Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Turkey's Kurds Guns and votes / Pre-election tension is rising among the Kurds of Turkey's south-east
A GOLD-PLATED pistol in one hand, worry beads in the other, Hazim Babat sits at the foot of the mountain range that separates Turkey from Iraq and contemplates war. He is the chieftain of the Babat clan, which is fighting alongside the Turkish armed forces against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) separatist guerrillas.
For years the Babats hunted PKK militants in Iraq with the help of Peshmerga warriors from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) from northern Iraq, led by Massoud Barzani. “The PKK slaughtered our women, our babies, they are going to pay the price,” vows Mr Babat.
But times have changed and the Kurds are beginning to unite, wherever they live. Nowhere is this truer than in northern Iraq where, with American support, as many as 4m Kurds have come closer to achieving full-blown independence than ever before. Mr Barzani, who runs the Kurdish-controlled enclave, declares that the days of Kurdish fratricide are over. He refuses to let Turkish soldiers overrun his territory in order to attack the PKK. “Turkey's real problem”, Mr Barzani opined recently, “is that the Kurds exist at all.”
Despite its repeated calls for cross-border action against the PKK, the army's real target may be the quasi-independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq. The generals see an independent Kurdish state as an existential threat because it would stoke separatist passions among Turkey's 14m-odd Kurds. They are “willing to prevent its emergence no matter the price”, asserts Ibrahim Guclu, a veteran Kurdish politician. “Yet the harder they push, the closer together they drive the Iraqi and Turkish Kurds,” he adds.
Mindful of America's opposition and of Kurdish votes, Turkey's mildly Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has ruled out any incursion, at least before the general election on July 22nd. Yet Turkish forces continue to mass along the Iraqi border. The beefed-up army presence is palpable in Sirnak, one of three border provinces in which no-go “security zones” have been declared. Turkish soldiers in armoured personnel-carriers point guns at passers-by. Attack helicopters clatter overhead. In the regional capital of Diyarbakir, your correspondent counted no fewer than nine F-16 fighter jets screeching towards Sirnak within the space of 20 minutes. The PKK is hitting back, murdering soldiers and civilians alike.
Ayla Akat, a human-rights lawyer who is standing for election in Batman for the pro-Kurdish Democratic Turkey Party (DTP), concedes that the violence is fuelling anti-Kurdish feelings throughout Turkey. She points to the attempted lynching this month of two Kurdish seasonal workers in the western province of Sakarya. Yet if the government were to accept the PKK's demands to ease restrictions on the Kurdish language, offer amnesty to PKK fighters and allow their leaders to seek asylum in Europe, “the Kurdish problem would be solved”, she says. “Is anyone talking about independence?”
In 2005, emboldened by the European Union's decision to open membership talks, Mr Erdogan explored a possible deal that would accommodate the Iraqi Kurds too. But he was forced to back off under pressure from the army. In the same year Mr Erdogan became the first Turkish leader ever to admit that the state had made “mistakes” in dealing with the Kurds. His words cemented his Justice and Development (AK) Party, whose Islamic credentials play well with millions of pious Kurds, as the DTP's main rival in the south-east.
“My people are going to vote for Erdogan because he wants the European Union, and EU membership is the panacea for separatism,” says Cemil Oter, a tribal leader who has lost 40 men to the PKK. But hopes of membership are fading as EU bigwigs, led by France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, lobby against Turkish entry. EU-inspired reforms that helped to win Turkey its prized date for membership talks are being quietly rolled back.
The effects are being felt in Diyarbakir, where a local mayor and his entire council were barred from office last week for using Kurdish as well as Turkish to communicate with their constituents. Abdullah Demirbas had already annoyed the authorities by erecting a monument in memory of Ahmet Kaymaz, a Kurdish lorry driver, and his 12-year-old son, who were gunned down outside their home in the town of Kiziltepe in 2004 on the grounds that they were “terrorists”.
All four members of the special forces who were implicated in the killings were exonerated by a court in April, proving that “there is rarely justice for the Kurds”, says Tahir Elci, a lawyer who defended the Kaymaz family. Mr Elci is now facing up to three years in prison for criticising the court. Meanwhile, reports of torture have risen sharply, because new regulations allow detainees to be denied access to a lawyer during the first 24 hours of interrogation by police.
