16
September 2005
2. "Turkish Parliament To Hold Special Session On Kurdish Unrest", in several towns and cities in recent weeks, Turkish nationalists have clashed with supporters of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) demanding the release of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.
3. "ECHR Charges Turkey to Pay Damages for 'Extrajudicial Execution'", the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as a result of a joint application regarding an accusation of extrajudicial execution in Kucukdikili town of Adana, ruled that Turkey must pay a fine.
4. "US threatens Kurds", during a tour of the Kurdish area in Turkey a delegation from the US consulate in Adana made the purpose of their visit very clear: the Kurdish population must be kept well away from Ocalan and the PKK.
5. "Turkey dominates German election", Mrs Merkel has made it clear that she rejects Turkish accession - and is instead only prepared to offer Ankara a limited "privileged partnership".
6. "For Kurds, sovereignty easily beats out the Iraqi constitution", after many long weeks of squabbling and protracted negotiations between Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, the draft Iraqi constitution was finally delivered in late August amid controversy and pessimism.
1. - The Stateman - "Turkey not yet fit to enter EU":
16 September 2005
A “no” to Turkey starting negotiations to enter
the European Union on 3 October “will have centuries of implications”,
as one influential academic, Husseyin Bagci, put it to me last week.
It would push a wounded Turkey back into the arms of the nationalists,
even perhaps hardline fundamentalists, and be grist to the mill of those
who argue that the Christian Western world will always consider itself
superior and apart from the Muslim one.
It would, as the provost of Istanbul’s Bahcesehir university, Eser
Karakas, told me, make clear that Europe has no interest in becoming
the great power that Turkey could help make it with its large population
and army, able to play an influential role in West Asia, Central Asia
and the Caucasus, and not being subordinated always to US policies.
Yet if there are no good reasons for a “no”, there are reasons
for caution. Moreover, now that Angela Merkel looks poised to become
the next German chancellor, with her view that Turkey should only be
granted “a privileged partnership”, not full membership, Europe
will be compelled to slow down and think hard about Turkey.
Turkey is still too much muddling through to modernity. For two centuries
it has been creating a middle class that belatedly has been trying to
absorb the wisdom and philosophy of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment.
But still, for a majority Turkey’s inheritance remains the Ottoman
Empire, which, unlike the Arab caliphates of the 8th to 11th centuries,
did not push forward the frontiers of knowledge, despite its military
prowess.
The tensions between these two worlds are what still make it difficult
for Turkey to be as European as its present-day rulers want. Turkey
is still catching up and on important issues this shows.
When I was negotiating last week to interview Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, I was repeatedly told by his closest staff, “This interview
will be on condition you promise not to ask about the Kurdish situation.”
But since it is Turkey’s long-standing brutal, civil war with its
20 million Kurds that has done more than anything to keep Turkey waiting
at Europe’s gate for so long, this is an old fashioned, authoritarian
reflex.
The fact is that the reason that the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party)
and its 7,000 fighters up in the mountains of the southeast began fighting
again this year, breaking a five year truce, is that Ankara has not
delivered on its promises to the Kurds.
It promised free broadcasting in Kurdish and education in Kurdish. Yes,
there are now Kurdish newspapers for sale on the streets, there is some
Kurdish music on the radio, there has been an attempt to open private
academies to teach Kurdish, but the sum of it doesn’t begin to
compare with the freedoms the Welsh have in the UK or the Basques in
Spain.
There is no free broadcasting in Kurdish nor Kurdish in the primary
schools.
The promised reforms have not been pushed through an unwilling bureaucracy
and this is why when the prime minister made his conciliatory, landmark,
speech in Diyarbakir, the Kurdish "capital”, a month ago,
the crowd was a desultory 600.
To refuse to discuss this subject out loud and to pretend all is well
suggests that Mr Erdogan believes that sweeping unresolved problems
under the carpet for the next three weeks will some how make this serious
failing just disappear off the European agenda.
