Turkish Forum

Month: June 2009

  • Turkey to ‘never give up’ EU bid

    Turkey to ‘never give up’ EU bid

    Turkey has urged France and Germany to back its bid to join the EU, rejecting calls for a special partnership rather than full membership.

    “We will never give up,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Brussels.

    Turkey’s EU accession talks are going at a glacial pace and risk suspension if Ankara fails to open its ports and airports to Cyprus this year.

    France and Germany want to give Turkey a “privileged partnership” with the EU.

    But Mr Erdogan insisted “our goal is full membership”.

    He also said it was “populist and wrong” to use Turkey’s bid as an election issue.

    Some right-wing parties opposed to Turkey’s bid made gains in the recent European Parliament elections.

    Slow progress

    The BBC’s Oana Lungescu says both opposition inside the EU and insufficient democratic reforms in Turkey are hampering its bid.

    Next week will see a small step forward, when Turkey is due to start talks on taxation, one of the 35 areas where it is negotiating EU entry terms.

    Turkish diplomats argue that their country is of strategic importance to Europe and that its eventual accession would send a positive signal to the whole Muslim world.

    So far, Turkey has opened talks on 10 out of the 35 “negotiation chapters” in the accession process, which started in October 2005.

    But eight chapters have been frozen because of Ankara’s refusal to open up its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus, an EU member.

    Turkey says it will not do this until the EU takes steps to end the Turkish Cypriot community’s economic isolation.

    BBC

  • The Jackson family requested a second independent post-mortem examination

    The Jackson family requested a second independent post-mortem examination

    The Jackson family is understood to have requested a second independent post-mortem examination on Michael Jackson’s body, a coroners officer has said.

    Brian Elias, lieutenant at Los Angeles County Department of Coroner, said: “My understanding is that they have requested a second autopsy. But we have no way of confirming that.

    “The body is in a mortuary and if they want to proceed with a separate autopsy, it is up to them.”

    The first official examination was completed on Friday and the body released to the family.

    The Rev Jesse Jackson, a family friend, was reported to have encouraged the family lawyer to press for the Jacksons to order their own tests.

    The Jackson family have gathered at their home in Encino, Los Angeles, to discuss funeral arrangements and care for his three children.

    They are reported to be searching for answers about the singer’s last days amid reports that he received a shot of the powerful painkiller Demerol shortly before his death and claims he was regularly taking a cocktail of prescription drugs.

    A family friend said the Jacksons wanted to know more about the role AEG, the promoters of the singer’s planned UK concerts at London’s O2 Arena, was playing in his life before his death.

    The family are also waiting for answers from Dr Conrad Murray, Jackson’s personal physician who was with him when he died.

    Police are still waiting to question the doctor further and have seized his car from outside Jackson’s house in case it contained drugs or other evidence.

    Press Association

  • Michael Jackson was injected with a narcotic painkiller shortly before collapsing

    Michael Jackson was injected with a narcotic painkiller shortly before collapsing

    Doctors have completed an autopsy on the body of Michael Jackson but say they cannot immediately determine what killed the singer.

    Speculation is now focusing on the 50-year-old’s use of prescription drugs, amid reports he was injected with a narcotic painkiller shortly before collapsing.

    Officials have confirmed the post mortem revealed no obvious signs of foul play but say further tests will be required, which could take several weeks.

    “The cause of death has been deferred, which means that the medical examiner has ordered additional testing such as toxicology and other studies,” said Los Angeles County Coroner’s spokesman Craig Harvey.

    “Those tests we anticipate will take an additional four to six weeks. There was no indication of any external trauma or indication of foul play to the body of Mr Jackson.”

    The superstar’s body has now been released to his family and was taken to an undisclosed location in a single, unescorted vehicle.

    Jackson was in full cardiac arrest when paramedics arrived at his rented $100,000-a-month mansion in Los Angeles on Thursday, with his personal physician trying desperately to revive him.

