Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

INSTITUT 

URD 

DE PARIS 

Bulletin de liaison et d'information 

I 

N° 142-143 I 

Janvier-Février 1997

Ce bulletin parait en français. allemand. anglais. 

kurde. espagnol et turc. 

Prix au numéro: France: 30 FF - Etranger: 35 FF 

Abonnement annuel (12 numéros) France: 300 FF- Etranger: 350 FF 

Périodique mensuel 

Directeur de la publication : Mohamad HASSAN 

Numéro de la Commission Paritaire: 

ISSN 0761 1285 

659 15 A.S. 

INSTITUT KURDE. 106. rue La Fayette - 75010 

Tél. : (1) 48246464 - Fax: 47709904 

PARIS

SOMMAIRE 

• L'EX-DÉPUfÉKURDEAKSOYENPRISON JUSQU'ÀL'AN 2001 

• LE PAmONATTURCDFNONCE "L'HÉGÉMONIE DES GANGS Ef DES 

ooNFRÉRIFS'EfPROPOSE "UN PROJEf DE DÉMOCRA'ßSA1l0N" 

• UN JUGEAILEMANDMEfMMEÇILI.ERENCAUSEDANSLETRAFICDEDROGUE 

VERS L'EUROPE 

• LEDÉPAKfEMENTD'ÉfAT AMÉRICAIN OONSfATEEfOOCUMENTE "lA 

POURSUrrEDESVI0IA110NS DES DROllS DE L'HOMME EN TURQUIE EN 1996" 

• UN CHEFDEPOIlCEDÉCRrr"L'ORGANISA110NEXfRAJUDICIAIRE" CHARGÉE 

DEBASSFSBESOGNES DEL'ÉfATTURC 

• DANS LE PROCÈS HADEP, LE PROCUREURREQUIEKf2 OONDAMNA110NSÀ 

MOlUEf 42 OONDAMNA110NSÀDESPEINESAIlANfDE 15ANSÀ22,6 

ANS DE RÉCLUSION 

• LFSOONFF$IONS DEL 'UNDES~SDUPOÈfEMUSAANfER 

• L'ARMÉETURQUESE~PARMIS LFS DIX PLUS GRANDES DU MONDE 

• AINSI QUE... 

• lA REVUE DE PRFSSE EN BREF 

L'EX-DÉPUTÉ KURDE AKSOY EN PRISON 

JUSQU'À L'AN 2001 

NCARCÉRÉ depuis le 14 octobre 

1995 à la prison d'Ankara où il 

purge une peine de 3 ans pour 

délit d'opinion, Ibrahim Aksoy, 

ex-député kurde de Malatya et 

ancien président du parti DDP, vient de 

se voir signifier qu'en raison de récidive 

dans ses délits d'opinion séparatiste, 

l'amende de 216 666 666 LT à laquelle 

ilavait été condamné a été commuée en 

5 ans de prison. Par ailleurs, la 

condamnation à 2 ans de prison avec 

sursis prononcée par la Cour de Sûreté 

de l'État d'Istanbul pour son article 

"l'alévisme et la question kurde" a été 

ratifiée par la Cour de cassation turque. 

Celle-ci doit bientôt statuer sur une 

autre condamnation, à 16 mois de 

prison et à une amende de 133. 333. 

333 LT, de cet homme politique kurde 

pacifiste pour un article intitulé 

"Bosnie-Somalie-Kurdistan". En l'état 

actuel de ses dossiers, Ibrahim Aksoy 

devrait rester en prison jusqu'au 17 

février 2001! Si é\~demment la machine 

judiciaire turque ne le condamne pas à

,-----------------~---- 

.2. Bullplin dl' li(/isoll el (/,illj()/"fnuliol1 n° 142-143 ••/unvicr-Févric,' 1997 

d'autres peines pour ses écrits et ses 

déclarations. Chargée de faire taire les 

opposants, la justice turque dispose 

toujours d'une batterie de dossiers sur 

les opposants lui permettant de garder 

ceux-cien prison aussi longtemps que le 

souhaite le Conseil de Sécurité 

nationale à dominante militaire. En 

raison de cette singulière logique, le 

sociologue turc Ismail Besikçi, 

actuellement incarcéré à Bursa, est 

condamné à plus de siècles de prison 

pour ses écrits sur les Kurdes. L'ancien 

maire de Diyarbakir, Mehdi Zana, qui a 

déjà passé 15années de sa vie derrière 

les barreaux, fait l'objet d'une série de 

nouvelles poursuites judiciaires qui ont 

à ce jour déjà abouti à des 

condamnations à 4,5 ans de prison pour 

deux livres de témoignage sur les 

prisons turques et les grèves de la faim 

qui y ont eu lieu. 

Par ailleurs, la Cour de Sûreté de l'État 

d'Istanbul a décidé, le 16 janvier, la 

saisie de tous les exemplaires d'un 

ouvrage intitulé Özgürlügün Bedeli (Le 

prix de la liberté) écrit par la journaliste 

allemande Lissy Schmidt. Celle-ci,après 

avoir travaillé pendant des années en 

Turquie, s'était, à partir de 1992, 

installée au Kurdistan irakien où, 

jusqu'à son meurtre mystérieux en 

1994, elle travaillait pour plusieurs 

organes de presse européens dont 

l'AFP.Selon la cour turque, le livre de L. 

Schmidt ferait de "la propagande 

séparatiste" et son éditeur turc doit 

comparaître pour répondre de ce chef 

d'accusation. 

Le mêmejour, Muslim Gündüz, écrivain 

islamiste et leader de la confrérie 

religieuse Aczemendi,a été condamné à 

18 mois de prison par le tribunal 

correctionnel de Sisli (Istanbul) pour l'accusation n'a pu apporter la moindre 

avoir, dans une interview accordée en preuve des allégationsd'appartenance à 

1994 à la revue Taraf, "insulté la une organisation illégale. La défense a, 

mémoire d'Atatürk". Dans cette de son côté, dénoncé "la dérive d'un 

interview, M. Gündüz avait déclaré" Je système qui veut condamner cesjeunes 

vais bientôt écrire un livre, ce livre sera gens, qui ne sont même pas porteurs 

intitulé Zübeyde l'immorale et son fils d'un canif, pour appartenance à une 

illégitime". Le tribunal turc a estimé organisation illégale et arméee sur la 

que l'auteur par cette phrase visait base de simples dénonciations sans 

Atatürk et sa mère Zübeydeet que cela ~aucune preuve". Appelés à la barre, les 

constitue une insulté à la mémoire prévenus ont déclaré. qu'ils ne 

d'Atatürk, punIe par la loi. L'accusés'est . comprenaient toujours pas ce qu'ils leur 

défendu que Zübeydedont il envisageait arrivait, qu'ils étaient innocents et qu'ils 

de faire le personnage central de son souhaitaient que le cauchemar qu'ils 

livre n'était pas Zübeyde Hanim vivent depuis un an prenne fin. L'un 

(Madame Zübeyde),mère d'Atatürk car d'eux, Hüseyin Korkut, actuellement 

le prénom de Zubeydeest assez courant étudiant à l'université d'Istanbul, a 

chez les musulmans. Mais le tribunal déclaré, en pleurs, avant de s'évanouir 

n'a voulu rien entendre. Il a condamné sous le coupde l'émotion: "Après ma 

l'écrivain islamiste à 18 mois de prison remise en liberté, j'ai déménagé à 

ferme. Il a en outre condamné le même ~Istanbul pour essayer d'oublier tout 

Gündüz à une peine supplémentaire de cela. Mais là-bas aussij'ai été en butte 

6 mois pour avoir approuvé ses à la persécution de la police, il y a 3 

disciples qui ont battu des policiers lors jours, les policiers sont venus 

d'une manifestation. 

perquisitionner une nouvelle fois chez 

nous, en mettant tout sens dessus 

Le 17janvier, 16jeunes originaires de la dessous. Ils m'ont à nouveau gardé à 

ville turque de Manisa ont comparu vue. Et pendant la garde à vue, ils 

devant la Cour de Sûreté de l'État m'ont menacé: "tu crois que vous allez 

d'Izmir, pour appartenance à une en arriver à quelque chose en suivant 

organisation illégale et slogans hostiles 

à l'État. A l'exception d'un enseignant 

ces avocates p ... et ce député, Sabri 

Ergül (député CHP d'Izmir). Sais-tu 

de 32 ans, ces jeunes qui sont combien d'individus comme toi nous 

actuellement âgésde 15à 24 ans avaient avons fait disparaître?". La Cour a 

été arrêtés le 24 décembre 1995 par la acquitté 5 des 16 prévenus. 10 prévenus 

section anti-terroriste de la Sûreté ont été condamnés à des peines de 

générale de Manisa qui les suspecte prison allant de 2,5 à 12,5ans de prison. 

d'appartenance à une organisation Parmi eux, trois lycéennes âgées de 18 

turque d'extrême gauche, DHKP-C,et 

qui les avait sévèrement torturés. La 

torture infligée,pendant les 12 jours de 

garde-à-vue, à ces jeunes Turcs, dans 

une ville de l'Ouest turc, non soumis à 

l'état d'urgence, avait à l'époque choqué 

l'opinion publique. Au cours du procès, 

et 19 ans ont été condamnées à 2,5 ans 

de prison. Le dossier d'un lycéen âgé de 

15ans, M. G, sera transmis à une autre 

juridiction. Le verdict a suscité de vives 

réactions de la salle qui a protesté aux 

cris: "Justice, policiers-tortionnaires 

même combat". Il a été également mal

accueilli par une large fraction de 

l'opinion. Tandis que Bülent Ecevit 

critique "le triste dysfonctionnement 

d'une justice qui condamne à 12 ans de 

prison ces jeunes gens dont le seul 

crime est d'avoir crié des slogans", le 

député d'Istanbul, E. Karakas, déclare 

que" la consciencepublique est choquée 

par ces lourdes condamnations alors 

que les gangs et la mafia courent 

librement nos rues". Les avocats vont 

faire appel devant la Cour de cassation 

et envisagent de saisir ensuite la Cour 

européenne des droits de l'homme. 

Le 20 janvier, un jeune Kurde, Murat 

Akman, a été tué à son domicile dans la 

ville de Savur, province de Mardin, par 

un peloton d'équipes spéciales et de 

policiers. Sa famille a alerté les 

associations humanitaires et les avocats 

pour dénoncer "cette exécution 

sommaire". Cependant, celle-ci était 

présentée par les autorités locales 

comme "une mort survenue au cours 

d'affrontements avec les forces de 

l'ordre". L'Associationturque des droits 

de l'homme a dépêché sur place une 

mission d'enquête. Les conclusions de 

l'enquête sont accablantes pour les 

forces de sécurité. L'enquête établit que 

celles-ciont effectué, au petit matin, une 

perquisition chez les Akman. N'ayant 

rien trouvé, elles ont fait sortir les 

autres membres de la famille et abattu 

le jeune Murat dans sa chambre. Puis 

pour donner à cette exécution 

l'apparence d'un affrontement, elles ont 

mitraillé les murs de la pièce, placé à 

côté du corps inanimé de Murat une 

Kalashnikov et 3 chargeurs, 

photographié le tout, puis repris l'arme 

et les munitions avant d'aller annoncer 

que "lors des affrontements avec le 

PKK, un terroriste avait été tué". Or, 

relève la mission d'enquête dans une 

conférence de presse donnée le 26 

janvier à Istanbul, Murat Akman était 

un citoyen ordinaire qui avait terminé 5 

mois plus tôt son service militaire dans 

l'armée où il avait dû combattre le PKK 

dans la province de Simak. A ce titre, il 

détenait une carte verte de soins gratuits 

aœordés aux mens comOOttants. Citoyen 

ordinaire, cejeune Kurde a été victime de la 

haine et de l'ohle$ion ordinaires des forees 

turques qui voient en chaque Kurde un 

"terroriste du P/Œ'. "Et, même s'il était 

du PKK, peut-on tuer quelqu'un sans 

jugement dans un État qui se dit de 

droit ?" demandent les enquêteurs de 

l'IHD. 

Par ailleurs, le 14janvier au cours de 

descentes dans les locaux de 7 syndicats, 

LE PATRONAT TURC DÉNONCE "L'HÉGÉMONIE 

GANGS ET DES CONFRÉRIES" ET PROPOSE 

"UN PROJET DE DÉMOCRATISATION' 

ELON son président, le 

patronat turc a " honte de ce 

qui se passe chaquejour dans 

le pays". Il a "honte de 

l'hégémonie des gangs et des 

confréries". Et pour sortir le pays de cet 

engrenage destructeur et le rapprocher 

de ses partenaires occidentaux le 

patronat (TUSlAD) propose un vaste 

"projet de démocratisation" que son 

président Halis Komili, a, le 20 janvier, 

solennellement remis au président de 

l'Assembléenationale, Mustafa Kalemli, 

ainsi qu'au général Karadayi, chef 

d'état-major général des armées. Dans 

sa conférence de presse du 21 janvier à 

laquelle les médias turcs consacrent une 

large place (l, 5 p. dans le quotidien 

dans la ville de Mus, la police a arrêté et 

gardé à vue 26 personnes dont 3 

institutrices. Pendant cette garde à vue, 

lesjeunes femmes ont été mises à nue et 

longtemps interrogées sur leur vie 

sexuelle. Puis trois femmes policières 

ont "vérifié",au milieu des ricanements, 

d'insultes et d'agressions verbales, la 

virginité des institutrices. Selon le 

quotidien Sabah du 26 janvier qui 

donne cette information, "l'inquisition 

sexuelle des institutrices dans les locaux 

de la sûreté générale de Mus a duré 4,5 

heures". Le parquet local n'a pas jugé 

nécessaire d'instruire la plainte des 

victimes. Ni le préfet de Mus, ni le 

ministre de l'Intérieur, Mme. Aksenr, 

n'ont diligenté d'enquête contre les 

policiers de Mus. 

DES 

Milliyet), M. Komili ne mâche pas ses 

mots sur la gravité de la situation, sur 

"le manque de confiance de tous les 

secteurs de la société dans le système 

actuel" et appelle à la mobilisation de 

tous pour engager rapidement les 

réformes indispensables pour "une 

démocratie à l'européenne". Rappelant 

que "l'économie de marché ne peut se 

développer sans la stabilité politique" 

que "la politique ne doit pas être 

considérée comme l'apanage de 

certains milieux mais l'affaire de tous". 

M. Komili a souligné que le pays avait 

besoin d'un "véritable régime civil". 

"Actuellement le Conseil de Sécurité 

nationale (organe non élu à dominante 

militaire) est élevé au rang du conseil

.4. Hulletin de liaiso/l el d'Ï11/ill'/lwtion n° 142-14.'1 •• /wlVicr-Févricr 1997 

des ministres. C'est une situation qu'on 

ne rencontre que dans des pays comme 

la Corée du Sud et l'Algérie alors que 

dans les pays démocratiques comme la 

France, l'Italie et les États-Unis ce 

genre de conseils ne sont formés que de 

techniciens" a-t-il ajouté. Un régime 

civil, cela notamment veut dire que 

l'état-major des armées doit être placé 

sous l'autorité du ministère de la 

défense, et non plus sous celle, 

théorique, du Premier ministre a 

poursuivi M. Komili pour résumer les 

grandes lignes des réformes proposées par 

le patronat. Parmi les mesures les plus 

significatives du patronat: abolition des 

articles 26 et 28 de la Constitution sur "les 

langues interdites"afin de permettre aux 

citoyens kurdes le libre usage de leur 

lahgue dans tous les domaines de la vie; . 

liberté pour les Kurdes de donner à leurs 

enfants des noms de leur choix et 

d'utiliser, à la place des appellations 

turques imposées, les noms kurdes de 

leurs villes, villages et de lieux 

géographiques; abolition de l'article 8 de la 

loi anti-terreur et refonte des articles 158, 

159,311et 312 du Code pénal afin d'assurer 

une véritable liberté d'expression; refonte 

de la loi électorale et de la loi sur les partis 

et les associations de façon à assurer 

effectivement la liberté d'association et 

une représentations équitable des 

citoyens; refonte de l'actuelle loi sur les 

prérogatives de la police héritée de la 

période du parti unique (1924-1945) 

afin dé garantir le droit à la vie et 

l'intégrité physique des citoyens. Enfin, 

le patronat estimant que le concept 

même d'une "idéologie officielle de 

l'État" est incompatible avec une 

véritable démocratie pluraliste qui doit 

être fondée sur la neutralité de l'État 

vis-à~vis de toute idéologie et M toute 

religion, demande la suppression du Sème 

paragraphe. du Préambule de la 

Constitution qui institue "le nationalisme 

d'Atatürk; les valeurs historiques et 

moralesde la turquicité" en illle idéologie 

officiellequi ne saurait en aUCilllemanière 

être remise en cause. L'article 14 de la 

Constitution qui restreint gravement la 

liberté d'expression "afin d'empêcher 

un mauvais usage des libertés" doit 

également être abolie, souligne le 

"projet de démocratisation" du 

patronat qui, par ailleurs, demande illle 

décentralisation des structures de 

l'État. 

UN JUGE ALLEMAND MET MME~ÇILLER EN CAUSE 

DANS LE TRAFIC DE DROGUE VERS L'EUROPE 

.l'issue du procès de 3 

trafiquants de drogue se 

déroulant depuis octobre 

dernier devant la 17ème 

chambre du Tribunal de 

Francfort, le président de cette Cour, le 

juge Rolf Schwalbe, en annonçant le 

verdict, a notamment déclaré: "Le trafic 

de drogue de Turquie vers l'Allemagne 

et vers les autres pays européens.est 

organisé par les familles Senoglu et 

Baybasin et ces familles, selon les 

dépositions des témoins, sont protégées 

.par le gouvernement turc et cela rend 

difficile de faire apparaître toute 

l'étendue de ce trafic. On affirme que 

ces deuxfamilles de trafiquants ont des 

relations extrêmement étroites avec un 

ministre turcféminin". A la question de 

savoir qui est cette dame, le juge 

allemand a répondu: Tansu Çiller. La 

dépêche de l'agence allemande DPA 

datée du 21 janvier qui donne cette 

information indique que selon la Cour, 

La démarche du patronat turc est 

saluée par la plupart des 

commentateurs comme "une action de 

salut public" bienvenue. Le président 

du Parlement s'est engagé à soumettre 

ces idées aux délibérations des députés. 

Cependant, l'état-major des armées a 

fait savoir que "ce projet est étranger 

aux réalités du pays", tandis que 

certains éditorialistes proches de 

l'armée raillent "ces patrons qui se 

mettent à la mode des intellectuels 

libéraux coupés des réalités du pays 

pour sefaire bien voir de l'Europe". 

ce réseau a introduit au moins 100 kg 

d'héroïne en Allemagne et en Belgique 

et que l'enquête sur les ramifications du 

réseau se poursuivait. Les trois 

membres de ce réseau ar'rêtés à 

Francfort; un Turc, un Italien et un 

Belge, ont été respectivement 

condamnés à 9 ans, 7 ans et 2 mois et 4 

ans et 11 mois de prison. 

La mise en cause du gouvernement turc 

en général et de Mme. Çil1er en 

particulier dans le trafic de drogue a été 

largement répercutée par les média 

allemands et turcs. Une télévision 

allemande, NIV, a diffusé l'information 

dans ses bulletins .avec l'image choc 

d'une seringue d'héroïne sur fond de 

drapeau turc. Mme. Çiller a écrit à son 

homologue allemand, M. Kinkel, pour 

"protester contre ces accusations sans 

fondements" et le porte-parole du 

ministère turc des Affaires étrangères a 

qualifié "d'inconvenantes et contraires

aux usages diplomatiques les donner? (..) Désonnais, le nom de notre 

déclarations du juge allemand". Celui- pays figure d'une part aux côtés des 

ci a refusé de recevoir le consul général États terroristes comme l'Iran, la Syrie 

turc à Francfort mais il a confirmé au et la Lybie, et d'autre part aux côtés des 

quotidien Frankfurter Allgemeine narco-Etats comme l'Équateur, le 

Zeitung les informations diffusées par Pérou et le Guatemala. Le pire est qu'il 

DPA. De son côté, le juge M. Dox n'y a pas un autre État impliqué à la 

Nevelling, porte parole du juge foisdansletraficdestupéfiantsetdans 

Schwalbe, a indiqué à l'AFP que la terreur". Son collègue Oktay Eksi, 

l'enquête avait établi des liens entre les écrit dans le même quotidien, que "cette 

trafiquants de drogue et le infamie salit le nom de tout le pays" et 

gouvernement turc et que des éléments que "tous les porteurs de passeports 

révélés par l'instruction ont tout à fait turcs sont considéréspar les douaniers 

convaincu la Cour à ce sujet. A la comme des trafiquants de drogue 

question de savoir si les graves potentiels". Il rappelle que l'Allemagne 

accusations lancées par la Cour n'est pas le seul pays à pointer du doigt 

n'allaient pas engendrer des réactions le gouvernement turc. "Notre journal 

politiques, lejuge répond "Celase peut. avait, dans son numéro du 27 décembre 

Mais nous n'avons peur de rien. La 1996 écrit que les Pays-Bas n'avaient 

justice allemande est indépendante". En aucunement l'intention d'extrader vers 

Turquie, la nouvelle de la mise en cause la Turquie Husseyin Baybasin (NDLR. 

de Mme. Çiller ne semble pas L'un des gros bonnets de la mafia) (..) 

surprendre outre mesure les journaux. Selon une conviction qui n'est pas 

Dans son éditorial du 23 janvier, E. exprimée officiellement, la Turquie est 

Özkök,directeur de Hürriyet, rappelle un pays où le trafic de drogue est mené 

que déjà l'année dernière deux par l'État lui-même. C'est pourquoi ils 

tribunaux allemands, ceux de Hannover ne vont pas faire confiance à la Turquie 

et de Trier, avaient accusé le pour lui renvoyer Baybasin. La 

gouvernement turc de "soutenir les politique pratiquée suit quasiment le 

trafiquants de drogue. Cettefois-ci, la principe suivant: au lieu de laisser le 

nouveauté est que lejuge met en cause PKK tirer profit du trafic de drogue, 

nommément Tansu Çiller (..) Quand on profitons-en nous-mêmes. D'autant que 

voit le lendemain sur la chaîne de nous disposons de tous les moyens de 

télévision privée Kanal D l'étrange l'État. Il suffirait de s'assurer que la 

photo d'un extrémiste de droite, drogue transportée d'une frontière à 

recherché pour meurtre par l'État et l'autre ne soit pas saisie. Qui pourrait 

pour trafic de drogue par la nous tenir tête?" 

communauté internationale, en 

compagnie de policiers officiels de Le Milliyet du 24 janvier annonce en 

l'État (..), quand on voit un certain gros titre "le piège des trafiquants qui 

Yasar Öz, porteur d'un passeport vert se referme sur la Turquie". Il fait état de 

(de service) fourni par l'État, négocier l'information du Daily Telegraph du 23 

aux États-Unis la vente d'héroïne avec janvier indiquant que "80% de l'héroïne 

des limiers du Bureau des narcotiques, vendue en Grande-Bretagne provient 

quelles explications pourrons-nous de la Turquie" et d'un rapport du 

Département d'État rappelant que "la 

plus grosse partie du trafic d'héroïne en 

Europe est contrôlée par les trafiquants 

turcs". L'influent éditorialiste Cengiz 

Çandar affirme dans le Sabah du 25 

janvier que "L'Occident assiège la 

Turquie sur la drogue". Selon lui, si le 

23 janvier la Commission des Affaires 

étrangères de la Chambre des 

représentants des États-Unis a tenu sur 

ce sujet une audition à huis clos avec 

des chefs de la CIA, du DEA (Drug 

Enforcement Agency) et des 

responsables du Département d'État 

c'est que la situation est très grave. A 

qui la faute? ajoute-t-il. "Nous n'avons 

pas pris au sérieux les avertissements 

précédents des tribunaux allemands de 

Trier et de Hannover sur les liens des 

trafiquants de drogue avec le 

gouvernement turc. En outre, 

récemment, une fuite (de source 

gouvernementale allemande) a conduit 

plusieurs publications, dont 

l'hebdomadaire allemand Focus, à 

krirequ~nŒmomméHüse~nDuma~ 

recherché pour trafic de matériaux 

nucléaires, a rencontré à Baden Baden 

Özer Çiller (époux de Mme. Çiller). Le 

message politique de Bonn était clair: 

l'Allemagne a mis une croix sur le nom 

de Çiller. Voilà pourquoi le chancelier 

Kohl refuse avec insistance tout rendezvous 

avec Çiller" 

En Grande-Bretagne, la BBC estime que 

"la Turquie est devenue la Colombie du 

Moyen-Orient", tandis que Tom 

Sackville,ministre adjoint de l'Intérieur, 

dans une interview à Sunday Times du 

26 janvier, souligne la responsabilité 

des autorités turques dans ce trafic. 

Extraits: "80% de l'héroïne saisie en 

Grande-Bretagne provient de Turquie. 

Il y a desfaits qui ont été dévoilés à la

.6 • Blllletin de lioison ('Iu'infu/'l1lulio/1 n° 142-143 • ,Junvicl'-Févricr 1997 

suite des événements et des 

investigations. Nous savons que des 

informations confidentielles concernant 

des opérations de narcotiques sont 

tombées dans les mains des trafiquants 

de drogue. Ce queje veux dire c'est que 

quand nous avons informé les autorités 

turques de ces opérations elles ont filtré 

l'information aux trafiquants de drogue 

et les opérations ont échoué". 

Remarquant que "l'implication des 

officiels du gouvernement et des 

hommes politiques avec des criminels 

.condamnés par la justice ternissait 

l'image internationale de la Turquie" et 

précisant que l'inquiétude britannique 

vient des "rapports troublants 

affirmant que des membres de la police 

et même des membres du 

gouvernement sont impliqués dans le 

trafic de drogue", M. Sackville a ajouté 

qu'ils "ne pouvaient être sûrs de 

l'exactitude des informations 

transmises par les organismes de 

. sécurité turcs aux autorités 

britanniques au sujet du trafic de 

drogue". 

De son côté, l'Observatoire géopolitique 

de drogue, basé à Paris, a également 

accusé la Turquie d'être impliquée dans 

le trafic de drogue. Un dirigeant de 

l'Observatoire, cité par le Turkish Daily 

News du 27 janvier, indique que "70% 

de la drogue arrivant en Europe 

provient de Turquie et cela est 

impossible sans connexion politique". 

Soulignant que "la drogue saisie en 

Turquie n'est jamais ni détruite ni 

rapportée aux agences internationales" 

le porte-parole de l'Observatoire ajoute: 

"L'argent de la drogue saisie est donné 

à la milice officieuse qui combat le PKK. 

Cela est connu en Europe. Un vaste 

réseau de narcotiques a été découvert, 

et c'est un réseau tellement vaste que 

chacun y est impliqué d'une manière ou 

d'une autre". 

. Reste que si cette "Turkish connection 

n'afait pas que ternir l'image du pays, 

elleaggrave aussi des conditions de vie 

de millions de citoyens turcs vivant à 

l'étranger" commente, à juste titre, la 

BBC. Désormais tous les porteurs de 

passeports turcs sont considérés par les 

policiers européens comme de "possibles 

trafiquants de drogue".A qui la faute? Pas 

aux Européens dit l'ancien Premier 

ministre turc Mesut Yilmaz. "Comment 

.peut-ondonner à des trafiquantsnotoiresi 

de drogue des passeports de service. 

réservés à des hauts fonctionnaires de 

l'État et s'étonner ensuite que l'on nous 

critique pour l'implication de notre 

gouvernement dans ce trafic"s'interrogetoil. 

La Turkish Connectionsemble aussi sévir 

aux Pays-Bas. Un rapport du "Comité 

d'investigations d'organisations 

criminelles d'origines étrangères" publié 

par le Parlement hollandais, souligne le 

rôle de "pays transit" joué par la Turquie 

dans le trafic de drogue international et 

l'implication des partis politiques turcs 

dans ce trafic. Le rapport met 

notamment en cause un groupe de 

militants du MHP (Parti d'action 

nationaliste du Colonel Türkes) protégé 

par le gouvernement turc et impliqué 

dans le trafic de drogue. Rappelant que 

ce parti d'extrême droite dispose d'une 

implantation substantielle dans la 

diaspora turque sous le nom 

. d'organisation des "Loups Gris" (nom 

que se donnent les jeunes inilitants du 

MHP), le rapport affirme que les 

structures politiques du MHP ont pu 

servir de couverture à la mafia et que les 

services de renseignements hollandais 

suivaient tout cela de près depuis les 

années 70. "Les revenus des entreprises 

criminelles qui proviennent 

particulièrement du trafic de drogue 

.dans les années 70 et 80, sont utilisés 

dans les activités politiques" ajoute le 

rapport qui met aussi en cause d'autres 

partis politiques en Turquie: "les 

groupes mafieux qui étaient impliqués 

danS le trafic de drogue sont en contact 

avec tous les partis politiques, en 

particulier les partis d'extrême droite". 

D'autres détails accablants sont 

également mentionnés dans le rapport: 

"Les gros bonnets du trafic de drogue 

soutiennent les Loups Gris qui sont 

actifs dans ce domaine. Par exemple, 

Ojlu et Drej Ali étaient des militants du 

MHP à Istanbul durant des années. 

Alaattin Çakici avait sur lui un 

passeport diplomatique fourni par le 

gouvernement turc. Celui-ci affirmait 

toujours qu'il avait une mission qui lui 

a été confiée par la natiOn turque. Les 

Loups Gris ont un nombre important 

de militants au sein de la jeunesse 

turque aux Pays-Bas. Ils sont impliqués 

dans le trafic de drogue, d'armes et 

d'extorsion defonds". 

Après la publication de ce rapport la 

police néerlandaise a procédé à des 

rafles dans les milieux nationalistes 

d'extrême droite turcs, arrêtant 80 

personnes. Les Loups Gris fournissent 

le gros des combattants des Équipes 

spéciales (Özel Tim) sévissant au 

Kurdistan, réputées pour leur férocité et 

leur haine des Kurdes. Leurs militants 

les plus endurcis (Alaettin Çakici, 

Abdullah Çatli, Oral Çelik) ont été 

recrutés par l'ex-ministre turc de 

l'Intérieur dans "l'organisation 

extrajudiciaire" chargée de "combattre

n° 142-143- .1Lw;c,.-/:éll1';c" lYY7 Hulldill dl' liuisull d d'ill/u/'11lutiull • -. 

la terreur par les méthodes terroristes" arméniens et kurdes en Europe. Aliev (considéré par les ultradécrit 

par le chef de police H. Avci et à Certains de leurs éléments, agissant à la nationalistes turcs comme moins panqui 

sont imputés plusieurs milliers demande des services spéciaux turcs, turquiste que son prédécesseur 

d'assassinats politiques en Turquie ainsi ont participé à la tentative du coup Elchibey) ainsi que dans la guerre de 

que des attentats contre les objectifs d'État contre le président azerbaidjanais Tchétchénie. 

LE DÉPARTEMENT D'ÉTAT AMÉRICAIN CONSTATE 

ET DOCUMENTE "LA POURSUITE DES VIOLATIONS 

DES DROITS DE L'HOMME EN TURQUIE EN 1996" 

E Département d'État 

américain dans son rapport 

annuel sur les droits de 

l'homme en 1996, rendu public 

le 30 janvier, fait en 30 pages 

un bilan exhaustif des violations des 

droits de l'homme en Turquie. Le 

gouvernement turc, qui avait procédé à 

un toilettage juridique de quelques lois 

répressives en 1995, s'est montré 

incapable de faire de même en 1996 et 

"dans certains cas, la situation s'est 

détériorée" affirme le rapport. En ce 

qui concerne la situation dans le 

Kurdistan le rapport note que "la 

situation dans le Sud-Est était 

particulièrement préoccupante. Le 

gouvernement a depuis longtemps 

privé la population kurde, située dans 

sa majorité au Sud-Est, de ses droits 

culturels et linguistiques élémentaires. 

Dans sa lutte contre le PKK, le 

gouvernement a déplacé de force un 

grand nombre de non-combattants, 

torturé des civils et restreint la liberté 

d'expression. De son côté le PKK a 

commis des violations à une grande 

échelle et usé du terrorisme d'unefaçon 

régulière contre les autorités et les 

civils, qui sont kurdes pour la plupart". 

Le nombre des déplacés kurdes se 

situerait autour de 3 millions de 

personnes et quant aux villages évacués 

par l'armée, le rapport cite les sources 

du ministère des Affaires étrangères qui 

les évalue à 2600 villages et les 

organisations des droits de l'homme 

qui les évaluent à plus de 3000. 

Toutefois, les violations des droits de 

l'homme même si elles ont été 

commises en majorité dans le Sud-Est, 

ne sont pas limitées à cette région. Les 

assassinats extrajudiciaires, y compris 

en détention, dus à l'usage excessif de 

la torture, ont continué" avec un 

rythme inquiétant" ajoute le rapport. 

L'absence ou la rareté de poursuites 

judiciaires à l'encontre des gardiens de 

prison ou des policiers et la mise au secret 

des détenus pendant la garde-à-vue de 15 

à 30 jours, sans aucun de oontact avec un 

avocat, sont un facteur majeur dans 

"l'usage de la torture par la police et les 

forces de sécurité" ajoute encore le 

rapport. Le ministère des Affaires 

étrangères, dont Mme. Çiller est en 

charge, considère ce rapport 

"inacceptable" et "les allégations par 

certainesONGà l'étrangerque la Turquie 

harcèle les défenseurs des droits de 

l'homme et lesavocats sont inacœptables" 

a encore ajouté le communiqué du 

ministère des Affaires étrangères, publié le 

lendemain de la parution du rapport du 

Département d'État 

UN CHEF DE POLICE DÉCRIT 

"L'ORGANISATION EXTRAJUDICIAIRE" 

CHARGÉE DE BASSES BESOGNES DE L'ÉTAT TURC 

ÉPOSANT devant la Commission 

d'enquête parlementaire, 

le 4 février, Hanefi Avci, 

chef-adjoindu Bureau du 

Renseignement de la 

Direction générale de la Sûreté, a fait 

des révélations importantes sur ce qu'il 

appelle lui-même "l'organisation 

extrajudiciaire de l'État". Extraits: 

"Nous avons réalisé qu'on ne pouvait 

aller nulle part dans la lutte contre la 

terreur en restant dans le cadre du 

Droit. Pour cette raison, nous avons été 

conduits à créer une organisation hors 

Droit (extrajudiciaire) en vue de 

combattre la terreur et de recueillir des 

renseignements. Nous avons opté pour 

la règle d'anéantir la terreur par les 

méthodes des terroristes. Cette décision 

a été prise aux échelons supérieurs de 

l'État. Les principaux chefs de cette 

organisation extrajudiciaire étaient 

Mehmet Agar (directeur général de la 

Sûreté) pour la police, Mehmet Eymür

• H. Hulletin de liuis()1l et d'inj()/'lIluti()n n° 142-143. JCl1lvicr-l:élwicrl

ne pourra vous sauver". Nul ne savait 

qu'on était des journalistes car nous 

n'avions pas encore eu l'occasion de 

discuter avec les gens (..) Le lendemain 

matin, nous sommes allés à la mairie 

et à la sous-préfecture. Le maire avait 

l'air de nous en vouloir avant même de 

nous avoir rencontrés. Dans la rue, les 

gens nous étaient hostiles et nous 

étions constamment suivis par des 

voitures immatriculées à Ankara. 

Quelques habitants courageux nous 

ont appris sous le couvert de 

l'anonymat, comment les tueurs 

recrutés par Yesil, d'extraction pauvre, 

sont devenus des propriétaires de 

plusieurs Renaults 19 et de stations 

d'essence. Devant des récits qui 

donnent le frisson dans le dos, nous 

sommes allés à la gendarmerie pour 

connaître sa version. Personne ne 

voulait nous recevoir. Le lendemain 

matin, nous étions convoqués à 8h au 

bureau du maire qui n'avait 

visiblement pas dormi de la nuit et qui 

nous a demandé de quitter 

immédiatement la ville pour éviter le 

pire. "Vous êtes en grand danger, je ne 

. , 

pourrais pas vous proteger. 

" 

Stupéfaits, nous avons tout de suite 

pris la route de Mus. Tout au long de 

cette route de 56 Km, nous avons été 

suivis de près par un véhicule gris 

immatriculée à Ankara. Logés à la 

maison des instituteurs, nous allions, 

après quelques heures de repos, sortir 

pour dîner. Le portier nous fixant des 

yeux stupéfaits, nous demande: "Qui 

êtes-vous donc! Pourquoi la police 

demande à chaque minute de vos 

nouvelles?" 

Confirmant à sa manière les révélations 

du chef de police Avci, un baron de la 

mafia turc, Nurettin Güven, exilé à 

Londres, dénonce dans le quotidien parce que "la rançon a paru 

Hürriyet et sur la chaîne de télévision insuffisante à ces gens cupides". Il 

privée Kanal D "La liste rouge des raconte aussi comment, au temps de sa 

hommes à abattre" par l'organisation collaboration avec la police, il a pu avoir 

spéciale turque. Il affirme que son un passeport de service (réservé en 

compatriote O. TopaI, patron des salles principe aux hauts fonctionnaires de 

de jeux, a été enlevé par l'équipe de l'État) pour mener à bien ses affaires 

Mehmet Agar, qu'il a payé une rançon (de trafic de drogue) alors que la justice 

de $ 17 millions et qu'il a été malgré française l'avait déjà condamné par 

cela abattu alors même que Agar était contumace à 16 ans de prison pour 

ministre de l'Intérieur, probablement trafic de stupéfiants. 

DANS LE PROCÈS HADEP, LE PROCUREUR 

REQUIERT 2 CONDAMNATIONS À MORT 

ET 42 CONDAMNATIONS À DES PEINES 

ALLANT DE 15 ANS À 22,6 ANS DE RÉCLUSION 

E procès intenté aux 47 

dirigeants du Parti populaire 

de la démocratie (HADEP), 

pro-kurde, approche de sa fin. 

Au cours de l'audience du 14 

février devant la Cour de Sûreté de 

l'État d'Ankara, le procureur Nub Mete 

Yuksel a requis la peine capitale pour 

"trahison à la patrie" à l'encontre des 

prévenus Faysal Akcan et G. Mordeniz. 

Le premier est accusé d'avoir, le 23 juin 

1996, lors du 2ème congrès du HADEP, 

décroché le drapeau turc se trouvant sur 

un mur de la salle du congrès et 

accroché à sa place un drapeau du PKK 

ainsi qu'un portrait d'A. Ocalan, chef de 

cette organisation. Le second est accusé 

par le procureur d'avoir "ordonné cette 

action de haute trahison". Le procureur 

demande par ailleurs la condamnation 

à 22,6 ans de prison de 23 dirigeants du 

HADEP, dont son président Murat 

Bozlak, pour "constitution d'une 

organisation illégale", et la 

condamnation à 15 ans de prison de 19 

autres responsables du HADEP pour 

"appartenance à une organisation 

illégale". Pour le procureur,la cause est 

entendue: le HADEP est la branche 

politique du PKK. Et pour preuves, il 

cite des publications saisies au siège de 

ce parti ainsi que des "aveux des 

repentis" communiqués par la police 

sans qu'aucun d'entre eux n'apparaisse 

devant la Cour pour confirmer ces 

déclarations ou être confrontés aux 

prévenus. Autres preuves du "complot 

séparatiste" des prévenus: "leurs 

déclarations en faveur de la paix et 

contre la guerre sale", les discours en 

kurde au cours du congrès, la 

revendication en faveur de 

l'enseignement du kurde; dénonciation 

du coût de la guerre. "La Turquie est 

une chemise où les Turcs se sentent à 

l'étroit. Il n'est pas possible d'arracher 

une pièce à cette chemise. Il n'y a pas 

de place dans les frontières de la 

Turquie tracées par le Pacte national 

d'Atatürk à des délires sur l'éducation 

en kurde et la fédération" affirme le 

procureur, dans son réquisitoire, avant

• ]() •'Bulletin de liC/ison et d'Ï1~torl7lC/tion n° 142-143 • .Jcmvicr-Févricr 1997 

d'ajouter: "En demandant l'arrêt de 

l'effusion de sang, de mettre un terme à 

la guerre sale qui absorbe une grande 

partie du budget, les dirigeants du 

Hadep cherchent en fait à légitimer le 

PKK et à le présenter comme un 

interlocuteur. Or la seule condition de 

la paix est que le chef des bandits se 

rende avec sa bande. Les prévenus 

n'ont jamais évoqué cette condition. 

Nous allons, bien entendu, faire des 

sacrifices et dépenser tout ce quiest' 

nécessaire jusqu'à ce que les bandits 

soient anéantis. S'il le faut, tout le 

budget de l'État s'era mis à la 

disposition de la grande armée turque 

et des forces de sécurité pour qu'elles 

accomplissent leur devoir d'assurer 

l'unité indivisible de notre territoire et 

de notre nation". Après ce réquisitoire, 

qui se passe de commentaires, la Cour, 

par la voix de son président, D. 

Karadeniz, a estimé "lourdes" les 

réquisitions du procureur. Elle 

souhaiterait juger 42 prévenus d'aide à 

des membres d'une organisation 

illégale (PKK), crime passible de 3 à 5 

ans de prison. Quant' aux deux 

principaux prévenus incriminés dans 

l'incident du drapeau, ils seront 

poursuivis pour "appartenance à 

organisation illégale" et pourraient 

être condamnés à 10 ans de réclusion. 

Après avoir rejeté les demandes de 

citations de témoins présentées par la 

défense, la Cour a renvoyé au 14 mars la 

prochaine audience au cours de laquelle 

les prévenus pourront présenter leur 

défense en fonction de la nouvelle 

qualification des chefs d'accusation 

sous lesquels ils seront jugés. Le verdict 

pourrait intervenir soit le 14 mars, soit 

à l'issue d'une audience ultime 

quelques semaines plus tard. Ainsi, le 

scénario appliqué lors du procès des 

députés kurdes du DEP est suivi jusqu'à 

la caricature pour décapiter cette fois-ci 

le HADEP et interdire aux Kurdes toute 

possibilité de combat politique légal et 

pacifique. Dans un État de droit, la 

justice cherche à établir la vérité sur les 

faits reprochés aux prévenus et à les 

juger en fonction des faits établis, 

LES CONFESSIONS DE L'UN DES ASSASSINS 

"" DU POÈTE MUSAANTER 

GETE, dramaturge et écrivain 

humaniste kurde Musa Anter 

avait été assassiné à l'âge 74 

ans le 20 septembre 1992 à 

Diyarbakir où il se trouvait 

pour participer à un festival culturel. Sa 

mort avait suscité une vive émotion en 

Turquie et les autorités politiqUeS 

avaient promis d'arrêter rapidement 

"les auteurs de ce lâche assassinat" 

tandis que les Kurdes montraient du 

doigt l'État turc. Finalement, encouragé 

par le climat de déballage qui se 

développe depuis l'affaire de Susurluk, 

un dénommé Murat Ipek, dans des 

déclarations à plusieurs quotidiens 

(Radikal, Yeni Ytizyil, Özgür Politika et 

Demokrasi du 11février) avoue'être l'un 

de sés assassins. Extraits de ses aveux: 

"Après avoir essayé vainement 

pendant toute la soirée du premier jour 

où nous avions reçu des instructions de 

l'amener d'obtenir un rendez-vous de 

Musa Anter, nous sommes revenus à la 

charge le lendemain avec un mot 

d'Alaettin Kanat (repenti du PKK 

employé par les escadrons de la mort 

de la police). Après un certain temps, 

Musa Anter a accepté notre demande 

d'entrevue, il est venu à la réception de 

son hôtel avec quelqu'un (Orhan 

incontestables. Dans le système turc, les 

Cours de Sûreté décident, en fonction 

des instructions reçues du Conseil de 

sécurité nationale, pour combien 

d'années mettre en prison tel ou tel 

Kurde indésirable et puis les juges 

trouvent les qualifications correspondant 

à ces peines. ' 

Miroglu). A la sortie de l'hôtel, je l'ai 

fait monter dans une voiture. Nous 

étions précédés par une voiture à bord 

de laquelle se trouvait A. Kanat et 

suivis d'un autre véhicule.A la sortie de 

Diyarbakir, nous avons bifurqué en 

direction d'Ergani. Après un certain 

temps, nous nous sommes arrêtés. A. 

Kanat est monté dans notre voiture. En 

le voyant, Musa Anter a compris ce qui 

se passait car il connaissait Kanat. Il 

s'est penché la tête et s'est tu. Son 

compagnon discutait avec nous.'Notre 

voiture's'est engagée dans la route de 

Silvano Après un moment, on s'est 

arrêté. Kanat a pris le bras de Musa 

Anter.Anter nous a dit alors: "les 

enfants, vous faites une erreur". Ils 

étaient devant, nous les suivions. Après 

avoir marché quelque temps, nous 

, avons reçu le signal. A. Kanat a tiré la 

première balle dans la tête de Musa 

Anter. Puis, à notre tour, nous avons 

tiré. Anter a été tué de4 balles et 

Miroglu s'est mis à.fuir, nous avons tiré 

dans sa direction. Les sentinelles d'un 

camp militaire proche ont tiré en l'air. 

Pris de panique, nous sommes montés 

dans 'notre voiture et nous avons 'repris 

la route de SilvanoNous nous sommes 

arrêtés devant la Faculté de médeCine

de l'université Diele. Après un bref 

intervalle, des policiers en civil sont 

venus à bord d'un minibus rouge. Nous 

sommes montés dans le minibus et les 

policiers ont pris notre voiture. Puis, 

nous nous sommes éloignés des lieux. 

Nous avons au total utilisé trois 

véhicules pour cette opération. L'un 

d'eux était volé, les deux autres 

appartenaient à l'armée. Nos armes 

étaientfournies par lapolice". 

Affirmant appartenir à un escadron de 

22 tueurs dirigé par A. Kanat, qui reçoit 

lui-même ses ordres de "Yesil" 

responsable de JITEM et du superpréfet 

régional, M. Ipek donne les 

détails suivants sur quelques-unes des 

opérations auxquelles il a participé: 

"Après le Newroz (NDLR. Le nouvel an 

kurde célébré le 21 mars) de 1992 Ünal 

Erkan (NDLR. Super-préfet régional) 

était venu à Sirnak. La population était 

rassemblée dans le stadium. Puis, il a 

demandé "qui sont les meneurs de ces 

événements r. Les policiers ont 

répondu: Biseng Anik. "Faites-le 

disparaître" a-t-il ordonné. Et comme 

je venais d'être recruté, ils ont voulu 

me mettre à l'épreuve en me confiant 

cette mission. Le domicile de B. Anik 

est devant la mosquée. Avec des 

policiers en civil, nous sommes allés le 

chercher. Au commissariat, ils l'ont 

torturé. Ils ont taillé son dos et la 

plante de ses pieds avec des lames de 

rasoir. On m'a donné un fusil G3 se 

trouvant au commissariat etj'ai tué B. 

Anik avec une seule balle tirée dans sa 

tête avec ce fusil. Quelques mois plus 

tard, le 18 août 1992, nous avons 

exécuté l'avocat A. Rahim Demir et 

Mehmet Ertak. Le directeur 

départemental de la Sûreté N. Altintas 

nous avait dit que lefrère aîné de M. 

Ertak était dans le maquis et qu'il 

fallait de ce fait le tuer. Nous l'avons 

embarqué dans un Panzer et l'amené 

en dehors de la villeprès de la mine de 

charbon où nous l'avons débarqué et 

tué. Puis, nous l'avons vêtu d'une tenue 

de guérillero, mis une Kalashnikov 

entre ses mains et annoncé que nous 

venions de tuer un terroriste". 

M. Ipek affirme que son chef direct, A. 

Kanat, vit actuellement dans le secteur 

résidentiel militaire de Diyarbakir. Il est 

au service du capitaine de gendarmerie 

Ersin Bacaksiz qui commande aussi à 

L'ARMÉE TURQUE SE CLASE PARMI 

LES DIX PLUS GRANDES DU MONDE 

ELON une étude réalisée par 

World Strategic Information 

Institute l'armée turque, forte de 

780.000 hommes, est la dixième 

armée la lus nombreuse du 

monde. Avec 16 sous-marins la Marine 

turque est la neuvième du monde tandis 

que par ses 4280 chars l'armée de terre 

occupela cinquièmeplace. 

Selon le Turkish Daily News du 14 

janvier qui publie cette information, 

l'armée turque est engagée dans un 

vaste projet de modernisation de ses 

armements. Le coût de ce projet est 

évalué à 150 milliards de dollars pour 

les 25 prochaines années. Au cours de 

cette période, l'armée de terre disposera 

de 60 milliards de dollars, l'armée de 

l'aire de $65 milliards et la marine de 

$25 milliards. L'état-major turc indique 

qu'il a déjà progammé 1523 projets d'un 

coût total de $67 milliards d'ici l'an 

2004. 

un autre escadron de la mort dirigé par 

un certain Cemil. C'est cet escadron qui 

a enlevé le 1er octobre 1996 quatre 

instituteurs du village Hantepe qu'il a 

sommairement assassinés ajoute-t-il. 

Ce quadruple assassinat, survenu le 

jour même du lancement de la 

campagne d'Amensty International sur 

les violations des droits de l'homme en 

Turquie, avait été attribué par Ankara 

au PKK qui l'avait aussitôt rejeté. Les 

organisations turques des droits de 

l'homme avaient été empêchées par les 

autorités de mener une enquête 

indépendante sur cette affaire. 

En Turquie malgré la grave crise 

économique, malgré le niveau de vie 

frôlant la misère de la majorité de la 

population, l'état-major de l'armée fixe 

souverainement le budjet de ses projets 

d'armement pour les années à venir, 

sans débat parlementaire. Et aucun 

gouvernement civil n'a le courage de 

mettre en cause cet état de fait. C'est 

dans le cadre de ce vaste programme 

que Ankara a signé avec Eurocopter un 

contrat de 430 millions de dollards. Un 

accord de principe sur les grandes 

lignes de ce projet avait été conclu en 

juin 1995 entre le président français 

Chirac et l'ancien Premier ministre turc 

Tansu Çiller. Après la chute du 

gouvernement Çiller, les termes de 

l'accord ont été changés et les deux 

parties se sont mis d'accord sur une 

production conjointe en Turquie. C'est 

sur cette base que le groupe francoallemand 

Eurocopter, filiale 

d'Aérospatiale, a signé jeudi 13 février, à

.12. Bulletin ell' liaison et d'info/'mation n° 142-143 • Janvier-Février 1997 

Ankara, un contrat de 430 millions de 

dollars pour la vente et la coproduction 

en Turquie de 30 hélicoptères Cougar 

AS-532 MKl. Cet accord prévoit l'achat 

direct par la Turquie de deux premiers 

appareils qui seront livrés en juillet 

1999, les 28 autres seront fabriqués 

conjointement dans les usines de la 

• COPENHAGUE POURSUIT 

ANKARA DEVANT LA COUR 

EUROPÉENNE DES DROITS DE 

L'HOMME. A la suite de l'arrestation 

d'un citoyen danois d'origine kurde, 

Kemal Koc, pendant un mois et demi, 

suivie de l'arrestation et de l'expulsion 

d'un député danois qui avait assisté au 

procès de celui-ci, le Danemark a décidé 

de poursuivre la Turquie devant la Cour 

européenne des droits de l'homme. 

Selon Copenhague, le ressortissant 

danois, Kemal Koc, a été détenu et 

torturé par les autorités turques durant 

son arrestation, au cours de l'été 1996. 

.Le ministre danois des Affaires 

étrangères, Niels Helveg Petersen, a 

précisé à la presse que cette démarche 

serait effectuée mardi à Strasbourg, 

siège de la Cour. Il espère une 

instruction rapide de ce dossier. Ils'agit 

d'une violation de l'article 3 de la 

Convention européenne des droits de 

l'Homme, interdisant l'usage de la 

torture, a estimé M. Helveg Petersen, 

indiquant qu'Ankara avait été prévenu 

vendredi, 3 janvier 1997, de la 

démarche danoise. 

• LA LIVRE TURQUE, APRÈs LE 

KWANZA ANGOLAIS, EST LA 

MONNAIE LA PLUS DÉPRÉCIÉE 

DU MONDE. C'est ce que montre un 

AINSI QUE ••• 

compagnie Turkish. Aerospace 

Industries (TAI). Cette compagnie 

assemble également des chasseurs F-16 

aux termes d'un accord avec la firme 

américaine Lockheed Martin. La 

Turquie s'engage maintenant dans des 

négociations avec la France pour la 

coproduction des missiles Exocet. 

classement portant sur la valeur 

d'échange par rapport au dollar de 203 

monnaies nationales actuellement en 

circulation dan le monde que publie le 

quotidien Mi/liyet du 14janvier. La livre 

turque arrivejuste avant dernière devant le 

kwanza angolais. Actuellement un dollar 

vaut 209.925 kwanza et 110.630 livres 

turques, contre 0, 47livre chypriote, 247 

drachmes grecques, 24livres syriennes, 24 

dinars irakiens, 3000 rials iraniens, 446 

drams arméniens ou 5585 roubles russes, 

pour prendre l'exemple des voisins 

géographiques de la Turquie. A l'heure 

où la dépréciation constante de la 

monnaie turque oblige la Banque 

centrale d'Ankara à émettre des billets 

de 5 millions de livres, la presse 

reproche aux autorités de ne pas réagir 

à l'image déplorable du pays et de sa 

monnaie. Et les humoristes ajoutent: 

"notre régime a peut-être échoué dans 

beaucoup de domaines, mais il peut se 

prévaloir d'au moins d'un succès 

incontesté: nous sommes l'un des rares 

pays du monde où le plus pauvre des 

citoyens est multimillionnaire!" Le bas 

niveau de vie fait de la Turquie l'un des 

pays le moins cher pour le tourisme. En 

1996, selon l'estimation du ministre du 

tourisme, rendue poublique le 6 janvier, 

8,6 millions de touristes sont venus en 

Turquie. 

Selon le ministre, cette affluence 

. touristique a apporté entre 6 et 6,5 

milliards de dollars en devises à 

l'économie turque. Ce chiffre, en nette 

augmentation par rapport aux années 

précédentes, représente cependant tout 

juste le quart des 25 milliards de 

dollars que la Turquie tire de son 

rôle de "pays de transit" du trafic 

international de drogue, selon 

l'estimation qu'un haut dirigeant des 

services de renseignements turcs 

"MIT", Mehmet Eymür, cité par le 

quotidien Hürriyet du 27 décembre 

1996, a avancé lors de son audition 

devant la Commission d'enquête du 

Parlement turc. 

• LA POPULATION PÉNITEN- 

TIAIRE EN TURQUIE. Selon les 

données rendues publiques par le 

ministère de la Justice, au 1er 1997 la 

Turquie comptait 56 082 détenus dans 

ses 562 prisons. 24 992 de ces derniers 

sont en détention préventive dans 

l'attente de la conclusion de leurs 

procès. Les prisonniers politiques, au 

nombre de 9241, constituent environ 

un cinquième de la population 

pénitentiaire du pays. Le ministère 

classe 523 de ces prisonniers politiques 

à droite, les 8713 restants à gauche. 

2920 prisonniers politiques ont été 

jugés, 6321 sont en détention 

préventive. 

• PARUTION DE LA TRADUC- 

TION ALLEMANDE DES "ÉCRITS 

DE PRISON" DE LEYLAZANA. Les 

"Écrits de prison", parus d'abord en 

français, en novembre 1995, aux 

éditions des Femmes, viennent d'être 

publiés en allemand sous le titre "Eine 

Kurdin meldet sich zu Wort Leyla 

Zana, Briefe und Schriften aus dem 

Gefängnis" aux éditions Montage

Verlag, Dötlingen, Allemagne, 122p. 

L'édition anglaise des "Écrits de 

prison", actuellement en cours de 

réalisation, paraîtra en automne 

prochain au État-Unis. Le 25 avri11997 

à 9h aura lieu à Strasbourg l'audience 

de la Cour européenne des droits de 

l'homme sur la première partie de 

l'affaire de Leyla Zana et de ses amis. La 

Cour statuera d'abord sur la légalité et 

la durée excessive ( de 12 à 15jours) de 

la garde-à-vue et sur la détention 

préventive des députés kurdes. Ensuite, 

dans quelques mois, elle examinera le 

fond de l'affaire, à savoir la 

compatibilité du verdict des tribunaux 

turcs avec la Convention européenne 

des droits de l'homme dont la Turquie 

est consignataire. 

• LE CONSEIL DE SÉCURITÉ 

NATIONALE PRÉCONISE DES 

MESURES D'INTERDICTION 

"DES ÉMISSIONS ET PUBLI- 

CATIONS SÉPARATISTES". 

Considéré comme le "super 

gouvernement" de la Turquie, le Conseil 

de sécurité nationale, à dominante 

militaire, s'est réuni le 27 janvier à 

Ankara sous la présidence de M. 

Demirel. D'après le communiqué rendu 

public à l'issue de cette réunion qui a 

duré 4,5 h, trois sujets ont été débattus: 

les conséquences de la mise en cause du 

gouvernement turc par plusieurs pays 

européens (Allemagne, Grande- 

Bretagne, France et Pays-Bas), dans le 

trafic de drogue; la situation à Chypre et 

les mesures à prendre pour interdire 

l'accès au territoire turc des 

"publications et émissions destructives 

et séparatistes". Sur le premier sujet, le 

CSN a entendu un rapport du directeur 

de la Sûreté générale vantant "la lutte 

exemplaire de ses services contre la 

drogue" qui auraient au cours des deux 

dernières années saisi le tiers de 

l'ensemble de l'héroïne saisie par les 

polices européennes. Ensuite, le CSN a 

adopté des "mesures fermes" 

concernant Chypre qui seront 

appliquées quel que soit le 

gouvernement car "la question 

chypriote relève de la politique 

nationale de la Turquie". Enfin, le 

Conseil après avoir entendu les rapports 

du ministre des télécommunications sur 

"les mesures légales, administratives et 

techniques à prendre contre toute 

émission électromagnétique, y compris 

des émissions de radio et de télévision, 

destructives, séparatistes et illégales 

diffusées à partir de la Turquie ou de 

l'extérieur". Le CSN demande la 

modification à bref délai de la loi 3984 

sur la radiodiffusion afin d'autoriser le 

Conseil supérieur de radiotélévision à 

"fermer les radios et les télévisions 

diffusant des émissions à caractère 

séparatiste et destructif. En ce qui 

concerne les radiotélévisions émettant 

de l'extérieur de la Turquie, la Direction 

générale des communications sans fil 

est chargée de les brouiller afin de les 

rendre inaccessibles aux habitants de la 

Turquie. Sous ces généralités, le régime 

turc vise d'une part les télévisions 

privées turques qui de temps à autre 

organisent {les débats sur la question 

kurde ou sur "la situation dans le Sud- 

Est", d'autre part MED-TV, chaîne de 

télévision kurde émettant par satellite à 

partir d'Europe et qui est regardée par 

nombre de Kurdes. Le 11 février, Necati 

Bilican, le super-préfet des provinces 

kurdes, lors de sa visite en compagnie 

du général Altan Tokat dans la province 

de Hakkari a déclaré à ce sujet : "Nous 

poursuivons nos travaux pour purifier 

les citoyens de cette région des 

émissions séparatistes et des 

programmes destructifs contre l'unité 

indivisible du pays. Pour empêcher des 

émissions sales restant en dehors des 

émissions nationales, les antennes 

paraboliques peuvent être interdites si 

nécessaires" a-t-il déclaré. Depuis, la 

police demande aux vendeurs 

d'antennes paraboliques de lui 

communiquer les noms et adresses des 

acheteurs de ce matériel. 

• 154 JOURNALISTES VICTIMES 

DE VIOLENCES POLICIÈRES, 

SELON REPORTERS SANS 

FRONTIÈRES. Au cours d'une 

conférence de presse, tenue mardi 4 

février à Istanbul, Reporters Sans 

Frontières affirme que" 154journalistes 

membres de la presse d'opposition ont 

été victimes des violences policières en 

1996 dont un, Metin Goktepe, a été 

battu à mort. "31journalistes ont été 

torturés en détention, 53 interpellés 

avec brutalité et 69 agressés, menacés 

ou harcelés par la police" ajoute encore 

le rapport. La torture en détention est 

exercée comme "moyen d'intimidation" 

à l'encontre des journalistes pro-kurdes 

et d'une presse considérée par le 

gouvernement comme "hostile". Le 

procès des policiers accusés du meurtre 

du journaliste Metin Goktepe, 

initialement intenté à Istanbul, lieu du 

meurtre, s'était ouvert une première 

fois le 18 octobre dernier à Aydin, à 600 

km à l'ouest d'Istanbul, officiellement 

pour des raisons de sécurité. Ce procès 

devait se poursuivre le 6 février et cette 

fois dans la ville d'Afyon à 300 km 

d'Istanbul. S'exprimant au nom de 

Reporters sans frontières, M. Jean 

Chichiwla a déclaré que son organisme 

était "inquiet du fait que le lieu du 

procès a été changé deux fois, de ville

• 14 • Bulletin de liaison et d'infu/'11wtion nO 142-143 • Janvier-Février 1997 

en ville", et "dufait qu'un an après son 

ouverture, il n'en sera qu'à sa deuxième 

audience" le 6 février et que" Reporters 

sans frontières veut croire à un procès 

équitable, impartial et rapide". 

• DES KURDES SONT UTILISÉS 

COMME DES DÉTECTEURS 

HUMAINS DANS DES OPÉRATI- 

ONS DE DÉMINAGE. C'est ce qu'a 

déclaré, le 19 février, le député de 

Batman Musa Okcu au nom de la 

Commission parlementaire des droits 

de l'homme du Parlement turc appelée 

à mener une enquête sur cette affaire. 

L'affaire a eu lieu à la fin du mois de 

décembre dernier lorsque des soldats 

turcs ont contraint une cinquantaine 

d'hommes du village de Tekevler, dans 

le district de Sason, de les devancer 

dans leurs opérations de déminage dans 

cette région. Interrogé par Reuters, M. 

Okcu a déclaré que "les villageois m'ont 

expliqué que les forces de sécurité les 

ont forcés d'être leurs détecteurs 

humains". Les villageois ont porté 

plainte auprès du sous-préfet de Sason 

qui leur a déclaré: "Je ne suis pas 

compétent pour intervenir dans les 

affaires des militaires". Selon le 

quotidien Özgür Politika du 20 février, 

le 31 janvier des habitants des villages 

Gundê Nû et Kelhesna, toujours dans le 

district de Sason, ont subi le même 

sort.Ces paysans ont tous un point 

commmun: leur refus de devenir des 

protecteurs de village, malgré la menace 

de destruction de leurs villages par 

l'armée. Celle-ci semble vouloir les 

punir en les utilisant comme des 

cobayes. 

• DEUX CHAîNES DE TÉLÉVI- 

SION CONDAMNÉES POUR 

AVOIR DIFFUSÉ DES RÉVÉ- 

LATIONS SUR LE TRAFIC DE 

DROGUE. Le Conseil supérieur de 

l'audiovisuel de Turquie a, le 24 février, 

condamné les chaînes de télévision 

privée Kanal D et Show TV à une 

interdiction de diffusion d'une journée 

pour avoir interviewé un baron de la 

drogue, H. Baybasin. Ce dernier, 

menacé de mort et actuellement réfugié 

aux Pays-Bas, avait, dans ces interviews 

diffusées, le 29 décembre 1996, fait des 

révélations retentissantes sur les 

ministres, hommes politiques et 

responsables de forces de sécurité 

turques impliqués dans le trafic de 

l'héroïne. Il avait en particulier expliqué 

comment depuis le début des années 

1980 de hauts responsables policiers les 

avaient recrutés, organisés et protégés 

pour ce trafic, comment des voitures 

officielles et des passeports 

diplomatiques avaient été mis à leur 

disposition. Parmi les complices de ce 

trafic, le chef de police Agar, devenu 

plus tard ministre de la justice, puis 

ministre de l'Intérieur, un ministre 

d'État, un neveu du président Demirel, 

le super-préfet des provinces kurdes et 

plusieurs policiers et militaires de haut 

rang. A l'appui de ses dires, Baybasin 

avait produit dans les médias turcs, à 

une chaîne de télévision allemande et 

devant la justice néerlandaise des 

photos le montrant en compagnie de ces 

hauts responsables de l'État turc. Sans 

se prononcer sur la véracité de ces 

allégations, le Conseil supérieur de 

l'Audiovisuel turc condamne les deux 

chaînes privées pour atteinte à la 

réputation de l'État. En conséquence, 

Show TV devra cesser ses émissions le 

13 mars à partir de minuit pour 24h et 

Kanal D est condamné à la même peine 

pour le 14 mars. Par ailleurs, le Conseil 

turc a condamné la télévision locale de 

Diyarbakir, Metro TV, à un mois de 

suspension de diffusion pour avoir 

permis "des émissions de nature à 

inciter la société à la violence, à la 

terreur, à la discrimination ethnique et 

à des sentiments de haine". Sok Radio, 

radio locale d'Içel, sur la côte 

méditerranéenne a été également 

interdite de diffusion pendant un mois 

pour "des émissions faisant l'éloge du 

séparatisme et dénigrant les forces de 

sécurité". Ces condamnations 

interviennent à la suite des mesures 

adoptées en décembre dernier par le 

Conseil de sécurité nationale pour "une 

surveillance plus étroite des médias". 

Dans le cadre de cette politique, la 

police et les soldats ont saisi et détruit 

des centaines d'antennes paraboliques 

dans les provinces kurdes arguant 

qu'elles étaient utilisées pour capter les 

émissions en kurde de Med-TV. Par 

ailleurs, le quotidien Özgür Politika 

publie dans son numéro du 27 février 

des extraits d'une circulaire 

"confidentielle" du Conseil de sécurité 

nationale enjoignant aux autorités 

civiles et militaires de "faire taire" 22 

journaux et revues, 19 groupes de 

musique, 14 centres culturels, 11 

associations, 11 radios locales et de 

surveiller de près certaines émissions de 

débats, des chaînes de télévision 

privées, d'interdire le passage sur les 

antennes des télévisions d'État de 

certains intellectuels et artistes 

suspectés de sympathies proséparatistes, 

comme Yachar Kemal, les 

journalistes M. Ali Birand et C. Candan 

ou les chanteuses Melike Demirag et 

Sezen Aksu. La circulaire donne à côté 

du nom de chaque publication, 

association ou groupe à faire taire un 

motif sommaire pour lequel il faudrait 

le faire taire ou entraver ses activités.

Par ailleurs, selon le Conseil de la 

presse, une association de défense des 

droits des journalistes basée à Istanbul, 

le bilan des atteintes contre les 

journalistes et les organes de presse du 

seul mois de février est comme suit: 2 

revues saisies; perquisition par la police 

dans les locaux d'un journal et d'une 

chaîne de télévision; huit radios et 

chaînes de télévision interdites de 

diffusion et un journaliste attaqué . 

d'obscurité d'une cacophonie de Baykal et DSP de Billent Ecevit, contre 

couvercles de casserole, de Klaxons et le gouvernement de coalition. Les 

de sifflet, empruntés aux manifestants députés ont rejeté par 281 voix contre 

de Belgrade. Par ailleurs, le Parlement 246 cette motion accusant le 

turc a rejeté, le 25 février, une autre gouvernement de "protéger les 

motion de censure présentée par deux mouvements menaçant la structure 

partis d'opposition, le CHP de Deniz laique de l'État If. 

EN BREF, LA REVUE DE PRESSE 

• MME. ÇILLER tCHAPPE UNE 

NOUVELLE FOIS À LA COUR 

supR£ME. A trois reprises, le mardi 

18 et le mercredi 19 février, le 

Parlement turc a rejeté par 270 contre 

263 voix l'envoi de Mme. Çiller devant 

la Haute Cour. La motion déposée au 

vote par l'opposition devant le 

Parlement portait sur les malversations 

dans l'administration de la compagnie 

d'électricité Tedas ainsi que sur celles 

relevées dans la vente de parts 

étatiques de la compagnie automobile 

Tofas datant de l'époque où Mme. Çiller 

était Premier ministre. Ainsi, le parti de 

la prospérité du Premier ministre 

Erbakan, qui avait pourtant mené sa 

campagne électorale sur le thème de la 

lutte anticorruption, a joint ses voix à 

celles de ses partenaires du DYP de 

Mme. Çiller pour disculper celle-ci. 

Cette alliance cynique est de plus en 

plus mal ressentie par l'opinion 

publique turque. Pour se faire entendre 

une campagne civile a été lancé le 1er 

février intitulée "une minute dans le 

noir pour faire la lumière"; à 21 heures 

précises, des lumières s'éteignent dans 

l'ensemble de la Turquie. Ce 

mouvement populaire prends de plus 

en plus d'ampleur; dans les grandes 

villes les gens descendent dans les rues 

pour accompagner leur minute 

lA MÉMOIRE MEURTRIE DE MAHABAD. 

CINQUANTE ANS APRES LA 

DISSOLUTION DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE 

KURDE. Ville maudite de l'Iran, sous les 

islamistes comme sous le chah, pour s'être 

érigée en République autonome kurde au 

lendemain de la seconde guerre mondiale, 

ce gros bourg rural de soixante mille 

habitants demeure sous haute surveillance 

militaire. Isolée administrativement de la 

province du Kurdistan, asphyxiée 

économiquement, niée culturellement, 

dépouillée de son identité et de son histoire, 

l'ancienne cité-symbole de 

l'indépendantisme kurde n'est plus qu'un 

obscur exemple de la répression ordinaire 

subie en permanence par les Kurdes d'Iran 

et d'ailleurs. QUATORZE MOIS 

D'AUTONOMIE. (Le Monde, Diplomatique, 

janvier 1997), p. 1-3. 

TURCS ET KURDES RÉCONCILIÉS PAR 

LE CINÉMA. (Le Monde, Diplomatique, 

janvier 1997), p. 3-4. 

OUVERTURE D'UNE BRANCHE 

D'AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL A IZMIR. 

(Turkish Daily News, 1janvier 1997), p. 4. 

UNION DES JOURNALISTES: 1996 ÉTAIT 

UNE MAUVAISE ANNÉE. (Turkish Daily 

News, 1janvier 1997), p. 4. 

L'AMBASSADEUR TURC KANDEMIR: 

• EN 1997 NOUS DEVONS DEPLOYER 

DES EFFORTS POUR AVOIR UN BON 

PARTENARIAT RENFORCÉ AVEC LES 

ETATS-UNIS. ". (Turkish Daily News, 1 er 

janvier 1997), p. 5-6. 

LES TROUPES TURQUES A LA 

POURSUITE DES KURDES. (Turkish Daily 


LA POLICE S'EN PREND A UNE 

DÉLÉGATION A LICE. (Turkish Daily 


LE PKK ATTAQUE UNE STATION DE 

RADIO DANS LE SUD-EST. (The 

Washington Post, 2 janvier 1997), p. 8. 

lA VALISE DE ÇILLER FAMIUÈRE A" lA 

DOUANE ". (Turkish Daily News, 2 janvier 

1997), p. 9-10. 

PERTES ÉLEVÉES DU PKK LORS DE 

L'INCURSION TURQUE DANS LE NORD 

DE L'IRAK. (Turkish Daily News, 2 janvier 

1997), p.lO. 

TURQUIE-IRAK-KURDES : CENT 

SÉPARATISTES KURDES TUÉS PAR 

L'ARMÉE TURQUE, SELON UN 

NOUVEAU BILAN. Appuyées par un 

soutien aérien, les troupes turques ont 

détruit trois camps du PKK dans la région 

de Sinath selon un communiqué de l'Étatmajor 

ture. (A.FP., 2 janvier 1997), p. 10 - 

n,11-12. 

IRAK-TURQUIE: 

BAGDAD CRITIQUE

.16. BIIlIetill de liuisol/ et d'infomwtioT1 n° 142-143 ••/unvier-Février 1997 

ANKARA ET WASHINGTON POUR 

L'OPÉRATION MILITAIRE TURQUE. La 

Turquie "a déjà essayé les opérations 

militaires, qui ne lui ont jamais assuré la 

sécurité" selon le quotidien as-Saoura, 

organe du parti Baas au pouvoir, qui a 

"dénoncé et rejeté" l'opération de l'armée 

turque ..TURQUE-KURDES : LE CHEF ~U, 

PKK RENOUVELLE SON APPEL AU 

DIALOGUE AVEC ANKARA. Ocalan (alias 

"Apo") a déclaré: "Ilfaut surmonter la 

question, non en s'entre-tuant mais par la 

voie de dialogue". (A.F.P., 2 janvier 1997), 

p.12,13. 

LA SYRIE CONFIRME L'EXPLOSION 

D'UNE BOMBE DANS UN BUS À DAMAS. 

(International Herald Tribune, 3 janvier 

1997), p. 13-14. 

DÉBATS SCIENTIFIQUES SUR LES GAZ 

INNERV ANTS COMME CAUSE DU 

SYNDROME DE LA GUERRE DE GOLFE. 


1997), p. 14-15. 

UNION DOUANIÈRE, - QUELLE UNION 

DOUANIÈRE? Les violeurs des droits de 

l'homme en Turquie continuent leur 

besogne comme de rien n'était" business as 

usual". (Turkish Daily News, 3 janvier 

1997), p. 15-16. 

LA CRISE BUDGÉTAIRE DANOISE EST À 

LA SOURCE DU PROBLÈME BILATÉRAL, 

AFFIRME ANKARA. - Selon un haut 

responsable du Ministère des Affaires 

étrangères la Turquie est sérieusement 

prête à partager l'expérience danoise des 

droits de l'homme mais l'attitude de 

Copenhague est loin de la courtoisie 

diplomatique. (Turkish Daily News, 3 

janvier 1997), p. 16. 

COMMENT PEUT-ON ETRE IRANIEN? 

Appréhendant en profondeur l'Iran, Jean- 

Pierre Digard, Bernard Hourcade et Yann 

Richard dépassent la simple perception 

islamique. L'Iran au XXe siècle, Chez 

Payard. (Le Monde, 3 janvier 1997), p. 17. 

SYRIE: QUATRE PISTES POUR UN 

ATTENTAT. L'explosion d'un bus à Damas 

aurait fait quinze morts. Plusieurs pistes 

sont évoquées à la fois par les diplomates et 

les opposants syriens réfugiés à l'étranger, 

même si tous conviennent que "rien ne peut 

être retenu avec certitude". Quatre 

retiennent plus particulièrement l'attention. 

(Libération, 3janvier 1997), p.18-19. 

DAN EMARK -TURQ UI E- KURD ES 

COPENHAGUE POURSUIT ANKARA 

DEVANT LA COUR EUROPÉENNE DES 

DROITS DE L'HOMME. Selon Copenhague, 

le ressortissant danois, Kemal Koc, a été 

détenu et torturé par les autorités turques 

pendant un mois et demi à Ankara, au cours 

de l'été 1997. (A.F.P., 4 janvier, Turkish 

Daily News,S janvier 1997), p. 20, 21. 

TURQUIE-KURDES: CRÉATION D'UN 

NOUVEAU PARTI PRO-KURDE. Un 

nouveau parti pro-kurde, celui des "Masses 

démocratiques" (DKP), qui préconise une 

"solution politique à .laquestion kurde, tout 

en respectant lesfrontières actuelles de la 

Thrquie" a été créé selon l'agence Anatolie. 

(A.F.P., 3 janvier 1997), p. 20-21. 

LES ÉTATS-UNIS SOUTIENENT 

L'INCURSION TURQUE DANS LE NORD 

DE.L'IRAK. (Turkish Daily News, 4 janvier 

1997), p. 21. 

LE D-8 VA FORMER UNE 

ORGANISATION GLOBALE DE 

DÉVELOPPEMENT. - SELON ERBAKAN 

IL PROFITERA À TOUTE 

L'HUMANITÉ ". (Thrkish Daily News,5 et 

6 janvier 1997), p. 22-23. 

CRIME: SUSURLUK CHOQUE LA 

NATION, ÉBRANLE L'ESTABLISHMENT. 

(Turkish Daily News, 7 janvier 1997), p. 23- 

26. 

LA TURQUIE S'ÉLOIGNE DE L'EUROPE, 

DÉCLARE KINKEL. (Thrkish Daily News, 

8 janvier 1997), p. 26. 

DANEMARK: LA PLAINTE POUR 

" TORTURE" A ÉTÉ DÉPOSÉE HIER PAR 

LE DANEMARK CONTRE LA TURQUIE 


DROITS DE L'HOMME. Les sources 

turques affirment que les média danois ont 

commencé une campagne majeure autour 

du citoyen danois Kemal Koç qui aurait été 

torturé pendant sa garde-à-vue en Turquie. 

(Turkish Daily News, 8 janvier 1997), p. 27. 

NOUVELLES INITIATIVES POUR LA PAIX 

AU NORD DE L'IRAK. (Turkish Daily 

News, 8 janvier 1997),p. 27. 

QUE LES TURCS TOURNENT-ILS LE DOS 

À L'OCCIDENT? Ankara est fustré par 

l'Union euroépenne et la Grèce. 


1997), p. 28. 

LA TURQUIE CRITIQUE LE DANEMARK 

POUR SA PLAINTE CONCERNANT LES 

DROITS DE L'HOMME. (Turkish Daily 

News, 9 janvier 1997), p. 28. 

LES DÉFENSEURS DES DROITS DE 

L'HOMME SE RENDENT À LICE. (Thrkish 

Daily News, 9 janvier 1997), p. 29. 

L'ENVOYÉ DE L'UNION EURPÉENNE 

AFFIRME QUE L'IMAGE DE LA TURUQIE 

EN MATIÈRE DE DROITS DE L'HOMME 

AFFECTE SES EXPORTATIONS ..(Turkish 


POINT SUR LA SITUATION EN TURQUIE. 

L'ancien Premier ministre conservateur turc 

se fait depuis quelques semaines le principal 

accusateur .de la dérive mafieuse de l'État 

turc. Selon un bilan officiel, la guerre du 

Kurdistan a fait 3 460 morts en 1997. 

Copenhague poursuit Ankara devant la 

Cour européenne des Droits de l'homme. La 

Turquie achète des missiles Work Silk à la 

Chine et 30 hélicoptères à la France. 

(Gamk, 9 janvier 1997), p. 29-31. 

LE BILAN DES DROITS pE L'HOMME EN 

TURQUIE: L'ANNÉE (1996) DE TOUS LES

DANGERS. - Plus il y a des gangs, moins 

les droits de l'homme sont protégés. 

(Turkish Daily News, 10 janvier 1997), p. 

31-33. 

LES FACTIONS KURDES IRAKIENNES SE 

RENCONTRERONT À ANKARA LA 

SEMAINE PROCHAINE. (Turkish Daily 


DES PARLEMENTAIRES SE RENDENT À 

LICE LE MARDI. (Turkish Daily News, 11 

janvier 1997), p. 34-35. 

UN ÉDITEUR TURC CONDAMNÉ À 

RESTER EN PRISON AU TERME DE SA 

PEINE. L'éditeur, dont trente-six livres ont 

été saisis et contre lequel soixante-deux 

procès on été ouverts, s'est rebellé contre 

son sort. (Le Monde, 12/13 janvier 1997), p. 

35. 

CINDORUK: ÇILLER DOIT tTRE 

ÉCARTÉE. - Rappelant que son parti a été 

créé en réaction à Çiller et à son despotisme, 

l'ancien président du Parlement turc 

affirme qu'on ne sait même pas quand et 

comment les ministres et les membres du 

Parlement sont choisis. Selon Cindoruk le 

DYP (de Mme Çiller) et le Refah islmaiste 

sont devenus des compagnies familiales. 


35-36. 

LA LENTE MARCHE VERS LA PAIX AU 

NORD DE L'IRAK. (Turkish Daily News, 13 

janvier 1997), p. 36. 

L'IRAK INCITE LES KURDES À CONTER 

L'INFLUENCE AMÉRICAINE. (Turkish 

Daily News, 13janvier 1997), p. 37. 

LES ORGANISATIONS DÉMOCRATIQUES 

COMMÉMORENT METIN GÖKTEPE, 

journaliste turc tué en garde-à-vue il y a un 

an. (Turkish Daily News, 14 janvier 1997), 

p.38. 

LES STATUES DU NÉMRUD DAGH (AU 

KURDISTAN TURC) SONT MENACÉES. 


38. 

LE PARLEMENT ET LES PROCUREURS À 

POURCHASSENT LES. GANGS" ALORS 

QUE LE PREMIER MINISTRE DIT QU'IL 

N'YA PAS DE • GANG ". (Turkish Daily 

News, 14janvier 1997), p. 39-40. 

LE PRÉSIDENT DE LA COMMISSION 

PARLEMENTAIRE DES DROITS DE 

L'HOMME CRITIQUE L'ASSOCIATION 

DES DROITS DE L'HOMME (IHD). Selon 

ce député proche de Mme Çiller, l'IHD est 

coupable de diffuser et de publier une 

propagande anti-turque. (Turkish Daily 


DES POURSUITES CONTRE LA 

TURUQUE POUR VIOLATIONS DES 

DROITS DE L'HOMME ONT DOUBLÉ EN 

1996. (Turkish Daily News, 14 janvier 

1997), p. 40. 

LE PKK ORGANISE UNE CONFÉRENCE À 

MOSCOU. (Turkish Daily News, 14 janvier 

1997), p. 41. 

ANKARA BRANDIT LA MENACE 

MILITAIRE EN CAS D'INSTALLATION DE 

MISSILES À CHYPRE. Un émissaire 

américain tente de désamorcer la crise dans 

la région. A son arrivée à Chypre l'émissaire 

américain Carey Cavanaugh a critiqué la 

décision des autorités chypriotes grecques 

d'acheter des missiles sol-air à la Russie. Il a 

toutefois rejeté les menaces brandies par 

Ankara, estimant qu'il n'y avait .aucune 

justification pour une action militaire à 

Chypre". (Le Monde, 14 janvier 1997), p. 

41. 

L'ARMÉE TURQUE SE CLASSE PARMI 

LES DIX PLUS GRANDES DU MONDE. 


42. 

DÉBUT MOUVEMENTÉ POUR LES 

POURPARLERS DE PAIX NORD- 

IRAKIEN. (Turkish Daily News, 15 janvier 

1997), p. 43. 

LE PROCÈS DES MILITANTS DU PKK 

ACCUSÉS DE CRIMES DE MASSE SE 

POURSUIT EN ALLEMAGNE. (Turkish 


ILS S'EN VONT AUX CHAMPS AU LIEU 

D'ALLER À L'ÉCOLE. - Les élèves de 

Hantepe, un village de Diyarbakir, dont les 

instituteurs ont été enlevés et tués par les 

séparatistes du PKK travaillent dans les 

champs au lieu de fréquenter les banes de 

l'école. (Turkish Daily News, 15 janvier 

1997), p. 44. 

LES ÉTATS-UNIS, ÉMERGENT COMME 

LE GRAND PERDANT DU CONFLIT 

KURDE. (Turkish Daily News, 15 janvier 

1997), p. 44-45. 

LES RELATIONS EXTÉRIEURES DE LA 

TURQUIE EN 1996. - La lune de miel de la 

Turuqie avec Israël s'est poursuivie en 1996. 


45-46. 

LES NÉGOCIATIONS CONCERNANT LE 

NORD DE L'IRAK SE TERMINENT, LES 

QUESTIONS PRINCIPALES RESTENT 

ENCORE À RÉSOUDRE. (Turkish Daily 


YILMAZ: • ERBAKAN A COUVERT LES 

VOLEURS. IL VA MAINTENANT 

COUVRIR LES GANGS. (Turkish Daily 


YILMAZ DÉSINCULPÉ PAR LA 

COMMISSION PARLEMENTAIRE. 


47. 

LE PROCÈS DES CHEFS DE POLICE 

LE GOUVERNEMENT NE PARVIENT PAS ACCUSÉS DE CORRUPTION. (Turkish 

À ENRAYER L'INFLATION EN TURQUIE. Daily News, 16janvier 1997), p. 47. 

(LeMonde, 14janvier 1997), p. 42.

.18. Bul/elin de liClisoll et d'injéJ/'/IlCltion n° 1.:12-143•• /ll1wic,'-Fév,'icI'1997 

REFAH À LA RESCOUSSE DE ÇILLER 

DANS UNE TROISIÈME ENQtŒrE POUR 

CORRUPTION. (Turkish Daily News, 16 

janvier 1997), p. 48. 

. LE PKK ET LE DHKP/C CONCLUENT UN 

ACCORD POUR LES ATTAQUES 

URBAINS. (Thrkish Daily News, 16 janvier 

1997), p. 48-49 .. 

SELON L'ASSOCIATION TURQUE DES 

DROITS DE L'HOMME, LES HABITANTS 

DE UCE ONT ÉTÉ FORCÉS À S'ENROLER 

COMME " PROTECTEURS DE 

VILLAGES ". (Turkish Daily News, 16 

janvier 1997), p.49. 

PARIS A DEMANDÉ À L'IRAK LE STRICT 

RESPECT DES RÉSOLUTIONS DE L'ONU. 

L'Unscom continue de soupçonner Bagdad 

de dissimuler entre six et seize missiles. (Le 

Monde, 16janvier 1997), p. 50. 

TURQUIE: LE CHEF DU PKK FSf-IL UN 

AGENT DES SERVICES TURCS ? 

S'appuyant sur l'enquête du journaliste 

assassiné Ugur Mumcu, un grand 

chroniqueur turc affirme que le principal 

dirigeant du parti nationaliste kurde, 

Abdullah Öcalan dit "Apo", pourrait être un 

agent provocateur depuis 1971. (Courrier 

Jnternational,16-22janvier 1997), p. 50-51. 

DES ACTES FORTS POUR FAIRE 

RESPECTER LES DOITS DE L'HOMME. 

TURQUIE: POUR LA LIBERTÉ DE LA 

PRESSE. Les parlementaires européens 

dialoguent avec les éditeurs de la presse 

turque. (Faits & arguments sur l'union 

européenne,janvier-fevrier 1997), p. 52. 

LES INFORMATEURS DU PKK SE 

TRANSFORMENT EN TUEURS AU 

SERVICE DE L'ÉTAT. (Turkish Daily 

News, 17janvier 1997), p. 52-53. 

SCÈNES DE HONTE. (Turkish Daily 


LE NOUVEAU PARTI DE S. ELÇI, LE DKP: 

" LE PARTI DES OPPRIMÉS ". ....:À QUI 

FSf -CE CE GANG ? (Thrkish Daily News, 

17janvier 1997), p. 54-57. 

TALABANI RÉAFFIRME SON 

ENGAGEMENT POUR UN IRAK UNIFIÉ 

ET DÉMOCRATIQUE. (Turkish Daily 


GREVE DE LA FAIM DE CENTAINES DE 

RÉFUGIÉS KURDES TURCS D'IRAK. Pour 

empêcher l'évacuation forcée par le Haut- 

Commissariat des Nations unies (HCR), 

vers la Turquie, de plus de 15 000 Kurdes 

turcs, réfugiés dans le nord de l'Irak depuis 

1994, des centaines d'entre eux observent 

depuis le 18 décembre une grève de la faim. 

(Le Monde, 17janvier 1996), p. 59. 

LE PROCES D'UN ÉDITEUR ET D'UN 

TRADUCTEUR EST UN " SCÉNARIO 

ABSURDE ". (Turkish Daily News, 18 

janvier 1996), p. 59. 

IRAN: LE BILAN DES MOLLAHS. - LE 

POUVOIR ABSOLU DU LEADER. - LE 

CLERGÉ COMBATTANT ET LES CLERCS. 

- Un contrôle dual. (The Economist, 18 

janvier 1996), p. 60 - 64. 

LES FIERS-À-BRAS AU TRAVAIL. - 

DERRIÈRE LE TCHADOR. -AMIS ET 

ADVERSAIRES. - Des temps difficiles. - 

Pourquoi les Iraniens sont-ils si las? - 

L'aspiration au changements. (The 

Economist, 18janvier 1996), p: 65 -73. 

L'IRAK AVERTIT PARIS AU SUJET DU 

FILS (BLESSÉ) DE SADDAM. 

(International Herald Tribune, 18-19 

janvier 1997), p. 74. 

LA DISTRIBUTION DE NOURRITURE À 

DlYABAKIR PROVOQUE UN TOLLÉ.- 

LA FAMINE À DlYARBAKIRÀ L'ORDRE 

DU JOUR DU PARLEMENT. (Turkish 


TALABANI: LA DÉMOCRATISATION EST 

UN PRÉALABLE AUX NÉGOCIATIONS 

AVEC L'IRAK. - Le leader de l'UPK 

affirme que Bagdad a cherché l'aide de la 

Russie pour l'amener à dialoguer et 

renouvelle son appel au PKK a abandonner 

la violence. (Thrkish Daily News, 18janvier 

1997), p. 75-76 . 

LES CHEFS DE POLICE IMPLIQUÉS 

DANS L'AFFAIRE DE SÖYLEMEZ 

GARDÉS À VUE. (Thrkish Daily News, 18 

janvier 1997), p. 76. 

WASHINGTON: UN MILITANT PRO-PKK 

ARIlliTÉ DE NOUVEAU. - Xulam accusé 

de parjure et d'usage de faux. (Turkish 


L'IRAK ESSAYE D'ACHETER DES ARMES 

BRITANNIQUES, SELON LE SUNDAY 

TIMES. (Thrkish Daily News, 20 janvier 

1997), p. 77. 

LA TURQUIE POURRAIT NE PLUS 

RECONNAÎTRE LA JURIDICTION DE LA 

COUR EUROPÉENNE DES DROITS DE 

L'HOMME. Des dirigeants turcs affirment 

que la Cour européenne a oublié sa mission 

d'administrer la justice et elle est devenue 

un instniment pour les milieux anti-turcs. 

(Thrkish Daily News, 20 janvier 1997), p. 

78. 

TALABANI: LES ÉTATS-UNIS PEUVENT 

CONFIER À LA TURQUIE LA GESTION 

DES REVENUS DES DOUANES À LA 

FRONTIÈRE TURCO-IRAKIENNE, 

ACTUELLEMENT CONTRÔLÉE PAR LE 

PDK. (Turkish Daily News, 20 janvier 

1997), p. 79-80. 

QU'EST-CE QU'ATTEND LA TURQUIE 

SUR LE FRONT EUROPÉEN? (Turkish 

Daily News,20 janvier 1997), p. 80 - 81. 

HUMAIN RIGHTS WATCH S'OPPOSE 

AUX COMMANDES TURQUES 

D'HÉLICOPTÈRES DE COMBATS 

AMERICAINS. (Turkish Daily News, 21 

janvier 1997), p. 81- 82.

ENQutTE À URFA SUR DE 

MYSTÉRIEUSES MORTS D'ENFANTS. 


82. 

LE MINISTRE DU COMMERCE EREZ 

DÉNONCE LE RAPPORT DE 

DÉMOCRATISATION DE TUSIAD. 


83. 

LE PKK MENACE DE RECOURIR À LA 

FORCE SI LES RÉFUGIÉS D'ATRUCH 

RETOURNENT EN TURQUIE. (Turkish 

Daily News, 22 janvier 1997), p. 83 - 84. 

LA COMMISSION PARLEMENTAIRE DE 

SUSURLUK AUDITIONNE LE DÉPUTÉ 

BUCAK. (Turkish Daily News, 22 janvier 

1997), p. 84 - 85. 

L'UNION DOUANIÈRE N'EST PAS À 

COURT TERME BÉNÉFIQUE POUR LA 

TURQUIE, SELON UN CHERCHEUR DE 

CAMBRIDGE. (Turkish Daily News, 22 

janvier 1997), p. 85 - 86. 

LE POINT SUR LA TURQUIE: Onze 

policiers impliqués dans l'assassinat du 

journaliste M. Goktepe retrouvent leurs 

postes. La Turquie est un des meilleurs 

"clients" de la Commission européenne des 

droits de l'homme pour l'année 96. (Gamic, 

22 janvier 1997), p. 86 - 87. 

LA TUSIAD (PATRONAT TURC) A FAIT 

SON DEVOIR POUR L'ÉTABLISSEMENT 

D'UN SYSTÈME DÉMOCRATIQUE. 


88. 

LE DYP MINIMISE LE VERDICT DE LA 

COUR ALLEMANDE. - La confusion 

règne après les commentaires d'un juge 

allemand (évoquant les liens de Mme Çiller 

avec la mafia. Les députés de l'opposition 

demandent une clarification et une enquête 

complète. (Turkish Daily News, 23 janvier 

1997), p. 88 - 89. 

LES ÉTATS-UNIS DÉCLARENT QUE 

XULAM EST POURSUIVI POUR NEUF 

CHEFS D'ACCUSATION DE FÉLONIE. 


90. 

LA TURQUIE REJETIE LES 

COMMENTAIRES ANTI-TURCS DU JUGE 

ALLEMAND DANS UNE AFFAIRE DE 

DROGUE. (Turkish Daily News, 23 janvier 

1997), p. 90 - 91. 

TURQ UIE- KURDES- PÉTROLE 

ATTENTAT À LA BOMBE DU PKK 

CONTRE L'OLÉODUC IRAKO-TURC 

PRES DE MARDIN. Le brut qui s'est 

dégagé de l'oléoduc s'est répandu sur une 

surface importante et s'est enflammé sous 

le choc de l'explosion. (A.F.P., 23 janvier 

1997), p. 91. 

USA-TURQUIE-PRESSE: CAMPAGNE 

POUR LA LIBÉRATION D'UN 

JOURNALISTE TURC EMPRISONNÉ. 

Ancien responsable de la publication du 

quotidien Özgur Gündem, aujourd'hui 

disparu, M. Yurtçu a été condamné à une 

peine de 15 ans et dix mois et purge 

actuellement sa troisième année de prison. 

(A.F.P., 23janvier 1997), p. 91- 92. 

LA TURQUIE PROTESTE CONTRE 

L'ALLEMAGNE DANS L'AFFAIRE DE 

DROGUE (où la justice allemande implique 

certains dirigeants turcs). (International 

Herald Tribune, 9 janvier 1997), p. 92. 

LE DÉBAT SUR LE RAPPORT DE 

" DÉMOCRATISATION. DE TUS lAD 

ÉCLIPSE SON CONGRÈS ANNUEL. 


93 - 94. 

UNE DYNAMIQUE DE CROISSANCE ET 

UNE INTÉGRATION SOCIALE ET 

ÉCONOMIQUE SONI' ÉTABLIESENI'RE LA 

TURQUIE ET L'UNION EUROPÉENNE, 

SELON L'AMBASSADEUR DE L'U.E 

MICHAEL LAKE. (Turkish Daily News, 24 

janvier 1997), p. 94. 

LE RAPPORT SUR LA 

DÉMOCRATISATION DE TUS lAD NE 

PLAIT À PERSONNE". (Turkish Daily 

News, 24 janvier 1997), p. 95. 

LES CONFRÉRIES ET LES 

CONGRÉGATIONS RELIGIEUSES EN 

TURQUIE. - Infiltration - Éducation. 


96 -100. 

LA TURQUIE PARMI LES PAYS QUI 

VONT RECEVOIR DES COMPENSATIONS 

PAR LE FONDS DE LA GUERRE DU 

GOLFE. (Turkish Daily News, 24 janvier 

1997), p. 100. 

LE GOUVERNEMENT MINIMISE LES 

ATTENDUS CONTROVERSÉS DU 

VERDICT DE LA COUR ALLEMANDE. 


101. 

POURQUOI BONN DEVRAIT-IL 

S'EXCUSER AUPRÈS DE ÇILLER? 


102. 

LES ÉTATS-UNIS PROPOSENT QUATRE 

ALTERNATIVES À L'ACCORD GAZIER 

TURCO-IRANIEN. (Turkish Daily News, 

24 janvier 1997), p. 102. 

LE FILS DE SADDAM POURRAIT ÊTRE 

PARALYSÉ À LA SUITE DE SES 

BLESSURES. 600 arrestations dans des 

rafles opérées depuis l'attaque du 12 

décembre. (International Herald Tribune, 

25-26 janvier 1997), p. 103. 

L'ATTENTAT CONTRE LE FILS AINÉ DE 

SADDAM HUSSEIN POURRAIT RELEVER 

D'UN REGLEMENT DE COMPTES 

FAMILIAL. Depuis cet attentat 

immédiatement annoncé par la télévision 

irakienne, contrairement aux coutumes du 

secret qui prévalent à Bagdad, de 

nombreuses rumeurs courent sur les 

éventuels auteurs. (Le Monde, 25 janvier 

1997), p. 104.

•2(). HuI/clin de liaison et (l'inj()/'/I1ation n° 142-143. Janvier-Février 1997 

TURQUIE-UE: ÇILLER RENCONTRERA 

CINQ MINISTRES EUROPÉEN À ROME. 

Lors de cette réunion, les six ministres 

aborderont notamment le problème de 

l'application de l'accord d'union douanière 

entre l'UE et la Turquie, la récente crise des 

missiles avec Chypre et les projets 

d'expansion de l'UE. (A.F.P., 24 janvier 

1997), p.lOS. 

CHYPRE-USA-TURQUlE: WASHINGTON 

N'EST PAS DISPOSÉ À DONNER DES 

GARANTIES DE SÉCURITÉ À CHYPRE. 

(A.F.P., 24 janvier 1997), p.lOS. 

TURQUIE-DROUGUE : LOURDES 

ACCUSATIONS CONTRE LA TURQUIE 

D'UN HAUT RESPONSABLE 

BRITANNIQUE. Le vice-ministre 

britannique de l'Intérieur, Tom Sackville, 

assure que certains membres du 

gouvernement turc et de la police sont 

impliqués dans le trafic de drogue à 

destination de sori pays. - Ankara rejette 

les accusations britanniques. (A.F.P., 26 

janvier 1997), p.106, 106 -107. 

IRAK-GB-TURQUIE : L'IRAK CRITIQUE 

LA GRANDE-BRETAGNE POUR AVOIR 

DÉPECHÉ DES DIPLOMATES DANS LE 

NORD. L'Irak a critiqué la Grande-Bretagne 

pour avoir envoyé dans le Kurdistan de s 

diplomates de son ambassade à Ankara et 

reproché à la Turquie d'avoir autorisé leur 

passage en territoire irakien. (A.F.P., 26 

janvier 1997), p. 107. 

UNE DÉLÉGATION DE HADEP SERA 

TURQUIE-ISRAEL : DAVID LEVY REÇUE PAR DEMIREL. (Turkish Daily 

PROBABLEMENT EN TURQUIE EN News, 29 janvier 1997), p.m. 

FÉVRIER (A.F.P., 26 janvier 1997), p. WB. 

LA TURQUIE MISE EN CAUSE DANS LE 

LA TURQUIE VA POURSUIVRE UN JUGE 

ALLEMAND. (International Herald 

, Tribune, 27 janvier 1997), p. WB. 

YACHAR KEMAL REÇOIT LE PRIX 

LITTÉRAIRE NONINO. (Turkish Daily 

News, 27 janvier 1997), p. lOB. 

LA TURQUIE REJETTE LES ACUSATIONS 

VENANT D'OCCIDENT D'IMPLICATONS 

DANS DES AFFAIRES DE DROGUE. 

(Thrkish Daily News, 27 janvier 1997), p. 

109. 

L'ARGENT NOIR NOIRCIT L'IMAGE DU 

PAYS. (Turkish Daily News; 29 janvier 

1997), p. 109-112. 

TURQUIE: LE DERNIER SUJET DE 

DISCUSSION AU DANEMARK. (Thrkish 

Daily News, 2Bjanvier 1997), p.l13-114. 

LA POLICE TURQUE DÉNONCE 

L'HYPOCRISIE EUROPÉENNE EN 

MATIÈRE DE LA LUTE CONTRE LE 

TRAFIC DE DROGUE. (Turkish Daily 

News, 2B janvier 1997), p. 114-115. 

DE NOUVELLES ÉNIGMES À DAMAS. - 

Répression de la corruption ou manœuvres 

pour la succession? (International Herald 

Tribune, 29 janvier 1997), p. 115-116. 

LA LUTTE CONTRE LE TERRORISME 

EST ALIMENTÉE PAR L'ARGENT DE 

DROGUE, SELON UN GROUPE DE 

RECHERCHE FRANÇAIS. (Turkish Daily 

News, 29 janvier 1997), p.116. 

DES RESPONSABLES DU GOUVER- 

NEMENT RENCONTRE LE PDK POUR LA 

QUESTION DU CHAMP D'ATRUSH. 


117: 

TRAFIC DE DROGUE VERS L'EUROPE. - 

Des mafieux turcs impliqués dans la guerre 

du Karabagh. (Gamk , 29 janvier 1997), p. 

117-119. 

IL Y A UNE LUTTE DE POUVOIR À 

BAGDAD, SELON LES ÉTATS-UNIS. 


1997), p. 119-120. 

UN CORRIDOR DU SÉCURITÉ SERA 

ÉTABLI POUR LES RÉFUGIÉS 

D'ATRUSH. (Turkish Daily News, 30 

janvier 1997), p. 121. 

LES ÉTATS-UNIS CONDAMNENT LE PKK 

ET LE GOUVERNEMENT DANS LEURS 

VIOLATIONS DES DROITS L'HOMME. 


121. 

ANKARA APPELÉ À RESTER DANS 

L'EUROPE MAIS AVERTI SUR LA 

QUESTION DES DROIT DE L'HOMME. 

Les cinq puissances d'Europe expriment 

leur compréhension pour les frustrations de 

la Turquie mais elles ajoutent que des 

• questions importantes • ne facilitent pas 

une adhésion rapide d'Ankara. (Turkish 

Daily News, 31janvier 1997), p.122. 

LES ÉTATS-UNIS METTENT TOUT LEUR 

POIDS POUR LA DEMANDE TURQUE 

D'ADHÉSION À L'EUROPE. (Thrkish Daily 

News, 31janvier 1997), p.122-123. 

LE GOUVERNEMENT TURC POURSUIVI 

POUR VIOL, TORTURES ET INCENDIES 


DROITS DE L'HOMME. (Gamk, 31 janvier 

1997), p. 123. 

UTILISATION DES. REPENTIS • DANS 

LES ASSASSINATS POLITIQUES. - LA 

SITUATION DES KURDES S'AMÉLIORE 

EN ARMÉNIE. (Gamk, 31 janvier 1997), p. 

124. 

Février 

LE CAUCHEMAR DES LYCÉENS DE 

MANISA DANS LES PRISONS TURQUES. 

(Le Monde, 1 er février 1997), p.1. 

. TURQUIE: CRÉATION D'UN NOUVEAU 

PARTI PRO-KURDE. • Le Parti des Masses 

démocratiques • (DKP) qui préconise une 

• solution politique à la question kurde, tout 

en respectant les frontières actuelles de la 

Turquie • vient d'être créé par, l'ancien

,," 1-12-1-13 ••/ul,ier-Févricr 19')'; nul/dill t!('!iui,ulI (! (f'III!U/'lIlU!/UII .:.il. 

ministre des Travaux publics des années 

70, Serafettin Elçi. - ANKARA ACHÈTE 30 

HÉLICOPTÈRES ET NÉGOCIE 18 

MISSILES AVEC LA FRANCE. (Le Peuple 

Breton, Février 1997), p.2. 

LES PRINCIPAUX POINTS DU RAPPORT 

DU DÉPARTEMENT D'ÉTAT AMÉRICAIN 

SUR LA TURQUIE. (Turkish Daily News, 

1er février 1997), p.3-4. 

L'EMBARGO SECRET SUR LES ARMES 

AMERICAINES À DESTINATION DE LA 

TURQUIE. (Turkish Daily News, 3 février 

1997), pA. 

ISTANBUL DANS L'OBSCURITÉ POUR 

FAIRE LA LUMIÈRE SUR LES AFFAIRES 

DE LA CORRUPTION. (Turkish Daily 

News, 3 février 1997), pA. 

SELON TÉHÉRAN, L'EUROPE ET LE 

JAPON LUI GARANTISSENT DES PIŒrs 

DE 5 MILLIARDS DE DOLLARDS. 

(International Herald Tribune, 3 février 

1997), p.5-6. 


PARLEMENTAIRE SUR LE SCANDALE 

DE SUSURLUK VEXÉ PAR LE REFUS 

DES MILITAIRES DE VENIR 

TÉMOIGNER. - Les dirigenants du 

HADEP remettent à la Commission les 

dossiers de 131 • meurtres mystérieux" 

(Turkish Daily News, 4 février 1997), p.6-7. 

LE SOUTIEN DES EUROPÉENS AU 

PROCÈS DES TUERUS DU JOURNAUSTE 

METIN KÖKTEPE. (Turkish Daily News, 4 

février 1997), p.7. 

LA TURQUIE ACCUSÉE DE TRAFIC DE 

DROGUE, L'EUROPE RÉAGIT. (Turkish 

Daily News, 4 février 1997), p.7-9. 

OVERDOSE D'HERÏNE DANS LES 

RELATIONS TURCO-EUROPÉENNE. - 

TANSU Çiller EST-ELLE UNE MARRAIEN 

? (Turkish Daily News, 4 février 1997), p.9- 

10. 

CEUX QUI NE VEULENT PAS UNE 

RÉELLE DÉMOCRATIE SONT AU 

TRAVAIL. (Turkish Daily News, 3 février 

1997), p.U. 

EN IRAN, LE RETOUR À LA RIGUEUR 

FINANCIÈRE A STOPPÉ LES RÉFORMES 

ÉCONOMIQUES. (Le Monde, 4 février 

1997), p.12. 

LES ÉTATS-UNIS DÉMENTENT AVOIR 

PLANIFIÉ UNE ATTAQUE CONTRE 

L'IRAK. (Turkish Daily News, 5 février 

1997), p.13-14. 

REPORTERS SANS FRONTIÈRES 

DÉNONCE LA VIOLENCE POLICIÈRE 

CONTRE LES JOURNALISTES TURCS. 

(Turkish Daily News, 5 février 1997), p.14. 

LE PRÉSIDENT DU DKP ACQUITTÉ DE DES EXPEKI'S DE L'ONU PRÉPARENf LA 

NOUVEAU. (Turkish Daily News, 5 février DISTRIBUTION DES VIVRES AUX 

1997), p.14. IRAKIENS. (AFP., 6 février 1997), p.22-23. 

LE SECRÉTAIRE GÉNÉRAL DE L'OTAN 

SOLANA SE RENDRA EN TURQUIE. 


LA TENSION MONTE À LA SUITE DE 

L'ATTAQUE FANATIQUE. - Les chars 

roulent dans une banlieue d'Ankara alors 

que l'opposion se prépare à renverser le 

gouvernement. (Turkish Daily News, 5 

février 1997), p.15-16. 

LA SÉQUESTRATION D'UN ÉCRIVAIN 

IRANIEN COMPROMET LES RELATIONS 

ENTRE BONN ET TÉHÉRAN. (Turkish 

Daily News, 5 février 1997), p.17. 

IRAK-KURDES: M. TALABANI ACCUSE 

L'IRAK D'. ACTES TERRORISTES. AU 

KURDISTAN. (A.FP., 5 février 1997), p.17- 

18. 

CRITIQUES VIRULENTES D'UN 

JOURNAL IRAKIEN CONTRE LES 

ÉTATS-UNIS. (A.FP., 6 février 1997), p.19. 

LES BRUITS DES CHARS - UN 

AVERTISSEMENT? 

6 février 1997), p.20. 

(Turkish Daily News, 

LES LOUPS GRIS D'EXTIŒME DROITE 

PROTÉGÉS PAR LE GOUVERNEMENT 

TURCS SONT IMPLIQUÉS DANS LE 

TRAFIC DE DROGUE AUX PAYS-BAS 

selon un rapport du parlement néerlandais. 


LE PROCÈS DU JOURNALISTE GÖIcrEPE 

SE POURSUIT À AFYON. (Turkish Daily 

News, 7 février 1997), p.21. 

TENSION EN TURQUIE ENfRE L'ARMÉE 

ET LE GOUVERNEMENT. - Les militaires 

ont fait déployer des chars près d'Ankara 

pour intimider une municipalité islamiste. 

(Le Monde, 7 février 1997), p.22. 

ONU-IRAK-KOWEÏT: NEUF PAYS 

DEMANDENT 32 MILLIARDS DE 

DOLLARS POUR DÉGÂTS CAUSÉS À 

L'ENVIRONNEMENT. (A.F.P., 7 février 

1997), p.23-24. 

OTAN-UE-TURQUIE: MALAISE À 

L'OTAN FACE À DES MENACES 

TURQUES DE PLUS EN PLUS 

PRESSANTES. (A.F.P., 7 février 1997), 

p.25-27. 

DES GROUPES KURDES D'IRAK DU 

NORD ENVISAGENT UN ÉCHANGE DE 

PRISONNIERS. (Turkish Daily News, 8 

février 1997), p.27-28. 

ÉTATS-UNIS: LA TURQUIE NE PEUT 

TOURNER LE DOS À L'EXPANSION DE 

L'OTAN. (Turkish Daily News, 8 février 

1997), p.28-29. 

L'AIDE AMÉRICAINE À LA TURQUIE 

INCHANGÉE EN 1998. (Turkish Daily 

News, 8 février 1997), p.29-3L 

LE PÉTROLE IRAKIEN DE NOUVEAU

.22. Hlilletin de liaison et d'information n° 142-143 • JWlVicr-Fém'icr 1997 

SUR LE MARCHÉ SELON L'ONU. (Turkish 


LA COMMISSION ET LE PARLEMENT 

EUROPÉENS EN DÉSACCORD SUR LA 

TURQUIE. - Le Parlement européen a 

accusé la 'Commission européenne de 

distordre les décisions parlementaires sur 

l'assistance à la Turquie. (Turkish Daily 


LE LOBBY ARMÉNIEN CHERCHE À 

BLOQUER L'AIDE AMÉRICAINE À LA 

TURQUIE. (Turkish Daily News, 8 février 

1997), p.32. . 

LE PATRONAT TURC DÉNONCE 

.'L'HÉGÉMONIEDES GANGS ET DES 

CONFRÉRIES " ET PROPOSE • UN 

PROJET DE DÉMOCRATISATION". - Le 

livre de l'historien B. Lewis sort en France, 

il nie le génocide arménien! (Gamk, 8-9 

février 1997), p.33-34. 

MISSILES RUSSES COMMANDÉS PAR 

CHYPRE: CLINTON MANIFESTE SON 

• INQUIÉTUDE ". (AF.P., 8 février 1997), 

p.34: 

ÉLARGISSEMENT DE L'OTAN: BONN 

APPELLE ANKARA' À • BIEN 

RÉFLÉCHIR ". (A.F.P., 8 février 1997), 

p.3S. 

TURQUIE-OLÉODUC: RÉPARATION DE 

L'OLÉODUC IRAKO-TURC SABOTÉ EN 

TERRITOIRE TURC. (A.F.P., 8 février 

1997), p.36. 

ANKARA. (Turkish Daily News, 12 février 

1997), p.39. 

L'OPPRÉSSION DES JOURNALISTES 

CONTINUE. (Turkish Daily News, 12 

février 1997), p.39. 

LES COURs DE SÛRETÉ DE L'ÉTAT 

SUBMERGÉE PAR LES REQUÊTES SUR 

• LES MEURTRES EXTRA JUDICIAIRES ". 


TURQUIE: 43 REBELLES DU PKK TUÉS 

LORS DE RAIDS AÉRIENS TURCS DANS 

LE NORD DE L'IRAK. (AF.P., 12 février 

1997), p,40. 

TURQUIE-DÉFENSE: EUROCOPTER 

PRÊT À SIGNER UN CONTRAT DE 400 

MILLIONS DE DOLLARS AVEC LA 

TURQUIE. (A.F.P., 12 février 1997), p.40- 

41. 

TURQUIE-PRESSE: LE MINISTRE DE LA 

JUSTICE PROMET DE " NETTOYER LE 

PAYS DES MÉDIAS QUI DÉNIGRENT ". 

(Gamk, 12 février 1997), p,41-42. 

LES ÉTATS-UNIS METTENT EN GARDE 

LES RUSSES SUR L'ARMEMENT DE À 

L'IRAN. (International Herald Tribune, 13 

février 1997), p,42. 

UN AMIRAL AMÉRICAIN ACCUSE L'IRAN 

D'AIDER L'IRAK DANS LA 

CONTREBANDE DU PÉTROLE. 


1997), p,43. 

M'ATTENDENT ... ". Comment l'Iran utilise 

l'écrivain Sarkouhi pour faire pression sur 

Bonn. (Libération, 13 février 1997), p.46-47. 

LE RÉGIME TURC TORTURE DES 

ENFANTS. - Brandir un calicot peut coûter 

douze années de prison. - Des électrochocs 

dans mon vagin et sur mes seins. - Cinq 

jeunes écopent de 12 ans de prison. - UN 

MILLIER DE PRISONNIERS POLITIQUES 

DE MOINS DE 18 ANS. " Avocats pour le 

peuple ": les enfants sont en prison, les 

tortionnaires en libertés. (Solidaire, 12 

février 1997), p,47-48. 

ARMÉNIE-KURDES: La " RÉPUBLIQUE 

KURDE DE LATCHINE " RÉAPPARAIT 

DANS LA PRESSE TURQUE. (Gamk, 13 

février 1997), p.49. 

JEANNOU LACAZE, LOBBYISTE EN IRAK. 

Le général s'est reconverti en intermédiaire, 

coûteux; pour businessmen français. 

(Libération,13février 1997), p.SQ-SI. 

EUROCOPTER: CONTRAT DE 430 

MILLIONS DE DOLLAR AVEC LA 

TURQUIE. (A.F.P., 13 février 1997), p.S2- 

53. 

LA TURQUIE ACHÈTE QUATRE 

HÉLICOPTÈRES SIKORSKY AUX ÉTATS- 

UNIS. (A.F.P., 13 février 1997), p.S3-S4. 

LE PKK INSTALLE LES RÉFUGIÉS 

D'ATRUSH SANS LES VILLAGES 

FRONTALIERS. (Turkish Daily News, 14 

février 1997), p.S4. 

SUÈDE: L'ÉCRIVAIN YASAR KEMAL 

RENTRE EN TURQUIE. (AF.P., 9 février 

1997), p:37. 

UN RESPONSABLE TURC CHERCHE À 

RÉVISER L'IMAGE DES ISLAMISTES AUX 

ÉTATS-UNIS. (International Herald 

Tribune, 10 février 1997), p.38. 

TURQUIE: UN CONTRAT DE 500 

MILLIONS DE DOLLARS AVEC 

EUROCOPTER POUR L'ACHAT DES 

COUGARS. (Turkish Daily News, 13 février 

1997), p,43-44. 

PLUS CHER VAUT LA VIE DE RUSHDIE . 

.:...Une fondation iranienne augmente la 

prime pour tuer l'écrivain. (Libération, 13 

février 1997), p,44-46. 

LA COMMISSION EUROPÉENNE DES 

DRÖITS DE L'HOMME EN MISSION À "TORTURE, PRISON ET MORT 

LA RUSSIE TIENT UNE CONFÉRENCE 

AVEC LA PARTICIPATION DU PKK. 

(Thrkish Daily News, 14 février 1997), p.S4. 

HADEP DEMANDE À L'ÉTAT DE 

POURSUIVRE LES INFORMATEURS. 

(Turkish Daily News, 14 février 1997), p.SS. 

UNE MINUTE DANS LES TÉNÈBRES 

CONDUIT À UNE JOURNÉE DE 

CONTROVERSE. (Turkish Daily News, 14 

février 1997), p.SS-S6.

LES FIRMES DE LOBBYING TURQUES A 

CAPITOL HILL (WASHINGTON) 

TRAVAILLENT POUR PRESQUE RIEN. 

(Turkish Daily News, 14 février 1997), p.57- 

59. 

TURQUIE-KURDES: PEINES CAPITALES 

REQUISES POUR PROFANATION DU 

DRAPEAU TURC. (A.FP., 14 février 1997), 

p.60-61. 

RÉACTIONS. (Turkish Daily News, 17 

février 1997), p.69. 

LES KURDES FONT UN PAS VERS 

BAGDAD. - Les échanges s'intensifient 

depuis la victoire du PDI(, allié de Saddam. 

(Libération, 18 février 1997), p.70-71. 

LA TURQUIE DÉÇUE PAR LE 

COMMERCE AVEC L'IRAN. (Turkish Daily 


LE CHEF DE L'ÉTAT-MAJOR GÉNÉRAL 

TURC EN ISRAËL FIN FÉVRIER. (A.F.P., MME. ALLBRIGHT INTERPELLÉE SUR 

14 février 1997), p.61-62. LE BLOCUS TURC SUR L'ARMÉNIE. 

(Gamk, 17-18 février 1997), p.72. 

LES FORCES DE SURVEILLANCE DU 

CESSEZ-LE-FEU SERONT DÉPLOYÉES 

EN MARS AU NORD DE L'IRAK. (Turkish 



PARLEMENTAIRE DE SUSURLUK:" JE 

SUIS CONFUS ". (Turkish Daily News, 15 

février 1997), p.63. 

TENSION DANS LES RELATIONS 

ENTRES TÉHÉRAN ET ANKARA. - 

Turksih connection: Après un juge 

allemand, un vice ministre adjoint 

britannique met en cause les autorités 

turques dans le trafic de drogue. (Gamk, 15- 

16 février 1997), p.63-64. 

NEW-YORK TIMES: LES LAÏcs ALARMÉS 

PAR LA MONTÉE DU RÉFAH. (Turkish 


WASHINGfON VEUf " CONTENIR " LES 

ARABES PAR UNE ALUANCE ISRAÉLO- 

TURQUE, SELON BAGDAD. (A.F.P., 16 

février 1997), p.66. 

DES FEMMES TURQUES MANIFESTENT 

CONTRE LA LOI CORANIQUE. 


1997), p.67-68. 

LA MANIFESTATION POUR. LA 

LUMIÈRE" SE RÉPÈTE POUR CANKORU: 

• Mon mari a été battu " affirme sa femme. 

• La police monte une opération 

d'étouffement". (Turkish Daily News, 19 

février 1997), p.78. 

TURQUIE: LE PARLEMENT LÈVE LES 

DERNIÈRES ACCUSATIONS DE 

MALVERSATIONS CONTRE MME. 

ÇILLER. (A.FP., 19 février 1997), p.78-79. 

DÉPART POUR LA TURQUIE D'UNE 

DÉLÉGATION IRAKIENNE. (A.F.P., 19 

février 1997), p.80. 

LES ARABES NE FONT PAS ASSEZ POUR LA LIGUE ARABE S'OPPOSE AUX 

RÉSOUDRE LE PROBLÈME SYRIEN DE BARRAGES TURCS. (Turkish Daily News, 

L'EAU. (Turkish Daily News, 18 février 20 février 1997), p.80. 

1997), p.73. 

ET... LES FIRMES DE LOBBYING 

L'ACTIVISME ISLAMISTE CONTINUE A REÇOIVENT LEUR ARGENT. (Turkish 

PRÉOCCUPER L'ARMÉE. (A.F.P., 18 Daily News, 20 février 1997), p.81. 

février 1997), p.73-74. 

VERS UNE LEVÉE DÉFINITIVE DES 

CHARGES DE CORRUPTION CONTRE 

MME. Çi11er.(A.F.P.,18 février 1997), p.74- 

75. 

LA COUR CONDAMNE L'EX-DÉPUTÉ 

KURDE FIRAT POUR PROPAGANDE 

SÉPARATISTE. (A.F.P., 19 février 1997), 

p.75. 

ÇILLER INSISTE QUE L'ÉLARGIS- 

SEMENT DE L'OTAN ET DE L'UNION 

EUROPÉENNE SONT DES " PROCESSUS 

LIÉS" (Turkish Daily News, 19 février 

1997), p.76. 

PUBLICATION DU RAPPORT DE 

L'ASSOCIATION TURQUE DES DROITS 

DE L'HOMME (IHD) DU MOIS DE 

JANVIER. (Turkish Daily News, 19 février 

1997), p.77. 

LE PARLEMENT DISCULPE ÇILLER SUR 

SA FORTUNE SUSPECTE. (Turkish Daily 


TURQUIE-KURDES: LES CONFESSIONS 

DE L'UN DES ASSASSINS DU POÈTE 

KURDE MUSA ANTER. (Gamk, 20 février 

1997), p.82-83. 

LE CLAN DE SADDAM CHANCÈLE SOUS 

LES COUPS ET LES MENACES. 


1997), p.83-84. 

LES LAïCS TURCS ALARMÉS PAR LA 

RÉSURGENCE DE LA RELIGION. 


1997), p.85-86. 

LES TURCS SIGNENT DES CONTRATS DE 

543 MILLIONS DE DOLLARS POUR 

L'ACHAT D'AVION. (International Herald 

Tribune, 14 février 1997), p.86-87. 

LES REMARQUES DU GOUVERNEUR LE PARLEMENT TURC BLANCHIT 

SUR LES ANTENNES PARABOLIQUES TANSU ÇILLER. (Turkish Daily News, 19 LE GÉNÉRAL ÇEVIK BIR DISCUTERA 

PROVOQUENT DES FORTES février 1997), p.77. AVEC SON HOMOLOGUE LODAL DE

.24 • nulletin de liaison et d'injö1'11iution n° 142-14:J • .Junvicr-Févricr 1997 

L'OPÉRATION" SURVEILLANCE DU AFFAIBLISSEMENT DE SON RÔLE DE PARTI AU POUVOIR. (Le Monde, 26 

NORD ". (Turkish Daily News, 21 février GARANT, SELON LE MINISTRE TURC. février 1997), p.103. 

1997), p.87. (A.F.P., 25 février 1997), p.96. 

LE PKK MENACE DE MENER DES 

AITAQUES À LA FRONTIÈRE DU NORD 

DE L'IRAK. (Turkish Daily News, 21 février 

1997), p.88. 

LE PARLEMENT TURC DISCULPE MME 

ÇILLER. Les députés ont refusé la 

comparution de l'ancien Premier ministre 

devant la Cour suprême. (Le Monde, 21 

février 1997), p.88-89. 

LA FIN DE L'ASALA EST-ELLE L'ŒUVRE 

DE LA " BANDE À ÇATLI ", OU LE 

RÉSULTAT DES DISSENSIONS 

INTERNES À L'ORGANISATION? (La 

lettre de l'Ugab, 22 février 1997), p.89-91. 

LE GÉNÉRAL BIR RÉPÈTE SON APPEL 

AUX AUTORITÉS CIVILES POUR 

COMBATTRE LA TERREUR. (Turkish 


POINT SUR LA SITUATION EN TURQUIE: 

Un chef de police décrit" l'Organisation 

extrajudiciaire" chargée de basses besognes 

de l'État turc. (Gamk, 24-25 février 1997), 

p.93-94. 

LA TENSION MONTE AU NORD DE 

L'IRAK EN DÉPIT DES EFFORTS DE 

PAIX. (Turkish Daily News, 25 février 

1997), p.94-95. 

GRÈCE-TURQUIE: DEUX PASSEURS 

TURCS CONDAMNÉS À LA PRISON POUR 

LE TRANSPORT DE 33 IRAKIENS. (A.F.P., 

25 février 1997), p.95. 

ANKARA 

CONTRE 

UN 

TURQUIE: TREIZE BLESSÉS DANS DES 

BAGARRES ENTRE ÉTUDIANTS DE 

TENDANCES OPPOSÉES. (A.F.P., 25 

février 1997), p.96-97. 

ÉTATS-UNIS -TURQUIE: LA TURQUIE 

AVERTIT LES ÉTATS-UNIS QU'ELLE 

POURRAIT CHANGER DE 

FOURNISSEUR. (A.F.P., 25 février 1997), 

p.97-98. 

LA TURQUIE MET EN GARDE LES 

ÉTATS-UNIS. (International Herald 

Tribune, 26 février 1997), p.98. 

IRAK PROTESTE CONTRE L'ARRIVÉE DE 

LA MISSION DE L'ONU À ANKARA. 

(Turkish Daily News, 26 février 1997), 

p.98-99. 

DIYARBAKIR: CITÉ DE LA FAMINE 

RAVAGÉE PAR LA TERREUR. (Turkish 


LES MEILEURS ADVERSAIRES DE LA 

COALITION. (Turkish Daily News, 26 

février 1997), p.101-102. 

LA TURQUIE DEMANDE À L'IRAN DE LA 

" RESPECTER ". (Turkish Daily News, 26 

février 1997), p.102. 

TURQUIE: L'ISLAM ET L'HÉRITAGE 

D'ATATÜRK. - Les grands quotidiens turcs 

ouvrent leurs colonnes au président 

Demirel, perçu comme l'arbitre des tensions 

entre l'armée et le gouvernement. - 

VARMÉE NE CACHE PLUS SON 

IRRITATION FACE AUX ISLAMISTES DU 

LA POPULATION TURQUE SE MOBIUSE 

CONTRE LA CORRUPTION. - La 

protestation, pacifique et indépendante des 

grands partis, coïncide avec le débat sur la 

laïcité et les manifestations contre la loi 

islamique. Ankara menace de s'opposer à 

l'élargissement de l'OTAN si les Quinze 

n'examinent pas sa demande d'adhésion à 

l'Union européenne. (Le Monde, 26 février 

1997), p.104. 

ANKARA REVENDIQUE TOUJOURS SA 

PLACE. AU SEIN DE L'UNION 

EUROPÉENNE.- Une très forte 

dégradation des échanges commerciaux. (Le 

Monde, 26 février 1997), p.105. 

ILS SONT EN TRAIN DE POUSSER LA 

TURQUIE DANS UNE AVENTURE 

DÉSASTREUSE. (Turkish Daily News, 28 

février 1997), p.106. 

LES ISLAMISTES DIRIGENT LA 

TURQUIE, DÉLICATEMENT. Necmettin 

Erbakan ne parle plus d'une OTAN 

islamique ou de guerre sainte contre 

Jérusalem. Pourquoi alors le Premier 

ministre turc effraie-toi! tant de gens? (The 

New York Times, Magazine,. 23 février 

1997), p.107-11l. 

LES ÉTATS-UNIS AFFIRMENT QUE IRAN 

SOUTIENT BIEN LE PKK. (Turkish Daily 

News, 28 février 1997), p.111-112. 

LA TRAGÉDIE KURDE. - Débat 

" trasméditerranéen." avec Danielle 

Mitterrand et Kendal Nezan demain au 

théâtre. (Corse-Matin, Nice Matin, 28 

février 1997), p.114.

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_ limite orientale du peuplement kurde 

(11: Kurdistan 

officiel iranien 

limite de province créée en 1982 

... " •• •__ ,~"' __ Situation fin 1945: -,_ ...... "."'•.~~-~" 

~ République de Mahabad 

~ (contours approximatifs) 

limites approximatives de la 

République autoproclamée 

d'Azerbaïdjan du Sud 

~ Afflux des Barzani 

........ Remontée de 

r" l'armh iranianne 

C CILEMARIN 

n est interdit de se souvenir 

OUR s'en convaincre, il suffit de 

P visiter l'hôpital de Mahahad. 

construit par le dernier chah et rebaptisé 

Ayatollah-Khomeiny après la .révolution 

islamique. Les victimes des rrunes - bergers, 

promeneurs. enfants - y sont entassées 

sans ménagement. De quoi rappeler 

un autre événement inscrit dans toutes 

les mémoires. Pendant la guerre iranoirakienne, 

Mahabad fut bombardée pen-. 

dant plus de vingt jours par l'armée iranienne. 

Suspectée d'abriter 

le Parti démocratique 

kurde iranien (PDKI) et 

les Moudjahidines de 

M. Massoud Radjavi - en 

partie ralliés à l'Irak -, la 

ville a été pilonnée par les 

troupes iraniennes. Lors 

de ce siège punitif, la 

population qui n'avait pas 

réussi à fuir a dû se terrer 

dans les caves et les soussols. 

Ceux qui en sortaient 

en quête de nourriture le 

faisaient au risque de leur 

vie. On estime que près de 

mille cinq cents habitants, 

majoritairement des civils, 

ont péri pendant cette opération 

militaire qui confi~ 

nait à la guerre civile. 

L'objectif proclamé des 

responsables iraniens est 

resté tristement célèbre: 

« La tête du serpent kurde 

est à Mahtibad, il faut 

l'écraser.» Cet acharnement 

aveugle a laissé des 

traces. 

Malgré ses soixante 

mille habitants, il est difficile 

de considérer Mahabad 

comme une ville à part 

entière. Il s'agit plutôt 

d'une grosse bourgade 

commerçante tournée vers 

son environnement agri- 

UN R~VE ÉPHÉMÈRE 

cole et rural. La dynastie 

En 1946,pendant un an, la République kurde 

de Mahabad concrétise les aspirations d'un peuple. 

de~ Pahl~vi pas.plus q~e la 

Repubhque Islamique 

n onl ~hen:ht' a de\ e1oppc:r k I1SSU 

indu'lnel de la ville. comme pour la 

condamner à une lente. asphyxie. Les 

promesses de développement in~u~triel 

du président Ali Akbar RafsandJ3nl, de 

passage à Mahabad en août 1995, sont 

restées lettre morte. 

L'activité agricole est de plus en plus 

fruO'ilisée,faute de débouchés. Certes, le 

b~age de Mahabad, construit par les 

Yougoslaves dans les années 60, a permis 

d'irriguer les champs de betteraves à 

sucre, de tomates et de tabac, mais les 

retombées locales sont faibles. La valorisation 

de ces produits par le biais d'une 

industrie agroalimentaire se fait ailleurs. 

Un vif sentiment d'abandon s'insinue 

chez les habitants. Surplombant la ville, 

un silo à grain délabré, hérité des Soviétiques. 

est là pour incarner leur misère. 

L'anémie économique pousse la jeunesse 

kurde hors de la région, à la 

i recherche d'un travail, l'exposant ainsi à 

l'assimilation par la culture dominante 

perse. A Mahabad, la fo~ation universitaire 

estej,évolue, depUiS peu, à un~ 

« université libre islamique» qui attire 

également que~qu~sétudiants, des v~es 

limitrophes, pnncipalement d ~eh, 

la capitale de l' Azerbaïdjan ~cidental. 

n s'agit d'un établissement pnvé, assez 

onéreux et dont tous les enseignements 

sont subordonnés à la religion chiite, 

majoritaire en Iran. Ot: le Kurdi~~ est 

essentiellement sunrute (2), d ou. de 

nombreuses provocations et frictions. 

Inutile de dire qu'il n'y a eu aucune 

manifestation publique ni officielle pour 

commémorer les cinquante ans de la 

République kurde. nest inter'!it de se 

souvenir ouvertement. De meme., les 

recherches historiques sur cet épisode 

sont inconcevables; si le livre référ~nce 

de Wùliam Eagleton (3) a ~~étradwt ~n 

persan et en kur~e ~dJi par un historien 

local, la diffuSion de cette traduction 

a été interdite dès la fin de 1982. Les 

témoins directs de la République ej,isparaissent 

peu à peu, quand ils ne sont pas 

liquidés. Pourtant, un patient travail de 

sauvetage et de restauration de cette 

mémoire confisquée s'opère dans 

. l'ombre. Les tombes des trois dirigeants 

historiques de la République kurde 

- notamment ceUe du « président» 

Mohamad Quazi - pendus après l'entrée 

des troupes iraniennes dans Mahabad, 

restent visibles dans l'ancien cimetière. 

D'accès difficile, entourées de hauts 

murs, de barrières et de barbelés, elles 

sont entretenues en catimini. 

La place dite des « Quatre Lampes)~ 

est doublement connotée. C'est là que 

Mohamad Quazi instaura la République, 

le 22 janvier 1946, et c'est là que ses 

trois principaux dirigeants furent pendus 

le 31 mars 1947. Mais aucun bâtiment 

officiel n'a survécu. Tout au plus, le nouveau 

responsable de la ville y a fait installer 

astucieusement quatre lampadaires 

destinés à rappeler les événements qui se 

déroulèrent sur cette place circulaire. 

Autre lieu de mémoire, le nouveau 

cimetière dans lequel un périmètre est 

utilisé - sans aucune autorisation - pour 

y concentrer les sépultures d'écriv~s 

patriotes vénérés, natifs de Mahabad. 

Plusieurs de ces tombes ornées de 

poèmes invitant le peuple kurde au sur" 

'saut portent des traces de balles. Sur 

rune des stèles, un mot a été particulièrement 

visé et mutilé: « liberté ». 

.. Alors comment être kurde à ~lahabad? 

