30 April 2004

1. "Well known french figures join Kongra-Gel", at a press conference in Montpellier, the founder of the Peasants¹ Federation, Jose Bove, and the International Coordinator of the World Physicians’ Association, Bernard Granjon, announced that they would join Kongra-Gel as a protest at the inclusion of Kongra-Gel (People’s Congress of Kurdistan) on the EU list of terrorist organisations.

2. "Chirac: Turkey Not Fit for Entry Into EU", Turkey's aspirations to be the first Muslim-majority member of the European Union took a hit Thursday when French President Jacques Chirac said Ankara likely will not meet the bloc's conditions for another 10-15 years.

3. "Turkish accession will paralyze EU, warns former French PM", the socialist politician says Turkey can block an EU decision in 70 percent of the cases and argues it should be in the category of states surrounding the enlarged EU, such as Russia, Ukraine and Northern African countries.

4. "The Iraq war spurs a sea change in Turkish politics", transformation or turmoil? The Middle East a year after the Iraq War.

5. "Not ’Honour’ but ’Disobedience’ Crimes", Ka-Mer helped 23 women under the danger of being murdered in "honor crimes" in one year. Two of these women died. Others are either in shelters or have moved to other places. "Honor crimes have always existed. They are just more visible now," said Kardas.

6. "Two Turkish soldiers wounded in attack in southeast", two paramilitary Turkish soldiers were wounded when unidentified attackers opened fire on their vehicle in the southeast of the country, local security sources said Thursday.

1. - Ozgur Politika / KNK - "Well known french figures join Kongra-Gel":

29 April 2004

At a press conference in Montpellier, the founder of the Peasants¹ Federation, Jose Bove, and the International Coordinator of the World Physicians’ Association, Bernard Granjon, announced that they would join Kongra-Gel as a protest at the inclusion of Kongra-Gel (People’s Congress of Kurdistan) on the EU list of terrorist organisations.

The representative of Human Rights organisation ’Cimade’ in the South of France, Jean Paul Nunez, had already announced some days previously that the inclusion of Kongra-Gel on the terror list was a perverse and unacceptable decision that had been taken for purely political reasons. He also said that as a member of Kongra-Gel he would take up the legal battle against this decision. Bove and Granjon said they believed many people would support this sort of initiative.

Jose Bove, one of the leading activists of the anti-globalisation movement, also suggested that the Social Forum planned for March 2005 in Amed (Diyarbakir) should be held as a Social Forum of Mesopotamia, saying that Amed is one of the centres of the peace movement in the Middle East, that such an initiative was needed, and that he would work to make this happen.

(Translated and shortened version of article in Ozgur Politika, 23 April 2004 by KNK)

2. - Associated Press - "Chirac: Turkey Not Fit for Entry Into EU":

PARIS / 29 April 2004 / by Emanuel Georges-Picot

Turkey's aspirations to be the first Muslim-majority member of the European Union took a hit Thursday when French President Jacques Chirac said Ankara likely will not meet the bloc's conditions for another 10-15 years.

Speaking at his first full-fledged news conference in six years, Chirac also said the upcoming transfer of power in Iraq (news - web sites) must be "unambiguous" and the U.S.-led occupation authorities must cede complete control to an Iraqi administration.

The French president said Turkey needed to improve its human rights record and reform its justice system before being considered for EU membership.

"Is Turkey's entry possible today? I say 'No,'" he said.

But Turkey could become a member "in the perspective of 10 to 15 years," Chirac said. "My conviction is that it is in the long term."

Turkey, located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia and a part of NATO since 1952, is hoping to begin talks next year on joining the EU. Ten new members are joining the 15-nation union on Saturday.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity that Turkey accepted Chirac's comments but still hoped the EU would open membership talks in 2005.

"Negotiations are one thing, and membership is another," the official said. "Chirac was speaking about the long term. There's nothing new about what he said."

Chirac's news conference came weeks after Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told parliament that France would oppose Turkey's entry.

Predominantly Muslim Turkey has carried out sweeping reforms in the last two years, abolishing the death penalty and granting greater cultural rights to its long-oppressed Kurdish minority.

The European Commission in November noted Turkey's "significant progress" in meeting the EU's conditions, but said more needed to be done.

