The Associated Press Published: May 17, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey: Leaders of two secular parties said Thursday that they would form an alliance to challenge the Islamic-rooted ruling party in July elections.
"We have agreed to form an election alliance. We will work together hand in hand," Deniz Baykal, leader of the Republican People's Party, said at a news conference. He was accompanied by Zeki Sezer, leader of new partner the Democratic Left Party.
The Republican People's Party is the largest challenger to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, which faces a secularist backlash over suspicions that he seeks to roll back restrictions on Islamic dress and take other steps to dilute the Western lifestyle of many Turks.
Both secular parties draw support from the secular elite, including teachers, judges, doctors and military officers.
Supporters had urged them to seek a unified platform in challenging Erdogan's governing party in Turkey's general elections. Hundreds of thousands of protesters held anti-government demonstrations in recent weeks.
"The regime, secular democracy, the republic is under threat. We will form a strong unity to overcome this threat," Sezer said. "This will also give a serious alternative to Turkey to run the country."
Under the deal, candidates of the Democratic Left Party will run on the ticket of the Republican People's Party, Sezer said.
However, Sezer himself rejected Baykal's appeal that Sezer to run for the Parliament on the ticket of the Republican party.
"Even if we lead separate political identities after entering Parliament in an alliance, we will continue to work toward uniting (the parties) in a way in which both parties' separate identities are reflected," Baykal said.
Before meeting Baykal on Thursday, Sezer said: "The cooperation between party groups of the Democratic Left and the Republican People's in Parliament would be effective against those who want to steer Turkey toward darkness."
Erdogan's government had pushed for the election of a president with strong Islamic leanings, sparking tensions with the secular establishment, including the military.
Erdogan declared early general elections on July 22, several months ahead of schedule, as a way to ease a political crisis that began when the government picked Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as its presidential candidate.
The government rejects claims by secular circles that it has an Islamic agenda. Gul was forced to drop his bid for the presidency after the opposition boycotted parliamentary votes on his candidacy, and the military threatened to intervene to safeguard secular traditions. Huge crowds staged anti-government rallies, most recently on Sunday in the port of Izmir.
Both secular leaders apologized for taking weeks to form an alliance.
"We may have been a little slow; we may have upset or angered our citizens," Baykal said.
Sezer said the parties needed to work on a detailed plan to "salvage the country" and avoid possible snags in the future.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Clash of civilisations / Beleaguered Armenians in Turkey—and a closed border with Armenia
May 17th 2007 KARSFrom The Economist print edition
Beleaguered Armenians in Turkey—and a closed border with Armenia
FOR a seasoned diplomat, Hasan Sultanoglu Zeynalov, Azerbaijan's consul-general in Kars, eastern Turkey, is unusually indiscreet. He openly complains about Naif Alibeyoglu, the mayor, who is promoting dialogue between Turkey, Azerbaijan and their common enemy, Armenia, just over the border. “I don't believe in dialogue,” Mr Zeynalov snorts. He recently ordered his compatriots to boycott an arts festival organised by the mayor after finding that “there were Armenians too.” Like his masters in Baku, Mr Zeynalov is unnerved at the thought of his country's biggest regional ally suddenly making peace with Armenia.
He will have been cheered by the victory of Serzh Sarkisian, Armenia's nationalist prime minister, in a general election on May 12th. Mr Sarkisian is said to have engineered a last-minute ban on Turkish observers of the election. “I think it would be unnatural to receive observing representatives from a country that does not even wish to have a civilised official dialogue,” he commented.
Mr Sarkisian's hawkish views are echoed by Robert Kocharian, the Armenian president, whom he is tipped to succeed in a presidential election next year. Both men hail from Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave wrested by the Armenians from Azerbaijan in a vicious war in the early 1990s. This prompted Turkey to seal its border (but not air links) with Armenia in 1993. The effect on Kars's economy has been disastrous, which is why Mr Alibeyoglu is so keen to reopen the border.
Ethnic Azeris, who make up a third of his city's 80,000 residents, are less enthusiastic. They are likely to vote in droves for the far-right MHP party in Turkey's parliamentary election on July 22nd. The party's fortunes have risen on a tide of xenophobic nationalism that has engulfed Turkey. Dismissing opinion polls that give Mr Alibeyoglu's AK party a big lead over its rivals, Oktay Aktas, the local MHP boss, confidently predicts victory. He would like Turkey to invade northern Iraq and to hang the Kurdish PKK rebel leader, Abdullah Ocalan. He also says there is no question of easing the blockade on Armenia—certainly not until it stops referring to his region as western Armenia and calling the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 a genocide.
The sensitiveness of the genocide issue was reflected in January in the killing of Hrant Dink, an ethnic-Armenian newspaper editor in Istanbul, who had talked openly about it. The killer was a school dropout from the port of Trabzon. Mr Dink's lawyer, Ergin Cinmen, says there is compelling evidence that the Istanbul police were given warning of a planned attack at least a year ago, but they did nothing to protect Mr Dink. This week Istanbul's Armenians were shocked once again by a letter sent from Trabzon warning them to defend Turkey against the genocide claims or “face the consequences”. It was delivered to an Armenian primary school.
Such threats have dispelled the surge of goodwill that followed a huge turnout at Mr Dink's funeral and the reopening in March of an old Armenian church restored by Turkey's AK government. Etyen Mahcupyan, who replaced Mr Dink at his newspaper, says some of his kin are now talking of leaving Turkey for good. The border may stay closed for many more years.
Beleaguered Armenians in Turkey—and a closed border with Armenia
FOR a seasoned diplomat, Hasan Sultanoglu Zeynalov, Azerbaijan's consul-general in Kars, eastern Turkey, is unusually indiscreet. He openly complains about Naif Alibeyoglu, the mayor, who is promoting dialogue between Turkey, Azerbaijan and their common enemy, Armenia, just over the border. “I don't believe in dialogue,” Mr Zeynalov snorts. He recently ordered his compatriots to boycott an arts festival organised by the mayor after finding that “there were Armenians too.” Like his masters in Baku, Mr Zeynalov is unnerved at the thought of his country's biggest regional ally suddenly making peace with Armenia.
He will have been cheered by the victory of Serzh Sarkisian, Armenia's nationalist prime minister, in a general election on May 12th. Mr Sarkisian is said to have engineered a last-minute ban on Turkish observers of the election. “I think it would be unnatural to receive observing representatives from a country that does not even wish to have a civilised official dialogue,” he commented.
Mr Sarkisian's hawkish views are echoed by Robert Kocharian, the Armenian president, whom he is tipped to succeed in a presidential election next year. Both men hail from Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave wrested by the Armenians from Azerbaijan in a vicious war in the early 1990s. This prompted Turkey to seal its border (but not air links) with Armenia in 1993. The effect on Kars's economy has been disastrous, which is why Mr Alibeyoglu is so keen to reopen the border.
Ethnic Azeris, who make up a third of his city's 80,000 residents, are less enthusiastic. They are likely to vote in droves for the far-right MHP party in Turkey's parliamentary election on July 22nd. The party's fortunes have risen on a tide of xenophobic nationalism that has engulfed Turkey. Dismissing opinion polls that give Mr Alibeyoglu's AK party a big lead over its rivals, Oktay Aktas, the local MHP boss, confidently predicts victory. He would like Turkey to invade northern Iraq and to hang the Kurdish PKK rebel leader, Abdullah Ocalan. He also says there is no question of easing the blockade on Armenia—certainly not until it stops referring to his region as western Armenia and calling the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 a genocide.
The sensitiveness of the genocide issue was reflected in January in the killing of Hrant Dink, an ethnic-Armenian newspaper editor in Istanbul, who had talked openly about it. The killer was a school dropout from the port of Trabzon. Mr Dink's lawyer, Ergin Cinmen, says there is compelling evidence that the Istanbul police were given warning of a planned attack at least a year ago, but they did nothing to protect Mr Dink. This week Istanbul's Armenians were shocked once again by a letter sent from Trabzon warning them to defend Turkey against the genocide claims or “face the consequences”. It was delivered to an Armenian primary school.
Such threats have dispelled the surge of goodwill that followed a huge turnout at Mr Dink's funeral and the reopening in March of an old Armenian church restored by Turkey's AK government. Etyen Mahcupyan, who replaced Mr Dink at his newspaper, says some of his kin are now talking of leaving Turkey for good. The border may stay closed for many more years.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
A generals' election
May 10th 2007 ANKARAFrom The Economist print edition
The Turkish political crisis, continued
“TURKEY is in the throes of a slow military coup,” reckons one seasoned political observer. How else to describe the past few weeks' events, which have forced Turkey's embattled prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to call a general election on July 22nd, before the scheduled November 4th date?
The country is certainly in its worst political crisis in a decade. It has not managed to choose a president to replace Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose term formally expires on May 16th: the ruling AK Party's candidate, Abdullah Gul, withdrew on May 6th after failing to muster the necessary quorum in parliament. Meanwhile millions of pro-secular demonstrators have marched through Turkey's biggest cities to protest against the mildly Islamist AK government led by Mr Erdogan.
The trouble escalated on April 27th, when the army general staff posted a dramatic statement on its website sketching out the dangers posed by “Islamic fanatics” to Ataturk's secular republic, and vowing to intervene if need be. The army has booted out four governments since 1960. Yet its latest outburst took even the savviest politicians by surprise.
A bigger surprise followed. Rather than roll over like its predecessors, the government is taking the generals head on. First came a statement reminding the brass-hats that they were answerable to the government and not vice versa. Then Mr Erdogan's AK Party tried once again to elect Mr Gul as president, even though the army had made clear that it did not want a man whose wife wears the Islamic headscarf—as Mr Gul's wife does (see article).
Mr Gul was forced to withdraw after a second round of voting in parliament was boycotted by the opposition CHP Party under its antediluvian leader, Deniz Baykal. Thanks to the boycott, the AK fell nine short of the 367 deputies that the constitutional court had ruled needed to be present before voting could proceed.
These games have prompted Mr Erdogan to push for a constitutional change to let voters, not parliament, choose the president. Should Mr Sezer veto this measure, as expected, it may be put to a referendum, to be held with the election on July 22nd. A combative Mr Gul vows then to renew his campaign for the presidency.
The AK Party's bravado stems in part from the continued strong performance of the economy. Unworried by political shenanigans, a foreign-led consortium shelled out $1.2 billion for the operating rights of Izmir's port on May 3rd. An Italian bank is in talks to acquire Turkey's fifth-largest bank, Oyak, for $1.5 billion. And foreign investors, who hold around 70% of floating shares on the Istanbul Stock Exchange, have yet to take fright.
What will the army do next? Much will depend on the outcome of the election. The dream scenario for the generals and their civilian allies would be if AK is pushed into opposition and so unable to pick the new president. A coalition government could then take over. The generals seem unfazed by the memory of a succession of weak coalitions that took Turkey to the brink of financial ruin in 2001.
In pursuit of this goal, and after some nudging from the general staff, two centre-right parties announced a merger last week. Mr Baykal says that he is on the verge of cementing a deal between CHP and a smaller left-wing rival. The rising tide of nationalism also means that the ultra-nationalist right-wing MHP may bag the minimum 10% of the vote needed to get into parliament seats. In a bid to surmount this barrier, the biggest Kurdish party says it may field independent candidates in 45 of Turkey's 81 provinces.
Despite all this, AK Party officials predict that they will pick up a bigger share than the 34% of the national vote they took in 2002, and return to power alone. “That won't necessarily be a good thing for Turkey either,” says Morton Abramowitz, a former American ambassador to Turkey. “A strong AK government could have a polarising effect.” Worse, it might prompt the generals to wade in again.
The Turkish political crisis, continued
“TURKEY is in the throes of a slow military coup,” reckons one seasoned political observer. How else to describe the past few weeks' events, which have forced Turkey's embattled prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to call a general election on July 22nd, before the scheduled November 4th date?
The country is certainly in its worst political crisis in a decade. It has not managed to choose a president to replace Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose term formally expires on May 16th: the ruling AK Party's candidate, Abdullah Gul, withdrew on May 6th after failing to muster the necessary quorum in parliament. Meanwhile millions of pro-secular demonstrators have marched through Turkey's biggest cities to protest against the mildly Islamist AK government led by Mr Erdogan.
The trouble escalated on April 27th, when the army general staff posted a dramatic statement on its website sketching out the dangers posed by “Islamic fanatics” to Ataturk's secular republic, and vowing to intervene if need be. The army has booted out four governments since 1960. Yet its latest outburst took even the savviest politicians by surprise.
A bigger surprise followed. Rather than roll over like its predecessors, the government is taking the generals head on. First came a statement reminding the brass-hats that they were answerable to the government and not vice versa. Then Mr Erdogan's AK Party tried once again to elect Mr Gul as president, even though the army had made clear that it did not want a man whose wife wears the Islamic headscarf—as Mr Gul's wife does (see article).
Mr Gul was forced to withdraw after a second round of voting in parliament was boycotted by the opposition CHP Party under its antediluvian leader, Deniz Baykal. Thanks to the boycott, the AK fell nine short of the 367 deputies that the constitutional court had ruled needed to be present before voting could proceed.
These games have prompted Mr Erdogan to push for a constitutional change to let voters, not parliament, choose the president. Should Mr Sezer veto this measure, as expected, it may be put to a referendum, to be held with the election on July 22nd. A combative Mr Gul vows then to renew his campaign for the presidency.
The AK Party's bravado stems in part from the continued strong performance of the economy. Unworried by political shenanigans, a foreign-led consortium shelled out $1.2 billion for the operating rights of Izmir's port on May 3rd. An Italian bank is in talks to acquire Turkey's fifth-largest bank, Oyak, for $1.5 billion. And foreign investors, who hold around 70% of floating shares on the Istanbul Stock Exchange, have yet to take fright.
What will the army do next? Much will depend on the outcome of the election. The dream scenario for the generals and their civilian allies would be if AK is pushed into opposition and so unable to pick the new president. A coalition government could then take over. The generals seem unfazed by the memory of a succession of weak coalitions that took Turkey to the brink of financial ruin in 2001.
In pursuit of this goal, and after some nudging from the general staff, two centre-right parties announced a merger last week. Mr Baykal says that he is on the verge of cementing a deal between CHP and a smaller left-wing rival. The rising tide of nationalism also means that the ultra-nationalist right-wing MHP may bag the minimum 10% of the vote needed to get into parliament seats. In a bid to surmount this barrier, the biggest Kurdish party says it may field independent candidates in 45 of Turkey's 81 provinces.
Despite all this, AK Party officials predict that they will pick up a bigger share than the 34% of the national vote they took in 2002, and return to power alone. “That won't necessarily be a good thing for Turkey either,” says Morton Abramowitz, a former American ambassador to Turkey. “A strong AK government could have a polarising effect.” Worse, it might prompt the generals to wade in again.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Turkish candidate pledges loyalty to secular principles
The Associated Press Published: April 26, 2007
ISTANBUL, Turkey: Turkey's presidential front-runner promised to uphold secular principles despite the doubts of skeptics, ahead of the start of voting Friday that highlights tensions between the defenders of secularism and the Islamic-rooted government.
"I am loyal to the republic, to secularism, to the principles of a democratic, social state ruled by law, as stated in the Constitution in essence," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in an interview published Thursday in the Milliyet newspaper.
The comment echoed a recent statement by military chief Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, a guardian of the secular principles enshrined in the Constitution. He had said the president must be loyal to secularism "not just in words, but in essence."
As the ruling party candidate, Gul is almost certain to win the presidency in a series of parliamentary votes that begin Friday — a prospect that has unnerved the country's secular establishment. Hundreds of thousands of people recently demonstrated for secular ideals in the capital of Ankara, and another large rally was planned in Istanbul on Sunday.
"I tried to understand them," Gul said of the demonstrators. "If they have concerns, doubts, my job is to remove those concerns. That will be my duty if I am elected president. I will strive to be the president of all citizens no matter their point of view."
Gul also told Sabah newspaper that he was committed to a strong democracy, economy and military.
The military has largely shunned the public debate, indicating Turkish democracy is on a more secure footing than in coup-prone days of the past.
Gul courted opposition and independent lawmakers, urging them to thwart plans by the main opposition group to boycott the election. Although the ruling party has supported religious schools and tried to lift the ban on Islamic head scarves in public offices, Gul has insisted he will respect the secular traditions enshrined in Turkey's constitution.
Current President Ahmet Necdet Sezer vigorously used his powers as a check on the government, vetoing a record number of legislative bills and appointments of officials deemed to be supporters of an Islamic agenda.
Gul is a close ally of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the presidency would complete their lock on political power ahead of general elections planned for November.
"Gul cannot be expected to play the role of Sezer in issuing warnings or putting on brakes," columnist Turker Alkan wrote in the Radikal newspaper.
The leaders of two small parties urged the government to hold early general elections and let a newly formed Parliament elect the president, saying the credibility of the political process was at stake and there was too much tension.
"Turkey has come to a point where it is open to provocations," Motherland Party leader Erkan Mumcu said at a news conference with the head of the True Path Party, Mehmet Agar.
The military, at least in public, has left the political wrangling to the civilians. It military staged three coups between 1960 and 1980 and pressured a pro-Islamic premier — Erdogan's mentor — out of power in 1997. Any overt attempt to intervene in this process could have a devastating effect on the economy and on the NATO member's efforts to reform society as it vies for European Union membership.
If elected, Gul will chair bimonthly National Security Council meetings, which gather the military's top brass and some Cabinet members to discuss key concerns, including homegrown threats from radical Islamic circles.
Gul's wife, Hayrunisa, wears the traditional Muslim head scarf, and secularists dislike the idea of such a religious symbol being worn in the presidential palace.
But both he and Erdogan have rejected the Islamic label. The government has shown openness to the West by securing economic stability with help from the International Monetary Fund, and seeking EU membership.
The ruling party has a majority of more than 60 percent in parliament. But the main opposition Republican People's Party — with 152 seats — said it would boycott the first round of voting. It said it would ask the Constitutional Court to cancel the vote if it proceeds without two-thirds of lawmakers present — a move that could force early general elections.
The ruling party insists only one-third of lawmakers must attend the first round.
ISTANBUL, Turkey: Turkey's presidential front-runner promised to uphold secular principles despite the doubts of skeptics, ahead of the start of voting Friday that highlights tensions between the defenders of secularism and the Islamic-rooted government.
"I am loyal to the republic, to secularism, to the principles of a democratic, social state ruled by law, as stated in the Constitution in essence," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in an interview published Thursday in the Milliyet newspaper.
The comment echoed a recent statement by military chief Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, a guardian of the secular principles enshrined in the Constitution. He had said the president must be loyal to secularism "not just in words, but in essence."
As the ruling party candidate, Gul is almost certain to win the presidency in a series of parliamentary votes that begin Friday — a prospect that has unnerved the country's secular establishment. Hundreds of thousands of people recently demonstrated for secular ideals in the capital of Ankara, and another large rally was planned in Istanbul on Sunday.
"I tried to understand them," Gul said of the demonstrators. "If they have concerns, doubts, my job is to remove those concerns. That will be my duty if I am elected president. I will strive to be the president of all citizens no matter their point of view."
Gul also told Sabah newspaper that he was committed to a strong democracy, economy and military.
The military has largely shunned the public debate, indicating Turkish democracy is on a more secure footing than in coup-prone days of the past.
Gul courted opposition and independent lawmakers, urging them to thwart plans by the main opposition group to boycott the election. Although the ruling party has supported religious schools and tried to lift the ban on Islamic head scarves in public offices, Gul has insisted he will respect the secular traditions enshrined in Turkey's constitution.
Current President Ahmet Necdet Sezer vigorously used his powers as a check on the government, vetoing a record number of legislative bills and appointments of officials deemed to be supporters of an Islamic agenda.
