Turkish Forum

Author: Aylin D. Miller

  • Detaining Ataturk

    Detaining Ataturk

    Turkish Cartoon: Secret Police At Ataturk’s Mausoleum

    Agent: “Yes boss, we are waiting… We will detain him the moment he comes out!”
    © Zafer Temoçin, Cumhuriyet, 3rd Jul 2008

      

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Atatürk Centennial is declared in 1981 by United Nations and UNESCO. The centennial of Atatürk’s birth was honored by the United Nations and UNESCO by declaring it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopting the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial as follows:[1]

    “ Convinced that personalities who worked for understanding and cooperation between nations and international peace will be examples for future generations, Recalling that the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic, will be celebrated in 1981, Knowing that he was an exceptional reformer in all fields relevant to the competence of UNESCO, Recognizing in particular that he was the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism, Recalling that he was the remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction of color, religion and race, It is decided that UNESCO should collaborate in 1981 with the Turkish Government on both intellectual and technical plans for an international colloquium with the aim of acquainting the world with the various aspects of the personality and deeds of Atatürk whose objective was to promote world peace, international understanding and respect for human rights. ”

    1 Unesco. Executive Board, 113th session, 1981. Publ: 1982, (272 p. in various pagings). 113 EX/SR.1.21

     
  • Syrian FM: Too early to speak on direct talks with Israel

    Syrian FM: Too early to speak on direct talks with Israel

    Syria’s foreign minister said on Friday it was premature to talk of direct peace talks with Israel. A third round of indirect talks between the two sides took place in Istanbul this week and ended with an agreement to hold a fourth round of negotiations in Turkey in late July, a Turkish government source told Reuters on Thursday.

    “It’s premature to answer this question,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said when asked when direct talks could be held. He confirmed that both sides had agreed to hold a fourth round of indirect talks, but did not say where or when.
     
    “The moment when we feel that we’ve got the agreed common ground between us and the Israelis, which covers all elements of a peace agreement, we will agree on the location of these direct talks,” he said in a question and answer session at the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI).

    “The direct talks need an active American participation and sponsoring. To give guarantees we need an active European role maybe represented by France. We need also a role for Russia, a role for the United Nations for these talks,” Moualem conveyed.

    “We are at the beginning,” Moualem said, adding that he had spent 10 years negotiating with the Israelis between 1991 and 2000, when he said 90 percent of an agreement was reached in direct talks. “Now we are in the third round. I did not calculate at that time how many rounds I had with the Israelis, more than 1,000 rounds,” he said.

    © 2008 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

  • Arming for Asymmetric Warfare: Turkey’s Arms Industry in the 21st Century

    Arming for Asymmetric Warfare: Turkey’s Arms Industry in the 21st Century

    Dr. Andrew McGregor
    June 2008

    Executive Summary

    Located at the strategic crossroads of Europe, Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East,
    Turkey still maintains a vast conscript army of over one million men, the second-largest
    in NATO and the largest in Europe. Major reforms to the military are underway which
    will reduce its overall size by 20-30 percent while increasing its professionalism, training
    and technological capabilities.

    • Turkey’s drive for self-sufficiency in arms has brought about administrative,
    financial, political and military reforms designed to enable Turkey to remain a
    regional power capable of independent action outside its borders if it feels its
    national integrity is threatened.

    • Turkey is the world’s fourth-largest importer of arms and the world’s 28th largest
    arms exporter. Turkey is aggressively seeking to increase its market share,
    expecting to increase its annual exports to $1.5 billion in the next three years.
    Turkey is also seeking to increase its share of domestically produced military
    equipment from the current 25 percent to 50 percent and its share of NATO
    projects from 4 percent to 20 percent by 2011.

    • Turkey’s arms program is designed to address the armed forces’ requirements in
    two main areas: Conventional warfare in cooperation with its strategic allies in
    NATO and the new challenges posed by asymmetrical warfare (insurgencies,
    terrorism, guerrilla warfare, etc.).

    • Turkey faces internal security threats from right-wing, left-wing, religious and
    ethno-nationalist extremists. These groups include the Kurdistan Workers’ Party
    (PKK), al-Qaeda, Turkish Hizbullah and the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders’ Front
    (IBDA-C).