Le plein exercice, à découvert, de 

son identité kurde est périlleux. Dans ce 

règne de l'arbitraire, il faut trouver ~es 

voies détournées, biaisées. Le double Jeu 

et la ruse prédominent. La peur tenaille, 

alimentée par la répression militaire et 

policière. Si la pratique de la langue 

kurde dans les lieux publics est en principe 

tolérée en Iran, l'expression cultureUe 

demeure contrariée (c'est un 

euphémisme), en particulier dans les 

médias et l'édition. Ceux qui s'aventurent 

à publier en kurde sont très rapidement 

contraints à l'exil. ., . 

Inunédiatement après la révolution 

islamique, les partis, organisations, jour- .. 

naux et revues kurdophones ont fleuri 

pendant deux ans. Cette époque dorée 

est révolue. Deux publications kurdes, 

2


strictement littéraires, ont survécu: 

Serva, à Ounnieh, et Alvena, à Téhéran. 

Aucune à Mahabad. En outre, les émissions 

en kurde à la radio et la télévision 

publiques ne sont que des traductions 

exhaustives des bulletins officiels et ne 

recueillent que très peu d'audience. Afin 

de pallier l'absence de médias privés, les 

plus nantis se sont dotés d'ante~es 

paraboliques. Diabolisée~ par le régime 

iranien elles sont détnntes ou confis- 

.quées par les pasdarans (~ardiens de ~a 

:révolution). Pour asSOUVIr leur besom 

.d'information libre et d'images du 

.monde entier, les habitants prennent 

maintenant leurs précautions. Ils ne 

sortent leurs paraboles qu'à la nuit 

tombée. 

Ainsi, une cinquantaine de familles 

suivent régulièrement les émissions de 

MED-TV, canal kurde émis depuis 

Londres. La conscience pankurde peut 

ainsi s'aiguiser, sur les vestiges de la 

.République de Mahabad. Mais les tentatives 

de renaissance politique sont violemment 

réprimées. Le PDK iranien, 

fondé à Mahabad, est présenté par le 

pouvoir comme une clique de terroristes 

contre-révolutionnaires et traité comme 

telle. Les internements arbitraires, la torture 

et les exécutions sommaires sont 

légion. Toute initiative citoyenne, même 

prudente et respectueuse de la légalité 

islamique, est systématiquement contrecarrée 

par Téhéran. Cinquante ans après, 

les Kurdes de Mahabad semblent continuer 

à devoir payer leurs audaces 

passées. 

(1) Le Kurdistan. ~gion peuplée par les Kurdes. 

est à cheval sur la Turquie. \' Irak et \' Iran. Dans 

chacun de ces pays. les Kwdes luttent pour la 

reconnaissance de leurs droits. 

(2) n existe des Kurdes chiites ou " gens de la 

véri~ ". dans la partie méridionale du Kurdistan 

iranien. La proportion de chrétiens est très falble. 

(3) William Eagleton. La République 1curde de 

1946. Complexe. Bruxelles. 1987. 

JANVIER 1997 - LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE 

N 

:> a: 

0: 

z 

«.., 

TOMBES DES TROIS PE!I.'DUSDE MAHABAD (août 1996) 

Quatorze mois d'autonomie 

L 

'EXPÉRIENCE d'autonomie kurde à Mahabad est née dans le contexte de la 

seconde guerre mondiale. En 1941, l'occupation de l'Iran par les Soviétiques 

au nord et les Britanniques au sud, et l'abdication de Reza Chah 

libèrent le nationalisme kurde iranien de la féroce répression exercée jusqu'alors 

par le pouvoir central. A Mahabad, Mohamad Quazi en profite pour prendre en 

main le gouvernement de sa ville et de la région qui "entoure, du lac d'Ourmich à 

Sakiz. 

Mohamad Quazi est avant tout un négociateur qui recherche le soutien des 

Soviétiques, tout en essayant de s'entendre avec Téhéran. Faute de résultat, il 

finit par adopter une attitude plus belliqueuse en 1944 : signant un accord d'aide 

mutuelle pour la création du grand Kurdistan avec les dirigeants kurdes d'Irak et 

de Turquie, il se rallie tardivement au Komala (organisation secrète pour la 

renaissance kurde en Iran, ancêtre du PDKI, Parti démocratique du Kurdistan 

d'Irak). Et, le 17 décembre 1945, il fait hisser le drapeau kurde sur les bâtiments 

officiels de Mahabad. Cette fois, il obtient la protection de l'Union soviétique, qui 

a des vues sur le Kurdistan. 

Le 22 janvier 1946, Mohamad Quazi proclame la naissance de la première 

République autonome kurde. De faible importance territoriale (15000 km') et 

sans grands moyens, la République a surtout une importance culturelle et symbolique. 

Ainsi, de nombreux Kurdes d'Irak viennent aussitôt s'installer à Mahabad. 

Et ce sont eux, sous la direction du général Mohamad Barzani, qui 

repoussent les premières attaques de l'armée iranienne. 

Mais le .contexte international évolue défavorablement. En mai 1946, sous la 

pression des puissances occidentales, les militaires soviétiques évacuent l'Iran. 

En août, Mohamad Quazi va une fois de plus à Téhéran pour négocier un modus 

vivendi. En vain, le nouveau chah, Mohamad Reza, enfin maitre chez lui, renoue 

avec la sanglante politique antikurde de son père. Le 27 novembre, "armée iranienne 

attaque. Mahabad capitule le 16 décembre. Le 31 mars 1947, Mohamad 

Quazi est pendu sur la place publique. Cette même place où il avait proclamé 

quatorze mois plus tôt ta naissance de la République de Mahabad. 

Turcs et Kurdes réconciliés par le cinéma 

JAMAIS encore 

NICO~~ 

MONCEAU • 

le conflit dans le Sud-Est anatolien 

n'avait été abordé de front par une œuvre cinématographique. 

Que les lumières ne s'éteignent pas, 

premier long métrage du réalisateur turc Reis Çelik, 

traite pour la première fois de ce sujet Cl sensible ». Un 

groupe du Parti des travailleurs du Kurdistan IPKK) et 

une unité militaire turque, qui s'affrontent sur les hauteurs 

de la frontière, sont décimés par une avalanche. 

Seuls survivants, l'officier turc et le chef des rebellesavec, 

pour un temps, une jeune militante -, sont 

contraints de s'entraider afin de survivre dans ces 

conditions extrêmes. L'observation de l'Cl autre» et le 

• Institut français d'études anatoliennes (lFEA), Istanbul. 

dialogue s'installent peu à peu, avant la descente au village 

et le retour aux réalités du conflit. 

Volontairement didactique, le récit pèche parfois par 

simplisme. Au cours de leur errance, les personnages 

expriment et confrontent leurs divergences -le discours 

officiel de l'Etat turc d'un côté, les revendications 

des rebelles de l'autre -, au risque d'apparaître comme 

des stéréotypes. Cette pluralité des points de vue et la 

nécessaire neutralité qui s'impose au cinéaste pour 

d'évidentes raisons de censure (la loi de 1986 sur le 

cinéma interdit, entre autres, toute forme de «propagande 

separatiste ,,) s accompagnent toutefoIs de 

choix narratifs et de mise en scène plus audacieux. 

En ouverture du film, le meurtre d'un korucu (gardien 

de village, rémunéré par l'Etat turc) au cours de 

l'attaque d'un bus par les rebelles souligne le 

déchirement de la population locale entre les exigences 

de leur Cl cause .. et les contraintes matérielles. Plus 

t.!lrd,Ja)lision d'un villaQe en ruine, totalement dévasté, 

3

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti 

en dit10ng sur la violence des èombats qui se sont 

déroulésdàns-la région. les militants du PKK y sont 

présentés'co'mme des 'êtres humains, nourris d'espoirs 

et de douteé. Une'image qui contraste avec le discours 

officiel des autorités militaires ou politiques sur les 

« terroristes ». la fraternité naissante entre le soldat et 

le rebelle suggère, très prudemment, que l'affrontement 

n'est pas irrémédiable. Et la conclusion du film 

est étonnante. Un villageois menace indistinctement 

les deux ennemis désarmés, symbolisant ainsi la responsabilité 

partagée de l'armée et des activistes kurdes 

dans la dévastation de la région. 

Un tel film n'aurait pas vu le jour sans un assouplissement 

sensible de la censure en Turquie. la levée 

de l'interdiction de l'œuvre de Yilmaz Güney et de ses 

collaborateurs, officialisée par la projection; en 1995,de 

ses films majeurs (L'Espoir, Yol, ou Le Mun au Festival 

du cinéma d'Ankara témoignent de cette ouverture 

dans le domaine culturel. Il en vade même pour les 

adaptations cinématographiques des textes de Nazim 

Hikmet, ou, dans un registre différent, pour la diffusion 

sur le petit écran de Midnight Express d'Alan Parker. 

Cependant, si Que fes lumières ne s'éteignent pas a 

pu traverser les mailles des différentes commissi~ns de 

censure, où siègent des représentants du conseil pour 

la sécurité nationale et du ministère de l'intérieur, ses 

difficultés ne sont pas terminées pour autant. la Cour 

de sûreté de l'Etat qui, en mars 1996,condamnait l'écrivain 

Yachar Kemal à vingt mois d'emprisonnement 

avec sursis pour des écrits jugés cc subversifs» sur les 

droits du peuple kurde a entrepris d'engager des poursuites 

à l'encontre du film. 

LE film est sorti en salle le 25 octobre 1996. En dépit 

des mesures de sécurité renforcées à l'entrée des 

salles et d'une distribution réduite - seulement six 

copies à travers le pays -, plus de 40 000 spectateurs, 

turcs et kurdes confondus, ont assisté à sa projection 

durant les quinze premiers jours. Son lancement a éga- 

Iement suscité l'intérêt des milieux politiques ou associatifs 

qualifiés de cc progressistes ». l'avant-première 

du film, organisée dans un cinéma d'Istanbul, a rassemblé 

de nombre.uses personnalités politiques. 

M. Ercan Karakas, député du Parti républicain du 

peuple (CHP), connu pour son militantisme actif en 

faveur des droits de l'homme en Turquie, a proposé 

d'organiser une soirée à Ankara autour du film en réunissant 

les principaux dirigeants des partis politiques 

ainsi que les parlementaires turcs. Cette cc plateforme 

,) pour la paix devrait permettre, selon ses promoteurs, 

de développer un débat à l'échelon national à 

travers une œuvre qui dépasse largement le cadre du 

cinéma. 

Turkish Dairy News WEDNESDAY,JANUARY \,\997 

r------------------~ 

Amnesty International branch for izmir 

Turkish Daily News lishment of the new branch. 

ANKARA- A meeting to establish a Amnesty International, whose center is 

branch of Amnesty International in lzmir in London, organiies campaigns concern- 

.will be held on Jan. 18, the Anatolia news ing human rights violations allover the 

àgH~lthef~~âill and JuliaSherwood ." world. According to Amnesty 

from Amnesty International's European Inte~national' sfounding ~rf~ciple~, 

development branch will attend the Izmir Turkish m~mbers.of the org~tIon can~ 

meeting. Associations such as the hmir ..n?t deal w~th th~Ir own country s human 

. Chamber of Medical Doctors, the Izmir 'nghts .. vIOI.allons ... The ~II!-nesty 

Bar Association, and the Aegean branch' .... International info~tton b~lletm is ~b- . 

. of : the. Contemporary' Journalists lished mon~hly ln En~hsh, ArabIc, 

Association will contribute. to the estab-.. .French, Spamsh and Turkish. .' . .. 

. . .' :.' . . 

Journalists' union; 

'96 was a bad year 

Turkish 

Daily News 

ANKARA- The Turkish Journalists'. Union (TOS) 

criticized the year 1996, declaring it one full of 

restrictions, arrests and sentences ln the world of 

communication, the Anatolia news agency reported. 

A written statement from TOS stated that three 

.journalists had been killed, 209 were taken into custody' 

or arrested, and 90 were physically attacked 

whIle perfonning their work over the past twelve 

~m~. .. 

Turkish Dairy News WEDNESDAY, JANUARY \. \997 

The statement also noted some important 1996 

incidents, such as the condemnation of Y~ar Kemal. 

the suit brought against Cetin Altan, the trial of 

1,079 writers who signed' the book "freedom of 

Thought," and the arrest of artist Sanar Yurdatapan. 

Mention was given to limitations the Welfare Party- 

True Path Party coalition government attempted to 

bring upon the press. The draft bill, or so-called 

"Censor Law," which proposed new censorship 

plans, never crystallized due to reactions of the press 

and the public. . 

4


Turkish Daily News 

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY l, 1997 

Ambassador Kandemir: 

'In 1997, we must strive for enhanced partnership' 

Kandemir expects Küb lobby 

to expand inw~ 

'US administration is Jooiing 11m 

pas;iwe/y at RP-DYP govemmenl' 


WASHINGTON - Tbe shiP. of Turkish~U,~. relations 

during the p~t year has ndden wave~ h~gh and 

low, sailed quite a bit on an even ke~l, yet st1l1ls some 

distance away .from the saf~ port of . enhll!lced partnership," 

accordmg to a senior J:urklsh .dlplomat who 

shoï1ld know - Nüzhet KandelIlll', Turkish ambass;ldor 

to Washington since 1989. 

"We have to rest our bi-lateral relations on a firmer 

foundation in 1997 and expand our non-military cooperation 

as well," he said. "We are friends but sometimes 

friends can disagree among themselves. We have to 

accept that we do not have to agree on everything to 

reinforce this foundation," he added. 

Commenting on the perception of RP-DYP coalition 

in Washington, Kapdemir said the Administration was 

now regarding the Turkish government h~aded by 

Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan 10 a more 

positive light than before. "There are mutual interes~ in 

our bilateial relations and we'll continue on that basiS," 

he said. 

The highs 

DuringIùs annual wrap-up of the U.S.-Turkish relations 

with Turkish journalists in Washington, Kandemir 

has drawn attention to the following high points: '. 

. 1) Washington lave its full support to Ankara 10 

Turkey's eventual full-membershIp in the European 

Union. Should Turkey use its veto power ov.er NA~O 

expansion to secure entrance to the EU, a Journalist 

asted. "Using such a lactic may' actually bacffue. One 

has to be very careful and calibrate the dosage well," 

Kandemir warned. 

2) U.S. continues to support Turkey on the 

Baku-Ceyhan oilpipeline to carry Azeri crude to 

European markets. 

3) Turkey an.d the United States continue to 

cooperate fuHY in fighting terrorism. 

"Consultations t~at b~gan thr~e years.ago ar~ 

expected to contmue In 1997, 10 Washmgton, 

Kàndemir said.' . 

4) Turkey proved its worth as a reliable ally by 

shouldering tbe resI>onsibility of train-and-equip 

program devised by the United States for the troops 

of Bosnian-Croat Federation. 

On the economic front, Kandemir said U.S.- 

Turkish Joint Economic Commission meeting held 

in Ankara was a success. Business Develçpment 

Council a,greement and the agreement to aVOiddouble-taxation 

were among tlie important achievements 

of the vear in bi-lateral relatIons. 

"As of November 1, 1996, the mutual trade volume 

hit the $4 billion mark," Kandemir noted. 

"But we are' still running a trade deficit of $1 billion 

in Washington's favor. By expanding our 

bilateral relations we have to move towards a more 

balanced trade exchange," he noted. 

As to that lofty target of an ideal Turkish- 

American. relationship, I.e. an "enhanced partnership" 

which transcends the parameters of a mere 

military-geostrategic alliance and thrives on 

extended economic and cultural li~a~es ~ ~ell, 

Kandemir said "such an understanding IS ga1Dmga 

finn hold on both sides." Yet, the fUll realizatIon 

of such a vision "may take a little bit more time," 

he added. 

And the lows 

TUrning to the less pleasing developments of the 

year, Kandemir, with perhaps a dash of diplomatic 

understatement, allowed tnat "the importance of 

military and economic assistance has declined considerably." 

Economic Support Fund grants (on!y 

422 million for FY'97) was reduced to a symbolIc 

gesture. Foreign Military Fi~ancing, which was ~l 

grant in 1993. IS now a credit (of a mere $175 mIllion 

for FY'91) extended over the c.urrent market 

rates, Kandemir observed. 

Anti- Turkish lobbies 

Concerning the activities of anti-Turkish groups 

in America, the senior Turkish diplomat said he 

was not hopeful that they would cease and desist in 

1997. "I think the Administration would not be 

able to contain 'their questionable activities," he 

said. 

He recalled that the combined efforts of 

Armenian, Greek and Kurdish lobbies in 1996 have 

indeed been suécessful in blocking the orders 

Turkey placed with Pentagon for ten Super Cobra 

helico.p.ters and three frigates. "We expect such 

opposition to con~nu~ in the comjng xear, ~ well 

as our fIrm determmatlon to counter It, he SaId. 

Kurdish lobby 

. Commenting on the Kurdish lobby in 

Washington represented by such.organizations as 

American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN), 

Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI) and others, 

KandelIlll' said he expected the influx of Kurdish 

refugees from northern Iraq to contribute to the 

expansion of Kurdish 106bying activities in 

America. Washington Post reported .that 2,200 

such Kurds have alfeady arrived in.America from 

Guam; with about 350 of them settled. in Maryland, 

Virginia and Washington D.C. areas. 

Turkish ambassadOr commented on the insufficient 

efforts. of th.e Administration to counter the 

5


".::.)~i;" . 

.... mg' -concermng akan'sallegation. 

But Kandemir added that Turkey is bound to 

carry on its own relation~ with countries like Iran 

or Libya even if Washington does not agree with it 

"We should not exaggerate the problems in that 

regard,"he said. . 

Nüzhet Kandemir, Turkish ambassador toWashington 

questionable activities of such groups as well. He. 

for example, mentioned the case of Kani. Xulam, 

the director of AKIN, who was tried on charges of 

federal passport fraud arid yet was sentenced oy an 

Armenian-American judge in California to only 

400 hours of "community service" in (among all 

places) the AKIN office 10 Washington, where he 

was working at in the first place. . 

"That was a ridiculous trial and a ridiculous sentence. 

There is no way to explain it rationally," 

Kandemir said. " 

Arrow left the bow 

Concerning the influx of Kurdish refugees from 

Guam to the United States, Kande"mir said "the 

arrow has left th~ bow already." 

He added that Turkey would be relying on the 

"understanding" of the United States government to 

monitor the possible anti-Turkish actIvities of various 

Kurdish groups in America. He said he shared 

with AdministratIon officials as well as the representatives 

of IntelSat satellite company the grave 

concerns Turkey has against the broadcasts of 

MED-TV, which is controlled by the PKK. MED- 

TV had a contract to use intelSat satellites. 

Reactions to Refah 

When asked the sort of difference the RP-DYP 

coalition, headed by the Islamist. Prime Minister 

Necmettin Erbakan, .made in Clinton 

Admiru. 'stration's perception of the bi-lateral relations, 

Kandemir said "this Administration has more 

and more started to take this coalition ~ovemment 

as its normal counterpart.". . . 

. Concerning Erbakan's eventful visit to Libya, 

where he called the U.S. a "terrorist 'state," 

Kandemir adniittedthat the Administrationofficials 

haveconveyed him their "sorrow"- if not "warn- 

'Obstinate' !MF 

Touching on TU,rkey'scurrent pr,oblemsto secure 

credils from international finance institutions, 

Kandemir called International Monetary Fund's 

refusal to renew a stand-by agreement with Turkey 

as a case of "obstinacy." An IMF delegation visited. 

Turkey in May and cited lack of structural 

reforms and run-away public financing as the top 

reasons why they would not greenlight new credit 

lines to Turkey. 

"Institutions like IMF and the World Bank must 

reverse their policy. They have .to realize that what 

hurts Turkey will hurt the region and even the 

world as well," Kandemir said. "International 

institutions like IMF and wB should not act with 

domestic policy considerations in mind." 

Cyprus . 

Cyprus and Turkish-Greek relations was another 

issue that Turkish Ambassador touched upon during 

his annual review. Admitting that there were 

expectations of "new initiatives" in Cyprus and that 

the Administration has been involved 10 an "imaginative 

process," he nevertheless criticized the way 

Washington so far treated Ankara and Athens on an 

equal footing, almost inan obligatory fashion. 

"It is notnecessary, for example, for American 

envoys to visit Greece each time thel visit Turkey, 

or vice versa," he said by way 0 an example. 

"Turkey is a much larger and much more important 

country in the region. 

Perhaps the reason they gave an impression, during 

the Kardak crisis forexample, that Turkey and 

Greece were two countries egual invalue was 

because of the upcoming pn~slaential elections," 

Kandeinir suggested, refemng to the importance of 

Greek-American press~re groups. 

Albri ht . 

When ~sked his impressions of Madeleine K. 

Albright, Kandemir shared his positive reading of 

theSecretary of State nominee. .. .. . 

"She is a lady who can think'realistically," he 

said, and attributed that quality to.the fact that, the 

Czech-born Albright had her share of "European 

culture." "She can evaluate the develo,pments on 

the other side of the Ocean a little better, he said. 

.."I think Turkish-U.S. relations caDget better during 

Albright's tenure," Kandemir concluded. 

6


..: 

..: 

PKK attacks radio 

station in Southeast 

The past decade: Turkish security forces inflicted 

heavy blows against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' 

Party (PKK) over the last ten years, killing 13,255 

militants, injuring 244 and capturing nearly 2,000 


ANKARA- On the last day of 1996, 

separatists from the outlawed Kurdistan 

Workers' Party (PKK) continued their 

terrorist activities, raiding a Turk- 

Telekom radio-link station in a southeastern 

town of Diyarbalar's Ergani district, 

escaping with the station officials' 

four pistols and two hand radios, the 

Anatolia new agency reported. 

No casualties or mjuries were reported, 

and operations in the region to capture 

the terrorists are underway, the officials 

said. 

An overview or PKK terror 

Turkish security forces have inflicted 

heavy blows against the separatist 

KurdIstan Workers' Party (PKK) over 

Police demonstration 

against delegation in Lice 

Turlr.i3lt Daily News 

ISTANBUL- A delegation consisting 

of the representatives of various parties 

and trade unions which was fonned to 

investigate the recent claims of forceable 

recruitment of the local male population 

as village guards visited Diyarbakir's 

Lice district on Monday. 

The "Urgent Monitoring Delegation" 

was formed upon - the Diyarbakir 

Democracy Platfonn' s call following the 

complaints by Lice inhabitants of persecution 

by security forces which received 

some coverage in the press last week. 

The delegation was initially not 

allowed into the town by the security 

forces, who claimed that they needed 

special permission to enter the district. 

The delegation then called the 

Emergency Rule Regional Govef'\or and 

obtained permission. 

Women of Lice lobbied the delegation 

claiming: "They are beating up our men 

the last decade, killing 13;255 militants, 

injuring 244 and capturing nearly 

2,000. 

From the year 1987, when emergency 

rule was implemented in Turkey's 

southeastern region, to date nearly 1,700 

separatists surrendered and approximately 

3,900 security force members were 

killed. 

According to official government figures, 

the PKK have killed nearly 4,000 

civilians and have injured roughly 5,000 

in raids on villages such as in Dargeçit, 

Yuvah and Efeler. 

The separatistorganization ha,s also 

been accused of killing more than 130 

teachers in Turkey's southeast region. 

Security forces seized 17,000 rifles 

5,700 pistols, 1,037 rocket launchers. 

to make them village guards." 

Gendanne Captain Hadi IIbas, the acting 

governor of Lice, said to the delegation 

that nobody in the town had been 

forced to become village guards. "All 

our village guards are voluntary," the 

military governor claimed. 

However, the village guards gave a 

fundamentally different account to the 

delegation, but their meeting with the 

delegates was disturbed by the Captain 

shouting: "Do not misdirect my men" td 

the delegates. 

Upon this, the plain clothed policemen 

began to manhandle the members of the 

delegation and journalists covering the 

evenl. Police officers shouted slogans 

against the delegation claiming that they 

were "PKK agents." The delegation had 

to leave the town in order to avoid arrest 

and mistreatment without concluding 

their investigation. 

According to the reports. the inhabitants 

of Diyarbaktr's Lice district have 

9,500 mortars. 14,500 hand grenades. 

six anti-aircraft weapons, 2,000 mines, 

13 blaze guns, 20,000 tons of food and 

16,000 items in the medical equipment 

and medicine category. 

What happened in 1996 

Turkish security forces made significant 

strikes against the separatist 

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in 

1996, killing 2,782 rebels, injuring 36 

and capturin,g nearly 320. 

Dunng this year's anti-terrorism operations, 

531 security force soldiers lost 

their lives and the PKK militants killed 

143 civilians, including four teachers. 

Official government figures say that 

security forces also seized 2,000 rifles, 

730 pistols, 130 rocket launchers, 1550 

mortars, 2480 hand grenades and 

250,000 bullets. 

The killing of Il civilians in ~lfDak's 

T~konak, tlie killing of the 27 security 

forces member in clashes in Diyarbam, 

and the massacre of four teachers were 

among the worst terrorist activities by 

PKK rebels in the region. 

This year also wItnessed some other 

imQOrtantSoutheast developments, such 

as the fighting of rival Kurdish groups in 

northern Iraq and, as a result of the 

efforts of Welfare Party Deputy 

Fethullah Erb~, the release of Turkish 

soldiers who were captured by the PKK 

over a year ago. 

More than 21,000 people have been 

killed in the 12-year conflict between 

the security forces and the PK!(. 

v~en under intense pressure from authorities 

since 20 December to be persuaded 

to become village guards. 

The town was raided by the gendarmes 

on that date and all the male population 

were seized and held at the 

Gendarmerie station overnight, during 

which the detainees were' allegedly subjected 

to beatings by the gendannes. The 

authorities denied the claims, stating that 

110 men had joined the village guards 

voluntarily in the Lice district. 

Lice is known to be a stronghold of 

the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy 

Party (HADEP), and has been subjected 

to similar pressure in the past. Large 

parts of the town were burned down by 

security forces in late October 1993, and 

the town was partially evacuated. 

The population has decreased from 

1993's 10,OOO-plusto little over 2,500 

today. 

The district is sensitive from the continuous 

pressures of the authorities, and 

the recent attempt of forceable village 

guard recruitment by the authorities created 

outrage from human rights organizations 

and political parties, serving to 

raise tensions even higher for the 

remaining inhabitants. 

7


Turkish Troops Hunt 

Down Kurds 

Thursday, January 2, 19978:38 pm EST 

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (AP) -- Turkish jets streamed 

over the Iraqi border Thursday to lend their fire power 

to 5,000 troops hunting down Kurdish rebels. 

The four-day push into Iraq has killed 100 Kurds, about 

25 of them Thursday, the military said in a statement. 

The Anatolia news agency, in a separate report quoting 

military officials, reported Turkish jets bombed a 

suspected rebel camp in Hakurk near the borders of 

Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The report did not give casualty 

figures. 

Turkish troops occasionally go after Turkish Kurdish 

separatists in northern Iraq, where rebels maintain 

bases for hit-and-run raids. The rebels have been 

fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey since 

1984. 

The Turkish troops, backed by F-4 jets and helicopter 

gunships, began the latest incursion after guerrillas 

attacked an army outpost near the southeastern 

Turkish town of Silopi. 

A pro-;rebel organization in Germany denied Thursday 

that the guerrillas have suffered heavy losses. 

"The rebels are holding their own," a spokeswoman 

for the DEM news agency said. She declined to give her 

name. 

She said that rebels had killed six Turkish soldiers jn 

battles close to the border. The Turkish military said 

only two soldiers 'had been killed. 

Since 1984, the conflict has claimed more than 21,000 

lives. 

8


Turk~bDairy News 

THURSDAY.JANUARY2.1997 

ByGülDemJr 


1STANBUL- Just about a year ago prior to general 

electio~s Turk~y's political parties were playing 

around With the Issue of entenng a customs union 

with the European Union as if they were luggage 

handlers tossing pieces of baggage around. They 

threw things at the pro-union and anti-union voters 

to gain a point or two more in the election but once 

that was over relations with the EU entered an 

extended timeout as politicians became involved 

with domestic baggage problems, the latest being 

the Susurluk traffic accident. Now those sectors are 

silent one year later even though they had been relying 

on Tansu Çil1er, a person ever eager to flap the 

flag as an election strategy, to bear aloft the EU flag. 

Defenders of the customs union as a step towards 

Turkey's becoming a full member of the ~U seem 

ashamed now following the last EU summit meeting 

- the exact opposite seems to be happening. 

The people responsible for 

drawing Turkey's political chart this 

past year destroyed the esteem in 

which the country was held among 

EU countrie.~.The slightest of descriptions 

used against them in the 

European media has been "liar." But 

they've rather lost their shame at such 

sobriquets and don't hesitate to make 

open threaL~and suggest blackmail. 

It must be said that over the past 

year since the EU Parliament voted 

343 to 149 in favor of Turkey's entry 

into the customs union there have 

been a number of very interesting 

developments. Turkey has had three 

different governments (as If one 

might change sets of luggage on a 

whim). The country has become stage 

center for important domestic and foreign 

events - watched with care by a 

number of countries and especially 

neighbors and allies. The result one 

year later is a broken dream; Turkey 

has not had any financial assistance 

for the customs union put in the baggage 

which Tansu Çiller, "the beautlfuf 

blonde western oriented woman" 

as she is described, carries about with 

her nor gotten eloser to EU membersh,ip. 

A~yway' it would have bt;en a 

miracle If the result had been different; 

there's no room for miracles in an 

European rationality-based reality. 

The ~riod be~an with great hopes. 

When (,:iller, pnme mimster at the 

time, took her baggage in hand and. 

went to the Customs Union, the people 

on duty there asked ever so politely, "Are you 

carryin~ anything whose entry lOto the Customs 

Union IS prohibited?" She replied, "Are you kidding, 

my dear? My bag contains the changes to the 

laws which would provide security for human rights 

such as democratization, precautions against torture 

and freedom of thought and expression and the 

peacefulmcani~hojVUlg.fbe ~sb probl.:8Ill. 

for God's sake don't think there's'anvthinlt intherê 

related to Leyla Zana because 'She' has to stay in 

prison. I can't abide being left in the shade by 

another beautiful woman. 

''Look I have ~ood news for you. I've put in on 

top the clothes III wear for the celebration you' 11 

hold when you accept the Cypriot Greek community 

into full membership with the EU.I know that there 

are many lhings in my baggage which will please 

you but you won'l find a headscarf, turban or prayer 

rug. I don't even know how to ~rfonn the prayer 

ritual. I don't suppose you do either, do you? See 

how much we share." 

çil\er glanced around and then leaned over to 

whisper, keeping her mouth carefully shielded 

against lip readers, "Look here, if you don't let me 

through customs with my baggage, I won't be able 

lo ",:intl,teelection in Turkey t~n days from now. IfI 

don t WIO,maybe the flood wIll. If the flood wins 

what' s going to haweD ... And after the flood, what 

hapI'CnS?Never nund my dear, it's nol so important. 

As far as I can understand, the Islamist Welfare 

Party (RP) willlikely come to power. And however 

much it takes to bnng the RP to power, that's all 

you'U gel Because the RP will turn its face east, to 

other Islamist regimes whatever happens and turn its 

back on y.ou. No more selling your wares to us." 

.But ÇIUer couldn't convince the customs officials 

ofw~~t she was saying so they told her to go off to 

one Side where they would look in her luggage after 

the other passengers had gone by. The officials 

kne~ th~t she had. freque~tly found herself being 

quened ln the poltee stations of Europe because 

there was a 18o:degree difference between what she 

said and what she did. But even as Çiller was waiting 

at the side of the Customs Union with baggage 

in hand to set out for the EU, the smell of dirty lauodry 

in her bag spread through the whole of Europe. 

Ciller got bOred waiting ind started to play at 

making a film. She always carried a Turkish flag 

with her and she started waving it in the Customs 

salon as if t..o a mill.'WY band. march as 'She.too.k it to 

the to.. p of the Kardak.. .. at..(Imea) rocks. She was stoppe. .Qd. 

.~bitcUoi.f~y,pare of oow..eaYber.aat_bad 

b~comewhen people ar9~~d her'started saying, 

"Lady, please cälm down a bll" In the film she was 

making she was trying to play an intelligent, wellbehaved 

person with the help. of extraordinary 

efforts from the director, acceptmg a supporting cast 

role and even saying yes to Mesut Ydmaz's being 

writtén ioto the scnpt as the lead actor. But during 

filming, a quarrel erupted between her and YIImaz 

whose films have been well received in Euro(>C and 

espeèiaUy in Germany and who was playing m this 

one. The distastefulness began with questions about 

the film, "Where does the mill's watercon\e from?" 

which Yllmazhimself had filmedearlier. Since 

Yllmaz kerl repeatedly asking, "What did you grind 

in the mil with the TL 500 billion paid out from 

one of the government's covert funds?" and pushed 

her so much that she abandoned the fdm set with it 

only half finished. . 

She got a role in another film right awayand 

stepped before the cameras with NecmeUin 

Erbakan, a person whom she had sworn to never do 

a film with. And there riJtht before theastonished 

Customs officials she pulled headscarves from her 

luggage and a prayer rug which she sprea.d out as 

the call to prayer sounded and again did her daily 

rehearsal for the role of Belkts, QUeen of Sheba. She 

had been a great success io this film but she really 

lost face with the people watching her, including tt)e 

Customs officials. The latter now really beèame 

9


curious about what else might bein her lugsage 

after this miraculous 'transformation~ Even!f it 

wasn't all of the dirty laundry hiddenwheri'itwas 

hard to fmd like in the comer of herbag:wheie the 

Susurl~k affair was, at least à pomoiio{.it was got- 

Iten ouL The whole world bas come to know. atiout 

the crash of the Mercedes at Susurluk and who and 

. . what were in it as tbè result ofits 

collision with a tnick. Perbapsthere 

are yet more .bands()f organized 

crimmaIs to ~ folJnd ouftbat way. 

All. inone blow -all sorts 'pf,~ligs 

whlc~ one would expecUna,D 

Amencan mm came rolbng out as if 

Pandora's si.eainer trunk had beeti'in 

the car too." '.... . 

The scenario inchidedmurders by 

unidentified people, thedrug trade, 

gambling .. ~o~ey launderi~g, ~; 

tag~ eqUlpp~g ~surßents m, nelgb~ 

bonng countnes,lncltementto war., 

assassinations, newspapetbomb': 

ings, kidnappings,'~warningshots; 

di.sapp~arancesand so, on~ And 

Çi11erby her own wordsplaced berself 

in the leading role in this film. 

But Çiller's dreams of getting 

Turkey into the EU which she was 

carrying around in ber luggage were. 

ruined on the stage orSusurluk 

;lhanks to the German-made' 

Mercedes. . ,... 

And so the situation as it is now at 

Jeast was made clear to Çi1ler in 

publin by words, attitude and 


THURSDAY.JANUARY2.19


Un précédent bilan mercredi avait fait état de 72 militants du PKK tués. 

Quelque milliers de soldats turcs ont pénétré dans le nord de l'Irak dans la nuit de lundi à mardi avançant d'une 

vingtaine de km à l'intérieur de ce territoire à la recherche de séparatistes du Parti des travailleurs du Kurdistan 

(PKK) qui ont attaqué des cibles turques à partir de leurs bases en Irak. 

Appuyées par un soutien aérien, les troupes turques ont détruit trois camps du PKK dans la région de Sinath, 

selon la même source. L'aviation turque a bombardé, jeudi, dans la même région, la base de Khakurk des 

rebelles du PKK, selon l'agence Anatolie. 

L'opération de l'armée turque avait été lancée dans la nuit de lundi à mardi en réaction à des "tirs de 

harcèlement", à l'artillerie lourde et au mortier du PKK, à partir du territoire irakien sur des unités militaires 

turques situées près de Silopi, une localité turque située à une dizaine de km de la frontière avec l'Irak. 

Le PKK mène une rébellion armée contre Ankara depuis août 1984 pour créer un Etat kurde indépendant dans 

le sud-est anatolien à la frontière avec la Syrie, l'Irak et l'Iran. Le PKK utilise l'Irak du nord comme base arrière. 

La rébellion du PKK et les opérations de représailles de l'armée turque ont fait plus de 23.000morts, civils, 

rebelles kurdes et membres des forces de sécurité. 

ue/fmi eaf 

A.F.P.-Agence France Presse-A.F.P.-Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

Turquie-Irak-Kurdes : Cent séparatistes kurdes tués par 

l'armée turque, selon un nouveau bilan 

ANKARA, 2 jan (AFP) - L'aviation turque a bombardé jeudi la base de 

Khakurk des rebelles du Parti des Travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK, 

séparatistes kurdes de Turquie) dans le nord de l'Irak, en marge de 

l'opération aéro-terrestre qui se poursuit depuis lundi dans la même 

région, a rapporté l'agence Anatolie. 

Des chasseurs-bombardiers F-4 qui ont décollé de la base aérienne de 

Diyarbakir ont infligé de lourdes pertes aux rebelles kurdes positionnés 

dans cette importante base du PKK dans l'extrème nord-est de l'Irak, 

frontalière avec la Turquie et l'Iran, selon l'agence qui cite des sources 

officielles. 

Selon un bilan communiqué mercredi, soixante-douze membres du 

PKK ont été tués depuis le début de l'opération militaire lancée lundi 

soir par l'armée turque contre un groupe de 100 à 120 maquisards 

repéré dans la région de Sinath, à l'extrême nord-ouest de l'Irak, près 

de la frontière avec la Syrie et la Turquie. 

Deux soldats turcs avaient été tués et 6 autres blessés, dont trois 

grièvement, lors de ces opérations. 

Les troupes turques qui ont parfois pénétré jusqu'à dix km de 

profondeur en territoire irakien, fouillaient jeudi les zones nettoyées 

11


des rebelles du PKK, toujours selon l'agence. 

Cette opération avait été lancée en réaction à des "tirs de harcèlement", 

à l'artillerie lourde et au mortier du PKK, à partir du territoire irakien 

sur des unités militaires turques situées près de Silopi, une localité 

turque située à une dizaine de km de la frontière avec l'Irak. 

Le PKK mène une rébellion armée contre Ankara depuis août 1984 

pour créer un Etat kurde indépendant dans le sud-est anatolien à la 

frontière avec la Syrie; l'Irak et l'Iran. Le PKK utilise l'Irak du nord 

comme base arrière. 

La rébellion du PKK et les opérations de représailles de l'armée turque 

ont fait plus de 23.000 morts, civils, rebelles kurdes et membres des 

forces de sécurité. 

KG/fmi eaf 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.-Agence France Presse 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence Frdnce Presse-A.F.P.- Agence Fr


Turquie-Kurdes: 

Le chef du PKK renouvelle son appel au dialogue avec Ankara 

DIYARBAKIR (Turquie), 2 jan (AFP) - Le chef du Parti des Travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK, séparatiste), 

Abdullah Ocalan, a renouvelé son appel au dialogue avec Ankara pour résoudre la question kurde, dans une 

interview télévisée, mercredi soir, par une chaîne de télévision par satellite, MED-TV, proche du PKK. 

"II faut surmonter la question (ndir: kurde), non en s'entretuant mais par la voie de dialogue" a déclaré Ocalan, 

alias "Apo. qui a affirmé, dans cet interwiew téléphonique, que son but n'était pas de modifier les frontières de la 

Turquie. 

Ocalan a affirmé que le gouvernement d'Ankara voulait l'assassiner et dépensait, pour se faire, des sommes 

importantes. 

Abdullah Ocalan a réitéré, ces jours derniers, ses appels au dialogue avec Ankara. Dans une interview publiée 

par un quotidien turc le 23 décembre, le chef du PKK avait déclaré qu'il allait lancer, en 1997, des "appels 

difficiles à rejeter pour une paix qui préservera les frontières de la Turquie. (...). L'heure de la paix est désormais 

venue comme celle d'une discussion sur une fédération ou un Etat décentralisé", avait-il déclaré. 

Le PKK mène, depuis 1984, une rébellion armée contre Ankara dans l'est et le sud-est anatoliens à majorité 

kurde, afin d'y créer un Etat indépendant. Cette rébellion a fait plus de 23.000 morts, rebelles, militaires et civils. 

L'armée turque poursuit, depuis lundi, des opérations aéroterrestres contre les bases du PKK dans le nord de 

l'Irak. Soixante-douze rebelles au total ont été tués lors de ces opérations, selon Ankara. Jeudi, une base 

importante du PKK dans la région de Khakurk, dans le nord de l'Irak, a été bombardée par l'aviation turque. 

STR-KG/jj tf 

--------------------------------------, 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

By John Lancaster 

WashÎlrglt1ll Post Sel~'in' 

CAIRO -L Breaking its customary' 

silencè on matters of internal security, 

Syria acknowledged Thursday that 9 

people were killed and 44 wounded in a 

bomb attack on a crowded bus in Damascus 

on Tuesday. The government 

blamed Israel for the attack. 

In a statement to Syria' s official news. 

'i 

agency. a government spokesman said, 

the bomb exploded a few minutes after 

the bus left a Damascus terminal around 

noon, carrying passengers bound for 

New Year's Eve celebrations in othet, 

cities. 

-.Thé e~plosion follows several attacks, 

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1997 

tsyria Confi~ms Bomb 

Ripped Damascus Bus 

Israel Is Blamed for Blast Fatal to 9 

on Syrians last month in Le~anon, 

which is occupied by 35,000 Syrian 

troops. and comes at a time of growing 

tensIOn befwèen Syria and Israel over 

the breakdown in Middle East peace 

negotiations. . 

Syria's charge of Israeli involvement 

in the attack marks a further deterioration 

in the relationship between the 

two enemieS;. . 

"This terrorist, cowardly and criminal 

action comes within the framework 

of threats that }Verelaunched recentlyby 

Israeli officials that aim at killing the 

peace process," the spokesman was 

quoted as hav'ing said. 

Agents of the Israeli intelligence 

agency Mossad "planted an explosive 

devic.e inside the bus that exploded 

'mti::-i 

m;nute, of.... it left the bu, 

noon,' 'the official said. 

David Bar-Ilan. the top aide to Prime 

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, 

called the Syrian alle~ations "sheer 

nonsense," The ASSOCIatedPress reported 

from Israel. 

Syria's government,led by President 

Hafez Assad, normally does not comment 

on reports of internal unrest. It 

appears to have broken its silence only 

after reports of the explosion began to 

filter out through international news 

agencies. 

Earlier in the day. a businessman 

based in Beirut who had just arrived in 

Nicosia, Cyprus, from Damascus told. 

the Reuters news agency that the blast: 

occurred as the bus left for the northern 

city 0{ Aleppo: 

. Diplomats based in Damascus confirmed 

that an explosion had taken 

place. One told Reuters that the police 

had dosed off the area around the blast 

and that surrounding streets had been 

choked with traffic trying to flee the 

.area. The bus station was reported to be 

situated in a bl4sy district near the main. 

highway thaHioks Damac;cus to Beirut 

13


and,äther majof eitles., .. . 

There have been several recent attacks 

on Syrians in neighboring Lebanon. : 

. lastmortth, gunmen opened fire o~ a 

,:~Yri8n-registel'ed minibus nearTabarJa; 

:about25 kilometers( 15 miles) northof 

Beirut, killing the driver, a S¥rian, and 

'injuring a passenger, accord mg to reports 

in the Arabic Ipress. In a second 

mcident that day, 'a device det~nated 

'néar.aSyrian intelligence post m the 

northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. Two 

officers were reportedly wounded. . . 

A Syrian ~nilitary spokesman Said. 

,however. that the blast was an accident 

:that occurred when a detonator was inâdvertently 

burned with a pile of trash. 

I. .syria dominates Lebanon' s govern- 

:ment, which responded to the minibus 

attack by rounding up scores of Christian 

Lebanese opposed to the Syrian 

presence in their country. Lebanon's 

prosecutor-general. Adnan Addoum. 

said at the time, "Israel's handis not far 

from what is taking place." Lebanon 

'has been governed by Muslims and 

Christians in a fragile arrangement that 

ended the civil W3rin 1990. 

-' .. 

. . . . 

;Syria's vice president, Abdel Halim 

Khaddam, also has hinted at an Israeli 

role in the anti-Syrian violence in Lebanon. 

"How can we support an opposition 

against the country's security 

and stability, an opposition that extends 

its hand to Israel?" he asked the Beirut 

daily newspaper As Safir in an interview 

published Tuesday. 

The claim Thursday, however. appears 

to mark the first time in recent 

memory that Syria had accused Israel of . 

involvement in attacks inside Syria. 

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, FRIDAY, JANUAR), :1, 1997 

r-Scientists Dispute Nerve Gasa;i 

.Cause oj Gulf WarSyndrome 

By David Brown 

Washington Post Service 

WASHINGTON - The theory that many 

Gulf Warveterans are ill because they were 

unwittingly exposed to nerve gas more than five 

years ago contradicts most of what is known 

about the health effects of chemical weapons. 

Such a scenario is unlikely because nerve 

gases almost always cause immediate symptoms 

.and almost never cause permanent damage to 

those who survive. There is even less evidence 

that they cause illnesses that first appear months 

after contact. 

Those are the conclusions suggested by three 

decades of research on nerve gases, and affirmed 

by many scientists familiar with the chemical 

compounds and their effects. 

"Based on what we know about low-level 

exposure to this type of chemicàl, one would be 

very hard pressed to make that connection beo 

tween veteràns' illnesses and gas exposure,'" 

.said John Thomas, president of the American 

College of Toxicology and a professor at the 

Health Science Center of the University of Texas 

,at San Antonio. ' 

The current knowledge about chemical 

~eapons does not jibe with widespread assertions 

by some veterans groups, politicians and 

commentators that thousands of veterans are 

chr~mically ill from exposure to poison gases 

dunng the Gulf War. . 

Almost since the war ended in 1991, reports of 

:a mysterious illness - characterized by mood 

ch~ges,.concentration problems, muscle pains, 

skID rashes, diarrhea and other complaints, and 

known popularly as "Gulf War Syndrome" _ 

;have circulated among veterans. Some former 

soldiers, dissatisfied with their diagnoses and 

:!"edical care, looked for a cause of the symptoms 

'ID the environmental hazards encountered in the 

. , 

war against' Iïici: ' . . 

On that long list of hazards were smoke !rom 

oil fires, exotic infections, drugs and vaCCIDes, 

. depleted uranium used in projectiles and che~ical 

weapons. Although the Pentagon studied 

'each, for years military offi~ials said that.chemical 

weapons could not directly ~xplaID llIl:Y 

illness a veteran might be suffenng. That IS 

because Iraq had not used chemical weapons . 

Except for one soldier who was accidentally 

exposed, no American troops wen: expo~d to 

:the toxic compounds, military offiCials SaId. 

Last Junehowever, the Defense Department 

,amended its'story. Investigators announced that 

:thousands of soldiers may have been exposed to 

small amounts of poison gas ~~en they blew up 

a munitions dump in Khamlslyah, Iraq, soon 

after the fighting stopped. . 

The Khamisiyah revelatton fueled many vet- 

CompoUnds designed as 

chemical weaponS kill péople 

at extremely low doses•. 

erans' suspicions that the ~ilitary was hiding 

information crucial to theIr health. That sus-, 

picion was bolstered by .the ~efense Depart~ 

ment's acknowledgment, IDvanous. foru1!'s recently, 

that it had never thoroughly IDte~lewed' 

'soldiers who had reported other possible exiposures 

to poison gas .. 

, Nerve gas symptoms ~an resembl~ some of 

,the initiai, rela.tivel>: mIDor complalDts sorne 

'veterans .have descn~d .. A smail amount of 

14


research hints that the compounds could cau\': 

longer-lasting physiological changes. It is possible 

that other, unexpected effects may be uncovered 

with further research. 

The nerve agents used as chemical weapons 

- sarin, saman, tabun and VX - are member~ 

of a large family of chemicals called "organophosphate 

cholinesterase inhibitors." 

When a person is poisoned with organophos. 

phates, the pupils constrict; muscles twitch. the 

person salivates, sweats and sometimes 

wheezes. Often there is nausea, vomiting and 

involuntary defecation. At higher doses, or with 

longer exposure, people have convulsions, lapse 

into unconsciousness, develop profoundly low 

blood pressure and stop breathing. 

Organophosphates are the most commonly 

used pesticides in the world, with hundreds of 

tons used every year by everyone from household 

exterminators to crop dusters. Unlike pesticides, 

however, the compounds designed as 

chemical weapons kill people and animals at 

extremely low doses. 

If soldiers encountered nerve agents during 

the Gulf War, it is probable that a few people 

would have received doses high enough to kill, 

nr at least make them seriously ill. But that does 

not seem to have happened. 

It is unlikely that six years after the fact 

medical investigators will ever figure out what 

caused the symptoms some soldiers reported. 

There is, however, one report ofa group of 

people exposed to nerve gas who developed 

symptoms quite similar to those of Gulf War 

Syndrome. These were 129 Germans who 

worked in munitions factories and made many 

kinds of chemical weapons, including sarin and 

tabun, after the start of World War II. 

In 1963, a scientist muned U. Spiegelberg 

reported on bis examination of them. The great 

majority, he wrote, "showed persistently lowered 

vitality," "headache, ~astrointestinal and cardiovascular 

symptoms' and other problems, including 

an "impression of premature aging." 

Because the workers had all held their jobs at 

least two years, their poison exposure almost 

certainly was far greater than any that might have 

occurred in the Gulf. 

Despite those differences, this is the best 

evidence that the constellation of symptoms 

some veterans report could conceivably arise 

from nerve gas. 

Turkish Daily News FRIDA Y. JANUARY 3. 1997 

Customs union - what customsunion? 

Business as usual for Turkey's human rights violators 

By Z8ter F. Yörük 

TIUicisia liäiIy ~iW$ 

ISTANBUL- ~s inclusion intotheEuropeaJ! 

customs union (CU) was ~ded with bo~and 

.ses from the . . . lIo . . vè its hùman 

~ record. In ~ ~MiniSter.Tansu 

Çiller' s announcement of a list of legal relaxations. 

concerning in ~lar the freedom of expression 

which led to the drop of charges of "terrorism through 

writing" against author Yasar Kemal by the IstanbUl 

State Security Court in the eve of the Eur~ 

Union's (EU) decision on CU. played a significant 

role in~'s admission. 

Outstandirig items of human ri~ts violations were 

not limited to the violation of the freedom of expression 

but included disappearances in custody, malfreatment, 

torture and deaths in detention and !Jnprisonment, 

summary executions, violation of nght to 

demonstration and the di~onate concentration 

of all these violations, witli some additions such as the 

longer terms of p


malic increàSe giventhaitlie total number of ~ "dis- Tansu Çiller to announce iriuneàiately a new parliame~ 

bill of democratization of the TurkishPenal 

;3ppeared" in custody between 1980 and 1996,15420. 

Âtimesty Inremation!Ù ~ntly launcped ~ mu:rnational 

campaign to highlight human. . rights Vlo~anon~, posal included the shortening of the terms of police 

Code and the Code of Penal Procedures. The new pro- 

articu1arly die "disappearances" m turkey, m.soli~ custody, a further relaxation of the infamous Article 8 

San 'widi the .'SatuidavMothers", the silent ~ of the Anti-Terrorism Law and the abolition of the 

torstyconsisting of {::lies of the disa~areâ w~o death penalty, There were a number of cases heard in 

have gathered every. Saturday for 84 weeks now, In the European Court of Human Rights, amOng them 

Istanbul' s GalatasarliY~' ... 

that of tl!e southe~ern villager:s ~fY~ilyurt which 

resulted m 1996 With the convtctIon of the Turkish 

.. Southeast: th~bièeding wound. ... government and its paying com~nsation to the vil. 

The CU agreement came at a time when the ~pa. fagers, The complairit of the Y~ilytirt villagers was 

ratisl Kurdish WorkerS' Party (PKK) was holding a that an army commander had forCeâ them in 1987 to 

unilateral ceasefire inthe South East The ceasefire, eat excrement 

which was never recognized by the government, did 

not last long and in 1996. the conflict in the So~th Ho~ èroded; frostration . 

East ç:l~med 2,750 lives fr~m both .sides, includl!lg . and disap~intment prev:ail . 

separatIst rebels and TurkiSh secunty forces w~le The general attitude of the lurkish public towards 

leaving 118 civilians dead as a resu!t of the atf?Clues the international conventions that Tutfey signed still 

cOlIlIIlltted by one side or the other m the conflict. seems to be that "Our government should not be told 

One remarkable difference between the year 1996 wb~t to.do by ~oreigners," ~ n~ ~fficial or unofficial 

and the previous one was the decrease in the numl?er boc:lies~w:ntlal oyer public «?pßUonseem to be con. 

of villages burned down and evacuated by the secunty cerned Withinformmg the public on the ~ and 

forces m the South East from 243 to 67."Because United Nations conventions on human rights, and the 

there are no villages left to be,burned down:' an nID Turkish .government's .obligations. Instead, most .~f 

official corrnnented on the subject. 

the officlill argument still portrays the European cntt- 

The US.based human rights o,rganization H\Jman ~ism of :rur!cey's human.rights .reco~ as "foreign 

Rights ~atcb ~W) ,producedre{l9rts on ~e use 0 f mterven~on mto Turkey's domestlc affm." 

anris aaamst clVllians m the South East..which would Certamly, the CU would not change the human 

ironic~y lead to the ~al of the Qublisber ~d the rights ~ondition in. Turkey overnight: But to...expect 

tran~lator o~ the reports m,Turkey, ~e ~palgn by some lmprovementtowards comp~ance wlth the 

the mternatlOnalh~an nghts org:l?lZauons, HRW European standardsw0!Ùdm)t be ~lW' ••One yearon, 

and Amnesty InternationaI (AI)~agams~ the ~treat- however,hopes, pt'QIDISeS and. e~tIons ~In to; 

ment of civilians by the authontIes" partlcularly m the bave. already éroded; and for many, frustratIonan


-Le Monde - venredi, 3 janvier 1997-Le Monde - venredi, 3 janvier 1997 

Comment peut-on être iranien? 

Appréhendant en profondeur nran, Jean-Pierre Digard, Bernard Hourcade 

et Yann Richard dépassent la simple perception islamique 

L'IRAN AU XX' SI~CLE 

combine despotisme, accroissement 

des disparités sociales et détion 

opprimés-oppresseurs de la 

(mostakbirin) venue de la contradic- 

de Jean-Pierre Oigard, 

Bernard Hourcade 

pendance américaine, et enfin la vulgate marxiste - et en faisant de 

et Yann Richard. 

République islamique (depuis 1979) ce discours le langage par lequel 

Fayard, 460 p., 160 F. 

dont l'utopie tiers-mondiste de départ 

est canalisée par un pouvoir de la société, Khomeyni a su mobili- 

s'exprimaient les valeurs centrales 

L'Iran d'aujourd'hui, dans la clérical aujourd'hui confronté à des ser à la fois les masses populaires, 

perception commune, se limite 

à la République isla- 

première «société civile post-islageoisie 

pieuse du bazar, écartée du 

formes de résistance inédites de la les jeunes intellectuels et la bourmique, 

quand ce n'est pas miste ». 

politique et de la rente pétrolière 

par le chah et sa cour. Puis la consolidation 

du régime est passée par 

aux quelques mots épouvantails 

dont elle a enrichi le vocabulaire «TROIS CULTURES» 

français: ayatollah, mollah, tchador, La seconde partie identifie les diverses 

«forces profondes .. qui lique) contre les Etats-Unis, autour 

« trois guerres ». La guerre (symbo- 

fatwa. Pourtant, l'Iran, d'évidence, 

ne se réduit pas aux slogans islamistes, 

et il est même illusoire d'es- 

dont l'articulation chaotique a pro- 

à Téhéran, a permis au pouvoir 

structurent l'Iran contemporain, et de l'occupation de leur ambassade 

pérer comprendre le phénomène duit notamment l'explosion de d'éliminer les libéraux; la guerre civile 

s'est soldée par la défaite des 

khomeiniste sans rien savoir sur le 1978-1979.Désarticulation rapide de 

pays qui lui a donné naissance - l'organisation sociale sous l'effet de moudjahidines ; et la guerre contre 

comme il était vain de prétendre la rente pétrolière, traditions politiques 

antagoniques de l'Etat et du champs de mines les jeunes déshé- 

l'Irak a fait mourir en masse sur les 

analyser l'URSS et son devenir en se 

limitant à gloser sur l'idéologie bazar, juxtapOsition de l'Iran des villages, 

des tribus nomades et des niens -, permettant l'avènement 

rités urbains - ces sans-culottes ira- 

communiste et en ignorant la Russie. 

C'est à connaître cet Iran métropoles brusquement gonflées d'un «thermidor .. islamiste qui 

contemporain dans son épaisseur par l'exode rural, façonnent une s0- voit les dirigeants insister d'autant 

historique, sociale, cu1turelle, géographique 

ou politique qu'invitent l'islam et l'Occident - qui se sont re- 

qu'ils n'ont pu tenir leurs promesses 

ciété à «trois cu1tures .. - l'iranité, plus sur la morale et ridéologie 

l'ethnologue Jean-Pierre Digard, le foulées, conjuguées ou déchirées au sociales - tandis que la masse de la 

géographe Bernard Hourcade ainsi long du siècle selon des modalités population s'appauvrit contintlment 

que l'historien Yann Richard - auquel 

on doit l'ouvrage de référence toire politique apparente de l'une Aujourd'hui, alors que vont arri- 

changeantes, mais sans que la vic- 

en français sur L'[slam chiite parvienne jamais totalement à éliminer 

les autres. 

n'ont jamais connu l'époque du 

ver à l'âge adulte les jeunes qui 

(Fayard, 1991). Tous trois ont vécu 

de longues années en Iran, en pratiquent 

la langue, et ont conjugué tée de l'Iran d'aujourd'hui, loin des «reconstruction identitaire et poli- 

Cette présentation très documen- 

chah, les auteurs observent qu'une 

leur érudition pour cet excellent simplismes partisans, rappelle notamment 

au lecteur que la révolu- 

société, où «les valeurs islamiques 

tique» est déjà perceptIble dans la 

livre, clair et de lecture agréable, introduction 

à un pays complexe qui tion de 1978-1979 n'a pas été de imposéespar l'Etat ont perdu l'adhésion 

populaire spontanée dont elles 

vit de manière paroxystique les bout en bout l'œuvre du parti clérical 

- le Hezbollah - mais qu'elle a bén


Syrie: quatre pistes pour 

L'explo&on d'un bw mardi àDamœ aurait 

L'explosionfut tel1eque, 

même dans un paysoù 

tout est secret d'Etat, 

elle n'a pu passer inaperçue. 

Survenue mardi à 

13h30dans un autobus qui venait 

de quitter Al-Intilak, la 

principale gare routière de Damas 

pour se rendre à Alep, elle 

aurait faitau moins 15morts et 

plusieurs dizaines de blessés. 

Au vu des 15dépouilles transportées 

dans le seul hôpital Al- 

Jamaa, lebilan pourrait cependant 

être plus lourd. Plusieurs 

immeubles du quartier populaire 

de Baramkeh ont été touchés 

par la déflagration. D'importantes 

mesures policières 

ont été prises, à commencer 

par des barrages. Dans un premier 

temps, Damas a tenté de 

passer cet attentat sous silence, 

alors que la nouvelle circulait 

dès mardi soir dans toutes les 

chancelleries occidentales. 

C'est seulement hier soir,après 

que l'explosion a été annoncée 

,à Amman et à Nicosie, que la 

Syrie s'est décidée à l'évoquer 

'pour l'attribuer sans surprise 

au Mossad israélien et fournir 

'un bilan moins lourd: 9 morts 

,et44blessés. 

Ce n'est pas la première foisces 

:deniierstemps quelaSyrieestvi- 

,sée. Le 18décembre,unmirnbus 

:syrienavaitétémitraillésur une 

Joute libanaiseet son chauffeur 

tué. Au printemps, Washington 

',avaitfaitétatd'explosionsdansla 

région de Lattaquié, amenant ~ 

l'ambassadedesEtats-UnisàDa- i 

.masà appelersesressortissantsà ~ 

Ja


.un attentat 

~aitquinze mortö. 

a vigourewement rejeté ce4 acewatioll4 . 

IlU avec certitude». Quatre retiennent 

plus particulièrement l'attention. 

1. La piste turque. Depuis des années, 

Damas ne ménage ni son aide ni son 

soutien aux Kurdes du PKK en guerre 

contre Ankara. Hafezel-Assad, redoutant 

les visées hégémoniques de la Turquie 

dans la région, inquiet de surcroit 

des récents accords militaires avec Israël. 

voit dans les partisans kurdes une bonne 

manière de contnbuer à une déstabilisation 

d'Ankara. D'où une possible riposte 

des serviees de sécurité turcs. Ces 

derniers avaient d'ailleurs été soupçonnés 

des attentats de Lattaquié, après lesquels 

des dizaines de Syriens d'origine 

w4Ql:lène avaient été arrêtés. C'est cette 

piste que semblent à nouveau privilégier 

les diplomates occidentaux. A leurs 

yeux, en effet, «lesSyriens continuent al- 

/ègrement à soutenir lepKJ( et on ne peut 

exrlure que celafinisse par provoquer une 

réaction des militaires turcs, surtout après 

que lePremier ministre islamiste d'Ankaraeuttentédecalmerlejeu». 

Certainsintellectuels 

syriens ne cachent d'ailleurs 

pas que la principale préoccupation, à 

terme, de leur pays n'est pas tant Israël 

que la Turquie. «laepts 

2. La piste libanaise. duMossad 

Elle semble toutedési- ontproBté 

gnée du fait que l'at- da 

tentat de mardi s'est prépar8tJfsdu 

produit peu après le nouvelan 

mitraillage du mini- pourmettrd 

bus syrien qui avait aécudon de mardi. 

provoqué des arresta- leurs 4. La piste 1sraéIIer ..... Toujours postions 

dans les milieux m;;::::::» sible, surtout avec le blocage du procesde 

l'opposition liba- sus de paix et l'escalade verbale entre la 

naise. Mais aussi parce qu'il survient Syrie et Israël, elle est examinée avec 

dans un climat de crise économique ai- prudence par leschanœlleries occidenguë 

et de ressentiment croissant contre tales. Pour Damas, c'est la seule hypole 

parrain syrien. Elle est pourtant jugée thèse retenue. «Les agents du Massad ont 

peu vraisemblable. «D'abord, paree que profité despréparatifs du nouvel an pour 

l'opposition n'a plus les moyens logistiques 

nécessairespour entreprendre une 

mettreàe:xécutionleursmenaœs. Cetac- 

te criminel s'inscrit dans le cadre des meaction 

d'une telle envergure au cœur de la naces lancéespar certains responsable iscapitale 

syrienne. Ensuite, paree qu'il y a 'raéliens», déclarait hier un responsable 

au Liban (ndIr: où Damas exerce un syrien,faisantallusionàlarécentemise 

pouvoir sans partage et maintient en garde adressée par Uri Lubrani,lecoquelque 

35000 hommes) beauco!/f ordinateur des activités israéliennes au 

plus d'intérêts syriens à découvert», reIt. Liban. Israël démentait hier soir toute 

ve à Paris Saadi Gemayel, un respon- implication dans l'attentat. 

sable du Rassemblement pour le Lihar. Quels qu'en soient les instigateurs, l'at- 

(le parti du général Aoun) qui privilé- tentat est suivi de près par les pays occigierait 

plutôt l'hypothèse d'un conflit dentaux. Partenaire incontournable 

au sein du pouvoir syrien. d'un processus de paix très incertain, la 

3. L'opposition Islamiste. Si les isla - Syrie et sa stabilité demeurent pour eux 

mistes sont toujours perçus comme la une préoccupation majeure. Notaroprincipale 

menace du régime de Damas, ment en raison des interrogations sur 

la férocité de la répression a réussi à dé- l'avenir du régime. La succession du 

manteler l'essentiel de leurs rangs. Par chef de l'Etat syrien, préparée de longue 

ailleurs, le régime a su neutraliser da~parlePrésidentlui-même,aétérenombre 

d'entre eux en les convaincant mIse en cause par la mort accidentelle 

d'exercer des responsabilités reli~euses de son fils Basel. Elle a eu aussi pour 

dans le cadre de l'Etat syrien. D où un c~nséquence d'aiguiser les appétits au 

certain scepticisme concernant leursemduséraile Jost GARÇON 

éventuelle responsabilité dans l'attentat ET J lA N. P I ER R E PER R I N 

19

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basln Özeti 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence Frélllce Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

•Danemark-Turquie-Kurdes 

l'Homme 

: Copenhague poursuit Ankara devant la Cour européenne des droits de 

COPENHAGUE, 4 jan (AFP) - Le Danemark a décidé de poursuivre la Turquie devant la Cour européenne des 

.droits de l'Homme pour avoir torturé un citoyen danois originaire du Kurdistan turc, a-t-on indiqué samedi de 

source officielle. 

I 

Le ministre des Affaires étrangères Niels Helveg Petersen a précisé àla presse que cette démarche serait 

effectuée mardi à Strasbourg (France), siège de la Cour. " a espéré un traitement "rapide" de ce dossier. 

Selon Copenhague, le ressortissant danois, Kemal Koc, a été détenu et torturé par les autorités turques 

pendant un mois et demi à Ankara, au cours de l'été 1996. 

" s'agit d'une "violation" de l'article 3 de la Convention européenne des droits de l'Homme, interdisant l'usage 

de la torture, a estimé M. Helveg Petersen, indiquant qu'Ankara avait été prévenu vendredi de l'initiative 

danoise. 

"C'est un rapport du Centre danois de réhabilitation des victimes de la torture qui a établi avec certitude, après 

des examens approfondis, que Kemal Koc avait subi des tortures physiques et psychiques alors qu'il était 

détenu par la police turque", a-t-il ajouté. 

Agé de 39 ans au moment des faits, Kemal Koc avait été arrêté le 5 juillet par la police d'Ankara, qui l'a accusé 

de soutenir au Danemark le mouvement séparatiste kurde PKK. " avait été relâché et expulsé de Turquie à la 

mi-août. 

ajb/fa eua 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France'Presse 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.I:;.P.- Agence France Presse 

Turquie-Kurdes: 

Création d'un nouveau parti pro-kurde 

ANKARA, 3 jan (AFP) - Un nouveau parti pro-kurde, celui des 

"Masses démocratiques" (DKP), qui préconise une "solution politique à 

la question kurde, tout en respectant les frontières actuelles de la . 

Turquie", a été créé vendredi à Ankara, a rapporté l'agence Anatolie. 

Le DKP se situe au "centre" et est "libéral", politique et 

économiquement, selon son président Serafettin Elci, ancien 

parlementaire d'origine kurde et ministre des Travaux public des 

années 70, cité vendredi par la presse turque. 

M. Elci est connu depuis longtemps pour ses liens étroits avec le Parti 

Démocratique du Kurdistan (PDK) du chef kurde irakien Massoud 

Barzani. 

Le DKP, fruit de deux ans d'efforts, réclame la reconnaissance de 

l'identité kurde au niveau constitutionel et l'attribution aux Kurdes 

des droits culturels, notamment celui d'enseignement 'dans leur 

langue maternelle, toujours selon M. Elci, cité par la presse. 

20 

Vendredi, au ministère de l'Intérieur'où il était yenu pour présenter 

--------------------- ,.-


les documents de son parti, M. Elci a déclaré que les membres de son 

parti étaient "contre la violence et attachés aux méthodes pacifistes et 

démocratiques", a rapporté l'agence Anatolie. 

Le DKP constitue le deuxième parti pro-kurde de la scène politique 

turque, aprés le Parti de la Démocratie du Peuple (HADEP), souvent 

accusé d'être proche du Parti des Travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK, 

séparatiste). 

KG/csa t 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.-Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

US SUppOrts 

Turkish incursion 

intoNe Iraq 

By Uhr Alonel 

turlciSh Daily News 

WASHINGTON- U.S. State Department, consistent 

with its previous position in the past, said it understood the 

reasons why Turkish forces crossed the border into northern 

Iraq chasing the PKK guerrillas in hot p'ursuit. State 

Department regularly refers to the PKK as a 'vicious terror 

organization. " 

Turkisb Daily News SA11JRDAY, JANUARY 4,1997 

The Turkish forces "have been provoked by the PKK," 

said Nicholas Bums, State Department spokesman. referring 

to the artillery and rocket fire the Turkish troops 

received from the PKK inside the Turkish border before 

they chased them into northern Iraq. 

Bums said the Turkish government assured Washington 

that the operation would be "limited in duration and scope" 

as it happened in the past, and that the Turkish troops 

"would not be garrisoned" inside northern IraQ. ' 

"The Turkish government also guaranteed that the ri2hts 

of the civilians would be respected" during pursuit o( the 

PKK. 

When asked if Ankara told Washington when the 

Turkish troops would leave northern Iraq, Burns answered 

negatively. 

r- 

Denmark takes Turkey 

to human rights court 

~ 


;2 ANKARA/COPENHAGEN- 

~ Denmark on Saturday announced 

~ it is taking Turkey to the 

:!;' European human rights court over 

~ allegations that Turkish police 

,... tortured a Danish citizen of 

~ ' 

:;:: Kurdish origin last summer. 

Turkish officials last week told 

~ the Turkish Daily News that the 

~ Danish claims were groundless 

and Foreign Minister Tansu Çiller 

-:-~ had written a letter to her Danish 

~ counterpart rejecting the torture 

~ claims. 

-~ Turkish officials also said they 

;:: feIt the latest Danish move was 

~ 

designed to appease the anti. 

Turkish left-wing parties in 

Denmark who had supported the 

government over the passage of 

the budget. 

Denmark claims that Kemal 

Koç, a naturalized Danish citizen 

of Kurdish origin. was tortured in 

Turkey last summer. In the final 

days of December, a Danish 

paper had reported that Denmark 

intended to bring the case before 

the human rights court. After this 

announcement, Danish Foreign 

Minister ~iels He)ve£ Petmen 

said publicly that he could con-, 

finn that officials were very 

seriously mulling over such a 

decision. 

A senior Turkish Foreign 

Ministry official told the 

Turkish Daily News that the charg~s of attendin$-.pro-PKK 

Danish government budget (~ur.ilistan Workers Party) raI. 

{>assed tlirough parliament on lies m DellI!lark and Ge~y. 

the votes of the left-wingpar- !lDd f~r helpmg the orgaruzauon 

ties. particularly those orthe In VariOUSways. . 

so-called "Unity List" which Koç, who was fIDally 

was actively involved in the released on Aug. 15, 1996 and 

Kemal K issue. !Ùlow~d t~ travel home pen~- 

"Now ~e Danish govern- mg his trIal, alleged! whIle !n 

ment is trying to pay back its Turkey and once agam back m 

debt to left-wmg parties by say- Denmark, tha~he h~ been toring 

they will take Turkey to tured by Turkish police. 

human rights colirt. Denmark- Th~ Koç case ~~s angered 

Turkey relations are a victim of Turkish authontles! who 

Danish internal affairs. strongly deny allegat~ons of 

We are seriously ready to tor~ure and characterIze !he 

talk human rights 1ssues with claim th.at the TurklS.h 

Denmark. We are ready to Emba.ssY.1D C~p'e.nhagen. 1S 

share their experience in human ~ngagmg m actlVltie~ ~u~lde 

rights but therr way is far from ilS c.?mpetence as rId1CUd1{>lomatic 

courtesy. Serious lous. . .. 

defamation is not the proper These OffiC1alS~so mdicate 

way to improve relations." the th.at Ko.ç was detained ~nder 

same senior official said. stIp~latlons also found. In ~e 

Koç was detained when he D~sh penal code: legIsla~on 

. d T k J I 8 which enables a foretgn 

trIe to enter ur ey on u y. national to be arrested and 

to attend the funeral of hiS tried for crimes even if the 

brother. d' k 1 . 

He was officiallv arrested on allegecnme too p ace ID 

.'J 

another country. 

21


Turkish Daily News MONDA Y, JANUARY 6, 1997 

D-8 states to found global 

developmentorganization 

The D-8 organization is to be established at a 

summit in [stanbul within six months and be open 

to allISO of the world's ~eveloping countries 

By Metin Demirsar 

Turkish Daily Ne..... s 

ISTANBUL- 

Ministers 

from eight fast growing 

Islamic countries, who met in 

Istanbul Saturday, have agreed 

to form a global organization' 

whose members would include 

all developing countries, aiming 

for economic and trade 

cooperation. The nations represented 

at the one-day talks 

- Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, 

Pakistan, Iran, IndoneSIa, 

Bangladesh and Malaysia - 

agreed to form the group 

cäJled the Developing-8 (D8), 

' 

Prime Minister Necmettin 

Erbakan tolda news conferenre 

Saturday. 

Prime MInister Erbakan, 

who chalred the meeting, said 

that the group would have a 

permanent secretariat in 

Istanbul, and "would eventually 

have 150 of the world's 185 

. nations as members." Turkey; 

he said, would finance the fITSt 

year of operati.on of the permanent 

secretanat. 

Erbakan said that the heads 

of state of the eight nations 

would form the 0-8 at a summit 

meeting in Istanbul to be 

held within six months. 

Reading a joint statement to 

the press, Erbakan said the 

P!oposed 0-8 organization 

would seek to cooperate in 

\'mllUç eC0n0mic and pl.1litical 

fields. He said the organization would 

work. on ~ basis ~f: peace instead of 

c.onf1lct;dIalogue I.nsteadof confronta- 

.t~on; coop~ra~JOnInstead of exploitalion; 

equality mstead of discrimination' 

democracy instead of oPl'ression. ' 

When asked why the founders of the 

group had been limited to only eight 

countries, Erbakan said that the smaller 

number of founders would make the 

organization more dynamic in the early 

stages of development. 

The Turkish leader said that experts 

from the eight nations would immedi. 

ately begin determining areas of cooperallon 

for the organization. 

Cooperation, Erbakan said, would 

take place in tht(fields of finance, banking, 

stock markets, privatization of state 

industries, investments, scientific 

research, transport and communica. 

tions, small and medium sized enterprises, 

free zones, trade promotion, fairs 

and e~hibitions, tourism and energy. 

NeE£~~~~:]e;8will H~.• says the nurusters will prepare ~~

Revile de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prcl1s(1-Baszn Özeti 

coercion; justice, not aouble standards." 

He noted that the eight 

nations did not aim to alter any eXIsting 

treaties they may have signed, 

such as Turkey's customs union with 

the European Union (EU). 

But Erbakan's Welfare Party, 

senior member of the coalition government, 

has accused the EU and the 

.United States of putting political 

pressure, and economic sanctions on 

Islamic states to exploit the developing 

countries. 

Bringing together the eight states 

is the first stase Erbakan envisages 

for lhe creation of an "Islamic 

Union," a political and economic 

alliance bringing together all Muslim 

nalions. Erhakan said the minislers 

would prepare the groundwork for a 

presidential summit to be held within 

three months. Bangladesh; Indonesia, 

Iran, Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan 

were represented by their foreign 

ministers. The industry minister participated 

for Nigeria. The deputy foreign 

minister wasfresent for Egypt. 

The Mayor 0 Istanbul, Recep 

Tayyip Erdo~an, acting as host, 

opened the meeting with brief 

remarks. 

Speaking. at the. same meeting, 

Çiller saidthe eight countries had 

neither found their rightful place in 

world trade, nor in trade between one 

another. 

Trade among the eight nations represented 

less than four percent of 

their total trade, Çiller noted. 

An estimated 740 million people 

live in the eight countries, amon~ the 

fastest developing in the world, m an 

area stretching from the Balkans and 

northeast Africa across southern Asia 

to the Pacific Ocean. 

'The 0-8 does not represent a bloc 

based on reli~ion, but 81msto further 

world peace,' Çiller said. 

Section 

two 

dâlly news 

Tuesday, January 7,1997 

Classified ods, pages B4 & B5 

CRIME: Susurluk shocks the nation, shakes establishment 

Road accident opens Pandora's box 

Officials' statements indicate the state has been violating laws to 

use extralegal powers to fight enemies within and outside Turkey 

THE SUSURLUK SUMMIT: Politicalleaders with groups in Parliament were invited by President Süleyman Demirel to a roundtable sum. 

mit at the Presidential Palace in Çankaya to discuss the Susurluk scandal. 

23


Turkish Daily Nell's / ANKARA 

he traffic accident near the 

Susurluk district .of 

Bahkesir on November 3, 

1996, revealed with no 

room for doubt that some 

seeurit)' officials' not only 

avoided capturing certain 

criminals, but actively 

cooperated with them, and furthennore a 

number of politicians took part in this 

cooperation. 

In fact, what can be observed from the 

eXJlfrience of other countries is that the 

underworld cannot perform many of its 

dirty jobs unless it has the cooperation of 

a certain number of politicians and top 

security officials. 

However, the secret relationships 

exposed after the Susurluk accident 

revealed a different kind of scene in 

Turkey. 

According to allegat!ons .. certain p~opIe 

wanted by the pollee ID connecl1on 

with crimes, although never convicted. 

were used by the state to perform tasks, 

not for their own benefit but to serve the 

state. 

. Such people formed a different kind of. 

"gang," which was involved in many illegal 

acts such as murders, mQney laundering. 

anà kIdnapping. . . 

According to statements of security 

and intelligence officials who have tesllfied 

before the parliamentary Susurluk 

commission, a special group was established 

comprising "ultranationalists." 

This group was involved in ideological 

terronsm crimes before 1980, and also in 

retaliatory acts in response to Armenian 

terrorist activities al!alnst Turkish diplomats' 

and representàiives' offices following 

the 1980 military coup. The group 

included Abdullah (,:ath, against whom 

Interpol had issued a red bulletin. It was 

used for illegal activities against the 

state's opponents, both within and outside 

Turkey, by the National Intelligence 

Organization (MlT) in parallel with 

directions given by the military authority 

ruling the country. . 

After the Armenian terror stopJ>ed,this 

group was turned over to the General 

Directorate of Police by MlT and was 

used in many other activities. 

There are claims that some Kurdish 

~u~ine~smen. wh(l ~muggJe drugs and 

give a certain share of the proceeds to the 

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), were 

killed by the group supported by specilil 

operation force members. Others were 

kidnapped and released after a ransom 

was paid.' 

The group members, who were given 

identities, passports, arms and money by 

the police department to und~rt~e th~lr 

attacks, never broke off theIr ties with 

J>oliticsand the politicians who supported 

them and who also had helped to solve 

some of their "private problems." 

The members of the group, whose 

nationalistic feelings and (Jesire to serve 

their state were encouraged for use in the 

attacks, became involved in shady business 

deals for their own personal benefit, 

and had tried to lay their hands on casinos 

used as money laundering cen~ers. ~t 

was certain that money laundered ID thiS 

way was earned from drug smuggling. 

But just who was smuggling drugs, and 

whether the "gang" was also involved in 

this business, or whether it only took a 

certain percentage, was still unclear. 

How many of t~e claims about t~~s 

gang, which also lDclude some pohtlcians, 

are true, and with which police 

officials it cooperated, and just how 

much state support it received, will only 

become clear once the current investigations 

are concluded. 

However, one thing IS certalD. A 

deep-rooted scandal has broken out by 

chance as a result of an accident in 

Susurluk. Officials' statements indicate 

the state has been VIolating laws to use 

powers, other than official state powers, 

.to fight its enemies within and outside 

Turkey. 

The Susurlul~incident 

June 22 . The Söylemez Brothers gang was 

arrested. The gang, with 24 members, was armed 

like a state within a state. It had prepared to assassinat~ 

parliamentarians using special war techniques, 

had already carried out six murders, and 

acquired ownership of land and workplaces by 

forcing people at gunpoint to sign checks or 

promissory notes. It was found that most of the 

weapons used by the gang members had.. once 

belonged to the army. Tlie gang included I l 

policemen, of wliom two were police chiefs and 

two deputy police chiefs; four soldiers, of whom 

one was a fmt lieutenant; and a doctor. 

July 23 • Following the arrest of the Söylemez 

Brothers gang, a second gang which inclu(Jed 

policemen and.military members was exposed. 

Eigbt eolicemen including a police director, and 

four IDllitary personnel, includmg a first lieutenant 

were taken into custody. The fiist lieutenant was 

found to have prepared false weapons licenses and 

carried out arms smuggling. . 

Jul, 28 . Ömer LUtfUTo~al, owner of the 

Emperyal Casino, known as the 'king of casinos" 

was shot dead by'three people in Sanyer, Istanbul. 

as he was onhis way home in htS car. The 

Kalashnikov automatic rifles used in the attack 

were found at the 'scene of the mur4er. 

Aug. 27 . Nurullah Tevfik Agansoy, one of 

the most prominent figures of the underground 

world, whohad made his name with the Civangate 

Scandal was killed in an armed attack in Be6ek, 

IstanbuL It was found that the two people with 

Mansoy during the attack wer~ polic~~en responsi6le 

for protecting Deputy Prime Mimster Tansu 

Çiller. 

Aug. 28 • Three policemen from the s~cial 

police team, alleged to be the murderers of O~er 

Lütfü Topai, were taken into custody. Followmg 

preliminary interrogation. s, the policemen were 

(Jelivered by a spe,cialc~w s~n~from Ankara ueon 

the instrucllons of Intenor Mirnster Mehmet Agar, 

and were assigned to protect DYP ~anhurfa 

Deputy Sedat Buœk. 

Sept. 4 • A criminal case was filed agai~st 

three high ranking police officers, Sedat Demir, 

Deniz Gökçetin an~ Erd~1 D~rmaz, who we.re 

charged with accepung bohes ID return for asSIStance 

to the Söylemez Brothers. The prosecutor 

demanded a minimum prison sentence.Of 30 years. 

The court issuedarrest warrants against the sus- 

.pects in absentia. ' . . 

Sept. 26 .. Four p91icemen assig~ed to the 

Hakkari Special Operations Branch Duectorate 

.and six nlla~e guards ~ hu were members of the 

Yüksekoya Cang were exposed. It was found that 

24


the gang members were ID\'olved' in bribery and 

had perpetrated many murders and abductions. 

Nov. 3 . A Mercedes driven by former 

Istanbul deputy police chief Hüseyin Kocadag hit 

the back of a lorry on the Bursa-lzmir highway 

near the town of Susurluk in Baltkesir. The accident 

resulted in the deaths of Kocada6 ultranationalist 

AbdulIah Çath - who was ~~in(J a 

false ID card in the name of "Mehmet Özbay" ~d 

who had been wanted by Interpol for 18 years for 

involvement in a massacre - and Gonca Us who 

was reported to have married Çath in a religious 

ceremony. True Path P~r!y (DYPl ~anhurfa 

Deputy Sedat Bucak was IDJured ID the accident. 

Hasan Gökçe, the driver of the truck, was arrested. 

Automatic rifles. assassination weapons and hand 

grenades were found in the Mercedes, which 

belonged to Bucak. Two silencers hidden in special 

sections of the car were also found. 

Nov. 4 • Interior Minister Mehmet Agar said 

Bucak and Kocadag hap apprehended Çath and 

~e ~fic accident had occ.llITed~ they were takmg 

him to Istanbul to deliver him to the ~lice. 

Mell!1while,the false ID ~ard found in çath ~ possessIOn 

in the name of "Özbay" stated that Özbay 

w~s an "~xpert at the General Security 

I?lfectorate. ~e document, which also gave the 

nght to possessIOn of a gun. had been signed by 

Agar. 

Nov. 5 • Abdullah Çath, killed in the 

Susurluk accident. was buried in Nevsehir. The 

coffin, draped by the Turkish fla!!. was placed in 

its grave by D~ej Ali (Ali - I Ired 10 the (alse ID card 

Yasak), famous 10 th~ under- found in Çath's possession 

ground world, dunng the and said, "This .s all lies 

funeral ~ttende~ by 5,000 pe~- There is no snch:ID card"; 

pIe, tnc1udtng Muhstn However, as well as the false 

YazlclOg.lu, leader of the ID card, it was found that 

GfllI.1dUrnty Party and fOf!Der Çath had been ~iven a "green 

cgal~~~n of the IdealIsts passport" only Issued for top 

(Ulku~u) .Club. ~~rm~r level state officials. 

Secunty Director HuseYln 

Kocadag, also killed in the 

Susurluk accident, was buried 

in Ankara. Interior Minister 

Mehmet Agar. who did not 

attend Kocadafs funeral, 

Nov. 6 • Unlawfullinks 

among the trio of police- 

~a-politics. which surfaced 

with the Susurluk accident, 

wer~ splashed all over the 

media. It was discovered that 

the NatiôÎlal Intelligence Organization (M11) had 

closely monitored the activitIes of Abdullah Çath 

and tiad k~t the Prime Ministry informed. 

H~wever. ~ath had been protected by police 

chiefs and hild not been apprehended. Meanwhile. 

it was claimed that OYP De~ty Sedat Bucak and 

the three victims of the accident had spent the 

weekend in Kusadasi, and that TI.. 1trillion worth 

of deals relating to casinos owned by Ömer Lütfü 

Topal. who was killed in Istanbul in July, had 

been the reason for the trip. 

Nov. 7 • Regarding the traffic accident in 

Susurluk. President Süleyman Demirel said. 'This 

is a very serious event. Continue the investigation 

no matter how far it goes and be merciless in your 

judgments, but do not draw conclusions from this 

for Turkey, do not make Turkey a target. and do 

not lose your belief." 

~ov. 8 • I~tçrior Minist~r Mehmet Agar 

resis-ned from his post fOlIoWil'1 the 

y " demand of 

DYt' Chairwoman Tansu Çi 1er. Agar was 

replaced by DYP Istanbul Deputy Meral Ak~ener, 

a close friend of the Çiller family. 

Nov. 12 • A request for a parliamentary 

inquiry into the police-mafia-politics link, presented 

by four separate political parties, was debated 

and accepted on the floor. A special commission 

was se~ up by Parliament to probe be~ind the 

scenes l~tO the vanous relationships which surfaced 

with the Susurluk accident. Welfare P~ 

(R~) Deputy .Mehme~ Elkatml~ was elected as 

chamnan of this cOlIlIll1ssion. 

Nov. 15 . DYP Sanhurfa Deputy Sedat 

Bucak. who was wounded in the Susurluk accident, 

was treated at the Faculty of Medicine of 

Istanbul University under the surveillance and protection 

of members of his tribe. He was secretly 

discharged .from hospital at 3:00 a.m. Mehmet 

Agar: spe~ng.,for the fIrSt time following his res- 

Ignation said, . No lon~er will anyone undertake 

such risks for the state.' 

Nov. 16 • Motherland Party (ANAP) 

Chairman Mesut YIlmaz claimed that three guards 

from the special team who were protecting'OYP 

~eputy Sedat Bucak. th~ only person who..survIved 

the Susurluk accIdent, had killed Orner 

Lütfü TopaI. the casino king. Yllmaz claimed 

there were plans among certain circles who wanted 

to own the casinos. It was found that threecasinos 

owned by Topal were about to change ownership. 

Security measuresJor Yllmaz were reinforced 

followmg his allegations. 

Nov. 21 • DYP Deputy Sedat Bucak. the 

only living witness of the Susurluk accident, spoke 

about the mcident and the various relationships on 

a private TV channel. Bueak said he had met Çath 

under his real identity and Was proud of having 

met him. He claimed that fonner deputy police 

director Hüseyin KocadaA. who was ~lled 10 the 

accident, had not known Çath's real identity. He 

accepted that all the weapons found in hiS car 

belonged to him. However! he cl.aime~ that t~e 

silencers had no connection With hIm or hIS 

friends and were pan of a plot. 

Nov. 22. Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan 

announced he bad given an assi~Dt to the head 

of the Prime Ministry Inspectors Board. the Mtr 

Undersecretariat and the Interior Ministry 

Inspectors Board. 

Nov. 23 • DYP Deputy Sedat Bucak. during 

an interview with a daily. altered his earlier statement 

made on a s,p.ccialTV channel. Bucak. who 

had previously Said the weapons found in the car 

belonged to him, this time denied he owned them. 

He claimed the weapons had been placed in the 

car by "certain circles" after the accident. 

Nov. 24 • President Süleyman Demirel did 

not accept Democratic Left Party (DSP) Chairman 

Bülent Ecevit' s proposal that allegations following 

the Susurluk incident also be investigated by the 

State Supervisory Council. 

Nov.24 • At\lAP Chairmap Mesut Yùmaz 

25

' ... :" 

.". :.' 


was attacked by a fonner ultninationalist in the 

lobby of the Hilton Hotel in Budapest, Hungary. It 

was reported that Yllmaz, whose nose was broken, 

had been attacked. because of bis allegations coricerning 

Çath. It was discovered that the aggressor, 

named as Veysel Özerdem, had worked at a textile 

fmn in wbicll Çath was a partner. . . 

Nov. 26 • Tansu Çiller said she bad not 

known Abdullah Çath, and moreover bad not 

known wbether or not he was guilty. Sbe said, 

"Those who fired a bune~ or suffered aJ>ullet for 

the state are commemorated ---------- 

with respect. They are hon- DiIectorate. 

orable." .. 

Dec. 5 • Interior 

Nov. 28 • ANAP leader Minister Meral Ak~ener 

Mesut Yllmaz claimed a link announced she had. sacked 

existed between certain six. policemen including 

aggressors and some Istanbul Istanbul Police Chief Kemal 

people. He announced that he Yazlcloglu, his assistant, 

had information and docu- the deputy .chairman of 

Qlents regarding the Topai the Operations Pepartment 

murder. He said those documents 

were also in the pos- 

asthree special team mem- 

of the special. teams, as well 

session of the state and were bers whose names were 

at the Istanbul Police linked to the Topal murder. 

.Giving her reasons for dismissing. 

YazlClOglu, Aqener 

said he ha~ failed. to provlde informauon and 

documents which ANAP leader Mesut, Ytlmaz 

had mentioned in relation to the Topal murder. 

Dec. 12 • The Criminology Department of 

the Gendarmerie General Command determined 

that çath had worked as. an expert.at the General 

Secunty Directorate, and that the signature on the 

license granting him the right to bear weapons was 

that of Mehmet Mar, who was then the head of 

General Security.rollowing this development, the 

. Ankara Chief Prosecutor' s Office sent a report to 

the Justice Ministry requesting tl)e removal of 

Mar' s parliamentary immunity so a case could be 

filéd against him. . 

Dec. 13 '. The Justice MinistrY returned the 

report to the Ankara Chief Prosecutor's Office on 

the grounds that tbe relevant documents were 

incomplete. , . 

Dec. 16 • Nihat A.rtrran, the Ankaraprosecu. 

tor who had prepared the report, r~acted stron!!:h 

against giving the assignment on the report to The 

~hief prosecutor and quit bis post to follow up the 

lssue. 

. Dec. 17. It was discovered that the three 

iorganizations to which Prime Minister Necmettin 

Erbakan had earlier given the task of investigating 

the S'usurluk incident were still examining the 

issue, and bad not yet launched ,aninvestigation. 

Dec. 22 • The leaders of the political parties 

represented in Parliament met at a summit at the 

Cankaya Presidential Palace under President 

Süleyman Demirel's chairmanship. During the 

five-and-a-half-hour meeting, the leaders discussed 

allegations arising from the Susurluk incident 

and the position the state should adopt in the 

face of these developments. Prime Minister 

NecmettiIi Erbakan said a preliminary report presented 

to him by MlT mentioned the names of 58 

people who came within the framework of the 

allegations. He said a clear need had emerged to 

carry out a detailed investigation. 

Dec. 24 • The parliamentary Susurluk commission 

began to hear testimomes from ~eople 

believed to have information on the lssue. 

Among those who testified at the commission 

were Mehmet Eymür, head of the MIT Couilter- 

Terrorism Department, former MtT personnel 

and retired lieutenant colonel Korkut Eken, and 

founder of the special operation teams and 

Istanbul Police Chief Kemal YazlclOglu who was 

removed from bis, office. When it came to Iiaht 

that çath had been used by the state, both bef~re 

and ~er 1980,.in~ctivities againstthe Armenjan 

terronst organlZatIOn ASALA,the commission 

decided to tiear testimonies from many more people! 

including former President Kenan Evren, 

Chlef of General Staff Gen. hmail KaradaYl, 

Gendarmerie, General Commander Gen. Teoman 

Koman and MtT Undersecretary. Sönmez 

Köksal. . 

Dec. 31 • Investigations concerning the 

Susurluk incident still continue. While ~ups specially 

set up at MlT, the Prime Ministry Ins~tors 

Bo~ the loterior Ministry Inspectors Bdard,the 

Chief Prosecutor's Office of tbe Istanbul State 

Sëcurity. Cou~ ~GM), the Justice Miiùstry and 

the Inte~or Ministry con~u~ ,their investigations, 

~e Parliamentary lDve.Stiga~ve commission contInues 

to hear the testImomes of those it deems 

'necessary .. 

Turkisb Daily News 

WEDNESDAY.JANUARY8,l997 

Kinkel says Turkey turning away from Europe 

BONN- Gennan Foreign Mini:t~~eKiaus Kinkel said on Tuesday that from a new customs union with Brussels because Greece has blocked any 

Turkey was turning towards closer ties with its Moslem nei!!hbours out of 

deep disapr.ointment with the Euro~n Union's failureto'help it 

bid to give it funds linked to the trade deal, he added. 

.Kinkel, at a news conference reviewing foreign policy issues for 1997, 

IStanbul s plans to host a surnrmt this year with leaders of eight Moslem saId Islam would become an increasingly important factor in the foreign 

~tries to boost economic cooperation were not simply the result of Prime .. policy of Moslem countries. . 

Minister Necmettin ~akan's more pro-Islamic political views, he said. Western states would have tci takethis 

. 

into account and not simply see 

. ""Turkey feels that It IS wrongly treated by Euro~," he told journalists. certain Moslem countries as violators of human rights., "There is resentment 

Twtey has complained binerly to the EU that lt has received no benefits in the Islamic world," he said. . . 

26


Turkish Daily News WEDNESDAY,JANUARY 8,1997 

Denmark: 'torture' application fIled yesterday 

Turkish sources say the Danish 

media has started a major 

campaign around Kemal Koç, 

who was allegedly tortured 

while in custody in Turkey 

Turkish Daily N~s 

PARIS/STRASBOURG- In a move that might 

lead to further deterioration in the already sensitive 

Turco-Danish ties, Denmark yesterday formally 

applied to the European Court of Human 

Rights for a ruling on whether Turkey used torture 

against a DanJsh citizen of Kurdish origin, 

AcCording to Danish sources in Strasbourg, the 

DlDish application is not a political move against 

Turkey, but "a desire to find out the facts" about 

whether Kemal Koç had been tortured during the 

summer of 1996 in Turkey, following his deten- 

,iOD by Turkish police on July 5. When Koç 

retwned .to .Deiunarkhe entéred a rehabilitation 

caller for the victims of torture. 

WWebav.e asked Turkey for information con- 

cerning the case of Koç, who is now a Danish citizen 

but the reply we received from Turkey was 

not clear. Now we are pursuing the case further 

through a neutral international institution," 

Danisli Ambassador to the Council of Europe A. 

Belling told the TON. 

' 

But senior Turkish diplomatic sources maintain 

that Turkey has made a very clear response 

to the Danish communication, saying that 

Turkish doctors who examined Koç had not 

found an)' evidence he was tortured. 

While the Danish ambassador said this application 

"should be interpreted as a judicial case" 

and any nation could apply to the court to establish 

the facts in a specläI case, the Turkish side 

maintains there are no judicial reasons for the 

Danish initiative in a case where Koç could have 

applied individually to the court. 

In Copenhagen, Danish Foreign Minister Niels 

Helveg Petersen said he expected the case to be 

treated as quickly as possible. He added that 

Ankara had been advised of the Danish initiative, 

made on the basis of Article 3 of the Euroeean 

Declaration of HumilP Rights which prohIbits 

torture, last Friday. 

The Turkish side, however, says it cannot 

understand Denmark's present move. In the early 

19805, Denmark had also applied to the court for 

a ruling against Turkey in respect of general violations 

of human rights. 

"That was a general case and Turkey did not 

then accept there was a right of individual application," 

a senior Turkish source said. "But now 

this is clearly a different and an individual case, 

and we do not understand why Denmark has chosen 

to make this application, rather than Koç 

himself." 

Another point raised by the Turks is that Koc's 

case is currently underway in Turkey's State 

Security Courts, which means domestic judicial 

mechanisms have not yet been exhausted. Thus, 

says the Turkish side, the court may well refuse 

to admit the case. 

Relations between Turkey and Denmark have 

been sensitive for the past five years, particularly 

after Turkey put Copenhagen on a blacklist of 

arms supphers, which prohibited Danish firms 

from participating in Turkish defense industry. 

deals. Relations further soured when ERNK, the 

political. wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party 

(PKK), "Opened'an office in Copenhàgen and the 

Kurdish "parliament in exile" met in Denmark in 

March 1996. 


New steps for northern 

WEDNESDAY,JANUARY8,1997 

Iraq peace 


ANKARA- Rival Iraqi Kurdish PUK sources claimed that missions because of his continuing contact Kurdish meeting 

groups have been in regular contact from the KDP are sent to Baghdad with the West. in Washington 

with the Baghdad government, weekly, and pointed out that According to observers, the only A KDP delegation headed by' 

Kurdish sou.rces confirmed. on Massoud Barzani, leader o! t~e ~ay Barzani could gain Saddam Necirvan Barzani is on its way to 

Tuesday, whIle. a wo~~4l!mted. KDP, had been to Baghdad twice ID Hussein~s trust would b~ for t~e Washington for talks WIth Turlush 

States searches for new lD1tlatlvest.o December: . , ,KD~ chIe! to c.ut off enttrely hiS and U.S. officials, as well as a highpersuade 

the Kurds to speed up therr ~ol1owmg !l'eetmgs '-"Ith T~~lq relatIOnships wIth the West. Arab ranking PUK member. 

peace process.. Am, the Iraqi dep'uty prune Inl~S- so.ur~es said Talabani had also sent The meetings will be attended by 

M.okarram Talabam, a northe ..m ter ~d Taha Yassm Ram,adan, vice InlSSlonsto Baghdad. the PUK representative to 

Iraqi, Kurd and former Commum~~ preSident of Iraq, B~anJ has been • Washington, 13arham Salih. 

who ISknown tO,be close to the ~ql accused by other Kurdis.h groups of PUK not satisfied Diplomatic sources have reported 

regime, met With ~al~l Tal~bam, being r~dy to concur WIth Baghda~ The PUK claims that the parties in that the United States is planning to 

leader of the Patnottc Unton of on the Issue of northern Iraq, even If the northern Iraq peace process are bring the two Kurdisl1 leaders 

Kurdistan (PUK), in Sulaimaniya a solution for autonomy is not failing to implement the Oct.. 31 together again in Ankara, and is laylast 

week. found. Barzani, with whom Ba~dad cease-fire agr~men.t and, ~ording- ing the groundwork with the 

Kurdish sources said Mokarram had refused to enter into a 'solo ly, t~ey are dl~satlsfied Wlt~.both Wasbin~on meeting. 

Talabani brou$ht messages fro~ agreement" because it did not take Turkish and Umted .States poliCies. A ~emor Tur~sh Foreign Ministry 

Sad~m Hussem to Jalal Talab~m, i?to account the other representa- Th,e . Supervisory Pe~ce offic!al responSible for northern Iraq 

addmg that there had been ongomg- oves of northern Iraq, has also been ¥oD1t~nng Group has met fIve affms has also traveled to 

contact between the PUK and accused of giving up bis push for tun.es smce !:lov. 15, and the demar- Washingto~ to attend the ta~ks. 

Baghdad. .. .. autonomy. . cat1O~map IS now ready. The next When questlOne~ about.a possl~le 

Mokarr~ Talabaw IS m regular Kurdish sources closely momtor- step' I~ expected to be confidence- Ban,am- T~laba.D1summIt, Turkish 

conta.ct WIth both ~e PUK and the ing the situation believe Saddam bulldmg me~sures, such as the O~~lalS Said this would not be sur- 

Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Hussein no longer trusts Barzani exchange of pnsoners. pnsmg. 

27


INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1997 

~Are the Turks Turning 

Their Backs on West? 

Ankara I$, Frustrated by EU and Greece 

By Nicholas Doughty 

Reuters 

LONDON - Europe and Washington 

are increasingly worried by signs 

that Turkey, a vital'strategie partner, 

may be turning away from the West - 

at a time 'of growing Greek-Turkish 

tension over the E\,\ropean Union and 

the divided island of Cyprus. 

Diplomats. say a series of meetings 

will try to assess the risks of a new crisis 

in .southern Europe and just how far 

NEWS ANALYSIS 

Turkey, frustrated by its relations with 

the Union, is prepared to change Course. 

A decision by Greek-ruled Cyprus to 

buy Russian anti-aircraft missiles has 

raised the temperature at the worst possible 

time, as the West pushes for a 

breakthrough on a United Nations peace 

plan for the island. 

. But Turkey, whose troops occupy the 

northern part'of Cyprus, is already bit- 

'terly disappointed litthe lack of progress 

in its relations with the IS-nation EU. 

Ankara blames. Greece for blocking 

promised EU economie help, although. 

the Union is also concerned about Turkey's 

record on human rights. Greece: 

can block the aid because'it is a member' 

of the EU, while Turkey is nöt. Both 

countries are members of the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization. 

F_ore~gnMinister. Klaus IGnkel of 

Gèrmanysaid Tuesday that Turkey was 

~QI1ling toward closer ties' with its 

Muslim neighbors. . , 

';"turkey feels that it is wrongly 

tt~at~\1.ly Europe," he said. "How can 

ope hold this against Turkey? Ankara 

has not profited by one penny from the 

;êlÎstoms union with the EU because 

~Greeceputs the brakes on everything." 

,.e:. Some diplomats. say Turkey - an 

~tnportant ally for the West because it 

porders volatile regions of the Caucasus 

~d the Middle East - might block 

NATO decisions in retaliation, including 

the alliance 's planned expansion'. 

into Eastern Europe. 

• "There has been talk of the Turks 

taking a really hard line because of what 

has happened," a European diplomat 

said. "The warnings have been there' 

before but there may be reason to take it 

more seriously now." . 

. The two NATO allies have gone to 

.the brink of war severaltimes, most 

recently last year in a territorial dispute 

in the Aegean Sea. Four people also died 

in a series of clashes between the divided 

communities on Cyprus last year. 

The island has been divided 

J,gZ~I .... 

~p~~,I~keYth; i!lv 

a . 

since 

adef~ ,lIl1 d .,O

Revue de Presse-Press Rez ' 

iew-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti 

Turkish Daily News ntURSDAY,JANUARY9,19lJ7 

Human rights activists to investigate Lice 

Turkislt Dally News 

ANKARA- The southeastern town of Lice 

is soon to become a hub for human rights 

äctivists, politicians and journalists who want 

to check reports that people there are being 

forced against their will to join a corps of village 

guards to fight the separatist Kurdish 

rebelS, activist sources said. 

The group of investigators will include representatives 

from the Human Rights 

Association (tHD), "Together for Peace," 

another activist group seeking conciliation 

between the government and the Kurdish separatists, 

the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy 

Party (HADEP), as well as author Orhan 

Pamuk. Composer ~anar Yurdatapan, Sedat 

Yurtta~ of HADEP and Reporters without 

Borders (RSF) representatives Nadire Mater 

and Ertutrul Kürkçü will reportedly be accom- 

Jl8Il!ed by a large group of journalists. 

The 2I-person missIOn will draft a report to 

be addressed to the Parliament, the General 

Staff, the Interior Ministry and political party 

leaders, sources said. 


Parliament's human riJhts commission and had personally seen the fear in people'i eyes. 

the OPPosi.tion Republican PCQllle's Party 

(CHP) are alsQ preparit\f ~if.own MPs to visit the town 

investigators. . Bahri Zengin, deputy chairman of the 

tHD president Akm Birdal told the TDN Parliament's Human Rights Commission, 

that dunng their last trip to the town they had told the TDN that they decided to visit the 

discovered that the people in Lice were being town to investigate the complaints. Zengin said 

forced to join the village 'guards, a 70,000- the commission members would visit Lice 

strong auxIliary force made up of government- next week for a firsthand assessment of the sitpaid 

Kurdish villagel'll assisting some 300,000 uation. 

troops in the Southeast combatting the 

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The military is discouraging such visits to 

The PKK is waging a separatist war that has the town and a similar delegation was turned 

claimed over 21,000 lives m the past 12 years back in late December on suspicion that its 

of fi~hting. ,members were sympathetic to the PKK. 

Budai rejected recent accusations by The groups will investigate charges that 

Islamist State Minister Lütfil Esengün that they around 100 men in the region have been forced 

were instigating unrest in Lice, a town in to become village guards. 

DiyarbakIr province. Activists have charged that the troops threat- 

The tHD chief accused Hael llba~h, the ened to killthe men who refused to join the 

town's chief official and a former army officer, militia and to raze the town. They said that 110. 

of using force against the people in the town to people were' detained for two days, then sent 

"persuade" them to join the militia. He said :.e home with guns as members of the militia. 

==-""".--""""""-----==--_ .."."""' .... ~-~ 

=...=-~=-_. --....".-=..._.=....=_._~=.=. 

TIiURSDAY,JANUARY9,1997 

EU envoy says Turkey's human 

rights image affects exports 

Turkislt Daily News 

ANKARA- The European Union's (EU) envoy toTurkey, 

Ambassador Michael Lafe~'declared that the human rights issue 

has hada negative: impact on the export of Turkish gOOds, the 

Anatolia news agency rëported. 

Lake opened the fifth 'European Commission Local Information 

Office at 'Kayseri on. Tuesday. Speaking at a press conference in 

Kayseri on Wednesday, Lake said that it would be hard for Turkey 

to enter the EU if human rights violations continue in this counlly. 

GAMK 

JEUDI 9 

12° ANNEE, 

JANVIER 1997 

W 3078 

Lake also noted that the trade volume between Turkey and the EU 

increases every year and added that although the rates were in favor 

of Turkey in the flfSt year of the customs union the situation might 

reverse itself.this year. "Companies in EU countries make 60 percent 

of their investments usmg credits from their governments. 

However, this rate for the Turkish private sector is 15 percent due to 

the budget deficit The budget shOuld be balanced inimediately. In 

particular, infrastructure investments in Turkey have been the same 

for 15 years. Investments in the infrastructure should be increased," 

saidLake. 

Lake said that the EU supported Turkey's territorial integrity but 

said that the fi2ht against separatists in the Southeast could not be 

solved solely through military measures and that civil measures 

should also be pursUed. Lake indicated that the EU was ready to 

help Turkey on this issue, 

Point sur la situation en Turquie 

Les révélations Cour de S.ûreté de l'État d'Istanbul et 1996, il a voulu tirer au clair les affaires 

devant la Commission d'enquête du des meurtres mystérieux et d'autres 

de Mesut Yilmaz Parlement, il décrit, souvent avec force crimes perpétrés par des organes de 

détails et cassettes de témoins à l'État: "J'ai fait ce que j'ai pu. Je me 

" " , l'appui, les agissements de divers suis battu pendant un mois pour nom- 

L ancien Pre~ler mln,lstreconser- groupes opérant depuis des années mer mon candidat à la Direction génévate~r 

turc s~ f~lt depuIs quelques sous la protection d'une partie de raie de la Sûreté; je n'y suis pas parves~~alnes 

le ~nnclpal accu~~teur de la l'appareilde l'État. Devant le Parlement,il nu (,,) M, Erbakan a encore moins de 

d~r1ve mafieuse, de I Etat turc, affirme que pendant son court mandat pouvoir que mois; il n'a pu procéder à 

Deposant successivement devant la de Premier ministre, au printemps aucune nO[11ination au ministère de 

29


Comme pour appuyer-ces déclarations 

de M. Yilmaz, H. Balbasin décrit 

dans le même Hurriyet du 27 décembre 

1996 et dans Özgur Politika du 2 janvier 

1997 les relations de M. Agar avec 

:les divers chefs de la mafia. Il rappelle 

.que cet ex-policier fils de policier, se 

trouve actuellement à la tête d'une fortune 

colossale acquise grâce à s~ 

coopération avec la mafia, mais, précil'Intérieur 

(..) Finalement j'ai pu nommer 

une personne de confiance à la 

direction de Sûreté d'Istanbul, Mme. 

Çiller a imposé son ~andidat à la 

Direction générale de la Sûreté. 

Certaines autres nominations dans la 

police ont été faites sous l'influence de 

la mafia (..) Mme. Çiller a créé une 

unité spéciale au sein des services de 

renseignements (MIT), chargée en principe 

de contre-terreur qui se livre en fait 

à l'espionnage de ses adversaires. Il y 

a quelques jours, j'ai eu une conversation 

privée au téléphone avec un ami 

. procureur; le lendemain le MIT a communiqué 

à Çiller son compte-rendu (..) 

Mme. Çiller a constitué tout un réseau 

à son service. L'Lindes membres de ce 

réseau, le député Bucak dispose en 

plein Ankara, dans son logement de 

fonction et dans son bureau de plus de 

100 mitraillettes Kalachnikov (..) 

L'ancien ministre de l'Intérieur, Mehmet 

Agar, qui a été pendant longtemps chef 

de la police, est mêlé à une série 

d'affaires graves. Je suis en possession 

d'une cassette de 4 heures 

d'aveux d'un certain Huseyin Baybasin, 

l'un des gros bonnets de la drogue, qui 

affirme que depuis le début des années 

1980 il a mené son trafic en utilisant les 

voitures de police .mises à sa disposition 

par M. Agar; de fausses cartes 

d'identité établies et signées par Agar 

et qu'il a voyagé en Europe avec des 

passeports de service qui lui ont été 

remis par ce même Agar. Une cinquantaine 

de trafiquants de drogue utiliseraient 

ce genre de passeports et de 

pièces d'identité délivrés par M. Agiu. Il 

existe au sein de la Direction générale 

de la Sûreté une unité qui fournit ces 

trafiquants et des tueurs en cartes 

d'identité de police et en passeport de 

service. Des trafiquants notoires portent 

des passeports de chef de bureau 

de commissaire ou de conseiller technique 

de la police. Tout cela mérite au 

moins une enquête sérieuse". 

se-t-i1,il n'agissait pas à titre personnel; 

c'était la politique de l'État pour financer 

grâce à cet "argent noir" une série 

d'opérations secrètes. Il évoque aussi 

le nom d'un frère du président Demirel 

et d'un député du parti islamiste faisant 

également partie de leu r "réseau". 

Témoignant devant la Commission parlementaire, 

Mehmet Eymür, numéro 2 

du MIT, confirme l'essentiel de ces 

révélations. Il affirme notamment que 

ses services ont "utilisé" Abdullah Çatli, 

chef mafieux recherché par Interpol et 

tué dans le récent accident de voiture 

de Sussuruk, dans des "opérations 

secrètes à l'etranger "." Plus tard, nous 

avons appris qu'il était impliqué dans le 

trafic de drogue, nous avons alors 

renoncé à nous en servir. Mais la 

Direction générale de la Sûreté l'a 

engagé (..) Récemment nous avons 

appris que l'un de nos agents, Tarik 

Ümit, avait été enlevé par des équipes 

spéciales (Özel Tim) et interrogé par 

Çatli. J'ai appelé le ministre de 

l'Intérieur Agar pour demander qu'on le 

libère. Il a dit qu'il allait voir. Puis notre 

agent a été trouvé mort. Un autre chef 

de la mafia d'héroïne, Ayhan Akça a 

également été enlevé par les équipes 

spéciales et interrogé par Çatli. L'agent 

de liaison d'Akça, Mlle Dilek Onek, 

vient d'être arrêté à l'aéroport d'Istanbul 

en provenance des Pays-Bas avec une 

valise bourrée de narco-dollars. Elle 

portait un passeport de service, comme 

celui de Çatli émis par la Direction 

générale de la Sûreté". Le haut dirigeant 

du MIT, cité par le Hürriyet du 27 

décembre confirme que "ses services 

utilisent, dans l'intérêt de l'État, to~te 

sorte d'individus y compris des criminels". 

Enfin sa révélation majeure: le 

trafic de drogue rapporte 25 milliards 

de dollars par an aux trafiquants turcs 

car une partie considérable du trafic 

international d'héroïne passe par la 

Turquie qui est en outre considéré 

comme "un paradis d'argent noir':. M. 

Eymur ne précise pas la part prélevée 

par les divers services de l'État turc sur 

cette masse énorme de narco-dollars. 

A la question de savoir jusqu'où peut 

aller ce "réseau", M. Yilmaz répond, 

dans le Hurriyet du 27 décembre, qu'à 

son avis, Tansu Çiller était au courant 

de tous les agissements de M. Agar et 

les couvrait. Il a ajouté "Rappelez-vous: 

en décembre 1993, Mme. Çiller déclare 

qu'elle a entre les mains la liste d'une 

soixantaine d'hommes d'affaires aidant 

le PKK. 15 jours plus tard, on est passé 

aux exécutions. Depuis août 1995, 

l'état-major des armées ne s'est pas 

mêlé de ces affaires, pas même par le 

biais de JITEM (Service de renseignement 

de la gendarmerie) . Depuis que' 

le général Karadayi est devenu chef 

d'état-major, l'armée se tient à l'écart 

de ces affaires". Ce que veut dire 

qu'avant août 1995, sous le règne du 

général Güres, l'armée était elle aussi 

impliquée. M. Yilmaz, qui a fort à faire 

avec ses adversaires dans l'actuel bras 

de fer et qui se dit "menacé", tient 

ostensiblement à exempter l'armée. 

Tout comme le président Demirel, qui 

en réponse à la crise de confiance que 

connaît le pays, déclare que "le gouvernement 

est un organisme politique. 

L'État, c'est le Conseil de Sécurité 

nationale (à dominante militaire) qui est 

une institution extraordinairement 

sérieuse et fiable". Est-ce pour conjurer 

le péril d'un coup d'État militaire que. 

ces hauts dirigeants turcs encensent 

ainsi l'armée? En tout cas, celle-ci, par . 

la voix de l'un de ses "hauts commandants", 

déclare au quotidien Hürriyet du 

20 décembre: "cette fois-ci, c'est aux 

forces non armées de résoudre la crise 

I." 

Selon un bilan officiel, la 

guerre du Kurdistan a fait 

3460 morts en 1996 

Selon un bilan établi par la Superpréfecture 

des provinces kurdes, cité 

par le quotidien Hürri.yet du 27 

décembre, dans la période allant du 1er 

janvier au 26 décembre 1996, 2782 

membres présumés du PKK, 531 soldats, 

policiers et miliciens, 143 civils et 

4 instituteurs ont été tués dans "la guerre 

de basse intensité" qui se poursuit 

au Kurdistan. 2233 civils ont été blessés 

ou amputés dans des actes de violence 

liés à cette guerre. Les forces 

turques auraient, à l'!=lncroire ce bilan, 

saisi 2006 fusils, 726 revolvers, 2478 

grenades, 130 lance-roquettes et 254 

329 balles. 

30


Copenhague poursuit 

Ankara devant la Cour 

européenne 

des Droits de l'homme 

A la suite de l'arrestation d'un 

citoyen danois d'origine kurde, Ke~al 

Koc, pendant un mois et demi, suivie 

de l'arrestation et de l'expulsion d'un 

député danois qui avait assisté au procès 

de celui-ci, le Danemark a décidé 

de poursuivre la Turquie devant la Cour 

européenne des droits de l'homme, 

Selon Copenhague, le ressortissant 

danois, Kemal Koc, a été détenu et torturé 

par les autorités turques durant 

son arrestation, au cours de l'été 1996. 

le ministre danois des Affaires étrangères, 

Niels Helveg Petersen, a précisé 

à la presse que cette démarche serait 

effectuée mardi à Strasbourg, siège de 

la Cour. Il espère une instruction rapide 

de ce dossier. Il s'agit d'une violation 

de l'article 3 de la Convention européenne 

des droits de l'Homme, interdisant 

l'usage de la torture, a estimé M. 

Hevlveg Petersen, indiquant qu'Ankara 

avait été prévenu vendredi, 3 janvier 

1997, de la démarche danoise. 

La Turquie achète des 

missiles Work Silk à la 

Chine et 30 hélicoptères 

à la France 

Les dépenses militaires semblent. 

être le seul secteur épargné par la grave' 

crise économiqueque traverse la Turquie. 

Ainsi, alors que le ministre de la défense, 

Turhan Tayan, annonce le 19 décembre 

la décision du gouvernement d'accorder, 

à compter du 1er janvier 1997, une augmentation 

de 72% des salaires des officiers 

et des sous-officiers, le quotidien 

Milliyet, révèle dans son numéro du 20 

décembre un accord turco-chinois 

"secret" portant sur l'acquisition par 

'l'armée turque de 6 batteries de missiles 

chinois Worm Silk Ws-1 d'LIneportée de 

80 km. La première batterie, comportant 

19 WS-1 sera livrée par Pékin "assez 

rapidement". 

Les 5 batteries restantes seront coproduites 

sur place, en Turquie. 

L'ensemble de la transaction porte sur $ 

150 millions. Ensuite, un projet portant sur 

le développement d'un missile d'une portée 

de 150 km sera mis en oeuvre par 

Ankara qui est également en pourparlers 

avec la Belgique et les Pays-Bas pour 

l'acquisition de missiles Hawk qui ne servent 

plus dans les armées de ces deux 

pays et avec la firme française Thomson- 

CSF pour l'achat de 18 missiles Improved 

Hawk pour un montant de $ 160 millions. 

Enfin, les négociations turco-françaises 

sur la vente d'hélicoptères à usage militaire 

sont sur le point d'aboutir. Un accord 

pourrait être signé entre Eurocopter et le 

gouvernement turc "dans les jours qui 

viennent". Selon cet accord "fin prêt", 

Eurocopter vendrait dans un premier 

temps 30 hélicoptères Cougar qui seront 

assemblés en Turquie. Cette première' 

livraison devrait être suivie d'une seconde 

dont l'ampleur n'est pas encore indiquée. 

Section 

two 

dâlly news 

Friday, January 10, 1997 

Mets lUrII Ri;ts Record: The Yea~sTwilight Zone 

The vear ] 996 saw the worst 

l'iolénce towards prisoners since 

the militaI)' rule of the early 

]98Os.according to IHD officials. 

The wave of hunger strikes in 

prisons in July ended with the 

government's partial compromise 

onlv after claiming ]2 lives. Four 

priSoners died after the strikes by 

being denied proper treatment. 

Amnesty International Slated that 

children between 14 and 16, 

charged with involvement in illegal 

organizations, were subjected to 

sel1Jal and physical torture during 

(heir detention. allegations documented 

by State Hospital reports. 

~linister of Justice ~vket Kazan 

said "The only thing Europe does 

is criticize Turkey. but from now' 

on we will criticize Europe: 

By Zafer F. Yörük 

Turkish Dai/)' News 

ISTANBUL- According tö the monthly reports of 

the Human Rights Association (tHO), Turkey's frrst 

year in the European Union's customs union witnessed 

repetition of ail the usuaI human rights violations. 

The depressing, numbingly familiar litany includes 

70 deaths and 46 injuries in so-called "unresolved 

murders", summary executions and de3ths in custody 

claiming 179 lives, 326 peOJlleclaiming to have been 

tortured 1ß police custody, 107 non-government organizations, 

newspapers and publishers being shut down 

and ail the editlons of 183 different issues of various 

newspapers and magazines seized, 379 reporters and 

journalists arrested, sentenced to a totall66 years and 

8 months imprisonment and fmed over TL 10 billion. 

The most infamous of these convictions was 

arguably that of Y~ar Kemal on 7 March by the 

Istanbul State Security Court (DGM) which imposed 

a 20-month suspended jail sentence on the Nobelnominated 

author for two essays he wrote on the 

Kurdish issue. This conviction came as a bombshell 

for those who monitor human rights condition in 

Turkey. 

In December 1995 then-Prime Minister Tansu 

Çiller had announced a list of legal relaxations, in parl1cular 

for freedom of expreSSIOn, which led to the 

drop of charges of "terrorism through writing" against 

Keffi!Ùby the same. court for the same essays. This 

acquIttal may have mtluenced the EuropeanUnion's 

(EU) decision to admit Turkey to customs union. • 

Joumalisttrfan Ag~ was killed this year, but the 

year's most infamous assault on men of letters was 

cert~inl~. the death in police custody of journalist 

Metln Göktepe on 9 January. Göktepe was arrested 

with around 1,000 people when covering a demonstration 

in Istanbul for,me leftist publication Evrensel. 

His murder raised outrage from all sectors of the press 

and media, but as of r.et no arrests have been made 

~d th~ :'inve~~gation' of 48 police officers Charged 

WIthkilling Göktepe proceeds at a snail' s pace. 

Another stain on 1996 in Turkey was tfte toItUre of 

children in Manisa, in western Turkey. The affair 

received widespread international attention, and on 17 

April Amnesty International declared that children 

between the age of 14 and 16 are held on charges of 

involvement in illegal organizations, and while in custody 

are subjected to sexUal and physical torture, alle- 

~atlOns documented by Stat_eHöspital reports. The 

31


"trial" of the police officers accused moves at glacial 

speed, , ' . 

The only remarkable difference between this overloaded 

balance sheet and that of the previous year is 

the decrease in the number of villages burned and 

emptied by government security forces in the 

Southeast. from 243 to 67. "Because there are no villages 

left to be burned down," an nID official commented 

wryly, 

Prisons terrorized 

The year began with a "security operation" at 

Uskudar Prison on 4 ~anuary, which led to the deaths 

of four prisoners as a result of being beaten on the 

head, 

In fact:, 1996 saw the worst violence towards prisoners 

since the military rule days of the early 1980s, 

according to !HD officials. Between January and 

November 1996,21 prisoners were beaten to death by. 

priso~ authorities, and 10 prisoners were killed by 

other mmates,' 

.The wave of hunger strik~s in prisons in July ended 

WIththe,g?vemm~nt s partIal compromise, but only 

~r clamun,g 12 li~es, Four prisoners died after the 

strikes by belOgdenIed proper treatment. . . 

.The worst prison incident was a gendarmerie 

sto~ing of D~yarbaktr Prison on September 24, 

which ~e~ 10 pnsone~ dead !U.ld24 seriously injuz:d 

Authonties reported the fatalities as casualties during 

.thesuppression of a prison ri~t, but a recent report by 

~e Parliamentary Human Rights Committee established 

that there was no riot sufficient to warrant a 

mi~itary operation, 

durin~ which "prisoners were 

deliberately beaten on theu heads by iron bars and 

truncheons." 

"Disappearances" in custody and 

"Saturdav Mothers" 

-öaïmS 01people disappearing while in official cus- ------- 

The more gangs, the less human rights 

By Gill Demir Hundreds of such practitioners continued their R~ion, Read in the pages of our newspaper other 

Turlcish Daily News gn'm work without worry, and in the odd incident ' 't d t'l' th d f h ' h 

ISTANBUL- Turk.ey concluded.1996 w..ith veg ln Ica ors e al mg e recoro uman ng ts 

1 d' h 'h R'" . b b that found reflection on the media, the torturers violations in 1996, I think that it would be enough 

ow gra es ln, uman ng ts, . eports. y ot were either acquitted after show trials or simply without going into more details, to mention one 

:n:ationaland international mstitutioDsbackedwith forgotten by the continuous transfer of their trial hope that was transferred from 1996 to 1997. 1996 

unimpeachable documentation-thai Turkèy' s from one city to another, b~ueathed to 1997 the chance to ameliorate the 

human 

M 

rights record 

h d" 

was amonùheworst. 

. d' h 'fy' b heritage of human rights taken from the previore~ver, 

suc .' a~a.appearewll, t~m, ln~ r;tPDedom o.'ln.t.o-n~"'n ous years. A traffic aCCIdentthat can be considfigures 

10 manypreSl1glous western msl1tul1ons l',,, 'J!J1 , ,,","w 

reports; they were not. merely.t.he. work of' A declaration Dy the Press Council proved that ered as a "miraculous accident", if it was at all by 

Turkey's nongovernmental organizations _ !he, freedom of inform~tion, one ~f the principal chance, brought to the surface the reality of gangs 

declared "enemIes of the nation" by those styling ~ndlcators of a country shuman nghts condition, consisting of politicians, police, mafia and ultrathemselves 

"patriots" and who think they can gov- was in a dismal state ID Turkey as two journalists ri~ht wing (Ulkucu) milItants, which had been 

em Turkey by going on about "flag" and "call for were killed in 1996, Metin Goktepe was arrested tned to be brought to the agenda several times by 

prayers", the same ones primarily responsible for by the police forces on December 8, 1996 while the human rights activists before but was continuthe 

human rights abuses. . he was doing his job and was beaten to death in ously denied by the authorities. Consequently, for 

According to reports by the United Nations and front of many witnesses. The trial of the Gokte~ the fIrst time, an opportunity to bring to the day- 

European Hllman .Rights Commission there are murder suspects has made the intercity journey 10 light the real responsibilities of human rights vioover 

20,000 ','diS'appeared"peoplein Turkey" The' its inexorable march to oblivion, as in the case of lations has emer~ed. It was then understood that 

number of reg,stered, politically, motivated 'disap- officials' torture trials. those gangs of' patriots" have contributed well 

pearances" amounts to 420. As it was revealed Attempts to silence the press were not limited to enough to the increase of human rights violations 

from the offiCial applications given to the Human murders: 7 journalists were subjected to armed in Turkey, by activities like murder, sabotage, kid- 

Rights Association (tHD) and Human Rights attack~, one journalist w~ kidnapped, 135 were napping, summary execution, drug trafficking and 

Foundation (IHV), 203 of these disappeared in taken lOto custody for vanous reasons, Il were extortion. The future of the gangs who were seri-' 

1996, ' imprisoned while all the editions of 109 publica- ~usly inj~ after crashing into the Susurluk lorry, 

Most disa,Ppearances occurred, as in the previ-, tions were seized by the police, and 40 publica- IS of great Importance for both the year 1997and 

ous ,years, ln,the Southeast' s' Emergency Rule tions were' shut down, Recently the government following. If the gangs are resuSCItatedthrough, 

RegIOn. 1996 s somber tally ranks second behind has been in search of new restrictive measurès for posthumous efforts, as noted in the recent days 

the 299 ~~ing after 1994, 3!1d the figures appear the press. It seems thatthe government will con- and regain their health, this will mean that they 

to be gammg momentum SInce the' turn of the tinue to look for a convenient platform for these will defmitely recommence their activities follow-' 

decade. According to the report of Human Ri2hts re2Ulations in 1997. 'ing a period.of rehabilitation; which, in turn, will 

Foundation, systematic torture cohtinuecf all 'Similar incidents painted as $loomy a picture in mean that this year wouldn't be different from the 

throu~ 1996 and those very few torturers whose 1996.. Police truncl1eons which had worked so last regarding human rights.' 

ident!ties ",ere ,discovered have always come hard with other demonstrations were hidden out of But if the gangs will come out of intensive care 

under the protecbve umbrella of laws and political si2ht when faced with religious demonstrators. . after being through heavy operations in which 

power. Th~ to~~ c~ose from a wide.variety of Workers, public workers. peasants, students, ,they willlose some of their organs, then Some 

methods 'lIke '..electnc shocks, hangIng, rape, "Saturday Mothers",women, the elderly and chil- improvement could be expected înTurkey's 

spraying ~ld' water, d~priyïng of food, threats in dren, all took their sh.are .f!qm~e police beatings. human rights record.'. '. '..' ,. 

cells, stoppmg fro.munnation and defecation, ver-' Summary executions contmued .. Many evi- .' .You think that we forgot the possibility of dealh 

bal insults,'sexual abuse, falaka (traditional dences were revealed concerning the so called of the g~gs at the end of the intensive care... But 

Turkish beating on the feet's soles), death threats. "mysterious" murders"p~ving that gangs 'Within no, w~ did not. The problem is that such a ~imaking 

the victim stand on wet and cold surfaces' the state were responsIble for them. But the ,bility is not on the horizon for the moment. 

squeezing testicles,plucking hairs and beards' efforts to cover up such;evidence also followed.Besid~s, n~t.all thç'g~gs underwent an accident. 

p'ulling out ~ngernail~, threats directed to rela~ Meanwhile, such murders continued without los. Even If thIS gang is dead there are still many 

tives, preventlDgbr~athing, false execution ..." ing momentum, primarilY in the Emergency Rule more inTurkey. ' 

.f 

32


todv" totaled 20S between January and November 

1996. Human rights activists interpret this figure as a 

dramatic increase, given that the total number of the 

"disappeared" in custody between 1980 and 1996 is 

420. The heroic vigil of the "Saturday Mothers," pe0- 

pled by families of the missing, who continued their 

silent sit in protest every Saturday in Istanbul' s 

Galatasaray. Square for 86 weeks to date, received a 

lot of attention from press and media worldwide. 

Istanbul police' s anack on mothers, labor and political 

lctivists and journalists in one of the sit-in protests 

when the Uruted Nations Habitat II Conference was 

being held,in Istanbul vindicated the international 

interest. Some Habitat II delegates were also injured 

in the anack. Amnesty International replied the determination 

Of "~aturda)' Mothers" by launching an 

international campai$D in November to highlight the 

:homan rights \'iolatlons particularly the "disappear- 

.ances" in Turkey. 

Southeast: 

the bleeding wound 

The year 1996 began with some hope for a solution 

to the Kurdish problem; at the time the Kurdish 

Workers' Party (PKK) was holding a unilateral cease 

frre in the southeast. 

On 16 January. the press reported that the PKK 

ambushed a minibus in Guclukonak in the Southeast, 

killing Il people. thus ending the unilateral cease fire. 

The case iliough was later investigated by an unoffi. 

cial d~,I~g~t!o~led by the "~'s Come Together for 

Peace mltlatlve, who established that the security 

f~rces were respo~~ible for the.~bush. The delegation 

and the fanulies of the V1Ctlmsof the incident 

demanded the prosecution of the Chief of Staff for 

murder. 

No legal action was taken against the Chief of 

Prosecution; on the contrary the head of the initiative, 

Sanar Yurdatapan, was questioned by the 

Prosecutor' s office with charges of "underminmg the 

Chief of Staff and Security Forces." Yurdatapan 

would be arrested later in the year to be rrosecuted 

for appearing on the Kurdish TV channe Med TV. 

The PKK cease fire, which was new recognized by 

the gove':ßID.entdid not last long and in the year 1996, 

the conflict m the southeast c1arrned2.750 lives from 

both ~ides. including the PKK guerillas and Turkish 

secunty forces while leaving liS civilians dead as a 

result of the atrocities committed by one side or the 

other of the same conflict. The US based human 

rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) produced 

reports on the use of arms against civilians in 

the southeast Turkey, which would ironically lead to 

the trial of the publisher and the translator of the 

re~rts in Turkey. . 

. ~ campaign by international human rights orgamz~uons, 

HR-W and Amnesty International (AI), 

.agal.nstthe ~altreatment of civilians by the authorities 

part~cularly ID the southeast Turkey led the European 

Parliament, on IS September to suspend financial aids 

to Turkey ID de~ance of t?e cu protocol. This move 

led ~eputy ,Prime MI~lster and the Minister of 

ForeIgn Affarrs Tansu Çlller to announce immediately 

a new parliamentary bill of democratization of 

Turkish Penal Code and the Code of Penal 

Procedures. 

There are a number of cases heard in the European 

Court of HU":lan Rights. ar:nong them that of the 

southeastern villagers of Yesllyurt which resulted on 

16 September 1996 with the conviction of the Turkish 

government to pay compensation to the villagers. The 

complain of the Ye~i1yurtvillagers was that an army 

commander forced them in 1987to eat~xcre~ent. 

Discourses 

of violation 

:'E;atexcrement and your whole life will change!": 

Mllhyet,.a Turkish daily, reported the European 

Human ~ghts Court's convicuon of the government 

to.p~r bllli?,ns of TL to the Yesilyurt villagers, with 

this funny headline. In fact, as the Turkish media 

~as expressing outraae with this 'foreign" interventiOn, 

th~ lawyer ~f ~sil~rt villagers Hasip Kaplan 

was tryl~g to œse his vOice aaainst the increasing 

persecutlon by the security forces in the region 

against Yesilyurt villagers. including the subsequent 

arrests and torture of the villaae headman in the local 

gendarmerie station. e 

The ?fficial. arg~~~nt aga~nst ~uropean bodies 

portraymg their cnl1clsm as 'forelan mtervention 

mto Turkey's domestic affairs" is backed and encouraged 

by most sectors of the Turkish media who in 

every opportunity present international criticis~. as 

"collaboration with the PKK." 

f:.s a typical demonstration of ~~ Turkefs official 

a~tltud~ to~ards European cntlCISm, Bntlsh daily 

Fmanclal Times quoted on 20 December Turkey's 

Minister of Justice ~evket Kazan's claim that bis 

go~ernment wll;Snow monitoring human ri2hts abus. 

es l.n Europe, m order to counter their afIegations 

agaln~t T~~y: Kazan said, "the only thing E~ 

d~.s .IScntlC1Zm~Turkey but from now on we will 

cntlClZe Europe.' 