All these things help to swell PKK ranks. The trouble is that the rebels' new tactics—setting off landmines and planting explosives—have caught the army off guard. Abdullah Gul, the Turkish foreign minister, revealed last week that security forces seized two tonnes of plastic explosives smuggled by the PKK from Iraq in 2006 alone. Mr Gul said that “making compromises over democracy in the name of fighting terrorism” was “a trap that should not be contemplated”. But with each Turkish soldier killed fighting the PKK, Turks' enthusiasm for democracy, and for the EU, gets harder to preserve.
For years the Babats hunted PKK militants in Iraq with the help of Peshmerga warriors from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) from northern Iraq, led by Massoud Barzani. “The PKK slaughtered our women, our babies, they are going to pay the price,” vows Mr Babat.
But times have changed and the Kurds are beginning to unite, wherever they live. Nowhere is this truer than in northern Iraq where, with American support, as many as 4m Kurds have come closer to achieving full-blown independence than ever before. Mr Barzani, who runs the Kurdish-controlled enclave, declares that the days of Kurdish fratricide are over. He refuses to let Turkish soldiers overrun his territory in order to attack the PKK. “Turkey's real problem”, Mr Barzani opined recently, “is that the Kurds exist at all.”
Despite its repeated calls for cross-border action against the PKK, the army's real target may be the quasi-independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq. The generals see an independent Kurdish state as an existential threat because it would stoke separatist passions among Turkey's 14m-odd Kurds. They are “willing to prevent its emergence no matter the price”, asserts Ibrahim Guclu, a veteran Kurdish politician. “Yet the harder they push, the closer together they drive the Iraqi and Turkish Kurds,” he adds.
Mindful of America's opposition and of Kurdish votes, Turkey's mildly Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has ruled out any incursion, at least before the general election on July 22nd. Yet Turkish forces continue to mass along the Iraqi border. The beefed-up army presence is palpable in Sirnak, one of three border provinces in which no-go “security zones” have been declared. Turkish soldiers in armoured personnel-carriers point guns at passers-by. Attack helicopters clatter overhead. In the regional capital of Diyarbakir, your correspondent counted no fewer than nine F-16 fighter jets screeching towards Sirnak within the space of 20 minutes. The PKK is hitting back, murdering soldiers and civilians alike.
Ayla Akat, a human-rights lawyer who is standing for election in Batman for the pro-Kurdish Democratic Turkey Party (DTP), concedes that the violence is fuelling anti-Kurdish feelings throughout Turkey. She points to the attempted lynching this month of two Kurdish seasonal workers in the western province of Sakarya. Yet if the government were to accept the PKK's demands to ease restrictions on the Kurdish language, offer amnesty to PKK fighters and allow their leaders to seek asylum in Europe, “the Kurdish problem would be solved”, she says. “Is anyone talking about independence?”
In 2005, emboldened by the European Union's decision to open membership talks, Mr Erdogan explored a possible deal that would accommodate the Iraqi Kurds too. But he was forced to back off under pressure from the army. In the same year Mr Erdogan became the first Turkish leader ever to admit that the state had made “mistakes” in dealing with the Kurds. His words cemented his Justice and Development (AK) Party, whose Islamic credentials play well with millions of pious Kurds, as the DTP's main rival in the south-east.
“My people are going to vote for Erdogan because he wants the European Union, and EU membership is the panacea for separatism,” says Cemil Oter, a tribal leader who has lost 40 men to the PKK. But hopes of membership are fading as EU bigwigs, led by France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, lobby against Turkish entry. EU-inspired reforms that helped to win Turkey its prized date for membership talks are being quietly rolled back.
The effects are being felt in Diyarbakir, where a local mayor and his entire council were barred from office last week for using Kurdish as well as Turkish to communicate with their constituents. Abdullah Demirbas had already annoyed the authorities by erecting a monument in memory of Ahmet Kaymaz, a Kurdish lorry driver, and his 12-year-old son, who were gunned down outside their home in the town of Kiziltepe in 2004 on the grounds that they were “terrorists”.
