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Turkish Police Detain Retired Generals in Anti-Government Probe |
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Written by Bloomberg
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Tuesday, 01 July 2008 06:01 |
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Turkish police detained former military generals and the head of Ankara's main business association as they sought to apprehend a group suspected of plotting to bring down the government.
Retired generals Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur were detained this morning, a spokesman for the Ankara police said in a telephone interview. Ankara Chamber of Commerce chief Sinan Aygun was also taken into custody.
The arrests come on the day a Turkish prosecutor presented an indictment to the Constitutional Court to close down Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's governing Justice and Development Party on charges of mixing Islam with politics. The court may rule on the case within a month.
Dozens of suspected members of the group known as ``Ergenekon,'' including former military officers, were rounded up by police in January. Erdogan in March denied any links between the arrests and the closure case against his party.
Retired General Eruygur, who was detained today, is the head of the Ataturk Thought Association, a pro-secular lobby group. The association organized street rallies attended by hundreds of thousands of people last year to protest parliament's appointment of former Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as president on grounds of his Islamist past.
Turkish police also arrested Mustafa Balbay, the Ankara bureau chief of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, said Mutluhan Karagozoglu, a lawyer for the newspaper, in a televised news conference in Ankara. Cumhuriyet's writers have accused the government of flouting Turkey's secular rules. Police made 17 arrests in Istanbul today linked to the case, CNN Turk television reported. |
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Fighting for Turkey's soul |
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Written by Zeyno Baran - International Herald Tribune
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Tuesday, 10 June 2008 17:15 |
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Reading the Western press, one would think that there is a fight in Turkey between the democratic - yet religious - governing party and the secular - but anti-democratic - opposition. This is not the case. The ultimate battle is for Turkey's soul: Will Turkey become a liberal democracy and remain an important member of the Euro-Atlantic community, or erode into an illiberal one, moving towards the Russia-Iran axis?
Turkey is undergoing a complex political and social transformation. It is unique, and thus it is impossible to understand what is happening in Turkey today by comparing it with any other Muslim or Western country.
Turkey is 99 percent Muslim, yet it was founded in 1923 as a secular republic. The ending of the caliphate and the Islamic Shariah legal system - thus separating religion and the state - was a truly revolutionary move. Most Muslim countries still have Shariah law enshrined in their constitutions. This has been a huge impediment to their democratic evolution because Shariah, encoded in the 8th century, is not compatible with democracy.
For its part, Turkey has evolved as a democratic country because it has kept religion out of politics. The nation's founding fathers charted the country's course toward the West. However, succeeding generations failed to spread the values and ideals of the republic to the masses. The institutions of democracy remained weak and democratic political culture failed to take root.
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Turkish top court annuls headscarf law, deals a blow to ruling AKP |
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Written by Hurriyet
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Thursday, 05 June 2008 15:55 |
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Turkey's Constitutional Court annulled the bill proposing to lift the headscarf ban saying it is an attempt to change nonamendable articles of the Turkish Constitution, the court said in a statement on Thursday. TV channels reported nine members of the court voted for the cancellation of the law and two voted against. The Chairman of the Court said the details of the decision will be included in the reasoning. The decision dealt a big blow to the government of the Islamist-rooted AKP, which is under pressure of a closure case.
"The law of February 9th making constitutional amendments to lift a ban on headscarf at universities has been cancelled based on the constitution's articles no. 2, 4 and 148. The execution of the law has also been stopped", said the Constitution Court in a short statement on Thursday.
Nine members voted in favor of the cancellation of the law and two voted against, including court chairman Hasim Kilic, TV channels and state-run Anatolian Agency reported.
The Court decided to announce its decision in a short statement in order to end the speculations, and the details of the ruling will be included in the reasoning, Kilic said Thursday. He added the reasoning will be released "as soon as possible."
"The speculations made on our Court in the recent months saddened us and therefore we decided to announce the ruling in such way... So we are not going to give any information on the details of the ruling until the reasoning released because of speculations about our members," he told reporters after leaving the court. |
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Top prosecutor claims Turkey's PM is hiding his pro-Islamic intentions |
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Written by Hurriyet
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Monday, 02 June 2008 03:04 |
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Turkey's top prosecutor accused the Turkish prime minister of hiding his true intentions to transform the Turkish Republic's regime into a conservative Islamic republic in his written arguments on the merits of the closure case against the ruling AKP submitted on Friday to the Constitutional Court. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) said the written arguments were idelogically motivated and began their preparations to give their written statement in response.