~ an e~~ple h?w Europe violates human rights, 

JustIce Miruster said teenagers from violent homes 

can be separated from their families until they 

reache~ IS. "During this time they are not allowed to 

see therr parents. There are about 600 cases of this." 

. Kaz~ al~ .said muslims are not allowed to prac- 

~ce therr religIOn freely in Euro~. He said churches 

m Turkeyare allowed to ring therr bells but European 

mosques cannot use loudspeakers to broadcast their 

call for prayers. Kazan also accused Europe of being 

be~d the PKK by saying: "Where does PKK obtain 

therr we~pons? Where does their money come from? 

Europe IS behind the PKK. From now on we will 

demand some answers." 

C~nsequently, th~ general belief of the Turkish 

pubhc towards the mternational conventions that 

Turkey signed still seems to be that "our government 

sho~d not be told ~hat to.do ~y forei~ers.:' And no 

officl~ or unofficlal bodies mfluentIal over publiCI 

men~ty seem to be concerned with infonning the' 

~ublic on the E~pean and United Nations conventl01!So~ 

human nghts, and the Turkish government' s' 

obligatlons. 

.. Th~ result is that one can still witness demonstrabons 

m :rurk~l held with the slogan of "down with 

human n~ts, as the ~nt demonstration p8!ticipat- . 

ed ex~luslvely by the plain clothed police officers in 

the dIsturbed southeastern town of Lice on 30 

Decem~r. Ce~n1y, a turn of the year would not 

automaucally Improve Turkey's human rights 

records. 

B~t to ex~~ a gradual change in the beliefs of 

Turkish pu~lic m parallel to Turkey's inclusion into 

~toms umon towards what the concepts of human 

nghts and Europe represent would not be-Uftfair. 1btf 

pr.obab~y is the essential opportunity that Turkey 

1Il!~. m.the. year,l996 ..Although there are no opbffilStl~mdicatl?l1S, 

'there ~ always a space for hope in 

anything that is not dead lIS the old Turkish saying 

1!oes. 

33


Turkish Daily News SA11JRDAY,JANUARY \I, 1997 

Iraqi Kurdishgroups 

due in 

Ankara for meeting next week 

Pellctreau 's meeting with Iraqi Kurds Barzani and PUK lèader Jalal Talabani to come to tain stability'in northern Iraq, make sure that 

Ankara to lead their respective delegations at the Saddam's influence is severely limited, and proin 

Washington stretches to a second talks. . mote some kind of reconciliation between these 

Pelletreau, who will soon be retiring from the two Kurdish groups, as well as the Assyrians and 

day as KDP and PUK are said to be u.s, foreign service, met with KDP and PUK del- other minority communities of northern Iraq." 

'I " If "egations separately in Washington on Friday. First . 

ml es apart on se -governmen~ in was tlie KOP delegation consisting of Twomainissues. . 

Nerchivan Barzao,i, Hosyer Zabari, the KOP's Infonned TON sources claimed the two top issues 

By Ugur Akme. . London representative, and Farhat Barzani, the the PUK and KDP representatives are grappling 

Turkish Daily News KDP's Washington representative. . . with are: . . 

WASHINGTON- A third meeting' co-chaired After the KOP delegation left the premises, _ I) the sharing of border-transit revenues 

by Turkey and the Ùnited States' and aimed at Barham Salih, a memoor of the PUK leadership which are currently controlled by the KDP; and 

peace a~d stability in northern Iraq is expected to Co.uncil and Washington representative, _ 2) the futureJonn of Iraqi-Kurdish "self-govbe 

held In Ankara next week. amved. . . . . emment" in northern iraq. . . 

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East The.PUK office in Washington reported that Currentlythere is a baghdad-controlled and 

Affairs, Robert Pelletreau, i~ due to arrive in ~akhtiar Zuh~i was anothe~ PUK offi~~alinvolyed KDP.run administrative body in Erbil. • 

Ankara on Monday for the meetmg. In the talks WIthU.S., Turkish and Bntlsh officIals The city"Waswrestled back from PUK control in 

~he two Iraq! Kurdish factions, the Pat~iotic at the State Department. .September. with a drive,launched by theKDP and 

Umon of. KurdIstan (PUK). and the Kurdistan Assisting . .. Baghdad forces' to "the.' no~ of the J6th paraI- 

Democratic Party (KDP), whIch have fought each The State Department reframed from descnbmg lei' '., 

other on.and off since 1994 a~d had agreed on a . the Turkish and ~ritish roles as f~1Iparticipa- ToN sources said the KDP was not in a mood 

cease-fue. recently, met ~Ith ~elletr~au on t'On. Spo~esman Nicholas Bums said Pe!l~tre~u to share with tbe PUK.their control of the Erbil 

Thursday. In order. to continue dISCUSSI~gt~e 'was ':~ssl~te~" by the Tu!ks ~nd the Bntlsh ID " overnment" in anr form.' .' . 

cease-fi~e Issues whIch they started to negotIate In these prel~mIDarynegotla~ons. , . . gA PUK officiallR.Washin~ton ~aid the PUK 

Ankara ID late October. . . .Concemlng. a follo.w-~p In AQlcara~t the end ~f wanted Ua comprehensivepolitical settlement to 

. The TDN learned that, du~ to t~e. numb~r ofthIs month WIth Barzan! and.!alabam, Bums dId revive the institutions of self-government in the 

Items on the.agenda, the meeting, ongmally btlled not sound t~ .encouragmg. What happens. after re ion and to continue. to protect the people of 

for one


IX! their ~ to üce, according to lHD Chainnan AkIn 

Blrdal. Blrdal and human rights activist ~anar 

yurdatapan also claimed the state was attemptIng to 

cover up what was'really g~ing on in lice. 

Another missioo, organized. by HADEP, is to meet 

Neèati Bilican. the governor for the ~ Rule 

Region, to be briefed about the latest situatIon m lice 

ancl the Southeast in general, according to HADEP 

Chairman Güven Özati 

....:.:':%~.:~i::nwŒ::;." 

- lundi 13janvier 1997 -Le Monde dimanche 12 - lundi 13janvier 1997 

Un éditeur turc 

condamné à rester 

en prison au terme 

de sa peine 

ISTANBUL 

de notre correspondante 

Les portails d'acier de la prison 

d'Ankara sont restés fermés à l'issue 

de la peine purgée par Unsal 

Ozturk. L'éditeur, dont trente-six 

livres ont été saisis et contre lequel 

soixante-deux procès ont été 

ouverts, s'est rebellé contre son 

sort. n a refusé de payer l'amende 

longer. Aysenur ZarakoglUest une 

habituée des tribunaux. Le 17jan- sociologue bmail Besikçi, qui est 

de 1,1milliard de livres turque! vier, elle comparattra dans le cadre lui aussi un «récidiviste •. 

(environ 53000 francs) qui lui d'un autre procès qui lui a été in- En janvier 1996, le journaliste 

.avait été Infligée dans le cadre de tenté pour la traduction et la pu- Metin Goktepe, arrêté aiors qu'U 

sa condamnation. La somme a blication d'un rapport préparé par «~ouvrait. les funérailles de prl- 

'donc été convertie en jours de prl- l'organisation des droits de sannlers décédés au cours 

son, à raison de 10000 livres l'homme Human Rights Watch sur d'émeutes, avait été retrouvé mort 

(moins de 50 centimes) par jour, les transferts d'armes et violations quelques heures plus tar~i. Sous la 

ce qui devrait prolonger son incar- des droits de la guerre. pression de la presse è!"de l'opicération 

jusqu'en 2001. Ces cas ne sont pas Isolés. nion publique, les autorités 

Mm

Revue de Presse-Press Rev.iew-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti 

event Politic~ can be co~sidered as a process. of ' • ? TDM.What would be tbe attitude of Tansu 

time. If we tned to do this one year ago, nothing 11lfI.Can Turkey tolerate this. ..' Çiller if she loses her chair? 

would b~ ~ clear: astoday when RP mayo~. can . CINDORUI.Itcannot, as you see.• This Isthe. most c1MDORUK. If she loses her chair, she will~aps 

take deciSions by themselves and these deelSlons 1D1portantp~ of the movement of the peo~e, they sit on a stool. I am not interested in Tansu iller at 

can influence Turkey. We witnessed so many show f ::etton. Tho~ 1tï 0 ~ he~t de Ytia all. What interests me is the future of urkey. 

~s this kind of events and they have accumu~at- part.o red. movemen , sows spo sm Çiller is only a detail. I told -she can come if she get 

ed. This accumulations gave way to the foundation ISreJee ' cleaned. She can come if she gives all she possess 

of our party. 11lfI.Can we say there ~ a govenuilent? ' to Mehmetcik Foundati~n. W~ ~on't say anything 

CINDORUK y there' b ' 'li I I about her, but can a pnme IDIDlsterhave posses- 

TDM.Did Susurluk event have an effect on ill m 1 ~ ~~lifidSg ut It won t ve ong. t sions abroad? Çiller cannot survive in Turkey's 

yourfoundation.? '.. . w co pel e an o,, politicallife unles,s she gives account about how 

CINDORUK. I think that Susurluk eve~t ISan mdi- 11lfI.What can you say for the future. and when she transferredthis money abroad. 

cator, a result. But we have to question the state CINDORUIToda DYP has lost its function In ' , 

faults that gave way t~ ~s. event. Can the state our party ~e!ro~se short term targets as w~ll as ,TDM.Will the go!ernmen~ be able to solve 

c~te a another state WithinI~~ ?Can oth~r seeu- long term an permanent ones. The pace of this S~hik event and !ts results. 

nty forces than the state see'lfIues. In which p~ party is very simple when compared to those. ,CIMDORUK'~epolic~ part can ~ s~lved. But 

of the ~orld ~ y~u see that. What we have S3ld There are simple barriers, they make one step and beyond ~e P,Olice,the 1D1portant thing IShow such 

proved Its truth In ume, ...' get lost Difficulties start from this time on. How an orgam~uon, such a ban~ such an event could 

,.. Till DOW none of our (J!!ß1eministers was we will be able to get through the state crisis, how take place m ~nt. of the police.. ,The government 

called as ''So and So And His Gang". Tansu can we repair Turkey, how can we change the cann~t solve this, It cannot If Its ~ons are not 

Ciller was ~e first one. Bo,! .doloU evaluate recent sta,te system of Turkey, how can we amelio- abolished, ne~ Susurluk event~ Will take place. 

the ~t Situations of the politics. '. rate it ThiSlS what we have in our program. We And nobody Will be aware of this. Bot~ of ~m 

ClNDORUl-Till now none ol ~ ~ lead;ersnor propose all these for discussion and we don't claim are. dangerous. The media can be 

ce:inisters were mentIoned ~n thiS way that all we say is true. We just call people to dis- hindered to .reach the ~th. What 

, they didn't have any gang. This shows thal cuss . w~ are asking for a radical resolu- 

Çiller has a gang. 

non of the events. 

Turkish Daily News MONDAY,JANUARY 13.1997 

The slow march of peace innorthern Iraq 

., PUK satisfied with the peace 

. implementation process 

PUl( representative accuses Baghdad 

of attempting to larabize' northern 

Iraq through the migration of Arabs 

into the Kurdish-dominated north 

By Saadet Oruç 


ANKARA- Although the process of implementing 

peace is going slow, the Patriotic Union 

of KurdIstan (PUK) are pleased with what 

progress has been made, according to a highlevel 

PUK representative. ' 

With Talabani due io arrive in Ankara this 

week, most probablyon Tuesday, for more peace 

talks, Tofiq told the TDN ~hat if Kurdistan 

Democratic Party (KDP) leader Massoud Barzani 

also came to Ankara, Talabani would certainly 

meethim .. 

U.S. Assistant Secretary of StateRobert 

Pelletreau has invited Talabani, Barzani, 

Turkmen .representatives as well Turkish and 

British offiCiais to Ankara for a continuation of 

talks which started last year aimed atbringing 

. the warring northern Iraqi parties to peace. 

. Talabanl himself will not attend the talks, but 

will 'meet separately with British, U.S. and 

Turkish officials. . 

Barzani has not yet confmned if he will come 

toAnkara. 

Asked whether the PUK was satisfied with the 

Ankara process Tofiq said although the process 

of implementation was going very slowly, they 

were satisfied with the Oct. 30 agreement (to 

implement a cease-fire). . 

T()fiq said althoughhe did not know the exact 

agenda of the talks, he expected the topics of 

confidence building measures, cease-fire monitoring 

groups, and the clarification of areas of 

control, would all crop up. 

Even though the KDP was not satisfied with 

the current plans for demarcation, Tofiq said he 

expected the issue to be clarified after detailed 

.discussions. 

' 

At the talks, the PUK delegation will consist 

of Adnan Mufti, Shazad Saib and will be headed 

by Tofiq ..TheKDPrep~entatives will include 

Safeen DlZayeeand Sann Abdurrahman. ' 

No nfJotiations with Baghdad 

Questioned whether the PUK had spoken to 

the Baghdad administration, Tofiq said the only 

way his party would speak to the Iraqi government 

was underthe framework of U.N. Seeurlty 

Council Resolution 688. . 

Tofi9 accused the Hussein regime of attempting 

to •arabize" northern Iraq through the migration 

of Arabs into the Kurdish-dominated north, 

in particular the provinces of Makhmour, Akra 

and Shean. 

' 

According to Tofiq, Baghdad wants the KDP 

to end all contact With the West and that this 

could be seen in the way it had demanded that 

the port of lbrahin Halit be handed over to the 

government. . 

Baghdad doesn't regard Barzani as the head.of 

the Kurds, Tofiq claimed. Only as the head of the 

KDP. 

Stressing that there had been no talks between 

the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) 

and the PUK, Tofiq 'accused the KDP of having 

closer relations with the separatist organization. 

Tofiq referred to a statement by PKK leader 

Abdullah "Apo" Ocalan, that appeared in the el 

Mujalla newspaper, in which he said he could 

understand why Barzani had sought help from 

the Iraqi admimstration. ' . 

Last August, KDP forces joined with Baghdad 

troops to sweep through northern Iraq. 

The PUK suffered heavy losses and the Iraqi 

government's gains led to the United States 

pulling many ofits Kurdish "workers" out of the 

country. its 

. Last week in Washington, Pelletreau met with 

representatives from both the PUK and KDP. 

Tofiq said that during the talks the KDP were 

ch8;Sl1sedfor their cooperation with the Baghdad 

. regime. ' 

36

:;ö 

~ 


Turkish Daily News TUESDAY,JANUARY 14,1991. 

.....l'tIl.~.:., .. 

Metln Göktepe's mother, Fadime, holds a picture of her son, killed a year ago, In commemoration 

of the journalist's death. 

Democratic groups 

remember Metin Göktepe 

By c. Ash K1hçk1ran the ceremonies were not televised. 


"People [at the conference hall where he 

ISTANBUL- Certain organizations spoke] were very sensitive, and we are 

have organized remembrances for Metin pleased that the activities went without 

Göktepe, a journalist who died in police any incidents." 

custody last year. Göktepe's brother )isa Göktepe's killers have not yet been 

expressed his satisfaction Monday atthe brought to trial, and statements from suspects 

within the police department have 

Burhan Felek Conference Salon with the 

range of commemorationS planned for the not been taken as the case has been moved 

anniversary of his brother' s death. from Istanbul, flfSt to Aydm then Konya. 

"People are sensitive and enthusiastic in Taken into cusJody at the January 8 

the activi~~s." he.said, .but noted sadly that funeral of Orhan Oz~n and Riza Boybaf, 

. inmates killed during the Üsküdar prison 

uprising, Göktepe was s~n by witnesses 

at the Eyüp sports ball With other demonstrators, 

and beaten by police. After losing 

consciousness he was taken away by 

police, and bis body was later found in a 

tea garden near the Eyüp Sports Hall. . 

Eyüp Prosecutor Erol Canözkan saId 

Göktepe died in the tea garden he went to 

after being released, but later Istanbul 

Chief of Security al the time, Orhan 

Ta~anlar. admitted that Göktepe had died 

under supervision. The Interior Ministry 

confirmed that Göktepe was beaten to 

death by police. 

Goktepe' s mother has been quoted ~s 

saying, in regards to the Susurluk car acCIdent, 

"the police get their money and do 

not find the killers. 

They eliminate the dead bodies. I do not 

understand how they did not do the same 

to my son's dead body. 

They threw it away.'.' She sa!d .following 

publicity surroundmg the killing that 

police "passed in front our door very 

often; and we got many silent calls by telephone." 

Remembrances for Göktepe All . 

events are at the Contemporary 

Journalists' Association;. 

January 14: Lecture by Unsal Oskay at 

7.30pm. 

January 16: Lecture by Fikret l1kiz at 

7.30pm. 

January 17: Lecture by DSP 

Parliamentarian Hakan Tartan at.7.30 rm. 

January 18: Slide show by Ali Öz at .00 

Pjanuary 20: Slide show by Yücel 

Tunca at 7.30 pm. January 21: Lecture by 

Ahmet Altan at 7.30 l'pl. 

January 23: Lecture by Can Dündar at 

7.30 pm. 

January 24: Meeting in front of 

Cumhuriyet newspaper headquarters at 

.11.00 am., followed by a march to the 

l~~bul Governor' s office at 11.30. . 

38

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentra de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

Turkish Daily News 1\1ESDAY.JANUARY 14.1997 

Parliament and prosecutors chase 'the gang' 

while Prime Ministry says there ~ no 'gang' 

Justice Minister Kazan: 'State Security 

Court investigating the gang aspect' 

Commission Chairman EIka~: 

'Parliament and not government has 

given us the task of probing this issue' 

Commission spokesman incetahtaa: 

'We are trying to expose the 

state-mafia relationship' 

Commission member Topçu: 

'Commission would continue with the 

probe even if the trials began' 

Commission member SagIar: 

'I hope that we will attain results' 

By Kemal Baia 

TD]t/Parti_fil BU1YGII 

ANKARA- The parliamentary commission formed with the 

aim of exposing the state-mafia relationships in the wùe of the 

Susurluk meident, heard on Monday from witnesses of certain 

mafia-related murders. 

Meanwhile, commission Chainnan Mehmet Elbtnu, of the 

Welfare Party (RP) said the commission would continue to function 

after the Prime Ministry Board of Inspectors' Susurluk 

report is handed over to the judicial authorities. He re~ the 

argument that the commission should suspend its activities once 

the trials started. 'The task has been asslgI!ed to us by the legislative 

bod}'," Elkatml~ said. "The legislative body and the 

executive boi:lyare separate flOm one another," . 

Commission spokesman Bedri lncetahlaCl said they were trying 

to e~pose state-mafia relations not only in the context of 

Susurluk but also by delving further into the past. . 

. By now the Prime Ministry Board of Inspectors has completed 

Its report on Susurluk and presented it to Justice Minister ~vket 

~ ~~ in turn relay~ it to the judiciary. The ~ urges 

!~e J.U~ICII!Yt~ put on tnal 35 people accused of • variety of 

mdivldual cnmes - as oppose


'o'pposedto '8;DY. effort~imed at takini..Sûsurl~ ~,ff!te coun~'s 

agenda. '7his Issue will be pursued, he saul. Itls out of the 

question for an issue of such significance to be covered up." He 

asked the news media not to shake the confidence Witnesses had 

in the commission by publishing what the)' claimed were 

"excerpts of the minutes of the Susiuluk commission sessions." 

He reftirœd to the testimony .of Hande B.inic~ the daußhte~ of 

Tank Ümit, the alleged National Intelligence Orgamzatlon 

.(MIT) informer who is said to have been abducted and killed. He 

said that Binici had not named any specific person as the murderer 

of her father. He stressed that Sinici is now in a difficult 

position because newspapers reported that she had "revealed" 

that name. . . . 

tncetabtaci saidthere were "certain peoele withinthe state, 

people doing tlùngs in the name of the state , but that he did not 

wantto describe them as a "gang.""lt is not important what we 

call such a formation. The imporl1lnt thing is to reveal that formation. 

The public must trust us. That trust will be the main factor 

enabling our su~s. Wi~ our work we want to lift the shadows 

east over the Parliament . 

Fikri SaAlar a member of the comnÙSSlonfrom the opposition 

Republican People's Party (CHP) said he did not share the pessimistic 

assessments' bandied about that the commission's work 

would be incQPplusive. "I amh~fuJ:' he said...~ aJ1).stillconvinced 

tharthecommissio.FwiU 6tiJ1gthee\'tlltS'tàtigl; however 

limited this may be; We are getting sigiùfic8Jit infomiation." 

Meanwhile, Justice Minister ~éVket Kazan said. theX would 

soon r,resentto Parliament two bills; one creating a judicial 

police' force which would be directly answerable to .prosecutors. 

The other would be a "Repentance Bill" which would help 

uncover the gangs within the state. 

On Monday the Susurluk commission beard the testimony of 

Ahmet Albn~ .a non~mmissioned gendarmerie soldier who 

bad. follQ:-ving~ assassination inIstanbul in July 1996 of easino 

king Omer Uitfii Top!'l. .found the getaway car. Another person 

heard by the COIDlD1SSlonwasSena Er. whose father had 

been abduct~ andkilled by.the mafia. Later this week the commission 

will hear two True Path Party (DYP) ~'puties implicated 

in the Susurluk incident in the context of the -political wing of 

the gang"; namely, MehmelAlar, formerintenor minister, and 

Sedit Bücak. the soluurvivor of the Susurluk crash . 

.Human RightsCommission 

chairman criticizes iHD. 

- '. . TDH Parliament Bllreall 

ANKARA- Demir Berberollu, chairman 

of the ParIramentary Human Rights 

Commission, criticized the Human Rights 

Associa~on (lHD) sayi~g it, distributes 

and publishes anl1~TurkiSh proI>aganda. 

Bei'berollu, a DYP deputy. on Monday 

received a Sw~sb delegation, headed by 

Left Party deputy Ben$! Hurtig, consisting 

of six I>arliamentanans and two NGO 

representatives. When a Swedish parliamentarian 

asked.whéther the commission 

has any links with Turkish NGOs, 

Berberoglu implied that the tHD was 

anti-Turkish. 

"Our door is open to everyone," he 

said. "We pay attention to whoever comes 

1005.-1 have been the commission chairman 

for a year. The organization who 

invited you to J:urkey has not co~e here 

yet Those who .do not want to c3iry out 

propaganda against Turkey come here." 

The Swedish delegation was invited to 

Turkey by the tHD. Noting thatthe)' 

received correspondence from bar asSOCIations 

and tradeomions;; Berbero~ ,aid 

they had meetings with representatives 

from all, NQ9s during the ~ommission' s 

observabons m several provmces. 

Berberoglu gave tile delegationt~e 

commission ~eport o~ the incide~ts I~ 

Diyarbaktr pnson, which resulted ID the 

death of 10 inmates, and added that the 

police officers who were involved were 

currently on trial.. . . 

Pointln~ out thatlt was ImpoSSible for 

the cOmmission to prevent human rights 

violations on its own, Berberoglu stressed 

that Turkey's greatest problem was terrorism. 

"I believe that the more successfully 

Turkey eradicates terrorism and the 

more understanding the world shows her, 

the more human rights violations the 

commission will béable to prevent," . sion would investigate the incident'and 

.Berberollu said. .' '. . inform the Swedish delëgation in writing. 

Berberollu asked the Swedish delega- Later in the day, Beroeroglu was viSlttiori 

to inform thé commission of human éd by Hans Joachim Vergau, German 

rights violations that are reported to them, ambassador to Ankara. Noting that the 

.saying that the commission would carry . Human Rights Commission carries 

out investigations. He added that the utmost importance, Vergau said: "I would 

commission was always willing to coop- not have undertaken this visit if I thought 

erate on this issue. '. that your efforts would come to nothing." 

When a Swedish parliamentarian asked Vergau stressed that Germany was 

whether the Turkish government prepared never of the opinion that Turkish law was 

any. black lists aiming to prevent the insufficient in respect to human rights, 

entrance of certain Western parliamen~. adding thatthe problem arose in the 

ians to Turkey, Berberoglu denied any implementation ofthem by the police and 

knowledge of such a list, and asked them interpretations by the courts. 

to inform the commission if they know of Tlie ambassador also expressed his 

a parliamentari~ wb_owanted t~ .enter belief in the commission achieving suc- 

TUrkey but was prevented from domg so. cess in preventing human rights viola- 

The Swedish parliamentarian said that tions. Referring to. pl.anned am~n4me.nts 

Danish parliamentarian Soren Sodergaard to laws, Vergau s81dIt was an mdicatJon 

hadbeen subjected to such treatment, of the Turkish nation's will power on the 

upanwhich Berberoglu said the commis- issue. 

". . "., " 

. . 

.. U.... .••...... .•... n...~6hts' 

nU1nßn ,.6: .. 

'COS.' 

, 

'. 

. 

tSM. 

. . 

u..b..l..e.'.in'1996 

'....... ..., 

: 

'\.'/ ..... T"JJ;;:~YN~;~'."',:':N" 'Cb~ssi~llis~rirrentIY môDitorinf'i 

1;:~~::~!:I~~~d~J~:.~t 

,'.~ls~:s~h'~~fari~~~;"~~~~rif.\~d:;:; 

." to ..the' European' HuiDan ...~ights; . Turkeyhas been found gudty IDS 

'. CoDÏri1ission, according to a list pub-, CaSés, '.. . 

lisbed in the Commission's 1996 arinu- '::Accordingtö the 1996 report, Italy 

.al. report,.Jhe~Dl!toUanews. ag~~éY:;le4'thë fiel~ wit~.J2~jndiyidual •. ' 

:'7S.~tb7~.:~:~4ii&!!$t~:=: .. 

'. 'oumberof.appeals in~.the most., ..C~rt of Human J.tigbts ~d ~ country, . 

." The current number of appeals, at 562,.;.., gniltyofhuJ1l8!l rights vlol~ons, that .. 

. more than doubled from die pi'e~ious .'. ~~n~ must p'aycompensatlon to the 

numbér.The European Human Rights mdividual applicant. '. . 

40

Revue de Presse-Press Rcvic7l'-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

Turkish Dairy News 11JESDAY,JANUARY 14,1991 

PKKpians 

conference inMoscow 

Tllrlcish Daily N~s 

ANKARA- The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party 

(PKK) is planning further activity in Russia, foUowinJ that 

country's plans to sell antiaircraft missiles to Greek 

Cyprus the Anatolia news agency repofl.ed on Monday. 

"!he PKK plans to hold a conference in Moscow on Jan. 

16 to discuss certain issues, with the support of the committee 

for ~eopolitica1 affairs of the Duma (the lower house 

of the RUSSianparliament). . 

At the meetIng the PKK is expected to express Its support 

for Greek~. . 

A number of siinilar conferences have been organized ~y 

the PKK in ,the P,8St. including a mec:ting of Kurdish parliamentarians 

m eXile under the protecbon !>f the Duma. . 

The Turkish government bas complained to the RUSSWl 

authorities over the holdinl of the cOOference, but Moscow 

œplied that il was not widiin the administrationts power to 

control the Duma's actions. 

• Le Monde - mardi, 14 janvier 1997 • Le Monde - mardi, 14 janvier 1997 

Ankara brandit la menace militaire 

en cas d'installation de missiles à Chypre 

Un émissaire américain tente de désamorcer la crise dans la région 

A son arrivée à Chypre, dimanche 1.2Janvler, 1'~Is- siles soI-alr à la Russie. Il a toutefois rejeté les menaces 

saire américain Carey Cavanaugh a aitlqué la décision brandies par Ankara, estimant ~u'i~ n'llYait • aucune 

des autorités chypriotes grecques d'acheter des mis- justification pour une action millta,re Chypre ». 

,proclamée en 1983 et reconnu~ critiques, .n0~amme!lt de la p.art 

ISTANBUL seulement par la Turquie), a me-: des AméncaIDs, qw ont qualifié 

de notre correspondantenacé si les missiles étaient instal- d'« irresponsables» les déclara- 

Fermement opposée à l'installa- lés doouvrirla ville de Varosha à la tions des dirigeants turcs. 

tion de missiles sol-air russes dans population chypriote turque. Les 

la partie grecque de Chypre, la Chypriotes turcs ne se sont jamais L'AUTOMNE PROCHAIN 

Turquie a durci le ton, affirmant'emparés de Varosha, ancienne De telles critiques ont peu de 

qu'elle n'hésiterait pas à attaque~ station balnéaire proche de la prise sur les autorités turques. Deces 

installations antiaérienne~ SIligne de démarcation, devenue puis son intervention milItaire à 

nécessaire. «n n'est pas question une ville fantÔme déserte, placée Chypre en 1974, la Turquie est réque 

ces armes offensives soient sous contrÔle de l'ONU. gulièreD\ent condamnée sur la 

déployées. Si elles le sont, nous fe- Lundi le chef de l'état-major scène internationale pour la prérons 

le nécessaire. S'il faut les at- des forc~s armées turques, le gé- sence sur l'11ede trente mille de 

taquer, nous les attaquerons », a néral Ismail Hakki Karadayi, de- ses soldats. Dans le pays, la polidéclaré, 

samedi 11janvier, le mi- 'Vaitse rendre à Chypre à l'invita- tique à l'égard de Chypre rennistre 

des affaires étrangères, Tan- tion de M. Denktash. La Turquie contre cependant peu d'opposisu 

Ciller. «Nous ne pouvons pas espère, notamment par ce geste tion. Aux yeux de la plupart des 

nouscontenter de regarder la Grèce de soutien à la population turque Turcs, cette force ~ée est la 

assiégerla 1ùrquie pa~ le ~ud», ~-~- de Chypre, convaincre du sérieux seule g~antie de sécun~ pour la 

elle ajouté, visant aIDS1les diri- de ses avertissements et de la né- ,population turque qui VIt.dans la 

geants d'Athènes plutÔt que ceux cessité d'une intervention de la partie nord de l'De.Celle-CIa, pour 

de Nicosie. communauté internationale pour Ankara, une importance strat~- 

De son côté, Rauf Denktash, le empêcher l'installation des mis- gique indéniable puisqu'elle est Slprésident 

de la «République sHes. Cependant, les menaces tuée à 60 kilomètres seulement au 

turque de Chypre du nord» (auto- d'Ankara lui ont sunoutattiré des sud de la cÔteturque. LesTurcs se 

plaisent à rappèler que leur intervention 

armée en 1974 n'est pas la 

cause du problème de Chypre, 

mais a été la conséquence d'un 

conflit de plus d'une décennie 

entre les deux communautés, qui 

a fait selon eux deux mille morts 

entre 1963 et 1974 parmi les Chypriotes 

turcs. 

Le langage guerrier des autorités 

turques ne signifie pas qu'un 

conflit soit inévitable, même si 

aussi bien Mme Ciller que M. Erbakan 

sont connus pour leur intransigeance 

sur la, question de 

Chypre. Cette polémique avec les 

Grecs a, d'autre part, le mérite de 

détourner l'attention de la population 

de Turquie des questions internes, 

comme le scandale de corruption 

au sein de l'appareil 

étatique, "qui occupe les manchettes 

des journaux depuis début' 

novembre. 

Le secrétaire général des Nations 

unies, KoflAnnan, a demançlé 

à la Turquie et à la Grèce de 

faire preuve de retenue. ,L'envoyé' 

spécial américain Carey Cavanaugh 

a fait de même à son arrivée 

à Chypre, dimanche soir. La 

communauté internationale dispose 

encore d'un certain temps, 

pour désamorcer la crise, puisque 

:les missiles russes ne doivent pas 

être installés à Chypre avant l'automne 

prochain, voire au printemps 

1998. 

NfcolePope 

41


Turkish Army ranked Turki5h Daily NM 

11JESDAY,JANUARY 14, 1997 

among world's 10 largest 

NUmbers: With 16.subIriarines, Turkey has the worid's riirith-Iargest .... 

navy and the army's 4,280 tanks put it infIfth place inthatcategory 

, Turkish Daily News . 

~- The 780,OOO-slrong.Tl!fkish' 

army IS one of the ten largest amnes m the 

world, i1ccordingto research carried out by 

the World Strategic Information Institute. 

With 16 submarines, Turkeyalso bas the 

world's nintb largest navy, wbile tbe 

army's 4,280 tanks put it in fifth place in 

that category. The Turkish Air Force is one 

of the most sophisticated forces in the 

Armed Forces in d1e next 25 years. During 

that period, the ground forces will need 

$60 billion, the navy $25 billion, and the 

air force will need $M billion in arms and 

eqtlipment. . 

Türkisb army officials say that the main 

goal of the project is to meet the country's 

defense neeâs m the most efficient manner 

world, according to the report, whicb says with~ut pu~ng the nation's. interests ~d 

that the United States, China and Russia seeunty at nsk, and to establish a dyn~c 

possess the three top armies in the world. structure for the army as a wbole while 

In recent years, Turkey,bas started to str~amlin!ng. the beadquarters and base 

give priority to anny moClernization pro- umt orgamzauons. . . 

grams and ne\y weapons systems to catcb Officials f~om the General Staff said 

up to the 21st century technology. Duringthal1!5?-3 proJ~ts are'planned al a cost of 

a briefmg last year, the Generaf Staff said $67 billion ~til the y,ear2004. fbey added 

that $150 billion would be needed to fund ,that one-third of therr budget IS allocated 

..the arms and operations of the ,Turkish to modernization programs. 

• Le Monde - mardi, 14 janvier 1997 • Le Monde - mardi, 14janvier 1997 

Le gouvernement ne parvient pas 

à enrayer l'inflation en Turquie 

ISTANBUL 

de.notre .c.orresPfmdante 

. Vo, nO\lveau billet.d~ baIlgue a 

sUrVlcu civec de tels taux. d'inflation. 

pendant des années sans succomber 

à l'hyperinflÇltion », explique un di.: 

plomate. «n y a dans l'économie, 

turque des éléments non quanti~ 

fiables qui échappent à l'analyse.» ' 

fait' sorianpanti6n \sUr le marché 

wc laSèifuune 'dëriùère :'n est"de 

.S'millions:dëlivres. En 1981,la valeur 

de la plus ,grosse coupure 

n'était que de 1000 livres. Cette HFORMES STRUCTURELLES 

'!ois-ci, comme si elles avaient En 1996,l'économie a enregistré 

honte de l'inflation forcenée qui a .\ID taux de croissance enviable de 

imposé l'émission de ce nouveau 7 %. Si le ralentissement en fiil 

billet, les autorités ont choisi une d'année a soulagé les experts, qui 

,encre plus claire pour iinprimer les craigmüent une «surchauffe» dantrois 

derniers. zéros, dans l'espoir, gereuse menant à un renchérisse- 

'peut-être, de les faire oublier. ment effréné, ils ont été forcés de 

, Bien que tous multimillionnaires constater que l'inflation, bien qu'à 

- en monnaie locale -, les salariés la hausse, ne s'est pas emballée 

turcs sont confrontés à une dure comme on l'avait craint «Plus en- 

:réalité, celle d'une inflation qui re- fore que le taux. d'ir!flation, ce sont 

fuse obstinément,. depuis des an~ lesfluctuations de l'ir!flation qui imn~s, 

de quitter la zone des 80 % et, portent », explique AtillélYesiladilj 

d'une monnaie qui se dévalue en :directeur de la recherche à Global 

permanence. 'Seèurities. «En définitive, les sec- 

De ces chiffres, on pourrait tirer 'teurs industriels et bancaires pro- 

Ia conclusion que la Turquie est fitent probablement de l'i'1flation. » 

dans une situation désespérée. Les Avec l'entrée en vigueur de 

analystes affirment cependant que, l'union douanière avec l'Europe, les 

malgré des problèmes structurels ,importations ont pris leur envol en 

chroniques, l'économie turque est '1996,mais l'explosion des exportarelativement 

stable, même si itions que les Turcs 'attendaient n'a, 

l'ilgence de classement Standard .pas eu lieu. Ce déséquilibre de la 

and Poor a récemment abaissé sa balance commerciale contribue à 

note, qw est passée de «B +» à un déficit important des comptes 

« B ».« La Thrquie est un cas courants. Mais,là encore les statisunique. 

C'est !ln des seu~ pays qui a "tiques ne J~v.èlentQU'un~partie dù 

tableau. L'« économie grise» joue 

un rÔle,jmpQ~t ,~ çoQ.\Rense, en 

:partie ces écarts. ' . 

LeSiniportantes réserves en devises 

ia~c.wnulé.es..p;u:.,.la.banque 

centrale - près de 171nilliards de 

dollars (environ 89 milliards de 

filmcs) -instaurent une certaine 

confiance sur les marchés, et la plupart 

des économistes estiment que 

la crise - comme celle de 1994, 

lorsque la monnaie avait perdu 

50 % de sa valeur en l'espace de 

trois mois - n'est pas pour demain. 

Les Turcs ont appris à s'accommoder, 

avec un ressort remarquable, 

des difficultés politiques et écono~ 

miques, qui vont, d'ailleurs, 

souvent de pair. Mais la véritable 

-stabilité économique ne pourra 

être atteinte que grâce à des réformes 

structurelles. 

PROMESSES ET lŒALm 

Le premier ministre islamiste, 

Necmettin Erbakan, était arrivé au 

:pouvoir avec des idées en économie 

que de nombreux analystes jugeaient' 

peu réalistes. Durant sa 

campagne électorale, il avait annoncé 

l'introduction d'un dinar islamique 

et condamné les programmes 

d'austérité imposés par le 

Fonds monétaire international 

,(FMI). Personne ,Ile semble vérita- 

.I 

blement croire au budget équilibré 

que son gouvernement a présenté 

à.l'Assemblée nationale, ni d'ailleurs 

à ses trois « paquets» de mobilisation 

des ressources. Mais 

M. Erbakan a dOapprendre à adapter 

ses idées aux réalités du marché 

global. 

Les deux formations politiques 

au sein de la coalition sont désormais 

liées par une ferme intention 

de privatiser, et ont déjà fait quelques 

pas dans cette direction. 

D'autre part, des membres du parti 

de M. Erbakan, ElRefah, se ren, 

dront aux Etats-Unis pour des discussions 

avec le FMI. 

La capacité de M. Erbakan, quit, 

pour l'instant, semble fermement, 

installé au pouvoir, à concilier ses 

tendances populistes - promesse~ 

d'investissements dans divers sec, 

teurs et d'augmentations de sa~ 

laire - et la nécessité de redresser 

les finances publiques déterminera 

en grande partie la stabilité de 

l'économie dans les mois à venir.: 

En bon politicien, M. Erpakan est 

,conscient que la clé du pouvoir appartiendra 

à long terme au dirigeant 

capable d'apporter à la p0- 

pulation l'amélioration des 

:conditions de vie qu'elle attend. 

N.P. 

42


Turkish Daily News WEDNBSDAY,JANUARY 15,1991 

* ..' ....... 

NEW'TRy~iR~tatlves of rlvallraq! Kurdish factions and Turl


Turkish Daily News WEDNBSDAY,JÀNUARY 15,1991 

They run to the fields instead of to school 

Studentsof Han~epe, a village ofDiyarbaklt, whose teachers have 

been kidnapped and killed by the separatist Kurdish Workers' 

Party (PKK) guerillas,work in the fields instead of the school rows . 

, ' ',' . . appomted to Ihe south east It was among 

By Hakan Aslaneli authonl1es that they ha~e lost the deSIre to the top.destinali~ns for assigned teachers 

, Tui'kbh Daily N~W$ goto school after theu teachers, whom dueto ItS location and closeness to th 

ISTANBUL- A PKK attack in the vil- they were fond ~f, were murdered. cenler.. e 

lage of Hantepe in DiyarbakIr around four The sc~oolchddren of ~an.tepe, some of , "Its image' changed after the PKK viomonths 

ago caused a .wave of revulsion in whom wlt~essed the homfY1Og~ssacrc:, lence. Our relalives slopped comin£' 10 

Turkey. Yet, another of the Kurdish ~ow work 10 the fields to help theIr faffil- visit us. We are very happy with the dec- 

Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist attack on bes. . ., . . laration from our vice governor, and will 

civilians, this time seven schoolteachers . Children spen~1OgtheIr time collect1Og do our best to welcome our new teachers," 

were taken shortly after the o~ning of the wood, for the ~mter told the TD~, that he promised. 

school 40 kilometersfrom Diyarbakir. they: loved theu te~c~ers very much, and 'Gümü~p1Oarh noted sadly that the chil- 

Village residents learned the terrible truth that It would be dIffIcult to get used to dren were still cool to the ideaof going to 

with the firstlightsof the day. At mid- ne~ teachers, and anyway have lost their a school with new leachers. Bul Ihey 

night the seven had been taken, Four were deSIre to go school would soon forget Ihe traumatic expertgunned 

down in the mountainous fields. Saadettin Ka~kan, the education vice ence, he believes. ' 

The other three were released. ' governor for Dlyarbaku, told the TON 

The incident ignited ~ore ~the ~ual that "we did not open the sch~1 [af!er the Hantepe not the only one 

hatred among "the Turkish publtc agamst murde~s] four month~ .ago, to gIve lime to Many villages lack teac~ers because of 

the PKK attacks and the school had to be Ihe children to rehablhtale themselves and PKKattacks on teachers 10 eastern and 

shut down. Th~ three teachers that sur- for new teachers to forget the incident. southeastern towns. 

vived left the village without, even taking "Hantepe has plac.es for sev~n teache.rs,' Thousands of children in.villages where 

their belongings, and the Village's 350 and ~~ have appolß~~ four, he con~lß- schools have ~n clo~ SImply work.the 

children were left without teachers. ued. But we are waIting for enough lime farms, and WIll go wantlOg for education. 

The Nalional Educalion Ministry has to pass:, The Hantepe School will open ~or ~qually tr~gic, many talented .teac~ers 

not ye~ appointed any teacher, despite the educauon aft~,rthe semester hohday WIth SImply resIgn fr~m the profeSSIon slßce 

four months that have passed for the sim- new teachers. they are not wtlhng to go to the dangerpie 

reason that no teacherw~uld want to Village leader Ibrahim Gümü~P!narh ou~, mountainous VIllages the government 

go to this village. The Hantepe Primary told the TON that he ran to. tell chIldren assIgns the~ tt? . . . 

School is still waiting for teachers to open the good news after lear~lßg that the HanleP,f s sItuation IS but one example 

its doors and windows. . school ~ou~.dbe reopen~d WIthnew teach- of the ffilsery Ihe people of the southeast 

ers:. Gumu~plßarh said they had been have been through. Caught in the cross 

'Now pupils won'tgo either waIling for'!!lls news for.four months, and fire between the PKK and security forces, 

. Students between the ages of seven and remarked H.a~tepe v.Illage had been they say they hop~ the.brutal war will end 

fiftee.n.reportedly told Educalion Ministry known as II p~vlleged vlllag~ for teachers soon, so they can hve hke human beings. 

Turkish Daily News WEDNBSDAY,JANUARY 15,1991 

US emerges thief loserfrom Kurdish fight 

Stumble: Iraq's iJlle/Vention to Kurdish 

north triggets US missile strikes, but 

On Àug, 31, the Kurdistan Democratic Party . ~ a ~ bid ~scareImqan.d'tI1e'Ip?r,9ut of 

Washington loses infrasout1Ure of 

(KDP) ,led by Massoud Banani stunned an unsus- their alliance; the Umted States iairied4.7 cru.tsemis- . 

influence as Kurds on its payroll flee, 

peeling West by caUingin !!ï!q's armored divisions to siles on military tahets insouthemIni'l/riOt finding 

Slate DepartmeJll enforces a ouce 

stonn the prinC1»aIcity of Erbil held by bis arch-rival the Islamist-Ied 1)nKisb gOvernmentsüpportive of a 

between warring Kurds while 

JaIaI TaI~'s Patrioti~Union of Kùrdistan(pUK). strike in .the north..The lD1SSilestrikes fäiled to:instil1 

Baghdad presses advantage 

Not aIlowlDgthe demoralized PUK forces to recover courage ID the terrified SJlpporteIsof theINgandthe 

from the shock, BarZani's irregulars chased them all Kurds working for the CIAor'WesteiÏl~ongovem~ 

By R~it Gürdilek, the way down to the Iranian bOrderin the following mentalorganizations. '. 

Turkish Daily News dayS.capttIringTalabani's stronghold of Sulaimaniya In the end, Wasliingtonwas forcedto U1ÖvèoiJtits 

ANKARA- Inaction is not in the Kurdish cbarac. and establisbiilg his control over ~e whole of .the trapped agents and thousands of Kurds o'n the 

ter. Even as some 4 million Iraqi Kurds battled with Western-protected enc1aye;'~ite official denials, Western payroll in 5uccessivewaves by the end of the 

aggrava~ghaids~p~,. ~eir lea(1ers:impatie~t with the Iraqi secret poli~ movedin,6e!ùnd.thcf~!liiéing year;~Ä~s~iisè PUK éoUnterattackwhich,'after 

an Amencan peace 1D1tiatlveproceeding at an IDlpres-peshmergas, arresting and executingdefeét9rs, who: weekS of bitter fighting enabled TaIabani to recover 

sive snail's »ace,.I~ged at eaeh other at .the end of had sought refuge in,the Kurdishn.~:!rY.fèll as\lost ~tm.Y'~à ~w OppôrtunitY, {orthe United 

su~er, an(1, wl~m two months, undid all that memberS, . of.the U.S.-spol)SOfedopposi, tion liiiibre~ States to' recoup, some losses. Recrtnting Ankara's 

Washinglon had done over the past five years. tlie Iœ,q! National Congress (INC). ,. .stiPPoitJn returnJor a higher profile for TurlaDem in 

..'\' 

44


. . ànd" .' would shortly make the port surpass Singapore in 

the ~t o~ ~ Kurdish eJ;IClave . Its ~n- The Kurds thems~lve:' did not ~k partlculJ!ly liveliness and wealth. 

sent to. JiJDited Iraqi oil ~ - Wlth translt fee 5p!Jl- keen .to throw t~eu dice unque.stlonably With Looking content with the return to the no war-no 

offsf


. "Israel is sure that a solution will soon be be the world's third holiest site by 

.a Jewish'right-wing extreririst and said, "He found fo the current political crisis in Muslims, the move was seen by 

was a victim cifblind bigotry." ... Turkey, within the.democratic pn>cess, and Palestinians as a blatant and illegal viola- 

• The president" called the Hamas bomb. d' t te 'th aU titi al tion of Islamic territory, causing violence 

attacks against Israelis "savage and cow- tie~~ y 0 coopera WIpo c par- to erupt in the region and turning the West 

ardly" and said, "We condemn, in the Commenting'on Weizman's alleged Bank and Gaza into virtual war zones. 

strongest tenns, any fOIm of terrorism and remark. the RP leader Necmettin Erbakan State Minister Abdullah Gül of the RP said 

share the grief of the Israeli people." said he believed the words- attributed to Israel's decision was provocative and the 

In Maya religious extreID1stattempted to Weizman did not reflect tbe truth. He country was playing Withfrre. 

assassinate Demirel because of the Turco- recalled that Weizman was a veteran politi- Last year Turkey and Israel also signed 

Israeli military accord. Th~ w~u.ld-be cian wbo knew be sbould not make such several economic agreements during 

assassin had a history of psychiatnc dlness comments. , ,. President Demirel's visit to Israel, among 

and the attempt was not premeditated. Hard-liner Benja~n Netanyahu, after them a customs agreement and other agree- 

Israeli President Welzman also visited ~oming to power in ~srael, saidseveral ments aimed at encouraging investment. 

Turkey in June to attend the Habitat confer- times Turkey was an unportant country to Israeli commercial banks also approved a 

en~e In Istanbul. ~ccording ~o reports Israel, and invited Prime Minister credit package to finance a $600 million 

which frrst appeared ID the Israeli press and Necmettin Erbakan to visit Israel. He has deal by Israel Aircraft Industries (lAI) to 

wer~ later plc1œd up by the Tur~sh pr~ss, not yet received a response. up~rade Turkey's fleet of F-4 Phantom 

Welzman tol,da gr~up of J~WIS~Journalis~ Relations have at times been somewhat fighters. . . 

accompanymg him on hiS tnp that hiS strained by the new Israeli prime minister's As far as 1997 is concerned, relations 

cou~try wanted to prevent. the RP fr~m policies. Turkey, who has tried to follow a between Turkey and Israel will depend on 

comIng to. power, anq ~resldent Demlre~ stable policy between the Arab world and the future of the peace process. Turkey has 

was of t~e same opl~lon. The Israeli Israel, condemned Israel's attack on a maintained a balanced policy on this issue 

E~bassy 1.Il Ankara .demed,the reports, and refugee camp in south Lebanon, and called and is carefully watching the Hebron talks. 

said ~r~sldent. Welzma~. s words to the on Israel to review its controversial new If agreement on Hebron IS reached, Turkish 

Isra~!1 JournalIsts were merely a r~fer- settlement policy aimed at creatino new troops will be sent as fart of the peace- 

~nce to w.hat had already been published neighborhoods in the occupied territories. keeping force, which 0 courSe will bring 

ID the Turkish pre,ss. .., When Israel opened a tunnellocated about greater involvement for Turkey in 

Th~ Embassy s statement contmued, close bythe.~~.Aqsa mosque, considered to. me question of Israel and Palestine. 

N. Iraq talks end 

~withmainissues 

still unresolved 

. Turkish Daily News 

ANKARA- 

The third round of northern 

Iraqi peace talks ended Wednesday in 

Ankara but the major issues under discussion 

remain unresolved. 

The,co-chairmen of the two-day talks, U.S. 

Assistant Secretary of State Robert Pelletreau 

and T~rkish Foreign Ministry Undersecret;u-y 

Onur Oymen, issued a joint statement after 

the meeting which brought an immediate 

reaction from the head of the Kurdistan 

Democratic Party (KDP) delegation, Sami 

Abdurrahman. 

The KDP official told reporters that the. 

statement was from Ihe chairmen, nOI the 

, , KDP. He also pointed out that although his 

party had agreed to other artIcles they opposed the tenth 

paragraph which reads as follows: 

"All participants reiterated their commitment to take 

into account the legitimate security interests of Turkey, 

.as stated in the final statement of Oct 31,,1996, and they 

took note of the decision by the l!NHCR to close .the 

AtnIsh Camp." The KDP Side dauned that the artIcle 

was not relevant to the KDP.PUK dispute but rather was 

;a malter of Turkish-KDP relations: "We take into 

account the legitimate security interests of Turkey and 

other neighboring countries," Abdurrahman told 

reporters. The KDP side reportedly was unable to contact 

KDP leader Massoud Barzani. 

After the talks, representatives of the Patriotic Union 

of Kurdistan (PUK) told the IDN that they were satisfied 

'with the meeting and were ready to implement all the 

commitments made in the statement ana at the Oct 31 

meeting. . 

In tlie final statement, the two sides reiterated theIr 

,commitment not to disrupt civilian servi~ and to impl~ment 

an earlier agreement to stop attacking each other ID 

the press. Another important point whic.1iw.as clarified 

dunng the talks concernea the momtorIng by the 

Turlarien Front of local media They will also provide 

sunimaries of any continuing attacks. The two sides will 

work together to organiZe the distribution of fi!n~ in 

northern Iraq. In a new devel~p'ment, a coo~dmatIon 

committee Will be set u.pcompnsmg three semor representatives 

from the PUl


Turkish Daily News nlURSDAY,JANUARY 

Parliomentmy 

M '~'". 

16,19'J1 

YIImaz: 'Erbakan has covered up the thefts. Now he will cover up the gangs' 

'Nefther the jin-exorcising hocas focûsing on sex 

nor Erbakan nor his RP can represent Islam' 

By Ayla GanioAlu 

71>NPàrliommt 

Bureau 

ANKARA- Main oppOsition Motherland 

Party (ANAP) leader Mesut YIlmaz reacted 

'stron~y to the ~tary investigation commisslOn's 

clearing of True Path Party (DYP) 

leader and Deputy Prime Minister Tansu Ciller 

of accusations regarding the acquisition of her 

assets. 

Noting that Çiller has been cleared of the 

accusations thanks to votes cast by Welfare 

Party (RP) depJties in her favor, Yilmaz said it 

has become apparent once again that the RP 

and the DYP were accomplices in crime, 

Çiller had ~n similarly "acquitted" of two 

other irregularity charges by two parliamentary 

committees in recent weeks. Speaking at the 

weekly meeting of the ANAP parliamentary 

group, yùmaz iecalled that it had been the RP 

which had put.the accusations on. Parli~~t' s 

agenda At that time, the RP. was an opposItion 

~ the RP-DYP coalition government was 

formed, and in voting at the relevant commissions, 

RP deputies listened not to their consciences, 

butto the instructions of their leader. 

In the face of the Susurluk scandal as well, the 

RP attitude has been one of ttying to mount a 

cover-up, he stressed. 

Ylimaz said, "Expecting justice from 

Erbakan, who has forri1ed this government to 

cover up his partner's dirty dealirigs,amounlS to 

expecting the snow to fall on the Karbala Desert 

in the month of July." . 

People have tested &bakan and his party in 

power and seen through their veneer, YIlmaz 

said. In fact Erbakan, a veteran IlOliticianof 30 

years, is not acting any differently than he had 

commission'clears 'YÙ11UŒ 

'~~' "'~" 

DYPt1" . edthat.y=. .'. . 

. .'.' . ",.".~:>,.....' .:'" / . .•... . . .' . munster at 

W~~~:, .. PatJi: ..:..;t==~'itbë~bad .'J=',into~ .~Emlak~ 

(ANAP) 'leader Mesut YdmU'of any, wronpingiD~.~'''bis illeP activities âDd was theiefŒ a party to the crime 

corruption,.sc,~ndal tbat bas come, to: beJnowo' •.sA.'::under article 240 of the Turkish penal cOde. . 

''Civangalt.:,.:, •. , .... ; ,

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Bàsln;'Özeti 

Turkish Daily News THURSDAY,JANUARY 16,1997 

RefahrescuesÇiller in 

thirdcormption probe 

TDN Parliamenl Bureau , 

ANKARA- 

Aparliamentaty 

commission responsible for investigating 

the assets of Deputy' 

Pnme Minister and True Path 

Party (DYP) Chairman'Tansu 

Çiller, has decided nottosend her 

to the SUfreme Court, with a 

majority 0 votes cast by coalition 

deputies. The decision, was taken 

by the votes of eight coalition 

d~puties against se.venfrom oppositIOnparties. 

. , 

The latest decision is the third 

time Çiller has been rescued by 

her parl)"s Islamist coalition partner, 

the Welfare Party. (RP), from 

facing prosecution on charges of 

corrupl1on. The commission was 

set up after the RP had sub'mitted 

'1INHEAlT£D FROM OAOOY' 

, TL 473.000 ( __ I bought 

IplIllmenla.1Irgo ula.... 

lloap/loNa villa. 

_3Oreen) 

,"IIlIHERlTtD FROM MUMMY'. 

- eao GOLD" REPUBUC' COINS 

-$570,000 

- Oll 190,000 

- TL 432.000.00o 

MAL ESTAl\! lN u,s. 

HOUSE. HOTEL AND COMPANIES 

OWNED BY HUSBAND 

'OUR WORTH S 5.5111WOH 

The commission also failed to find out 

the origins of foreign currencies and gold 

The decIsions of all three commissions whicb Tansu Çiller claimed to have inheritwere 

ÏInP9rtantin terms of determining the ed from ber mother, who died in 1985. She 

coalition's future, The same realIon had 3lso refused to answer where or in which 

caused the' dissolution of a coalition last bank the funds were kept. Her later stateyear 

between the DYP and Mesut yùmaz's ment that the "inheritance" was invested in 

Motherland Party (ANAP), currently the "repos - gaining daily interest" and 

maiD oppositi~~ " ' ' accordingly grew, was not found to be rea- 

The opposll1on strongly protested the sonable. 

commission' s conclusion, while the com- Bank accounts for;businesses owned by 

mission chairman, Naci Terzi, an RP deputy the Çiller family also became the subject of 

said "everyone, especially the press" must interesting debate in the commission. While 

respect the commission's decision. 

the ledgers of these companies were hidden 

Suspicions on Ciller's assets from all commission members, it was 

Clauns that Ciller's assets, both at home declared that only the commission chairman 

and abroad, hadbeen boosted while she was could examine the company records, and 

a cabinet member and prime minister were company officials were allowed to send 

dismissed by the decision of the parliamen- wrinen testimonies to the commission. The 

tary investigation commission. The com- commission chairman's attitude raised sus-. 

mission had also fallen short of obtaining a pidons that1here was an attempted coverreasonable 

answer on where and how her up of the allegations against Çiller. , 

businesses, hotels, and [mandal sources - The Çiller family owns a large number of 

especially in the United States - were houses, condominiums, a waterfront manacquired. 

' sion, land, two yachts, mountainside man- 

It had been discovered that Çiller's assets sions, holiday homes, and large sums of 

in the United States were worttJ$5 million, money including Turkish and foreign curbut 

she had only transferred $900,000 rencies. The files against Çiller were 

to that country for their purchase. reshe]ved without bringing clear answers on 

Furthermore, the way in which this money how her assets were acqlJired. A similar 

was transferred to the United States parliamentary investigation was carried out 

remained uriknown. In a wrinen testimony m 1995, but the commission failed to get a 

Çiller sent to the commission, she' ~d .she satisfactory result after Çiller insisted on an 

regarded these questions as unconstltullon- inquiry into allleaders' assets. . 

aI. .. ' At least a year must have passed before a 

Ozer Çiller,. the husband of the D~P parliamentary investigation can be 

a proposal for an investigation 

, into tfie origins of Çiller' s assets, 

before that party came tQ power. 

Similarly, Mo other commtssions 

probing corruption charges leader, meanwhile had referred to a U.S. Clt- reopened. The statute of limitations may 

against Çiller on TOFA~ and, izen..\Vho.co-own~ the conceIl!ed proper- apply to many of the allegations facing 

TEDA~ dealings had alsoblocked" , ~es.~o~ever, ~ub~eque.ntTurki,sh-transla- ÇiUer,whi~h m~s that even if e~'Îdenceof 

'the way for legal prosecutions against her. bODS of Öz,erÇiller s wntt~n testtmony was" . ilIegàl~arnmgs ISrevealed,she will not face 

Both of those commissions were aIso dominated 

by the coalition deputies, 

found to be mmdulent and mcomplete. ' ,any prosecution. 

"=~= .. =.=, ==========""""''''''''''==== 

Turkish Daily News THURSDAY.JANUARY l/i.1997 ',< i' 

PKK S,I 'gns' de, al RevoIUli.on. ary peoPle's,Libe.r,atio. 

, The ..I>rotocol says, "A revolutionary 

Iront Willbe created by.tbe 

,n p.artY.IFront 

, (DHKP/C), .signeda protoc~1 on Dec. 22, 

•• ' " c' l ", . 1996, underwhich the~ ~ave pledg,~dto a~,t 

With ,DHKPI/C 

signatory organizlitions and Joi~~ 

action will be developed. 

""together as the "Revolutl~!lary Front: According tothe PKK, the protocol 

has been directed against"cap- 

l ',. "~PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan had, for quite 

t b"" ks" some time; Persi~lently c~n~d onlhe T~rkish itaIist and imperialist targets." The 

lOrur an attac . !~ntoform an?lIian~ewhlch would.ulln 10 agref:mentls.'maïn]y aimed. at 

. , come 10 power. . . c' " • 

ftghtmg agamsr tlie .TurkIsh 

, Buf no organizat)on had Republic: It b~ ~n s~ss~that 

The two c1andesline organizations to join ' , accepted the offer. Finally, one of the malO pnnclples Will be 

forces under the name~Revolutionary Front' the Illegal organizations, the "unleashing, the people!s revolutionary 

wilf, anddeveloping a ~v. 

, DHKP/C; whiclihas received one 

blow after anotherand lost a'sizable 

part of its militaJits, accepted platform." The "rèvollUtlOnary 

olutionary movement on, à .radlcal 

By Hayri ßirler 

Turkish'Daily News . 

ANKARA- Two outlawed organizations: 

the offer. .' , ' . , front" will reject all )cinds of 

The pro'locol acknowledgesas a 

the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the 

"reformist approaches" and como, 

priority the needfor,thetwoorga- 

'nizationsto act together. , 

48


promise. to this development, it would be fell M~while, the Dl:IKP~ has rori~m against common targets in 

PKK sources say that although possible for militants from these lost a sizable part of ItS traIned vanous par~s of Turkey and 

the DHKP/ç:, does nolt have a organizations to take ilction in staff, .an~ proves ?nab~e to .stage ~broad, especially m Germany.and 

developed mIlitary force, they see metropolitan areas as well in any Significant actIon smce It had In the Netherlands, Tbere IS a 

the prot~pl not a~ the ,first ~tep' 1997. few mil!tants in the first place. strong po.ssibility that. ~he 

toward a SUperfiCialstructun~g Security sources confmn that a Tbese Clfcumstances pushed the OHKP/C Will renew the tramIng 

but. as wçrkIng, toward ~ UnIon prolocol has been signed between two organizations closer to one ~ccord it concluded with the PI,Œ 

which will. ~mfy Turk.lsh and !he two organizations They have another, and forced them to coop- m recent years, an accord enabling 

~urdish mlhtant~, agaInst the told the TON, "As 'a result of erate." its ~tants to receive training in 

common targ~t. The same intensive and unrelenting opera- Asked what would be the prac- Syna, Iran, northern Iraq and the 

sources do not hide the fact they. hieb th armed £ ha tical consequences of the protocol, Syrian-controlled parts of 

see this togetherne~s asia way of bons w..e orees ve these sources said, "Before any- Lebanon." 

!.ncre~sing PK~ Influence o~ been stagI,ng~~ s~f e~- thing els~, joint actiçn may be .. Security sources say that 

Turkish revolutionary. elements. ~:~c~regI~n . ~ n bul Ame ' expected In. metropolitan areas. Ocalan will issue fresh calls to all 

This approach makes It clear ~e ~ ~r'b- ID.~ 'Tt ~ mat is, joint demonstrations, clandestine leftist organizations, 

PKK will use the jl~otoc~l to dlc- a~o éili Ig Cl les, ~I I.an protests and perhaps bomb attacks Turkish and Kurdisl1 alike, 10. 

tale to the DHKP/C'lts own Ch sb O eser o org~~oA may be stageâ in big cities. form an "alliance convention" in 

"action targets" and method~. ave . ecome Isorgamze . They would start acting togeth- which the PKK would also be 

After the protoco.l was Signed, defeatIst m?Od has come to lIb- er in prisons. Until now they have represented. However, Turkish 

PKK lea~er Ocalan ISSUeda.s~te- p~~sertIOI!S :lve s~ aftee staged hunger strikes, rebellions leftist organizations in particular 

ment ~ymg there were no Sl~- as recelv one o.w r and attacks on officials separately. are expected to turn down the 

cant dIfferences between the Ide- another! ~d has be~n .driven t~ From now on, they will 6e work- offer on the 1IT0undsthat it would 

ology and tacties of the two orga- stages~wcldteattacakks~tID Tunceli ing together in such activities. arno~nt to a 'r.superficial structurnizations. 

He stressed that thanks and Ivas 0 m eIS presence They will trv to escalate urban ter- ing." 

Human rights: im> says Lice residents 

forced to posts as village guanls 

By Hande Çulpan / Turk.ish Oailtf'!:.ws 

ANKARA- Human Rights Association (lHD) chair. 

man AkIn Birdal said on Wednesday that the state's 

understanding o~ democracy and its lack of interest in 

making Emergenc¥ Rule more flexible were manifest 

once again by tI1e mcidents in the southeastern village 

of Lice, involving claims of involuntary recruitment of 

village guards by Deputy Governor Hacl nb~ 

S aking at a press conference at tHo hea uarters, 

B~ noted th~t a delegation of 43 people om 37 

nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) went to Lice 

to cheek out the daims. However, as the practice continued, 

a second group consisting of 80 people from 

four political P31Ues,trade unions, Naos, as well as 

intellectuals and artists went to Liee on Jan. 8-9 but 

were barred from entering the village on the grounds 

that, threatened,with a possible Kurdistan Workers' 

Party attack, the state could not guarantee the security 

of the soldiers ~ men who were on duty to protect the 

delegation itself. 

The lHD chairman noted that, in allowing such a 

situation, Turkey violated the Organization for 

Security and Cooperation in Euro~ (OSCE) Paris 

Charter and the Vienna Declaratioa;'ül of which stipulate 

that states are responsible for enabling Naos to 

make on-site observations regarding human ri,8htsviolations. 

Birdal charged that the forced recrwtment ât 

Lice foCusedon S))eCificgoals: the security of factories 

to be built in'the region; the reopening of tbe 

Diyarba1c:tr-Bingälhighway; and the exertion of psychOlogical 

pressure on üce residents, who have long 

been o~ to becoming village gttar$. 

Havmg been blocked from entering Lice, the delegation 

met with the Emergency Rule governor who 

claimed that the villagers were volunteenng to become 

village guards and that the state was aiming to provide 

employment for the villagers. Birdal found faUlt with 

thiS account, saying that 65 of the 84 forced to become 

village guards were already employed at the time. 

Noting that the tales of the Lice residents poInted to 

human rights violations in the village, BIrdal said 

many agreements which Turkey endorsed stipulated 

that all people were equal before the law and, thus, 

could not be forced into such jobs against their will. 

Birdal also urged Turkey to pay attention to what was 

hap,Pening in Lice. ''There are women and children 

crymg in Liee. The residents want to live as human 

beings." Birdal also distributed last month's tHO 

Report, which includes the balance sheet of human 

rights violations in 1996. 

Figures tell it all 

The following statistics were taken from IHD's 

Re~ for December. 

• 78 people died in unsolved murders and 46 people 

were injUredin unsolved attacks. 

• 190 ~ople lost their lives through execution 

without trIal, after torture or while in custOdy. 

• 2,859 people died in armed clashes. 

. • AttaCKS on civilians left 119 dead and 133 

in~94 people "disappeared" while in custody. 

• 346 people were tortured or claimed to have been 

tortured . 

• 20,434 people were taken into custody, 421 of 

whom were from the press . 

• 2,07Lpeople were arrested. 

• 68 villages and hamlets were evacuated. 

• 109 places were bombed . 

• 132 associations, trade unions and press agencies 

wereclosed. 

• 134 associations, trade unions and press agencies 

were raided. . 

• 195 publications were confiscated. 

• At present, there are 140 prisoners of conscience 

injail. 

• Courts have approved of prison terms exceeding 

173 years and fines totaling TL 9,974,600,000. 

49


• Le Monde - jeudi, 16 janvier 1997 • Le Monde - jeudi, 16 janvier 1997 

Paris a demandé à l'Irak le strict respect des résolutions de l'ONU 

lA FRANCE a invité l'Irak à coopérer «pleinement» 

avec la Commission spéciale de l'ONU 

chargée de son désannement (Unscom) et avec 

l'Agence internationale de l'énergie atomique 

(AlEA)pour .CJ.u~.l;lUis~être envis~ée la levée de 

l'embargo pètr01rer 'unposé à'Bagdad enaö6t 

i990. Le démantèlement des armes dè destruction 

massiVé"ëie ~d :ést ~em;rla' condition ~siÎ1e 

qua non de l'application du paragraphe 22 de la 

résOlution 687 de l'ONU prévoyant la levée des 

sanctions pétrolières. 

Le vice-premier ministre irakien, Tarek Aziz, 

qui a été reçu, mardi 14janvier, par le ministre 

des affaires étrangères, Hervé de Charette, a répondu 

que seule « une toute petite partie» des résolutions 

de l'ONU n'a pas encore été respectée 

par son ,pays. Or, à ce jour,l'Unscom continue de 

, soupçonner Bagdad de dissimuler entre six et 

seize missiles. 

Lundi, après un entretien avec le premier ministre, 

Alain Juppé, Tarek Aziz avait appelé la 

,France à aider' son pays «à parvenir à une appli- 

;'cationjuste, honnête et équilibrée» des résolutions 

de l'ONU, c'est-à-dire à contrer ce qu'il a qualifié 

de «politique biaisée des Etats-Unis et de la 

Grande-Brefllgne ». C'est le leitmotiv préféré des 

Irakiens, qui se disent en permanence victimes de 

;sombres manipulations anglo-saxonnes pour empêcher 

l'application des résolutions de l'ONU. 

Dans des lettres qu'il avait adressées en octobre 

à Hervé de Charette et à son homologue 

russe, Evgueni Primakov, Tarek Aziz avait déjà 

demandé que le nombre d'experts français et 

russes au sein de l'Unscom soit augmenté parce 

.que, po.ur,l'Irak, la plupart des membres de cette 

c6rr1iritssion sont à la solde des Etats-Unis. 

LA FltAN(:E ET L'UNSCOM 

Que l'Irak en ait fait ou non la demande, Paris, 

indique-t-on de source française, est favorable à 

une présence plus forte' au sein de l'Unscom. 

Mais le problème est, d'une part, de trouver ces 

experts et, d'autre part, de financer leur mission 

en tenant compte des problèmes budgétaii:es des' 

ministères, en l'occurrence le ministère de1a défense. 

Au total, il y a aujourd'hui neuf experts 

français seulement au sein des différentes instances 

de l'Unscom, mais aucun ne fait partie de 

l'entourage de Rolf Ekeus, le diplomate suédois 

qui la préside. 

Deux Français font partie de la centaine de 

membres du bureau permanent de l'Unscom à 

New York. Six autres sont détachés du bureau de 

la commission à Bagdad, dont la trentaine de 

membres ont une affectation de trois à quatre 

mois. Deux délégations d'experts effectuent actuellement 

des missions ponctuelles d'une à deux 

semaines à Bagdad. La première est dirigée par 

un Français et compte un autre expert français. 

L'autre ne comprend qu'un seul Français'- PariS 

souhaite améliorer sa présence dans l'ensemble 

de ce dispositif, notamment pour ce qui est des, 

postes de responsabilité. 

En décembre, la France a annoncé qu'elle se 

désengageait de la,force de sw;yeillance de la Pélf~, 

tie du Kurdistan ä'Irak situélkü nord du 36< pa:' 

rallèle, parce que les Etats-Ums et la 1\Jrquie ont 

urillal:ér


S'appuyant sur l'enquête du journaliste assassiné Ugur .~fulncu, un grand 

chroniqueur turc affirme que leprincipal dirigeant du parti nationaliste kurde, 

Abdullah Öçalan dit "Apo",pourrait être un agent provocateur depuis 1971. 

dix ans en Anatolie une guérilla 

contre le régime] faisait partie des 

manifestants. Sa présence a plus tard 

été confirmée par des témoins qui 

l'ont YU le poing levé, en train de 

scander des slogans. 

Au procè&, le procureur 

demande", &on acquittement 

Öçalan fut arrêté comme d'autres 

manifestants, maintenu en garde à 

vue, puis mis en détention pour être 

jugé par la Cour de sûreté de l'Etat, 

Le procureur n'était autre que le 

célèbre Baki Thg, devenu le symbole 

de la répression de l'époque, après la 

condamnation de nombreux intellectuels, 

dont MÜJntazSoysaJ", lequel 

fut condamné pour avoir écrit le 

manuel universitaire intitulé "'ntroduction 

à la Constitution" ... Mais, 

chose étonnante, notre procureur 

zélé, qui s'investit avec tant d'enthousiasme 

pour obtenir la condamnation 

des prévenus, changea brusquement 

d'avis au sujet d'Öçalan et 

déclara dans son réquisitoire que les 

tracts incriminés n'avaient pas été distribués 

par lui, mais par deux autres 

militants nommés !\1etin Yalçin et 

Ramazan Özcan. Af11rmantalors qu'il 

n'existait "aucune preuve de la participation 

d'Abdullah Oçalan à la distribution 

de ce manifesU", il demanda 

son acquittement, ne réclamant 

contre lui qu'unt' pt'int' dt' troil' moil' 

pour sa participation au boycottage 

des cours. Le tribunal suivit It' procureur 

dans sa demande. 

Après avoir purgé ses trois Illois dl' 

peine, Öçalan obtint une bourse 

d'études, le t .. décembre t971. Le 

conseil d'administration dt' la fal'ulté 

des sciences politiques, qui détt'nait 

.un rappOJ1sur la responsabilité aclÏw 

d'Öçalan dans Il' boycotlage en question 

et sur son rôle en tant que mt'neur 

du groupe t'studiantin. st' conlt'nta 

néanmoins d'un l'impie a\ t'J1isst'ml'nl 

Les combattants du PKK au Kurdistan, En médaillon. Abdullah Ösa1an. 

il ~on t'~af'(l.alors qut' ses camaradt's. 

impliqllt's dans la même action. flll't'nt 

t'xpulsés de la faculté pour quinze 

jours. Si-\po ayaH été frappé de la 

même sanction. il n'aurait pu ni toudwr 

sa bourst' ni obtenir un sursis 

pour sun sen"ke militaire. 

Il est évidelJlment impensable 

qu'un ~rand joumaliste d'ill\estigalion 

('omme 19ur '1umcu, t'nquêlant 

sur le PKK,accepte que l'e dossil.'r soit 

dos, Il se penche donc Sill' l'aITain', 

rl'lrOU\I'le redoutable pl'Ot'LU'l'UI' lissu 

du l'OUI> d'Etalj du t1 mal's et lui 

demande puurquoi à l'épuque il a 

changé d'a,'is au sujet d'Öçalan et 

requis une peine allssi légère à son 

enl'ontre. La réponse est époustounante 

: on avait chuchoté à l'oreille 

c1t'Baki Thg qu'Apo était "leur homme 

dl' rnain"lcelui des services secreis 

turl's( L'ex-procureur a d'ailleurs 

accepté de remettre à Ligur tout document 

qu'il pourrait trouver sur ces 

liens troubles. C'est après nous avoir 

fait part de œs aveux quTgur a été 

assassiné, sans avoir le temps de se 

rendre à un second rendez-vous avec 

le procureur. Lorsque j'ai évoqué 

cette aITaire dans un article, immédiatement 

après l'assassinat d'Ligur, 

il' n'ai reçu aucun démenti de la part 

de Baki Tug. Bien au contraire, il a 

répondu à une question qui lui était 

posée en confirmant la conversation 

qu'il avait eue avec Ugur. A présent, 

nous voudrions savoir si Abdullah 

ÖçaIan était lui aussi un "paUiote"!un 

hOl11medes sen;ces secrets), comme 

l'eux qui sont impliqués dans les dernières 

sales affaires. Et aussi s'il n'y 

a pas un \Ien entre l'assassinat d'llgur 

:\lul11cuet ces affaires. Ali Sirmen 

• L" guI' l\1umcu, journaliste au quotidien 

Cumhuri.''r.t, s'est rendu célèbre par ses révélations 

sur des affaires de l'OJTUption. Sa d!'rnii'r!' 

enquÊ'te sur le PKK l'avait conduit en 

Allemagne. d'où il était revenu aH'C une 

\alisl' l'ntière dl' documents *trè$ compromettunl,(", 

selon el' qu'il a\"ait confié à ses 

proehl'S, Il a été assassiné pl'U dl' temps 

après. le 24 jamieI' 1993. Ses funérailles ont 

dt'drnehé d'énormes manifestations spontanées 

à Ankara, 

.. \tiimtaz So~"sal : juriste de renom. actuellement 

Mputé sol'ial-démocrate elchroniqurur 

au quotidien Hürr(l'I'I. 

51

i'a_a 

ar1 

.' sur l'union européenne 

priMtk par les cIipIt6s llMUIlIIIisteI ..... , ....... ' .... 


N°42 .JANVIER. FÉVRIER 1997 

;",u,\ 

1I,,,,ins 

Des actes forts 

pour faire resl'eefer 

'es droits de "homme 

Le Parlement européen a adopté le 

rapport Lalumière qui dresse le bilan 

des atteintes aux droits de l'homme 

dans le monde. Au cours du débat, 

Aline Pailler a mis l'accent sur les violations 

les plus flagrantes et a insisté 

sur la nécessité d'actes politiques audelà 

des déclarations d'intention: 

"Dénoncer ne suffit plus. Agissons en' 

suspendant l'accord avec Israël.jusqu'à 

ce que les droits del'hàmme 

soient respectés. De. méme, pour la 

Turquie, qui n'a toujours pas libéré- 

Leyla Zana. Suspendons là' aussi les 

aides financières et conditionnons 

notre coopération au respect des 

droits de l'homme. L'Europe se dqit 

de jouer les cartes qu'elle a en mains.. 

On attend des signaux mais surtout 

des actes politiques forts et fermes". 

Turquie: 

pour la liIJer,é de la presse 

. I 

f 

.Les par./ementaire$ européens dialoguent avec les éditeurs 

de la presse turque. 

Un projet de la loi visant à limiter la 

liberté de la presse en Turquie a été 

présenté au Parlement par la coalition 

gouvernementale. Dès l'annonce de 

ce projet, une déclaration était signée 

par 1683 journalistes pour dénoncer 

"les dispositions susceptibles de nous 

éloigner du monde libre". 

l4ampagne Les groupes socialiste, libéral, 

", GUE/NGL, verts et radical ont invité les 

d ,' ~ t' éditeurs des plus grands quotidiens 

.nfOrma .on turcs à rencontrer les parlementaires à 

la session de décembre à Strasbourg. 

du groupe conféde'rai de la G Ils ont montré comment ce projet de loi 

au. portait atteinte à la liberté de la presse, 

che Unitaire Européenne • Gau. i: notamment en faisant peser une menah 

N d' (GUE/NGL)!' ce sur les investigations des journa- 

\l 

C e ,erte or Ique. . listes. Aline Pailler, qui co-présidait la 

réuniàn pour le groupe confédéral 

GUE/NGL, a dénoncé cette nouvelle 

atteinte aux libertés de .Iapart du gouvernement 

turc qui continue à bénéfi- 

cier de la complaisance des États 

membres. C'est ainsi que le Conseil 

européen de Dublin a déclaré 

"accueillir favorablement l'intention 

déclarée du gouvernement turc de 

prendre des mesures pour améliorer la 

situation des droits de l'homme". Cette I 

.déclaration est contredite par les faits 

qui font au contraire apparaître une 

aggravation des violations des droits 

de l'homme, notamment avec les 

attaques contre la presse, le maintien 

de Leyla Zana en prison et lèS nouvelles 

offensives contre la population 

kurde. 

Dans le prolongement de l'initiative des 

groupes politiques avec les éditeurs de 

presse, le Parlement européen a adopté 

une résolution dénonçant "les tentatives 

du gouvernement turc de limiter 

la 'Iiberté de la presse et de contrôler 

l'activité des journalistes". 

Turkish Daily News 1-1UDAY,JANUARY l7,l9'l7 . 

The special teams and village guards 

have been used in the counter-insurgency 

operations against the PKK since 1984, 

while Gendarmerie Intelligence Service 

(J1TEM)employed former PKK members 

against the PKK's urban organizations. 

By Zeki AYlk 


. 1STt.NBUL- It has recently come to light that ultranationalist 

U1kücü militants have been used to do some of the 

Turkish state's dirty work. Now it is claimed. that former 

Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) militants who cooperate with 

the state have been used to perform state-sponsored extrajudicial 

killings as well. People's Democracy Party (HADEP) 

PKK informers turn 

into state hitmen 

Istanbul executive Latif Kaya told the TDN that the 

Gendarmerie Intelli~enèe Services (JITEM) views HADEP as 

a potentially terroristic organization, and abducts HADEP 

members to pressurize them into joining an armed counter- 

PKK or~anization, AMED',formed under i.ts~omm~nd. K~ya 

also claims that AMED kidnaps and "eltmmates Kurdish 

intellectuals in the predominately Kurdish provinces of south- 

;eastern and eastern Turkey due to the authorities' belief that 

they support the PKK. 

Kaya alleges that HADEP Istanbul executive Mahmut 

Demu, code named "Yesil" (Green) and Alaattin Kanat, 

whose names have cropped .lIP.quite frequently. ill the .press, 

52


are former PKK militants who have been'used by the state as 

part of AMED along with Turkish soldiers, village guards and 

special teams in its fight against the PKK. 

The group's first assignment, mentioned in the memoirs of 

the late liTEM commanœr Ahmet Cern Ersever, was supposedly 

the murder of Vedat Aydin, the People's Labor Part)' 

(HEP) Oiyarbakir Branch.leader, in 1991. Ersever had stated 

that captured Ulkucu and PKK militants who cooperated were 

~laced in this groue. Ersever himself died in a mysterious 

'unresolved murder in 1994. Alaattin Kanat, who agreed to 

cooperate with tbe state after his arrest as a PKK militant, was 

released instead of being imprisoned. Kaya claims that following 

his release Kanat was involved in tbe assassination of 

former Mardin parliamen~an Mehmet Sincar. 

Demir, wbo liad been active in Tunceli and ElaztA provinces 

between 1990-1993 with the code names uYesil" (green) and 

"Sakalb" (The Bearded One) is said by Kaya to have claimed 

to be working on behalf of the state, and was actually a former 

PKK militant who joined AMEO. Demir is su~ to have 

been involved in the assassinations of Mehmet Sincar, journalist 

Musa Anter and Vedat Aydm. 

In addition Demir is supposed to have been active in tbe 

assassination of Faruk Candan, the Democracy _Party (OEP) 

Ankara's branch leader, in Gölb~t, Ankara in 1994. 

Forced to convert to AMED 

"AMEO, which used' to be active in the Eastern provinces, 

now operates also in the major cities," said Kaya. -riley kidnap 

tile Istanbul members of HAOEP, take them to the 

Istanbul Police Headquarters in Aksaray where they force 

them to become confessors. In November 1996, 38 HADEP 

members were kidl!8P~ by ~s group. Since 1994, 164 people 

have been murdered by this ~p, and noneof these mur- 

(Jers have been solved." Klya said 3,870 people who could not 

bear the pressures to defect to AMED or ser1e as village 

guards have migrated to the cities, and added "there wiD be 

many more AMED groUj)Sin this environment." 

Kaya stated that 'AMED was formed in Diyarbakir, and CODtinued 

with the Bueak clan in ~anlturfa. He claimed that there 

is a torture chamber in the basement of True Path Pu!Y (DYP) 

~anburfa Deputy Sedat Bueak's house, which is used to force 

the abducted'people to join AMBO. 

'One so ta~en and forced to work for the state is HAOEP 

member Adil Diuk, who recounted bis experiences for the 

TON: "I was forced into a car by t'tvo plainclothes men, who 

identified themselves as Police Investigation Bureau officers, 

in front of Kucukkoy Park, Istanbul. When 1asked them why 

were not taking me to the KücUkköy Police Station, they 

ried, 'We are from JtmM. Do not think of resisting.' ' 

~ e arrived at Istanbul Police H~uarters in AksIray and 

waited in the car for someone called "Oayi" (Uncle). Thén we 

drove through an army base in Macka wbere a couple of 

police vehicles were Waiting at the enttance. We continued on 

an unfinished road for aoout two kilometers and stopped. 

Thty threatened me with death by putting a gun in my mouth 

and fuing another gun besidemy ear. For about two hours 

they beat me, and 1agreed to work with them. 

.'1'hey brought me to Istanbul Police Headquarters and said, 

from now on, you are one of us. You will join AMEO. You 

will tell us wliatever happens in HAOEP. We will supply 

.moner. and arms for you. Hyou want, we can find you drUgs 

to sel .' 

After makins an ap,Pointment to meet in 15 days, they 

released ine." Dluk duf not show up at the ap~inted date. He 

said the threats on bis life continuëd and he filed a criminal 

suit against the Istanbul Police. 

A sudden increase in the numbers of the unresolved murders 

and "missings" coincides with the alleged formation date 

of AMBO in 1991. Followins are some events since 1991 in 

which the AMBO ~p is believed to have taken pl!1: 

Four missings and 31 unresolved murders in 1991; eight 

missings and 360 unresolved murders in 1992; 13 missings 

and 467 unresolved murders in 1993; 49 missings and 423 

unresolved murders in 1994; 163 missingsand 84 unresolved 

murders 1995; 191 missings and 59 unresolved murders in 

1996. 

Kaya claims their investi.ation has established Alaattin 

Kanat, Mahmu.r Demir, Ibrahim Bobat, Ali Pmar, AbdUlbakim 

GUven, Kabraman Bilgiç, Ali Timurtq, Kemal Enik, lrfan 

Beyaz, Ali Ozansoy, and AbdUlkerim Altol as AMBO' hitmen. 

Scenes of shameTurkisb Daily lm MUDAY.JANUARY11.1~1 

On Thursday practically all the TV chan- editorial ' 

nels showed heart shattering scenes By' Ilnur 

from the southeastern provincial center 

of Diyarbalar where the free food hand- ç .k 

outs given away by a businessman on the eV1 

occasion of the holy month of Ramadan creat- for too loq.with high 

ed a melee. inflation. The people 

The businessman never bargained for such with low and fixed 

scenes while his food handouts for 3,500 needy income. cannot cope 

people created unrest when a huge crowd tried with the rapid rate of 

to plunder the truck carrying the foodstuff's, fall in the vüue of the 

This was a huge crowd of desperate and hun- Turki.h currency. 

gry people fighting it out in ~he ce~~er of a Innation i. taking 

major CIty to get food for theIr famlhes. All away whatever wage 

this shows is that there are too many needy hike. people get and 

people in our country who have been forgotten most of the time èven 

for too long, this i. in.ufficient 

It is no secret that while a handful of rich and doe. not offset 

people in Turkey have grown richer over the the rapid (aU in the 

Ïi:tS, the masses have been pushed to the value o( the Turkish 

. 'ts of poverty and have been neglected. So currency ... The govit 

was only normal that we had such riots emment on the other 

when people heard of the free food handouts... hand i•• ending two 

We keep on repeatin~ over and over again miniaten to .tudy the 

that the main problem m Turkey. is the high -,ituation- of the l'GOr 

cost of living and the state of desperation that ~'ple o( Diyarb8k1r. 

this has pushed the mas.es into. The Turkish Thi. i. rather sad. 

people in general have been living hardship. I.n't the {Gvemment 

aware of the .uffering that we have exposed 

the masses to in our country? Don't they know 

that the people are facing serious hardships 

and the government has failed to provide 

them witli relief? ' , . 

We are reall.1"disturbed ... The pro-Islamic 

Welfare party (Kefab) had made a reputation 

for itself u a party which cared foz:tti.e ~ 

es. Now we see that in a abort penod of time 

Refah which is now the senior P8l1:ner of the 

coalition has forgotten the plight of the ~sel 

ai1d is' sending ministers to atudy this Sltuation~fab 

has to wake up to the f~cts that it 

wu the ~ people that brought It to ~wer 

and it is still driv ita current 8~ from 

these people. Re~ ahould not ahenate ~he 

masse. or else the muses may soon desert It... 

53


dâllynews 

.. . Fttday, Ju1Wy 17;1997 

l'The party of . 

Ithe.oppressed' 

.Elçll 

The solution 

of the Kurdish 

issue' depends 

on the 'softening. 

of some minds'. 

Cau1;lou81 We needed to form apolitical 

movement free of the mistakes of the DEP and 

HADEP, and aimed at finding better alternative 

solutions through a more cautious approach 

By Alparslan 

Esmer 

Turkish Daily News / ANKARA 

he Demacratic MassParty 

(DKP) entered the political arena 

an Jan. 3 and aimed to. carry the 

.. Kurdish problem to. the political 

platfarm thraugh moderate polieies. 

In terms af its palicies, the 

pany has differed from its mare 

radical pra- Kurdish predecessars, 

the Demacracy Party, which was clased 

dawn, and the Peaple' s Demacracy Party 

(HADEP), which faces c1asure by the 

Canstitutianal. Caurt. Accarding ta ~erafettlß Elçi, 

faunding chairman af the DKP, the salutian af the 

Kurdish issue depends an the "saftening af same 

minds." He stresses that a change in the centrist 

structure af the state to. a mare decentralized ane 

through a demacratic pracess will nat mean the 

disintegratian af Turkey. The fallawing is an interview 

WIthElçi an his party's perspectives: 

TDN. Mr. chainnan,why did you see a need 

to set !!V the Democratic Mass Party? 

EL~l. Palitical parties are established to. 

addresssocial needs. We have fIrst faund aut that 

Turkey was lacated in a very appartune regian, 

ecanamically. If these apportunitles were utilized, 

Turkey wauld have been in a better place amang 

the warld's cauntries. When we dig dawn into.the 

care af this unfartunate situatian we will see a 

.Kuniish prablem laying beneath it. It (the Kurdish 

prablem) has preclud- , 

ed aur demacracy's h th .' l' . thi 

pragress. w y e peap e ID. S 

Those who. have cauntry face a cantlnuoccupied 

the tap posi- aus d.lst!lrbanc~ and 

tians af the state have canfhctmg enVIranreduced 

demacratic ment. An enarma~s 

rights, fearing that the a11launt af the state s 

Kurds would alSo.betl- resaurces have been 

efit from these ..This iswa~ted to. resta~e 

SOCIalpeace and stabil. 

' 

ity. Therefare, we (the 

DKP) emerged with a 

slagan stressing that 

there wauld nat be any 

ecanamicdevelopment, 

demacratlc 

pro$fess, ar sacial stabihty 

withaut a full 

salutlan to. the Kurdish 

issue. 

We believe the present 

state structure is 

far fram addressing the 

current ,needs. When 

this state was frrst cre~ 

ated, the warld was 

daminated by tatalitarian 

and unitary systems. 

The mentality 

cantraUing the state's hand depended an a single 

hald. .. 

. The ideas af a single natian, single ideolagy, singleparty 

and a single leader were camman. The 

current realities afthe rising of new. demacratic 

understandings based an pluralism highlights the 

need far refarm in this country. Far this reason, we 

believe a salutian to.' the Kurdish problem will be 

the frrst requirement af this refarm. Withaut this 

issue being salved, it is nat.2Qssibleto.have a civic 

and demacratized saciety. There is a need far a 

politiçal party which focuses an solving thiSJlroblem 

as tile care af all ather issues. The DKP was 

born to address these needs. 

TDN. Formerly, therè were several other par~ 

ties established to address the problems of thé 

Kords like the Democracy Party (DEP) and 

later HADEP. Didn't you ~ee them capable 

eDo~? How doesyour party differ from them? 

ELCt. First of all, we have idealagical differences. 

'Thase parties have a Marxist traClitian.They 

have a "clasS1St"view. Our ideolagical difference 

is that we dO not see the issue thrauBh the classist 

a'p~raach. This is an issue concernmg all people 

Imng in this cauntry. That is why we call aurselves 

the Demacratic "Mass" Party. Our calleagues 

might have set aut with good intentians, 

but they failed to. get alang with-.the sensitive 

paints af politics. They alSo.failed to. cantribute a 

pracess to.,saften up the society, which is the ~~mary 

requrrement. Sa, we needed to.farm a polin- 

54


cal movement cleared of those mistakes and aimed 

at finding better solution alternatives through a 

more cautious approach. This is the main way we 

differ from them. We do 'not have any intention to 

offend, condemn or accuse these parties. We 'can 

only influence the masses who have voted in such 

tradition. The electorate supported these political 

movements with good intentlon but the movements 

did not sbow the talent to utilize the Kurdish issue 

for the benefit of the masses. Therefore we needed 

a separate structure to distance ourselves from 

these political mistakes. 

We vet')' carefully aim to build an atmosphere of 

confidence. Therefore, we are in favor of solving 

the Kurdish issue by maintaining the integrity of 

Turkey, We prefer to preserve the current boundaries. 

Also. our attitude and past experiences play a 

more trustworthy role. In addition to these factors, 

we need to soften up minds. Tbese days, we see 

that some people occupyin~ tbe top positions of the 

state are deliberately creatlng unnecessary panic in 

people's minds. Many opimons that are nght and 

reasonable have been injected into people' s minds 

as hannful and dangerous. Contrary to this, we are 

trying to show the people that these opinions are 

Dot h8rmful, but rather to their benefit. In particular, 

a solution to the Kurdish issue is essential for 

all members of the society. The solution would not 

only serve the Kurdisb population but also the 

whole of society. That will belp to restore the 

peace and stability 

which bas been needed 

for a long time, as well 

the economic develop'- 

ment. A solution Will' 

save Turkey from being 

a country questioned 

and tried on the international 

level for its 

alleged human rights 

abuses. It will become 

more prestigious. We 

have to exprain this to 

the people. We have to 

exprain to them that one 

cannot have freedom at 

the expense of the freedom 

of others. We can 

call a society tranquil 

when all segments of it 

benefit: It is the time to 

dispose of mentalities 

whlcb use one part of 

society as an instrument 

of oppression against 

anotfier. 

TDN. You have just 

said your party's aim 

was to solve tbe 

Kurdish issue in tbe 

Southeast. You have 

also said that you 

needed to soften peo. 

pie's minds on issues. 

What is your party's 

plans for a solution, 

and how do you plan 

to accomplish these tasks? 

ELÇt. Here is our solution plan. First of all, 

society is occupied by the fear of disintegration. 

Perhaps they have the right to be sensitive on this 

issue. But the concept of integrity must be clearly 

understood. The current state system means by 

using the word, "integrity," a country which is 

ruled from a single center. But we should not 

search for a country's integrity within a centrist 

system. DemocracY can also work in a decentralized 

system. Tbe people can share the power in 

matters concerning themselves without harming the 

country's integrity. We are seeing similar mOdels 

throughout the world. Look at the federalist structures 

in Germany and the United States, or tbe 

slightly more developed model in Switzerland. 

These countries )'!eserve their integrity. The peo~le 

must understand that when someone comes up WIth 

stressing a change o~ administration system, he 

does not mean separatism. 

Our party suggests ~ prov~cial model in which 

local and regional adlD1DlStrationsare pted more 

pl?wer. What I mean is that the local and regional 

administrations are authorized to bave their own 

legislative and executive bodies, make their own 

laws, be elected by the re~onal occupants, collect 

their own taXes, and exerctse their own education, 

health and internal security policies. This type of 

model could help diminish 

regional differences without 

engaging in conflict. These, 

of course, require conditions 

where everyone can 

freely express his opinion 

without tbe fear of being 

tried for them. 

On the other hand, the 

state must comprehend 

the Kurdish reality. This 

as the [ITStstep of solving 

the issue, is very vital. 

The disturbance will continue 

and may even lead to 

unwanted consequences as 

long as we keep seeing every- ' 

one living in this country as 

Turks and do not allow the otbers to 

preserve their ethnic identities. 

TDN. Mr. chairman, is tbére any 1»0551. 

bility or creatinl an atmosphere where 

everYone can freely '~ê~ TIeWS even 

before the bloodshed ends?" ' 

ELÇt. The ending of bloodshed is imminent. 

It is also one of our main goals. But if 

we really want to stop the bloodshed. we 

m~st take serious steps even before the confhct 

ends. Meanwl1i1e the state should 

apply the !nternation~llaws which are 

attached to Its domestic law. If it steps back 

the exe~ci~ing ~f inapprop~ate policies and 

starts gIVIng sIgns of willinaness to solve 

the issue within tbe frame:ork of human 

rights and freedoms, it will bave certain 

effects on ending the conflict. Ending the 

bloodshed is everyone's obliaation, including 

that of the state. 0 

TDN- Could you tell us about your I!arty's 

expectations in terms of winning a certain portion 

of tbe electorate? 

ELÇI. We believe we bave considerable vote 

potential because there are widespread expectations 

that the conflict will end, to save the economic 

resources being wasted in tbe conflict and to 

ac~ieve peace. and tranqu.ility. We are here to voice 

theIr expectations as melT political party. We also 

want a state bound by law. It is not the only the 

Kurds who wish for tbis, other segments of the 

society also want it. This is not an illusion, we see 

ourselves as one of the strongest political parties of 

the future. 

TDN. What are_your views towards the out. 

lawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)? 

ELÇt. We bave always made it clear. We are 

ideologically different from the PKK. We think 

and act differently. The DKP is a political party 

which applies peaceful and democratic methods. 

We disapprove of all kinds of violence and try to 

distance ourselves from it. 

TDN. Do you think of any direct contact with 

55


the PKK in terms of ending the conflict through 

your sUjgestions? . . 

ELÇI. No, I will not have any contact with the 

PKK. This is not something I can assume any 

:responsibility fot. But if the state seriously aims to 

resolve tht' issue, it should consider the PKK also. 

It is.thestate's responsibility. What kind of method 

will be chosen is, again, up to the state. 

TDN. Recently, the actin~ chairman of 

HADEP talked about the possibility of .an aUm. 

ment with the DKP. How do you evaluate this'? 

ELÇt. I have already told you that HADEP's 

political mistakes hanned society. But I think, the 

DKP's emergence may help HADEP to reorganize 

itself. It may improve our political advocacy. 

Maybe there is a chance to agree at a common 

Junction. If there is really a chance we can reconcile 

within "our principles," we may have' an election 

alliance - who mows, maybe a more lasting 

one. As long as our principles. are taken into consideration, 

we will be open to a merger. Many of 

the leaders of HADEP are colleagues whom we 

have known for a long time. I believe our existing 

dialogue with HADEP leaders couldbring them to 

a better line. . 

TDN.Yo~ are indicating ~at youhave good 

contacts WIth any party which acknowledges 

your paryy's attitude. Is ~ereany ~sibility of 

cooperation with the parties on SOCialdemocrat. 

ic Unes, considering you were once a deputy of 

the R~ublican People's Party (CHP)? 

EL«S:l. We have a party program. We are trying 

to pinpoint the basic prob1ems in our efforts to 

realize that program. We can cooperate with any 

group we believe is qualified to work with us and 

contribute the solution of these basic problems. 

TDN. Is there any groul» in or outside 

Parliam.ent which you feells close to your 

views? 

ELÇt. I believe that there is a large number of 

people in favor of solving the Kurdish issue. This 

mdudes politicians also. But, unfortunately, they 

are not as detennined and courageous enough to 

take radical steps. There is a willingness. The 

detennination can only be gathered through soei-. 

ety's exertionof pressure. I can't speak of whether 

.Parliament, which represents the reople, can provide 

this pressure or not. We wil try to estaolish 

dialogue with every party, including the president 

and the prime minister as much as we can and 

bring solution methods. Because the issue is not 

only ours, it concerns the entire country. I think, 

they will not hesitate to respond to our search for 

dialogue if they are really willing to address the 

people's problems. We will not do it by confronting 

each other. We will not refrain from personal 

concessions. . 

We want to tell the people at the top of this state 

that the Kurdish issue cannot be solved under the 

shadow of weapons. The Kurds will not be wiped 

out through killing. Twenty-seven Kurdish uprisings 

were bloodily and rutlilessly suppressed. The 

problem has not beensolved, but, rather, has been 

augmented. Those. who control the state must be 

aware of this. . 

And the Kurds, must also be aware of this; they 

cannot solve their problems with guns. If this realli 

ty is fully com'preliended, the opinions will intensi~ 

fy toward finding peaceful ways. 

.TDN.1t is certain that yourpartyis expected 

to receive the majority of votes from the 

Southeast. HADEP and the ruling partner 

Welfare Party (RP) are highly influenti81 in the 

region. Will fO: also .turn to consenative votes 

like the RP did. .. 

E~.Çt~ ~terIDs of the elec~orate, we tafge~ the 

tradinona1i~tmasses. Not only ID the Southeas~ but 

the ~h~le ~country: No 'party has any chanc~ of 

grow~g by neglecbng this potential. And of course 

the mIddle:class, we need to draw them towards 

our movement The middle class also brings us the 

advantage ofbeing more effective as well as being 

more möderàt~.'. 

TDN.You.speak about the middle-class;:But 

there are also some leading businessmen taki~g 

active steps toward economic development of 

the Southellst. Have you had any contactwitb 

them?'. ., . 

ELÇt. We have not had any contacts with them 

so far. We have only spent our time trying to organize 

our party. Now. we are planning to make contaC! 

with many.group~, including the civic org!lllizatlons 

and busmess mcles. The latter can be highly 

advantageous for solving the issue. We welcome 

any warm approach from business circles towards 

our movement. 

TDN. How do you assess the views that your 

party is pursuing the political viewpoint of 

Massoud Banani's Kurdistan Democratic Party 

(KDP) in northern Iraq? 

ELÇ1- No. This is completely wrong. I still do 

not know what the KOP's political program consists 

of. It is true that I have very good personal 

contacts with Mr. Barzani. We are very good 

friends. Such friendships are essential and 

inevitable. But our friendship does not go a step 

beyond personal. Anyway a legitimate party must 

be free of all kinds of influences. I cannot call a 

party legitimate if it lacks political determination. 

The DKP has its decision-making mechanisms 

within its structure. Receiving instructions from an 

external body completely contradicts our structure. 

TDN. Do you think this issue should be solved 

internationally or by the regional people them. 

selves? 

ELÇ1. Only the region's people can provide 

alternatives for a solution. It is very nonnaI that the 

Kurdish issue draws attentionthroughout the world 

because the problem has already gone beyond 

national borders, and therefore does not only disturb 

the concerned sides. But the priority to find a 

solution must be given to the regional powers. 

TDN- Where do you place your party in the 

political arena? 

ELÇt. Our program answers that. We regard the 

political arena as very artificial and disorganized. 

There is a turmoil. Parties placing themselves in 

the left, right, or the center, act contradictory to 

their objectives. We therefore, do not want to 

locate ourselves in neither left nor the right. We are 

a party at the center. We will not consider ideology 

in the fIrst place. 

In fact, we have a refoimist tendency. We propose 

a restructuring of the state. This is more inclin~d to 

the left but, 011 the other hand, we also'object to the 

56

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basl1l Özeti 

misperception of some concepts, such as secularism. 

The term is perceived as an anti-Islamist view, seen 

as the religion of the state. We also want the faithful 

people in this country live freely without any pressure, 

and organized themselves according to their 

beliefs. We have respect for religious beliefs. 

Therefore, ,for this reason we COUlG be. seen as a 

rightist party. But if we really need to place our 

P.arty somewhere, we will classify ourselves as the 

'pany of the oppressed." Wherever we find people 

being subjected to oppression or injustice, we will 

represent them. With so many options, we'll simply 

place ourselves at the center. 

Turkish Daily News! RIDAY.JANUARY \1,1997 

PUK leader Jalal Talabanl seen here on Thursday talking with Deputy 

Prime Mlniter and Foreign Minister Tansu Çiller as other offICiais and 

joumalists look on. TDN Ali Fuat U1a~' 

Talabani reaffirms 

commitment to united 

and democratic Iraq 

By Saadet Oruç I Turkish Daily New~. . 

ANKARA- Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patnotlc Umon of 

Kurdistan (PUK), on Thurs4ay decl~ed bis dedi~ation to the concept 

of an independent, democraue and UIDtedIraq, while reports have been 

heard of autonomy talks between Baghdad and the ~VK. The ~UK 

leader arrived in Ankara on Thursday for a four-day VISItof meeungs. 

He was reported to have met with U.S. officials in the morning~ 

although the D.S. Embassy in Ankara denied the report. Talabam 

missed out on meeting D.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert 

Pelletreau, who left Ankara on Wednesday after attending the third 

round of northern Iraqi talks. . 

Travelling from Teheran, Talabani arrived in Ankara. ID th~ ~arly 

hours. He held talks with the General 'Staff and the ForeIgn Ministry, 

as well as intelligence officials at the National Intelligence 

Organization (MI~). centre in ':' enimahalle. A.fter hav~ng 

lunch with the Bnllsh delegallon, he met wIth ForeIgn 

Minister Tansu Çiller in the residence of the Foreign 

Ministry. Sinan Çelebi. .leader of the Turkmen Front, 

was present for part of the meeting as well. . 

Çiller, Talabani and Çelebi briefed t~e press after the 

meeting. Çiller declared that a contro~lmg group, to also 

include Turkmens, would be established to solve the 

dispute between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) 

and the PUK. 

Çiller also said the Iraqi Kurdish groups were ready to 

cooperate with Ankara against the PKK, which they saw 

a'i necessary for a lasting peace in ~he regi~n. . 

In his speech, whereby Talabam comphmented Çlller 

and the Turkish efforls in 1l0l1hern Itaq, he also pomled 

out Ihat the PUK's main goal was a united democratic 

and independent Iraq. Referring to the sit~at!on of e~h. 

nic groups in Iraq, formerly subject to IraqI dlctato~shlp', 

the change in sentiment loward Baghdad could easllybe 

seen. 

Talabani also clarified the Puk p,osition on the "legitimale 

security inlerests of Turkey' by saying, "We will 

try to secure the border of Tur~ey. Our peopl~ do no~ 

accept the existence of any mllttary groups III IraqI 

Kurdistan which are against Turkey," . 

Çelebi reported his pleasure that the two KurdIsh 

roups declared their confidence towards Turkmens. 

clebi also hricfcd the reporters beforc leaving the resience 

while Çiller and Talabani did not answer the 

~ 

questions. 

Çelebi, who attended to some part of the discussions, 

said later to the reporters that the two groups were ready 

to accept the medIation of Turkmens between KDP and 

PDK. Referring to the two-day talks for northern Iraq, 

he told that a high coordination committee was established 

for this task. 

He briefed that at 16 points on the ceasefire line more 

than 400 soldiers were to be placed, and three provinces, 

which KDP put obstacles, were to be demilitanzed. 

These three points were told as Navdesh, Sakhlava 

province and Salga. . ' 

Diplomatic sources, who met with Talabani, commented 

the TON that despite all the efforts to mediate 

between the PDK and the KDP, they got the message 

that the KDP-PUK relations were still at a very tense 

point. 

Same sources told the TON that Talabani had ta 

'come to Ankara a day later than expected though the 

Lufthansa Airlines did not accept him for the reason that 

he did not bave German visa. 

Talabani was in Iran since the weekend and was 

expecting to be invited to Ankara. 

Pelletreau invited the two Kurdish leaders to have 

talks in Ankara last week by phone, before Washington 

meetings about northern Iraq. Talabani, who wil1leave 

Sunday, met with Onur Oymen, the undersecretary of. 

the Turkish Foreign Ministry after the çi1\er appointment 

as well. 

57


---- 

Turkish Daily News FRIDAY,JANUARY 11,1991 

Whose gang is this? 

By M. Akif Beki 

turlci,~hDaily News 

ISTANBUL- There are two mafias as well as two secret services 

within the stateof Turkey. The first is the so-called pro- 

European gang, and the other IS the pro"American one, according 

to a former officer of the National Intelligence Organization 

(Min. 

An economicS professor and retired branch chairman of MIT, 

Mahir Kaynak has revealed a left-wing military intervention 

attempt dated March 9, 1970. 

He defines the gangs within the stale as extensions of the 

~Iocs ~f the foreign secret services. After taking coup leaders,: 

mcludmg former General Cemal Madanoolu and army officers.~ , 

journalists and academicians to court, MiT disclosed Kaynak as : 

Its sPy within the junta. 

Although he resigned from MIT after i 

the disclosure, he returned to the orgamzation and became I 

branch chairman responsible for the foreign intelligence, a post . 

from which he retired in'1980. Kaynak described the Madanoolui ' 

junta as European backed despite public opinion that this junta, . 

as well as the left-wing movement supportmg were Soviets pup- . 

pets. 

According to ,Kaynak the clash between left-wing (socialist or 

communistf and right-wing r--- 

(multi-national,ist) move- I Has M!T never 

ments and even the three used Rights 

milita~y coups, in Turkey to operation? . 

since World War Il were '. Although MI.T .IS a.n 

aspects of the conflict Important factor ln Illumlbetween 

those blocs, the natmg the mystenous mur- 

Europeans, led by Germany ders blamed ~n state gangs, 

and France, and America. Kaynak cautIOned that ~rst 

"We have two mafias, people. should ask whIch 

thank God. One is the so- gang, It was,' the pro; 

called pro-western gang, A'!1encan.or pro-Eu~opean. 

and the other is pro- 'The ~Igh-Jevel ~lrectory 

American. These mafias of M,~TISo~t of,!hls strucpractice 

murder.s in accor- ture, he sal~, They a~e 

dance with the policies of only showlDg off. ID 

their supporter~," Kaynak Merc


• Le Monde - vendredi, 17janvier 1997 • Le Monde - vendredi, 17 janvier 1997 

Grève de la faim de centaines 

de réfugiés kurdes turcs d'Irak 

PARIS. Four empecher févacuation forcée par le Haut-commissarfat des 

Nations unies (HeR), vers la 1\Jrquie, de plus de 15 000 Kurdes turcs, réfugiés 

dans le nord de fIrak depuls 1994, des centaines d'entre eux observent 

depuls le 18 clécembre une grève de la faim, soutenus par des centaines de 

membres du Comité du Kurdistan en Suisse. Selon Melunet BalcI, responsable, 

à Paris, du Centre d'information du KurdIstan, proche du PKK(Parti 

des travaillew:s kurdes de 1\1rquie),les réfugiés kurdes turcs ne veulent pas 

rentrer en 1\1rquie car fis craignent la répression et les sévices des autorttés 

turques. 

Ankara, comme le HCR, considère que le camp d'Atroush, dans le nord de 

l'Irak, où ces réfugiés ont été regroupés depuls 1995 sous la protection du 

HeR, est devenu un antre du PKK,que les autorités turques pourchassent. 

Or, précise M. Bald, il s'agit de civßs, pour la plupart des femmes, des 

hommes et des vieillards, même si la plupart ont un proche affilié au PKK. 

Turkish Daily News SA1lJRDA Y, JANUARY 18, 1997 

Trial of publisher, 

translator dubbed 

'an absurdist play' 

Turki.fh 

Daily New.f 

1STANBUL- The senior advisor to the international 

human rights organization. Human Rights Watch (HRW), 

issued a statement Friday on the ongoing trial of publisher 

Anenur Zarakolu and translator Ertugrul Kürkcü. 

The two are in court charged with "defamation and 

belittling of the state security forces" following their work 

on a Turkish language edition of the HRW AmiS Projcct 

report. "Weapons Transfers and Violations of the Laws of 

War.in Turkey." The statement by Jeri Laber compared 

part four of the trial to "an absurdist play," claiming that 

the two defendants were "messengers twice removed" 

from the phrase in the report that had caused the prosecution. 

"Ms. Zarakolu and Mr. Kürkcü did not write the report 

in question." the statement said. "they merely translated 

and published in Turkeyareport researched. written and 

pubhshed by HRW more than a year ago." 

The report was released at a press conference in 

Istanbul in November 1995. and its contents have been 

widely quoted and discussed in the media in Turkey since 

then. 

However. according to the statement, "that was only 

the beginning of the absurdity." Laber claims that not 

only did the two defendants not write the words for which 

they are now being charged, but that neither did HRW. 

The reference in the report that fonns the basis of the 

prosecution referred to police s(X:Cialforces operating in 

the South East as "thugs," which, Laber claIms, was a 

quote from an HRW interview with an American official 

at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara. 

The statement went on to say that Zarakolu and 

Kürkcü's case was not an isolated one. pointing out the 

existence of Penal Code articles 155 (insulting the military) 

and 312 (preaching ethnic or regional hatred), 

Article 8 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, and the Law to 

Protect Atatürk as bein~ often used arbitrarily and not 

"reflectinf, the modem, hberal society that Turkey strives 

for today.' 

Laber further pointed out that the U.S. government was 

fully aware of the case, and was sending an observer to 

Friday's trial, at which HRW itself would be represented. 

Ay~enur Zarakolu and Ertugrul Kürkcü face prison 

tenns of between one and six years each. 

59


THE ECONOMIST JANUARY 18 TH 1997 

The mullahs' balance-sheet 

o ITS swarming young, Iran's 18-year-old Is- 

revolution looks middle-aged and med- 

Tlamic 

dlesome and muddle-headed. Two out of every 

three Iranians were either infants when the revolution 

began, or were born after it replaced the modern 

ways the Pahlavi shahs had been trying to impose 

on an ancient civilisation with a no less. 

arbitrary form of imposed religious fundamentale 

ism. Without memory of what, to many of their fathers, 

were the bad old days, and without experience 

of the adversities of the Islamic Republic's 

early years, the young see their rulers out ofhistorical 

context, and find them wanting. 

Most western outsiders are even more critical, 

pointing to the warts on the face of the Islamic Republic. 

These, indeed, are ugly, even putting to one 

side the hard-to-prove charges that Iran is an international 

trouble-maker, perhaps international terrorist. 

More sustainable are the complaints about 

domestic policy. The revolution has run out of 

steam. It enforces rules that intrude into private life. 

Economic mismanagement, made more shambolic 

by pervasive corruption, holds back economic 

growth and investment. Everybody, it seems, is on 

the take. People on small fixed incomes cannot 

make ends meet. Political factions are confused: at 

the top of the pyramid, nobody seems to be fully in 

control. And the regime is a bully, sometimes a 

cruel one. Half the population, women, are discriminated 

against: the visible sign of this is the 

hija.b, the Islamic law that drapes women shapelessly 

from head to toe. 

But this formidable list ofblemishes tips the bal. 

ance-sh.eet unfairly against the Islamic Republic. 

Look,for a moment, at what Iran's clerics had to 

contend with as they took over a collapsed country 

in 1979.The revolution's earlyyears were turbulent; 

its misfortunes, some self-induced but others 

cursed upon it, continued for a decade. The revolutionaries 

had to perform to an untried script, writ- 

.ten as the play progressed, based on a concept that 

had lain buried for centuries. Their only prompts 

were the Delphic pronouncements of their august 

leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. 

Most of the country's professional talent departed 

in despair in the early 1980s, joining the 

once-wealthy elite in exile, as they saw the revolution 

that many of them had originally welcomed 

hijacked by dogmatic clerics. The price of oil-on 

which Iran, for all its.talk of ending its dependency, 

still wholly depends-collapsed.A savage little civil 

war between Khomeini's followers and the leftwing 

Islamic Mujahiddinled to a couple of devastating 

bomb explosions that blew away many of the 

revolution's top leaders and some of its best. Iraq, 

seizing its chance, invaded the new Islamic state, 

starting a war that dragged on for eight brutal years 

to no purpose whatsoever, costing Iran 1m lives. 

Not as bad as itwas 

Against these huge disadvantages, the republic's 

credits are respectable. Most ofIran's discontented 

young are bener off than their fathers were, and 

their mothers too. Both boys and girls have a better 

chance of surviving in the 19905: infant mortality 

has dropped from 104 per 1,000 in the mid-1970s to 

There is more on 

the credit side 

than you might 

expect, but Iran 

remai11S a 

troubled country 

that needs to win 

back the 

confidence of its 

young,says 

Barbara Smith 

THE ECONOMIST JANUAR\' 18TH 1997 

60


SURVEYIRAN 

Not bad SodaIlndlcators 

Popu'-tlon 

GD' per ute Adult with lCC8SS to TVs per 

Popu'-tlon person. PPP expectllncy literacy Nfe weter. 100 people 

1994. m 1994. S 1993 1993 '" 199G-!J5. '" 1992 

Iren 65.1 4.650 68 ~:.1 ~ ~ . 

~~(::::::~(~:::::::: .:.:: :~:6.!:ci::::::::.:::: ~ ~~:~ ll!l 1.~ 

India 913.~ 1.'.2.~ 6.1 5():~ ~~ ~ . 

rürkey 6ö:ä 4.610 67 81.1 80 18 

---~25 per 1,000; life expectancy has risen from 55 to 68. 

Literacy rates over the same period have gone from 

under halfto around two-thirds, and are still rising; 

the gap between urban and ruralliteracy is closing. 

The new officials, many of them the sons of 

peasants and small-time shop-keepers, are less inclined 

to stand on their dignity than the shah's wellbred 

townsfolk. They are more likely to go out to the 

countryside (where about 40% of the population 

stilllives) to find out what needs doing, and try to 

do it And they have achieved a lot, often with quite 

small projects. Even remote villages nowadays have 

primary schools (separate ones for boys and girls), 

paved roads and electricity, health and welfare centres, 

safe drinking water and often telephones. 

The young have a better chance of getting educated 

(never mind for the moment the quality of 

that education~ Above all, prospects for girls have 

improved Middle- and upper-class women, 

brought up in western ways, find the Islamic rules 

absurd and degrading. But most women from poor 

or traditional families were already wearing a 

chador (a cloak, usually black, that goes over the 

head and has to be clutched, inconveniently, under 

the chin) and obeyed ancient rules. They are now 

more likely to go to school and stay there; about 

40% of the students in higher education are 

women, and they are doing better at their studies 

than men. Iranian women nowadays, despite Islamic 

customs oppressively enforced by the state, 

have more chance than they did of getting a job outside 

the home, competing with men professionally 

and asserting their rights as individuals in the face 

of their fathers', brothers' or husbands' prejudices. 

They also have more chance of keeping their 

families to a reasonable size. In the revolution's 

early years, with the clerics calling on the population 

to multiply, annual population growth hovered 

just below the 4% mark. Towards the end of the 

19805 the mullahs realised their mistake and 

switched tactics. Parents were told that subsidised 

health insurance and food would stop with the 

third child Condoms, pills and advice became 

freely available, particularly in rural areas. The persuasion 

worked-or perhaps, in the recession, parents 

persuaded themselves that they could not afford 

more than two or three children. The birth rate 

dropped, roughly by half-although with 6sm pe0- 

ple (an informed guess, like most numbers in Iran), 

there are still lm or so new Iranians everyyear. 

All very well, say discontented Iranians. So now 

we have roads and telecommunications, mechanised 

farms and primary schools, health centres 

and birth control,. not to mention village women 

who are asserting themselves. But this is no more 

than our due as an oil-rich country with an ancient 

history, a glorious culture and a well-educated elite, 

geographically placed at the centre of one of the 

world's most strategic regions. We are not a thirdworld 

out-of-the-way dump, to be patronised by 

western newcomers. We want more than that 

With war and civil war long gone, a sort ofcalm 

has descended on the country. A visitor, enjoying 

tlfe hospitality of the people and the beauty of the 

country, can find Iran unexpectedly welcoming. 

But peel back a layer or two of the surface calm, and 

disorder lies below; a disorder that some Iranians, 

prone to exaggeration, call anarchy. Fine, they say, 

that the regime appropriated most of the wealth of 

the shah's old cronies; not so fine that most of this 

was passed on to the regime's own cronies, a newrich 

class just as greedy and corrupt as the old aristocrats. 

Real incomes have shrunk savagely, particularly 

for the disappearing middle classes. With a 

teacher's pay barely covering the rent of a room, 

day-to-day living relies on dodgy improvisation. 

Education is the pride of the revolution. But, 

commendable though it is that the number of 

places at colleges and universities has risen, Iranians 

complain that there are still far from enough 

(onlyabout 10% of applicants can get in), the selection 

process is arbitrary and the quality of teaching 

has deteriorated. Few graduates get the chance of 

studying abroad, and books are hard to get hold of. 

Fault can be found with most selection processes. 

The Iranian one, called gozinesh, is peculiar 

to itself. Would-be students (or would-be school or 

university teachers) are rigorously quizzed to make 

sure that they, and their families, respect Islamic 

values. About 40% ofhigher-education places go to 

"preferred" candidates, such as the children of 

"martyrs" killed in the warwith Iraq; a scattering of 

places also goes to ambassadors and ministers, and 

officials wanting to better themselves with a degree. 

Moreover, once in, a student can all too easily be 

thrown out again.A female student may be expelled 

if she is caught laughing with an unrelated mansupposedly 

a sensuous invitation to sin. And the 

chances are that the universities will grow stricter: 

the mullahs are searching for ways to impose yet 

more academic "Islamisation". 

The things they cannot do 

Few of Iran's boom-babies would welcome that: 

they want education and jobs, houses and household 

goods. They are frustrated by not being able to 

get what theywant, and by the boundaries imposed 

on their private lives. They cannot, without risk of 

costly or degrading punishment, enjoy boyfriendand-girlfriend 

companionship, listen to pop 

records, watch a western video, dance or have a 

drink. Of course, like the young elsewhere, they 

twist an easy, slippery way round the restrictions. 

Even small children listen to pop on the Voice of 

America, ringing up to ask for a tune to be played. 

But the heavy hand of mosque-and-state is 

there, a constant personal irritation.lran's young, at 

least for the moment, seem less bothered by the p0- 

litical limits: they are not the shah's students reborn, 

burning with political dissent. Their complaints 

are based in materialism more than in 

ideology. All the same, a revolution that was spearheaded 

by its young cannot, in its middle age, afford 

to alienate its own children. 

. 

TH I ICONOMIST JANUA&Y 11TH 1997 

61

Revue de Presse-Press Review-BerhevokaÇapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 


The absolute power of the Leader 

IRAN 

SURVEY 

ORits first two years, Iran's revolution was run 

Fby a coalition of clerics and religious-minded 

laymen. Two such laymen, Mehdi Bazargan,leader 

of the Freedom Movement, and Abolhassan Bani- 

Sadr, were briefly prime minister and president respectively. 

In 1981,the religious liberals were swept 

aside by clerics bent on establishing the first purely 

theocratic state, the first, some say, since the Golden 

Agewhen the Prophet Mohammad briefly ruledin 

Medina in the 7th century. 

The Islamic Republic of Iran is based on the 

concept ofvelayat-efaqih, the rule of the religious 

jurist. The term emerged in lectures given by 

Ayatollah Khomeini in 1969 in Iraq, and published 

under that title.Any changes to Iran'ssystem ofgovernment, 

or any political differences between its 

leaders, are contained within the framework of that 

religious guardianship: society, in theory, isorganised 

according to divine law;the aim of all politieal 

action is the execution ofGod's will. 

Source of emulation 

By his learning, his leadership and his charisma, 

Khomeini was indisputably qualified to be the. 

vali-e faqih, the man designated as religious jurist, 

his absolute authority derived from God.Also without 

argument, he was a marya-e taqlid; one of those 

rare scholars who, in Shia Muslim tradition, 

emerge as a "source of emulation", an inspiration 

to Shias everywhere. His position was not to be 

challenged. From exile, first in Iraq and then in 

France, the ayatollah had been the rallying point for 

the anger that had built up against the shah's 

authoritarianism, his grandiose notions and his 

closeness to the West Khomeini returned to Iran in 

February1979, just after the shah hadfled, readymade 

as the leader to guide the new Islamic state 

through dense virgin territory. 

But Khomeini, known throughout Iran as the 

imam (a title bestowed, by general consent, on a 

very few revered figures), guided the state from on 

high. He did not bother with day-to-day decisions, 

but issued generalorders and judgments. These 

were frequently ambiguous, even contradictory. 

Their effect was to build up a system of informal 

cheeks and balances that kept the country in a permanent 

state of flux. 

On the ground, Hojatolislam (a step down from 

an ayatollah) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was 

central to Iranian decision-making from the start. 

One of the cleverest politicians that Iran has known 

this century, he was close to the imam, keeping a 

finger in every pie (his family controls, among other 

things, Iran's profitable pistachio industry). He 

could be hardlineor moderate, as circumstances . 

demanded, and for nine successive terms held da 

official position of Speaker of the Majlis (parliament~ 

After Khomeini's death in June 1989, Mr 

Rafsanjani was an uncontroversial choice as president 

He was elected by 95%of the votes cast, and his 

executive powers as head of government were 

greatly increased by constitutional amendments 

that included eliminating the prime ministership, 

a post that had been held for eight years by Mir 

Hossein Mussavi, a skilfulleft-wing politician. 

The much harder decision was the choice of successor 

to Khomeini. Who indeed can succeed a 

near-god? In 1985the Assembly of Experts(a clerical 

constitutional council) had designated Ayatollah 

Hossein-Ali Montazeri, a learned and independent-minded 

cleric, asheir-apparent. But fouryears 

later he spoke out against violations of Islamic justice, 

including mass executions, and was crossed off 

the list He remains a lurking, important presence 

in Qom, Iran's most holy city. 

The candidate apparently favoured by the . 

imam himself was Hojatolislam Sayed Ali 

Khamenei, Iran's long-time president But the 

learned seminary teachers-the "white beards"-of 

Qom and Mashhad (another holy city) did not consider 

him worthy or scholarly enough to be a 

marya-and the constitution required that the 

country's leader should also have the supreme theological 

authority of a marya. So Mr Rafsanjani, a 

born fixer and Mr Khamenei's ally, arranged matters. 

The constitution was revised, separating the 

two functions. And. the venerable experts swiftly 

elected Mr Khamenei (now promoted to Ayatollah) 

to the supreme post of Rahbar or Leader. 

The 'alliance between Leader and president 

seemed solid-and vital to Mr Rafsanjani's schemes 

to open Iran's closed economy to foreign ways and 

foreign investment, defying his fellow-clerics' distrust 

both of foreigners and ofborrowing. But it has 

not altogether worked out as Mr Rafsanjani 

planned. Once in his exalted job, Ayatollah 

Khamenei, an honest but not modest cleric, began 

to swell ta.fiIl it He aspires to act like a malja. As it 

is, his post gives him extraordinary powers: not 

only are the most important appointments in his 

gift but he has the final word on all aspects of policy. 

He may not, as yet, have chosen to use this power 

openly; he certainly exercises it subtly. 

There are probably few ideological differences 

Rafsanjani 

(left) has to look up to the Leader 

From Khomeini 

Khamenei,. not 

forgetting 

Rafsanjani .. 

to 

62


SURVEY IRAN 

between him and Mr Rafsanjani. But Mr Khamenei 

has become a rallying point for conservatives alienated 

by the president's attempts at reform. These include 

Tehran's powerful baza.aris, the traders who 

feel that their economic and political privileges are 

threatened by opening the economy to foreigners. 

Together with the country's conservative clerics, 

they also fear that the social consequences of this 

opening will pollute Iran's Islamic purity. 

Personal grievances mayalso have played a 

part. When Mr Khamenei himself was president, 

that office was largely ceremonial. Decisions, it is 

said, were taken by Mr Rafsanjani and the prime 

minister, Mr Mussavi, often without consulting 

him.lfthis were true(and it has to be said that facts 

are not easily extracted from the mists of Iranian 

politics~ he has had his revenge.However exercised, 

his authority as Leader may have blocked both Mr 

Rafsanjani and Mr Mussavi from competing in 

nextJune's all-important presidential election. 

Mr Rafsanjani's re-election to a third successive 

term as president would require a constitutional 

amendment Such amendments are made all the 

time, confirmed by easy referendum. But they need 

the Leader's nod, and this was not vouchsafed. 

Acknowledging defeat, Mr Rafsanjani announced 

in October that a constitutional change would not 

be necessary: there were, after all, plenty of other 

worthy candidates for the presidency. Whatever 

happens, Mr Rafsanjani will remain influential. 

Mr Mussavi's hopes for the presidency were 

dashed in a similar way. The ex-prime ministerwas 

in with a chance. He is still admired for the briskness 

with which he ran the economy during the war 

with Iraq, never allowing Iran to fall into debt-in 

marked contrast to what is happening now. He is 

liked for being-again in contrast to some current 

politicians-famously clean: an academic who returned 

to his old life without fuss when the prime 

minister's post was abolished. Since he is also a leftwing 

statist, opposed to the economic restructuring, 

people struggling through the thickets ofinflation 

thought that he might somehow improve their 

lot But he, too, failed to get Ayatollah Khamenei's 

approval, and announced in the autumn that he 

was not a candidate. 

Mohammad Rayshari, a former prosecutor-general, 

once head of Iran's intelligence services, remains 

in the race. Mr Rayshari is a throwback to 

1979, a fiercedefender of"Islamic values", standing 

firm against any cultural invasion from the West. 

He isvigorously challenging the leading contestant, 

Hojatolislam Ali Akbar Nateq-Noori, the current 

Speaker of the Majlis, and getting a lot of media attention. 

He would be a disturbing choice. 

Mr Nateq-Noori is strongly supported 

by the 

Combatant clergy and clerics 

HE only political party that Iran 

Thalf-allows is in loyal (but outs!» 

ken) opposition. The late Mehdi 

Barzagan's Freedom Party is in 

shadowland, not exactlylegalbut sort of 

tolerated. Obstacles are put in its path: a 

ban on meetings, and what amounts to 

an Islamic selection board, frustrated its 

candidates when they tried to take part 

in last year's legislative elections; its 

headquarters are closed; its newspaper 

is banned. Its leader, Ibrahim Yazdi, 

takes brave advantage ofhis singular licence, 

obeying the Islamic Republic's 

laws but flailing its leaders for their failures, 

follies and iniquities. 

Otherwise no parties, though Mr 

Rafsanjani has hinted heavily that the 

time for them could be on hand. The 

original hold-allislamic Republic Party 

was humanely put to death in 1987, 

when it could no longer accommodate 

all its quarrelling factions. Now just the 

factions remain. Some of them are almost 

as good as parties, with their own 

newspapers and counted members in 

the Majlis. 

But not quite as good: the factions' 

lack of programmes and status means 

that, in the end, they are a muddle of 

people pushing slogans for their own 

ends. The arrangement has the advantage, 

and the disadvantage, of fluidity: 

the alliances divide and subdivide; the 

political geography is wondrously 

vague; when faction loyalties become 

inconvenient, they can be forgotten. 

The factions' determination to 

avoid labels that reflect western policies 

has led to a competition in Islamic bellicosity. 

When new alliances are created, 

even the most secular try to attach 

"Hizbullah", or party ofGod, to their titles. 

The Militant Clergy (JRM) and the 

Militant Clerics (MRM) compete, one 

representing conservatives and the 

other their left-wing economic op!» 

sites. The Followers of the Imam's Line 

is an overlapping alliance, a mixture of 

radicalism, social conservatism and xenophobia. 

The pragmatists-the officials, 

professionals and technicians 

who, generally speaking, support the 

economic changes that Mr Rafsanjani 

has been trying to push through, modestly 

call themselves the Servants of 

Construction. "Liberal" isas demonised 

a term in Iran as it is, from time to time, 

in the United States. 

Imprecise though it may be, it issimpler 

to talk of conservatives, radicals 

and pragmatists. Again imprecisely, the 

conservatives favour a degree of economic 

opening so long as it supports 

the local interests that have done well 

out of the closed economy. They also 

want to enforce traditional religious restrictions 

on people's private lives. 

The radicals have tried, since the beginning 

of the revolution, to redistrik>ute 

incomes more fairly (though there 

has been some redistribution, the main 

change has been to whisk riches from 

the shah's friends to the c1erics'~Their 

call for social justice goes down well 

with the poor; less so, their anti-western 

obsessions and their social-religious 

dogma. Yet,within the radical faction, 

there are a number of people, grouped 

round the newspaper Salam, who pursue 

a more tolerant and open line. 

The pragmatists, whose members 

wane and wax, say that they want to 

concentrate the country's energies on 

economic growth, encouraging exiles to 

return and foreigners to invest as well as 

to trade. They would probably lighten 

social regulations as well as economic 

ones, but very cautiously. 

In the 1996 Majlis election, the radicals 

and the pragmatists, who have little 

in common except their dislike of conservatives, 

teamed up to diminish the 

JRM'S majority in parliament (won in 

1992) by about 20%. A similar alliance 

could, conceivably, deny the presidency 

to Mr Nateq-Noori, the conservatives' 

candidate. But the presidency may turn 

out to be too important for factional 

bargaining. Iran with its active, regularly 

elected Majlis is more of a democracy 

than its Arab neighbours. But it is 

not the Majlis or their factionalleaders 

who control the things that really matter.That 

would be far too simple. 

THE ECONOMIST JANUAItY tilTH 19~ 

63


most traditional and conservative 

ered inadequate; and he was one of 

factions in Iran's power structure. 

the first to say that the government 

If, as now tentatively predicted, he 

should not actively pursue the 

becomes Iran's next president, will 

fatwa to murder the writer Salman 

it mean a turning back from Mr 

Rushdie. Some observers pronounce 

Rafsanjani's bid to introduce economic 

{and some social} change? 

him without vision; others 

claim that he is one ofIran's smartest 

Not necessarily. For one thing, as 

politicians who has out- 

this survey will argue, these 

manoeuvred all his rivals. 

changes do not, as yet, amount to 

much. For another, as the box on 

.the previous page suggests,ideological 

affiliations count for relatively 

little in today's Iran: what matters 

are group and individual interests. Which Nateq-Noori? 

Mr Nateq-Noori could turn out 

a bit of a surprise. But two facts 

about him seem well-established. 

One is that he is backed by factions 

whose instincts are hardline; much 

the same groups, in fact,as have rallied 

Mr Nateq-Noori was fiercely attacked 

behinq Ayatollah Khamenei. 

by the anti-conservative press at last year's 

Majlis election. But his instincts do not seem, in 

Iran's illiberal context, excessivelyhardline: as interior 

minister in the early 1980s he was against physically 

attacking women whose hijab was consid- 

The second is that he will not be, as Mr Rafsanjani 

has been, a counter-balance to the Leader:whatever 

Ayatollah Khamenei wants will be acceptable to Mr 

Nateq-Noori. Ifhe becomes president, the absolute 

power ofIran's Leader will be hard to challenge. 