    The pop superstar was rushed to the nearby UCLA Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead without regaining consciousness.

    Police say they want to question Jackson’s personal physician, identified in local media reports as Houston-based cardiologist Dr Conrad Murray.

    Jackson’s body will be released to family members after they choose a mortuary for funeral arrangements, Harvey said. There was no immediate word on when he would be laid to rest.

    Celebrity website TMZ.com, which broke the news of the singer’s death, has cited an interview with an unidentified “close member” of the Jackson family, reporting the entertainer was injected with Demerol about half an hour before he went into cardiac arrest.

    The website said the family believed Jackson’s death was caused by an overdose of the drug, a narcotic painkiller.

    Detectives have searched Jackson’s home and impounded Murray’s Mercedes from the driveway, believing it may contain evidence.

    Meanwhile, authorities have released a recording of a 911 call to emergency services from the mansion at 12.21pm local time on Thursday, saying Jackson was unconscious and not breathing.

    The unidentified caller said the physician was the only other person present and was frantically performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the unconscious Jackson – without results.

    “He’s pumping, he’s pumping his chest but he’s not responding to anything, sir, please,” the man said.

    ITN

  • ORDER OF MAKARIOS GIVEN TO ECJ HEAD JUDGE

    ORDER OF MAKARIOS GIVEN TO ECJ HEAD JUDGE


    orams1

    orams2

    turkish forums note: Makarios is a gradute of Heybeliada Ruhban Okulu, Same as many greek-pontos terrorist groups lieders as in the ISTIKLAL Savasi (War Of Independence) . These terrorist groups fight against Mustafa kemal’s ARMY  and killed innocent civilians to increase their local population index in that region.. same as  the works of terrorist armenian groups.

    It has been revealed that the President of the Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ), Greek Vassilios Skouris, was awarded the Grand Collar of the Order of Makarios III on 2 November 2006 for ‘His sincere and strong feelings for the people of Cyprus (Greek Cypriots)’.

    It is the same Greek ECJ President Vassilios Skouris who signed the verdict of the ECJ dated 28 April 2009 regarding the Orams Case – the case that is so closely related to the Property Issue in Cyprus and that has a potential to cause a negative influence on the economic and political life in North Cyprus. The Grand Collar of the Order of Makarios III is an honor given by South Cyprus and is the lowest of the six levels in the Order. Further information shared by Ajans Kibris is that Skouris visited Greek Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias and other high executives in the South during his visit in February 2009 just 3 months before the Orams verdict was announced.

    Honor just after Orams case

    Skouris was awarded the Order by then Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos at the Greek Cypriot Presidential Palace a year after the Orams were taken to court in the South in 2005. The case was sent to the ECJ at the end of 2007 by the English High Court supported by the Greek Cypriot side with the approval of the Turkish side.

    Papadopoulos thanked

    During the ceremony held to award the honor to Skouris, the then Greek Cypriot President Papadopoulos was noted to have “Thanked Skouris for his support to Cyprus” Skouris thanked Papadopoulos for the honor and said that receiving the Order was an honor both for him personally and the Court of Justice of the European Communities. Vassilios Skouris has been the President of the ECJ since 7 October 2003 and he was re-elected for another term through 9 October 2006-6 October 2009.

    Verdict not judicial but political

    One of the Turkish Cypriot Senior Executive Officers commented on the issue and said that the honor conferred on Vassilios Skouris proved that ECJ’s verdict was not judicial but was political. The Executive Officer emphasized that Turkish Cypriot should raise their voices against this verdict and he said: “If the public take to the streets, the verdict won’t be effective.” ‘Orams verdict Reaction Platform’ was founded in the TRNC as a reaction against the Orams verdict and members of the platform protested the verdict in front of Northern Cyprus representative offices of Britain and the EU.

