19 May 2006

1. "Greek President Warns Turkey To Respect Kurdish Rights", Greek President Carolos Papoulia warned Turkey on Wednesday that it must respect human rights, notably those of the Kurds, if it wants closer ties with the European Union.

2. "Turkey Ordered To Speed Up Reforms", Brussels has warned Turkey that it will suspend EU membership talks unless it stops backsliding on reforms needed to meet European standards. There is concern in European capitals that Turkey has been giving up on human rights and democracy reforms as growing nationalism and disillusion with Europe sweep the country.

3. "HRW: No Excuse for Attack on Judges", court decision to ban headscarf cannot justify murder says international rights group Human Rights Watch upon the killing of a Turkish State Council judge and wounding of four others who had decided to ban headscarf in state offices.

4. "'Genocide' debate angers Turkey", a controversial vote in the French parliament has been called off, averting a diplomatic crisis with Turkey, at least temporarily.

5. "Turkish village guard killed in clash with PKK members", a village guard was killed in a clash with outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) members in the southeastern Turkish province of Mardin, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported on Friday.

6. "Iraq Kurds accuse Turkey of shelling border village", an official in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish regional government accused Turkish troops of shelling a village close to the common border Wednesday without causing casualties.

1. - AFP - "Greek President Warns Turkey To Respect Kurdish Rights":

STRASBOURG / 17 May 2006

Greek President Carolos Papoulia warned Turkey on Wednesday that it must respect human rights, notably those of the Kurds, if it wants closer ties with the European Union.

"I don't think that Turkey will be able to have closer ties with the EU by violating fundamental rights; this is true for the Kurds but not them alone," he said in a speech at the European Parliament.

"These are problems that are the responsibility of the Turkish government," he said, adding that the EU has "laid out a framework of principles within which Turkey must operate."

Turkey was accepted in October as a candidate to join the EU but no guarantee was given that it will be made a member once it has undertaken reform to bring into line with the bloc, a process likely to take more than a decade.

The EU has long pressed Ankara to grant equal cultural freedoms to its large Kurdish minority -- estimated at about 12 million people -- as well as smaller, non-Muslim communities of Greeks, Armenians and Jews.

2. - Times Online - "Turkey Ordered To Speed Up Reforms":

BRUSSELS / 18 May 2006

BRUSSELS has warned Turkey that it will suspend EU membership talks unless it stops backsliding on reforms needed to meet European standards. There is concern in European capitals that Turkey has been giving up on human rights and democracy reforms as growing nationalism and disillusion with Europe sweep the country.

Advocates of Turkey’s membership are alarmed that the euphoria surrounding the historic start of entry talks in October has given way to a mood of mutual suspicion.

Olli Rehn, the Enlargement Commissioner, said: “It is necessary that the Turkish Government takes immediate action to restart the momentum of the reforms in the country,” otherwise there could be a “train crash” in membership talks. “That is the best and only way to avoid a recess later on this year in the negotiations between the EU and Turkey,” he said.

The EU’s most immediate priority is that Turkey opens its ports and airports to planes and boats from Cyprus. Turkey, which has 35,000 troops on the island, was allowed to start membership talks only after promising to lift the blockade. But it has since said that it will only do so in return for concessions from the Cypriot Government.

The talks have already stumbled over French demands that human rights must be considered throughout the talks, rather than separately at the end.

Despite earlier reforms promoting freedom of speech, the Government has started clamping down again, and moves to improve the lot of minorities have given way to an upsurge in violence between police and Kurdish separatists in which more than a dozen have died.

SECULAR LAW

Islamic headscarves, robes or beards may not be worn in state-run buildings, including universities, parliament and public offices

Graduates of Koranic schools are effectively denied higher education because they have to achieve higher marks than other students in entry examinations

Every year military schools expel students they believe to be overly religious.

The National Security Council of top politicians and generals must approve the list of expulsions, but the Prime Minister, who is powerless to stop this, always makes a note of his reservations

Religious Muslim marriages are illegal. Only civil unions are recognised although devout Muslims often have an additional religious ceremony. Some have only a religious ceremony and are officially regarded as adulterers.