All four members of the special forces who were implicated in the killings were exonerated by a court in April, proving that “there is rarely justice for the Kurds”, says Tahir Elci, a lawyer who defended the Kaymaz family. Mr Elci is now facing up to three years in prison for criticising the court. Meanwhile, reports of torture have risen sharply, because new regulations allow detainees to be denied access to a lawyer during the first 24 hours of interrogation by police.
All these things help to swell PKK ranks. The trouble is that the rebels' new tactics—setting off landmines and planting explosives—have caught the army off guard. Abdullah Gul, the Turkish foreign minister, revealed last week that security forces seized two tonnes of plastic explosives smuggled by the PKK from Iraq in 2006 alone. Mr Gul said that “making compromises over democracy in the name of fighting terrorism” was “a trap that should not be contemplated”. But with each Turkish soldier killed fighting the PKK, Turks' enthusiasm for democracy, and for the EU, gets harder to preserve.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Election fever / The election campaign in Turkey begins in a febrile atmosphere
UNTIL a few weeks ago, Mehmet Simsek, a British-educated economist, earned a six-figure salary as a banker in London. But he has dropped all that to run as a parliamentary candidate for the ruling AK Party in Gaziantep, which borders Syria. He is standing “because I want to serve my country,” he says.
Born into grinding poverty in Batman, a mainly Kurdish town, Mr Simsek did not speak Turkish until he was six. Yet he then clawed his way to success. He is the poster boy of the 150 new candidates whom the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is fielding in the July 22nd election. His presence thins out the religious firebrands within the mildly Islamist AK ranks.
Turkey's meddlesome generals are not impressed. Having hinted at a possible coup in late April, they remain eager to stop Mr Erdogan returning to power alone. Indeed, in some ways, the contest is now between AK and the army. “The military hates AK, and that's the foundation of everything,” says one Western diplomat. But opinion polls suggest that Mr Erdogan's party may do better than the 34% it took in the 2002 election.
The secularist opposition is fragmented. A planned merger of the conservative True Path Party with the centre-right Motherland Party collapsed amid bickering over numbers of candidates from each side. A survey commissioned by AK suggests that the main secularist CHP opposition party may get 22%; and the ultra-nationalist MHP, 11%.
At least 30 candidates from the pro-Kurdish DTP are also expected to win seats; the Kurds have fielded 40 independents to get round the minimum 10% threshold for parties to have parliamentary representation. No other party is likely to get in, so AK might well be able again to form a government alone, says a top party official. “That is, if the elections take place at all,” he adds gloomily.
Yet Armagan Kuloglu, a retired air-force general, insists that, as long as AK picks a “reasonable” presidential candidate (meaning one whose wife does not wear an Islamic headscarf) to replace Ahmet Necdet Sezer, things will return to normal. It was Mr Erdogan's nomination of his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul (whose wife wears the headscarf) to succeed Mr Sezer that prompted the generals' threat to intervene on April 27th. A defiant AK responded by ramming through a law to allow a direct election of the president. This law was quashed by Mr Sezer. Few believe it will get past the constitutional court, which extraordinarily ruled invalid parliament's attempt to elect Mr Gul.
Some even fear that the court may now be tempted to launch proceedings to ban AK on the grounds that it is steering Turkey towards religious rule. For the time being, though, the opposition's strategy is to play on mounting public fury in the face of stepped-up PKK rebel attacks that have claimed the lives of dozens of Turkish soldiers in recent months.
On June 8th the army exhorted the Turkish public to exert its “popular reflexes” to counter terrorist threats. The call posted on the general staff website was seen by some as an invitation to attack the Kurds. This forced the generals to explain that they wanted the national resolve to be expressed through strictly peaceful means.
Meanwhile, Mr Erdogan is resisting pressure to order a cross-border operation against PKK bases in northern Iraq. This has enabled his critics to portray him as an American stooge. Crowds at the recent spate of funerals of Turkish soldiers killed in battle have taken to booing Mr Erdogan and any cabinet members who dare to show up. Mr Simsek may soon be yearning for his cushy London life again.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Turkey and northern Iraq: To go or not to go
ON JUNE 6th a premature report of a big Turkish invasion of northern Iraq rocked markets. Certainly thousands of Turkish troops, backed by tanks and artillery, have massed for a possible offensive against Kurdish PKK rebels in Iraq. Martial law has been declared in three of Turkey's Kurdish provinces. This follows rising violence against soldiers in Turkey. On June 4th seven Turkish soldiers died when Kurdish rebels raided an outpost in the province of Tunceli. In May six civilians were killed by a suspected PKK suicide-bomber in Ankara.