Turkey is still not capable of generating for itself all the essential
ingredients of a modern, democratic state. It has only made the rapid
strides of the last five years to reform its human rights practices,
its judiciary and police, and the ubiquitous and powerful role of the
army in political affairs, because the EU dangled the carrot of entry
before it.
Turkey, eighty years after Ataturk pointed its nose in the direction
of Europe, is still lacking in original thinking. All new ideas and
high culture come from the West. The liberal, open, law-abiding, state
is not yet a basic instinct.
Islam has a better historical record of religious tolerance than either
Christianity or Judaism. But modern Turkey has been the exception. In
1945 Ataturk’s successor, Inonu, dispossessed and encouraged Jews
to leave. And 10 years later the large, Greek Christian community began
to be driven out. Even today the Byzantine churches largely remain state-run
museums.
There is precious little trace of the fact that for 1,100 years Constantinople
was the centre of the Christian world. On 3 October, “yes”
would be consistent with previous EU promises. It must, however, be
a “yes, but”. There cannot be promises about an entry date.
It should be probably a generation away. 
2. - Reuters - "Turkish Parliament To Hold Special Session On Kurdish Unrest":
ANKARA / 15 September 2005
Turkey's parliament will hold an extraordinary session next Monday to debate 'terrorism', the assembly's speaker Bulent Arinc said on Thursday.
The decision followed a request by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which has expressed concern about an upsurge in attacks by Kurdish rebels on security forces and over counter-demonstrations by Turkish nationalists.
"Parliament has been called to meet on Monday at 1500 (1300 GMT) to discuss the proposal by the CHP," Arinc said in a written statement.
Parliament formally reconvenes on Oct. 1 after its summer recess, two days before Turkey begins historic entry talks with the European Union.
Opposition leader Deniz Baykal said this week there was an "increasingly intense atmosphere of violence" in the country.
In several towns and cities in recent weeks, Turkish nationalists
have clashed with supporters of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
demanding the release of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.
3. - Anadolu Agency - "ECHR Charges Turkey to Pay Damages for 'Extrajudicial Execution'":
15 September 2005
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as a result of a joint application regarding an accusation of extrajudicial execution in Kucukdikili town of Adana, ruled that Turkey must pay a fine.
Turkey will pay 82,000 euros for damages including court expenses to eight people. Hamiyet Kaplan, Besir Bayram, Suphiye Altun, Fatma Kaya, Halil Altun, Naciye Kavak, Sabri Altun and Azize Altun have claimed that their close relatives Omer Bayram and Ridvan Altun were subject to extrajudicial execution by security forces in Adana on 8 August 1996 and had appealed to the ECHR.
Turkey, in the trials, claimed that these people lost their lives in a fight with ilegal organization. Omer Bayram and his two children Berivan and Dilan were killed in a roundup conducted in Bayram's house in August 1996.
Bayram's relative Altun who was brought to Bayram's house
when he was under custody and Abdurrahman Sarli who was claimed to have
engaged in a battle against the police were also among those who died.
4. - Ozgur Gundem - "US threatens Kurds":
12 September 2005
During a tour of the Kurdish area in Turkey a delegation
from the US consulate in Adana made the purpose of their visit very
clear: the Kurdish population must be kept well away from Ocalan and
the PKK.
In Batman the delegation, led by Walter Scott Read, met with representatives
of the Movement for a Democratic Society (DTH). During this meeting
it was clearly indicated to the DTH representatives that the movement
would be marginalised unless it distanced itself from Ocalan and the
PKK.
And yesterday Nancy McEldowley, representing the US embassy at an 11
September commemoration service in Ankara, said in a speech that there
was no difference between Al Qaida and the PKK or between Ocalan and
Osama Bin Laden. “Turkey and the United State’s joint battle
will continue. There will be no areas for them to retreat where Turkey
and the US cannot go. Together we shall hunt the terrorists and destroy
them.”