Gul is a close ally of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the presidency would complete their lock on political power ahead of general elections planned for November.
"Gul cannot be expected to play the role of Sezer in issuing warnings or putting on brakes," columnist Turker Alkan wrote in the Radikal newspaper.
The leaders of two small parties urged the government to hold early general elections and let a newly formed Parliament elect the president, saying the credibility of the political process was at stake and there was too much tension.
"Turkey has come to a point where it is open to provocations," Motherland Party leader Erkan Mumcu said at a news conference with the head of the True Path Party, Mehmet Agar.
The military, at least in public, has left the political wrangling to the civilians. It military staged three coups between 1960 and 1980 and pressured a pro-Islamic premier — Erdogan's mentor — out of power in 1997. Any overt attempt to intervene in this process could have a devastating effect on the economy and on the NATO member's efforts to reform society as it vies for European Union membership.
If elected, Gul will chair bimonthly National Security Council meetings, which gather the military's top brass and some Cabinet members to discuss key concerns, including homegrown threats from radical Islamic circles.
Gul's wife, Hayrunisa, wears the traditional Muslim head scarf, and secularists dislike the idea of such a religious symbol being worn in the presidential palace.
But both he and Erdogan have rejected the Islamic label. The government has shown openness to the West by securing economic stability with help from the International Monetary Fund, and seeking EU membership.
The ruling party has a majority of more than 60 percent in parliament. But the main opposition Republican People's Party — with 152 seats — said it would boycott the first round of voting. It said it would ask the Constitutional Court to cancel the vote if it proceeds without two-thirds of lawmakers present — a move that could force early general elections.
The ruling party insists only one-third of lawmakers must attend the first round.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
ispanyolca/ ispanyolca ders / ispanyolca kurs 10
When is the next train to....?
¿Cuándo es el próximo tren para...?
kwando es el prok-seemo tren para...
Two return tickets to...
A single to...
Dos billetes de ida y vuelta a...
Un billete de ida a...
dos bee-lye-tes de eeda ee bwelta a...
oon bee-lye-te de eeda a...
Tourist class
Smoking / Non smoking
De clase turista
Fumador / No fumador
de klase too-reesta
fooma-dor / no fooma-dor
Is there a supplement to pay?
¿Hay que pagar suplemento?
a-ee ke pagar soo-ple-mento
I want to book a seat on the AVE to Seville
Quería reservar un asiento en el AVE a Sevilla
ke-ree-a re-serbar oon a-syento en el a-be a se-beelya
When is the first / last train to...?
¿Cuándo es el primer / el último tren para...?
kwando es el pree-mer / el ool-teemo tren para...
When does it arrive in...?
¿Cuándo llega a...?
kwando lyega a...
Do I have to change?
Where?
¿Tengo que hacer transbordo?
¿Dónde?
tengo ke a-ther trans-bordo
don-de
How long is there to get the connection?
¿Cuánto tiempo hay para el enlace?
kwanto tyempo a-ee para el enla-the
Which platform does it leave from?
¿De qué andén sale?
de ke an-den sa-le
Is this the right platform for the train to...?
¿Sale de este andén el tren para...?
sa-le de este an-den el tren para...
Is this the train for...?
When will it leave?
¿Es este el tren para...?
¿Cuándo va a salir?
es este el tren para...
kwando ba a sa-leer
Why is the train delayed?
¿Por qué sale el tren con retraso?
por ke sa-le el tren kon re-traso
Does the train stop at...?
¿Para el tren en...?
pa-ra el tren en...
Please let me know when we get to...
Por favor, ¿me avisa cuando lleguemos a...?
por fabor me abee-sa kwando lye-gemos a...
Is there a buffet on the train?
¿Hay servicio de cafetería en el tren?
a-ee ser-beethyo de ka-fe-teree-a en el tren
Is this free? (seat)
¿Está libre?
esta leebre
ispanyolca/ ispanyolca ders / ispanyolca kurs 10
¿Cuándo es el próximo tren para...?
kwando es el prok-seemo tren para...
Two return tickets to...
A single to...
Dos billetes de ida y vuelta a...
Un billete de ida a...
dos bee-lye-tes de eeda ee bwelta a...
oon bee-lye-te de eeda a...
Tourist class
Smoking / Non smoking
De clase turista
Fumador / No fumador
de klase too-reesta
fooma-dor / no fooma-dor
Is there a supplement to pay?
¿Hay que pagar suplemento?
a-ee ke pagar soo-ple-mento
I want to book a seat on the AVE to Seville
Quería reservar un asiento en el AVE a Sevilla
ke-ree-a re-serbar oon a-syento en el a-be a se-beelya
When is the first / last train to...?
¿Cuándo es el primer / el último tren para...?
kwando es el pree-mer / el ool-teemo tren para...
When does it arrive in...?
¿Cuándo llega a...?
kwando lyega a...
Do I have to change?
Where?
¿Tengo que hacer transbordo?
¿Dónde?
tengo ke a-ther trans-bordo
don-de
How long is there to get the connection?
¿Cuánto tiempo hay para el enlace?
kwanto tyempo a-ee para el enla-the
Which platform does it leave from?
¿De qué andén sale?
de ke an-den sa-le
Is this the right platform for the train to...?
¿Sale de este andén el tren para...?
sa-le de este an-den el tren para...
Is this the train for...?
When will it leave?
¿Es este el tren para...?
¿Cuándo va a salir?
es este el tren para...
kwando ba a sa-leer
Why is the train delayed?
¿Por qué sale el tren con retraso?
por ke sa-le el tren kon re-traso
Does the train stop at...?
¿Para el tren en...?
pa-ra el tren en...
Please let me know when we get to...
Por favor, ¿me avisa cuando lleguemos a...?
por fabor me abee-sa kwando lye-gemos a...
Is there a buffet on the train?
¿Hay servicio de cafetería en el tren?
a-ee ser-beethyo de ka-fe-teree-a en el tren
Is this free? (seat)
¿Está libre?
esta leebre
ispanyolca/ ispanyolca ders / ispanyolca kurs 10
ispanyolca/ ispanyolca ders / ispanyolca kurs 9
Are there any vegetarian restaurants here?
¿Hay aquí algún restaurante vegetariano?
a-ee a-kee al-goon restow-ran-te be-kheta-ryano
Do you have any vegetarian dishes?
¿Tienen algún plato vegetariano?
tye-nen al-goon plato be-kheta-ryano
Which dishes have no meat / fish?
¿Cuáles son los platos que no llevan carne / pescado?
kwa-les son los platos que no lyeban kar-ne / pes-kado
What fish dishes do you have?
¿Qué tienen de pescado?
ke tye-nen de pes-kado
I'd like pasta as a main course
De segundo, quisiera tomar pasta
de se-goondo kee-syera tomar pasta
I don't like meat
What do you recommend?
No me gusta la carne
¿Qué me recomienda?
no me goosta la kar-ne
ke me reko-myenda
Is it made with vegetable stock?
¿Está hecho con caldo de verduras?
esta e-cho kon kaldo de ber-dooras
* POSSIBLE DISHES
berenjenas aubergines
ensalada salad
espárragos asparagus
gazpacho cold cucumber, peppers, garlic and tomato soup
pisto peppers, courgettes, onions cooked in a tomato sauce
judias verdes French beans
revuelto de champiñones mushrooms with scrambled eggs
revuelto de espinacas spinach with scrambled eggs
tortilla española omelette with potato and onions
ispanyolca/ ispanyolca ders / ispanyolca kurs 9
¿Hay aquí algún restaurante vegetariano?
a-ee a-kee al-goon restow-ran-te be-kheta-ryano
Do you have any vegetarian dishes?
¿Tienen algún plato vegetariano?
tye-nen al-goon plato be-kheta-ryano
Which dishes have no meat / fish?
¿Cuáles son los platos que no llevan carne / pescado?
kwa-les son los platos que no lyeban kar-ne / pes-kado
What fish dishes do you have?
¿Qué tienen de pescado?
ke tye-nen de pes-kado
I'd like pasta as a main course
De segundo, quisiera tomar pasta
de se-goondo kee-syera tomar pasta
I don't like meat
What do you recommend?
No me gusta la carne
¿Qué me recomienda?
no me goosta la kar-ne
ke me reko-myenda
Is it made with vegetable stock?
¿Está hecho con caldo de verduras?
esta e-cho kon kaldo de ber-dooras
* POSSIBLE DISHES
berenjenas aubergines
ensalada salad
espárragos asparagus
gazpacho cold cucumber, peppers, garlic and tomato soup
pisto peppers, courgettes, onions cooked in a tomato sauce
judias verdes French beans
revuelto de champiñones mushrooms with scrambled eggs
revuelto de espinacas spinach with scrambled eggs
tortilla española omelette with potato and onions
ispanyolca/ ispanyolca ders / ispanyolca kurs 9
In Turkey, a Sign of a Rising Islamic Middle Class
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: April 25, 2007 (NYT)
ISTANBUL, April 24 — Turkey’s ruling party on Tuesday chose a presidential candidate with an Islamic background, a move that will extend the reach of the party — and the emerging class of devout Muslims it represents — into the heart of Turkey’s secular establishment for the first time.
The selection has focused the worries of secular Turks who fear that sexual equality, as well as drinking alcohol and wearing miniskirts, could eventually be in danger.
Abdullah Gul, 56, the foreign minister, whose wife wears a Muslim head scarf and who is Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s closest political ally, is expected to be confirmed as president by Parliament in several rounds of voting that begin Friday. That will boost Turkey’s new political class — modernizers from a religious background.
“These are the new forces, the new social powers,” said Ali Bulac, a columnist for a conservative newspaper, Zaman, in Istanbul. “They are very devout. They don’t drink. They don’t gamble. They don’t take holidays. They are loaded with a huge energy. This energy has been blocked by the state.”
Turkey is a Muslim country, but its state, founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, is strictly secular, and the presidency is its most important office. The current president is Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a secularist with a judicial background whose term is expiring.
Mr. Gul, an affable English speaker who has long been his party’s public face abroad, nodded to secular concerns in a news conference in Ankara after his nomination, saying, “Our differences are our richness.” His candidacy was a concession: the choice most distasteful to the secular establishment was Mr. Erdogan himself, who deftly bowed out.
Still, if Mr. Gul is confirmed, his party would occupy the posts of president, prime minister and parliamentary speaker, a lineup that the opposition party leader, Deniz Baykal, called “unfavorable.” His party later announced that it would boycott the vote.
In the Middle East, where mixing religion with government has been seen as poisonous for modernity, Turkey’s very light blend stands out as unusual, even unique.
“This party has done more for the modernization of Turkey than all the secular parties in the previous years,” said Joost Lagendijk, a member of the European Parliament who heads a committee on Turkish issues. “They were willing to open up the system, to challenge the elite.”
The party that Mr. Gul helped found, known by its Turkish initials, AK, sprang from the Islamic political movements of the 1990s. But the AK became significantly more moderate after taking power on a national scale in 2002. Since then, it has applied pragmatic policies that helped create an economic boom and opened up the state in ways that the rigid secular elite, which relied heavily on state control, had never imagined, in part to qualify for membership in the European Union.
Although the party is publicly adamant about keeping religion separate from policy, bristling at shorthand descriptions of it as pro-Islamic, it draws much of its support from Turkey’s religiously conservative heartland. Once on the periphery, these traditional Turks are now emerging as a powerful middle class that has driven Turkey’s boom. The economy has nearly doubled in the four years that the AK has been in power, largely because it has stuck to an economic program prescribed by the International Monetary Fund.
Mr. Gul’s candidacy goes to the heart of the secular-religious debate, because the presidency is such a revered symbol with real powers — he is commander in chief and has a veto. Turkish military leaders in the past have remarked that they would refuse to visit the presidential palace if a woman in a head scarf were living in it.
“How can she now become the host of a palace that represents the very same principles?” said Necmi Yuzbasioglu, a professor of constitutional law at Istanbul University.
Mehmet A. Kislali, a columnist with the newspaper Radikal, who has contacts with the military, said: “The military should not be underestimated. Thousands of officers are watching the developments.”
But the party’s only real application of Islam has been its grass-roots approach. In practices that would be familiar to Shiite Muslims in Lebanon or to Palestinians in Gaza, women’s groups go door to door offering aid, community centers offer women’s literacy classes and sports centers give free physical therapy to handicapped children.
The question of religion aside, economic progress under the AK has been extraordinary, with a steady rise in entrepreneurship. In Istanbul, fuel-efficient taxis zip down tulip-lined streets. New parks have sprung up. The air is less polluted.
Mustafa Karaduman, a textile designer and fashion house owner, is among the new entrepreneurs. He is from Anatolia, a capital of middle-class production, and the homeland of Mr. Gul. His fashion house has turned into an empire, supplying Islamic clothing for women in Europe and the Middle East. He is 50, has seven children, and is an outspoken opponent of the miniskirt.
“My mission,” he says, “is to cover all women around the world.”
The country’s wealth has drawn more observant Turks into public life. Some religious schools now teach English, unheard of a decade ago, improving the chances of students from religious backgrounds on university entrance exams.
At the Kartal Anadolu Imam Hatip High School in a conservative middle-class neighborhood, 16-year-old girls in head scarves and sweatshirts played basketball last week in brightly patterned Converse sneakers. (Skulls were a popular choice.) Last year, 94 students were admitted to universities, up from almost none a decade ago, said Hadir Kalkan, the school’s principal, pointing to students’ career choices in marketing, broadcasting, psychology and finance. Just 14 chose to continue religious training.
The city pool and gym in the lower-middle-class neighborhood of Okmeydani is a testament to the ascendancy of the pious middle class. Few observant women attended in 1996, when the pool opened, an attendant said. Now they fill treadmills and lap lanes.
“I always wanted to but there were no places to go,” said Dondu Koc, a 46-year-old in yellow sweat pants as she pedaled an exercise bike in a room full of women on Wednesday. Before Mr. Erdogan’s stewardship as mayor of the city, there was only one public pool. Now there are three, and five are under construction.
The complex is separated by sex, an arrangement Ms. Koc likes because it lets her and other covered women pedal, jog and swim without their head scarves. But the division irritates secular Turks.
“There shouldn’t be a split like this,” said Tamis Demirel, 47, a homemaker whose hair was still wet from her swim. “We sit next to each other; we should swim next to each other, too.”
The remark seemed to answer the question of Elif Demir, a 19-year-old office clerk at a youth rally for Mr. Erdogan on Sunday. “We have no problem with women wearing miniskirts,” she said, “but why are they so bothered with our head scarves?”
That frustration took the form of a public scolding at a meeting on the far edge of Istanbul on Friday night, where a man who supports Mr. Erdogan’s party complained about what he said was weak party support for religious schools.
“What about Koran courses?” he asked a party representative. “We are looking for generations that have morality.”
The apartment where the meeting took place bore the traces of upper-middle-class life: a running machine, a washing machine and a dryer. Brightly colored scarves covered the hair of the hostesses.
The representative, Kenan Danisman, paused as the evening prayer began. He then offered some pragmatic advice. “If you transfer this prayer into practical support, in three to five years, the problems that hurt peoples’ consciences will be resolved.”
It is precisely the open question of religion’s role in society that makes secular Turks so uncomfortable. Mr. Erdogan may be explicit in his opposition to Islam’s entering policy, but what about the rank and file who are filling jobs in public administration — what is their view of sexual equality? Secular Turks worry that their conservative worldview will lead to a reinterpretation of the rules and lower tolerance for a secular lifestyle.
“People like me are not calculating the economy or what sort of policies they are making,” said Basak Caglayan, 35, a financial consultant who will be married next month. “The life we expect, we want, for our children, is changing. I worry about that.”
Published: April 25, 2007 (NYT)
ISTANBUL, April 24 — Turkey’s ruling party on Tuesday chose a presidential candidate with an Islamic background, a move that will extend the reach of the party — and the emerging class of devout Muslims it represents — into the heart of Turkey’s secular establishment for the first time.
The selection has focused the worries of secular Turks who fear that sexual equality, as well as drinking alcohol and wearing miniskirts, could eventually be in danger.
Abdullah Gul, 56, the foreign minister, whose wife wears a Muslim head scarf and who is Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s closest political ally, is expected to be confirmed as president by Parliament in several rounds of voting that begin Friday. That will boost Turkey’s new political class — modernizers from a religious background.
“These are the new forces, the new social powers,” said Ali Bulac, a columnist for a conservative newspaper, Zaman, in Istanbul. “They are very devout. They don’t drink. They don’t gamble. They don’t take holidays. They are loaded with a huge energy. This energy has been blocked by the state.”
Turkey is a Muslim country, but its state, founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, is strictly secular, and the presidency is its most important office. The current president is Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a secularist with a judicial background whose term is expiring.
Mr. Gul, an affable English speaker who has long been his party’s public face abroad, nodded to secular concerns in a news conference in Ankara after his nomination, saying, “Our differences are our richness.” His candidacy was a concession: the choice most distasteful to the secular establishment was Mr. Erdogan himself, who deftly bowed out.
Still, if Mr. Gul is confirmed, his party would occupy the posts of president, prime minister and parliamentary speaker, a lineup that the opposition party leader, Deniz Baykal, called “unfavorable.” His party later announced that it would boycott the vote.
In the Middle East, where mixing religion with government has been seen as poisonous for modernity, Turkey’s very light blend stands out as unusual, even unique.
“This party has done more for the modernization of Turkey than all the secular parties in the previous years,” said Joost Lagendijk, a member of the European Parliament who heads a committee on Turkish issues. “They were willing to open up the system, to challenge the elite.”
The party that Mr. Gul helped found, known by its Turkish initials, AK, sprang from the Islamic political movements of the 1990s. But the AK became significantly more moderate after taking power on a national scale in 2002. Since then, it has applied pragmatic policies that helped create an economic boom and opened up the state in ways that the rigid secular elite, which relied heavily on state control, had never imagined, in part to qualify for membership in the European Union.
Although the party is publicly adamant about keeping religion separate from policy, bristling at shorthand descriptions of it as pro-Islamic, it draws much of its support from Turkey’s religiously conservative heartland. Once on the periphery, these traditional Turks are now emerging as a powerful middle class that has driven Turkey’s boom. The economy has nearly doubled in the four years that the AK has been in power, largely because it has stuck to an economic program prescribed by the International Monetary Fund.
Mr. Gul’s candidacy goes to the heart of the secular-religious debate, because the presidency is such a revered symbol with real powers — he is commander in chief and has a veto. Turkish military leaders in the past have remarked that they would refuse to visit the presidential palace if a woman in a head scarf were living in it.
“How can she now become the host of a palace that represents the very same principles?” said Necmi Yuzbasioglu, a professor of constitutional law at Istanbul University.
Mehmet A. Kislali, a columnist with the newspaper Radikal, who has contacts with the military, said: “The military should not be underestimated. Thousands of officers are watching the developments.”
But the party’s only real application of Islam has been its grass-roots approach. In practices that would be familiar to Shiite Muslims in Lebanon or to Palestinians in Gaza, women’s groups go door to door offering aid, community centers offer women’s literacy classes and sports centers give free physical therapy to handicapped children.
The question of religion aside, economic progress under the AK has been extraordinary, with a steady rise in entrepreneurship. In Istanbul, fuel-efficient taxis zip down tulip-lined streets. New parks have sprung up. The air is less polluted.
Mustafa Karaduman, a textile designer and fashion house owner, is among the new entrepreneurs. He is from Anatolia, a capital of middle-class production, and the homeland of Mr. Gul. His fashion house has turned into an empire, supplying Islamic clothing for women in Europe and the Middle East. He is 50, has seven children, and is an outspoken opponent of the miniskirt.
“My mission,” he says, “is to cover all women around the world.”