All this increases the pressure on Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to strike the PKK in its mountain strongholds in Iraq. General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the general staff, has called a putative cross-border incursion “necessary” and “useful”. Deniz Baykal, the main opposition leader, is in favour.
But the American defence secretary, Robert Gates, said this week that the United States was squarely opposed to unilateral Turkish action, which would destabilise the only calmish bit of Iraq. The Americans would prefer the Turks to use the Iraqi Kurds to help them make peace with the PKK. The PKK itself wants to draw more Turkish forces into Iraq (the Turks have kept some 1,000 soldiers there since an incursion in the 1990s) because, as a source suggests, “this could provoke armed confrontation between Turkey and America.” It would also upset the European Union.
A few days before this week's alleged invasion, two American fighter jets had strayed from Iraq into Turkish airspace. The Americans said this was an “accident”, but some Turks saw a warning that America might side with the Kurds against them. Yet most Americans acknowledge that their refusal to heed Turkish calls to attack the PKK is now the main cause of rampant anti-Americanism in Turkey. Catching a few PKK ringleaders could improve matters.
The Iraqi Kurds are unwilling to co-operate mainly because they see the PKK as a bargaining chip to get the Turks to recognise their quasi-independent status in Iraq. The Turks are against a referendum in Kirkuk this December that might lead it to join the Kurdish region.
Massoud Barzani, the Iraqi Kurdish leader, threatens trouble in Turkey's mostly Kurdish south-eastern provinces, where his popularity is now starting to rival that of the captured PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan. Most Iraqi Kurds consider their quasi-independent state as the real target of any Turkish incursion. But after two decades of battle, some 16 cross-border incursions and 40,000 dead, Turkey's leaders, military and civilian alike, know that force alone cannot solve Turkey's Kurdish problem.
The generals may have another reason for sabre-rattling. By insisting on government approval to strike in Iraq, they are shifting the blame for the violence to the Americans and the Iraqi Kurds—and to Mr Erdogan. With each Turkish casualty Mr Erdogan risks losing nationalist votes. Yet if he orders a full invasion, Turkey may just get bogged down and face new enemies.
All this increases the pressure on Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to strike the PKK in its mountain strongholds in Iraq. General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the general staff, has called a putative cross-border incursion “necessary” and “useful”. Deniz Baykal, the main opposition leader, is in favour.
But the American defence secretary, Robert Gates, said this week that the United States was squarely opposed to unilateral Turkish action, which would destabilise the only calmish bit of Iraq. The Americans would prefer the Turks to use the Iraqi Kurds to help them make peace with the PKK. The PKK itself wants to draw more Turkish forces into Iraq (the Turks have kept some 1,000 soldiers there since an incursion in the 1990s) because, as a source suggests, “this could provoke armed confrontation between Turkey and America.” It would also upset the European Union.
A few days before this week's alleged invasion, two American fighter jets had strayed from Iraq into Turkish airspace. The Americans said this was an “accident”, but some Turks saw a warning that America might side with the Kurds against them. Yet most Americans acknowledge that their refusal to heed Turkish calls to attack the PKK is now the main cause of rampant anti-Americanism in Turkey. Catching a few PKK ringleaders could improve matters.
The Iraqi Kurds are unwilling to co-operate mainly because they see the PKK as a bargaining chip to get the Turks to recognise their quasi-independent status in Iraq. The Turks are against a referendum in Kirkuk this December that might lead it to join the Kurdish region.
Massoud Barzani, the Iraqi Kurdish leader, threatens trouble in Turkey's mostly Kurdish south-eastern provinces, where his popularity is now starting to rival that of the captured PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan. Most Iraqi Kurds consider their quasi-independent state as the real target of any Turkish incursion. But after two decades of battle, some 16 cross-border incursions and 40,000 dead, Turkey's leaders, military and civilian alike, know that force alone cannot solve Turkey's Kurdish problem.