While US representatives in Turkey were hounding the PKK,
Turkish Foreign Minister Gul was meeting his opposite number Condoleeza
Rice in New York in order to discuss the battle against the PKK. Prime
Minister Erdogan will also be in New York tomorrow for the UN summit,
and has already announced that he will make the fight against the PKK
a central topic in his discussions with President Bush and President
Talabani of Iraq.
5. - The Guardian - "Turkey dominates German election":
BERLIN / 16 September 2005 / by Luke Harding
A row over Turkey's application to join the European Union
dominated Germany's election campaign yesterday, with the foreign minister,
Joschka Fischer, describing the conservatives' policy on Turkey as "dangerous,
blind and irresponsible".
Interviewed in the mass-circulation Bild newspaper, Mr Fischer said
Angela Merkel's opposition to Turkish membership of the EU showed her
"lack of sure-footedness" on foreign policy. "The question
whether Islam and democracy, open society, women's rights, a modern
economy and a free media can be combined is of decisive importance for
our security in the 21st century," Mr Fischer said.
Joining the EU was a "long process", he added.
It would take at least 10 to 15 years before a "Europe-capable"
Turkey emerged, he said.
Mrs Merkel has made it clear that she rejects Turkish accession - and
is instead only prepared to offer Ankara a limited "privileged
partnership". The topic has so far played only a minor role in
her election campaign, which has seen her large opinion poll lead melt
away and has been dominated by a row over Mrs Merkel's shadow finance
minister, Paul Kirchhof.
Yesterday, however, she won support for her Turkey policy from an unlikely source - Germany's former Social Democrat chancellor Helmut Schmidt. In an interview with the liberal weekly Die Zeit, Mr Schmidt said he agreed with Mrs Merkel completely on the issue, adding that it was nonsense to suggest Turkey could ever join the EU. He added: "The Turks belong to a completely different cultural domain from us. Economic cooperation, yes, customs union, yes, but no freedom of movement for population excesses that arise in Turkey."
With Sunday's election too close to call, attention is turning to the role played by the half a million Germans of Turkish origin eligible to vote. Traditionally they have voted for Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats. Recently, though, they have been angered by welfare and unemployment reforms that have seen benefits cut.
On Wednesday Mr Schröder dropped in to Germany's biggest Turkish-language newspaper. The visit earned him a rebuke yesterday from Roland Koch, a leading conservative and the state governor in Hesse. "The chancellor is using the memories of former Turkish citizens of their old homeland as campaign ammunition. He should be ashamed of himself."
The majority of citizens in Europe shared Mrs Merkel's
scepticism over Turkey, he said. Opinion polls still show her as favourite
to become the first woman chancellor next week. But she may be forced
into a grand coalition with the Social Democrats if she fails to win
an outright majority. The last two surveys also suggest she has no more
than an even chance of heading a centre-right coalition government with
her party's traditional ally, the liberal Free Democrats.
6. - Daily Star - "For Kurds, sovereignty easily beats out the Iraqi constitution":
IRBIL / 15 September 2005 / by Bashdar Ismaeel*
After many long weeks of squabbling and protracted negotiations between
Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, the draft Iraqi constitution was finally
delivered in late August amid controversy and pessimism. On Tuesday,
negotiators approved a final document, with some modifications on the
original, to be officially presented to the United Nations for distribution.
For the Kurds, the constitutional negotiations were as delicate as they were historic. Kurds had made their demands clear even before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, advocating a constitution based on a voluntary union between Arabs and Kurds, with Kurds as prominent partners in the new Iraq. However, though the draft was passed by the Kurdish[Kurdistan] Parliament with some reservations, the question of whether this will tie Kurds to the new Iraqi political structure in the long term is greatly doubtful.
To be sure, winning Kurdish trust in and cooperation with a new Iraq is a thankless task. The lives of Kurds have been too often tainted with tales of repression and suffering. For them, the constitution was a chance to reverse their turbulent experiences as part of the Iraqi state. Most Kurds advocate outright independence, as was made abundantly clear in the unofficial referendum held alongside the Iraqi elections earlier this year. Yet Kurds also feel they have been forcibly deprived of this goal.