The country’s wealth has drawn more observant Turks into public life. Some religious schools now teach English, unheard of a decade ago, improving the chances of students from religious backgrounds on university entrance exams.
At the Kartal Anadolu Imam Hatip High School in a conservative middle-class neighborhood, 16-year-old girls in head scarves and sweatshirts played basketball last week in brightly patterned Converse sneakers. (Skulls were a popular choice.) Last year, 94 students were admitted to universities, up from almost none a decade ago, said Hadir Kalkan, the school’s principal, pointing to students’ career choices in marketing, broadcasting, psychology and finance. Just 14 chose to continue religious training.
The city pool and gym in the lower-middle-class neighborhood of Okmeydani is a testament to the ascendancy of the pious middle class. Few observant women attended in 1996, when the pool opened, an attendant said. Now they fill treadmills and lap lanes.
“I always wanted to but there were no places to go,” said Dondu Koc, a 46-year-old in yellow sweat pants as she pedaled an exercise bike in a room full of women on Wednesday. Before Mr. Erdogan’s stewardship as mayor of the city, there was only one public pool. Now there are three, and five are under construction.
The complex is separated by sex, an arrangement Ms. Koc likes because it lets her and other covered women pedal, jog and swim without their head scarves. But the division irritates secular Turks.
“There shouldn’t be a split like this,” said Tamis Demirel, 47, a homemaker whose hair was still wet from her swim. “We sit next to each other; we should swim next to each other, too.”
The remark seemed to answer the question of Elif Demir, a 19-year-old office clerk at a youth rally for Mr. Erdogan on Sunday. “We have no problem with women wearing miniskirts,” she said, “but why are they so bothered with our head scarves?”
That frustration took the form of a public scolding at a meeting on the far edge of Istanbul on Friday night, where a man who supports Mr. Erdogan’s party complained about what he said was weak party support for religious schools.
“What about Koran courses?” he asked a party representative. “We are looking for generations that have morality.”
The apartment where the meeting took place bore the traces of upper-middle-class life: a running machine, a washing machine and a dryer. Brightly colored scarves covered the hair of the hostesses.
The representative, Kenan Danisman, paused as the evening prayer began. He then offered some pragmatic advice. “If you transfer this prayer into practical support, in three to five years, the problems that hurt peoples’ consciences will be resolved.”
It is precisely the open question of religion’s role in society that makes secular Turks so uncomfortable. Mr. Erdogan may be explicit in his opposition to Islam’s entering policy, but what about the rank and file who are filling jobs in public administration — what is their view of sexual equality? Secular Turks worry that their conservative worldview will lead to a reinterpretation of the rules and lower tolerance for a secular lifestyle.
“People like me are not calculating the economy or what sort of policies they are making,” said Basak Caglayan, 35, a financial consultant who will be married next month. “The life we expect, we want, for our children, is changing. I worry about that.”
Monday, April 23, 2007
ispanyolca/ ispanyolca ders / ispanyolca kurs 8
chubascos
showers
despejado
clear
lluvia
rain
niebla
fog
nublado
cloudy
It's sunny
It's raining
It's snowing
It's windy
Hace sol
Está lloviendo
Está nevando
Hace viento
a-the sol
esta lyo-byendo
esta ne-bando
a-the byento
What a lovely day!
What awful weather!
¡Qué día más bueno!
¡Qué tiempo tan malo!
ke dee-a mas bweno
ke tyempo tan malo
What will the weather be like tomorrow?
¿Qué tiempo hará mañana?
ke tyempo a-ra ma-nyana
Do you think it's going to rain?
Do I need an umbrella?
¿Cree que va a llover?
¿Necesitaré paraguas?
kre-e ke ba a lyo-ber
ne-the-seeta-re pa-ragwas
When will it stop raining?
¿Cuándo parará de llover?
kwando pa-rara de lyo-ber
It's very hot
Do you think there will be a storm?
Hace mucho calor
¿Cree que va a haber tormenta?
a-the moocho kalor
kre-e ke ba a a-ber tor-menta
Do you think it will snow?
¿Le parece que va a nevar?
le pa-rethe ke ba a nebar
What is the temperature?
¿Qué temperatura hace?
ke tem-pera-toora a-the
ispanyolca/ ispanyolca ders / ispanyolca kurs 8
showers
despejado
clear
lluvia
rain
niebla
fog
nublado
cloudy
It's sunny
It's raining
It's snowing
It's windy
Hace sol
Está lloviendo
Está nevando
Hace viento
a-the sol
esta lyo-byendo
esta ne-bando
a-the byento
What a lovely day!
What awful weather!
¡Qué día más bueno!
¡Qué tiempo tan malo!
ke dee-a mas bweno
ke tyempo tan malo
What will the weather be like tomorrow?
¿Qué tiempo hará mañana?
ke tyempo a-ra ma-nyana
Do you think it's going to rain?
Do I need an umbrella?
¿Cree que va a llover?
¿Necesitaré paraguas?
kre-e ke ba a lyo-ber
ne-the-seeta-re pa-ragwas
When will it stop raining?
¿Cuándo parará de llover?
kwando pa-rara de lyo-ber
It's very hot
Do you think there will be a storm?
Hace mucho calor
¿Cree que va a haber tormenta?
a-the moocho kalor
kre-e ke ba a a-ber tor-menta
Do you think it will snow?
¿Le parece que va a nevar?
le pa-rethe ke ba a nebar
What is the temperature?
¿Qué temperatura hace?
ke tem-pera-toora a-the
ispanyolca/ ispanyolca ders / ispanyolca kurs 8
Sunday, April 22, 2007
ispanyolca ispanyolca ders ispanyolca kurs 7
ispanyolca ispanyolca ders ispanyolca kurs 7
The wine list, please
La carta de vinos, por favor
la karta de beenos por fabor
Can you recommend a good wine?
¿Puede recomendarnos un vino bueno?
pwe-de reko-mendar-nos oon beeno bweno
A bottle...
A carafe...
of the house wine
Una botella...
Una jarra...
de vino de la casa
oona bo-telya...
oona kharra...
de beeno de la kasa
of red wine
of white wine
of rosé wine
de vino tinto
de vino blanco
de vino rosado
de beeno teento
de beeno blanko
de beeno ro-sado
of dry wine
of sweet wine
of a local wine
de vino seco
de vino dulce
de vino de la tierra
de beeno seko
de beeno dool-the
de beeno de la tyerra
Albariño smooth white wine from Galicia
Alella dry, medium-dry white wines from Cataluña
Alicante strong country reds and Fondillón, aged mature wine
Cariñena mainly red wines, best drunk young, from Aragón
Cava good quality sparkling white wine from Penedés
Cigales light, fruity, dry rosé wines from Castilla-León
Jumilla strong, dark red wines from Murcia
Lágrima one of the best of the Málaga wines, very sweet
La Mancha firm whites and reds from Castilla-La Mancha
Málaga fortified, sweet, dark dessert wine
Navarra full-bodied reds from Navarra
Penedés fine reds, rosés and whites. Home of Cava
Ribeiro young, fresh, white wines from Galicia
Ribera del Duero fruity rosés and deep distinguished reds from
the banks of the river Duero in Castilla-León
Rioja some of the finest red wines of Spain: full-bodied, rich and
aged in oak. Also good white Riojas aged in oak
Valdepeñas soft, fruity, red wines and white wines
ispanyolca ispanyolca ders ispanyolca kurs 7
The wine list, please
La carta de vinos, por favor
la karta de beenos por fabor
Can you recommend a good wine?
¿Puede recomendarnos un vino bueno?
pwe-de reko-mendar-nos oon beeno bweno
A bottle...
A carafe...
of the house wine
Una botella...
Una jarra...
de vino de la casa
oona bo-telya...
oona kharra...
de beeno de la kasa
of red wine
of white wine
of rosé wine
de vino tinto
de vino blanco
de vino rosado
de beeno teento
de beeno blanko
de beeno ro-sado
of dry wine
of sweet wine
of a local wine
de vino seco
de vino dulce
de vino de la tierra
de beeno seko
de beeno dool-the
de beeno de la tyerra
Albariño smooth white wine from Galicia
Alella dry, medium-dry white wines from Cataluña
Alicante strong country reds and Fondillón, aged mature wine
Cariñena mainly red wines, best drunk young, from Aragón
Cava good quality sparkling white wine from Penedés
Cigales light, fruity, dry rosé wines from Castilla-León
Jumilla strong, dark red wines from Murcia
Lágrima one of the best of the Málaga wines, very sweet
La Mancha firm whites and reds from Castilla-La Mancha
Málaga fortified, sweet, dark dessert wine
Navarra full-bodied reds from Navarra
Penedés fine reds, rosés and whites. Home of Cava
Ribeiro young, fresh, white wines from Galicia
Ribera del Duero fruity rosés and deep distinguished reds from
the banks of the river Duero in Castilla-León
Rioja some of the finest red wines of Spain: full-bodied, rich and
aged in oak. Also good white Riojas aged in oak
Valdepeñas soft, fruity, red wines and white wines
ispanyolca ispanyolca ders ispanyolca kurs 7
ispanyolca / ispanyolca ders / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs 6
What work do you do?
Do you enjoy it?
¿En qué trabaja?
¿Le gusta?
en ke traba-kha
le goosta
I'm...
a doctor
a teacher
a secretary
Soy...
médico(a)
profesor(a)
secretaria
soy...
me-deeko(a)
pro-fesor(a)
se-kreta-rya
I work in...
a shop
a factory
a bank
Trabajo en...
una tienda
una fábrica
un banco
traba-kho en...
oona tyenda
oona fa-breeka
oon banko
I work from home
I'm self-employed
Trabajo en casa
Trabajo por cuenta propia
traba-kho en kasa
traba-kho por cwenta pro-pee-a
I have been unemployed for...
...months
He estado en el paro...
...meses
e es-tado en el paro...
...meses
It's very difficult to get a job at the moment
Ahora es muy difícil encontrar trabajo
a-o-ra es mwee dee-feetheel en-kontrar traba-kho
What are your hours?
¿Cuáles son sus horas de trabajo?
kwales son soos o-ras de traba-kho
I work from 9 to 5
from Monday to Friday
Trabajo de nueve a cinco
de lunes a viernes
traba-kho de nwe-be a theenko
de loo-nes a byer-nes
How much holiday do you get?
¿Cuánto tiempo tiene de vacaciones?
kwanto tyempo tye-ne de baka-thyo-nes
What do you want to be when you grow up?
¿Qué quieres hacer cuando seas mayor?
ke kye-res a-ther kwando se-as ma-yor
ispanyolca / ispanyolca ders / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs 6
Do you enjoy it?
¿En qué trabaja?
¿Le gusta?
en ke traba-kha
le goosta
I'm...
a doctor
a teacher
a secretary
Soy...
médico(a)
profesor(a)
secretaria
soy...
me-deeko(a)
pro-fesor(a)
se-kreta-rya
I work in...
a shop
a factory
a bank
Trabajo en...
una tienda
una fábrica
un banco
traba-kho en...
oona tyenda
oona fa-breeka
oon banko
I work from home
I'm self-employed
Trabajo en casa
Trabajo por cuenta propia
traba-kho en kasa
traba-kho por cwenta pro-pee-a
I have been unemployed for...
...months
He estado en el paro...
...meses
e es-tado en el paro...
...meses
It's very difficult to get a job at the moment
Ahora es muy difícil encontrar trabajo
a-o-ra es mwee dee-feetheel en-kontrar traba-kho
What are your hours?
¿Cuáles son sus horas de trabajo?
kwales son soos o-ras de traba-kho
I work from 9 to 5
from Monday to Friday
Trabajo de nueve a cinco
de lunes a viernes
traba-kho de nwe-be a theenko
de loo-nes a byer-nes
How much holiday do you get?
¿Cuánto tiempo tiene de vacaciones?
kwanto tyempo tye-ne de baka-thyo-nes
What do you want to be when you grow up?
¿Qué quieres hacer cuando seas mayor?
ke kye-res a-ther kwando se-as ma-yor
ispanyolca / ispanyolca ders / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs 6
Friday, April 20, 2007
ispanyolca / spanish / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs 5
I will confirm... by letter by fax
Lo confirmaré... por escrito por fax
lo konfeer-ma-re... por eskree-to por faks
I'm staying at Hotel...
Me quedo en el Hotel...
me kedo en el o-tel...
How do I get to your office?
¿Cómo se va a su oficina?
komo se ba a soo ofee-theena
Please let ... know that I will be ... minutes late
Por favor, dígale a ... que voy a llegar ... minutos tarde
por fabor dee-gale a ... ke boy a lyegar ... mee-nootos tar-de
I have an appointment with... at ... o'clock
Tengo una cita con... a las...
tengo oona theeta kon... a las...
Here is my card
Aquí tiene mi tarjeta
a-kee tye-ne mee tar-kheta
I'm delighted to meet you at last
Es un gran placer para mí conocerle(la) por fin
es oon gran pla-ther para mee kono-ther-le(la) por feen
ispanyolca / spanish / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs / ispanyolca ders 5
Lo confirmaré... por escrito por fax
lo konfeer-ma-re... por eskree-to por faks
I'm staying at Hotel...
Me quedo en el Hotel...
me kedo en el o-tel...
How do I get to your office?
¿Cómo se va a su oficina?
komo se ba a soo ofee-theena
Please let ... know that I will be ... minutes late
Por favor, dígale a ... que voy a llegar ... minutos tarde
por fabor dee-gale a ... ke boy a lyegar ... mee-nootos tar-de
I have an appointment with... at ... o'clock
Tengo una cita con... a las...
tengo oona theeta kon... a las...
Here is my card
Aquí tiene mi tarjeta
a-kee tye-ne mee tar-kheta
I'm delighted to meet you at last
Es un gran placer para mí conocerle(la) por fin
es oon gran pla-ther para mee kono-ther-le(la) por feen
ispanyolca / spanish / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs / ispanyolca ders 5
ispanyolca / spanish / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs 4
Do you have a list of accommodation with prices?
¿Tiene alguna guía de hoteles y apartamentos con precios?
tye-ne al-goona gee-a de o-teles ee a-parta-mentos kon prethyos
Is there a hotel here?
¿Hay algún hotel por aquí?
a-ee al-goon o-tel por a-kee
Do you have any vacancies?
¿Tiene alguna habitación libre?
tye-ne al-goona abee-tathyon lee-bre
I'd like (to book) a room... double
Quería (reservar) una habitación... doble
ke-ree-a (re-serbar) oona abee-tathyon... do-ble
single with bath with shower
individual con baño con ducha
eendee-beedwal kon banyo kon doocha
with a double bed twin-bedded
con cama de matrimonio con dos camas
kon kama de matree-monyo kon dos kamas
with an extra bed for a child
con una cama supletoria para un niño
kon oona kama soo-pleto-rya para oon neenyo
A room that looks... onto the garden onto the sea
Una habitación que dé... al jardín al mar
oona abee-tathyon ke de... al khardeen al mar
We'd like two rooms next to each other
Quisiéramos dos habitaciones contiguas
kee-sye-ramos dos abee-tathyo-nes kontee-gwas
We'd like to stay ... nights from ... till...
Quisiéramos quedarnos ... noches del ... al...
kee-sye-ramos kedar-nos ... no-ches del ... al...
I will confirm... by letter by fax
Se lo confirmaré... por escrito por fax
se lo konfeer-ma-re... por eskree-to por faks
ispanyolca / spanish / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs / ispanyolca ders
¿Tiene alguna guía de hoteles y apartamentos con precios?
tye-ne al-goona gee-a de o-teles ee a-parta-mentos kon prethyos
Is there a hotel here?
¿Hay algún hotel por aquí?
a-ee al-goon o-tel por a-kee
Do you have any vacancies?
¿Tiene alguna habitación libre?
tye-ne al-goona abee-tathyon lee-bre
I'd like (to book) a room... double
Quería (reservar) una habitación... doble
ke-ree-a (re-serbar) oona abee-tathyon... do-ble
single with bath with shower
individual con baño con ducha
eendee-beedwal kon banyo kon doocha
with a double bed twin-bedded
con cama de matrimonio con dos camas
kon kama de matree-monyo kon dos kamas
with an extra bed for a child
con una cama supletoria para un niño
kon oona kama soo-pleto-rya para oon neenyo
A room that looks... onto the garden onto the sea
Una habitación que dé... al jardín al mar
oona abee-tathyon ke de... al khardeen al mar
We'd like two rooms next to each other
Quisiéramos dos habitaciones contiguas
kee-sye-ramos dos abee-tathyo-nes kontee-gwas
We'd like to stay ... nights from ... till...
Quisiéramos quedarnos ... noches del ... al...
kee-sye-ramos kedar-nos ... no-ches del ... al...
I will confirm... by letter by fax
Se lo confirmaré... por escrito por fax
se lo konfeer-ma-re... por eskree-to por faks
ispanyolca / spanish / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs / ispanyolca ders
Mourners bury German victim of publishing house attack in Turkey, police detain 11th suspect
MALATYA, Turkey: Singing hymns in Turkish, mourners on Friday buried the German victim of this week's attack at a Christian publishing house, while local media reported police had detained an 11th suspect in the slayings.
The killing of the German and two Turks — who had converted to Christianity — highlighted the country's uneasy relationship with its minorities. Christians expressed fear that growing nationalism and intolerance could lead to more violence against them.
Police detained five people Wednesday at the scene of the attack Wednesday in the eastern city of Malatya, including one man who jumped out of the window to avoid arrest. Another five suspects were detained Thursday. Private Dogan news agency and other media reported that police detained an 11th suspect on Friday in Istanbul. Police there would not comment on the reports.
Hurriyet newspaper reported that some of the suspects told police they had carried out the killings to protect Islam. Police did not comment on the report.
The three victims were found with their hands and legs tied and their throats slit. Their faces were bruised, and the ropes had cut into their wrists.
On Friday, the Hurriyet reported that at least one victim had also been stabbed many times.
"There were so many stab wounds that we couldn't count them," Hurriyet quoted Dr. Murat Ugras as saying. "It was clearly torture."
German victim Tilmann Geske was buried at an Armenian cemetery in Malatya, overgrown with weeds. His wife and three children — aged 13, 10 and 8 — were among the mourners, who sang in Turkish to guitar music and prayed for forgiveness for the attackers. His youngest, Miriam, wept as dirt was shoveled onto his coffin.
Rev. Ahmet Guvener, the pastor at a church in the city of Diyarbakir, prayed for tolerance.
"We are part of this country, we are not foreigners here," Guvener said.
The attack added to concerns in Europe about whether the predominantly Muslim country — which is bidding for European Union membership — can protect its religious minorities.
Christian leaders said they worried that nationalists were stoking hostilities against non-Turks and non-Muslims by exploiting growing uncertainty over Turkey's place in the world.
The uncertainty — and growing suspicion against foreigners — has been driven by the faltering EU bid, a resilient Kurdish separatist movement and by increasingly vocal Islamists who see themselves — and Turkey — as locked in battle with a hostile Christian West.
"Our lives are in danger because of this mind-set," the Rev. Ihsan Ozbek, pastor of the Kurtulus Church in Ankara, told a news conference in Malatya. He said there was a "witch hunt" under way against Christians and other minorities.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as Vatican secretary of state is Pope Benedict XVI's top aide, called the attack "an insane act by a fanatic minority."
"We must not waste the fruits of the pope's visit to Turkey, which has really brought us closer," Bertone was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA.
The pope visited Turkey in November, promising greater understanding and dialogue with Islam.
Nationalists, who have long dominated public debate in Turkey, have also begun to call for Turkey to withdraw its EU bid and make its own way in the world. Some young men indoctrinated with a vision of Turkish greatness — and with a view of the West as intent on keeping the Islamic world weak — view non-Muslims with suspicion.