The generals may have another reason for sabre-rattling. By insisting on government approval to strike in Iraq, they are shifting the blame for the violence to the Americans and the Iraqi Kurds—and to Mr Erdogan. With each Turkish casualty Mr Erdogan risks losing nationalist votes. Yet if he orders a full invasion, Turkey may just get bogged down and face new enemies.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Trouble with Kurds:Tough talk raises fears of more conflict
A SPATE of attack has raised fears that Turkey’s long war with separatist Kurds in the country’s south-east may heat up again. Since the capture of a Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been locked up in a Turkish jail since 1999, trouble has abated. But on Monday June 4th eight Turkish troops were killed in Tunceli province, in Turkey. And not long before that, 12 people were killed, including some soldiers, by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) it is thought. The organisation is also blamed for a suicide bombing shortly before in Ankara. The Turkish army has shelled Kurdish areas in response.
Those targets were not in Turkey but across the border in Iraq. The conflict is now taking on a menacing regional dimension. Turkey claims that the PKK is operating from bases in Iraqi Kurdistan. Of late, Turkish generals have speculated openly about striking the PKK’s there. Abdullah Gul, the usually mild-mannered foreign minister, claimed on Monday that Turkey had “every right” to respond by attacking Kurds in Iraq. A foreign-ministry official has said that Turkey may deliver a dossier on PKK terrorism to the UN—bolstering a legal case for an attack into Iraq in self-defence. The sabre-rattling has drawn a worried rebuke from Robert Gates, America’s defence secretary.
The number of awkward questions raised is as great as the number of overlapping alliances and rivalries in the region. The Kurds are America’s best friends in Iraq and a decent advertisement that at least something has gone right in that bloodied country. Many plans for an American exit from Iraq involve leaving some forces in the relatively peaceful region. So a Turkish invasion would be a disaster, inserting NATO’s second-largest army in the middle of a territory America is desperately hoping to keep calm.
The plot is even thicker, however. According to many reports America is stirring Kurdish ambitions in Iran, where the world’s biggest bunch stateless people also have a significant presence. American assistance to Iranian Kurds may involve military assistance, and those Kurds may also operate from bases in Iraq. In other words, the Turks could find themselves shooting at Kurds who are firing back with American-supplied weapons.
But at least this is one issue uniting a deeply divided country. Turkey is going through its worst political crisis in a decade. Tensions are high between the secular establishment (including the army, which regards itself as the guardian of Kemal Ataturk’s legacy) and the mildly Islamist government. Now, the two have found something on which they both agree. Both Mr Gul and the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have sounded the same belligerent notes as the military top brass.
But the costs of confrontation with the Kurds could be high. Invading Iraq would not only damage Turkey’s traditional friendship with America. It would further worsen Turkey’s chances for membership of the European Union. Those prospects have already dimmed after the election in France of Nicolas Sarkozy; the new president does not want Turkey in Europe. A country fighting a war in Northern Iraq, perhaps in tacit alliance with Iran, would reinforce the arguments of Mr Sarkozy and others who say Turkey is simply not European. At present, Turkey is acting like it does not care—perhaps because Turks feel that their chances of join the EU have receded so far anyway that they have little to lose.
These worries may be overdone. Turkey holds an election in July and an invasion is probably unlikely before then. The tough talk about the Kurds may be mainly posturing for a domestic audience at the moment. But perhaps after the election, if tensions remain high, it may not take much to ignite yet another of the region’s potential conflicts.
Jun 5th 2007From Economist.com
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Invading Kurdistan
More than four years after the fall of Baghdad, it beggars belief that anyone still has to be persuaded that invading Iraq is a bad idea. Yet Turkey's army is now massed on its south-eastern border, poised to deal what it presumably supposes would be a killer blow to guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) based in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Robert Gates, US defence secretary, on Sunday warned Ankara against invading. But Turkey's chief of staff formally sought his government's permission to launch a cross-border offensive last week. There are reasons to believe he will get it - none of them convincing.
Turkey is aggrieved that units of the PKK, all but defeated after the vicious 1984-99 insurgency, have regrouped inside the self-governing Kurdish region of northern Iraq, from where, Ankara says, they are carrying out cross-border raids and bomb attacks.