3. - Bianet - "HRW: No Excuse for Attack on Judges":

Court decision to ban headscarf cannot justify murder says international rights group Human Rights Watch upon the killing of a Turkish State Council judge and wounding of four others who had decided to ban headscarf in state offices.

NEW YORK / 18 May 2006 / Human Rights Watch

Wednesday attack on judges at Turkey's highest administrative court cannot be justified by opposition to Turkey's ban on headscarves, Human Rights Watch says in a public statement.

Judge Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin of the Second Chamber of the Council of State (administrative appeal court) was killed in the attack, and four other judges were wounded. The gunman, arrested near the scene, is reported to have carried out the attack "in revenge" for a controversial decision by the chamber in October 2005 that upheld the city governor's refusal to promote a teacher seen wearing a headscarf while off-duty.

"We utterly condemn this attack on Turkey's highest court - there is no justification for such a murder," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Turkey's ban on headscarves clearly infringes upon women's right to religious freedom, but violent attacks against civilian authorities are a grave violation of rights, not a defence of them."

Background

Civil servants, students and staff at private and state universities and schools, medical staff and members of parliament are forbidden from wearing the tightly fitting headscarf on the grounds that it would be a breach of constitutional secularism. The ban dates back at least to the 1960s, but since 1997 the Turkish Army has required successive governments to implement it with increasing vigour.

In theory, the ban only applies to people on state premises or in state-controlled businesses, but recent court decisions have upheld penalties imposed on civil servants who wear the headscarf in their private life.

On October 26, 2005, the Second Chamber of the Council of State upheld a ruling by Ankara Administrative Court No. 6. It ruled that the Ankara governorate had been justified in refusing teacher Aytaç Kilinç's promotion to the post of director of the Bayrak Nursery School, at Gölbasi, near Ankara, because she wore a headscarf on her way to and from school. The Council of State made reference to the secular order imposed by the Turkish constitution and stated that education should be "kept at a distance from dogma and influences that run counter to science."

Human Rights Watch opposes the headscarf ban, as well as enforced veiling, and considers both to be discriminatory infringements of women's freedom of expression and religion, as well as of their right to education.

Opposition to the headscarf ban in Turkey has, for the most part, been mounted by resolutely non-violent individuals and civil society groups who have used the courts, the media and intergovernmental organizations to raise their concerns. However, certain violent groups and organizations have carried out attacks on civilians allegedly in the name of opposition to the headscarf ban.

In October 1990, professor Bahriye Üçok, an outspoken critic of the then-tolerant attitude shown by universities to students wearing the headscarf, was killed by a mailbomb. In 2001, professor Zekeriya Beyaz barely survived being stabbed by a male student during an argument over the headscarf issue in a classroom at Marmara University in Istanbul.

4. - BBC - "'Genocide' debate angers Turkey":

ISTANBUL / 19 May 2006 / by Sarah Rainsford

A controversial vote in the French parliament has been called off, averting a diplomatic crisis with Turkey, at least temporarily.

The French National Assembly was due to vote on a bill put forward by the opposition Socialists that would make it illegal to deny what France already recognises as the Armenian genocide of 1915.

The bill recommends up to five years in jail for offenders and fines of up to 45,000 euros (£30,600).

The proposal provoked fury in Turkey, which roundly refutes claims that Armenians were systematically massacred during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million people were killed in what is now eastern Turkey, and campaign fiercely around the world for Ankara to recognise what Armenia calls the first genocide of the 20th Century.

Turkey says a few hundred thousand died in a war which also left many Turks dead.

Ankara mounted its own campaign against the French bill - and many here will see the stalled vote as at least partial victory.

In a sign of its significance for Turkey, almost the entire debate in France was carried live on two private television channels.

Political concern

Ahead of the session, Ankara had warned Paris of serious repercussions should the bill pass.