"The problem is our education and our media," Mustafa Efe, head of Mujde FM, or Miracle FM, a Christian broadcasting station, said after traveling to Malatya to meet Protestant pastors. "They always say Christianity is dangerous because Christians are trying to break up Turkey."
Christians make up just a fraction of 1 percent of Turkey's population of 71 million.
"There is this general atmosphere of fear — that Turkey will be segmented," said Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a human rights lawyer who represented one of the slain Christians, Necati Aydin, 26, in an earlier court case. Aydin was charged with insulting Islam and spent a month in jail after he was found distributing Bibles in the Aegean city of Izmir.
Christians and other minorities have watched Turkey's struggling EU bid with alarm. Many worry the papacy of Benedict XVI, who when he was still a cardinal spoke against Turkey's bid for membership, would only contribute to their problems.
The killing of the German and two Turks — who had converted to Christianity — highlighted the country's uneasy relationship with its minorities. Christians expressed fear that growing nationalism and intolerance could lead to more violence against them.
Police detained five people Wednesday at the scene of the attack Wednesday in the eastern city of Malatya, including one man who jumped out of the window to avoid arrest. Another five suspects were detained Thursday. Private Dogan news agency and other media reported that police detained an 11th suspect on Friday in Istanbul. Police there would not comment on the reports.
Hurriyet newspaper reported that some of the suspects told police they had carried out the killings to protect Islam. Police did not comment on the report.
The three victims were found with their hands and legs tied and their throats slit. Their faces were bruised, and the ropes had cut into their wrists.
On Friday, the Hurriyet reported that at least one victim had also been stabbed many times.
"There were so many stab wounds that we couldn't count them," Hurriyet quoted Dr. Murat Ugras as saying. "It was clearly torture."
German victim Tilmann Geske was buried at an Armenian cemetery in Malatya, overgrown with weeds. His wife and three children — aged 13, 10 and 8 — were among the mourners, who sang in Turkish to guitar music and prayed for forgiveness for the attackers. His youngest, Miriam, wept as dirt was shoveled onto his coffin.
Rev. Ahmet Guvener, the pastor at a church in the city of Diyarbakir, prayed for tolerance.
"We are part of this country, we are not foreigners here," Guvener said.
The attack added to concerns in Europe about whether the predominantly Muslim country — which is bidding for European Union membership — can protect its religious minorities.
Christian leaders said they worried that nationalists were stoking hostilities against non-Turks and non-Muslims by exploiting growing uncertainty over Turkey's place in the world.
The uncertainty — and growing suspicion against foreigners — has been driven by the faltering EU bid, a resilient Kurdish separatist movement and by increasingly vocal Islamists who see themselves — and Turkey — as locked in battle with a hostile Christian West.
"Our lives are in danger because of this mind-set," the Rev. Ihsan Ozbek, pastor of the Kurtulus Church in Ankara, told a news conference in Malatya. He said there was a "witch hunt" under way against Christians and other minorities.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as Vatican secretary of state is Pope Benedict XVI's top aide, called the attack "an insane act by a fanatic minority."
"We must not waste the fruits of the pope's visit to Turkey, which has really brought us closer," Bertone was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA.
The pope visited Turkey in November, promising greater understanding and dialogue with Islam.
Nationalists, who have long dominated public debate in Turkey, have also begun to call for Turkey to withdraw its EU bid and make its own way in the world. Some young men indoctrinated with a vision of Turkish greatness — and with a view of the West as intent on keeping the Islamic world weak — view non-Muslims with suspicion.
"The problem is our education and our media," Mustafa Efe, head of Mujde FM, or Miracle FM, a Christian broadcasting station, said after traveling to Malatya to meet Protestant pastors. "They always say Christianity is dangerous because Christians are trying to break up Turkey."
Christians make up just a fraction of 1 percent of Turkey's population of 71 million.
"There is this general atmosphere of fear — that Turkey will be segmented," said Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a human rights lawyer who represented one of the slain Christians, Necati Aydin, 26, in an earlier court case. Aydin was charged with insulting Islam and spent a month in jail after he was found distributing Bibles in the Aegean city of Izmir.
Christians and other minorities have watched Turkey's struggling EU bid with alarm. Many worry the papacy of Benedict XVI, who when he was still a cardinal spoke against Turkey's bid for membership, would only contribute to their problems.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
ispanyolca / spanish / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs 3
Leave me alone.Déjame en paz. (DAY-hah-may en PASS)
Don't touch me!¡No me toques! (noh may TOH-kayss!)
I'll call the police.Llamaré a la policía. (yah-mah-RAY ah lah po-lee-SEE-ah)
Police!Policía! (poh-lee-SEE-ah!)
Stop! Thief!¡Alto, al ladrón! (AHL-toh ahl lah-DROAN!)
I need help.Necesito ayuda. (ne-say-SEE-toh ah-YOU-dah)
It's an emergency.Es una emergencia. (ayss oo-nah AY-mayr-HEN-syah)
I'm lost.Estoy perdido/a (ay-STOY payr-DEE-doh/dah)
I lost my purse/handbag.Perdí mi bolsa/bolso/cartera. (payr-DEE mee BOHL-sa / BOHL-so / cahr-TAY-rah)
I lost my wallet.Perdí mi cartera/billetera. (payr-DEE mee BOHLcahr-TAY-rah / bee-yay-TAY-rah; the last may also be said as beel-yay-TAY-rah)
I'm sick.Estoy enfermo/a. (ay-STOY ayn-FAYR-moh/mah)
I've been injured.Estoy herido/a. (ay-STOY ay-REE-doh/dah)
I need a doctor.Necesito un doctor. (nay-say-SEE-toh OON dohk-TOHR)
Can I use your phone?¿Puedo usar su teléfono? (PWAY-doh oo-SAHR soo tay-LAY-foh-noh?)
Don't touch me!¡No me toques! (noh may TOH-kayss!)
I'll call the police.Llamaré a la policía. (yah-mah-RAY ah lah po-lee-SEE-ah)
Police!Policía! (poh-lee-SEE-ah!)
Stop! Thief!¡Alto, al ladrón! (AHL-toh ahl lah-DROAN!)
I need help.Necesito ayuda. (ne-say-SEE-toh ah-YOU-dah)
It's an emergency.Es una emergencia. (ayss oo-nah AY-mayr-HEN-syah)
I'm lost.Estoy perdido/a (ay-STOY payr-DEE-doh/dah)
I lost my purse/handbag.Perdí mi bolsa/bolso/cartera. (payr-DEE mee BOHL-sa / BOHL-so / cahr-TAY-rah)
I lost my wallet.Perdí mi cartera/billetera. (payr-DEE mee BOHLcahr-TAY-rah / bee-yay-TAY-rah; the last may also be said as beel-yay-TAY-rah)
I'm sick.Estoy enfermo/a. (ay-STOY ayn-FAYR-moh/mah)
I've been injured.Estoy herido/a. (ay-STOY ay-REE-doh/dah)
I need a doctor.Necesito un doctor. (nay-say-SEE-toh OON dohk-TOHR)
Can I use your phone?¿Puedo usar su teléfono? (PWAY-doh oo-SAHR soo tay-LAY-foh-noh?)
ispanyolca / spanish / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs 2
Hello (informal).Hola. (OH-lah). For the formal equivalent of hola see good morning, good afternoon, good evening below.
How are you? (informal)¿Cómo estás? (KOH-moh ehss-TAHSS?)
How are you (formal)¿Cómo está usted? (KOH-mo ehss-TAH oo-stehd?)
Fine, thank you.Muy bien, gracias. (mooey BYEHN, GRAH-syahss)
What is your name? (informal)¿Cómo te llamas? (KOH-moh tay YAH-mahss?)
What is your name? (formal)¿Cómo se llama usted? (KOH-mo say YAH-mah ooss-TAID?)
My name is ______ .Me llamo ______ . (may YAH-moh _____ .)
Nice to meet you.Encantado/a. (EHN-kahn-TAH-doh)
Please.Por favor. (POHR fah-BOHR)
Thank you.Gracias. (GRAH-SYAHSS)
You're welcome.De nada. (day NAH-dah)
Yes.Sí. (SEE)
No.No. (NOH)
Excuse me. (getting attention)Disculpe. (dees-KOOL-pay)
Excuse me. (begging pardon)Perdón. (pair-DOHN)
I'm sorry.Lo siento. (loh SYEHN-toh)
Goodbye.Adiós. (ah-DYOHSS)
Goodbye. (informal)Hasta luego. (AH-stah LWAY-goh)
I can't speak Spanish [well].No hablo español [bien]. (noh AH-blow EHS-pahn-YOL [BYEHN])
Do you speak English?¿Hablas inglés? (AH-blahss een-GLAYSS?) (informal); ¿Habla usted inglés? (AH-blah oos-TAID een-GLAYSS?)
Is there someone here who speaks English?¿Hay alguien que hable inglés? (eye ahl-GYEN kay AH-blay een-GLAYSS?)
Help!Ayuda! (ah-YOU-dah!); Socorro! (soh-COH-row!)
Good morning.Buenos días. (BWAY-nohss DEE-ahss)
Good afternoon.Buenas tardes. (BWAY-nahss TAR-dayss)
Good evening (when it's dark)Buenas noches. (BWAY-nahss NOH-chayss)
Good night.Buenas noches. (BWAY-nas NOH-chayss)
I don't understand.No entiendo. (noh ehn-TYEHN-doh)
Where is the toilet?¿Dónde está el baño? (DOHN-day ehss-TAH ehl BAHN-yoh?)
How are you? (informal)¿Cómo estás? (KOH-moh ehss-TAHSS?)
How are you (formal)¿Cómo está usted? (KOH-mo ehss-TAH oo-stehd?)
Fine, thank you.Muy bien, gracias. (mooey BYEHN, GRAH-syahss)
What is your name? (informal)¿Cómo te llamas? (KOH-moh tay YAH-mahss?)
What is your name? (formal)¿Cómo se llama usted? (KOH-mo say YAH-mah ooss-TAID?)
My name is ______ .Me llamo ______ . (may YAH-moh _____ .)
Nice to meet you.Encantado/a. (EHN-kahn-TAH-doh)
Please.Por favor. (POHR fah-BOHR)
Thank you.Gracias. (GRAH-SYAHSS)
You're welcome.De nada. (day NAH-dah)
Yes.Sí. (SEE)
No.No. (NOH)
Excuse me. (getting attention)Disculpe. (dees-KOOL-pay)
Excuse me. (begging pardon)Perdón. (pair-DOHN)
I'm sorry.Lo siento. (loh SYEHN-toh)
Goodbye.Adiós. (ah-DYOHSS)
Goodbye. (informal)Hasta luego. (AH-stah LWAY-goh)
I can't speak Spanish [well].No hablo español [bien]. (noh AH-blow EHS-pahn-YOL [BYEHN])
Do you speak English?¿Hablas inglés? (AH-blahss een-GLAYSS?) (informal); ¿Habla usted inglés? (AH-blah oos-TAID een-GLAYSS?)
Is there someone here who speaks English?¿Hay alguien que hable inglés? (eye ahl-GYEN kay AH-blay een-GLAYSS?)
Help!Ayuda! (ah-YOU-dah!); Socorro! (soh-COH-row!)
Good morning.Buenos días. (BWAY-nohss DEE-ahss)
Good afternoon.Buenas tardes. (BWAY-nahss TAR-dayss)
Good evening (when it's dark)Buenas noches. (BWAY-nahss NOH-chayss)
Good night.Buenas noches. (BWAY-nas NOH-chayss)
I don't understand.No entiendo. (noh ehn-TYEHN-doh)
Where is the toilet?¿Dónde está el baño? (DOHN-day ehss-TAH ehl BAHN-yoh?)
ispanyolca / spanish / spanisch / ispanyolca kurs 1
Palabras Para Preguntar / Questions to ask
A dónde Where to
Cómo How
Cuál What (singular)
Cuáles What (plural)
Cuándo When
Cuánto/a How much
Cuántos/as How many
De dónde Where from
Dónde Where
Para qué What for
Por qué Why
Qué What
Quién Who (singular)
Quiénes Who (plural)
Dear visitors from now on I am going to add some basic spanish/ispanyolca lessons to help who learns this very beatiful language.
Sevgili ziyaretçiler bugünden itibaren blogda basit İspanyolca dersleri, ispanyolca gramer konularini, ispanyolca kelimeleri, ispanyolca kurslari ile ilgili bilgileri bulabileceksiniz.
¿Esta O Ser? "ser" is used to indicate more permanent aspects of people or things, such as:
Identity
Yo soy Carla. ("I am Carla")
Profession
Il es un profesor. ("He is a teacher.")
Origin
Nosotros somos de Costa Rica. ("We are from Costa Rica.")
Religious or political affiliation
Tú eres católico ("You are Catholic?")
Time of day or date
Son las ocho. Es invierno. ("It is 8 o'clock. It is winter.")
Posession
La casa es de Juana. ("It is Juana's house.")
Nationality
Yo soy alemán. ("I am German.")
Physical aspects or characteristics of something
Las sillas son verdes. ("The chairs are green.")
Essential qualities of something or someone
Soy viejo. Eres antipatico. ("I am old. You are unpleasant.") "estar" is used to indicate more temporary aspects of people or things, such as:
Location
La silla esta en la cocina. ("The chair is in the kitchen.")
Condition or emotion that is subject to change
Estoy enfermo. ("I am sick.")
Personal observations or reactions, how something "seems" or "feels"
La cocina esta limpia. ("The kitchen is (seems) clean.")
ispanyolca Hint-Avrupa dil ailesine bağlı Romans dillerinden biridir. Dünyada en çok konuşulan üç dilden biridir. İspanyolca Latince'den geliştirilmiş ve Cebelitarık ve Bask gibi farklı bölgelerde konuşulan yerel dillerin etkisiyle bugüne gelmiştir. Bu nedenle Latince'den türeyen diğer dillere dilbilgisi ve sözcük dağarcığı açısından benzer. Dil üzerinde bir diğer önemli etki ise Endülüs Emevileri döneminden dolayı Arapçadandır.
Kristof Kolomb'a yolculukları sırasında İspanyol kraliyet ailesinin destek olması nedeniyle 16. yy.dan sonra Amerika'nın keşfiyle dil bu kıtaya hızla yayılmıştır
A dónde Where to
Cómo How
Cuál What (singular)
Cuáles What (plural)
Cuándo When
Cuánto/a How much
Cuántos/as How many
De dónde Where from
Dónde Where
Para qué What for
Por qué Why
Qué What
Quién Who (singular)
Quiénes Who (plural)
Dear visitors from now on I am going to add some basic spanish/ispanyolca lessons to help who learns this very beatiful language.
Sevgili ziyaretçiler bugünden itibaren blogda basit İspanyolca dersleri, ispanyolca gramer konularini, ispanyolca kelimeleri, ispanyolca kurslari ile ilgili bilgileri bulabileceksiniz.
¿Esta O Ser? "ser" is used to indicate more permanent aspects of people or things, such as:
Identity
Yo soy Carla. ("I am Carla")
Profession
Il es un profesor. ("He is a teacher.")
Origin
Nosotros somos de Costa Rica. ("We are from Costa Rica.")
Religious or political affiliation
Tú eres católico ("You are Catholic?")
Time of day or date
Son las ocho. Es invierno. ("It is 8 o'clock. It is winter.")
Posession
La casa es de Juana. ("It is Juana's house.")
Nationality
Yo soy alemán. ("I am German.")
Physical aspects or characteristics of something
Las sillas son verdes. ("The chairs are green.")
Essential qualities of something or someone
Soy viejo. Eres antipatico. ("I am old. You are unpleasant.") "estar" is used to indicate more temporary aspects of people or things, such as:
Location
La silla esta en la cocina. ("The chair is in the kitchen.")
Condition or emotion that is subject to change
Estoy enfermo. ("I am sick.")
Personal observations or reactions, how something "seems" or "feels"
La cocina esta limpia. ("The kitchen is (seems) clean.")
ispanyolca Hint-Avrupa dil ailesine bağlı Romans dillerinden biridir. Dünyada en çok konuşulan üç dilden biridir. İspanyolca Latince'den geliştirilmiş ve Cebelitarık ve Bask gibi farklı bölgelerde konuşulan yerel dillerin etkisiyle bugüne gelmiştir. Bu nedenle Latince'den türeyen diğer dillere dilbilgisi ve sözcük dağarcığı açısından benzer. Dil üzerinde bir diğer önemli etki ise Endülüs Emevileri döneminden dolayı Arapçadandır.
Kristof Kolomb'a yolculukları sırasında İspanyol kraliyet ailesinin destek olması nedeniyle 16. yy.dan sonra Amerika'nın keşfiyle dil bu kıtaya hızla yayılmıştır
Turkish military says next president must be loyal to secular principles
Turkey's secularists, led by the military, fear that if Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — or someone close to him — wins the presidency next month, the government will be able to implement an Islamic agenda without opposition.
"As a citizen and as a member of the armed forces, we hope that someone who is loyal to the principles of the republic — not just in words but in essence — is elected president," Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, the military chief of staff, told a televised news conference in the first comment by the military on the upcoming presidential elections.
"The president who will be elected will also be the top commander of the Turkish armed forces," Buyukanit said. "I carry the hope that someone with such attributes will be chosen."
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer's seven-year term ends May 16. Parliament, which is dominated by lawmakers from Erdogan's party, will elect the new president early next month.
The prime minister has not yet said whether he will stand. His party was expected to announce its candidates for the position this month.
The military commands widespread respect in Turkey, however, and Buyukanit's comments were clearly intended to persuade Erdogan not to stand.
At a rally in Ankara planned for Saturday, thousands are expected to march to the Mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey, to protest the idea of an "Islamist" taking over the post.
"Erdogan was told in very polite and diplomatic language not to become president," said Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst with the Economic Policy Research Institute in Ankara.
The position of president is largely ceremonial, but the head of state has powers to block legislation and makes key appointments. In the absence of a strong opposition, Sezer has blocked a record number of government-proposed bills he viewed as threatening Turkey's secular foundations as well as the appointment of several officials. Many were rejected for alleged Islamist tendencies.
Erdogan, 53, denies his party has an Islamic agenda. Since coming to power in 2002, his government has promoted Turkey's European Union membership bid, which resulted in the start of accession talks in October 2005.
The army is nevertheless suspicious of Erdogan because of his Islamic past. In 1999, Erdogan spent four months in prison for reading a poem at a political rally which the courts deemed to be inciting religious hatred.
The military, which regards itself the guardian of Turkey's secular values, has staged three coups since the 1960s and has remained influential after ceding control to civilian governments. In 1997, the military led a campaign that pressured an Islamic government — which Erdogan belonged to — out of power for what they saw as an excessive Islamist bent.
__
"As a citizen and as a member of the armed forces, we hope that someone who is loyal to the principles of the republic — not just in words but in essence — is elected president," Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, the military chief of staff, told a televised news conference in the first comment by the military on the upcoming presidential elections.
"The president who will be elected will also be the top commander of the Turkish armed forces," Buyukanit said. "I carry the hope that someone with such attributes will be chosen."
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer's seven-year term ends May 16. Parliament, which is dominated by lawmakers from Erdogan's party, will elect the new president early next month.
The prime minister has not yet said whether he will stand. His party was expected to announce its candidates for the position this month.
The military commands widespread respect in Turkey, however, and Buyukanit's comments were clearly intended to persuade Erdogan not to stand.
At a rally in Ankara planned for Saturday, thousands are expected to march to the Mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey, to protest the idea of an "Islamist" taking over the post.
"Erdogan was told in very polite and diplomatic language not to become president," said Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst with the Economic Policy Research Institute in Ankara.
