29.
November 2001
1. Turkey Hints It Could Back Iraq Strikes, Turkey's defense minister hinted Wednesday that the NATO member might drop its long-standing objections to a U.S. attack on Iraq if circumstances changed.
2. Greek minister claims Turkish threat persists, Turkey remains a threat to Greece, even if relations between the two neighbours have warmed
3. The MGK Meeting, a comment on this week's National Security Council (MGK) meeting
4. A Debate beyond Cyprus: Turkey's EU Membership, a comment on Turkey's EU membership and the Cyprus issue
5. Campus Crowd Shrugs at Marital-Equality Law, a new Turkish law offers equality to husband and wife.
6. Turkey-EU-defence, Belgian premier Verhofstadt fails to convince Turkey over European defence plans
1. Reuters Turkey Hints It Could Back Iraq Strikes:
ANKARA / by Steve Bryant
Turkey's defense minister hinted Wednesday that the NATO member might
drop its long-standing objections to a U.S. attack on Iraq if circumstances
changed. ``We have officially said again and again that we do not
want an operation in Iraq but new conditions could bring new evaluations
onto the agenda,'' Anatolian news agency quoted Defense Minister Sabahattin
Cakmakoglu as telling a seminar on the defense industry in Ankara.
Asked to elaborate on his remarks, Cakmakoglu said: ``I said that
with a general meaning, it is not based on any specific information
or meaning.'' Turkey's defense minister does not wield as much influence
as Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit or officers of the military General
Staff, but Cakmakoglu's comments were the first sign from a senior
politician that Turkey could change its position. Secretary of State
Colin Powell is due to visit Turkey next week during a tour of Russia
and other European countries. Analysts said Powell is almost certain
to discuss Iraq as well as plans for a European defense force and
efforts to resolve the division of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
Ecevit and senior officers in the influential military have consistently
said attacks on its southern neighbor Iraq would not be welcome. Turkey
is a close Washington ally in the region. ``There is no change in
our approach (toward Iraq)...At this time there is no change in our
policy,'' a Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters Wednesday. ``Terror
has no geography, therefore we don't look at the situation in terms
of countries or countries' name. Wherever there is terrorism it must
be fought,'' he added. Turkey supports the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan
but is very wary of the violence spreading to neighboring Iraq. Monday,
President Bush demanded Iraq allow international arms inspectors to
return and said President Saddam Hussein would ``find out'' the consequences
if he refused. Ankara fears turmoil stemming from strikes on Iraq
could send refugees flooding over its border and might encourage Iraqi
Kurds to try to set up a separate Kurdish state. Turkey has also lost
billions of dollars in trade suspended by international sanctions
on Iraq, which was a major trade partner before the 1991 Gulf War.
Somethings up Fears that Powell could seek Turkey's support for a
strike against Iraq contributed to falls of more than six percent
on the Istanbul stock exchange Wednesday morning also fueled by concerns
over the economy and discord with the EU over Cyprus. Brokers said
the imminent Powell visit and a visit on Tuesday by Prime Minister
Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, which holds the EU's rotating presidency,
increased the feeling that something was up in the diplomatic field.
``The fact that the EU term president and the U.S. foreign minister
are coming in the same period point to talks on Cyprus and getting
support for Iraq. Since both are negative, the market is tense,''
said Cem Kulahci of Meksa Securities. Ankara treads a thin line in
its dealings with Baghdad. Turkish officials are hoping to resume
trade that could be crucial to developing Turkey's mainly Kurdish
southeast. But Turkey also hosts U.S. and British warplanes that patrol
a no-fly zone over northern Iraq and often bomb the country. And Ankara
has enraged Iraq by keeping soldiers in northern Iraq as a buffer
against Kurdish rebels based in the mountainous north, outside Baghdad's
control since the 1991 Gulf War. Turkey fears any shake-up in Iraq
could produce a separate Kurdish state in northern Iraq, which might
then encourage the aims of separatist Turkish Kurd guerrillas Turkish
forces have fought since 1984 at the cost of more than 30,000 lives.