Dual control 

. 

IRAN SURVEY 

A SK an Iranian official, even a junior minister, 

1""\. what is going on and he is quite likely to answer 

that "they" are doing this or that, rather than 

"we".The Islamic Republic has come to depend on 

a system of parallel powers that keeps everybody, 

government servants included, partly in the dark. 

Most obscure is the identity of those who take the 

decisions that count. 

Almost every organisation has its shadow, and 

the shadow is often the weightier of the two. The 

army has the Revolutionary Guards, or pas.daran, 

these days directed particularly towards civil unrest. 

The overstaffed, under-employed army, which 

is only too glad to accept money instead of conscripts 

($16,000 is the going rate for complete exemption 

from national service), complained during 

the urban riots of the early 1990Sthat shooting 

at demonstrators was not its proper job. The 

pasdaran and the basij (the volunteer militia who, 

during the war, were sent in as human waves 

against the Iraqi guns, or walked minefields to 

achieve martyrdom) are thought more reliable. 

The police and the komitehs (the dreaded 

watchdogs guarding against unlslamic dress or sexual 

or social hanky-panky) are now formally unified, 

though practice may be lagging behind. The 

bullies who peer into cars to catch a sin, such as an 

unrelated man and woman driving together (and, 

more often than not, extract money from the sinners) 

may be extremist squads, such as the VengeanceofGod 

patrol. But they tend to be the subcontracted 

basij, since, in these post-war years o( 

high youth unemployment, teenagers are happy to 

join the militia, acting as the clerics' private army 

In the countryside, the provincial governors, appointed 

by the Ministry of the Interior, are shadowed 

by the Friday prayer leaders, appointed by 

Ayatollah Khamenei. Friday sermons, broadcast 

from the mosques to the surrounding streets, are a 

vital weapon in the political clergy's armoury. In 

the legal system, the courts are shadowed by the 

revolutionary courts, where the judges are more 

likely to be clerics than in the normal courtS, and 

where an appeal to the supreme court is not invariably 

allowed. Any crime considered subversive, or a 

challenge to the system, will be tried by the revolutionary 

courts. It is they, for example, who will take 

care of recalcitrant journalists. 

The 27o-member Majlis is officially shadowed 

by the 12-member Council of Guardians, whose six 

clerical members are appointed by the Leader.The 

council has to pass alllegislation coming from the 

Majlis; before an election, it vets all would-be 

Majlis candidates (in 1996 it turned down nearly 

half of them). In the mid-1980s so many laws were 

failing to get through that Khomeini established yet 

another body, the Expediency Council, to arbitrate 

between the Guardians and the Majlis. This, in fact, 

has become a lawmaker of its own, charged with 

political decisions "that cannot be solved through 

regular channels". It is also yet another tool for the 

Leader,who convenes it and appoints its members. 

The concept of parallel powers extends even 

into the economy. The formal economy is matched 

by the semi-governmental, semi-privaie, wholly 

mysterious foundations, or bonyads, thatare accountable 

to nobody. The biggest of them, Bonyade 

Mostazafan, or Foundation for the Deprived, with 

holdings worth $12billion, is second in size only to 

the National Iranian Oil Company. It was set up in 

1979to manage the assets (and, in theory, hold them 

in trust for the poor) of the shah and others whohad 

fled. It is run by an ex-bazaari vegetable seller who 

rose to great military heights after the revolution. 

And so it goes on, with a chaos of organisations 

disguising the chain of command and making it 

impossible for an ordinary citizen to follow up a 

compIéiint. Many Iranians, made conspiracy theorists 

by experience, believe that it is the intelligence 

services themselves, quizzing and bugging and 

checking, that really control their lives. 

. 

So many ways of 

pulling strings 

64


SURVEY IRAN THE ECONOMIST JANUARY 18 TH 1997 

Bully-boys at work 

Saving the 

revolution from 

social corruption 

IRANis becoming socially less tolerant. reported 

the UN'S special representative on Iranian human 

rights in October 1996; it was not verytolerant 

in the first place. Canada's Maurice Copithorne 

listed some of the devices that the government and 

its thugs have been using in the name ofcombating 

"social corruption" and "decadent westernisation". 

They include the disruption of meetings and 

lectures; closing of newspapers and punishment of 

their editors; and a vicious prime-time television 

programme that denounces independent-minded 

academics and writers as foreign spies. showing 

their faces fading into a dollar bill. 

One step forward, two steps back, say Iranians 

of their rulers' human-rights record over the past 

few years. Yet the savagery of the revolution's early 

years, when political executions could be counted 

in the hundreds, is long gone. Now the regime, 

mindful that public stoning or lashing or hanging 

does nothing for its image, keeps the numbers 

down, at least in places where the press is likely to 

notice. ln any event, in these hard-up times, the authorities 

are usuallyonlytoo happy to accept a hefty 

fine, ifthesentenced man orwoman can raise it, in 

lieu of the prescribed physical punishment. Whitecollar 

crime is nearly always settled that way. A 

poor burglar is more likely to have his fingers cut 

off. The law on Islamic punishments is specific; fortunately 

the Iranian constitution allows judges to 

take it as a guide only. 

Décourager les autres 

Nevertheless, reports Mr Copithorne, "the punishment 

regime in Iran would seem to have been significantly 

toughened." Some 66 people, he says, 

were executed between January and August 1996, 

far more than the year before. At least two people 

were stoned to death and I) executions took place 

in public. The charges, apart from common crimes 

and drug trafficking, included adultery, spreading 

corruption on earth, and espionage. One man was 

executed for, inter alia, talking to a UN delegation. 

Is the Islamic Republic's abuse ofhuman rights 

worse than that of the shah's regime before it? In the 

shah's days, according to popular legend, one out of 

every three Iranians was reporting for Savak, the secret 

service. Now, as visitors to Iran discover to their 

pleasant surprise, the streets are lively and friendly: 

pelilple seem to feel free to talk and to criticise, to 

grumble about mismanagement and corruption 

even to foreigners, to make jokes about ministers 

and mullahs-though not about the Leader {subversive 

talk about him could rate the death penalty~ 

Yet, say these brave critics, the regime's secret 

agents are growing more pervasive, spreading into 

the middle classes, including the 4m or so exiles 

abroad, many of whom want their property back 

and are therefore thought open to suggestions of 

turning informer. And the activist opposition-the 

Mujahiddin in Iraq and Paris, rebellious Kurds,dissident 

members of the Sunni minority-are pursued, 

often brutally. 

Iran usually treats its indigenous religious minorities-christians, 

Zoroastrians, Jews-reasonably 

well. But it can be brutal to evangelical Christians: 

a couple of years ago several Assembly ofGod 

priests were mysteriously murdered. And the regime 

remai ns unrem ittingly savage towards the unhappy 

Bahais who, charged with apostasy, face the 

death sentence, and often receive it. 

Everyone has tales of people whom the regime 

considered inconvenient and who have simply 

vanished. Suspect Iranians, which includes most of 

the middle-class, middle-aged academics and writers 

who stayed on after the revolution, know that 

they perform largely on sufferance, constantly 

watched and listened to. In rather kindly fashion, 

the bugging system tends to employ paralysed or 

disabled veterans of the war with Iraq. 

Iranians can talk in privateas much as they like, 

but they are in trouble if they write their views 

down, pass them on to the young, or express them at 

formal gatherings. Newspapers are self-censored, 

many of them bland, criticising only what is permissible-politicians, 

for instance, are fair game. 

The better ones wriggle round the unwritten rules, 

stimulating debates among their readers. Small-circulation 

magazines, written for intellectuals, are 

bolder but swiftly smacked down, often by having 

their subsidised paper stopped. Their staff may be 

punished, sometimes brutally. The editor of one 

magazine, Cardoon, escaped to Germany after being 

sentenced to prison and a lashing; the editor of 

Adineh disappeared, mysteriously, for a time. 

College lecturers who question accepted doctrine-above 

all, the political role of the mosquemay 

be fired or have their teaching qisrupted by 

rent-a-crowd gangs. And people who get together to 

discuss this or that are careful to make the gatherings 

informal, often invi ti ng a member of the establishment 

to allay suspicion. 

To get a book published in the Islamic Republic 

calls for remarkable determination and patience. 

The manuscript has to be handed to the Ministry 

for Islamic Guidance, which assigns it to a committee, 

often not a particularly literate one, to decide 

65


whether it is politically correct. There it joins a 

queue of thousands. The committee, when it gets 

round to reading it, may jib not only at a book's 

general thesis or tone but at phrases that could have 

a sexual or forbidden connotation: one writer r~ 

ports that his character was not permitted to have a 

"desire" for anything. The business ofwaiting, arguing 

and rewriting may take two years or more. 

Condemned to watch the mullahs 

The shah's regime, for all its faults, left people's private 

lives alone. The Islamic Republic meddles 

without cease, bringing down an avalanche of frustration 

and irritation. Take just one example: television. 

This is important; there is a shortage of other 

things to do in free time, and an even greater shortage 

of money to do them with. But Iranian television 

is abysmal, patronising and male-dominated: 

endless religious programmes, Islamically correct 

soap-operas, sentimental scenery. So most people 

turned to satellite, with its wide choice of channels. 

In 1995 the Majlis, determined to prevent creepingwesternisation 

and outraged bythe soap-operas 

coming out of Iranian stations in California, 

banned the use of satellite dishes, and the police 

enforced the ban. The fines for using a dish are so 

heaVY-1m rials (about $250) for a first offence, five 

times as much for a second-that few but the welloff 

are prepared to take the risk. 

'After letting people relax for a bit, the police 

swoop. In theory, they are not allowed to enter a 

home without a warrant. In practice, when they arrive, 

armed with information supplied, perhaps, by 

a neighbour, asking with intimidating politeness to 

be let in, few householders have the nerve to turn 

them away. And once in, what other forbidden objects 

might they not discover? Playing cards, perhaps, 

or, worst of all, alcohol. Bad luck for the householder 

who has not got enough dollars or rials to 

persuade the visitors to look the other way. 

. 


THE Taleban, say the Iranians smugly, are giving 

Islam a bad name. Indeed, the Afghan Islamists' 

strictures on women-no education, no jobs outside 

the home-make Iran seem a feminist's paradise. 

Iranian women, insist complacent Iranian 

men (and quite a few ofits women too), can do anything 

they wish to dO--5o long, that is, as they are 

modestly dressed. 

Up to a point. Compared with Arab women in 

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Iranian women 

are doing well. Some 95% oflittle girls go to primary 

school. Older girls have a smaller chance than boys 

of getting higher education, but the gap is closing. 

They are doing well in technical schools and colleges. 

They can, at least in theory, go into most jobs 

and professions. Even "Islamic" women are becoming 

more conscious of their rights, making headway 

in various directions, includingjoumalism. 

There is none of that Saudi nonsense about not 

being allowed to drive or vote. Women can stand 

for parliament; indeed, one of them (well, she was 

Mr Rafsanjani's daughter) last year garnered more 

votes than anyone except Mr Nateq-Noori. They are 

masters in the home, with the confidence to control 

their men and the future of their children. . 

But there are snags. Women, worth less than 

men under Islamic law, do not get equal rights over 

travel (a wife cannot go abroad without permission 

from her husband), inheritance, divorce or custody 

of their children, and much else besides. Women 

who offend against Iran's Islamic mores can be sub-- 

jectto vile treatment. And the obsession with modest 

dress, or hijab, is an abiding bore. . 

To start with the last. Traditionally raised Iranian 

women often wore the chador in public but 

now it, or a loose coat and a headscarf (or a 

1'IUUj1Iaeh, a square ofblack cotton with a hole for 

the face) is enforced wear for all women and giTls 

over nine at all times except in the home. The covering, 

intended to protect women from male Just; 

does make it easier for a young female to walk down 

a street in Tehran than one in Rome or Cairo, but 

Behind the chador 

not all of them would be grateful for that. In theory, 

women are not supposed to wear make-up or show 

a lock ofhair or a bare ankle.ln practice, the scarves 

slip backwards, the lipstick shines brighter and the 

coats grow shorter in between swoops by the moràlity 

police. But in the end the swoop always comes. 

The hijll.b regulations may be trivial, but they are 

infuriating for women not brought up on them. A 

woman publisher working in her office slips her 

Assertiveness training 

Fighting back, 

against the law 

66

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Pre11sa-Basm Özeti 

scarf on and off depending on signals from her 

doorbell; a woman la'N}'ersays that for years the 

tent-like covering made her feel a lesser person; a 

Tehran housewife can barely bring herselfto go outside 

her own door. 

The regime's protective eye on its women, 

whether modestly clad or not, can occasionally extort 

terrible punishment. Assume the worst: a 

young woman is found in a "compromising" situation 

with an unrelated man, perhaps driving out of 

Tehran together. Both young people are arrested 

and their parents summoned. The woman may be 

examined to see if she is virgin.lf she is not, the unfortunate 

couple may be forced to marry. 

THE ECONOMIST JANUARY IS TH 1997 

His better half 

The law is not on women's side. Some Islamic laws 

are open to modern-day interpretation; others are 

not. The discrimination that makes a woman half 

the value of a man is set in holy script: her testimony 

is worth half a man's; as the victim of a crime, 

she gets half the damages. A Muslim woman may 

not marry a non-Muslim man, though the reverse 

canhappen. 

The rules governing marriage and divorce allow 

a certain flexibility.A Muslim man can divorce his 

wife simply by saying that he wants to. An Iranian 

woman can, in theory, write into her marriage contract 

that she too has an absolute right to a divorce, 

without providing reasons. But to do that, she 

would need to be a steely person, and her husbandto-be, 

and the male members of her own family, 

would have to be exceptional. 

Short of that, the standard Iranian marriage 

contract, its flowery decorations notwithstanding, 

contains a series ofbleakly practical clauses about 

marital breakdown and divorce, each one of which 

the bride and bridegroom have to read and separately 

sign.lf a husband divorces his wife when she 

bas done nothing wrong, he must pay her half his 

wealth. If a husband behaves so badly that his wife 

cannot continue her life with him, she may get a 

divorce. [fhe gives her no money; ifhe is mad; ifhe 

does something immoral in the eyes oflslam; ifafter 

five years he cannot produce a child ... the 

clauses continue, suggesting that wronged women 

can get redress. 

The contract is fine, say Iranian la'N}'ers,but its 

translation into legal practice is not. When a 

woman tries to implement a clause in her marriage 

contract, she is likely to find the judge's sympathies 

on her husband's side. He will demand an unreasonable 

standard of proof of his bad and her good 

behaviour, calling on her to try again. Why? For a 

start, the judge will be a man. After the revolution, 

Iran's women judges lost their jobs. A bill to restore 

them is still stuck in the Majlis. Some qualified female 

judges have, after a struggle, been allowed to 

become expert counsels to a judge, but the final. 

judgment remains his. Not until Iranian women 

become judges will legal wrongs against women 

start turning to rights. 

. 

Friends and foes 

How Iran sees itself 

in theworld 

You can set your watch by the Hag-burning 

RAN,says its deputy foreign minister, Abbas 

IMaleki, is at the cross-roads of the world In his 

elegant office, in the former foreign-ministry club 

where the shah's men in their day were sporting 

with blondes in the swimming pool, he draws circles, 

indicating his country's foreign-policy priorities. 

First, the great band of neighbours: the 

Caucasus, Central Asia, the Gulf states, Afghanistan 

and Iraq. Second, the Islamic world, South-East 

Asia, Russia.Third, the developing world and, only 

after that, "the countries that can cover our needs". 

That puts an uppity western world in its place on 

the far edge of an outer circle. 

Yet, despite their preoccupation with their 

neighbours, their hopes of trade with the ex-Soviet 

empire, and with all due respect to the Islamic 

world, Iranians remain obsessed with the United 

States.The most visible sign of this obsession is the 

ritual demonstration, and flag-burning, outside the 

"den of espionage", the former American embassy 

in Tehran, now a training school for the RevolutionaryGuard's 

air force. But,in these more languid 

times, the ritual is performed largely by bused-in 

children, glad of a day away from the classroom. 

More genuine is ordinary Iranians' curiosity 

about the United States. Are talks, they ask, really 

going on to improve relations? Rumours circulate 

of secret negotiations in The Hague, Germany, Turkey.On 

a mundane level, Iranians smokeAmerican 

cigarettes and drink Coca-Cola or Pepsi.There is an 

insatiable hunger for dollars. And now and then, in 

conversation, the question pops up: how can a man 

learn English and get himself to America? Would 

England, by any chance, be a stepping-stone? 

The regime's leaders, for their part, are obsessively 

alive to American pressure: America's military 

presence in the Gulf (which even the shah 

would never have allowed); its economic sanctions 

against Iran; its accusations and its propaganda 

This degree of fiostility, say some dissident Iranians, 

helps the regime to survive from year to year, if 

not on a war-footing, at least on a crisis-footing. It 

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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Sta11lpa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

can present itself as a buttress, essential if Iran is to 

withstand the American bullying. 

America's suspicion of Iran has long had an 

emotional edge, as though the Islamic Republic had 

never been forgiven for taking American hostages 

captive in 1979, or for other unsavoury hostagedealings 

in the mid-1980s. But relations reached a 

new nadir when BillClinton decided to take on the 

"rogue state" that he has described as "a threat ... to 

the entire region and the world." 

In 1993 the administration came up with a policy, 

directed at both Iran and Iraq, which it called 

"dual-containment": this was designed to exert economic 

and political pressure on both countries, including 

the use ofcovert CIA operations. ln 1995the 

president imposed a ban on all American trade 

with and investment in Iran (despite the blustering, 

trade relations had flourished, with American oil 

companies the largest purchasers ofIranian oil and 

with one of them, Conoco, planning to invest 

heavily in Iranian oil exploration). The next year, 

sanctions were imposed on foreign companies that 

invest significantly in Iranian oil. But by the time 

Mr Clinton was re-elected in November 1996, his 

attempts to make Iran change its spots had so 

clearly fuiled that he was expected to rethink the 

containment policy in his second term. 

The accusations, however, continue; disturbing, 

if true. Itan is charged with sponsoring international 

terrorism, destabilising other countries in 

the region and rearming itself with weapons of 

mass destruction, including thepotential for nuclear 

arms. Is it guilty? No straight answer, least of 

all on that crooked subject, terrorism. 

Iran supports the Hizbullah in Lebanon, but 

they are terrorists only in Israel's eyes; it also, with 

other Muslim countries, supports Islamist groups 

in Palestine and elsewhere. It has done, and may 

still be doing, worse things. It is suspected, without 

as yet any proof, ofbeing involved in the car-bomb 

murder of American servicemen in Saudi Arabia: it 

denies this. For certain, it intimidates its own people 

(and sometimes foreigners too, as in the case of 

Salman Rushdie, a British Muslim writer) regardless 

of where they happen to be. That terrorist 

charge will be dramatically strengthened-and relations 

between Iran and Germany shattered-ifthe 

German court now trying two men for the murder, 

in Berlin in 1992, of three Iranian Kurdish dissidents 

and their translator finds that it waS the top 

men in the regime who ordered the killings. 

Trouble all around 

In the immediate post-revolution years, Iran spread 

its Islamic message with proselytising zeal.This zeal 

has long evaporated. Nowadays, Iran wants stability 

on its borders. Itwants markets for its oil and gas 

and anything else it can sell.And it wants to avoid 

trouble that might spread an irredentist infection . 

to its own ethnic minorities: the Azeris, Kurds, Armenians, 

Baluchis, Turkmens and Arabs who li'tie 

on the country's periphery. Some Kurdish areas are 

already out of the government's control, at least by 

night; Baluchistan, the fiefofunchallengeable drugtraffickers, 

is a law unto itsel£ 

Iran, therefore, has been extra careful not to support 

secessionist movements such as the Muslims 

in Tajikistan or the Azeris in Azerbaijan. It is anx- 

SAUDI 

ARABIA 

ious not to offend Russia. It has sponsored peace 

bids in Afghanistan partly because it fears an extension 

of Pakistani-Saudi-American influence 

through the Taleban, partly because it would like 

Afghan co-operation in controlling drug smuggling 

across the 600km (375-mile)border. 

Iran has no love, and little respect, for the Arab 

Gulf states, but no wish for a quarrel either. With its 

strong sense of its own importance, it is not inclined 

to treat Saudi Arabia as a serious country: too 

backward, and an American proxy. The anti-Saudi 

demonstrations by Iranian pilgrims during the haj 

have become even more meaningless than the ritual 

dance on America's flag. Though Iran remains 

virulently opposed to any Middle Eastern peace 

with Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian deal (so long as it 

lasts) has knocked the heart out ofthat campaign. 

Iran's rearmament, after its huge losses in the 

war with Iraq, is modest compared with what is going 

on in neighbouring states. With no hard currency 

to spare and, as yet, no domestic arms industry 

ofconsequence, Iran's military budget is roughly 

one-sixth of Saudi Arabia's and half Israel's. Military 

spendingaccounts for about 2% of gross domestic 

product, compared with 17%in the last days 

of thé shah. Iranians, who criticise their government 

analmost every score, do not berate. it for 

wasting itswealth on military toys. 

Theconventional build-up, replacing obsolescent 

American and British aircraft with Russian- 

MiG-29sand SU-24S, and creating a coastal fleet of 

submarines and fast patrol boats (largelywith China's 

help), is nothirig to worry about. Iran's unconventional 

ambitions are less reassuring-and, indeed, 

are the main reason for America's attempts to 

get its allies to join it in economic sanctions. 

Iran suffered severely during the war both from 

Iraq's long-range ballistic weapons; fired at its,cities,and 

from chemical weapons.It does not want to 

be caught napping again. It has bought long-range 

IRAN 

SURVEY 

• 

TH[ ECONOMIST JANUARY18TH 1997 

68


I - 

missiles-from North Korea.And although in 1993 it 

signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, calling 

for a prohibition of such weapons, it may be keeping 

that questionable option open. 

Is it planning a nuclear bomb? Maybe, but most 

experts agree that any such plans will take many 

years to be implemented. Iranians have the basic 

skills and they believe that, as a first-class power, 

they should be no less well-armed than, say, Pakistan 

or India. Above all, they crave the muscle to 

make America,lurking in the Gulf, think again. But, 

fortunately for the world's safety, nuclear weapons 

cost a lot and money is short. 

Openly, Iran is trying to revive the shah's peaceful 

nuclear-power programme by persuading Russia 

to complete the unfinished nuclear reactors at 

Bushehr that the Germans began for the shah. The 

deal has been stalled for the best part of a year, apparently 

because of financial troubles, perhaps because 

of American pressure. Iran has also signed 

contracts with China on nuclear cperation,and 

has its own small research stations. Its declared 

hope is eventually to produce about 20%of its electricity 

from nuclear plants. Observers point out 

that, if Iran simply wanted the most cost-effective 

energy policy, it would be better off spending the 

money on doing more to rescue its neglected 

oilfields and exploit its vast gas reserves. 

The need, as Iran sees it, to counter American 

persecution colours its approach to other countries, 

particularly in Europe. Its "critical dialogue" with 

the European Union on human rights is useful to 

Iran both for balancing America and for keeping 

open the door to European trade and investment; 

what the European negotiators have got out of it is 

lessclear.The dialogue, they suggest, has made Iran 

less nasty than it might otherwise have been; but 

they have signally failed to extract a clear written 

commitment from the Iranian government that it 

will not encourage its people to murder Salman 

I{ushdie. Iranians in the street groan over Mr 

Rushdie, even try to make a joke of the issue; officials 

refuse to acknowledge the outrageousness of 

the continuingfatwa. 

Iran's economic hopes depend on attracting European 

and Asian investment. But the Islamic regime 

is schizophrenic about such investment: the 

revolution set out to end dependence on foreigners. 

So, perhaps with relief, the policy-planners return 

to Mr Maleki's first circle, stressing Iran's importance 

as a regional power. Iran's cultural influence 

in the Caucasus and Central Asia goes back for centuries, 

but its political and economic influence has 

been greatlystrengthened by the break-up of the Soviet 

empire. 

The Iranians are not presenting themselves as 

military boss: the stress is on Iran as a trading centre. 

A glance at the map shows that the Islamic Republic 

is indeed central. The old land routes, the 

ancient silk roads, are re-emerging. And when Japan 

wants to sell things to the Caucasus, by what 

route does it send them? Bysea to an Iranian port 

and then overland, across Iran, by rail or road. The 

possibilities excite Iranians, happy to turn their 

eyes to a more inviting prospect than those fussy 

"countries that can cover our needs". 

. 


Hard times 

How not to attract 

investm.ent 

..... --....: .......". 

......... ,III!'.oj(( :'. 

t5 M. 

consumer prices 

.' 50 

- 

1990 " !12 t3 '" t5 ... M. 

40 

JO 

20 

HE news may be lost on an Iranian manipulat- 

two or three jobs to keep his family's head 

Ting 

above water, but the Iranian economy is doing 

rather well. Even without the boost in oil prices, 

which should give Iran an extra $2 billion in hard 

currency in the financial year ending on March 

20th 1997,the central bank is able to reel off a long 

list of good-housekeeping points. . 

Economic growth in the current year is forecast, 

by the central bank, at 5-S%'but this isgenerally considered 

too rosy.The bank recentlydowngraded its 

claim of 4-5%growth in 1995-96to 4-2%' still markedly 

higher than outside estimates (seechart~ With 

official imports sharply restricted (although anything 

can be smuggled in) and foreign credit still 

hard to get,the current-account surplus for 1996-97 

is expected to be just under $6 billion. The hated 

foreign debt~hort-term letters of credit secured in 

the early 1990S to finance long-term projects-is 

still around $25 billion, but it is being paid off in 

textbook fashion. Investment, claims the bank, is 

23%of gross domestic product. Annual inflation, it 

says,is running at about 27%,which may not sound 

very impressive; but last year it was nearly twice 

that, and the year before that, according to unofficial 

bank estimates, it was 7% a month and rising. 

The Islamic Republic's first five-yearplan (198er 

94) established most of the infrastructure for 

growth. The country had suffered horribly over the 

past decade: the revolution, the war, the collapse of 

oil production and prices, and the sharp population 

growth between them had caused income per 

head to drop by 4S%.Under the plan, heavy industry, 

communications, roads, power (Iran now exports 

electricity) and schools began to be put in 

place. The second five-year plan (ending in 1999) 

will continue the work of the first, setting out to expand 

non-oil production and exports but continuing 

to be driven by Iran's oil, which stilI accounts 

for well over 80%of its export earnings. 

Since the early 19905, by when Mr Rafsanjani 

had established his authority as president,lran has 

voluntarily adopted the principle of the IMF's 

69


IRAN 

SURVEY 

Thirsty for consumer 

goods 

restructuring rules, albeit without asking for IMF 

loans in return. Its liberalisation programme follows 

conventional lines: privatisation, deregulation, 

cutting subsidies, devaluation, encouraging 

foreign investment. But their model, said Iranians, 

was China: an economic opening without a political 

one. Look,after all, at what happened to poorMr 

Gorbachev when he introduced glasnost on top of 

perestroika. 

So there Iran is,a large,oil-rich country, its infrastructure 

now mostly in place, with a market of6sm 

respectably well-educated people hungry for consumer 

goods. It is geographically central to a region 

of growing importance. It is developing and reforming 

its economy~ It is politically stable (or at 

least nobody is keen on the idea of another revolution~ 

Time for take-offin the next couple ofyears? 

Whatwent wrong 

Maybe not. For a start, Iran's economic operiing is 

more myth than reality. Not enough foreign investment 

is coming in to make a difference. The rial's 

artificially high exchange rate, after some yo-yoing, 

has discourageci non-oil exports .. Import restrictions, 

by keeping out foreign machinery, are exacerbating 

low productivity in the country's non-oil industries. 

American sanctions, scornfully dismissed 

by Iranians, may behaving a psychological effect. 

Privatisation, say Iranians, was a bad joke. The 

few profitable bits of government enterprises that 

were put on offer-seldom more than a third of any 

company-were quickly gobbled up by friends or 

relations of the new elite. Other offers, potentially 

available to anybody, turned out to be indigestible: 

wildly overstaffed state-owned firms that required 

new private owners to apply restrictive labour laws 

to the letter. At the end of it all, some 86%of Iran's 

; GDP still comes from. government-owned businesses. 

And even of the 14%apparently in the private 

sector, the larger part is the domain of the 

bonyads with their massive, accountable-to-no- 

body, mafia-run empires. 

The subsidised price of petrol, bread, gas, electricity 

and other essential goods and services remains 

very low. The petrol price was raised from 50 

rials a litre to 130 rials over two years, but that still 

amounts to only two or three cents. With rice scarce 

and unsubsidised, poor Iranians have reluctantly 

switched to.bread as their staple food. Economists 

fantasise about ending subsidies and targeting the 

poor directly but this does not seem, at present, a 

risk the regime will take. 

Deregulation is no less mythical: you are looking 

at a government that lastyear alone issued more 

than 250 regulations on imports and exports. 

Would-be investors say the problem is not so much 

that there are too many ~les, but that the rules keep 

changing at the whim of ministers. The two dozen 

ministries do not co-ordinate with one another. 

Deep down, those investors-in-waiting say, the Islamic 

Republic cannot make up its mind whether it 

really wants foreign investment ornot. 

A foreign-investment law is stalled in the Majlis. 

Even were it passed, potential investors doubt 

whether it would do any good. The rules on investment, 

they say, are not observed. In theory investors, 

as long as they register their companies prop- 

Too many rules 

foreign direct investment 

Net inflows" ~Sm 

'990 9' 

92 

93 

94 

Iran's: 

'DO.. 

'DO 

2DO 

3DO 

400 

95' '990 91 92 93 94 95 

!»ources:UNCTAO: IMF; ElU '"Negative figures reflect repatriation of profiU grener than 1r'lfkM'i of n~ I~vestment tbttmlte 

THE ECONO~IST JANUARY 18TH 1997 

70


SURVEY IRAN 

erly, are guaranteed that they can repatriate their 

capital and profits. In reality, the combination of a 

laborious bureaucracy and the need to hand out 

baksheesh at every turn makes doing business in 

Iran, says one disillusioned foreigner, like coping 

with the combined bad habits of the old Soviet 

Union and the new Nigeria. 

Not at all, say the Iranians. So long as a foreigner 

sticks to the rules, he should find everything in order. 

The reason that foreign investment is proving 

difficult to attract, they insist, is a "hostile political 

environment" that presents Iran as an unsafe place 

to put money into. Well,there is truth to that. It does 

not need America's propaganda machine to make 

Iran seem a politically unsafe place, but it helps. 

The direct effectof American sanctions is that Iran 

has to pay more for oil-related spare parts; instead 

ofbuying the equipment direct, it often has to get it 

through third parties with half-a-dozen commissions 

being added. And sanctions are making some 

European and Asian companies think again. 

Anation of traders 

Foreign investment is vital because local capital is 

neither sufficient nor forthcoming. Local investors 

prefer to put their money into real estate: construction, 

in the smarter bits of town, is booming. Iranians 

by tradition are traders, looking for a quick return, 

not a long-term investment. On top of this, 

Iran, unlike China, has been ambivalent towards its 

wealthy exiles.China welcomed back the overseas 

Chinese, returning confiscated plants, helping the 

returnees to invest and to set up joint ventures. Iran, 

though tolerant enough towards families coming 

back for a visit or a look, has made it difficult, slow 

and expensive for its exiles to recover their former 

wealth; they have to bargain, filling lawyers' pockets, 

in order to get some of their property back in 

return for shedding the rest. 

Iranian exporters curse the new foreign-exchange 

rules that decree that $1is worth 3,000 rials 

when, everywhere in Iran outside officialdom, it is 

worth around 4,500 rials (except,that is,for the specially 

subsidised essential imports, largely controlled 

by the lucky bonyads, when it is worth only 

1,750rials~ The rial has shot all over the place; at 

one time, in the 1980s,it had a dozen or so values. ln 

1994 Iran's rulers tried for a unified rate, letting it 

find its own value. But they lost their nerve when it 

went into free fall, losing about 70%ofits value in a 

year.At that point the central bank stepped in with 

its "anchor policy", establishing an official rate. 

Exporters have other complaints. They object, 

for instance, to the rule that saystheir hard-currency 

earnings must be dePosited in the central bank, 

and released only after six months or so, either in 

riaIs or in dollars if they can prove that they need 

hard currency for imports. The authorities claim 

that the exporters had been cheating. The carpet exporters, 

a powerful mafia that controls Iran's most 

important non-oil export (with pistachio nuts coming 

a poor third~ became so enraged by the regulations 

that for a time they held their products back 

from the market-which anyway is flooded 

Lowproductivity and low capacity utilisation is 

the curse of Iranian manufacturing. Averagecapacity 

utilisation is said to be 65%'but the big industries 

central to the five-yearplans-petrochemicals, 

Abenevolent eye on commerce 

steel, cement-pull the average up. Petrochemicals, 

with two new big complexes in Khorasan and Tabriz, 

are Iran's non-oil exporthope for the future; at 

present most of the industry's output issnapped up 

by the home market. 

Even within Iran's oil industry, on which the 

country's hopes depend, there are problems. A 

French oil group, Total, together with Malaysia's 

Petronas, is helping to develop two offihore oil and 

gas fields, in a deal that is not an investment (and' 

thus does not fall foul of American sanctions) but 

will give them 50%of the take. The onshore fields, 

however, call out for better maintenance. As for gas, 

Iran has the second largest reserves in the world, but 

they are under-exploited, both for the domestic 

market and for export. Hence the importance oflast 

year's $23 billion gas deal with Turkey. 

Hollow factories 

In some of the smaller factories, three-quarters of 

capacity lies idle.Why? Home demand is there, and 

growing. Iran's boom-babies already want more 

than their fathers or mothers ever had. 

Import controls are part of the problem. Iranian 

industries are seldom self-sufficient, most of them 

depending on imported capital equipment. When 

imports are stopped or delayed by the need for permits 

and licences, or shoot up in price because they 

have been smuggled in from Dubai, a business is 

reduced to a crawl. But this is not the only reason. 

Highways leading out ofTehran are lined with 

factories producing everything from cars to shampoo. 

Some are doing well. Iran's ubiquitous paykan 

(the long-vanished British Hillman Hunter) copes 

sturdily-if noisomely-with the capital's appalling 

THE ECONOMIST JANUARY 18TH 1997 

71


driving conditions. The country's private entrepreneurs 

are a vigorous lot, many making a go of small 

concerns-especially when they employ Afghan or 

Iraqi labourers at slave prices. . . 

But inany of the factories, most of them owned 

either wholly or in part by the government, turn out 

to be hollow. The façades look fine but there is noth- 

. ing much behind them except rustingmachinery, 

men taking a break, or even kids playing football. 

The managers, paid a government salary that barely 

keeps them in Islamic beer, are off to their second, 

or third, or subsequent, jobs-and so, if they can 

find the private work, are their staff. 

. 


Why Iranians are ~o tired 

THE average take-home pay of an Iranian 

working for the government 

(which about half of urban dwellers do) 

is not enough to cover the average family's 

food and rent. So do most Iranians 

and their families sleep in the streets 

and live on subsidised bread alone? 

They do not. Even the poorest quarters 

of the big cities look pretty neat. In contrast 

to New York or London, nobody 

sleeps rough, and there are few beggars. 

In the shops in south Tehran's shabbiest 

districts, fruit and vegetables. are överflowing 

the shelves. Outside the toWns, 

too, life seems far from intolerable: peer 

into the kitchen of a modest village 

house, and you may be startled by the 

gleam of electrical appliances. 

How do Iranians manage? Charity, 

and extended families, play their part: 

in their social relationships, if not in 

their politics or their driving, Iranians 

are an unusually gentle people. Beyond 

that, whether poorly paid or not, most 

Iranian men are cogs in the great wheel 

of the country's underground economy. 

Lessso Iranian women. Though education 

and poverty have, together, made 

women readier than they were in the 

shah's time to contribute to the household 

budget, most of them still find 

their homes, husbands and children 

enough for them to cope with. This is 

changing, but slowly. 

student would pass an exam without 

such tuition) orfits an entirely different 

job-say taxi-driving-into afternoons 

and evenings, he or she, and family, 

would be on the streets. 

Doctors, like professors and schoolteachers, 

have to make their money on 

theside. Patients maypayoverten times 

the official rate for private operations or 

for any complicated treatment. A qualified 

economist or engineer, earning 

300,000 rials a month from his publicsector 

job, can use his contacts to make 

many times as much working part-time 

on a private project. 

Adetailed study of the underground 

economy by Firouzeh Khalatbari, an 

economist who used to work at Iran's 

central bank, shows that throughout the 

1980s urban households spent on average 

a quarter more than they appeared 

to earn. There are many legal, semi-legal 

and illegal ways to earn money in a 

country cramped with restrictions and 

desperate for dollars. On the wrong side 

of the law, there is a handsome trade in 

drugs and antiques; at ports on the Caspian, 

fish merchants will mouth the forbidden 

word caviar (to be sold only as 

an official export) at anyone who looks 

like a greedy foreigner. 

Any Iranian with foreign connections 

is in with a chance. Even the fellow 

loitering at the street corner, offering to 

change your dollars. may be earning 

more than a civil servant. The opportunities 

are infinite. A nomad shepherd, 

for instance, getseach ofhis ten children 

to apply for an import licence for a 

piece of equipment. It takes time, but 

that is the one thing they have. When 

they eventually get the licences. they sell 

them at a big profit to a manufacturer 

who has no time. Or a factory manager 

imports equipment but finds that he 

can make a quicker buck by selling it on 

to somebody else rather than using it. 

Everyservice, even if at the time you 

were not aware it was a service, demands 

a return. The hard-up policeman 

who extends a journalist's visa in less 

. than a week is owed quite a few dollars. 

The hard-up bank cashier may have to 

be given a little something ifhe is to provide 

clean notes rather than untouchably 

filthy and torn ones.1t all keeps the 

economy rolling along, and Iranians 

away from the begging bowl. 

But it also helps to explain the exceptionally 

low productivity of so many of 

Iran's government-owned industries. 

The managers and their staff simply 

cannot afford to spend much time at 

their place of work. Besides, having 

driven a taxi all night, they are yawning. 

Making ends meet 

Iranian men often have two or three extra 

jobs in addition to their official one, 

and may earn more from them than 

from their main job. Auniversity professor, 

getting paid 500,000 rials (about 

$110 at the official rate) a month, can 

hope, with private teaching, supervising 

theses and doing some research for a 

government ministry, at least to treble 

his salary. 

A retired army general may have to 

hobble along on 170,000 rials a month. 

A primary schoolteacher, who is among 

the new really poor (along with the retired), 

may start off at 120,000 rials, or 

about $25 a month. A two-room apartment 

costs at least 200,000 rials a 

month. So unless the teacher offers private 

tuition to students (it helps that no 

Life is too rarely a picnic 

72


SURVEY IRAN THE ECONOMIST JANUARY 18 TH 1997 

Looking towards change 

But not towards 

another revolution 

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A LMOSTanything can be done in Iran, with time 

fi and money: permits got, goods acquired, rules 

tweaked. This shadow-play is how most people get 

by in a tired revolution where living-costs are 

higher than earnings and where petty regulations 

smother personal freedom. 

In its 18 years, the revolution has notched up 

much to its credit. It has spread education widely, 

albeit shallowly; it has woken up working-class 

women to their rights under Islam; it has laid the 

infrastructure for growth and made a stab at reforming 

the economy. Iran is a pleasant place to 

visit, tolerant of small grumbles. But it has become 

unloved, and notjust by the ancien-régime middle 

classes. Many Iranians, tired at working so hard for 

SO little, are unhappy with the religious-political 

system that rules their lives. Does their dissatisfaction 

signal a change in prospect? 

Nobody on a white horse 

Some dissidents point to the urban riots that 

rocked Iranian cities in the early 1990s-and recentlybrokeoutagain 

in Kermanshah province-as 

the way that change may come. Local anger-in 

Qazvin, ShiraI, Mashhad, the suburbs ofTehranwas 

triggered by local grievances: shanty-buildings 

demolished, a rallydisallowed, the death of a Sunni 

leader. Wider protests developed and were forcefully, 

even brutally, put down, by the army, the 

RevolutionaryGuard and the basij. 

Outside agitators were, as always, blamed for 

the trouble. The regime's favourite scapegoat is the 

Mujahiddin, the armed Islamic opposition which 

broke bloodilywith the regime after the revolution. 

Ithas an armysitting across the border in Iraq and a 

political headquarters in Paris, headed by Maryam 

Rajavi, president-in-waiting and wife of the rebel 

leader. It claims to have a large following in Iran, 

and to be waiting for signs from inside to invade. 

Iranians, who chat about most things, are prudently 

silent on the Mujahiddin. The impression is 

that, however unpopular the regime, the 

Mujahiddin, because of past violence and its 

present friendship with Iraq, may be more so. And 

though most Iranians want change, they do not 

want violent change: many shudder at the prospect 

of yet another revolution. Moreover, the old prerevqlutionary 

rebellious movemen.ts are all in 

some way discredited. The communists no longer 

carry any weight. The nationalists have been damaged 

by their alleged western connections. The 

clergy alone have their day in the sun. 

Some wonder whether pressure for change 

might not come from the mullahs themselves, particularly 

the non-political clergy-up to 200,000 

mullahs-who are beginning to resent the way that 

irritation with the politicians has spilt over into irritation 

with the mosque. Probably no more than 

5%ofthese mullahs are involved in politics: a handful 

of ministers and their deputies, the Friday 

prayer leaders and Ayatollah Khamenei's representatives, 

and roughly a quarter of the 27o-member 

Majlis. The rest of the clergycarry on with their ordinary 

lives. In Qom, the centre of religious thought, 

Scholarly dissidents cluster round Ayatollah 

Montazeri, forced from his position as leader-designate 

just before Khomeini's death and still a potential 

rallying point for the clerical disaffected. 

But with Iran's politicisation of its clergy, and 

Iraq's persecution of its Shia minority, there are no 

longer any Grand Ayatollahs, the Shia Muslim 

equivalent of popes and great cardinals, who command 

the authority to stimulate radical rethinking, 

perhaps recreating a gap between mosque and 

state. Bytradition, Shias set out to emulate a living 

ntmja. But the present source of emulation, for 

many Iranians, is still Khomeini, the dead imam 

enshrined in splendour in his tomb. 

Some argue that, even within Khomeini's 

velayet-e faqih. there can be social and political 

change, strengthening the economic reform that is 

already on offer. But looking at current trends and 

faces,at the tangle of contradictory and self-seeking 

factions, such a change would be grudgingly offered 

and unreliably honoured. And would such halfhearted 

change satisfy Iran's boom-babies, the 30m- 

40m young Iranians who want not only education 

and jobs but also less restricted lives? When a first 

year arrives in college, says a lecturer, half the students 

are ready to lay down their lives for the revolution. 

By their second year, they have doubts, by 

the third, they are mildly critical, by the fourth, they 

are in outright opposition. The eyes ofIran's young 

army, the children of the revolution, are opening. 

THE ECONOMIST JANUAR.Y 18TH 1997 

73


INTERNATIONAL HaRALD TRIBUNE, SATURDAY-SUNDAY, JANUARY 18-19, 1997 

r- Iraq JJams Paris 

On Leader's Son 

Cnmpil,d 

by Our 51qff From Di.Jpat


Turkish Dairy News SA11JRDA Y. JANUARY 18. 1997 

Parliamentary support for government rapidly waning 

BBP withdraws its support from government, desertions 

frQm ruling parties may be the order of the day 

DKP tries to win over Kurdish deputies while 

DTP tries to hook onto DYP deputies 

By Kemal Baici 

TDN Parliament Bureau 

ANKARA- Parliamentary support for 

the Necmettin Erbakan-Ied Welfare Party 

(RP)-True Path Party (DYP) coalition has 

been waning. Six months after it was 

established, the government finds itself in 

such a state that the desertion of a few 

deputies could bring about its collapse. 

The Grand Jjnity Party (BBP), which 

has seven deputies, announced it would no 

longer support the: government. And it is 

feared there wiU 'be desertions from the 

ruling parties, " 

$erafettin Elçi"leader of the Democratic 

Mass Party (DKP) which has been founded 

to keep the Kurdish problem alive on the 

agenda, has launched a drive aimed at 

recruiting deputies of Kurdish origin from 

a number of other parties. He has met with 

Ha~im Ha~imi (RP, Diyarbakir), 

Abdulhaluk Mutlu (RP, Bitlis), Ahmet 

Celik (RP, Adlyaman), Slddlk Altay, (RP, 

Aln), Mahmut Sönmez (RP, Bingöl) and 

Sèbgetullah Seydaoglu (Motherland Party 

(ANAP), Diyarbaklf), and asked them to 

join the recently-founded DKP. He made 

the offer last week at a dinner and received 

a reply along the lines of, "Give us some 

time to assess this offer." If Elçi manages 

to persuade them, this will rèduce parliamentary 

backing for the ruling coalition to 

a criticallevel. 

Currently, the ruling parties have, 

between them, 279 seats in the 550-seat 

Parliament. According to the Constitution, 

the opposition must cast a minimum 276 

votes to be able to topple the government. 

If five RP defuties decided to join the 

DKP, the tota number of RP-DYP seats 

would decline to 274 while the opposition 

seats would climb to 275. 

The establishment of the Democrat 

Turkey Party (DTP) is another develo~ment 

which threatens the government s 

parliamentary base. 

The DTP, led by Hüsamettin Cindoruk, 

has six seats. The DTP was founded by a 

group of deputies who had resigned from 

the DYP, and rumor has itthat Cindoruk is 

trying to recruit another 14 deputies from 

this party. 

If the five RP deputies accept ~erafettin 

Elçi's invitation, this mighttrigger more 

desertions from the RP. The RP has 23 

deputies of Kurdish origin. One of the 

reservations these five deputies expressed 

during their meeting with Elci invofved the 

hazards of the DKP looking like a 

"Kurdish party." Three other parties who 

had pro~ected such an image, namely, the 

People s Labor Party (HEP), the 

Democracy Party (PEP) and the True 

. Democracy Party (ÖZDEP), have been 

closed down by the Constitutional Court. 

Political circles say the Erbakan government 

is not yet on the brink of collapse. 

The "foundations" of the coalition are 

sound. But with the BBP withdrawing its 

support, "pieces of mortar" have started to 

fall "from the building." Desertions could 

open up "cracks in the walls." Then it 

would become more and more difficult for 

the "building" to remain erect. 

Turkish Dairy News SA11JRDAY,JANUARY 18.1997 

Talabani: Democratization 

condition for talks with Iraq 

Overtures: PUK leader says 

Baghdad sought Russia's 

help in drawing him into a 

dialogue; renews call to 

PKK to abandon violence 

Turkish Dai/" News 

ANKARA- Iraqi 'Kurdish leader 

Jalal Tala~ani on Friday told, t~e 

Turkish DaIly News that hiSPatrIotIc 

Union of Kurdistan (PUK) desired a 

federal settlement with a "democratic" 

Iraq, but indicated that he did not 

see it as an immediate prospect. 

In an exclusive interview with the 

Turkish Daily,News he vis!ted,with 

his leading aIdes, Talabam sald he 

was not in contact with Baghdad, 

although there had been indirect calls 

for a dialogue, one made throug~ 

Russian Foreign Minister Yevgem 

Primakov. 

Referring to the relations with the 

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) 

fighting a separatist war in southeastern 

Turkey, the PUK leader said he 

had always opposed PKK's plicyof 

violence and ItS attacks on Turkey, 

but the relations had further deteriorated 

since last year when he said the 

PKK supported his rival Massoud 

Barzani ID his Aug.3l onslaught on 

Erbil. 

"After the invasion of Erbil - by 

Barzani' s Kurdistan Democratic 

Party (KOP) forces backed by Iraqi 

75


tanks - we were expecting the PKK to at' 

le~st condemn it; but (PKK leader Abdullah 

) Ocalan said in an interview with Al-Wasat 

newspaper that he understood the reasons 

for KDP's cooperation with Baghdad." , 

Asked whether he believed the PKK 

would heed his repeated calls to renounce 

violence, Talabani said "We have so far tolerated 

his mistake,s, despite his verbal, 

attacks against me, but no longer," he said. 

He added that the PKK's violent tactics had 

also turned the once-sympathetic German 

public completely against them. 

'This is a time to bury the weapons, the 

world cannot be run as in the days of Ho 

Chi Minh or Che Guevara," TaIabani added. 

Regarding the future of relations with the 

Baghdad government, Talabani repeated 

earlier statements that it would largely 

depends on the shape of government in 

Baghdad. "If there is a democratic government, 

we will have a close federal relation; 

if not, ours will be a looser bond within a 

unified Iraq ... Our laws will be in confonnity 

with Iraqi constitution," the Kurdish 

leader said. 

But for that, Baghdad had, first to fully 

implement the U.N. Security Resolution 

688 - which puts it under obligation to 

respect the rights of the Iraqi people including 

Kurds, Turkmens and the Assyrians. 

"If a fountain is clear, the water flowing 

from it is also clear," Talabani said, adding 

that the form of the government in Bae:hdad 

was important for them "if not for oiliers," 

the latter being a jibe against KDP. Barzani 

is reported to have visited Baghdad twice in 

recent months and hisKDP maintains closer 

ties with the Iraqi government. , 

He said he did not ex~ct full democracy 

from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but 

Iraq' s form of democracy "should be at 

least as that of Jordan or Kuwait." 

Asked to comment on the reported contacts 

between PUK and Baghdad, Talabani 

said there had never been official negotiations 

of any sort between the sides. Other 

than some veiled threats served by Baghdad 

throu~h some religious intermediaries after 

PUK s recapture of the strongholds of 

Sulaimaniya and Koy Sanjak last October 

that Talabani should not attempt to retake 

Erbil. 

' 

But Baghdad kept wooing PUK and sent 

a message throu~h Russian Foreign 

Minister Yevgeni Primakov for the start of 

a dialogue. Iraq's deputy prime minister 

Tariq Aziz conveyed the message calling 

for the start of a dialogue when he 'visited 

Moscow last November. 

Talabani later told a press conference that 

PKK would be asked to close a camp it had 

been running in the PUK area. Another 

camp, operated by an Iraqi Kurdish groups 

would also be cloSed. 

But the Kurdish leader said his forces 

,=====--=, =-, ,-, ,'==========="""""'" 

would not fight the PKK although "We will 

not allow our area to be used for attacks 

against Turkey, Iran and Syria." 

He dismissed reports of a political agree. 

ment ,between PUK and fran, but said 

Teheran was providing humanitarian assistance 

to the haqi Kurdish refugees. 

Regarding his talks in Ankara, which 

included a meeting with State Minister 

Abdullah Gül beside foreign ministry and 

intelligence officials. Talabani said the lat. 

est situation in northern Iraq had been dis. 

cussed and he had sought moral and political 

backing from Ankara. 

He also called for Ankara's pennission 

for resumed relief work by the international 

NGOs, saying they would bear in mind 

Turkey's concerns. Turkey last year restrict. 

ed the permission to NGOs to travel to 

northern Iraq, suspecting hey were sympathetic 

to the PKK rebels entrenched in the 

Kurdish enclave. 

Referring to the recent talks held in 

Ankara between PUK and KDP for the consolidation 

of peace, Talabani said he was 

"hopeful", without elaborating. The important 

issues such as power sharing and the 

distribution of revenues were reported to 

have largely unsolved at the end of the third 

round of the talks sponsored jointly by 

Turkey and the United States. 

But he said he hoped elections would be 

held in the Kurdish enclave this year. 

Turk~hDai~yNews SATURDAY,JANUARY 18.1997 

Police chiefs in 

.Söylemez affair 

held in custody 


ANKARA- Former police chiefs who are alleged to be the . 

brains behind the Söylemez Brothers Gang, which consists 

almost exclusively of the members of the armed forces and, 

the police, were apprehended and sent to prison on Friday, 

according to the Anatolia news agency. 

A criminal court in Istanbul had earlier issued arrest war~ 

rants in abseritia against former senior police chiefs namely 

Deniz Gökçetin, Sedat Demir and Erdal Durmaz for their 

involvement in the Söylemez Gang. 

The police chiefs who were caught during an operation. 

carried out in the district of Florya in Istanbul are also 

char~ed with assisting the members of the Söylemez Gang 

BroIDers. Under tight security measures, they were transpo.rted 

.from,the,anti-terrori.sm branch to the. office of the chief 

. " 

prosecutor. . 

Istanbul Chief Prosecutor Ferzan Çiftci said his office had 

launched investigations against the people who had harbored 

the suspects. 

The prosecutor demands a prison term of up to ~4 years 

against Gökçetin and a fine in the amount of 10 urnes the 

money he had allegedly made from bribery. On Sept. 5, 

,1996, the court issued an arrest warrant in absentia for 

Gökçetin. The office of the chief prosecutor. in Ankara has 

recently filed a criminal case agamst the gang of brothe~ 

publicly referred to as the "Söylemez Gang" on charges of 

violating laws concerning possession of false ID cards; 

firearms, bombs and similar dangerous weapons, in addition 

to attempted muggings, robbery, and the selling of military 

assets, Anatolia reported on Wednesday. 

The prosecutor has demanded/rison terms of up to 40 

years for Mustafa Söylemez an 34 years eaeh for Sena 

SöyleqJez and Me,hmet Faysal Söylemez. . " , ' 

In his indictment, the prosecutor claimed that in December 

1994 the Söylemez brothers had used violence against indio 

viduals from the "Time Out" company in an attempt to force 

them to hand over shares of the finD. 

' 

In January 1995, the brothers were alleged to havethreat~ 

ened the people responsible for organizIng haii affairs in 

order to collect, the money themselves. The search conducted 

at ~e Söylemez 'residences in Ankara exposed that the gang 

bad in their possession two anti-aircraft shells, banll 

.grenades. military and police uniforms, and false IDcards. 

76


Turkisb Daily News -;UNDAY.JANllARY 19. 1997 

Pro-PKK 

activist 

re-arrested 

Xulam allegedly committed 

"peDury and forgery" 

Turlcish Dailv News 

WASHINGTON - Kani 

Xulam. a pro-PKK Kurdish 

activist working as the Director 

of American lcurdish Information 

Network (AKIN) in 

Washington has been re-arrested 

by U.S. law enforcement 

offiCIais on Friday on alleged 

charges of "perjurv and 

forge~y" for fraudulently 

obt:umng more than $13.000 in 

federal and state college aid - 

according to a TDN source. 

Xulam, a Turkish citizen of 

Kurdish ethnicity born and 

raised in Turkey under the 

name Nimet Gündüz. but has 

used at least four aliases, was 

arrested by Metropolitan 

District Police and is expected 

to be extradited to Santa 

Barbara County. California. 

where the arrest warrant was 

issued, authorities said. Xulam 

headed the American Kurdish 

Information Network (AKIN) 

in Washington. D.C. when he 

was arrested and charged with 

passport fraud in April 1996 

after an investigation by the 

U.S. State Department's diplomatic security service. 

He was tried in California on passport 

fraud charges for receiving a U.S. passport by 

using the false identity of a baby died in 

Louisiana at a traffic aCCidentat the age of 18 

months. 

Xulam was convicted in that first case of 

obtaining and using a passport in the name of 

Steven. Barry ~itro~, an I~-m~nth-old boy who 

was. ~Ille~ with his family ID'a c~r crash in 

louIsiana m 1993. Xulam assumed bis identity. 

Although the felony theoretically carried a 

sente~ce o~up to 20 years in jail, the Armenian- 

Amencan Judge who tried Xulam in California 

gave a ~uch li~hter sentence of 400-hours of 

commuDlty semce due to a series of mitigating 

c.lr~um~tan~esanu ~haral:ler wllnc~:'c:' whu les- 

!.Ifled ID ~IS favo~. ~ulam was serving his 

commuDlty service sentence at the same 

AKIN office in Washington where he was 

arrested, 

His arrest Friday was based on char~es 

,brought by S~nta Barbara County, which 

alleged he obtamed a total of $13,257 in student 

grants and loans provided by the federal and 

state gove~nments when he attended Santa 

Barbara City College and the University of 

California at Santa Barbara. 

Xulam used Citron's name to enroll in the 

university, obtain the loans, sign the checks and 

get a dnver's license, according to the arrest 

warrant. 


MONDAY,JANUARY20,1997 

Report: Iraq 

trying to buy 

British arms 

German Press Agency 

LOr-,l>ON- 

Iraqi agents are seekin~ to buy 

new military hardware in Britain so tjaghdad 

.can resume production of Scud missiles and 

cluster bomos, a British newspaper reported 

Sunday. 

'f!1e Sunday Times based .its report on informatIon 

from a Western busmessman who said 

he ha~ recently visited a military facility on the 

outskins of Baghdad who was shown drawings 

of Scud missile parts. 

Iraqi agents have targeted companies in 

London, Birmingham, Southampton and 

Reading in a.covert ope~atio~. the paper said. 

The productIOn of mIssiles ID Iraq has been 

banned by United Nations resolutions passed 

since the 1991 Gulf War. 

According to the paper. Iraqi military officials 

have provided Western husinessmen with 

comprehensive "shopping lists" of hardware 

they need to upgrade anf refurbish equipment 

earlier acquired from Matrix Churchill - the 

company that was at the centre of Britain's 

arms-to-Iraq scandal. 

The paper also claims the Iraqi military 

machine IS so far advanced that il is only a 

month away from being able to start work on 

Scud missiles capable of carrying conventional 

and biological warheads. 

The paper says its information is based on 

documents from IraQi defence officials as well 

as on evidence from Western businessmen who 

have recently visited Iraqi weapons sites. 

The Department of Trade and Industry (011) 

was quoted as saying it had received reports of 

suspected Iraqi o~ers f:om British companies 

and had agreed to InvestIgate. . 

A DTI spokesman stressed the department 

currently had no evidence of such activities, 

B.ut he warned that, while British firms could 

~scuss s~pplying medicine and essential civil- 

Ian supplie~ to Iraq, the sale of military hardware~wed. 

77


Turkish Daily News MONDA Y, JANUARY 20, 1997 

Turkey seems 

prepared to 

revoke its 

Euro-Court 

recognition 

Officials daim the European 

Court of Human Rights has 

forgotten its mission of serving 

justice and has become a political. 

tool for anti-Turkish quarters 

.make an assessment of the situationin the event . "As far as the government is concerned, this evithat 

these efforts continue" one source informed dence suggests that there is the possibility of satisthe 

TDN. ' factory recourse to redress in terms of national 

,"If the Human ,Rights Commiss,i9n and Human law." . . , . 

Rights Court continue to make poliucs at Turkey's . The Widespread belief !lIll0ng,officI~s I~ Ank~ 

e~pense, then it is obvious that Turkey will not just ISthat those who. ~ behind these applicauons ~m 

Sit back and watch this " the source added. to get the C01llIIl.lssionfor Human Rights to codify 

Officials do not openly say that Ankara will the fact that human rights violations, especially in 

withdraw its recog:tiuon of these two key institu- the South~a~t, h~ve become a s~andard ~spect of 

tions of the CounCil of Europe. 

state adrrumstratIon, that there IS no satisfactory 

Rec~nt press reports from Strasbourg, where the I~gal ,rec9urse in these ~ase.s, ll!'d.th~t this overall 

Council of Europe is located indicated that Ankara SituatIOnISbased on racial discnrrunatIon. 

has signalled that it may wï'thdraw its recognition "With its latest rulings, where the political aspect 

, of the competence of the European Court of Human predominates regardless of the appearance of legal- 

Rights. 

Ity that has been given, the European Court for 

'these reports also said that a delegation from the ~um~ Rights has ser:ved this interest," the source 

Human ~ghts Commission would be arriving in Informmg the TpN said... . , 

Ankara ~n February to try and dissuade Turkey In.or~er to.reinforce this ~Iew, offiCialspomt out 

from taking such.a step. 

. that m Its ruling'on the Akdivar case, the European 

Turkey' s main bone of contention vis-a-vis the Court of Human Rights referred to the fact that the 

Co~ssion of ~u~an Rights is that it has been clashes ~nthe Southeast ~e betwee~ "state for~es" 

acceptIng as admIssible, cases brought by Turkish and secUons of the Kurdish populatIon - ~artlCUcitizens 

against the government even though full larly members of the Kurdistan Workers Party 

legal ,recourse i~ Turkey has not been exhausted, (PKK) - wh~ want autonomy, , 

Turkish offiCiais pOInt out that under the These OffiCIalSsay that these remarks, which do 

Commissions own rules a plaintiff has to have tried not refl~ct ,either the legal or the p'olitical trut~, 

all means of legal recourse in his or her own coun- ~Iearly, md.lcate ~~at the. Human" ~Ights Court IS 

try before their case can be considered admissible engagmg In polIUc~ of ItS 9wn. 'The ~uropean 

and sent to the European Court of Human Rights. CO,urt,of H~man Right~, With these rulIngs that 

In the case of two recent convictions against COinCidewith t.he plqumg ,of effort~ to prev~nt 

Turkey - known as the Akdivar and Aksoy cases Turkey from takin~ .Itsplace m the rap'ldly evol~m.g 

_ the rule of "domestic recourse." was waived. new European arcrutecture. has lost ItS Impartlali- 

Turkish officials have watched with growina ty," the source informing the TDN indicated. 

concern as this gradually becomes the practic~ .A re~ent ruling by the Europe.an ~ou':t of Hum~ 

rather than the exception for cases concerning the ~&hts m f~vor of a 9reek Cypn~t ISbe.mg~en m 

Southeast. Members of the security forces are An.ICaras turther eVidence of antI-Turkish bias. 

Turkish Daily News accused of forcibly evacuating villagers, burning In the "Loizidou case" the court upheld that a 

ANKARA- Signs are mounting that their villages, torturing locals for alleged Kurdish Greek Cyp~ot woman's ri~ts had been violated.by 

Turkey may be getting ready to with- separatist sympathies, and engaging in extrajudicial Turkey, which was p~eve~ting her fr:o~ ac~essmg 

draw the right of indiVidual petition by, killings. her hou~e on the .Turkish Side of the div!ded Island. 

its citizens to the European These officials accuse the London-based Kurdish Turkish of~c!als are angry that thIS case .was 

Commission of Human Rights, and to Human Rights Project organization and the Ankara de,e~ed admISSible e~en though the Cou~cll of 

revoke its recognition of the legal com- headquartered Turkish Human Rights Association Minist~rs ?fthe Council of Europe - to which the 

petence of the European Court of of mastenninding these cases. CommlSSI?n and the Court are attached. - had 

Human Rights. They maintain that in some cases the plaintiff ruled preVIOusly that respect for human nghts on 

An increase in costly convictions for whose cases have been submitted to the Cyprus could only come about as a result of a setalleged 

gross violations of human Commission for Human Rights, are not even aware tlement on the .island $'Ough inter-communal ~. 

rights. mostly relating to the crisis in that such an application has been made on their These offiCiaIs believe that the Greek Cypnot 

the Southeast, and a favorable decision behalf. side has thus successfully used the Human Rights 

on behalf of a Greek Cypriot women, "By putting aside, in the case of Turkey, its own Cou~t - w~ich .shoul~ i~ fact have. tak~n the 

appear to have pushed Ankara to this rule regarding the seeking of legal redress at home Turkish C~not sl~e .as Its mterlocutor m this case 

poOInt . . I . f . h T k' h .first, and by accepting these applications as admis. and not Tur ey - ln Its efforts to obstruct a Cyprus 

. lCla f f s In ormIng t e ur IS sible the Commission for Human Rights is serving settlement. ... 

Daily News about the "deep Turkish the interests of ill-intentioned quarters" the source As to the state of human ngbts m Turkey, these 

dissatisfaction" over what are seen as infonning the TDN said. '. o~cials main!ain ~at Turkey i~ fighting terrorism 

"politically motivated rulings," against "In the case of the Akdivar case the Turkish gov- ~hile complymg With the reqwrements of human 

Ankara, maintain there is a concerted ernment submitted evidence to indicate that com- nghts. democracy an~ the supremacy oflaw .. 

effort by "certain circles" to erode pensation had been paid in Turkey to individuals as :Ibey also maintain that efforts are con~mual!y 

Turkey's standing in Europe. 

a result of certain occurrences that took place in the bemg made to.push the state of human nghts In 

"Turkey will have no choice but to Southeast," the source said.. Turkey to the highest level. 

78



MONDAY,JANUARY20,1997 

Talabani: US may hand 

revenues management 

over to the Turkish side 

PUK leader also denies 

negotiations with 

Baghdad, indicating that 

suCh negotiations should 

be conducted by the 

government to emerge 

from Kurdish elections 

Blu~~g~~}J~ç 

ANKARA- Jalai Talabani, the 

leader of the Patriotic Union of 

Kurdistan (PUK) revealed on 

Saturday a U.S. warning that 

unless the rival Kurdish factions 

agree on the means of collecting 

revenues from incoming border 

traffic from Turkey, Washington 

would ask Ankara to take on the 

task. 

The issue of revenues has been 

one of the main bones of contention 

between the rival northern 

Iraqi Kurds who have shown 

themselves to be prepared to war 

over this issue. Concerning 

reports of PUK contacts with 

Baghdad, Talabani told the TDN 

that this would be the year of 

"free elections" in northern Iraq. 

Acknowledging "contacts" but 

denying "negotiations" with 

Baohdad. Talabani said that they 

wiilied such "negotiations" to be 

conducted by the government that 

emerges from the election. 

Talabani also underlined that a 

prerequisite for these elections 

would be the compliance by 

Baghdad with U.N. Security 

Council Resolution 688. 

Talabani also expressed his 

hope to meet U.S. officials in 

Ankara after he returns from the 

Hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca for 

which he leaves Turkey toda\'. 

Talabani arrived in Ankara last 

week, immediately after the third 

round of the talks between his 

PUK and the rival Kurdistan 

PUK leader Jalal Talabani 

Democratic Party (KOP) held in the Turkish capital 

under Turkish and U.S. auspices with British and 

Turkmen officials in attendance, . 

Also speaking to the TON, Sami Abdurrahman, a 

leading KDP figure who was in Ankara for last week's 

talks with the PUK, maintained that all the "political 

cards" relating to northern Iraq were in the hands of his 

group. 

Abdurrahman also said the KOP talks with 

Baghdad, which have elicited anger from Washington, 

were essentially centered on the democratic rights of 

.the Kurds of Iraq. 

Jalal Talabani pointed out that the main success of 

the visit was the "good relations established with 

Turkish brothers based on confidence". 

"I think now both sides trust each other more," he 

said. "We agreed about the continuation of the peace 

process in Iraqi Kurdistan. And we will do our best, 

step by step, for securing the Turkish border. The 

demands of our Turkish brothers are very reasonable. 

It is not something that we cannot do." When questioned 

what these demands were, Talabani explamed: 

'They are not asking us to fight against the PKK. They 

just asked us not to cooperate with the PKK, not to 

help the PKK. They tola us that they understood our 

situation." 

Referring to the third round of Ankara talks, 

Talabani declared that the Turkish officials were satisfied 

with the PUK delegation's condemnation of the 

PKK, as well. 

Talabani met with Foreign Minister Tansu Çiller in 

an occasion in which the Turkmens had also been represented 

by Sinan Çelebi. He attended talks at tile 

Foreign Minist!}' !IS well as at the National Intelligence 

Organization (MlT) with the MtT undersecretary, 

Sönmez Köksal. . 

He also explained the reasons for nol being able to 

talk with U.S. officials: "Pelletreau was really very 

sorry for not talking to me. Also the U.S. diplomats in 

Ankara tried lo contact me butthey could not because 

of technical reasons. I hope that we will have a chance 

on my arrival from the al Amra, maybe 10 days later. I 

would also like to add that our delegation was received 

warmly in Washington, during the previous talks on 

northern Iraq." 

Asked about the implementation of the Oct..31 

agreement and the peace process, Talabani said: 

"We think that there must be a schedule for the 

implementation of the Oct. 31 agreement in Ankara as 

soon as possible. It is not good to delay it so much, 

(because) perhaps some foreign forces can intervene 

and disturo it. And about the revenues of Habur border 

gate; our Turkish, British and American friends are 

stressing the urgency of the problem. Muhammad 

(Tofiq, the head of PUK delegation in the talks) told 

me that Mr. Pelletreau asked Barzani to decide quickly, 

otherwise they will ask the Turkish governmenl to 

do somethin~ for the distribution of the revenue in a 

suitable way. ' 

Asked about contacts with the Baghdad government, 

Talabani said that a government (in the Kurdish north), 

which was to be established after the free elections, 

(which he sees ~ssible to be held this year) had to 

take the responsibility of contacts with the Iraqi government 

"if Baghdad accepls the 

democratization". "Instead of ~oin~ into negotiations 

separately, it is better to be uDlted,' he said. 

When he was reminded that the elections would 

raise lhe tension, he said that he expected the fight of 

voles, not of guns and artillery. 

He said he believed the Oct. 31 agreement.would be 

79


implemented by Newroz (March 2 I). 

The KDP on speaking to Baghdad 

Sarni Abdurrahman told the T~N on .F~iday.thatthe 

KOP, in their talks with the Iraqi ad~lmstr~l1on, had 

asked for their democratic and national fights. He 

added that the United States had strongly objected to 

any agreements between the KDP and B~gh~ad. He 

emphasized that there had been no conclusion In talks 

between his party and Baghdad. . . .. 

Abdurrahman also denied reports t~at KDP leader 

Massoud Barzani had visited Baghdad m December. A 

Kurdish source said the Iraqi National Congress had 

announced that Barzani had been in Baghdad on Oct. 6 

and Dec: to. . . 

The KDP representat.ive als~ claimed hiS party ~as 

;the strongest in the region, as It was the first Kurdish 

party in the region -:- over SO years


Mediterranean conference, which the Netherland'i 

will help to prepare. will be held in April in one of 

the Mediterranean partner countries. The 

'Presidency's aim is to improve the structure of the 

follow-up activities and to achieve concrete results 

in the implementation of the Barcelona 

Declaration ... Relations with the Mediterranean 

partners will develop further through association 

and cooperation councils to be held, for example. 

with Turkey, Malta and Cyprus," the Dutch paper 

said. 

Il made one further reference to the Cyprus 

question by namin~ it under the EU-U.s. plan of 

action. "The prionties will also depend to some 

extent on developments in 1997, for example, the 

American involvement in Bosnia and Cyprus, and 

the role played by the United States in the Middle 

East peace process," it said. Three questions confront 

Turkey during the Dutch presidency: Will the 

Dutch succeed in setting a date for the Association 

Council between Turkey and the European Union, 

which has so far been blocked by Greece? Will the 

Dutch presidency invite Turkey to a summit 

between the European Union and all aspiring 

members to take place after the IOC? Although the 

negotiations with Cyprus for membership will not 

be under the Dutch rresidency but the next - 

Luxembourg - wil the Dutch presidency be 

preparing the groundwork or will it let the bid simmer 

for the time being? The answers will be seen 

in the next six months, but at least on the question 

of Cyprus, the apprehension of the Dutch presidency 

seems clear. Speaking to the European 

Parliament, the Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van 

Mierlo said that the divided state of Cyprus made 

not only its own enlargement but any enlargement 

of the EU and NATO difficult, as reported by 

Anatolia news agency. 

WEU and French presidency 

The French presidency of the WEU would have 

to deal with tbe standoff between Greece and 

Turkey, whose relations with the WEU is put to 

test through its refusal to allow theWEU to use 

NATO assets and cafabilities for WED operations 

if it does not share al aspects of the operation. 

The French presidency will therefore try to find 

a solution that would enable Turkey to fuUy participate 

in the decision-making ~~Ianning of the 

Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTF), and by doing 

this it would try to balance the fears of Greece that 

this would not mean the full membership of 

Turkey. 

Two dates will be important for the WED under 

the French presidency - the April meeting of the 

Chiefs of Defense, where therarticipants will discuss 

the technical aspects 0 the CJTF, and the 

May meeting of WEU Council of Ministers, the 

deadline for solving the Turco-Greek dispute 

before the presidency goes to Germany. 

The French presidency has outlined three ~riorities 

with regard to the WEU: the strengthenmg of 

the WEU's institutional ties with the European 

Union: the assortment of the WEU with necessary 

operation capabilities - whose backbone is the 

CJTF - and, finally, giving thought to WED's 

internal modus operandi. . 

In a speech to the WED Parliamentary 

Assembly at the end of 1996, French President 

Jacques Chirac said the 50th anniversary of the 

WEU, which is in 1998, was a good opportunity to 

"codify the relationships between the WED, the 

EU and NATO, and to decide on the possible 

amendments to that effect to the Treaty of 

Brussels." It remains to be seen if the changes will 

open the Turks the way of full membership before 

it becomes a member of the EU. 

Turkish Daily News MONDAY. JANUARY 20, 1997 

Human Rights Watch opposes 

Turkish aircraft orders 

Turldsh Daily Nnvs 

W ASHINGTON- Human Rights 

Watcb bas issued a statement strongly 

opposing Turkey' s plans to 

acql!lre new aircraft to combat the 

PK!(, what it called "an armed opposition 

group." 

Turkey's various military orders 

bas been either canceled in the past 

or put on hold due to such pressures 

brought on by Human Rights Watcb 

as well as anti-Turkish ethnic lobbies 

and arms nonproliferation groups. 

Super Cobra helicopters, built by 

Bell Textron, and cluster bombs are 

81


two examples of orders canceled às a 

result of such pressures on the State 

Department, Pentagon and the U.S. 

Congress. After the $140 million 

sale of the Super Cobras was suspended 

by the U.S. State 

Department, Turkey announced in 

November 1996 that it had canceled 

the deal. 

Decommissioned Knox-class 

frigates and 150-km range 

AT ACMS (Army Tactical Missile 

System) are examples of orders that 

have been stalled by Washington. 

The ATACMS order, which was 

submitted back in December 1995, 

however, has been approved in 

December 1996.and sailed smoothly 

through the Senate Foreign Relations 

Committee during the last days of 

the 104th Congress. 

New choppers 

Human Rights Watch said "negotiations 

for the following military 

aircraft and equipment for th~ 

Turkish military and police forces 

are under way: 

• "Four CH-47 Chinook largecapacity 

military cargo helic0p.ters," 

at a cost of about $135 mIllion. 

Chinook helicopters are manufactured 

by Boeing ID the United States. 

• "Fifty S-70A Black Hawk 

armedtransport helicopters." These 

would be part of a $1.1 billion deal 

signed with Sikorsky. the U.S. manufacturer, 

in 1992-93 for 95 helicopters. 

"Turkey has already received 

forty-five of the Black Hawks under 

'this arrangement, with the remaining 

aircraft to be co-produced. The deal 

is currently suspended over disagreements 

about the terms of co-produc~ 

tion," Human Rights Watch said. 

• "Thirty AS-532 Cougar combat, . 

search-and-rescue and utility helicopters." 

Ankara has already received delivery 

of 20 of these helicopters for 

$253 million as part of an earlier 

contract. 

A follow-up deal is currently 

being negotiated with the Parisbased 

German-French consortium 

Eurocopter for co-producing 30 

helicopters, worth about S400 million, 

according to Human Rights 

Watch. 

• "Fifty-Four F-4 Phantom fighter 

jet upgrades." 

This is an estimated $600 million 

modernization contract from Israel 

Aircraft Industries that was signed 

by Turkey's prime minister, 

Necmettin Erbakan, on Dec. 6,1996, 

despite all the previous fears for 

Erbakan's anti-Israeli bias. The jets 

would receive new radar, electronic 

countermeasures, weapons and navigation 

systems. 

• Popeye missiles: "Turkey has 

also announced plans to purchase 30 

Popeye precision-guided stand-off 

missiles from the Israeli company 

Rafael for the jets," according to 

Human Rights Watch. 

• "Logistical support for the F-16 

fighter jet fleet." 

Turkey is negotiating a deal with 

U.S. defense contractors Lockheed 

Martin, the aircraft engine division 

of General Electric, the guidance and 

control systems division of Litton 

Industriés, and Westinghouse 

Electric for S125 million. 

The Clinton administration has 

notified Congress of its intention to 

approve Turkey's request for authonzation 

of the deal. 

Violations 

Human Rights Watch argued that 

"fighterplanes and military helicopters 

similar to the ones listed 

above" were used in "Turkey's 

counterinsurgency campaign" and 

"has resulted in gross vIOlations of 

international humanitarian law. This 

has included firing indiscriminately' 

at villages, thereby killing civilians 

and destroying property; transporting 

troops to and from villages which are 

forcibly depopulated and burned; 

and abducting, torturing and killing 

civilians." 

To add some balance to its accusations, 

Human Rights Watch also 

noted that "the PKK is also implicated 

in a pattern of serious human 

rights abuse, such as extrajudicial 

killings, indiscriminate rITe, kidnappings 

and extortion." 

Halt the sales 

Human Rights Watch has urged 

the United States and other Western 

governments "to refrain from further 

sales to Turkey of weapons that are 

likely to be used in violations of 

human rights and humanitarian 

law." 

"Both the Organization for 

Security and Cooperation in 

Europe's principles on arms transfers 

and section 5028 of the U.S. Foreign 

Assistance Act call for such a restriction 

on the sale of weapons," Human 

Rights Watch said. 

Turkish DailyNews TUESDAY, JANUARY 21.1997 , 

, ' 

Mysterious child deaths investigatedin~anburfa 

. Turkish Daily News . being notified. Then Fa~ma Alde~r was hOSpitalIZedon Sept. 5, 

'. ANKARA- The third scientific team sent to the villase of Duroca 1996 at the Sanhurfa Chil~n Hosp!tal, but every effort. to ~ave her 

. near the southeastern town of ~anhurfa to look into eIght mystèri- life failed. the He.alth ~lmstry~aId that tearns of sClentls~sf~ 

'ousdeaths since July 1996 has started its investigation in the region, examined other chil~ren I.nthe v1l1ag~and tested water an 

the Anatolia news agency reported. . samples from the re,g,Lon. . , Id 

A written statement from the Health Ministry said ei~t children, . The stateme~t salâ that the cause of Fatm~AldemIr s death cou f 

between the a es of four and six in'thevillage had died of unknown .not. be determmed e~en after ~~.autops.y;, Altho~gh the cause 0 

causes betwJn July~1996 and Jan. 19, 1997. It wasnoted in the deaths could not be Identified, Itread, t~e fin~mgosuprrt ~he 

ministry'sstatement that thefttSt five dea~ ~urred in Ju~y.and, ,!view that the de~ths were n~t cause? by ~lec~n .. nba\ed ~ er 

.August and that the bodies had. been buned W.lthOUtl1e InlD1stry ,han~ the cause mIght be a toXICmatenal sw ow .. or,! . .' 

82



WEDNESDAY.JANUARY22.1997 

Trade Minister Erez slams 

TUS 

" 

democracy report 

Turlci.fh Daily News 

ANKARA- 

Trade Minister Yahm 

Erez on Tuesday reacted to a report 

by the Turkish Industrialists' and 

Businessmen's ' Association 

(TÜSIAD) calling for beuer democratic 

standards, the Anatolia news 

agency reported. 

The report was publicized a d~y 

before at a 'press conference ID 

Ankara' by TUStAD chairman Halis 

Komili, after it had been presented 

to Parliament Speaker Mustafa 

Kalemli. 

"I can't understand how an organization, 

which itself lacks democracy 

and is controlled by capitalist 

forces, can give us lessons on 

democracy," Erez told reporters in 

Ankara. .. 

Erez said that TUStAD must recognize 

current realities in Turkey. 

"Their duty is to draw forei~n capital 

to Turkey and advertise the 

country abroad. If they really need 

democracy, let them (the businessmen) 

have their own democratic 

structure within their own organization 

first," he added. 

Asked whether be was disturbed 

by calls in the report fot the abolition 

of the National Security 

Council (MGK), the minister said he 

had not read the report, but did not 

think it reflected the realities of 

Turkey. He described the businessmen' 

s report as a "tool to keep 

themselves on the agenda." 

DYP withholds 

backing for report 

Cihan PaçacI, de~uty chairman of 

the ruling coalition s Junior partner 

True Path Party (DYP), was also 

argong those wbo criticized the 

TÙStAD report, indicating tbat 

parts of it were unacceptable. 

According to Paça~I, part of the 

report was prepared by an academic 

who does not hide his socialist tendencies, 

and t~is is contradict0l1' to 

the ethic of TUStAD, an organIZation 

based on capitalist principles. 

The DYP's deputy chairman said 

projects by civic organizations such 

as TÜStAD on SOCialissues should 

be encouraged, but this does not 

mean the findings of every project 

would receive sul'port. 

Paçaci also saia that the section of 

the report recommending tbe abolition 

of the MGK was not in line 

with Turkey's bistorical and social 

traditions. 

Trade Minister Yahm Erez 

PKK threaten force if Atrush 

refugees return to Turkey 


ANKARA- The PKK nùlitants announced that they 

would resortto force if the refugees living in. Atrusb 

Camp are made to move to Turkey. the Anatolia news 

agencyreported on Tuesday. 

The United Nations Hilb Commissioner for Refugees 

(UNHCR) withdrew its flag from Atrusb Tuesday and 

stopped supplies of humanitarian aid. Although the 

UNHCR called on the refugees to travelto Mukubli l!Dd 

Balkozprovinces, it was reported that the PKK was trylDg 

to prevent this. It also appeared that the PKK had threatened 

to use weapons if the refugees were forced to go to 

Turkey. The separatists were ~n as warning.officials of 

the Massoud Barzani-led Kurdistan Democrat:lcParty nol 

to force the refugees to return to Turkey, ~ut UNHCR 

officialsin Ankara said that they could nol either confirm 

or deny such reports. . . . . 

Questioned about thelT position by the TON on 

Tuesday, UNHCR officials responded as foll0Y's: "~e 

have announced already that we ~o longer proVIde~tancein 

the camp. Our final matenal asSIStancewas deliv- 

83


ered in Decémber and we have not been ahle to get acce~s 

to the camp since. We are hoping that the reftig~s will 

move to the two transit sites so that we can continue to 

assist and protéet them." . '.. 

"Again we stress that the maJonty of the carnp JX?pulation 

are vulnerable refugees in need of international protection. 

We continue to urge all parties concerne~ to 

respect the security .of t!re refug~ in Aln!Sh: But gIven 

the increasing tensIon ID the regIOn, we IDSISt that the 

camp popu1ation take the deadlirie seriously. We remain 

COlI1lTlltted to assisiÏng the refugees in northern Iraq, but 

assistance cannot continue in the current form of the 

Atrush camp." 

They also pointed out that the leaders in the camp had 

prevented the refugees from expressing themselves freely, . 

and that the secunty situation had deteriorated to such an 

extent that UNHCR officials could neither speak to the 

refugees nor even show themselves in the camp. 

Three Anatolian news agency correspondents trying to 

cover the evacuation were briefly detained by KDP security 

officials. . 

WEDNESDAY. JANUARY 22.1997 

DYP Deputy Sêdat Bucak protected from cameras by ~is ~g':lards as he !eaves via the service door of the 

kitchen afte(being heard at the Parliamentary Susurluk investigatIve commiSSion. .'. 

. . 

Parliamentary Susurluk 

commission hears. Bucak 

TDN Parliament 

Bureau 

ANKARA- The parliamentary investigative commission 

set up to look into state-mafia links, the 

Susurluk accident and the illegal relations it 

revealed, has heardfrom Sedat Bucak, the True Path 

Party (DYP) Urfa deputy. Bucak was the only person 

to survive the accident which occurred on Nov. 

3. 1996 near Susurluk. Police Chief HijseyÎn 

84


Kocadd, nationalist mafia member Abdullah 

Catlihwno has been accused of mass murder, and 

Cadi's girlfriend Gonca Us were all killed in the 

same accident. 

Bucale went into the commission room looking 

"weary and tired." Following his three hour hearing, 

he was secretly taken from Parliament by his bodyguards 

through the back door of the restaurant 

kitchen. 

It was reponed that Bucak started his testimony to 

the commission by saying, "I am very sick. I feel 

weary. I should nO,th,ave c~m~ ~eCJ:~l;1~}~~r heal~ 

problems, but I am a member of Parhament That IS 

why I came." He also said he wanted to bring into 

the open claims which had come to light after the 

Susurluk accident, and also those about gangs within 

the state, which had grown over the past two and a 

half months. "Whatever there is, it should be disclosed. 

The perpetrators, if there are any, shou.Id be 

punished. I am the one who wants this to happen the 

most. I am very uneasy about the publicauons and 

claims about me, whlcb bave been going on for 

weeks. That is why everyone should tell wbat they 

know, and the allegations must be proven," said 

Bucak. 

Noting that he has undenaken the fight against 

terrorism as a personal duty, Bucak said, "I love my 

country. That is why I have been continuing the 

fight against terrorism for years. My family and I 

hare been carrying on thi~ ~lIUgglc:sJßce lY70. We 

have had many losses since then. Some of my relatires 

and meniis have died in this struggle." 

However, Bucak would not give direct and clear 

answers to the commission's questions. When it was 

pointed out that he had given more information on à 

TV program after the accident, Bucak said, "I am 

tel.li.Dgyou what I know. I was on that program when 

my health was not in good condition. I could not 

remember what I had said ten minuies after the program. 

I forget what I say in ten minutes due to my 

health problems." 

Welfare Pany Deputy Mehmet Elkatßl1~, chairman 

of the investigative .commission, made a brief 

statement after the meeting and said Abdullah 

Cath' s wife Meral Cath, his business panner Ahmet 

Baydar and Anu Yaman, the sister of.his girlfriend 

Gonca Us, would be heard as planned. 

The commission will hear former National 

Intelligence Organization (MIT) Undersecretary and 

Commander in Chief of Gendarmerie Teoman 

Koman and former Istanbul Chief of Police Necdet 

Menzir on Thursday. 

Ak~ener: "No salary to Cath" 

Interior Minister Meral Ak~ener said the Interior 

Ministry had neither paid salaries nor g,iven a gun 

license and identity card to Abdullah çath, mafia 

member and key name in tbe alleged state-mafia 

links. 

Ak~ener, in reply to a written interrogatory 

motion, noted that tbere were no records in the 

Interior Ministry giving Çath a salary, gun license or 

identity card. She added that Çath had not received a 

medal or award for services to his country, and it 

was out of the question. that his family would be 

awarded. 

Turkish Daily News WEDNESDA Y. JANUARY 22. 1997 

Cambridge scholar: customs union not beneficial in the short run 

By Orya Sultan Halisdemir 

Turkish Daily N/!Ws 

LONDON- Süreyya Vigil, a Cambridge scholar 

specializing in the customs union between the EU 

and Turkey. said the agreement had not been beneficial 

for Turkey in the shon term, as had been 

expected. In an interview with the TON. Yigit 

polßted out it was rattier difficult at the moment to 

tell whether the customs union was a means 

toward an end, meaning full membership of the 

EU, or whether it was an end in itself. 

"When we look at the 1996 figures, the first 

four months indicators show that Turkey 

increased its exports to the EU by five percent. on 

union agreement would not be completely :'ccu- Assessing the political as~ts of the customs 

rate. "This is because there are other factors union, Yitit supported the Idea that. Turkey, by 

involved, such as political stability, problems in signing the deal, had reached a pomt of close 

the Treasury, problems of sources etc..." he said, political relations with the EU. . 

claiming that these other factors should also be ''Turkey is not the only country to Sign .the cusrecognized 

as influencing foreigIl investments. toms union. So did Andorra and San ~anno. But 

Despite his impression that Turkey has had a Turkey is the biggest country with which the EU 

negative experience so far during the shon period signed the deal. With its signature, T~~y vo.lunof 

the customs union, Yigit believes that when tarily adopted the EU trade policy. This IS umq~e 

long term benefits are considered, a rather differ- in the history of economics. A country which IS 

ent picture can be expected. 

not a full member of an organization has accepted 

treaty obligations of that organization," Yi~t said, 

underlining the importance of Turkey's pfedge to 

the EU trade policy. 

* * * 

* * 

* * 

the other hand, Turkey's imports from the EU 

increased by 60 r:rcenl, which surely is far from a 

healthy picture, said Yigit, taking a pessimistic 

outlook. 

However, the economy was not only affected 

by foreign trade. "We should also investigate 

whether there was any growth in the field of foreign 

investment in Turkeyafter the signing of the 

agreement. Unfortunately, when we conSIder the 

shon period involved, we can see this area was 

not very encouraging either. The first eight "Because goods imported from the EU are 

.. ~. 

*. 

* * 

months of 1996 reveäIed a decline in foreIgn mostly to be used in investment, we will reap beninvestment 

coming to Turkey," he added. efits. They will be transferred to production. From 

According to Ylgil, trying to explain the declinethis point of view it will surely be beneficial for 

in foreign investment in relation to the customs Turkey." 

"However we still do not know which route 

EU-Turkish relations will take in the future. It has 

only been one year since the signature of the 

agreement.. It mi2l1t lead to an end, or be an end 

in itself," he said; highlighting the vagueness of 

future relations.. , 

When asked howthe Greek veto on financial 

aid promised to Turkey under the customs union 

affected relations bet-ween the EU and Turkey. 

Yilit pointed out that the EU had contradicted 

itself on this point "Despite the fact that the aid 

promised is not .a buge amount to rescue Turkey 

from all its shackles, by not keeping the promise 

made to Turkey a difficulty has been highlighted. 

There is an important principle involved here," 

85

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentrode la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

union, Yigit said he shared this view, but it wasof the agreement. ..... . 

Yilit said. . not enough to explain the trade gap. .... "It is a well known fact that the au~omotlve 

. Greece is playing the game according to its "Turkey did not receive any reduction under the industry did not greet the customs umon yery 

national interests. As it is a member of the EU, if customs union in the tariffs and quotas imposed. warmly. The austerity measures taken on April, ~, 

'is also trying to get the EU on its side against on its exports of industrial products to the EU, 1994 had already badly affected this sector. So It 

Turkey. This has been recognized in Turkey, and except in relation to textiles and petrochemical is not clear whether the customs union or the aussurely 

creates anti-European trends in society," he goods ...However, the EU had been exporting to terity measures had the greatest impact on the 

continued. ... Turkey subject to a IS percent tariff, and then automotive industry. However, it is also trUethere 

"The anti-European trend in society is not their exports increased because the 15 percent tar- has been no increase in the number of ~ars prow~ong. 

If the EU ple~g.és things but does not iff was removed:' du~ed.in Turkeyafter the customs umon,' he 

abide by I~ w~rd, ~en It IS.the one who shoul~ be Yigit argued that Turkey would not gain from m~ntamed. . . . 

seen as VI~latlng Its p~omIses. Turke~ says ~f I the size of the market in Europe, but from being a However, the textll~ IDdustry was always. m 

was promtsed these things and yo~ di~ not glvearticipant in that market "The market is already favor of th~ customs umon. When 9uot~ are IIft- 

~~m, why should I keep my promIses.. Whe~er Cig.. The important thing for Turkey is that the ed. they w.Illreally ~enefit frolI! I~.thiS sector 

It.1SGreeceor.llI!yother c?untry that ,~scauslD$ industrial sector can get used to the rules of com- forecasts Itcan achieve $IO.bllh~n 'Y0rt~ ?f 

this deadlock. It IS the EU s problem, he clan- petition and can compete with Europeans. If it can exports when the quotas ll!~hfted, SaId yIglt, 

fied. Yili~ pointed oùt th~t the Welfare ~~y (RP) do ~at, it would 1i1~ :rurkey ëOIMbecome törn- noting that the industry antiCipatesa boom IDthe 

could easlfy use these kinds of ~U poliCies as. a pe~tJve. The real ~m ISnot only to sell. but also future. . 

tool to defam.ethe EU to ~e public. . . to mcrease our abiliry to compete," he added. Whe~ ~ked to comment on w~ether It was a 

. When reJ!lll1dedof the mterpretatlon put ~n th.ls According to Yiglt, there has been no increase contrad!ctlon t? see. that ~o~dy s ~ad dropped 

Issue by Michael Lak~, the EU represen~tlve ID in the number of cars produced by the automotive Turkey s cr~dlt ratmg. YIglt r~phe~ that had 

Ankara, that Turkey s trade gap had Widened sector in Turkey smce the customs union. Turkey not s!gne~ the customs urnon Withtl,1eEU, 

because Europe, as a market. had not boomed However, be said that the textile sector had then Moody s might have dropped the ratmg by 

since Turkey beç~e a l1lember of the customs .improved byeight percent following the signature two points rather than only one. 

MERCREDI, 22 

12° ANNEE, N° 3087 

L'EX-DÉPUTÉ KURDE 

l'état actuel de ses dossiers, Ibrahim 

AKSOY EN PRISON 

JUSQU'À l'AN 20.0.1 

Aksoy devrait rester en prison jusqu'au 

17 février 2001! Si évidement la machine 

judiciaire turque ne le condamne 

pas à d'autres peines pour ses écrits et 

Incarcéré dep'uis le 14octobre ses déclarations. Chargée de faire taire 

1995 à la prison d'Ankara où il purge les opposants, la justice turque dispose 

une peine de 3 ans pour délit d'opinion, toujours d'une batterie de dossiers sur 

Ibrahim. Aksoy, ex-député kurde de les opposants lui permettant de garder 

Malatya et ancien président du parti ceux-ci en prison aussi longtemps que 

DDP j vient de se voir signifier qu'en raile souhaite le Conseil de Sécurité natioson 

de récidive dans $es délits d'opi- nale àdominantemilitaire. En raison de 

nion séparatiste, l'amende de 216. 666. cette singulière .Iogiq'ue,' le sociologue 

666 LT à laquelle il av~it été condamné turc. Ismail Besikçi, actLleliement incar-. 

a été commuée en 5 ans de prison. Par céré à Bursa, estconqamné à plus de 

ailleurs, la condamnation à 2 ans de siècles de pri!)ön pour ses écrits sur les 

prison avec sursis prononcée par la Kurdes. L'ancien rriair~ de Diyarbaki'r, 

Cour de Sûreté de l'État d'Istanbul pour . Mehdi Zana, qui .a déjà passé 15 

son article "L'alévisme et la question. années de sa vie derrière les barreaux, 

kurde" a été ratifiée par la Cour de cas- fait l'objet d'uné,série de nouveiles 

sation turque. Celle-ci doit bientôt sta-. poursuites judiciaireS qui ont à ce jour 

tuer sur une autre condamnation, à 16 déjà abouti à des condamnations à 4,5 

mois de prison et à une am~nde de, ans de prison pour deux livres de 

133. 333. 333 LT, de cet homme poli- . témoignage sur les prisons turques et 

tique kurde pacifiste pour un article inti- les grèves de la faim qui y ont eu lieu. 

.tulé "Bosnie-Somalie-Kurdistan", En 

ONZE POLICIERS 

IMPLIQUÉS DANS 

l'ASSASSINAT 

DU JOURNALISTE 

M. GOKTEPE RETROUVENT 

LEURS POSTES 

A la suite de la vive émotion sus- . 

citée par la mise par la mise à mort en 

plein Istanbul et devant de centaines de 

témoins de ce journaliste du quotidien 

Evrensel, ces policiers avaient été "suspendus" 

par le ministre de l'Intérieur. 

Leur procès a été confié à des cours de 

province, officiellement "pour des raisons 

de sécurité". Plus d'un M après. 

les faits, ces policiers n'ont jamais comparu 

devant une cour et leur procès 

reste au point mort. Affirmant que, 

l'enquête disciplinaire concernant ces 

policiers était terminée, le nouveau 

86


ministre de l'Intérieur, Mme. Aksener, a 

décidé, par un décret du 27. 12. 1996 

dont la presse vient tout juste prendre 

connaissance, de lever la suspension 

les concernant et de les faire affecter à 

leurs postes à la Sûreté générale 

d'Istanbul. Selon le préfet d'Istanbul, 

Ridvan Yenisen, ces policiers ont subi 

"la plus lourde des sanctions disciplinaires, 

à savoir un gel de 12 mois dans 

leur tableau d'avancement". les commentateurs 

relèvent que dans un pays 

où des intellectuels peuvent être 

condamnés à deux siècles de prison 

pour leurs écrits, sanctionner des policiers 

accusés du meurtre d'un journaliste 

de "12 mois de gel dans leur 

tableau d'avancement" fait perdre toute 

considération pour la Justice, censée 

être la même pour tous les citoyens. 

"DISPARITIONS", 

EN HAUSSE CONSTANTE 

Dans le registre des violations 

des droits de l'homme, la Turquie, avec 

l'augmentation du nombre des "disparitions", 

ces derrières années, tient le 

haut du pavé et n'en finit pas d'attirer 

l'attention. Ce sont les régions kurdes 

qui sont le plus touchées par ce fléau; 

ainsi rien qu'en décembre 1996, on 

relève 9 "disparitions", à la suite de 

mise en garde à vue. Selon \e président 

de la Commission juridique de 

l'Association turque des droits de 

l'homme IHD, Osman Baydemir, cité 

par le quotidien Özgur Politika du 14 

janvier, "en un an 226 disparitions dans 

les provinces kurdes ont été enregistrées 

par l'IHD". Dans la seule ville de 

Diyarbakir 9 "disparitions" ont eu lieu 

l'année dernière. le ministre de 

l'Intérieur, Mme. Meral Aksener, commentant 

les chiffres de l'IHD, a affirmé 

que "39 de ces personnes ne sont p~s 

disparues mais sont détenues et en vie 

et que 82 personnes n'ont d'aucune 

façon été placées en garde à vue car 

aucune indication les concernant 

n'existe dans les registres". Répondant 

'au ministre, M. Baydemir déclare: " le 

propre des phénomènes de disparitions 

est précisément les autorités (police ou 

gendarmerie) ne garde aucune trace 

des disparus dans les registres officiels". 

LICE, TOUJOURS SOUS 

ETAT DE SIEGE 

Cette ville kurde, de la province 

de Diyarbakir, en grande partie détruite 

à la suite de l'intervention des forces 

armées turques en octobre 1993, continue 

de souffrir le martyre. Selon 

Turkish Daily News du 27 décembre 

,96, le 20 décembre durant un raid militaire 

sur la ville, tous les habitants 

mâles, soit 2500 personnes âgées 

entre 15 et 60 ans, de cette localité ont 

été regroupés dans \a cour de la gendarmerie 

locale. le chef de la gendarmerie 

s'adresse à eux et leur déclare 

que "100 volontaires" seront désignés 

pour servir dans les milices pro-governementales, 

en cas de refus personne 

ne sortira de la cour. Après les avoir 

gardés pendant trois jours au cours 

desquels ils ont été tabassés et forcés 

à suivre un entraînement militaire, les 

vieillards et les fonctionnaires ont été 

libérés avec de nombreux blessés 

parmi eux. Ceux désignés pour servir 

,comme "protecteurs de villages", ont 

été relâchés au bout de cinq jours et 

armés par la gendarmerie. Ces événements 

ont provoqué un tollé dans le 

milieu des organisations de défense 

des droits de l'homme et des syndicats. 

Une mission a été formée ayant pour 

but de se rendre sur place et de mener 

une enquête. Cette mission de 21 personnes 

formée des représentants du 

parti pro-kurde HADEP, de l'Associatio~ 

turque des droits de l'homme, du syndIcat 

DISK, de la branche locale de Reporters 

sans frontières et de l'écrivain 

Orhan Pamuk, devait se rendre à Lice 

le 14 janvier. Mais l'accès de la ville 

leur a été interdit par le super-préfet, 

Necati Bilican. S'exprimant au nom de 

la délégation, 

l'ancien député kurde 

Ahmet Turk, vice-président du HADEP, 

a déclaré dans une conférence de 

presse: "aux yeux de l'opinion, cette 

interdiction vaut aveu de culpabilité et 

montre une nouvelle fois l'absence de 

démocratie en Turquie", 

INTERDICTION D'UN LIVRE 

DE lA JOURNALISTE 

AllEMANDE LISS-V 

SCHMIDT 

la Cour de Sûreté de l'État 

d'Istanbul a décidé, le 16,janvier, la saisie 

de tous les exemplaires d'un ouvrage 

intitulé Özgurlügun Bedeli (le 

prix 

de la liberté) écrit par la journaliste allemande 

Lissy Schmidt. Celle-ci, après 

avoir travaillé pendant des années en 

Turquie, s'était, à partir de 1992, installé 

au Kurdistan irakien où, jusqu'à son 

meurtre mystérieux en 1994, elle travaillait 

pour plusieurs organes de presse 

européens dont l'AFP. Selon la cour 

turque, le livre de L. Schmidt ferait de 

"la propagande séparatiste" et son éditeur 

turc doit comparaître pour 

répondre de ce chef d'accusation 

lA TURQUIE EST UN DES 

MEillEURS "CLIENTS" 

DE lA COMMISSION 

EUROPÉENNE DES DROITS 

DE l'HOMME POUR 

l'ANNÉE 96 

la Commission européenne des 

droits de l'homme, organe judiciaire du 

Conseil de l'Europe, a été submergée 

par les requêtes des citoyens des 40 

pays constituant cette organisation 

pan-européenne. 12. 153 plaintes ont 

été déposées en 1996, un chiffre en 

progression de 20% par rapport à 

l'année précédente. les plaintes jugées 

recevables par la Commission progressent 

de 30% et représentent 624 

requêtes dont 37 requêtes émanant 

des citoyens de Turquie. S'exprimant 

au nom de la Direction des droits de 

l'homme du Comité des ministres, 

Pierre-Henry Imbert, a souligné l'attention 

toute particulière accordée à la 

Turquie dans la réforme de la Cour 

européenne des droits de l'homme, qui 

est suspendue à la ratification d'un protocole 

signé par tous les États 

membres. Elle consiste à rendre plus 

efficace la juridiction européenne 

notamment en matière d'exécution des 

arrêts rendus. En désignant la Turquie 

comme uri pays peu "discipliné" et 

comme "un des plus gros clients" de la 

Commission européenne des droits de 

l'homme, M. Imbert a déclaré: "la 

Turquie va-t-elle utiliser le biais du blocage 

pour manifester son mécontentement 

contre les critiques portées par le 

Conseil de l'Europe, ou bien va-t-elle 

ratifierle protocolepour ne pas s'isoler ?". 

la plupart des requêtes déposées 

contre la Turquie portent sur les exécutions 

extrajudiciaires, et sur la destruction 

et l'évacuation des villages kurdes. 

87

Revue. de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

Turkish Daily News THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1997 

TÛSiA.D has done 

its duty for the 

democratic system 

editorial 

By Hnur. 

Çevik 

debate. Turks need to discuss this issue. There are 

some aspects of the TÜStAD package that may be 

considered dangerous by some circles who want to 

preserve the status quo in this country. But in general, 

the report is very positive ~d conciliatory. It 

nism. 'l'hese aTe the poo. can create the much wanted social contract in 

pIe who have lost touch Turkey and create an environment of understandwith 

all global realities ing between the opposing factions in our society. 

and who want to push our TUS1AD proposes to overhaul the system in 

r years various Turkish governments have country into isolation. Turkey and they are rildtt. That is what we need 

emphasized the need for democratic reforms in Turkish businessmen and that is what we wi1I sooner 9r later get. Those 

our country. Nothing much has been done really see that under the cur- who are unhappy with the TUS1AD proposals 

because this needs a drastic change in the current circumstances should make their own proposals and open them to 

~ 

rent mentality in Turkey. Turkey can never hope to public debate. TÜSlAD introduces very positive 

Despite the calls for such reforms, have past become an elite member proposals concerning the exploitation of religion, 

governments had the political will for s~ch of the family of civilized ending military dominance, a new approach to the 

progress? We doubt it. From Süleyman Demlrel nations. Without reforms Kurdish issue and other areas where we need 

onwards the promises for democratic reforms have it will remain as an urgent reforms.It offers a new political system 

remained as promises and wishful.thinking. .. insignificant semi-democ- where democracy will function better. 

But now there is a new opemng. The Turkish racy on the doorstep of. Yet, we see some people are already criticizing 

Industrialists and Businessmen's Association EuroJ>.!il. It isnormal that TÜStAD for trying to create a new opening that 

(TÜStAD) has taken the matter into its own ~ds the TUStAD democratiza- could lead to reforms. The True Path Party (DYP) 

by introducing a package under the btle tion package will be has even accused the businessmen ofinterfering in 

"Improving Turkey's Democratic Standards" and debated at length. polities, The pro-Islamic Welfare Party on the other 

has made very serious proposalson real political TÜS1AD has. done an hand sees some very positive elements and says the 

and social reformation in our country. invaluable service to this package is worth consideration. 

The conservative circles in Turkey have greeted country by the mere fact. The business elite have done their duty. Now 

the report with incredible criticism l:'lD.dantago- ofopeni~g up such a the others sectors of the society should follow. 

Turk~h Daily News 

nyp 

THURSDAY,JANUARY23.1997 

plays down German court 

affront 

TDN Parliament 

Bureau 

ANKARA- Parliament reacted on 

Wedne.sday to comments ~y a ÇJe~an 

chief judg.e appa.r~ntly Imphcat~ng 

Deputy Pnme MInister and Foreign 

Minister Tansu Çiller in the protection 

of drug smugglers. . 

The comments were initially presented 

as part of a verdict dehvered to 

court, although later reports suggested 

the judge was merely quoting eVidence 

supplied by witnesses. "There is no 

such verdict. The story was denied 

afterwards," said Ali Rlza Gönül, 

deputychairman of the True Path Party 

(DYP) parliamentary group. 

DYP Secretary-General Nurhan 

Tekinel said the Turkish media had 

exaggerate~ the inci~ent,. which did not 

even ment attentIOn ln the news. 

Tekinel said he had thought "Where on 

earth did this come from?" when he 

read the news in the papers, as Çiller 

herselfbi!.d done. . 

Confusion reigns over comments by German judge, with 

opposition deputies calling for clarification and full inquiry 

ANAP: H story is 

true, it is a scandal . .. 

He noted that the media was wrong hi Motherland Party (ANAP) d~putl~s 

making the incident front page news. reacted stronj,ly to the German j~dge s.. 

"If it were me I would not have spared mention of 'tiller. "If the story IS corany 

place for' it in the papers. Those reet then it IS a scandal," said ANAP 

bemg accused in a court may make Deputy ~hainl!an Ya~ar Ok~yan. 

'claims about anybody. It does not nec. Okuyan said the Issue should be mv~sessarily 

mean that the accusations are tigated ~nTurkey a~d could not be dlstrue 

just because they have been record- rmssed just by sendmg, aprotest mem~ed 

in court minutes. 

randum. "If the story IS correct then It 

I was surprised. ~f th~ papers had should be inves!igated. If it is ~ot then 

printed the news With big fonts and a stronger reaction should be ,given, to 

reported the news as if it were true, then protect Turkey's honor," he salit. , 

I would have put up the papers on the ANAP deputy Ya~ar Topçu saId the 

walls in Parliament. The media should verdict was very important because 

pay attentioB to these,"he said. DYP drug smuggling was considered a crime 

Deputy Chairman Hasan E~nci noted agamst humanity in inte~nation.al.law 

that the story hadbeen demed and that and politics. "The ForeIgn MinIstry 

there were no such accusations in the must make a comprehensive statement 

court's ruling. . on this. It is not an ordinary. claim, and 

T~su Çiller declin~ to c0!TIlIlenton the Turkish govemme~t is under susp~the 

Issue when ,entenng Parhament on. cion. No one has the nght to place thIS 

Tuesday. 

guilt on us," be added. 

Another ANAP deputy, Ahmet 

88


Hasan 

Ekinci 

Nedim, pointed out that the story could 

be more damaging when spoken than 

when proven true. Nedim said the/gov. 

ernment had to make the court's ruling 

clearly understood, adding that there 

were sùll unknow~ aspec~ of the su~. 

ject. "If the story IS true, If the court I~ 

right, then we should .be as~amed,. 

Nedim said, adding that It was ImpoSSIble 

to remain silent on a decision harming 

Turkey's reputation. 

ANAP Deputy Chairman tbrahim 

Ya~ar Dedele~ SaId: "This is a very sad 

inCident. The fact that 65 percent of the 

world' s drug traffic passes through 

Turkey .was reitera~ed a~ a ~eeting of 

internatIonal narcotJc polIce 10 Antalya. 

Why should Turkey be in ~uch a con~i. 

tion? These things have mcreased 10 

.the past thr~e ye~r~. Çi11er has been 

either the pnme Dl1nIster or the deputy 

prime minister in these three years. 

What the German judge said are only 

claims. 

I am not offended by this, because 

why weren't there any claims about 

people such as Ecevit, Demirel and 

Ylimaz, who have been prime ministers 

for many years? If such claims have 

reached those countries and Turkey has 

begun to be point~d at in su.c~ ~ssues, 

Ciller has the malO responsibilIty for 

that. Turkey protested to Germany. 

But before doing that, the perpetrators 

of the Susurluk scandal should 

have been tried in court. Çi1ler, who is 

involved in a new scandal every day, is 

damaging Turkey and causing the 

country to lose prestige. There IS no 

smoke without fire." 

ANAP Parliamentary Group Deputy 

Chairman Murat Ba~esgioglu said: "It 

is a sad event that a German judge has 

made such a statement about a Turkish 

minister. 

It is also interesting that a serious 

nation like the Germans should mention 

Çiller just out of the blue. Turkey 

should investigate this issue and ask for 

the case file." 

Welfare Party (RP) Parliamentary 

Group Deputy Chairman Salih Kapusuz 

said: "There has been no official statement 

sent to the Turkish embassy or 

Ismet Sezgin 

the government. There has been a slanderous 

statement against the Turkish 

government. It is not possible that we 

protect unlawfulness and drug smuggling. 

This event has been considered 

to be unlucky for our government and 

state. We have given the necessary 

orders to the officiaIs." 

Democrat Turkey Party (DTP) 

Deputy ~hairman ~smet Se~gin said: 

"Hüseym Bayba~1D, who IS one. of 

those tried in the smuggling case, IS a 

perjurer, as we have learned from the 

media. 

He gives the impression that he was 

rented. We should not trust such a person' 

s statements. However, I would 

find it useful if the case was investi~ated 

in Turkey, since the issue is belOg 

seriously discussed in the country and 

the relaùons of these people with state 

officials have been proveh." 

Cevdet Selvi, Deputy Chairman of 

the Democraùc Left Party (DSP), said: 

"It is ill-luck for Turkey that a highranking 

~olitician, who is currently 

deputy pnme ministe~ and foreign ~nister, 

and who was 10 the past pnme 

minister, is .under suspicio~ in oth.er 

countries. It IS sad for the entJre publIc. 

We do not know for certain whether the 

German judge' had evidence in his 

hands, but these accusaùons cannot be 

tolerated. 

These accusations should be seriously 

investigated and considered. W~en 

there are so many doubts surroundmg 

Çi1ler' s name, it IS not p'ossible f~r us 

to say anything to the Judge. Çlller, 

who IS scared to clear herself from 

accusations, is always faced, clearly or 

indirectly, with such claims. 

The radical solution would be for 

Çiller to resign. She shoul.d at I.e~st 

resign from her post as foreign Dl1nISter. 

She is actually overdue in doing ~o. 

I opposed çi1ler's being foreign mInISter 

at the beginning. 

Now everyone can see how correct I 

was. It is a must that the Susurluk scandal 

be solved and Çi1ler cleared, so that 

Turkey can get rid of such accusations. 

But since Çlller does not int~nd to do 

so the best solution is for her to 

re;ign." 

89

Revue de. Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

.Turkish Daily News 

THURSDAY,JANUARY23.1997 

US says Xulam is wanted on nine 

. ts f t I State Department rebukes pro-PKK 

COUD 0 Ie ony Kurdish activist 

infonned us that they had issued a nine-count felony 

r",.küh Daily /lews 

arrest warrant for Mr. Xulam. They requested our 

WASHINGTON- Responding to the allegation assistance in locatinghim. We agreed to provide that 

of Kani Xulam, the director of the pro-PK,K assistance." "On Friday, January 17th, Mc. Xulam 

Kurdish organization American Kurdish was located by Diplomatic Security agents of the 

By l)gur Akmc.. 

Infonnation Network (AKIN), that the U.S. State 

Department of State and arrangements were made 

Department was "harassing" him, Ihe State with the MetropolitanPolice of Washington, D.C., to 

Department spokesman Nicholas Bums refused the arrest him, and he was arrested in the p~nce of two 

allegàtion. Burns reminded that the reason why of our DiplomaticSecurityagents." 

Xulam was arrested last Friday in Washington was 

because he was wanted by a California court on 

"nine counts of felony." Court p'apers show that 

Xulam is a "fugitive" from Santa Barbar~, 

California court for "larceny," among other POSSIble 

charges. 

Xulam. born as Nunet (junduz in Turkey, was 

arrested previously in the U.S. for falsely adopting 

the names "Sereno Citron" and "Stephen Barry 

Citron" and obtaining a U.S. passport under the latter 

name. Xulam was sentenced to 400 hours of community 

service at AKIN office by an Armenian- 

American judge in Los Angeles for committing pas.c;- 

port fraud - a felony that potentially carries a jail 

sentence up to 20 years. 

Baseless 

Bums said "the charge that somehow the State 

. Dep,artmentis harassing this ~uy isjust baseless." 

•Let me telllou the facts, Bums continued. "On 

the alternoon 0 January 16th, last Thursday, the State 

Department's Bureau of Diplomatie Security received 

a call from the District Attorney's office in Santa 

Barbara. California. The District Attorney's office 

Serious charges 

"Now, these charges are very serious - nine 

counts of f~lony. They were brought by the District 

t\lIorney III Sanla Barbara .. They're not State 

Department charges. That' s not how the American 

judicial system works, as y~u know very well, but 

perhaps he doesn't know or ch()()sesnot to believe," 

"He's got to submit to the legal.authority of the 

State of California here. These are serious charges. 

He'll have to face them." "The State Department 

simply provided assistarice ..at the request of our 

ownjudicial authorities and was able to lielp find him 

and help in his arrest That's what we're responsible 

for doingunder our own law," Bums said. 

Free on bail . 

After his arraignment hearing on Saturday, the 

D.C. District Court judge let Xu1am go free' with a 

$5,000 bond on his own personal recognizance . 

Xulam's next hearing in Washington D.C. court 

will be on February 19, 1997 to detennine of he 

would be extradited back to California or serve his 

sentence in Washington D.C.. 

Turkey slams German 


l1IURSDAY.JANUARY23,1997 

'udge's ant. l'-Turkish.. J 

unbecoming "The claim, and the we condemn slander, it," is 

Akbel said at his weekly press 

mments l German Embassy. 

'ndrug.case %~~~dfu~FO~~~~~~:h~J . 

CO . ... made a formal protest to the Akb~l. also said that ~ .Germa~ 

televlslo~ progran1had. defamed 

. "Las.t night, (Tuesday night) the Turkish flag. H.esaid that free- 

Anger: Foreign Ministry, er~ment has hit out atalleged ForeigI). Mmistry undersecretarY' dom,of tb7. press ~d not allow the 

claIms by a German chief judge Onu( Oymen protestedto the media to defame another ~o~n. 

ambassador Vural have that the Turkish government, and German Embassy. In Bonn, the try's flag.. A Gennan tele\'l~lon 

Foreign Minister Tansu Çiller in Turkish ambassador gave a note Program had used ~s a grap~ICa 

made plain Turkey's acute particular, I>foteèts narcotics to Gennan Foreign Ministry and ~Icture of ,the T~rkish.fl~g with.a 

dl 'spleas.ure over 's.lander ' 

smugglers ... Foreign Ministry he will ~so write a letter today' to ypode~c synnge slttmg on It. 

spokesman Omer Akbel said the Klaus Kinkel, the Gennan ForeIgn An offlcla.1 from the Ge,rman 

Turkish Daily News claimwas not only wrong but was Minister. We have also asked for ~mbassy said they were try~ngto 

ANKARA- The Turkishgov- also defaming. an explanation," Akbel said. hnd out exactly what the Judge 

90


bad said. ''J11ere were tw~ ~tories in the ~ss: neof them 

saying that Judge was glVlng the court s opinion an4 the 

other sayingthè judge was just guotin,g from the conviCted 

criminals. We are trying to fma out Just what exactly the 

. d 'd." 

JU ~~whi1e, ~g to reporters, Öymen, said the claim 

was totally false and no one sbould allege such wrong ideas 

aboutagovenunent 

'These kind of tbings are totally against the nature of 

international ~Iations, Even a judge bas to obey international 

relations," Öymen said 

German aJhJjassador Hans Joachim vergau said "German 

courts are independent; but on the other fiand a judge does 

not represent UteGerman Government." The diplomat, in bis 

statement to the Anatolia News Agency, said the best thing 

would be waiting for the end of the trial. 

1\.1.1'.- Agl'11U' Frdl1le Prl"..,se-/\.I .1'.- Agel1ll' Frlll1ce Pre~~l'-J\.F.P.- Agl'IlLl' Frlll1ce Prl'sse 

Turquie-Kurdes-Pétrole : Attentat à la bombe du PKK contre l'oléoduc irako-turc près de 

Mardin 

ANKARA, 23 jan (AFP) - Les maquisards du Parti des Travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK, séparatiste) ont perpétré, 

dans la nuit de mercredi à jeudi, un attentat à la bombe contre l'oléoduc irako-turc dans la région de Midyat (sud-est, 

sous-préfecture de Mardin) qui a causé un incendie, a rapporté l'agence Anatolie. 

Un groupe de rebelles kurdes du PKK ont déposé une bombe à l'oléoduc près du village de Sogutlu, selon la même 

source. 

Le brut qui s'est dégagé de l'oléoduc s'est répandu sur une surface importante et s'est enflammé sous le choc de 

l'explosion. L'incendie n'avait pas été encore maîtrisé jeudi dans l'aprés-midi, malgré l'intervention des équipes de 

pompiers dépêchées depuis plusieurs localités avoisinantes. 

Le double oléoduc irako-turc reliant les champs pétrolifères irakiens au port turc méditerranéen de Ceyhan-Yumurtalik 

a été rouvert mi-décembre, aprés plus de 6 ans de fermeture suite à l'embargo imposé à l'Irak par l'ONU après son 

invasion du Koweit en août 1990. 

La réouverture de l'oléoduc entrait dans le cadre de l'accord "pétrole contre nourriture" aux termes duquel Bagdad est 

autorisé par l'ONU à exporter des quantités limitées de pétrole (l'équivalent de 2 milliards de dollars tous les six mois) 

pour acheter des vivres et des médicaments, afin de soulager sa population durement affectée par l'embargo. 

L'oléoduc, formé de deux conduites de 40 et de 46 pouces de diamètre et longues de 986 et 890 km, est d'une 

capacité de 1,2 million de barils par jour. 

Le PKK mène une rébellion armée depuis 1984 dans l'est et le sud-est anatoliens à majorité kurde afin d'y créer un 

.Etat indépendant. Cette rébellion a fait plus de 23.000 morts, maquisards, militaires et civils. 

KGfjj tf 


/\.1'.1'.- Agl'Illl' Frdl1ll' Pn'ssl'-,\.I .1'.- Agl'l1ll' Frdl1ll' Presse-;\.I .1'.- Agel1ll' frdl1ll' Pressl' 

USA-Turquie-presse: Campagne pour la libération d'un journaliste turc emprisonné 

WASHINGTON, 23 jan (AFP) - Une pétition signée par plus de 300 joumalistes, responsables d'organes de presse 

ou défenseurs des droits de l'Homme réclamant la libération de Ocak Isik Yurtçu, un joumaliste emprisonné en 

Turquie depuis plus de deux ans, a été remise jeudi à l'ambassadeur turc à Washington. 

"Ocak Isik Yurtçu a été poursuivi et emprisonné pour avoir mené à bien sa mission de joumaliste", a commenté la 

91

Revue de Presse-Press Review~Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de IciPrensa-Bastn Özeti 

présidente du Comité pour la protection des joumalistes (CPJ), Kati Marton, qui a remis la pétition. 

L'ambassadeur turc, Nuzhet Kandemir, s'est engagé à transmettre la pétition à son gouvemement, "notant que 

plusieurs joumalistes turcs importants et certains membres du gouvemementturc partageaient la préocupation du CPJ 

concemant les poursuites contre M. Yurtçu et sa mise en détention", selon un communiqué de l'association. 

Ancien responsable de la publication du quotidien Ozgur Gundem, aujourd'hui disparu, M. Yurtçu aété condamné à 

une peine de 15 ans et dix mois et purge actuellement sa troisième année de prison. 

Il a été condamné pour "propagande séparatiste" pour avoir publié des articles sur le conflit entre les autorités turques 

et les séparatistes kurdes. 

Parmi les signataires de la pétition figurent les joumalistes Terry Anderson, Tom Brokaw, Tina Brown, Walter 

Cronkite, Dan Rather, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, ainsi que le prix Nobel de la paix Elie Wiesel. 

.fjblftlfa eua 


INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1997 

.r Turks Protest 

.ToGermany 

ln Drug Case 

By Kelly Couturier 

Washington Post Service 

cdfè'rÎt-rClàli6tIS with the l\iikish gov- mitiianFültfàriationaÎist 'aild. con~ktell . 

ANKARA - The government has 

protested to Germanyafter two judge$ 

emment"and"personalcontactswitha 

woman minister in the government." 

dnig~!1l~~ler badbe~n,.rid~it~in the' 

same ca-:.\yltha.top pohce~fflclaland ~ 

there alleged that high-ranking Turkish Asked Wednesday to name the wo- member~,'fif. Parliament .from Mrs. 

officials, perhaps including the deputy. man minister, another judge in the case, . Ciller's Trùe Path PÎlrty. 

prime minister, Tansu Ciller, have pro~. Dox Neveling, was quoted as saying i The pf~sand opposition politicians 

tected heroin traffickers. .thatthe tw6Kurdish clans had influence called thé' .accident an indication of 

"These accusations are very ugly an~ at "the highest levels of the govern- widespread corrupt~oil invoiving publ\


TÜsiAD 'Democratization Report' 

debate overshadows annual meeting 

Betker: Democratization 

cannO! be abandoned if 

Turkeù future is to be healthy 

Boyncr: There are those who 

would like to see TÜSlAJ> as a 

'Cmary Lm'ers Society' 

Koç: One could have \\'ished 

that our opinions had been 

polled before the repon W:IS 

,.!T,"'" ' ,Il(' p,J,lic 

By Niki Gamm I Turkish Dail\' '';';''''''$ 

1ST AND UL- The report which the Turkish 

Inqustrialists' and Businessmen's Society' 

(TU~lAp) offered ~othe Turkish government at the 

beglßnmg of thIS week, "Perspectives on 

Democratization in Turkey," overshadowed'its 27th 

annual meeting held yesterday at swissotel The 

Bosphorus. The debate which it engendered has 

angered some segments of Turkish society and 

encouraged others. 

As has happened with other ,reports in the past 

which have been issued by TÜSlAD (the report on 

Turkey's indebtedness, the education system, etc.) 

this ,too has served to stir up a debate on how demO: 

~ratIc. the country h~ become and ip, wbat direc. 

tions It should be gOlDg.Outgoing TÜSlAD Board 

~ Halis Komili reflected on the recent past 

ID his keynote speech, emphasizing the important 

royle which the organization played during die period 

from 1971 lQ.1980. As representatives ofthè private 

sector, TUS1AD members had served as a 

locomotive in efforts to introduce a free enterprise 

system into Turkey. He also took note of the unex- 

~ted instability ID the system which occurred in 

the 19805. 

Kamili warned that while efforts were being 

made in the economic sphere to correct and turn 

around the problems, it was unfortunate that the 

short t~~ measures w~re having no effect on 

macro mdicators. And gIven the present circumstances, 

Turkey's need was for a community wide 

effort to reconcile differences and cart)' out essentiar 

economic, political and social reforms. And 

how ~s is to be achieved is through democracy. 

This was the responsibility of everybody, Komili 

insisted and he urged as ileI1Jhat the report should 

be read carefully by everbody'. He defended the 

report where there had been particular criticism 

such as occurred over proposals related to the 

National Security Council. 

Komili also reminded his audience as be concluded 

his remarks that two years ago on the occasion 

of the 25th anniversary of TUSlAD that 25 

years later everybody would be living in a completely 

new Turkey. And during that time the country 

would show that speedy growth could be 

achieved without abandoning democracy, a just distribution 

of income could occur and people could 

live together in peace. 

Support for Democratization 

ReD!)rt continued 

TûslAD High Advisory Council Chairman 

Ferraz H~rker refen:ed to.the organization' s constitutIon 

which commttted ItS members to universal 

principles of democracy and human rights as he 

äddressed bis listeners. And in the course of soeak. 

ing.. Berker said, "Democratization is a subject 

whIch Turkey cannot abandon during the course of 

building its future in a healthy manner. StronlZ 

econonues WIll be able to catch the wind in thei! 

sails within a framework of a state based on modem 

law, with a social,bas~s whi~h is enlightened and 

~sparent and which Judges Itself according to the 

urnv!;rsal measures of democracy and law." 

TUS1AD member, industrialist Sak1p Sabancl 

wh~ spoke to the audience sUPP'>rted tile presentat~on 

of the Democratization Report as a duty 

which befell TUSlAD whether the ideas expressed 

in it were good, ideal, perfect or debatable. Cem 

Boyner. suggested in ~s address that there were 

~ple ID Turkey who likened the organization to a 

Canary Lovers Society" but he hiIriself found the 

report to be one which should be discussed and 

debated as one would do with an advisor's report. 

Busines~man Rahmi Koç, caught by reports as he 

left the TUSlAD meeting, adnutted that he hadn't 

read the report and ,~ould have wished that it had 

~en debated by TUSlAD members before being 

ISSUedto the public. 

However lie ~dmitte~ that democracy, in Turkey 

w~ not something which would be a smgle jacket 

fittmg everybody., It was ODewhich would always 

produce pam and people would learn from it. 

Tanor calls report an 

effort at enlWhtenment 

'1fo~. Dr. Buient TaQ.orwho prepared the democ- 

?l1Z;8tlon ~port for TUS~ has said that generat- 

IDg Ideas IS not a prerogatIve of Parliament alone. 

Responding to critIcisms of the report, the Istanbul 

UDlversity Law Faculty member told Anatolian 

Agency that the report which Komili presented to the 

government was not "a memorandum. but an effort at 

enIiglltenment" He emphasized that the report was a 

contribution to an overall effort on the part of those 

who wanted democracy in Turkey to develop. In 

other countries which are democratic assocatIons, 

labor unions, nong~vemmental organizations and 

~ple are free to offer their views but this is not perceived 

as usurping Parliament's role. 

Noting that Parliamentary Speaker Mustafa 

Kalemli had proposed that the reJlO!l be transfonned 

into a legal propOsal and offered to Par1iament, Tanor 

expressed lûs_ reservations. He pointed out that the 

93


Lake: Dynamic forgrowth, closer economic 

and social integrationwitb 

EU established 

, Turkish Daily News, Koniili and his colleagues 'had beèn facing the wilJlessed by the role played by the media over 

ISTANBUL- "I believe that the dynamic for formidable task of "contributing to and even the most recent revelatIOnsof crime and scandal 

growth, for closer economic and socIal integra. guiding the modernization of their country in which has iIIuminatedsome of the country's 

tion (with the E\IIOpeanUnion) is already estab- record time." Unlike theircolleagues and rivals murky underworld. 

Iished. Part of the success of thélt is due tOin European Union member states, they had Lake stressed his belief that this willlead to 

tÜStAD and its leaders," said Ambassador' fa~ed formidablecha!Jenges which included Turkey's b~tte~ assessing its own value and 

Michael Lake, in â luncheol1 speech Thursday ,adJustment to Europe~n values of democracy, worth and bnng It closer to Europe. ' 

following the Turkish .', ' , human rigltts ,andfreedoin of expression. ' Noting chan8es in attitudes to population 

Industrialists" and B usiIiessmen' s ' '1'urkèy is going through a transition period, 8rowth, dispanties in regional and personal 

Association's 27th general assembly meeting at perhaps at two or three levels simultaneously," Incomes, the free circulation of workers and 

swissotel The Bosphorus. Lake remarked.'"It is going through an historical human rights, Lake praised the way in which 

Lake, who is the head of the Representation of change in its cultural system of government in considerable results have been achieved. Not 

the European Commission ÏI!. Turkey, was lauda- three decades instead of three centuries..... Lake 'least has been a diminution in the state's role in 

tory of the efforts which TUStAD has made to also emphasized the,importance of the TÜS1AD economic life from over 50 percent when he 

asSIStin the country's economic integration and report on democratization as the organization arrived in 1991to under 30 percent today. He 

to pursue such orthodox goals as the liberaliza. represents a segment of society responsible for further noted that foreign direct private investlion 

of the regulatory system and follow a vision 60 percent of the nation's production and 45 per- ment had suddenlyincreased at the end of 1996 

of being able to set strictly business goals. He cent of its exports. He also noted that, as a non- and within that Europe;s share. 

pr.~ised as well the four-year-long efforts of governmental organization, it had a broader This açcompanied an 80-percent increase in 

TUSiAD Board Chainnan Halis Komili, whose sense of responsibIlity to the people as a whole. two-way trade during the past three years, an 

term has come to an end. , One part of the process tliiough which Turkey illustralJon of an irreversible trend towards fur- 

The ambassador pointed out though that is going is the growing openness of society as ther integration. 

majo(Ïty in 'tbal body were conservatives and this 

majority did not represent democratic groups. At the 

same time the oppositionwas important but problem. 

atic. He didn't reel that Parliament would i:nakean 

important effort on the subject.Tanor further suggested 

that opposition to the report had come from people 

who had not taken the troubleto read it in its entirety. 

He offer as an example those who objected to the 

proposal that ~e use of .Kurdishbe left free. In 1991 

m any case usmg Kurdish had been freed but three 

articles remained in the Constitutionregarding its use 

and these had to be removed. 

New board chairmàn, members chosen 

TÜstAD elected Muharrem Kayhan as its new 

board ~haÎm!an,accor~ng to à stateme.ntissued by , 

Council ChaIrman Aydm Bolak'followmgthe elec- 

,tion. Members of the board include Hasan Arat, 

Ant Bozkaya, Muh,~esemEkenler, Aldo Kaslowski, 

Tuncay tzilhan, Omer SabancI, Hasan Suba~I, 

Sinan Tara and Erkot Yucaoglu. Standby members 

are,Sadi Gücüm, Kor~}1laztIkorur, Omer Koç, 

Mahfi Egilmez, Murat Oztemir, Hasan Çolakoglu, 

Pekin Baran, Feyhan Ka1pakho~lu,Frederic Giraud 

and Ahmet Eren. Following ibe meeting" a luncheon 

was held at. which Ambassador, Michaèl 

Lake, 't~e head of the Representation of. the 

European Commission in Turkey, delivered an 

address. ' . 

Turkish Daily News FRIDAY. JANUARY 24. 1997 

Elmab coins may returnto Turkey thisyear 

Turlcish Daily News that the verdict should be reached later A mere f 16 ~~re h~n~~d ~:~\~~ 

ANKARA- The seven-year legal bat. this year. ' ' Turkey a. t~r ,ISCUSSIOIil . 

tIe to get the '1,700 "Elmali coins" An iIIe~alexc.avation in the Ant~lya's Culture MInistry s GenerfiledI~ef~~~~~ 

returned to Turkey is nearing its conclu- Elmalt dIstrict In 1984 res~lted In the f 

~f ~atues h nd ~uS~:Court for the 

sion and the signs are that T\lrkey' sdiscovery of nearly 2,000 coms, most 0 ID. ~ssac use s . 

Culture Ministry may win the case, with which were smuggled out of the coun- coMs ~e~uf~hecoins are owned by the 

ministry officials claiming that the try. " OKSop y one of the partweight 

of evidence was in Turkey' s ' Betwledenbylp9u8~li~na~c~r~1 int~e ~Yt\~~ ners of~hi~h i~o:e'û.k~own U.S. collecfavour 

were so . . W'Il' K h 

The' Anatolia news agency reported of Los Angeles, Mumch and Zunch. tor I lam oc,' 

-' 

94


Turkish Daily News RUDAY.JANUARY24.1991 

TÜsiAD' s 'Democratization' report pleases nobody 

Turkish Daily N~$ 

ISTANBUL- Reactions and criticisms are looming to the report 

"Perspectives of Democratization in Turkey" published by the 

Union of Industrialists and Businessmen of Turkey (TÜStAD) earlier 

in the week. 