The position of president is largely ceremonial, but the head of state has powers to block legislation and makes key appointments. In the absence of a strong opposition, Sezer has blocked a record number of government-proposed bills he viewed as threatening Turkey's secular foundations as well as the appointment of several officials. Many were rejected for alleged Islamist tendencies.
Erdogan, 53, denies his party has an Islamic agenda. Since coming to power in 2002, his government has promoted Turkey's European Union membership bid, which resulted in the start of accession talks in October 2005.
The army is nevertheless suspicious of Erdogan because of his Islamic past. In 1999, Erdogan spent four months in prison for reading a poem at a political rally which the courts deemed to be inciting religious hatred.
The military, which regards itself the guardian of Turkey's secular values, has staged three coups since the 1960s and has remained influential after ceding control to civilian governments. In 1997, the military led a campaign that pressured an Islamic government — which Erdogan belonged to — out of power for what they saw as an excessive Islamist bent.
__
U.S. urges Turks to show restraint on border problem with Iraq
WASHINGTON: A top U.S. State Department official urged Turkey on Thursday to show restraint in responding to attacks inside the country by Turkish Kurds operating from Iraqi territory, a senior State Department official said.
Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried issued the call for calm to Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy after the Turkish military sought government approval to launch cross border raids into Iraq to root out guerrillas from the Kurdish Workers Party of PKK, the official said.
The official asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Earlier State Department spokesman Sean McCormack acknowledged the legitimacy of Turkey's concern.
"Turkey faces a real threat from the PKK," he said. "It's a terrorist organization. It has killed innocent Turkish citizens. It has killed Turkish military. And it's a problem that needs to be dealt with."
But, he said, the Turkish and Iraqi governments should work together to try to resolve the problem. He noted that retired Army Gen. Joseph Ralston is trying to assist the two countries in reaching an accommodation.
"The focus should be on trying to resolve this in a cooperative way, in a joint way, rather than to resort to unilateral actions," McCormack said.
Hostilities between Turkey and Iraq would put the United States in the middle of conflict between two close allies and would deflect attention from the U.S. effort to bring stability to Iraq.
Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq, said recently that Iraqi Kurds would retaliate for any Turkish interference in northern Iraq by stirring up trouble in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried issued the call for calm to Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy after the Turkish military sought government approval to launch cross border raids into Iraq to root out guerrillas from the Kurdish Workers Party of PKK, the official said.
The official asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Earlier State Department spokesman Sean McCormack acknowledged the legitimacy of Turkey's concern.
"Turkey faces a real threat from the PKK," he said. "It's a terrorist organization. It has killed innocent Turkish citizens. It has killed Turkish military. And it's a problem that needs to be dealt with."
But, he said, the Turkish and Iraqi governments should work together to try to resolve the problem. He noted that retired Army Gen. Joseph Ralston is trying to assist the two countries in reaching an accommodation.
"The focus should be on trying to resolve this in a cooperative way, in a joint way, rather than to resort to unilateral actions," McCormack said.
Hostilities between Turkey and Iraq would put the United States in the middle of conflict between two close allies and would deflect attention from the U.S. effort to bring stability to Iraq.
Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq, said recently that Iraqi Kurds would retaliate for any Turkish interference in northern Iraq by stirring up trouble in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Turkey's president says Islamist threat to secular establishment at highest level / istanbul-bilbao
ANKARA, Turkey: Turkey's staunchly pro-secular president said Friday that the threat Islamic fundamentalism poses to the country's secular establishment has reached its highest level — a warning directed at the Islamic-rooted prime minister, who may stand to replace him in May.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer was addressing officers of the country's military, the self-appointed guarantor of the secular regime, in one of his last speeches before he steps down as president.
"For the first time, the pillars of the secular republic are being openly questioned," private NTV television quoted Sezer as saying during a speech at the War Academies in Istanbul.
He appeared to be referring to members of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party who have questioned the definition of secularism.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul disagreed with Sezer.
"I don't think the regime is in danger," Gul told reporters in an apparent response to Sezer's comments.
Sezer argued that internal and external powers were working together with the aim of changing the regime.
"Foreign powers want to transform Turkey into a moderate Islamic republic," Sezer said without elaborating.
His words appeared to be aimed at Erdogan's government and against the European Union, which has been pressuring Turkey into curbing the pro-secular military's powers.
Turkey's secularists fear that if Erdogan — or someone close to him — wins the presidency next month, the government will be able to implement an Islamic agenda without opposition.
Sezer's seven-year term ends May 16. Parliament, which is dominated by lawmakers from Erdogan's party, will elect the new president early next month.
The prime minister has not yet said whether he will stand. His party was expected to announce its candidates for the position this month.
"As a citizen and as a member of the armed forces, we hope that someone who is loyal to the principles of the republic — not just in words but in essence — is elected president," Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the military, said Thursday.
Buyukanit's words were widely interpreted as a warning to Erdogan not to run.
The military views itself as the protector of Turkey's secular identity. The fiercely secular generals have staged three coups between 1960 and 1980, and in 1997 led a campaign that pressured a pro-Islamic government out of power.
The EU has repeatedly called on Turkey to limit the role of the military in state affairs.
At a rally in Ankara planned for Saturday, tens of thousands are expected to march to the Mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey, to protest the idea of an "Islamist" taking over the post.
Sezer spoke of increased measures that were "rolling back" the gains of the secular republic, and said these were increasing tension in the country.
"The appointment of Islamic-minded officials to state positions is enough to understand where Turkey is being taken to," Sezer said.
Erdogan's government denies it has an Islamic agenda, but pro-secular Turks say the government is slowly moving the country toward increased religious rule.
Since taking power, Erdogan showed his commitment to future European Union membership by enacting sweeping reforms that allowed the country to start accession talks in 2005.
But he has also stoked secularist concerns by speaking out against restrictions on wearing Islamic-style head scarves in government offices and schools and taking steps to bolster religious schools. He tried to criminalize adultery before being forced to back down under intense EU pressure. Some party-run municipalities have taken steps to ban alcohol consumption.
Although largely ceremonial, the presidency has become a symbol for secularism under Sezer.
A former Constitutional Court judge, Sezer has vetoed a record number of laws he deemed to be in violation of the secular constitution and has blocked government efforts to appoint hundreds of reportedly Islamic-oriented candidates to important civil service positions.
istanbul-bilbao
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer was addressing officers of the country's military, the self-appointed guarantor of the secular regime, in one of his last speeches before he steps down as president.
"For the first time, the pillars of the secular republic are being openly questioned," private NTV television quoted Sezer as saying during a speech at the War Academies in Istanbul.
He appeared to be referring to members of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party who have questioned the definition of secularism.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul disagreed with Sezer.
"I don't think the regime is in danger," Gul told reporters in an apparent response to Sezer's comments.
Sezer argued that internal and external powers were working together with the aim of changing the regime.
"Foreign powers want to transform Turkey into a moderate Islamic republic," Sezer said without elaborating.
His words appeared to be aimed at Erdogan's government and against the European Union, which has been pressuring Turkey into curbing the pro-secular military's powers.
Turkey's secularists fear that if Erdogan — or someone close to him — wins the presidency next month, the government will be able to implement an Islamic agenda without opposition.
Sezer's seven-year term ends May 16. Parliament, which is dominated by lawmakers from Erdogan's party, will elect the new president early next month.
The prime minister has not yet said whether he will stand. His party was expected to announce its candidates for the position this month.
"As a citizen and as a member of the armed forces, we hope that someone who is loyal to the principles of the republic — not just in words but in essence — is elected president," Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the military, said Thursday.
Buyukanit's words were widely interpreted as a warning to Erdogan not to run.
The military views itself as the protector of Turkey's secular identity. The fiercely secular generals have staged three coups between 1960 and 1980, and in 1997 led a campaign that pressured a pro-Islamic government out of power.
The EU has repeatedly called on Turkey to limit the role of the military in state affairs.
At a rally in Ankara planned for Saturday, tens of thousands are expected to march to the Mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey, to protest the idea of an "Islamist" taking over the post.
Sezer spoke of increased measures that were "rolling back" the gains of the secular republic, and said these were increasing tension in the country.
"The appointment of Islamic-minded officials to state positions is enough to understand where Turkey is being taken to," Sezer said.
Erdogan's government denies it has an Islamic agenda, but pro-secular Turks say the government is slowly moving the country toward increased religious rule.
Since taking power, Erdogan showed his commitment to future European Union membership by enacting sweeping reforms that allowed the country to start accession talks in 2005.
But he has also stoked secularist concerns by speaking out against restrictions on wearing Islamic-style head scarves in government offices and schools and taking steps to bolster religious schools. He tried to criminalize adultery before being forced to back down under intense EU pressure. Some party-run municipalities have taken steps to ban alcohol consumption.
Although largely ceremonial, the presidency has become a symbol for secularism under Sezer.
A former Constitutional Court judge, Sezer has vetoed a record number of laws he deemed to be in violation of the secular constitution and has blocked government efforts to appoint hundreds of reportedly Islamic-oriented candidates to important civil service positions.
istanbul-bilbao
Monday, April 09, 2007
Royal gives her support to Turkey's bid for EU accession
By Delphine Strauss in Paris
Ségolène Royal has declared her support for Turkey's bid to join the European Union, becoming the only main contender in France's coming presidential election to endorse an enlargement deeply unpopular with voters.
"In the end, Turkey has a vocation to join Europe, provided it satisfies the membership criteria, which are not just economic and financial but also democratic," the Socialist party candidate said in a new book, extracts of which were published by Le Monde yesterday.
Her support offers a glimmer of hope to Turkey's troubled bid for EU membership which, even if it clears all technical hurdles, depends on the outcome of a French referendum promised by President Jacques Chirac in 2004 as a condition for opening negotiations.
Ms Royal added strong qualifications, saying Europe first needed a pause to stabilise its borders and "prove its concrete utility in the daily life of those it already unites".
Yet her position is sharply at odds with all other leading presidential contenders. Nicolas Sarkozy, candidate of the centre-right UMP and frontrunner in the opinion polls, has repeatedly insisted that "Turkey's place is not in the EU". François Bayrou, the europhile centrist, has echoed that opposition, arguing that Ankara's membership would end the dream of EU political unity.
"We should not make an argument of geography against Turkey: Europe is not a territory . . . but a political project," Ms Royal said. She argued Europe would gain from a show of unity between civilisations, while the prospect of EU entry would assist Turkish democrats in enacting reforms and "also help them in their combat against this state negationism that is the refusal to recognise the Armenian genocide".
Ms Royal has previously been pilloried for refusing to state an opinion on Turkey, saying her position would be "that of the French people". But now she appears to be taking risks in departing from that stance.
Opinion polls show most French voters oppose Turkish membership. Many feel previous enlargements of the EU have reduced Paris's influence and economic edge in Europe, and there is also distrust of Turkey's record on human rights, fuelled by France's 450,000-strong Armenian community
The French National Assembly enraged Ankara last year by voting for legislation that, if enacted, would make it a crime to deny that Armenians were the victims of genocide in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Armenians say as many as 1.5m people died in 1915-1918, while Turkey says that hundreds of thousands of both Armenians and Turks died, largely as a result of civil war and famine.
Ms Royal, who wants to revive French enthusiasm for Europe by pressing for minimum social standards, said her reasons for delaying Turkish membership related "not to Turkey but to Europe". In a jibe at the UK's backing for Ankara, she said: "Who today are the warmest supporters of maximum enlargement? Those who reduce Europe to a big market with the least regulation possible."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
istanbul-bilbao
Ségolène Royal has declared her support for Turkey's bid to join the European Union, becoming the only main contender in France's coming presidential election to endorse an enlargement deeply unpopular with voters.
"In the end, Turkey has a vocation to join Europe, provided it satisfies the membership criteria, which are not just economic and financial but also democratic," the Socialist party candidate said in a new book, extracts of which were published by Le Monde yesterday.
Her support offers a glimmer of hope to Turkey's troubled bid for EU membership which, even if it clears all technical hurdles, depends on the outcome of a French referendum promised by President Jacques Chirac in 2004 as a condition for opening negotiations.
Ms Royal added strong qualifications, saying Europe first needed a pause to stabilise its borders and "prove its concrete utility in the daily life of those it already unites".
Yet her position is sharply at odds with all other leading presidential contenders. Nicolas Sarkozy, candidate of the centre-right UMP and frontrunner in the opinion polls, has repeatedly insisted that "Turkey's place is not in the EU". François Bayrou, the europhile centrist, has echoed that opposition, arguing that Ankara's membership would end the dream of EU political unity.
"We should not make an argument of geography against Turkey: Europe is not a territory . . . but a political project," Ms Royal said. She argued Europe would gain from a show of unity between civilisations, while the prospect of EU entry would assist Turkish democrats in enacting reforms and "also help them in their combat against this state negationism that is the refusal to recognise the Armenian genocide".
Ms Royal has previously been pilloried for refusing to state an opinion on Turkey, saying her position would be "that of the French people". But now she appears to be taking risks in departing from that stance.
Opinion polls show most French voters oppose Turkish membership. Many feel previous enlargements of the EU have reduced Paris's influence and economic edge in Europe, and there is also distrust of Turkey's record on human rights, fuelled by France's 450,000-strong Armenian community
The French National Assembly enraged Ankara last year by voting for legislation that, if enacted, would make it a crime to deny that Armenians were the victims of genocide in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Armenians say as many as 1.5m people died in 1915-1918, while Turkey says that hundreds of thousands of both Armenians and Turks died, largely as a result of civil war and famine.
Ms Royal, who wants to revive French enthusiasm for Europe by pressing for minimum social standards, said her reasons for delaying Turkish membership related "not to Turkey but to Europe". In a jibe at the UK's backing for Ankara, she said: "Who today are the warmest supporters of maximum enlargement? Those who reduce Europe to a big market with the least regulation possible."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
istanbul-bilbao
Thaw in Turkey's EU membership talks process / istanbul-bilbao
By Daniel Dombey in London and Vincent Boland in Ankara
Turkey's faltering bid to join the European Union made rare progress yesterday, when Ankara and Brussels resumed formal negotiations for the first time since the talks were partially frozen in December.
The beginning of the talks on enterprise and industrial policy was marked by a conference in Brussels attended by Ali Babacan, Turkey's chief negotiator.
It was only the second negotiating topic - or "chapter" - to be opened since Turkey's membership process began in 2005 and the first since the EU decided in December to freeze talks in eight areas because of a dispute over Cyprus.
"It is crucial to show the citizens of Turkey that the accession process is moving forward," Mr Babacan said, calling for "sustained political will on both sides".
In all, the two sides will need to conclude negotiations in 35 chapters before Turkey can become an EU member. The Commission and Germany, the holder of the rotating presidency of the EU, hope that up to three other chapters can be opened in June, in the aftermath of the French presidential election. Yesterday Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German foreign minister, proclaimed that the talks were back on track.
But expectations are low that the two sides can overcome mounting frustration with each other, spurred by EU concerns about Ankara's uneven record on domestic reform and rising anti-EU sentiment in Turkey.
Commission officials see 2007 as a year of "muddling through" ahead of Turkish elections and a Cypriot poll next year. Talks planned for coming months are on relatively "easy" topics that are neither politically sensitive nor subject to much EU law.
Even so, Commission officials worry that the possible election of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French presidential candidate, who is opposed to Turkish membership, could make progress more difficult.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
istanbul-bilbao
Turkey's faltering bid to join the European Union made rare progress yesterday, when Ankara and Brussels resumed formal negotiations for the first time since the talks were partially frozen in December.
The beginning of the talks on enterprise and industrial policy was marked by a conference in Brussels attended by Ali Babacan, Turkey's chief negotiator.
It was only the second negotiating topic - or "chapter" - to be opened since Turkey's membership process began in 2005 and the first since the EU decided in December to freeze talks in eight areas because of a dispute over Cyprus.
"It is crucial to show the citizens of Turkey that the accession process is moving forward," Mr Babacan said, calling for "sustained political will on both sides".
In all, the two sides will need to conclude negotiations in 35 chapters before Turkey can become an EU member. The Commission and Germany, the holder of the rotating presidency of the EU, hope that up to three other chapters can be opened in June, in the aftermath of the French presidential election. Yesterday Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German foreign minister, proclaimed that the talks were back on track.
But expectations are low that the two sides can overcome mounting frustration with each other, spurred by EU concerns about Ankara's uneven record on domestic reform and rising anti-EU sentiment in Turkey.
Commission officials see 2007 as a year of "muddling through" ahead of Turkish elections and a Cypriot poll next year. Talks planned for coming months are on relatively "easy" topics that are neither politically sensitive nor subject to much EU law.
Even so, Commission officials worry that the possible election of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French presidential candidate, who is opposed to Turkish membership, could make progress more difficult.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
istanbul-bilbao
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Turkish prime minister wants to avoid tensions before presidential elections / istanbul-bilbao
ANKARA, Turkey: Turkey's premier wants to avoid tensions before presidential elections next month, he said Tuesday, with secularist circles strongly opposing his possible candidacy.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of the Islamic-rooted government, has not said whether he will run for president in May.
There is strong opposition from secularists to an Erdogan candidacy because the position — although largely ceremonial — is regarded as a bastion of secularism, and many do not want to see his wife, who wears an Islamic-style head scarf, move into the presidential palace.
"Our real goal is to focus on our country's development without tensions in our country," Erdogan told reporters before flying to Syria for a one-day visit to watch a friendly soccer match between Turkey and Syria.
"As the ruling party, we have a strategy and we will announce our candidates when the time is right."
Some secularist groups, including some unions and associations, planned to organize demonstrations in the coming weeks to declare their opposition to an Erdogan presidency.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a staunch secularist, will step down in May. Political parties were expected to announce their candidates after mid-April. The new president will be elected by parliament, where Erdogan's Justice and Development Party holds the majority.
On Monday, Erdogan addressed supporters during a party meeting in the central Anatolian city of Eskisehir. Some supporters want to see him rise to the top of the state in a show of force of the country's political Islamic movement, but others want to him to be prime minister for another term. His party is likely to lead polls in November.
The new president will likely be a lawmaker from Erdogan's party and is widely expected to work in harmony with the government.
Sezer, a former Constitutional Court judge, vetoed a record number of laws he deemed violated the secular constitution and has blocked government efforts to appoint hundreds of reportedly Islamic-oriented candidates to important civil service positions.
Sezer has often cautioned against "the threat of Islamic fundamentalism," an apparent reference to the appointment of Islamic-minded officials to key civil service positions and statements by officials in Erdogan's party questioning the definition of secularism.
Erdogan's government denies it has an Islamic agenda, but pro-secular Turks charge the government is slowly moving the country toward increased religious rule, threatening the secular state that was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
The Associated Press
Published: April 3, 2007 / istanbul-bilbao
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of the Islamic-rooted government, has not said whether he will run for president in May.
There is strong opposition from secularists to an Erdogan candidacy because the position — although largely ceremonial — is regarded as a bastion of secularism, and many do not want to see his wife, who wears an Islamic-style head scarf, move into the presidential palace.
"Our real goal is to focus on our country's development without tensions in our country," Erdogan told reporters before flying to Syria for a one-day visit to watch a friendly soccer match between Turkey and Syria.
"As the ruling party, we have a strategy and we will announce our candidates when the time is right."
Some secularist groups, including some unions and associations, planned to organize demonstrations in the coming weeks to declare their opposition to an Erdogan presidency.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a staunch secularist, will step down in May. Political parties were expected to announce their candidates after mid-April. The new president will be elected by parliament, where Erdogan's Justice and Development Party holds the majority.
On Monday, Erdogan addressed supporters during a party meeting in the central Anatolian city of Eskisehir. Some supporters want to see him rise to the top of the state in a show of force of the country's political Islamic movement, but others want to him to be prime minister for another term. His party is likely to lead polls in November.
The new president will likely be a lawmaker from Erdogan's party and is widely expected to work in harmony with the government.