The extent of this activity is disputed. But the Kurdish regional government, America's closest ally in Iraq, does appear to welcome the violent and cultish PKK as a secular foil to the growth of radical Islamism in its territory. This has further soured relations between Ankara and Washington, damaged when Turkey denied the US the use ofits territory to open a northern front in 2003.
But more than this lies behind Turkey's bellicosity. The Turkish establishment, especially its influential military, has always resented European Union pressure to grant minority rights to Turkey's Kurds - a condition of accession negotiations - and US sponsorship of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq. It is also livid at the looming referendum on incorporating the ethnically mixed area of Kirkuk into Kurdistan, fearing its oil wealth will float a Kurdish state that will eventually bite off chunks of south-east Turkey. The army is also reasserting its power ahead of elections precipitated by its clash with the neo-Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Crushing the PKK, moreover, is popular with resurgent Turkish nationalists.
Turkey's friends, alas, have little leverage. The long alliance with the US is in shreds, the prospect of EU entry is evaporating. Yet Ankara should think again. Think, for example, of Israel's futile attempt last summer to crush Hizbollah in Lebanon. Turkey would risk mayhem on a far greater scale by a massed assault on the last relatively stable area of Iraq.
Turkey's Kurdish conflict has not returned to anything like levels that would justify all-out attack. A sure way of resurrecting the insurgency - as well as visiting more misery on Iraq - is to invade Kurdistan.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: June 5 2007 03:00 Last updated: June 5 2007 03:00
Robert Gates, US defence secretary, on Sunday warned Ankara against invading. But Turkey's chief of staff formally sought his government's permission to launch a cross-border offensive last week. There are reasons to believe he will get it - none of them convincing.
Turkey is aggrieved that units of the PKK, all but defeated after the vicious 1984-99 insurgency, have regrouped inside the self-governing Kurdish region of northern Iraq, from where, Ankara says, they are carrying out cross-border raids and bomb attacks.
The extent of this activity is disputed. But the Kurdish regional government, America's closest ally in Iraq, does appear to welcome the violent and cultish PKK as a secular foil to the growth of radical Islamism in its territory. This has further soured relations between Ankara and Washington, damaged when Turkey denied the US the use ofits territory to open a northern front in 2003.
But more than this lies behind Turkey's bellicosity. The Turkish establishment, especially its influential military, has always resented European Union pressure to grant minority rights to Turkey's Kurds - a condition of accession negotiations - and US sponsorship of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq. It is also livid at the looming referendum on incorporating the ethnically mixed area of Kirkuk into Kurdistan, fearing its oil wealth will float a Kurdish state that will eventually bite off chunks of south-east Turkey. The army is also reasserting its power ahead of elections precipitated by its clash with the neo-Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Crushing the PKK, moreover, is popular with resurgent Turkish nationalists.
Turkey's friends, alas, have little leverage. The long alliance with the US is in shreds, the prospect of EU entry is evaporating. Yet Ankara should think again. Think, for example, of Israel's futile attempt last summer to crush Hizbollah in Lebanon. Turkey would risk mayhem on a far greater scale by a massed assault on the last relatively stable area of Iraq.
Turkey's Kurdish conflict has not returned to anything like levels that would justify all-out attack. A sure way of resurrecting the insurgency - as well as visiting more misery on Iraq - is to invade Kurdistan.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: June 5 2007 03:00 Last updated: June 5 2007 03:00
Sunday, June 03, 2007
France gives Turkish EU hopes reprieve
By John Thornhill in Paris and Daniel Dombey in London
Published: May 30 2007 03:00 Last updated: May 30 2007 03:00
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's new president, has given Turkey's European Union hopes a temporary reprieve, despite his fierce opposition to Ankara joining the 27-member bloc.
In the run-up to a June summit, Mr Sarkozy has decided to focus his attention on efforts to agree a new EU treaty rather than on Turkey.
As a result, the EU is set to continue with plans to open negotiations with Ankara in up to three new areas on June 26, just after the summit.