2. - The Irish Times Greek minister claims Turkish threat persists:
by Patrick Comerford
Turkey remains a threat to Greece, even if relations between the two neighbours have warmed, the new Greek Defence Minister, Mr Yannos Papantoniou, said in a newspaper interview yesterday.
"The Turkish threat persists, unfortunately, just as much as in the
past," Mr Papantoniou said in the interview with To Vima. Ties between
the Aegean neighbours warmed in 1999 when the two helped each other
after both countries were rocked by major earthquakes within days
of each other. Mr Papantoniou said Turkey still maintained some unacceptable
demands: "We do not negotiate our sovereign rights with the Turks."
However, Greece would press on with efforts at rapprochement, which
would include backing Turkey's bid to join the EU: "Greece has every
interest in protecting the friendship and co-operation and also in
promoting Turkey's accession into the European Union," he said. Meanwhile,
the Prime Minister of Turkey, Mr Bulent Ecevit, said yesterday Cyprus
was crucial to Turkey's national security and claimed abandoning the
Turkish Cypriot north of the divided island was tantamount to giving
up Turkish territory. Mr Ecevit's comments - the latest in a series
of hardline statements from Ankara - come ahead of a key meeting next
week between President Glafcos Clerides of Cyprus and the Turkish
Cypriot leader, Mr Rauf Denktash. Efforts to find a settlement on
the island have taken on greater urgency as Cyprus moves closer to
EU membership in 2004. Earlier this month, Mr Ecevit said Turkey could
annex the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) if
the EU admits Cyprus before a settlement is reached. "There's no difference
between sacrificing the TRNC and sacrificing a piece of Turkey's soil,"
Mr Ecevit said in a television interview Sunday. "The TRNC is not
just vital to the security of Cyprus' Turks but for Turkey's security
as well." Mr Ecevit also claimed EU policy on Cyprus could plunge
the island into ethnic violence. "If a solution the Greek Cypriots
or the EU's demands is brought onto the agenda, to me it's inescapable
Turks there would face a new genocide," he claimed. Mr Ecevit said
he was not "overly hopeful" about the talks between Mr Denktash and
Clerides. "It's beneficial to be optimistic," he said. "I hope to
see the sides come closer, but I'm not overly hopeful." Mr Denktash,
who arrived in Ankara yesterday, is due to meet Mr Clerides for the
first time in four years in the presence of a senior UN envoy on December
4th. "I want to meet Clerides to tell him he's on the wrong path,"
Mr Denktash said.
3. Milliyet The MGK Meeting:
Columnist Fikret Bila comments on this week's National Security Council (MGK) meeting
Main issues discussed at the MGK meeting yesterday can be summarized as follows:
- 1. Cyprus and the European Union
2. Afghanistan
3. The politicization of PKK terrorist organization, HADEP and the southeastern Anatolia region.
The MGK strongly believes that Turkey's EU membership and the Cyprus
debate must be de-linked. The Council is resolved not to forget Turkey's
main reasons for joining the EU, and also not to let the Cyprus issue
become a matter on which Turkey is forced to make concessions. "Turkey
will not permit any structure threatening Turkish Cypriots' or its
own security, or violating international agreements, or seeing Turkish
Cypriots as minorities on the island, to be established on the island,"
says the MGK statement. The MGK gives its full support to Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) President Rauf Denktas, who is
preparing to meet Greek Cypriot leader Glafcos Clerides on Dec. 4.
Regarding the Afghanistan issue, the dominant opinion within the MGK
is that Turkish Armed Forces' (TSK) mission in Afghanistan must be
limited to peacekeeping. Details as to where and when to send Turkish
troops are expected to be clarified after US Secretary of State Colin
Powell's visit to Ankara. The last main issue discussed at the MGK
meeting was the politicization of the PKK. The non-civilian members
of the Council believe that the PKK has been trying to enter the political
arena and that HADEP (the People's Democracy Party) must be seen as
an outcome of these efforts. The MGK also highlighted that the PKK
is preparing to begin pursuing a policy based on 'civil disobedience'
and planning acts of civil resistance, especially in southeastern
Anatolia.