The fortunes of the Iraqi Kurds spectacularly changed in the aftermath of the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, when a massive humanitarian crisis pushed the United States into creating a northern Iraqi safe haven protected by daily air patrols. The Kurds, finally free from Saddam's totalitarian grasp, were able to create for the first time a de facto independent state with economic, political and social freedoms. After that, Iraq's three northernmost provinces controlled by Kurds prospered while the rest of the country, under United Nations sanctions, fell behind. Today, the Kurdish enclave is a world away from rest of Iraq: the Kurdistan flag is ubiquitous and Kurdish forces ensure stability and security.
The result of those many years of autonomy is a highly skeptical nation that, in practice, probably lacks enthusiasm for the successful implementation of any constitution, even one replete with cast-iron guarantees. On paper, the Kurds are rejoining the Iraqi nation as equal partners; but in reality true reconciliation between Arabs and Kurds will be a difficult if not impossible task, giving the contending views of their own destiny and their difficult coexistence to date.
For example, the new Kurdish generation seldom speaks Arabic, with English commonly adopted as a second language. Crucially, although raised in an environment free from dictatorial rule, younger Kurds have been frequently reminded by an older and wiser generation about the harsh experiences under Arab dominated rule.
The common feeling among Kurds is that they may be the only party at the negotiating table making major concessions in the new Iraq. Kurdish anxiety was illustrated by the mass demonstrations directed against the Iraqi constitution, from Zakho to Khaniqin in the north. Kurds remain ever eager to affirm their cultural and ethnic differences with Arabs. They are wary of a future Arab backlash once American forces leave, and of having an Iranian style theocracy hoisted on them by the Shiite majority.
Mindful of the strong and at times bitter feeling among their population, Kurdish politicians drove a hard bargain in the constitutional drafting process and refused to budge on certain "red lines" which they saw as their minimal legitimate rights. Ultimately, however, they did water down some of their demands under intense American pressure. A key Kurdish and Shiite stipulation, however, was federalism - adopted against the wishes of the Sunni community, which fears this will lead to the breakup of Iraq. The draft constitution submitted this week did very little to satisfy Sunni demands for a modification of the clauses on federalism.
In reality, strong federalism and a weak central government may already be a reality in Iraq. The Kurds were adamant in the negotiations to obtain a lion's share of oil resources, the return of Kirkuk as part of an expanded Kurdish-administered region, and the preservation of their militia force, the Peshmerga. With the Kurds controlling their own Parliament and independent judicial system, no law from Baghdad can be passed against the wishes of the Kurdish nation. These conditions were designed to ensure that Kurds would never again be neglected by a strong Iraqi central government, but also to allow them to become economically self-sufficient and socially and politically free, as well as able to defend themselves against possible repression.
Even with the new rights offered Kurds in the draft constitution, winning over the Kurdish population to the document will not be easy. A prosperous and pluralist Iraq with Kurds as major players is not unimaginable; but many years will be needed before Kurds feel they are truly part of an Iraqi nation. Many do not have the patience to wait that long. It is also conceivable that federalism may not be a long-term solution, with Kurds believing that secession is now only a matter of time.
To Kurds, who dream of a greater Kurdistan covering parts of Iran, Turkey and Syria, even a sizable and independent state in Iraq may not be sufficient in quelling their dreams. In that context, what sway will the draft Iraq constitution have, particularly as many Kurds feel they were forced to accept concessions? As far as Kurds are concerned, they did not choose to become a part of the Iraqi nation when it was formed, and therefore they see no reason why they should accept a national arrangement that does not serve their purposes. This attitude is only exacerbated by a broad feeling in Iraq that the breakup of the country may be only a question of time, whether voluntarily or through an increasingly likely civil war.
* Bashdar Ismaeel is a freelance writer on Middle Eastern politics who lives in the United Kingdom. From Irbil, he wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.