Earlier this month, Turkey's ambassador to Paris was recalled for urgent consultations; the prime minister called a meeting of key French businesses here and warned of possible sanctions; a delegation of Turkish MPs descended on Paris, to warn that the bill was a violation of free speech and a threat to bilateral relations.

There have been street protests here too, partly fuelled by a feeling some in France are using the genocide issue as just another stick to beat Turkey with.

On Wednesday, nationalists laid a black wreath outside the French consulate in Istanbul and shouted their anger at the proposed law.

"Your faces will be darker than this when history reveals the truth!" one protestor yelled, as others denounced the bill as slander.

In the event, the French debate started late and did not finish - so the crucial vote has been postponed until autumn at the earliest.

But with encouraging implications for Ankara, the French foreign minister voiced his strong opposition to the proposal.

Philippe Douste-Blazy said passing the genocide denial bill would be seen as "an unfriendly gesture by the vast majority of Turkish people". He warned that would have serious political consequences.

Historians' challenge

In response, Turkey's foreign ministry issued a statement saying it does not expect to see the bill returned to parliament ever again.

Increasingly under fire from abroad on this issue, Turkey argues that history should be left to the historians. It has asked Paris to support its recent proposal to establish a joint Turkish-Armenian commission to investigate the Ottoman archives.

Critics say all meaningful evidence has long since been destroyed, and question the professed openness of Turkish state historians to a full academic examination of the past.

But the long taboo on discussing the events of 1915 has been broken.

Last year an academic conference challenged the official history for the first time. It was highly controversial, and one of the organisers is still facing related criminal charges.

Murat Belge accepts that the controversy over his conference has only hardened some minds even further. But he senses others have been prompted to reconsider the facts they were fed in school - a process he believes is crucial.

"When such a thing is denied, the dead are not buried. And when they are not buried you have ghosts going round, rattling their chains," Mr Belge argues.

"You cannot make the whole thing disappear by denying it. It is transformed into other shapes, but they keep on haunting you."

But in the street cafes of French Street in the heart of European Istanbul - where the smell of coffee wafts across the cobbles - there is little sign of a new attitude.

If anything, it seems the row with France has only hardened proud hearts here.

"I can't understand why this kind of vote is necessary," Duyugu frowns. "This kind of thing is empty for us, because I can't believe there was a genocide."

"We all studied history," her friend Ayse interrupts. "We know no such thing happened in this land. I really don't know why the French are dealing with this so much. Do they really have so much spare time?"

5. - Xinhua - "Turkish village guard killed in clash with PKK members":

19 May 2006

A village guard was killed in a clash with outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) members in the southeastern Turkish province of Mardin, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported on Friday.

The clash between Turkish security forces and PKK members erupted in Nusaybin town of Mardin, in which Salahattin Akinci, village guard, was killed.

Operations were underway in the region, the report said.

Clashes between the PKK and Turkish security forces have increased markedly in recent months since the group called off a unilateral ceasefire in 2004.

The Turkish army has amassed in southeastern region to crack down on the PKK, whose members are believed to infiltrate into Turkey from their bases in northern Iraq.

The PKK launched an armed campaign against the Turkish government for an independent state in southeastern Turkey in 1984.

6. - AFP - "Iraq Kurds accuse Turkey of shelling border village":

BAGHDAD / 17 May 2006

An official in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish regional government accused Turkish troops of shelling a village close to the common border Wednesday without causing casualties.

"This afternoon Turkish artillery hit the Kurdish village of Kafr Shur in the Kanimasi area near the borders of Iran, Iraq and Turkey," the official said, adding that three shells struck the village.

Turkey has long reserved the right to send troops into northern Iraq on hot pursuit operations against Kurdish rebels it says operate rear bases in the region.

But since the US-led invasion of 2003, it has not repeated the sort of cross-border operations it conducted when the region was administered by Iraqi Kurdish rebels in defiance of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Turkey has criticised its US ally for not doing more to rein in the activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the border area.

Blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States as well as Turkey, the PKK has been fighting Turkish troops for self-rule in the southeast of the country since 1984.