4. Cumhuriyet - A Debate beyond Cyprus: Turkey's EU Membership:
by Yalcin Dogan
Yalcin Dogan comments on Turkey's EU membership and the Cyprus issue.
If a permanent solution has not been reached on Cyprus when negotiations
on its EU membership begin, all factors shall be taken into consideration,"
the Helsinki Summit stated several years ago. At the Helsinki Summit,
the EU requested that Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration,
as well as Turkey, share the responsibility for finding a permanent
solution for the island. However, it seems that now the only party
paying any price is Turkey. The Cyprus debate has been in the spotlight
as part of discussions on Turkey's accession period to the EU. The
Cyprus issue has recently been a key factor for Turkey's EU membership.
In addition to the recent statements given by EU officials, the EU
Progress Report, which was released last week, also highlighted the
same issue. The EU, which at the time of the Helsinki Summit wanted
all parties to share the responsibility for the future of the island,
is now saying in its progress report that Turkey alone has to take
concrete steps to reach a permanent solution on the island. The Cyprus
debate is now going beyond its limits. It has exceeded the limits
so that the debates have begun to threaten Turkey's EU membership.
Even as today we are discussing Cyprus, it is clear that the next
issue to be discussed will be Turkey's EU membership. If the EU admits
the Greek Cypriots, it would consider the entire island as a member,
and consequently Turkey would be seen by the international community
as an occupying power on the northern part of the island. Under such
a scenario, Turkey would wait in the wings forever, always an EU candidate
only. That's why the Cyprus issue is vital. This is a turning point
not only for us but also for our future generations. In the light
of all this, it is a mistaken approach to make decisions on such an
important issue through closed meetings, or via extremely emotion-laden
policies. We don't need closed meetings, but rather open discussions
where a full spectrum of opinions, no matter whether in favor of or
against Turkey, are represented and the issue is discussed in detail.
Let's not forget that this is a turning point which will affect Turkey's
path into the future!
5. - The New York Times Campus Crowd Shrugs at Marital-Equality Law:
ISTANBUL / by Somini Sengupta
Lounging on the grassy square in the heart of the prestigious Bosporus
University campus here, Selen Yenmez, a silver stud pinned to her
nose, a Jimi Hendrix button pinned to her bag, could muster only scant
enthusiasm for a new Turkish law that offers equality to a husband
and wife. "It's a little late," Ms. Yenmez, 18, said flatly. "It should
have been done before." The new law, which accords women equal property
rights in a divorce and allows men to seek alimony, makes Turkish
family law among the most equitable anywhere in the world not to
mention in the Islamic world. But as Ms. Yenmez saw it, it will not
much affect her own life. In her circle, she said, young men and women
already consider themselves equal, and when her own parents were divorced,
they split their property equitably. It just might, she said, make
a difference to women from more traditional families, although they
are mired in customs hard to break. "It's like there are two parts
of Turkey," she said. The chasms in the lives of Turkish women run
deep between the schooled and unschooled, the cosmopolitans and
the recent migrants from the countryside, the secularists and the
Islamists. Just like Turkey itself a majority Muslim country and
a secular state women here repeatedly tangle with the clashing impulses
brought by tradition and greater Westernization. To the Western eye,
the social mores on faith and sex here can sometimes seem like an
inconsistent jumble. On the campus of elite Bosporus University, for
instance, head scarves are banned. But stand at the school gates one
morning and you will easily witness the quiet rebellion of young women
against the official secularism of the state. University women walk
in with wigs, hiding their real hair. Or they wear a fashionable floppy
hat over the head scarves, the better to dupe the guards at the gate.