"My priority is the success of the German presidency [of the EU] and the European council on June 21 and 22. What do we have to do to try to break the institutional blockage," Mr Sarkozy said on Monday after talks in Paris with Romano Prodi, Italy's prime minister.
EU diplomats said that, with the risk of a French veto disappearing, they were now hopeful of beginning negotiations on at least one and perhaps all three of the areas pencilled in for talks between the EU and Turkey:statistics, financial control and economic and monetary policy.
"Politically it's important that we open at least one, and two should be achievable," said one EU diplomat.
Turkey needs to conclude talks in 35 such "negotiating chapters" before it can become a member but only two have been opened since the membership process began in October 2005.
Officials from the UK and the European Commission - traditionally Ankara's greatest champions within the EU - have also become more downbeat about Turkey's long-term prospects and limit their ambitions to "muddling through" this year.
Turkey's supporters hope that the new government that emerges from elections scheduled for July 22 will be able to breathe life into the country's faltering reform process.
But against the backdrop of the recent face-off between the Turkish army and the governing AKP, many diplomats say that a coup or even an incursion by the Turkish army into northern Iraq would signify the demise of Turkey's membership hopes.
The EU is likely to have an in-depth discussion about the future of EU enlargement at its December summit, with some of Ankara's supporters already arguing that Turkey should be granted two or three more years before a decision is made on whether it can ever be a full member.
Mr Sarkozy is keen to push the idea that Turkey should be offered a privileged partnership with the EU instead.
He says it could play a big role in a Mediterranean Union he is proposing to create to deal with regional issues, such as trade, immigration, and economicdevelopment.
The French president says that the Mediterranean Union could embrace seven EU members - France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, Cyprus, and Greece - as well as Turkey and several north African countries.
On Sunday Mr Sarkozy sent Jean-David Levitte, his top diplomatic adviser, to Ankara in an attempt to avoid an open diplomatic split with Turkey.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 30 2007 03:00 Last updated: May 30 2007 03:00
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's new president, has given Turkey's European Union hopes a temporary reprieve, despite his fierce opposition to Ankara joining the 27-member bloc.
In the run-up to a June summit, Mr Sarkozy has decided to focus his attention on efforts to agree a new EU treaty rather than on Turkey.
As a result, the EU is set to continue with plans to open negotiations with Ankara in up to three new areas on June 26, just after the summit.
"My priority is the success of the German presidency [of the EU] and the European council on June 21 and 22. What do we have to do to try to break the institutional blockage," Mr Sarkozy said on Monday after talks in Paris with Romano Prodi, Italy's prime minister.
EU diplomats said that, with the risk of a French veto disappearing, they were now hopeful of beginning negotiations on at least one and perhaps all three of the areas pencilled in for talks between the EU and Turkey:statistics, financial control and economic and monetary policy.
"Politically it's important that we open at least one, and two should be achievable," said one EU diplomat.
Turkey needs to conclude talks in 35 such "negotiating chapters" before it can become a member but only two have been opened since the membership process began in October 2005.
Officials from the UK and the European Commission - traditionally Ankara's greatest champions within the EU - have also become more downbeat about Turkey's long-term prospects and limit their ambitions to "muddling through" this year.
Turkey's supporters hope that the new government that emerges from elections scheduled for July 22 will be able to breathe life into the country's faltering reform process.
But against the backdrop of the recent face-off between the Turkish army and the governing AKP, many diplomats say that a coup or even an incursion by the Turkish army into northern Iraq would signify the demise of Turkey's membership hopes.
The EU is likely to have an in-depth discussion about the future of EU enlargement at its December summit, with some of Ankara's supporters already arguing that Turkey should be granted two or three more years before a decision is made on whether it can ever be a full member.
Mr Sarkozy is keen to push the idea that Turkey should be offered a privileged partnership with the EU instead.
He says it could play a big role in a Mediterranean Union he is proposing to create to deal with regional issues, such as trade, immigration, and economicdevelopment.
The French president says that the Mediterranean Union could embrace seven EU members - France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, Cyprus, and Greece - as well as Turkey and several north African countries.