    • Turkey’s arms sector continues to be tightly controlled by the state, though
    procurement is jointly handled by civil and military authorities. Institutions like
    the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) and the Turkish Armed Forces
    Foundation (TSKGV) have recourse to financing outside the state budget in their
    efforts to coordinate the activities of Turkish defense industries with Turkish
    military requirements and encourage the development of new enterprises and
    technology.

    • Licensed production and joint projects are seen as stepping stones to eventual
    Turkish independence and self-sufficiency in arms production. To this end,
    technology transfer plays a critical part in the awarding of foreign arms and
    equipment contracts.

    • Foreign debate on issues like the alleged Armenian genocide of World War I and
    Turkish methods in repressing militant Kurdish separatism have come to
    influence the award of arms contracts. Turkey has begun to look further afield for
    nations that are willing to meet its military needs without feeling the need to
    become involved in internal political or historical issues.

    • Intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and information management are
    viewed as the keys to military success in the 21st century, especially in meeting
    the challenge of asymmetrical threats.

    • The Turkish defense establishment is pushing the Turkish arms industry in the
    direction of independent production of high-tech weapons. Mastering these
    technologies will allow Turkey to expand its export market, which will in turn
    help finance arms production for Turkey’s internal needs.

  • Dismantling The Secular State Set Up By Ataturk

    Dismantling The Secular State Set Up By Ataturk

    3rd Jul 2008

    . .July 1 (Bloomberg) — Turkish police detained more than 20 people suspected of ties to a group of alleged coup plotters, including two retired generals and the chief of Ankara’s main business lobby, deepening a split between the government and opponents who accuse it of illegally promoting religion.
    Former generals Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur were arrested early today, a spokesman for the     Ankara police said by telephone. Authorities had to break down the door of Tolon’s home in the capital, the spokesman said. Ankara Chamber of Commerce chief Sinan Aygun was also taken into custody, said Melih Cuhadar, a spokesman for the chamber.
    The sweep came hours before prosecutors presented an indictment to the     Constitutional Court to close down Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party. They say Erdogan wants to dismantle the secular state set up by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
    “It seems the government is throwing down the gauntlet to the key players in the secular camp,” said Erik Zurcher, a professor at     Leiden University in the Netherlands and author of “Turkey: A Modern History.” “Perhaps it feels it has nothing left to lose because the party’s closure will come anyway.”
    The benchmark stock index had its biggest drop since March 17, as the political outlook rattled investors, said Orhan Canli, a trader at broker Is Yatirim in Istanbul. Bonds fell and the lira weakened.
    `More Unstable’
    “    Turkey is a lot more unstable than it was yesterday,” said Bulent Aliriza, head of the Turkey program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, in a telephone interview. 

    The high court ruled against Erdogan in a related case in June, striking down a law allowing women to wear Islamic-style headscarves at universities. The government, set to present its defense in two days, asserts the prosecution case rests on an “anachronistic” understanding of secularism.
    Today’s arrests create “an environment of fear” and resemble events in Iran prior to the Islamic revolution of 1979, the opposition Republican People’s Party leader Deniz Baykal told his lawmakers in a televised meeting in Ankara.     

    Ankara police spokesman said 24 people were rounded up today. The state-run Anatolia news agency said 21 were held in Ankara, Istanbul and other cities and three were at large.
    Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, deputy chief of Erdogan’s Justice and Development party, said the independence of the judiciary to conduct its investigation should be respected, CNN Turk television reported.
    January Arrests
    Dozens of suspected members of a group of alleged plotters, including former military officers, were arrested in January for possible involvement in bomb plots and other activities against the Turkish state.
    Erdogan in March denied any links between the arrests and the closure case against his party. Prosecutors also want Erdogan, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and 70 party officials banned from politics for five years.
    “Whatever people say, whatever obstacles they put in the way, there can be no other path than change, development and democratization,” Erdogan told his deputies in     Ankara today.
    Turkey‘s army has ousted four governments from power in as many decades. Military leaders sought to block parliament’s appointment of Gul last year because of his Islamist past, prompting Erdogan to call an early general election.
    Stocks Slump
    Turkey‘s main stock index slumped 5.4 percent in Istanbul. Bond yields on benchmark lira debt tracked by ABN Amro rose 37 basis points to 22.80 percent. The lira fell 1.5 percent against the dollar to 1.2443.
    Retired General Eruygur, who was detained today, heads the Ataturk Thought Association, a pro-secular lobby. The group organized rallies attended by hundreds of thousands of people last year to protest Gul’s appointment as president.
    Turkish police also arrested Mustafa Balbay, the     Ankara bureau chief of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, Mutluhan Karagozoglu, a lawyer for the newspaper, said in a televised news conference in Ankara. Cumhuriyet’s writers have accused the government of flouting Turkey’s secular rules.
    “I am accused of loving Ataturk and the republic,” Aygun told reporters as he returned to the business group’s headquarters in central Ankara, accompanied by police, who began searching his office, Cuhudar said.      