The Minister of Industry, Yahm Erez, said: "I could not understand 

how an institution, wbich has no internal democracy and is 

governed by the power of capital, could lecture Turkey on democracy," 

while Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs 

Tansu Çiller said at a reception for the president of TÜStAD, Halis 

KomiIi, that her government was deterinined to maintain freedomof 

religion and conscience, expression and thou2ht, and the diffusion 

of capital to the base. The d~l'1:Ity-chairof tfie True Path Party 

(DYP), Cihan Pacaci, accused TUSlÀD of assigning "socialist pr0- 

fessors" to prepare reports. TUStAD chairmail Halis Komili was 

summoned by the Chief of Staff and was lectured on the wrong timing 

of the re~rt regarding Turkey's priorities by Cbief-of..Staff 

General lsmall HakkI Karada)'l and Vice-Chief General Çevik Bir. 

The generals also expressed concern OD the report's proposal that 

the constitutional principles of "secularism and indivisible unity" 

should be abandoned. 

/To: "Not words, but action and investment" 

Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) chairman Mehmet 

Yildirim criticised the TÜStAD report saying: "It is easy to be a 

preacher of dem~, but what is (fifficult but important is to take 

action for democracy. ' 

Yild,ir!m ~d !n a ~tten statement that the report did not have 

any ongmality smce It repeated known facts. '1'his report is a collection 

~f ideas proposed "by ~ or that circle before, and we may 

agree WIthmany of them, he said. "But the era of ~g reports 

has come to an end. People expect not reports but actIon from businessmen. 

In parallel to the end of regional inequalities through sustained 

social and economic development, most of the proposed 

points would be automatically realizea. Turkey with a strong econom)' 

will be strong domestically and internationally and thus some 

things will be realized easily." . 

Yildirimconcluded that what is to be done is to continue new 

investments without interruption and asked how many investments 

in the East and South East of Turkey had the authors and supporters 

of the report undertaken so far. 

MUSlAD: "Democratization 

report "reaches anti-democracy" 

The Chairman of t!te.pro-Isl~c fndependent Indus~~sts and 

Businessmen AsSOCIation (MUSlAD), Erol Yarar, cntlClzed the 

TÜSlAD report for having an anti-democratic stand against Islamic 

education. 

"TÜStAD members have the freedom of not sending their children 

to the religious schools. However, they have DO ri2b.t to introduce 

restrictions on the will of the increasing number of people who 

prefer these schools." . . 

On the other hand, Yarar said they agreed with TÜStAD' s pro- 

P,OSalsfor changes to the law _of political parties and the constitutIOnalchanges 

the report contaIned. 

Different circles 

11te criticism from business circles towards the re~rt is inte~preted 

as due to the different scales of business that different bUSIness 

circles represent. 

TÜSlAD is known as an org~tion representing big business 

in Turkey, whereas MÜSA1D ana me chambers of commerce are 

known to consist of small and middle scale businessmen. 

-TÜStAD's advocation of the workers' ri2ht to strike, a minimum 

wage and so on is viewed by medium ana small scale industrialists 

as a threat against their existence. 

Turkey's small and medium scale industries operate largely as an 

"unrecorded economy," in which the workers do nol bave any 

insurance or job security. TÜStAD-affiliated large industries can 

afford, on the 9ther hand, to make improvements in workers' rights. 

In fact, the roStAD-affiliated businessmen see such imI!rovement 

as necessary fgr the country's political stabilil}'. MÜSlAD's objections 

to the TUSlAD report are based on ~ further disa~ment on 

the future of Turkey's economy. While nistAD stands for further 

Westernization and an acceleration of integration within the 

European economy, Muslim businessmen see such integration as a 

threat to Turkey's Islamic identity. 

Only trade unions pleQSe~ . . 

Tfie chairman of die left wmg Confederation of Progressive 

Trade Unions (DtSK), Ridvan Budale, said that what is expected 

from a contemporary employer's organization is to advocate a rapid 

realization of democracy in Turkey, and because of that DISK finds 

the report p,ositive. 

"The nistAD report certainly has its shortcomings and mistakes. 

But in its ,eneral ~e, the report does not show any 

negative aspects, Budak said. 

Other la60r union leaders alsoexpressed support for the !'tport 

and particularly the proposal: "Individuals should be given religiOUS 

education after they adopt a democratic and questioning culture." 

The chairman of the Confederation of the Public WOrkers Unions 

(KESIÇ)• .siyami Erdem. stated that it was a fortunale devel~pment 

that TUSIAD was aware that limited democratic understanding has 

reached its limit in Turkey, and added that they supported the struggle 

that the economic organization intends in order to install democracy 

... 

''TÙStAD is a big power in Turkey," Erdem told the TON. "It is 

an organization whicl1 forms the spinal chord of the economy. The 

struggle that this organization intends for a democratic and secular 

Turkey is a positive mtention, although it is insufficient. 

"We believe Turkey will have a democratic structure through 

these kinds of efforts. It is essential to change the status-quo structure 

of the country to a democratic structure for the welfare and 

security of the people." - . 

Erdem undeilined that both the employers and the workers struggle 

for demOÇ.l'3Cyin ~urkey now, and added that they es~ally 

supported TUStAD's Ideas about the abolition of the National 

SeCUrityCouncil. 

Ko1]lili's~gesture - 

TUStAD s "Demqcratizati~". report has also been inte~ted by 

many as a final gestpre by roSIAD chairman Halis Komili before 

the end of bis term id office. 

_ 

The TÜStAD AnnUal General Meeting is beirig held on Thursday 

in Istanbul and is e~ to elect Muharrem Kayban as the new 

chairman to replaÇt; Komili, and Bü1ent Eczaclb~1 as the new 

chairman of the 'J'O$tAD High Council of Consultation. The present 

chairman of the council, Feyyaz Berker, said thef aimed to initiale 

a discussion at all levels on sOcial and economic ISSues by issuin8 

the "Pers~ctives, of Democratization in Turkey" report. Berker 

said that as TÜStAD they gave importance to social issues as much 

as economic ones ~ that ~ nuiiUt econo~y cannot be thought 

of in isolation from hllman nghts and democratization. 

95


däUynews 

Fr\cIay, January 24,1997 

Tarikats and Cemaats in Turkey 

Due to his cautious approach to sensitive political issues and moderation, there are 

rumors among the radicallslamists of Fethullah Hoca's being an 'agent' jeopardizing 

the future of the Islamist movement and of Islam by preaching.'wrong Islam' 

By Nilüfer Narb 

Turkish Daily News liST ANBUL 

The Fadime ~ahin scandal, her sexual 

abuse by Aczimendi tarikat sheikh 

Müslüm Gündüz. has created apprehension 

about the nature and func- 

. . tions of tarikats (Islamic orders) in 

. Turkey. So what is a tarikat? What is 

their role in Turkey? ln order to answer these ~uestions 

it is necessary to define the tenns "tarikat ' .. 

(Islamic order) and "cemaat" (Islamic society/group) 

.and clarify the differenc~ betwee~ the~. Then we.. 

will offer an understandmg of theIr SOCIaland polincal 

functions. 

Tarikats are traditional Islamic organizations 

which have resPQnded to various cultural, social, and 

political needs. Established as early as in the 10th 

century, tarikats - small brotherly groupings of 

mystics living in communities - prevented Islam 

from becoming a cold and fonnal doctrine, keeping 

it alive as an intimate, compassionate faith. They 

were successful in sustaining Islam because the followers 

of tarikats were not often the orthodox ulema, 

but they were rather flexible pious indivi~ual~ w~o 

presented the faith on a personal, but not msututlOnal 

basis, and with personal fervor and charisma. The 

tarikat Islam was heterodox in that it deviated from 

Sunni orthodoxy with its mysticism and Sufi tradition. 

They. undertook s~gnificll?t politic~ and social 

functions ID the past. FIfSt, tarikats, partlcularly .the 

Nakshibandis ànd IÇadiris. were mamly res~nslble 

for spreading Islam in East and Southeast Asia and 

Sub-Saharan Africa in the mediaeval period. They 

did not face resistance, but enthusiasm from the . 

local people because the Islam they presented assImilated 

local traditions and provided people with a 

new identity and understanding of the world and the 

universe. They ~~re also amo~g the foremost ~eaders 

in Islam' s nulitary and poliucal battles against : 

the encroaching power of the Christian West such as 

the revolts led by tarikat sheiks in Morocco and 

Algeria. 

Political significance 

The politico-rèligious significance of the tarikats 

lies in the fact that they challenged the orthodox 

Islam represented by the state by urging a "new" 

Islam throughout the history in the Muslim world. 

They were MSO socially functional as they provided 

their members with a powerful combinanon of spiritual 

renewal and human companionship. 

Furthermore. they provided social welfare to their 

disciples and to other needy people. For example. 

.they offered schools. food and lodging to travelers 

during the Ottoman era. 

After the establishment of the Turkish Republic, 

the networks of secret mystic brotherhoods were 

pushed underground when the tarikats we~ out: 

lawed by a law that banned tekkesand zavlY~sm . 

1925 during one-party rule (1923-1946). During this 

period. they provided a semi-secret platform to conduct 

covert Islamieist activities. Their secret, semimystic 

lay followers sustained 'pOpular Islam and 

ensured that Islam came througb the 20th century 

strong and vital. 

After the easing of rigid secularist measures durin 

C7 the period of Democratic Party rule (1950-1960) 

and the provision of civilliberties by the 1961 

Constitution - including freedom of speech ~d 

assembly - tarikats began to operate on aseffillegal 

grounds (lfespite the fact that in legal theory. .. 

they were still illegitimate. as th~ ban on.their ~C.tlVlties 

was not lifted) and forge allIances WIthpohncal 

parties. 

The tarikat Islam was 

heterodox in that it deviated 

from Sunni orthodoxy with its 

mysticism and Sufi tradition 

,Their social function has been widened with the 

urbanization and industrialization that has uprooted 

many Turks from their traditional communitiesin 

villages and towns and created new social needs. 

Tarikats are functional in contemporary Turkey 

because they offer people a sense of belonging .t~a 

community, human companionship. a set of guldmg 

niles, identity, and organization. . 

They. also respond to the needs of people conc,retely 

by offermg finaI).cialsupport, acc0!TIIIlodatlon, 

and a network for unerovIng profess}on~ co~- . 

tacts. They function as SOCIalwelfare lDstltutlons In 

Turkey where almost 30 percent of the population 

have ito social protection. 

. Despite their semiformal organization, ~arikats are 

the most active organizations. They function as voluntary 

associations and i~t~rest gx:oupsin a country 

like Turkey where assoclatlOnaI nghts have been 

curtailed. and therefore hampering the development 

96


Infiltration 

The Fethullahi plan targets infiltrating 

the military and the police. Their 

attempts were disclosed. See Hikmet 

Cetinkaya's article entitled: Belge (''the 

ÙOCument") in Cumburiyet (June 13, 1994). 

Also see, Ru~n Çalor, 1990, Ayet ve Slogan 

for their inf1ltration into military high schools. 

Fethullahis have been often associated with 

the state and they are seen as a group that may 

promote its interest while they stick to their 

ultimate aim of establishins the state of Islam, 

a hidden objective, which IS not openly 

declared by the Fethullahis. 

The relationship between the state and 

Islamic groups is too complex to grasp a 

coherent picture reflecting this relationship. 

There are tarikat members in the strategic 

ministers, such as the Ministry of Education 

(see above) and the Ministry of Interior. As 

re~rted in Turkish Daily News, Cumburiyet 

daily wrote: "pro-Welfare P~ (RP) cells are 

becoming entrenched in the Ministry of 

Interior. Some 700 of the 1,600 key ministry 

.executives throughout the country (such as 

provincial governors, county governors and 

Interior Ministry inspectors) are believed to 

be RP supporters as compared to nearly 400 

during the time of former Inœrior Miruster 

Ismet Sezgin (1992-1993). 

"The number had increased rapidly in the 

past 12 months. Of the country's 76 provincial 

governors, 24 have performed pilgrimage 

to Mecca in the last few years at the invitation 

of the Saudi Arabian authorities. In 1994, 

Interior Minister Nahit Mente~ did not permit 

20 provincial governors to go to the pilgrimage 

to Mecca at the invitation of the 

Saudi authorities" (Turkish Daily News, Max 

3, 1994). Islamicists (~cularly "moderate 

groups) have penetrated the state structure. 

.Accot:di~g to ~ Sirmen (ajoumalist working 

for Milliyet daily), the state gave concessions 

to the Islamic groups and are involved in such 

groups with an aim of using them against 

other radical political &!oopsin Turkey 

including the radical IslaID1cists.This claim is 

b~ on !ris observations in Sanhurfa (a 

provmce ID the Southeast Turkey). Regarding 

these observations, Ali Sirmen wrote in 

Milliyet (February 27, 1994): "The Director 

of National Education, sner Ergen. often organizes 

sohbel ("talk") meetings to discuss religion 

with school teachers, Ergen~ does not 

shake hand with ladies due to his Islamic 

beliefs". Then, Sirmen asked "Who was this 

~anhurfa governOf, Ziyaeddin Akbulut?" In 

replying to this question Sirmen wrote: 

"Accoriiing to an officiai document (dated 

October 18,1992), Akbulut rented an 8 000 

m2 estate (in P~a~1 MahaIlesi ward, ' 

Ko~uy~lu S~t) that ~as owned by Province 

A~stratlo~. to qazlantep tpek E$itim ve 

K?l~r Vakel ( 9~,lantep tpek Egitlm ve 

Kultur Foundation ), This foundation is controlled 

by the Fethullahis. The rate of the 

monthlY,rentis 150.000~(i~ 1994)," 

,The aim of the ,FoundatiOn IS to provide 

bnght student~ With an Islamic education in 

accordance Withthe teachings of Fethullah 

Hoca and send a group of them to MililaT\' 

Iycee and AcadelDla. This is.a plan to ' 

encounter the ~~stac1e for im.am-hatip gradua~s 

to ~nter IDllitary acadelDles, See Ali 

Srrp~n s .~cle entitled: "RP Bu, Ya Devlet 

Ne (This IS the Welfare Party but what is 

the Real Face of the State?") in Milliyet 

(February 27,1994). 

of ~utonomou, interest groups representing various 

socioeconomic and political interests. Against this 

ba~kground. the founding principles and functions of 

tarikats and cemaats can be better understood. 

The /skender Pasha Convent 

Among them the Iskender Pasha Convent is one 

of the most established tarikats. It was founded bv 

one of the leading Nakshibandi sheik, Mehmet zàhit 

Kotku (1897-1980). After Kotku passed away, bis 

son-in-law, Professor Mehmet Esat Co~an (1938), 

became the sheik .. 

Though the Iskender Pasha Convent is a tarlkat, it 

haS never confined its activities solely to religious 

and Sufi purposes and activities. Rather it has 

involved itself in daily social and political matters. 

Kotk~ had two rl?les: as a sheikh with poetic and 

mys~c!ll style, he impressed his disciples deeply by 

proViding them with spiritual satisfaction; as a SOCial 

le~der he pre~hed the importance of strengthening 

fal~ along With material developments and technological 

aavancement. He also stressed the importan~~of 

~veloping an interest in moral, social, and 

politlcallssues. Kotku encouraged his disciples to 

!aleean active. role in politics and affect political 

mput mechanisms . 

The National Salvation Party, a forerunner of the 

Welfare Party, was established in 1972 with the initiatives 

and active contributions of Kotku who acted 

as a fou~ding father and mastermind givi~g ideas 

~d adVice: For example, Erbakan's idea of developmg 

heavy mdustry was introduced by Kotku, Thus, 

Kotku was a sheikh of the order, on the one hand 

and a founding father of an Islamicist political party 

on the other. 

Kotku's doctrines 

The politico-religious doctrine of Kotku has three 

distinctive characteristics. First, Kotku encouraged 

his disciples to fully benefit from the new measures 

that softened the rigid secularism of the early re~ublican 

period. and advised them to advance IslaIDlc 

education nationwide in order to strengthen faith. 

For example, after the government issued permission 

for the opening of Q'uran courses (after 1949) 

Kotku mobilized his disciples to open as many 

Q'uran c~urse~ as possible. 

. Nakshiband!s have also built mOS

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa:'Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

ly followed national, regional and international 

social, economic, and political developments in 

Turkey, and responded to such developments with 

an aim of influencin~ public policy concentrating on 

national and internatIonal developments. He also 

advised his disciples to take an active interest in 

national affairs, which is seen to be the duty of a 

pious Muslim. 

Kotku encouraged takin.&an active role.in politics 

- such as fonning a politIcal party that is seen to be 

a vehicle oflslanucization. Thirdly, Kotku recognized 

the importance of infùtrating the strategic public 

institutions and encouraged his disci{!les to jom . 

the civil service and be promoted to top bureaucratIc 

posts: In the late 1960s, sev~ Nakshi?an.dis were 

employed by' the State Plannmg OrgaruzatIon. Later, 

in 1973 when the National Salvation Party shared a 

coalition with the Republican People's Party, many 

disciples of Kotku were said to be recruited in the 

administrative cadres of the ministries of strategic 

sismificance, such as the Ministry of Education and 

Ministry of Internal Affairs. " 

, Islamicist have always given a special importance 

to the control over the Ministry of Education (See 

,box). With an aim of remaining in good tenns with 

.the state, the Iskender Pasha Convent tends to accommodate 

its Islamic philosophyto secular {lrindples, 

but it does not hesitate to criticize the regune and its 

rules imder required circumstances. 

Nevertheless, its I~lam seems to be reformist, mod- 

, 

'Education 

M ' 

er the March 2,7, 1994 elections 

many people who worried about the 

rther increa:ie in the votes of the 

Welfare Party wamedthe public authorities of 

the danger created by the mformally provided 

,Islamic education, by the Islamieist teachers, 

and by the higher number of imam-hatip 

schools whose graduates were promoting the 

Islamieist cause at universities. They argued 

that all these activities were approved by the 

top bureaucrats. As a response, Nevzat Ayaz 

of the Ministry of Education "dismissed a 

total of 15 bureaucrats (on April20, 1994), 

three from the top level, after consulting and 

obtaining approval from President Süleyman 

, Demirel and Prime Minister Tansu Çiller," 

reported in Turkish Daily News (April 28, 

1994). Ayaz sacked some officials, appointees 

of the former Education Minister, Köksal 

Toptan, on the grounds that they had displayed 

pro-shana behavior and engaged in 

tarikat activities. Moreover, some of these 

officials in the Training and Education Board 

had drawn most criticism for recommending 

pro-sharia publications to state-schools. For 

example, the daily Cumhuriyet gave excerpts 

recommended by the Board. 

"According to one of the excerpts, the New 

Year celebratIon is like a devil' s ball and 

encyclopedias are unnecessary piles of household 

items." (Turkish Daily News, April28, 

1994; report entjtled "Pro-Shariah officials, 

new CriSISwithin DYP"). 

ernist and pluralist, since compromising with the system, 

.and forming a political party and contesting 

electIons are compatible with its Islamic political philosophy. 

This tarikat has a strong support base, but is particul~ly 

influential in tI}ree provinces of the ¥armara 

reglon: Istanbul, izmit and Adapazan; and ln an 

EastellliAnatolian province, !.(ayseri. . 

Thece1TWflts 

While tarikats are historical entities with a cen. 

turies-old Islamic tradition, cemaats are new; as they 

emerged after the establishment. of the Republic. 

Ho~ever, .Cemaats have organic ties with tarikats and 

denve theu fundamentals from the related tarikat For 

~nstance, SüIeymanis (see below) embrace all teachlOgSof 

the Nakhsibandi tarikat. 

The Süleymani cemaat is the product of the partial 

relaxation of secu'duist measures in the early 1950s, . 

where these measures allowed two new Turkish 

brotherhoods to ap~ar, in addition to the 

Nakshibandis, Kadiris and Mevlevis. 

The fust one is the Risala-i Nur of Said Nursi who 

h~d beenadvocating a Sharia regime since the beginrung 

of the 1920s, and the second one is the 

Süleymanis, named after their founder, Süleyman 

Hilmi Tunahan. 

The social function of the 

tarikats has been widened 

with the urbanization and 

industrialization that has 

uprooted manyTurks from 

their traditional communities 

in villages and towns and 

created new social needs. 

The Nurcus 

Among the cemaats, Nurcus are the more established. 

They were founded by Said-i Nursi in the 

early 19205. The. Risala-i Nur was initially more 

influential in the Eastern provinces; today it is said to 

have at least one million followers all over Turkey. 

After Nursi died in March 1960, Nurcus were divIded 

into various groups where each functions as an independent 

Islamic society. Minor differences in Islamic 

world views and political outlooks exist among 

Nurcu groups, but they have not turned into major 

divergences. All except a minority of Nurcus tend to 

work within the system. Nurcushave forged 

alliances with the center-right - the Democratic 

Party-Justice Party-True Path Party - since the early 

1950s. A small ~up of Nurcus preferred to back 

another center-nght party, the Motherland Party, in 

the 1980s. ' 

On the other hand, a radical minority, the Med- 

Zebra group, also éalled Hizb-i Kuran (The Party of 

Q'uran), opposes the present resïme and its rules, and 

thus refuses to employ constitutIOnal methods. There 

is another highly rildical Nurcu group, Aczmendiler, 

.based in Elazig province in Eastern Turkey. 

They have a large numer of supporters organized 

in Istanbul too. Its pqlitical disçol.lrse bas an anti- 

.' 

98


regime and anti-West rhetoric. 

One of the leading Nurcu-o~inated cemaats is the 

Disciples of Fethulläh Gülen (rethu11ah Hocanm 

Taletieleri), which is influential in Istanbul, tzmir, 

Adapazan, Afyon, and Isparta. The Disciples of 

FethUllah Gülen is the most influential pro-Islamicist 

group with a vast network of foundations, private 

schools (for example. there are 35 schools to Turkey 

and more than 200 in the Turkic Republics (See 

Tempo December 28, 1994. No.52, pp.I4-16) and 

one m North Iraq, Kirkuk), and hostels. It has a mod- 

~te Islamic~t approach. Their phil.osophy combmes 

neo-nabonaIism. neo-Ottomarnsm and Nurcu 

thought 

Neo-nationalism is a new sense of ethnicity that 

e~ as Turks watched the reemergence of 

Turkish communities from the Balkans to China and 

nurtured by the events around them. most notably the 

growth of outspoken Kurdish nationalism. Neo- 

Ottomanism is a reevaluation of the Ottoman past 

with a deep respect and feeling of nostalgia, and 

investigating whether the Ottoman model would provide 

any solution to the ~nt problems. Although 

Fethullah Gülen was fonnedy a well-known Nur-âisciJ)le, 

he avoids being identified with the teachings of 

Said-i Nursi who founded the school; whenever lie 

refers to the teachings of Said-i Nursi, Gülen does not 

pronounce the name of Nursi. His reluctance lies in 

the fact that the name Said-i Nursi recalls radicalism 

and the Kurdish cause. 

FethuJJah Hoca 

Due to his cautious approach to sensitive political 

issues and moderation, üiere are rumors among the 

radical Islamicists of Fethullah Hoca' s being an 

"agent" jeopardizing the future of the Islanucist 

movement and of Islam by J)reaching "wrong Islam." 

A number of radical respoooents interviewed in 1992 

(w~n I conducted a survey covering 500 Islamicist 

umversity students) also directed similar criticisms 

~gainst F~thullah Gülen. They accused him of being 

mvolved m a state-sponsored titne (conspiracy) . 

against Muslims to divide them and to alienate them 

fiom politics. 

There is also information showing that Gillen has 

em'ployed a smooth approach to obtain strategic 

pomts in order to carry out Islamicization effectively. 

For instance, reports revealed that the disciples of 

Gülen infiltrated the ~lice schools and military high 

schools with ail aim of capturing future senior posts 

in these institutions. (See note I) . 

Consistent with this mOderate approach, Fethullah 

Hoca has often advised loyalty ana obedience to the 

state, and he even suppressed the anti-state position 

of radical groups. When the youth marched and 

shouted slogans to protest the government before the 

coup of 1980, he stressed that such protests were not 

"Islamic". For example, when there was a nationwide 

boycott in the Higher Islamic Institutes in 1977. 

Fethullah Güleo stated in his preaching thaI "there is 

no boycott in Islam." Likewise, in 1989, Gillen 

seemed to favor the system interests against the 

Islamicists' head-covering cause when thousands of 

females protested the government's decisiou to ban 

the covering. 

He severely criticized the women who marched to 

prçtest ~e ban on wearing the head-covering at the 

umver51tIes. 

Preaching in.lzmir HisarMosque, 

on November 

26,1989, Fethullah Gülen made a statement which 

shocked the majority of Islamicists: "Many women in 

chador who marched on the streets are men disguised 

in female dress or indecent women who never wear 

modest clothes". Later, in February 1995, speaking at 

a fast-opening dinner (during the month of Ramadan), 

Gülen declared that whether a woman covers her 

head or not is a minor question, it is just "a detail". 

This statement again annoyed many Islamicist, and 

radicals accused Gülen of collaborating with the secular 

forces against Islam. 

Fethullahis' political views and understandin~ of 

Islam do not often clash with the "officiallslam '. 

Fethullah's ideas are often in harmony with the official 

views, particularly inperiods of political crisis. 

For exampIé, during the Gulf War, Gülen' s disciples 

sUPllOrtedthe Turkish government's cooperation with 

the Coalition against ~. The newspaper Zaman and 

the periodical SlzmtI, which disseminate Fethullahi 

views, published many articles endorsing the policies 

99

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevpka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti 

pursued during the Gülf Warin 1991, 

The Welfare Partv's victory 

The victory of the ~elfare Party in the March 27 

(1994) localelections has further strengthened the 

confidence gained by the Islamicists. Does this pro- 

Vide greater autonomy to Islamicist groups? Would 

they refuse to accommodate to the rules of the sys- ' 

tern. In orde~ to answer these questions, it is.impor- 

~t to examme. the recent developments in .the relatIons 

between the governments and inoderate 

Islamicist groups like Fethullahis. Fethullah Hoca 

did not seem responsive to Prime Minister ,Çiller 

when she requested his endorsement for the Anti- 

Terrorism Bill in December 1994. The bilI had been 

prepared by the commission some tWo months previ- 

ous, and had been endorsed by the Council of, , 

Ministers. 

' 

. The daily Zaman, like other Islamicist circles, , .. 

strongly oppose~ the bill, arguing th~t it revived the 

now-defunct Arttcle 163 of the Turkish Penal Code 

which banned "Islamicist propaganda".,Although 

there was no diametrical alteration in his attitudes' 

towar~ the ~ill,9ülenpreached moderation and tolerance 

m SOCiallIfe, and accommodation and compromi~t 

in. po!itical. behavior in February 1995, soon 

after ~s meetmg With the prime minister. 

In hiS speeche~, he under~ed the importance of 

openness. to new Ideas and dialogues With foreign cultures, 

This move was seen to be a collaboration with 

the laic system against ~e radicals who oppose to 

accomm~te to th~ regIme and to blend Islam with 

other JlOlitIcal doctrines and foreign elements. (See 

~ote 2) A survey ~ond~cted by Nilüfer Narh, which 

mcluded 500 _ urnvefSlty students from various universities 

in IS,tanbulin 1992, inqicat~dJhat the 

' 

Disciples of Fethullah Gülen has a nationwide influence 

with large numbers of followers among the universi,ty 

s,tudents. Nar:II's survey also showed that their 

pu~lIcatlon, SlzmtI, ISthe most frequently read periodical 

of the Islamicist students interviewed. 

Conclusion 

hI contemporary Turkey tarikats have laraely devi- . 

ated from the traditional path of mystical taSavvuf 

thought and absolute religious devotion in that they 

~ave become more worldly and practical organizatIons. 

' 

, Tarikats and ce.maats are organized in fmancially 

po~erful foundatIons that play important ~litical and ' 

SOCialrole~..They ~ instrumentaI in moollizing people 

for political action. They also function as surrogate 

kinship .networks for those ~ho are' uprooted 

from a traditIonal communal envrronment and lost 

alone in a metropolitan milieu. . 

Notes: 

,(1) For examples of opposition to the anti-terior 

bIll, see, Zaman (November 18, 1994). For the information 

on the meeting of Çiller and Gülen, and developments 

followingtheir meeting, see Sabah 

(December 12, 1994) and Tempo (December 28, 

1994. No.52,pp.J4-16). " 

(2) See Yeni Yüzyll (February 15-17, 1995)loithe 

tension between the radicals and Fethullah GüJen' 

and for the antagonism between the Welfare PanY 

and Gälen .group d~e. to differences in their approaches 

to ce:taIn Islanuc Issues such as head-covering, tolerance 

ID Islam, Islam and state relations. 

' 

Turkey among countries to 

receive Iraq compensation 

The starting date: Compensation money for applicants 

is expected to start flowing as of mid-February 


ANKARA- Turkey is among the countries, 

organizations and individuals that wilI 

start receiving compensation as of the middle 

of .February from the Co~pensations 

Corruwttee ~et up under the Urnted Nations, 

the Anatohan news agency reported on 

Thursday.. . 

The executive secretary of the committee, 

Carlos .Al~ora, was quoted by Anatolia 

as remmdmg a news conference in New 

York on ~hursday that 30 percent of the 

revenue gamed by Iraq from Its food-for-oil 

deal under resolution 986 would be given to 

the committee; , 

. ~ora said money had already started 

flowmg to them from this source and indicated 

that they had come to the point of 

being able to start making payments. 

Turkey estimates its losses as a result of 

the U.N. embargo imposed on Iraq in 1990, 

for invading Kuwait, at anywhere up to $30 

billion. 

The loss is. said by officials to be the 

result of lost transit revenues from the 

pipeline running from Kirkuk in northern 

Iraq to Yumurtahk 'on Turkey's 

Mediterranean coast. The halting of crossborder 

trade through the Habur border gate 

between Turkey and Iraq, is also said to be 

a major contributor to these losses in revenue. 

. 

The money to accrue to the 

Compensations Committee is said to stand 

at around $100 million a month. 


FRIDAY,JANUARY24,I997 

Alzamora said that the number of applications 

to his Committee was in excess of 

'2.6 million, which in money terms represented 

$200 billion in compensation bein$. 

sought by countries, organizations and individuals. 

, He indicated, however. that there could 

be a drop in these figures after a close eval- . 

uation of which applications are admissible 

and which are not. 

Alzamora also indicated that they had 

received applications from over 100 countries 

and that the documentation relating to 

these applications came to more than 28 

million pages. Officials indicate that the 

period for applying to the committee has 

now closed and expect that processing the 

applications by hand will taKe at least five 

years. 

- 

100


Turkish Dairy News 

FRIDAY.JANUARY24,1991 

Government downplays German 

court's controversial comments 

Interior Minister 

Ak~ener says neither 

the Turkish government 

nor Çiller in particular 

were implicated in 

German drug case 


ANKARA- Allegations by a 

German federal judge suggestmg 

the Turkish government, ana 

Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller in 

panicular, were involved in the 

sheltering of international drug 

smugglers dropped like a bom1j:. 

sheWon the Turkish political 

scene, 

Interior Minister Meral 

Ak~ner announced on Thursda)' 

that the government had lookeö 

into the issue thoroughly and 

.found that neither the Turkish 

government nor Çiller had been 

Implicated during the dru~ smuggling 

case, heard in the Frankfun 

Federal Coun. 

Ak~ener said the Interior 

Ministry liaison office in 

Germany had spoken with the. 

prosecutor of case, who stronJI)' 

rejected the suggestion there tiaö 

been anything m the coun proceedings 

involvinl the Turkish 

government. She saId the judge's 

statement was disturbing and 

hideous, 

Thl' minisler annollncC"d thm' 

was very close coo~on and a 

ste:!Jy flow of information 

between German and Turkish 

~curity. agencies o~ the traffickmg 

of Illegal narcObcs. 

On the other hand, members of 

the pro-Islamist Welfare Party 

win!.' of thl' l'ovt'mmenl look a 

firm position behind their coali. 

tion partners. Responding to 

oppoSItion demands for an investIgation 

into the affair, Justice 

Minister ~evket Kazan said it was 

unfair to accuse the government 

of being ignorant of the issue, and 

lhallhl' rOrl'ii'n Mini~trv ;lnll thl' 

Bonn embassy had taken all necessary 

action. 

&evit says German 

accusation based on 

eUler's on statements 

~eteran leftist politician BUlent 

Ecevit said that claims by a 

German judge that True Path 

Pany (DYP) chairwoman Tansu 

Çiller was sanctioning internatIOnal 

narcotics smugglers had 

undoubtedly been induced by 

,some of Çiller's own public statements. 

Speaking at the parliamentary 

group meeting of the Democratic 

Left Party (DSP) onThursday, 

smugglers brought to trial. 

He said the people wanted to 

know if the German coun had been 

contacted by Turkish authorities to 

obtain the relevant documents pertaining 

to the case, and asked the 

Parliamentary commission investigating 

the Susurluk inci~ent to pursue 

tlie allegations. 

The Susurluk commission meeting 

later on Thursday decided to 

look into the German coun's allegations. 

The DSP chairman said the 

Susurluk incident and the unfolding 

events played into the hands of 

those who wanted to mar Turkey's 

reputation and added, "Even if 

Çiller's primary motivation is to 

clear her own name, the duty to 

clear Turkey's name belongs to all 

of us." 

Ecevit remarked that it was whol- 

Undiplomatic remarks by a German Judge against Foreign Minister ~ uniustto indl'ctthe whole country 

Tansu Çiller have caused a storm between Ankara and Bonn ~ 

or t1ieactions of a few, but pointed 

out it was getting harder to defend 

Ecevit said, "if a minister or the slate as more and more security 

politician publicly ponrays nar- officials were proven to be collabocotics 

smugglers, who are also rating with drug traffickers. 

known to be on the state payroll A similar statement came from 

for illegal armed actiVIty, as the main opposition Motherland 

national heroes, then he or she Party (ANAP) on Thursday. 

should be ready to face serious General Secretary Ya~ar Okuyan 

allegations from abroad." said German couns had made tliree 

Referring to Abdullah Cath, other claims during the past year 

the ill-famed right-wing militant indicating that the Turkish governkilled 

in the infamous Susurluk 

'de t Ç'II h d 'd th t II ment was involved in illegal naracCI 

n, I er a saI a a cotics trade. 

those ":00 had fired guns for the "The pertinent documents for 

weil-belOg of,the slate were hon- these claIms must be investigated. If 

orable P,COple. ., the allegations are proved false then 

, F..ceYltdemanded !18 IOvestJga- Turkey must react very strongly, 

tlon IOt.o the clal!"s of tbe and if they are found true then the 

German Judge to see,tf they were government must resign and the 

based on concret~ eVIdence or the female minister in questIon (Çiller) 

unfounded testImony of drul must give up politics." said OkUyan. 

101


Turkish Daily News FRIDAY.JANUARY 24.1991 

editorial 

Why should Bonn 

be apologizing to 

us about Çiller? 

By tlnur 

Çevik 

17th district state court, after sentencing a 

Belgian; an Italian and a Turk to prison 

terms ranging from five to nine years. When 

asked which minister he had been referring 

to, Judge Schwalbe said he had meant 

Foreign Minister Çiller. 

Scl).walbetold the, Germ~ ~ews Agency 

(OPA) that the h~gh'Tuikishgovernment 

links enjoyedby thè smugglers had comé out 

during investigation of the case and that it 

was here that Çiller's name had been mentioned. 

Here wehave to be extremely careful in 

what we say. If the German judge hasbased 

Frankfurt Judge Rolf his remarks about Çiller on sound evidence 

Schwalbe, who on then this is really very damaging, not for 

Tuesday c,onvicted a Turkey but for the foreign minister who is 

, trio of drug smug- also the leader of the True Path Party (DYP). 

Expressing outrage over allegations b..r a glers with li'nks to , A judge' neither in Turkey nor in 

German judge that Deputy PrIme Turkey.Judge Germany, isa representative of the govern- 

Minister and Foreign Minister Tansu Schwalbe told the ment. The justice system is independent and 

Çiller has links with organized drug court that the illegal has to hé treated so. ' " 

smuggling Turkey demanded a formal trade in Turkish We should not make hotheaded stateretraction 

and apologyfrom Bonn.heroin was dominat~' ments 'fired with nationalistic considera- 

It may well be true that a German judge ed by, the Senoglu tions. We should not try to create tensions in 

has violated his, obligations and executed and Baybascin fami- Turkish-German relations but we should 

Tansu Çiller without a trial. Yet, is it right lil:!sinIstanbul. also try to demand justice. If the German 

tohold the Federal Republic of Germany "The families judge did something wrong then we too can 

responsible for the actions of ajudge? ' have excellent links use the judicial means presented in the 

In the past, several court decisio,ns in to the (Turkish) gov- German legal system to take the judge to 

Turkey have outraged our friends in Europe ernment and person- court. 

and thus we have had to tell them that the al con tacts to a If the German judge has made empty 

courts in Turkeyare independent and the (woman) minister," accusations then he will be punished. But 

government cannot interfere in their rulings.said Schwalbe, the this will be according tp the book and not 

Turkey's anger should be directed at head of Frankfurt's dueto our tantrums... ' 

US suggests fourmternatives" to .. . 

~ BOT~ isnotO~y~~~~~~~ boys'Turkey-Iran gas deal 

;f. Turki.th Daily News ' 

~ WASHINGTON - The U.S. Administration is considering four The TON source claims the Administration's opposition to the 

::3 ,alternatives to the Turkish-Iranian natural gas pipeline under con- 'agreement with Iran had not diminished even by one-lola, despile lhe 

~ struction, according to a well-informed TON source in Washington. ,picture of "understandinJ( supposedly projected to Adak behind 

~ These alternatives - thought to be sufficient to meet Turkey's closed doors. The Admmistratlon has reportedly developed the 

ti increasing energy needs - are: 'above four alternatives by way of undercuttIng Tiukish arguments in 

~ ' I) Im ,portfiin more g g~ fromLCNeGntral Asia via ~us3si)a.2) I.mporting support of continuing Iranian rapprochement. 

more Ique l I ed natural gas ( ,) from Algena. Gettmg LNG Iran is one of the countries on the U.S. State Oepartment's list of 

~ from Egypt in accordance with the $2 billion deal signed between "state sponsors of intemationalterrorism" - as is Syria, with whom, 


INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRmUNE, SATURDAY-SUNDAY, JANUARY 25-26,1997 

~Saddam's Son's Wounds 

May Have Paralyzed Him 

600 Seized in Roundups Since Dec. 12Attack 

By Douglas Jehl 

N~w York Tim~s S~rvic~ 

DAMASCUS - More than a montl 

after he was shot in an attempted as 

sassination in Baghdad, the eldest son Of 

President Saddam Hussein still has not 

been pictured standing, and there arc 

suggestions that he may have beCIl 

wounded more seriously than frrst reo 

ported. 

At the same time, a leading Iraqi 

opposition figure said Thursday in Syria 

that a subsequent roundup of suspects ir 

Iraq has resulted in the arrests of about 

600 people, including 20 high-ranking 

military officials. 

The opposition leader, Wafiq Samerai, 

a former Iraqi general and intcl. 

ligence chief, said the blow to the op 

position had been as serious as Iraq' ~ 

penetration in June of a network re 

porting to another opposition group. 

It was the third setback in eighi 

months for opposition groups in Iraq 

Opposition operations in northern Ira(i 

were set back in September when Ira(' 

sent its forces into the Kurdish region. 

UMr. Samerai's account is COHect,j: 

would be significant that the focus Oi 

Iraq' s response to the attack has been or, 

the military leaders and others from t hl" 

Sunni Muslim-dominated central part 

of Iraq that provides the base of support 

for Saddam Hussein. the Iraqi leader. 

In its public statements, Iraq has ap'" 

peared to blame the Shiite Muslim op~ 

ponents of Mr. Saddam for the attack.. 

The Shiites. whose base of operations is 

in neighboring Iran. have claimed respon!libility 

for the Dec. 12 shooting. 

Udai Hussein, 33, has been regarded 

by many as a possible heirto his father 

Gunmen armed with machine guns 

opened fire on him from close range as 

he sat in his Porsche. 

Interviewed several times from his 

hospital bed by Iraqi television, Udai 

Hussein has said that he is recovering. 

although he has disclosed that bullets 

remain lodged in his body. 

In each appearance, the injured Hussein 

has remained sitting in bed, with his 

torso and legs covered. Opposition officials 

who have studied the pictures say 

that he may be have partial paralysis. 

:;:.:~:"'''.::;:...:': .. 

};:>:< -/ 

:.....-., .....: ,,:.,'. 

:~::::;:.:.:: .. ' .. 

::::.:::Karim~~;b/A.e~~~r~e.p.. ... 

BARTERING POINT - Trucks entering Iraq from Turkey on 

Friday carrying smuggled goods and food destined for markets in 

Baghdad. The goods are exchanged for oil, which is taken to Turkey. 

• 2d Group Claims ResponsiLifity 

A littleknown Iraqi opposition group 

calling itselfNahda, or Renaissance, has 

taken responsibility for the assassination 

attempt against Udai Hussein. 

Agence France-Presse reported from 

Dubai. 

A senior Iraqi opposition official in 

London supported a report in Al Hayat, 

an Arabic newspaper hased there, that 

four members of rl1.:, group escaped. 

from lraq toEurope- after th", Loki:..l~~ 

attack in Baghdad against Mr. Hussein. 

The official said Nahda was behind 

the assassination attempt, and not th':" 

Shiite Muslim Ad Da'wa al Islamiya. 

another opposition group that had 

claimed responsibility for the attack. 

"Nahda IS a group of young nation. 

alists of various Sunni and Shiite backgrounds, 

with different political orientations," 

the opposition official said. 

103

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê.Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti, 

-Le Monde - samedi, 25 janvier 1997 -Le Monde - samedi, 25 janvier 1997" 

L'attentat contre le fils aîné de Saddam Hussein 

pourrait relever d'un règlement de comptes familial 

AMMAN 

de notre correspondante Hussein et exécutew-de ses basses 

au Proche-Orient ~œuvres, notanunent au Kurdistan 

Allongé sur son lit d'hôpital, une :et au Koweït, a donné sa fille de 

couverture remontée sur les 'seize ans en mariage à Oudaï. Ceépaules: 

les images d'Oudaï Sad- lui-ci est déjà officiellementmarié à 

'dam Hussein régulièrement diffu- la fillede son oncle et ambassadeur 

sées par la télévision irakienne ne à Genève, Barzan ElTakriti. 

varient pas. L'héritier du président Le deuxième fait plus surprenant 

irakien n'a pas bougé de son lit de- est la réhabilitation des gendres de 

puis l'ättentat dont il a été la ciblele Saddam Hussein, Hussein Kamel 

12 décembre 1996. Atteint d'au Hassan et Saddam Kamel Hassan, 

:moins quatorze balles, dont quatre tués, selon la version officielle,,par 

n'ont pu être retirées, Oudaï a subi des membres de leur tribu, qui vouune 

ablation de la vessie et requiert laient venger leur « trahison ». 

tine greffe osseuse pour reconsti- Homme fort du régime, Hussein 

'tuer des os du bassin pulvérisés. Kamelavait fait défection en Jorda-' 

Deux des balles qui n'ont pu être nie en aoüt 1995,et appelé au« ren~ 

retirées se trouvent à proximité de versement du régime criminel de 

ota colonne vertébrale, ce qui aurait Bagdad ». Dépité du peu d'intérêt 

'conduit les médecins français qui qu'il suscitait quelques mois après 

l'ont examiné à ne pas entre- sa spectaculaire défection, Hussem 

prendre d'intervention chirurgicale, Kamelétait rentré en Irak avec une 

de crainte des conséquences qui incroyable promesse d'amnistie 

peuvent aller de la paralysie à la' en février 1996.Il avait été assassiné 

:mort. 

trois jours après, avec son père et 

Depuis cet attentat immédiate- 'deux de ses frères, lors d'une bament 

annoncé par la télévision ira- taille de rue, présentée par le ré- 

'kienne, contrairement aux cou- gime comme un règlement de 

,tumes du secret qui prévalent à comptes tribal. La télévision ira- 

Bagdad, de nombreuses rumeurs ,kienne avait, quelques heures avant 

courent sur les éventuels auteurs. A les meurtres, annoncé le divorce 

trente-trois ans, Oudaï s'est fait tel- des deux filles du président, ma~ 

lement d'ennemis qu'il est quasi riées à Hussein Kamel et son frère 

impossible de privilégier une quel- Saddam et affirméqu~ellesn'étaient 

conque hypothèse. La thèse, d'un pas au courant de la «traîtrise » de 

:règlement de comptes familial leurs époux. 

:pourrait être renforcée par deux Aujourd'hui, les deux hommes 

faits récents, qui tendent à prouver sont qualifiésde « martyrs» et leurs 

que le clan veut désormais resserrer «épouses» portent le deuil. En 

lesrangs et montrer son unité. compagnie de leur mère, elles reçoivent 

en noir les visiteurs qui se 

R~CONCILIATION , .pressent à l'hôpital pour voir Oudaï. 

En signe d'allégeance renouvelée, Avec son ,frère Kousaï,responsable 

et de sacrifice,compte tenu de l'état des services de sécurité présiden-: 

de santé d'Oudaï, Ali Hassan tiels, Oudaï était le principal instiga-' 

El Ajid, cousin germain de Saddam,teur du meurtre d.~Hussein Kamel 

et de sà famille. Pour sceller, à la 

manière tribale, la réconciliation 

avec cette branche de la famille, 

d'importantes sommes d'argent ont 

été offertes à tous les proche~ 

d'Hussein Kamel, l'acceptation de 

l'argent signifiant la fin de la querelle. 

Le dernier frère en vie d'Hus-, 

sein Kamel,Jamal aurait ainsi touché 

400millionsde dinars. _ 

L'hypothèse d'un attentat politique 

ne peut toutefois pas être 

écartée, Oudaï étant sans doute 

l'homme de la famille le moins dif~ 

ficile à atteindre. Dépravé, obsédé 

sexuel, il avait pris l'habitude d~ 

faire des randonnées solitaires en 

voitur,e de sport, au cours desquelles 

il cherchait une femme. On 

ne compte plus celles qu'il «enle" 

vait» pour le plaisir d'un soir, et 

nombre de jeunes femmes à Bagdad 

avouaient ne pas sortir le soir 

dans certains quartiers, restaurants 

ou boîtes de nuit fréquentées par 

Oudaï. 

EXCENTRICIT~S 

Contrairement à son père ou à: 

son frère, quasi invisibles,Oudaï se 

montrait en public, seul ou en 

compagnie d'amis. Une de ses der-: 

nières excentricités fut de s'offrir. 

depuis quelques mois un jeune 

tigre, qu'il promenait avec lui.Quelques 

semaines avant l'attentat, raconte 

un témoin, Oudaï s'était arrêté 

dans un restaurant de brochettes 

connu du quartier huppé de Mansour, 

là même où il a été blessé, 

:pour acheter cinq kilos de viande 

qu'il avait donnée à dévorer à son 

félin, en pleine rue. Dans un pays 

où ]a viande est devenue un luxe 

inabordable pour l'immense majorit.é 

dE:la.pppulation" ]e fait n'est 

pas passé inaperçu: 

Sur l'attentat lui-même,les seules 

,éertitudes sont qu'il a été commis 

par deux hommes, qui n'ont pu être 

arrêtés par des services de sécurité 

pris au dépourvu. 

': Peut-on relier cet attentat à celui 

p.onta été victime,le 11janvier,l'an- 

,cien'ministredes affairesreligieuses 

:et conseiller présidentiel, Abdallah 

'Fadel Abbas E]Samaraï? Selon de 

,très bonnes sources, Samaraï a été 

tué de soixante ballespar des oppo- 

'sants, qui se seraient vengés du rôle, 

joué par ce dernier dans ]a répression 

des émeutes chiites, qui 

avaient éclaté le 2 mars 1991, la ' 

'veilledu jour de la signature du ces- 

'sez-le-feu de la guerre du Golfe. A 

:cette époque, et pour engager cha- 

'cun des hauts responsables du rée, ' 

gime dans la répression, le pré- 

:sident irakien avait envoyé 'un 

certain nombre d'entre eux dans les 

,régionsconcernées, pour superviser 

]amise au pas sauvage des insurgés. 

i Le palais présidentiel a annoncé, ' 

'Sansautres détails,la mort de Samaraï, 

dans « un accidentfâcheux ». 

Lavictimea toutefois eu droit à des 

obsèques grandioses. Selon une rumeur, 

un autre haut responsable, 

:ancien premier ministre, membre 

'du Conseil du commandement de, 

Ja révolution, Mohammad Hamza 

:ElZoubeidi, aurait récemment 

échappé à une tentative de: 

meurtre. Si !=ette tentative était 

confirmée, il pourrait s'agir du dé-' 

:but d'une vague d'attentats contre 

iles hauts dignitaires d'un régime 

honni, que l'attentat contre Oudaï 

;auraitinaugurée. 

Françoise Chipaux 

104


/\.l'.P.- Agencl' France Presse-;\T.P.- Agence Fr,1I1cePresse-i\.LP.- Agence Fr,1I1cl' Presse 

Turquie-UE : Ciller rencontrera cinq ministres européens à Rome 

ANKARA, 24 jan (AFP) - Le ministre turque des Affaires étrangères, Tansu Ciller, rencontrera cinq de ses 

homologues européens mercredi à Rome en vue d'améliorer les relations entre la Turquie et l'UE, a-t-on appris' 

vendredi de source diplomatique. 

Mme Ciller s'entretiendra avec les ministres des Affaires étrangères Klaus Kinkel (Allemagne), Malcolm Rifkind 

(Grande-Bretagne), Hervé de Charette (France), Lamberto Dini (Italie) et Abel Matutes (Espagne). 

Lors de cette réunion, les six ministres aborderont notamment le problème de l'application de l'accord d'union 

douanière entre l'UE et la Turquie, la récente crise des missiles avec Chypre et les projets d'expansion de l'UE. 

L'accord d'union douanière est entré en vigueur en janvier 1996. En raison du veto de la Grèce, la Turquie n'a 

cependant pas reçu l'aide européenne promise de plusieurs centaines de millions de dollars. 

A Rome, Mme Ciller va demander aux cinq ministres de trouver une solution pour éviter l'obstruction de la Grèce au 

versement de cette aide destinée à compenser en partie les pertes de la Turquie, dues à la levée des barrières 

commerciales, selon la même source. 

ue/nevef 


A.FP.- Agence Francl' Presse-A.F.P.- Agence Fr,1I1Cl'Presse-Â.F.P.- Agence France PreSSl' 

Chypre-USA-Turquie : Washington niest pas disposé à donner des garanties de sécurité à 

Chypre 

NICOSIE, 24 jan (AFP) - Les Etats-Unis ne sont pas disposés à donner des garanties de sécurité à Chypre, 

comme le lui ont suggéré Athènes et Nicosie, et préfèrent se consacrer aux efforts d'un règlement politique dans I7le, a 

déclaré vendredi l'ambassadeur américain i:I Nicosie 

"Ce n'est pas une chose que nous faisons traditionnellement et je ne vois pas cela arriver maintenant", a dit M. 

Kenneth Brill à l'issue d'un entretien avec le président chypnote Glafcos Cléndès, selon l'agence chypriote CNA. 

Les Etats-Unis "ne donnent pas de telles garanties à des pays tiers, hors du cadre de ses alliances", et NIcosie' na 

pas proposé sérieusement l'idée de telles garanties" contre l'usage de la force par la Turquie contre I7le dont elle 

occupe le norri depuis 1974 a indiqué M Brill 

"Nous préférons nous concentrer et être actifs dans le processus positif de promouvoir une solution. mais il faut 

cl'r:lborri surmonter les tpnC:lons" a-t-il ajouté 

Le problème de Chypre est "fondamentalement un problème politique qui ne peut être résolu militairement, mais par 

des négOCiations" a dit M Brill . . .' , . " . 

La récente décision de Nicosie d'acheter des miSSiles russes qUi seront livres dans 16 mOIS, nous a ramenes dans 

le sens opposé à l'objectif' recherché d'une solution pour laquelle Washington s'est engagé à fournir en 1997 "un grand 

effort" a-t-il pstimé 

le chef de la diplomatie grecque Théodore Pangalos avait souhaité jeudi que les Etats-Unis "s'engagent à garantir" la 

c:prurité rie C,",vpre SI relle.ri rennnç élit à déployer des missiles russes S-300 sur son sol 

Selon lui, le moratoire proposé par Washington sur le survol de Chypre par les avions grecs et turcs "ne permet pas 

de résoudre le problème créé par les violations turques des résolutions de l'ONU et du droit international" 

Le porte-parole du gouvernement chypriote Yannakis Cassoulidis avait réitéré mercredi le rejet du moratoire et 

réaffirmé que Nicosie se réservait le droit de suspendre unilatéralement le survol des avions grecs, pour favoriser des 

progrès une fois le processus politique lanré 

Selon M. Cassoulidis, "une garantie américaine de la sécurité de la zone libre de Chypre et de la sécurité des 

Chypriotes-turcs, favorisant le départ des troupes d'Ankara, rendrait le moratoire acceptable et l'achat des armes 

inutile" 

ea/sb 


105


A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.r.- 

Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

Turquie-Drogue: 

Lourdes accusations contre la Turquie d'un haut responsable britannique 

ANKARA, 26 JAN (AFP) - Le vice-ministre britannique de l'Intérieur, Tom Sackville, assure que certains membres 

du gouvernement turc et de la police sont impliqués dans le trafic de drogue à destination de son pays. 

Dans un interwiew à la chaine de télévision privée turque Interstar, qui doit être diffusée dimanche soir et dont le texte 

a été obtenu par l'AFP, M. Sackville affirme que des informations qu'il avaient transmises aux autorités turques sur 

des opérations secrètes contre le trafic de drogue avaient été transmises aux trafiquants. 

Il existe de "graves problèmes" dans la coopération entre la Grande-Bretagne et la Turquie dans le domaine de la 

lutte contre le trafic de drogue, selon M. Sackville. 

"Nous avons des doutes sérieux sur les informations que les autorités turques nous accordent, nous ne sommes pas 

sûrs de leurs crédibilité" a-t-il ajouté. 

Il a déclaré que 80% de l'héroïne saisie en Grande-Bretagne provenait de la Turquie. 

"Si ça continue comme ça, la position internationale de la Turquie sera détériorée, il faut que la Turquie noUs démontre 

qu'elle fait quelque chose dans le domaine de la (lutte contre la) drogue", a-t-il déclaré. 

Par ailleùrs le quotidien turc Hurriyet a cité dimanche un haut responsable de l'Observatoire Géopolitique des 

.Drogues basé à Paris, qui accuse les services secrets turcs de financer la lutte contre les rebelles kurdes par l'argent 

de la drogue. 

"La drogue issue de la Turquie traverse les Balkans et, comme une nouvelle voie, le Caucase pour être acheminée 

à l'Europe. Si ce trafic n'est pas soutenu par certains milieux, comment pourrait-il se faire ?" a demandé ce 

responsable demandant l'anonymat. 

La Turquie a dénoncé mercredi les accusations portées par des magistrats allemands selon lesquelles l'Etat turc, et 

en particulier le ministre des Affaires étrangères Tansu Ciller, couvre le trafic d'héroïne en provenance de Turquie et à 

destination de l'Europe. 

Un magistrat de Francfort, Rolf Schwalbe, a affirmé mardi que l'existence de liens étroits entre les trafiquants et le 

gouvernement ture était établie. 

KG/mm tf 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence Frànce Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

A.F.P.- Agence Fronce Presse-A.F.P.- Agence Fronce Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

Turquie-drogue: 

Trafic de drogue: Ankara rejette les accusations britanniques 

ANKARA, 26 jan (AFP) - Ankara a vivement réagi dimanche soir à des accusations d'un vice-ministre britannique et 

d'un organisme international selon lesquels l'Etat turc était impliqué dans un trafic de drogue à destination de l'Europe. 

"La Turquie demande que des preuves concrètes soient présentées et rejette les affirmations sans fondement visant à 

mettre notre pays sous soupçon. Le faitque la Turquie soit accusée de telle façon générale est inadmissible", indiquait 

un communiqué du ministère turc des Affaires étrangères parvenu à l'AFP. 

Le vice-ministre britannique de l'Intérieur Tom Sackville a affirmé que certains membres du gouvernement turc et de 

la police sont impliqués dans le trafic de drogue à destination de la Grande Bretagne. 

Dans une interwiew à la chaine de télévision privée turque Interstar, qui devait être diffusée dimanche soir et dont une 

partie du texte ~ été cité par un journal turc, il affirmait que des informations transmises aux autorités turques sur des 

106


opérations secrètes contre le trafic de drogue avaient été passées aux trafiquants. 

"Nous avons des doutes sérieux sur les informations que les autorités turques nous accordent, nous ne sommes pas 

sûrs de leurs crédibilité", a estimé le responsable britannique. 

Par ailleurs, le quotidien turc Hurriyet a cité dimanche un haut responsable de l'Observatoire Géopolitique des 

Drogues, basé à Paris, qui accuse les services secrets turcs de financer la lutte contre les rebelles kurdes par l'argent 

de la drogue. 

Le ministère turc des Affaires étrangères a ajouté dans son communiqué que "notre réaction a été exprimée et des 

démarches nécessaires ont été faites à Ankara concernant les affirmations d'origine britannique et française et la 

présentation dans l'immédiat (à l'Etat turc) des preuves qu'ils disposent, a été demandée". 

La Turquie, qui agit en "coopération intense avec les autres pays dans la lutte contre le trafic de drogue", est "toujours 

prête à enquêter par les voies légales sur toutes les affirmations, dans le cadre de ses résponsabilités internationales", 

a précisé le communiqué turc . 

. Une première accusation contre la Turquie avait été lancée mardi par des magistrats allemands selon lesquels l'Etat 

turc, et en particulier le ministre des Affaires étrangères Tansu Ciller, couvrait un trafic d'héroïne en provenance de 

Turquie et à destination de l'Europe. 

Le magistrat de Francfort, Rolf Schwalbe, avait affirmé que l'existence de liens étroits entre les trafiquants et le 

gouvernement turc était établie. Ankara avait vivement protesté contre ces propos. 

KG/es tf 


,\.F.P.- Agl'llcL' FI\1IlCL'Prl'ssl'-J\.t:.P.- Agl'l1ll' hdl1ll' l'rl'SSl'-,\.1 .1'.- Agl'l1ll' Frdl1ll' l'rl'ssl' 

Irak-GB-Turquie: l'Irak critique la GB pour avoir dépêché des diplomates dans le nord 

BAGDAD, 26 jan (AFP) - L'Irak a critiqué dimanche la Grande-Bretagne pour avoir envoyé dans le Kurdistan des 

diplomates de son ambassade à Ankara et reproché à la Turquie d'avoir autorisé leur passsage en territoire irakien. 

"Nous dénonçons l'attitude de la Grande-Bretagne qui a envoyé ses diplomates dans la région de Salaheddine et 

d'Erbil et nous considérons cet acte comme une violation de notre souveraineté", a affirmé le quotidien As-Saoura, 

organe du parti Baas au pouvoir en Irak. 

De même, "nous faisons assumer à la Turquie la responsabilité d'avoir autorisé les diplomates à passer la frontière, 

sans le feu vert du gouvernement irakien", a ajouté le journal. 

"II n'est pas du droit de la Grande-Bretagne, ni d'aucun autre pays d'empiéter sur la souveraineté de l'Irak sur 

l'ensemble de son territoire", a poursuivi le journal. 

Le Kurdistan irakien (nord) échappe au contrôle du pouvoir central depuis 1991, mais l'Irak a repris pied fin août dans 

une partie des zones kurdes en aidant une faction kurde contre une autre dans les combats qui les opposaient. 

Le Congrès national irakien (CNI), une coalition de l'opposition irakienne basée à Londres, avait annoncé qu'une 

délégation de l'ambassade britannique à Ankara s'était rendue le 19 janvier au Kurdistan. 

La délégation, qui s'était rendue dans les villes d'Erbil, contrôlée par le Parti Démocratique du Kurdistan (PDK de 

Massoud Barzani) et de Souleimanieh, fief de l'Union Patriotique du Kurdistan (UPK de Jalal Talabani), avait 

rencontré des responsables kurdes et d'autres du CNI. 

fch-hyatltp 


107


A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence FraIlce Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

Turquie-Israël : David Levy probablement en Turquie en février 

ANKARA, 26 jan (AFP) - Le ministre israëlien des Affaires étrangères, David Levy, est attendu "trés probablement" 

en février à Ankara, à l'invitation de son homologue turc Mme Tansu Ciller, a rapporté dimanche l'agence Anatolie, 

sans préciser de dates. 

Cette visite, qui est en état de s'organiser selon l'agence, serait une première visite en Turquie d'un ministre israélien 

depuis l'arrivée au pouvoir en juillet à Ankara du premier ministre Necmettin Erbakan, du Parti de la Prospérité 

(Refah, islamiste). 

Le Premier ministre israélien Benjamin Netanyahu s'était dit très content jeudi de la façon dont se développaient les 

relations avec le gouvemement turc. "Malgré nos précédentes inquiétudes, nous sommes maintenant très contents de 

nos relations avec le gouvernement Erbakan", a dit M. Netanyahu dans une interview au quotidien Milliyet, publié à 

Istanbul. 

KG/pub t 

" 


r-INTERNATIONAL 

HERALD TRIBUNE, 

MONDAY,JANUARY27,1997 ---rf 

.1"....TU'.kcyFu!llts 

GermunJI~die>'1 

ANKARA ~ Turkey said over the weekend that it 

would sue a Germanjudge who accused F~reign Minister 

Tansu Ciller and other cabinet members of protecting 

heroin smugglers. unless he apologizes or releases evidence 

supporting his claim. 

A Frankfurt trial judge, Rolf Schwalbe, had~aid I 

Tuesday that heroin traffic between Turkey and .Western ' 

Europe was controlled by two Istanbul families that héld 

'excellent relations" with the Turkish government and 

"personal contacts ", with Mrs. Ciller, a former prime 

'minister.' . (AFP) 

---- 

e • • .. 

Turkish Daily News MONDAY,JANUARY27.1997 

y~ar Kemal receives 

Nonino Literature Award 


ANKARA- Turkish writer Y~ar Kemal has been awarded 

the international "Nonino Literature Award" in Udine, 

Italy, the Anatolia news agency reported over the weekend. 

. The 74-year-old writer was described as "the master of 

. Turkish literature, an astounding writer and human being," 

as the.award was presented. . 

In his acceptance speech Kemal said, "To write is somethin¥ 

very humane, it is also a work of art. It is to create 

one s own personal style. Although my master was 

Stendhal, I feel that I am closer to CheKhov and Faulkner. If 

Homerwas living in this century. he would have written 

like Faulkner." , 

Awards were also presented to Luca Cavalli Sforza for 

the best Italian writer and Polish writer Lezleck 

Kolakowski who was honored as the "Contemporary 

.Master." . 

News of Kemal's award received wide coverage by the 

Italian media, in both the cultural pages of newspapers and 

on radio. In an article published in the paper Corriere Della 

Sera, Kemal was portrayed as "a genuine epic writer. He is 

able to look deep into his soul, baring all its grief and 

humor. He manages to fight tragedy, emphasize unfairness, 

,yet always retain an adventurous Sptrit." 

108

.urkey, 

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivi~ta Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti 

Turkey slams 

drug charges 

from the West 

The Paris-based Geopolitical Narcotics Monitor 

claimed drug smugglers enjoyed protection by the 

highest authorities in Turkey, and British Assistant 

Home Secretary Tom Sackville said many narcotics 

operations had failed because of Turkish leaks 


Turkish Dailv Ne ....s 

ANKARA- The Foreign Ministry on Sunday 

reacted harshly to proliferating allegations of highlevel 

involvement in illicit drug operations, seeing it 

as an orchestrated campaign to undennine Turkey's 

developing ties with Europe. 

The strongly-worded statement followed Sunday's 

press reJ?Ortsquoting British and French officials as 

~oining m the allegations, first aired by a German 

Judge, targeting the Turkish government 

The statement said necessary representations were 

made in Ankara and Turkey's displeasure was made 

known together with a request for the speedy delivery 

of whatever information and evidence they claim 

to have. 

"It is noteworthy that such claims lacking any documentary 

proof are made through the press and certain 

institutions instead of bemg conveyed to the 

Turkish government in the framework of the international 

coo.Pc:rationagainst narcotic smuggling," the 

foreign mmistry complained. 

The statement said it was regrettable that some 

European countries ignored Turkey's constant warnings 

that the drug smuggling was a chief source of 

income for the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party 

iPKK) terrorists, and instead of banning a PKK-run 

TV station (MED-TV), broadcastin o from their soil 

and financed by drug money, were directing accusations 

against Turkey. 

"Turkey is demanding to be 

shown concrete evidence and is 

rejecting all unfounded allegations 

lacking such proof. The airing of 

such generalized accusations 

al!ainst our country is unacceptaDle,"said 

the ministry statement 

The official anger was vented at 

the incriminating reports from 

Britain and France which followed 

allegations by German Judge Rolf 

Schwalbe in the Frankfurt State 

Court that Foreign Minister Tansu 

Çiller was in ~onaI contact with 

Iénown TurkIsh drug smuggling 

families. The Paris-oased 

Geopolitical Narcotics Monitor 

has claimed that drug smugglers 

enjoy protection by the hlgl1est 

authonties in Turlœy, and British 

Assistant Horne Secretary Torn 

Sackville has said many narcotics 

operations had failed because of 

Twiarty (PKK). This is 

known in Europe. A large narcotics 

network has been uncovered, 

this is such a large network 

that evervone is involved in it one 

way or me other," he added. 

Turkish Dailv News IlJESJ>AY,JANIJARY 2K.Il)l)7 

Black money blackens image 

T 

not boasting of the best of images because of its human rights 

record, is fast taking on a lasting reputation as a hoven for death squtl/1s, 

rogue security ojJicials and corrupt politü:üms. The country is rocked nearly 

every day with new episodes in a poliJü:al scandtzl revolving aroundlinks 

between politicians, terrorists and underworld bosses. The investigations, defying 

efforts of cover up show thot ojJicials have liberally employed fugitive terrorists for 

the "eÜ1nirultion" of "stßte's enemies" in returnfor which the crime bosses and their 

terrorist parlners were given a more or less free hand for drug traJJicking. The links, 

in recent days, caused accusations from politicians and officials of Turkey's 

European allies targeting the Turkish government ministers. 

109

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentrode la Prensa-Baszn Özeti 

Since the black money, the proceeds from drugs or arms smuggling, or other 

fraudule!Ü expom,/uel the scandalous dealings, TDN is publishing a two-part comprehenSIve 

analysIS of the money laundering techniques and the practises taken 

from the in depth economic quarterly, EKONOM, with the publishers' permis~ion. 

Part -I- 

By Cahit Uyamk 

In the Oscar-winning movie "Ghost" the 

good-looking actor returned from the other 

~orld to save his pretty wife from an avari. 

ClOUSbanker who was laundering black 

money. The movi.e had a ha'ppy ending bat 

the black money Issue remams as potent as. 

ever. Money laundenng is a new type of crime. 

which the world began to take notice of after 1980 

and which has even found its way into movie 

scripts. However, this crime is not beIng committed 

. using firearms but with computer keyboards, 

modems, the Internet and smart cards. The seeds of 

mo~ey laundering were sown with the unbelievably 

rapId 4evelopmen! of computer communications and 

finanCIal transactions technology. From then on it 

sp'read to. all economies large and small with the 

WInds.of liberal exchange and bloomed to its current 

~agm~de. Black money has reached horrifying 

dimen.stOns t?daY. According to If l!.~. senator interested 

m the Issue, between $500 billion and $1 trillion 

wo~. of black money is being laundered annually. 

This IS merely the black money which is laundered 

- the amount of black money which is not 

laundered cannot even be estimated. The United 

.States, with the world's most liberal economic and 

banking legislation, is the co~ntry with the greatest 

black money prbblem. Beneath the surface of this 

phenomenon lies the huge drugs trade. An estimated 

~7 million Americans regularly use some type of 

Illegal drug. This drug money is being funneled into 

legäI sec~ors through a variety of ingenious methods. 

Laundermg amounts to between $300 and $500 bil-. 

lion per year in the United States. This amount has 

been officially stated by the Federal Reserve (the 

"Fed"). 

An amountwhich scares even the Fed 

An?ther number the Fed artIculates IS even more 

shocking. The total net assets of U.S. banks are cal. 

. culated to be approximately $4.2 trillion. This means 

tha~ around ten percent of the money entering the 

regIstered and legal sectors is black money.The 

.amount of black mo~ey laundered in the world 

ev~ry year - $500 bIllion by the most optimistic 

estlma~s - c~ be put ~nto perspective with Certain 

compansons 10 Jean ZIegler's book "Switzerland 

Launders It Better." Laundered black money equals 

the U.S ..defense bu~get and is enough to finance the 

yearly oil consumption of all Western countries. 

When we want to find out where all this black 

money ~o~es f'ro~\ we alway~ come across larges~ale 

cnmm~ actiVIty. The nsmg wave of internatIOnal 

terror IS always backed by the narcotics trade 

Drug trade whic~ used to be in the hands of margin~ 

al m~a gt;oup~ IS.now co~centrated in the handS of 

terronst organIzations. T.his hig~y erofitable trade 

makes small terror groups grow 10 SIze and get out 

o~ control. Accordmg to research by the General 

DIrectorat~ of Secunty, 10,250 kilos of heroin, 

573,.000 kIlos of hashish and 126,000 kilos of 

c~ame we~ erOdu~ed in 1994 alone. Arms smuggling, 

ProstItution, kidnapping,extortion, counterfeIt 

docuin~nts and industrial espionage can all be added 

~othe list ~f black money sectors. The agency which 

.1Sreinslble for the coordination of the internationalfi 

t against laundering, the FATF, said this to 

EK OM: "It is hard to come up with a aggregate 

figure for laundered money. Experts say that any 

figure cannot be more than an estimate based on te 

sCIence of .statistics. ~at~v~r the exact figure may 

be, the esumates show It IS 10 the hundreds of billions 

of dollars. However, we do not have a definitive 

fi~ nor do we have the distribution according 

to regIons and countries." . 

Laundering on the Internet 

A multitude of methods has been devised to launder 

the hundreds of billions worth of black money. 

The most negative aspect is that launderers make use 

of state-~f-tbe-art computer and communications 

technolOgIes. No matter bow successfully authorities 

try to patch up the holes, a definitive conclusion 

cannot be reacl1ed. For instance, transactions over 

the Internet and with smart cards cannot be controll~. 

and registe~ in any way. The reporting of. 

SUSpICI~US transactIons over $10,000 to authorities, . 

which IS seen as a must by most countries in the 

fight a~ainst laundering, therefore cannot be very 

effectIve. According to the U.S. Treasury 

Department's Fmancial Crimes Department, l'rofessionallaunderers 

change their computer software 

every three months to avoid being traced. Experts 

are trying to find a way of controlling computer and 

card transactions without infringing upon the right to 

pnvacy. The most state-of-the-art method for laun. 

dering is through the Internet and by using smart 

cards. Then what.are the classical techniques? The 

~all Street Journal explains: ''The narcotics deaier 

gIves a $20,000 check: to a check collector friend 

working for any organization. It is normal for a 

check collector to carry largeamounts of cash and to 

go to banks many times during the day. Hence this 

black money can easily enter the legal sector. The 

drug dealer gets $16,000 for his check while the 

check collector gets the remaining $4,000. Then the 

drug dealer transfers the postal check to a previously 

o~ned 

account in an offshore bank. Amounts up to 

$~(\ million can he laundered this wav. An vou nred 

.to


comply with the commitments we 

have made in negotiations with 

Turkey ...r m always in favor of 

th~t. When itcomes to enlargement, 

It IS not on the agenda now, What is 

on the agen~ is to carry out the 

customs urnonagreement that 

would give rise to much more coop- ',1'" 'use De .. 

eration fi the economic field !" ~ca urk nmark has declaed 

between Turkeyand the EU," to take.T. ey ~othe HUJ?1anRights 

CommisSIonWiththe claIm that a 

-Danish citizen was tortured in 

Petersen: '1 wish it could 

have been othenviJe, 

but it couldn 't.' 

Walkingaround in 

Denmark,,0U see a poster 

on,some0 the walls: A 

Kurd with!liS,typicalface and big 

black eyes.thICKmustache and 

three-day beard. The poster 

describes the manas a Kurdish 

refugee fromTurkey and says, "ln 

!lis counll)' theyallow torture. What 

are we gOllIgto do about it?" 

This postermightbe a little bit 

old. Nowadaysit is unnecessary to 

ask "Whatare Wegoing to do about 

Turkey. 

This matter involves Kemal 

Koç, a naturalized Danish citizen 

of Kurdish origin from 

Turkey, who was detained 

when he tried to enter Turkey 

on July 8 to attend the funeral 

of bis brother. He was officially 

arrested the next day on 

charges of attending pro-PKK 

rallies in Denmark and 

Germ!lßy.an~ for h~lping the 

orgaruzatlon 10 vanous ways. 

Koç, who was finally 

released on Aug. 15 and 

~Io~ed ~otravel home pendlOgbis 

tnal, alleged, wliile in 

Turkey and once back in 

Denmark, that he had been tortured 

by the Turkish police. 

Six months after bis arrest, 

Denmark decided to take 

Turkey. to.the Hum.an Rights 

C~~sslon. ,!urkish Foreign 

M.lrus~ ~fficlals think that 

this decISIon of Denmark's is 

totally related to Danish intern~ 

politics. The Danish budget passed Parliament 

~Itli the help of ':Unity list" members who are draw- 

109 ~ lot of attentIon to the Kemal Koç issue, So the 

DanIsh government. in order to pay its debt to the 

"unity lIst," decided to take Turkey to the Human 

Rights Commission, But for Petersen they ha\'e 

o.ther reasons and he also confessed that this decisIOnwas 

a very unusual case, 

"It is important to understand that in Denmark, 

currently a member of the U.N. Human Watch 

COJ?1mÏssionin Geneva, we have made the fil!ht 

agamst torture one of our priorities. This is abigh 

priority in Denmark not only the case of Turkey but 

m.all other countries as well, so we are tryinl! also in 

this case to, so to speak, extend the boundanes in 

cases of tOrture.,It.IS an unusual step to take but we 

are ready and wlllin~ to take unusual steps in the 

fight against torture. ' 

Ankara also views this case as very unusual but 

stresses that it will review its relations with 

Denmark. But for Copenhagen this is not the case: 

Denmark will try for continued cooperation with . 

Turkey. 

"We w~sh to see T~ey as an active participant 

and working together With the EU economically and 

politically. We won't stand in the way of such cooperation," 

the Danish foreign minister said. 

On the other hand, according to Danish newspapers, 

Petersen has said in the Danish Parliament that 

they were afraid that Koç would be killed because in 

England an individual who took Turkey to the commission 

died in mysterious circumstances. When the 

TDN asked about this, the Danish foreign minister 

did not deny it and added: 

'There has been one case where an individual 

took a case be~ore the H~an ~ghts Commission 

and was l~ter, 10 mystenous crrcumstances, liquidated, 

This was a case where the person in question 

had accused Turkey of using torture, Now that is 

also a very unusual case." 

Another debate about the Koç case in Denmark 

concerns whether it will be won or lost and what 

will happen if it is lost. Petersen himself seems to 

have some doubts about the outcome, 

'The Human Rights Commission will establish 

the facts of the matter. If after looking into the case 

they reach the conclusion that the facts of the matter 

do not substanti~te Mr. Koç's claim to have been 

tortured. theX ~Ill ~ome out and say so. But the aim 

of the comrrusslOn ISto establish the facts. After 

that, ,they will reach a judgment, so I feel that this is 

the nght way to go about things," Petersen said. 

He also added that there was a time limit of six 

months for the app.lication to the commission. 

Denmark had applied to the commission just one 

dar. before the urne limit expired. 

'It would have been more convenient for us to 

wait until bis case was fmally tried but we were 

af~aid that would have cut off the possibility of 

gomg to the ~uman Rights Commission. I wish it 

could been different," Petersen said 

After the Danish decision Turkish Foreim 

Ministry off1cials pointed o~t that this is D;nmark's 

term as preSident of the Organization for Security 

and C~pe~tion on Europe (OSCE) and are afraid 

of Darush blas ..Petersen denied it. 

"We have .to be fair to all members of the OSCE 

and we ~ertainly try to be.... OSCE principles have 

t~ do Wlth democracy,. with respect for human . 

nghts, and we are not 10 contradiction with the basIC 

pnnciples of the OSCE." 

ln reply to a ques~on about Cyprus and the 

OSCE. Petersen sai~ that Cyprus was mostly the 

111

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê.,Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Bastn Özeti 

department set up to fight against smuggling and 

organized crinùmil actiVIties, crime tdicates have 

been laundering illegal money throu more sophisticated 

and less susp1cious ways, suc as: 

"Establishing phon)' companies, using false 

receipts, receiving.loans from alocal bank branc~ by 

showing a certam amount of money deposlled 

abroad as guarante~, ope~ating g~bling bou,ses, 

betting on horse-racmg, usm~ Credit cardS. rece1Ved 

from the tax-exempt countnes, purchasmg lll!ge 

buildings and properties with cash, smugghng 

money abroad, investing money in stock market 

shares or government bonds, benefiting from the liberalized 

banking serviees in free-trade zones, ,establishing 

tourist agencies and transferring the money 

through travelers cheques, making enormous purchases 

of assets besides real estate. 

Most of the methods mentioned in the above list 

had even been used before the dazzling effects of the 

tatest technological developments emerged. Money 

laundering used to be considered as an "internal 

matter" while the world's economies and banking 

systems we~ separated by b~ers. But th~ pr~blem 

gained a umversal aspect W1ththe globalization of 

the economy. The money launderers started to u~e 

international banking systems more fre'luently m, 

order to avoid prosecution by the authorities of the, 

country where the money was laundered. The cost of 

hiding the money,within the sophisticated financial. 

systems was found ~obe much lo:-verthan estab~shin.gphony 

,c"onw.anl~.~.Qrprep3f1ng fabuec.~lp~, 

This method âlso.savedmor~ 'Qme for the money 

launderers. 

FATF: A special organization " 

to fight money laundering, . 

, The global problem of money laundenng has 

brought the need to include all countries in the world 

into the struggle against that illegal activity. "The: 

United Nations Convention on the Prevention of the 

Smugglin~ of Narcotics and Psychotropic 

Substances initiated on Dee. 19, 1988was the first 

to serve such intentions. A declaration of principles 

issued in Dec. 1988 by the "Basle Committee" 

which is controlled by the central banks of Belgium, 

Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the' 

Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United 

Kingdom, the United States and Luxembourg, specified 

the standard procedures of the fight against 

money laundering. The G-7 countries who noticed 

that 1l1egal money started controlling their 

economies formed the Financial Act Task Force 

(FATF) in July 1987 to reform the financial system 

and standardize the procedures against money laundering. 

' 

Later on, the FA TF was joined by the OECD 

countries, including Austria, Australia, Belgium, 

Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, 

Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New 

Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, 

Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. Additionally, the, 

Europ~an Commissio~ an~ the Gulf Coope!a~on, 

Council were also admitted mto the FATF, bnngmg 

the number of the members to 28. FATF, whicb is: 

based in Paris, releases a report every year on the 

latest international developments in money laundering 

and the struggle against it. 

Differing definitions 

of money laundering 

Several years ago, FATF defined a number of 

SU$g~stions for the. prevention of money laundering 

withm the finanCIal system. Money laundering 

.seems impossible if all these recommendations are 

complied \vith. Many countries exercise them !"ithin 

their own fmancial regulations and commurnques .. 

'The power of these regulations is boosted as ~ey 

become law. This is wliy the FATF has been trymg 

to persuade the member countries to pass a law on 

the prevention of money laundering, evensometimes 

forcing them to do so. . 

But the problem does 'not re~a}n ther~ .. ~o~e 

countries include a number of cnmmal acbvIbes ID 

the term "illegal moneY."while ot!te~ define i.t~ ~,e 

"gain from every klDd of cnmlDal actlVlty . 

Denmark and the Netherlands make the lar~t definition 

of money laundering while other FATF members 

such. as Spain and Portugal only include the 

money earned fr~~ t~e illegal, drug tr~~e. In 

Switzerland, authonties mclude cnmes reqUInng at 

least one year of imprisonment. The money earned 

from drug smu~ling, robbery, mugging, aild ransom-kidnapping 

1Sconsidered illegal in Italy, and 

the definition varies according to every membercountry. 

. . 

Although the definition of illegal money vanes m 

every' country, som,e countries have started to 

enlarge their definitions gradually. 11Ï. 1990 the EU 

members accepled LhelllaJequCl.:y ot l1ffilling Ihe 

definition of illegal money to the profitS earned from 

the drug trade. As a result, the ministerial committee 

of the Euro~ Council ~ad ap~r~ved .a convention 

on the laundermg, searching, se1zmgand confiscat-. 

ingof illegal earnings in the same year. In the next 

year, the European Parliame~t passed the law on the. 

prevention of money laundenng. 

. Boost in notification of 

'suspicious transactions' 

These days, money laundering attempts in a 

FATF-member country require a lot of courage. In 

the FATF-member EU countries, every financial 

transaction above ECU .15,000 must be tightly controlled. 

Bank officials have the right to notify the 

police about "suspicious-looking" customers. 

According to the weekly Economist, only in Britain 

which is a member to both the EU and the FATF, 

;wasthere an enormous increase in the notification of 

suspicious transactions after the laws on money 

laundering were tightened. Between 1987 and 1988, 

onlyabout 1,000 transactions were noted, while this 

number rose to 5,000 in 1991, and to 14,000 in 

1992. , 

, According to U.S. Treasury Departrnentdata, the 

reports on foreign currency transactions rose from 

1.3 million in 1986 to 12 million in 1996. Every 

transaction exceeding $10,000 in the U.S. is ,investigated. 

In the same country, a law passed 10 1994, 

brought tight control on all comparues except those 

int:he'fmancial sector. When the international travel 

cheques were included into this practice for instance, 

American Express and Western Union which played 

a ~ role in money laundering, hit hard times. In 

Bntain, authorities brought tight measures to bear on 

accountants, lawyers and professional counselors 

involved in money laundering. 

After facing these strict precautions in the FATF 

member countries, the money launderers started to 

prefer countries with fewer legal and fmancial mea.! 

sures aBainst that activity, which are usually the 

countnes aiming to find economic prosperity! 

through the "offshore banking" system. Offshore' 

bankiilg is usually preferred by the countries which 

./Ife likely to have very limited economic resources,: 

such as the Seychelles, Macau, Guernsey, the 

Cayman ISlands, southern Cyprus, Dutch Antilles,: 

Antigua, Barbad0s.~dAruba . 

-1 

112


dä1ly news 

Tuetday, JanlW)' 28, 1997 

Turh]: The latest 

rn 

1- 

.~ "';r .. il 

...., 

- I 

I 

topic 0 discussion 

inDenmar~ 

Dane5like 10 1aIk aixxItlXJÜlics and 

Turkel' prol'idt< thl'm \l'ih 3 topic f(J 

endie~\ disrus~iOll\,After the P~estiJle. 

Israel qum 3nd )ruth AIrion ap,"utheid 

Turkel' is the htes! (3.1(' f(J tlje Danes 

Turkish Dail)' N~s 

For the Turkish Foreign \lir.islrj', 

Demnar,(s decision to lake Turkey to 

the Human Righ15 Commission is based 

By Ay~e Karabat 

Oll internal politics but for Petersen 

/ COPENHAGEN 

there are 001er re1\OllS. He says he 

'l'~~ il L'OUld hale been O!he:wise 

wo old Danes are sitting at a cafe 

drinking and talking politics, just 

like most of the Danes. Learning. . 

that I'm Turkish ther. start teas- Anat(lh~),!he f01l0WI~gye~, they allowed the 

ing me in English. 'We'd better K.urdishparliament-m-exlle to meet there and 

go do~ there to TurkeX and sort Turkey declared ~ve Danish politi~ians who particiyou 

lot out," they said. 'Teach pated m the meetln~ not welcome m Turkey. After 

you about the rule of law." one of the Turkish mcursions in north~m Iraq in, 

The Danes are proud of their institutions. They March.1995, Denmark put Turkey on ItSblac};:list 

like to discuss politics, too, and Turkey provides and Said that they woulà n~t se!lany weapons to 

them with a topic for endless debate. There's a Dane Turkey. Turkey respo~d~ I~ kind, , 

playing football for Fenerbahçe, there are Turkish Many of the Turks livmg m Denmark complained 

restaurants on every comer - and even some Italian about the PKK ~ressure on them. They alleged that 

restaurants are run by Turks. There are 40,000 Turks the ~KK w~ coll17~g m~ney from them by force. 

in this country. and with the top news stories in DanIsh ~orel~ Mimster.NIels Helv~g P~tçrse~ told 

Danish newspapers being about such thi~:how the Turkish Daily News ~ an exclUSIvemterv~ew 

a thousand people shifted their accounts one that he as well as the DanIsh 80vemment conSIders 

bank to another last year, Turkey seems to be the the PKK a terrorist organizatIon. 

chosen topic. replacmg the Ara~Israeli issue and ."We sometimes. have a very difficult problem in . 

apartheid ID South Africa. Now, It'S Turkey, Turkey, this coun!I'Y.That IS,we have to allow legal and polit- 

Turkey. 

ica1activities. People who.conduct legal political 

Turkey.has a host of i~teres~g things ta talk activities here are welcome. We will n~t.stan~ ill ~eir 

about, WIthits scandals, Its desIre to be a full mem- way. For many years, the PLO (palestnuan L1benltlon 

ber of the European Union with its Kurdish prob- Organization) had an office here. It was an infonnalem. 

There was even a DaIrlsh TV program on tion bureau. The Israelis didn't like that. Then the 

Susurluk. There are also some stones closer to ANC (African National Congress) had an office in 

home, Five Danish politicians were d~lared per- Denmark. The Sou~ Afric~ government .didn't like 

sona non grata in Turkey, and a Turkish Kur-dwho that. Now we have mfonnatlon offices trymg to deal 

is a Danish citizen was à.lleged1ytortured in Turkey. with Turkish and Kurdish.m~rs. And the Turkish 

Relations between Denmark and Turkey have government does n~ lice It ~Ither. B~t we ha~e,~ere 

been delenurallng since Apnl IYY5.lt W~- al Ùlal the freedom of carrymg out Inf~rmatlon~l ~~tJVltJ~S. 

time that Denmark allowed the opening of an ERNK But of course we do ,nOlallow Illegal activItieS, things 

office (Kurdistan National Salvation Front, the polit- a~amsl D~sh law. They are subverical 

wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), 

slve and Violent.But we try to conwruch 

is fighting for self rule in southea~tem 

DaIÛlh Foreip linilter Petenem 

Tm nOl at all S3ying thaI 

Turkey could easily soh'e 

ilS problems, 'n1en it 

comes to one point. to the 

use of torture in pri~on, we 

are \'ef\' criticaL not onll of 

, , 

Turkey, hut of all countnes guiln of {his 1\\fluld 

he the fin;; to be ~1Jdif \Ie '()II~d ihr pr'lhltm~ 

duct a policv Ùlatgives room for 

legal politicaJ activities," Petersen 

said. 

The Danish Foreign Minister was 

smiling during the entire interview. 

I was not sure if Ùliswas because it 

also happened to be rus birthday but 

theœ was something which was surprising. 

When he saw that we also 

had a TV camera he put away the 

very small Danish flag that was on 

his desk. His office was far from 

ostentatious; it was just like an ordinary 

working room. 

He criticized Turkey about 

human rights but he supported 

Turkey over the customs union with 

the EU. He said that Turkey's membersrup 

in the EU was not on the 

agenda. He said: 

"Unfortunately, for several reasons 

- one is that we have not 

been able to reach an agreement in 

our council; and the European 

Parliament also has objections - I 

realize that we on our side have not 

fully lived up to these negotiations 

and a~ements we have made. And 

I don t like that. I like the EU to 

live up to its agreements. I have 

been maintainmg that the EU must 

113


\'.1 " . 

concern of the United r.;ations, but Denmark, as an 

EU member, had another idea: . 

"The problems on Cyprus have been hauntm a us 

for a verY lona time. For decades now we have had 

this problem ~ith us. Denmark played an active role 

when we had U.N. peacekeeping forces there. I do 

not see for the time being a role för the OS CE in the 

Cyprus conflict. But Denmark as a state, and 

Denmark as a member of the EU, is very critical of 

the p~rchase of th,ose new ~~siles by one of ~e 

sides m C¥prus. 1 m very cnhcal of that. 1 don t 

think that IShelpful at all and it could create or contribute 

to dangerous tensions. So 1 would urge that 

these missiles are never installed. That will not 

make it any easier to solve the Cyprus con~ict. This 

is an attitude which we willpursue in our discussions 

with the European Uruon." , 

Economic linksalso weak 

betweenthe two countrie~. 

Mording to last year' s figures, Turkey 

imported $188 billion worth ofgoods from . 

nmark, and exported $133 billion. But last 

year the joint business council meeting between the 

two countries was cancelled because Danish businessmen 

were reluctant to participate. 

"It is true that if you ~aye a co~ntry wher~ businessmen 

feel that there ISmsecunty, they will stay 

away. But Danes certainly do not stay away from . 

Turkey. Many tourists go there. My daughter went to 

Turkeythis summer and enjoyed herself greatly. 

Hopefully, economic cooperation could be extended. 

1believe that trade is a factor which works in favor 

of political reforms and friendship," Pet.eesen s.aid. 

The minister said that he realized just how difficult. 

the problems facing Turkey really are. . 

"I'm not sayin~ that Turkey could easily solve its 

.problems. When It comes to one point, to the use of 

torture in prison, we are very critIcal, not only of 

Turkey, but of all countries guilty of this. 1would be 

the fIrSt to be glad if we solve the problems. That 

would be very helpful for both of us, and for ordinary 

Danes, in terms of changing their views on 

Turkey," Petersen said. . 

.Ordinary Danes are generally a linIe sceptical 

about Turkey' s shift towards Islamist princIples, but 

Foreign Minister Petersen' s view was different. 

Turkish people decide who will come to power 

after democratIc elections," he said. 'That's good 

enough for me." 

The Turkish population in Denmark is about 

40,000 and most of the greengrocer' s names are 

~Turkish. Turks in Denmark have some problems in 

fmding jobs, but as Turkish embassy officials in 

Copenhagen said: "If we compare the situation with 

other European countries, racIsm is lower. But 

recently inTIenmark there was a discussion about 

Turkish lessons in schools. City councils were reluctant 

about the continuation of the Turkish lessons. 

"I think the present rules will continue. We will 

offer education in the child's native language and at 

the same time we wish also for people from Turkey 

living here to be familiar with Danish society. And 

they need to learn Danish. We make a great effort 

for Turks who are here to work to learn Danish ... 

But we also think, most of us, that we should give 

education in native languages. Because we do see 

now, that we're taking young people ofTurkish origin 

into the police force, for example, and we are . 

making efforts to be fair. 1 think we will succeed in 

that," Petersen said. .. 

Turkish police 

slam European 

hypocrisy on 

drugcombat 

Anti-Smuggling Department Cruef 

Tuncay YllmaZ denies British Foreign 

Office claims that 75 percent of 

drugs which come to London are 

,produced in, or pass through Turkey 

By Orya Sultan Halisdemir 

and Saadet Oruç . 


. ANKARA/LONDON- Turkey has 

reacted strongly to allegations that there 

are connections between international 

drug smugglers and the Turkish state 

itself as well as slamming claims that the 

. Turk~b Daily News TUESOA Y. JANUARY 2l1. 1')IJ7 

government is not doing enough in the 

war against drugs. 

Britain, meanwhile, kept pointing an 

accusing finger at Turkey, saying tlireequarters 

of the drugs reaching Europe 

were either coming from Turkey or 

through it. Similar accusations from 

German and French officials have 

already caused angry retorts from 

. Ankara which demanded concrete proof 

or apologies. 

Tuncay YlImaz, head of the police 

Anti-Smuggling Department, blamed the 

drug trade in Turkey on the outlawed 

Kurdistan Workers' Party and accused 

. European countries of not doing enough 

themselves to halt the drug trade. 

Speaking at a press conference on l 

Monday, Yilmaz said the drug trade via 

Turkey was controlled by organized 

groups such as the PKK. 

"MemberS of PKK who have been given 

~refugee status" are used in drug traffick. 

mg," Ytlmaz chargede. . 

He also said that European countries 

who had accused Turkey of harboring drug 

smugglers were using the drug trade as a 

kind of political stick with which to beat 

Turkey. . . 

Notinç that one of the most important 

aspects ID fighting drug smuggling was 

first the control of the l'roductIon of the 

chemicals, Y Ilmaz said Turkey has been 

successful in controlling the production of 

asethic acid anhidrit but that Germany had 

lax controls over the exportation of the 

chemical. . 

Asethic acid anhidrit is an essential 

ingredient in the production of heroin. 

. Refening to die production of the drug 

Ecstasy in Poland, Germany and the 

Netherlands, Ylimaz said the lack of 

appropriate measures by the chemical-producing 

countries was a serious setback in 

the war against drug smuggling. 

He also alleged that the largest hauls of 

.drugs in Germany were partly produced by 

chemical companies such as Merck and 

Hoechst. 

Ylimaz then turned his attention to 

Britain, saying that British authorities did 

not give sufficient information to Turkish 

authorities regarding those caught for drug 

smuggling. 

"114


He alsO accused the British secret service 

of usin$ Huseyin Baybasin, a famous 

drug smuggler, as an agent 

Y1lmaz went on to slam the Netherlands 

for granting asylum and eventually citizenship 

to drug smuJœlers. 

turning to solUtions, Y1lmaz said indio 

vidual countries should stop ~using each 

other and start cooperatIDg ID the war 

against the drug trade. 

The Loodon reaction 

British Foreign Office officials said on 

Monday they were very concerned with 

the high rate of drug trafficking from 

Turkey to Europe. 

"According to figures, 75 percent of the 

drugs seized in Euro~ i.scorning eilher 

from Turtcey or through Turkey, which is a 

very high percentage and worrying," a 

Foreign Office officiallold the TON. 

He underlined that the Foreign Office 

had expressed its worries,conceminj these 

high amounts 10 Turkish authoril~es ~n 

Turtcey and 10 Turkish Embassy officIais ID 

London. 

"We believe lhaI a determined and coordinated 

action would provide solutions in 

preventing such a high rate of drug s~uggling 

from Turkey or through Turtcey, the 

official pointed out 

Tuncay YIImaz, speaking to the TDN 

after his ~ress conference, ref~ted th.e 

British clanns, saying they were unpoSSIble. 

'Thiny percent of the drugs are coming 

from the north (ofTurkey), 20 percent of it 

from west," Y1lmaz claimed. "And if you 

assume that the rest comes from Turkey 

itself, then that still means that only 50 percent 

is from Turkey. But I can say the 

amount of drugs actually passing through 

Turkey is 30 percent" . . 

• Tom Sackville, the Horne Office JUntor 

minister was quo~ed by Turkish Dail!es 

1his weekend saymg thaI some TurkIsh 

authorities might be involved in promoting 

this trafficking into the Europe. 

Sackville paid a two-day visit to Ankara 

on the Oct 13 and met with then-Interior 

Minister Mehmet A~ar, Chief of Police 

Alaatin Yüksel as weITas Tuncay Yllmaz. 

Sackville expressed the displeasure for 

the delay of the acceptance for a draft law 

on "money-laundering". 

According to an inlernational decision 

laken in 1988. countries were expected to 

make the necessary arrangements in their 

domestic laws. Turkey finally accepted the 

'international agreement in November 

1996, though weslern countries still 

.express their worries on the Turkish application 

of the law. 

Diplomatic sources commenting on the 

subject told the TON that Foreign Minister 

Tansu Çiller was told 10 take the necessary 

steps against drug smuggling as well as 

money laundering during her trips to the 

United States. 

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRmUNE, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY :!9. 

~ New Riddles in Assad's Damascus 

_4Crackdown on Corruption or Maneuvering for the Succession? 

By Douglas lehl 

New York Times Service 

DAMASCUS - The Syrian capital 

can seem a nest of riddles, and what has' 

befallen the Orchid restaurant may be 

merely where the puzzle starts. 

A committee descended on the elegant 

French spot one day in November 

to shut it down, and it has remained so 

ever since, with a dangling door-tag 

signed "Corruption-fighting section; 

Ministry of Supply." 

What most intrigues its patrons is that 

the restaurant is owned by a nephew of 

Hafez Assad, the Syrian president. 

People who have begun to piece together 

other developments have begun 

to wonder what is going on. 

One of Mr. Assad's brothers, Jemil, 

has departed abruptly for Paris, wher~ 

another brother, Rifaat, spent part of a 

long exile. Rifaat Assad, now back in 

Damascus and officially still a vice 

president, is reported by foreign diplomats 

and prominent Syrians to be under 

heavy surveillance. 

At the same time, Bashar Assad, 31, 

the president's eldest surviving son, has 

been newly christened on posters that 

have emerged around the capital as; 

"our hope" for Syria's future. 

Together with a bomb that exploded 

on a Syrian bus on New Year's Eve .. 

killing Il people but not lUlllOuncedby 

the Syrian media untiltwo days later, 

and the fact that Mr. Assad had not been 

seen in public until Tuesday, the signs of 

maneuvering within the upper ranks of 

Mr. Assad's regime have created a 

mood of unease. "Things feel very fra- 

,gile," a diplomat said. 

The owner of the star-crossed restaurant 

was one of Rifaat Assad' s sons, 

yet he was just the first among the 

relatives of top Syrian officials whose 

business activities have been unceremoniously 

reined in. 

When asked, Syrian officials have 

'said that Jemil Assad is undergoing. 

medical treatment, that Rifaat Assad' 

may move about as he likes and that the 

Orchid and other shuttered enterprises 

were guilty ofunspecified irregularities. 

But the diplomats and some prominent 

Syrians say they believe that something' 

else may be in the works. 

With President Assad now 66 andl 

recovering from prostate surgery, they 

'say, he may be trying both to clean 

;house and to clear the way for a successor. 

These people say that it is probably 

no coincidence that Bashar Assad,; 

who was trained in Britain to be an 

ophthamologist and who had apparently 

given no thought to a politieal future 

until an elder brother was killed in an 

automobile accident three years ago, has 

been portrayed recently in the Syrian 

press as something of a Mr. Clean. 

"The president has had it with his 

brothers and their sons, and he's trying 

to do something about it," a prominent 

Syrian said, presenting a view that is 

widely held within the diplomatie and 

business community. 

Jemil Assad, 64, who grew rich by 

extracting commissions on business 

activity in Tartous and La~ia, spawned 

so much resentment there that he has 

harmed the family's stature, the diplomats 

and prominent Syri:ms say. 

They say that Rifaat Assad, 59, who 

assembled squadrons of tanks in Damascus 

in an attempt to overthrow his 

brother in 1983, is suspected of trying to 

renew his ties to the military. 

. Jemil Assad's departure for Paris late 

last month has not been reported in the 

official media here. Diplomats in Damascus 

said they have been able to confirm 

it only within the last two weeks or 

so. 

Diplomats also said they were struck by 

the fact that while Mr. Assad was reported 

to have attended a Jan. 21 wreath-laying 

ceremony on the third anniversary of the 

death of his son Basel, the president was 

the only senior official present whose. 

photograph was not published. 

Syrian officials say that he was probably 

not pictured at his son's grave because 

it was a personal family moment. 

Mr. Assad has a history of heart 

trouble and diabetes, but there is no 

115


evidencè that he is suffering from anything 

more serious now than the aftereffects 

of surgery. But it has been m,ore 

than 26 years since he seized power/and 

people' have begun to wonder whether 

the latest moves might be related to the 

question of who will succeed him. 

. Under the Syrian ConstitUtion, the 

leader of Parliament takes temporary 

charge upon the death of the president, to 

await the governing Ba' ath Party' s nomination 

of a candidate to be presented to 

the Parliament and to voters for ratification. 

Mr. Assad hâs said that he does 

not' have an opinion about who should 

take his place. 

Bashar Assad, the second of Assad's regime of a widening tarnt öf corruptiori. 

four sons, had shown no interest in pol- . "Hafez Assad clearly wants to be suc- . 

itics or in the military, the historic route '.ceeded by his son," a diplomat said.\1And 

to power in Syria. But immediately after if you ask me whether all this is about 

his brother' s death in 1994, he cut short securing the future or polishing the present, 

his medical studies to return to Syria and I would say that it is probably both." . 

enroll in the military staff college, from • Assad Attends Meeting 

which he is to graduate in April. 

The inner affairs of the government President Assad held his fust official 

remain murky enough that the diplomats meeting Tuesday since leaving the hosand 

Syrians, who all spoke on condition pital three weeks ago, Agence Franceof 

anonymity, said it was impossible to Presse reported from Damascus. 

judge to what extent the crackdowns Mr. Assad was briefed by Vice Pres- 

;might have been intended to eliminate ident Abdel Halim Khaddam on his twopossible 

rivals to the succession and to day visit to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; a 

what extent they weJ;"einteuded.to rid the presidential spokesman said.. 

-~~-- 

r Ciller &capesGraft Inquiry 

ANKARA - The Turkish Parliament on Tuesday 

inarrowly rejected a proposed new inquiry into 

Deputy Prime Minister Tansu Ciller !hat could have 

:sent her to the Supreme Court on corruption; 

charges. 

The opposition proposal to investigate accusations 

that Mr!;, Ciller used theserviçes of the state-owne.d 

Turban hotel and tourIsm company f.or personäi 

purposes was defeated, 247 to 242. 

The vote could have caused a rift in the coalition 

government led by religious Muslims if it haJ gone 

.against Mrs. Ciller, the former prime minister whois 

now also the foreign minister. 

(Reuters) 

..INTERNATIONALHERALD 

TRIBUNE, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY.29~1997 

_~r:1 

r::L.ELEr-r---- 

I::J""ET'"'B l=..I 

Turkish Daily News WEDNESDAY,JANUARY29, 1997 

Terrorism fight paid forby drug 

trade, says French research group. 

By Nazlan Ertan 

Turküh Daily News 

PARIS- Drug trafficking in Turkey could not 

have come that far if it had.not been for some "support" 

from the Turkish state according to a French 

research group, while .French officials remain silent 

on the matter. . 

The Geopolitical Observatory of Drugs 

(Observatoire). has also carried out research on 

Turkey for a report to be published in April. The 

Observatoire's claim that drug traffick.in~ through. 

Turkeyalso had a "political dimension' follows 

similar claims.from both London and Frankfurt, 

where a German magistrate claimed that Turkish 

government was involved protecting those traffickmg 

indrugs. 

Despite the protest and denial of Ankara, a highlevel 

researcher of the Observatoire, who requested 

anonymity I said that the fight against terrorism was 

also partially financed by drug trafficking. The 

claim, which was already been published in the 

1996 report, alleges that when the Turkish security 

forces uncovered a drug operation and obtained the 

narcotics, they do not declare it but use the income 

to finance the fight against the PKK. This information 

is attributed to some "KernaIist" soldiers within 

in the Southea~L 

Another important assumption in the 

Observatoire is the link between government circles, 

in particular former Interior Minister Mehmet 

Agar, and ultra-right gangs which also have a hand 

in drug trafficking. The report also made a reference 

to the Susurluk case, saying it displayed the 

"complexity and the darkness" of the struggle. in 

Anatolia. 

The Observatoire said the report was based on 

their large network of informauon, which ranged 

from Europe to the Caucasus. A high-Ie~el official. 

for the Observatoire described the research group 

as an objective and scientific one. "We have 

sources in every country, also in Turkey, which 

range from official circles to academics. We carefully 

watch the information in the media and the 

statements of politicians. None of the allegations in 

the report are new, unknown, or not published," he 

said. 

The research organization carries out research 

for various international organizations, as well as 

publishing periodical reports on ils own. . 

The Quai D'Orsay, the seat of the French 

Foreign Ministry, did not comment on what they 

have called the evaluation of a private research 

~roup, but a spokesman .said that France was 

'determined to fight against the international 

plague. which is drug smuggling, and this required 

the mobilization of the intemauonal arena and the 

cooperation of all countries." 

116


Turkish Dairy News 

WEDNESDAY,JANUARY29,1997 

Government officials meet with 

KDP over Atrush question 

Denial: Foreign Ministry denies military build-up along 

the Turkish-Iraqi border and says there are no plans to 

launch an operation against the Atrush refugee camp 

By Saadet Oruç 

Kurdish refugees. 

T.. rkith-Daily &-.. .. The future of the camp under question 

ANKARA- Members of the Kurdistan at the moment The UNHCR decl(ied on 

Democratic Party (KDP) from the no~- Dee. 21 to withdraw from the camp but 

em Iraqi .tow~ of Duh~k met officl~ls the United Nations flag still f1ies oyer the 

from the IDtelligence umt of ~e Turkish camp for "security reasons." 

Foreign Ministry and the.Turkish Anned The Turkish government has argued 

Forces on Tuesday to diSCUSSthe latest that the camp is run by militants from the 

developments at the Atrush refugee Kurdistan Workers' Party and for this 

camp. 

reason wants the UNHCR to pull out 

Kurdish sources told the TI?N that ~e completely, including pulling Gown the 

KDP were invited to the meetmg, held ID fi 

the Gend~rm~rie Hea~quarte.rs in the aCx:al authoritie~:~g w.;1heTON 

town. of SdOpl, n~ Diyarbakir, by the repeated the known J{bp posiuon reg~d. 

Turkish.Forelgn MImstry. 

ing the security of the camp. "Atrush ISa 

OffiCials from the Ankara office of the ~. 'li d th '_ 

United Nations High Commissioner for reco CIV~~ camp, an e s;cun 

Refugees (UNHCR) told the TON they ty 0 the camp ISunportant, as well. 

had not been informed about the meeting. • • al th bord 

The Atrush refugee camp, located 70 Military.prese~ce oog e. er 

kilometers from the Turkish border, is Meanwhile, regIOnal sources informed 

home for an estimated 14,000 Turkish the TON on Tuesday that there has been 

a build-up .of 'Furkish 1roops along the 

Turkish-Iragi border for nearly three 

weeks, sparking fears that Turkey may be 

preparing for a cross border nud on the 

Atrush camp. 

Turkish Foreign Ministry and military 

officials, however, denied tbe claims of a 

build-up in troops or that a raid agaiqst 

Atrush was being planned. 

"The routine military activities in the 

region close to the border should not be 

distorted," said a senior military official. 

MGK discussed Atrush 

Atrush was one of the subjects discussed 

at the Monday meeting of tbe 

National Security Council (MGK). The 

General Staff told the meeting that 

appr~imately 300 of the refugees at the 

camp had joined the PKK, much less 

tben tbe 1000-1500 estimated by U.N. 

sources. 

Turkish Dailv News WEDNESDAY. JANUARY 29, 1997 

HADEP to visit Demirel 


ANKARA- A delegation from the People's Democracy 

Party (HADEP) is to see President Süleyman Demirel on 

Friday to discuss possible solutions to the "Kurdish problem," 

according to a senior HADEP official. . 

Sedat Yur~'l~told the TON on TUesdaJnthat the delegation 

would meet the president and that the formed a part of 

their "social mediation task." He also said the party hoJle5 to 

bave talks with the prime minister, the beads of political parties 

and trade union leaders as weI!. HADEP Chairman 

Ahmet Türk told the TON bis party was ready to discuss any 

kind of peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem. 

GAMK I Mercredi, 29 janvier 1997 

La Turquie mise en cause dans 

le trafic de drogue vers IIEurope 

" A"issue du procès de 3 trafi- témoins, sont protégées par le gouquants 

de drogue se déroulant vernement turc et cela rend difficile 

depuis octobre dernier devant: de faire apparaître toute l'étendue de 

la 17ème chambre du Tribunal de ce trafic. On affirme que ces deux 

Francfort, le président de cette Cour, familles de trafiquants ont des rela- 

Ie juge Rolf Schwalbe, en annonçanf tions extrêmement étroites avec un 

le verdict, a notamment déclaré: "Le ministre turc féminin", A la question 

trafic de drogue de Turquie vers de savoir qui est cette dame, le juge 

l'Allemagne et vers les autres pays allemand a répondu: Tansu Çiller. La. 

européens est organisé par les dépêche de l'agence allemande DPA 

familles Senoglu et Baybasin et ces datée du 21 janvier qui donne cette 

familles, selon les dépositions des information indique que selon la 

Cour, ce réseau a introduit au moins 

100 kg d'héroïne en Allemagne et en 

Belgique et que l'enquête sur les 

ramifications du réseau se poursuivait. 

Les trois membres de ce réseau 

arrêtés à Francfort, un Turc, un 

Italien et un Belge, ont été respectivement 

condamnés à 9 ans, 7 ans et 

2 mois et 4 ans et 11 mois de prison. 

La mise en cause du gouvernement 

turc en général et de Mme. 

Çiller en particulier dans le trafic de 

drogue a été largement répercutée 

par les média allemands et turcs. 

Une télévision allemande, NTV, a diffusé 

l'information dans ses bulletins 

avec l'image choc d'une seringue 

d'héroïne sur fond de drapeau turc. 

117

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-De11.tro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

Mme. Çiller a écrit à son homologue 'Öz, porteur d'un passeport vert (de 

allemand, M. Kinkel, pour "protester 'service) fourni par l'État, négocier 

contre ces accusations sans ,fonde- ,aux États-UniS la vente d'héroïne 

ments" et le porte-parole du ministère avec des limiers du Bureau des narturc 

des Affaires étrangères a qualifié cotiques, quelles explications pour- 

"d'inconvenantes et contraireS aux.rons-nous donner?( ..) Désormais, le 

usages diplomatiques les déclara-. nom de notre pays figure d'une part 

tions du juge allemand". Celui-ci a' aux côtés des États terroristes 

refusé de recevoir le consul général comme l'Iran, la Syrie et la Lybie, et 

turc à Francfort mais il a confirmé au d'autre part aux côtés des narcoquotidien 

Frankfurter Allgemeine Etats comme l'Équateur, le Pérou et 

Zeitung les informations diffusées par le Guatemala. Le pire est qu'il n'y a 

OPA. De son côté, le juge M. Dax pas un autre État impliqué à la fois 

Nevelling, porte parole du juge Schwaibe,,,' dans le trafic de stupéfiants et dans 

a indiqué à l'AFP que l'enquête avait la terreur". Son collègue Oktay Eksi, 

établi des liens entre les trafiquants écrit dans le même quotidien, que 

de drogue et le gouvernement turc et "cette infamie salit le nom de tout le 

que des é.léments révélés par l'ins- pays" et que "tous les porteurs de 

truction ont tout à fait convaincu la passeports turcs sont consiqérés par , 

Cour à ce sujet. A la question de ies douaniers comme des trafiquants 

savoir si les graves accusations lan- de drogue potc1tiels". Il rappelle que 

cées par la Cour n'allaient pas l'Allemagne n'est pas le seul pays à 

engendrer des réactions politiques, le pointer du doigt le gouvernement 

juge répond "Cela se peut. Mais nous turc. "Notre journal avait, dans son 

n'avons peur de rien. La justice alle- 'numéro du 27 décembre 1996 écrit' 

'mande est indépendante". En Turquie, ,que les Pays-Bas n'avaient aucunela 

nouvelle de la mise en cause de ment l'intention d'extrader vers la 

Mme. Çiller ne semble pas sur- Turquie Husseyin Baybasin (NDLR. 

prend~e outre mesure les journaux. L'un des gros bonnets de la mafia) 

Dans son éditorial du 23 janvier, E. (..) Selon une conviction qui n'est pas 

Özkök, directeur de Hurriyet, rappelle exprimée officiellement, la Turquie 

que déjà l'année dernière deux tribu- est un pays où le trafic de drogue est 

naux allemands, ceux de Hannovre mené par l'État lui-même. C'est pouret 

de Trier, avaient accusé le gOuver- quoi ils ne vont pas faire confiance à 

,nemen! turc de "soutenir les trafi- la Turquie pour lui renvoyer Baybasin. 

quants de drogue. Cette fois-ci, la La politique pratiquée suit quasiment 

nouveauté est que le juge met en le principe suivant: au lieu de laisser 

cause nommément Tansu Çiller (..) le PKK tirer profit du trafic de drogue, 

Quand on voit le lendemain sur la • profitons-en nous-mêmes. D'autant 

chaîne de télévision privée Kanal D,que nous disposons de tous les 

l'étrange photo d'un extrémiste de ! moyens de l'État. Il suffirait de 

droite, recherché pour meurtre par • s'assurer que la drogue transportée 

l'État et pour, trafic de drogue par la d'une frontière à l'autre ne soit pas 

communauté internationale, en c?m- saisie. QUI pourrait nous tenir tête?". ' 

pagnie de policiers officiels de l'Etat De même, les autorités neerlan- 

(..), quand on voit .un certain Yasardaises, ont fait fermer plusieurs 

banques turques accusées de blanchir 

l'argent de la drogue. 

Le Milliyet du 24 janvier annonce 

en gros titre "le piège des trafiquants 

qui se referme sur la Turquie". 

Il fait état de l'information du Daily 

Telegraph du 23 janvier indiquant 

que "80% de l'héroïne vendue en 

Grande-Bretagne provient de TurqUie" 

et d'un rapport du Département d'État 

rappelant que "la plus grosse partie 

du trafic d'héroïne en Europe est' 

contrôlée par les trafiquants turcs" 

qui exporteraient 70 % des drogues 

consommées en Europe. L'influent 

éditorialiste Cengiz Çandan affirme 

dans le Sabah du 25 janvier que 

"L'Occident assiège la Turquie sur la 

drogue". Selon lui si le 23 janvier la 

Commission des Affaires étrangères 

de la Chambre des représentants 

des États-Unis a tenu sur ce sujet 

une audition à huis clos avec des 

chefs de la CIA, du DEA !Drug Enforcement 

Agency) et des responsables 

du Département d'État c'est que la 

situation est très grave. A qui la faute 

? ajoute-toi!. "Nous n'avons pas pris 

au sérieux les avertissements précédents 

des tribunaux allemands de 

Trier et de Hannovre sur les liens des 

trafiquants de drogue avec le gouvernement 

turc. En outre, récemment, 

une fuite (de source gouvernementale 

allemande) a conduit plusieurs 

publications, dont l'hebdomadaire 

allemand Focus, à écrire qu'un 

dénommé Hüseyin Duman, recherché 

pour trafic de matériaux nucléaires, : 

a rencontré à Baden Baden Özer 

Çiller (époux de Mme. Çiller). Le 

message politique de Bonn était clair: 

l'Allemagne a mis une croix sur le 

nom de Çiller. Voilà pourquoi le chancelier 

Kohl refuse avec insistance 

tout rendez-vous avec Çiller". 

Les révélations faites par l'ancien 

président azerbaïdjanais 

.Aboulfaz Eltchibey dans un entretien 

accordé au journal turc "Yeni Yuzel" 

sur la personnalité trouble du chef de, 

GAMK I Mercredi, 29 janvier 1997 

--Dès mafieux turcs impliqués 

dans la guerre du Karabagh 

gang turc Abdullah Catli confirment la 

collusion de, ce dernier avec les services 

turcs. D'après l'ex-président 

aierbaïdjanais, le mafieux turc 

retrouvé mort dans un accident de 

, . 

voiture l'an dernier en compagnie 

d'un chef de la police turque et d'une 

reine de beauté, lui aurait offert son 

aide pour combattre les forces arméniennes 

dans le conflit du Haut 

;Karabagh. "Catli voulait combattre les 

Arméniens sur le front azéri aux 

côtés des soldats azerbaïdjanais. Il 

'm'avait été présenté par des officiers 

turcs comme quelqu'un de confiance, 

118

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm ()zeti 

désireux de combattre à nos côtés qualité de mercenaire s'inscrit donc 

contre les Arméniens", indique M. dans le prolongement logique de ses 

Eltchibey, confirmant ainsi les informations 

activités. 

selon lesquelles le chef de M. Eltchibey précise pourtant qu'il 

gang mêlait volontiers banditisme et lui avait déconseillé de se rendre sur le 

nationalisme et était utilisé par les front, le jugeant plus utile à l'arrière; 

services turcs. Il avait été fait état en l'ancien président azerbaïdjanais, qui 

effet dans un premier temps de la avait tenté de mener une politique résolument 

participation à la "lutte anti-terroristen 

pro-turque avant d'être chassé 

contre les Arméniens et les Kurdes du pouvoir par M. Aliev, indique qu'il 

.de Catli, qui était par ailleurs recherché 

redoutait que les Arméniens se servent 

pour avoir participé à l'attentat de Turcs capturés ou tués sur le front 

contre le pape Jean Paul Il. Qu'il ait 

offert ses services à l'Azerbaïdjan en 

pour dénoncer la participation d'Ankara 

:au conflit, "ce qui n'était pas bon pour 

fimage de la Turquie et était d'ailleurs. 

,interdit par le droit international". 

Mais M. Eltchibey admet que Catli 

aurait pu ignorer ses recommandations 

et se rendre sur le front, 

comme l'avaient d'ailleurs fait les officiers 

qui l'avaient mis en contact avec 

~I'aventurier turc. M. Eltchibey précise 

par ailleurs qu'un certain nombre d'offi- 

Ciers turcs de haut rang avaient entraÎné 

des soldats azerbaïdjanais, comme 

le général Yashar ou le général 

Osman, dont il a indiqué ne pas se sou. 

venir des noms de famille. 

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRmUNE, THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1997 

L U.S. Sees 

Struggle 

For Power 

ln Baghdad 

Saddam's Wife 

Under House Arrest, 

Senior Officer Says 

By Brian Knowlton 

lnl~rnalional Hi-raid Trihunt, 

WASHINGTON -:- Bolstering re~ 

ports of fennent in Iraq, the Whi\e 

House claimed Wednesday that "COIl1- 

plicated internal struggles for power" 

were swirling around the regime of Saddam 

Hussein. 

The comment from Michael Mè-- 

Curry, the White House spokesman, fof. 

lowed a briefing by a Pentagon officer, 

General1. H. Binford Peay, commander 

of the U.S. Anny Central Command, 

who reported that Mr. Saddam's wife 

was under house arrest in Iraq and that 

Mr. Saddam's son Udai, often considered 

the Iraqi president' s heir apparent, 

might lose a leg from gangrene 

and could be paralyzed as a result of an 

attempt on his life last month. 

Asked about the Pentagon report, Mr. 

McCurry sjÜd. "'There have been some 

things that have happened there recently 

- the attack upon Hussein's son - 

there are obviously things that have. 

been reported publicly that would indicate 

that there are some internal machinations. 

" 

Separately, Nicholas Bums, the State 

Department spokesman, said there was 

no evidence of any threatening military 

maneuvers by Mr. Saddam, but added, 

"We're watching him." 

Reporters questioned Mr. Bums, at a, 

regular State Department briefmg, on 

why the government might want to raise 

the specter of Iraqi instability at this 

point, by "stirring the waters on Sad-. 

dam, " as one put it. 

"I am not aware of any stirring of 

waters anywhere in Washington," Mr., 

Bums replied. 

But Lawrence Korb, a fonner assist-; 

ant defense secretary in the Reagan ad. 

ministration who is a senior fellow with 

the Brookings Institution, said there 

were several reasons for the administration 

to draw attention to Iraq. . 

First, he said, the new security team 

headed by Defense Secretary William 

Cohen might want to demonstrate 

clearly to Mr. Saddam that if he does test 

U.S. power, the United States will respond. 

. 

The administration might also want to 

avoid the sort of split with its allies in the 

U.S.-led coalition that emerged last year: 

after Saddam sent troops into northern! 

Iraq. 

•'They want to lay 

th 

e 

d' IP1 omatlc 

. 

groundwork" for a response now, Mr. 

Korb said. 

Finally, Mr. Korb suggested, attention 

to. Iraq "could take the minds of the 

people at home off all that' s going on," 

including assertions of irregularities in 

campaign fund-raising. 

Mr. Bums said that while there was no 

evidence Qfany Iraqi military moves that 

mlg . ht pose a threa t to Iraq'~ s neighbors, 

•'We have learned with Saddam Hussein 

that, when he does peek his head above 

.the foxhole that he has dug for himself in; 

the desert, it's always good to remind: 

him from time to time about the reality of 

our relationship with him" and "to remind 

him of the reality ofwho's got the 

power in that part of the world." 

General Peay said there were no indications 

that Iraq might again seek to 

invade Kuwait, as it did in August 1990. 

But he cited a high-ranking person in 

Baghdad as saying that Mr. Saddam was 

persuaded that he could recapture 

Kuwait in a surprise attack, and frequently 

pondered doing so. 

The general quoted reports that Mr. 

Saddam, who has. been the target of 

assassination attempts over the years,' 

was moving about more often than usual, 

apparently fearful for his security. 

General Peay said: "I think it's very 

interesting that Saddam has just put his 

wife under house arrest. That is a report 

by a good source - that his wife is under 

house arrest." 

He gave no details on where, how or 

why Mr. Saddam's wife might have 

been restricted. But he suggested that the 

grenade attack last month on Udai Hussein, 

who is believed to have been the 

target of at least two earlier assassination 

attempts, might have heighten~d the 

president's concerns. 

The general also said that Iraqi forces 

had been increasingly active within the 

areas permitted by the post-Gulf War 

guidelmes enforced by the U.S.-led coalition. 

Asked about that, Mr. McCurry said, 

"I am not aware of anything that would 

suggest any offensive designs" by Iraq. 

In the Dec. 12 attempt on the president's 

son, assailants fired heavy machine 

guns and threw grenades at a car 

119


carrying him through Baghdad. 

Iraq has asserted that members of the 

'Dawa Party, a Shiite Muslim group, 

carried out the attack and then took 

'refuge in Iran. Tehran has denied any 

involvement. 

, Reports from opposition members 

:have suggested that the ~ttac~ stemmed 

from a business or a famIly dispute. 

"Udai has been hit very, very hm:d 

:and has one or two bullets left in hIS 

spine and is semi-paralyzed," General 

Peay said. "He may lose his leg from 

gangrene. " . . " 

Iraqi secunty forces have arres~ed 

hundreds of people since the attack, 10- 

eluding at least 20 senior ~ilitary officers 

and officials" according to opposition 

members. " . 

Anthony Cordesman, a specialist in 

Iraqi military affairs at the Center for 

Strategic and International Studies in 

Washington, cautioned that "one has to 

be, very, very careful" in analyzing reports 

from Iraq. 

, But he added: "What is clear is that 

Saddam is having problems within his 

family and clan. " 

Mr. Saddam' s sons, and particularly 

Udai, "are extremely unpopular, or at 

least seen as a threat, by the immediate 

coterie he has relied on," Mr. Cordesiman 

said. 

; Henoted; however, that Mr~ Saddam 

has destroyed opposition inthepast, and 

said.that.to sUl?;gest.-that hewasnow inan 

-.... . . . . 

in~ecure position was "a leap for which 

there's little immediate justification and 

few historical parallels." 

,The United States and its Gulf War 

allies have maintained a strong military 

force in the region since the Gulf War 

ended in a rout for Mr. Saddam 's forces. 

More than 200 U.S. and allied warplanes 

are based in the area, backed by strong. 

naval forces. 

While no U.S. troops are permanently' 

based in Kuwait, hundreds move 

through the sheikhdom or are based 

there in temporary roles as advisers.' 

Next month, a battalion of 1,200 army 

troops is scheduled to conduct exercises', 

in Kuwait. 

------, 

aIINESTY ~ 

IIITERNAnONAL 

é'J9 

AMNISTiA 

,lNTERNACIONAl 

~ 

... .:t 

AMNISTIE .,...,. 

INTERNA T10NAl~ ~ 

~ 

AMH~CT~~ *ä 

~j"" jill, ".61 

EXTERNAL 

URGENT 

ACTION 

AI Index: MDE 13/06/97 

29 January 1997 

Further information on EXTRA 115/96 (MDE 13/26/96, 25 July 1996) and follow-ups (MDE 

13/27/96,1 August; MDE 13/39/96,25 November; MDE 13/41/96,30 December; MDE 13/01/97, 

6 January 1997 ) - Death Penaltv 1 Floaaina 1 Torture 1 Unfair Trial 

IRAN, 

Sheyda Khoramzadeh Esfahani (f) 

Unconfirmed reports have suggested that Sheyda Khorari1Zadeh Esfahani may be executed on 31 

January. 1997. According to Iranian newspaper reports, she was sentenced to death after 

conviction on charges including "organising 'corrupt gatherings' with prostitutes, alcohol, drugs, 

music and dance 'to establish immoral contacts with people in various political bodies"'. 

Amnesty International beli~¥es that her arrest is connected with the case of her husband, who was 

reportedly executed on 30 December 1996 or 1 January 1997. The organization opposes the 

death penalty in all cases on the grounds that it constitutes the ultimate cruel, inhuman or 

degrading punishment, and that it violates the right to life. 

FURTHER RECOMMENDEDACTION: Please send telegrams/telexes/faxes/expressl airmailietters 

in ,French, English or in your own language: 

- urging that Sheyda Khoramzadeh not be executed; 

- asking for details of the charges or sentence passedagainst Sheyda Khoramzadeh Esfahani; 

- seeking'information about the details of the trial of Sheyda Khoramzadeh, including whether she 

has had access toa lawyer of her choice. 

120 

Amnesty International, International Secretariat, 1 Easton Str~et, London WC1X 8DJ, United Kingdom 

:rei: (44)(171) 4135500 Fax: 956 1157 Telegrams: Amnesty London WC1 Telex: 28502 E-mail: uateam@amnesty.org

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Delltro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

Turkish Daily News THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1997 

Security corridor for Atrush 

refugees to be established 

TurlcWa Dai1y News 

ANKARA- A "corridor" is to be opened to assist 

refugees returning from Atrush Camp in noI1hem Iraq 

and escort them to a new camp in Silopi with the coo~ 

eration of the Turkish government and the local authon- 

(y, the lDN learned Wednesday. Officiais from the 

Geneva office of the United Nations High 

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will also play a 

part in the ~ anlfUNHCR officials bave visited 

Silopi, where 500 tents. have been prc;pared for the 

refugees by the Turkish Red Créséérit. . 

Spring operation 

Regioniil sources told the TON that the military 

build-up along the Turkish-Iraqi border suggested 

preparatlons for a cross-border operation. Turkish diplo- 

mats and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) members, 

including Faile Nerweyi of the KDl>'s Ankara office, 

attended a recent meeting' in Silopi, at which ways to 

~ the refugees to return to Turkey were re~edIy 

discussed. KUrdishsources close to Turkish CIrcles 

commented: "Every year at the beginning of the spring, 

Turkish anned forces attack the PKK bases. So the time 

for operations has already come." When asked about a 

possible operation llSainst the region, a senior diplomat 

ID the Turkish Foretgn Ministry told the lDN, llrJbose 

who support terrorism must be ready to face the results 

as welf." It was also learned that the operation was 

planned to include air raids as well as ground ~ons 

against PKK bases. In that framework a significant 

number of troops were located both in Silopi and along 

the border. 

By Ulur Akmel 


ANKARA- The U.S. State 

Department' s 41-page 1996 human rights 

report said the Kurdistan Workers' Party 

(PKK) has committed widespread abuses 

and regularly employed terrorism against 

the government and civilians, mostly 

Kurds. 

The report was too kind on the authorities 

in A.nkara either: "The government 

was unable to sustain improvements made 

in 1995 and, as a result, its record was 

uneven in 1996 and deteriorated in some 

respects," the State Department said on 

Thursday. 

The report noted that the government 

has long denied its Kurdish population's 

basic, cultural and linguistic rigots. ''The 

government forcibly displaced large numbers 

of noncombatant tortured CIvilians 

and abridged freedom of expression," said 

the report. 

Human rights abuses not 

limited to the Southeast 

The United States charged that "extraju- 

Turk~h Dailv News FRIDAY,JANUARY 31,1997 

US slams PKK and government over 

human rights abuses 

dicial killings, including deaths in detention 

from the excessive use of force, in authorities of investi,gatiftg very few of the 

safe'house raids, and mystery killings con- formal complaints mvolvin,g torture and' 

tinued to occur with disturbing frequen- prosecuting only a fracllon of lhose 

cy." 

mvolved. 

The re'p0rt noted that disappeara~ces Turkey's prison.conditions remained 

also contmued and torture remamed w1de- poor, according to the State Department, 

spread but n~ted tha.t prosec.u~ions of with overcrowding and poor quality food. 

police or secunty OftiC1afSfor killings and On women, the report quoted the Turkish 

torture had increased somewhat. Medical Doctors Union as !laying: 

''The incident (Susurluk accident) res.ur- "W,?m~~ are no longer routi~ely !lubJ~ted 

reeted serious concerns about corruption to v1r,glOltytests when they hie complamts 

and abuse of power in the securitY'fotees," alleglOg sexual crimes." The report said 

said the State Department in die annual spousal abuse was serious and widespread. 

report on the Susurluk accident. "~owever, it is considered an extremely 

''The PKK continued to commit politi- pflyat~, matter ... Few women go to the 

cal and extrajudicial killings primarily in police. .. , . 

rural Southeast Anatolia," the report said. .The. report md1cated that .a!l rehglO~s 

The report also noted that seven school mmon~y groups feared lhe nslOg Islam1c 

teachers were killed in 1996 and 153 in the extrem1~m. . 

past 12 years, 

The n.ghls of Kurds was ~nother Issue 

The State Department said although covered m.the annual ~p


Turkish Daily News FRIDAY,JANUARY 31,1997 

Ankara urged to remain 

in Europ' e; but warned on 

expressed understanding of TurKish ~~trations 

but added thatTurkey should also "facilitate the 

l'tsrecord on human n' 'ghts 

,vocation" 

Euro~ countriesto 

by making 

help 

progress 

Turkey 

on 

in 

human 

its European 

rights, 

, 

on the Kurdish questIon,on dialogue with Greece 

E 'fi d ta d' f and dissolving tensions with Greek Cyprus and on 

urope s Ive powers e)(press un ers n mg lor technical matters related to the economic side of 

Turkey's frustrations but add that 'outstanding issues' 

the customs union, which was launched a year 

do not make it easy for Ankara's quick membership agÇiller's explanations on the prospects for 

, , improved human rights, democratization and fur- 

By Nazlan Ertanfor EU membership but tllere ther measures on freedom of expression were lis- 

) Turkish Dai!y News, , were still ce,rtai~ issues to be tened to by the mini~te~, who express~ under- 

, I AR I,S- ,Foreign, Minister regulated. ThIs pomt was agreed standing0!1the pec~antIes of the 'KurçlishPI?b- 

T.msu Çllleds ctmplamt~ rn t~e by the British Foreign Secretary Malcolm lem," but IDturn rernrndedher that public opIDlOn 

status an . utur~ 0 t e Rifkind, who said Turkey had a ri2ht to be treated ,~ their.countries was gro~g increas~gly unpa- 

Europea~ Umon and ItSdefense, at least in the same manner as oThercandidates. lient WIththe slowness.of lJ!lI>iementmg funer 

anll-de,slgnate were heard sym- The rhetoric however was not translated,into an ,democracy and human nghts IDTurkey. 

pathetically by her. European invitation to 'the Euroc~nference a meeting of the' A reaction to the importance given to human 

cou~terparts, ~ut Instead of Fifteen with prospective me~bers after the rights came fr~m Washington, ~ ~te H~use 

ma~tng co.mmltmen~s, th~y Intergovernmental Conference. According to Spokesman Nicholas Bums Said, The Umted 

re~lI~de~ Çlller, of t,helr rubhc European sources who attended the meetmg, States would not favour creating any artificial or 

o~lnlOn s gro':"Ing Impallen~e Çiller spent.~e first half of the pentagonal meet- any new ~onditions that ~ght prevent Turk~y 

~Ith Turk~y s slowne~s In mg complammg that Turkey's status m both the from playmg a. full ~ole ID Europe. ,We are m 

Implementmg human nghts EU and the Western European Union was far favour of full InclUSIOnby Turkey In western 

refo~s, '. below expectations. She told the foreign ministers institutions." . 

Whl.le~e Big Five of the EU, that the Turkish economy was prosperous and As for two points of importance to Turkey, an 

- Bntam, France, Germany, J:'urkey's experience with democracy and human ~v!tation to ~,e E~onference, wruch aims to 

Italy and Spam - agreed that nghts was more comprehensive than for exam- mVlteall aspmng candidates to the EU after the 

Turke~ had a rig~t to feel fn,ts- pIe, that ofPoland. ' Intergovernmentil.C~nference,.and ~ date for the 

tr~tccIIn terms of ItSlev.e1of tICS She drew.attention to Turkey's role in NATO EU-Turkey AsSOCIatIonC~uncil, n~lther showed 

With the European Unton, the¥. and emphasized the necessity of Turkey playing a a breakthrOu,gh.The five sunply Saidthey hoped 

adde~ that "outsta~ding issues' role in the Western European Union, where it is !he ~ssociatIOnCo~ncil would be convened durrangmg 

from relatIOns between an associate member. 