On Sunday Mr Sarkozy sent Jean-David Levitte, his top diplomatic adviser, to Ankara in an attempt to avoid an open diplomatic split with Turkey.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
U.S. defense chief urges Turkey not to invade northern Iraq to attack Kurdish rebels
SINGAPORE: Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday cautioned Turkey against sending troops into northern Iraq, as it has threatened, to hunt down Kurdish rebels it accuses of carrying out terrorist raids inside Turkey.
"We hope there would not be a unilateral military action across the border into Iraq," Gates told a news conference after meetings here with Asian government officials. Turkey and Iraq were not represented.
Gates said he sympathized with the Turks' concern about cross-border raids by Kurdish rebels.
"The Turks have a genuine concern with Kurdish terrorism that takes place on Turkish soil," he said. "So one can understand their frustration and unhappiness over this. Several hundred Turks lose their lives each year, and we have been working with the Turks to try to help them get control of this problem on Turkish soil."
Tensions have heightened in recent weeks in northern Iraq as Turkey has built up its military forces on Iraq's border, a move clearly meant to pressure Iraq to rein in the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, separatists who launch raids into southeast Turkey's Kurdish region from hideouts in Iraq.
Turkey's political and military leaders have been debating whether to try to root out those bases, and perhaps set up a buffer zone across the frontier as the Turkish army has done in the past. Turkey's military chief said Thursday the army was ready and only awaiting orders for a cross-border offensive.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday urged Turkey not to stage a new incursion, saying his government will not allow the relatively peaceful area of northern Iraq to be turned into a battleground.
Turks accuse Iraqi Kurds, who once fought alongside the Turkish soldiers against the PKK in Iraq, of supporting the separatist rebels and worry that the war in Iraq could lead to the country's disintegration and the creation of a Kurdish state in the north.
At the Singapore news conference Gates was asked about a reported U.S. naval bombardment on Friday of terrorist targets in northern Somalia.
"That's possibly an ongoing operation," he said, adding that as a result he would not comment on it.
Gates was in Singapore to attend an international security conference known as the Shangri-la Dialogue, where he reassured Asian nations that the United States remains committed to being a Pacific power and is not distracted by the Iraq war.
He said he did not ask any Asian government representatives to make new commitments to help in Iraq, but he did discuss with them at length the prospect of providing more assistance in Afghanistan. He said some countries, which he did not name, told him they were open to considering new commitments in Afghanistan.
"We hope there would not be a unilateral military action across the border into Iraq," Gates told a news conference after meetings here with Asian government officials. Turkey and Iraq were not represented.
Gates said he sympathized with the Turks' concern about cross-border raids by Kurdish rebels.
"The Turks have a genuine concern with Kurdish terrorism that takes place on Turkish soil," he said. "So one can understand their frustration and unhappiness over this. Several hundred Turks lose their lives each year, and we have been working with the Turks to try to help them get control of this problem on Turkish soil."
Tensions have heightened in recent weeks in northern Iraq as Turkey has built up its military forces on Iraq's border, a move clearly meant to pressure Iraq to rein in the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, separatists who launch raids into southeast Turkey's Kurdish region from hideouts in Iraq.
Turkey's political and military leaders have been debating whether to try to root out those bases, and perhaps set up a buffer zone across the frontier as the Turkish army has done in the past. Turkey's military chief said Thursday the army was ready and only awaiting orders for a cross-border offensive.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday urged Turkey not to stage a new incursion, saying his government will not allow the relatively peaceful area of northern Iraq to be turned into a battleground.
Turks accuse Iraqi Kurds, who once fought alongside the Turkish soldiers against the PKK in Iraq, of supporting the separatist rebels and worry that the war in Iraq could lead to the country's disintegration and the creation of a Kurdish state in the north.
At the Singapore news conference Gates was asked about a reported U.S. naval bombardment on Friday of terrorist targets in northern Somalia.
"That's possibly an ongoing operation," he said, adding that as a result he would not comment on it.
Gates was in Singapore to attend an international security conference known as the Shangri-la Dialogue, where he reassured Asian nations that the United States remains committed to being a Pacific power and is not distracted by the Iraq war.
He said he did not ask any Asian government representatives to make new commitments to help in Iraq, but he did discuss with them at length the prospect of providing more assistance in Afghanistan. He said some countries, which he did not name, told him they were open to considering new commitments in Afghanistan.
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