"The party started to focus on the "National View" ideology that is also seen as the backbone of previous pro-Islamic parties such as the National Order Party (MNP), the National Salvation Party (MSP), (the previously banned) Welfare Party (RP) and the Virtue Party (FP) after the party became more politically powerful thanks to the general election held on July 22, 2008," Abdurahman Yalcinkaya, Turkey's top prosecutor is quoted as saying in his written arguments.
The "National View" is the core ideology of political Islam in Turkey. It formed the basis of Turkey's Islamist parties, including the Welfare Party, which was closed by the Constitutional Court in late 1990s and in which the AKP has its roots.
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The Queen in Turkey: diplomatic relations continued to prosper between the two countries |
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Written by The Times
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Friday, 16 May 2008 10:51 |
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Diplomatic relations between Turkey and Britain continued to prosper on a hot day in Istanbul yesterday, despite a regal run-in with a couple of politically sensitive chess sets.
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were joined by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, on day three of their state visit as they were invited to sample wares from the Grand Bazaar on the banks of the Bosphorus.
The Queen calmly negotiated her way through the displays of carpets and hookah pipes, leaving her husband to pause by the novelty chess sets.
First he studied one featuring Osama bin Laden (Tony Blair was king, Donald Rumsfeld his queen; George Bush and Saddam Hussein were merely pawns) Then Prince Philip picked up an English knight from a Crusader-themed historical chess set. Always the losers, the Prince said, referring to the British with his customary tact.
The Foreign Secretary had less luck with the ice-cream stall. The minister was fooled by a particularly cheeky vendor who invited him to take a vanilla cone from the end of a long spatula, before snatching it from his grasp. Repeatedly. The trick prompted a line from Mr Miliband, heard all too uncommonly from a Cabinet Minister: If I stick my tongue out, will you let me lick it? he asked, hopefully.
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Turkish military says 150 PKK separatists killed in N. Iraq |
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Written by Hurriyet
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Sunday, 04 May 2008 07:10 |
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Turkey's General Staff said on Saturday at least 150 outlawed PKK separatists were killed during the May 1-2 air strikes against PKK bases in northern Iraq. The statement added several high-ranking outlawed PKK separatists may have been among the dead.
Turkish military says 150 PKK separatists killed in N. Iraq
"According to initial estimates, this operation allowed us to neutralise more than 150 terrorists," declared a statement published on the Turkish army website.
The statement added several high-ranking outlawed PKK separatists may have been among the dead.
"The operation caused a big panic among terror organization's members," the statement read.
The military said in an earlier statement, it successfully hit 43 outlawed PKK targets in a three-hour air operation on Mount Qandil in northern Iraq which ended early Friday.
Turkish warplanes have targeted terrorist positions in northern Iraq since mid-December. In February, the army conducted a week-long ground offensive against PKK hideouts in the region, where more than 2,000 militants take refuge.
The Turkish government has a one-year parliamentary authorization, which expires in October, for cross-border raids against the PKK. The United States has backed Turkish military action against the outlawed PKK separatists by providing real-time intelligence on PKK movements in Iraq.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, including the EU and the US. |
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Turkish ruling party condemns headscarf ruling |
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Written by Reuters
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Saturday, 07 June 2008 03:31 |
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Turkey's ruling AK Party accused the country's top court on Friday of violating the constitution by overturning a government-led reform that lifted a ban on Muslim headscarves at universities.
Thursday's Constitutional Court ruling was the most serious setback for the Islamist-rooted AK Party since it came to power in 2002. It increased the likelihood courts would, in a separate case pending, ban the party on charges of Islamist subversion and bar the prime minister and president from party activity.
"The Constitutional Court decision is direct interference in parliament's legislative power and this is an open violation of the principle of separation of powers," AK Party deputy chairman Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat told reporters after a 6-hour emergency meeting of top party members.
