dynamism to remain the world's only superpower, and China was the rising economic power, Europe's destiny was to be "Islamised".
In comments designed to provoke fury in Ankara, he quoted the American author Bernard Lewis warning that Europe would become an extension of North Africa and the Middle East by the end of the century.
The carefully-crafted speech caused consternation in Brussels where the commission is putting the finishing touches to a report due early next month that is expected to back Turkish accession.
The commission played down Mr Bolkestein's remarks, emphasising that he was speaking in a personal capacity.
But he was immediately disowned by allies in parliament. Andrew Duff, a Liberal MEP, said: "We are not slaves to prejudice or historical nostalgia. It is most unfortunate that a single commissioner has pre-empted the commission's report on Turkey in this way.'
The final decision on Turkey rests with EU leaders at a Brussels summit in December. If they give the go-ahead for the start of accession talks, it sets in motion a process that becomes almost unstoppable.
Turkey would join within 10 years or so, unless blocked by referendums in EU member states.
The "Turkish Question" has mushroomed into an explosive issue in France and Germany. Public opinion in both countries has deep misgivings about further eastward expansion, fearing a flood of immigrants and a huge diversion of EU funds to the impoverished hinterland of Anatolia.
"After the accession of Turkey, the EU will not be able to continue its current agriculture and regional policies. Europe would implode," said Mr Bolkestein.
His warning comes as Ankara's Islamic government presses ahead with criminalising adultery.
Feminist groups in Europe and Turkey have reacted with horror, claiming that the "reactionary" law is aimed against women but the row highlights the gulf between the cultural values of urban Europe and rural Turkey.
The European enlargement commissioner, Gunther Verheugen, appears determined to go ahead with a broadly positive verdict on Oct 6, concluding that Turkey has met the basic tests of a free market economy and pluralist democracy under the rule of law.
He said Turkey had made "impressive progress" and that its accession had reached "critical mass". The authorities have pushed through drastic reforms to the legal code and constitution during the past three years to keep Brussels happy, as well as restoring Kurdish language rights and abolishing the death penalty.
A "wise men's report", issued by a team of Europe's elder statesmen this week, said it would be unjust to deny Turkey its rightful place after waiting patiently as the ex-communist states of Eastern Europe jumped the queue.
They said Turkey had shown its "European vocation" and enjoyed a "firmly-rooted" secular tradition that was quite unlike the rest of the Muslim world.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, called for an emphatic endorsement of Turkey.
"People need to think very carefully about the strategic
implications of pushing Turkey away, of pushing Turkey to the east and
to the south," he said in Prague.
4. - Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - "Release of Kurdish Parliamentarian Leyla Zana ends awkward episode for Ankara":
September 2004 / by By Jon Gorvett*
AFTER A 10-YEAR campaign for her release, Kurdish politician Leyla Zana finally walked free from an Ankara courtroom in early June. Freed along with her, pending an appeals court ruling due mid-July, were Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak—thus ending, many hoped, one of the most politically embarrassing and disturbing imprisonments of Turkey’s recent history.
Once vilified by Turkey’s right wing and nationalist press (which accounts for most of it), Zana was long portrayed as a Kurdish radical bent on dismembering the country in an orgy of bloody violence. Yet, leaving the courtroom, her slight presence seemed to stand in stark contrast to the magnitude of the crimes for which she had been jailed back in 1994. Those had included attempting to destroy the Turkish republic and being a member of a terrorist organization.
On the day she was freed, many of that same press continued to vent its hostility to her release, predicting dire consequences for the country.
Ironically, however, Leyla Zana’s release is likely to have a far bigger impact on Kurdish politics than it is on Turkish. Her sudden release is far more likely to put the cat among the Kurdish nationalist pigeons than ultimately to ruffle any feathers in Ankara. Largely, this is because Kurdish politics in Turkey have never been so internally divided and deeply troubled. To see how, it is worth turning back the clock to the late 1980s, when the current conflict began.
It was then that the current round of a historical series of Kurdish nationalist revolts broke out, this time under the leadership of the then-leftist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Its charismatic leader, Abdullah Ocalan, combined a strange mix of pseudo-Marxist and Maoist ideologies with local politics—attacking the power of the largely feudal Kurdish and Turkish landowners of southeast Turkey while feeding on a seemingly bottomless pit of injustice in the harsh, poverty-stricken lives of Turkey’s Kurds.
The insurrection spread and, by 1994, had reached its height. With large parts of the southeast effectively under PKK control, Turkish security forces attempted—via a campaign of village burning and quite ruthless repression—to keep the uprising from spreading.
This was one of the darkest moments in Turkey’s recent history. Under Prime Minister Tansu Ciller in particular, there was a deepening of an already existing “deep state,” a coalition of state officials, organized criminals and ultra-right-wing “shooters.” It was also a period when a counter-guerrilla force, the ultra-Islamist Hizbullah, was allowed to operate largely with impunity, killing actual and suspected PKK supporters.
