HIrgUr MUstemleke; Sanki Fiyasko Ha

[root at newsdesk.aps.nl]

From: newsdesk at newsdesk.aps.nl (Newsdesk Amsterdam)
Subject: Re: HIrgUr MUstemleke; Sanki Fiyasko Haberler, 17/3/95, 08:00 TSI
Reply-To: root at newsdesk.aps.nl


(1) Turk Clubs Attacked In Germany

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Two police officers were injured Thursday in
clashes with about 100 Kurdish militants who tried to storm the Turkish
Consulate office. Kurds also were blamed for the firebombing of Turkish
businesses and clubs across Germany for the third night in a row.

Armed with stones, planks and paint-filled bags, the Kurds pummeled a police
car parked in front of the consulate with stones, injuring the officers. Police
used water cannons to disperse the demonstrators, who were apparently
protesting a government decision to deport Kurds denied asylum in Germany.

No one claimed responsibility for the bomb attacks in seven cities, which
caused only minor damage and no injuries. But Eckart Werthebach, head of
Germany's domestic intelligence agency, blamed Kurdish militants battling for a
homeland in southeast Turkey.

Some 2 million Turks live in Germany, where they are the largest minority.
About 450,000 of the Turks are Kurds, roughly the same percentage as the
Kurdish population of Turkey itself.

Germany in 1993 banned the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Marxist group
fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey. Germany has detained thousands of
Kurds for deportation but has been frustrated in its attempts to send them
home.

On Wednesday, the federal government lifted a temporary restraining order on
the deportations, saying there was no evidence the Kurds faced wholesale
persecution in Turkey.

(2) Firebombers attack Turkish property in Germany

BONN, March 16 (Reuter) - Firebombers attacked Turkish properties in Germany
for the third night in succession, causing damage but no injuries, police said
on Thursday.

They said no one had claimed responsibility for the attacks in Kassel, Dortmund
and Dueren. Authorities have suspected Kurdish extremists of carrying out
similar attacks in the past.

In the latest incidents, a Turkish travel agency and an adjacent business were
set on fire in Kassel, central Germany. Another travel agency was attacked in
the western city of Dortmund. In Dueren, east of Aachen, police put out a fire
in a Turkish cultural centre.

Kurdish groups have carried out several waves of attacks on Turkish property in
the past three years in protest against what they regard as oppression by
Ankara in their homeland in southeastern Turkey, and against Germany's ties
with Turkey.

The attacks have led to the arrest of sympathisers of the banned separatist
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is waging a guerrilla war against the
Turkish government for their own homeland. Germany is home to more than 400,000
Kurds.

Two weeks ago German authorities outlawed six more groups believed to be linked
to the PKK, itself outlawed in 1993 after coordinated raids against Turkish
targets in Europe. German media have quoted security sources as saying police
fear the PKK plans demonstrations and violence in Germany around the Kurdish
New Year on March 21. During last year's festival, Kurds blockaded German
motorways with burning tyres, setting fire to themselves and clashing with
police.

The Bonn government announced on Wednesday it was lifting a moratorium on
the deportation of Kurdish refugees to Turkey. Interior Minister Manfred
Kanther said Bonn was resuming deportations on the grounds that Kurds were not
subject to systemtatic persecution as a minority group.

In the Swiss city of Zurich, three Turkish-owned travel agencies were
firebombed overnight but no one was injured, police said on Thursday. Swiss
police said they had no immediate clues about who carried out the attacks.

(3) Ethnic Feuds Divide Turkey

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Religious rivalries have added to the bloodshed in
Turkey, a country troubled by ethnic Kurdish violence and held at a distance by
Western allies because of human rights abuses.

The fighting that began Sunday centered on a shantytown inhabited by members
of a minority Muslim sect, the Alawites, who have grown increasingly uneasy
over the rise of Islamic fundamentalists in Turkey.

Two radical Sunni Muslim groups, who advocate strict Islamic rule, claimed
responsibility for the deaths of three people in the Gaziosmanpasa district of
Istanbul.

Hundreds of Alawites, outraged that it took police more than an hour to
respond to the shootings Sunday, turned out to protest Monday. Alawite sources
say 25 people died when police fired on the demonstration; the government puts
the number at 16.

Four other protesters died in Istanbul on Wednesday after an unidentified
person opened fire on a demonstration and police responded by firing into the
air. No unrest was reported Thursday in Turkey, but the climate remained
volatile.

"It is not difficult to provoke a community that has been humiliated and
alienated by the state for years," said international law professor Izzettin
Dogan, a prominent Alawite spokesman.

Alawites account for one-third of the 60 million people in Turkey, which
declares itself secular but promotes Sunni belief: Religious classes with a
Sunni curriculum are compulsory in elementary and secondary schools. "Alawite
children lived through harassments from their Sunni religious class teachers
for years," said Ilhan Selcuk, a writer for the leftist newspaper Cumhuriyet.
"The secular state became a Sunni state."

Even though the two sects have lived in peace in the past, Sunnis always looked
upon the Alawites as heretics, avoiding intermarriage and in most cases keeping
to separate neighborhoods.

The rift between the groups widened two years ago, when Muslim radicals set
fire to a hotel where a group of writers, poets and singers was celebrating an
Alawite festival. Thirty-seven people died.

The Alawites' nervousness grew last year after the Islamic fundamentalist
Welfare Party doubled its votes in local elections to 20 percent. In Istanbul,
the new Islamic radical mayor, Recep Erdogan, sought to demolish Alawite
mosques, but Alawites stood vigil at the mosques for weeks until he backed
down.