The secularist establishment, including army generals and judges, suspects the AK Party of harboring a hidden Islamist agenda. The Party, which embraces nationalists, market liberals and centre-right politicians as well as religious conservatives, denies such accusations.
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Turkish government decides to approve Kyoto Protocol |
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Written by Reuters
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Tuesday, 03 June 2008 03:46 |
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The Turkish government has decided to approve the Kyoto Protocol. the U.N.-led global climate pact, and will send a bill on the issue to parliament shortly, a government spokesman said on Monday.
The Kyoto Protocol binds 37 industrialised countries to limits on their greenhouse gases compared to 1990 levels.
More than 170 nations have ratified the pact, which came into force in 2005 and Turkey is one of the few countries to have failed to do so.
"The government has decided as of today to approve this protocol. In a short period of time it will be sent to parliament," Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said after a cabinet meeting.
The government has a large majority in parliament and should have no difficulty in pushing the decision through.
"Turkey had not signed this protocol for its own reasons but not signing it means that it was excluded from the discussions," he said.
Most countries in the world are in UN talks to agree a broader climate deal from 2013, and developing countries have said rich countries must prove they can meet their targets under the first round of talks which end in 2012.
Turkey had already completed the process of preparing to sign the protocol but had until now declined to do so because of concerns about the costs.
The Kyoto Protocol is a pact agreed by governments at a 1997 U.N. conference in Kyoto, Japan, to reduce greenhouse gases emitted by developed countries to at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
The United States, long the world's biggest source of emissions but which is being surpassed by China, came out against the pact in 2001. |
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Turkey, EU Blame Each Other for Slow Pace of EU Accession Talks |
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Written by VOA
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Tuesday, 27 May 2008 16:33 |
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Turkey and the European Union are blaming each other for the slow pace of negotiations on possible Turkish EU entry.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan Tuesday in Brussels criticized one unnamed EU state for questioning whether Turkey belongs in the trade bloc. He said raising the issue is muting public enthusiasm in Turkey for wide-ranging reforms.
Babacan is widely believed to have been referring to France, whose president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has voiced reservations about granting full EU membership to Turkey, a largely Muslim country.
For his part, EU Expansion Commissioner Olli Rehn said key disputes over divided Cyprus are stalling the pre-membership talks. He said talks with the Ankara government on Cyprus-related issues will not open until Turkey allows Greek planes and ships access to Turkish ports and airports.
Analysts say a bid by opposition Turkish secularists to close down the country's ruling party for alleged Islamist activities is also raising European doubts about Turkey's willingness to meet EU standards for political tolerance. |
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EU urges Turkey to probe May Day police crackdown |
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Written by Reuters
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Wednesday, 07 May 2008 03:00 |
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The European Commission accused Turkish police on Tuesday of using excessive force against protesters during an outlawed May Day rally and called on authorities to investigate the events.
Turkish riot police fired water cannon and teargas in running clashes with crowds in central Istanbul on Thursday, detaining more than 500 people. Dozens of people were injured.
"We in the commission deplore this disproportionate use of force on the first of May," Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said, adding the Commission expected an investigation.
Turkey's main opposition parties also called for an investigation and asked Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to apologise for the police violence.
The EU sees democratic reforms, including human rights, as a key requirement in Turkey's ambitions to join the bloc.
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Turkish police disperse workers defying May Day ban |
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Written by International Herald Tribune
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Thursday, 01 May 2008 05:37 |
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Turkish riot police used clubs, tear gas and water cannons Thursday to break up crowds of workers trying to reach a main Istanbul square for a Labor Day rally banned by the government.
Thousands of police were on the streets after Turkish unions defied the government and said they would hold May Day celebrations in Istanbul's Taksim square, which had been scene of violent protests decades ago.
Police wearing gas masks first broke up a crowd which had gathered in front of a labor union office with the intention of walking to Taksim. Workers ran into the building and police blockaded it, preventing them from leaving.
Police, holding all streets leading to Taksim, also broke up groups of workers trying to enter the square through various entrances, firing tear gas and beating some demonstrators with clubs.
Some demonstrators were seen throwing rocks at police.
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