The consequences for Turkish politics over the 1990s—and still today—were abysmal. Some 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, were slaughtered in the fighting. Yet, by the late 1990s, the Turkish army had clearly regained the upper hand, a fact demonstrated most decisively when Ocalan himself was captured in Kenya by Turkish special forces in 1999.
Meanwhile, alongside the PKK campaign, Turkey’s Kurds also had organized a political campaign for more rights. This came together under various party names, as Turkey’s courts moved to ban such organizations almost as soon as they were set up. Nowadays, the party is called the Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP), while in the early 1990s it was known as the Democracy Party, or DEP.
In 1991, under the DEP flag, Leyla Zana was elected to the Turkish parliament. After taking her oath in Turkish at the swearing-in ceremony, Zana then repeated in Kurdish that she would “struggle so that the Kurdish and Turkish peoples may live together in a democratic framework.”
She also wore a headband in Kurdish national colors—yellow, green and red.
This caused outrage at the time, and continued to do so for years to come. When DEP was banned in 1994, and her parliamentary immunity no longer applied, she and the three others were given 15-year jail terms.
The act clearly sent the message—if it had not already been received—that Kurdish nationalist politics would find no peaceful representational voice in Turkey. The Kurdish nationalist struggle remained in the hills. Gradually forced back, today, the PKK fields at most 3,000 guerrillas, almost all of them across the border in northern Iraq.
Meanwhile, the PKK itself has split, been repeatedly renamed and, with Ocalan in jail, suffered a crisis of leadership. A cease-fire the PKK declared soon after Ocalan’s capture was never reciprocated by the Turkish military. Last September, this cease-fire ended, but seems to have been re-imposed anyway, only to be ended again—on Ocalan’s instructions—the same week Zana was released.
Renamed Konga-Gel, the PKK also made various attempts to present itself as a political rather than paramilitary structure, particularly as, after Sept. 11, the European Union moved to include it on its list of terrorist organizations. Many Kurds in Europe have been—and remain—some of the PKK’s chief sources of financial and political support.
Meanwhile, the pace of reform in Turkey has quickened dramatically, with bans on Kurdish broadcasting and language lifted. The week of Zana’s release saw the first—albeit deeply flawed—Kurdish-language broadcasts on Turkish state TV. Ankara’s efforts to gain a European Union place have also meant reforming the Turkish judicial system, and thus allowing for Zana and her colleagues to be freed.
Onto this stage in early June, then, stepped Leyla Zana and her three associates. First calling for a “new page” in Turkish-Kurdish relations, she then called for a suspension of the resumption in armed conflict for six months. This was rejected by the PKK/Konga-Gel leadership, with armed incidents continuing since—the most spectacular being the attempted assassination of the governor of Van in eastern Turkey at the start of July, although it is unclear if the PKK/Konga-Gel were responsible for this. Many people’s positions have been threatened, it seems, by Zana’s release.
Her return to the southeastern Turkish city of Diyabakir was triumphant, yet illustrated the extremely fine line she and her close supporters must now tread. The ecstatic crowd chanted pro-PKK and anti-Turkish slogans and called for the release of “Apo”—Ocalan. Many Turkish authorities slammed this display as proof that Zana had been a terrorist all along, and releasing her a mistake. Meanwhile, the DEHAP leadership announced that it occupied a position midway between the Turkish authorities and the PKK—a position condemned by, among others, Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan, who asked how the party could be as close to “terrorism” as to the “legitimate” authorities.
Yet it would be wrong to see this as the only reaction. Upon Zana’s release, Turkish commentators of a more liberal stripe wondered if she might not be the one person who could turn around decades of fighting and produce a nonviolent Kurdish nationalist movement based within the Turkish state. This may well be Zana’s intention—and of a group of Kurdish intellectuals around her. If so, it is an extraordinarily difficult objective. To put it bluntly, she may end up shot by both sides. The people of southeastern Turkey have suffered a great deal in this conflict and have some difficult demands for the Turkish government to meet. Number one is an amnesty for PKK members—both in jail and over the mountains in Iraq. After that comes a host of others related to the fact that their part of the country has been so neglected and badly treated for so long.
As such, while Zana’s release may signal a real opening in the decades-old conflict, it requires some bold moves on both sides if that opening is not to be closed off. Ankara will likely have to take some major steps toward improving the economic lot of the Kurds, as well as making sure political liberalization is really enacted in the southeast—which the military and other security forces have grown used to regarding as their personal fiefdom. Meanwhile, Kurdish nationalists, too, will have to make some tough decisions. Whatever the case, the next six months will be crucial.
* Jon Gorvett is a free-lance journalist based in Istanbul.
5. - AFP - "Dutch agree to extradite Kurdish leader
to Turkey":
THE HAGUE / 7 September 2004
Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said Tuesday he had agreed to a request from Turkey to extradite Nuriye Kesbir, a senior member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who is wanted for attacks on military targets.
In a statement, the justice ministry said "the decision was taken after obtaining the express guarantee from the Turkish authorities that (Kesbir) will get a fair trial according to the relevant international treaties."