In the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Chirac was one of the most outspoken voices against the war.

Now, he and other leaders are pushing for Iraq to be granted full sovereignty when the coalition hands over power on June 30.

"What would be disastrous is a compromise solution founded on ambiguity," Chirac said.

U.S. officials have suggested Iraq will be granted only limited sovereignty, with the coalition maintaining control of security.

"Today, it is urgent to give the Iraqis back their sovereignty," he said. "The problem is how."

Any real transfer of power, Chirac said, must be overseen by the United Nations

Chirac also said it was too early to decide which method France would use to decide on a proposed European constitution. Nations can either hold referendums or allow their parliaments to vote.

EU foreign ministers agreed Monday to resume negotiations on the continent's first constitution. The charter is to be finalized at a June 17-18 EU summit, after which member states will have to ratify or reject it.

Talks over the constitution, which aims to streamline decision-making in the expanded bloc, collapsed in December when Spain and Poland rejected a proposed new voting system because they believed it gave too much power to the EU's biggest countries.

3. - Turkish Daily News - "Turkish accession will paralyze EU, warns former French PM":

The socialist politician says Turkey can block an EU decision in 70 percent of the cases and argues it should be in the category of states surrounding the enlarged EU, such as Russia, Ukraine and Northern African countries

ANKARA / 30 April 2004

Former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, a prominent figure on the left, has warned that accession of Turkey and it's large population might seriously harm the European Union's decision-making capacity, bringing the functioning of the union to a stalemate.

Socialist Fabius' remarks came as his center-right rivals are opposing Turkey's membership as part of their campaign for upcoming elections to the European Parliament.

On Thursday, President Jacques Chirac said Turkey's accession was "certainly not desirable" in the short term and added that membership talks, once they start, would take longer than a decade.

In a Wednesday speech at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, Fabius opposed Turkish membership from a technical perspective. He said the functioning of the EU will be brought to a stalemate if Turkey, a country of almost 68 million inhabitants, is allowed to become a member, according to a report on EUObserver, a Brussels-based website.

Referring to the proposals on qualified majority voting in the Draft European Constitution -- where size of population is a key factor -- Fabius said that Turkey could block an EU decision in 70 percent of the cases.

The French socialist said that Turkey could only become an EU member in the future if the EU institutions were reformed first. He characterized the proposals for institutional reform in the Draft Constitution as "insufficient."

Consequently, Fabius stated that after a possible adoption of the Constitution, a new round of institutional reforms was needed before the accession of Turkey was possible.

But the Frenchman seemed to admit that this would take many years, as he also stressed that additional institutional changes would be extremely difficult. Once adopted, any change of the Constitution would again require the consent of all EU member states.

Fabius concluded that "for the time being" Turkey should be placed in the category of states surrounding the enlarged European Union in the east and south, including Russia, Ukraine and Northern African countries.

He characterized these EU neighboring states as the "third circle" of Europe, while the "first circle" of Europe would be formed by the euro zone countries, and the "second circle" by the rest of the EU.

4. - The Daily Star (Lebanon) - "The Iraq war spurs a sea change in Turkish politics":

Transformation or Turmoil? The Middle East a Year After the Iraq War.

30 April 2004 / By Soli Ozel*

The Iraq war was a source of worry for Turkey long before it started. Ankara was concerned that the territorial integrity of Iraq could not be maintained in case of conflict. When he was still in power, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit declared that Turkey would consider the formation of an independent Kurdish state a casus belli. The general staff prepared contingency plans for intervention if the need arose.

Even if Iraq could emerge from the war intact, Turkey, like many other states in the region, was uneasy about a possible Shiite-dominated, Islamically inclined regime in Baghdad. This would have meant not just the end of Sunni dominance in Iraq, but arguably the end of a Sunni Arab dominant order in the Middle East. In brief, Turkey considered a violent change of the status quo in Iraq as a threat to its vital interests.

Those interests were defined almost exclusively by reference to the creation of an independent Kurdistan, and its impact on Turkey's domestic Kurdish problem. The presence of some 5,000 separatist Kurdish Workers Party fighters in northern Iraq was an important dimension of that preoccupation. Ankara also felt responsible for the protection of the rights of Iraq's Turkmens, who constitute a plurality and perhaps a majority in the oil-rich province of Kirkuk.