     

  • Bosnian War Crimes Sentence Blocked

    Bosnian War Crimes Sentence Blocked

    By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
    Published: July 3, 2008
    Filed at 6:17 a.m. ET

    Pool photo by Zoran Lesic

    Naser Oric at the court house of the UN war crimes tribunal on Thursday in The Hague.

    THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A U.N. appeals court on Thursday overturned the war crimes conviction of Naser Oric, a Bosnian Muslim considered a war hero by many in his country for fighting Serbs in the embattled Srebrenica enclave during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

    Oric, 41, was convicted two years ago by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal of failing to prevent the murder and torture of Serb captives in Srebrenica. But judges gave him a lenient two-year sentence and ordered his immediate release because of time spent in custody.

    But appeals judges went even further, overturning both convictions because the original trial failed to establish that Oric had control over forces responsible for the crimes.

    ”The appeals chamber has no doubt that grave crimes were committed against Serbs detained in Srebrenica,” said presiding judge Wolfgang Schomburg. ”However, proof that crimes have occurred is not sufficient to sustain a conviction of an individual for these crimes.”

    Under those circumstances, ”the appeals chamber finds that the appropriate course of action can only be a reversal of Naser Oric’s convictions,” Schomburg added.

    Oric stared ahead without showing any emotion as the judgment was read and then bowed briefly to judges before sitting down. Outside court, he hugged friends and his lawyer before walking out the front door a free man.

    ”Of course I am very happy,” he said.

    His lawyer, Vasvija Vidovic, said the acquittal was no surprise.

    ”Anyone who followed the trial could expect the result that he is not guilty,” she said.

    Oric said he was not bitter about spending nearly three years in pretrial custody, only to ultimately be found not guilty on all charges. ”It was my destiny,” he said.

    Oric led the dogged defense of the Srebrenica enclave against attacks from Bosnian Serb forces from early in the war. In 1995, Serb forces stormed a U.N.-declared ”safe haven” in Srebrenica and slaughtered some 8,000 men in Europe’s worst civilian massacre since World War II.

    Oric defended the actions of Muslim fighters in the enclave, saying they were in a desperate situation.

    ”I don’t think they really committed crimes,” he said outside court. ”We were under siege. We were just fighting to survive and fighting for our lives.”

    Some Bosnian Serbs claim the 1995 massacre was an act of revenge by uncontrolled troops because Oric’s troops killed thousands of Serbs in the villages surrounding Srebrenica.

    Judges at his original trial acquitted Oric of the most serious charges against him, including direct involvement in the murder of Serb prisoners and wanton destruction of Serb villages before the fall of Srebrenica.

    One of the Serb commanders found responsible for the massacre of Muslims, Radoslav Krstic, has already been sentenced to 35 years after a conviction on genocide charges.

    The commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, Gen. Ratko Mladic — also charged with genocide for the Srebrenica killings — is still in hiding and is believed to be in neighboring Serbia.

  • OSCE PA adopts Turkish thesis against Armenian Genocide

    OSCE PA adopts Turkish thesis against Armenian Genocide

    03.07.2008 13:32 GMT+04:00

    /PanARMENIAN.Net/ During its latest session in Astana, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) adopted Turkey’s motion which says that past events like genocide should be recognized only after historians carried out a detailed research in all kinds of archives, independent French journalist Jean Eckian told PanARMENIAN.Net.

    “Adoption of the Turkish thesis by the OSCE is a significant achievement against the Armenian allegations. Also, the Turkish thesis regarding the events of 1915 was adopted for the first time on an international platform. Armenia was the only among 56 OSCE member states to vote against the motion,” said Alaattin Buyukkaya, head of the Turkish delegation to the OSCE PA.

    “The motion says that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly encourages formation of joint commission of historians and experts from the third countries in case of a research into political and military archives to scientifically and impartially enlighten a disputed period in history in an effort to serve transparency and common understanding among the member states,” Buyukkaya added.

    Source: PanARMENIAN.Net, 03.07.2008,