It said she will be allowed to remain in the Netherlands to await the outcome of an appeal if she decides to challenge the minister's decision in court. Turkey accuses Kesbir of being behind at least 25 attacks carried out between 1993 and 1995 on military targets in eastern Turkey, where the PKK is fighting for self-rule.
In May, the Netherlands Supreme Court ruled that she could be extradited but said the final decision rested with the justice minister. Kesbir has denied being involved in the attacks and claims she dealt only with women's issues as a member of the PKK's presidential council before she was arrested at Amsterdam airport in September 2001.
She has said she fears she will face an unfair trial and
might be tortured if she returns to Turkey, but the Dutch authorities
turned down her application for political asylum in the Netherlands.
The PKK led a bloody 15-year armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in
Turkey, claiming more than 36,000 lives.
6. - Expadica - "Donner approves extradition of
PKK 'terrorist'":
AMSTERDAM / 7 September 2004
Dutch Foreign Minister Piet Hein Donner has decided to extradite Kurdish PKK leader Nuriye Kesbir to Turkey, where she is wanted on terrorist charges, the Justice Ministry said on Tuesday.
The Christian Democrat CDA minister has received an explicit guarantee from Turkey that Kesbir — the leader of the Kurdish independence movement's women's wing — will be given a fair trial that complies with international law.
The Dutch Supreme Court ruled on 7 May that Kesbir could be extradited to Turkey, but advised Donner — who had final say over the matter — to request specific guarantees from Turkey, newspaper De Telegraaf reported.
The PPK waged a bloody war against Turkey in the 1990s until its leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured. The PKK called a ceasefire and changed its name to Kongra-Gel. Armed clashes, however, have erupted in recent months between the group and Turkisk soldiers.
Kesbir's lawyer has said she will appeal against the minister's decision to extradite her and the Dutch judiciary has indicated she remain in the Netherlands while awaiting the outcome of her appeal for an injunction.
If the legal bid for an injunction fails, the final step will be to take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.
Kesbir has staunchly fought her extradition, claiming that she will not receive a fair trial in Turkey. She also claims she will be jailed for life and will be subjected to torture.
She applied in vain for asylum in the Netherlands and the Council of State ruled on 23 July that former immigration minister Hilbrand Nawijn correctly refused the asylum request lodged by Kesbir in 2002.
Kesbir is accused of carrying out 25 attacks between 1993 and 1995 against Turkish citizens and soldiers in the Kurdish war of independence. She has denied the allegations.
Many Kurds have backed her in mass demonstrations and Kesbir went on a month-long hunger strike earlier this year in protest against her looming extradition.
The United Nations and Human Rights Watch have also expressed
concerns about her fate. The UN in particular demanded that the Netherlands
obtain rock-hard guaranties from Turkish authorities.
7. - UPI - "EU frowns on Turkey's adultery ban":
BRUSSELS / 7 September 2004
Turkey's plan to outlaw adultery has raised concern in the European Union over whether the move breaks its human rights policy, The Independent said Tuesday.
EU officials confirm the matter was raised with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul by Gunter Verheugen, the EU commissioner for enlargement.
Some EU officials say outlawing adultery could breach article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, creating a new legal obstacle to beginning membership negotiations.
In Brussels Monday, Martti Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland and chairman of an independent report into Turkish accession, made clear his personal opposition to the proposed adultery law.
"I don't think it is a very wise way of legislating human relations," he said.
Next month, the European Commission will publish its decision
on whether Ankara is close enough to EU human rights standards to begin
talks on accession. Heads of government will make the final decision
in December, based on the commission's recommendations.
8. - Turkish Daily News - "Iraqi Kurdish leaders in Ankara":
Barzani reiterates in Ankara that Iraq's territory will not be used to threaten neighbors' security
ANKARA / 8 September 2004
Two top Iraqi Kurdish leaders arrived in Turkey yesterday for talks at the Turkish Foreign Ministry concerning the situation in northern Iraq and issues of bilateral concern.
Nechirvan Barzani, a senior official from the Masoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), held talks with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul yesterday.
"We will never tolerate our territory to be used to threaten the security of our neighbors," Barzani told reporters upon his arrival in Ankara, when asked to comment on the continued presence of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members in the mountains of northern Iraq, a region run by Kurdish groups since the first Gulf War in the last decade.
He said he would reiterate that position once again in talks with Turkish officials.
Ankara has been pressing the United States for action to eliminate the outlawed group and is apparently getting frustrated with Washington's continuing inactivity.
A second Kurdish leader, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Jalal Talabani, also arrived in Turkey yesterday. He is on his way to Italy and is scheduled to meet with Gul today.
Turkish officials said Ankara was not prepared to deliver a specific message to the Kurdish leaders, as both visits were taking place upon their own request.
The Kurdish officials' visit came at a time when tension in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk is also rising. Turkmens, the third biggest ethnic community of Iraq after Arabs and Kurds, complain they are subject to increasing pressure at the hands of Kurds as all three groups compete for control of the city.
Barzani condemned the recent attacks on prominent Turkmen
figures in the region.