As a result, and despite tangible differences with the US over Iraq and the future of the Kurds there, Turkey, under a new government led by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), negotiated an agreement with Washington prior to the war. It would have allowed the stationing of US troops in Turkey, the opening of a northern front in the war and the establishment of a 20-kilometer security zone in northern Iraq where up to 50,000 Turkish troops could be deployed. Ankara was also to be compensated for possible losses caused by the conflict. It would receive $6 billion in grants or $24 billion in long-term loans from the US government.

To the surprise of many, both in Turkey and outside, on March 1, 2003, Parliament technically voted the bill down - although the yeas exceeded the nays.

This outcome was the result of several factors, including public pressure and the willingness of the government to go to the wire with the military. It caused profound changes in Turkey's domestic politics as well as the country's foreign policy choices. Perceptions about Turkey changed internationally and the so-called strategic partnership with the US all but came to an end, even if relations did not suffer the dire consequences that many had predicted. In fact, one could argue that Turkish-American relations found a new multidimensional framework and were freed from an exclusive focus on security. The commonalities between Turkey's interests and those of "old Europe," not to mention those of the Arab world, came to the fore.

Arguably, the first casualty of Parliament's decision was Turkey's domestically focused strategic vision. Concern with the Kurdish problem had long kept Turkey from having a more comprehensive Iraqi policy. The war and Turkey's nonparticipation in it meant that Iraq's Kurds became the main partners of the US. With that came a rejection by the Americans of Turkey's prerogative to do as it saw fit in northern Iraq. Turkey could no longer intervene militarily for whatever reason.

In the post-war period, Turkey began adjusting, albeit gradually, to the new situation in Iraq. Today it still objects to Kurdish independence but no longer opposes Iraqi federalism, only debating the kind of federalism it would feel comfortable with. The issue of Kirkuk remains sensitive and any Kurdish misstep there might generate a furious reaction. On the other hand, the growing disarray in Iraq is probably bringing the Kurds and Turkey closer to one another.

The two parties have more interests in common than they might acknowledge. The secular nature of Kurdish politics may create a common ground between the parties in view of the possible "Islamization" of power in Baghdad. At the same time, Turkey's desire to enter the European Union has heightened the importance of resolving the Kurdish problem in Turkey. The prospect of EU membership and the slow but steady progress in the fields of human and cultural rights will reduce ethnic tensions and, consequently, Turkey's security concerns. The decline of the Kurdish nationalist party's electoral support in southeastern Turkey in the last municipal elections can be seen as a reflection of this important development.

Turkey's domestic politics were also strongly affected by Parliament's rejection of the agreement with the US. The tight relationship between the Pentagon and the Turkish armed forces was broken. Washington sought mainly to blame the Turkish military, though there was much evidence that the government and the ruling party were not fully committed to cooperation with Washington. This further contributed to the power shift in Turkey that began in November 2002 when the AKP took power.

The parliamentary rebuff effectively meant the end of Turkey's ability to collect rents thanks to its geopolitical location, reducing the power of the country's security elites. As domestic politics took a turn toward a more liberal orientation under the stellar performance of an AKP with an Islamist pedigree, Turkish foreign policy found new opportunities: It branched out on the assumption that in the post-Iraq war period Turkey's importance would come from the historical choices it made.

In this context, Turkey's identity as a secular democracy with a majority Muslim population and a functioning market economy became a great asset. Turkey would henceforth be regarded as important, if not more important, for what it was than for where it was. As could be expected, Turkey's higher profile as a modern and secular country angered Al-Qaeda and its ilk, a fact painfully demonstrated by the two sets of twin attacks against civilian targets in Istanbul last November.

Where Turkey is situated obviously continues to be important, however, because its attributes make it a pivotal player in the Greater Middle East Initiative of the current Bush administration. The initiative has received much critical attention in Turkey, with a consensus emerging that the country should reflect on its ideas, but not become an extra in an American drafted script.