Sezer, a former Constitutional Court judge, vetoed a record number of laws he deemed violated the secular constitution and has blocked government efforts to appoint hundreds of reportedly Islamic-oriented candidates to important civil service positions.
Sezer has often cautioned against "the threat of Islamic fundamentalism," an apparent reference to the appointment of Islamic-minded officials to key civil service positions and statements by officials in Erdogan's party questioning the definition of secularism.
Erdogan's government denies it has an Islamic agenda, but pro-secular Turks charge the government is slowly moving the country toward increased religious rule, threatening the secular state that was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
The Associated Press
Published: April 3, 2007 / istanbul-bilbao
Kurdish leader warns Turkey not to intervene in Kirkuk / istanbul-bilbao
BAGHDAD: Turkey must not interfere in the Kurds' bid to attach Iraq's oil-rich city of Kirkuk to the Kurdish semiautonomous zone, the top official in Iraqi Kurdistan said in remarks broadcast Saturday.
Otherwise, Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani said, Iraq's Kurds will retaliate by intervening in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast, where insurgents have battled for decades to establish their own autonomy.
Barzani, president of the 15-year-old Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, issued the warning after last week's endorsement by the Iraqi government of a decision to relocate and compensate thousands of Arabs who moved to the city as part of Saddam Hussein's campaign to push out the Kurds.
The government's decision was a major step toward implementing a constitutional requirement to determine the status of the disputed city by the end of the year. The plan will likely turn Kirkuk and its vast oil reserves over to Kurdish control, a step rejected by many of Iraq's Arabs and Turkmen — ethnic Turk who are strongly backed by Turkey.
"We will not let the Turks intervene in Kirkuk," Barzani said in an interview with Al-Arabiyah television. "Kirkuk is an Iraqi city with a Kurdish identity, historically and geographically. All the facts prove that Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan."
Some in Turkey have hinted at military action to prevent the Kurds from gaining control of Kirkuk.
Turkish leaders are concerned that Iraq's Kurds want Kirkuk's oil revenues to fund a bid for outright independence, not just autonomy. The Turks fear that would encourage separatist Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey, who have been fighting for autonomy since 1984. The conflict has claimed the lives of 37,000 people.
"Turkey is not allowed to intervene in the Kirkuk issue and if it does, we will interfere in Diyarbakir's issues and other cities in Turkey," Barzani said. Diyarbakir is the largest city in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast.
Asked if he meant to threaten Turkey, Barzani responded that he was telling Ankara what would happen "if Turkey interferes." He said Turkey had military and diplomatic clout, but that the Kurds had survived through the Saddam Hussein regime and that what happened in Kirkuk was "none of their (Ankara's) business."
When asked about the Turkmen minority in Kirkuk and Turkey's concern for its ethnic brethren, Barzani shot back:
"There are 30 million Kurds in Turkey and we don't interfere there. If they (the Turks) interfere in Kirkuk over just thousands of Turkmen then we will take action for the 30 million Kurds in Turkey."
"I hope we don't reach this point, but if the Turks insist on intervening in Kirkuk matter I am ready to take responsible for our response," Barzani said.
The ancient city of Kirkuk has a large minority of Turkmen as well as Christians, Shiite and Sunni Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians. Turkmen were a majority in the city during the Ottoman Empire.
Barzani said the independence and statehood for Kurds, who live in Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq was a "legitimate and legal right."
"But I am against the use of violence to reach this goal," he continued.
The Associated Press
Published: April 7, 2007
istanbul-bilbao
Otherwise, Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani said, Iraq's Kurds will retaliate by intervening in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast, where insurgents have battled for decades to establish their own autonomy.
Barzani, president of the 15-year-old Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, issued the warning after last week's endorsement by the Iraqi government of a decision to relocate and compensate thousands of Arabs who moved to the city as part of Saddam Hussein's campaign to push out the Kurds.
The government's decision was a major step toward implementing a constitutional requirement to determine the status of the disputed city by the end of the year. The plan will likely turn Kirkuk and its vast oil reserves over to Kurdish control, a step rejected by many of Iraq's Arabs and Turkmen — ethnic Turk who are strongly backed by Turkey.
"We will not let the Turks intervene in Kirkuk," Barzani said in an interview with Al-Arabiyah television. "Kirkuk is an Iraqi city with a Kurdish identity, historically and geographically. All the facts prove that Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan."
Some in Turkey have hinted at military action to prevent the Kurds from gaining control of Kirkuk.
Turkish leaders are concerned that Iraq's Kurds want Kirkuk's oil revenues to fund a bid for outright independence, not just autonomy. The Turks fear that would encourage separatist Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey, who have been fighting for autonomy since 1984. The conflict has claimed the lives of 37,000 people.
"Turkey is not allowed to intervene in the Kirkuk issue and if it does, we will interfere in Diyarbakir's issues and other cities in Turkey," Barzani said. Diyarbakir is the largest city in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast.
Asked if he meant to threaten Turkey, Barzani responded that he was telling Ankara what would happen "if Turkey interferes." He said Turkey had military and diplomatic clout, but that the Kurds had survived through the Saddam Hussein regime and that what happened in Kirkuk was "none of their (Ankara's) business."
When asked about the Turkmen minority in Kirkuk and Turkey's concern for its ethnic brethren, Barzani shot back:
"There are 30 million Kurds in Turkey and we don't interfere there. If they (the Turks) interfere in Kirkuk over just thousands of Turkmen then we will take action for the 30 million Kurds in Turkey."
"I hope we don't reach this point, but if the Turks insist on intervening in Kirkuk matter I am ready to take responsible for our response," Barzani said.
The ancient city of Kirkuk has a large minority of Turkmen as well as Christians, Shiite and Sunni Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians. Turkmen were a majority in the city during the Ottoman Empire.
Barzani said the independence and statehood for Kurds, who live in Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq was a "legitimate and legal right."
"But I am against the use of violence to reach this goal," he continued.
The Associated Press
Published: April 7, 2007
istanbul-bilbao
Friday, March 23, 2007
US struggles to avert Turkish intervention in northern Iraq / istanbul-bilbao
· Ankara claims Kurdish rebels preparing attacks· Operations could wreck American peace strategy
Simon Tisdall in AnkaraFriday March 23, 2007 / The Guardian
The US is scrambling to head off a "disastrous" Turkish military intervention in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq that threatens to derail the Baghdad security surge and open up a third front in the battle to save Iraq from disintegration.
Senior Bush administration officials have assured Turkey in recent days that US forces will increase efforts to root out Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) guerrillas enjoying safe haven in the Qandil mountains, on the Iraq-Iran-Turkey border.
But Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, MPs, military chiefs and diplomats say up to 3,800 PKK fighters are preparing for attacks in south-east Turkey - and Turkey is ready to hit back if the Americans fail to act. "We will do what we have to do, we will do what is necessary. Nothing is ruled out," Mr Gul said. "I have said to the Americans many times: suppose there is a terrorist organisation in Mexico attacking America. What would you do?... We are hopeful. We have high expectations. But we cannot just wait forever."
Turkish sources said "hot pursuit" special forces operations in Khaftanin and Qanimasi, northern Iraq, were already under way. Murat Karayilan, a PKK leader, said this week that a "mad war" was in prospect unless Ankara backed off.
Fighting between security forces and Kurdish fighters seeking autonomy or independence for Kurdish-dominated areas of south-east Turkey has claimed 37,000 lives since 1984. The last big Turkish operation occurred 10 years ago, when 40,000 troops pushed deep into Iraq. But intervention in the coming weeks would be the first since the US took control of Iraq in 2003 and would risk direct confrontation between Turkish troops and Iraqi Kurdish forces and their US allies.
Several other factors are adding to the tension between the Nato partners:
· The firm Turkish belief that the US is playing a double game in northern Iraq. Officials say the CIA is covertly funding and arming the PKK's sister organisation, the Iran-based Kurdistan Free Life party, to destabilise the Iranian government.
· US acquiescence in plans to hold a referendum in oil-rich Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Turkey suspects Iraqi Kurds are seeking control of Kirkuk as a prelude to the creation of an independent Kurdistan.
· Plans by the US Congress to vote on a resolution blaming Turkey for genocide against the Armenians in 1915. Faruk Logoglu, a former ambassador to Washington, said that if the resolution passed, relations "could take generations to recover".
· Record levels of Turkish anti-Americanism dating back to 2003, when Turkey refused to let US combat forces cross the Iraq border.
The US is already fighting Sunni insurgents and Shia militias. Analysts say a surge in violence in northern Iraq, previously the most stable region, could capsize the entire US plan. But pressure on the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is also growing as a result of forthcoming elections. Military intervention was narrowly avoided last summer when he said that "patience was at an end" over US prevarication. Now conservatives and nationalists are again accusing him of not standing up to Washington.
"If they are killing our soldiers ... and if public pressure on the government increases, of course we will have to intervene," said Ali Riza Alaboyun, an MP for Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development party. "It is the legal right of any country to protect its people and its borders."
US support for Iranian Kurds opposed to the Tehran government is adding to the agitation. "The US is trying to undermine the Iran regime, using the Kurds like it is using the MEK [the anti-Tehran People's Mujahideen]," said Dr Logoglu. "Once you begin to differentiate between 'good' and 'bad' terrorist organisations, then you lose the war on terror." But he warned that military intervention might be ineffective and could be "disastrous" in destabilising the region. A recent national security council assessment also suggested that senior Turkish commanders were cautious about the prospects of success.
Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state, said last week that the US was acting to assuage Turkish concerns. "We are committed to eliminating the threat of PKK terrorism in northern Iraq," he said.
General Joseph Ralston, the US special envoy dealing with the PKK issue, was less upbeat, admitting that "the potential for Turkish cross-border action" was growing. "We have reached a critical point in which the pressure of continued [PKK] attacks has placed immense public pressure upon the government of Turkey to take some military action. As the snows melt in the mountain passes, we will see if the PKK renews its attacks and how the Turkish government responds ... I hope the Turks will continue to stand by us."
But a Milliyet journalist, Kadri Gursel, said: "The US attitude has really pissed off the government and the army. The US really doesn't understand how exhausted and fed up they are."
Simon Tisdall in AnkaraFriday March 23, 2007 / The Guardian
The US is scrambling to head off a "disastrous" Turkish military intervention in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq that threatens to derail the Baghdad security surge and open up a third front in the battle to save Iraq from disintegration.
Senior Bush administration officials have assured Turkey in recent days that US forces will increase efforts to root out Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) guerrillas enjoying safe haven in the Qandil mountains, on the Iraq-Iran-Turkey border.
But Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, MPs, military chiefs and diplomats say up to 3,800 PKK fighters are preparing for attacks in south-east Turkey - and Turkey is ready to hit back if the Americans fail to act. "We will do what we have to do, we will do what is necessary. Nothing is ruled out," Mr Gul said. "I have said to the Americans many times: suppose there is a terrorist organisation in Mexico attacking America. What would you do?... We are hopeful. We have high expectations. But we cannot just wait forever."
Turkish sources said "hot pursuit" special forces operations in Khaftanin and Qanimasi, northern Iraq, were already under way. Murat Karayilan, a PKK leader, said this week that a "mad war" was in prospect unless Ankara backed off.
Fighting between security forces and Kurdish fighters seeking autonomy or independence for Kurdish-dominated areas of south-east Turkey has claimed 37,000 lives since 1984. The last big Turkish operation occurred 10 years ago, when 40,000 troops pushed deep into Iraq. But intervention in the coming weeks would be the first since the US took control of Iraq in 2003 and would risk direct confrontation between Turkish troops and Iraqi Kurdish forces and their US allies.
Several other factors are adding to the tension between the Nato partners:
· The firm Turkish belief that the US is playing a double game in northern Iraq. Officials say the CIA is covertly funding and arming the PKK's sister organisation, the Iran-based Kurdistan Free Life party, to destabilise the Iranian government.
· US acquiescence in plans to hold a referendum in oil-rich Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Turkey suspects Iraqi Kurds are seeking control of Kirkuk as a prelude to the creation of an independent Kurdistan.
· Plans by the US Congress to vote on a resolution blaming Turkey for genocide against the Armenians in 1915. Faruk Logoglu, a former ambassador to Washington, said that if the resolution passed, relations "could take generations to recover".
· Record levels of Turkish anti-Americanism dating back to 2003, when Turkey refused to let US combat forces cross the Iraq border.
The US is already fighting Sunni insurgents and Shia militias. Analysts say a surge in violence in northern Iraq, previously the most stable region, could capsize the entire US plan. But pressure on the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is also growing as a result of forthcoming elections. Military intervention was narrowly avoided last summer when he said that "patience was at an end" over US prevarication. Now conservatives and nationalists are again accusing him of not standing up to Washington.
"If they are killing our soldiers ... and if public pressure on the government increases, of course we will have to intervene," said Ali Riza Alaboyun, an MP for Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development party. "It is the legal right of any country to protect its people and its borders."
US support for Iranian Kurds opposed to the Tehran government is adding to the agitation. "The US is trying to undermine the Iran regime, using the Kurds like it is using the MEK [the anti-Tehran People's Mujahideen]," said Dr Logoglu. "Once you begin to differentiate between 'good' and 'bad' terrorist organisations, then you lose the war on terror." But he warned that military intervention might be ineffective and could be "disastrous" in destabilising the region. A recent national security council assessment also suggested that senior Turkish commanders were cautious about the prospects of success.
Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state, said last week that the US was acting to assuage Turkish concerns. "We are committed to eliminating the threat of PKK terrorism in northern Iraq," he said.
General Joseph Ralston, the US special envoy dealing with the PKK issue, was less upbeat, admitting that "the potential for Turkish cross-border action" was growing. "We have reached a critical point in which the pressure of continued [PKK] attacks has placed immense public pressure upon the government of Turkey to take some military action. As the snows melt in the mountain passes, we will see if the PKK renews its attacks and how the Turkish government responds ... I hope the Turks will continue to stand by us."
But a Milliyet journalist, Kadri Gursel, said: "The US attitude has really pissed off the government and the army. The US really doesn't understand how exhausted and fed up they are."
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Unease as Erdogan mulls bid for presidency / istanbul-bilbao
The contest to become Turkey's next president moved into a decisive phase yesterday amid evidence of growing unease in secular circles about the possibility that the country's neo-Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would seek and win the post.
Mr Erdogan, Turkey's most openly devout Muslim prime minister in 20 years, has not yet said whether he will seek the nomination of his ruling Justice and Development party. His indecision is starting to paralyse the political landscape, overshadowing the more important general election that Turkey must hold by November.
The outgoing president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, has convened a meeting of the National Security Council for April 10, six days before the formal process of electing a new president begins. According to Murat Yetkin, a columnist for Radikal newspaper, Mr Sezer wants the council, an important policy-setting forum, to discuss the likely impact of Mr Erdogan's presidency on Turkey's secular constitutional system.
Economists at Raymond James Securities in Istanbul said this week the speculation about Mr Erdogan's candidacy had "raised the stakes" in the presidential contest by clouding his party's prospects in the general election. He would almost certainly be elected by parliament if he decided to stand, and would have to stand down as party leader.
The prime minister began talks with senior party figures yesterday. The move coincided with a poll in an anti-government newspaper suggesting that a large majority of the population did not want him to become president. Much of the secular establishment, including the military, is said to be opposed to his candidacy.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
istanbul-bilbao
Mr Erdogan, Turkey's most openly devout Muslim prime minister in 20 years, has not yet said whether he will seek the nomination of his ruling Justice and Development party. His indecision is starting to paralyse the political landscape, overshadowing the more important general election that Turkey must hold by November.
The outgoing president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, has convened a meeting of the National Security Council for April 10, six days before the formal process of electing a new president begins. According to Murat Yetkin, a columnist for Radikal newspaper, Mr Sezer wants the council, an important policy-setting forum, to discuss the likely impact of Mr Erdogan's presidency on Turkey's secular constitutional system.
Economists at Raymond James Securities in Istanbul said this week the speculation about Mr Erdogan's candidacy had "raised the stakes" in the presidential contest by clouding his party's prospects in the general election. He would almost certainly be elected by parliament if he decided to stand, and would have to stand down as party leader.
The prime minister began talks with senior party figures yesterday. The move coincided with a poll in an anti-government newspaper suggesting that a large majority of the population did not want him to become president. Much of the secular establishment, including the military, is said to be opposed to his candidacy.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
istanbul-bilbao
Turkey chafes at exclusion from EU celebration / istanbul-bilbao
ANKARA: Turkey took a swipe at Germany on Tuesday over a decision to exclude candidate countries from the European Union's 50th birthday celebrations in Berlin next weekend.
"It would have been meaningful, in terms of demonstrating once again the unity of the European family, if Germany had invited candidate countries," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a short statement.
Leaders of the 27 member states will attend a gala concert and dinner, street parties and a short summit meeting at which a Berlin Declaration on the bloc's achievements and future is to be signed.
Turkey and Croatia are in negotiations to join the European Union; Macedonia has official candidate status; and other western Balkan states, Serbia, Bosnia and Albania, are waiting in the wings.
But EU enlargement has become unpopular in some older member states, especially in France, where elections are scheduled for his spring, and Austria and Germany.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is opposed to Turkish membership in the EU, though she has also pledged to respect previous agreements between the bloc and Ankara.
Asked about Ankara's statement, a German government spokesman said: "This is a celebration of the members of the European Union. No candidate countries were invited, whether it be Turkey or others."
An EU diplomat in Ankara said the decision was not intended as a snub but reflected the EU's preoccupation with its own internal divisions, including over the wording of the planned anniversary declaration.
Turkey, a relatively poor, overwhelmingly Muslim country of 74 million people, began EU entry talks in October 2005, but faces long and difficult negotiations.
Last December, the EU suspended talks in 8 of 35 "chapters" or policy areas because of Turkey's refusal to open its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus, an a EU member and a country that Turkey does not recognize.
istanbul-bilbao
"It would have been meaningful, in terms of demonstrating once again the unity of the European family, if Germany had invited candidate countries," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a short statement.
Leaders of the 27 member states will attend a gala concert and dinner, street parties and a short summit meeting at which a Berlin Declaration on the bloc's achievements and future is to be signed.
Turkey and Croatia are in negotiations to join the European Union; Macedonia has official candidate status; and other western Balkan states, Serbia, Bosnia and Albania, are waiting in the wings.
But EU enlargement has become unpopular in some older member states, especially in France, where elections are scheduled for his spring, and Austria and Germany.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is opposed to Turkish membership in the EU, though she has also pledged to respect previous agreements between the bloc and Ankara.
Asked about Ankara's statement, a German government spokesman said: "This is a celebration of the members of the European Union. No candidate countries were invited, whether it be Turkey or others."
An EU diplomat in Ankara said the decision was not intended as a snub but reflected the EU's preoccupation with its own internal divisions, including over the wording of the planned anniversary declaration.
Turkey, a relatively poor, overwhelmingly Muslim country of 74 million people, began EU entry talks in October 2005, but faces long and difficult negotiations.
Last December, the EU suspended talks in 8 of 35 "chapters" or policy areas because of Turkey's refusal to open its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus, an a EU member and a country that Turkey does not recognize.
istanbul-bilbao
Monday, March 19, 2007
A cautious welcome for the gringo / istanbul-bilbao
George Bush's new-found sympathy for social justice in Latin America has prompted a copycat tour from Hugo Chávez
IN THE twilight of George Bush's presidency, the word “surge” has come to mean a belated attempt to make up for past mistakes. That applies to Iraq, but also to Mr Bush's week-long, five-country tour of Latin America, which ended on March 14th. His longest trip to the region seemed designed to correct the impression that the United States is too busy battling terrorists to pay much attention to the struggles of Latin American democracies to overcome poverty and drug-fuelled crime.
