21 November 2003

1. "EU must open arms to Turkey, Germany says after attacks", German Interior Minister Otto Schily called on the European Union to encourage Turkey's membership bid in the wake of the deadly suicide attacks in Istanbul.

2. "Kurdish party urges Syria to stop alleged torture of jailed Kurds", a Syrian Kurdish party called on Syria Thursday to stop the alleged torture of nine Kurds languishing in its jails and urged the authorities to bring them to trial as soon as possible.

3. "Suicide bomber kills three in Kirkuk", a suicide car bomber has killed three people and wounded at least seven in an attack outside the offices of a leading Kurdish party in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, witnesses say.

4. "Verheugen: Cyprus is hampering Turkey's EU bid", Guenter Verheugen, the European Commission commissioner for enlargement, served yet another warning on Turkey that continuation of the Cyprus problem would make it difficult for Turkey to obtain a date for the start of EU accession talks.

5. "Turkish troops kill 14 Kurdish militants", the Turkish military killed 14 Kurdish militants during fighting in southeast Turkey late on Wednesday, government and security officials said.

6. "Turkey is a hostage to Cyprus when it comes to EU membership", on Nov. 5, the European Commission published a new progress report and strategy document, both focusing on Turkey’s fulfillment of European Union criteria for initiating membership negotiations.

1. - AFP - "EU must open arms to Turkey, Germany says after attacks":

BERLIN / 21 November 2003

German Interior Minister Otto Schily called on the European Union to encourage Turkey's membership bid in the wake of the deadly suicide attacks in Istanbul.

In an interview broadcast late Thursday, he urged the bloc to give Turkey, which has long campaigned for membership, "real prospects" of entry.

Germany is home to around two million people of Turkish origin, thought to form the largest Turkish expatriate community in Europe.

"The response to what happened in Istanbul must be that we cooperate closer with Turkey," Schily told ZDF public television, referring to Thursday's attacks that killed 27 people and injured hundres more.

He called for "an honest dialogue" between the European Union and Turkey" in order to "seriously negotiate the prospects of Turkey's EU entry, no matter how long that takes."

Ankara has been a recognized candidate to join the bloc since December 1999. EU leaders are to assess Turkey's progress on introducing democratic and human rights reforms in December 2004 before deciding when to open accession talks.

However, although Germany's centre-left government is in favour of allowing the mainly Muslim country into the European bloc, many German conservatives are not so keen, arguing that Turkey is too culturally different to mainland Europe and that is does not yet comply with EU standards, notably on human rights.

Ingo Friedrich, a leading member of the conservative CSU party, the sister party to Germany's main conservative opposition, said that trying to speed up membership might only encourage more attacks.

Islamic extremists would be afraid that "a key country in the Islamic world is breaking away and joining the West," he told the Deutschlandradio station.

Friedrich, a deputy speaker of the European parliament, said Brussels must still offer Ankara economic support, solidarity and diplomacy.

2. - AFP - "Kurdish party urges Syria to stop alleged torture of jailed Kurds":

BEIRUT / 20 November 2003

A Syrian Kurdish party called on Syria Thursday to stop the alleged torture of nine Kurds languishing in its jails and urged the authorities to bring them to trial as soon as possible.

The Yakiti party said in a statement received here by AFP that eight people who were arrested in June and July have "been subjected to physical torture".

It added that the party's Lebanese representative Farhat Ali, who it said was arrested by the Lebanese intelligence services in December last year at the behest of Syrian military intelligence and was subsequently handed over, has also been tortured.

The party called on "the democratic forces in Syria and supporters of human rights to intervene to stop these arbitrary practices" and "promote the release of political prisoners and their swift appearance at fair trials."

The statement, signed by top party official Abdel Baki al-Yussef, added that "despite the numerous appeals by international and local human rights organisations the situation of the prisons and detainees has deteriorated in the course of the last three years relative to that in the 1990s."

Over a million Kurds live in Syria, mainly in the north, on the border with Iraq. Some of them refused to be counted in the 1962 census to avoid military service, resulting in them and their descendants being denied Syrian citizenship.

3. - Reuters - "Suicide bomber kills three in Kirkuk":

KIRKUK / 20 November 2003

A suicide car bomber has killed three people and wounded at least seven in an attack outside the offices of a leading Kurdish party in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, witnesses say.

A huge explosion rocked an area near the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the city, throwing a cloud of black smoke from two cars into the air, a Reuters correspondent at the scene said on Thursday.

PUK leader Jalal Talabani, in Turkey on Thursday on a visit, is head of Iraq’s U.S.-appointed Governing Council.

Hours earlier, a car bomb blast had struck the offices of a U.S.-appointed local council in the Iraqi town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. The strike was part of a string of attacks in the flashpoint town after dark on Wednesday, witnesses said.

The blast in Kirkuk, 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, flattened a wall around the green painted headquarters of PUK, and shattered windows at a nearby primary school, wounding some children with flying glass.

"I am 100 percent sure it was a suicide bombing," said police officer Shwan Majid Karim.

A U.S. officer at the scene confirmed three people were killed plus the suicide bomber, and seven were wounded.

"I will not speculate on the intended target," said Major Doug Vincent, adding the bomb may have gone off prematurely.

Kurdish PUK militiamen dragged away four suspects in the area after the blast. U.S. soldiers said they would ensure the suspects would be handed over to police.

Municipal workers collected bloodied body parts strewn by the blast across a square in front of the PUK offices.

4. - Turkish Daily News - "Verheugen: Cyprus is hampering Turkey's EU bid":

ANKARA / 21 November 2003

Guenter Verheugen, the European Commission commissioner for enlargement, served yet another warning on Turkey that continuation of the Cyprus problem would make it difficult for Turkey to obtain a date for the start of EU accession talks.