Hl~ tne DulCh pn:sldency, and as for the Euro- 

:ru~key and. Greece to ~onomj,c De Charette, whose country holds the term ~i1ference, this would be done within the EU and 

mdlcators did ,not m3;lœImmedl- presi4ency of the WEU, discussed the issue of Withthe agreem~n~of all EU mem~rs. The Fi~e 

ate members~lp poSSible. . secunty In the meeting, but focused more on repea~ that therr informal talks WithTurkey ~d 

, But the rrumsters emphaSIzed Turkey s active role in NATO than its future in not give them authonty to undertake any corrurut- 

It was important to have Turkey the WEU. "Minister de Charette outlined the ment for the Fifteen. 

"anchored to Europe" rather il!lportance.of Turkey's active participation and A~rding to the diplomats, the.talks passed in 

t~an turn elsewhere when both dialogue \\lth Turkey on issues such as NATO a posll1vea~osphere' A French d~plomattold the 

Sides had made a great deal of enlargement and spectal relations with Russia," an TDN the aun was 'to exchange lâeas and learn 

progress in ties. . . .. aide of th~ French minister told the TDN. "We are each other's ~xpectatio~s."'These jnformal talks 

French Foreign, MInister also lookin~ forward to dialogue on disarmament are not a declsl~n making I?ech~sm, nor were 

Herye de Charette Said th~t ~he- and NATO s .arms modernization." According to the five coun~es ,pargal,OlngWith Turkey on 

oretJcally, Turkey was elllnble the same. SOllTC,e,.the European ministers behalf of theUmon, .he SaId. 

US puts its full weight .Turkisb Daily Neu5 "']DAY,JANUARY31 ]m' 

,behind Turkey 's EU bIld, 

the path to this integration. 

"It is our position that one needs 

, By Ui!ur Alone. to look at the full scope of our relawashmtn 

asks Europeans Turki,d, Daily News tionship with Turkey," U.S. State 

w ASHINGTON- The United Department spokesman Nicholas 

to taketter I00 k at Turkey States has weighed in on behalf of. Bums told reporters on Wednesday. 

and not place new conditions Turkey's bid. for int~gr~tion with "On balance, there is a strong case 

, h . I European Union, saymg It.~ppos~: to be made by the United States that 

on Its pat to eventua efforts toput new conditions ID Turkey should be more fU11&inteintegration 

with Europe front of Ankara that might obstruct grated into Europe despite t e fact 

122


that there are problems on human rights," he said. 

Bums said the State Department's annual human 

rights repon which was releaSed on Thursday does point 

to those human rights violations in Turkey. 

But "the EU question is a separate question," he qualified. 

'1'he United States would not favor creating any 

artificial or any new conditions that mi,,8hl prevent 

Turkey from playing a full role in Europe, Burns said. 

"We are in favour of full inclusion by Turkey in 

Western institutions." 

On Tuesday Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 

during her meeting with senior representatives of the 

European Union asked them not to use only the criterion 

of human ri2hts in regards for Turkey' s quest to become 

a full memoer of tlle European union, according to 

Washington sources. 

Albright met with Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van 

Mierlo, whose country holds the rotating European 

Union ~sidency, and European Trade CommissIOner 

Sir Leon Brittan. 

"There was a very brief discussion, not specific, 

about the question of Turke)' and the EU, but (Albright) 

did refer to the fact that we re very pleased that the customs 

union is working. I think Sir Leon Brittan reported 

to her that the customs unions bas actually worked quite 

well between Turkey and the EU," Burns said. 

"It' s an EU deciSion, not an American decision, as to 

which countries should become new members of the EU 

as the EU enlarges, and Secretary Albright did not 

attempt to give anX advice to the European leaders on 

that" "Bums said. 'But (Albright) gave them a strong 

sense of the American view toward Turkey. And that is 

that Turkey is a European country; that Turkey's future 

is not only in southeast Europe, it' s not only in south 

Asia or toward Asia, it is also in Europe; that we need 

all of us to make sure that Turkey is embedded in the 

major Western institutions - not only in NATO but in 

stronger affiliation with the European Union," Burns 

emphasized. "That's our very strong sense of the importance 

of Turkey throu2hout the West, and there was a 

::~ strong sense of that in the conversation," Bums 

Emphasizing the importance of secularism in 

Turkish-U.S. relations, Burns continued: "The secular 

democracy that Turkey has been since the early 19205 is 

really the foundation upon which our relatioriship with 

Turkey bas been built, and it's that secular democratic 

tradition which we believe is v~ impol1ant to preserve 

in uniting Turkey with the West.' . 

Burns was then asked about Foreign Minister Tansu 

Ciller' s reported remarks that Turkey would vote 

against NATO expansion if it is not allowed to join the 

European Union. 

"I nave not seen a text of Foreign Minister Ciller' s 

remarks, but I cannot believe that she's been quoted 

correctly, because Turkey is a member of NATO and 

bas supported, in January 1994 at the Brussels heads-ofstate 

decision, to enlarge NATO," Burns answered cautiously. 

'1'bere can't be any miscommunication (sic) or 

misunderstanding on that fundamental part. Turk, is 

:rgN~TO enlargement, as far as we know, he 

When asked if he would suppon (Greek) Cyprus' 

membership of the European Union, just like he supports 

Turkey's bid, Burns adopted a noncommittal posture. 

"We wish to see a resolutiOD of the Cyprus problem, 

but the decision as to whether or DOt'tbe (uropean 

UniOD takes in new members is an European Union 

decision," he said. "It' s not for the United States to $Ïve 

public advice to the European Union, but we certainly 

will urge that ... there be a European commitment to 

Cyprus, as there surely. clearly is lllready ... But I'm not 

talKing about membership here," he concluded. 

GAMK • vendredi, 31 janvier 1997 

LE GOUVERNEMENT 

TURC POURSUIVI 

POUR VIOL, TORTURES ET INCENDIES 

COUR EUROPÉENNE 

DEVANT 

DES DROITS DE L'HOMME 

Deux plaintes contre le gouvernement turc ont été examinées à la Cour 

européenne des droits de l'homme, basée à Strasbourg, pour viol, tortures et 

incendies déposées par des femmes kurdes. La première plainte concerne 

Mme. Sukran Aydin, originaire de la ville de Derik dans la province de Mardin, 

aujourd'hui âgée de 20 ans, qui se plaint d"'avoir été battue, déshabillée, arrosée 

d'eau sous pression à la gendarmerie de Derik et violée par un gendarme, 

en juin 1993". La Commission européenne des droits de l'homme, avant de 

transmettre la plainte à la Cour, avait conclu qu'il y avait eu "violation des 

articles 3 (interdiction de la torture) et 6.1 (droit à la liberté) de la Convention 

européenne des droits de l'homme" par les autorités turques. L'autre plainte 

déposée par quatre femmes kurdes concerne leur village de Saggoze, dans la 

province de Diyarbakir, "incendié et dévasté en 1993 par des gendarmes par 

mesure de représailles, à la suite d'une attaque contre la gendarmerie locale 

par les maquisards kurdes". Les arrêts de la Cour concernant ces deux 

affaires sont attendus d'ici trois à quatre mois. 

123

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stamp,a-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

GAMK - vendredi, 31 janvier 1997 

UTILISATION DES "REPENTIS" 

DANS LES ASSASSINATS POLITIQUES 

Les organisations turques de 

défense des droits de l'homme dénoncent 

depuis plusieurs années l'utilisation 

par la police et la gendarmerie des 

"repentis" du PKK dans nombre ç:I'exécutions 

extrajudiciaires commises dans 

les provinces kurdes. Les autorités 

concernées rejettent toujours de telles 

accusations. Les aveux à la presse de 

Kahraman Bilgiç, repenti du PKK devenu 

membre du gang de Yukeskova, 

formé de policiers et de militaires opérant 

à la jonction des frontières de .Ia 

Turquie avec l'Iran et l'Irak, viennent de 

relancer cette question~ Ce gang accusé 

d'un vaste trafic d'héroïne est égaIement 

impliqué dans le meurtre de plusieurs 

dizaines de civils. Les victimes 

avaient été présentées dans les laconiques 

communiqués militaires les 

unes comme de "terroristes", les autres 

.comme de "paysans abattus sauvagement 

par le PKK". Or le repenti K. 

•Bilgiç, supposé purger dans une prison 

sa peine, réduite en raison des dispositions 

de la loi sur les repentis, servait 

.en fait dans ce gang récemment révélé 

qui a fait en octobre dernier l'objet 

d'une enquête parlementaire. Il reconnaît 

avoir pris part à de nombreux 

"meurtres mystérieux", dorit 15 ont à ce 

jour ont pu être éclaircis, commis par' 

son gang. Poussé par une presse, 

prise enfin d'un accès de curiosité sur 

les années sombres et sanglantes que 

.le pays vient de vivre, le ministre islamiste 

de la Justice avait, en novembre 

dernier, demandé à la Cour de Sûreté 

GAMK - vendredi, 31 janvier 1997 

de l'État de Diyarbakir, qui a compéten- . 

ce pour l'ensemble de la région kurde 

d'état d'urgence, de lui faire savoir 

combien de repentis sont actuellement. 

dans les prisons de la région et où sont 

les autres. Cette cour a écrit à tous les 

directeurs de prison et les procureurs 

de la région de son ressort. Selon 

Milliyet du 22 janvier, les réponses tardent 

à venir. Ce journal publie cepen- 

. da nt la photographie de la lettre du 

directeur de la prison de Batman indiquant 

que le repenti Feiemez Tokan, 

incarcéré à Batman, a été remis le 18. 

6. 1996 au commandement départemental 

de la gendarmerie, à la demande 

de celui-ci. Batman est, avec Silvan 

et Diyarbakir, l'une des villes formant le 

"triangle infernal" des meurtres mystérieux. 

Milliyet indique également qu'un 

autre repenti, Mesut Mehmetoglu, est 

sorti en toute illégalité de sa prison. On 

ne sait toujours pas combien des 71 

repentis' recensés et supposés être en 

prison le sont effectivement; des 

témoins affirment avoir croisé certains 

des plus notoires dans les palaces 

d'Ankara, d'Istanbul et de la côte 

égéenne. Après la révélation des tribulations 

d'Abdullah Çatli, recherché par 

la justice turque pour 7 meurtres et par 

plusieurs pays européens pour trafic de 

drogue, recruté et employé par la police 

pour ses basses opérations avec rang 

et passeport de "haut fonctionnaire de 

police", l'opinion turque ne s'étonne 

plus guère de ces révelations sur les 

exactions des gangs. 

La situation des Kurdes s'améliore en Arménie 

"De nombreux Kurdes ont fui l'Arménie en raison des conditions 

socio-économiques difficiles, mais leur.exode s'est aujourd'hui arrêté, et on 

•observe même un mouvement de retour depuis les pays de la CEl où ils 

.s'étaient réfugiés", a indiqué dernièrement Amarike Sardar, président de 

l'Union des intellectuels kurdes d'Arménie. Le responsable kurde a égaiement 

fait remarquer que le seul journal en langue kurde, "Rya Taza", contifluait 

de paraître malgré ces conditions' difficiles. Le gouvernement arménien 

a accordé 2 millions de drams de subvention au journal pour l'exerci- ' 

ce 1997, une somme qui suffira cependant à peine pour couvrir la location 

de ses locaux. . 

124 

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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Ba~m Özeti 

LE PEUPLE BRETON - février I c'hwevrer 1997 

Turquie: 

Un nouveau parti pro-kurde, celui 

des "Masses démocratiques" (DKP), 

qui préconise une "so/ution politique à 

'la question kurde, tout en respectant 

les frontières actuel/es de /a Tùrquie", 

a été créé en Turquie. Le DKP sesitue 

au "centre" et est "libéral"; politique- 

'ment et économiquement, selon son 

président Seraffetin Elçi, ancien parlementaire 

d'origine kurde et ministre 

des Travaux publics dans les années 

70. M. Elçi a déclaré, vendredi 3 janvier, 

au ministre de l'Intérieur où il était 

Création dlun nouveau parti pro-kurde 

allé déposer les statuts de son parti, 

que. son parti était "contre /a violence 

et attaché aux méthodes' pacifistes et 

démocratiques. ". Il revendique "/a reconnaissance 

de /'identité kurde au niveau 

constitutionnel et l'attribution aux 

Kurdes des droits culture/s, notamment 

celui de /'enseignemént dans 

leur langue matemel/e". 

Jusqu'à présent, toutes les tentatives 

de création d'un parti kurde légal 

ont été réprimées par la justice turque. 

Les observateurs attendent avec intérêt 

la suite qui sera réservée à l'initiativede 

M. Elçi. Rappelons que six anciens 

parlementaires d'origine kurde, 

arrêtés en plein ParlelTlent en 1994, 

purgent actuellement des peines de 

prison pour délit d'opinion, dont l.eyla 

Zana. Son mari, Mehdi Zana, ancien 

.maire de Diyarbakir (capitale du Kurdistan), 

qui a passé plus de 15 ans. 

dans les geôles turques, purge une 

nouvelle peine de deux ans pour avoir 

témoigné devant le Parlement européen. 

LE PEUPLE BRETON - février I c'hwevrer 1997 

.Turquie : 

justice singulière 

La Turquie, partenaire commercial privilégié 

de l'Union européenne, a le sens de la 

justice. Le sociologue turc Ismail Besikçi, 

;actuellement incarcéré à Bursa, est 

condamné à plus de deux siècles (!) de prison 

pour ses écrits sur les Kurdes. Par 

ailleurs, 11 policiers impliqués dans l'assassinat, 

devant plusieurs centaines de témoins 

en plein Istanbul, d'un journaliste du 

quotidien Evrensel, M. Goktepe, et qui 

avaient été "suspendus" par le ministre de 

l'Intérieur, viennent dè bénéficier d'un décret 

du même ministre qui lève leur sus- . 

pension. Commentaire du préfet d'Istanbul 

: "Ces policiers ont subi la plus lourde 

des sanctions disciplinaires, à savoir un gel 

de 12 mois dans leur tableau.d'avancement". 

Nul doute que les chancelleries européennes 

sauront apprécier l'humour du 

Bosphore. . 

Turquie: 

Ankara achète 

30 hélicoptères et 

négocie 18 missiles 

avec la France 

Les autorités turques sont en pourparlers . 

avancés avec Thomson CSF pour l'acquisition 

de 18 missiles Improved Hawk pour un. 

montant de 160 millions de dollars. 

.(880 MF). En outre, les négociations turcofrançaises 

sur la vente d'hélicoptères à. 

usage militaire sont sur le point d'aboutir. 

Un accord pourrait être signé entre Euro-. 

copter et le gouverl'lement turc dans les 

prochains jours. El:Jrocoptervendrait dans 

.un premier temps 30 hélicoptères Cougar 

qui seront assemblés en Turquie. Cette. 

première livraison devrait être suivie d'une 

.seconde dont l'ampleur n'est encore indiquée. 

Source de ces articles sur la Turquie: 

Bulletin 'hebdomadaire du Comité International 

pour la libération des députés kurdes 

emprisonnés en Turquie. 106 rue La Fayet-. 

te, 75010 Paris. Tél. 01.45.23.11.72. Fax 

01.47.70.99.04. 

2

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de l P BÖ' 

a rensa- asm zeh 

dä1lynews 

Saturday, February I, 1997 

IMain findings of US rights report on Turkey 

TUrkish Daily News 

WASHINGTON- Turkey had serious human 

rights problems in 1996 and its record deteriorated in 

some res~, the United States said on Thursday. 

Here IS a sampling of the main findings of the 

report: 

• Susurluk scandal: "The incident resurrected 

serious concerns about corruption and the 

abuse of power in the security forces." 

• Abuse by security forces: "Some members 

of the security forces, particularly police "s~cial 

teams," Gendàrme troops, and TNP personnel, 

committed serious human rights abuses... Police and 

security forces often abused detainees and employed 

torture during periods of incommunicado detention 

and interrogation ... There was an increase in the 

number of r:eports of deaths attributable to ~overnment 

authorities due to excessive use of force. ' 

• Special teams: "In addition to the village 

guards, the Gendarme and police "special tearns" 

are viewed as those most responsible for abuses." 

• Unsolved famous cases: '1be following 

cases remain unsolved: the 1992 case of Yücel 

Özen; the 1994 murder of HEP party official Fait 

Candan; and the 1993 murder of journalist Ugur 

Mumcu." 

• PKK: "Since 1984 the separatist PKK has 

waged a violent terrorist insurgency in southeast 

Turlc.ey, directed against both secunty forces and 

civilians, almost al of them Kurds ... PKK continued 

to commit JXlliticaland extrajudicial killings, primarily 

in rural southeast Anatolia ... [in 1996 PKK 

killed}7 schoolteachers, bringing the total number of 

teachers killed by the PKK over the last 12 years to 

153... the PKK routinely kidnaps young men or 

threatens their families as part of its recruiting 

effort..." 

• Torture: "Although they deny that torture is 

systematic, they explain Its occurrence by stating 

that it is closely tied to the State's fight against terrorism 

... Many cases of torture, however, occur in 

western TUItey, outside the zone of conflict [like the 

alleged torturing of 14 teenagers in Manisa]." 

• Physici8ns and torture: "Law enforcement 

officials frequently coerce physicians, through 

the use of violence and intimidation, not to report 

evidence of torture... Sixty percent of the physicians 

surveyed (by the Physicians for Human Rights] 

believed that 'nearly everyone who is detained is tortured.'" 

lIDetention: "There is no £uarantee of immediate 

access to an attorney undèr the [Ami Terror] 

law for persons whose cases fall under the Juri)diclion 

of the State Securiry Courts ... The Government 

presented more immediate access to an attorney ... 

By year's end, this legislation had not been passed 

into law." 

• Language: "In law and in practice, the legal 

svstem does not discriminate against minorities. 

However. as legal proceedings are conducted solely 

in Turkish, and the quality of interpreters varies, 

some defendants whose mother tonßue is not 

Turkish may be seriously disadvantaged.' 

• Displaced: "A few nongovernrnen~ org~zations 

have put the number of people forcibly dtSplaced 

[from their villages] as high as 2 million ... On 

me low end, the then Interior Minister stated in July 

that the total number of evacuees was 330,000 ... The 

Foreign Ministry indicated that. as of October, 

15.314 people or 2,019 households had returned to 

their villages in the southeast" 

• Media: "Domestic and foreign periodicals 

providing a br~ad spectru~ of views and o!>inio~s 

are widely available .., While the overall readership 

of the local press ISnOllarge for a country of 60 million, 

the newspaper business is intensely comJletitive 

and the product often sensationalist ... the media frequently 

criticizes government leaders and policies. 

Turkish media coverage of the situation on the 

southeast tended to be unreliable, under-reporting it 

in some instances and sensationalizing it 10 others. 

Government Decree 430 requires self-censorship of 

al news reportin$ from or aböut the southeast. .." 

• Journahsts: Individual journalists are subject 

to harassment and police violence. At various 

times 135 journalists were detained ... Eleven journalists 

were fonnally arrested." . 

.Kurds: 'The Constitution does not recognize 

the Kurds as a national, racial, or ethnic minority. 

There are no legal barriers to ethnic Kurds' participation 

in political and economic affairs. but Kurds 

who publicly or politically assert their Kurdish eth. 

nic identity risk harassment or prosecution." 

.Kurdish: "Kurdish-language cassettes and 

publications on Kurdish subjects continued to be 

widely available, although suppression continued ... 

Kurdish-language broadcasts are still illegal ... Under 

the law on polItical parties ... all discussions that 

takes place at political meetings must be in Turkish. 

Kurdish may be used only in 'nonpolitical communication.''' 

.Reli8ion: "Although Turkey is a secular state, 

religious mstruction in state schools is compulsory 

for Muslims .. There are ... no government-salaried 

Alawi religious leaders, in contrast to Sunni religious 

leaders, and no Religious Affairs Directorate 

funds for to the Alawi community ..." 

.Women's rights: "There are no restrictions 

in law against women orminorities votÏI!~ or participating 

in j>?litics. The Constitution CallS for equal 

political nghts for men and women." 

• Women and abuse: "Spousal abuse is 

serious and widespread. However, It is still considered 

an extremely private matter, involving societal 

notions of family honor. Few women go to the 

police ... beating is one of the most frequent fonns of 

violence against women in the home ... Laws and 

ingrained societal notions make it difficult to prosecute 

sexual assault or rape cases. Penalties may 

legally be reduced if a woman was not a virgin prior 

3

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentrode la Prensa-Baszn Özeti 

to a rape, or if a judge deems the woman to have 

~cted provocatively." 

. • Unions: "AlthouSh unions are independent of 

the Government and political panies, they must have 

government permisSJon to hold meetings or rallies 

and must allow police to attend conventions and 

record the proceedings." 

• 10 percent rule: "All industrial workers 

have the right to organize and bargain collectively. 

{but} the law requires that, in order to become a bargaining 

agent, a .union must represent not only 50 

.percent plus one of the employees at a given work 

site. but also 10 percent of al the workers in that particular 

industry. This 10 percent barrier has tbe 

effect of favoring established unions,~particularly 

those affiliated with Turk-Is ... The ILO has called 

on Turkey to rescind this 10 percent rule. Both 

Turk-Is and the Turkish employers' organization 

favor retention of the rule. however." 

.Children: "Children suffered greàtly 

from the cycle of violence in the southeast... [Child 

labor is a problem recognized DY the Government] ... 

According to a study conducted by the Turk-Is Child 

Workers Bureau released in September, for every 

100 workers, 32 were between tlie agesof 6 and 19 

... The study said that 56 percent of these workers 

were uninsured." 

Turkish Daily News. MONDAY.FEBRUARY3.1997 

The secret amIS embargo on Turkey 

Turkish 

Daily News 

ANKARA- United States has been 

applying a hiddèn arms embargo on 

Turkey by purposely not giving an 

export licence due to human rights 

violations, the State. Department 

deputy John Shattuck confessed on 

Saturday. 

Speaking at a conference for the 

foreign press after the State 

Department's human ri~hts report 

was released, Shattuck satd they had 

prevented arms sale to nations with 

thick human right~ violation files, a 

leading Turkish newspaper, 

Curnhuriyet reported.on Sunday. 

Shattuck said Sudan, Burundi, 

Rwanda, Iran and Turkey were 

among the countries which had been 

prevented from buying "goods to 

fight crime" over the past two years. 

The newspaper report also said 

that lobbying in Washington by 

. Greek, Cypriot, Kurdish and 

Armenian groups, in cooperation, 

worked to prevent the purchase of 

Sea Hawk helicopters by Turkey .. 

When asked about the Turkish 

Turkish Daily News: MONDAY. FEBRUARY 3.1997 

Istanbul darkened for enlightenment 

Turkish Daily News . 

ISTANBUL- 

The One Minute's Darkness 

.for Enlightenment Campaignof the Citizen's 

Initiative for Enlightenment started on. 

Saturday evening all over Turkey and in 

Istanbul. 

The campaign received considerable attention 

and support from various organizations, 

the media and public. Major television channels 

broadcast the c.~ in their primetime 

news programs on Friday and Saturday, 

andannounCed that they were going to have a 

one-minute siren warning throughout 

February to remind the public to turn off their 

lights. . 

. The campaign isto hiJthli~t public concern 

at the recent scanoals ln the country 

which have given rise to allegations that a 

hidden "secret state" is in existence. 

One of Turkey's most important businessmen, 

Salop SabancI, said om TV on. Friday 

evening that he supported the campatgn and 

was going to turn off his mansion's lights 

every nigbt at 21:00 throughout the campaign. 

He also stated that the ligh~ woul,dbe 

off in the headquarters of SabanClHo~dings, 

the Twin Towers, to supportthe campatgn. 

The one-minute's lights out kicked off in 

Istanbul with a meeting, or~anized by 

minority in Western Thrace, 

Shattuck said denying that a Turkish 

minority in the region exists is not 

U.S. policy and said that Greece has 

minority problems as well. 

"Protecting minorities is an important 

element for human rights. In this 

context Turkey and Greece have 

problems: .. 

A minority's ability to express 

their lan~uage and culture and to 

have religIOUSfreedom is an essential 

element (of human rights), Shattuck 

said. 

TurkeY's best-selling popular political cartoon 

magazine, Leman. The Citizen's 

Initiative for 'Enlightenment, various nongoyernmentalorg~on.s 

(NGÇ)s), de~oc- 

.:rntJcgroups, politica1partIes; wnters, artIsts, 

actors ana actresses, businessmen and citizens 

attended the colorful meeting to cele- 

.brate the commencement of the one-monthlong 

campaign. . 

A remärkable degree of participationin the 

campaignwas observedon Friday in Istanbul, 

.when the lights went off for one minute at 

.21:00 in many residential and business areas, 

especi~y around the central neighborhoods 

oftheClty. 

4

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Bastn Özeti 

INTERNATIONAL HERALD rnmUNE, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3. 1Q97 

r Europe and Japan 

Are Guaranteeing 

$5 Billion in Loans, 

Tehran Reports 

Iran's Central Bank Chief Hails 

Cooperation From 'Partners,' 

Citing Failure of u.s. Sanctions 

By Alan Friedman 

ln/erna/ional Herald Tribune 

DAvas, Switzerland - Despite U.S. anti-terrorism sanctions, 

Iran has managed to obtain offers of more than $5 

billion in government-backed loan guarantees from Europe 

and Japan over the last 18 months, according to the governor 

of Tehran's central bank. 

Mohsen Nourbakhch, Iran's central bank chief, said in an 

interview here that Tehran already had used $2.7 billion of 

credits, much of these since the middle of last year, to help 

finance some 50 projects. 

The new credits, he said, were being used for projects in the 

energy, power generation, railroad and other infrastructure 

sectors. 

"Despite all the pressures from U.S. sanctions, we have 

succeeded in reopening credit lines," he said. "There was 

some hesitation at first, but no more." 

Inaddition, he said that the export loan guarantee agenc~es 

of Germany, Japan, Italy, France, Spain and other countnes 

also had helped Tehran to reschedule a total of ah


creclits "froin governnient~baCkèd programs. 

In 1993, he said, 76.1 percent of 

this debt and arrears was short-term, 

meaning it would come due in 12 months'. 

But at present, he said, the short-term 

portion had been reduced to just 20.7 

percent of the $22 billion ofdebt. 

, Mr.,Nl:>urbakhch said Iran was most 

'grateful toits trading paitners, ari


lem." 

ElkatIn1~ said that the commission also 

attached ~at imQOrtance to the hot mon~y 

laundering issue. ln that context, a bank ID 

Cyprus ha.s l?een investigated extensiv.ely. 

The comnnsslon has one more month untillts 

Europeans support 

Metin Göktepe's 

killers' trial 

By Zeki AYlk 

TurkIsh Daily News 

1STANBUL- The trial of 11 police officers 

accused of participating in the murder last year of 

journalist Melin Göktepe will resume February 6 

in Afyon. 

Apart from many Turkish journalists and 

lawyers European observers will also observe the 

trial. Jeremy Cobin, a British Labour MP from 

London's Islington district will follow the proceedings. 

The Contemporary Jurists Association (ÇH~), 

Human Rights Association (yHD) and MetIn 

Göktepe Commissions recently held a press conmandate 

expires. If Parliament grants it 

another month, it would have two months at 

best. Since the commission intends to hear 

many more witnesses, two months would not 

suffice, he stressed. 

ference about the Göktepe case. 

Kamil Tekinsürek, the chairman of the Human 

Rights Association' s Melin Göktepe Commissi~n, 

said prosecuting attorneys were not present whIle 

the 11 accused gave their staterrients to the Eyüp 

First Court. 

"The judge did not ask the accused even OLe 

question, and their addresses were not recorded 

either," Tekinsürek complained. He added that the 

court session was not even announced to the prosecuting 

lawyers. 

Tekinsürek said they would seek to prosecute 

the presiding judge. . 

Tekinsürek also recalled that the Istanbul secunty 

chief on the date of Göktepe's murder, January 

8, 1995, was Necdet Menzir, who now sits in 

Parliament. 

The supervising security departmen.t chief, 

Kemal Bayrak, was subsequently appomted to 

another city. . .. 

He emphasized that the case was attractmg the 

attention of foreigners because the victim was a 

journalist, and because of the laws broken. 

He said a bus willleave for Afyon on February 

5 in front of Tüyap for foreigners and others who 

want to observe the trial. 

Turkish Daily News TUESDAY.FEBRUARY4.1997 

Turkey accused of drug trafficking; Europe reacts 

By Jan Pacal 

Turkish Daily News lIST ANBUL 

The anxiety of the West about Turkey' s 

role in the anti-drugs struggle has started 

to show itself at the borderS. Many 

EurOpean countries, including Germany, 

have started to ~ visas even for 

children, while legitimate Turlâsh businessmen bave 

been subjected to the ignominy of being searched from 

head to foot, including the heels of their shoes, at air. 

ports. The siwation, which disturbs Turlcey, bas haP': 

pened in the past But this time there's a difference the 

names of a deputy ~ miirister and her husband 

bave been mentioned directly in the allegations. 

Al1egations against the Çillers not new 

A new charge is added nearly every day to the allegations 

s~unding the deputy prime minister ~d her 

spouse, Oz~r Uçuran Çiller. For example allegations 

about their property and income surfaCed dunng her 

tenn as prime mimster. Since the Susurluk accident of 

early November last year, her name has also been 

mentioned as the head of a state-licensed terrorist 

organization - indeed. it has been claimed that she 

fonned a personal intelligence group. Frankfurt State 

(mut Juage Rolf Schwalbe in his summation of a trial 

held before him added to the allegations by accusing 

the members of the Turkish government and a female 

minister of "protectin~ the diugs trade." While these 

claims have mcreasea tension between Germany and 

Turkey, some have raised their voices to suggest that 

Çiller should not be allowed to continue in her position 

because of the allegations. 

The members of parliament who left the True Path 

Party (DYP) in protest at the alleged dictatorial practices 

of Ciller now lead the chorus of demands that she 

should clear the charges against her. 

Democratic Turkey Party (DTP) Chairman 

Hüsamettin Cindoruk says that no deputy prime minister 

before Çiller has been at the center of so many serious 

alleganons, which amount to her being the leader 

of a gang, and expresses his belief that everything will 

be solved in time. 

Former DYP parliamentarian Harndi Üçpmarlar, 

who worked with Tansu Çiller for three years,cannot 

say that the allegations about her are groundless. 

çi11er harms Turkey 

The fonner chainnan of the Democratic Left Party' s 

(DSP) e.arliamentary group, Mümtaz Soysal, says that 

Tansu


ages Turkey's image andrespèct. 

"Mrs. Çiller has to leave the chairs of power, and 

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in particular," he said. 

"This is the only way to rescue Turkey from the. 

Colombia' situation which it is in." 

SoySal added that bringing Çiller down would not 

change everything suddemy but would be an important 

step on the way to change.. . 

. None of the commentators in the Turkish press can 

say that Çiller is innocent and the allegations false. 

Hürriret writer Fatih Altayh says: ''Tlie German 

judge s sole crime is to state an opinion openly which 

IScommon.to almost all of the European countries but 

not expreSsedbefore. . . 

A Dutchjud2e told me days ago: 'Holland does not 

want to return ßuseyin Baybasin to Turkey, because 

Turkey is not trusted andis viewed as a drug- smuggling 

country.' He said that although it was not 

expressed so openly, this is Holland's official opinion." 

'Canadian polü:e have datß 

and documentation' 

Altayh points out that the Canadian 

police have established that one of the 

phone numbers (417 04 76) found on drug 

smuggler David Dingwall on his arrest in 

Canada. belonged to the Prime Ministry 

~cial Registrar's Office, during Tansu 

(,:iller's term as prime minister. 

. "Canada hL1ùrequired information from 

the Turkish Security Department about this 

issue," AItayh adds, "but the Turkish 

Security department did not inform the 

Canadian government that the number 

belonged to the Special Registrar' s Office. 

Information can still be found in Canadian 

Police records which shows several phone . 

conversations that Dingwall had in fluent 

Turkish at this number with someone called Michael. 

All the records of the incoming and outgoing calls of 

this number in Turkey were erased six months ago." 

. Altayh pt:edicted that the most important topic of 

Turkey' s meeting with the five memoers of the 

E~ Union ~U) :-vouldbe ~'drugs:' and says, "ln 

four of these partigpabng countnes~ statements have 

been made about Ozer Uçuran Çiller' s involvement in 

drug trafficking. Can we believe that the foreign ministers 

of these countrieswill give information to Tansu 

Çiller about the anti-drugs struggle? Will they inform 

Çiller on their anti-drugs tactics1 I believe they will 

.not. They see her as a mole and likely will give misinformation 

and will have developed their plans accordingly." 

Other items on the agenCiasuch as Turkey's 

EU mem~rship 

and human rights in Turkey seem to 

have dommated the agenda as well. . 

Turkey accused before 

Hürriyet's editor in chief, Ertugrul Özkök, says that 

the decision of the German court was not new and 

points out that similar decisions have been made by 

the Hanover and Trier courts. 

'The decision is not important," Özkök says. 

"Turkey' s name was mentioned in three different 

German courts as a country allowing drug smuggling; 

this is important Turkey's name is mentioned among 

the Soutl:iAmerican drug barons." 

Oktay ~i, the chief columnist of the same newspaper. 

writes that they (the Germans) are not saying 

the allegations are true, but we shouid know that a 

Gell!lan judge woûld not make such allegations out of 

nothing. . 

E~l also says that Turkey's name has been stained 

due to these developments. 

'~e Tl':fkish state's name pas been terribly stained, 

especially m the last few years with the realines which 

have been revealed bl the Susurluk Scandal and with 

~e efforts of Tansu (,:iller.Their motto is 'Let us eàm 

mcome from drug smuggling instead of the PKK'" he 

says. . 

Sabah columnist ~asan Cemal says: "Does Turkey 

4eserve such allegations? You can say these allegalIons 

are the . 

. irre~nsibility of the German judge. You may condemn 

It ~ s~~g. But how did the German court 

inak~ this decis~onabout the government of the 

Turkish Republic? Who were the witnesses? The 

answers of these questions should beexamined m'full 

detail." 

. ~dikal writer ~et Berkan, in discussing a recent 

VISitby two Amencan drug- smuggling experts says: 

:The Americll!l experts asked an interesting question; 

Is !here a chll!ß of command?' I told them that the . 

basiC th~~ smce the Susurluk accident has been that 

eve~g baI>penedthrough such a chain. The whole 

theory ISbased on this probability. 

'The ~ond question after this explanation was: 'Is 

Tansu Çiller at the head of this cham?' I could not 

say tha! sh~ ~as not, although I had no evidence. I had 

to say: This ISthe allegation, but it has not been 

provèd.' 

"~t this time the allegations about Çiller and her 

family do not need to be supported.by evidence or 

prov~ t? be untrue. They are already widely believed ' 

by Œ:clslon-~g ~thoriti~s in the West. Çiller and 

her clI'C,IecI~ It IS a consprracy' - a conspiracy of 

some big ho!ding c~mp'anies, opposition leader Mesut 

ytlmaz and JOurnalists Jealous of Ciller and her family. 

~t us assume the conspiracy allegalIOns 

are true for a second; if the 

mspirers of the conspiracy have such 

po~er that they.are äble to create such 

an.tm~e, why should not they simply 

brmg (,:iller down?" . 

Turkey in a difficult situation 

internationally 

.The findings of the Paris-based 

Geopolitical Narcotics Monitor put 

TurlCeyin a more difficult situatIon 

after the ~tements made Ï? Germany. 

The Morutor offers an advISOryservice 

for institutions such as the EU, the 

European Council and the United 

Nations. . 

The statements of an authority at the 

, Observatory about the ''high-ranking 

protection" ofdrug smugglers in 

.Turkey caused even mOI:echaos. 

The authority did not want his name to be revealed . 

forsecurity reasons, but he said 70 percent of the 

.drugs which are consumè4 in Europe come through 

T~ey andßleged that .this would not be possible . 

Without polilIcal protecIIon. Turkey has been put in a 

situation that is even more difficult to get out of after 

.these ~egatiollS. l'b~comments of the concerned 

8


countries on the recent developments have been 

dammin 

Bri~ The junior minister at the British Home 

Office, Tom Sackville, said: '1bere are wonying allegations 

and evidence about the involvement of the 

Turkish authorities in drug smuWing. Eighty perceI1.t 

of the drugs which enter Englanacome throUgh . 

Turkey. The smugglers have access to the intelligence 

that the Turkish authorities are given, and therefore 

anti-drog ~tions are not affective." 

HonaDd: The Dutch Parliament accuses Turkey of 

drug smuggJing in a report they ~ on the issue. 

Holland makes interesting comments in the ~rt; 

''Organi?ed crime is closely connected to OffiClalS. 

The circles of ~anized cnme, state services and businessmen 

have faimed an inseparable knot" USA: The 

US Congress started to investigate the connection 

between the drug smuwers arid the IlOliticians in 

T~ after the SusurWk scandal wliich revealed a 

mafia-police-politician trian21e. 

Greece: They are calling ror sanctions against 

Turkey due to the all: of drug smu~g. The 

Greek authorities exp' !bat they had seized 957 

kilograms of drugs Oeing smuwed into Europe from 

Tllliey, with a street value ofaoout $164 million, and 

bad arrested 360 people. 

'The10m have been opentdfor drugs' 

A hot debate continues in Turkey while such allegations 

continue at full speed abroad. 

The most important debate is on the privatization of 

the ports. The [4 seaports which are operated by the 

Turkish State Maritime Company are viewed as dangerous 

due to their strategic importance. The Union of 

Dockworkers (Uman-4) Istan6ul branch leader, 

Muzaffer ~, states that the ~rts could 

become transIt doors for all kinds of smuggling and 

corruption in the case of their being sold to the private 

sector, and added that the winner of the bid for 

Tekirdag Seaport. Hayyam Garipoglu, was a convicted 

smuggler. 

AkDIilar said that the late Presiden~ Turgut Özal, 

when be was still prime minister, had started the discussion 

on the privatization ofloss-making public 

enterprises, but it was decided later to sen all of them. 

both unprofitable and profitable. 

He aISo said that the seap


accus~ of being i!Jvolved in smuggling nuclear 

matenals appears 1PnewspaJX:rsarid ~n television 

screens. In llolland the fmancliù dealim:s carried out 

by offices belongin o to some of !~rke}~ s biggest 

banks are su~~nde ä op the SuspicIOnof "laundering 

drug money. Turkey s namels mentioned often 

along with those of countries like Colombia considered 

to be the home of the world's leading dnH! 

dealers. .. . - 

So.what do Turkish authorities do about this? 

They behave like parents who ~t that their children 

mi~t be into.dru~ but since there is DO. concrete 

eVidence, they.wOuld prefer DOC la !hink ,about 

it. The real disaster basn't blocked on their own 

door yet. Even when!bey are confronted with reality, 

some try to play down the scale of the event; they 

rationalize to seek ways out of the situation, stressing 

what hasn't been said rather than confront reality'''çiUer's 

name i~not mentioned in the Gernian 

court's decision," they say or, ''The judge did not 

mean to say that, but meant to say this," or, "Look at 

this: even the prosecutor was surprised by the statement 

of thejudge." People co~veniently forget that 

Turkey has been known as a highway for drugs traveling 

from east to west for a number of years. 

Some of them stage a farce, issuing ulùmatums . 

and demanding apologies, t.rrïng to keep their heads 

above the sewer water in which they are swimming. 

Some circles would like the recent past to be forgotten, 

as if Ciller were not this country' s Minister 

of Foreign Affairs, as if she had not been the Prime 

Minister for several years, as if the activities carried 

out by gangs such as the unresolved murders and . 

newspaperbombings did not contradict her p'ublic 

statements as prime minister, as if she hadn toffered 

Mehmet A~ar a seat in Parliament and then appointed 

him to be Minister of Justice and later Intenor ~, 

Minister; the same A~ar who stands accused of pro-: 

viding gang members with facilities enabling them, 

to commit crimes and escape consequences. 

As if it were not Çiller who JlCrsonally declared a 

,.Rang chief killed in theSusurluk traffic accident a .," ' 

'hero." In Turkey now these same circles are now 

maneuvering toprevenfÇiller's name from entering; 

international criminal files. 

Other circles fallaciously and foolishly resort to . 

'. demagoguery in their attempts to cover up the whola 

affair. "But the state of the Republic of Turkey 

should not be accused of what Mrs. Çiller has been 

doing," they plead. ., .'. 

In reality, however, the recent chain of events in 

Germany, France and Britain, three countries which 

can be said to ~rimarily ~epresent Western Europe, 

portrays today s Turkey as if it had been photographed 

from a different angle, The evaluations 

appear in the decisions of the,German state courts 

and in the German media; in the reports of the 

Geopolitical Narcotics Monitor (Observatoire 

Geopolitique des Drogues) in.Fr~ce, which prepares 

reports on drug trafficking; m the statements 

of the junior minister in the British Home Office, 

Tom Sackville; and in the reasoning behind 

Holland's suspending the activities of the Turki&h 

banks' branches there: . 

* 70-80 percent of the drugs on the European 

market come through Turkey. ' 

*Drug trafficking has political connections,in .." 

Turkey äßd the drug smugglers are under hiBb level 

official.protectiôn from the stateand politiCians, 

. * Some top figures in the security forces and govef!UDent~uthoritles 

are ipvolved in the drug-smuggling 

busmess. 

* Criminals wanted by Interpol, far from beina 

caught, are protected an~ proviàed with diplomatic 

passports and documents m Turkey which enables 

them to continue their activities. ' 

* The information suppli~ by Turkish securi!)' 

units about the international drugs trade is not reliable. 

, 

* Drug trafficking infomiation su~plied by 

Western security forces to their Turkish counterparts 

is leaked to the smugglers and results in the failure 

of anti-drug operations. 

The news articles then reach the conclusion that 

Turkey is-one of the centers of international heroin 

traffic, and has become the COlombia of Europe. 

!he opinion ()f sonie obseryers that the ongoing war 

m TurKey agamst the Kurdistan Workers' Party 

(PKK) is partially financed by the money earned 

through the drugs trade has been gaining more advocates, 

and certamly some funds come from that 

source. And this differs from previous government 

accusations that the PKK has been financing its . 

activities via the drug trade. 

All these developments indicate an upcoming disaster 

in Turco-European relations through an overdose 

on drugs. Turlœy has not been able to avoid 

intense and mcessant criticism over its attitude 

towards democratization and.human rights and now 

it faces the more serious allegation of international 

drug trafficking. . 

West~rn Europe has begun signaling that the attitude 

which they normally take against Colombia is 

on the agenda for Turkey ifTurkey carinot and eradicate 

all the dirt .thrown up by the gangs in which . 

some state offiCIals have been involved. To give 

one of the least 'of the possible sanctions Tansu 

Çiller ~ould be refuseda visa to travelt; European , 

countrIes although she is said to hold a VS passp[~ne 

of the harsher personal penalties might 1?e an 

investigation by the V.S. Intermil Revenue Semce 

into her annual tax returns in that country. After all, 

Al Capone, to name just one of America's better 

known criminals, got nailed on tax evasion charges.] 

If some think they can resort to Classic m,ethods 

and accuse Europe of weakening Turco-European 

relations througli empty demagogic statements such 

as "They have lallen into the PKK trap," or ''They , 

have become a tool of PKK propaganàa," or ''They 

use the PKK's language," we would like to remind. 

them of the followmg: ' 

"Ladies ilDdgentlemen, why are you frothing at 

the mouth over the latest moves by European authorities? 

They are doing exactly what President 

Süleyman Demirel told everyone to do in refering to 

the Susurluk accident: 'This cannot be covered up. ' 

Continue your investigations as far as they lead 

you." Demirel himself seems not to be following his 

own advice, but the Europeans, far from being over- . 

dosed, seem determined to follow Turkey's "fairy 

.godmother" as far as possible. 

10

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Turkisb Daily News MONDAY. FEBRUARY 3. \997 

" 

Those who do not want real democracy are at work 

First they tried to create a Turkish- 

Kurdish conflict to maintain their 

hold on the country. They tried the 

Alewite-Sunni card. Now they are 

trying to polarize us as religious 

minded people and secularists ... 

In the period before the 1980 coup, certain 

circles who did not want a democratic solution 

to the problems of the country fueled 

the right-wing and left-wing rift and created 

a civil warlike situation in the country so that 

they could step in and run Turkeyaccording to 

their desires. 

They were partially successful as they did 

not only dissolve the Parliament but they managed 

to close down all political parties and dismantle 

the political system. They legislated their 

own repressive laws and thus put Turkey in a 

complete mess. Today we are still suffering 

from what they did as we face political obstructions 

and confusion. 

So the politicalleaders who suffered most 

from all this, instead of correcting the past mistakes 

and rebuilding the democratic system on 

strong grounds, failed to live up to popular 

expectations and the restrictive and repressive 

f~itonal 

Ilnur Çevik 

system was kept intact. Süleyman Demirel, 

when he was prime minister, did try some superficial 

steps but they were too little and ineffective. 

Meanwhile, the forces who tried to dominate 

the country and always maintained the repressive 

status quo were in full action. They tried to 

fuel the rift between the Kurds and the Turks in 

our country in order to maintain their crooked 

system. They even tried to create conflicts 

between Sunnis and Alewis to spread confusion 

and rule. 

Their aim is clear. They do not want Turkey 

to emerge from its current semi-democratic.state 

and become a full democracy. They know that 

under such a system they cannot survive in 

Turkey. 

But now a new game is being played. They 

have realized that whatever they do, they cannot 

halt the growing influence of the people in 

Turkey who are rather sen~itive to Islam. So 

they have created this polarization between the 

so-called Islamists and the secularists. 

Every time people who feel more sensitive to 

Islam (like church goers in the West) try to do 

something, it is considered a major challenge to 

the.secularist system and threats are issued. The 

so-called secularists have even felt a military 

coup could do the trick... "What are you waiting 

for? Will you act only after the green flag of 

Islam replaces the star and the crescent?" they 

reportedly ask the military. 

But the armed forces realize that a military 

takeover should not be on the cards. So now the 

conservative establishment which is behind the 

Susurluk scandal, where mobsters were used to 

kill the adversaries of the system, have now 

launched a campaign to promöte a civilian coup 

using some labor leaders, a major holding company, 

some politicians and even some high-level 

state officials ... An ugly scenario, isn't it? 

These people do not realize that one day the 

masses who helped to raise Süleyman Demirel 

out of the ashes of the coup, despite the incredible 

pressures from the military in the 1980s, will 

önce again raise their heads and bring true 

democracy to this country. 

~

~ 

I'D 

~ 

.., 

~ 

N 

En Iran, le retour à la rigueur financière a stoppé 

les réformes économiques. 

~ 

n:. 

c:J 

li:: 

n:. 

l"l.. 

n:. 

Peu d'observateurs .. As" t I 

croyaient en la capaci- T le cen ra e 

té de l'Iran de faire ' " , 

face à la crise des paie- Montee de Ilnflatlon, 

.-ments extérieurs qui l'a affecté b d d I 

en 1993. A l'époque, le montânt a an on e a 

'~~:?=~~sp~e:e:~s~:~ politique d'unification 

Situation provoquée ~otamment destaux de'change' 

par une trop forte crmssance des , 

l~~~~~~.ons ~prèS la guer~e Téhéran paie cher 

b~~~e à~~~~~~~~ ~e stratégIe la cris_edes paiements 

.- Le gouvernement iranien a xt" d 1993 

d'abord réussi à imposer l'idée e eneurs e 

de négociations bilatérales à 

l'ensemble des créanciers 

concernés. Ces discussions ont 

. abouti à un rééchelonnement de 

:i~ dette extérieure irai.üenne. 

L~échéancier annoncé. prévoyait 

d.~s remboursements importants 

jusqu'en l'an 2000; 

C()NTROLE DES IMPORTATIONS 

.- Le gouvernement a mis en 

place, afin de dégager des excédents 

courants, une politique de 

réduction drastique des importations. 

Celles-ci ont été ramenées 

de 19 milliards de dollars en 1993 

à 12,6 milliards environ en 1994 

et 1995. En 1996, les importations 

. se seraient légèrement redressées, 

tout en restant inférieures 

(de 20 %) à leur niveau de 1993. 

Grâce. à ces mesures et à la 

bonne tenue du prix du pétrole, 

les arriérés de paiement ont été 

ramenés à 200 millions de dollars 

en 1996. D'autre part, le montant 

des réserves en devises de la 

banque centrale atteindrait, en 

1996, près de 8 milliards de dollars, 

soit une progression de 

5 milliards par ra~p()rt.~ 1993 . 

Ces éléments ont évidemment 

impressionné de manière favorable 

la communauté financière 

internationale. Ainsi, plusieurs 

sociétés européennes d'assurance-crédit, 

dont la Coface, ont 

recommencé en 1996 à couvrir 

les exportations à destination de 

l'ancienne Perse. 

De plus, les partenaires 

commerciaux de l'Iran ont noté 

avec satisfaction que, dans le 

cadre du nouveau plan quinquennal 

(1995-2000), le ministère 

de l'économie et des finances est 

dans l'obligation de garantir les 

remboursements des engagements 

en devises des sociétés 

publiques et privées iraniennes 

en cas de défaut de paiement; 

Néanmoins, la remise en ordre 

des finances extérieures a eu un 

cOÜt social et économique très 

élevé. 

La population iranienne a subi 

une nette .diminution de son 

pouvoir d'achat depuis 1993. La 

politique de limitation des importations 

a pesé sur l'offre de 

l'appareil productif, largemen; 

L'INCONNUEAM~RICAINE 

Enfin, et surtout, les Etats-Unis 

souhaitent développer leur présence 

économique en Asie centrale, 

du fait des immenses réserves 

pétrolières et gazières de 

cette région. Or ils ne peuvent 

ignorer la situation stratégique 

de l'Iran en Asie centrale, renfordépendant 

des importations en 

bienS d'équipement. De surcroît, 

les diffièultés de l'industrie (publique 

à 70 %) ne se sont pas traduites 

par des disparitions d'entreprises, 

du fait d'allocations 

automatiques et sans condition 

de crédits par le sys.tème bancaire. 

La croissance de la masse 

monétaire a donc été élevée sur 

la période 1994-1995 (+ 33,2 % en 

moyenne annuelle). 

Ces deux facteurs, tassement 

de l'offre et forte croissance de 

la masse monétaire, ont conduit 

à une acéélération de l'inflation: 

42,3 % en moyenne annuelle sur 

la période 1994-1995. Selon la 

banque centrale de l'Iran, le 

rythme de hausse des prix se serait 

atténué en 1996, mais resterait 

élevé: + 27 % en septembre 

1996, en glissement annuel. 

Parallèlement, la crise des 

paiements extérieurs a conduit à 

un arrêt quasi total du programme 

de libéralisation économique 

appliqué depuis 1989; auquel 

s'est ajoutée lattès grave 

crise du marché des changes de 

mai 1995. Cette crise, liée à la 

compression des importations, a 

entrainé un abandon de la politique' 

d'unification des taux de 

change, pierre angulaire des réformes, 

et un retour à un système 

de change à taux multiples. 

La gestion centralisée du 

commerce extérieur a été renforcée 

afin de contrôler les importations. 

Et la montée de l'inflation 

a conduit au maintien des subventions 

sur les produits de"première 

nécessité comme le pain. 

Un des facteurs déterminants 

pour l'économie iranienne sera 

l'éVOlution des relations avec les 

, Le redressement des comptes extérieUß 

en milliards de dollars 

25 

20 

15 

10 

5 

o 

. 1991 

1992 

1993 

Etats-Uins. Or un certain nombre 

d'éléments laissent penser que 

Washington's'interroge sur la validité 

de la stratégie d'affrontement 

systématique choisie vis-àvis 

de Téhéran. En effet, l'Iran a 

réussi, semble-t-il, à. faire face 

aux mouvements d'embargo qui 

l'ont affecté. Depuis l'arrêt des 

achats américains de pétrole de 

l'été 1995, les Iraniens ont accru 

leurs ventes d'hydrocarbures aux 

Chinois, Coréens, Britanniques 

et Français. 

1994 

DEm EX1ÉRIEURE 

1995 

1996 

Source : FMI, Banque centrale d'Iron 

cée par le fait que ce pays, qui 

dispose des plus grandes réserves 

de gaz naturel du monde 

après la Russie, est amené à coopérer 

dans le secteur gazier avec 

ses voisins de l'ex-URSS. 

Les relations économiques 

entre Paris et Téhéran se sont 

améliorées récemment. La 

France a été, en 1995, le troi~ 

sième fournisseur de l'Iran avec 

5 % du marché après le Japon 

(5,9 %) et l'Allemagne (14,7 %). 

Le.s entreprises. françaises ont 

donc une carte à jouer sUr ce 

marché. Mais il faut faire vite 

car, dans un pays où les habitants 

(eUes dirigeants) sont toujours 

fascinés par le modèle 

américain, le retour .du Grand 

Satan fera mal. . 

Thierry Coville 

Economiste (CDE) 

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J.n/Fob 1997 

CENTRE to CENTRE 

Newsletter of the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN 

Drawingby 

Turkish writer, 

Recep Marasli, 

who was held 

between July 1994 

and November 

1995 on charges 

under the Anti- 

Terror Law. He is 

currently free 

awaiting trial. He 

has several other 

charges pending 

against him for 

"disseminating 

separatist propaganda". 

He was 

previously imprisoned 

on political 

charges from 1982 

to 1991. 

J.n/~obl99~ ~_ ~ ~ ~ ~ _~ __ 

CENTRE to CENTRE 

Newsletter of the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN 

ACTION FILE: TURKEY: 

On 19 November 1996,journalist Mutebar Yildirim was sentenced 

to ten months' imprisonment and fined TL 43,000. Yildirim, who 

now works for the newspaper Demokrasi and is Secretary of the 

Progressive Journalists' Association, was arrested in connection 

with an article she had written entitled "To Streets, To Action, To 

A General Strike". The article was published on 22 December 1994 

in the newspaper Ozger Ulke, which has since been closed down. 

The subject ofher article is a Trade Union demonstration calling 

for a general strike, which she describes in positive terms. She 

quotes from slogans on placards, one ofwhich is the title ofher 

piece, and refers to the popular support the demonstration 

received. At no point does Yildirim's article promote violence. The 

article questions official statements which suggest that the 

demonstrators had little public support, and concludes that the 

only means to effect change is through strike action. Such action is 

prohibited under Turkish Labour Law. 

Mutebar Yildirim is being held at Bayrampasa Special Prison. 

Appeals expressing concern about the charges against Mutebar 

Yildirim should be sent to: 

r U.S. RejectsReport 

Of Plan to Hit Iraq 

ReI/fen 

WASHINGTON - The United States said Tuesday that 

there was no reason for heightened concern about possible 

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRmUNE, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1997 

--rf 

military action against Iraq after a German new~f.:'~\'r:- I 

ported that Washington might launch a cruise missilestrike. 

"The United States always reserves the right to use its 

military force to defend its national interest anywhere in the 

world, " said the State Department spokesman, Nicholas 

Bums, "but I see no reason to heighten your concern in any 

way pertaining to the situation in the Middle East." 

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said United Nations 

inspectors had found that Iraq continued to develop missiles in 

13

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Ba'sm Özeti 

violation of UN resoIutro'fts:-lt added 'that the-Urïifed Statës' 

was studying a possible missile strike against Iraq. 

A Defense Department spokesman. Kennèth Bacon. also 

responding to the report, saId that Washington supported an 

analysis by the chief UN inspector. Rolf Ekeus. that Iraq was 

hiding an operational Scud missile force of 18 to 25 missiles. 

"Thisis against the sanctions" brought against Iraq after 

the 1991 Gulf War. Mr. Bacon said. "Obviously I can't' 

describe what our future actions would be. but we have shown: 

time and time again that we are prepared to protect U.S. forces. 

We are prepared to protect our interests in the Gulf .•• 

Mr. Bacon declined to say whether Iraq might be trying to •. 

rebuild its missile forces. But another defense official said' 

Washington believed that Iraq was hiding previously built 

weapons ra~er than "building flew inventory." 

The German article. being publishedWednesday.saidthat 

the United States could make a decision this week on whether 

to launch a Tomahawk missile strike at Iraq. It gave as the 

basis for its report" American security sources .•• 

The United States has launched three Tomahawk strikes 

against Iraq since the war ended. 

The newspaper said that UN inspectors who were in Iraq 

from Jan. 5 to Jan. 23 found evidence. according to American 

. sources, that Iraq was continuing to develop missiles with a' 

range of around 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers). 

. It said that the inspectors had been "massively obstructed" 

and that Mr. Ekeus had written to Prime Minister Tariq Azii of 

Iraq on Jan. "l3 telling him that Baghdad was contravening UN 

resolutions and that its move would have conse


NATO Secretary-General Solana to visit Turkey 

Ankara will tell Solana the 

extension of NATOshould be 

related to the enlargement of the EU 

and the Western European Union 

Turld.rh Daily News 

ANKARA- NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana is 

scheduled to arrive in Ankara on Wednesday where the 

topics of the enlargement of NATO, the European Union, 

arid the Western European Union are expected to dominate 

talks. 

The issue of Turkish-Greekrelations is also likely to 

be high on the agenda when Solana meets President 

SilJ-vm.n Demire~ Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, 

~g;.-Minister Tansu Ciller, Defense Minister Turban 

Tayan, and Chief of General Staff Ismail Hakki 

Karadayi. Owing the talks, the Turkish government is set 

to argue that the ~t of NATO shoold related to 

the eItlargement of the European Union and its designated 

defense ann, the Western European Union (WEU). A 

senior diplomat from the Foreign Ministry indicated 

Turtey had not spelt out that it wOuld veto any extension 

of NATO (over the EU decision not to accelerate membership 

of1ùrkey to the union) but said the EU must give 

a reasonable response to Turkey's desire to be a full 

member."Owin the talks with Solana, 1'u1te will not 

ballen but 

gwill . ..' Y earl 

c se we ~t out our poslbon very cl y," 

the Forci Mini Official said. 

Last ~vember~gn Minister Tansu Çiller threatened 

to block the use of NATO equipment for the WEU 

after Greek objectioos to Ankara's participation in WEU 

activities. Turkey is an associate member of the WEU. 

On the subject of Turkisb-Greek relations, the govern- 

NATO Secretary-General 

Javier Solana 

ment is expected to tell Solana it is prepared to discuss 

the problems over the Greek Cypriot decision to buy S- 

300 missiles from Russia, but N'ATO is not the appropriate 

place for such a discussion. Last spring, Solana suggested 

the setting up of a "hot line" connecting Ankara, 

Athens and Brussels for use in emergencies and it is 

expected that Solana will again put forward this proposal. 

A 'NATO summit is scheduled for JuIy where the issues 

of enlargement and the refocusing of NATO will be discussed. 

Before arriving in Ankara, Solana visited 

Moscow and Washington. Re will later travel to Central 

Asia. 

~ Hakkt KaradaYI, last Thursday triggered 

If rumors of an Impending coup. Tùrkey's 

secularist minded offieer-corps maintain 

th h Ank b b gave strong indications that they a powerful presence behind the political 

~ Tanks roll roug ara su ur as had no intentions of withdrawing scene, havmg intervened three times 

ß d l from the go vern met. State over the past four decades. 

~ opposition gets rea y to topp e government Minister Nevzat Ercan said there The unannounced drive past of over 

~ were deliberate attempts to sabo- 30 tanks, armored personnel carriers and 

~ TurkislllJtli/y N~ws tag~ the gdover~n:'ent hand wame,d jeeps through the main street of Sincan 

~ Af':lKAR~- The attack by a But ~rbakan dismissed the agal~~t un ell111nmg t e country S early on Tuesday, lent credenee to per- 

-è-> fanatic ~ushm on a. female TV specu~a,l1ons ~f ~rmy unr~st an~ stabl.llty, . sistent reports of simmering tempers 

~ reporter ID ~he Islamlst-governed OpposlllOn ~gltal1o,n as a ca~n~- ÇJller declined to, revealthe within the armed forces over a recent 

~ suburb of SJn,can, Ank~, helght- bal dance, d~~ymg any cnSlS ~ontcnt of her talks With th~ pres- series of assertive moves by the politi- 

~ ened political tensions on within the coahl1on. Ident. She later conferred With her cians and local officials of the Islamist 

_~ Tues~,ay, triggering a "sh~~. of Foreign M\nister ~~nsu Çiller, E~akan but was ~gain reticent to Welfare party (RP). 

;:: force b¥ an annored Unit on leader of RP s coalitIOn partner, divulge any details of the meet- The incident that threatened to tip the 

~ exercise: , , the True Path Party (DYP), on ing, other than to sar it was ascales was Monday's attack on I~lß 

The orpo~ltlon prepared a c~n. Tue~day ~c1d a~ unsc~.eduledschedul~ weekly ~eetmg. Gürel, a reporter for lnte~tar TV, by a 

sure motion III an, allcmptto br!ng mectmg With PreSident Suleyman Demnel was Widely r~ported forn:'er boâyguard of Smcan Mayor 

down the lslanllst-conservatlvc Demirel and later summoned her last week to have been bnefed by Bekn Ylldlz. Ylldlz had angered the 

coalition led by Prime Minister party alde~ for a dosed mcctmg, military leaders about the grow- secularist establishment by holding an 

Nccmcttin Erbakan. After the meeting a DYP minister ing reaction within the officer "Al-Quds (Je.rusalem) Day" ceremony 

15

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Ri'LIista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti 

ALERT- A Turkish soldier stands guard near the tanks and armored vehicles paraded through the main street of 

Sincan. a routine training mission according to an army spokesman. 

Reuters 

over the weekend at which Iranian 

Ambassador Muhammad Reza Bagheri 

allegedly praised Turkey's march 

toward an Islam-based state. Mayor 

YlldIz was removed from his post upon 

nn order by Interior Minister Meral 

Aksener on Tuesday. 

The remarks earned the diplomat a 

formal protest from the Foreign 

Ministry and stiff reaction from the 

media and left-wing opposition leaders 

~ho ,called for his expulsion. Bagheri 

dismissed the accusatIons blaming, in 

tum, a hostile press. 

However, Ankara's reaction fell short 

of declarinp the Iranian envoy "persona 

non grata,' the fate of Bagheri's Rredecessor. 

Ministry spokesman Ömer 

Akbel said such a reaction would be 

akin to "putting the cart before the 

horse." : 

Embarrassedgovernment officials 

including mainstream Welfare Party 

politicians, apologized to the beaten 

~eporter while arrest warrants were 

Issued for the attacker and an accom~ 

plice. ,State and.governmentleaders, 

mcludmg PresIdent Demirel and 

Foreign Minister Çiller, condemned the 

attack while the fl'ress Council and the 

Journalists Association blamed the RP 

for "encouraging" the fanatics. 

Opposition parties and 

nongovernmental organizations vented 

their anger at the RP and claimed 

Necmetttin Erbakan himself had paved 

the way for the attackon Gürel by calling 

journalists "windbags." 

Veteran leftist politician Bülent 

Ecevit, who has been championing an 

opposition alliance to bring down the 

government, on Tuesday said his 

Democratic Left Party (DSP) would put 

forward a censure motion against the 

government. The censure motIon entails 

a vote of confidence which analysts say 

the government can ill afford, especially 

in view of the growing differences 

between the Islarnists and the secularist 

DYP. Although Çiller still depends on 

the Islamists for protection against corruption 

probes pursued by the opposition, 

a growing rebellion has been 

reported among ber party's parliamentary 

wing, to her uncl1aractenstic docility. 

In calling for the coalition' s ousting, 

Ecevit dis'missed claims that the 

Islamist-dominated government was 

without alternatives. Ecevit said it was 

impemtive for the very existence of the 

democratic, secular regime to get rid of 

the Islamist-dominated WelTarePath 

coalition. 

The DSP chairman said his party 

woul~ ~ ready, t~ ent~r a new government 

If ItSconditIons 10 regards to eco- . 

nom!c a~ds~cial policy we~e met., 

Ecevlt saId ho~ng.an early electIOnWll$ 

always an oQtlon If a new government 

could not be formed. 

But Deniz Baykal, a rivalleftist 

leader, said the social democrats should 

first unite, and thereby form a core for 

the opposition, before steps were taken 

to unseat the government. The 

Republican People's Party (CHP) leader 

also blas~ed Iran for meddling in 

Turkey's internal affairs, accusing 

Tehran of trying to export its (fundamentalist) 

regime to Turkey. Ile also 

accused the government of t>eingeager 

to import a state based on Islamic 

Shariahlaw. 

16


Le Monde / Mercredi 5 février 1997 

La séquestration 

d'un écrivain 

iranien compromet 

les relations entre 

Bonn et Téhéran 

dans un embarras considérable les 

autorités de Bonn, qui ont toujours 

eu la volonté de maintenir un « dialogue 

critique» avec Téhéran. 

Plus que jamais, ledit dialogue est 

aujourd'hui remis en cause. La 

mystérieuse disparition à Téhéran 

d'un écrivain iranien préoccupe 

grandement les dirigeants de Bonn. 

Dans le but vraisemblable d'influencer 

le cours de la justice berlinoise, 

les dirigeants du régime islamique 

séquestrent un écrivain 

connu pour son indépendance d'esprit. 

Faraj Sarkouhi, quarante-neuf 

ans, rédacteur en chef du mensuel 

BONN Adineh (Vendredi), une revue littéde 

notre correspondant raire tirée à environ 30000 exem- 

Septembre 1992. Quatre oppo- plaires, a disparu le 3 novembre 

sants kurdes au régime iranien sont 1996 après avoir été la cible de tentués 

par balles alors qu'ils dînent au' 'tatives d'intimidation. 

restaurant Mykonos de Berlin. Jan- Réapparu en public après 

vier 1997. Le procès des assassins 47 jours de détention, il se trouveprésumés 

touche à sa fin, et tout in- rait à nouveau aujourd'hui entre les 

dique que la justice allemande mains des services secrets iraniens, 

confirmera l'accusation formulée qui tentent de le faire passer pour 

en novembre 1996 par le procureur 'un espion au profit de l'Allemagne 

fédéral, selon laquelle les plus hauts et de la France. Ses proches sont 

dirigeants du régime islamique de sans nouvelles de lui depuis une se- 

Téhéran ont commandité l'assassi- maine, et indiquent que son frère a 

nat. Ce probable verdict devrait je- également disparu. Déjà emprisonter 

une lumière crue sur les pra- né durant plusieurs années à 

tiques en cours à Téhéran et placer l'épQqùe du shah, ce critique littéraire 

a été l'un des inspirateurs 

principaux d'une «pétition des 

134» [le nombre des ses signataires], 

qui, en octobre 1994, réda- 

'mait la levée de la censure et à une 

plus grande liberté d'expression en 

Iran. 

TORTURE 

Alors qu'il s'apprêtait, le 3 novembre 

1996, à prendre un avion à 

Téhéran pour Hambourg, afin de 

rejoindre sa femme et ses deux enfants, 

M. Sarkouhi est retenu à Téhéran, 

probablement par des 

agents de la Vavak, les services secrets 

du régime. Reportërs sans 

frontières, dans son dernier bulletin, 

décrit la suite: « Le 20 décembre 

1996, Faraj Sarkouhi tient une conférence 

de presse à l'aéroport de Téhéran. 

fi explique, dans ce qui apparaît 

clairement comme une mise en 

scène, qu'il est allé en Allemagne 

sans contacter sa femme, puis s'est 

rendu au Thrkménistan. Lorsqu'un 

journaliste lui demande de montrer 

son passeport avec le tampon des autorités 

allemahdes, M. Sarkouhi lui 

répond qu'il l'a laissé au Thrkménistan, 

dans l'attente d'un visa pour le 

Canada.» 

Dans une lettre à sa femme, 

au. 

thentifiée par cette dernière et dont 

le texte vient d'être publié par la 

presse allemande, M. Sarkouhi affirme 

avoir été forcé d'avouer, sous 

la torture, qu'il était un espion au 

profit de l'Allemagne. Dans ce döcument, 

daté du 3 janvier, il affirme 

que les responsables du ministère 

de l'information l'ont «emmené en 

prison et ont commencé les interro. 

gatoires et les tortures (...). fis m'ont 

indiqué que mon arrivée en Allemagne 

avait été enregistrée à l'aéro. 

port de Hambourg, et qu'ils allaient 

m'exécuter. » Puis ils ont enregistré 

un entretien «dans lequel je devais 

indiquer que j'avais entretenu des 

contacts de type urenseignements~ 

avec l'attaché culturel de l'ambassade 

d'Allemagne et celui de l'ambassade 

de France. » 

Pourquoi cette mise en scène? 

Un agent du régime de Téhéran a 

pris l'avion le 3 novembre pour 

Hambourg à la place de M. Farkouhi, 

mais il n'a pas pu entrer en Allemagne. 

Bonn étudie la photocopie 

du passeport supposé de M. Sarkouhi, 

qui porte un tampon des services 

d'immigration allemands dont 

tout indique qu'il s'agit d'un faux. 

Lucas Delattre 

A.r.P.- Agence frdlKe Presse-AT. P.- Agl'nce Fr,1I1cePrl'ssl'-Â.F.P.- Agence Francl' Prl'sse 

Irak-Kurdes: M. Talabani accuse l'Irak d"'actes terroristes" au 

Kurdistan 

LE CAIRE, 5 fév (AFP) - Le chef de l'Union patriotique du Kurdistan 

(UPK), l'une des deux principales factions kurdes irakiennes, Jalal 

Talabani, a accusé les services secrets irakiens d'''actes terroristes" dans 

le nord de l'Irak. 

"Nous ne sommes pas responsables des actions terroristes, qui sont 

l'oeuvre des services secrets de Saddam Hussein en toute connaissance 

du Parti démocratique du Kurdistan (PDK)", rival de l'UPK, a-t-il 

déclaré dans une interview au quotidien gouvernemental égyptien 

AI-Ahram publiée mercredi. 

"Malgré le cessez-le-feu dans le nord de l'Irak depuis octobre, la 

situation ne s'est pas améliorée afin d'aboutir à une paix globale dans 

la région", a ajouté M. Talabani dans cette interview réalisée à Londres. 

Un porte-parole du PDK avait accusé l'UPK d'avoir exécuté des "actes 

de terrorisme" dans le nord de l'Irak, dans des déclarations publiées 

17


siunedi dernier par le quotidien arabe AI-Hayat. 

Le porte-parole avait évoqué la découverte d'une voiture remplie de 

150 kg d'explosifs près du quartier général du chef duPDK Massoud ' 

Barzani à Salaheddine et affirmé que des personnes impliquées avaient 

témoigné l'avoir placée là sur ordre de l'UPK. 

M. Talabani a en outre accusé M. Barzani de refuser l'organisation de 

nouvelles élections au Kurdistan, en violation des termes de l'accord 

de cessez-le-feu négocié à Ankara sous les auspices des Etats-Unis et de 

la Grande-Bretagne. 

Le chef de l'UPK a également renouvelé ses dénégations quant à une 

présence militaire, en hommes ou équipements, de l'Iran au 

Kurdistan. 

hkb/lch/tp 


A.F.P.- Agepce France Presse-A.F.-f.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

Koweït-Irak: Les accords militaires du Koweit jugés 

insuffisants par un journal 

KOWEIT,5 fév (AFP) - Les accords militaires passés par le Koweit avec 

des pays occidentaux sont insuffisants pour garantir sa sécurité face à 

l'Irak, a estimé mercredi un journal koweitien. 

"Ces accords sont identiques aux contrats d'assurance qui ne sont 

appliquées qu'après les événements, ils ne sont pas à la hauteur des 

aspirations de la nation", a affirmé le quotidien indépendant AI-Qabas. 

"Le Koweit vit dans un climat marqué par les cris au loup", a-t-il 

ajouté, dans une allusion aux déclarations faisant état de menaces 

irakiennes contre l'émirat, démenties aussitôt par Bagdad. 

Koweit, a ajouté le journal, "devrait obtenir un minimum de garantie 

contre une nouvelle invasion et une répétition de la tragédie de 

l'occupation". 

Un haut responsable militaire américain avait estimé le 29 janvier que 

l'Irak pourrait à nouveau envahir le Koweit avec une seule division si 

les forces américaines étaient absentes. 

Le 1er février, le ministre koweitien de l'Information, cheikh Saoud 

Nasser AI-Sabah~ avait affirmé que 150.000 à 180.000 soldats irakiens 

étaient prêts à marcher sur le Koweit. 

Après la libération' du Koweit de l'occupation irakienne (août 

1990-février1991), l'émirat avait passé des accords de défense avec 

18

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevolca Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Ozeti 

plusieurs pays, dont les Etats-Unis, la Grande-Bretagne et la France. 

mch/mh 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence. France Presse 

USA-I~ : Critiques virulentes d'un journal irakien contre les 

Etats-UnIs 

~A~DAD, 6 fév (~),.- Un journal officiel irakien a vivement critiqué 

JeudI les E~ts-Ums ~u 11accuse de se livrer à une "campagne de 

mensonges contre 1Irak, tout en appelant Washington à amorcer le 

dialogue avec Bagdad. 

"Il est inconcevable qu'un pays, qui a pour ambition de diriger le 

monde, tombe si bas, en se livrant à une campagne de mensonges" 

contre l'Irak, a écrit le quotidien As-Saoura, organe du parti Baas au 

pouvoir. 

Le journal se réfère, sans les mentionner, à une série de déclarations 

américaines sur l'Irak, dont la dernière diffusée par le Pentagone 

accusant l'Irak de dissimuler sur son territoire jusqu'à 25 missiles 

balistiques en violation des résolutions de l'ONU. 

"Comment l'administration américaine peut-elle être aussi ignorante 

et stupide pour se liver à ce jeu de mensonges", a poursuivi le journal, 

affirmant que Washington doit "tirer les leçons de l'échec de sa 

politique à l'égard de l'Irak et adopter une politique constructive basée 

sur le dialogue". 

Des responsbales américains avaient fait état de luttes de pouvoir à 

Bagdad et annoncé également fin janvier que Saddam Hussein 

pourrait à nouveau envahir le Koweit. 

Bien que la Maison Blanche ait minimisé une telle éventualité, le 

Koweit, voisin de l'Irak, s'était déclaré "profondément induqiet" et 

annoncé qu'il prendrait des "mesurs préventives". 

Le porte-parole du Pentagone Kenneth Bacon avait affirmé mardi que 

l'Irak possède "une capacité opérationnelle de 18 à 25 missiles SCUD, et 

certains ont été dissimulés". Il a prévenu que les Etats-Unis étaient 

prêts à défendre leurs forces dans la région. 

Bagdad avait lié les déc1a.rations .amé~icaine~ à la ~ise en. pla~e d'un 

nouveau cabinet du présIdent BIll ClInton, investI le 20 JanvIer pour 

un nouveau mandat de quatre ans. 

fch-hj/tm 


19

The rumbling of the tanks - a warning? 

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The image that the tanks created at borne 

and abroadwas that the military is fed 

up with the Islamist advances in Turkey 

and is preparing a coup. However, an 

investigation by the Turkish Daily News 

showed that this is not so. 

faimrial. 

a"3l'lk"d well iD adl-mœ about bis ~d1. Wben . 

the man grew old. he lost his hair. he losthis 

teeth and was frequently ill. Thenthe angel 

came to take his life and he objected. "You did 

not give me any warning:' be Said: and the angel 

replied "look at JOW''Self. You.~ JOur bair. 

youe teeth and you have been frequently ill for 

the past few years. I think I gave you ample 

warning ..:' So the military is sûunding a warn- 

The rumbling 'Ofthe tanks in the streets 'Of \'\ ç' k .ing f?r everyûne tû tak~ n'Ote. ~et. we feel the 

the t'Ownship 'OfSincan. ju.st a few kilo- nur eVI wanung shûuld nût have ~n ID. the farm 'Ofa 

. m~ters fr'Om Turkey's capital, after a . ve~ harmful s~ûw 'Ofsend~ng tanks tû a t'Ownmmi 

shaw 'Offûrce by a handful 'Offun- . shIp. Whû decIded 'Onsending the tanks thrûugh 

damentalists is being d'Ownplayed by s'Orne cir- Sincan remains a mystery. Yet, wefeel it was 

.cles as insignificant n'Otsa. and a c'Oincidence ... This is . wrûng because while it may have given same 

messages tû the fundamentalists in Turkey, it 

The military hadexplained that the tanks. cûup. Hûwever, an investigati'On by the Turkish has created a: very mistaken image 'Ofûurcûunwere 

'Ontheir way t'Oa rûutine exercise missi'On Daily Newssh'Owed thât this is n'Ot S'O. try as a land daminated by the ß.Ùlitary. Images 

and that they had ta pass thrûugh Sincan. A mill- The military does n'Ot want ta step in and feels 'Oftimks in the streets 'Ofa Turklsht'Ownshlp 

tary statement said the tanks pass thr'Ough the civilians have ta s'Olve.this pr'Oblem thr'Ough . were in all Western newspape~:and TV news ... 

Sincan frequently 'Onsuch missi'Ons ..: Yet, na the parliamentary dem'Ocratic system. They real- F'Oreign investors da itût like such an envirûn- 

'Oneexplained haw Turkish TV cameras andize a c'Oup w'Ould be very hannful ta Turkey yet ment and even the talk 'Ofa c'Oup may well delay 

. photo,raphers were invited ta C~ scene 'Ofthe they als'O feel they have tûappease the grûwing many very useful investmentplans far 'Our c'Oun- 

~ m the tûwnship ta spread the news and the cûncerns 'Ofthe lûwer rankingûfficers whû feel try. Hurting Turkey's vital econ'Omic interests 

Images to the whûle wûrld. Sa we da nût see the . their c'Ommanders are nût dûing en'Ough tû halt like this hardly serves any cau$e ... Besides all 

~ ~ng through a t'Own~hip as such an the Islamist advances in Turkey. Thus they hûld this, it has als'O alienated the pr'O-Islamists in 'Our 

mnocent acl well publicized meetings. c'Ountry (wh'O have nathing ta dû with funda- 

What made the incident n'Otewûrthy 'Ofc'Ourse, Th'Ose wh'O are alsQ trying ta underplay the mentalism) whû are trying tû rec'Oncile their difwas 

the fact that il occurredjust after a grQup 'Of military "warnings" are mistaken. YQU d'On't ferences with the existing system ... 

pe'Ople tried to put 'Ona fundamentalist shûw at have ta issue military memQrandums tQ vQice Turkey iS.a semi-demOcracyand has ta 

the "Jerusalem Day" commemQratiûn cere- '. yûur dissatisfactiQn. YQU shaw them by sending improve. But eliminàting even the existing 

m'Onies.in Sincan~ '.. . tanks, hQlding t'Oplevel meetings and then leak- democratic system shûuld never be contemplat- 

The unagc that the tanks 

" 

created at hQme and ing news ... A military cammander recently tûld ed. On the c'Ontrary even the military shûuld 

"'~ . 

abr'Oa~ was thattbe military is fed up with the. us a stûry about a man whQ had made an agree- strive ta build a better and mûre functi'Onal 

Islam1st advances inTurkey and is preparing a ment with the angel 'Ofdeath that he WQuid be democratic system in 'Ourc'Ountry.


'Right-wing pushers' report in Dutch Parliament 

ZF.KIAYDC 

IstJUJbul • TuItitIa DtIIlr Ne", 

• It has become a well known 

reality that Turkey functions as a 

bridge for the dn1~ trade to Europe. 

Therefore, Turkey s name is often 

mentioned in the dn1g reports 

which have been published by 

European countries and America. 

'It has been stated that some 

ct;iminal organizations, which have 

political extensions, are involvèd iD 

the dn1g business along with the 

mafia. Such allegations can be 

found in the report of the 

Committee for tl1e Investigation of 

Foreign Origin Criminal 

Organizations, released by the 

Dutch Parliament. 

The report states that a gro.!12.


Le Monde I vendredi 7 février 1997 

Tension en Turquie entre ..~P~~:;,:,;=-:.g:n= 

l' I 1 

armee et e gouvemement~£E+.::t.~E"£e:~ 

rendu visite, avait exprimé, vendre- 

a déclaré qÙ'i1 se 

portait garant 

du maintien de 

la laïcité dans le pays 

'l" f ' d' , 1 d h 'ne peut pas revenir en arrière; elle 

Les mlltalres ont ait ep oyer es cars nepeutqu'avancer»,avait-ildécla- 

, d'A k . ., 'd ré, ajoutant qu'il se portait garant 

pres n ara pour intimi er dumaintien de la laïcitéen1\1rquie. 

, "l' , 'I . Alors que les chars de l'armée Cette crise relance les spéculaune 

mUnlClpa Ite ISamlste 

prenaient position dans les rues de' tions sur la possibilité d'une inter, 

. . Sincan, mardi, d'autres institutions vention indirecte des militairesqui; 

ISTANBULveur religieùse des musulmans pra- de l'Etat se mobilisaient pour punir selon certains analystes, poUrraient 

de notre correspondante '( 'tiquants y est à son comble, irritant le radicalisme de son maire isla- faire. pression sur les politiques 

On les savait mécontents depuis, )es défenseurs de la laïcité qui se miste. Le ministre de l'intérieur, pour. provoquer l'effondrement de 

l'arrivée au pouvoir des islamistes" ':sententassiégés par l'omniprésence Meral Aksener, a annoncé que Be-!:Ia coalition.Tarisù'Cil1er:lerirlnistre 

du Parti de la prospérité (RP),mais :des symboles religieux. Cette an- kir Yildiz.avait été relevé de ses: 'des affaires étrangères, après avoir 

la tension entre l'armée et le gou-,née, cette tension a été encore exa- fonctions, et le procureur de la consulté le président, a insisté sur la 

vernement a finalement explosé au cerbée par la présence au pouvoir, Cour de sfireté de l'Etat a demandé nécessité de faire la distinction 

grand .jour. Une vingtaine de chars pour la première foîs, d'un premier son arrestation. Ce dernier ordre ,entre les incidents provocateurs de 

et une quinzaine de véhicules de ministre islamiste, Necmettin Erba- n'avait pas été exécuté mercredî, le Sincan et les actes du gouvernetransport 

de troupes ont défilé, kan, qui, abandonnant apparem- maire- étant apparemment introu- ment, sjgnalant ainsi qu'elle n'avait 

mardi 4 février, dans les rues de 'ment tout effort de compromis, a vable. pas l'intention de quitter la coali- 

Sincan, une municipalité proche choisi le mois du jeüne musulman Le premier ministre avait,jusqu'à tion pour l'instant. 

p.'Ankaraoù le maire islamiste avait pour remettre sur le tapis, avec un présent, choisi d'ignorer les mes- Compte tenu de la distribution 

;ouvertement défié les principes de enthouslasiiië'Ïëiioiivëfé, dës pro- sages indirects qui lui avaient été, des sièges au sein de l'Assemblée 

la Thrquie laïque en organisant,' messes électorales jugées inaccep- transmis, rejetant la responsabilité nationale et des rivautés tenaces 

vendredi 31janvier, une «nuit de .tables PM:;~(lllJ.r.9~~ns~tion" .de la crise sur les médias qui, af- entre partis, les alternatives sont Ii; 

Jérusalem» au cours de laquelle de ne Ile et une large partie de la ,firme-t-il, exagèrent l'importance mitées. Le fait que les représentants 

jeunes acteurs, déguisés en mili- population. des récents incidents. De son atti- de la gauche sociale-démocrate- le 

tants du groupe palestinien Hainas, M. Erbakan a annoncé la tude, dans les jours qui viennent, Parti républicain du peuple (CHP) 

simulaient le lancer de pierres 'construction de mosquées sur ,ùi dépendra vraisemblablement la: 'de Deniz Baykal et le Parti démocontre 

les troupes israéliennes. grande place Taksim, à Istaribul, etS~~ de son gouvernement. Les. cratique de gauche (DSP)de Billent 

Le discours enflammé. du maire,dans le district de Cankaya, à An~nulitaires sont apparemment déter- Ecevit- aient tous les deux annon- 

BekirYildiz,qui a, depuis, été desti-kara. 

fi a déclaré que son gouverne': :minés à ne pas faire de concessions,cé, mais séparément, leur intention 

tué, et celui de l'ambassadeur ira- ment insisterait sur la levée de l'in- et M. Erbakan sera forcé de faire d'introduire une motion de censure 

nien, Mohammad Reza Baghen, terdiction du port du foulard pour m~che arrière sur certains po~ts contre le gouvernement pour 

qui avait déclaré qu'« Allah pUnirait les fonctionnaires et dans les uni- :qUItouchent de trop près aux pnn- «sauver le pays» est symptomaceux 

qui signent des accords avec ,versités. Ces propositions ont em- ;cipes républicains. L'armée exige .tique des divisions politi,ques qui 

l'Amérique ou Israël », avaient outré 'barrassé ses partenaires du Parti de ,égale~e~t le d~part de l'~bassa-, persistent malgré l'urgence de la sila 

population laïque et provoqué la Juste voie (DVP). Plusieurs mi_deur rramen,qUIest un anu person- tuation. 

quelques ondes de choc dans les nistres et députés ont annoncé nel du premier ministre. Dans quelques jours, le ramadan 

cercles politiques à Ankara. qu'ils refuseraient d'appuyer ces prendra fin et les 1\1rcs-laïcs et is- 

Ces développements inter- mesures - qui ne figurent pas dan~ Le pre's'Ident larnistes- reprendront le débat sur 

viennent durant le mois du rama- le protocole signé entre les deux la nature de leur Etat. 

dan, qui est souvent une période de partis - si elles étaient soumises à SID . I 

~ension sociale en 1\1rquie: la fer- l'approbationd\l.8~yem~jnent. U eyman emire 

Nicole Pope 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.-Agence France Presse 

Irak-ONU: Des experts de 1+0NU préparent la 'distribution 

des vivres aux Irakiens 

BAGDAD, 6 fév (AFP) - Des experts de l'ONU examinent les modalités 

de distribution aux Irakiens de vivres et de médicaments, devant 

,commencer en mars ou avril, aux termes de la résolution dite "pétrole 

contre nourriture", a-t-on indiqué, jeudi de source proche de l'ONU. 

"Les préparatifs sont en cours et nous souhaitons commencer les 

opérations de ravitaillement en mars, mais celles-ci peuvent être 

retardées jusqu'à début avril", a précisé cette source à l'AFP. 

Trois des 151 experts de l'ONU devant préparer et superviser la 

22


distribution de produits alimentaires à la population irakienne, sont 

arrivés cette semaine en Irak et sont en contact avec les autorités, selon 

la même source. 

"Des représentants du coordinateur des activités humanitaires de 

.l'ONU et des responsables irakiens tentent de fixer la date du début de 

la distribution des vivres", a-t-on précisé. 

L'accord "pétrole contre nourriture", entré en vigueur le Il décembre, 

autorise l'Irak à vendre pour 2 milliards de dollars de brut par semestre 

afin d'acheter des vivres et des médicaments avec moins des deux-tiers 

de cette somme, le reste allant à l'ONU. 

Les opérations de ravitaillement dans le centre et le sud de l'Irak seront 

effectuées par les Irakiens sous la supervision de l'ONU, alors que la 

distribution dans le Kurdistan (Souleymanieh, Dohuk et Erbil) sera 

supervisée par le Programme alimentaire mondial (PAM). 

"Nous attendons toujours des sommes importantes pour acheter des 

camions, des ordinateurs et embaucher des interprètes, avant de 

commencer les opérations de ravitaillement", a-t-on poursuivi. 

L'ONU avait approuvé en janvier les deux premiers contrats de 

vivres, concernant des cargaisons de blé australien pour une valeur de 

50 millions de dollars et de riz thaïlandais pour 21 M USD. 

Le Comité des sanctions de l'ONU devrait approuver bientôt d'autres 

contrats concernant des produits de première nécessité, notamment 

avec le Vietnam, la Jordanie, la France, la Tunisie et la 

Grande-Bretagne. 

La population irakienne a grandement souffert de l'embargo imposé 

après l'invasion du Koweit par les troupes irakiens d'août 1990 à 

février 1991. 

Le ministre irakien de la Santé, Oumid Medhat Moubarak, avait 

affirmé fin décembre que les "fonds destinés à l'achat de médicaments 

ne dépassent pas 210 M USD, ce qui constitue une goutte dans l'océan, 

compte tenu de nos besoins". 

fch-sam/tp 

A.F.P.-Agence France Presse-A.F.P.-Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

ONU-Irak-Koweït : 9 pays demandent 32 milliards de dollars 

pour dégâts causés à l'environnement 

GENEVE, 7 fév (AFP) - Le Koweït, les Etats-Unis et sept autres pays ont 

déposé des requêtes aux Nations unies, réclamant untotal de 32 

23


milliards de dollars à l'Irak pour les dégats à l'environnement causés 

parla guerre du Golfe, a déclaré vendredi un porte-parole de l'ONU. 

Les gouvernements avaient jusqu'au 1er février pour enregistrer leurs 

demandes d'indemnisation sur l'environnement auprès de la 

Commission de compensation des Nations unies. 

Le Koweit, principale victime de l'invasion irakienne en 1990 et de la 

guerre qui s'en est suivie, a réclamé à lui seul16 milliards, a précisé le 

porte-parole Thérèse Gastaut. 

L'Irak a incendié en 1991 plus de 700 puits de pétrole lors de son retrait 

devant la coalition dirigée par les Etats-Unis et provoqué une marée 

noire dans le Golfe en déversant des barils de pétrole. 

Les autres plaignants sont les Etats-Unis, la Grande-Bretagne, 

l'Australie, les Pays-Bas, l'Arabie saoudite, l'Allemagne, l'Iran et la 

Turquie. 

La Commission d'indemnisation a été formée en 1991 pour 

indemniser les particuliers, les sociétés et les pays qui ont souffert de 

l'invasion du Koweit par l'Irak. 

Faute d'argent, elle n'a pu dédommager jusqu'à présent que 4.000 

personnes prioritaires qUI ont reçu au total 13,5 millions de dollars. 

L'application de la résolution 986 "pétrole contre nourriture" va lui 

permettre d'indemniser prochainement d'autres particuliers. L'accord 

conclu entre l'Irak et l'ONU prévoit qu'un tiers des ventes limitées de 

pétrole irakien ira à la commission, soit 100 millions de dollars par 

mois. 

jlb/gic eaf 


A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence Frllnce Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse , 

Irak-DCI-pèlerinage: Pèlerinage: l'Irak demande l'aide de 

l'DCI pour débloquer des fonds , 

BAGDAD, 7 fév (AFi» - L'Irak a demandé vendredi à l'Organisation de 

la conférence islamique (OCI) de l'aider à obtenir le déblocage de 50 

millions de dollars de ses avoirs gelés à l'étranger pour financer le 

pèler,inage de fidèles irakiens à La Mecque, a rapporté l'agence officielle 

INA. " 

Le chef de la diplomatie irakienne Mohammad Saïd al-Sahhaf a 

adressé un message au secrétaire général de l'OCI, Ezzeddine Laraki, lui 

demandant de "fournir des efforts efficaces" pour obtenir le déblocage 

de la part du comité des sancti(ms de l'ONU, qui accorde des 

, 24


dérogations à l'embargo multiforme frappant l'Irak depuis 1990. 

M. Sahhaf avait adressé mardi un message au secrétaire général de 

l'ONU Kofi Annan, demandant également l'autorisation de liaisons 

aériennes entre Bagdad et La Mecque (ouest de l'Arabie saoudite) afin 

de transporter les pèlerins en avril prochain. 

Dans son message, M. Sahhaf précise que l'Irak réclame le déblocage 

d'une partie de ses avoirs gelés dans des pays arabes, citant en 

particulier l'Arabie saoudite, Bahrein et les Emirats arabes unis, afin 

d'assurer les devises nécessaires au pèlerinage des Irakiens et à 

l'impression d'exemplaires du Coran, selon INA. 

C'est la troisième fois que l'Irak réclame le déblocage d'une partie de 

ses avoirs bloqués dans les pays arabes qui détiennent, selon Bagdad, 

près de 1,5 milliard USD de fonds irakiens. 

Dans son message à l'OCI, M. Sahhaf accuse Washington et Londres 

d'avoir empêché le comité des sanctions de satisfaire à ses précédentes 

demandes. 

Le pèlerinage à La Mecque fait partie des cinq obligations 

fondamentales de l'islam pour tout croyant qui a les moyens de 

l'accomplir. 

ea/sb 


OTAN-UE-Turquie : Malaise à l'OTAN face à des 

menaces turques de plus en plus pressantes 

BRUXELLES, 7 fév (AFP) - La menace de la Turquie de bloquer 

l'élargissement de l'OTAN à l'Europe de l'Est, réaffirmée avec 

vigueur jeudi par le président turc Suleyman Demirel, suscite un 

malaise croissant chez les diplomates alliés qui ne savent pas trop 

comment tuer le ver dans le fruit. 

"Si on prend trop au sérieux cette menace, on risque d'aggraver le 

problème, mais dans le même temps, on ne peut pas l'ignorer", a 

résumé vendredi un diplomate, se faisant l'écho d'un sentiment 

partagé par beaucoup de ses collègues au siège de l'Alliance. 

Le président turc a déclaré jeudi que la Turquie mettrait son veto à 

l'élargissement de l'OTAN si elle n'est pas incluse dans le projet 

d'expansion de l'Union européenne, à la porte de laquelle elle frappe 

25

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Sta1!lpa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

'depuis longtemps. 

"Officiellement, tant le secrétaire général de l'OTAN Javier Solana 

que l'Administration américaine refusent de croire que la Turquie 

mettra sa menace à exécution. 

"Je ne crois pas que la Turquie opposera son veto à quoi que ce soit. La 

décision d'élargir l'Otan a été prise par les 16 membres de l'Alliance", a 

dit M. Solanaà l'occasion d'une visite officielle à Ankara, en se 

montrànt confiant sur le succès du sommet de Madrid. 

Lors de ce sommet prévu début juillet, les alliés doivent inviter 

formellement les premiers pays d'Europe de l'Est à adhérer à 

l'Alliance. Pologne, République tchèque et Hongrie font figure de 

favoris, des discussions restant en cours pour la Roumanie et la 

Slovénie. 

prh/dfg eaf 


A.F.r.- Agence France Prcsse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse ' 

Chypre-ONU'- Turquie: L'ONU déplore l'intransigeance 

des deux parties chypriotes 

ISTANBUL, 7 fév (AFP) - L'envoyé spécial de l'ONU pour Chypre 

Han .Sung.,.jooa d~pJorévendredi à Istanbul la réticence des . 

Chypriotes grecs ettuù:s ffélire des concessiqns pour aboutir à un. 

règlement du problème de l'île. 

"Chaque côté dit 'je ne ferai pas de concessions' et campe sur cette 

position", a déclaré M. Han à la presse à l'issue d'un entretiél avec des 

responsables du ministère turc des Affaires étrangères. 

"Le fossé (entre les deux camps) est encore large et nous aimerions le 

voir quelque peu comblé", a.-t-ilajouté. 

"Il faut que chaque camp réalise qu'il ne pourra obtenir 100% de ce 

qu'il veut", a-t-il dit. 

M. Han est arrivé jeudi à Istanbul pour voir les dirigeants turcs après 

avoir eu plusieurs séries d'entretiens séparés à Chypre avec le président 

chypriote-grec Glafkos Clerides et le chef de la communauté 

chypriote-turque Rauf Denktash. 

M. Han a prédit qu'il n'y aurait aucune rencontre entre les deux 

leaders chypriotes dans un proche avenir,leur~ positions "n'étant pas 

26


suffismment positives pour donner l'impression qu'une fois 

commencés, les pourparlers aboutiraient à un succès. 

La tension était monté le mois dernier sur l'île divisée après l'annonce 

par le gouvernement chypriote-grec de l'achat de missiles sol-air à 

longue portée 5-300 à la Russie. 

La Turquie, estimant que ces missiles mettraient en danger les 

Chypriotes-turcs et sa propre aviation, avait menacé de prendre des 

mesures, y compris militaires, contre le déploiement de ces missiles. 

Les Chypriotes-turcs ont fait état jeudi d'un échange de tirs la nuit 

précédente entre Chypriotes-grecs et soldats turcs dans la zone-tampon 

près du poste frontalier turc d'Akicinlar (Louroudjina), lors duquel un 

Chypriote-grec aurait été blessé. 

Le porte-parole des forces de l'ONU à Chypre a confirmé l'incident 

sans préciser s'il avait fait des victimes. La Grèce et les Chypriotes-grecs 

ont démenti l'information. 

Chypre est divisée en deux parties, grecque au sud, turque au nord, 

depuis l'intervention de l'armée d'Ankara dans le nord en 1974, suité à 

un coup d'Etat nationaliste à Nicosie qui visait à rattacher l'île à la 

Grèce. . 

Les efforts de l'ONU pour trouver une solution au problème 

chypriote ont jusqu'ici achoué, les derniers pourparlers 

intercommunautaires ayant été interrompus en 1994. 

Les Chypriotes-turcs ont fondé en 1983 la République turque de 

Chypre du nord mais elle n'est reconnue que par Ankara. La Turquie 

maintient quelque 30.000 troupes dans le nord de l'île. 

kg-ue/hclnev 

t 


Turkt5b Daily News SATURDAY,FEBRUARY8,1997 

Kurdish groups in 

northern Iraq plan 

prisoner exchange 

UN to completely pull out 

of Atrush. KDP says it will 

help those who don't want 

to return to Turkey 

SAADETORUÇ 

Ankara. 


• The exchange of prisoners 

between Massoud Barzani' s 

Kurdistan Democratic Party 

(KDP) lPld Jalal Talabani's 

27


Patriotic Union of Kurdistan 

(PUK) is planned for the holiday . 

following Ramadan, sources 

attending the Supervisory Peace 

Monitoring Group talks told the 

Turkish Daily News Friday. 

Sources referring to a statement 

made by the PUK Polit Buro said 

that the PUK has expressed its 

readiness to release prisoners, but 

with the condition "that the KDP 

did the same." KDP's representative 

in Ankara, Safeen Dizayee, 

declared that such a development 

would serve the confidence-buijding 

measures now in place. The 

6th peace monitoring talk was 

held in Ankara on Thursday, with 

the participation of British, 

Turkish, and U.S. officials as well 

as representatives Qfthe KDP, 

PUK and the Turkmen Front. 

Shazad Saib, PUK's representative 

in Ankara, said that they were 

ready for such steps, but he also 

accused the KDP of violating the 

ceasefire at yariöus times. 

UN deadline also 

scheduled for 

Ramadan holiday 

The United Nations _High 

Commission of Refugees 

(UNHCR) declared that,the flag 

was to be withdrawn from Atrush 

camp after the Ramadan holiday, 

the Turkish Daily News learned 

Friday. Asked about such 

WHICH reports. UNHCR officials 

in Ankara said during a 

briefing that intensive talks were 

going on in northern Iraq between 

Turkish officials, KDP authorities, 

UNHCR as well as representatives 

of the refugees. It wasalso 

reported that the KDP was to provide 

settlement to some of the 

refugees in KDP-coDtrolled areas 

on a case by case basis. When 

questioned about the Atrush 

camp, Dizayee stated that they 

were ready to assist the refugees' 

who want to "return voluntarily." 

If not, according to Dizayee, the 

KDP will accept them to settle 

down in their region without living 

under the auspices of a 

."camp." 

Turkmens are worried 

Although the circumstances of the 

Turkmenminority in northern 

Iraq is an important part or 

Turkish diplomacy, the Turkmens 

in Ankara are restless, Ismet 

Koçak, a representative of the 

Turkmen Front in Ankara told the 

TurkishDaily News Friday. 

Koçak said the Foreigners 

Division of the Police 

Headquarters asked an Iraqi 

Turkmen family to leave Turkey 

in a fortnight' s time, he said in 

complaint. 

He said this family included 

an elderly woman named Ay~en 

Ali Mustafa and her son Ruaya 

Aydm Abdullah who were relatives 

of Aydm Abdullah, an army 

officer who was killed from torture 

in Iraq. Koçak said that the 

Iraqi Turkmen have great difficulty 

acquiring Turkish citizenship 

because Turkey does not want 

them to have it. 

He gave an example of a young 

woman, Suat lmsel, who was 

seeking citizenship due to severe 

repression in Iraq. She was turned 

down and told that she needed to: 

"First get the document from your 

former country showing that you 

haye given up your former citizenship." 

According to Kocak, 

this demand meant "Go, commit 

suicide." 

us: Turkey can't turn back on NATO 

expansi on. Turkish Dairy Nezœ SA11!RDAY, FEBRUARY s, ,,,,' 

VOA: Turkey's EU 

membership unlikely 

UGURAKINCI 

Washington- Turkisll Daily News 

• The Adminis-tration senior 

.officials continued to press on 

with their firm line on NATO 

expansion despite news from 

Ankara Prime Minister . 

Necmettin Erbakan raised the 

possibility of a Turkish veto 

during his meeting with 

NATO Secretary General 

Javier Solana. The same possibility 

was raised by Foreign 

Minister and Deputy Foreign 

Minster Tansu Çiller during 

her visit to Rome last week. 

"NATO expansion Will go 

forward ... There is no turning 

back," is how Assistant 

Secretary of State and 

spokesman Nicholas Bums 

stressed the point on 

Thursday. He said the decision 

was made way back in 

January 1994, in Brussels 

heads-of-states meeting to 

which Turkey paticipated and 

voted as a full rrember . 

, "NATO made a firm, irrevocable 

decision in December 

to hold a summit in Madrid in 

July and to identify then the 

countries with which we will 

negotiate membership. The 

Turkish Government supported 

that decision. And, as far 

as we know, the Turkish 

Government still does," Burns 

said. 

"That is the united will of 

NATO led by the United 

States. Our position on this 

issue ~ill not change." 

USState Department spokesman 

Nicholas. Bums indicates that NATO 

decision on expansion is irrevocable. 

Observers argue that 

Turkey brought up the 

"NATO card" to guarantee 

Tur~ey's acceptance into the 

European Union as'a full 

member ahead of Greek 

Cyprus. Turkey, a member of 

the European Customs Union, 

has been an associate member 

of EU since 1963. The 

Clinton Administration maintains 

that EU and NATO 

expansion are two entirely 

separate processes and have 

nothing to do with one another. 

Turkey, on the other hand, 

disagrees with such an interpretation 

fOflack of any other 

effective leverage to engineer 

entrance'into the EU. 

EU membership 

The United States, a critical 

force behind Turkey's 

entrance into the Customs 

Union, still supports Turkey 

becoming a full member of 

EU.; Bums verified that policy 

once again on Thursday. 

28


"Now, concerning Turkey 

and the EU, there's been a Jot 

of taJk, we know, in Europe 

about Turkey JateJy. We 

believe that the European 

Union should be open to 

Turkey - open to future 

membership, open to future 

association. Turkey is a 

European coun~ which needs 

to be embedded 10 European 

institutions - not just NATO 

but also in affiliation with the 

European Union. We said that 

.repeatedly, and.l think it's 

important to reiterate that 

today," Burns said. 

"But it is not appropriate to draw a link 

between the two and say that NATO expansion 

is going to be stopped because of some 

problem between Turkey and the European 

Union," he reminded. 

Advice toEU 

"Our policy advice to the European Union, 

recently stated by the Secre~ of State to Sir 

Leon Brittan and Foreign Minlster Van 

Mierlo, is that the European Union should 

have a close association with Turkey," Burns 

repeated. '''They have a ~ustoms Union. We 

believe they should be open to further closer 

association, including eventual [full] membership; 

and that's our position." 

1994 decision 

To drive the point home, and in answer to a 

TON question, Bums said that Turkey's agreeing 

to NATO expansion was nothing new. 

"Actually, the decision was made in 

January 1994 by the NATO heads of state in 

Brussels. It's been reaffIrmed at every NATO 

ministerial since, but most importantly at the 

Brussels ministerial just six weeks ago. 

There's no turning back. NATO is going forward 

toward enlargement." 

No linkage 

As a response to another question, Burns stated 

once again that "I'm not aware of any linkage 

at all between EU expansion and NATO 

expansion. Obviously, the two phenomena are 

occurring, but I'm not aware of any linkage 

drawn by either organization. I do expect 

Turkey to continue to come up in the radar 

screen when the United States talks to 

European Union officials." 

VOA 

Voice of America (VOA), the official radio 

broadcast of the American government, aired a 

report on the issue which focused on the possibility 

of a NATO-expansion-veto as raised by 

Erbakan and Çiller. VOA also claimed that 

Washington was "deeply worried" with questions 

raised by Turkey . 

"Mrs. Çiller said that NATO expansion and 

European Union expansion were, in her words, 

"interlinked," and that only if Turkey were 

admitted into the Euro~an Union would it 

allow other countries into NATO," VOA said. 

"Some Western diplomats say Washington, 

in particular, is deeply worried by Ankara's. 

decision to link NATO expansion to expanslOn 

of the E.U. at a time when the defense alliance 

is preparing to admit new members from the 

former Soviet bloc. Although few observers 

believe Turkey will carry out its threat, some 

argue that Ankara's stance could slow down 

the process of enlargement," the VOA continued. 

Little chance 

VOA report said there is "little chance" that 

Turkey might be admitted to B.U. as a full 

member due to its record on human rights, 

economic problems and large population. 

"According to some senior European diplomats, 

have prompted Washington to step up 

pressure on E.U. governments to allow Turkey 

mto the group. But the diplomats say there are 

few signs that the European Union will admit 

Turkey in the near future. 

Concerns over alleged human rights abuses, 

the fragility of the Turkish economy and its 

large population, E.U. officials say, make it 

unlikely that Turkey will accepted in the near 

future," VOA said. "The ongoing dispute 

between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus is 

also a major obstacle to Turkey's accession, 

the officials add," is how VOA concluded its 

report. 

Turkish Daily News SA11JRDAY, FEBRUARY 8, t991 

US 'aid' to Turkey kept same in 1998 

Administration asks $175 mil BYUGURAKINCI 

for FMF and $50 mil for Washington- Turkish Daily News 

ESF for Turkey 

_ The agenda item that once up

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa.cDentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

submitted by the Clinton Administration to 

the Congress for fiscal year 1998 (FY98) 

are pretty much the same as those that the 

Administration asked for FY97. 

Numbers 

For 1998, the Clinton Administration asked 

for $175 million in FMF (Foreign Military 

Financin~) loans; $50 million in E~F 

(EconOIIDcSupport Fund) grants; and a 

truly symbolic$I.5 million in !MET 

(International Military Education and 

Training) grant. 

Seven-to-ten 

The arbitrary 7-to-10 ratio between U.S. 

military aid to Greece and Turkey, respectively, 

that was established by the U.S. 

Congress in the aftermath oithe 1974 

Turkish intervention in Cyprus, has been 

observed in FMF for 1998 just like in the 

years before. Greece was asked $122.5 mil 

FMF for FY98 - same as FY97. There is 

no ESF asked for Greece "probably because 

it already received billions in the last 

decade from the European Union as a full 

member," according a TON source. Turkey 

is not a full member of the EU. 

What's a "subsidy"? 

The 7-to-10 ratio, however was again not 

retained in the loan subsidies that the 

Administration extends to the commercial 

banks who actually end up financing the 

FMF loans in question: . . 

According to a CapItol HIll practIce usually 

disregarded by the observers of 

Turkish-U.S. relations, the U.S. federal 

government never pays the full FMF 

amounts out of the funds provided by the 

American taxpayers. What the U.S. taxpayers 

actually end up footing is an amount 

usually varyingfrom~)I~e~tenth to on~-fifth 

of the total 'amountonginally'reques-te~ by .J 

the Admimstration, Le. the "subsidy.'" The 

rest is provided by the U.S. private banks ' 

and/or the appropriate financial institutions. 

The interest rates at which FMF 10ans are 

provided were used to be below-the-market ' 

"concessionary" rates in the early 90s. 

Nowadays, however, the rate seems to be 

even above the ongoing market rates which, 

explains the Turkish officials' allergy to the 

term "aid." 

Greek subsidy shoots up 

So when we look at the actual FMF "subsidy" 

amounts accorded to Turkey and 

Greece, we see great variation in the last 

three years. These amounts were $34.91 

million to $24.44 million in FY96; $36.77 

million to $3.23 million in FY97; and 

$33.15 million to $12.85 million for FY98, 

respectively. . ' ., . 

That is whtle the AdIUlOlstratlOnpropos- 

'es to REDUCE the actual amount it wants 

to pay to Turkey as FMF out of federal 

funds by $3.62 million, it wants to 

INCREASE the same comparable amount 

to Greece by $9.62 million -which represents 

a ',\'hopping 298%increase for 

Greece. 

However, iri all fairness, onè should also 

point out that the Greek FMF subsidy took 

an equally surprising dive between FY66 

and FY97 when it plummeted by 86percent 

from $24.44 million to its current $3.23 

million. 

Turkey received $34.9I. million as FMF 

subsidy in FY96 and $36.77 million in 

FY97. 

Greek Cyprus 

' 

Greek Cyprus got one of the best deals . 

from the Administration this year, especIally 

when compared to the amounts asked for 

Turkey - a country which is 100-times 

more populous than Greek Cyprus. 

For FY98, Administration asked congress 

to give $15 million to Greek Cyprus 

as ESF grant - same amounts earmarked 

in FY96 and FY97. . 

If the assistance countries received were 

in direct proportion to their population, the 

Administration either should have asked 

only $500,000 for Greek 

Cyprus, or should 

have asked $1.5 

,billion in ESF 

for Turkey. 

Last 

year the 

gross imbalance was again the rule. Turkey 

ended up getting $22 million ESF for FY97, 

;compared to $15 mi,llion for Greek Cyprus 

given for "intercommunal projects" - as 

though there were any. Washington does 

not recognize Turkish Re('ublic of Northern 

Cyprus (TRNC) as a legitunate state. Last 

year, the Administration request of $50 million 

was slashed down to $22 million after 

one flaming speeCh after another on the 

House floor by the anti-Turkish caucus, led 

by John Porter (R) of minois, regarding 

'Turkey's embargo on Armenia and the 

Ottoman Turkey's role in "Armenian. 

Genocide." 

Northem Iraq 

One interesting budget item was the elimination 

of all funds for "Northern Iraq Peace 

Monitor Force" despite the fact that an estimated 

$1.5 million was earmarked for 

FY97. 

Was that because the U.S. did not believe 

there would be a force in 1998 in northern. 

Iraq monitoring the volatile peace between 

warring Kurdish factions or that 

Washington decided to wash its hands free 

of fmancial responsibility, TON 

asked a State Department senior 

official. 

The official said the $1.5 million 

in 1997 was "one-time 

funding," that the U.S. 

believed in the force and' 

an "alternative funding" 

will be found. "I wouldn't 

rule out the possibility that 

'. 

30


I . 

we'll look at it again," he 

said. 

Overall 

The State Department's total International 

Affairs Budget for FY98 is $19.451 billion, 

little up from $18.227 billion appropriated 

for FY97. The amount represents only 1 

percent of the total U.S. budget and is equal 

to one-twenty-fifth of what the Americans 

spend each year on gambling, according to 

the State Department. 

But a recent survey conducted by 

University of Maryland showed that the 

average American thinks international 

affairs funds add up to 18 percent of the 

federal budget and request more to be allocated 

for Medicare. The real amounts 

appropriated for Medicare turns out to be 

25 times more than what the Congress 

spends on the State Department. 

The proce •• 

The real amounts appropriated will be 

decided after the Administration's requests 

are debated in the appropriate subcommit-: 

tee and committees ot the Congress, voted 

by' the full House and Senate. If there is a 

difference between the House and Senate 

versions of the bill - which is almost 

always the case - then the 

amounts are debate once 

again at the Conference 

Committee. The resultant 

compromise is then sent to 

the President who signs it 

into law. 

During these floor 

debates Turkey is usually 

subjected to a barrage of 

criticism by anti-Turkish 

members of the Congress 

who use the assistance issue 

as an open platform to lambaste 

what they regard as 

Turkey's shortcomin~s on a 

wide range of policy Issues, 

including human rights, embargo 

on Armenia, situation in 

Cyprus, and alike. The lengthy 

give-and-take process that 

starts in 

Turkish Daily News SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8,1997 

UN: Iraqi 

oil flowing 

smoothly 

Beside transit fees, Ankara is hoping 

that the deal will pave the way for the 

complete lifting of the sanctions and 

enable the resumption of its once-busy 

economic relations with Baghdad 

New York- Turkish 

Daily News 

• The Iraqi oil is flowing smoothly within the 

framework of "food-for-oil" program as allowed 

by UN Res. 986, UN spokesperson said on 

Thursday. But unauthorized traffic~g in 

humanitarian goods through the Iraqi ports 

reportedly continues to be a problem. 

The bulk of the $2 billion s worth of crude 

Iraq is allowed to sell for six months to buy food 

and medicine for its population reeling under the 

U.N. trade sanctions imposed after its 199,0 

invasion of Kuwait, passes through 986-kilometer 

twin pipelines to the Turkish Mediterranean 

terminal of YumurtalIk. 

Beside transit fees, Ankara is hoping that the 

deal would pave the way for the compl~te lifti~g 

of the sanctions and enable the resumptIOn of Its 

once-busy economic relations with Baghdad. 

The Coordinator of the Multinational 

Interception Force (Mlf), Vice-Admirai Thomas 

B. Fargo, has said that while the monitoring of 

the outflow of oil had been running smoothly, 

the challen~e for the MIF, designed to prevent 

prohibited Items from entering or leaving Iraq, 

would be the inflow of approved shipments of 

humanitarian goods to the port of Umm Qasr. 

Addressing the Security Council Committee 

established by resolution 661 (1990) concerning 

the situation between Iraq and Kuwait, Vice- 

Admiral Fargo expressed major concern over 

what he termed as an emerging pattern of sanctions 

violations by a number of ships which 

were smug~ling gas and oil from Iraq. He added 

that these VIOlationswere taking {>laceinside 

Iranian territorial waters, thus, skirting the Mlf 

operations. Vice- Admiral Fargo said continued 

resolve from the international community was 

necessary to end 'such practices. 

The Mlf, one of the largest maritime sanctions 

monitoring and verification efforts in history, 

is operating in the Persian Gulf on the 

strength of Security Council resolution 665 

(1990) and under national command. Vessels 

from 15 counties, serving on rotation, has so far 

participated in the force. 

31

'. 

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentrode la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

TurkisbDaily News SATURDAY,FEBRUARY 8.19 1 )7 

European Commission and European 

Parliament at odds over Turkey 

, '. " . Event.1.ough there was goodwill 

European CormmSSlOnChaIrman Jacques between the Commission and Parliament 

The' European Parliament 

Santer to ':di~cuss disagree.ments ~)Ver " on the matter of aid for Turkey, these difgeneral 

pnnclples and c1anfy the Issues.. ferences of opinion had created a prob- 

has accused the European 

Commission of distorting 

A meeting between the Budget lem. . 

Committee and Commission officials, The standoff between Parliament and 

parliamentary decisions on hea~ed by G~rm~ Christian Democrat the Commission was affecting the reputaassistance 

to Turkey 

Parliamentanan DIemut Theato, attempt- tion of both bodies added Theato warn- 

'. ed to solve s,!me of the differences. ing that if the Co~ssion made ~y 

Ankara - Turkish Dail)' News 

The~to. claImed ~e European agreements concerning Turkey before a 

CormmsslOn had tned to speed up . h d tak l 'th S th 

• The European Commission and the Turkey's financial assistance pro ect mee~ng a , en p ace WI anter e 

E Parli 'ament are at odds over. ~. ~ tenSIOnwould mcrease. 

uropean allegIng that as a result the CormmssIOn be . l' d 

'financial assistance for Turkey to be pro- had not paid sufficient attention to Tru~t . tween Par lament an th~ 

vided from the Mediterranean Fund European Parliament decisions. Co~sslOn,had been ?amaged, said the 

(MEDA), the Anatolianews agency Members of the budget committee parhamentanans, warrnn~ that ~e 1997 

reported. pointed out that last September they had budget coul~ be.bl~ked If the differen~es 

The debate between the Commission :decided to distribute the MEDA fund to were not satlsfactonly resolved. FQrthis 

and Parlia,ment, rather than focusing on nonpolitical organizations inv~lved with reason an.ur~ent solution v.: as n~ed. 

specific organizations to receive aid, ha~ hu~an righ~ and de~ocracy Issues, .~e .Commlss~on representatlve~ I~ turn. . 

d~velo~d int~ arguments, on g~nera1 pnn- parh.amentanans c1aIJ?1ed. the Co~ssion SaId that pro~ec.tsfor Turkey glVlng pnonclples, 

mc1udmg human nght~ Issues. The.,bad m!erpret~d organI~atlOns.to receIve ty to women s I~SU~S,health, ed~catl(~n 

parliamentary Budget Comnuttee has .financlal assistance usmg a dIfferent and local orgarnzatlons were thetr maIn 

reportedly called for a meeting with ~genda. aim. 

Arme'riian.';;,,~.,: 

". '" 

lobb~ê;~èk:s,to..•... 

.....'., -, , 

block.USaid' 

. . 

toTurkéy; 

Ankara - ~~DaiJ~~ew.s ..' . 

• Anti-T~sh lobbies ~ the U.S. Congress 

are steppmgùpefforts toburt Turkey,with 

the Armenian... l.~obby.try~g.toget aidstopped 

and the Greek-Greek Cypnot lobbytrying'to' 

bl~k the saleofhelicopters to therurIcish ". '" 

~tary, the Ana,toliânews agencyreportéd; 

.' huletterdatedFeb.7.' 1997 the nevèc,,; ....• 

changing namesof ~ Con~s'ArriièDiàn' .. 

lobby::-:-,"Frank Pall.one, Josep.hKenn ..•.edy. , . 

Œristopher Smith andJohn P0rteJ::Ä asked. 

mg that.land tl1U1Sport tI1rou~:I:Ui'key.? ....•. 

would start, the border gate IS still closed,~'. 

read the letter ..Theletter statedthàt ; , . . 

Azèrbaijan also blOCkaded Amîenia." . 

'.The Jener saidalremati\re rootes'f6rthè 

country's fue~ fOOdandemergency equi~, 

ment were "too much of a bUrden;';which 

has Jed to an increasing sickness rate iii the' . 

country ..Pallone, Stnith~Kennedy.and Porter 

asked President .Clinton "to blOCkaid to 

Turkey aslorig as AnkaramaintaiDed its atti~ 

tude." The letter did not include the fact that 

AiÎnenia still occupies one fourth of -. .' 

Azerbaijan andthat more than one tnillion '.. 

Azerbaijanis are ~fugees in their own country. 

Moreover; the fact that hUIDllnitarianaid 

!toAzerbaijanwas illegal under U.S. law :-vas 

:not mentioned in the letter. 

•• Another ailti-Turkish lobbyist, RObert 

Andrews, a member of the Gr~k~I.c .. 

Cypriot lobby in Congress, has propoSed a . 

draft bill to block militaryèreditS and eeo-' .. 

nomic aid to Turkey unless it takes steps on 

the Cyprus issue. The same lobby had writ., 

ten a letter toSecretary of StateMadeleine : 

Albright about the fourSeaHawk heli-, . 

cop~ :rur~ey was pl~gtoPurchâse~. 

BenJamm Gilnian, pre~Ident()fth~H~,.i': 

International Relations Coriunittee, and':): •.... ~. 

known for itisdoSe ties wit:hthel()b1?Y.said 

!the helicopterS should not ~. giyeri.tc:>'.',"ii ,:; 

.Cyp[1JS' 

Turkey becausëof 

..' 

the, ~èntJJJissi1e.:'~~s 

,' ' ;..,,".. """.. 

in' 

' 

32


Gamk I samedi. dimanche, 8.9 février 1997 

"L'HÉGÉMONIE 

LE PATRONAT TURC DÉNONCE 

DES GANGS ET DES CONFRÉRIES" 

ET PROPOSE "UN PROJET DE DÉMOCRATISATION" 

Selon son président, le patronat 

turc a " honte de ce qui se passe 

chaque jour dans le pays", Il a 

"honte de l'hégémonie des gangs et 

des confréries", Et pour sortir le pays 

de cet engrenage destructeur, le rapprocher 

de ses partenaires occidentaux 

le patronat (TUSlAD) propse un vaste 

"projet de démocratisation" que son 

président Halis Komili, a, le 20 janvier, 

solennellement remis au président de 

l'Assemblée nationale, Mustafa Kalemli, 

ainsi qu'au général Karadayi, chef 

d'état-major général des 

armées, Dans sa conférence 

de presse du 21 

janvier à laquelle les 

médias turcs consacrent 

une large place (1,5 p, 

dans le quotidien Milliyet), 

M, Komili ne mâche pas ses mots sur 

la gravité de la situation, sur "le 

manque de confiance de tous les secteurs 

de la société dans le système 

actuel" et appelle à la mobilisation de 

tous pour engager rapidement les 

réformes indispensables pour "une 

démocratie à l'européenne", Rappelant 

que "l'économie de marché ne peut se 

développer sans la stabilité politique" 

que "la politique ne doit pas être considérée 

comme l'apanage de certains 

milieux mais l'affaire de tous", M, Komili 

a souligné que le pays avait besoin d'un 

"véritable régime civil", "Actuellement le 

Conseil de Sécurité nationale (organe 

non élu à dominante militaire) est élevé 

au rang du conseil des ministres, C'est 

une situation qu'on ne rencontre que 

dans des pays comme la Corée du Sud 

,et l'Algérie alors que dans les pays 

démocratiques comme la France 

l'Italie et les États-Unis ce genre d~ 

conseils ne sont formés que de techniciens" 

a-t-il ajouté, uri régime civil, cela 

notamment veut dire que l'état-major 

des armées doit être placé sous l'autorité 

du ministère de la défense, et non 

plus sous celle, théorique, du Premier 

ministre a poursuivi M, Komili pour 

résumer les grandes lignes des 

réformes proposées par le patronat. 

Parmi les mesures les plus significatives 

du patronat: abolition des articles 

,26 et 28 de la Constitution sur "les 

langues interdites" afin de permettre 

aux citoyens kurdes le libre usage de 

leur langue dans tous les domaines de 

la vie; liberté pour les Kurdes de donner 

à leurs enfants des noms de leur 

choix et d'utiliser, à la place des appellations 

turques imposées, les noms 

~urdes de leurs villes, villages et de 

lieux géographiques; abolition de 

l'article 8 de la loi anti-terreur et refont 

des articles 158, 159, 311 et 312 du 

Code pénal afin d'assurer une véritable 

liberté d'expression; refonte de la loi 

électorale et de la loi sur les partis et 

les associations de façon à assurer 

effectivement la liberté d'association et 

une représentations équitable des 

citoyens; refonte de l'actuelle loi sur les 

préroQ.ativesde la police héritée de la 

période du parti unique (1924-1945) 

afin de garantir le droit à la vie et "intégrité 

physique des citoyens, Enfin, le 

patronat estimant que le concept même 

d'une "idéologie officielle de l'Étar est 

incompatible avec une véritable démocratie 

pluraliste qui doit être fondée sur 

la neutralité de l'État vis-à-vis de toute 

idéologie et de toute religion, demande 

la suppression du 5ème paragraphe du 

Préambule de la Constitution qui institue 

"le nationalisme d'Ataturk, les 

valeurs historiques et morales de la turquicité" 

en une idéologie officielle qui 

ne saurait en aucune manière être 

remise en cause, L'article 14 de la 

Constitution qui restreint gravement la 

liberté d'expression "afin d'empêcher 

un mauvais usage des libertés" doit 

également être abolie, souligne le "projet 

de démocratisation" du patronat qui, 

par ailleurs, demande une décentralisation 

des structures de l'État. 

la démarche du patronat turc est 

saluée par la plupart des commentateurs 

comme "une action de salut public" bienvenue, 

le président du Parlement s'est 

engagéà soumettreces idéesaux délibérations 

des députés, Cependant, l'étatmajor 

des armées a fait savoir que "ce 

projet est étranger aux réalités du pays", 

tandis que certains éditorialistesproches 

de l'armée raillent "ces patrons qui se 

mettent à la mode des intellectuels libéraux 

coupés des réalitésdu pays pour se 

faire bienvoir de l'Europe", 

DANSLAPRESSE Gamk I samedi. dimanche, 8.9 février 1997 

Le livre de l'historien 

B. Lewis sort en France 

Il nie le génocide arménien ! 

. Gén,oci~e? Connais pas !La traduction française de L'histoire du Moyen Orient, de Bernard 

LewIs, qUI vient de sortir chez Albin Michel, risque de réveiller douloureusement bien des 

mémoires, L'entreprise, à première vue, était pourtant séduisante, L'éminent orientaliste américain - 

une autorité mondiale - se propose ni plus ni moins de retracer, en près de 500 pages, «2000 ans 

33

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro dë la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

d'Histoire». Mais, ,sans doute parce qu'une fresque ne peut s'embarrasser de détails, c'est en deux 

pages qu'il expédie la tragédie arménienne de 1915. Or, si certains mots font maI, d'autres, par leur 

absence, font plus mal encore. On cherchera vainement dans ces deux pages un terme, un seul, le 

plus important: génocide. 

Pour Bernard Lewis;, la cause principale de la tragédie tient à la situation militaire catastrophique 

de l'empire ottoman, alors en guerre contre les Alliés - notamment les Russes. Selon lui, c'est 

face à l'agitation entretenue par des «bandes armées» que «legOuvemenient décida de déporter la' 

population arménienne d'Anatolie" selon une pratique hélas familière dans la région depuis les 

temps bibliques». Si Bernard Lewis consent à reconnaître les «effroyables épreuves., 'subies, et l'ampleur 

des massacres, c'est pour en imputer l'essentiel à la faim, à la maladie. à «des villageois et des 

nomades». Et pour excuser le gouvernement ottoman, qui ne disposait pas, ose-toit écrire, 

de-moyens suffisants pour «escorter '» les déportés et «semble avoir essayé de contenir de tels 

excès». 

RÉVISIONNISME: LE MOT EST LÂCHÉ! 

Le professeur Alfred Grosser trouve «monstrueux, énorme, l'idée qu'il n'y ait eu aucune volonté 

de tuer. C'est effrayant. On dispose p()urtant d'une foule de témoignages sur l'intervention des 

autorités dans un sens massacreur. Nier /'intention, c'est nier qu'il y ait eu génocide. C'est du révisionnisme», 

estime l'historien, qui a préfacé l'an dernier la traduction de l'Histoire du génocide 

arménien, de Vahakn Dadrian (Stock). 

Révisionnisme, le mot est lâché. Déjà, à l'initiative du Forum des associations arnléniennes, 

Bernard Lewis avait été condamné pour faute par le tribunal de grande instance de Paris, en juin 

1995, apl{s avoir estimé que le tenne de génocide évoquait simplement «la ve~si~nannénienne de, 

cene histoire». L'affaire avait fait grand bruit. Le président du Forum, Kegham Kevonian, estime' 

l'ouvrage de Bernard Lewis «scandaleuse et intolérable». Pour lui «lafaute professiorinelle commise 

par un historien devient une sorte de crime: quand on sait et qu'on ne dit pas. ("est que l'on ne 

veut pas». Tous les éléments d'une nouvelle «affaire Lewis» semblent réunis. 

JEAN-PIERRE 

DENIS 

(La Vie, 16 janvier 1997) 

, , 

A.F.P.- Agence Fr


contre le sud de l'île en cas de déploiement des missiles. 

M. Clinton souligne dans sa lettre "(son) inquiétude concernant la 

récente décision du gouvernement de Chypre d'acheter des missiles 

antiaériens et les menaces de frappes militaires de la part d'Ankara qui 

en ont découlé". 

CHZ/et/ab 

eaf.m 


r\.1 .P.- AgetlLl' FrdtlLl' l'Ie'-,'-,l'-,\.I .1'.- Agetlll' frdtlLl' Presse-Â.F.P.- Agetlle Fr,lI1ce Presse 

Allemagne- Turquie-OTAN : Elargissement de l'OTAN: 

Bonn appelle Ankara à "bien réfléchir" 

BONN, 8 fév (AFP) - Le ministre allemand des Atfaires étrangères 

Klaus Kinkel a appelé la Turquie à "bien réfléchir" avant de bloquer 

l'élargissemen t de l'OTAN. 

Le gouvernement turc doit "bien réfléchir à son attitude au sujet de 

l'élargissement de l'OTAN à l'est", a déclaré M. Kinkel dans une 

interview à l'hebdomadaire dominical Welt am Sonntag. 

Le président turc Suleyman Demirel avait déclaré jeudi que la Turquie 

mettrait son veto à l'élargissement de l'OTAN si elle n'était pas 

incluse dans le projet d'expansion de l'Union européenne (UE). 

"C'est également vrai pour la Turquie: l'élargissement de l'Union 

européenne et l'ouverture de l'OTAN à de nouveaux membres 

représentent des processus sensibles et complexes qui certes, progressent 

parallèlement, mais suivent des règles différentes", a noté le chef de la 

diplomatie allemande dans cette interview largement raportée au style 

indirect. 

M. Kinkel a de nouveau souligné que la Turquie était un partenaire 

essentiel de l'OTAN et, de plus, "un pont important" entre l'Europe, 

le monde islamique et l'Asie. Il en va donc des intérêts de chacun 

d'intensifier les relations entre l'UE et la Turquie, a souligné M. 

Kinkel, appelant ainsi à "faire entrer en vigueur rapidement le 

protocole financier qui accompagne l'union douanière de l'UE et de la 

Turquie". 

La Turquie, a-t-il insisté, a besoin d'une "perspective européenne 

sol.d" 

1 e . 

ha/jj 

t 


35


A.F.P.- Agence France Pressc-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence Fr,lIlce Presse 

Turquie-oléoduc: Réparation de l'oléoduc irako-turc 

saboté en territoire turc 

ANKARA, 8 fév (AFP) - La partie de l'oléoduc irako-turc qui avait été 

sabotée en janvier par des rebelles kurdes du PKK près de Midyat dans 

la province de Mardin (sud-est), a été réparée, a rapporté samedi 

.l'agence Anatolie. ..\ . 

Près de 50.000 dollars ont été dépensés pour les travaux de réparation 

entrepris à l'issue d'un incendie allumé le 23 janvier, selon les 

autorités, par des maquisards du Parti des Travailleurs du Kurdistan 

(PKK, séparatiste), a indiqué l'agence .. 

L'incendie avait causé la perte de quelque 30.000 barils de brut irakien, 

provoquant également des dégâts matériels estimés à 800.000 dollars 

sur l'ouvrage. 

Le pétrole brûlé était bloqué dans les conduites depuis que le pipeline a 

été fermé conformément à l'embargo multiforme imposé à l'Irak en 

août 1990 par l'ONU après l'occupation du Koweït par les troupes de 

Bagdad. 

Le second oléoduc irako-turc, qui longe parallèlement le premier 

oléoduc abîmé, avait été remis en service, après six ans de fermeture, à 

la mi-decembre dans le cadre de la résolution de l'ONU "pétrole 

contre nourriture". Celle-ci autorise l'Irak à vendre du brut équivalent 

à deux milliards de dollars par semestre pour acheter des vivres et 

médicaments. 

Ce double oléoduc relie les champs pétrolifères de Kirkouk (nord de 

l'Irak) au terminal pétrolier turc de Ceyhan-Yumurtalik sur la 

Méditerranée. 

La Turquie a importé plus de 500.000 tonnes de brut irakien, 

acheminé par cet oléoduc, dans le cadre de l'accord turco-irakien signé. 

en décembre à Bagdad pour l'achat de 1,8 million de tonnes de pétrole 

jusqu'à juin 1997. Le gouvernement turc a déposé 89 millions de 

dollars sur le compte bancaire de l'Irak auprès de l'ONU pour cet 

achat, selon Anatolie. 

CE/pub t 


36

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Bastn (jzeti 

\./ ./'.- AgeJ1l'l' Frc1nll' Presse-A.I .1'.- Agence Fr,11lLl'Pressl,-AT.P.- Agl'l1l'l' Fr,lI1ll' Prl's"l' 

Turquie-Suède: L'écrivain Yasar Kemal rentre en Turquie 

après un séjour en Suède 

ANKARA, 9 fév (AFP) - L'écrivain turc d'origine kurde Yasar Kemal 

est rentré samedi soir en Turquie après un séjour de près de trois mois 

en Suède qui avait provoqué des rumeurs selon lesquelles il avait 

demandé l'asile politique au gouvernement suédois. 