  • Headscarf-wearing Belgian MP sworn in

    Headscarf-wearing Belgian MP sworn in

    By Clive Leview-Sawyer

    Mahinur Ozdemir.

    Mahinur Ozdemir, a 26-year-old political science graduate was sworn in as a member of parliament in Brussels for the Humanist Democratic Centre, formerly the Francophone Christian Democrat party – wearing a Muslim headscarf, Belgian and Turkish media reported.

    An attempt by the Liberal Party to introduce an amendment banning the wearing of religious symbols in parliament failed.

    “Unfortunately, I have been reduced to nothing more than this scarf, and frankly it is hard to remove yourself from it,” media reports quoted Ozdemir, who is of Turkish descent, as saying. “Underneath this veil there is a personality, there is someone who is engaged, who wants things to change, who wants to move forward and execute lots of projects for the people of Brussels.”

    She said she intended continuing to wear the headscarf during her term in parliament.

    Expatica.com said that in Antwerp, the wearing of headscarves and other religious symbols would be banned from the new term beginning in September 2009.

    In France, which has seen continuing controversy about the wearing of headscarves – forbidden by the ban on religious symbols in schools – president Nicolas Sarkozy took a strong line on June 22, saying that the burqa was not a religious symbol but a “symbol of servitude and humiliation”.

    Sarkozy told the national assembly that the burqa was not welcome on French soil.

    Bulgaria has seen its own controversies involving headscarves.

    On June 2 2009, Turkish daily Yeni Safak said that the Bulgarian consulate in Istanbul had refused to process a visa application from a woman, Selver Domnez, unless she submitted a photograph of herself without a headscarf, “even though she said she told Bulgarian officials that she has a covered photo in her passport and she has been covering her hair for years,” the newspaper said.

    Domnez had a new photograph taken so that she could get a visa to visit her parents in Bulgaria, from where she immigrated to Turkey more than 40 years ago.

    In Bulgaria in 2006, two schoolgirls from Smolyan caused controversy by wanting to wear headscarves at school. Their appeal to Parliament’s committee on discrimination was rejected.

    At the time, Education Minister Daniel Vulchev said that wearing of such religious symbols went against regulations that Bulgarian schools are secular.
    In 2003, Balkan Insight said, Plovdiv resident Nurdzhan Georgieva, who went from Christianity to Islam, was refused permission to be photographed for her Bulgarian national identity card wearing a headscarf. Georgieva complained to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg but withdrew her appeal.

    Source:  www.sofiaecho.com
  • Sweden snubbed by French President

    Sweden snubbed by French President

    By A. Rienstra

    The issue of Turkey’s admission into the EU has again reared its contentious head, this time over comments made by Sweden’s Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, who spoke out in support of Turkish membership. This seemingly innocuous statement apparently provoked France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy to cancel an official visit to Sweden.

    Giving just a few days’ notice, Sarkozy pulled out of a planned meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, according to The Local. The official excuse given by the French government was that Sarkozy had overbooked his schedule. However, an unnamed French minister told the French daily Le Monde that the snub was in response to an interview Bildt gave with Le Figaro.

    Both sides deflected the heart of the issue, saying it was just a scheduling problem. Roberta Alenius, a spokeswoman for Fredrik Reinfeldt, told the AFP, “Turkey has nothing to do with this.” But she was quick to point out that the difference in opinion between France and Sweden concerning Turkish entry into the EU was “already known.”

    Sweden will assume the rotating presidency of the EU on 1 July. Sweden is officially in favour of Turkish membership in the EU, while France is decidedly against it. Sarkozy even made his opposition to Turkey a key issue in campaigning for the European parliamentary elections scheduled for 7 June.

    But Alenius downplayed the postponement of the meeting, saying the talks between Sarkozy and Reinfeldt were focused only on Sweden’s priorities during its term as EU president, the economic recession, and each country’s position on climate change in preparation for the December climate summit in Copenhagen.

    Source:  www.icenews.is, 4 June 2009