The Cyprus policy that the Turkish government has pursued since the beginning of the year also must be evaluated in this context. As the grip on foreign policy of the security elite and hard-liners loosened, the government initiated a diplomatic blitzkrieg over Cyprus, helped by the results of parliamentary elections in the Turkish part of the island that favored pro-settlement parties. This proactive, solution-oriented approach was vindicated when the Turkish Cypriots voted in favor of the UN plan on reunification last weekend, and confirmed that Turkish foreign policy had moved away from its traditional conservatism and occasional defensiveness.

However, the will to solve the Cyprus problem was not, in that sense, related solely to Turkey's quest for EU accession. It was part of a new orientation resulting from the historical March 1 vote. On its political openings in Cyprus, the AKP government received substantial support from the US. In the wake of a successful recent visit by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Washington, it became clear that Turkish-American relations would advance on a "civilian" axis (as opposed to an exclusively military one) and that the two sides would cooperate on a more equal footing.

This may demonstrate that the US appreciates Turkey's critical role in the new regional and global environment. Will the EU collectively be able to see Turkey in the same way? If it can and agrees to open accession negotiations, the repercussions of that decision will be felt beyond Turkey and the region.

* Soli Ozel is professor of international relations at Istanbul Bilgi University. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.

5. - Bianet.org - "Not ’Honour’ but ’Disobedience’ Crimes":

DIYARBAKIR / 29 April 2004 / by Burcin Belge

Ka-Mer helped 23 women under the danger of being murdered in "honor crimes" in one year. Two of these women died. Others are either in shelters or have moved to other places. "Honor crimes have always existed. They are just more visible now," said Kardas.

"Honor crimes are usually related to ’women’s sexuality.’ When a woman is killed, people automatically think ’she either had sexual relationship,’ or ’was raped.’ But a woman can be killed because she did not comply with the rules of her family or because she did not obey her father, husband or brother. As in, ’a woman, who acts outside rules may be killed.’"

This is how Naime Kardas, a founder of the Diyarbakir Women’s Center (Ka-Mer), describes honor crimes.

Kardas is also the coordinator of Ka-Mer’s "Project to Prevent Honor Crimes."

When talking about the killing of the 14-year-old Nuran Halitoglu with a family decision in Istanbul, Kardas said: "Honor crimes have always existed."

"With the efforts of women and non-governmental organizations, these honor crimes are now being heard of," said Kardas.

The migration to big cities also made honor crimes more visible. The fact that the media is allotting more time to honor crimes has raised awareness."

When a woman is killed.

Kardas said 70 women, who feared that they would be killed, applied to the Emergency Help Line of Ka-Mer between the years of 1997 and 2003.

Semse Allak, who was stoned to death by her family, and Kadriye Demirel, who was stabbed to death by her brother, were among women who could not reach Ka-Mer. Ka-Mer volunteers took care of Allak and Demirel at hospital. Allak for seven months, Demirel for three days.

"When the family decides to kill a woman, they want to get this decision approved. In that case, we look for someone whom the family would listen to. We sometimes form a group, which could include a lawyer, a party head or a local official, and meet with the family," said Kardas.

"There’s a need for women’s shelters"

If it is impossible to change the family’s decision, the only way out is to take the woman away from them. Ka-Mer directs such women to shelters or helps them start a new life in another place.

Kardas said their biggest problem was the shortage of women’s shelters." Not immigration, religion or economy, but the male-dominated society"

Kardas said women between the ages of 18 and 45 with different levels of education applied to Ka-Mer.

"It is mostly the married women of 18-25 who apply," she said.

"The pressure of society on the families is too great. If the society thinks that the purity of a woman has been stained, the family is excluded and insulted if they don’t kill her. When the woman is killed, the family regains its dignity," said Kardas.

She objects to relating honor crimes to migration, religion, poverty or lack of education. According to Kardas, "these elements only maximize the violence created by a male-dominated system." (BB/EA/YE)

6. - AFP - "Two Turkish soldiers wounded in attack in southeast":

DIYARBAKIR / 29 April 2004

Two paramilitary Turkish soldiers were wounded when unidentified attackers opened fire on their vehicle in the southeast of the country, local security sources said Thursday.

The attack took place late Wednesday near a small village, close to Golbasi town in Adiyaman province where the soldiers were on patrol, sources said. Officials did not say who was behind the attack.

Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast was the theatre of a 15-year armed rebellion for Kurdish self-rule but Adiyaman province was largely untouched by fighting.