The friction between the religious sects compounds Turkey's problems over its
war with separatist Kurds, which has killed 15,000 people since 1984. The
government is accused of widespread rights abuses in its attempt to crush the
Kurdish uprising. Reports in February by Amnesty International and the U.S.
State Department allege forced evacuations and destruction of Kurdish villages.
The abuses are threatening economic ties with Western Europe. The European
parliament has threatened to block the European Union's recent trade agreement
with Turkey unless Ankara improves its rights record.

(5) Greece protests at Turkish accusations over unrest

ATHENS, March 16 (Reuter) - Greece protested to Turkey on Thursday over alleged
statements by Turkish officials blaming the recent riots in Istanbul on Greek
"provocations."

"Turkey has tried to blame its internal problems on Greece in the past," a
foreign ministry statement said. "We recommend self-control, an effort to face
its social problems and to treat its citizens equally."

The statement said the Greek embassy in Ankara handed a demarche to the Turkish
foreign ministry protesting about the alleged statements by Turkish officials,
saying they lacked seriousness.

At least 17 people have been killed in neighbouring Turkey in clashes with
police that began on Sunday night when unknown gunmen fired on coffeeshops of
the minority Alawite community.

The Greek protest appeared to be aimed at comments by Turkish Prime Minister
Tansu Ciller and Defence Minister Mehmet Golhan after an emergency cabinet
meeting late on Wednesday.

Ciller said in a televised statement that her nation faced "a very big
multifaceted provocation prompted by foreign circles" and that "these
provocations are planned from abroad in a bid to undermine our country's path
toward a brighter future." When asked by journalists, Golhan reportedly
confirmed she meant Greece.

The two NATO allies have been at odds over a number of issues, most recently
Greece's efforts to block a lucrative customs union deal between Turkey and the
European Union.

(6) MEPs debate Turkey customs accord, human rights situation

Press Release

March 14, 1995

Tuesday, 14 March - Reporting on the outcome of the 6 March Council agreement
designed to lead to a customs union with Turkey, Alain Lamassoure told MEPs he
recognised the conditions attached by Parliament to the agreement in the
resolution adopted last month and in particular the concern for human rights
and democracy.  These concerns had been taken up, he said, and commitments from
Turkey secured for a changes in the constitution and further political reforms
to bring this about. The ball was now firmly in Ankara's court, he said. The
agreement would, he said, make available some 375m ECU to Turkey over a five
year period from 1 January, 1996 and there was a further possibility of EIB
loans. In all, as much as 2bn ECU in various forms of financial assistance
could be available to Turkey. As to conditions for the accession of Cyprus, he
emphasised that detailed negotiations would begin six months after the end of
the IGC.

A meeting of the Troika is heading for Turkey on 23 March.

Mr Lamassoure emphasised the importance of the agreement in helping those
struggling in Turkey for an acceptance of European values.

For the Commission, Hans van den Broek welcomed the agreement in the context of
improving Greek/Turkish relations and indeed reaching a solution to the problem
of Cyprus. Like Mr Lamassoure, he emphasised that Turkey was now committed to
amending its constitution with a view to improving political freedoms and
respect for human rights.

N.B. The agreement covers industrial cooperation, agriculture, transport and
TENs, energy, telecommunicaitons, the environment, R & D and culture.

MEPs, however, did not in general share the optimism expressed by the Council
and Commission about events in Turkey. Panayotis Lambrias (Gr, EPP) thought
there had been a hardening of positions in Turkey, while Jan Bertens (Nl, ELDR)
said his group was insulted by the Council's action in ignoring Parliament's
protestations against the agreement.

The signing by Council of a customs agreement with Turkey just three weeks
after Parliament passed a resolution opposing such a move at present because of
concerns about human rights and Cyprus was described by Socialist Group leader
Pauline Green (London North) as a matter of absolute astonishment. Leading a
chorus of protests from MEPs, she said the Council's action showed the need for
institutional reform and greater democracy in the EU. In the light of the
Turkish Foreign Minister's threat to annex the northern part of Cyprus if the
EU decided to begin negotiations with the island for membership of the EU, Mrs
Green sought an assurance that talks with Cyprus would indeed begin six months
after next year's intergovernmental conference.

With MEPs' assent required to the customs agreement, Mrs Green warned that
Parliament would be closely monitoring progress in Turkey over the next six
months.

Claudia Roth (D, Greens) asked where the improvements in human rights and
democracy in Turkey were, while Catherine Lalumiere (F, EDA) criticised the
Council for ignoring Parliament's resolution. She restated her support for a
customs union with Turkey, with preconditions on human rights and Cyprus.

Replying to MEPs' concerns, Alain Lamassoure acknowledged the problems but said
the question was whether the EU was prepared to make a step forward. He
rejected the assertion that the Council had not taken Parliament's views
on board, but he added that the Council alone had the right of initiative in
this matter. On the crisis triggered by remarks made by the Turkish Foreign
Minister on Cyprus, Mr Lamassoure clarified that the Turkish Prime Minister
had subsequently disavowed this statement, committing herself to search for a
solution to Cyprus in line with the UN position.

Advising MEPs to beware of excessive perfectionism, Mr Lamassoure said the
customs agreement would facilitate progress on matters which had been bogged
down for thirty years, namely Cyprus, human rights and overall EU relations
with Turkey. With the agreement, he thought it would be possible to go half-way
to solving these three problems.

Commissioner Hans van den Broek, too, felt the EU had a chance to make progress
with Turkey. The EU, he said, faced a choice. He appealed to MEPs to take
account of all the various elements, saying he was in possession of information
on plans for reforms to the Turkish Constitution.


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