"Je serai la dernière personne à quitter la Turquie" a déclaré Yasar 

Kemal à son arrivée à l'aéroport d'Istanbul, démentant de nouveau 

l'intention qui lui avait été prêtée de quitter la Turquie. 

Rentré en compagnie de son épouse Mathilde, de nationalité belge, il 

a expliqué qu'il avait achevé lors de son séjour en Suède la préface de 

son livre intitulé "La légende de Oede Korkut", du nom du poète 

légendaire des Turcs d'Oghouz, qui devait être publié en France. 

"J'avais envisagé de rester (à Stockholm) jusqu'en mai mais j'ai bien 

travaillé et décidé de rentrer plus tôt", a-t-il ajouté. "A cet âge, il est 

trop de rester trois mois loin du pays", a dit l'écrivain, âgé de 74 ans. 

Yasar Kemal, considéré comme le plus grand écrivain turc vivant, avait 

été condamné le 7 mars dernier à une peine d'un an et huit mois de 

prison avec sursis pour "incitation à la haine" par la Cour de sûreté de 

l'Etat d'Istanbul. 

La justice lui reprochait d'avoir publié un article dans un livre intitulé 

"La liberté d'opinion et la Turquie", dans lequel il critiquait l'Etat turc 

pour sa politiqué vis-à-vis des Kurdes de Turquie. 

L'auteur de "Mémed Le Mince" était arrivé le 16 novembre à 

Stockholm pour travailler sur ses nouveaux projets de romans et il 

avait lui-même démenti les rumeurs sur sa défection, ajoutant qu'il 

retournerait en Turquie. 

ce/nj e 


37


IN'l]JlNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE~ MONDAY,FEBRUARYIO, 1997 

Turkish Aide Seeks to Revise 

. Islal1list lmllge in the U.S. . . 

By Stephen Kinzer 


. When Mr. Erbakah became 

prime minister last year, Mr. 

GuI emerged as his chief ad- 

.. ANKARA - Perhaps no viser on foreign affairs. Many. 

figure better symbolizes the diplomats in Ankara now: 

modernization of Turkey's consider him Turkey's for- 

!Muslim-oriented . Welfare eign minister in all but name-: 

Party than a rumpled provin- Officially the foreign min-, 

cial named Abdullah GuI. ' ister is Tansu Ciller, head of; 

.. Until a few years ago, the the rival True Path Party; 

party was dominated by dour which is in an uneasy coali-, 

Islamists whose greatest con-lion with Welfare. That Mr. 

cems were building more Erbakan .has chosen to send 

mosques and encouraging Mr. Gui, rather than Mrs.: 

.women to cover their hair. Mr. Ciller, to Washington later 

GuI was an obscure engineer this month reflects the new 

from the Anatolian town of .power constellation. . 

~ayseri and associate profes- 'In his years in opposition,', 

sor at Istanbul University. .Mr. Erbakan made dozens of 

Butin 1991 heattractedthe speeches bitterly condemning 

:attention of the _ Welfare the West. Now that he is in 

,P&:ty's leader, Necmettin power, he has stepped back 

,Erbakan. Mr. Erbakan was from that militancy. 

. tryingtoinjectnewbloodinto In an interview, Mr. GuI 

. the party and arranged for Mr. said he would take a reassuring 

Gui to nm for a parliamentarymessage to Washington. 

:seat fic;lm Kayseri. He won "Our relationship with the; 

and was quickly welcomed in_United States is closer than our 

toMr.Erbakan 's inner cU:cll~.relatjo~sh!p with Europe," he 

said: "We want to maintain it 

and strengthen it." 

He lamented that his 

party' s Islamic orientation 

had led some Westerners to 

~orm ~ "wrong image" of its 

mtentlOns. But he defended 

Tu!key's right to improve relations. 

with. neighboring 

countlleseventhoughseveral 

are ruled by governments that 

are highly unpopular in 

j Washington. 

." Iran and Iraq and Syria are 

igoing to be our neighbors 

forever, " he said. "Should we 

create problems with them or 

.should we try to establish 

:peace in the region? The best 

thing is to establish relation-' 

ships of confidence. When we' 

do this, are we really changing 

our fundamental structural relations 

with the West? No.. 

Myself, I feel more comfort-: 

'able in America and Europe. 

~Whe!1.I have three days .of 

vacation, I don 't want to spend 

them in a hotel in Libya.' ~ 

... Foreign diplomats in AIikara 

say that although the 46-i 

year-old Mr. Gui works hard, 

he is painfully inexperienced 

and has not yet shown a grasp 

of strategic global issues. 

It was Mr. Gul's idea that 

Mr. Erbakan's first foreign 

trip as prime minister should 

include stops in Iran and 

.Libya. The trip was a political' 

disaster for Mr. Erbakan. who 

was subjected to a vitriolic 

tirade from the Libyan leader;: 

Colonel Moammar Gadhafi . 

During his eight days in 

Washington beginning Feb. 

~8,.Mr. Gui will ~~inly face 

mSlstent questlomng from 

members of Congress and' 

others about Turkey' s humanrights 

record and the treatment 

of its Kurdish minority. 

He said that while Turkey remained 

"an incomplete 

democracy" with "some 

problems" in human rights, it 

was unfair to judge the country 

only on that basis. 

_ 

"'0 

.. .. . . 

38


Turkish Dairy News WEDNESDAY,FEBRUARY 12, 1997 

European Commission of 

Human Rights assesses 

evidence in Ankara 

ORYA SULTAN HAIlSDEMIR 

Loadoa. Turkish Dally News 

• As many are awaiting the judgement of 

the European Court of Human Rights on 

two cases heard in the last month brought 

against Turkey, the European Commission 

of Human Rights heard oral evidence in 

Ankara from Feb. 3-8 in four other cases 

against Turkey that had been declared 

admissible by the Commission. 

The four cases, namely, Ertak v. Turkey, 

Kihç v. Turkey, Kaya v.Turkey, Dulas v. 

Turkey, who separately accuse Turkey of 

allegations of enforced disappearan~e, extrajudicial 

killings and village destruction .. 

According to the London-based Kurdish 

Human Rights Project, the delegation from 

the commission heard the testimony of 

applicants as well as other witnesses, including 

villagers, public prosecutors, officers of 

the gendarmerie and police officers. . 

In the Ertak case, the government demes 

the allegations put forward that ~,s son 

had disappeared after he was taken mto custody 

in Srrnak. 

In the KIlIç case, the applicant complains 

of the killing of his brother, ajournalist, 

near Sanliurfa in February 1993. The government 

denies any state involvement in the 

killin . 

Th:Kaya case involves allegations of the 

disappearance and killing of Dr. Hasan . 

Kaya in February 1993. The other case now 

before the commission, the Dulas case, 

complains that members of security forees 

destroyed the plaintiff s home and property. 

The Turkish sovernment denied the allegation 

and provlded a different account of 

events. 

The Commission will now prepare a 

report on these cases and send them to the 

Committee of Ministers which then may be 

referred to the European Court of Human 

Rights. 

Meanwhile, the Commission agreed to 

assess yet another case invol~ing Turkey, 

regarding an alleged destruction of another 

village. 

Turkish Dairy News WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12. 1997 

Journalists' 

• 

oppreSSIOn 

continues 

Ankara • Turldsh Dally NeW's 

• The start of 1997 has seen no reduction 

in the number of attacks on journalists 

compared to the beginning of last year 

according to the January report of the 

Turkish Journalists Union (TGS). 

The TGS commission which monitors 

press rights said two journalists were victims 

of armed attacks while two others 

were beaten by police and party officials. 

The report said 18 journalists had been 

detained by police and two had been arrested, 

the Anatolia news agency reported. 

The report said the offices of various 

newspaper and ma~azine offices were raided 

12 times by polIce and that one magazine 

office had been set on fire by persons 

unknown . 

. Six editions of newspapers and eight 

published books were confiscated, and four 

newspapers and magazines were closed 

down completely in January. 

The report noted that the Supreme Board 

of Radio and Television had banned four 

television and radio stations from broadcasting 

for a certain period of time, and 

had censored one news program before 

being broadcast. 

As of January, 99 journalists were in jail 

and 23 journalists are still awaiting trial. 

Nine journalists had been sacked during 

the month the report said. 

'Unsolved 

murder' 

files boom 

atDGMs 

Ankara • Turldsh DaH.Y News 

• The chief prosecutors of the State Security 

Courts (DGM) in Turkey have a total of 

13,665 files concerning ''unsolved murders," 

according to data taken from the 

General Directorate of Criminal Records 

and Statistics covering the period up to the 

end of 1995, the Anatolia news agency 

reported. The Diyarbakir DGM Chief 

Prosecutor' s Office takes the lead with 

II,699 files, while Konya has the fewest, 

with 22 files. 

Files related to unsolved murders comprise 

56.4 percent of the total workload of 

the DGM chief prosecutors. A total of 2,40 1 

files were subnutted to the prosecutors' 

offices between Jan. I, 1995 and Dee. 31, 

1995. 

The DGM offices in Malatya, Erzincan, 

lzmir and Istanbul are among those with 

most files related to unsolved murders. In 

1995, 255 cases of this type were solved. 

39


A.F.r.- Agence France Presse-A.F.r.- Agence France Presse-A.F.r.- Agence France Presse 

Turquie-Kllrdes-Irak: 43 rebelles du PKK tués lors de raids 

aériens turcs dans le nord irakien 

ANKARA, 12 fév (AFP) - Quarante-trois maquisards du Parti des 

Travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK, séparatiste) ont été tués en janvier 

lors de trois raids de l'aviation turque sur des camps rebelles situés dans 

le nord de l'Irak, a rapporté mercredi l'agence Anatolie. 

,Ces opérations' aériennes ont été menées après détection de groupes de 

'rebelles kurdes qui s'apprêtaient à attaquer des objectifs en territoire 

turc, a indiqué l'agence. 

Des avions de combat F-16 et F-4 décollant de la base aériennes de 

Diyarbakir (sud-est) et de Malatya (est) ont bombardé des camps dans 

les régions de Metina, faisant 23 morts parmi les militants armés du 

PKK, et de Zap, en tuant 20 autres, selon la même source. 

Le PKK utilise le nord de l'Irak, région montagneuse, comme base 

arrière, et l'armée turque organise fréquemment des incursions en 

Irak du nord à la poursuite de maquisards kurdes. " 

Le PKK mène une rébellion contre Ankara depuis 1984 pour créer un 

Etat kurde indépendant dans le sud-est de la Turquie. Cette rébellion 

et les opérations de représailles de l'armée d'Ankara ont fait près de 

23.000 morts, civils, rebelles kurdes et membres des forces de sécurité. 

CE/csa 

eaf 


. A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

Turquie-Défense: Eurocopter prêt à signer un contrat de 

400 millions de dollars avec la'Turquie 

ANKARA, 12 fév (AFP) - Le groupe franco-allemand Eurocopter 

s'apprête à signer avec la Turquie un accord de près de 400 millions de 

dollars pour la co-production en Turquie de 30 hélicoptères Cougar 

AS-532, a-t-on appris mercredi de source gouvernementale turque. 

"Les autorités turques et des responsables d'Eurocopter devraient 

signer l'accord demain" à Ankara, a indiqué cette source à l'AFP. 

Aux termes de ce contrat, la production se fera à Ankara dans les 

usines de la compagnie T usas Aerospace Industries (TAI) qui 

40

'esprit 


co-produit également des chasseurs F-16 aux termes d'un accord avec la 

firme américaine Lockheed Martin. 

Les 30 Cougars AS-532, qui seront fabriqués conjointement en 

Turquie, comprendront 20 modèles de combat (search-and-rescue) 

pour l'armée de l'Air turque et 10 modèles utilitaires pour l'armée de 

Terre. 

Un accord de principe sur les grandes lignes de ce contrat avait été 

conclu en juin 1995 entre le président Jacques Chirac et l'ancien 

premier ministre turc Tansu Ciller. A l'époque, le projet prévoyait la 

vente directe de 30 hélicoptères manufacturés dans les usines 

d'Eurocopter. 

Mais après la chute du gouvernement Ciller à la suite des élections 

législatives de décembre 1995, le projet a été modifié et les deux parties 

se sont mises d'accord pour une production en Turquie. 

Aux termes d'un précédent accord conclu en octobre 1992, la Turquie 

avait acheté 20 hélicoptères Cougar AS-532 à Eurocopter pour 253 

millions de dollars, dont les dernières livraisons ont été effectuées en 

mai 1996. 

ue/hclplh 

tf 


L 

critique dont les media 

turcs font preuve au cours des 

derniers mois n'est pas apprécié 

par le gouvemement. Tandis que Mme. 

Çiller dénonce "les patrons de presse 

qui noircissent les réalités du pays" son 

collègue islamiste, Sevket Kazan, 

ministre de la Justice a réitéré, le 3 

février à Konya, la volonté de son gouvernement 

de "nettoyer les média". 

"Nous nettoierons ces médias qui dénigrent 

et noircissent le pays" a-t-il déclaré 

dans son discours de clôture du 

3ème festival culturel et 

artistique de ramadan. 

"Les partenaires de la 

coalition feront preuve de 

tout leur courage pour 

mener à bien cette action 

C • I • 

'T ""1. N"It. 

TURQUIE.PRESSE 

LE MINISTRE DE LA JUSTICE PROMET 

et publications séparatistes" ... 

Considéré comme le "super goude 

nettoyage. Nous réalisons 

ce nettoyage afin d'assurer la 

suprématie de la vérité" a-t-il ajouté. 

Les grands média turcs ont, pendant 

longtemps, notamment sous le gouvernement 

Çiller Guillet 1993-février 1996), 

bénéficié de très importants soutiens 

financiers de la part de l'État, sous la 

forme de subventions, de crédits avantageux, 

..etc. La fin de cet "âge d'or" et 

l'arrivée au pouvoir du parti islamiste 

ont conduit certains de ces journaux et 

télévisions de tendance laïque à adopter 

une attitude critique vis-à-vis du 

pouvoir et à dénoncer les divers scandales 

de des gangs, de la mafia, etc .., 

phénomènes qui étaient, pour-une 

DE "NETTOYER LE PAYS 

, , 

DES MEDIAS QUI DENIGRENT" 

large part, connue et évoquée pendant 

des années par les organisations des 

droits de l'homme et par une poignée 

des députés kurdes ou de courageux 

journalistes d'opposition, dont certains 

ont dû payer de leur vie ou de leur 

liberté leur recherche obstinée de la 

vérité. Aujourd'hui, indisposée par les 

critiques des média, la coalition gouvernementale 

veut les mettre au pas au 

nom de la "Vérité", celle du pouvoir et 

des médias islamistes et ultra-nationalistes 

qui lui sont toujours dévoués. 

Haro sur les "émissions 

41


vernemenf' de la Turquie, le Conseil de 

sécurité nationale, à dominante militaire, 

s'était réuni le 27 janvier à Ankara 

sous la présidence de M. Demirel. 

b'après le communiqué rendu public à 

l'issue de cette réunion qui a duré près 

~e cinq heures, trois sujets ont été 

débattus: les conséquences de la mise 

~n cause du gouvernement turc par 

plusieurs pays européens (Allemagne, 

Grande-Bretagne, France et Pays- 

Bas), dans le trafic de drogue; la situa" 

tion à Chypre et les mesures à prendre 

pour interdire l'accès au territoire turc 

des "publications et émissions destructives 

et séparatistes". Sur le premier 

sujet, le CSN a entendu un rapport du. 

directeur de la Sûreté générale vantant 

"la lutte exemplaire de ses services 

,contre la drogue" qui auraient au cours~ 

:desdeux dernières années saisi le tiers 

de l'ensemble de l'héroïne saisie par 

les polices européennes. Ensuite, le 

CSN a adopté des "mesures fermes" 

concernant Chypre qui seront appliquées 

quel que soit le gouvernement 

car "la question chypriote relève de la 

politique nationale de la Turquie". Enfin, 

le Conseil après avoir entendu les rap-: 

ports du ministr~ des télécommunications 

sur "les mesures légales, administratives 

et techniques à prendre contre. 

toute émission électromagnétique, y' 

compris des émissions de radio et de' 

télévision, destructives, séparatistes et 

illégales diffusées à partir de la Turquie 

ou de l'extérieur"..L43CSN demande la 

modification à bref délai de la loi 3984 

sur la radiodiffusion afin d'autoriser le 

Conseil supérieur de radiotélévision à 

"fermer les radios et les télévisions diffusant 

des émissions à caractère séparatiste 

et destructif'. En ce qui concerne 

les radiotélévisions émettant de' l'exté". 

rieur de la Turquie, la Direction générale 

des communications sans fil est 

chargée de les brouiller afin de les 

rendre inaccessibles aux habitants de 

la Turquie. Sous ces généralités, le 

régime turc vise d'une part les télévisions 

privées turques qui de temps à 

autre organisent des débats sur la 

question kurde ou sur "la situation dans 

le Sud-Est" d'autre part MED-TV, chaÎne 

de télévision kurde émettant par 

satellite à partir de l'Europe et qui est 

regardée par nombre de Kurdes. 

... Et sur les journalistes 

Au cours d'une conférence de 

presse, tenue mardi 4 février à Istanbul, 

Reporters Sans Frontières affirme que 

"1.54iournalistes membres de la presse 

d'opposition ont été victimes des violences 

policières en 1996 dont un, 

Metin Goktepe, a été battu à mort". "31. 

journalistes ont été torturés en détention, 

53 interpellés avec brutalité et 69 

agressés, menacés oil harcelés par la 

police" ajoute encore le rapport. La torture 

en détention est exercée comme 

"moyen d'intimidation" à l'encontre des 

journalistes pro-kurdes et d'une presse 

considérée par le gouvernement 

comme "hostile". Le procès des policiers 

accusés du meurtre du journaliste 

Metin Goktepe, initialement intenté à 

Istanbul, lieu du meurtre, s'était ouvert 

une première fois le 18 octobre dernier 

à Aydin, à 600 km à l'ouest d'Istanbul, 

officiellement pour des raisons de sécurité. 

Ce procès devait se poursuivre le 6 

février et cette fois dans la ville d'Afyon 

à 300 km d'Istanbul. S'exprimant au 

nom de Reporters sans frontières, M. 

Jean Chichizola a déclaré que son 

organisme était "inquiet du fait que le 

lieu du procès a été changé deux fois, 

de ville en ville", et "du fait qu'un an 

après son ouverture, il n'en sera qu'à 

sa deuxième audience" le 6 février et 

que "Reporters sans frontières veut 

croire à un procès équitable, impartial 

et rapide". 

r-::- ~ 

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, TilURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1997 

U.S..Warns Russians on Arming Iran 

ByRobin Wrighl 

.. Los Ange/es Times 

The transfer basically involves detailed'instroctions 

on how to construct 

the weapon'sdelivery system, U.S. 

sources said. Israeli officIals said the. 

transfer also included some plirts foran 

SS-4 missile. 

The SS-4, with a range of 2,000 ki- 

WASHIN'GTON - The Clinton administration 

has issued~'a diplomatic 

wamiJig to Moscow about Russian as- . 

sistance to Iran's missile program - aid 

.that potentially could threaten. U.S. lometers (1,250 ~les),carries a stantroops 

in Saudi Arabia, several G11lf ~d warhead tltat is equivalent to 1.5 

allies and Israel, senior administration tons of TNT. The Soviet Union, 

.officials say. 

however, once loaded the missile with a 

Intelligence reports indicate that Russia 

reCently transferred to Iran tech- 

Mr. Chernomyrdin denied that Mos- 

l-megatonnuclear warhead. 

nology on the Russian SS4 missile, cOWhad authoriZed transfer of the ~iant 

which has a range almostthree times missile, administration officials SaId. 

greater than any missile now in Iran's Administration officials are speculating 

about whether the technology 

arsenal. 

The warning was issued during talks could have been transferred to Iran from 

last week between Vice President Al cash-strappedformer Soviet weapons 

Gore and Prime Minister Viktor producers or complexes. 

Chernomyrdin. 

"How-it-~.It.cd. is still .agray 

-'.' 

. . . . 

area, " a senior administration source 

said. "One possibility is. that it was 

beyond the control of government. ' , 

A Middle. East source said, ' 'The 

~ussian government may not support 

such an export but they don 't do enough 

to stop it. ... He added, "They are not 

monitoring what is leaving their country. 

" 

Iran's acquisition of the SS-4 is being 

interpreted as a new indication that . 

Tehran is actively seeking a nuclear 

capability, according to administration 

sources and regional experts. . ; 

., A missile of that size and accuracy 

could only be lethal or used effectively 

with a nuclear weapon or a. biological 

weapon of near nuclear lethality," said 

Anthony Cordesman, co-director of the 

Middle East programat the Center for 

Strategic and International Studi~s.'. 

42


INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBtJN£~'TH.URSDAY,FEBRUARY 13, 1997 

u.S. Admiral Accuses Iran 

Of Helping Iraq Smuggle Oil 

The Associated p"SS 

MANAMA, Bahrain - Skirting 

Iran' s Gulf coast, tankers are smuggling 

tens of thousands of tons of fuel oil out 

of Iraq in violation of United Nations 

sanctions, a U.S. admiral has charged. 

The embargo breakers and their Iranian 

protectors have had two confrontations 

with the U.S. Navy in the last two 

'weeks, he said. In one unpublicized 

incident, an unidentified tugboat 

rammed a U.S. frigate. 

"Our indications are that this is a 

rather sophisticated effort, centrally 

controlled within Iran," Vice Admiral 

Thomas Far~o, commander of the U.S. 

5th Fleet, sllld Tuesday at his headquarters 

in Bahrain. 

The "Iran connection" alleged by 

the admiral is one visib.le sign of cooperation 

between the two fonner enemies 

in trying to foil American efforts 

to enforce UN trade sanctions on Iraq. 

The main motive is money. 

Iraq, desperate to circumvent the embargo, 

will sell the oil cheap, and a 

2,OOO-ton(980-kilogram) shipment of 

oil can net $150,000, Admiral Fargo 

estimated. 

- ......... RJW8-- 

Crews of intercepted vessels tell investigators 

that banian authorities are 

taking a cut of the profits. 

,. A protection fee is paid to the Iranians 

that guarantees them safe passage 

through territorial waters," the admiral 

charged. 

He said that an Iranian Revolutionary 

Guard maritime station at the mouth of 

the Shalt-al-Arab waterway that separates 

Iran and Iraq appeared to be the 

"gatekeeper" for the illicit shipments. 

On Wednesday, however, the NationalIranian 

Oil Company denied that 

it was helping Iraq smuggle oil, the Iran 

News reported. 

The state-owned company said Iran 

had not provided Iraq with any facility to 

smuggle oil in violation of sanctions, the 

English-language newspaper reported. 

"Iran has never ignored the UN embargo 

on Iraq in the past nor will it do so 

in the future," it said. 

Even businessmen in a country allied 

with the United States profit from the oil 

smuggling, Admiral Fargo char~ed. He 

said that some smuggled diesel ml eventually 

is unloaded in the United Arab 

Emirates. 

Turkish Daily News llfURSDAY,FEBRUARY 13,1997 

$500m deal today with 

Eurocopter for Cougars 

Sea Hawks on track: $150 million agreement 

for four Sikorsky-made Sea Hawks is also 

expected to be. signed this week 

METEHAN DEMÏR 

Ankara • Tur1dsb Daily News 

New Cougar helicopters are to boost Turkey's general purpose helicopter 

neet capability. 

• Turkey's controversial $500-million deal with Eurocopter 

to produce the second batch of 30 Cougar helicopters in a 

joint production project with around 30 percent local input 

1S to be signed today in Ankara between the French firm 

43

Revue de Presse-Press Review-BerhevokaÇapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

and the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries' 

(SSM).' . ' 

The long-waited Cougar deal that spar~ed a, 

row among some defense circles over therr 

allegedly low mission performance will increase 

the number of such helicopters to 50. The joint 

production of the 30 Cougars willl;le carried out at 

the same Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) 

plant which successfully produces Thrkey's F-16 

fighter jets, near Ankara. During some parts of the 

project, various Turkish finns such as Aselsan wi1\ 

talœ part in the production. Under the deal, Turkey 

will also benefit from some special offset pro' 

grams as part of the package. . 

The second batch of Cougars - the advanced 

version of the Cougar Mk I ---:-will incorporate the, 

advanced features of both the Mk I and Mk II ' • 

series and the original model of the Cougar MkI 

will not be produced. The second batch of 

Cougars will be an advanced version of the 

Cougar that will be built in Turkey for the first 

time. . 

A defense source saidthat the cockpit will be 

taken from the Cougar Mk II model. Out of 30 . 

choppers, 20 will be delivered to the Turkish Air 

Force (TuAF) for Search and Rescue (SAR) missions. 

Sea Hawks and ambiguity 

Meanwhile, the $150-milIion agreement for four 

Sea Hawks is also expected to be signed this 

week. The Sea Hawks will be armed with Hellfire 

missiles, equipped with radar, dipping sonar and 

other high-tech electronic sensors and will provide 

anti-submarine and anti-ship defense and surveil- ' 

lance. The helicopter - in use by the U.S. navy . 

- can operate off the new Meko 200 TN frigates 

which Turkey already possesses. Referring to the 

efforts by the anti-Thrkish lobbies and some congressmen 

in Washington to prevent the sale of the 

Sea Hawks, U.S. defense sources in Ankara said 

that Sikorsky is lobbying the congressmen in 

Washington, describ10g the anti-Turkish lobby 

efforts and the initiatives to prevent the sale of Sea 

Hawks as meaningless because Turkey can also 

obtain such helicopters from Europe or Russia. A 

U.S. defense source told the TON that Sikorsky is 

still trying to convince Congre~s and spending a 

lot of money for special promotion campaigns for 

Turkey. .. . 

Sikorsky officIaIs both 10Turkey and 10 the U.S. 

say that they are trying to clear up misunderstandings 

and bias in the U.S about Turkey. 

TON Washington representative U~ Alancl 

has written that on Jan~ 29 the chamnan of the 

House International Relations Committee. 

Benjamin Gilman. sent a letter to secretary 

Madeleine Albright asking her not to approve 

Thrkey' s Sea Hawk order. Gilman promised 

Albright plenty of opposition on the Hill if she did 

so. But it turns out the order has not even reached 

the State Department yet from across the Potomac, 

i.e. the Pentagon. 

Turkey's general purpose helicopters 

Turkey already has 20 Cougar Mk I.The $253- 

million contract was signed in 1993 with 

Eurocopter for direct procurement of those 20 AS- 

532 Cougar medium transport helicopters. Cougar 

Mk l's and Sikorsky-made Black Hawks are gen- 

. era! purpose (GP) choppers used for different 

purposes, such as cargo and VIP trans~rtation 

and for medicaland some other light lifting purposes. 

, Cougar Mk l's were purchased for $12.5 million 

per aircraft while Black Hawks were purchased 

in 1992 for $8.2 million per aircraft, 

accordin~ to SSM infonnation released in its JOyear 

anruversary booklet. 

Eurocopter is a joint venture between 

Aerospatiale and Daimler-Benz Aerospace AG 

that makes Tiger combat helicopters and Cougar 

tactical helicopters, 

Cougars can deploy 25 to 40 personnel at once, 

depend10g on the configuration. It can fly at 283 

km per hour at an altitude of 7,200 feet, and its 

maximum range is 1,100 km. 

In 1992 Sikorsky was awarded a contract by 

the SSM for the co-production of 105 helicopters. 

The first 45 direct sale Black Hawks were delivered. 

The second part of that contract was not 

implemented while contracts went to France. 

There were some reports that the Çiller administration 

in 1993 made the decision for the additional 

30 .Cougar choppers from the French company 

in order to increase Turkey's chan.ce in customs 

union voting by drawing the French vote. 

Plus chervaut"la vie de Rushdie . 

Une bondation iranienne augmente La prinie pour tuer L'écrivain 

Un,e nöùvelle fOiS,' 

. .l'Iran . règle ses 

, .'compressur le dos de 

Salman' Rushdie. 

Alors que legouvemementiranien 

réaffirme régulièrement 

qu'il n'enverra jamais de commandos 

pour faire eXécuterla 

s,ent~n~e de mrtqui frappe 

I écl'Mlln dt;pws le 14 février 

C'est la seconde fois 

"que 

la récompense est 

1989; une puissantèfondätioD !l1ässan Saneï" qui préside laaugmeritée; la prime 

religieuse d'Etat a augmenté fondation du 15 Khordad, a initiale avait été fixéeà 

hier le montant de la récom- ajouté que œlle-ci paierait les un million de dollars. 

pense pour son assassinat;' A intérêts cumulés depuis ladate «La fatwa. de l'imam 

présent, les. tueurs recevront à laquelle la prime a été fixée; Khomeinyestundécret 

500 000 dollars de plus, ce qui une précision étonnante dans la divin et tous les musulporte 

le montant d,ela prime à imesureoù, théoriquement, l'is- mans sont tenus de 

2,5 millions de doUars. Dans laminterditlarémunérationde chercheràl'e.xécuten>,a 

une interview au quotidien . l'épargnel!SSimil~àdel'usure .. déelaré le religieux. Ce 

IJomhour.iye Islam~ l'ayatollah 

devoir «n'ist pas réser- 

.vé à 1,Inep~sonne ou 

«Lafatwa de i 

l'imam . 

Kbomelnyest, 

DDd«zft 

diviIJettous 

les . 

m1IRD1_nAl 

somtmuscle 

daerdJel"ll 

l'akoter.» 

L'ayatollab 

Hassan Sand 

44


Salman Rwhdie a dénoncé Le«diaLogue critique». e6timant que Le6£uropéeru. n' ont obtenu aucun progrè6 de La part de l'Iran. 

une nationalité déterminée, 

mais incombe à tous /es musulmans 

(. .. »>, a-t-il ajouté. La 

prime sera versée à toute personne 

qui exécute la fatwa 

«qu'ellesoit musulmane ou non, 

mime aux gardes du corps de 

Rushdie» s'ils décident d'assassiner 

l'écrivain. 

)mmédiatement, le président 

iranien Ali Akbar Hachemi- 

Rafsandjani s'est démarqué de, 

cette décision au cours d'une 

Conférence de presse. Selon lui,' 

la fondation du 15 Khordab (le 

15 avril dans le calendrier iranien, 

date d'une rébellion 

contre le Chah dirigée par l'ayatollah 

Khomeiny en 1963) est 

«non gouvernementale» et n'a 

«aucun lienaveclapolitique offi- 

Cielledu gouvernement». Il demeure 

que cette fondation est 

liée au pouvoir: à~ tête, l'ayatollah 

Saneï est d'ailleurs le représentant 

personnd du Guide 

de la révolution, l'ayatollah Ali 

Khamenei, la plus haute personnalité 

politique et religieuse 

iranienne. Ce dernier, qui a noitamment 

vocation d'arbitrer 

les différends entre les différentes 

factions, ne s'est pas exprimé 

sur ce sujet. 

En fait, derrière la surenchère 

de la fondation, se devine l'offensive 

des factions les plus ra- 

~es contre le camp dit des 

pragmatiques, notamment 

.dans la perspective de la prochaine 

élection présidentielle 

qui se déroulera en juin. «1:objectif 

est de mettre Raftandjani et 

sespartisans au pied du mur», 

souligne un journaliste iranien. 

S'il s'oppose aux ultras, il risque' 

d'être accusé de trahir l'hmt:age' 

de l'imam Khomeinyq~a;lw.: 

même, peu avant~Oft"pJ'O'" 

ßoncé lafatwado~f~le puitième~~-¥tiêJéagit 

pas,ilse trouve en ~-faux 

vis-à-vis des pays éUi'opéens, 

~artisans du «dialo~e critIqUe» 

avec l'Iran. Ce «dialogue 

critique», défendu avec ardeur 

par la France et un peu moins 

par l'Allemagne depuis raffaire 

Sarkouhi (voir ci-contre), éVite 

d'isoler l'Iran - ce que les-Etats- 

Unis voudràient obteriir de 

l'Union européenne. Le gouvernement 

iranien y est très, attaché 

puisqu'il permet des relations 

régulières avec les Etats 

européens et des échanges de 

délégations politiques à un niveau 

subalterne. Pour 

Paris, ce «dialoJ{Uecritique 

apermis de sauver 

la tPtede Rushdie», selon 

l'expression d'un 

diplomate; toutefois, 

jamais rUE, en dépit 

de nombreuses tractations, 

n'a pu obtenir 

des dirigeants iraniens 

une lettre officielle 

dans laquelle ils s'engageraient 

à ne pas 

mettre en œuvre l'exécution de 

lafatwa, Téhéran faisant valoir 

qu'un décret religieux a un caractère 

irrévocable. récrivain 

britannique a d'ailleurs plusieurs 

fois dénoncé le «dialogue 

critique», estimant que les Européens 

n'ont obtenu aucun 

progrès de la part de l'Iran. 

Hier, la présidente du Comité 

international de défense de 

récrivain, Frances D'Souza, a 

45


quiilifié d'«obscène»räùgme~~ 

'tation de la récompense. Souli- 

!gnlmt que la fondation du 

'IS Khordad était une «organ;~ 

~ation d'Etat», elle a ajout~: 

.«D'un côté, vous avez des hau!&, 

'm~wbres dugouvernerm.m.t.f1,ul' 

disent: "Nous-nituerOnspäsSiil- pcurleiuer.». ~ , 

man Rushdie'; et, en même OanslamêmemteMew,l~temps, 

unautrebrasdu~ouv~- tollah San~ï .s'est déclaré «sur: 

nement, qui est l'orgamsatlon'queœttemlSSWnseraexécutéeen, 

d'Etat 15Khordad. annonce une temps opportun» et 9ue Rushaugmentation 

de son budget diesera

-- ----- .- ------------------------ 


,. L'affairea aggravé l'état des relations entre 

vent seresoudre au silenœ. 

Téhéranet Bonn. "L'arrestation et la mise en 

~. ~. Le 20 décembre, ~kouhi jugement de criminels tels que Sarkouhi re/èest 

~~ré m31Sde~eure ,sous ~eillance ve des affaires intérieures de l'Iran et tout in- 

~hC1èr~. Ses geoliers lont f31t r~ppa- gérence étrangère est inaa:epUlble>"a déclaré 

r31~-eàla~portdeTéh~.et,a~J0u:.- le porte-parole du ministère des Affaires 

n~tes qw 1mte~ent, ilf31tcrOIrequ ~ étrangères. «Promouvoir et respecter les 

revIent du TurkménIStan. Dans sa lettre,il droits de l'homme élémenUlires corlStituellt 

r~connaî~ avoir.été,~ncoreforcé de men- un souci légitime de la communauté interna- 

0:, Dprévo~ a~1 q~ il~ de nouveau ar: t;onale .., a répliqué Martin Erdmann, son 

r:té. Le 27 J~VJer, il~t a nouvea~J p

Un millier de prisonniers politiques de moins de 18 ans. 

'l\vocats pour le Peuple': les enfants sont en prison, les tortionnaires en liberté 

:N 


- 

- 

- - 

-- 

--- 

- 

- - 

--- 

Or'Ura-br'ra- 

QUOTIDIEN ARMENIEN 

ARMENIE-KURDES 

La IIRépublique kurde de Latchine ll 

réapparaÎt dans la presse turque 

Lecentre de presse du gouvernement 

du Haut Karabagh a opposé 

un démenti ferme aux informations 

publiées dernièrement par le 

quotidien turc" Jumhurriyet" faisant 

état de la collusion entre le PKK et 

les autorités arméniennes. Des allégations 

résonnant comme une 

antienne, depuis le début du conflit 

du Karabagh, dans les media et les 

cercles gouvernementaux turcs, qui 

âvaient pourtant mis un bémol ces 

derniers temps à ce refrain et se félicitaient 

même de la bonne volonté 

manifestée par Erévan dans la "lutte 

contre le terrorisme kurde". Mais si 

Stépanakert a pris la peine de 

démentir l'information selon laquelle 

le PKK et les Arméniens seraient en 

train de créer une "République kurde 

de Latchine" dans cette portion de 

territoire enclavé entre l'Arménie et le 

Haut Karabagh, sous contrôle arménien 

depuis 1993, c'est qu'elle pré~end 

se fonder sur un rapport émanant du 

ministère

Jeannou Lacaze, lobbyiste en Irak 

Legénéral ö'eötreconverti en intermédiaire, coûteux, pourbwineMmen ~nçaiö. 

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Bag dad envo.v~:,.îpêcial 

Faut-ilvraiment passer 

par un intermédiaire 

pour faire des affaires 

. en Irak? C'est la question 

que doivent se poser les 

quelque cinquante businessmen 

français qui se sont rendus 

en janvier à Bagdad sous 

l'égide du Conseil du commerce 

et de l'industrie francoirakien 

(CCIFI), une officine 

'privée fondée par l'ex-chef 

,cl'état-major français, le général 

Jeannou Lacaze (Libération 

.du 21 janvier 1997). Non seu- 

~ment, peu de contrats ont été 

signés, mais l'escapade leur a 

coûté cher: 39000 francs exactement 

pour un aller-retour 

Paris-Amman en avion, le 

transport en taxi jusqu'à Bagdad, 

quatre nuits d'hôtel sur 

place et la location d'un petit 

,stand d'exposition sur le mini- 

!Salon agroalimentaire Agrifrance 

mis sur pied par le CCI- 

.FI. Un rapide calcul montre 

que le coût réel n'excède pas les 

10000 francs, gardes du corps 

non compris mais sont-ils 

.vraiment nécessaires? Certains 

sont d'autant plus amers que 

quelques entreprises proches 

deJeannou Lacaze ont eu droit 

à un prix d'ami: 25000 francs. 

«Parfois, on se demande si on ne 

sion de préparer la visite d'entrepreneurs 

français et de les: 

aider dans leur démarche sur' 

place. Dans l'entourage de Lacaze, 

qui ne voit pas d'un bon 

œil cette concurrence «déloyale» 

puisque gratuite, on' rétorque 

que les Irakiens sauront 

faire le tri entre ceux qui 

étaient là dans les moments 

difficiles et ceux qui réapparaissent 

au moment opportun. 

Viol de l'embargo. Il est vrai 

que le business d'intermédiaire 

en Irak peut se révéler très 

lucratif. Le général Lacaze: 

n'est d'ailleurs pas le seul sur le' 

marché: l'Association francoirakienne 

de coopération économique 

(Afice), de Gilles 

Munier, ou la section internationale 

du CNPF sont aussi sur 

les rangs, ainsi que plusieurs 

francs-tireurs généralement, 

proches de l'extrême droite. 

«Tout çafait un peu désordre, el 

les Irakiens risquent un jour 

d'envoyer balader tout le monde», 

s'inquiète d'ailleurs un 

lobbyiste. 

En attendant, autant profiter 

des occasions qui se présentent. 

Lors des trois journées du 

Salon Agrifrance, les plus ma~ 

lins ont vite compris qu'il ne 

leur restait plus qu'à espérer

I 

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CI) 

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o 

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~...,.. 

-. 

sert pds àfinancer ses activités 

'/Jolitiques?» se plaignait un 

~omme d'affaires préférant 

fJarder l'anonymat. Le général 

'Lacaze est membre de l'Union 

des indépendants et du Centre 

national des indépendants et 

paysans. 

Pierre Girard-Hautbout, 

chargé de mission auprès du 

général Lacaze, se défend: «Les 

hommes d'affaires sont libres 

de venir seuls ici. Nous n'avons 

pris personne en otage. S'ils 

passent par nous, c'est qu'ils sa- " 

vent que nous avons un carnet ~ 

d'adresses sans équivalent. ns JeannouI.acazeàBagdadenI995- L'ex-chetd'état-mqjoracon.seroéunutUecametd'adreMe6irakien. 

ont pu rencontrer cinq ministres 

en troisjours. Tout ça sepaie.» 

Entre anciens chefs d'état-major ... De fait, Lacaze 

a gardé d'excellentes relations avec le ministre irakien 

du Pétrole, Amir Rachid, remontant à l'époque où ils 

étaient chefs d'état -major dans leurs pays respectifs. 

Plus généralement, Pierre Girard- Hautbout est persuadé 

qu'on ne peut pas faire de business dans un 

pays comme l'Irak sans passer par les responsables 

politiques: iln'a pas tort dans la mesure où le secteur 

privé y reste embryonnaire. 

La vraie question est de savoir sur quoi débouchent 

ces fameux contacts politiques. Pas grand -chose de 

concret, si l'on se fie à un rapide sondage dans les 

stands d'Agrifrance. Pour nombre de novices, ce fut 

la douche écossaise: «On nous avait dit que les Irakiens 

nous attendaient à bras ouverts et que nos contrats 

n'avaient plus qu'à être signés. En fait, on a réalisésur 

place que tout le monde était déjà là et qu'on était arrivé 

bien trop tard pour lescontrats au titre de la résolution 

"Pétrole contre nourriture': Au moins, on a pu 

prendre quelques contacts, mais ça fait un peu cher la 

carte de visite.» D'autant que la section des intérêts 

français à Bagdad compte un conseiller commeràal 

dans ses rangs depuis le mois d'octobre: il a pDJ.lT nW;- 

négocier deux ou trois 

contrats en douce avec la nomenklatura 

du régime, qui n'a 

pas perdu le sens des affaires. 

«J'ai vu ici une laiterie industrielle 

ultra récente comme il 

n'en existe qu'aux Etats- Unis», 

s'étonnait ainsi un Français en 

visite pour la première fois en 

Irak. «J'imagine qu'elle est entrée 

enfraude et en pièces détachées.» 

Plus surprenant: son' 

höte lui a proposé d'acheter 

des souches génétiques de 

vaches laitières Holstein à livrer 

à Amman, en Jordanie, ou 

à Dubaï, dans les Emirats 

arabes unis. Ensuite, le client 

irakien se débrouille pour faire entrer la marchandise 

dans son pays comme il peut, c'est-à-dire en 

contrebande, puisque ce genre de transactions, prohibées 

par l'embargo, n'entre pas dans le cadre de là 

résolution «Pétrole contre nourriture», dont tous les 

contrats sont visés par le comité des sanctions des Nations 

unies. Un dévoiement qui a donné au voyagé 

organisé par le général Lacaze des allures de grande 

foire au viol des sanctions onusiennes à l'encontre de 

l'Irak! Le régime de Saddam Hussein aura sûrement 

appréàé, les entreprises françaises moins. 

CHRISTOPHE AYAD 

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CI) 

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Turquie-Défense: Eurocopter: contrat de 430 millions de 

dollars en Turquie 

ANKARA, 13 fév (AFP) - Le groupe franco-allemand Eurocopter, 

filiale d'Aérospatiale, a signé jeudi à Ankara un contrat de 430 

millions de dollars pour la vente et la coproduction en Turquie de 30 

hélicoptères Cougar AS-532 MK1, a-t-on annoncé de source officielle. 

L'accord prévoit l'achat direct par la Turquie 

appareils qui seront livrés en juillet 1999. 

des deux premiers 

Les 28 autres exemplaires seront fabriqués conjointement dans les' 

usines de la compagnie Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) près 

d'Ankara, qui coproduit également des chasseurs F-16 aux termes d'un 

accord avec la firme américaine Lockheed Martin. 

La première livraison des hélicoptères coproduits aura lieu en octobre: 

1999. La coproduction durera 68 mois et se terminera en octobre 2002; 

Les 30 Cougar AS-532 MK1 comprendront 20 modèles de combat. 

(search-and-rescue) pour l'armée de l'Air turque et 10 modèles 

utilitaires pour l'armée de Terre. 

Le contrat a été signé par le ministre turc de la Défense T urhan Tayan 

et le président d'Eurocopter Jean-François Bigay, en présence de 

l'ambassadeur de France à Ankara Daniel Lequertier. 

"Il y aura plus de 30% de contenu local dans les hélicoptères", a 

indiqué le sous-secrétaire d'Etat à l'industrie de Défense turc Yalcin 

Burcak. 

Les compagnies turques participantes seront, outre la TAi, les firmes 

Aselsan, TEl, Netas et Aspilsan. . , 

Un accord de principe sur les grandes lignes de ce projet avait été 

conclu en juin 1995 entre le président français Jacques Chirac et 

l'ancien premier ministre turc Tansu Ciller. A l'époque, le projet 

prévoyait la vente directe de 30 hélicoptères fabriqués dans les usines 

d'Eurocopter. 

Après la chute du gouvernement Ciller suite aux législatives de 

décembre 1995, le projet a été modifié et les deux parties se sont mises 

d'accord pour une production conjointe en Turquie. 

Ce contrat vient s'ajouter à un autre d'un montant de 253 millions de 

dollars, signé également à Ankara en octobre 1993, aux termes duquel 

52


l'armée turque avait acheté 20 hélicoptères Cougar AS-532 UL 

multi-usages et leurs pièces de rechange. Les dernières livraisons 

découlant de ce contrat ont été effectuées en mai 1996. 

Le nouveau contrat est d'une valeur de 430 millions de dollars. En 

incluant la logistique, la maintenance et les services à long terme, il 

avoisine les 500 millions de dollars, selon des sources turques. 

Les engagements d'off-set directs et indirects d'Eurocopter sont de plus 

de ,)0%, soit quelque 21'; millions de dollars. 

Le Cougar, appareil bimoteur, a une capacité de transport allant 

jusqu'à 24 soldat~. Il a une vitesse de croisière rapide à masse maximale 

(10 tonnes) de 260 km/h et une autonomie de 800 km. 

Ce type d'hélicoptère est déjà utilisé par 34 pays. Un millier ont déjà 

été fabriqués. 

Sur un marché turc dominé par les Américains, les firmes françaises 

ont fait leur entrée depuis 1990 avec plusieurs accords sur des projets 

de défense, dont 138 millions de dollars pour des radars mobile 

Thomson CSF, suivis d'un contrat de 116 millions de dollars pour 

achat et fabrication de 515 canons de 25 mm et tourelles de la société 

GIAT. 

M. Bigay s'est félicité du nouvel accord, qu'il a qualifié de "nouveau 

partenariat", exprimant l'espoir qu'il débouchera "sur d'autres 

domaines de coopération". 

De source bien informée, on a indiqué qu'Aerospatiale négocie 

actuellement avec la Turquie deux autres projets, l'un concernant des 

missiles Erix pour une valeur de quelque 500 millions de dollars, 

l'autre un satellite Turksat 2A à 32 canaux, d'une capacité égale à celle 

des deux satellites Turksat déjà en orbite. 

CE/hcljj 

tf 


A.F.r.- AgeIlCl' rral'. ,> P"'-'~.se-A.F.P.- Agl'IlCl' FrMKe Pressl'-A.F.r.- Agl'IlCl' FraIlce Presse 

Turquie-Défense-USA : La Turquie achète quatre 

hélicoptères Sikorsky aux Etats- U ois 

ANKARA, 13 fév (AFP) - La Turquie a passé commande jeudi de 

quatre hélicoptères de marine UH-60 Sea Hawk à la compagnie 

américaine Sikorsky, pour 113 millions de dollars. 

L'accord prévoyant l'achat direct de ces appareils, destinés à être 

53


stationnés sur des frégates, -aété signé à Ankara entre les autorités. 

turques et des représentants de Sikorsky, a-t-on annoncé de source 

officielle. 

ue/he! nev tft 


Turkish Daily News FRIDAY, ~BRUARY 14,1997 

PKK settles Atrush refugees in border villages 

Ankara- 


• A number of refugees leaving the 

Atrush camp in northern Iraq are being 

resettled by the separatist Kurdistan 

Workers' Party (PKK) in villages along 

the Turkish-Iraqi border, that had once 

been occupied by the Kurdistan . 

.DemocratIc Party (KDP), the Anatolia 

news agency reported on Thursday. . 

Anatolia said the refugees had been 

placed in the border villages by the PKK 

to act as a kind of buffer in the case of a 

cross-border raid"by Turkish troops. 

~atolia also claimed t~e PKK had ppsitIoned 

300 armed men 10 the AtI'\lsh - 

camp. " 

Last week, the KDP aßnounced thatthose 

refugees who did not want to 

return to Turkey could settle in the bor- " 

der villages if they accepted KDP " . 

authority in the area. - 

The Atrush refugee camp is home to 

approximately 14,000 Turkish Kurdish" 

refugees. The UNHCR decided to withdraw 

from the camf after it admitted that 

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were 

effectively in charge at the camp. 

The situation at the camp has been in 

somewhat o( a deadlock since most of 

the refugees have refused to return to 

Turkey. It has also been reported that 

over 1,000 refugees_joined the PKK after 

the U.N. decision to pull out of the 

camp. " 

Military sources speaking to Anatolia 

reporters said the situation regarding the 

camp and its inhabitants would be clarified 

after the United Nations High 

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 

releases its report on its current visit to 

the camp. " 

Turkish Daily News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1997 

Russia holds conference with PKKparticipation 

Turkey, whose protests succeeded 

in canceling the first attempt to 

have the conference, warned 

Moscow on Wednesday to 

prevent further activities of this 

kind~which demonstrate 

'support for the PKK' 

Ankara- 


• The Committee on Geopolitical Issues 

of the Duma has tightened its relations 

with the so-called Kurdish parliamentin-exile. 

The separatist mihtants orga- 

nized a "Conference on Cooperation 

between the Russian and Kurdish 

Peoples" - which started on Thursday 

- with assistance from the committee, 

the Anatolia news agency reported. . 

Rustem Broy, a member of the executive 

committee of the so-called Kurdish 

parliament-in-exile, was presented as the 

'expert of the Duma's Committee on 

Geopolitical Issues' in the official 

brochures of the conference. " 

" The conference was chaired by Broy _ 

and attended by a number of Russian . 

deputies. . - 

Mabir Velat, a representative of the . 

outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party 

(PKK) responsible for the " - 

Commonwealth of Independent States 

(CIS) and eastern European countries, 

told a group of journalists during a break 

that a Kurdish ~up of 10 people was 

currently working on the committee, 

which he deemed to be a great success. 

Velat is known to be a high-ranking 

official in the PKK and has been allowed 

to take shelter in Moscow for a number 

ofyears. " . 

. The conference was rrrst scheduled 

for Jan. 16, but did not materialize then 

due to protests from Turkey. As the cur- . 

rent conference was being prepared, the , 

Turkish Embassy in Moscow contacted . 

the Russian Foreign Ministry and 

warned them that activities of this kind, 

which are evidently in "support of the 

PKK," should be prevented. 

54

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prcllsa-Basm Özeti 


HADEP calls on the state to take the media reports into account. TDN- Se1abanin Sönmez 

HADEP urges the state to punish informers 

Ankara- Turkish Daily News 

• Sedat Yurtd~, deputy chairman of the 

People's Democracy Party (HADEP), on 

Thursday hit out at informers, threats of a 

military coup d'etat, and the banning of 

satellite dishes in the Southeast. 

Speaking at a press conference on 

Thursday in Ankara, Yurtd~ urged the 

state to pUIÙsh those who had gone to the 

press with stories of extrajudicial killings. 

Murat tpek and Murat Demir, who 

yurd~ claimed were members of the 

Intelligence Department of the Gendarme 

(JlTEM), told Radikal and Demokrasi 

newspapers that 73 prisoners from the 

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), including 

themselves, had become agents of the 

state and had been involved in political 

killings and kidnappings. 

Dangerous polarization 

Yurtda~ also criticised the military for 

showing off in Sincan. The HADEP 

deputy chairman said dividing the country 

into secular and anti-secular groups was 

very dangerous. Last week, the military 

sent a number of tanks through the mam 

street of the town after the mayor had held 

a pro Sharia rally two days before. 

Referring to the steps taken by security 

forces in the Southeast to prevent people 

from watching the pro-PKK MED-TV, 

Y~ asked the state to explain how it 

had used the 73 prisoners, instead of banning 

satellite dishes, which puts Turkey in 

a select group of only five countries that 

ban satellite dishes. 

Turkish Daily News !RIDAY. FEBRUARY 14. 1997 

One minute of 

darkness leads to 

daylong controversy 

ZAFER F. YÖRÜK 

Istanbul- Turkish Daily News 

• While the "one minute darkness 

for permanent light" campaign has 

turned into a massive action by participation 

from around the country, 

looming reactions against the campaign 

and its participants from the 

top seats of the Refah Yol coalition 

are giving new momentum and 

dimensions to the debates around it. 

In particular, the Minister of Justice 

~evket Kazan' s recent comments 

which include a grave insult to the 

country's millions- strong Alevi 

community herald the beginning of a 

new crisis. Kazan said in his Bayram 

address to the Gebze district branch 

governors of the Refah Party, "The 

opposition is keeping itself bu~y 

with childish actions. They thmk 

they can clean up the country by 

55

~."h' ~ .,. 


turning off their electric switches. 

They play 'candles off by turning 

the lights off. 

Do Alewis tum candles off? 

The term "candles off' refers to a 

conventional folk fallacy about Alevi 

traditions. According to this belief, 

when Alevi families gather together 

at night, they put the candles off and 

engage in an incestuous orgy. 

The origins of this belief lie in the 

fact that; unlike Sünni Muslims, 

Alevi men and women pray together 

in their Cern rituals. Moreover, the 

form of their prayers is not the 

classical Muslim namaz, but a 

form of dancing accompanied in 

a sense, by a form of religious . 

music, performed by both men. 

and women. 

Alevis are a branch of 

Shi'ite Muslims, and Alevi 

practices are the peculiar form 

that Islam took in Anatolia at 

the popular level. Alevüsm is a 

synthesisofIslam with boththe 

pagan Turkic traditions and the 

practi.~~s of the inhat>.itantsof. . 

Anatolia whèr~,pelIgi~ 

heterodoxy reigned 

since the Greek civilization 

of ancient 

times. The world's 

largest Alevi com- 

.munity is in Turkey, 

which is estimated to form 

around one-third of the population. 

. The relationship between the 

Aievis and Sünnis in Turkey has 

always contained considerable tensions 

in modern times as well as 

before. In December 1978, ultranationalists 

(Ü1kücüs) provoked the 

anti-AJevi feelings of the S~ population 

of the southeastern CIty of 

Kahramanmar~ which resulted in a 

pogrom in the Alevi neighborhoods 

of the city; causing over 100 deaths 

among the Alevi population. 

The place of the infamous Sivas 

massacre of July 1993, in which 37 

people were burnt to death by religious 

fanatics, is also a pro~IDce . 

where Alevi-Sünni tensIOn IS traditionally 

momentous. Prior t? ~s 

assignment to the post of ffilmster of. 

justice, Kazan worked as a defence 

lawyer of the Sivas massacre suspects. 

More. recently, in 1995, a . 

provocative armed a~c~ on the . 

Alevi populated GazI neIghborhood 

of Istanbulled to unpreceâented riots 

in Istanbul's suburbs leaving 14 

Alevi youths dead from police f1re. 

the Gazi riots were a reminder to 

Turkey's rulers of the sensitivity of 

the Alevi issue, and since then all 

wmgs of the political spectrum have 

taken extra caution when mentioning 

the Alevis. In fact, the careless com- 

QlentS of a TV eresenter, Güner 

Vmit, very sirmlar to those by 

Kazan, ruined the celebrity's career 

in 1995. Given this background, 

Kazan's"candles off' comment contains 

explosive consequences. In 

fact, Kazan's point came as a surprise 

given that the Refah Party, 

although relying mostly on its solid 

Sünni Muslim constituencv. also 

approached the Alevi cominu~ty. 

withextra care - demonstrating Its 

awareness of this extensive electorate, 

prior to the December 1995 

elections. 

'Separatist' and 'a 

sworn enemy of Alewis' 

As expect~, the:(leading figures of 

the Alevi community quickly 

protested against Kazan. One of the 

leading Alevi intellectuals, Riza 

Zelyut, demanded the minister of 

justice' s immediate resignation. The 

chairman of the Pir Sultan Abdal 

Cultural Associations, Murtaza 

Demir, said that "~evket Kazan has 

an exceptional place amongst the 

sharia supporters and the Refah Party 

as a sworn enemy of the Alevis." 

The'chairman of the Semah 

Culture and Research Foundation; 

Lütfü Kaleli, declared that they will 

sue Kazan for insulting the Alevi 

commup.ity. Kaleli said: "The ,ignorant 

fundamentalists once agam 

recourse to the immoral' candles off 

allegations." referring to the fact that 

Kazan was the defence lawyer of the 

Sivas massacre suspects, he continued 

to accuse Kazan of sharing the mentality 

of the Sivas assassins. " Kazan 

lables as his enemies all those who do 

not share his beliefs and opinions," 

said Kaleli. Social-Democrat leaders 

also' ~c~SedKaZan os se\,aratism. . 

Protestsfrom the Alevl commumty 

are expected to proliferate throughout 

the:week.. :ro begin with, in the predo1Ï1inantly 

Alevi populated neighborhoods 

of Istanbul, Okmeydam, 

".. Npx;t~pe,01:nektepe arid'Maltepe- 

" GülsU5'!J;hundreds took to the 

\ . streetS àt lights-off time, 21:00 

hours, on Tuesday and 

Wednesday evenings shouting 

anti-Kazan and anti- 

Refah slogans. 

Why is Erbakan 

offended? 

The manifesto of the 

"~rii»rw1~ s darkness for 

. "-permanent lig~t campaign 

as published ~y 

the Citizen's Initiative 

for Enlightenment 

does not include any 

specific anti-Refah 

points. When cal~g for the 

one-minute's darkness action, the 

riümifesto exclusively demands an 

~n4,to.~rruption and ~~t~-mafia 

.reläbohs ..The harch cntIclsm of the 

cahiprogn from the ~ of the Refah 

Party which has always been careful 

te)presentitself as. a c:ivil mC?veme~t 

again~t the authootan~ antI-Islarrnc 

state, ISconsequently ~terpreted ~ 

over-reaction originating from a ffilSûnderstaiiding. 

Prior to Kazan's rather 

umortunateconunents,Prime 

MiriiSter Erbakan called the campaignerS"pàrasites" 

and "conspirators" 

and said: ''These are people who 

have nothing to do but create 

intrigues." The junior partner of the 

Refahyol coalition, the True Path 

Party (DYP) al~ough emph~izin.g its 

disagreement WIth the campaIgn, m 

the words pfthe party's deputy chairman, 

Mehmet Golban, ("Why should 

people lopg for !he ~ght? As if,~ere 

IS any darknes~ IDthis country, ) has 

"avoided beingöver critical. Infact, 

some DYP deputies criticized 

Erbakan for over-reacting. Referring 

to the'one-minute's darkness campaign, 

State Minister Salim . 

EnsariogIu said: "If such campaIgns 

bring useful subjects onto the agenda, 

then they are ri~ht." DYP deputy . 

Sezai Özbek SaId: "For a cleaner 

Turkey, this reaction is very good. 

The prUne Îninister should not be 

offénded by iL" . .. 

However, Refah's reaction to the 

C!unpaign may bring protests, ~ut . 

seems unlikely to lead to aseoous oft 

betweenthe coalition partners. 

By the way, have you noticed, 

before reading all this, that some pe0- 

ple are turning their lights off at 21:00 

eyery evening? 

','~.' . 

56


• Turkish Daily News H


attacks Turkey was exposed to in June 1996 

during the floor debates. But some observers 

claim that the much-softer version adopted by 

the Senate, which was worked into the compromise 

Conference Committee text in 

August, was in no small measure due to the 

efforts of Capitoline. 

Capitoline spent $42,722.50 during the first 

six months of 1996 while working the Turkish 

account. $10,000 of this amount was paid to 

consultant Ed Graves. Other consultants Jay 

Coupe and John Behuncik received $3,000 . 

and $375, respectively. 

During the second half of 1996, Capitoline 

spent $38,119.16 as expense while lobbying 

on behalf of the Turkish Government. 

Consultants Jay Coupe, Ed Graves and John 

Behuncik received $3,000; $5,000; and 

$312.50, respectively. . 

Fleishman-Hillard's expenses 

Fleis~-Hillard had ~e much more costly 

operation, partly due to its focus on media outreach. 

During the last period for which the 

company filed records, February-August 1996, 

the company showed a total expense of 

$209,731.59 while working on the Turkish 

account. One big ticket item was the 

$19,202.98 paid to David Barchard on January 

30, 1996 as "professional fees." Global 

Tanitim was paid $9,556 for "daily monitoring" 

of Turkish press. 

In the previous six-month period between 

August 1995 and February 1996, Fleishman- 

Hillard spent $226,886.41 on behalf of the 

Turkish Government. David Barchard 

received $26,666.64 on October 14,1995 for 

"consulting fees." Global Tanitim was paid 

$8,734.63 for "trainee, photographs, courier 

and monitoring (of Turkish press)." 

1993 &. Çiller's fury . 

Turkey for a long while coordinated all its lobbying 

activities within the United Sta~s main~ 

ly throl.i$ Turkish Foreign Ministry. Yet all 

changedîn 1993, when the then-Prime 

Minister Tansu Çiller visited Washingtonand 

was completely ignored by the U.S. 

media. Turkey's first female Prime Minister, 

an ambitious political-climber of sizable ego, 

was not amused. 

No sooner then she returned to Ankara, 

Çiller launched an investigation into the reasons 

why Turkey' s lobby firms, like Hill and 

I,


promised "to assist in the preparation of various 

materials, including press releases and 

s~eches, and the use of various media techroques, 

including videos, brochures, research 

projects and White papers, as requested." At 

this writing TON could not confIrm if 

Kriegel's $45,üOO-a-month contract was 

renewed for 1997. 

$30,000 speech 

Speech-writing has apparently been a short-cut 

to the heart Qf Çiller, who was keen on making 

the best impression she can as the "defender of 

secularism and Western values" whenever she 

visited the United States. That's how 

Fleishman-Hillard apparently got its foot in 

the door of Ankara' s lobby business way back 

in 1993, lon~ before a new bid was announced 

to replace Hill and Knowlton. 

In a contract agreed between Fleishman- 

Hillard and Turkish Undersecretariatfor 

Foreign Trade, the'Turkish Government 

agreed to pay "not less than $30,000 nor more 

than $75,000" for "counsel on some writing 

assistance in advance ofP.M. Çiller's visit to 

the U.S.," which took place October 14-15, 

1993. 

The duration of the contract was the three 

brief weeks between October 7, 1993 and 

October 31, 1993. That was the sort of fat 

speech-writing assignment that all Englishmajors 

live for. 

To coordinate Çiller's visit to the United 

States, Fleishman-Hillard's senior officials 

visited Turkey on October 7,1993, upon the 

request of the Undersecretariat. Fleishman- 

Hillard's out-of-pocket expenses ofbetween 

$10,000-$30,000 for "hotels, airfare, meals, 

telephone, etc." were again compensated by 

the Turkish Government. 

Arnold & Porter 

Turkey, in contrast to Greece, for example, 

which has a sizable and powerful ethnic community 

in the United States, always had to rely 

on various lobby groups to advance its interests 

in America - and that went for Turkish 

private sector as well .. 

Arnold & Porter, for eXllI!lPle, one of the 

prominent law fmm of Washington, has long 

served Profilo Holding of Turkey as well as 

the Turkish Government. Mr. Paul S. Burger 

has been the chief officer in charge of both 

accounts for years. 

Between July and November 1993, for 

example, Arnold & Porter charged Profilo 

Holding $25,200 for rendering "advice on 

U.S. laws, regulations, policies and proposed 

legislation that may effect or relate to activities 

of the foreign principal and U.s.-Turkey relations." 

A~ain in 1993, Arnold & Porter charged the 

Turkish Embassy $25,000 a month for the 

three months of October, November, and 

December 1993. 

Arnold & Potter did much better in 1995. 

For the 12 month period ending December 4, 

1995, the company was paid $336,787.76 by 

the Turkish Government for giving advice on 

"U.S.laws, regulations, policies and activities 

concerning intellectual property and the GSP, 

securities registration and privatization issues, 

U.S. foreign aid and foreign relations." 

Burston Marsteller 

Burston Marsteller of Washington was yet 

another lobby fIrm hired by Ankara in 1996 to 

"serve as press counsel for the Second U.N. 

World Conference on Human Settlements 

(Habitat m" which took place in Istanbul, 

June 3-14,1996. The company also provided 

media relations in connection with the briefIng 

on the conference held by the U.S. Department 

of Housing and Development on May 23, 

1996. 

For its media savvy, Burston Marsteller was 

paid $22,877.75 in January 1996; $110,877.64 

m Aprill996; $48,030.48 also in Aprill996 

and an additional $48,612.91 in June 1996- 

for a total of $230,398.78 within six months. 

All the payments were made through the 

Turkish Government's subcontractor, Lowe 

Adam Tanitim Hizmetleri in Macka, Istanbul. 

Burston Marsteller's total reported expenses 

during the same period was $54,161.82. 

Others 

Turkish political parties have used "hired 

guns" as well to upscale their image. The 

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) of 

Alparslan Turkes did hire such a PR fIrm 

between Apri11993 and March 1994. 

The main opposition Motherland P~ 

(ANAP) of Mesut Yilmaz hired Raffaelli, 

Spees, Springer & Smith of Washington and 

paid $15,000 for the 6 month period ending 

July 31, 1995. Raffaeli contacted the U.S. 

Administration officials on behalf of ANAP 

"to promote greater appreciation and recognition 

of (ANAP) and the people of Turkey as 

friends, allies and economic partners of the 

United States," according to U.S. Department 

of Justice records. 

Interbank is another Turkish actor that frequently 

hired American PR companies since 

1991. In 1995, the bank hired Winston & 

Strawn of Washington "in connection with the 

collection of a debt owed by the government 

of Iraq" to Interbank. Winston & Strawn also 

represented Interbank "before the U.S. 

Congress with respect to legislation relating to 

unblocking frozen Iraqi assets." 

59


A.F.P.- Age.nce France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- AgenceJra~1ce ~resse . > 

Turquie-Kurdes: Peines capitales requises pour 

profanation du drapeau turc 

ANKARA, 14 fév (AFP) - Le procureur de la Cour de sûreté de l'Etat 

d'Ankara a requis vendredi la peine capitale contre deux hommes 

accusés d'avoir jeté à terre le drapeau turc et de l'avoir remplacé par 

l'emblême du PKK et un portrait de son chef Abdullah Ocalan lors du 

congrès d'un parti pro-kurde, a rapporté l'agence Anatolie. 

Ces deux hommes, Faysal Akcan et Giyasettin Mordeniz, ont 

"commis un crime" le 23 juin à Ankara, "dans le but de créer un Etat 

indépendant sous le nom de Kurdistan uni, en s'emparant d'une 

partie des territoires de la Turquie", aux termes de l'article 125 du code 

pénal turc, selon le réquisitoire du procureur Nuh Mete Yuksel. 

Akcan et Mordeniz, tous deux écroués, n'assistaient pas à l'audience. 

Le procureur a également requis 22 ans et demi de prison contre 23 

dirigeants du Parti de la démocratie du Peuple (Hadep), dont son 

président Murat Bozlak, pour "avoir créé une bande illégale", aux 

, termes de l'article 168 du code pénal. 

Dix-neuf ans de prison ont été requis contre 15 autres inculpés, 

membres du Hadep, pour "appartenance à une bande illégale" selon le 

même article. 

Un ex-député pro-kurde, Sirri Sakik, risque 3 ans aux termes de la loi 

anti-terroriste, selon le réquisitoire. 

La profanation du drapeau, filmée par les télévisions, avait créé une 

réaction nationaliste virulente qui avait secoué la Turquie pendant 

plusieurs jours. 

Akcan est accusé d'avoir enlevé le drapeau et Mordeniz de lui en avoir 

donné l'ordre. Le premier avait reconnu, lors de la première audience 

le 1er novembre, avoir enlevé le drapeau, mais avait nié appartenir au 

Parti des Travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK, séparatiste), en lutte armée 

contre Ankara depuis 1984. 

Leur procès avait été joint à celui des dirigeants du Hadep, intenté à 

l'issue du congrès général de ce parti, lors duquel s'était produit 

l'incident du drapeau. 

Le procureur a affirmé que le Hadep était la "branche politique" du 

PKK etque ses dirigeants étaient chargés de "missions spéciales" par le 

:- 

60

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn ()zeti 

PKK. 

Il a accusé les dirigeants du Hadep, notamment M. Bozlak, de ne pas 

avoir réagi à la transformation de leur congrès en celui du PKK par les 

participants qui avaient applaudi la profanation du drapeau turc et 

scandé des slogans pro-kurdes. 

Le Hadep avait succédé à une autre formation pro-kurde, le Parti de la 

Démocratie (Dep), dissous en juin 1994 pour séparatisme et dont 

quatre ex-députés, dont Mme Leila Zana, purgent une peine de 15 ans 

de prison pour "création d'une bande illégale". 

Le procureur Yuksel a accusé de "trahison" ceux qui demandent la 

création d'une fédération kurde sur les territoires turc ou le droit aux 

Kurdes à l'enseignement dans leur langue. "La seule condition de la 

paix est la reddition du chef des bandits (ndir: Ocalan) avec sa bande" 

(ndir: le PKK), a-t-il affirmé. 

Un des avocats du Hadep, Selim Okcuoglu, a déclaré que les propos du 

procureur semblaient sortir tout droit d'un "thriller" au cinéma. Il a 

demandé la libération de tous les inculpés. 

Le procès se poursuivra le 14 mars. 

KG/hclcho 

e 


Tur9-uie-Israë.1 : Le chef de l'état-major général turc en 

Israël fin février 

ANKARA, 14 fév (AFP) - Le chef de l'état-major général des armées 

turques, le général Ismail Hakki Karadayi, se rendra fin février en 

visite officielle pour plusieurs jours en Israël, a-t-on appris vendredi de 

source diplomatique à Ankara. 

Cette source, parlant sous couvert de l'anonymat, n'a pas précisé la 

date exacte et la durée du voyage du général Karadayi. 

La visite, si elle se réalise, s'inscrira dans le contexte de visites de hauts 

responsables militaires turcs et israéliens qui se sont multipliées depuis 

la signature en février 1996 d'un accord-cadre portant sur la 

coopération dans le domaine militaire. 

Cet accord, qui prévoit notamment des vols d'entraînement des 

pilotes des deux pays, l'échange de personnel et d'informations, avait 

61


alors provoqué la colère de pays arabes, notamment de l'Egypte et la 

Syrie, ainsi que de l'Iran. 

En décembre dernier, la Turquie et Israël avaient signé le programme 

, de coopération militaire pour l'année 1997, lors de'la visite à Ankara 

du directeur général au ministère israélien'de la Défense, David Ivry. 

Ce programme prévoyait l'organisation pour la première fois de 

manoeuvres conjointes entre les armées turque et israélienne. 

Ils avaient également conclu en août d~rnier un accoid de coopération 

sur la technologie militaire. 

' 

Le Premier ministre islamiste turc, Necmettin Erbakan, avait 

approuvé le 6 décembre un accord d'un montant de 600 millions de 

dollars passé avec Israël pour la modernisation des F-4 de l'armée de 

l'air turqùe, à la demande des militaires qui sont favorables à la 

poursuite de la coopération turco-israélienne. 

Cetaccord, conclu en 1995, prévoit l'octroi à la Turquie par Israël de 

600 millions de dollars de crédits pour aider au financement du projet 

de modernisation. 

Il prévoit un programme, sur cinq ans, d'installation sur 54 F-4 turcs 

d'équipement' sophistiqué, comprenant des radars, des systèmes de 

navigation et de brouillage électronique, par la firme publique Israeli ' 

Aircraft Industries. 

M. Erbakan, Premier ministre depuis fin juin 1996 à la tête d'une 

" , .coalitic)fià dominante islamiste, était connu pour sesprises de position 

atiti~israélienneslörsdelacampagne électorale de décembre 1995." " 

CE/hel gic t . 


Cease- fire monitoring force to 

be deployed in March in,N.Iraq 

Ankara- Turkish Dally News 

• Deployment of a projected ' 

Cease-fire Monitoring Force (CMF), 

to sueervise the truce between the' , 

,two nval Kurdish parties in n~rthem 

Iraq, willlikely be delayed to next 

month, Anatolia n~ws agency said 

on Friday. 

' 

The Kurdistan Democratic Party 

;(KDP) and the Patriotic Union of 

,Kurdistan (PUK) agreed to the 

establishment of the CMF in 

FebtuaJ:y in peace talks held in 

Ankara under joint sponsorship of 

Turkey and the United States. The 

talks, started last October, ended 

renewed fighting between the rival 

factions when,KDP allied itselfwith 

Baghdad and attempted to seize totaI 

control of the Western-protected ' 

Kurdish enclave. 

Iraqi Turkmens, 200 of whom 

will be part of the force, were trained 

in Turkey. The United States will 

Turkish Daily News SATURDAY, FEBRUARY IS.I~1 

provide the technical c:quipmen! of 

the force. Ankara, backing Iraq s 

Turkmen minority because of ~thnic 

and cultural bonds, has also persuaded 

the Kurds ,to give them an 

enhancedsay 

of the area.. 

in the admini~tion 

', 

The delay is reportedly due 'to 

technical aspects of setting up the 

force. DeSpIte the cease-fire agree- , 

ment, Tehian radio claimed PUK ' 

fighters killed five KDP su~ " 

laSt w~k. Quoting KDP brOàdcasts, 

162 

1 _


the Iranian radio said that PUK started 

the tight The PUK, however,. 

counterchargéd that the KDP killed 

two of its supporters. The PUK radio 

was also quOted as reporting that the 

being 

Turkme= 

op by 

in Kirkuk SaddamWere 

Hussein' s forces. 

PUK chief lalal Talabani and 

other senior party officials will . 

reportedly vfsit Tehran next week 

for talks with Iranian officials. Iran, 

which Washington seeks to isolate 

because of its alleged sponsorship of 

international terrorism, bas oever 

hidden its hostility to a "Pax 

Americana" in northern IraQ and has 

backed one or the Other of t6e rival 

Kurdish parties against each other to 

spread its influence in the area. 

Turkish Daily News SAroRDAY. FEßRUARY 15.1991 

Susurl uk commission 

chief: 'I'm confused' 

With over 30,000 

documents and 10,000 

telephone calls received, 

and some of these trying 

tQlead the...commission, 

off frack,iS it any wondet? 

AnJrara - TurIdsb Dally News 

• Mehmet ElkatIDq, chairman of 

the parliamentary Susurluk commission 

said on Friday that he was 

confused with the number of documents 

the commission receives 

every day, the Anatolla news 


"We are trying to make the 

blurred pictw'e we have in our 

hands at the moment clear," 

ElkatmJ~ said. 

Noting that the commission had 

received over 30,000 documents 

and about 10,000 telephone calls, 

ElkatmJ~ said some of the calls 

they received were aimed at 

deceiving them. He said at present 

they were trying to differentiate 

between the false and correct 

information they had received. 

"We. ~o not believe that every~ 

one~hàS beeh heard told till 

truth: the'chairÏÎ1an noted ' '. 

Elkatm1~ noted that they were 

closely following all reportsoD 

Turkish television related to 

Susurluk: as well the broadcasts Of 

MED- TV, the pro-Irurdisb te1evi-.: 

sion station of the outlawed , 

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). 

Elkatm1~ said he will propose 

that the commission bear Murat 

Ipek and Murat Demir, who lIé 

alleged to be PKK informers. H 

the commission gives consent,., 

ElkatmJ~ said. tpek and Demir will 

be invited to testify before the. 

commission. The chairman added 

that General Veli Küçük. who it 

has been claimed was the head of 

the military wing of the gang, 

might be invited to testify. 

GAMK, 15-16 février 1997 

TENSION DANS LES RELATIONS 

ENTRET~H~RANETANKARA 

Depuis l'arrivée au pouvoir de la coalition dirigée par le Premier ministre islamiste 

Erbakan, on,avait assisté à une nette amélioration des relations entre l'Iran 

et la Turquie couronnée notamment par la signature d'un contrat gazier de 23 milliards 

de dollars entre les deux pays et la visite à Ankara du président iranien 

Rafsanjani. Depuis vendredi dernier, les relations turco-iraniennes connaissent une 

crise à la suite de l'organisation d'une campagne baptisée "une journée pour 

Jérusalem" lancée par le maire islamiste, Bekir Yilidiz, de Sincan, banlieue 

d'Ankara, et à la quelle assistait l'ambassadeur iranien à Ankara, Mohammad Reza 

Bagheri. Cette campagne avait provoqué de vives réactions dans le milieu laïc. Au 

63

Revue de Presse-Prèss Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti 

cours de cette campagne les relations entre la Turquie et Israël avaient été dénoncées 

et vivement critiquées et des appels à l'application de la loi islamique en 

Turquie avaient été lancés. A la suite des réactions suscitées par cette campagne, 

l'armée s'est déployée dans la ville et le ministre de l'Intérieur a destitué le maire 

islamiste qui a été arrêté et placé en garde-à-vue le 5 février. L'ambassadeur d'Iran 

à Ankara ,avait tenu des propos invitant la Turquie à appliquer la loi islamique et 

déclaré que "la victoire appartiendra à l'Islam dans le monde entier". Celui-ci a été 

convoqué au ministère des Affaires étrangères qui lui a mis une note de protestation. 

Des dirigeants politiques avaient appelé à son expulsion immédiate. Quant au 

parti de la Gauche démocratique, dirigé par B. Ecevit, il a annoncé le dépôt prochain 

d'une motion de censure contre le gouvernement. 

GAMK 15-16 février 1997 

TURKISH CONNECTION: APRÈS UN JUGE 

ALLEMAND, UN VICE MINISTRE ADJOINT 

BRITANNIQUE MET EN CAUSE LES AUTORITÉS 

TURQUESDANSLETRARCDEDROGUE 

Après le juge allemand Ralf Schwalbe mettant nommément en cause Mme. 

Çiller dans le trafic de drogue vers l'Europe et alors que la BBC estime que "la 

Turquie est devenue la Colombie du Moyen-OriÈmt", le Britannique Tom Sackville, 

ministre adjoint de l'Intérieur, dans une interview à Sunday Times du 26 janvier 

souligne à son tour la responsabilité des autorités turques dans ce trafic. Extraits: 

"80% de l'héroïne saisie en Grande-Bretagne provient de Turquie. Il y a des faits 

qui ont été dévoilés à la suite des événements et des investigations. Nous savons 

que des informations confidentielles concernant des opérations de narcotiques 

sont tombées dans les mains des trafiquants de drogue. Ce que je veux dire c'est 

que quand nous avons informé les autorités turques de ces opérations elles ont filtré 

l'information aux trafiquants de drogue et les opérations ont échoué". 

Remarquant que "l'implication des officiels du gouvernement et des hommes politiques 

avec des criminels condamnés par la justice ternissait l'image internationale 

de la Turquie" et précisant que l'inquiétude britannique vient des "rapports troublants 

affirmant que des membres de ia police et même des membres du gouvernement 

sont impliqués dans le trafic de drogue", M. Sackville a ajouté qu'ils "ne 

pouvaient être sûrs de l'exactitude des informations transmises par les organismes 

de sécurité turcs aux autorités britanniques au sujet du trafic de drogue". 

De son côté, l'Observatoire géopolitique de drogue, basé à Paris, a égaIement 

accusé la Turquie d'être impliquée dans le trafic de drogue. Un dirigeant de 

l'Observatoire, cité par le Turkish Daily News du 27 janvier, indique que "70% de la 

drogue arrivant en Europe provient de Turquie et .cela est impossible sans 

connexion politique". Soulignant que "la drogue saisie en Turquie n'est jamais ni 

détruite ni rapportée aux agences internationales" le porte-parole de l'Observatoire 

ajoute: "L'argent de la drogue saisie est donné à la milice officieuse qui combat le 

'pKK. Cela est connu en Europe. Un vaste réseau de narcotiques a été découvert, 

et' c'est un réseau tellement vaste que chacun y est impliqué d'une manière ou 

d'une autre". 

Reste que cette "Turkish connection n'a pas fait que ternir liimage du pays, 

elle aggrave aussi des conditions de vie de millions de citoyens turcs vivant à 

l'étranger" commente, à juste titre, la BBC. Désormais tous les porteurs dE;lpasseports 

turcs sont considérés par les policiers européens comme de "possibles trafiquants 

de drogue". A qui la faute? Pas aux Européens dit l'ancien Premier ministre 

turc Mesut Yilmaz. "Comment peut-on donner à des trafiquants notoires de drogue 

des passeports de service réservés à des hauts fonctionnaires de l'Étatet s'étonner 

ensuite que l'on nous critique pour l'implication de notre gouvernement dans ce 

tr~fic" s'interroge-t-iL 

64


rurflisb Daily News SATURDAY.FEBRUARY 

IS.I997 

NYT: Refah's rise alarms Turkish secularists 

Refah is annlng itself with 

sholguns. AP says 

New York - Turkish Dally News 

.ln a front-page story splashed with a picture 

of Turkish Prime Minster Necmettln 

Erbakait huggin~ Ir~ian President . 

Hashemi RafsanJam, the New York Times 

declared that "secular Turks are alarmed by 

resurgence of religion" in Turkey. The 

story, continuing at an inside pa~e, had 

another photo of students attending 

Anadolu lmam-Hatip Lycee -one of the 

hundreds providing religion-based education 

- in Konya. Yet, the story filed ~om 

Sincan; the Ankara suburb where iranian 

Ambassador to Ankara Muhammad Reza 

Bagheri inflamed the sensibility of secularists 

by urgin~ all Turks to call themselves a 

fundamentabst since all Turks are Muslims 

anyway, had enough passages supporting 

the thesis that Erbakan's rise at the head of 

the RP-DYP coalition government was not 

a fluke but a reflection of a tectonic shift in 

the preferences of the Turkish public for an 

Islamist ~licy. 

"A veil is being lifted in Turkey," NYT 

quoted a foreign resident in Ankara and a 

specialist in Islamic ideolo~y, saying., "As 

it lifts, we're seeing that thiS country IS 

more religious than people thi~, and a 

million times more than seculansts would 

like. The idea of a greater role for rel~gion 

in public life has widespread support 10 

Turkey. So as the country bec~m~s more 

democratic, you see more Islamlc mfluence." 

A sociologist, Bü~ra Ersanl1 Ebhar, is 

also quoted saying: ''Turkey has gone so 

far in the Kemalist direction that many 

people think it' s time for some balance in 

the other direction. There is a wide spread 

feeling that this country needs a synthesis 

of secularism and Islam. A real cultural 

debate has begun in Turkey. It is exciting 

and frightening, because nobody can say 

how it will come out." 

This interpretation is diametrically 

opposed to the view 

forwarded in a "1997 

Strategic 

Assessment" report released by National 

Defense Universitr of Washington D.C. In 

this new report, it IS said that Erbakan 

came to power not because of wide-spread 

public support but because of Çi11er's fear 

of the corruption files about her and the 

constant bickering among the other secular 

opposition parties. 

Refah arms 

An Associated Press story filed from 

Ankara alleged that Refab supporters 

were arming themselves with shotguns 

and forming a paramilitary organization. 

A prosecutor has opened an investigation 

into the Welfare Party for allegedly 

forming a militia-like group, which would 

be illegal, AP said. 

The opposition says more than 100,000 

shotguns have been sold to civilians since 

1990. 

"These are dangerous signs," Deniz 

Baykal, the leader of the Republican 

Peo{>le's Party was quoted as saying. "If 

parties tend toward such ways, armed 

fighting will replace verbal discussions." 

Mesut Yllmaz, leader of the main opposition 

Motherland Party, blamed hard-liners 

in the ruling party for the shotgun 

buildu{>. 

"This is an issue about this (secular) system's 

future. Something has to be done 

urgently," he said Tuesday. "Shotguns are 

used as assault weapons throughout the 

world." 

The opposition concerns surfaced over 

the formation of a special team of bodyguards 

who protected Islamic Prime 

Minister Necmettin Erbakan during a visit 

to the central town of Kayseri last month, 

AP said. 

Although they were unarmed, the 

military-looking uniforms, complete 

with officer-style berets and metal 

badges triggered a legal investiF.ation 

and the resignation of the town s 

Welfare executives. 

It is ille~al for political parties 

to maintam such units. 

65


A.F.P.- Agence Fronce Presse-A.F.P.- Agence Fronce Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse .." 

Irak-Turquie~lsraël : Washington veut "contenir" les 

Arabes 'par une alliance israé[o-turque, selon Bagdad 

BAGDAD, 16 fév (AFP) - Les Etats-Unis encouragent la formation 

d'une alliance israélo-turqueafin de contenir les pays arabes, a affirmé 

dimanche le quotidien du parti Baas au pouvoir en Irak, al-Saoura. 

"Il est clair que les Etats-Unis soutiennent la coopération militaire 

entre la Turquie et Israël..Washington la considère comme un pilier 

de sa stratégie, qui vise à contenir la nation arabe et à freiner la 

réalisation de ses aspirations légitimes", selon al-Saoura. 

"Les accords conclus entre la Turquie et Israël menacent la sécurité de 

la nation arabe. Il serait naïf pour les gouvernements arabes de penser 

"qu'ils ne sont pas concernés par ces développements graves", ajouté le 

quotidien. 

"Les gouvernements arabes doivent faire face à leurs responsabilités 

historiques et mettre fin à leurs disputes", poursuit-il. 

Israël et la Turquie ont signé en février 1996 un accord..:cadreportant 

sur la coopération dans le domaine militaire, prévoyant notamment 

des vols d'entraînement des pilotes des deux pays et des échanges de 

personnels et d'informations. Cet accord avait alors provoqué la colère 

de pays arabes, dont la Syrie, l'Egypte et l'Irak, ainsi que de l'Iran. 

La Turquie et Israël ont signé en décembre un programme de 

:coopération militaire pour l'année 1997, lors d'une visite à Ankara du: 

directeur général du ministère israélien de là Défense David Ivry. Ce 

programme prévoit l'organisation pour la première fois de 

',manoeuvres conjointes. 

Les deux pays ont également conclu en août dernier un accord de. 

coopération en matière de technologie militaire. 

fch-mch/sl 


66


Turquie-Chine: Des militants ouïghours brûlent des 

drapeaux chinois à Istanbul 

ISTANBUL, 16 fév (AFP) - Près d'un millier de militants ouïghours 

et de nationalistes turcs ont brûlé dimanche des drapeaux chinois au 

cours d'un rassemblement à Istanbul pour protester contre la politique 

oppressive menée selon eux par la Chine contre les musulmans, ont 

indiqué des témoins. 

Cette manifestation intervient alors que des informations font état 

de l'exécution de musulmans à la suite d'émeutes qui ont opposé 

Ouïghours musulmans (turcophones) et Han (Chinois de souche) 

début février dans la province du Xinjiang (nord-ouest de la Chine). 

Les manifestants ont scandé des slogans anti-chinois dans le quartier de 

Sisli, dans le centre d'Istanbul et, pour la deuxième fois en moins 

d'une semaine, ont brûlé des drapeaux chinois. 

Ils ont également tenté de marcher vers le consulat chinois tout 

proche, mais ont été stoppés et dispersés par les forces de l'ordre. 

Les associations d'Ouïghours, qui ont organisé cette action, affirment 

que la çommunauté ouïghoure de Turquie compte de plus de 30.0.000 

personnes. 

Des diplomates chinois avaient protesté contre la tenue lundi d'une 

première manifestation de ce type et demandé aux autorités turques 

de prendre des mesures pour assurer la sécurité des représentations 

chinoises dans le pays. 

ue/ cho/ soh t 


By Stephen Kinzer 


ANKARA - Thousands of Turks, 

most of them women, marched through 

the streets of Ankara in theJlfstmaior 

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRmUNE, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17, ] 997 

~Turkish Women Protest Koranic Law ~ 

Marchers Fear Ankara Is Moving Toward Fundamentalism 

public protest against the policies of the .. Let Turkey shout .Down WH \ 

Islamic-led government. Sharia,'" the. marc~~rs chan!ed .. Or.: 

Marchers carried signs and chanted banner procl~Imed:, W.omen s Rtgh:: 

slogans condemning what they contend are Human RIghts, .whlle another sa!'! 

are efforts to move Turlœy closer to simply, "'Y0men EXist." .. 

Sharia, the strict law of the Koran, which 

imposes many n~strictions on women. 

Turkey IS the most secular MuslIm 

country in the Middle East, and the role 

67


,,eiHtfigionm pubiiC life is ièstrictéd by 

both law and custom. 

Turkish secularists fear that moves 

.toward Islamic fundamentalism here 

.may set ari example for other moderate 

,Muslim countries, and the organizers of 

Saturday's march hoped the protest 

would prove that ~ti~fundamentalist 

sentiment remliins. widespread in Tur- 

Jœy. . 

Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan; 

leader Of the Muslim-oriented Welfare 

Party, is seeking to lift restrictions on 

women wearing veils or head scarves in 

the civil service and on university cam~ 

puses. 

He contends that he is simply defending 

freedom of choice, but critics 

maintliin he is using the issue as part oea 

campaign against secularism. '. 

During ~~se~gh~wonths in power, Mr., 

Erbakarfhas not in/posed ariy 1Tiajili i.. 

gal changes and' has, in fact, Slt-ÏiP'.'O:; 

back from many of the radical prop(l~al'; 

he made while in the opposition: Because 

he is the first leader since the 

founding of the Turkish Republic,.74 

years ago to strongly identify himself 

with Islam, however, many Turks 

deeply mistrust him. 

"We are definitely in danger because 

ofwhat's going on now," sliid one of the 

marchers, Ayse Topcu, who carried a 

sign reading, "We Want a Secular 

Democratic Turkey." 

"Part of the problem is Erbakan and 

the Welfare Party," she said. "The other 

part is the Turkish people. We aren't 

doi~g anything to stop this from happening." 

Women played a crucial role in supporting 

the secular reforms decreed dur-' 

in.K the_ 1920s l?Y me founder of thé 

TùrkishRep\Jblic', Mustafa Kémal Ata~ 

Wrk, and more than two thirds of those 

who marched Saturday .were women; 

Spo~sors of the march inCluded wö~ 

men. s groups, labor unions law and 

m~dlcal associations and cu'ltural and 

ret~~ees'organizations. . 

We are marching against Sharia and 

the darkness that aims to keep women 

outside of humanity," said Senal Sara~ 

han, a. l~ader of the Modem Lawyers' 

AS~OClatIOn,one of thegroups sponsonng 

the rally. 

Another marcher, Sabiha Kizilirmak 

was drape~ in a Turkish flag to which 

she had pmned a portrliit of Mr. Ataru~. 

. 

"I don't want to live under a black 

sheet~" she said. "We are the real 

.MuslIms, not those who want to turn 

'back the clock. " 

Falih SaribaslReuterS 

EXILES ON MARCH - Muslim Uighur exiles carrying nationalist flags facing the police Sunday as they marched 

towaJ;'d the Chinese Consulate in Istanbul to pro~t thel9llipg.Qf r.:~lati"eSin riQts Jo ,X:injiang ProvinceJn.China. 

.) 

----'-'r::::rEJL::fl I-l aELE .... l:J--- 

68

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Repue de fresse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

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Turkish Daily News MONDAY.FEBRUARY 17,1997 

HADEP's Sedat Yurtda~ said the 

governor' s main aim in banning 

the satellite dishes could only be to 

thwart cultural development of the 

region. 'This will be used as 

another instrument of oppression,' 

Yurtda~ added 

SAADET ORUÇ, ALPARSLAN ESMER 

Ankara-Turkish 

Daily News 

• Remarks by Necati Bilican, governor of 

the Emergency Rule Region, early in the 

week on the possible banning of the use of 

satellite dishes in the mainly Kurdish-populated 

Southeast ostensibly "to protect 

the people from separatist propaganda," 

has drawn strong objection from various 

civic organizations and from the opposition. 

The Turkish Human Rights 

Association (IHn), the Contemporary 

Journalists Association (CGD) and the 

People's Democracy Party (HADEP) 

reacted to the efforts of Bilican. 

Akin Birdal, the chairman of the IHn, 

told the TDN that these efforts were 

against the freedom of communication 

while roughly 20 nationwide television stations 

were operating freely. He said this 

would provide an excuse for oppression 

against the people living in the 

region. "The only countries 

where satellite dishes are 

banned are Iran, Saudi 

Arabia, Sudan, North 

Korea and China" Birdal 

added. 

('GD Chainnan tsmet 

Demirdö~en said that instead of "hunting" 

satellite dishes it would have been better to 

allow freedom of expression. Referring to 

the Chinese proverb, "Let one hundred 

flowers bloom, let one hundred thoughts 

compete," Demirdögen pointed out that 

first the conditions of "war in the 

Southeast" 

had to be 

eliminated 

HADEP's Yurtda,: 

'Instrument of oppression' 

Meanwhile HADEP's Sedat Yurtda~ said 

the governor's main aim in banning the 

satellite dishes could only be to thwart the 

cultural development ofthe region. "This 

will be used as another instrument of 

oppression," Yurtda~ added. 

An opposition politician also reacted 

strongly to the remarks by' the Emergency 

Rule Region Governor Btlican, who called 

for the confiscation of satellite dishes "if 

necessary, to prevent the broadcasts of 

the MED-TV," referring to the pro- 

Kurdish television station. 

Main opposition Motherland Party 

(ANAP) Deputy Mehmet Salih 

Ylldmm called for an end to the 

"mistaken policies" which have 

been carried out by the government 

affecting the people of the 

Southeast. 

Ytldmm said there were two 

local television stations broadcasting 

"partly" in Kurdish in 

the southeastern province of 

Diyarbalar. "Instead of trying 

impose such bans, they (the government) 

should search för. ways 

of expressing its views tß ..the people 

(in the Southeast) in tl1e~rown 

language," he added. Refeinng to 

MED-TV, which is considered 

by the Turkish authorities 

to be the 

mouthpiece of the 

separatist 

Kurdistan 

HADEP's Sedat Yurtdali 

tives refrained from presenting solutions to 

the problems in the area then the solutions 

would be brought about by "someone 

else." 

"Then the authorities will share the 

burden of their policies," he added. 

ytldmm also said his opinions did not 

bind ANAP. 

69

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Les Kurdesforit un pas vers Bagdad 

Leöéchange6 6'interni~ientdepui6la victoire du PDK, allié de Saddam 

«LesKunies 

ontunpeuls 

gueulebo1& 

Quantils 

ontmla 

AmbkaJns 

déamper,ils 

ont rélJJJaé 

quels 

protection 

aIl1éelJe 

dutaaitpss 

Inlinimnd.>, 

UD 

respoll8llble 

d'OJ'fJIJlHsadon 

bDlDlUJitaire 

Doh 0 u k envoyé 6pécial 

.Cen' est pas vraiment un poste frontière mais 

ça en a tout l'air. Au bout de la longue plaine 

vallonnée qui s'étend au nord de Mossoul, 

Faïda marque la limite des territoires 

sous contrôle du gouvernement de Bagdad. Entrants 

.comme sortants descendent de leur véhicule pour 

présenter leurs papiers d'identité. 

Depuis peu le Kurdistan et le reste de l'Irak communiquent 

à nouveau. Exactement, depuis la victoire 

militaire en septembre du Parti démocratique du 

Kurdistan (PD K), allié à Bagdad, sur son grand rival, 

L'Union patriotique du Kurdistan (UPK) soutenu 

par l'Iran. 

.Pendant cinq ans, les habitants des deux wnes ont 

vécu séparés par la méfiance vouée par les leaders 

kurdes au régime de Saddam Hussein, coupable 

d'avoir écrasé dans le sang le soulèvement du printemps 

1991. Aujourd'hui, signe de la détente qui prévaut, 

500 à 1000 personnes passent 

chaque jour par Faïda. Des civils 

seulement: les fonctionnaires de 

Bagdad ne s'aventurent pas encore 

au nord où ils seraient à coup sûr arrêtés 

puis refoulés ou assassinés. 

Les Irakiens de la zone gouvernementale 

qui «montent» rendre visite 

à un parent, y croisent des Kurdes 

aux larges pantalons bouffants remplis 

de liasses de billets qu'ils vont 

dépenser à Mossoul avant de rentrer 

le soir chargés de paquets de cigarettes 

destinés à la Turquie et à l'Iran. 

Des camions passent aussi avec des 

fruits, des légumes ou des produits 

de contrebandes turcs et ramènent 

de l'essence en wne kurde. Un flux 

constant et vital pour l'économie irakienne sous embargo 

depuis six ans et pour le PD K qui prélève sa illme 

au passage. 

En fait, les choses ne sont pas si simples et nombre de 

Kurdes craignent sans le dire que le départ des expatriés 

travaillant dans les ONG étrangères ne prélude 

à un retour en force de Bagdad au Kurdistan. Tout y 

concourt: la Turquie, lassée des incursions des combattants 

du Parti des travailleurs du Kurdistan 

(PKK), favorise une reprise en main de la région par 

'La guerre des Kurdes 

Mars 1991: après la défaite irakienne lors de la Guerre du 

Golfe, les Kurdes se soulèvent contre Bagdad. La riposte est 

terrible, et les forces alliées mettent en place l'opération Provide 

Comfort afin de protéger les 4 millions de Kurdes: une wne 

d'exclusion aérienne de 10 000 km2 au nord du 36e parallèle est 

instaurée accompagné d'un programme d'aide humanitaire. 

Juillet 91: Les forces alliées se retirent du Nord de l'Irak, laissant 

le pouvoir central; la France s'est retirée de 

«Provide ComfoTt», la mission de surveillance 

aérienne du nord de l'Irak; 

la Communauté européenne -sous prétexte 

de résolution «pétrole contre noumture»- 

a drastiquement réduit son 

financement aux Kurdes d'Irak. . 

Réfugiés. Déjà, les travailleurs humanitaires 

ne peuvent plus entrer au Kurdistan 

par la Turquie et sont contraints de passer, 

par le poste de Qamishle en Syrie. Et les 

plupart des ONG américaines ont plié bagages 

emmenant plusieurs milliers de 

Kurdes ayant travaillés avec elles: il est vrai 

que, selon des sources fiables, un certain 

nombre d'entre elles étaient de véritables 

agences de renseignements pro-fUlléri'" 

caines. Ce qui provoque un raz-de-marée 

de demandes d'asile politique auprès des 

autres organisations étrangères, toutes refusées 

pour l'instant. 

Certes, les fonctionnaires de Bagdad ne 

sont pas sensés circuler dans le Kurdistan mais tout le 

monde se méfie des moukhabarat, les membres de la 

terrible police sécrète de Saddam Hussein qui s'était li~ 

vrée à une véritable chasse à l'homme lors de leur brève 

incursion à Erbil en septembre dernier. «Plus que SUT 

le terrain, c'est dans les têtes que tout à changé», confie le 

responsable d'une organisation humanitaire.

:.:.,~,"""",., '~'iti.: .• v ..... ': •.•_ë'~. 

~ 

(' 


Disappoinment 

for Turkey in 

trade with Iraq 

on com~nsation payments~ humani- from our neighbor, but we have to be 

tarian élldfor northern Iraq and U.N. careful," the official said. 

expenditure. 

A senior official from the Turkish 

Over the past six years Turkey has Foreign Ministry said that trade 

lost up to $30 billion as a result of the between Turkey and Iraq following 

trade embargo, including $4.7 billion the oil for food agreement was at a 

through loss of income generated by very low level, and they hoped it 

trans~rtation of goods via Turkey would increase. 

and $7.3 billion through loss of . . Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, 

exports to Iraq. It was expected that speaking at the opening ceremony of 

Turkey would"receive an immediate the Kirkuk-YumurtaJik pi{lt?linenear 

boost from the resumed oil flow; pro- Ceyhan last December, swd the center 

AY~E KARABAT viding an economic revival for the . would not only be a terminal for Iraqi 

Southeast. an underdeveloped .region oil, but also for oil from the Middle 

Ankara-Turkish Daily News particularly adversely affectedbythe East, the Caspian and Central Asia. 

. f. U.N. sanctions. 'The region is going to becomean 

• Turkey, despite expectations 0 The economic woes of the region energy distribution center. Nowa new 

gaining deals worth hundreds of mil- have been aggravated by a separatist era is beginning, and in this era 

lions of dollars from the "oil for Kurdish insurgency which has. Turkey will be the center of the 

.food" agreement between Iraq and 

the United Nations, has scarcely benclaimed 

over 21,000 lives in 12 years. 

Following the implementation


~ 

~ 

~ 

~ 

~ 

r-. 

~~~Arabs not doing 

~ 

/~ enough to solve water 

l problem - Syria 

Ankara- Turldsb DaHy News 

• Abdülkadir Kaddura. the speaker of the 

Syrian Parliament has accused Arab countries 

of being irresponsible on the water issue and 

said they were not doing enough to try and 

solve the problem, the Anatolia news agency. 

Speaking at an N'ab par:liaD)entarl.ans 

meeting in namascus, Kaddura said although 

the water problem was staring them in the 

face, the Arab world had not mobilized its 

forces to try and solve the problem. 

Kaddura said water for Arab countries 

mostly comes frQm other countries and that 

some nei~hboring countries applied illegal 

methods ln the way water is distributed. 

Syria's relationship with Turkey has been 

strained by concern over water rights to the 

Euphrates, ..and the fact that Syria allows 

Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan 

Workers' Party (PKK), to reside in 

Damascus. Syria has opposed Turkey's 

biggest project, "Atatürk dam," arguing it 

reduces water flow to Syria. 

Turquie-armée-Islamistes : L'activisme islamiste continue à 

préoccuper l'armée 

ANKARA, 18 fév (AFP) - Le Conseil national de sécurité turc, organe 

politico-militaire regroupant de hauts dirigeants civils et militaires, se 

réunira le 28 février pour discuter de l'activisme islamiste en Turquie, 

selon le quotidien Sabah. 

Le chef de l'état-major général des armées turques, le général Ismail 

Hakki Karadayi, "soulignera le malaise de l'armée face aux activités 

anti-laïques" lors de cette réunion, en présence du Premier ministre 

islamiste Necmettin Erbakan, selon le journal. 

Le Conseil comprend notamment le chef de l'Etat, le Premier 

ministre, les ministres de l'Intérieur, des Affaires étrangères et de la 

Défense, et les commandants en chef de l'armée. 

L'armée est "mal à l'aise" devant la recrudescence des activités 

anti-laïques en provenance du Parti de la Prospérité (Refah) de M. 

Erbakan, selon la même source. 

Elle a été également irritée par une visite rendue la semaine dernière 

par le ministre de la Justice Sevket Kazan (Refah) à un maire islamiste 

détenu depuis une dizaine de jours pour avoir fait des déclarations 

pro-charia lors d'une "soirée pour Jérusalem" qu'il avait organisée. 

L'armée réclame toujours le départ sans délai de l'ambassadeur d'Iran à 

Ankara Mohammad Reza Bagheri, dont les propos lors de cette soirée 

en faveur de l'application de la charia avaient provoqué la colère des 

milieux laïcs turcs. 

La diplomatie avait alors remis une note de protestation 

à M. Bagheri 

73


mais cette mesure avait été jugée insuffisante par l'armée et les 

milieux pro-laïcs, qui demandaient que le diplomate soit déclaré 

". persona non grata ". 

,. 

Le chef du principal parti d'opposition au parlement, Mesut Yilmaz, 

et un nombre d'associations et syndicats ont demandé la démission de 

M. Kazan, homme de confiance de M. Erbakan et un des durs du 

Refah. . 

La visite de M. Kazan au maire islamiste Bekir Yildii., arrêté' par 

décision de la Cour de Sûreté de l'Etat d'Ankara, a été qualifiée de 

"défi à la justice", visant à "donner le message que le maire i~lamiste se 

trouve sous la prötection du' ministère de la Justice", affirment ses 

,oppösants. ' . , 

Des porte-parole du Refah ont pris la défense de M. Kazan, affirmant 

qu'il avait rendu visite au maire en sa qualité de "resronsahle des 

relations publiques" du Refah et non comme ministre de la Justice. 

Le 4 février, l'armée avait fait rraverser par une quarantaine chars et 

véhicules militaires la localité de Sincan (banlieue d'Ankara), 

administrée par M. Yildiz et où s'était déroulée la "soirée pour 

Jérusalem". Ce défilé avait été unanimement interprété comme une 

mise en garde de l'armée aux éléments islamistes les plus radicaux. 

CE/hclnj 

t 


A.F.P.- Agence Fré\l1ccPresse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

Turquie-politique : Vers une levée définitive des charges de 

corrupti~n contre Mme Ciller 

ANKARA, 18 fév (AFP) - Le vice-Premier ministre et ministre des 

Affaires étrangères turc, Mme Tansu Ciller, devrait assurer sa survie 

politique à l'occasion de l'examen mardi et mercredi par le parlement 

d'accusations de corruption à son encontre. 

L'assemblée nationale doit se prononcer en dernier ressort sur les 

,rapports de trois commissions parlementaires qui ont enquêté sur des 

accusations de malversations portées contre Mme Ciller. 

Ces accusations étaient relatives à la gestion, lorsqu'elle était Premier 

ministre, de la compagnie d'Etat Tedas (distribution d'électricité), à la 

privatisation ,part,ielle du constructeur automopile Tofas, et à 

74

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prmsa-Basm Özeti 

l'accumulation 

de sa fortune personnelle. 

Les trois commissions ont toutes blanchi Mme Ciller, par une voix de 

majorité. 

Au sein de ces commissions, les députés membres du parti islamiste de 

la Prt>spérité (Refah) du Premier ministre Necmettin Erbakan, allié 

au Parti de la juste Voie (DYP, droite) de Mme Ciller dans l'actuelle 

coalition gouvernementale, ont fait bloc avec celui-ci pour voter en 

faveur de Mme Ciller, alors même que c'était le Refah qui avait porté 

les accusations à son encontre lorsqu'il était dans l'opposition. 

Si l'assemblée suit les commissions, les dossiers seront clos. Si elle rejette 

ces rapports, Mme Ciller sera déférée en Haute cour, ce qui mettra un 

terme à sa carrière politique. 

Les chances d'une telle éventualité sont jugées très faibles, le rejet des 

.r,apport~.nécessitant la majorité absolue de 276 voix sur 550, que 

IOpposItIon ne semble pas e~ mesure de réunir. 

Le Refah compte 160 députés et le DYP 119, ce qui donne à la 

coalition une majorité absolue de quatre sièges. 

Mme Ciller n'assistera pas aux votes, se trouvant à Bruxelles où elle 

participe à une réunion ministérielle de l'Otan. Elle a donné 

procuration au ministre de la Défense Turhan Tayan pour voter pour 

elle. 

Mardi, l'assemblée devait examiner les dossiers Tedas et T ofas et 

mercredi celui de la fortune personnelle de Mme Ciller. 

HC/nj 

t 


Turkisb Daily News WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1997 

Court sentences 

FIrat for separatist 

propaganda 

Ankara- TurIdsb DaHy News 

• The Ankara State Security Court sentenced 

former deputy Abdü1melik Fuat to .a 

one year prison sentence and a fine of TL 

100 million for spreading separatist propaganda, 

the Anatolia news agency reported 

on Tuesday. 

The court suspended the sentence against 

Frrat, who had been indicted on charges of 

spreading separatist gropaganda during a 

.panel discussion on 'The Kurdistan question 

and the Islamic solution" in 1994 in 

Berlin. 

Attorney Levent Kanal, who defended 

Fuat at Tuesday' s hearing, claimed Fuat 

had not spread separatist propaganda as 

alleged and requested that bis client be 

cleared of all charges. 

75


Turkish Daily News WEDNESDAY,FEBRUARY 19,1997 

Çiller insists NATO 

and EU expansion . 

are 'related processes' 

'It must not be forgotten 

that NATO documents 

prescribe that the expansion 

of NATO, the EU and the 

WEU should proceed 

together in close relation' 

Ankara- Turkish 

Dally News 

Çiller late in 1996 when Turkey was 

rebuffed upon announcing it wanted 

,to upgrade its associate membership 

status at th~ ~U toft111membership. 

Undersecretary 

'Öymen: advocating 

a veto Is not blackmail 

British Foreign Office officials have 

been told it is not blackmail for 

Turkey to advocate a possible veto 

on NATO enlargement. Rather, this 

is born out of Turkey' s expectation 

of equal treatment by the El!. with 

• In Brussels for a NATO foreign, 

ministers' meeting, Tansu Çiller said 

Turkey was not opposed "in principIe" 

to the eastward expansion of the 

alliance provided it did not proceed 

independently of the exp~sion of other candidates, said Onur Oymen; 

,the European Union (EU). Foreign 

Minister Çiller is likely to face 

Foreign Ministry undersecretary in 

London on Monday before leaving 

strong pressures to withdraw for Brussels to join tansu Çiller. 

Turkey's threat to veto,NATO's. Speaking at a press conference 

planned eastward expansion during ,after meetings WIth a number of ~op 

the American-sponsored summit British diplomats, Öymen said he 

aimed at mending fences between considered the talks to be a followmember 

states andpresenting a unit- up to las,tmonth's Rome meeting 

ed front against tough Russian criti- between the five major European 

cism of the expansion. 

states of Britain, France, Germany, 

In a radio interview with the BBC on Italy and Spain and Turkish ForeIgn 

Tuesday, Çil1er said NATO states Minister Tansu Çiller. ' 

had agreed in 1995 to consider the "We conSIder ilvery important 

membership applications of former 

Eastern Bloc countries in relation to 

~at Britain is showing understandmg 

toward our concerns over 

the ex{>ansionof the EU and its mili- Turkey's full membership in the EU 

tary wmg, tbe Western EuroPean particularly that we should be treated 

Union (WEU). equallr, Withthe other candidate 

:,"It must not be forgotten that states, Öymen emphasized. When 

NATO documents prescribe that the asked how British offiCiaIs had 

expansion of NATO, the EU and the reacted to the spectre of a veto by 

WEU should ~roceed together in T.urkey on NATO enlargement, 

close relation, ' said the Turkish for- Oymen said each nation was looking 

eign minister. Turkey wants to get its at the issue in accordance with its 

name among the list of 

~wn national interests. Turkey's 

, ,most-likely-to-be-accepted appli- ' 10terests had been made clear to officants 

to be invited to an EU meeting cials during the meetings, he continin 

Amsterdam later this year. The !le~, adding that Turkey needed to be 

veto threat had been frrst floated by 1OVlt~ to the EU summit in 

Amsterdam along with 10 former 

communist countries from central 

and eastern Europe. "The invitation 

needs to be extended on equal 

terms," he said, indicating they were 

hoping for positive developments on 

this matter shortly. 

~eferrin~ to his meeting with the 

Bn~sh SpecIal e~voy to Cyprus, Sir 

DavId Hannay, Öynien pointed out 

that both sides had expressed a 

desire for dialogue between the two 

co~uni~ lea.ders in Cyprus. ''The 

solubon lies WIththe two communities. 

However, this does not only , 

depend on the Turkish side. It is the 

Greek side which has ~n refusing 

to talk since 1994," the undersecretary. 

added. 

Oymen also touched upç>nlast 

week's statement by BritIsh Foreign , 

Secr~tary Malcolm Rifkind that a 

conflict 10the Aegean was a serious 

possibility, saying such remarks 

were not welcomed by anybody. 

However, the British Foreign Office 

had dismissed the claims last week 

,~d said Rifkind was I1-0treferrin~ to 

a _\yarover .Cyp~s but .was speaking, 

a~!lt the sltuabon durmg the Kardak 

cnsls. 

The undersecretary also told jour- 

!lalisf;Sthat the issue of drug traffick~ 

mg vIa Turkey had come up during 

his visit to the British ForeIgn 

Office. "We have explained to our 

coolleaguesthe ways we are dealing , 

with terrorism and drug trafficking, 

the revenues from which we believe 

benefits terrorists in Turkey the 

most. The British officials said they 

were pleased to see their own authorities 

cooperating with their Turkish 

counterparts ip the fight against drug 

trafficking," Öymen said. 

76



lHD report 

for January 

published 

Istanbul- 

TurIdsb DaHy News 

• The Turkish Human Rights Association 

(lHD) Istanbul Branch has now published 

its monthly report for January 1997. The 

document contains a statement by lHD 

Istanbul Branch leader Ercan Kanar in 

which he claims that a covered up military 

coup occurred in Turkey an~ that violations 

of civil and human rights continued 

at every level of life in the city during the 

month. 

Kanar states that oppressed people 

started 1997 with the hope of developments 

in steps taken towards freedom, 

peace and democracy, and that the new 

year also brought hope that there would 

be an end to extra-judicial executions, 

unresolved murders, disappearances 

and torture in custody and corruption, 

and that there would be prosecution of 

those suspected of CarrylDg out such 

activities. However, the IHD Istanbul 

leader says that the government has instead 

WEDNESDAY,FEBRUARY 19,1997 

come up with an "Islamic Law (Sharia)- 

Coup" dualism. Kanar also states thllt the 

National Security Council (MGK) confirmed 

that it was the real power in the 

country with the January 9, 1997 "Prime 

Ministry Crisis Administration 

Directorate." He further states that the 

directorate confrrms that "sovereignty 

belongs tothe soldiers" and the Crisis 

Administration is a government within the 

government and rules the country. Kanar 

comments that the directorate was the most 

dangerous development of the month. 

The report also states that allegations of 

torture and disappearances in custody continued 

to increase alon~ with attacks against 

civilians for their political opinions . 

Kanar then gives a len2thy list of abuses 

of human rights, saying that women lost 

their lives after violent attacks, sick prisoners 

were refused treatment and consequently 

died, many members of the press were 

arrested and tortured, publishing houses 

were raided, newspapers, bookS and magazines 

were banned, the Radio and 

Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) punished 

many radio and television channels 

with warnlDgs and temporary bannings, the 

State Security Courts (DOM) continued to 

function as political weapons, attempts 

were made to stop the "One Million 

Signatures for Peace Campaign" in many 

places, cultural centers were raided by the 

police, arid a war against satellite dishes 

was started, violating the right of free 

accesS to infomiation.The report ends with 

the a complete list of human rights violations 

reported to the group in January., 

Le Parlement ture 

blanchit Tansu Ciller 

Le Parlement turc a levé hier 

les accuSations de corruption 

pesant sur le ministre des Affaires 

étrangères Tansu CilleL 

T'~"c~!,!,"lppl'lationale a ainsi 

~~~~~ï~s rapports de trotS 

commissions parlementaires 

qui ont toutes blanchi l'ancien 

Premier ministre. 

77


Demonstration for light repeated for Cankoru 

• 

'My husb~d was 

beaten, ,claims widow. 

'Police are mounting a 

~ cover-up operation' 

< 

~ HASAN ÜSTÜN 

~ AntJUya- Turkish Daily News 

CQ 

tE 

>-" • As Cel al Cankoru, who died under 

25 arrest in a police car following the 

~ "one minute's darkn~ss for erilight- 

Cl enment" demonstratJ.on fi Antalya 

~ on Sunday evening was buried in his 

~home 

town of Egirdir, tension in 

~ Antalya continued. The result of the 

~ autopsyconducted on Cankoru was 

said to have revealed that "no eviè 

dence of beating was discovered and 

~ death was the result of edem~ of the 

lungs," but the dead man's wIfe, 

:ê Süheyla Cankoru, repeated her alle- 

~ gation that her husband had been 

;;:s struck on the head with a two-way 

s::; radio by a plain-clothes policeman 

and claImed that the police were trying 

to mount a cover-up operation. 

Stating that while he was being taken 

to the hospital she had held her husband' 

s head, and noticed a depression 

where he had been struck, 

Süheyla Cankoru added, "That grey-_ 

haired policeman hit other people 

besides my husband. Iwill recognize 

him if Isee him again." 

Meanwhile, attorney Mustafa 

~abin, the Antalya Regional 

Chairman of the Freedom and 

Solidarity Party who was present at 

the demonstration and tried-to intervene 

to help Celal Cankoru, whom 

he insists was1nnocent of any 

wrongdoing, displayed the injuries 

he himself received from the police 

at the scene, and for which he . 

received treatment at the Antalya 

State Hospital. While he was still in 

custody, a press conference was held 

on his behalf in Cumhuriyet Square 

which was attended by a large number 

of representatives from occupational 

chambers and political parties 

as well as other lawyers from the 

Antalya Bar who laid a black wreath 

. at the Ataturk Monument, the centerpiece 

of the square. 

Sabin and six other people arrested 

with him at the demonstration 

were later released at a court hearing. 

Five other people traveling in a car 

in the convoy accompanying . 

Cankoru' s body to his home in 

Antalya were also later arrested and 

taken to a police station. Of these, 

four were released, but Ibrahim 

Güröz, a reporter for the journal 

Nuros which is printed in both 

Turkish and Kurdish, was held in 

custody. 

Mustafa çetinkaya, 

Antalya 

Regional Chairman of the 

Republican People's Party, alleged 

that what had happened was an 

action by the government to halt the 

opp'0sition of the people. 

'The security forces are not just 

the representatives of the administration," 

he said, "but are obliged to 

protect both the people and the secular 

state." çetinkaya claimed that 

attempts were being made to push 

Turkey into civil war and this must 

be prevented. . 

Demonstrators, under strict police 

control, gathered once again on 

Monday evening at Cumhuriyet 

Square where around 2,000 people 

extinguished their candles at 9 p.m., 

both to demand a clean society and 

in memory of Cankoru. To the previous 

slogan, "Don't be silent or your 

turn will come," was added, ''The 

citizens are here, where are the 

killers?" 

~. ~ 

';,;"p .~.F.P.- A.gence,France Presse-A.~.r.- Agence France Presse-A.F.r.- ~gence France Presse ' 

Turquie-politique: Le parlement lève les dernières 

accusations de malversations contre Mme CiJler 

ANKARA, 19 fév (AFP) - Le parlement turc a levé mercredi les 

dernières accusations de malversations pesant sur le ministre des 

Affaires étrangères Tansu Ciller, également vice-premier ministre, a 

78


indiqué le vice-président du parlement, Kamer Genc. 

Ces accusations étaient relatives aux conditions d'accumulation 

fortune personnelle de Mme Ciller. 

de la 

Celle-ci possède une fortune énorme, de l'ordre de plusieurs millions 

de dollars selon l'opposition, notamment de nombreux biens 

immobiliers dont plusieurs maisons aux Etats-Unis. 

L'assemblée nationale avait déjà blanchi mardi Mme Ciller sur deux 

dossiers de corruption, lui évitant une comparution en Haute cour qu 

aurait probablement mis fin à sa carrière politique. 

Le parlement a rejeté mercredi par 270 voix contre 263 et une 

abstension une motion demandant l'envoi de Mme Ciller en Haute 

cour. Il a ainsi entériné le rapport de la commission parlementaire ad 

hoc qui avait déjà déclaré le ministre non coupable. 

Les députés du parti de la Juste voie (DYP, droite) de Tansu Ciller et 

ceux de son allié dans la coalition gouvernementale, le parti de la 

Prospérité (Refah, islamiste) du Premier ministre Necmettin Erbakan, 

ont voté en sa faveur. 

C'était pourtant le Refah qui, lorsqu'il était dans l'opposition au 

printemps 1996, avait porté toutes ces accusations contre Mme Ciller. 

La presque totalité des membres des partis d'opposition ont voté pour 

l'envoi de Mme Ciller devant la Cour constitutionnelle, la plus haute 

instance judiciaire de Turquie. 

Mais leurs chances étaient très faibles, car une telle décision requiert la 

majorité absolue de 276 voix sur 550, que l'opposition n'atteint pas. 

C'est au contraire la coalition qui détient la majorité absolue, le Refah 

comptant 160 sièges et le DYP 118, après la démission mardi d'un de 

ses députés. 

Un scénario identique s'était déroulé mardi. Le parlement avait voté 

qu'il n'y avait pas lieu de traduire Mme Ciller devant la Haute cour 

pour répondre d'accusations de corruption relatives à la gestion, 

lorsqu'elle était Premier ministre, de la compagnie d'Etat Tedas 

(distribution d'électricité), et à la privatisation partielle du 

constructeur automobile Tofas. 

CE/hclsg 

tf 


79

--- 



Irak-Turquie : Départ pour la Turquie d'une délégation 

irakienne 

BAGDAD, 19 fév (AFP)- Une délégation ,d'une association offIcielle 

irakienne a quitté mercredi Bagdad à destination d'Ankara, pour une 

visite d'une semaine en Turquie, a-t-on appris de source officielle 

irakienne. 

Le président de l'association pOUf l'Amitié, de la Paix et de la 

Solidarité, Salah Al-Mokhtar, responsable du parti Baas au pouvoir, a 

déclaré à l'AFP qu'il informerait les dirigeants turcs des "efforts 

déployés par la communauté internationa1e pour obtenir la levée de 

l'embargo imposé à l'Irak, (depuis 1990) et mettre un terme aux 

souffrances du peuple irakien". 

La délégation 

irakienne, a quitté Bagdad dans la matinée en direction 

de ta, frontière irako-turque, via la ville de Mossoul, dans le Kurdistan 

irakien, à 400 km au nord de Bagdad. 

feh-sam/sI 



THURSDAY,FEBRUARY20;1997, 

Arab League. states oppose Turkish dams 

tJamlJSCUS- De~tsche Presse-Agentur 

• A meeting of Arab League member countries . 

Tuesday ur~ed Turkey.to stop building dàms on the 

, Euphrates river, a measure criticised as affecting the' 

flow ofwaterto Syria and Iraq. 

Winding up a two-day symposium on water, the 

p.articipants also called on Turkey to halt the pump- 

109 of ~nta'ininated water to the two countries. ' 

In bis opening speéch Monday, Syria's parliament 

speaker Abdul- Qader Qaddoura said that 

"Syria's insistence on its water rights.is as strong as 

its Insistence on regaining its complete land". 

The symposium underscored the need to cling to 

water rights in Jordan, Golan Heights and south 

Lebanon in accordance with international law and 

agreements . 

, The symposium called for a United Arab posi- 

,tion to support water rights of Sudan and Egypt, and 

urged the Arab states to reach agreements unilater- 

'ally or collectively for water sharing. The participants 

said Arabs should take part in a meeting in 

New York on March 24 for enacting a law allowing 

the use of nonnavigable water courses. , 

The symposium was attended by representatives 

of Syria, Iraq, the Palestinian National Authority, . 

Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan, 

Libya, Morocco, Egypt and Mauritania 

the Arab League. ' ' 

The next symposium will be held in Cairo. 

as well as 

80

'" and the lobby firms got their money 

---- 

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Turkish Daily News TIlURSDAY. FEBRUARY 20,1997 

Turkey has to overhaul its 

lobbying system abroad so that 

our causes win recognition and we 

are not milked by ineffective lobbyists 

WASHINGTON 

Two American lobby firms which have 

been "serving" Turkey since the spring 

of 1996 without a written contract have, 

at last, gotten their $1 million dollar fee. 

The fuss these two companies created and the 

adverse cam{>aignthey launched against Turkey 

and Turkish mterests during the past few months 

to get their money was incredible. They even 

went to the extent of insulting this columnist and 

the Turkish Daily News, thinking that we were 

obstructing their efforts to milk the Turkish government. 

Two 

representatives (Turkish ladies whose names 

we will not publish) from each lobbying company 

met with Sabah columnist Sedat Sertollu and 

fed him a series of lies which were published in 

his column. 

Yet the truth is naked. The lobby companies 

in Washington have hardly done anything worth 

mentioning in the past few years to advance 

f~oonal 

İlnurÇevik 

Turkey's causes in the U.S. capital. They have 

acted like a clerical office for the Turkish 

Embassy and they have had to struggle ineffectively 

against a very strong Greek and Armenian 

lobby in Congress with no success. In the past 

one-and-a-half-years Turkey's causes have suffered 

serious setbacks in Washington. We could 

not even secure the delivery of frigates which 

we purchased from the U.S. and Congress is 

blocking the sale of Cobra attack helicopters to 

Turkey. 

We know well both from the Greek and 

Armenian lobbies and from independent sources 

in Washington that the general sentiment is that 

Turkey's lobby activities are so bad that it really 

does not take a great effort to hurt Turkish interests 

in Congress or anywhere else. 

Turkey's money is limited and it is valuable. 

It is taxpayers' money which should be spent 

with extreme care. That means it should not be 

wasted on ineffective lobby activities and incapable 

companies. . 

The Turkish Foreign Ministry could well set 

up a unit in Washington, as well as in Europe, to 

coordinate lobby activities on the spot and hire 

lobbyists from leading companies who specialize 

in specific issues. That may save funds for 

Turkey and make the lobbying more effective. 

Now the Turkish government and other competent 

agencies have to closely scrutinize how and 

where Turkey's money has been spent on lobbying 

activities and what has been achieved. If 

necessary, a parliamentary investigation should 

be launched. While this is goinç on we must 

continue overhaul our information and promotion 

system. 

We have no interest in lobbying. The duty of 

the Turkish Daily News is to preserit a clear and 

truthful view of Turkey to the world and also 

promote Turkey's views and causes. We are told 

everywhere (both at home and in the world) we 

are doing this in an excellent manner. 

00 

.......

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-BasznÖzeti 

.Parliament clears FM Turkisb Daily NewJ 

. . 

nlURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20;1997 

Çilleron suspect wealth 

Clean~~ The Islamist . 

partners piggyb~ck the 

foreign mini,ster ~o 

safety ~relieving her 

of her dependency on 

their protection 

Ankara- TON Parliament Bureau 

• Foreign MiDister Tansu'" , 

Çiller on Wednesday surfed to 

safety over a final opposition 

bid to send her to court over 

corruption allegations with '. 

support from Islamist government 

partners who earlier 

tabled the probe into her éontroversial 

wealth. The parliament 

also voted down a ' 

counter govermitent call for ' 

the trial of opposition leader 

Mesut Y1lmaz. ' 

But the 270-to-263 edge 

was too narrow to allow both 

Çiller and the embattled 

Islamist:.conservative coalition 

any long-term coinfort. The 

day before, coalition's numerical 

superiority in the 550- 

member legislature also saved 

Ciller from trial by the, ' 

,Supreme Court for alleged ' 

misdeeds concerning state con~ 

tracts. 

The opposition parties, on 

the other hand, remained ' 

below the critical 276 vote 

mark they need to attain to 

briilg down the government in 

next week's ballot on censure, 

motions", 

"'INHERITED FROM DADDY", 

.n. 473,llOO (WIth which I bougtIl 

apII1rMnl8, large estal8I, 

IIoaphorvsYllIa 

.. owr30yMN) 

- 'IINHERITED FROM MUMMY": 

-180 GOLD " REPUBLIC" COINS 

-s 570,000 

• • DM 6110,000 

" .n. 432,OllO,OOO 

REAL ESTATE IN U.S. 

• HOUSE, HOTEL AND COMPANIES 

'gWNED BY HUSBAND , 

, ZER WORTH S 5.5 MIWON 

The left and right-wing 

opposition parties which have 

put together a loose' secularist 

amance see Prime Minister 

Necmettin Erbakan's (Islamist) 

Welfare Party (RP) a threat for 

the country's 74-year-old secular 

state system.,Çiller " 

reversedher 0WIl hO,stilityto 

RP and set up a partnership , 

with the Islamists eight months , 

ago after her shortlived coalition 

with center-right Motherland 

Party (ANAP) collapsedwhen 

her former partner backed the 

inquiry motions RP tabled against 

her 

Ẇith Çiller' s True Path Party 

(DYP) reduced to impotency 

throuçh her dependency on 

Islanust protection, Erbakan's 

Islamists felt bold enough recently 

to test the country's constitu- , 

bonal secularism, angering the 

pro-Western military and the 

media in the process. The opposition 

parties tabledcensure 

motions against the government 

which call for confidence votes 

set for Feb. 25. 

Although in theory the coalition 

partners still enjoy an 

absolute majority, the growing 

resentment among the DYP 

deputies for the cohabitation with 

the Islamists make tests of 

strength undesirable for the shaky 

government. 

The fact that Çiller saved the 

day with a difference of only 

s~~en votes has boosted the oppo- 

SIbon hopes that they can pull the 

rug rom under the coalition by 

persuading a fewgovernment , 

deputies not ,to back the partnership 

in ~e upcoming vote oncensure 

mobons. 

' 

The opposition still has to 

muster 276 votes to unseat the 

government. 

But if the coalition partners 

themselves fail to muster the 

majority of 276, the parliamentary 

traditions call for the government's 

resigna~on. 

Gamk, 20 février 1997 

oète, dramaturge et écrivain 

, hUl\laniste kurde Musa Anter 

avait été assassiné à l'âge 

~ 74 ans le 20 septembre 

1992 à Diyarbakir où il se trouvait 

pour participer à un festival culturel. 

Sa mort avait suscité une vive émotion 

en Turquie et les autorités politiques 

avaient promis d'arrêter rapidément 

"les auteurs de ce lâche 

TURQUIE-KURDES 

Les confessions de I.un 

des assassins du poète Musa Anter 

82


assassinat" tandis que les Kurdes 

montraient du doigt l'État turc. 

Finalement, encouragé par le climat 

de déballage qui se développe 

depuis l'affaire de Susurluk, un 

dénommé Murat Ipek, dans des 

déclarations à plusieurs quotidiens 

(Radikal, Yeni Yüzyil, Özgür Politika 

et Demokrasi du 11 février) avoue 

être l'un de ses assassins. Extraits 

de. ses aveux: "Après avoir essayé 

vainement pendant toute la soirée du 

premier jour où nous avions reçu des 

instructions de l'amener d'obtenir un 

rendez-vous de Musa Anter, nous 

sommes revenus à la charge le lendemain 

avec un mot d'Alaettin Kanat 

(repenti du PKK employé par les 

escadrons de la mort de la police). 

Après un certain temps, Musa Anter 

a accepté notre demande d'entrevue 

il est venu à la réception de son hôtei 

ave~ quelqu'un (Orhan Miroglu). A la 

sortie de l'hôtel, je l'ai fait monter 

dans une voiture. Nous étions précédés 

par une voiture à bord de laquelle 

se trouvait A. Kanat et suivis d'un autre 

véhicule. A la sortie de Diyarbakir, nous 

avons bifurqué en direction d'Ergani. 

Après un certain temps, nous nous 

sommes arrêtés. A. Kanat est monté 

dans notre voiture. En le voyant, 

M~sa An.ter a compris ce qui se passait 

car Il connaissait Kanat. Il s'est 

penché la tête et s'est tu. Son compagnon 

discutait avec nous. 

Notre voiture s'est engagée 

dans la route de Silvan. Après un 

moment, on s'est arrêté. Kanat a pris 

le bras de Musa Anter. Anter nous a 

dit alors: "les enfants, vous faites une 

erreur'. Ils étaient devant, nous les 

suivions. Après avoir marché quelque 

temps, nous avons reçu le signal. A. 

Kanat a tiré la première balle dans la 

tête de Musa Anter. Puis, à notre 

tour, nous avons tiré. Anter a été tué 

de 4 balles et Miroglu s'est mis à fuir, 

nous avons tiré dans sa direction. 

Les sentinelles d'un camp militaire 

proche ont tiré en l'air. Pris de 

.panique, nous sommes montés dans 

notre voiture et nous avons repris la 

route de Silvan. Nous nous sommes 

arrêtés devant la Faculté de médecine 

de l'université Dicle. Après un bref 

intervalle, des policiers en civil sont 

venus à bord d'un minibus rouge. 

Nous sommes montés dans le minibus 

et les policiers Of.'ltpris notre voiture. 

Puis, nous nous sommes éloignés 

des lieux. Nous avons au total 

utilisé trois véhicules pour cette opération. 

L'un d'eux était volé, les deux 

autres appartenaient à l'armée. Nos 

armes étaient fournies par la police". 

Affirmant appartenir à un escadron 

de 22 tueurs dirigé par A. Kanat, 

qui reçoit lui-même ses ordres de 

"Yesil" responsable de JITEM et du 

super-préfet régional, M. Ipek donne 

les détails suivants sur quelquesunes 

des opérations auxquelles il a 

participé: "Après le Newroz (NDLR. 

Le nouvel an kurde célébré le 21 

mars) de 1992 Ünal Erkan (NDLR. 

Super-préfet régional) était venu à 

Sirnak. La population était rassemblée 

dans le stadium. Puis, il a 

demandé "qui sont les meneurs de 

ces événements ?". Les policiers ont 

répondu: Biseng Anik. "Faites-le disparaître" 

a-t-il ordonné. 

Et comme je venais 

d'être recruté, 

ils ont voulu me mettre 

à l'épreuve en me 

confiant cette mission. 

Le domicile de 

B. Anik est devant la 

mosquée. Avec des. 

policiers en civil, nous sommes allés 

le chercher. Au commissariat, ils l'ont 

torturé. Ils ont taillé son dos et la 

plante de ses pieds avec des lames 

de rasoir. On m'a donné un fusil G3 

se trouvant au commissariat et j'ai 

tué B. Anik avec une seule balle tirée 

dans sa tête avec ce fusil. Quelques 

mois plus tard, le 18 août ~992, nous 

avons exécuté l'avocat A. Rahim 

Demir et Mehmet Ertak. Le directeur 

départemental de la Sûreté N. 