Mr Bush did not have much new to offer, except in vocabulary: he talked of “social justice”, and of health, education and aid. He visited markets and Mayan ruins, and ate barbecues and guacamole. Predictably, he was greeted with angry (but mainly small) demonstrations. More importantly, he showed that the United States has partners in the region, even among left-leaning governments.
Mr Bush did not have much new to offer, except in vocabulary: he talked of “social justice”, and of health, education and aid. He visited markets and Mayan ruins, and ate barbecues and guacamole. Predictably, he was greeted with angry (but mainly small) demonstrations. More importantly, he showed that the United States has partners in the region, even among left-leaning governments.
Venezuela's Hugo Chávez did his best to prove the opposite. In a counter-tour which seemingly grew on the hoof to take in a matching, but different, five countries, the populist strongman mocked the American president as a “political corpse” in a Buenos Aires football stadium, denounced the United States as the “most murderous empire in all of history” at a press conference in Port-au-Prince and called capitalism “hell” in a flood-struck town in Bolivia.
In this motorcade joust Mr Bush came out ahead. That is not because the United States is the bigger benefactor but because nowadays its designs in Latin America are less imperial than those of Mr Chávez.
Mr Chávez has one objective: to forge a united anti-American block under his leadership. Mr Bush had several aims. In Brazil, it was ethanol. Aware at last that oil is climate-changing and controlled by unfriendly potentates like Mr Chávez, Mr Bush wants to cut the United States' future petrol consumption by a fifth in ten years. Brazil is already there: 40% of the fuel in Brazilian cars is made from sugar cane.
Mr Bush and Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, agreed to promote ethanol production and use across the region, and to co-operate on research. By fixing purity standards, they hope to make ethanol a globally tradable commodity. But Mr Bush refused to talk about the high tariff that protects American corn farmers, whose ethanol is more costly and carbon-emitting to produce than Brazil's.
There was no visible progress on the Doha round of world trade talks, though the American trade representative, Susan Schwab, spent an extra day in São Paulo to talk to Brazilian officials and industrialists. And Lula, somewhat mystifyingly, insisted that “we're going firmly toward finding the so-called G-spot for making a deal.”
Far from the confrontation desired by Mr Chávez, relations between the biggest powers of North and South America are coming to resemble those between the United States and Europe: there is a recognition on both sides that the overall friendship counts for more than any disagreements on detail. Lula is to visit Mr Bush at Camp David on March 31st.
“This level of presidential diplomacy is unheard of,” points out Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. “It's very important for Brazilians to be recognised in a special way by the United States vis-à-vis the rest of the continent.”
For Uruguay's leftish president, Tabaré Vázquez, hosting Mr Bush was a tacit message to neighbouring Brazil and Argentina, two of his partners in the Mercosur trade grouping, not to take his small country for granted. Uruguay recently signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with the United States. Mr Vázquez would like that to lead to a free-trade deal, though many in his government, not to mention the United States' Congress, do not.
In this motorcade joust Mr Bush came out ahead. That is not because the United States is the bigger benefactor but because nowadays its designs in Latin America are less imperial than those of Mr Chávez.
Mr Chávez has one objective: to forge a united anti-American block under his leadership. Mr Bush had several aims. In Brazil, it was ethanol. Aware at last that oil is climate-changing and controlled by unfriendly potentates like Mr Chávez, Mr Bush wants to cut the United States' future petrol consumption by a fifth in ten years. Brazil is already there: 40% of the fuel in Brazilian cars is made from sugar cane.
Mr Bush and Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, agreed to promote ethanol production and use across the region, and to co-operate on research. By fixing purity standards, they hope to make ethanol a globally tradable commodity. But Mr Bush refused to talk about the high tariff that protects American corn farmers, whose ethanol is more costly and carbon-emitting to produce than Brazil's.
There was no visible progress on the Doha round of world trade talks, though the American trade representative, Susan Schwab, spent an extra day in São Paulo to talk to Brazilian officials and industrialists. And Lula, somewhat mystifyingly, insisted that “we're going firmly toward finding the so-called G-spot for making a deal.”
Far from the confrontation desired by Mr Chávez, relations between the biggest powers of North and South America are coming to resemble those between the United States and Europe: there is a recognition on both sides that the overall friendship counts for more than any disagreements on detail. Lula is to visit Mr Bush at Camp David on March 31st.
“This level of presidential diplomacy is unheard of,” points out Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. “It's very important for Brazilians to be recognised in a special way by the United States vis-à-vis the rest of the continent.”
For Uruguay's leftish president, Tabaré Vázquez, hosting Mr Bush was a tacit message to neighbouring Brazil and Argentina, two of his partners in the Mercosur trade grouping, not to take his small country for granted. Uruguay recently signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with the United States. Mr Vázquez would like that to lead to a free-trade deal, though many in his government, not to mention the United States' Congress, do not.
Mr Bush's seven-hour stopover in Bogotá was the first visit by an American president to Colombia's capital since 1982. That was intended to show that American aid to fight the drugs trade and leftist guerrillas, combined with the tough security policies of President Álvaro Uribe, are making the country safer. Even so, 20,000 troops and police were deployed to secure Bogotá's normally tranquil streets.
In Guatemala, the mood was soured by the arrest in Massachusetts this month of hundreds of illegal workers, many of them Guatemalan. Oscar Berger, the president, told Mr Bush that deportations of illegal migrants should end.
Mr Bush said he hoped an immigration reform bill can be approved in the Senate by August. Until then, the American plan to fence out illegal immigrants will cast a shadow over what ought to be a warm friendship between Mr Bush and Felipe Calderón, Mexico's new conservative president. “The United States has a lot to do to regain respect in Latin America,” Mr Calderón bluntly remarked.
Mr Bush tried. He boasted that he had doubled aid to the region, to $1.6 billion. That is only because of an accounting quirk in 2001. The United States has ramped up aid to a few countries, via Plan Colombia, AIDS programmes and the Millennium Challenge Account (for the poorest). But it has cut development aid to a larger group, notes Joy Olson of the Washington Office on Latin America, a left-leaning NGO. Overall, Mr Bush has spent more than his predecessor, Bill Clinton.
Mr Chávez is outspending and out-promising Mr Bush. He said that Venezuela's cheap-oil deals with its neighbours total 200,000 barrels a day (worth perhaps $1.6 billion a year); in addition, he has announced aid totalling some $5.5 billion. Jamaica, added to his tour (along with Haiti) at the last minute, was promised cheap natural gas. Argentina's president, Néstor Kirchner, thanked Mr Chávez for helping “at the most critical moments.”
But most of Mr Chávez's neighbours are not enthusiastic about his leadership nor willing to turn their backs on the United States. Lula's coming trip to Camp David is a sign that Brazil will not be bullied into an anti-American axis. Mr Bush wisely ignored Mr Chávez's taunts. No one will miss the United States' lame duck president more than the Venezuelan.
In Guatemala, the mood was soured by the arrest in Massachusetts this month of hundreds of illegal workers, many of them Guatemalan. Oscar Berger, the president, told Mr Bush that deportations of illegal migrants should end.
Mr Bush said he hoped an immigration reform bill can be approved in the Senate by August. Until then, the American plan to fence out illegal immigrants will cast a shadow over what ought to be a warm friendship between Mr Bush and Felipe Calderón, Mexico's new conservative president. “The United States has a lot to do to regain respect in Latin America,” Mr Calderón bluntly remarked.
Mr Bush tried. He boasted that he had doubled aid to the region, to $1.6 billion. That is only because of an accounting quirk in 2001. The United States has ramped up aid to a few countries, via Plan Colombia, AIDS programmes and the Millennium Challenge Account (for the poorest). But it has cut development aid to a larger group, notes Joy Olson of the Washington Office on Latin America, a left-leaning NGO. Overall, Mr Bush has spent more than his predecessor, Bill Clinton.
Mr Chávez is outspending and out-promising Mr Bush. He said that Venezuela's cheap-oil deals with its neighbours total 200,000 barrels a day (worth perhaps $1.6 billion a year); in addition, he has announced aid totalling some $5.5 billion. Jamaica, added to his tour (along with Haiti) at the last minute, was promised cheap natural gas. Argentina's president, Néstor Kirchner, thanked Mr Chávez for helping “at the most critical moments.”
But most of Mr Chávez's neighbours are not enthusiastic about his leadership nor willing to turn their backs on the United States. Lula's coming trip to Camp David is a sign that Brazil will not be bullied into an anti-American axis. Mr Bush wisely ignored Mr Chávez's taunts. No one will miss the United States' lame duck president more than the Venezuelan.
From The Economist print edition
istanbul-bilbao
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Turkey’s housing sales down in 2006 as prices rise / istanbul-bilbao
Prices in the Turkish housing market surged last year, causing sales to decelerate as a consequence. A recent study using data provided by the Land Registry Office revealed that 1,377,533 properties were sold across Turkey in 2006 while some YTL 38 billion was earned from these sales.
According to the figures, housing sales had increased by 10.16 percent in 2003, 19.5 percent in 2004 and 12 percent in 2005. However, 2006 witnessed a dramatic slowdown with only a 1 percent increase. On the other hand, the revenue pulled in from these sales rose by 14.7 percent, largely thanks to the buoyant prices. Real estate agents claim the 1 percent increase doesn't reflect "real sales," adding that market fluctuations in May and June 2006 caused the market to shrink by 20 percent.
Ankara All Real Estate Agents Chamber (ATEM) Chairman Hacı Ali Taylan opined that the increase in the number of houses sold in 2006 was artificially inflated and could be traced back to two reasons: The first is “sales by arrangement,” in which landowners sell their properties to family members to be able to use lower-interest housing loans for other purposes. The second might be that many properties had been sold the year before, but deed transfers were not completed until 2006. Taylan also claimed the increase in total sales was not because of the increase in prices. “That was because unit values were added per square meter for property taxes. Showing property values higher than the real value to be able to get a higher loan from the bank is another reason,” Taylan said. Meanwhile, the data indicated the most valuable properties in Turkey are in İstanbul. Last year, 188,578 houses were sold in İstanbul, with buyers paying YTL 12.4 billion in total to the sellers. This shows that sales dropped by 8.7 percent compared to 2005 in İstanbul, whereas total sales realized jumped by 30 percent.
The picture in the capital, however, was somehow reversed. In Ankara sales decreased by 5.7 percent and 134,735 units of real estate were sold in 2006. Moreover, the revenue earned from these sales also dropped by more than 32 percent. As a result, landowners in Ankara were able to earn only YTL 3.99 billion from these sales.
In İzmir, the number of properties transacted contracted from 82,494 to 78,028 while the money earned reached YTL 2.4 billion after a slight increase. Antalya, the subject of considerable foreign interest, the number of sales stayed nearly stable, yet there was a drastic decline in revenue. A total of 50,751 units were sold in the city in 2005, dropping to 50,707 in 2006; yet, revenue decreased from YTL 2 billion to YTL 1.7 billion. istanbul-bilbao
http://www.todayszaman.com
According to the figures, housing sales had increased by 10.16 percent in 2003, 19.5 percent in 2004 and 12 percent in 2005. However, 2006 witnessed a dramatic slowdown with only a 1 percent increase. On the other hand, the revenue pulled in from these sales rose by 14.7 percent, largely thanks to the buoyant prices. Real estate agents claim the 1 percent increase doesn't reflect "real sales," adding that market fluctuations in May and June 2006 caused the market to shrink by 20 percent.
Ankara All Real Estate Agents Chamber (ATEM) Chairman Hacı Ali Taylan opined that the increase in the number of houses sold in 2006 was artificially inflated and could be traced back to two reasons: The first is “sales by arrangement,” in which landowners sell their properties to family members to be able to use lower-interest housing loans for other purposes. The second might be that many properties had been sold the year before, but deed transfers were not completed until 2006. Taylan also claimed the increase in total sales was not because of the increase in prices. “That was because unit values were added per square meter for property taxes. Showing property values higher than the real value to be able to get a higher loan from the bank is another reason,” Taylan said. Meanwhile, the data indicated the most valuable properties in Turkey are in İstanbul. Last year, 188,578 houses were sold in İstanbul, with buyers paying YTL 12.4 billion in total to the sellers. This shows that sales dropped by 8.7 percent compared to 2005 in İstanbul, whereas total sales realized jumped by 30 percent.
The picture in the capital, however, was somehow reversed. In Ankara sales decreased by 5.7 percent and 134,735 units of real estate were sold in 2006. Moreover, the revenue earned from these sales also dropped by more than 32 percent. As a result, landowners in Ankara were able to earn only YTL 3.99 billion from these sales.
In İzmir, the number of properties transacted contracted from 82,494 to 78,028 while the money earned reached YTL 2.4 billion after a slight increase. Antalya, the subject of considerable foreign interest, the number of sales stayed nearly stable, yet there was a drastic decline in revenue. A total of 50,751 units were sold in the city in 2005, dropping to 50,707 in 2006; yet, revenue decreased from YTL 2 billion to YTL 1.7 billion. istanbul-bilbao
http://www.todayszaman.com
Monday, March 12, 2007
Turkey adopts EU criteria for Turkish coffee
Turkey's attempts to harmonize with European Union laws for the accession process now include world-renowned Turkish coffee.
Turkish coffee will have to meet certain criteria in order to be eligible as a European export product under a newly issued decree from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. The decree sets standards regulating the amount of caffeine and humidity and gives coffee producers one year to comply with the new standards.
Previously, kokoreç -- a popular snack made of grilled lamb intestines -- was cleared for EU takeoff with regulations setting hygienic standards for preparation.
As part of its efforts to set EU standards in the Turkish food sector -- seemingly one of the most challenging areas in the harmonization process -- the Agriculture Ministry has drafted the Coffee and Coffee Products decree. The decree introduces new standards for pest management, the use of agrochemicals, packaging, labeling, transportation, storage, sampling and analyses made during coffee cultivation and processing. Raw and roasted coffee beans, grinded coffee and coffee extract, soluble coffee, instant coffee or instant coffee extract fall under the scope of the decree.
The ministry's draft is based on directive 1999/4/EC of the European Parliament and the Council relating to coffee extracts and chicory extracts, setting standards for hygienic cultivation, processing, storage, delivery and retail of coffee and coffee products.
The draft begins by defining what is considered as coffee. Seeds from Coffea arabica Lyn, Coffea canephora or Coffea robusta, Coffea liberica and similar coffee plant varieties -- picked, defruited, dried and sorted by various methods are defined as coffee in the draft. The draft also defines roasted coffee beans as "raw coffee beans roasted in accordance with standard roasting procedures."
Caffeine amount limited
The decree sets standards coffee as defined in the text should possess. The maximum caffeine content is set at 0.2 percent in coffee based dry matter and decaffeinated raw beans, at 0.1 percent in decaffeinated roasted or ground coffee and at 0.3 percent in soluble coffee extract and in soluble coffee. The minimum amount of caffeine raw beans should contain is 0.8 percent while the maximum amount of humidity allowed is 14 percent.
Raw coffee beans shall possess the right color, taste and aroma typical of the plant and be completely cleaned of dead insects or the remains of rodents. The total maximum rate of rotten, moldy seeds and other substances allowed is 5 percent of the total weight of the sample. The dry matter content soluble in water must be not less than 22 percent by weight in the case of decaffeinated roasted coffee beans and decaffeinated grinded coffee. Names such as Turkish coffee, Espresso or filtered coffee will be allowed for marketing uses and retailing in accordance with the processing method. Ercan Yavuz Ankara
Turkish coffee will have to meet certain criteria in order to be eligible as a European export product under a newly issued decree from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. The decree sets standards regulating the amount of caffeine and humidity and gives coffee producers one year to comply with the new standards.
Previously, kokoreç -- a popular snack made of grilled lamb intestines -- was cleared for EU takeoff with regulations setting hygienic standards for preparation.
As part of its efforts to set EU standards in the Turkish food sector -- seemingly one of the most challenging areas in the harmonization process -- the Agriculture Ministry has drafted the Coffee and Coffee Products decree. The decree introduces new standards for pest management, the use of agrochemicals, packaging, labeling, transportation, storage, sampling and analyses made during coffee cultivation and processing. Raw and roasted coffee beans, grinded coffee and coffee extract, soluble coffee, instant coffee or instant coffee extract fall under the scope of the decree.
The ministry's draft is based on directive 1999/4/EC of the European Parliament and the Council relating to coffee extracts and chicory extracts, setting standards for hygienic cultivation, processing, storage, delivery and retail of coffee and coffee products.
The draft begins by defining what is considered as coffee. Seeds from Coffea arabica Lyn, Coffea canephora or Coffea robusta, Coffea liberica and similar coffee plant varieties -- picked, defruited, dried and sorted by various methods are defined as coffee in the draft. The draft also defines roasted coffee beans as "raw coffee beans roasted in accordance with standard roasting procedures."
Caffeine amount limited
The decree sets standards coffee as defined in the text should possess. The maximum caffeine content is set at 0.2 percent in coffee based dry matter and decaffeinated raw beans, at 0.1 percent in decaffeinated roasted or ground coffee and at 0.3 percent in soluble coffee extract and in soluble coffee. The minimum amount of caffeine raw beans should contain is 0.8 percent while the maximum amount of humidity allowed is 14 percent.
Raw coffee beans shall possess the right color, taste and aroma typical of the plant and be completely cleaned of dead insects or the remains of rodents. The total maximum rate of rotten, moldy seeds and other substances allowed is 5 percent of the total weight of the sample. The dry matter content soluble in water must be not less than 22 percent by weight in the case of decaffeinated roasted coffee beans and decaffeinated grinded coffee. Names such as Turkish coffee, Espresso or filtered coffee will be allowed for marketing uses and retailing in accordance with the processing method. Ercan Yavuz Ankara
Sunday, March 11, 2007
‘Blue Eyed Giant’ on the silver screen / istanbul-bilbao
How do you know Nâzım Hikmet? Romantic, communist, a man of struggle, fragile… Anyone who knows about him will probably believe that he possesses maybe not all but at least one of these characteristics.
What everybody hopes to see in "Mavi Gözl Dev," which debuted on Friday, is on which of these identities the movie focuses on. This expectation was in fact the movie's basic problem even before it was completed. It should be admitted that having Biket İlhan as director and Metin Belgin as scenarist raised the expectations of an "ideal Nâzım" result. The movie may not be an entire success in this respect, but at least it comes close. Moreover, the movie does not capture the "human Nâzım," making for a foggy picture and a spineless plot.
Let's admit that Yetkin Dikinciler, playing the part of Nâzım, perfectly portrays the aristocratic creation of the avant-garde poet of Turkish poetry. Dolunay Soysert is also a "Piraye" who includes you in her sorrow every time you look at her. Rıza Sönmez playing Raşid (or Orhan Kemal) and Ferit Kaya as İbrahim Balaban deserve to be remembered for years for their performances. So what leaves the viewer with the feeling that something is missing if the cast is so strong? Simply the ambiguity of the movie. The scenario was rewritten eight times. The structure of the movie is sometimes sacrificed for the sake of agreeing with reality. Writings about Nâzım were so thoroughly researched that there is nothing unnecessary in the movie, but the script is not so timely.
The movie starts with Nâzım's transfer to the Bursa Jail in the beginning of 1941. It features the poet's hunger strike and subsequent amnesty which arose from the campaigns that were started for him in France over his imprisonment between 1941 and 1950. The director didn't neglect to use flashbacks to highlight the process that took Nâzım to jail, however, it is not easy to say that these flashbacks necessarily enrich the movie. The scenario not only portrays the life of the poet in jail, but also the visits by Piraye and the love triangle that arose from the visits of Münevver, the poet's cousin. Still, the viewer expects more than routine jail visits from a movie that features the darkest period of Nâzım. For example, the letters Nâzım wrote in jail could have other functions than being mise en scene. Or the director could know that many viewers would expect to see a scene in which Nâzım alone leans against the wall and cowers. We cannot gain insight into the inner world of the poet. Wouldn't it contribute to the authenticity of the movie if it also featured the time when he could not write poems in jail? For as anyone may say, there is a potential "arabesk of Nâzım" in this country and this movie, at least in the final scene, includes that arabesk approach. Let's not skip that.