Just the other day, recalled Ms. Yenmez, a first-year sociology major,
she was on the university shuttle with a woman wearing a hat. As soon
as the shuttle crossed into the campus gates, the woman removed her
hat, revealing a carefully tied head scarf for all to see. Among women
who cover, some wear what is sometimes referred to here as "the uniform"
a bland combination of a long solid-colored coat and a scarf tied
in the Islamic custom. But take a nighttime stroll along the Istiklal,
the city's main party drag, and you will notice covered women with
brightly painted lips, black leather boots as spiky as minarets, hip-hugging
jeans. You can see covered women (and remember, to cover is a sign
of modesty) making out with their boyfriends on the promenade. If
it seems befuddling to the outsider, said Feride Acar, chairwoman
of political science at the Middle Eastern Technical University in
Ankara, that is because transitions are often befuddling. "This is
a society that's very dynamic," Ms. Acar said. "It is a social transition
for these individuals, and a social transition for Turkey, from a
more traditional, more closed type of living to a more open, more
modern, more liberal type of existence." The head scarf has been banned
in government buildings since the founding of the Turkish Republic,
in 1926. Today, women who cover, especially among those in their 20's
and 30's, are a distinct minority. Women's suffrage came in 1930,
four years after the founding of the modern state. There are women
in politics (with the notable exception of women who cannot, by law,
sit in Parliament with their scarves on) and on the streets of Istanbul,
women drink, smoke and carouse late into the night. Divorce is increasing
among urban women, but it remains rare and stigmatized in the countryside.
Against this backdrop comes the new civil code. The change, passed
by Parliament last week, puts Turkish women's rights on a par with
most of Western Europe, which is, as some see it, why the Parliament
was persuaded to pass it. Turkey has been eager to join the European
Union, a bid not assisted by the old civil code, which declared a
man as the head of the household. Under that old system, said Canan
Arin, a lawyer long pushing for the changes, "Women would have only
their underwear and probably their children and no money." The new
law gives women equal dibs on shared property in the event of a divorce.
Still unresolved is the question of whether the law will apply retroactively
in other words, to what Ms. Arin estimates to be the 17 million
Turkish women who are already married. On the Bosporus University
campus, several young women said they had hardly paid attention to
the change in the law. There were exams to think about, a social life
to ponder, the grim prospects of life in Turkey's latest economic
crisis. Sitting on a bench, poring over notes, two first-year women
offered only a quizzical look when asked about the law. A few yards
away, a young man with a mop of curls falling to his shoulders munched
on pizza and shrugged. "It's not a major issue," Emre Tuzer, 19, a
second-year international trade major, said. "Right now, people are
concerned about what's in their wallet." His friends, sprawled on
the grass, said they were skeptical about whether the law would change
the circumstances of women in more traditional families than their
own. "Still, women will be afraid to divorce," Deniz Saltukoglu, 18,
said, "because of social problems, because of how people will see
them." "The change is legal," her friend, Naz Sunay, 18, offered.
"But it won't be able to change the family system."
6. AFP Turkey-EU-defence:
Belgian PM fails to convince Turkey over European defence plans
ANKARA
A lightning visit by Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt to Ankara
failed to convince Turkey to lift its objections to European defence
plans, a Turkish government source said Wednesday. Turkey explained
"once again" that it would not permit the European Union permanent
access to NATO assets without being part of the decision-making mechanism,
even though Ankara is not an EU member, the source told AFP on condition
of anonymity. During his meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Bulent
Ecevit, Verhofstadt, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency,
said that Turkey's stance would also harm NATO and asked Ankara to
lift its objections before the EU's Laeken summit next month. For
months, Turkey -- a NATO member and a laggard EU candidate -- has
been at odds with the pan-European bloc over its plans to establish
a rapid reaction force with guaranteed access to NATO assets in crisis
situations. Turkey says EU access to NATO assets should be decided
on a case-by-case basis and not permanent as the EU wants, and wants
guarantees that it will not be sidelined when the EU deploys the planned
force in hotspots in its vicinity. At the Laeken summit, the EU is
expected to officially declare its 60,000-strong rapid reaction force
operational. Access to NATO assets is considered vital to the force,
which is intended to carry out humanitarian and peacekeeping operations
in Kosovo-like trouble spots. Turkish diplomats noted that Verhofstadt's
visit to Turkey came after a meeting in London with British Prime
Minister Tony Blair. Along with the United States, Britain is actively
seeking a compromise on the issue, but a fourth round of talks between
US, British and Turkish diplomats in Ankara failed to come up with
a solution. The dispute over European defence plans will also constitute
the "core" of the talks with US Secretary of State Colin Powell during
a visit to Ankara on December 4-5, the government source said. {Text}