Altintas nous avait dit que le frère 

aîné de M. Ertak était dans le maquis 

et qu'il fallait de ce fait le tuer. Nous 

l'avons embarqué dans un Panzer et 

l'amené en dehors de la ville près de 

la mine de charbon où nous l'avons 

débarqué et tué. Puis, nous l'avons 

vêtu d'une tenue de guérillero, mis une 

Kalashnikov entre ses mains et annoncé 

que nous venions de tuer un terroriste". 

M. lpek affirme que son chef direct 

A. Kanat vit actuellement dans le secteur 

résidentiel militaire de Diyarbakir. Il 

est au service du capitaine de gendarmerie 

Ersin Becaksiz qui commande 

aussi à un autre escadron de la mort 

dirigé par un certain Cemil. C'est cet 

escadron qui a enlevé le 1er octobre 

1996 quatre instituteurs du village 

Hantepe qu'il a sommairement assassinés 

ajoute-toi!. Ce quadruple assassinat, 

survenu le jour même dù lancement 

de la campagne d'Amensty 

International sur les violations des 

droits de l'homme en Turquie, avait été 

attribué par Ankara au PKK qui l'avait 

aussitôt rejeté. Les organisations 

turques des droits de l'homme avaient 

été empêchées par les autorités de 

mener une enquête indépendante sur 

cette affaire. 

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY Il, 1997 

~ 

Saddam' s Clan Is Reeling 

From Blows and Threats 

Signs of Disruption 

Grow After Attack on Son 

AMMAN, Jordan - Udai Hussein, 

32, the eldest son and heir-apparent of 

President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. 

,wheeled his expensive car into Baghdad's 

plush Mansour district shortly 

after sundown two months ago, pulling 

up a few hundred yards from Iraqi intelligence 

headquarters. 

He knew the neighborhood intim- 

83


aiely. Mansour's shopping boulevards 

were regular backdrops to the brutal,: 

hard-drinking nightlife that left reports 

.of rapes and shootings in his wake. This 

:night, Dec. 12,there was a difference: 

The blood to be shed would be Udai's. 

Two gunmen in jogging suits and 

helmets, somehow pinpointing Udai' s 

whereabouts at a vulnerable moment 

appeared .beside his car. Accor


INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1997 

Secular Turks Are Alarmed 

By Resurgence of Religion 

Mehmet Ali Kislali/fhe New York Times 

Students lea,'ing an Islamic school in Konya, Turkey. Many Turks fear the secular state is being undermined. 

By Stephen KinZer 

N~w YorkTim~! S~",jc~ 

SINCAN, Turkey - Scenes that unfolded 

in this working-class suburb of 

Ankara over the last few days have 

stunnedmillions of Turks who want to 

believe that their country, even thou~h it 

is now governed by an Islamist pnme 

minister. will remain a secular democracy. 

On one recent evening. several hundred 

people jammed a hall in Sincan to 

celebrate "Jerusalem Day," a holiday 

proclaimed 17 years ago by Ayatollah 

Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran. Their host 

was the local mayor, and the evening's 

guest of honor was the Iranian ambassador. 

Muhammed Reza Bagheri. 

When Mr. Bagheri arrived. the crowd 

erupted with chants of "Down with 

Israel! Down with Arafat!" He then 

stepped to the podium and delivered a 

fiery speech demanding that Muslims 

obe~ the Sharia, the law of the Koran. 

• On behalf of Muslims all over the 

world, I say that we can wait no longer," 

the ambassador declared. "Do not be 

afraid to call yourselves fundamentalists. 

Fundamentalists are those who follow 

the words and actions of the Prophet. 

God has promised them the final 

victory," 

Tensions between religious and secular 

Turks have been rising in recent 

months, and the Sincan episode convinced 

senior military officers. who 

view themselves as defenders of the 

secularist ideology that has guided Turkey 

since 1923. that it was time to 

85


fundamentalism like the one in Sincan, 

have led many Turks to fear that the 

respond. They ordered tanks to roll secular identity of their country is being 

through Sincan' s streets, a clear warning threatened. Many others ~ it is imthat 

their patience is weating thin. possible to know how many - welcome 

[A Turkish security court on the moves. 

Thursday charged the mayor, Baldr At the heart of secularist fears is the 

Yildiz, with serious public order of- realization that their ideology haSnot yet 

fenses for organizing the anti-Israeli taken full hold in the heartS of Turks. It 

protest, Reuters reported, quoting the has been just 74 years since Mustafa 

Anatolian news agency.] 

Kemal Ataturk proclaimed the doctrine; 

After hurried consultations between now known as Kemalism, that TUrkey 

officials in Ankara and Tehran, Turkish should be a Western-oriented republic in 

officials said Mr. Bagheri would soon which religion plays no public role. That 

give up his post and return home. is a short time compared with the cen- 

Turkey is on edge these days. After turies during which Turks were subjects 

eight months in power, the Muslim- of a theocratic empire. 

oriented Welfare Party has begWl to take As a result, secularists fear that giving' 

steps that many Turks fear are 'aimed at Turks full freedom of choice in deterundermining 

the secular state. 

mining the role of religion. in public life 

Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan might open the way to the Islamization 

has backed away from his most militant of society. 

, campaign promises. He no longer talks "This country has a past, and it) a bit 

of expelling U.S. troops or cutting ties to naive not to understand what that 

Israel. But he evidently now feels strong means, " said Sermet Atacanli, a spokesenough 

to press ahead with other plans man for the Foreign Ministry, which is a 

that, taken together, strike secularist strong bastion of Turkish seculari~m. 

Turks as little short of terrifying: "Christians had a period of brutal 

• He is urging the construction of a fanaticism, but 'you also had your Bakir Yildiz, Islamist mayor orSinlarge 

mosque in Istanbul- in Taksim Renaissance," he said. "You have had can, in a police car after his arrest. 

Square, the cosmopolitan heart of mod- hundreds of years to distance yourself 

em Turkey - and another in the from religious extremism, so now when secular system can withstand,' Mr. 

Cankaya quarter of Ankara, where the your president puts his hand on the Bible Erbakan 's rule. Some believe that he is 

presidential palace, a cornmanding sym- to take the oath of office you don't see at heart a conciliator who wln never try 

bol of secularism, is now the most im- anything' wrong. But in Turkey." our " to push the country too f~ towlifd funportant 

building. Renaissance began with Ataturk. We damentalism. " 

• He wants ,to repeallaws that forbid need time to let these ideas take hold." Others consider him a radical deterwomen 

who are civil servants and stu- Debate over these issues has come to mined to chip away auhe foundations of 

dentsat public universities to wear veils dominate public discourse in Turkey, secularism until the system collapses. , 

or head scarves. raisingsensitive issues that many people Whatever thetruth, Mr. Erbakan has 

• He has built a, corps of uniformed here ha:ve never before confronted. shown himself to,be a shrewd politic! .~" 

Welfare .earty bodyguards and hàs be- UA veil is liftiIig in Turkey," said a who knows when' it istime to retrt.'.lt. 

gun to relyon them rather than on gov- foreign ,resident of Ankara who is a Apparentlyalaimed by the reaction to 

emmentsecurity agents. ,specialis~ in Islamic" ideol


Sea and.the divided island ofCypros. 

The Eurocopter deal to build 30 Cougar 

helicopters from 1999 to 2002 is part 

of an effort to foster Turkey's domestic 

defense industry and reach ambitious targets. 

for development of the armed 

forees. 

Tur.key' s . state defense company 

Turkish Aerospace Indusbies, aild other possibilities will be created for our industry," 

Defense Minister Turhan Tay- 

Turkish concerns will account for 30 

percent of the $430 million deal with han said at the signing ceremony. 

Eurocopter, owned by French state-ron In a separate $113 million deal with 

Aer~patiale and Germany's Daimler- Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United 

Benz Aerospace. 

Technology, the Turkish Navy will buy 

"In this way, technology will be acquired. 

savings wi.ll be made aRd work over three years. 

four Sikorsky Sea Hawk helicopters 

~ • • • L:J 

Turkish Dairy News FRIDAY,FEBRUARY2I,I997 

General Çevik Bir to discuss 

'Northern Watch' with IodaI 

Turkey to insist on "reciprocity" while 

Rahmi Koç lobbies ~en. Sarbanes 

Washington- Turklsh Dally News 

• Deputy Chief of Turkish General Staff Gen. Çevik Bir 

arrived in Washington accompanied br a delegation of 

senior Turkish officers to discuss a senes of bilateral 

defense issues with U.S. Administration officials. 

When Gen. Bir meets with his counterpart Jan Lodal, 

U.S. Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for 

International Security Affairs, on to~ of Bir's agenda will 

be Turkey's concerns re~arding the 'OperationNorthem 

Watch (ONW)," accordin$ to an infonned TON source. 

Among the senior officiaIs that accompany Bir are 

National Security Council . 

Secretary Gen. Dhan Kilic and 

V. Adm. A)'dan Brol, Chief.of 

Staff, Turkish Navy. 

ONW is the air-cover 

umbrella over northern Iraq 

which replaced Operation 

Provide Comfort. ONW denies 

access to Saddam Hussein's 

forces north of the' 36th 'paràl-. 

leI. The allied jets Uiai enforce 

the air umbrella fly out of bases 

in Turkey. Turkey, which in 

theory supports Iraq's territorial 

integrity and wants to maintain 

friendly ties with Baghdad, 

finds itself in the uncomtOrt- 

ÇevIc BIr 

able position of supporting an 

operation which effectively challenges Iraqi sovereignty in 

northern part of the country. 

ONWforWMD 

TON learned that Iraq officials were told in private by 

Turkish officials that If Iraq tndy gets rid of all of its 

weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Turkey would lobby 

actively for the dissolution of Operation Northern Watch. 

Yet the UN special commission (UNSCOM) charged 

with monitoring of such WMD sites in Iraq reported 

recently that Baghdad was still not coming through clean 

and was still hiding a part of its WMD program from UN 

inspectors. 

Reciprocity andF.18 training 

Gen. Bir will reportedly insist Turkey be treated in accordance 

with the "reciprocity" principle in return for 

Ankara's support for ONW. 

I. Within that context, Turkey' s complaints about the F-16 

pdot training will be brought to the attention of Pentagon 

officials, 'IDN sources said. Specifically, the recent $35 

million increase in the cost of F-16 pilot training is expectcd 

to be made an i~ the Turkish delegation. Gen. Bir 

will reportedly ask both to drop the cost of F-16 

training and to increase the number of Turkish pilots 

undergoing such a training. The total number of Turkey's 

trained F-16 pilots is estimated to be aroun



FRIDAY,FEBRUARY:2I,I997 

PKK threatens 

aggression at 

N. Iraq border 

Ankara- Turkish Dally News 

• The head of the outlawed 

Kurdistan Workers' 

Party (PKK) has threatened 

to carry out aggressive 

action against the 

Kurdistan Democratic 

Party (KDP) in Iraq unless 

the KDP gives the PKK its 

share of revenues collected 

from vehicles passing 

through one of the checkpoints 

at the borderwith 

Turkey, the Anatolia news 


The PKK has reportedly 

been collecting from the 

KDP revenues in return for 

remaining .an "obedient 

child" in the region. But 

.Anatolia said the rebel 

.grouphas,recently been 

dissatisfied with the 

amount it is receiving and 

has requested that this be 

doubled. The KDP, which 

is controlling Iraq' s border 

with Turkey, has been 

gathering so-called "taxes" 

from truck drivers who 

enter the embargoed country 

to transport small quantities 

of oil to the northern 

neighbor. 

Revenue collection has 

been the greatest source of 

conflict between the rival 

Kurdish groups in northern 

Iraq, the KDP and the 

Patriotic Union of 

Kurdistan (PUK), affording 

Turkey's separatist 

Kurds more freedom to act 

in the region. 

PKK leader Abdullah 

"Apo" Öcalan reportedly 

sent written orders to the 

organization' s regional 

heads. One set of directives 

was seized ,by 

Turkish security forces. 

The PKK'swritten 

order says the traffic passing 

through the site known 

as the Halil tbrahim border 

gate has tripled, as have 

revenues, and, thus, the' 

share given to the PKK 

should be increased. If this 

doesnot occur, the separatist 

rebels ,will: take;' 

action along the strategic 

points of the border, the 

message says. While offi-. 

eials from the Halil 

Ibrahim border gate avoided 

comment, KDP sources 

said that they had not 

received any such message 

to date. Meanwhile, bus 

drivers speaking to 

Anatolia claimed that the 

PKK was collecting 

money last year but that 

this year they were unable 

to establish control 

through these routes. 

-Le Monde - venredi, 21 février 1997 -Le Monde - venredi, 21 février 1997 

Le Parlement turc 

disculpe Mme Ciller 

Lesdéputés ont refusé 

la comparution de l'ancien premier ministre 

devant la Cour suprême 

ANKARA 

de notre correspondante 

Tansu Ciller, ministre des af- 

.faires étrangères, ancien premier 

ministre, peut désormais envisager 

son avenir politique avec plus 

de sérénité: l'Assemblée nationale 

turque s'est prononcée 

contre sa comparution devant la. 

Cour suprême pour corruption. A 

trois reprises au çours des deux 

derniers jours, le Parlement a 

confirmé les conclusions äes 

commissions qui avaient enquêté 

sur d'éventuelles malversations 

dans l'administration de la 

compagnie d'électricité Tedas ainsi 

que lors de la vente de parts 

étatiques de la compagnie automobile 

Tofas. L'Assemblée natio- 

:naie a égaiement conclu que la 

•fortune considérable d~..MmeCil- 

NE PAS" POLITISER LA LATel1t » 

Lancées l'an dernier par le parti 

de M. Erbakan, qui s'était prononcé 

aveç.un bel ensemble en faveur 

de l'ouverture de ces enquêtes 

. 'pour le bien d'une Turquie «plus 

propre» .alors qu'il était encore 

dans röpposition, ces accusations 

port du foulard dans les universi- 

Un cc téléphone rouge }} 

entre Athènes et Ankara. 

ont été rejetées ces jours-ci avec La Grèce s'est montrée favoune 

même unité par les députés rabie, mercredi 19février, à finsdu 

RF, qui ont désormais intérêt à taIlation d'un «téléphone rouge» 

protéger leur partenaire pour as. entre Athènes, Ankara et le siège 

surer la poursuite de la coalition. de l'OTAN,proposée par les diri- 

La discussion a également pero; geants de fAlliance pour prévenir 

mis de prendre la température de toute crise gréco-turque. La mise 

jer,qili possède notamment de rAssemblée avant le débat, la seen place d'une telle ligne pourrait 

nombreuses.propriétés et terrains maine prochaine, sur les motions. «jouer un rôle positif», a déclaré 

'en Turquie et aux Etats-Unis, de censure déposées par les partis le porte-parole du gouvernement 

.IÙlvait pas été accumulée de fa- d'opposition.llest apparu que les grec, Dlmltris Reppas. Le projet, 

çbn illégale. opposants au gouvernement ac-entre les deux capitales et 

't:esrésultats, qui ne réhabilite-. tuel ont peu de chances d'obtenir Bruxelles, a été soumis mardi par 

ront pas MmeCiller aux yeux de les 276 voix nécessaires pour 'ten- le secrétaire. générai de l'OTAN, 

ceux qui l'accusent d'avoir trahi .verser la coalition. Malgré le mé- Javier Solana, au secrétaire d'Etat 

ses, promesses en formant une '.contentement de certains de ses grec aux Affaires étrangères, Yancoalition 

avec les islamistes du députés face à l'activisme accru. nos Kranidiotis, selon la presse 

Parti de la prospérité (RP) de Nec- .du Rp, MmeCiller a confirmé pour grecque. M. Solana est attendu fin 

mettin Erbakan, n'ont pas surpris: isa part que «ce gouvernement vq février à Athènes, après une visite 

Les procédures engagées contre continuer ». EUe a également de- au début du mois à Ankara, dans 

J'ancien premier ministre se sont mandé à ceux qui accusent le gou- une tentative de l'OTAN de .réperdues 

dans le jeu politique et vernement de politiser la religionduire la tension entre ses deux 

n'ayaient plus vraiment pour ob- de ne pas à leur tour «politiser Ici membres ennemis. L'Installation 

jectlf d'établir ou de démentir la laïcité ». d'une ligne rouge entre Athènes et 

véracité des rumeurs qui circulent Les proposjtions faites durant le Ankara figurait parmi les mesures 

sur les affaires financières de la mois du ramadan 'par le premier de confiance sur lesquelles les 

famille Ciller et d'autres politi-ministre Erbakan, qui envisageait gouvernements grec et turc 

ciens turcs d'ailleurs. la .levée de rinterdiction ~urle s'étaient_accordés ~n 1989, mais 

88

'accident 


non appUquées 

jusque-Ià. - (AEP.) 

tés et la fonction publique et qui. 

prévoyait la construction de 

grandes mosquées à Istanbul et à 

Ankara, ont soulevé un tollé de 

protestations de la part des défenseurs 

de la laicité, et notamment 

de l'armée, qui n'a pas caché son 

irritation. 

Depuis lors la «poussée de 

fièvre)Os'est quelque peu calmée 

bien que le débat sur la laièitc! 

continue. «Erbakan a mis en veilleuse 

ses suggestions, qui étaient 

plus des ballons d'essai que de véritables 

projets de rqormes », estime 

un diplomate qui n'envisage pas 

la chute du gouvernement dan! 

l'immédiat: «L'opposition n'est 

pas encore mûre pour une alternative 

crédible. » 

Nicole Pope 

La Lettre de l'UGAB 

ISSN n. 1~"9.27IX 

FEUILLETON 

Nouvelles déclarations, nouvelles révélations, plus de trois mois après l'accident de Susurluk 

La fin de l'ASALAest-elle l'œuvre de la «bande à ÇatIi)), 

ou le résultat des dissensions internes à l'organisation ? 

L 

de Susurluk charrie décidément un not intaris. 

sable de révélations • et parfois des plus contradictoires ., 

plus de trois mois après les faits. Les feux de l'actualité sont 

braqués cette semaine en Turquie sur le démantèlement de 

l'ASALA, l'organisation clandestine arménienne, dont le leader, 

Hagop Hagopian, a été assassiné en avril 1988 à Athènes. Un pre. 

mier article, renfermant le témoignage d'Ömer Bekar, un proche 

d'Abdullah Çalli, tend tout en apportant de nouvelles révélations à 

confirmer le rôle décisif qu'auraient joué Abdullah Çalli et sa 

bande dans le processus de destruction de l'ASALA; un autre, en 

revanche, exclut quasiment ceUe possibilité, pour remeUre sur le 

tapis la thèse la plus répandue à l'époque, celle d'une dislocation 

née de la scission survenue en 1983 entre les partisans d'Hagop 

Hagopian et ceux de Monte Melkonian. Où est la vérité? 

La presse turque s' est fait l'écho (I) ces jours-ci des déclarations 

,J'ul1."l'rfain n'11er Rebr run dl" ami, Noche' .1" \hdullah Calli. ,clon 

lesquelles ce dernier aurait perpétré un attentat manqué, en 1984 à Paris, 

sur la personne d' "U11 des dirigeants de l'ASALA», Ara Toranian. Ömer 

Bekar a affirmé que la police française a déjoué l'entreprise de sabotage. 

empêchant la bombe placée à l'intérieur de la voiture d'Ara Toranian 

d'exploser. Par la suite, la police française a interpellé Abdullah Çatli, 

sous l'accusation fabriquée de toutes pièces, selon Ömer Bekar, de trafic 

de drogue. car Çatli était un "homme de convictions», qui n'avait «rien 

à voir am' le milieu de la drogue». 

Selon Ömer Bekar, Çatli a été arrêté en 1984 dans un café. situé 

juste en face de la pâtisserie fréquentée habituellement par Ara 

Toranian, place de la Nation. C'est Çatli qui a posé à l'intérieur de la 

voiture d'Ara Toranian stationnée près de la pâtisserie la bombe que la 

police désamorcera par la suite. Quinze jours plus tard. Çatli sera arrêté, 

après que la police eût trouvé de la drogue dans la boîte à lettres de son 

domicile du 44-50, avenue Victor Hugo. Pour Ömer Bekar, il est évident 

qu'il s'a~it là d'un coup monté par la police françai~e. 

L'un des camarades de classe d'Abdullah Çatli a ajouté pour 

sa part qu'Oral Celik (2) et Abdullah Çatli ont rejeté les offres de 

collaboration proposées par les services de renseignements français. 

La même personne prétend que ce sont Celik et Çatli qui ont 

mis tin aux actions de l'ASALA. 

L'ASALA minée par ses conflits internes 

Mais cette thèse a aussi ses détracteurs en Turquie. L' hebdomadaire 

turc Nokta (3) consacre le sujet principal de son édition 

de cette semaine à l'histoire de la dislocation de l'ASALA. 

S'appuyant sur les témoignages de deux militants turcs de gauche 

- dont le nom n'est pas révélé -, qui ont vécu de longues années 

durant aux côtés des membres de l'organisation clandestine, dans 

les camps de la plaine de la Bekaa, Saynur Cetiner soutient la 

thèse selon laquelle Abdullah Çatli et Oral Celik n'ont pas du 

tout joué le rôle prépondérant qu'on leur reconnait depuis l'accident 

de Susurluk dans le processus de dislocation de l'ASALA. 

L'auteur de l'article estime que cette dernière était déjà détruite 

"de l'intérieur, sans l'aide d'aucune intervention extérieure. 

Mme Tansu Ciller avait qualifié récemment Abdullah Çatli 

~e «héros national ayant uiilisé des armes pour le compte de 

.l'Etat». mais faut-il pour autant attrihuer la paternité de la destruclion 

de rASALA à Oral Celik et Abdullah Çatli? Rien n'est 

moins sûr. Certains prétendent que le numéro un de l'ASALA. 

Hagop Hagopian, a été tué par un officier du MIT (Ndir: les services 

secrets turcs); d'autres témoins oculaires affirment au 

contraire qu' Hagopian a été tué par l'un de ses opposants à l' intérieur 

de l'organisation; enfin, certains pensent que le FBI a joué 

un rôle dans la destruction de l'ASALA. 

Nokta indique seulement à propos des deux militants turcs. 

qu'ils ont fui la Turquie après le coup d'Etat du 12 septembre 

1980, pour se réfugier dans les camps palestiniens, ce qui leur a 

permis d'entretenir des liens très étroits avec les militants de 

l'ASALA. 

L'un des deux témoins turcs affirme que cette époque coïncide 

avec l'apparition des dissensions à l'intérieur de l'organisation, 

sur le bien-fondé de la ligne dure prônée par Hagopian. Ce 

témoin affirme que lui et ses amis discutaient souvent de cette 

question avec les membres de l'ASALA. 

Les allégations sur l'action de Çatli et Celik contre 

l'ASALA sont «dénuées de tout fondement», selon lui. Il affirme 

que nombre de membres de l'ASALA ont été «très sensibles» à 

ses opinions ainsi qu'à celles de ses camarades turcs. Ces 

89

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê':'Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Bastn Özeti 

membres ont donc décidé un jour de former un groupe dissident, 

sous l'influence conjuguée de ces militants turcs et d'Ara 

Toranian, le dirigeant du Mouvement National Arménien 

(MNA), basé en France, qui s'était prononcé contre la ligne dure 

d'Hagopian. . . 

C'est ainsi qu'un mouvement démocratique s'est formé au 

sein de l'ASALA, dirigée par Hagop Hagopian, un homme «très 

dun>. Le numéro deux de l'organisation était «le dirigeant de la 

branche militaire», Monte Melkonian, ayeclequelle témoin turc 

affirme avoir eu des relations «très chaleureuses». 

Progressivement, Monte Melkonian va commencer à défendre 

.une position opposée à la ligne dure. 

Monte Melkonian a mis du temps à oublier sa méfiance à 

l'égard des camarades turcs, due à leur origine. Mais les doutes' 

ont fini' par se dissiper, ce qui a permis à ces derniers d'expliquer 

aux militants arméniens sur quels points ils se trompaient à leurs 

yeux. 

A ce moment-là, la lutte entre Hagop Hagopian et ses opposants 

s'est intensifiée: Hagop Hagopian a envoyé deux de ses 

hommes tuer Monte Melkonian, mais les lieutenants de ce dernier 

ont pu faire échouer l'attentat. Il n'empêche que quatre 

• membres de l'ASALA ont payé de leur vie ces querelles internes. ! 

Les partisans de Monte Melkonian ont décidé de s'unir au MNA 

d'Ara Toranian, pour déplacer leur lutte du terrain militaire à 

celui de la politiqùe, 

Hagop Hagopian a alor~ mené lin comhat cnnlre Je- TlIrc~ 

devenus les amis de Monte Melkonian, ac~ûsés d'être des 

«agents du MIT». C'est ainsi qu'un ou deux de ces Turcs ont été 

arrêtés, avant d'être relâchés, deux jours plus tard, à la demande 

:des autres membres de l'organisation, Hagop Hagopian n'a pu 

s'y opposer, car il avait déjà perdu l'essentiel de son poids. 

Lorsque le chef de l'organisation clandestine se faisait assassiner, 

en avril 1988, à Athènes, il ne comptait plus que trois ou 

quatre personnes parmi ses partisans, qui ne formaient déjà plus 

qu'un groupe marginal. En 1993, l'ASALA avait virtuellement 

cessé d'exister. 

Pendant ce temps-là, Monte Melkonian s'engageait sur le 

front du Haut-Karabagh, en qualité de commandant en chef des 

forces arméniennes pour la région de Mardouni. 

Conclusion des témoins turcs: Oral Celik et Abdullah Çatli 

sont «blancs comme neige» dans cette «affaire» de la destruction 

de l'ASALA. Toutes les allégations du style «Nous sommes allés 

jusqu'au Liban, nous avons détruit l'ASALA, nous avons réglé le 

problème Hagopian», n'étaient donc que «pures fanfaronnades». 

Faisant lui aussi part de ses observations, le deuxième 

témoin turc rappelle que l'on vivait une période très particulière à 

l'époque dans la Bekaa : il affirme catégoriquement qu' «aucun 

membre de services secrets étrangers n'avait la possibilité de 

pénétrer» à l'intérieur d'organisations telles que l'ASALA, Le. 

MIT et ses membres ne pouvaient voir la Bekaa «qu'en rêves». 

Et de citer les témoins de la scission de l'ASALA : Ara Toranian, 

le chef spirituel de l'Eglise arménienne de Damas et la branche 

iranienne de l'ASALA, sans oublier l'organisation palestinienne 

d'Abou Nidal (Ndir: Fatah-Conseil Révolutionnaire, opposé à la 

ligne de Yasser Arafat), témoin privilégié du conflit entre les partisans 

de Melkonian et ceux d'Hagopian, ces derniers travaillant 

.main dans la main avec les militants d'Abou Nidal. Durant le 

conflit qui a.suivi la scission, les partisans de Melkonian ont 

trouvé refuge dans l'Eglise arménienne de Damas: mais les 

hommes d'Abou Nidal oill mené une attaque contre cette église, 

pour en déloger les hommes de Melkonian. Parmi eux l'on comptait 

des camarades des deux témoins turcs, lesquels seront transférés 

dans le camp d'Abou Nidal. 

. C'est dans la «stupéfaction générale» que l'on accueillit 

dans la Bekaa la nouvelle de la présence de Turcs parmi .les pers~nnes 

ro:êt.ées. C'est sur l'insistance de l'organisation pales tintenn~, 

amsl que sur celle des nombreuses organisations turques 

. travaillant dans cette région, que les Turcs ont été relâchés. 

Hagop Hagopian s'est retrouvé «tout seul face à cette résistance 

massive». Abou Nidal a libéré les Turcs, mais pas les piutisans de 

Monte Melkonian, dont il a même fusillé deux membres. Le 

. témoin turc ajoute avec force détails que la montre de l'un d'eux 

.est toujours en sa possession. ' 

Hagopian leur avait d'ailleurs fait subir un interrogatoire 

a;ant leur exécution, au cours duquel il put leur arracher pas mal 

d «aveux». Les «repentis» reconnaissaient qu'ils avaient travaillé 

pour le MIT, et demandaient pardon au peuple arménien. 

A cette époque, Melkonian travaillait dans la Bekaa à la 

libération de ses camarades. D'autre part, il entretenait une relati~n 

~vec Ara Toranian. Dans les premiers jours consécutifs à la 

SCls.slOn: Hagopian s'était rendu dans le camp de Fetihi, où il 

aVait meme eu une entrevue avec les témoins turcs. Il leur a 

adressé des «menaces très dures», en raison de leur soutien affic~é 

à Melkonian. Les Turcs lui ont répondu qu'ils cherchaient 

Simplement à établir des «relations d'amitié chaleureuses» . 

C~la n'a pas été facile de convaincre Hagop Hagopian, qui 

pensaIt que les Turcs marchaient «de concert avec Monte 

M.elkonian». C'était un «maladépsychique», qui ne cessait de 

dire que les Turcs travaillaient avec le MIT. . 

. C'est. au printemps 1983 que la scission est apparue au grand 

Jour au sem de l'ASALA. Melkonian et ses amis sont allés s' installer 

à D~~iiS, car, ils n'o~t pu trouver de camp palestinien pour 

les accueillir. Apres le depart de Melkonian, Hagopian a commencé 

à dire partout que la main du MIT se cachait derrière ces 

événements, 

Il \OUlall ainSI prouver que Melkonian tm'aillait pour le 

MIT. Ce sont ces cafouillages


d'aurresfacettes de l'histoire de /'ASALA, .. , 

(I~-02.97), quoti- 

Il) D'après Hara/eh (15/16-02-97), tiré lit Mamwra 

dien des Annéniens de Turquie. 

i~) Voir ses rélélations publiées dans notre édition de la semaine dernière 

(n' 162, 15-02-97). 

13) D'après Harareh. tiré de Mamwra (17-02.97). 


MONDAY,FEBRUARY24,l997 

Gen. Bir repeats call for civilian help to beat terror 

Gül, Tayan, Oymen wrap up 

the week' s proceedings 

UGURAKINCI 

Washington- Turkish Dally News 

• Undcrlining an analytically significant 

distinction between "the terrorist" and "the 

terror," Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. Çevik 

Bir repeated his call for civilian contribution 

to solve the terror problem in the form 

of Illorc schools, jobs, roads, and hospitals 

to the underdeveloped region. 

"Turkish Armed Forces are giving the 

fight against the terrorists. But only state 

can fight against terror in general, by 

investing in the region," Bir said during a 

press conference he held on Saturday. 

"If all institutions of the society place 

top priority on the region, terror would 

vaOlsh since it would be denied any structural 

grounds for recruitment into the terrorist 

organizations," he said. 

First message 

In the last day of American Turkish 

Council's annual convention in 

Washington, Bir confronted head on the 

arguments that he should not have aired his 

message in Washington but perhaps in 

Ankara. "We are here to deliver a messa~e. 

If I don't do it here, where can 1do 

it? ' he retorted. 

Bir explained the first message he delivcred 

to the U.S. authorities as follows: 

"Turkey is surrounded by the 'Bemiuda 

Triangle' of Balkans, Caucasus and the 

Middle East. Given such threats, we are 

about to launch a IO-year Sl50-billion dollars 

project to modernize Turkish Armed 

Forces (TAF). If we can protect ourselves, 

Ihcn we can contrihute to regional peace 

and stability, and thus, to the world peace." 

"All our military infrastructure is tied to 

Ihal of the United States. Therefore, if we 

can't openly deliver this message to the 

Americans, to whom else can we deliver 

it?" Bir asked. 

Second message 

Bir, in a ralher off-handed manner, also 

touched upon a second message that he 

apparently deliv'ered to his American counterparts: 

"We also told them that Turkey is 

a secular country and will continue to stay 

as one," he said. 

When Bir was invited to explain the differences 

between the implementation of 

secularism in Turkey and the United States, 

Bir declined to do so saying if he did that 

he would really be drawn into the thick of 

politics. 

Military politics 

Replying criticism that the military should 

not be involve~ i,n,':po,l.it\~s:~.~~f..~a!d,':y~~ 

can't really separate irulitary from [any and 

all] politics, that would not be correct, 

since we always engage in military political 

analysis ~ apart from the analysis performed 

by the Foreign ministry." 

"When, for example, we state that 

Turkey is surrounded by a 'Bermuda 

Triangle' of regional threats, we are engaging 

in military political assessment. We 

are also the sons of this country. We are 

also Turkish citizens. Thus 'there is nothing 

wrong with us thinking about such issues 

as welI," Bir said. 

NATO expansion - 

new approach 

On NATO expansion, Gen. Bir, echoing 

the new approach of Turkish ,Foreign 

Ministry. displayed a sophistlcated departure 

from Turkey's earli~r thre~ts to ."veto" 

he expansion unless she IS admttted lOto 

the European Union (EU) as a full member 

Ṫhe new approach. as voiced in 

Washington by Gen. Bir, Minister of . 

National Defense TurhanTayan, Foreign 

Ministry Undersecretary Onur Öymen as 

well as State Minister Abdullah GUI can 

be summarized as follows: Turkey is for 

the expansi9n of All European insti~utions. 

and not only that of NATO. Thus SlOce 

Turkey is supporting the expansion of 

NATO it only makes sense that others 

also support Turkey's membership in an 

expanding EU. 

Number One Item 

Aftq identifying Turkey's 

EU member- 

91


ShlPJl.Snumber one foreign policy agen~~ 

item, Undersecretary Öymen noted that If 

NATO's old adversaries are today trying 

tojoin NATO, that is quite.~n accomplishment 

for the Alliance ~ and Turkey, as an 

important ally, has a share in this accomplishment.", 

" ", ,,' , 

• Yet"duri~kJi .P~~~~~~9"fe,~e~c;e: h~'~ëld , 

on SàttJr


Gamk, 24/25 février 1997 

00 

éposant devant la Commissante 

du Colonel Turkes) tandis que sa 

branche policière a été placée sous la' 

sion d'enquête parlementai.- 

• 

re, le 4 février, Hanefi AVCI, 

direction d'Ibrahim Sahin. Cette organisation 

a progressivement échappé au 

vice-présidentdu Bureau du 

contrôle de l'autorité politique. Elle s'est 

Renseignementde la Direction 

générale de la Sûreté, a fait d~~ 

mise à coopérer avec des organisarévélations 

importantes sur ce qu Il 

~ions criminelles illégales. Après avoir 

combattu le PKK dans le Sud-Est, ces 

appelle lui-mêm~ "l'organis~tion "extrajudiciaire 

de l'Etat". Extraits: . Nous 

gens ont étendu leurs activités à 

l'Ouest du pays dans des affaires 

avons réalisé qu'on ne pouvait aller 

'nulle part dans la lutte contre la terreur 

mafieuses et crapuleuses". Pour illustrer 

son propos, M. Avci cite le général 

en restant dans le cadre du Droit. Pour 

Kuçuk qui a formé dans la région de 

cette raison, nous avons été conduits ~ 

Mer Noire "des groupes qui rançonnent 

créer une organisation hors Droit 

les gens" et le baron de la mafia 

(extrajudiciaire) en vue de comba~re la 

Alaettin Çakici qui a pu, grâce à l'entremise 

de l'époux de Mme. Çiller, créer 

terreur et de recueillir des renseignements. 

Nous avons opté pour la règle 

d'anéantir la terreur par les méthodes 

une banque avec un homme d'affaires 

de Bursa (Ndt. Les barons de la mafia, 

des terroristes. Cette décision a, été 

prise aux échelons supérieurs de l'~tat. 

Les principaux chefs de cette organisation 

extrajudiciaire étaient Mehmet Agar 

(directeur général de la Sûreté) pou~la 

police, Mehmet Eymür pour le ~e~.lce 

des renseignements (MIT, dont Il dirige 

le Bureau de contre-terreur), le commandant 

Ersever pour les services de 

renseignements et d'action de la gendarmerie 

(JITEM) et le général Ve~i 

Kuçuk pour l'armée. Mehmet Agar était 

le coordinateur politique de cette organisation 

jusqu'à sa nomination au poste 

de ministre de l'Intérieur. Les gens de 

JITEM ont été les premiers à passer à 

l'action. De nombreux meurtres "mystérieux" 

ont été perpétrés dans le Sud- 

Est touchant en particulier les gens du 

DE'P (Parti de la démocratie, prokurde). 

J'ai alors demandé à Ersever, 

du JITEM; "est-ce bien vous qui faites 

ces choses"? il n'a pas nié. Après le 

JITEM, le MIT, puis la Sûreté se sont 

mis à utiliser ces méthodes. Mehmet 

Agar a formé sa propre équipe. L'un 

des membres de cette équipe, Korkut 

Eken a été chargé de la direction des 

Ülkü~ü (Ndt. militants d'extrême droite, 

dits Loups gris, de l'organisation fasci- 

pour blanchir leur argent sale ont 

recours à la création de leur propre 

banque, à durée de vie éphémère, 

généralement dans le nord de Chypre 

sous occupation turque devenue un. 

véritable paradis du blanchiment d~. 

l'argent de la drogue). Il évoqu~ ~~SSI 

le cas d'un propriétaire de télevlslon 

privée de Gazi Antep, Mehmet Ali 

Yaprak, enlevé d'abord sur ordre de 

Mehmet Agar par des gens de son. 

équipe, libéré contre le paiement d'une 

forte rançon (de plusieurs millions de 

marks) et enlevé ensuite par les 

hommes du MIT d'Eymur, toujours pour 

lui faire payer une rançon. 

A la question des députés 

"Pourquoi n'avez-vous pas informé les 

autorités de ce que vous saviez?", le 

responsable policier répond amèrement: 

"dénoncer qui à qui? Voulezvous 

que je dénonce le directeur générai 

de la Sûreté (M. Agar) au directeur 

général de la Sûreté ?". Confirmant que 

les gangsters et mafiosi endurcis A. 

Çakici et A. ÇatH travaillaient pour la 

Sûreté et pour le MIT, A. Avci attribue 

les développements récents de l'affaire 

des gangs aux rivalités entre la Sûretéet 

le MIT et plus particulièrement entre' 

les clans Agar, Eymür et Eken. Ces 

scandales lui paraissent la partie visible 

'de l'iceberg. "Je ne crois pas que vous 

arriverez à démêler ces affaires sans 

remonter au sommet du pouvoir" lancet-i1aux 

députés pour conclure sa déposition. 

Ces derniers se gardent de lui 

poser des questions sur l'identité des 

gens du "sommet du pouvoir". 

Ces révélations qualifiées de "terribles" 

par le quotidien Hurriyet du 6 

février auraient, dans tout autre pays, 

provoqué une véritable c~se P?litique, . 

voilà donc un chef de police qUi reconnaît 

devant les députés l'existence 

d'une "organisation extrajudiciaire" 

créée "sur décision des échelons supérieurs 

de l'État" impliquée dans plusieurs 

milliers d'assassinats et des 

affaires crapuleuses de racket, de rançons, 

de trafic de dro~ue dont les chefs 

et les principaux animateurs nommément 

désignés ne sont nullement 

inquiétés, alors que la justice tu~que 

veut condamner à la peine capitale 

deux jeunes Kurdes coupables d'avoir 

décroché le drapeau turc dans la salle 

93


du congrè~ d'un parti pr"o~kurde. 

Cette "organisation extrajudiciaire" 

semble posséder Uoe' influence 

considérable. au. sein ,des principaux 

rouages de l'État. Deux journalistes de 

Milliyet qui .ont voulu enquêter sur l'un 

de ses exécuteurs au Kurdistan, 

Mahmut Vildirim, dit Vesil (le Vert), 

accusé de plusieurs dizaines d'assassinats 

politiques, l'ont appris à leurs 

dépens. Extraits de leur reportage paru 

dans le numéro du 31 janvier de ce 

quotidien: " Nous sommes arrivés vers 

16h à Solhan, pays de Vesil, sans révéler 

à personne l'objet de notre visite. Le 

maire de la bourgade nous avait promis 

son hospitalité et le commandant de la 

gendarmerie local "son aide en cas de 

difficulté". Après avoir traversé des rues 

vides, nous arrivons dans le bureau 

d'un journaliste local. A peine deux 

minutes plus tard, le téléphone sonne 

et on nous demande. Une voix que 

nous ne connaissons pas et parlant un 

turc parfait nous menace: "Je suis un 

citoyen. Je sais depuis Istanbul que 

vous êtes venus dans cette bourgade 

pour Vesil. Si vous remuez cette affaire, 

vous finirez mal. Si vous ne quittez 

pas immédiatement cette bourgade, if 

vous arrivera des c~oses terribles. 

Personne ne pourra vous sauver". Nu~ 

ne savait qu'on était des journalistes: 

car nous n'avions pas encore eu l'occasion 

de discuter avec les gens (..) Le 

lendemain matin, nous sommes allés à 

la mairie et à la sous-préfecture. Le: 

maire avait l'air de nous en vouloir' 

avant même de nous avoir rencontrés. 

Dans la rue, les gens nous étaient hostiles 

et nous étions constamment suivis 

par des voitures immatriculées à. 

Ankara. Quelques habitants courageux 

'nous ont appris sous le couvert de: 

l'anonymat, comment les tueurs recruté~ 

par Vesil, d'extraction pauvrë,isont 

devenus des propriétaires de plusieurs 

Renaults 19 et de stations d'essence~ 

Devant des récits qui donnent le frisson 

dans le dos, nous sommes allés à la 

gendarmerie pour connaître sa version. 

Personne ne voulait nous recevoir. Le 

lendemain matin, nous étions convoqués 

à ah au bureau du maire qui: 

n'avait visiblement pas dormi de la nuit 

et qUi nous a demandé de quitter 

immédiatement la ville pour éviter le 

pire. "Vous êtes en grand danger, je ne 

pourrais pas vous prötéger". Stupéfaits" 

noùs avons tout de suite pris la route' 

de Mus. Tout au long de cette route de 

56 Km, nous avons été suivis de près' 

par un véhicule gris immatricu.lée à 

jAnkara. Logés àla maison dès institu" 

.teurs, nous allions, après.qu~lques' 

heures de repos, sortir pour dîner. Le 

portier nous fixant des yeux stupéfaits, 

nous demande: "Qui êtes-vous donc! 

Pourquoi la police demande à chaque 

'Tlinutede vos nouvelles". . 

Confirmant à sa manière les révélations 

du chef de police Avci, un baron 

de la mafia turc, Nurettin Güven, exilé à 

Londres, dénonce dans le quotidien 

Hurriyet et sur la chaîne de télévision 

'PrivéeKanalO" La listerougedes hommes 

'à abattre" par l'organisation spéciale 

,turque, il affirme que son compatriote 

O.'Topal, patron des salles de jeux, a 

été enlevé par l'équipe de Mehmet 

Agar, qu'il a payé une rançon de $ 17 

millions et qu'il a été malgré cela abattu 

alors même que Agar était ministre de 

:l'Intérieur, probablement parce que" la 

:rançon a paru insuffisante à ces gens 

:cupides". Il raconte aussi comment, au 

~empsde sa collaboration avec la poli" 

ce, il a pu avoir un passeport de service 

!(réservéen principe aux hauts fonction- 

!haires de l'État) pour mener à bien ses 

;affaires (de trafic de drogue) alors que 

liajustice française l'avait déjà condamné 

par contumace à 16 ans de prison 

pour trafic de stupéfiants. 

. Turkish Dairy'News TIJESDAY. FEBRUARY2S.1997 

Tensions increase 

in N. Iraq despite 

.peace efforts 

Assassination attempt on 

governor of Erbil 

Ankara- Turkish Daily News 

• A weekend assassination attempt 

targeting a senior Iraqi Kurdish offi-. 

cial threatens the shaky truce .. 

between the feuding Kurd groups, . 

Safeen Dizayee, the Ankara representative 

of the Kurdistan 

Democratic Party (KDP) indiCated 

here on Monday. 

The convoy of Francois Hariri, 

the governor of the principal 

Kurdish city of Erbll and a close 

associate of KDP leader Massoud 

Barzani came under attack en route 

.to the governor's office, Dizayee 

told the Turkish Daily News. Hariri 

reportedly escaped unhurt, while 

KDP said two security officials and 

five civilians were injured in the 

attack. .. ' 

. A statement issued bythe KDPdominated 

regional government, 

unrecognized by the rival Patriotic 

Union of Kurdistan (PUK), blamed 

Kosrat Rasul, a senior PUK official 

for the attack. 

"This was aimed at undermining 

peace efforts and the agreement on 

Iraqi Kurdistan reached at the 

Ankara talks as well as the U.N. 

Resolution 986 - for limited Iraqi 

oil sales," said the KDP statement. 

After a bloody war fought for the 

possession of Erbil and control of . 

the Western-protected enclave and 

its border revenues last fall, KDP 

and PUK agreed to lay down arms 

and work for a power and revenuesharin~ 

deal in talks held in Ankara 

under Joint sponsorship of the . 

United States and Turkey. 

The sides also agreed to set up a 

Supc;rvisory Peace Monitoring 

Group which includes representatives 

of Turkey, the United States, 

Britain ..Irag:s Tu~Ia.nen~ommunity 

as well.as-ilio~é.fiom Ù1etwo nval 

Kurdish parties. 

' 

. The PUK has been increasing its 

troop strength near Koysanjak, 

94


Halisan and the Rania areas in the 

Kurdish-held northern Iraq in violation 

of the, agreement, according to 

Dizayee. 

When asked about certain groups 

interfering in the region, Dizayee 

said, "We know there are many people 

who want to disrupt stability and 

unity in the region. Sometimes the 

Kurds fall into these traps ... But if a 

statement has been made by the 

(KDP administration's) Interior 

Minister, this means the situation is 

serious and alarming." 

Shazad Saib of the PUK Ankara 

Office denied the KDP claims and 

said there were numerous elements 

in the region intent on ruining the 

pea~ efforts. '''The KDPopened the 

door to the Iraqi intelligence. But I 

must also point out that there have 

been minor clashes between 

Muslims and Christians in 

Shaqlawa. 

A particularly serious incident on 

Feb. Il in which two Assyrians 

killed a Kurd had outraged the 

locals, the PUK representative 

explained, hinting that the attack on 

Hariri might 

vengeance. 

be an act of 

Francois Hariri is an Assyrian, a 

Christian minority group in northern 

Iraq. 

Dizayee said the Supervisory 

Peace Monitoring Group (SPMG) 

had been informed about Sunday's 

incident. 

KDP urged SPMO meeting 

Even though a meeting of the SPMG 

had been scheduled for this week, 

the KDP had urged an earlier meeting 

to be held last Thursday. 

Dizayee told the TON they had 

informed the SPMG of continuing 

media attacks and PUK violations of 

the cease-fIfe. The KOP also urged . 

the SPMG to speed up the cease-fire 

.implementation and monitorin~. 

'''The PUK tried to advance Its 

positions near Koysanjak. but after 

KOP retaliation, they withdrew." 

said Dizayee. 

Fad" Mlranl to visit Ankara 

Last week a delegation from the 

KOP, headed by Fadtl Mirani, the 

interior minister of the KOP's Erbilbased 

administration, held talks with 

Turkish Foreign Ministry officials 

and a number of parliamentarians. 

Sources indicated the visit occurred 

on Turkey's invitation. 

Talks reportedly focused on border 

security, border trade and the 

peace talks. 

Ankara has been pressing booth 

KDP and PUK to crack down on 

Turkey's own separatist Kurds 

entrenched in northern Iraq because 

of Baghdad' s reduced authority in 

the area ânà the oil-.and~öff fighting 

between the Iraqi Kurds. Although 

undertaking not to allow attacks 

against Turkey from their area, the 

Iraqi Kurds have been resisting 

Ankara's pressures for an armed 

confrontation with the Kurdistan 

Workers' Party (PKK) whose separatist 

war in southeastern Turkey has 

claimed over 21,000 lives since 

1984. 

"We tried to clear up possible 

.misunderstandings on both sides," a 

Kurdish source told the TON. 

Turkey has repeatedly snubbed KDP 

requests for arms, money and permission 

for the resettlement of 

destroyed border villages to help 

prevent the PKK infiltrations. 

Nechirvan Barzani, a top KOP 

official paid a similar visit about a 

month ago, during which he held 

discussions with Foreign Ministry 

Undersecretary Onur Oymen. 

A.F.P.- Agence Frtlllce Presse-A.F.P.- Agenc(l France Presse-A.F.r.- Agl'nCl' France Presse 

Grèce-Turquie: Deux passeurs turcs condamnés à la prison pour le 

transport de 33 Irakiens 

ATHENES, 25 fév (AFP) - Deux passeurs turcs ont été arrêtés et condamnés mardi 

à 9,5 ans de prison pour avoir fait entrer en Grèce 33 immigrés clandestins 

irakiens, a indiqué une source policière. 

Jugés en flagrant délit, les deux passeurs ont également été condamnés à une 

amende de 10 millions de drachmes (38.500USD) chacun. Ils avaient été arrêtés 

dans la matinée au large de l'île de Samos (sud-est de l'Egée), où ils venaient de 

débarquer 33 clandestins irakiens 

La Grèce a récemment renforcé la surveillance de ses frontières maritimes et 

terrestres avec la Turquie, pour lutter contre l'afflux de clandestins, dont 

beaucoup acheminés par des réseaux de passeurs turcs. Ces mesures ont permis 

depuis janvier l'arrestation d'une douzaine de passeurs, tous condamnés à des 

peines de prison d'une dizaine d'années ou plus. 

cb/fa tou 

r------~ -----;;----=---~:_=_____:_-----------------------~ 


95


A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence Fr,lI1cePresse-A.F.P.-.Agence 

France Presse 

Turquie-Chypre: Ankara contre un affaiblissement de son rôle de 

garant, selon un ministre 

ANKARA, 25 fév (AFP) - Le ministre d'Etat turc Abdullah GuI, en visite aux 

Etats-Unis, a réaffirmé que la Turquie s'opposerait à tout affaibliSsement de son 

rôle de garant du statut de Chypre, a rapporté mardi l'agence Anatolie. 

"La Turquie ne permettra jamais que son rôle de garant à Chypre soit affaibli", a 

déclaré M. GuI, également porte-parole du gouvernement turc, lors d'une 

réception mardi soir à New York. 

"La Turquie ne permettra pas non plus que Chypre soit une nouvelle Bosnie (...) 

Nous nous efforçons d'obtenir un accord à Chypre, acceptable par la 

communauté internationale et la fin de l'hostilité entre les deux communautés 

(turque et grecque) sur l'île", a ajouté M. GuI, membre du Parti islamiste de la 

Prospérité (Refah) du Premier ministre Necmettin Erbakan. . 

Chypre est divisé en deux secteurs, turc au nord et grec au sud, depuis 

l'intervention de l'armée d'Ankara en juillet 1974, qui avait fait suite à un coup 

d'Etat nationaliste grec visant à rattacher l'île à la Grèce. 

La Turquie avait alors justifié son intervention par son rôle de garant, avec la 

Grèce et la Grande-Bretagne, du statut de la république de Chypre découlant des 

accords de 1960 sur l'indépendance. Ankara maintient depuis 197430 à 35.000 

troupes à Chypre. 

La communauté internationale a multiplié les efforts, sans succès jusqu'ici, pour 

obtenir une solution à Chypre, l'ONU préconisant un règlement 

bicommunautaire et bizonal. 

.Les pourparlers intercommunautaires directs sont interrompus depuis octobre 

1994 et la tension sur l'île est montée d'un cran après l'annonce en janvier 

dernier de l'achat de missiles sol-air russes à longue portée 5-300 par le 

gouvernement chypriote (grec), livrables en seize mois. 

La Turquie est catégoriquement contre l'achat de ces missiles qui, selon elle, 

seront capables d'atteindre des objectifs dans le sud de son territoire, et avait 

menacé de frappes aériennes en cas de déploiement. 

"Les conversations devraient commencer dans la première moitié de cette année 

(...) Nous croyons que les chances d'un règlement sont plus élevées que par le 

passé", avait déclaré lundi à Ankara le représentant britanriique pour Chypre, 

David Hannay. 

CE/hc/csa t 



Turquie-Universités: Treize blessés dans des bagarres entre étudiants 

de tendances opposées 

ISTANBUL, 25 fév (AFP) - Treize étudiants ont été blessés mardi dans plusieurs 

96


bagarres entre étudiants d'extrême-gauche et d'extrême-droite sur le campus de 

l'Université d'Istanbul, a rapporté l'agence Anatolie, citant un nouveau bilan. 

Quatre étudiants ont été blessés à coups de bâton et de pierres lors d'un 

affrontement à la Faculté des Communications de l'Université, située dans la 

partie européenne de la ville, selon la même source. 

La police a tiré en l'air pour disperser la confrontation. Aucune information n'a 

pu être obtenue sur l'appartenance des blessés, qui ont été hospitalisés. 

Avant cela, neuf étudiants au total, dont sept d'extrême-gauche, avaient été 

blessés dans deux autres bagarres dans les Facultés de Lettres et de Droit. 

La série de bagarres sur le campus a débuté dans la matinée à la Faculté de Lettres 

où deux étudiants d'extrême-gauche ont été blessés à coups de sabre et de bâton 

par des étudiants appartenant aux "Loups gris", groupe ultra-nationaliste. 

La police a interpellé plusieurs étudiants impliqués dans les affrontements. 

KG/hc/phv 

tf 


Turquie-ONU-Irak 

: Rolf Ekeus à Ankara 

ANKARA, 25 fév (AFP) - Le chef de la Commission spéciale de l'ONU chargée 

du désarmement irakien (UNSCOM), Rolf Ekeus, est arrivé mardi à Ankara 

pour une visite de deux jours à l'invitation du sous-secrétaire du ministère turc 

des Affaires étrangères Onur Oymen, a rapporté l'agence Anatolie. 

Cette visite, qui n'avait pas été annoncée à l'avance, s'effectue dans le cadre des 

consultations régulières de M. Ekeus avec certains pays de la région, selon 

l'agençe. 

Elle intervient au lendemain de la levée par l'Irak d'un blocage de trois mois sur 

l'examèn à l'étranger des débris de missiles destiné à vérifier que ces missiles ont 

bien été détruits. 

KG/hc/jj 

t 


Turquie-USA-Défense : La Turquie avertit les Etats-Unis qu'elle 

pourrait changer de fournisseur 

ANKARA, 25 fév (AFP) - La Turquie a appelé mardi les Etats-Unis à lever les 

restrictions imposées sur certains de ses achats d'armements, avertissant qu'elle 

pourrait s'adresser à d'autres fournisseurs. 

"J'ai exprimé au secrétaire à la Défense (William) Cohen que la suspension de 

certaines ventes à la Turquie après les efforts de certains membres du Congrès 

97


l 

cause des préoccupations sur la fiabilité des Etats-Unis en tant que fournÎsseurs 

d'armes", a déclaré le ministre turc de la Défense Turhan Tayan. 

"J'ai également expliqué que la situation actuelle ne peut amener la Turquie à. 

suspendre les programmes d'acquisition d'armements de ses forces armées", a 

ajouté M. Tayan, dans une déclaration à la presse à son retour d'une visite à 

Washington. 

ue/hc/phv 

tf 

A.F.P.- Agence France Presse-A.EP.- 

Agence France Presse-A.F.P.- Agence France Presse 

IN'l'ERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, WEDNES~AY, FEBRUARY 26, 1997 

Turkey Warns u.s. 

ANKARA - Turkey called 

Tuesday on the United States to release 

suspended weapons transfers 

to Ankara, warning that otherwise it 

could 'seek other arms suppliers. 

Defense Minister Turhan Tayan 

issued the warning on his return 

from Washington. The United 

States has frozen the sale of 10Super 

Cobra~ttack helicopters and the de- 

.livery of three Perry class frigates. 

"I expressed to U.S. Defense 

Secretary Cohen that the suspension 

.of transfers to Turkey due to efforts 

by some U.S. Congress members 

has causedconcerns over the reliability 

of the United States as an 

arms supplier, "silid Mr. Tayan, 

who met with William Cohen in 

Washington. 

(AFP) 

~ . . . - 


WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 26. 1997 

Iraq versus the United 

. Nations in Ankara 

While the UN' s executive chainmin 

of the Special Commission on Iraq, 

Rolf Ekeus, was in Ankara, an Iraqi 

delegation asked for Turkey' s 

. support against his mission 

AY~E KARABAT 

Ankara- 


• Turkey on Tuesday came under competing 

pressures from a senior U.N. official 

and the Baghdad government regarding its 

policies on Iraq. 

While the U.N.'s executive chairman of 

the Special Commission on Iraq 

(UNSCOM), Rolf Ekeus, was meeting with 

Turki~h Foreign Mini~try Undersecretary 

Onur Öymen, the chaIrman of the 

Friendship, Peace and Solidarity 

Organization of Iraq. Salah Al M!Jkhtar, 

asked for Turkey's help inopposmg the. 

U.N. and passed on the Iraqi government's 

message to Justice Minister ~evket K~an. 

Speaking at the Iraqi Embassy, Al .. 

Mukhtar told reporters that his delegation. 

wanted to brief Justice Minister Kazan, 

Education Minister Mehmet Saglam and 

ANAP Deputy Ya~ar Okuyan about the 

U.N.-Iraq discussions and ask for Turkey's 

backing. Al Mukhtar said that Ekeus' 

reports harmed Iraq' s interests an.dthey . 

wanted to see more French, RussIan and 

.chinese envoys at the UNSCOM. 

Mukhtar also indicated th~t Iraq opposed 

the examination of scrapped missile engine 

parts by the United States and preferred it 

98


to be done in Russia or France. 

The U.N. wants to find out if the 

scrapped parts are from missing Sovietmade 

engmes as Iraq maintains or are local 

equipment buried to divert attention from 

hidden missile engines. The U.N. tearn 

began packing the scrapped missile engine 

parts last week, Reuters reported. 

Ekeus was in Ba~hdad last week and 

held extensive meetings with Deputy Prime 

Minister Tariq Aziz. These ended with a 

joint statement outlining future cooperation. 

He said the shippingof the parts was 

"the hottest issue" in his talks in Baghdad. 

The joint statement said Ekeus would visit 

Baghdad in the first week of April, before 

his formal report to the United Nations on 

April Il. Ekeus met with Undersecretary 

Onur Öymen on Thursday and informed 

him of the latest developments. Ekeus must 

certify that Iraq has no weapons of mass 

destruction before the U.N. willlift curbs 

on Iraqi oil exports, although Baghdad is 

allowed limited oil exports under a humanitarian 

deal. 

Al Mukhtar pointed out that Turkey can 

extend its trade relations with Iraq as 

Jordan has without U.N. permission. 

Jordan is using Article 50 of the U.N. charter 

which allows a country to engage in 

trade with a country under embargo if that 

country is suffering too much from the 

embargo. Al Mukhtar reminded listeners 

tI:tatTurkey ha~ asked the U.N. for permission 

to trade With Iraq under Article 50 but 

said, "Iraq believes it is not necessary for 

Turkey to seek permission." 

Turkey's losses from the embargo on 

IraR are estimated at approximately $30 

bilhon over the past six years. 

Turkish Daily News WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 26. 1997 

Diyarbakzr: The hunger city 

that terror hit 

The population of Diyarbaktr has 

swelled from 300,000 in 1994 to 

over 1 million due to an exodus of 

rural peasantry fleeing the war 

between Turkish security forces 

and the separatiSt Kurdistan. 

Workers'Party 

A family in Diyarbaktr is starving. 

Its members are also suffering from 

typhoid fever. Around 15,000 to 

20,000 typhoid fever cases are 

reported in the region every year. 

This means that 40 to 50 people 

catch this disease every day. 

The main factors of the disease is 

hunger and dirty living conditions 

JANPACAL 

Istanbul. 


• Last week a family of seven persons was 

found starving in their shanty in Diyarbakir, 

!he hub of southeast Turkey, and hospitallzed. 

Inhabitants of Yeniköy street found the 

Yavuz family in a state of coma, and called 

the police, who took the victims to a hospital 

from the neighborhood, largely inhabIted 

by refugees who have fled the 13-year 

conflict between Turkish security forces 

and the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party 

(PKK). An estimated 2,000 villages in 

souteast Turkey have been emptied of their 

inhabitants, most of whom come here. 

Two members of the Yavuz family - a 

child aged two and 13-year old teenagerare 

in serious condition. 

Velal Yavuz, who is under treatment, 

said his family had not cooked at home for 

a week, saying family members could not 

find the money to cover the last week to 

sustain themselves. "I was working as a 

shepherd in summer. I could not find a job 

in winter. Neighbors gave us food most of 

the time. We have expected death with 

hunger and helplessness," he added. The 

news of the Yazuz family, which appeared 

in local papers dated 22 February, succeeded 

in drawmg public attention. 

Misery's company 

The Yavuz family is by no means the only 

one in the Southeast which is on the verge 

99


of starvation. Thousands 'öf 

refugee families in the 

region are facing starvation 

due to terror and migrations. 

According to the regional 

Chamber of Physicians, 

most of the people in the 

area are underfed and facing 

starvation. Diyarbaklr's population 

has swelled from 

300,000 in 1994 to one mil- . 

.lion because of the influx of 

refugees, most of whom live 

in tent cities and shanties 

ringing the urban center. 

Most of the refugees left 

their villages after selling 

their houses and lands in 

order to survive without 

knowing what lay in store. 

Many have no chance to 

return to their homes 

because their fields, crops 

and houses are burnt afterwards 

- by efther the PKK 

or security forces, it doesn't 

matter - they are now hungry 

and hopeless. 

. Southeast Turkey was .. 

once one of' the most important 

farming and cattle 

breeding regions of the 

country. But the collapse of 

cattle breeding and the drop in harvests is 

another indicator of the drastic situation the 

region's people now face. Once people 

were smuggling cattle and other farm animals 

across borders, and still didn't have 

enough to eat. According to the 1994 

report of the Turkey Human Rights 

Foundation, the amount of money lost from 

the emptying of villages is over TL 12 trillion 

($111 mi.J1ion). . 

Health in the region 

The report of the Chamber of Physicians 

declares that emergency conditions in the 

region have adversely affected health. The 

right to live in a healthy environment, they 

say, has almost been forgotten. 

The population swells in somecities has 

forced lowered health conditiöns, the most 

serious ramifications being two or three . 

people living in the same room, psychological 

problems related to violence, under~ 

nourishment, inadequate heating, failure to 

follow sanitary standards, insufficient 

drinkable water supply, the inability of 

poverty-stricken people to buy medicine, 

even if treated; insufficient treatment ofdiseases 

as well as general unemployment, 

poverty, and poor environmental conditions. 

. 

The report notes that only 14 of 204 

medical centers are open. Ten of 54 medical 

centers are dosed due to insufficient 

staff and safety standards. The report also 

tàlks about the reasons for the unhealthy situations 

in the city: No emergency health 

services available in Diyarbakir, population 

Crying over food, a child covers her face. TON -Jan Pacal 

growth is uncheCked out of control due to 

the migrations, medical centers are not 

en~ugh for the whole population of the 

regIOn. 

No service evaluations are done. No 

~ealth data has been collected over the last 

hve years. The facts of the region are not 

reflected wei} as health ~talTis mostly in 

Diyarbakir cIty and not m the countryside. 

Infant Mortalities are hidden 

The infant mortality rate is high in 

100


Diyarbaklf, as in all southeast cities, but 

this is not sufficiently reflected in official 

figures. Sixty of every I,000 babi~s in . 

Turkey die before aged one, .but thIs rate IS 

87 in DiyarbakIr. The report says the negative 

factors in the last five years also 

pushed up this number. . 

Digestive diseases occur more often m 

DiyarbakIr than in other Turkis~ cites. 

Diarrhea is the most common lhsease. 

Some 15,000 to 20,00n diarrhea incidents 

are observed every year. This is the main 

reason for child deaths, the second most 

common being typhoid fever. It is now 

three times more that the year t990. 

Around 5,000 cases were recorded in 1994. 

Some t5,OOO to 2n,nOn people catch 

typhoid fever every year ~l~C lu insullic.icnl 

feeding and sanitary conditIOns, accordmg 

to medical chamber. And still 300-400 

typhoid cases are observer in Diyarbakir 

every day. 

Turkish Daily News WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26. 1997 

Coalition bests adversaries 

Smooth ride: The embattled 

partners score a resounding 

victory over disunited opposition 

after Islamists back down 

from earlier militancy. Two 

defections deplete leftist ranks 

Ankara - lVN Parliament Hurea" 

• Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan's 

Islamist-Ied coalition, under fire for 

remarks and actions seen threatening the 

country's secularist system, on Tuesday 

survived another opposition onslaught, 

defeating a censure mution with 281 votes 

to 246. 

Beside the comfortable margin, an 

added bonus for the elated government 

partners, two opposition deputies resigned 

from the Democratic Left Party (DSP), 

frustrating hopes for defections from the 

government side. The defectors were 

expected to join Foreign Minister Tansu 

Ciller's True Path Party (DYP), the conservative 

junior partner in the coalition. 

The government has already repulsed 

recent attempts to undermine it through 

corruption probes tabled against Çiller 

who enjoyed solid protection from 

Erhakan's Welfare Party (RP). 

The new heat on the embattled partnership 

was applied by two rivalleftist parties, 

which, in combined censure motions 

debatcd Tuesday, accuscd it of undennining 

the state's secular foundations which 

remaincd sacred for six decades. 

The motions wcre prompted by a recent 

militancy from Erbakan and ~evket 

Kazan. his justice minister. The country's 

slaunchly-secularist military made plain 

its displeasure with a tank-parade in 

Ankara after an Islamist rally and through 

Islamist leader Necmetlin Erbakan and Justice Minister gevket Kazan (L) have toned down their militancy 

after reaction from the secularist public and the military. 

strongly-worded warnings from a senior 

general against anti-secular activities and 

Iran' s alleged support for them. 

President Süleyman Demirel also has 

been issuing semi-veiled warnings against 

Islamist assertivism, sayin~ the country's 

secularism and Western onentation were 

inviolable. But he also warned the military 

against another coup after three former 

interventions in four decades. 

The withdrawal of a seven-strong ultranationalist 

party from the opposition bloc 

weakened the opposition pressure. In a 

parallel move, a deputy with Islamist 

leanings from the conservative main 

opposition Motherland Party (ANAP) 

announced that he would not participate 

in the vote. Cemil Çiçek said he saw the 

leftist censure motions as ideologicallymotivated 

and said he would support 

another censure motion from his own 

party against the government next week. 

But the leftist and conservative opposition 

parties looked set on their campaign 

do destabilize the coalition, banking on 

SUPP0l1 from DYP secularists uncomfortable 

with the troubled partnership with the 

Islamists. 

To preempt a surpri,se rebellion, Çiller 

sought to comfort secularist fears about 

101


the specter of an Islamic state, while at the 

same time warning the coalition partners 

against further sparring with the secularist 

establishment. "Religion is under nobody's 

monopoly," Çiller noted, addr~sing herself to 

the Islamist partners. "But there is no danger 

for Turkey becoming another Algeria or ~," 

she added, turning to the worried seculanst 

public and the military. 

Republican People'~ P~ (C~) leade~ 

Deniz Baykal, addresslOg his party s depunes 

before the vote, said their censure motion was 

motivated more by the concern for the safety of 

the country's democratic system than their 

interest in ousting the coalition. 

Baykal ridiculed Çiller's claims that the 

DYP's presence in the government was an 

insurance for Turkey's secularism. 

Önder Sav; the CHP spokesman addressing 

the debate said the foundations of the secular 

republic were under threat, focusing on 

Islamist Justice Minister ~evketKazan's past 

efforts to give legalcounsel to defend the 

fanatic Islamists who burned down a hotel and 

•killed 37 left-wing intellectuals in the Central 

Anatolian town of Sivas five years ago. He also 

slammed Kazan for the recent visit he paid to 

an Islamist 'mayor arrested for anti-secular militancy. 

Rivalieftist leader, Bülent Ecevit of the 

Democratic Left Party (DSP) said the majority 

of the nation had fears from the Islamist-Ied 

coalition, but ca1ledfor its ouster through 

democratic methods. He criticized the searches 

for ilnondemocratic solution but absolved the 

military of putschist tendencies. 

The DSP leader called för an alternative 

government to be set up by opposition parties 

to replace the IsI~st-led coalition and came 

against early elecnons. . . . 

Ecevit, however, came under Criticisms by 

refusing persistent calls from the q~P ~ora 

merger that would boost the opposition s 

chances to unseat the government. 

.ANAP spokesman Agah Oktay Güner 

echoed President Demirel in questioning the 

ground for RP' s Islamism, noting that people 

were freely praying in 65,000 mosques 

throu~hout Turkey thanks to its secular system. 

He Saidthe RP'~ (>rtrayal of itsel~as the sole 

-defendant of rehgiOn was a decepnon. But at 

the same time, he called for respect for the people's 

religion. 

_ 

Dismissing the criticisms, RP spokesman 

Bü1ent Arinc called the secularism should be 

_interpreted as it is done in the West.where. the 

Muslims are not banned from weanng their 

turbans or headscarves. 

_Turkish Dairy News 

Turkey 

:demands 

'respect' 

from-Iran 

Despite the reciprocal 

protests between the 

two countries, Ankara 

says Iran is.a neighbor 

and good relations 

are important 

Ankara 

Turkish D.uly News 

• Turkey made clear its displeasure 

with Iran's interference 

in its internal affairs 

althoughit fell short of 

demanding a formal apology 

:after the two countries traded 

-protestnotes. Despite the 

ongoing diplomatic quarrel 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26.1997 

lran' s feelings. An Iranian Foreign Ministry 

between Arikarä arid Tehran 

spokesman called Bir's remarks hostile and 

precipitated by the Iranian 

ambassador's call forShariah 

irresponsible and incompatible with the 

declared framework of bilateral ties. 

law in this country, Turkey 

The diplomatie quarrel began after Iranian 

said that Iran is an important 

Ambassador Ali Riza Bagheri's controversial 

neighbQr with whom It seeks 

statement calling for Shariah law in Turkey 

good relations but also respect. and condemning stateswhieh have friendly 

A senior Turkish Foreign 

Ministry official said that 

relations with Israel and the United States. 

Bagheri made his remarks at a Jerusalem 

Turkey cannot make concessions 

concerning its internal - 

Night event organized by and held in 

Ankara's Islamist-run suburb of Sincan. The 

affairs and Iran s~ould end its 

incident led to a show of military force on the 

support for terronsm. _ streets of Sinean. 

Tehran issued a protest on Monday over After that event, the Turkish Foreign 

remarks by the deputy commander of Turkish 

Armed Forces, Gen. Çevik Bir, who said that 

Ministry issued a protest about Bagheri's 

behavior and asked him to follow internation- 

Iran was a supporter of terrorism. Turkey al rules of diplomacy which require that a 

rejected the prote~t.. Gen. Bir made his . 

remarks dunng a Jomt U.S.-Turkey Councll - 

~iplomat ref~ain from commenting ~:mthe . 

mternal affaus of the country to which he IS 

meeting in Washington. 

Iranian Foreign Ministry officials told 

assigned. - 

- Bagheri refused to accept the Foreign 

Turkish Ambassador Osman Korutürk that Ministry's warning but left for Tehran last _ 

Bir's remarks were irresponsible, unaccept- week, leading to allegations that he had been 

able and similar to accusations by America expelled covertly. Tehran denied this, saying - 

and Israel, Anatolia news agency reported. 

Koruturk rejected the protest but said he 

the ambassador had gone home for consultations, 

but added that his assignment in Turkey 

would inforpl the Turkish government of was over .. 

102


•Le Monde - mercredi, 26 février 1997 •Le Monde - mercredi, 26 février 1997 

L'islam et l'héritage d'Atatürk 

Lesgrands quotidiens turcs ouvrent leurs colonnes au président Demirel, 

per~u comme l'arbitre des tensions entre l'armée et le gouvernement 

LA DOUBLE MOTION de censure 

contre le gouvernement du 

premier ministre islamiste Necmettin 

Erbakan, qui devait être 

débattue à l'Assemblée nationale 

le 25 février, n'a guère retenu l'attention 

de la presse turque, l'opposition 

ayant peu de chances de 

succès. Le débat sur la laïcité, la 

tension entre le gouvernement et 

l'armée continuent en revanche 

de faire couler de l'encre dans les 

grands quotidiens. 

Les trois grands quotidiens Sabah, 

Hürriyet et Milliyet, dont les 

éditorialistes avaient rencontré le 

président de la République, 

consacraient leurs premières 

pages aux déclarations de M. Demirel, 

perçu comme l'arbitre de la 

situation. «En intervenant, n'allez-vous 

pas renforcer la cause 

contre laquelle vous intervenez? », 

citait à la «une» Sabah, soulignant 

les efforts du président 

pour étouffer les rumeurs d'un 

éventuel coup d'Etat. «Nos citoyens 

sont les garants du régime. 

Je crois à leur bon sens. Les principes 

de base de la Constitution ne 

pourront être changés ni aujourd'hui 

ni demain. » 

Le quotidien Milliyet plaçait 

l'accent sur l'autorité qui peut 

être accordée au président de dissoudre 

l'Assemblée en cas de crise 

du régime. «Aucun groupe qui 

veut toucher à la laïcité et au mode 

de vie moderne ne peut durer longtemps 

JO, déclarait le président. 

Dans Hürriyet, qui titrait sur le 

mécontentement de l'homme de 

la rue, le chef de l'Etat avait un 

message pour chacun: au premier 

ministre, il rappelait qu'il avait 

prêté serment de «maintenir la 

.~ - 

démocratie et la laïcité de l'Etat », 

aux militaires, il signalait que « les 

forces armées ne sont pas un parti 

politique et qu'elles sont aux ordres 

du pouvoir civil », et, aux citoyens 

turcs, il demandait de «protéger 

la République laïque et démocratique 

JO. 

Le très laïque Cumhuriyet avait 

pour sa part réservé, lundi 24 février, 

le sommet de sa première 

page aux expressions de soutien 

au général Cevik Bir, le numéro 

deux de l'état-major de l'armée, 

qui, lors d'un discours à Washington, 

avait attaqué l'Iran et souligné 

la détermination des militaires 

à «protéger l'héritage: 

d'Atatürk ». Le même quotidien 

affirmait que lors de sa tournée 

américaine le ministre islamiste 

Abdullah Gül n'avait pas été 

convaincant et qu'« il est clair que 

le Parti de la prospérité n'obtiendra 

jamais le soutien des Etats-Unis ». 

Le quotidien de langue anglaise 

Thrkish Daily News, plus proche du 

gouvernement, affirmait de son. 

côté que « les Américains ..• étaient 

prêts à travailler avec ce PlJrti proislamique 

dans le cadre du gouvernement 

élu », tout en admettant 

qu'un faux pas de la part du gouvernement 

pourrait bouleverser 

ces relations. 

Nicole Pope 

•Le Monde - mercredi, 26 février 1997 •Le Monde - mercredi, 26 février 1997 

L'armée ne cache plus son irritation face aux islamistes du parti au pouvoir 

LES RESPONSABLESde l'armée turque ont 

multiplié, ces dernières semaines, les interventions 

publiques rappelant qu'ils se considéraient 

toujours comme les garants de la laïcité,sans cacher 

leur irritation face aux islamistesdu parti du 

premier ministre, le Refah (Parti de la prospérité). 

«Nous ne ferons aucune concession sur les 

principes d'Atatürk. sur la démocratie et la laïcité; 

nous attendons que le gouvernement se conforme 

totalement à ces principes », déclarait ainsi le 

22février le numéro deux de l'état-major, le général 

Bir,en visite à Washington. «Nous ne permettrons 

jamais que nosfemmes soient privées de 

leurs droits civils, ajoutait-il encore. Lesforces armées 

turques sont le gardien de notre Constitution.» 

La tension avait culminé le 4 février, lorsqu'une' 

quarantaine de chars avaient pris position 

autour de Sincan, dans la banlieue d'Ankara, 

après que plusieurs membres du Refah, 

dont le maire de la ville, Bekir Yildiz,se furent 

publiquement prononcés, au cours d'une fête, 

en faveur de la charia (la loi islamique)en Thrquie. 

Peu de temps après, l'armée et les partisans 

de la laïcité eurent un nouveau coup de sang 

10Aque le ministre de la justice, Sevket Kazan, 

un «dur» du Refah, rendit visite en prison au 

maire destitué et écroué. Le Parlement devrait 

poser la question de la destitution du ministre la 

semaine prochaine. Enfin, le chef de l'Etat, Süleyman 

Demirel, a indiqué, lundi, avoir attiré 

l'attention du premier ministre, Necmettin Erbakan, 

sur le « malaise des militaires» face aux entraves 

des islamistes à la laïcité. Le 28 février, le 

Conseilnational de sécurité, véritable organe décisionnaire 

dominé par les militaires mais où 

siège également le premier ministre, doit se réunir 

pour discuter des activités des islamistes. 

VISITE EN ISRA!L 

L'évolution de la société turque ces dernières 

années a réduit la marge de manœuvre de l'institutioh 

militaire, qui tente de contenir le Refah, 

infiltré dans toutes les strates de la société et 

qu'elle avait elle-même contrIbué à mettre en 

place après le coup d'Etat militaire de 1980.L'arrivée 

des islamistes au gouvernement n'a cependant 

pas remis en cause certaines options fondamentales 

de la politique extérieure turque sur 

lesquelles l'armée veille aussi, comme l'appartenance 

à l'OTAN. 

Lundi, le général Ismail Hakki Katadayi, chef 

d'état-major, s'est rendu pour la première fois en 

visite officielleen Israël.Cette visitefait suite aux 

accords de coopération militaire signés en 1996 

avec l'Etat hébreu, qui prévoyaient l'entraînement 

de l'aviation israélienne dans l'espace aérien 

turc, l'organisation de manœuvres 

conjointes en Méditerranée et la modernisation 

par les industries aéronautiques israéliennes de 

cinquante-quatrt chasseurs-bombardiers Phantom 

F-4E. Si au moment de leur signature, en 

aoÜtet décembre 1996,les accords avaient suscité 

le mécontentement du Parti de la prospérité, 

le premier ministre semble avoir adopté désormais 

un profil bas sur le sujet. - (AFP.) 

103


-Le Monde - mercredi, 26 février1997 -Le Monde - mercredi, 26 février 1997 

TURQUIE Dep~is près d'un mois, 

une partie. de la population turque 

se mobilise contre la corruption. Le 

.mouvement« Une minute d'obscurité 

pour la lumière en permanence »,', 

'pacifique et indépendant des 

grands partis politiques, coïncide 

avec le débat sur la laïcité et les manifestations 

de femmes contre la loi 

islamique .• LE GOUVERNEMENT 

veut à nouveau prése!'lter la. candi- 

, 

dature de la Turquie à l'Union européenne, 

alors que subsistent les 

obstacles à sa candidature (droits de 

l'homme, problème de la minorité 

kurde, question chypriote, contentieux 

gréco-turc) et que la victoire 

électorale des islamistes a accru la 

méfiance des Européens.• LES MI- 

LITAIRESdonnent pour leur part de 

plus en plus de signes d'irritation 

envers les islamistes, même si leur 

marge de manœuvre apparaît très 

.réduite. . 

La population turque se mobilise contre la corruption 

La protestation, pacifique et indépendante des grands partis, coincide avec le débat sur la laicité et les manifestations contre la loi islamique. 

Ankara menace de s'opposer à l'élargissement de l'OTAN si les Quinze n'examinent pas sa demande d'adhésion à l'Union européenne 

ANKARA sant les frustrations qui s'accumu~ dans cette affaire n'a poUrl'instant' . 

de notre correspondante laient depuis des années face à la .été inquiétée. Des demandes ont ministre a adressé des critiques 

« Une minute d'obscurité pour la' dégradation. graduelle des cercles ,été déposées pour la levée de l'im- cinglantes à ses participants, quali- 

}umière en permanence»: tel est le dirigeants. Les nucs, longtemps munité parlementaire de deux dé- fiant leurs efforts d' « erifantins ». 

litre d'une iriitiative civile qui, de-: :réprimésdans l'expression de leurs putés du Parti de la juste voie Du coup, ce mouvement pour la 

puis le le' février, mobilise les~' 'qoléances, ont enfin trouvé un (DYP}- Mehmet Agar,ancien chef lumière, qui ne visait pas directeclàsses 

moyennes turques contre moyen de ,surmonter cet obstacle ,de la police de sOreté,qui avait dé- ment le gouvernement actuel mais 

la corruption. Tous les soirs à :pour affirmer leurs vues. « Lespoli- .missionné de son poste de mi- qui .coïncide avec le débat animé, 

21heures précises, des lumières ticiens haus serrent la main unef ois nistre de la justice après l'accident sur la laïcité et les manifestations 

s'éteignent - ou clignotent pour, tous les cinq ans, puis nous OU-et Sedat Bucak, qui se trouvait de femmes contre la loi islamique, 

;bien signaler leur participation' à bUent », expliquait une ménagère dans le véhicule en compagnie a pris, dans certains quartiers, l'al- 

:cette campagne - aux quatre coin~ lors d'un débat télévisé sur l'initia- d'un hors-la-loi lors de la collision lure d'une protestation contre ,les 

'de la Turquie. Dans les grandes' tive, en affirmant: «j'avais à l'inté-- mais elles n'ont pas encore été islamistes. Mais ce mouvement est 

.villes,certalns enthousiastes' affir-' rieur de moi un volcan prêt à explo.~ 'soumises à l'Assemblée nationale. avant tout celui de la Turquie du 

ment leur soutien en sortant sur: seroJe suis contente, maintenant que « Nous voulons un Etat de droit. 'centre, qui s'oppose aux radicaleur 

balcon ou dans les rues pout. je peux m'exprimer.» transparent, démocratique etmo~: lism~s.de tous !;lords.~?~ontés 

accompagner leur minute d'obs-: Plus de trois mois se sont écou- derne, nous voulons que la lumièrequo~die~:ment aux diVlsI~ns~es 

curité d'une cacophonie de cou-, lés depuis la collision routière et soit faite sur l'affaire de Susurluk»pams politiques, à la polansation 

verdes de casserole, de klaxons, de des dizaines de témoins ont été explique l'avocat Ergin Cinmen l~ de leur société, les citoyens turcs' 

sifflets, apparemment empruntés entendus par une commission par- porte-parole de 1'«Initiative ci~e cherchent' le dénominateur, 

aux manifestants de Belgrade, ou lementaire: leurs dépositions ont pour la lumière» qui.a lancé la commun quiperm:~a à leur pays 

,de clochettes utilisées autrefois révéléTexistence d'un vaste réseau campagne.' de trouver son équilibre. 

:par les marchands ambulants. de gangs, souvent des « loups gris » Le succès immédiat de cette ini- 

Les plus déterminés n'hésitent de l'extrême droite qui, formés ini- CONTRE LES RADICALISMES tiative est loin d'être garanti. L'afpas 

à .allumer une bougie aù tialement avec la complicité de Pacifique et indépendant des faire de Susurluk a dévoilé des inthéâtre 

ou au match de football. certains secteurs de l'Etat pour des grand arti liti'.l térêts puissants, profondément 

, « opérations spéciales », ont en- s p s po ques, e mouveplutôt 

que de m~quer, pour une' ment se heurte cependant à l'op- enracinés au cœur même d'un syssoirée, 

l'occasion d'exprimer leu( suite profité de ce pouvoir pour sè position dü gouvernement. Le Par- tème qui les alimente depuis des 

mécontentement. Des famille~ lancer dans des trafics - de drogue' ti de la prospérité (RP) du premier années. Mais au cours des dertout 

entières participent à l'initia..' par exemple - et des affaires dou- ministre Necmettin Erbakini.,qui nières semaines la population 

tive, comptant de leur fenêtre les. teuses en tout genre. La presse ,avait mené sa campagne électorale, turque a retrouvé le courage de' 

éclairs de lumière qui signaleIifturque a notamment publié les té-sur le.thème de la lutte anticorrup- s'exprimer, que ce soit sur la corl'existence 

d'esprits solidaires, aù:,moignages de repentis du Parti des tion, aurait sans doute pu gagner ruption ou sur la loi islamique., 

delà, des identités politiques, eth~ travailleurs du Kurdistan (PKK,sé- des points supplémentaires en Avec cette prise de conscience, le, 

niques ou religieuses. par~t~ste) qui affirmaient avoir s'associant au mouvement popu- lent processus de démocratisation' 

« UN VOLCAN PRh A EXPLOSER D 

L'accident de voiture de Susur- 

;luk qui avait révélé, le 3 novembre 

! 1996, la collusion entre la mafia, 

:certains politiciens et hauts fonc- 

'tionnaires de l'Etat a en quelque 

sorte servi de catalyseur, ouvrant 

les yeux de la popwation sur les 

déficiences du système, et cristalli- 

partiCipé pour. le compte de ces, laire. Mais, arrivé au pouvoir après franchit une étape supplémentaire. 

groupe~ à plUSieursdes.« me~rtres des années dans l'opposition, et ' « Pour la première fois, la majori-' 

mystérleu~» de natIOnalistes forcé de maintetiir un équilibre dif- té silencieuse s'exprime ouvertekurdes 

qUi ont marqué les an- ficile avec l'armée, le RP a préféré ment », expliquait le professeur 

nées 90. ' '. défendre les intérêts de l'Etat et Burhan Senatalar, lors d'un débat 

quelq~es boucs émissaires de ceux de son partenaire au sein de télévisé, et « les gens disent: "Les 

momdre Jmport~ce, des mem~res la coalition, le DYP de MmeTansu véritables propriétaires de l'Etat, 

des «forces spéc/Qle~» de la police" Ciller, dont les députés sont men- c'est nous". » 

ont été arrêtés, malS aucune des tionnés dans l'affaire. Se sentant 

personnalitéS en vue impliquées' visé par la campagne, le premier 

NicofePope 

104


oLe Monde - mercredI. 26 févt1erl997 oLe Monde - mercredi. 26 févt1er 1997 

Ankara revendique toujours sa place au sein de 1Union 

LES PRÉPARATIFSde l'élargissement 

de l'Union européenne à 

des pays d'Europe centrale et 

orientale, ainsi qu'à Chyprere~ 

lancent l'épineuse question de la 

place de la Thrquie dans la nouvelle 

architecture européenne. En 

décembre 1996,le premier ministre 

turc, Necmettin Erbakan, avait renoncé 

à faire le déplacement à Dublin 

où il était invité à un dîner par 

les chefs d'~tat et de gouvernements 

européens après la clôture 

de leur conseil biannuel. Les Thrcs 

étaient furieux d'avoir été tenus à 

l'écart du déjeuner auquel avaient 

été auparavant conviés les responsables 

des autres pays candidats à 

l'Union. . . 

Ce traitement donnait raison 

aux adversaires de la voie européenne, 

qui ont beau jeu de faire> 

valoir que jamais les Européens; 

n'ont pris au sérieux la candidature 

déposée par la Thrquie des' 

1987pour entrer dans l'Union. Les 

gouvernements européens avaient 

espéré reporter le problème en 

concluant avec Ankara, en 1995,un 

accord d'union douanière. Aussitôt 

contesté par le Parlement euro- 

Péen, qui en a bloqué le protocole 

financier pour protester contre la 

répression de la minorité kurde, 

cet accord a eu l'effet contraire de 

celui espéré. loin d'avoir apaisé les 

esprits, il a mis en porte-~-faux les 

défenseurs de l'intégration européenne 

au sein de la classe politique 

turque, à commencer par 

l'ancien Premier ministre Tancu 

Ciller aujourd'hui ministre des affaire~ 

étrangères de la coalition 

que son parti a formée avec les islamistes 

de Necmettin Erbakan. 

MENACE 

Ces pro-européens tentent actuellement 

de réagir en demandant 

aux Quinze de prendre une 

fois pour toutes leurs responsabilités. 

Le président turc, Soleyman 

Demirel, qui recevait le secrétair~ 

général de l'OTAN,Javier Solana, éIi 

menacé le 7 février d'opposer l~ 

veto de la Turquie à l'élargisse~ 

ment de l'Alliance atlantique auX 

pays d'Europe centrale et orientale 

si les Européens ne répondaient 

:pas à la demande turque. TI a exigé 

que le représentant de la Thrq~e 

fasse partie de «la photo defam/lle 

européenne 

Un (l.lYS nlllSuhndl1 aux portes dl' J'l-uro(le 

européenne» lors du prochain 

conseil européen d'Amsterdam. 

Deux jours auparavant, à Rome, 

lors de la traditionnelle rencontre 

à. cinq des ministres des affaires 

étrangères de Thrquie, de France,. 

de Grande-Bretagne, d'Allemagne. 

et d'Italie, MmeCiller avait égaiement 

mis les points sur les «i ». 

;Elle avait annoncé qu'elle présenterait 

à nouveau officieIlement la 

candidature de son pays à l'Union clas~e dirige~te .turque - en~e is- Devant une commission dû Parlors 

de ce même conseil et dénon- l~mlstes, mlhtaues a~. natIO?a- lement européen, le ministre des 

cé la tentative d'instaurer un« sta- lis~e ombrageux et milieux d af- affaires étrangères des Pays-Bas, 

tut spécial ,. pour la Thrquie. NOUS~arres;'pro-européens - ont b~oqué Hans van Mierlo, qui assume acexclure 

de l'Union, avait-t-elle JUsq~à présent tous les espoITSde tuellement la préSidence du 

réaffirmé, serait une erreur histo- soluti0!1' . . conseil des ministres européens, a 

rique. . La VlctOl.rea~ dermè~es élec-inis récemment les pieds dans le 

Ses interlocuteurs ont réagi en tlOns des lslamls~es, ~UI ont pu plat. «Il y a ce problème d'un grand 

soulignant comme à l'habitude pr?fiter des con.fllts d mtér~ts .au Etat musulman, a-t-il dit. Le vou- 

'que personne ne voulait faire de sem de I~ drOIte répubhcame lons-nous dans l'Europe? C'est une 

discrimination à l'égard d'Ankara, conservatrice, a accru la ~éfiance question passée sous silence (...). Il 

mais que celle-ci devait aupara- .des Européens. Personne.n ose po- est temps pour nous, Européens, 

vant démontrer sa volonté de 'Se~o~v7rte~ent la question de sa- d'être honnêtes (...). » «D'une part, 

trouver des solutions aux obstacles VOIT~l I Urnon europé:nne, démo- a rappelé M. van Mierlo, elle ne 

à sa candidature: la question des cratlqu.e et chrétienne, est remplit pas les critères que nous 

droits de l'homme, la gestion de la compatible. avec ~n pays musul- avons fixés en Europe. D'autre part, 

minorité kurde,le contentieux gré- man, ques~on qUI se posera sans c'est un voisin.» Un voisin qui tient 

co-turc et la question chypriote. dout~ un JOur é~alemen~ avec .Ia une place stratégique dans le dis- 

Le ministre italien Lamberto Di- Bo~me-HerzégoVlne et I Albame. positif de l'Alliance atlantique à la 

ni a cru pouvoir déceler des signes MalSelle est au bord de toutes les frontière du Proche-Orient et du 

d'ouverture, mais souvent dans le lèvres. 

Caucase! 

passé les promesses ont été dé- M~FIANCE 

rU~s.Les divergences au sein de la 

Henri de Bresson 

oLe Monde - mercredi. 26 févt1erl997 oLe Monde - mercredi. 26 févt1er 1997 

Une très forte dégradation des échanges commerciaux 

L'UNION DOUANIt!REentre la 

Turquie et l'Union européenne 

(UE), entrée en vigueur en jan- 

Vier1996, a bénéficié à plein aux 

Européens, en leur donnant libre 

accès à un marché de 65millions 

de personnes. Les échanges 

commerciaux avec l'Union européenne 

représentent la moitié du 

commerce extérieur du pays. Selon 

les chiffres fournis par 

Bruxelles, ils sont passés à la 

mi-1996 à 36 milliards de dollars 

(180milliards de francs environ), 

contre 27 milliards un an plus tÔt. 

Lesexportations de la France, qua~ 

I 

trième fournisseur de la Thrquie 

(l'Allemagne est le premier), ont 

augmenté de 60 % sur les huit premiers 

mois de l'année 1996. En 

1995,les ventes françaises avaient 

déjà atteint 10milliards de francs 

environ, soit le double des achats 

de l'Hexagone. 

La dégradation du solde 

commercial, issue de l'union douanière, 

était attendue. L'assistance 

flßancière spéciale à la Thrquie de 

375 millions d'écus (environ 

2,5 milliards de francs) sur une 

période de cinq ans, à laquelle devaient 

s'ajouter des prêts, pour un 

montant similaire, avait précisément 

pour but d'aider les petites 

et moyennes entreprises turques à 

surmonter la période de transition. 

Or, ces fonds ont été bloqués 

par le Parlement européen. 

La détérioration des termes de 

l'échange est cependant difficile à 

mesurer, compte tenu des dérèglements 

statistiques issus de la suppression 

de nombreux droits de 

douane et de l'ampleur des 

échanges souterrains transfrontaliers 

(le «commerce-valise »), qui 

représenteraient, selon l'OCDE 

(Organisation de coopération et 

de développement économiques), 

20 % du total des échanges. Le déficit 

de la balance des paiements 

courants aurait en tous cas doublé 

en un an, atteignant 3 % du produit 

intérieur en 1996. 

En dépit de cette forte dégradation, 

du maintien du taux d'inflation 

à un niveau de très loin supérieur 

à celui de l'Union 

européenne (70 % environ), d'un 

très lourd endettement à court 

terme, les taux d'intérêt réels ont 

diminué, et la Bourse d'Istanbul 

est l'une des vedettes des marchés. 

émergents avec celle de Moscou. 

.. ,::;::1 

105

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Turkish Daily News, FRIDAY. FEBRUARY 28.1997 

.' ""'" 

They are pushingTurkey into amessyadventure 

Those who encourage a civilian 

coup seemto forget that Refah 

may come back in a few yearstime . 

stronger than ever - because of 

their current mistakes - and may 

refuse to integrate into the system . 

f~irorial 

establish a religious state as soon as the chance 

arises.Tbey feel if Refah is not halted the country 

may fall into the hands of the fundamental- . 

.ists... The military appar~ntly told Demire~oneand-a-half 

mônths ago that they wanted Ciller to 

scrap the coalition partnership withRefah and . 

help in the establishment of a new government, 

without the Islamists... .. 

. Demi.i-elreportedly conveyed this message to 

Çiller only thIS week and her reaction was nega-' 

n'll'" ~. 

'II ç 'k tive, "for the time being ..." Of course this does . 

. cl s'n Turkey who have realized ,ß.f">~ "~ nur eVI not mean she would not sell Refah out For now 

orne CIr el. .. • .d ~,;r ',," ',' Çlller feels she can tame Refah and run the 

Sthey cann.ot ~et nd ~f the coalition govern- .,.. .." " show. Her adversaries say this is an illusion, and 

. ment, which ISdomlOated by the pro- . "'?,: :'.-~:,';>~':.; feel Refah should be ousted. 

IsI~c Welfare Party (Refah), thro~gh Of course, the game could well backfire. 

, democratic means, seem to have engaged 10 an Once those who want to oust Refah reach their 

extremely dangerous mission to oust it through does not prevail. tar~et they may well turn their attention to fmsome 

kind of a "civilian" coup. Of course some of the arguments demanding All this frustrates the people and makes them start wondering whether anti-democratic means ishlOgoff Çiller. ' 

Whatever happens there are very serious presthe 

toppling of the government may well be jus- tified especially in view of the fact that the cor- could solve the problem. It is sad that by helJ?ing to clear Çiller in a series of corruption votes In sures from all quarters to get Refah out of govtified 

emment. What those who feel so strongly do not 

ruption charges against Deputy Prime Minister Parliament, Refah has not done any service to lmderstand is the fact that even of they deal with 

and Foreign Minister Tansu Çiller have been the cause of â clean society and has contributed Refah through undemocratic methods this will 

covered up by the coalition ~overnment. Peopleto the growing anger among the people,' be a temporary victory b~ause in the future 

,wantjustice and a clean socIety. They want to, , But of course there is the other side of the Refah may emerge much stronger than today, 

see the'mess created by the Susurluk scandal, coin, Those who do not want to show any toler- Whoever is trying topush Turkey into an 

which showed clear links between some state ance to religious movements in Turkey feel the adventure should realize that the repercussions 

officials, underworld people and the police, time has come to push Refah out of government of their actions may be devastating to the state 

cleared away. Yet, they see that everything is at all costs. They think Refah is using democra- system in Turkey in the long run. They may 

either covered up or shelved and thus feel justice cy to further its fundamentalist aims and will strengthen Refah beyond their wildest dreams ...


The Islamist Who Runs Turkey; Delicately 

Necmettin Erbakan no longer talks about an Islamic NATO or 

a jihad againstJerusalem. Why, then, does the Turkish Prime 

Minister still frighten so many people? By Stephen Kinzer 

With not a single security guard visible, could this ugly concrete building be the official residence of Prime Minister 

Necmettin Erbakan, the fIrst Islamist to lead modem Turkey? Assured 'by my driver that it was, I approached, 

rang a bell and was admitted. Inside the door I literally bumped into Erbakan as he emerged from a 

small elevator. We bent' down to remove our shoes together. 

For months the Prime Minister had declined my requests for an interview; perhaps in part because he doesn't 

really trust Western journalists. The message he fmally sent was an odd one. He apologized for the delayand offered 

to see me on Christmas Day. 

The request that I come on Christmas was classic Erbakan. Unable for now to transform Turkey's deep-rooted 

secular society, he must speak indirectly, with symbols and images. It may be true, as his critics say,that he harbors 

a secret radical agenda for Turkey. But during his first eight months in power, he has been a voice of moderation. 

Erbakan, a grandfatherly figure, moves delicately, gestures calmly and speaks softly. His Turkish is flowery 

and old-fashioned, sprinkled with words that many young people cannot understand. He is the most interesting 

political figure to have emerged from the Muslim world in many years. He is cultivated and worldly, a master 

of subtle political maneuver, yet has slashed his way through the jungle of Turkish politics with fiery O{atory 

about Zionist conspiracies, the decadence of the West and the superiority of Muslim lawand culture. He favors 

elegantly tailored suits and imported silk neckties and prays five times a day. . 

Erbakan is a figure of fascination not simply for his own character but because the choices he makes for Turkey 

could have enormous impact abroad. Turkey, for centuries a great imperial power, has traditionally exerted a 

far-reaching influence over a band of Muslim nations, stretching from North Africa aéross Asia to the Pacific. 

These nations, having witnessed the fundamentalist upheavals in Iran, Sudan, Algeria and Afghanistan, are understandably 

nervous about their own Islamists. So if Erbakan can peacefully steer moderate, democratic Turkey 

onto a fundamentalist path, he could, in effect, make the rest of the Muslim world safe for fundamentalism. 

Turks call Erbakan "hodja," a term of respect usually reserved for teachers. In conversation his tone is didactic, 

his discourse an odd blend of traditional Islam and 1960's anti-imperialism. He has dropped his calls for an end to . 

interest rates, an "Islamic NATO" and a jihad against Jerusalem. But he is still a jumble of grand and messianic 

dreams, not all of them reassuring to the West. He knows precisely what he wants: to change the world. 

'~t the end oi World War II, the Western powers and Russia met at Yalta and set the rules for the coming era," 

he fold me, sipping coffee occasionally. ''But the West and Russia can't make the rules by themselves anymore. 

They have to sit down with the developing countries to establish a new order. The world needs a second Yalta 

107


conference. Thë first Yaltadid its job, but its time 

is past. Now the world must again be reshaped." 

Erbakan has selëcted seven large, predominantly 

Muslim countries that he hopes will join 

Turkey in a new group he callsthe D-8. (The "D" 

stands for developing.) He imagines this D-8 sitting 

down with the Group of Seven, which represents 

the world's richest industrial democracies, 

to negotiate a redis.tribution of wealth as 

part of a new and just world order. The process is 

to begin later thi.syear, when Erbakan hopes to 

launch the D-8 at a summit meeting in Istanbul. 

"Turkey is at the center of the world," he reasoned. 

"We have good relations with the developing 

countries of Africa and Asia, and we 

are also a partner of Europe. It's a logical role 

for us. Tu.rkeyi~ going to take the first step to- 

~d ending thIS double standard and injustice 

ID theworld." . 

. Like other Islamic leaders, Erbakan is convin~d 

that ~e West has an inbred prejudice 

agamst Muslims, 'and that this prejudice~torts . 

the foreign policies of Europe and the United 

States.. He pointed to Bosnia, Chechnya an~ 

Kashmir as places where Western countries have 

tolerated outrages they would never ha~e ac-: 

cepted in Christian countries. 

"Educated people in the West ,know very little 

about Islam," he lamented. "They are the victims 

of propaganda that is hundreds of years old. They 

cannot thinkrationallyahout this subject." 

Within Turkey,Erbakan's aspirations are just as 

sweeping. No longer, he has proclaimed, should 

women with head scarves or men with religious 

beards be legally barred from positions of in~ 

:fluencein universities and the army. He has qui~ 

etly moved Islamists into mid-level Government 

posts and.urges parents to educate their children 

;religiously.He says he wants to build mosques in 

prominent locations in Istanbul and the capital, 

Ankara, though no earth has been turned. 

. ':Our peopl~ a;e eIX?-bracing their history, their 

belief and theIr IdentIty," Erbakan said. "If 'you 

look around, you will see many more mosques, 

many more students going to religious academies.That 

is our people's wish, and an important 

development in Turkey. Finally we have found 

ourselves.Wewere searching for so many years." 

THE DAY ERBAKAN WAS BORN; OCT. 29, 1926, 

was the third anniversary of the founding of the 

Turkish Republic by the secular hero Mustafa 

Kemal' .Ataturk. In Ataturk's Turkey, women 

were discouraged from wearing veils or head . 

scarves, men were not to wear the fez and reli- 

~on was to have no influence in public life.Mus- 

.lim ~ec~ were banned, Latin script was replaced 

by ArabICand Turks were urged to look toward 

Europe rather than Asia for inspiration. . 

In his youth, Erbakan seemed to embrace Ataturk's 

new order. He studied engineering, won a 

Stephen Kinzer is the Istanbul bureau chief fOT 

The New York Times. His last article/or the 

Magazine was on Christiane Amanpour. 

doctorate at Aachen Technical University in 

Germany and returned home to open an engine 

factory. A few years later he became head of a 

. ,sniall-businesslobby and discovered that he had 

a talent f?r politics. I:Ie began giving speeches 

c~:>ndemnmg. corruptIon and defending the 

nghts of the little ~y. When he added a religious' 

component, he' hit upon a successful formula. 

After winning a seat in Parliament in 1969,Erbakan 

.fo~ed his o~ political party and began 

campatgnmgfor a reVIvalof Islamicvalues.Barely 

a year later the Constitutional Court condemned 

his party as anti-secular and ordered it dissolved. 

He renamed it, modestly altered its charter and 

his rhetoric and started over. By the mid-1970's 

he controlled enough seats in Parliament to 

emerge as a kingmaker.Joining first with leftists 

an~ then. ~th rightists, he' served as Deputy. 

Pnme Minister for a total of nearly four years. 

In the two decades since then, Erbakan has 

built his Welfare Party intO the only true grassroots 

political. organization .Turkey has ever 

known - four million strong. with 80,000 new 

members each month, he claims. Like other Is~ 

lamist parties in the Middle East, it relies on vol-~ 

unteers .who work all year long, especially in' 

poor nelgh~orhoods, feeding the hungry, help-; 

mg people fmd homes and jobs and, not coinci-:- 

dentally, harvesting thoUsands of votes. 

. By 1995 many Turks had begun to associate. 

Welfare with honesty and clean streets more 

than fundamentalism. In the autumn election 

camp~~, Erbakan barnstormed the country,: 

S?en~g hou~ after. rallies kissing babies arid: 

listenmg topnvate complaints. More voters than~ 

ever decided to take a chance on h.in:t, and Wel-: 

fare ftnished fIrst with 21.4 percent of the vote, 

e:ven;though less than 10 percent of the populatIon 

Isthought to be Islamist. . 

Mier severalmonths of maneuvering, Erbakan 

struck an odorous deal with the former Prime 

Minister, Tansu Ciller, who during the campaign 

had attacked him and his followers as "funda-, 

:mentalistsbent on dragging the country back to' 

the Dark Ages." In exchange for her support, Erb~ 

a~ee~ to shield her from parliamentary investIgatIons 

mto alleged corruption. He became 

Prime MiniSter while she took the portfolios ofl 

Deputy Prime Ministerand Foreign Minister.: 

They agreed to change placesin 1998,but not ev-' 

eryone is sure it will work out that way. . 

Erbakan won the election not by exploiting 

any.latent. desire f~r Islamic rule in Turkey but 

by becommg a credible alternative to the ossified 

political elite: ÄfteÏ:waves of scandal, includiriga 

new one implicating officials of past Govem~ 

ments in murder and drug smuggling, Turks are: 

thirsting for moral leadership. Many believe that 

only Erbakan offers it. 

"People are lookiiig fr a leader who believes 

in something," says Semra Galip, a sociologist at 

Galatasaray UniversitY in Istanbul. "Erbakan is: 

.the only one who introduces ideas, the Qp.lyone 

. . .- . 

108


'I don't believe there Will be a coup, but the military 

will definitely be telling politicians to stay away 

from religious fundamentalism,' a retired Turkish general 

says. 'They are taking Afghanistan as a warning 

of what these people can do if they come to power.' 

with a program. He is a reaction to the end ot 

ideology in Turkey." 

THE WELFARE PARTY'S AUTUMN CONvention, 

its first sinc.ecoming to power, 

looked very different from its past 

gatherings. Where once the walls were 

draped with banners honoring radical Muslim 

movements, Ramas d1artyI'S and Iranian ayatollahs, 

this time only the Turkish flag could bèseen, 

and the only portrait was AtaturIt's. 

The partY faithful, many of whom consider 

Erbakan a miracle worker for having led Welfare 

to power, erupted when he appeared, cheering 

wildly and chanting: ''You are the commander! 

We are your army!" It took him nearly an hour 

-to make his way through the throng, and when 

he finally began to speak, the delegates applauded 

everything he said. They clapped when he 

swore friendship for the United States and Europe, 

and even when he described Welfare as 

"the guarantor of secular rule" in Turkey. 

But at one point, after he declared that Turkey 

was "not changing direction or anything like 

that," a handful of unhappy delegates began 

chanting, "God is great," a slogan of militant 

Islam. Erbakan stopped speaking, pointed at 

them and sternly warned: "Do not let yourselves 

be provoked!" The chanting stopped immediately. 

and there were no further disruptions. 

As a campaigner Erbakan had pledged to expel 

American forces flying surveillance missions 

over nonhern Iraq, but they are still at :their 

bases. He said he wanted military and industrial 

cooperation with Iran but dropped the idea after 

his generals protested. For years he demonized 

Israel, but today ISraeli warplanes practice maneuvers 

in Turkish airspace while Israeli military 

technicians upgrade Turkish fighters. 

"Contrary to all our fears and concerns," the 

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, recently 

told a Turkish interviewer, "today we are 

very pleased with Mr. Erbakan's Government." 

Leaders of Muslim countries are less enthusiastic. 

The moderates among them fear that Erba- 

109

Revue de Presse-Press' Review-BerhevokaÇapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti 

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kan, by proving that fundamentalism need not be 

synonymous with radicalism,will givethe Islamic 

movement new respectability among the middle 

classes.Hard-liners accusehim ohelling out. 'We 

are not happy,in general about Turkey's foreign 

policy," the Libyan leader, CoL Muammar el- 

Qaddafi, told Erbakan to his face when the two 

met in Tripolia few months ago. "Turkey's future 

liesnot in NATO, American bases and repressing 

the Kurds but in its nobility and its past." Despite 

such rebukes, Erbakan continues to defend not 

only Libyabut also Iran, Iraq and Nigeria. 

Not surprisingly, his relations with Washington 

are less than perfect. The State Department's 

spokesman, Nicholas Burns, has warned him to 

stop making "objectionable" remarks and "taking 

potshots at the United States." When Erbakan 

said that Libya, far from being a terrorist 

state, had in fact been the victim of terrorism - 

a reference to the American bombing of Tripoli 

In response to the Sincan incident, he rolled 

back some of his Government's more controversial 

proposals and reiterated his support" for 

"pluralist political democraèy." , , 

Military commanders don't like to talk politics, 

but l found one retired general, Ihsari Gurkan, 

willing'to guess what they're'thinking. "I 

don't believe there will be a coup, but the military 

will definitely be telling politicians to stay 

, awayfrom religious fundamentalism," General 

Gurkan said. "They are taking Afghanistan as a 

warning of what these people can do if they 

come to power. Of course, not everyone in the 

Welfare Party is like that. Some are moderates, 

but there are also extremists. 

"In his heart, l don't think Erbakan supports 

the Ataturk vision of Turkey.He is trying to find 

a middle way betWeenAtaturk and fundamentalism, 

but that is not possible. They are two ideologies 

diametrically opposed to each other." 

Although Turkey is 99 percent 

Muslim, it is very different 

from radical Islamic countries 

like Iran and Sudan. Most 

Turks still believe that religion 

should have no direct influence 

on public life, but Erbakan's ascent 

has stirred a complex of 

emotions and raised questions 

that many thought had been resolved 

generations ago. 

"There is a huge battle going 

on in this country between 

modernizers and conservatives," 

one of Ankara's wisest 

foreign diplomats told me. 

"People here are about to make 

To the party faithful, Erbakan is considered a miracle worker. a .very big decision. The outcome 

will be crucial to the 

in 1986- Bums was irate. "Terrorism, democ- West because so much of our political, economracy, 

allied cohesion and loyalty," he said, "are ic and military planning in this part of the world 

important issues that l think the Turkish Prime hingeson Turkey." 

Minister needs to be reminded of." . Many Turks believe it is nonsense to imagine 

Never is Erbakan more deferential than when that their country can emerge as the leader of a 

dealing with Turkey's military commanders, new bloc of Muslim nations strong and united 

who, with three coups to their credit since 1960, enough to negotiate a new world order with the 

are not shy about intervening ",hen they feel the titans of the G-7. Religion may unite these 

country's stability is threatened. They sent a clear countries, but.deep social,political and econommessage 

earlier this month when they ordered a ic differences, divide them. For all his talk of 

column of tanks through the streets.of Sincan, a brotherhood, Erbakan is a Turkish nationalist 

town only 25 miles from Ankara. Their muscle 'who puts his own country's interests first. So are 

flexing followed a rally at which the Iranian Am-. the heads of other Muslim governments. 

bassador gave a speech calling fQr implementa- ''These are dreams," scoffed Kamran Inan, a 

tion of Sharia,the strict Islamic legalcode. leadin~ opposition figure in Parliament. "We 

Erbakan iswell aware of the army's power and have to accept the fact that money doesn't have 

respects its role as guardian of the secular state. a religion. Interests have no religion. The 

Although he dares not defy' military com- present governr:nent especially is daydreaming. 

manders on impOrtant matters, he lodgesasym::' If there was solidarity among the 52 Muslim nabolic 

protest now and then. Before one recent tions, the world balance would be different. Two 

meeting of the National Security Council, for hundred and fifty thousand Bosnians wouldn't 

example, the commanders announced that they have been killed."- .', 

would propose the dismissal of 59 officers sus- Although Erbakan's dream of worldwide Muspected 

of fundamentalist leanings. Erbakan lim solidarity is hardly realistic, he strikes a reshowed 

his displeasure by staying away from the sponsive chord when he complains that the West 

session but appeared later and signed the decree. is treating Turker unfairly.For m~re than a centu- 

110


ry Turks have sought to live up to Western standards 

only to have the doors slammed in their 

face; most recently by the European Union, 

which for years has resisted their efforts to join. 

Erbakan plays skillfully on this resentment. 

"Turkey has been a European country for centuries, 

and it is a European country today,." he 

insisted. ''Five hundred years ago our temtory 

stretched to the outskirts of Vienna, and Istanbul 

was the largest city in Europe. Today part of 

our territory is geographically in Europe. But 

unfortUnately, for a long time European policy 

toward us has been very wrong. Turkey has been 

in NATO for more than 40 years, but the West is 

constantly pushing us away. They treat us unjustly, 

and then they blame us." 

For the last decade, European leaders have been 

giving Turkey some direct advice. I~ you ~t to 

join our club, they say, stop tortU~g. pns?n~~, 

stop throwing jo~ts and. po~tlC1aDSID Jail 

and stop your war agamst ~ur~h IDSurgents. Erbakan 

rejects these suggestions Just as completely 

as did his secular predecessors. 

"There is no particular human rights problem 

in Turkey," he said. "Western countries shouldn't 

talk to us about human rights. It's like an old 

record. When Western diplomats or cabinet 

ministers come to visit us, they take out this old 

record and play it. It has no meaning." 

Erbakan also repeated the officialline on the 

Kurdish conflict, which has cost more than 

20,000 lives over the last 12 years and shows no 

signs of abating. He described it as "not a war 

but a fight against terrorism" and said a negotiated 

settlement was out of the question. 

ERBAKAN CLEARLY HAS A NEW VISION 

for Turkey. He is already looking forward 

to the next election - which he 

may call in a year or two - when he 

hopes to win enough votes to govern without a 

secular partner. Under Turkey's complex electoral 

system, that would require him to win 

about 39 percent of the popular vote, which 

will mean grabbing about il third of the non- 

Islamist vote. 

The Turkey of Erbakan's dreams would probably 

be a nationalist democracy, a society that tolerates 

secular'voices but is at heart religious, conscious 

of history and infused with a God-given 

sense of earthly mission. lnother words, a kind of 

Muslim Israel rather than another Iran. 

On the campus of Istanbul University, once the 

home of the Ottoman defense ministry, I met 

Toktamis Atis, a popular professor and commentator. 

When I asked him how frightened he is for 

his country's future, he smiled as if he wanted to 

come over and put his arm around my shoulders. 

"The secular forces in Turkish society are strong 

enough to defend themselves," he assured me. "If 

Erbakan tried to challenge them directly, there 

would be great conflict in Turkey, maybe even 

civil war. He knows that. Maybe, in his heart, he 

really would like to wipe away the secular state, 

but he's not so stupid as to try.••• 

Turkish Daily News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28,1997 

US says Iran does support 

Washington- Turkish Daily News 

• In the debate on the intentions of Iran. the 

U.S. State Department came down on the 

side of the Turkish military and said, yes. 

Iran does provide aid and comfort for the 

PKK. 

The Islamist senior coalition partner Welfare 

Party (RP) officials maintain thatthat is mere 

hearsay and that' Imnians tnal"ntalil'the pO'tèst 

of motives towards its "Muslim brothers" in 

Turkey. 

"Iran provides safehaven to elements of 

the Kurdistail Workers Party (PKK)," an official 

State Department stateme~t said, an~ 

described the PKK as a "Turkish separatIst 

woup which has conducted numerous terror- 

Ist attacks in Turkey and throughout Europe." 

Until now. State Department always referred 

to the PKK as a "vicious terror organizmion," 

not as a "Turkish separatist group." 

When asked how he interpreted visits to 

Tehran of Massoud Barzani and Jalal 

PKK 

Talabani, leaders of the two major Iraqi . 

Kurdish factions. KDP and PUK, respecttvely, 

department spokesman Nicholas Bl1m~ 

said "we don't believe in any salvation to be 

found in Tehran by anybody including Iraqi 

Kurds. Salvation won't be found in Baghdad 

orTehran. It's going to be found in 

Washington and Ankara." 

On secularism 

When asked about the Administration's 

views on se~ularjsm. Bums said .•.•since.1923 

United Sdtes'has been admiring the secular 

foundation of Turkish society." Ataturk, who 

abolished both Sultanate and the Khalifate, 

declared Turkey a Republic on Oct~ber 29, . 

1923. The day is ohserved as a natIOnal hoh- 

~. 

State Minister Abdullah GuI. on t 

h 

e 

the 

0 r 

hand, always maintained he a~mires secularism 

as implemented in the Umted ~tates, a 

journalist commented. "00 vou thmk the US 

111


has a different sort of secularism than 

Turkey?" 

"I'm not gonna give advice," Bums said 

diplomatjcaUy. "Turkish tradition and foundation 

for the [last] 70 years has been quite 

consistent. Turks have already made a deci- 

,sion on their own secular foundation and we 

made ours 210 years ago." 

"The Turkish people have already decided 

on Turkey's seculardemocracy. We think 

that's a good decision for the Turkish people 

to maintain," Bums said. 

,On Crete 

A Greek-journalist wlmtèdJo:know iftbe 

,Wall Street J0umal story about Turkish, 

General Staff raising questions on Aegean 

islands as f.lU' eastas Crete, Bums said: "As , 

f~ às 1 knOW. we are not aware of any specif- 

,lc Turkish èfäims in the Aegean apart from 

ImialKardak. That's the only one we talked 

to Turks about last year. No other islands." 

TRNC,in EU? 

Fifteen EU countries, with the exception of 

Greece, have decided to invite Turkish 

Republic of Northern Cyprus to the accession 

talks together with Greek Cyprus. What did 

the State Department have to say to this ' 

development, someone else asked. 

"EU has to make its own decisions." a noncommittal.Bums 

said. "United State~ is not 

going to comment publiclyon the announced 

positions. It's up to them to decide 'what to 

do." 

Çiller "meets" Albright 

ßums also bmught a clarification- to the earli-; 

erTurkish press repörts that Foreign Ministè( 

TansuÇiIler'häs'~'met" with her'American , 

counterpart Madeleine Albright during the 

NATO lT!eeting both attended in Brussels. 

"They met at the NA TO haU in Brussels," 

,Bums said. "Mrs. Çiller came to Secretary . 

Albright and said "Isn't it wonderful now that 

two of us, two women together? Welcome to 

the Club!" Çiller was very nice. Albright 

appreciated." 

' 

The "meeting" in question was apparently 

'a private chat along the corridors of NATO 

headquarters. 

"After the NATO sessions a week ago 

yesterday (Feb 25) Çiller and Albright had a 

four-or-five-minute conversation alone. It 

was a private disCussion, obviously, standing 

.in the hall," Bums said. 

\. 

112


-Le Monde - vendredi, 28 février1997 -Le Monde - vendredi, 28 février 1997 

Ull !lux t'Il 't.lgnatioll dt.'pui, t 97) 

- 

8 

7. 

6 . 

5. 

4. 

c:JMoin. de 2,5% 

lôn;q 2,5%à 4,9% 

_S,O%à7,4 

_7,5%à9,9% 

_lO%etplus 

~i 

la part des immigrés dans la population 

française n'a pas augmenté depuis vingt ans 

Où SONT LES IMMIGRÉS dans 

le débat sur l'immigration? Comme 

à chaque fois que la France s'enflamme 

sur ce sujet passionnel, les 

hommes et les femmes disparaissent 

derrière les mécanismes juridiques, 

les stratégies politiques et 

les anathèmes. Le mérite de l'étude 

publiée par l'Institut national de la 

statistique et des études économiques 

(Insee), jeudi 27 février, est 

de réintroduire les dimensions humaines, 

trop souvent absentes des 

actuelles controverses. A travers des 

chiffres publiés à point nommé apparaissent 

des réalités plus 

complexes et, parfois, moins déprimantes 

que celles reflétées par les 

discours ambiants. 

A sa manière, ce document de 

l'Insee est un événement. Depuis 

quinze ans, les discussions sur l'immigration 

sont alimentées par des 

statistiques basées sur un critère 

unique, fondamentalement républicain, 

celui de la nationalité. On disserte 

donc sur les étrangers, et non 

sur les immigrés. C'est plus qu'une 

affaire de nuance: quelque 100000 

étrangers acquièrent la nationalité 

française chaque année et disparaissent 

des statistiques sans que la 

réalité sociale qu'ils incarnent n'en 

soit, pour autant, bouleversée. La 

catégorie des «immigréS''', ede, re: 

f1ète cette dynamique et rend mieux 

compte du phénomène, sans toutefois 

inclure la «deuxième génération 

», née en France. Elle a été appréhendée 

grâce à une exploitation 

spécifique des recensements de la 

population et à une enquête de 

l'Institut national d'études démographiques 

(INED) sur l'insertion 

sociale. 

Est «immigrée» toute personne 

née étrangère dans un pàys étranger 

et qui vit en France. Plus des deux 

tiers des immigrés sont des étrangers, 

tandis qu'un tiers a acquis la 

nationalité française, soit deux fois 

plus qu'au début du siècle. Au total, 

la France comptait 3,6 millions 

d'étrangers et 4,2 millions d'immigrés 

au recensement de 1990. ces 

derniers représentent 7,4 % de la 

population totale, chiffre resté 

stable depuis le recensement de 

1975, c'est-à-dire depuis le moment 

où il a été décidé de stopper l'appel 

à de la main-d'œuvre immigrée. 

NATURAUSA110NS 

En réalité, l'immigration, essentiellement 

farniliale, n'a. jamais cessé: 

longtemps stabilisée aux alentours 

de 100 000 entrées par an 

(familles, réfugiés et quelques travailleurs), 

elle diminue fortement 

depuis 1992 et n'a pas dépassé 

68 000 en 1995. Mais ce flux d'entrées 

est compensé par un fort 

mouvement de naturalisation. Tandis 

que de nouveaux immigrés s'insfanent 

légal~ment, d'autres, parmi 

les plus anciens, deviennent français. 

Ce mouvement démontre la vigueur 

du mécanisme d'intégration: 

quelque 100000 étrangers acquièrent 

la nationalité française 

chaque année. Ainsi, sur les 

56,7 millions d'habitants de la 

France recensés en 1990, 1,3 million, 

soit 2,3 %, sont des immigrés devenus 

français. 

Les origines des nouveaux arrivants 

ont largement varié. Alors que 

près de 80 % des immigrés étaient 

d'origine européenne dans les années 

60, avec une large domination 

des Italiens (32 %), les Européens ne 

forment plus que la moitié du total 

actuel. Aujourd'hui, les Portugais 

sont les plus nombreux (14,4 %), suivis 

par les Algériens (13,3 %), les Italiens 

(11,6%), les Marocains (11%) et 

les Espagnols (9,5 %). La place des 

Africains noirs n'est que de 6,6 %, 

mais elle a doublé en trente ans. 

La population immigrée est atypique 

puisque les jeunes y sont 

presque absents, par définition. Elle 

l'est ausssi, de manière plus inattendue, 

par la forte présence de personnes 

âgées. Le phénomène est 

particulièrement frappant dans l'immigration 

d'origine européenne, où 

les plus de soixante-cinq ans forment 

plus de 30 % du total (14,8 % 

dans la population d'ensemble). Ces 

courants anciens se sont taris, tandis 

que les nouvelles générations, nées 

en France, disparaissaient du paysage 

de l'immigration. 

Philippe Bernard 

* Les immigrés en France. Collection 

«Contours et caractères». 

140p., 78 F. 

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CORSE-MATIN - nice-matin - Vendredi 28 févri,er 1997 

rI 

BASTIA 

Rédaction, abonnements, service des ventes: 21, rue C.-Campinchi (1er étage) - Tél. 04.95.32.85.00 (lignes groupées) - Téléc. 04.95.32,85.19 

La. tragédie 

kurde 

Débat « transméditerranéen » avec Danielle Mitterrand et Kendal Nezan demain au théâtre 

Le fait est qu'après avoir reçu' 

Mgr Pierre Claverie, évêque 

d'Oran, quelques jours à peine 

avant son assassinat du 

1er août dernier, et Mgr Henri 

Tessier, archevêque d'Alger - 

c'était le dimanche 9 -le « festival 

transméditerranée » s'apprête 

à recevoir demain samedii 

Danielle Mitterrand, présidente 

de l'association


-Le Monde - mercredi, 26 février 1997 -Le Monde - mercredi, 26 février 1997 

Des performances scolaires 

proches de celles des enfants d'ouvriers 

AU CLICHÉ selon lequel les enfants 

d'immigrés font «baisser le 

niveau» scolaire, le document de 

l'Insee oppose le tableau plus 

nuancé d'élèves, certes handicapés 

socialement et culturellement, en 

difficulté à l'école élémentaire, 

mais qui, dans J'enseignement secondaire, 

surmontent les obstacles 

et réussissent aussi souvent que les 

enfants d'ouvriers nés en France. 

Reprenant une étude de l'éducation 

nationale portant sur les enfants 

d'immigrés entrés en sixième 

en 1989 (3 % de l'effectiftotal), celle 

de l'Insee dresse la liste des difficultés 

spécifiques aux enfants d'immigrés 

au regard de l'institution 

scolaire. Ils sont issus de familles 

ouvrières (66 %) et nombreuses 

(plus de quatre enfants dans 68 % 

des cas), leurs parents n'ont aucun 

diplôme (68 %). Ils ont connu tardivement 

notre langue et ont rarement 

fréquenté un cycle complet à 

la maternelle. 

Résultat: la moitié des enfants 

d'immigrés redoublent à l'école 

(36 % des enfants d'ouvriers nés en 

France) et ils obtiennent globalement 

de faibles résultats aux 

épreuves d'évaluation. 

Pourtant, cette tendance négative 

se renverse au collège: 65 % 

des enfants d'immigrés parviennent 

en quatrième sans avoir 

redoublé au collège. Une performance 

inférieure à celle réalisée 

par l'ensemble des élèves nés en 

Frcplce (74 %), mais supérieure à 

celle des enfants d'ouvriers (62 %), 

dont ils sont les plus proches socialement. 

«Les difficultés initiales 

se résorbent peu à peu », résume 

l'Insee, en pointant cependant la 

propension du système scolaire à 

diriger les enfants de l'immigration 

vers les classes de relégation, 

comme les «sections d'éducation 

spécialisée », qui accueillent 8 % 

d'entre eux, contre 4 % des enfants 

d'ouvriers. 

Les attentes des familles imnugrées 

à l'égard de l'école contribuent 

sans doute à expliquer ces 

l.t pratiqllt' de'llallglIc'I 

t.'11 t.lInille 

IMMIGRÉS QUI ONT CESSÉ DE PARLER 

PRINCIPALEMENT LEUR lANGUE 

D'ORIGINE À LEURS ENFANTS 

(en /onction de leur date d'arrMle) : 

performances. Ainsi 78 % des parents 

d'élèves immigrés «souhaitent 

que leur erifant poursuive ses 

études jusqu'à vingt ans et plus », 

alors que ce désir n'est partagé que 

par 67 % des familles ouvrières autochtones. 

Pourtant, domine le 

sentiment d'éloignement par rapport 

à l'institution scolaire. La difficulté 

à maiùiser le français y est 

pour beaucoup, surtout pour les 

représentants des vagues d'immigration 

les plus récentes, et tout 

particulièrement pour les mères. La 

moitié des mères algériennes (19 % 

des pères) déclarent parler difficilement 

ou pas du tout le français, le 

taux est encore de 30 % chez les 

Portugaises et monte à 100 % chez 

les Thrques. 

Nul étonnement, donc, à constater 

qu'une large majorité des parents 

maghrébins, turcs et même 

portugais disent se sentir «très 

souvent dépassés pour aider» leur 

enfant dans ses devoirs. De même, 

les contacts avec les établissements 

sont rares: 38 % des immigrés 

d'origine portugaise, mais 24 % des 

originaires d'Algérie, ne rencontrent 

pas les enseignants (15 % 

chez les Français). Pourtant,l'abandon 

progressif de la langue d'origine 

et le choix du français pour 

converser avec les enfants apparaît 

comme un signe d'intégration: 

c'est le cas de 85 % des pères italiens, 

de 69 % des Algériens, de 

54 % des Portugais, de 44 % des 

Marocains et Tunisiens, mais de 

17 % des Thrcs, derniers arrivants. 

Ph.B. 

......ii.i. ..... ..... .ii.. • 

-Le Monde - mercredi, 26 février1997 -Le Monde - mercredi, 26 février 1997 ••.. 

En première ligne pour le chômage 

CRISE OBLIGE, le (. travailleur 

immigré» ne correspond plus nécessairement 

au stéréotype de 

l'ouvrier à la chaîne ou du balayeur. 

S'ils demeurent massivement 

des ouvriers (46 %),les immigrés 

travaillent très 

majoritairement dans le secteur 

des services (61 %), un phénomène 

qui résulte en partie de la large féminisation 

de cette population. 

Leur surreprésentation est nette 

non seulement dans l'automobile 

(l0 % des actifs) et la construction 

(16,5 %), deux secteurs qui emploient 

à eux seuls la moitié des 

hommes, mais aussi dans les services 

aux particuliers et les activités 

immobilières où sont concim~ 

trées les femmes. En revanche, ils 

sont peu présents dans les secteurs 

de l'énergie, de la finance et de la 

fonction publique. 

Des spécificités nationales apparaissent 

: 27 % des personnes d'origine 

portugaise travaillent dans le 

bâtiment, 17 % des immigrés d'Algérie 

dans les « services aux oarti- 

115


_ 00% 

POPUlATION 

AOIVE TOTALE 

C:=J 

POPUlATION 

AOIVE IMMIGRÉE 

le taux de chùmage 

cullers» (8 % des Français), 8 % des 

natifs du Maroc dans l'agriculture 

(contre 5 % des Français). Globalement, 

les immigrés, qui représentent 

7,4 % de la population oc- 

•cupent 7,1% des emplois. 

Chômage, précarité: l'immigré' 

est en preIllière ligne. Dans un cas 

,sur cinq, le «travailleur immigré» 

est d'ailleurs un... chômeur. Letaux 

moyen de chômage, qui excède de 

huit points la moyenne ~ationale, 

,est particulièrement élevé chèz les 

jeunes et les femmes, avec une aggravation 

nette depuis 1990. Plus 

.de 37 % des actifs immigrés âgés de 

quinze à vingt-quatre ans '.sont 

sans travail. 

LES PORTUGAIS PLUS iaPARGNiaS 

Le chômage frappe aussi les im-- 

. migrés dans la force de l'âge: entre 

25 et 39 ans, un homme sur cinq et 

Unefemme sur quatre n'ont pas de 

travail. Les originaires de Thrquie 

et du Maghreb sont davantage 

touchés que les immigrés d'Afrique 

noire. Les Portugais, avec un taux 

minimum de 8,9 %, sont les plus 

épargnés, mieux même que les 

Français. Plus souvent que la 

,moyenne, les immigrés occupent 

des emplois temporaires (8,7 % 

.contre 7,6 %). Dsne travaillent pas 

plus souvent. que d'autres pendant 

les week-ends ou le soir. Mais 11% 

des hQmmes employés dans le secteur 

de la santé travaillent durant 

la nuit, alors qu'ils ne forment que 

5 % des travailleurs du secteur. 

. Pour les immigrés de la première 

;génér~tion âgés aujourd'hui de 

quarante à cinquante ans, l'ascenseur 

social n'est l>astotalement en 

panne, mais ilest d'une lenteur désespérante. 

Neuf sur dix d'entre 

eux ont commencé leur carrière 

comme ouvriers: Ils le restent à 

74 % après vingt ans de carrière. Le 

contraste est rude avec les per-. 

.sonnes nées en France: 55 % sont 

ouvriers en début de carrière, mais 

ilsne sont plus que 31% après deux; 

décennies. Alors que la moitié des: 

natifs de France ayant débuté 

comme ouvriers quittent cette ca-: 

tégorie en cours de carrière, ce, 

n'est le cas que d'un immigré sur 

cinq. «Les possibilités de mobilité 

professionnelle en cours de carrière 

ont donc été moindres pour les immigrés, 

constate l'Insee. Néanmoins; 

les mouvements de promotion 

existent.» Ainsi, parmi les 

immigrés qui ont changé de catégorie 

en cours de carrière (53 % du 

total), 58 % ont eu un parcours ascendant, 

passant d'un poste d'ouvrier 

non qualifié à un emploi 

d'ouvrier qualifié ou d'indépendant. 

La mobilité des immigrés mesurée 

plus généralement dans 

l'échelle sociale n'est guère plus ai~ 

sée. Fils d'agriculteurs ou d'ouvriers 

pour 80 % d'entre eux, ils ne 

sont plus, pour aucun d'entre eux, 

agriculteurs à l'âge de la quarantaine, 

mais ouvriers à 80 %. Seuls 

2 % des fils d'ouvriers sont cadres 

tandis que 10% ont grimpé dans 

les prOfessions intermédiaires 

(contre respectivement 9 % et 25 % 

pour les personnes nées en 

F~élIlce). 

L'enquête, en pointant l'avant 

tage très net de ces dernières, tend 

à confirmer, en creux, ce qUe 

d'autres études ont montré: alors 

que la promotion sociale est rare 

pour la génération de l'immigration, 

pour ainsi dire «sacrifiée»' 

les enfants issus de cette immigra, 

tion et nés eh France bénéficien~ 

de possibilités d'ascension autre~ 

ment plus larges. 

Ph.B. 

o 0 

--0 

116

Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

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