Although it is far from meeting the expectations of most of us, "Mavi Gözlü Dev" is tolerable as it is the first movie ever to feature the life of a contemporary Turkish poet. Without expecting a masterpiece, you can watch the story of a poet. The movie leaves the viewer with somber sentiments. Though it may not be clear whether these stem from the life story of Nâzım Hikmet or the movie falling under the mark.
10.03.2007
M. İLHAN ATILGAN İSTANBUL
istanbul-bilbao
What everybody hopes to see in "Mavi Gözl Dev," which debuted on Friday, is on which of these identities the movie focuses on. This expectation was in fact the movie's basic problem even before it was completed. It should be admitted that having Biket İlhan as director and Metin Belgin as scenarist raised the expectations of an "ideal Nâzım" result. The movie may not be an entire success in this respect, but at least it comes close. Moreover, the movie does not capture the "human Nâzım," making for a foggy picture and a spineless plot.
Let's admit that Yetkin Dikinciler, playing the part of Nâzım, perfectly portrays the aristocratic creation of the avant-garde poet of Turkish poetry. Dolunay Soysert is also a "Piraye" who includes you in her sorrow every time you look at her. Rıza Sönmez playing Raşid (or Orhan Kemal) and Ferit Kaya as İbrahim Balaban deserve to be remembered for years for their performances. So what leaves the viewer with the feeling that something is missing if the cast is so strong? Simply the ambiguity of the movie. The scenario was rewritten eight times. The structure of the movie is sometimes sacrificed for the sake of agreeing with reality. Writings about Nâzım were so thoroughly researched that there is nothing unnecessary in the movie, but the script is not so timely.
The movie starts with Nâzım's transfer to the Bursa Jail in the beginning of 1941. It features the poet's hunger strike and subsequent amnesty which arose from the campaigns that were started for him in France over his imprisonment between 1941 and 1950. The director didn't neglect to use flashbacks to highlight the process that took Nâzım to jail, however, it is not easy to say that these flashbacks necessarily enrich the movie. The scenario not only portrays the life of the poet in jail, but also the visits by Piraye and the love triangle that arose from the visits of Münevver, the poet's cousin. Still, the viewer expects more than routine jail visits from a movie that features the darkest period of Nâzım. For example, the letters Nâzım wrote in jail could have other functions than being mise en scene. Or the director could know that many viewers would expect to see a scene in which Nâzım alone leans against the wall and cowers. We cannot gain insight into the inner world of the poet. Wouldn't it contribute to the authenticity of the movie if it also featured the time when he could not write poems in jail? For as anyone may say, there is a potential "arabesk of Nâzım" in this country and this movie, at least in the final scene, includes that arabesk approach. Let's not skip that.
Although it is far from meeting the expectations of most of us, "Mavi Gözlü Dev" is tolerable as it is the first movie ever to feature the life of a contemporary Turkish poet. Without expecting a masterpiece, you can watch the story of a poet. The movie leaves the viewer with somber sentiments. Though it may not be clear whether these stem from the life story of Nâzım Hikmet or the movie falling under the mark.
10.03.2007
M. İLHAN ATILGAN İSTANBUL
istanbul-bilbao
Friday, March 09, 2007
New poll shows Turkish women aren't happy / istanbul-bilbao
Scratch the surface a bit and it emerges that many Turkish women are less than satisfied with their lives. A poll conducted prior to March 8, International Women's Day, revealed a striking level of unhappiness felt by Turkish women.
The poll, carried out by Public Research Center , asked 1,044 rural and city women to share their views on topics such as marriage, family and the status of females in Turkish culture. The picture that emerged was not a pretty one. To the question "Are you happy?" just 42.4 percent of the 1,044 women polled answered "yes," while 31.6 percent answered "no," and 25 percent declined to answer.
A full 64 percent of women polled indicated that their most serious struggles were financial. Within the category of cost of living problems, women also named fatigue, violence, the lack of certain modern house appliances, lack of education, harassment at work or on the street, social discrimination in favor of men, lack of confidence, variety of health problems and economic dependence as other major problems.
Also evident from the results of the poll was that Turkish women had many personal problems. Outside of the cost of living category, women also complained about not being able to live as they wanted, not being able to take a good holiday, having their husbands consort with other women and not feeling beautiful or stylish.
Future not looking so bright
In terms of their thoughts about the future, the outlook of Turkish women also appears grim. When asked whether they were optimistic about the future, 40.6 percent replied "no," while 33.7 percent said "yes."
In another section of the poll, women were asked to share their self image. Asked to define themselves according to three choices given on the poll, 42 percent defined themselves as "problematic," while 26.2 percent defined themselves as "modern and happy." Women who rejected the first two choices were asked by pollsters to define themselves as they wished, leading to some striking answers.
Some of the responses given were: "I am a hard laborer," "I don't know what I am," "I am a slave," "I am a sick, tired and ruined shadow of a person," "I am a servant," "I am a pathetic being on the verge of going mad," "I am a human who is on her feet 15-16 hours a day," "I am an unfortunate woman" and "I am someone who was destroyed by the comfort in her father's home."
Turkish women unhealthy
In addition to the mental state of Turkish women, the poll also brought to light the general health status of Turkish women as being "extremely bad."
To the question of "Can you say 'I am completely healthy?'" 50 percent of the women polled answered "no," 35.6 percent answered "yes," and 14.4 percent didn't know.
Among health problems listed by those polled were aches and pains, gynecological problems, psychological problems, tooth and eye problems, and stomach and intestinal discomfort.
As to the general value accorded to the status of women in Turkish society, 60.2 percent believed women weren't valued in Turkey, 21.6 believed they were and 18.2 percent declined to answer.
In terms of the total number of hours spent working per day, Turkish career women appear to get the short end of the stick: 66.2 percent of housewives in the survey said they worked six to eight hours a day around the house, while working women had heavier labor loads -- 33.3 percent of working women polled said that between work and home duties, they worked 10-12 hours a day. Twenty-seven percent said they worked 13-15 hours a day.
Women were also polled whether or not the marriages they had dreamed of when young had come true, with 32.2 percent answering "no," 30.2 answering "yes," and another 37.6 percent declining to respond.
Some of the general opinions expressed by the poll shed an dark light on their thoughts about marriage and family in modern Turkey. Here is an overview of some of the comments received:
"The family structure has been shaken in Turkey." "There will be more and more divorces." "I am unable to meet the desires of my children." "If I knew what I know now, I would never have gotten married." "There is a fight every day in our home because of money." "I have nothing to wear, I am ashamed." "Why do they say mothers carry heaven on their backs?" "We've been destroyed, what about our daughters?" "Don't you see the disaster that has happened to us?" "High prices and poverty are crushing our spirits." "Our biggest source of entertainment is television, and football is a must," "Equality is only on paper," "I think feminists are right" and "Women everywhere are excluded."
09.03.2007
Today’s Zaman İstanbul
The poll, carried out by Public Research Center , asked 1,044 rural and city women to share their views on topics such as marriage, family and the status of females in Turkish culture. The picture that emerged was not a pretty one. To the question "Are you happy?" just 42.4 percent of the 1,044 women polled answered "yes," while 31.6 percent answered "no," and 25 percent declined to answer.
A full 64 percent of women polled indicated that their most serious struggles were financial. Within the category of cost of living problems, women also named fatigue, violence, the lack of certain modern house appliances, lack of education, harassment at work or on the street, social discrimination in favor of men, lack of confidence, variety of health problems and economic dependence as other major problems.
Also evident from the results of the poll was that Turkish women had many personal problems. Outside of the cost of living category, women also complained about not being able to live as they wanted, not being able to take a good holiday, having their husbands consort with other women and not feeling beautiful or stylish.
Future not looking so bright
In terms of their thoughts about the future, the outlook of Turkish women also appears grim. When asked whether they were optimistic about the future, 40.6 percent replied "no," while 33.7 percent said "yes."
In another section of the poll, women were asked to share their self image. Asked to define themselves according to three choices given on the poll, 42 percent defined themselves as "problematic," while 26.2 percent defined themselves as "modern and happy." Women who rejected the first two choices were asked by pollsters to define themselves as they wished, leading to some striking answers.
Some of the responses given were: "I am a hard laborer," "I don't know what I am," "I am a slave," "I am a sick, tired and ruined shadow of a person," "I am a servant," "I am a pathetic being on the verge of going mad," "I am a human who is on her feet 15-16 hours a day," "I am an unfortunate woman" and "I am someone who was destroyed by the comfort in her father's home."
Turkish women unhealthy
In addition to the mental state of Turkish women, the poll also brought to light the general health status of Turkish women as being "extremely bad."
To the question of "Can you say 'I am completely healthy?'" 50 percent of the women polled answered "no," 35.6 percent answered "yes," and 14.4 percent didn't know.
Among health problems listed by those polled were aches and pains, gynecological problems, psychological problems, tooth and eye problems, and stomach and intestinal discomfort.
As to the general value accorded to the status of women in Turkish society, 60.2 percent believed women weren't valued in Turkey, 21.6 believed they were and 18.2 percent declined to answer.
In terms of the total number of hours spent working per day, Turkish career women appear to get the short end of the stick: 66.2 percent of housewives in the survey said they worked six to eight hours a day around the house, while working women had heavier labor loads -- 33.3 percent of working women polled said that between work and home duties, they worked 10-12 hours a day. Twenty-seven percent said they worked 13-15 hours a day.
Women were also polled whether or not the marriages they had dreamed of when young had come true, with 32.2 percent answering "no," 30.2 answering "yes," and another 37.6 percent declining to respond.
Some of the general opinions expressed by the poll shed an dark light on their thoughts about marriage and family in modern Turkey. Here is an overview of some of the comments received:
"The family structure has been shaken in Turkey." "There will be more and more divorces." "I am unable to meet the desires of my children." "If I knew what I know now, I would never have gotten married." "There is a fight every day in our home because of money." "I have nothing to wear, I am ashamed." "Why do they say mothers carry heaven on their backs?" "We've been destroyed, what about our daughters?" "Don't you see the disaster that has happened to us?" "High prices and poverty are crushing our spirits." "Our biggest source of entertainment is television, and football is a must," "Equality is only on paper," "I think feminists are right" and "Women everywhere are excluded."
09.03.2007
Today’s Zaman İstanbul
Turkish nationalism: Waving Ataturk's flag / istanbul-bilbao
There has been a lethal upsurge in ultra-nationalist feeling in Turkey
SITTING in an office plastered with Ottoman pennants, portraits of Ataturk and the Turkish flag, Kemal Kerincsiz, a lawyer, says his mission in life is to protect the Turkish nation from “Western imperialism and global forces that want to dismember and destroy us”. In the past two years Mr Kerincsiz and his Turkish Jurists' Union have launched a slew of cases against Turkish intellectuals under article 301 of the penal code, which makes “insulting Turkishness” a criminal offence.
Mr Kerincsiz has confined his nationalism to the courts. But elsewhere new ultra-nationalist groups, some of them led by retired army officers, have been vowing over guns and copies of the Koran to make Turks “the masters of the world” and even “to die and kill” in the process. In January one of Mr Kerincsiz's targets, a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, Hrant Dink, was shot dead by a 17-year-old, Ogun Samast, because he had “insulted the Turks”. The murder, in broad daylight on one of Istanbul's busiest streets, was a chilling manifestation of a resurgence of xenophobic nationalism aimed at Turkey's non-Muslim minorities and the Kurds—plus their defenders in the liberal elite.
The upsurge threatens to undo the good of four years of reforms by the mildly Islamist government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Indeed, it is partly in response to these reforms—more freedom for the Kurds, a trimming of the army's powers, concessions on Cyprus—that nationalist passions have been roused. The knowledge that many members of the European Union do not want Turkey to join has inflamed them further (the EU partially suspended membership talks with Turkey in December because of its refusal to open its ports and airspace to Greek-Cypriots).
Another factor is America's refusal to move against separatist PKK guerrillas who are based in northern Iraq. If the United States Congress delivers its pledge to adopt a resolution calling the mass slaughter of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 genocide, Turkey's relationship with its ally would suffer “lasting damage”, says the foreign minister, Abdullah Gul.
Murat Belge, a leftist intellectual who is being hounded by Mr Kerincsiz, sees disturbing similarities between the racist nationalism espoused by the “Young Turks” in the dying days of the Ottoman empire (who ordered the mass slaughter of its Armenian subjects), and the siege mentality gripping Turkey today. The perception, now as then, is that Western powers are pressing for changes to empower their local collaborators (ie, Kurds and non-Muslims), with the aim of breaking up the country. “This social Darwinist mindset that implies it's OK to kill your enemies in order to survive” has been perpetuated through an education system that tells young Turks that “they have no other friend than the Turks,” says Mr Belge. And it has been cynically exploited by politicians and generals alike.
Mr Erdogan and Deniz Baykal, the leader of the opposition Republican People's Party, have proved no exception. When more than 100,000 Turks gathered at Mr Dink's funeral chanting “We are all Armenians”, Mr Erdogan opined that they had gone “too far”. Both he and Mr Baykal have resisted calls to scrap article 301, though there have been hints that it will be amended.
The politicians are keen to court nationalist votes in the run-up to November's parliamentary election. Mr Erdogan also hopes that burnishing his nationalist credentials will help him to coax a blessing from Turkey's hawkish generals for his hopes of succeeding the fiercely secular Ahmet Necdet Sezer as president in May.
Yet a recent outburst by the chief of the general staff, Yasar Buyukanit, suggests otherwise. He declared that Turkey faced more threats to its national security than at any time in its modern history and added that only its “dynamic forces” [ie, the army] could prevent efforts to “partition the country”. These words, uttered during an official trip to America, were widely seen as a direct warning to Mr Erdogan to shelve his presidential ambitions.
Others do not rule out possible collusion between nationalist elements within the army and retired officers who are organising new ultra-nationalist groups (one is said to be training nationalist youths in Trabzon, where Dink's alleged murderers came from). “The real purpose is to sow chaos, to polarise society so they can regain ground [lost with the EU reforms],” argues Belma Akcura, an investigative journalist whose recent book about rogue security forces known as the “deep state” earned her a three-month jail sentence. It would not be surprising if their next target were a nationalist, she adds.
Meanwhile prominent writers and academics, including Mr Belge, continue to be bombarded with death threats. Some are under police protection. Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel prize-winning author whom Mr Kerincsiz took to court over his comments about the persecution of the Armenians and the Kurds, has fled to New York.
Where will matters go from here? This week one court banned access to YouTube after clips calling Ataturk gay appeared on it; and another sentenced a Kurdish politician to six months' jail for giving the PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, an honorific Mr. But a private television station also withdrew a popular series, “The Valley of the Wolves”, that glorifies gun-toting nationalists who mow down their mainly Kurdish enemies, after the channel was inundated with calls for the show's axing. The battle for Turkey's soul is not over yet.
Mar 8th 2007 | ISTANBUL AND WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
SITTING in an office plastered with Ottoman pennants, portraits of Ataturk and the Turkish flag, Kemal Kerincsiz, a lawyer, says his mission in life is to protect the Turkish nation from “Western imperialism and global forces that want to dismember and destroy us”. In the past two years Mr Kerincsiz and his Turkish Jurists' Union have launched a slew of cases against Turkish intellectuals under article 301 of the penal code, which makes “insulting Turkishness” a criminal offence.
Mr Kerincsiz has confined his nationalism to the courts. But elsewhere new ultra-nationalist groups, some of them led by retired army officers, have been vowing over guns and copies of the Koran to make Turks “the masters of the world” and even “to die and kill” in the process. In January one of Mr Kerincsiz's targets, a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, Hrant Dink, was shot dead by a 17-year-old, Ogun Samast, because he had “insulted the Turks”. The murder, in broad daylight on one of Istanbul's busiest streets, was a chilling manifestation of a resurgence of xenophobic nationalism aimed at Turkey's non-Muslim minorities and the Kurds—plus their defenders in the liberal elite.
The upsurge threatens to undo the good of four years of reforms by the mildly Islamist government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Indeed, it is partly in response to these reforms—more freedom for the Kurds, a trimming of the army's powers, concessions on Cyprus—that nationalist passions have been roused. The knowledge that many members of the European Union do not want Turkey to join has inflamed them further (the EU partially suspended membership talks with Turkey in December because of its refusal to open its ports and airspace to Greek-Cypriots).
Another factor is America's refusal to move against separatist PKK guerrillas who are based in northern Iraq. If the United States Congress delivers its pledge to adopt a resolution calling the mass slaughter of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 genocide, Turkey's relationship with its ally would suffer “lasting damage”, says the foreign minister, Abdullah Gul.
Murat Belge, a leftist intellectual who is being hounded by Mr Kerincsiz, sees disturbing similarities between the racist nationalism espoused by the “Young Turks” in the dying days of the Ottoman empire (who ordered the mass slaughter of its Armenian subjects), and the siege mentality gripping Turkey today. The perception, now as then, is that Western powers are pressing for changes to empower their local collaborators (ie, Kurds and non-Muslims), with the aim of breaking up the country. “This social Darwinist mindset that implies it's OK to kill your enemies in order to survive” has been perpetuated through an education system that tells young Turks that “they have no other friend than the Turks,” says Mr Belge. And it has been cynically exploited by politicians and generals alike.
Mr Erdogan and Deniz Baykal, the leader of the opposition Republican People's Party, have proved no exception. When more than 100,000 Turks gathered at Mr Dink's funeral chanting “We are all Armenians”, Mr Erdogan opined that they had gone “too far”. Both he and Mr Baykal have resisted calls to scrap article 301, though there have been hints that it will be amended.
The politicians are keen to court nationalist votes in the run-up to November's parliamentary election. Mr Erdogan also hopes that burnishing his nationalist credentials will help him to coax a blessing from Turkey's hawkish generals for his hopes of succeeding the fiercely secular Ahmet Necdet Sezer as president in May.
Yet a recent outburst by the chief of the general staff, Yasar Buyukanit, suggests otherwise. He declared that Turkey faced more threats to its national security than at any time in its modern history and added that only its “dynamic forces” [ie, the army] could prevent efforts to “partition the country”. These words, uttered during an official trip to America, were widely seen as a direct warning to Mr Erdogan to shelve his presidential ambitions.
Others do not rule out possible collusion between nationalist elements within the army and retired officers who are organising new ultra-nationalist groups (one is said to be training nationalist youths in Trabzon, where Dink's alleged murderers came from). “The real purpose is to sow chaos, to polarise society so they can regain ground [lost with the EU reforms],” argues Belma Akcura, an investigative journalist whose recent book about rogue security forces known as the “deep state” earned her a three-month jail sentence. It would not be surprising if their next target were a nationalist, she adds.
Meanwhile prominent writers and academics, including Mr Belge, continue to be bombarded with death threats. Some are under police protection. Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel prize-winning author whom Mr Kerincsiz took to court over his comments about the persecution of the Armenians and the Kurds, has fled to New York.
Where will matters go from here? This week one court banned access to YouTube after clips calling Ataturk gay appeared on it; and another sentenced a Kurdish politician to six months' jail for giving the PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, an honorific Mr. But a private television station also withdrew a popular series, “The Valley of the Wolves”, that glorifies gun-toting nationalists who mow down their mainly Kurdish enemies, after the channel was inundated with calls for the show's axing. The battle for Turkey's soul is not over yet.
Mar 8th 2007 | ISTANBUL AND WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
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