Meeting in Strasbourg with leaders of three Turkish Cypriot opposition parties who have been defending a settlement on the island along the lines of a United Nations plan, Verheugen said it would be difficult for Turkey to get a date for the start of accession talks if the Cyprus problem was not resolved.

The EU Council had pledged to Turkey last year to give a date for the start of accession talks provided the European Commission reports in its 2004 progress report that Ankara has fulfilled the Copenhagen political criteria.

Verheugen charged that by insisting on his uncompromising stance, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktas was doing a disservice not only to his people but to Turkish interests as well.

Meeting with Verheugen were Mehmet Ali Talat of the Republican Turks' Party (CTP, which is taking part in the elections under the United Forces Front, or BG); Mustafa Akinci of the Peace and Democracy Movement (BDH); and Chamber of Commerce chief and Settlement and European Union Party (CABP) leader Ali Erel.

5. Daily Star (Lebanon) - "Turkish troops kill 14 Kurdish militants":

TUNCELI / 20 November 2003

The Turkish military killed 14 Kurdish militants during fighting in southeast Turkey late on Wednesday, government and security officials said.

Soldiers killed 12 guerrillas in clashes in a wooded, remote area of mountainous Bingol province, once a stronghold of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) separatists.

Two more rebels were killed in the southern Hatay province, which borders Syria, the state-run Anatolian news agency quoted local gendarmes officials as saying.

Security officials said there were no initial reports of Turkish military casualties in the battles.

Turkey has fought a decades-long battle against Kurdish rebels at the cost of more than 30,000 lives, most of them Kurds. Sporadic fighting continues despite the 1999 arrest and imprisonment of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Two men from Bingol, believed to be Islamist militants, took part in suicide attacks on two Istanbul synagogues at the weekend which killed 25 people, Turkish officials have said.

Officials have made no connection between the Istanbul attacks by suspected Islamists and Wednesday's firefight with the Kurdish guerrillas.

6. - The Daily Star - "Turkey is a hostage to Cyprus when it comes to EU membership":

21 November 2003

On Nov. 5, the European Commission published a new progress report and strategy document, both focusing on Turkey’s fulfillment of European Union criteria for initiating membership negotiations. Turkey is the only candidate country that has not started negotiations with the EU, and expects to get a negotiation date at the EU summit of December 2004. The progress report sets a road map for the coming critical months that will occupy the agenda of Turkish politicians.

The report underlines Turkey’s determination to meet the Copenhagen criteria, but also warns of a number of problems that may represent serious obstacles in Turkey’s membership process. Although Turkey achieved unexpected progress in introducing legal reforms, there are still difficulties in their implementation. The report also focused on the need to strengthen the judiciary and make it more independent. Another concern was raised about ensuring equal treatment for all Turkish citizens, regardless of their ethnic and religious origin.

A major concern, however, was the EU’s warning on finding a resolution to the Cyprus question. The strategy document, included for the first time in such a EU report, linked Cyprus to Turkish membership. Ankara’s immediate response was to reject any such linkage, and Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul argued that Cyprus was not part of the Copenhagen criteria.

What makes the matter worse from a Turkish perspective is the fact that the Greek part of Cyprus will join to the EU in May 2005, and will represent the whole of the island. Ankara does not officially recognize the Greek half of Cyprus, which could lead to a problematic situation in that if the status quo is preserved, Ankara will have no relationship with an EU member. This will mean that both Greece and Cyprus will have veto power over Turkish membership, with their main concern being a solution to the Cyprus problem.

After Gul’s recent meeting with a EU troika, the foreign minister restated Turkey’s determination to join the union. Turkey’s new government has given priority to relations with a EU and has shown readiness to take the necessary steps for membership. Moreover, the Turkish people are overwhelmingly in favor of joining, and much the same thing goes for the country’s major political actors. Indeed, only 18-20 percent of Turkish society has some reservations.

However, there is still suspicion that the EU may not accept Turkey. In this sense, Ankara is not willing to agree to concessions if there are no guarantees that Turkey and Turkish Cyprus will join the EU together. Otherwise, the popular Turkish perception will be that the condition for the unification of Cyprus is that the Turkish Cypriots be delivered to the Greeks. This perception is similar to Turkey’s official position and there seems no room for further diplomatic initiatives on the matter.

There is also rising tension in Turkish Cyprus, which will hold parliamentary elections in December. The political positions on the island are shaped around whether to support or reject the prevailing status quo. There is a chance that anti-status quo parties may win the elections, but it is not certain that this development may bring serious change in the Turkish government’s position.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has considerably altered its previously more courageous position on the Cyprus problem, mainly to avoid a dispute with the country’s military elite. However, Turkey’s EU membership is now hostage to Cyprus. Moreover, there is no chance to delay a resolution of the Cypriot problem considering the closing deadline of December 2004.

Since the 1999 Helsinki summit, the EU membership process has occupied a central position in Turkish politics. Ankara made great progress in revising its bureaucratic and legal framework under EU guidance. This process has been a great challenge to what can be called the “old Turkey.” The November 2002 elections left the old representatives of Turkish politics out of Parliament, suggesting movement toward the construction of this new Turkey. The main backbone of a new Turkey is the EU membership process and the country’s citizens will strongly oppose any development that seeks to reverse this.

The AKP’s one-party government has raised hopes for economic development and democratization. However, the party came to power in an environment high on EU membership, and any sign that it has common characteristics with the old political guard may enormously decrease its support. It is no longer enough for the AKP to argue that it strongly advocates EU membership. Now the Cyprus question has also become a litmus test for its policies, and these must help prove that the party can lead to the construction of a new Turkey according to the realities of the 21st century.

Bulent Aras (abulent@fatih.edu.tr) is an associate professor of international relations at Fatih University in Istanbul. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR