JWZamanInterview

10
Israeli hawk Yitzhak Shamir, who
first balked at American calls to trade
occupied land for peace, dies at age 96
10
19
Gülcan, Nevin,
Polat grab golds
for Turkey at
Helsinki
Mursi becomes Egypt’s first freely
elected president, faces dangerous
task to wrest power from military
Yo u r Way o f Un d e r s ta n d ı n g Tu r k e y
MONDAY, JULY 2, 2012 WWW.TODAYSZAMAN.COM TL 1.50
The Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
submitted amendments to existing laws to
Parliament's General Assembly on Sunday afternoon. It was not clear whether the amendments had
been passed at the time Today's Zaman went to
print. The amendments, backed by the government,
was drafted by the Office of the Prime Minister last
month and aims to narrow the scope of authority of
these courts, which deal with constitutional crimes,
organized crime, terror and drug trafficking. There is
growing concern that a change to the special courts'
powers or abolishing them altogether may result in
severe setbacks to the process of democratization.
Critics of the courts, on the other hand, say
the trials dealt with by special courts have spiraled
out of control, with many defendants spending
years in custody with no verdict in sight.
Bozdağ said Articles 250, 251 and 252 of the CMK
are set to be abolished and added: “Currently, there
are 22,000 [case] files [at special courts], and these
will be dealt with in accordance with new principles.
[With the CMK revision] we are taking a step to
strengthen the defense testimonies of defendants.”
Some of the key cases being dealt with by special
courts are the Ergenekon and Balyoz coup cases, as
well as the trial of the Kurdistan Communities
Union (KCK), the urban branch of the terrorist
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). CONTINUED ON PAGE 05
‘OBLIGATION TO SEEK PERMISSION’
MAJOR SETBACK TO RULE OF LAW
Legal community argues that forcing prosecutors to obtain permission from relevant institutions to investigate senior officers will serve
as a major setback to the independence of the judiciary and the rule
of law and result in the release of a large number of prominent coup
and terror suspects from prison. With a law that seeks to abolish
three articles of the Code on Criminal Procedure (CMK), the AK Party
government plans to make it an obligation for prosecutors to seek
the permission of related institutions to investigate officers at a
number of top state bodies, including the General Staff, the National
Security Council (MGK), the Interior Ministry, the National
Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the police force. CONTINUED ON PAGE 05
Residents carry the body of a girl
who protesters say was killed by shelling
by forces loyal to the Assad regime, during
her funeral in Deraa on Sunday.
DAVUTOĞLU: TRANSITIONAL GOV’T PROPOSED AS SOLUTION IN SYRIA, IMPORTANT FIRST STEP PAGE 04
denies WSJ’s ‘warplane 17 TSK scrambles jets to patrol
04 Turkey
hit in Syrian airspace’ claim
airspace near Syrian border
TURKEY HAS A LONG
TO-DO LIST, LONG WAY
TO GO BEFORE VISA
LIBERALIZATION
Turkey has dismissed reports from US intelligence showing that the Turkish jet shot down by
Syrian forces was downed in Syrian airspace.
Turkey maintains it happened in international
airspace. Prime Minister Erdoğan denied The
Wall Street Journal’s claims, calling them “false.”
Turkey has to comply with quite a long list
of conditions and do a lot of work at home
before its citizens will be able to step on European soil without a visa, according to the draft
of an action plan reviewed by Today's Zaman.
Prepared by the European Commission,
the 15-page document, entitled “Dialogue and
Cooperation Framework on Justice and Home
Affairs between the EU and Turkey: Action Plan
Towards Visa Liberalisation” sets out numerous
conditions while carefully avoiding any reference to a possible date for visa-free travel to the
EU for Turkish citizens. The draft makes it clear
that the process is a “gradual” one with “a longterm perspective,” stressing visa liberalization is
highly conditional “on an effective and consistent implementation by Turkey of those requirements vis-à-vis the EU and its Member States.”
Turkey has insisted it will not sign the Readmission Agreement, which will oblige Turkey to
readmit any illegal immigrants proven to have
entered the EU from Turkey, the most important condition for the EU to initiate visa-free
travel, until it first sees the action plan. The draft,
prepared by the Home Affairs of the European
Commission, will first be sent to the relevant
directorate-generals of the Commission for their
input and then member countries. CONTINUED ON PAGE 17
US storms kill at
11 Eastern
least 13, cut power to millions
The Turkish Armed Forces announced that they
had dispatched two F-16 fighter jets from the
İncirlik air base on Saturday to patrol the Syrian
border. The TSK statement said the jets flew near
the border after a Syrian Mi-17 helicopter approached within four miles of Turkish airspace.
Featuring news and articles from
disaster
According to Jenny White, an anthropologist
specializing in Turkey, Turkey's national
identity has been in a process of redefinition, and
during this process the notion of Muslimhood has
replaced Islamism. “Muslimhood implies a different
understanding of personhood. If you are a pious
Muslim and you enter politics, the assumption is
that you become an Islamist. But the theologians
behind the Muslimhood model ask: ‘Why should
that be so? Do Christian politicians become
Christianists when they enter politics?'” she told
Today's Zaman for Monday Talk. White's new book
dealing with the issues related to Turkey's national
identity, “Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks,”
will come out in November. MONDAY TALK CONTINUED ON PAGE 09
CONTINUED ON PAGE 11
tension
YONCA POYRAZ DOĞAN, İSTANBUL / ABANT
opposition groups on Sunday rejected a UN-brokered peace plan for a political transition in Syria,
SYRIAN OPPOSITION Syrian
calling it ambiguous and a waste of time and vowing not to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad or members
his “murderous” regime. The disappointed reaction underlined the seemingly intractable nature of the Syrian
GROUPS REJECT UN ofconflict,
which this week saw some of the bloodiest violence since the start of the uprising against Assad's
regime in March 2011. Activists said dozens of people were killed and wounded in a powerful explosion on
TRANSITION PLAN Saturday evening that hit a funeral procession in a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus.
denial
ANTHROPOLOGIST WHITE:
TURKISH MUSLIMHOOD
REPLACING ISLAMISM
EUROPEAN UNION
SELÇUK GÜLTAŞLI, BRUSSELS
JENNY WHITE
Leyla Zana, an independent pro-Kurdish
deputy from Diyarbakır who met with Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday, said
the Oslo negotiations should continue so that they
can find a viable solution to the decades-old
Kurdish issue. Zana, who elicited some harsh criticism from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy
Party (BDP) earlier in June when said she believes
Erdoğan can solve the Kurdish issue and that she
has never lost faith in him, held a press conference,
her first at Parliament in 21 years, on Sunday.
Amid ongoing debates over how to handle the
decades-old Kurdish issue as armed conflicts continue to escalate in southeastern Turkey, Zana had a
meeting with Erdoğan to discuss the issue on
Saturday. The meeting lasted for more than an hour.
She assessed the meeting for the press and shared
her views about it. She told reporters that the meeting with the prime minister was very positive and
that she hopes the talk would contribute to breaking
the deadlock over the Kurdish issue. CONTINUED ON PAGE 06
Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ
announced on Saturday that a government plan to revise three articles of the
Turkish Code on Criminal Procedure (CMK) will
affect ongoing coup and terror cases, adding to
existing concerns over the future of proceedings.
The deputy prime minister said courts hearing
these cases will continue to do so, but they will no
longer be called “specially authorized courts,” and
cases will be dealt with in accordance with the
“new principles” the government is hoping to
pass through Parliament. According to Bozdağ,
however, the new principles will not have negative
or retrograde effects on the ongoing cases.
REUTERS
KURDISH DEPUTY LEYLA
ZANA: OSLO NEGOTIATIONS
SHOULD CONTINUE
Revised CMK to affect special court
cases against coup, terror suspects
PHOTO
LEYLA ZANA
page03 26 military officers detained in espionage probe
Millions across the mid-Atlantic region sweltered
in the aftermath of violent storms that pummeled
the eastern US with high winds and downed trees,
killing at least 13 people and leaving 3 million
without power during a heat wave. The outages
will not be repaired for several days.
‘
‘
02 TODAY’S ZAMAN
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
PRESS REVIEW
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
WORDS OF WISDOM
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Assad will still have to go. What we have done
here is to strip away the fiction that he and those
with blood on their hands can stay in power.
Time is running out. The conflict
[in Syria] must be resolved through
peaceful dialogue and negotiations.
Maybe all one can do is
hope to end up with the
right regrets.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Peace envoy Kofi Annan
Arthur Miller
CROSS READER
[email protected]
pr ess rou n du p
AA, MEHMET BAYER
FATMA DİŞLİ ZIBAK
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Leyla Zana, an
independent pro-Kurdish deputy from Diyarbakır, met on
Saturday to discuss Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish issue.
The meeting was arranged after Zana recently voiced her
belief that Erdoğan can solve the Kurdish issue and that
she has never lost hope in him. Her statements elicited
some harsh criticism from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). The meeting took place at a time
when the country is again being shaken by violence. Considering the atmosphere in the country, most people are
hopeful that the Erdoğan-Zana meeting can yield fruitful
results toward the solution of the Kurdish problem.
Sabah’s Mahmut Övür says the Zana-Erdoğan meeting is promising in that it is a move that will open the way
for political actors who are now deadlocked regarding a
solution to the Kurdish problem, and it is not just a gesture made for Zana due to her remarks about Erdoğan.
“As a Kurdish woman, Zana touched the nerves of the
military tutelage regime in the 1990s. Thanks to these efforts, the Kurdish issue began to be debated. Now, she is
doing a similar thing and shaking the tutelage over Kurdish politics and opening the way for civilian politics,” says
Övür. He says Zana has taken the first step to achieving
peace in the Kurdish problem by courageously standing
against the prejudices of some Kurdish politicians, and
she needs to be given support to this effect.
Milliyet’s Derya Sazak finds it important that a
person like Zana, who was forced to leave Parliament
in the 1990s, jailed for 10 years and lived in the atmosphere of civil war in the country, explained some realities surrounding the Kurdish problem to Erdoğan.
“Since Erdoğan has closed his ears to the voices of opponents for a long time, what Zana told him must have
attracted his attention,” says Sazak. “When violence
escalates in the Southeast again, Zana wants recognition of the rights of the Kurds and a new beginning
for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem,” says
Sazak, who finds Zana’s move very courageous since
she made it despite criticism from the BDP.
According to Radikal’s Oral Çalışlar, it would be
wrong to see Zana’s move as an individual one as he
thinks ensuing developments will take place, depending on steps that will be mutually taken by the government and the BDP. In his view, this meeting, which
took place at a time when violence has again escalated
in the country, could initiate meaningful steps to be
taken for the solution of the Kurdish problem.
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Belek / Serik / Antalya
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PHOTO
A promısıng
meetıng
As part of activities to mark Cabotage Day on July 1, a group of
military officers and administrative officials floated wreaths
in the Çanakkale Strait in memory of martyred soldiers.
bugün:
Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
deputy Zeynep Karahan Uslu said she believes there will
be headscarved deputies in Parliament in the next legislative term, the daily reported in its major story yesterday.
She said there is no legal obstacle before women who wear
headscarves to be elected to Parliament, adding that she
believes the embarrassing treatment of Merve Kavakçı will
not be repeated. Kavakçı was forced to leave Parliament in
1999 because she wore a headscarf.
radikal:
“We saved football in 4.5 months,” said the
daily in the headline of its lead story yesterday, referring
to the İstanbul court that is hearing a match-fixing probe
which was expected to last for years but will be concluded
on Monday, four-and-a-half months after the trial began.
4+:1524'/+7/
$1&47/
Phone: +90 252 337 11 22
Bodrum / Muðla
www.rixos.com
919¬56#0$7.
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Phone: +90 212 468 50 00
Yeþilköy / Ýstanbul
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'-¬0%¬)#4&'0
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Phone: +90 322 889 00 80
5G[JCP#FCPC
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5#*+002#4#&+5'
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Phone: +90 242 88 44 666
Kumluca / Antalya
www.sahinnparadise.com
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Atatürk Bulvarý No:183
Kavaklýdere / Ankara
Tel: +90 312 410 55 00
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Phone: +90 216 585 60 60
Pendik / Ýstanbul
www.cpistanbulasia.com
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Phone: +90 242 510 22 22
#NCP[C#PVCN[C
www.adenyahotels.com.tr
BERA ALANYA
ANTALYA
Phone: +90 242 510 05 00
Alanya / Antalya
www.bera.com.tr
The court said the trial was concluded swiftly in order to
save Turkish football; however, the lawyer of Fenerbahçe
Chairman Aziz Yıldırım, one of the key suspects in the case,
said a fair trial is more important than a speedy trial.
sabah:
“Let’s solve it together,” said the daily in the headline of its main story yesterday, quoting remarks from Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who met with independent
Kurdish deputy Leyla Zana on Saturday. Erdoğan told Zana
that the Kurdish problem cannot be resolved solely through
military means or by the government alone. He said both Turks
and Kurds should work for the solution of this long-standing
problem. Zana told Erdoğan that Turkey is going through a
critical time as regards a solution to the problem and explained
her proposals for the achievement of peace, reported the daily.
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Kemer / Antalya
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L’ETOILE BEACH
HOTEL
Phone: +90 252 455 35 70
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Lara / Antalya
www.rixos.com
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Phone: +90 212 254 77 00
Karaköy / Ýstanbul
www.gchotelistanbul.com
/#4$#5
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YYYOCTDCUJQVGNEQO
&#+/#*16'.
Phone: +90 242 745 09 87
Kemer / Antalya
www.daimahotels.com
colu m ns
Davutoğlu and Syria
MUSTAFA ÜNAL ZAMAN
It has been 10 days since Syria downed a Turkish military
jet. The whereabouts of our two pilots is unknown. The crisis has deepened. What has taken place in the 10-day period? How has Turkey managed the crisis? Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoğlu has been in crisis-management mode
since the very beginning. He said Turkey has been concentrating on finding the pilots since the incident and added
that every major country first thinks about the situation of
the pilots and acts accordingly. For 10 days, Turkey’s highlevel actors have been sending messages to Syria. I wonder
whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is hearing us.
“Yes, Syria has received the message,” Davutoğlu said. He
revealed that there is information in the hands of the state
about Syria but did not give any details. His final remarks:
“We will neither take a reckless step nor leave such an attack without a response. This is Turkey’s policy.”
Did the Mavi Marmara
attack shake our prestige?
HİLAL KAPLAN YENİ ŞAFAK
Some columnists who call for Turkey to enter into a war
with Syria, after Syria’s downing of a Turkish jet, claim
that Turkey’s prestige was deeply shaken when it failed to
give the necessary response to Israel when Israel attacked
the Mavi Marmara aid ship (in 2010, killing nine Turks). I
just wonder whether there has been any way in which the
Mavi Marmara attack has increased Turkey’s prestige. If we
look for a country whose prestige was shaken by the Mavi
Marmara attack, it is undoubtedly Israel. Due to the Mavi
Marmara attack, Israel has been undergoing its most isolated times in the international arena since its establishment.
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Last week Change
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445.542
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142.873
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101.569
103.205
102.502
88.009
89.442
70.919
57.304
56.181
53.060
52.222
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51.185
50.093
49.262
31.285
26.086
14.436
11.168
9.096
7.087
6.924
5.558
5.691
2.122
4.669.042
-6.014
11.092
-1.234
-8.081
8.208
7.176
6.088
5.620
5.015
-2.065
115
2.590
7.456
8
635
5.184
3.312
-6.239
-49
284
1.979
1.797
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353
1.170
626
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529
1.217
13
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43
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46.142
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DESIGN: MELEK ÜNVER
NATIONAL
TODAY’S ZAMAN 03
MONDAY, JULY 2, 2012
İSTANBUL
ANKARA
İZMİR
ANTALYA
ADANA
ERZURUM
EDİRNE
TRABZON
KAYSERİ
26 active-duty military officers
detained as part of espionage probe
Police seize a computer during a search of a suspect’s house in an ongoing
probe into an espionage gang. Twenty-six officers were arrested on Sunday.
32°
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[email protected]
AA
espionage gang. The first wave of arrests of members of the gang began
in May, when 20 people were arrested. Those arrested stand accused
of prostitution, human smuggling,
blackmail, illegally obtaining military information, and establishing
and running a criminal organization.
According to earlier news reports,
the gang is headed by a 25-year-old
woman who is studying at Pamukkale University in Denizli.
The gang is accused of hiring
foreign women as prostitutes for
military officers from whom they
obtain military information and then
sell that information to third parties.
The gang is based in İzmir and reportedly has branches in a number
of provinces, including İstanbul, Ankara, Bursa, Antalya, Muğla, Manisa,
Zonguldak and Ordu.
The investigation against the espionage gang started around a yearand-a-half ago. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
KONYA
ÇANAKKALE
DİYARBAKIR
SAMSUN
BURSA
GAZİANTEP
ESKİŞEHİR
MALATYA
KOCAELİ
BÜLENT
KENEŞ
PHOTO
Twenty-six active-duty
military officers were detained following police
raids across 15 provinces on Saturday as part of a widening probe
against a military espionage gang.
The military officers were detained after an İzmir court on Saturday issued capture warrants for 30
people as part of an operation conducted by the İzmir Police Department’s Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Unit against the military
espionage gang.
Simultaneous operations were
launched in 15 provinces, with police
officers detaining 26 suspects following searches of military facilities and
the suspects’ homes. The 26 suspects
were taken to İzmir Central Command, from where they were to be
referred to court. Police are still working to capture another four suspects.
The 30 suspects are reportedly
accused of involvement in a military
31°
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Clutchıng at straws wıth Syrıa
The nine-hour talks held in Geneva on Saturday
with the intention of tackling the Syrian crisis
produced “significant” decisions that are unlikely to be effective. These decisions are significant
in that Russia and China, who have so far not
refrained from backing the Assad regime, have,
for the first time, signaled a change in their position by supporting a plan to establish a “transitional government” in Damascus. They are unlikely to be effective because Russia and China
have stipulated that Bashar al-Assad must head
this transitional government, a move that would
effectively render this plan dysfunctional. Moreover, neither the opposition groups nor Assad
give any indication that they are warm to this
plan for their own reasons.
Opposition groups had previously noted that
they would not accept any transitional government
in which Assad continues to preserve his power.
And Assad has said: “We will not accept any plan
for the settlement of the crisis if it is not drafted
by the Syrians but by big states or friendly states.
No one knows how to solve Syria’s problems better
than us.” So he, too, had made it clear that the outcome of the Geneva meeting would not bind them.
Moreover, on the day the debates for a transitional government were being held in Geneva,
the Assad regime launched air-backed attacks
using heavy weapons against the regime’s dissidents, killing 125 people. The Assad regime’s
merciless slaughter of 125 people on such an important day was clear proof that it did not attach
the slightest importance to the Geneva meeting.
Despite the blood spilled, the final communiqué
of the Geneva meeting asserted that “the transitional government should be formed on the basis
of mutual consent” and this is a clear indication
of the meeting’s failure to take into consideration
the positions of the conflicting sides. The potential success of this deal in the field relies on the
likelihood of a “mutual consent” being formed
between the Assad regime and the dissidents,
and for the time being, it is impossible to consider such a thing a possibility.
Although China and Russia altered their position with regard to the Syrian crisis only “slightly,” no one can talk about a concrete change with
regards to the practical situation and developments. This is because China and Russia have
been maintaining a position that is impossible to
reconcile with that of the US and its allies, about
Syria in general and the fate of Assad in particular.
This gap was visible also in the statements made
during the summit meeting. US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton said that “Assad must go” while
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed
that Assad does not have to leave office. The
meeting’s final communiqué is proof that Lavrov
emerged victorious from this critical debate.
Nevertheless, by assuming a positive view on
these developments, with a cautious optimism, we
may agree with Clinton, who said the plan “paves
the way for the post-Assad government.” The role
of Russia, which continues to strike arms sales with
Syria to be delivered in and after 2012, and of Iran,
which provides Assad with all sorts of support,
including sending troops to this country, makes
it hard for us to be optimistic at all. Let us maintain our optimism just like Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoğlu, who said: “This is a beginning, not an
end. This should be seen as a new step or perspective towards a solution, not as a final solution,”
hoping that he proves to be right in his optimism.
At the end of the day, the Geneva meeting
not only failed to produce an international agreement for removing Assad from office but was
also unsuccessful in making Russia stop providing the Assad regime with arms. In light of these
developments, the plan to make the UN Security
Council, the organ that is principally responsible
for dealing with the Syrian crisis, make a move
and take a more serious and concrete decision
remains a pure fancy. The Geneva meeting’s
outcome seems to be a consensus that will not be
implemented as it is not acceptable to Assad or
his dissidents. Given the hardly constructive attitude of Russia, China and Iran, the best position
we can adopt, I think, is to not clutch at straws.
Quo vadis Turkish Airlines?
During the last 10 years, Turkish Airlines (THY)
has revolutionized air travel for Turks and, thanks
to well-planned investments, has emerged as a
worldwide brand in air travel. But there are now
indications, unfortunately, that it will have a hard
time maintaining its hard-earned achievements
in the future. THY’s flights, both domestic and
international, have been delayed for up to several hours, and this airline is quickly becoming
the target of complaints from fed-up passengers.
Despite its growth in the past and values which
we could boast about, THY is showing tragic and
fatal symptoms of a serious downward decline.
By selling tickets for flights that are later canceled for the sake of not flying with empty seats
on board, apart from the routine tedious and unnerving delays in its flights, THY is creating indescribable problems for its customers. It sells an additional 10-15 more tickets for every flight based
on a theory that some passengers may be delayed
or decide not to fly in the end, but this unreasonable and unfair system tends to create dozens of
victims, particularly during peak seasons.
This happened to me on Friday. When I got to
the airport, I realized that my assistant had failed
to perform the online check-in for my flight. “I
suppose this won’t be a problem as I have my
ticket with me,” I thought to myself. But I was
wrong. I learned the bitter truth when I went to
THY’s counter to get my boarding pass. I was told
that I was in the “reserved” group although my
ticket for the 2 p.m. flight from İstanbul to İzmir
had been bought several days ago. “What is this
reserved group?” I asked a THY official. “Extra
tickets are sold. If one of the passengers that are
supposed to show up does not come, you will be
allowed to get on the plane,” I was told. But they
do not tell you this when you buy a ticket.
I headed to the boarding lounge to wait for
the plane, which was already delayed until 2:30
p.m. I learned that there were about 10 passengers who were, like me, in the reserved group.
The worst part was that we, the “reserves,” would
be dealt with only after all the passengers had
boarded. We waited and waited… But we waited
in vain. Indeed, all the passengers showed up and
our plane had been stuffed to the brim. The company officials told us, the reserves, that we would
certainly be able to get on the 3 p.m. plane. We
were enraged, but had no choice but to wait.
What do you think happened with the 3 p.m.
plane? The same as with the 2 p.m. plane -- first, a
half-an-hour delay, followed by new victims whose
tickets had been sold twice together with the old
victims from the 2 p.m. plane. The most tragicomic
part of the story was what the boarding pass controller said in an effort to explain the situation: “Sir,
please do not insist. They say there is already a
passenger without a seat on board!” I suppose they
made that passenger get off the plane.
As I couldn’t risk going through the same preposterous efforts to get onboard the 4 p.m. plane,
which, too, was reported to be full, I decided not
to go to İzmir for an international conference at
which I was supposed to deliver a speech. I don’t
know what the other “reserved” passengers did.
But I do know from the tweets I received in response to mine about my adventure that I am
not the only victim of THY’s unscrupulous and
immoral practices. I also know that THY’s hardearned success will quickly fade if it continues
with its unfair and immoral methods, which are
nothing but an insult to its customers, by citing
that international aviation conventions allow airliners to sell more tickets than their actual capacity. I should now ask: Quo vadis THY?
DESIGN: ADNAN SARIKABAK
04 TODAY’S ZAMAN
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
Turkey denies WSJ ‘warplane hit in Syrian airspace’ claim
Turkey has dismissed reports from US intelligence showing that the Turkish jet shot
down by Syrian forces on June 22 was downed in
the Syrian airspace and not in international airspace as the Turkish government maintains.
Speaking at his Justice and Development
Party’s (AK Party) Kayseri provincial congress on
Sunday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
denied The Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) claim
that the Turkish jet was downed in Syrian airspace, calling them “false.” Citing a WSJ report
published in May which also contradicted Turkey’s stance, Erdoğan said it was published to influence the upcoming US presidential elections.
The Turkish military has also denied that
the Turkish warplane was hit by anti-aircraft
guns in Syria’s airspace, dismissing arguments
that Syria was unable to identify the jet and that
it was accompanied by another plane.
The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) released a
statement on their website on Sunday, denying a
report by WSJ that quoted US intelligence officials
as alleging that the Turkish warplane was most
likely shot down by Syria’s shore-based anti-aircraft guns while it was within Syrian airspace.
Turkey has received declarations of support from its NATO allies and has responded to the incident by stationing air defense
weapons close to the Syrian border.
The TSK said in the statement that the
Turkish warplane was hit when its identification
system was set to make it possible to identify
the jet. It added that it was also flying alone, dismissing claims that there was an accompanying
plane alongside the jet.
The TSK reiterated earlier official statements that the jet was flying unarmed over the
eastern Mediterranean to test the performance
of Turkey’s radar system.
Turkey maintains the warplane was hit in
international airspace by Syria without warning in a “hostile act.” Moreover, Turkey believes the plane was hit with a laser-guided or
heat-guided missile, both of which would have
been capable of hitting the plane while it was
in international airspace. However, Syria says
Syrian air defense had to react immediately to
a Turkish jet flying low at 100 meters (330 feet)
of altitude inside Syrian airspace in what was “a
clear breach of Syrian sovereignty.” Syria also
says the plane was downed by anti-aircraft fire,
rather than by a radar-guided missile.
The TSK said its investigation concluded
that the military lost communication with its
warplane when it was in international airspace.
“According to the available radar images
and the managerial investigation results, our
warplane was shot down 13 miles outside Syr-
ia’s territorial waters. As to the fate of our missing pilots, we do not have any information yet.
The EV Nautilus, a research vessel, is to search
for the two missing pilots of a Turkish military
jet that was downed by Syria on June 22,” the
TSK said in a statement released on Sunday.
The TSK claimed that after the jet was hit, it
rapidly descended and crashed eight-and-a-half
miles off the Syrian coast, in Syria’s territorial waters. The TSK further maintains the jet violated
Syria’s airspace for only five minutes and that
Syria did not intercept the flight during this time.
The report by the WSJ is not the first time
the paper has cast doubts on an official Turkish
account. Two months ago the paper ran a report
on the Uludere case, saying the intelligence that
led to the killing of 34 civilians in Uludere last
year was in fact provided by US officials to the
Turkish side, an idea that has been dismissed by
the Turkish military.
On Dec. 28, 2011, Turkish fighter jets bombed
smugglers, believed to be Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists, in the Turkish-Iraqi border area
near Uludere, sparking outrage in Turkey.
Russia ready to share data
on downed Turkish jet
In the meantime, Russia expressed its readiness to share the information on the downed
Turkish warplane.
Speaking at a press conference following
the UN-initiated international conference in
Geneva, which was held to discuss the Syrian
issue on Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov announced that Russia is ready
to share its intelligence regarding the Turkish
jet incident.
“We have our objective observation data
and we are prepared to present it,” Lavrov said.
“The main thing now is not to allow any
incident to ignite passions in one or another direction,” Lavrov said.
Russia had previously announced that
Syria’s shooting down of the Turkish warplane
should not be seen as a provocation and warned
world powers against using the incident to push
for stronger action against Damascus. It was
Moscow’s first reaction to the incident.
Meanwhile, The Sunday Times, a British
newspaper, stated in its report on Sunday that
Russia has a finger on the button that destroyed
the Turkish jet. Citing diplomatic sources, The
Sunday Times said Russian technicians played
a key role in bringing the Turkish warplane
down. The report specifically mentions that
the Turkish jet was downed to give NATO a
warning signal against any intervention in the
Syrian crisis. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
GÖZDE NUR DONAT ANKARA
AA
Countries attending a UN-initiated
international conference about the
Syrian situation on Saturday in Geneva have agreed to establish a transitional
government, which Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoğlu has deemed “an important first
step” toward resolution of the crisis in Syria.
“There have been many promises made
[to solve the Syrian situation] but they have
not been implemented on the ground. Turkey would closely monitor [whether this
solution is implemented in reality],” the foreign minister said to members of the Turkish press after the meeting.
The meeting in Geneva was convened on the initiative of joint UN and
Arab League Syria envoy Kofi Annan, and
gathered five permanent members of the
UN Security Council as well as the foreign
ministers of Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar, along with UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, to discuss the Syrian crisis.
The concept of a transitional government
to which the parties agreed would include
the Syrian opposition, but in no way exclude
people from the incumbent administration,
upon Russia’s insistence.
The UN plan calls for the establishment
of a transitional national unity government
with full executive powers, which may include
members of Bashar al-Assad’s government,
members of the opposition and other groups.
It would oversee the drafting of a new constitution and the scheduling of elections.
“This [UN plan in Syria] is just a beginning, not a resolution. Instead of approaching this as an absolute resolution, it should
be perceived as a new step or perspective in
the resolution,” Davutoğlu remarked about
the final decision of the Geneva conference.
Davutoğlu also noted that lengthy discussion of issues and intensive debates had
taken place during the meeting, and that the
final document of the conference had been
formed after negotiations regarding bilateral
differences between attending parties.
Russia, a close ally of the Syrian regime,
showed resistance to solutions involving the
ousting of President Assad from power. The
nation has demonstrated its support for the
Syrian regime since the beginning of the
violent regime-led crackdown against opposition forces. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov was quoted by international
media outlets as saying that there was “no
attempt [at the meeting] to impose on the
Syrian people any type of transitional process,” emphasizing that the newly minted
plan for resolution does not imply the comprehensive dismissal of the Assad regime.
Professor Fuat Keyman of İstanbul’s
Sabancı University claimed that the proposed move would allow the Assad administration to remain in power for a certain period of time, but that it would also save the
PHOTO
FM: Transıtıonal gov’t
proposed as solutıon ın Syrıa
NATIONAL
GÖKHAN
BACIK
[email protected]
Turkey’s Not-ToDo Lıst on Syrıa
Turkey faces a totally new set of dynamics in regional politics
after Syria shot down a Turkish jet last week. Following Israel’s
attack on the Turkish flotilla, Syria’s action is another very plain
and serious challenge to Turkey’s claim to hegemony in the region. Turkey has been put in a position where its diplomatic
arguments are being tested practically. No matter what Syria’s
behind-the-scene calculations were, this case puts on display
Syria’s impression that Turkey’s military capacity is low. This
is somehow not surprising, as Turkey lacks a sophisticated and
updated air-defense system. Unlike Syria’s weapons, such as
the S-125 and S-11, Turkey only has the Nike Hercules missiles produced in the late 50s. Hercules Nike missiles are not
even used by armies like that of the US. Also, Turkey produces
its own brand of Stingers, which are again not sophisticated,
compared with the Russian-made SS 26 or S 125. Therefore,
the vulnerability of Turkish air space should be considered in
any analysis of the region’s power dynamics.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s chief concern should be quite another
issue: Turkey should not act in a way that would transform the
Syrian crisis into a Turkish-Syrian crisis. The Syrian problem,
since its emergence, is the humanitarian issue of a dictatorial regime that kills its innocent citizens. This humanitarian issue has
amassed a broad coalition against the Bashar al-Assad regime.
But the recent developments may change its visibility. Ankara
should be very careful on this point. The Assad regime would
welcome the possibility of presenting its domestic crisis as a
Turkish-Syrian tension. More, such a development may produce certain uncalculated outcomes in the Arab world. Similarly, some Western states that are critical of the Assad regime,
but not very willing to act against it may use the re-casting of
the Syrian crisis as a Turkish-Syrian crisis as a pretext for further
prolonging a policy of inaction. In 2004, some Western states
put Turkey in a difficult position within NATO on the Iraqi
threat, arguing that it is a bilateral issue between Turkey and
Iraq, not a threat to NATO.
The other issue is Russia. The recent crisis with Syria should
not evolve into an unending verbal debate with Russia. Turkey should carefully make it clear that Ankara is aware of the
Russian strategic concerns in the east Mediterranean. Turkey
has been an aggressive defender of NATO expansion in central
and Eastern Europe in the last two decades. However, neither
region was critical of Turkish-Russian relations. Syria is totally
different. The Syrian issue physically overlaps with Russia’s priorities in the region. Russia is physically there. Turkey’s Syrian
policy will certainly have some costs in regards to third states
like Iran, Russia and Lebanon. To keep this cost at a reasonable
level, Ankara’s priority should be Russia.
Finally, the balance between Assad and the Syrian opposition requires deep analysis. Many argue that the Syrian opposition is not well organized. This is not correct. The Syrian
opposition is very well organized. It is even better in terms of
organizational capacity than was the Libyan opposition against
Muammer Gaddaffi. The Syrian opposition holds big areas close
to each big Syrian city, such as Aleppo, Homs and Damascus.
The opposition has even transformed a huge area close to Adlib
into a de facto center of alternative rule. Assad has only been
able to keep the urban areas. However, toppling a regime is not
possible with a well organized opposition alone. The vital requirement is the weakening of the Assad regime. In cases such
as Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, the ruling regimes were not able
to use their powers for different reasons. In Libya, the opposition was supported by international powers, and this weakened
Qaddafi. In Egypt, the army made a tactical shift, which ended
up with the weakening of Mubarak. Unless the Assad regime
is weakened in a similar way, the struggle between Assad and
opposition forces may continue for quite a while.
Parliament extends
mandate of Turkish
troops in Lebanon
The five permanent members of the UNSC and the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar met in Geneva at an initiative by Annan, the international envoy to Syria.
country from the kind of political ambiguity
that may lead to chaos in Syria. The Syrian
opposition is far from inspiring confidence
in the international community as to its
ability to hold power due to its fragmented
state, representing the country’s ideological
and sectarian divide. Unlike Libya’s National Transitional Council, which brought
together most factions fighting against
Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, Syria’s opposition has no leadership on the ground.
Keyman deemed the new formula of a
transitional government “a gradual regime
change” in the country, this time with Russia’s consent. “The plan envisages the exit of
Assad in one or one-and-a-half years’ time,
because he has no chance of winning if there
are free elections,” Keyman noted. He added
that Turkey should evaluate every possible
scenario in Syria with level-headedness, including one in which the Assad regime holds
power in conjunction with other groups.
With international tensions running
high, there was a risk of the situation de-
volving into a bilateral crisis between Turkey
and the Assad regime last week after Syria
shot down a Turkish warplane, in response
to which Turkey stationed anti-aircraft guns
along its southern border.
Before the Geneva meeting, Davutoğlu
stated to members of the Turkish press
that Turkey would act with deliberation in
evaluating the Syrian situation. “Turkey is
neither a ‘hard power’ nor a ‘soft power’; it
is a ‘smart power.’ We would neither act impulsively nor would we let such a threat go,”
Davutoğlu maintained.
Erdoğan gathers security
summit to discuss Syria jet crisis
As consultations among foreign ministers of
the world on the Syrian situation were proceeding in Geneva on Saturday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held a security
summit at the prime minister’s residence to
discuss the Syrian attack on the Turkish plane
and strained relations with Damascus.
The summit, chaired by Erdoğan, was
attended by both civilian and military officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Beşir
Atalay, Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin,
Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz, Chief of
General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel, Land Forces Commander Gen. Hayri Kıvrıkoğlu and
Gendarmerie Commander Bekir Kalyoncu.
Amid rising tensions, the National Security Council (MGK), Turkey’s highest national security body, discussed the jet crisis
in detail during its scheduled meeting on
Thursday. “Turkey will act with determination against this violent act by reserving
all rights under international law,” read a
statement released after the meeting, without further elaboration.
Turkey has said the Syrian attack will
not go unpunished, but has also made clear
that it has no intention of declaring war on
its southern neighbor. The government is
reportedly planning some sort of retaliation, but its timing and circumstances will
be decided by the government, according to
unconfirmed reports in the Turkish media.
Parliament approved a proposal on Friday by the Prime
Ministry to, for the sixth time, extend the mandate of
Turkish troops operating under the banner of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) for one year, starting Sept. 5.
UNIFIL’s mandate period is set to end on Aug. 31, 2012,
and the renewal of the period for the new term is expected to be
decided by the United Nations Security Council by the end of
August. The UNSC adopted Resolution 1701 on Aug. 11, 2006,
after a conflict broke out between Lebanon and Israel, on July
12, 2006, and put it into action following the cease-fire between
the parties signed on Aug. 14, 2006.
The Turkish Parliament first agreed to send troops
to the war-torn country in 2006 to help monitor a shaky
cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas based
in southern Lebanon and has extended its mandate for
a year every summer since then. Parliament previously
authorized the government on May 29, 2007, July 8, 2008,
June 23, 2009, June 24, 2010, and July 5, 2011, to extend
the mandate of Turkish troops operating under UNIFIL.
The Turkish government sent a proposal to Parliament
last Monday asking for a year’s extension of a peacekeeping mission currently deployed in southern Lebanon to
support the UN interim force stationed there.
According to the proposal, the government asked for the extension of the Turkish military presence in Lebanon by one year
starting Sept. 5, 2012. The proposal stated that due to the political
and security situation in Lebanon, it is appropriate for Turkish
troops to remain in the country, adding that Turkey’s participation in UNIFIL has made major contributions to the maintenance of peace and stability in the region. Ankara Today’s Zaman
DESIGN: MEHMET ULGA
NATIONAL
TODAY’S ZAMAN 05
MONDAY, JULY 2, 2012
‘Obligation to seek permission’ for probes major setback
contýnued from page 1
chairs automatically obtain immunity against legal
actions,” he said, and cautioned that many state
officials who are currently under arrest will be released from prison due to the new law. “The law
will affect past investigations, too. Former Chief
of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ, for example,
will be set free because prosecutors did not obtain
permission from military superiors when arresting
him,” the professor stated. Başbuğ was arrested
earlier this year as part of a probe into propaganda
websites allegedly established by the military to
undermine the AK Party government.
Retired Public Prosecutor Gültekin Avcı
warned that prosecutors will not have the authority to demand the search or detention of suspects nor will they be able to demand searches of
suspects’ addresses. “This will deal a blow to the
principle of confidentially conducting investigations,” he said, adding that forcing prosecutors
to seek the permission of superiors for investiga-
tion of suspects does not comply with the principles of a country governed by the rule of law.
Currently there are nearly 800 suspects under
arrest on coup and terror charges. A considerable
number of them are retired and active duty miliyart
members. Jurists say the officers will be released
from prison pending trial when the law is passed
in Parliament. Sacit Kayasu, another retired public
prosecutor, called the government’s plan to abolish special courts and to make it an obligation for
prosecutors to obtain permission from related
authorities to investigate state officials “alarming.” For him, prosecutors will no longer have
the authority to bring state officials who break
the law to justice. “Military commanders will not
allow prosecutors to investigate their staff. … It
will be impossible to try coups and fraud [in state
institutions]. I am following developments with
concern. The ruling party is making it [passing of
the law] a fait accompli, and is cutting the branch
on which it is sitting,” the retired prosecutor said.
Turkey, which has seen four military coups
and several coup attempts, started investigating
anti-democratic activities within its military in
2007. There are several investigations and cases
against suspected coup instigators, and dozens of
them are under arrest pending trial. According
to retired military judge Mesut Kurşun, the government is violating the Constitution by trying
to pass the law on permission for prosecutors in
investigations in Parliament because an article of
the Constitution already seeks such permission
for crimes that do not require harsh punishment
or lengthy prison terms. He also said Turks are
uneasy with how the government has avoided
disclosing the full content of the law in Parliament without consulting legal experts. “It seems
to me that there is not a consensus among government officials. They keep making inconsistent
statements,” he added. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
PHOTO
TODAY’S ZAMAN, EMRE BÜRKÜK
Prosecutors will not be able to investigate
officers working at these institutions if their superiors do not allow such action.
Many jurists believe such an obligation is a
violation of the principle of equality before the law.
The law is set to affect ongoing court cases. This
has left jurists concerned that a large number of
suspects who are currently in prison pending trial
on terror and coup charges will be set free because
prosecutors did not obtain permission from their
superiors to investigate them at the time.
Vahit Bıçak, a professor of criminal law, said
forcing prosecutors to obtain permission to investigate suspects is providing the suspects with a kind
of immunity against legal action. “The [new] law
has shown that the principle of equality before the
law is not in practice in Turkey. This means citizens are subject to different practices according to
their ranks or statuses. The ones who sit on official
Former Air Forces commander retired Gen. İbrahim
Fırtına is seen leaving a courthouse after attending
a hearing of the Balyoz coup case. Fırtına is
currently in prison while on trial, but jurists say he
may be set free when the government’s law on
special courts is passed in Parliament.
CMK revision on special courts
to affect key coup, terror cases
contýnued from page 1
Nearly 800 suspects are currently
incarcerated as part of these cases.
Special courts were established in 2004 in line
with the EU reform process and were credited
with dismantling gangs and organized crime
in Turkey and pursuing coup-plotting senior
generals for the first time in the republic’s
history. Jurists say abolition of special courts
may result in the release of suspects who
have been charged with serious crimes. For
jurists, the abolition of these courts before the
finalization of ongoing coup and terror cases
would ring alarm bells for Turkish democracy,
as the fight against coup-planning circles and
other criminal networks may come to a halt.
There is resistance in Parliament to the
passage of the law on special courts. While the
ruling AK Party has secured the support of the
main opposition Republican People’s Party
(CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) says the courts should
continue to function. The MHP’s deputy for
Konya, Faruk Bal, said Turkey needs special
courts to continue its fight against gangs but
added that the courts need remodeling. The
AK Party’s Bozdağ further said that contrary to
current practice, the law on special courts is set
to make it an obligation for prosecutors to obtain permission from related institutions to investigate senior officers from the General Staff,
National Security Council (MGK), Ministry of
Interior, National Intelligence Organization
(MİT) and the police force on suspicion of fraud
or bribery. Officers working on such investigations will be immune to any investigation or
prosecution if their superiors grant permission
for such action to be taken. However, prosecutors will be able to investigate officers accused
of terrorist activities and organized crime without obtaining permission from any institution.
In addition, the law envisages not arresting suspects who have committed a crime entailing a possible jail sentence of less than two
years. Courts will not be allowed to rule for ar-
rest of suspects against whom there is no strong
evidence. The government believes the changes
will help protect individual rights and freedoms.
AK Party, opposition members
complain of lack of info on law
Apart from information Bozdağ has provided
to the press, the content of the law on special
courts remains a mystery. A lack of elaboration about the full content of the law has
frustrated several deputies in Parliament, including those from the AK Party.
The AK Party’s Şamil Tayyar complained
that he has no idea about the details of the
law, adding that he hopes senior members
of his party have devised a method protecting ongoing coup and terror cases from adverse effects. “To be sincere, I did not see the
law. I wonder what kind of a formula has
been found not to allow the ongoing cases
to be adversely affected. I have nothing to
say about this issue because I have no sound
information,” he told reporters on Saturday.
Similarly, CHP deputy Ali Rıza Öztürk criticized the fact that a small commission from the
AK Party was assigned to draft the law and that
other deputies in Parliament were not briefed on
its content. “I do not think that the drafting of
such an important law without a discussion with
relevent institutions and commissions and even
without consulting the opinions of members of
the ruling party is the right approach,” he said.
Öztürk said he is a member of the parliamentary
Justice Commission but was not informed of the
content of the law. “The Justice Commission
should have debated the law with other political parties. We keep talking about an issue, the
content of which we are unaware of,” he added.
Another deputy from the CHP, Ahmet
Toptaş, said the AK Party has ignored the national will and the will of Parliament by not
briefing deputies on the content of the law.
“Even AK Party deputies do not know about
the law. Why are they [the AK Party] hiding
the content of the law from Turkey’s representatives?” he asked. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
Musa Anter shooting suspect accused of other murders
A man who was detained late last week on
suspicion of being the assassin of Kurdish writer Musa Anter in 1992 might be behind other unsolved murders, the Taraf daily claimed on Sunday.
There is evidence indicating that Hamit
Yıldırım, who was detained last Friday, might have
been the man who pulled the trigger in the 1993
murder of Ömer Güven, a Welfare Party (RP) provincial leader, and Cemal Özkurt, an individual
who happened to be near Güven at the time.
Yıldırım, accused of being the hitman in the
1992 attack in which journalist Orhan Miroğlu was
also injured, was detained on Friday in Şırnak province. Yıldırım also reportedly murdered two other
individuals in 1993 in Şırnak province. A group of
family members -- whose relatives were murdered
by unidentified assailants -- staged a sit-in protest
in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır on Saturday, claiming that Yıldırım is the murderer of the
two individuals in 1993 in Şırnak.
Speaking on behalf of the group, Necibe
Güneş Perinçek, a member of the Human Rights
Association’s (İHD) commission investigating
murders by unknown assailants, asserted that
Yıldırım is personally involved in the Güven and
Özkurt murders. Perinçek added that Güven’s
family got in contact with the İHD, seeking legal
support so that Yıldırım can be brought to justice.
Meanwhile, Musa Anter’s son Dicle Anter said
that two sacks of documents found in Yıldırım’s
home will help to find the unknown assailants in
the southeastern province if they are carefully investigated. He also voiced his dissatisfaction with
the way Yıldırım is being detained. Yıldırım was not
handcuffed by police officers, unlike suspects who
have been arrested within the scope of the Kurdis-
tan Communities Union (KCK) investigations.
Yldırım is believed to have lived in Şırnak
for the past 20 years and continued to serve as
a village guard -- a southeastern local armed by
the state against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Reports claim Yıldırım, a former
PKK member himself who later worked as a hitman for JİTEM -- a shady and illegal anti-terror
unit established in the gendarmerie in the 1990s
-- has lived a life of luxury during the past 20 years
and did not feel the need to change his name or
hide during this time. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
EKREM
DUMANLI
[email protected]
The unbearable
burden of beıng
ın the same boat
It has not been easy for Turkey to come to this point. Many had to
suffer in order to make Turkey a democratic country. Democracy has
been under threat since 1960. The juntas holding that things were
going bad wanted to make sure that the country would become isolated and separated from the world. The execution of former President Adnan Menderes and his friends was a heinous murder, committed in order to send a message. The dominant powers wanted to
have control over even dreams. But this did not happen.
When the people went to the ballot box, they strongly punished
the pro-guardianship mentality. However, those who held that they
had the right to stage a coup did not waste time. The people were
holding the coup-makers, the juntas, the gangs and the organized
crime groups responsible; but the lesson taught at the ballot boxes had
a political message for those who understand it. And there was also a
small group of elites who saw a coup as a legitimate right, regardless
of the election results, including military servicemen, bureaucrats, academics, business actors and media members. This small but influential
group wanted to make sure that democracy would be kept under the
shadow of guns. However, making a coup was a criminal matter; and
the juntas should have been held responsible under the law.
It is a new thing that coup makers are being held responsible
under the law. For the first time, military servicemen, police officers
and bureaucrats were brought to trial in connection with the Ergenekon investigation for toppling the government and suspending
the democratic process. Despite their shortcomings that are subject
to criticisms, the special courts reminded us of the beauty of being a
state governed by the rule law. What we had was a legal structure
that could act swiftly to open an investigation and was empowered
to take action vis-à-vis even the strongest figures.
The matter is not limited to coups and juntas alone. Please recall
that purse-snatching gangs disappeared. Why was that? The investigation and interrogation methods employed by the special courts eliminated these gangs. Where are these gangs that used to intimate the
whole country? Where are the mafia organizations and mobsters? Special courts equipped with extensive powers addressed these problems.
The deep structures that used to put pressure upon the local courts remained immune to prosecution due to their strong influence.
The struggle carried out against the coups, the juntas, the mafias
and gangs with reliance on the law has attracted the attention of the
public as evidenced by their huge support extended to the Justice and
Development Party (AK Party) in the elections and referendum. The
constitutional amendment package’s most important items were on the
judiciary. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) even declared that they
would support the package in the referendum in case these items were
removed. For this reason, despite the alliance of all other parties against
the package, the people supported this initiative at the referendum.
Then all of a sudden, the overall climate has changed. Some
problems emerged allegedly after the MIT crisis. In an effort to address these problems, a legal amendment was introduced. Besides,
there is no linkage at all between the amendments currently being
considered and that crisis. In addition, many things are carried out
secretly and for this reason, it is not possible to discuss them. It is a
secret how some people in prison are informed about possible steps
towards this change in legislation while even leading AK Party figures declare that they have no information on this matter.
Some conservative colleagues misinterpret concerns of their
friends; this misinterpretation takes the whole discussion to another
level and undermines the democratic progress made so far. Instead of
opposing the abolishment of Article 250 without discussion and deliberation and hearing the concerns of their friends, they attempt to blame
them. They make a false argument that defending the special courts
means defending guardianship. This is not the case. What really matters is how to deal with the coups. Arguing that high criminal courts
could address this situation is an invitation to many additional Susurluk scandals. Even though we attribute the indifference to the pressure
upon local courts to naivety, how will we explain these courts’ inability
to deal with deep structures due to their limited authority?
Viewing this issue as a matter of arm-wrestling leads to the disappearance of wisdom. The struggle against anti-democratic structures
is the greatest responsibility of those who love this country. The support extended by the CHP and the Labor Party (EMEP)to the abolishment of the special courts should have raised doubts among the
conservative friends. They did not become suspicious of this weird alliance; but they should at least hear constructive criticisms from their
friends and brothers because they have sailed on the same boat for
many years. That boat is this country. Those who want to sink that
boat have been working tirelessly to this end for many years. Some
people spend efforts to ensure that this boat does not sink out of their
concerns; it will be wrong to remain indifferent to this warning.
Will there be setback in
struggle against coups?
This is a question that is the minds of all. Will gangs reemerge after some legal amendments and take revenge? The answer to this
critical question is both yes and no. How so? Both sides of the coin
should be considered. The junta figures and actors will feel they have
won a victory in case legal amendments serve their interests. This, on
the other hand, will destroy the morale and strength of those who
struggle against the anti-democratic structures just like in the Susurluk investigation. In fact, we could identify a rule and pattern as follows out of past experiences including first attempt for constitutional
monarchy: the gangs would liquidate the administrations that failed
to deal with the gangs. There is almost no difference between what
happened to Sultan Abdulhamid and to those who did not pay much
attention to the Feb. 28 gang. The criminal organizations which were
not effectively prosecuted in a timely manner have created trouble
when they had the opportunity. I hope that such dramatic consequences will not be experienced by the recent amendments. There
is the other side of the coin: the people. It is not that easy to move
Turkey backwards in its struggle against gangs, juntas, mafias and
coups. The wall of fear has been destroyed. It does not seem logical to
travel in the opposite direction where the people ask for stronger and
more consolidated democracy. The democratic stance of the people
will be the determinative element in the current political setting.
DESIGN: MELEK ÜNVER
06 TODAY’S ZAMAN
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
Lack of road safety culture costs an 10,000 lives annually
AYDIN ALBAYRAK ANKARA
which have only 48 percent of the world’s registered
vehicles. As middle-income countries such as Turkey,
China, Brazil and India go through a rapid process of
development, the number of roads, cars and drivers
increases significantly. And as noted by Krug, this
process is usually not accompanied by measures that
create a culture of safety.
Since a culture of road safety is not deeply ingrained in people, they speed, don’t wear seat belts
and drink and drive. But fatalism also seems to be an
element, according to Krug. “In many countries, there
is still fatalism. People just see it as a price to pay to
become a modern country with more roads, and cars,”
he commented.
In an effort to decrease the number of road crashes
with casualties, Turkey launched, together with nine
other countries, in June 2010 the Road Safety Project,
which is coordinated by WHO and financed by the
Bloomberg Foundation. Together, the 10 countries in
the project -- Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, Kenya,
China, India, Cambodia, Vietnam and Russia -- account for 60 percent of all deaths from road crashes.
Turkey’s road problem also has to do with enforce-
ment of the existing laws. It’s common knowledge that
Turkish people living in Europe obey the rules of the
road more strictly than their relatives in Turkey, who
allow themselves to act more freely on the road. It’s
because Turks in Europe are aware that laws will be
enforced and that they stand little chance of getting
off scot-free. Commenting on the situation in Turkey,
Krug noted: “Legislation is more or less quite adequate, but it’s not enforced. Seat belts are obligatory,
but how many people wear them in Turkey?”
Traffic accidents are among major causes of death
and injury in the world. Nearly 1.3 million people die
each year on the world’s roads, and 20-50 million people sustain non-fatal injuries. If current trends continue,
road crashes are predicted to become the fifth leading
cause of death by 2030, resulting in 2.4 million deaths
a year. In a bid to prevent 5 million road traffic deaths
globally by 2020, in May 2011, the Decade of Action for
Road Safety 2011-2020 project was launched – coordinated by the United Nations in more than 100 countries. Turkey, with over 23 million drivers and more
than 16 million registered vehicles on the road, aims
to cut the number of road casualties in half in 10 years.
PHOTOS
AA, KAYHAN ÖZER
Nearly 10,000 people lose their lives due to traffic
accidents in Turkey each year.
And it has a lot to do with mentality. “There really
is no culture of road safety in Turkey. It’s just not part
of the mentality yet,” said Dr. Etienne Krug from the
World Health Organization (WHO), who shared his
first impressions about Turkish people’s attitude towards traffic safety. Not observing the rules is costly as
well: The total socioeconomic cost of last year’s traffic
accidents could be as much as TL 16.5 billion, Interior
Minister İdris Naim Şahin announced recently.
Director of the Department of Violence and Injury
Prevention and Disability at WHO, Krug, who visited
Turkey June 26 and 27 to talk and exchange views with
officials on a project Turkey has been implementing
concerning safety on the road, didn’t hide his surprise
at what he found. Talking about Ankara, “I’m struck
to see such a modern city where so few people wear
seat belts,” he told Today’s Zaman.
Only 22 per cent of drivers wear a seat belt in Ankara and probably even fewer passengers. In Geneva,
where he is based, about 95 percent of the people wear
a seat belt, and the average in Europe is estimated to
be around 90 percent. “There is not much discussion
about it; all wear a seat belt in Europe,” he commented
to draw attention to the sharp contrast.
Wearing a seat belt saves lives: Not wearing a seat
belt may increase the risk of death in road crashes by
up to 60 percent. For Turkey, it’s of huge importance
because not wearing a seat belt, together with excess
speed, is one of the leading causes of deaths and injuries on the road.
But Turkey has also made some progress in the
last couple of years towards decreasing the number of
casualties in traffic accidents thanks to various projects. In the last 10 years, the number of road crashes
has increased by 179 percent and injuries in accidents
by 105 percent, while deaths from accidents has decreased by 8 percent. Compared to 2010, the number
of fatal crashes in Turkey decreased last year by 3.6
percent, while the number of people who lost their
lives dropped by 5.2 percent.
Over 90 percent of deaths and injuries in road
crashes occur in low and middle income countries,
Leyla Zana, an independent
pro-Kurdish deputy from
Diyarbakır, met with Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan on Saturday to
discuss the long-standing
Kurdish issue.
Kurdısh deputy Zana: Oslo
negotıatıons should contınue
contýnued from page 1
She told Erdoğan that all sides of the
Kurdish issue should participate in a solution. “We have seen that the security-oriented
mentality and policies have not yielded any viable
results so far. The only thing that never was tested
is keeping negotiations alive. The Oslo talks [between the government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)] mark a milestone in the Kurdish
question; therefore, I told him [Erdoğan] that negotiations should start again,” Zana said. An atmosphere of trust must be established to keep channels of dialogue open, she added.
Despite all attempts and positive moves towards confronting their fears, [Kurdish] people,
who have been distracted and concerned with
constant arrests and ongoing trials, need to
see positive and progressive moves rather than
small gestures, she underlined.
She said the Uludere incident, the tragic
events in prisons and constant police misbehavior do nothing but disrupt the process of
solving the Kurdish issue.
Regarding the Uludere incident -- in which 34
villagers were mistakenly targeted by the Turkish
Air Forces in December 2011 -- and the government’s inadequate and disappointing handling of
the issue, she said a state should not regard issuing
an apology to its citizens as a sign of weakness.
Zana noted that the abolition of the death
penalty occurred under the AK Party government,
when a death sentence had already been handed
down for Öcalan. She added that the government
could take another step and commute Öcalan’s life
sentence to house arrest, which would be a critical
step for the resolution of the Kurdish issue.
She argued that rhetoric and new promises
are no longer enough and said that phase was
over. She said everybody wants peace and questioned how many more lives needed to be lost to
achieve peace. Zana gained prominence in 1991
for taking part of her oath of office in Parliament
in Kurdish, which is not recognized as an official
language in Turkey. She was convicted in 1994
by the State Security Court (DGM) for links to
the PKK, which is considered a terrorist group
by Turkey, the US and the EU.
Commenting on the new bill that will offer
Kurdish as an elective language course for the upcoming education term, Zana told reporters that
she earlier told Erdoğan that it was positive progress but was far from meeting Kurds’ demands of
education in their mother language.
On calls to the terrorist organization to end
all armed activities she said, “It is not realistic to
tell the PKK to lay down arms while [Turkish]
military operations continue.”
Regarding the tone of the meeting, Zana said
the prime minister listened to her politely and with
the utmost attention. “He showed his sincerity on
the need to open channels of dialogue. When I decided to meet with him, I based it on my reasoning,
political experience and insight.” She clarified that
her decision was in defiance of stern criticism leveled against her and felt this meeting was likely to
contribute positively to the process.
In her previous remarks to a Turkish daily,
Zana said she does not think the Kurdish issue
will be solved by appointing the military, police or
judiciary to certain roles, stating: “There is a solid
fact here. Let’s say this openly and accept this fact.
If he wanted, the strongest person can solve this
[Kurdish] issue. Who is that strongest one? It’s the
government and its head, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The person who is the head of the strongest government in [our] history … has the power to sort
out this issue. I believe that he will be able to solve
this issue. I have never lost my faith in him. And I
don’t want to lose my faith in him. If I had lost [my
faith], I wouldn’t be here.” İstanbul Today’s Zaman
NATIONAL
EMRE
USLU
[email protected]
AKP and the
absence of truth
The major contribution the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has made to Turkish politics is to bring the “truth” into politics. In fact,
the AKP earned its reputation by telling the
truth about what the party intends to do.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s reputation is particularly related with this perception.
He was considered the leader that never lies. Thus,
when the opposition parties argued that the AKP
had a “hidden agenda” for the secular regime,
people did not buy this argument. This is because
Erdoğan’s reputation as a leader that tells the truth
prevented people from believing what the opposition parties were saying about him.
However, in recent months people discovered
the other face of the AKP. Surprisingly, the party
leaders, including Erdoğan, have been telling lie
after lie to their own people. Worst, many of the
AKP figures try to explain this hypocritical side of
the AKP as the “nature of politics.”
The following is a list of the AKP’s lies in
the last year which have had a major impact on
Turkish politics.
1) Before the June 2011 elections Erdoğan said,
“If I were in power in 1999, I would have executed
[Abdullah] Öcalan’s death sentence.” It turned
out that in the same week that Erdoğan said this,
the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) was,
with his permission, negotiating with Öcalan.
2) The AKP did not tell the whole truth about
the Uludere incident, in which 34 innocent villagers were bombed by Turkish war jets, to the people, prosecutor and Parliament.
3) AKP leaders, including Erdoğan, recently said that the criminal courts that handled
the Ergenekon, Balyoz (Sledgehammer) and
Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) trials
will remain and the law will not change to alter
these courts. But as of Saturday it turned out
this promise was a lie, too.
4) On the jet crisis, Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoğlu said and Erdoğan confirmed that the
Turkish jet was shot down in international waters, but The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported
that this statement was not correct. The jet was
downed in Syrian airspace and Turkish sources did
not deny the WSJ article.
One can add many lies to this list but these
are the four major lies that dominated Turkish
politics over the past year. These are the issues that
harmed Erdoğan’s reputation as a man of truth.
These are the issues that placed Erdoğan right next
to old politicians, especially next to former President Süleyman Demirel, who was well known for
his inconsistent statements and his motto “Yesterday is yesterday, today is today,” meaning whatever I said yesterday belongs to yesterday and I am
not responsible for what I said yesterday.
When I bring up the issue, many AKP leaders “explain” that this is the nature of politics.
However, it was Erdoğan’s contribution to Turkish politics that politicians do not flip-flop but
say things as they are. Such attitudes of the AKP
leaders indicate that Erdoğan and the AKP have
yet again adopted the same old political tactics to
save the day instead of looking at the future.
There can be a number of reasons why the AKP
leaders have rediscovered the old habit of Turkish
politics, lying, after 10 years. One of the main reasons they’ve started to lie when faced with difficulties is because there is no alternative to the AKP.
Thus, they think they are immortal and immune to
political criticism. More importantly, they think they
can manipulate people for a long time. When they
lie to the people they count on Erdoğan’s leadership
skills, which still appeal to many.
I consider this a major problem for the AKP
government for the years to come. As they continue lying to the people, they will realize that
people will no longer believe these lies. Lying
in politics is one of the worst addictions, which
politicians cannot escape from. Thus, unless
the AKP has a medical treatment that can help
it refrain from lying, one can count down the
days until the end of the AKP.
Government under criticism about PKK leader Öcalan’s whereabouts
The Turkish government is under harsh criticism from opposition parties regarding Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the terrorist
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In particular, opposition parties have
put Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin on the firing line in Parliament,
claiming that Öcalan may have been taken out of the prison on İmralı
Island where he is supposed to be kept and instead may have been
staying in another location in recent months.
“Should there be any fault of yours or any deliberate act on your
part with regard to this issue, this would require that you be tried before
the Supreme Court,” Dilek Akagün Yılmaz, a member of Parliament
from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said to Justice Minister Ergin in Parliament on Saturday. Noting that Öcalan was sentenced to
an aggravated life sentence, Yılmaz added: “Öcalan can’t be allowed to
stay in any other place. You can’t oversee such an act.”
But Ergin, who is being targeted because prisons are his responsi-
bility as justice minister, dismissed all claims saying, “I declare from this
stand to Turkey that he is serving time in prison on İmralı [island] at the
moment, as he has been for more than 10 years.”
Dismissing claims that Öcalan is being kept somewhere else as
untrue, Ergin, upon persistent questions from opposition deputies regarding where Öcalan is serving his sentence at the moment, also said
in Parliament: “There has not been the least bit of information in our
hands up till now that he has ever been allowed to leave İmralı,” noting
he has been justice minister since 2009. But CHP’s Yılmaz made it clear
that she didn’t find the minister’s response satisfactory, saying: “You
just can’t remove yourself from the issue by saying, ‘We have no such
information.’ You have a serious responsibility in this.”
The same day a Turkish daily claimed in recent months Öcalan
had often been taken to the National Intelligence Organization’s (MİT)
guesthouse in Bursa by a black armored chopper MİT uses for VIPs.
According to the story, Öcalan has been spending a great portion of
his time in the guesthouse that has served as an intermediate station
for talks the government is said to hold with Öcalan in an effort to put
an end to the PKK terror. The discussion about where Öcalan is being
kept first reached Turkey’s agenda a couple of weeks ago when Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), asked
the question, “I wonder if Abdullah Öcalan is on İmralı,” noting that
no comments from Öcalan had been heard regarding the CHP’s recent proposals for the Kurdish issue. To Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan’s criticism of his remarks, Bahçeli stood behind what he said
at the time, saying with a little sarcasm: “The issue should be viewed
as an issue that needs investigating. Should there be a need for proof,
they [prime minister and Öcalan] may appear together on television.”
The fact that Öcalan’s attorneys have not been allowed to visit
the PKK leader on İmralı since July 27 of last year is the basis for
all the questions concerning whether or not Öcalan is still kept in
prison on İmralı. Mehmet Öcalan, the PKK leader’s brother, went
to İmralı in January this year to visit but was also unable to see his
brother. According to press reports at the time, the PKK leader just
sent a message to his brother that said: “Things are very delicate
around here. It’s not proper for me to come and see you.”
Öcalan, who was caught in Kenya and brought to Turkey in
1999, has been in prison for 13 years. The government seems to be
trying to find a solution to the Kurdish problem by including Öcalan
in the process. Deputies from the Kurdish Peace and Democracy
Party (BDP) demand that Öcalan be kept under house arrest rather
than on İmralı, which opposition parties such as the MHP and the
Grand Unity Party (BBP) fiercely oppose. The justice minister said
in Parliament on Saturday that house arrest for Öcalan was not an
item on the government’s agenda. Ankara Today’s Zaman with wires
DESIGN: YUNUS ASLAN
BUSINESS
TODAY’S ZAMAN 07
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
Dangers on Turkey’s road to becomıng a real regıonal power
Let me start today’s column with a partial self-criticism
before discussing Turkey’s regional power claim. Last
Monday I was asserting that the EU summit could be
terminated by deadlock instead of compromise as usual.
Indeed, with regard to the two basic subjects of conflict
-- the issuing of collective debt (Eurobonds) and the direct rescue of banks by European funds -- no compromise could be reached on the first, but an agreement was
reached on the second. The Germans accepted that as
soon as a banking supervisory system can be established
by the European Central Bank (ECB), the European
Stability Mechanism (ESM) will be able to recapitalize
shrinking banks. We do not know yet if this German
backlash, which was forced by the Italian and Spanish
prime ministers threatening to block the Stability and
Growth Pact (SGP), will be sufficient to calm markets.
The Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
claims since the post crisis economic boom, backed by
strong popular support for the AK Party, that Turkey
has become a very influential regional power, even an
“order builder,” as Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu
likes to say. I have some serious doubts about this assertion. I do not say that it is wrong or unfounded but
I simply believe that it is too early to consider Turkey
as a regional power capable of securing peace and stability in its very troubled neighborhood. Moreover, I
am afraid that acting as a power in regional conflicts
provokes worry, apprehension and sometimes hostility from protagonists, such as Russia, Iran and Israel,
SEYFETTİN
GÜRSEL
[email protected]
which also claim to be regional powers.
It is true that Turkey under AK Party rule has
achieved both political stability and economic success during the last decade. The threat of a military
coup has been warded off, important political and
economic reforms have been completed and per
capita income in purchasing power parity (PPP) increased to 52 percent of the EU average from 38 percent, while income inequality and poverty have been
alleviated. But it seems that these achievements are
not enough to make Turkey a regional power.
In a new article, “Turkey as regional power: Unfounded ambition or future reality,” which will be
published soon in a book on Turkey, I suggested the
following summarized definition for “regional power,”
taking into consideration the vast literature on the subject: To consider a country as a regional power, this
country must enjoy superiority in demographic, economic, political, military and ideological realms in such
a way that this superiority allows the country in question to influence the decision-making processes of other regional nations. Obviously this definition requires a
combination of soft power as well as hard power.
There is no problem regarding demographic superiority. Turkey’s current population of 75 million
should be close to 100 million by 2040 given demographic dynamics. But we can hardly express the same
assurance for the remaining items of the definition.
There exist important fragilities and weaknesses in political, ideological, economic and military areas. Turkey
has not yet switched to a fully democratic regime. The
country can only secure a modern democracy under
the rule of law and individual freedom once it has replaced the current Constitution with a democratic one.
The process of making a new constitution is under
way, but a happy end is not guaranteed.
A democratic constitution freed from aggressive
Turkish nationalism and giving enough voice to Kurdish citizens is also a prerequisite for transforming the
Kurdish problem from violent conflict into political
confrontation under democratic rules. As long as this
transformation is incomplete, the Kurdish problem
will continue to facilitate manipulations from outside
as well from inside by forces challenging Turkey’s
claim of regional power. Last but not least, this problem will continue to be a bane for our fragile democracy while dissipating our scarce economic resources.
For the moment, the Kurdish problem happens
to be deadlocked. So far, the situation is not encouraging on the economic front as well. The AK Party
government, with the help of the central bank, is try-
ing a soft landing for the economy, which means, as I
have explained several time in this column, a growth
rate of around 4 percent and a decrease both in inflation and in the current account deficit (CAD). A
decrease in inflation as well as the CAD are set for
this year, but growth could be well below 4 percent.
In order to keep unemployment on track, Turkey needs at least 5 percent growth, and to make
this level of growth sustainable in the long run, a
CAD-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio of not
more than 5-6 percent is needed. This will not be
guaranteed as long as courageous labor market and
tax reforms are not implemented.
As for military superiority the bloody attack on the
Mavi Marmara by the Israeli army and the shooting
down of a Turkish war plane by the Syrian air defense
showed that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) are not at
the desired level. Recent information and debate on the
capabilities of the TSK revealed important weaknesses,
particularly in electronic warfare and missile technology.
Certainly, until the TSK is backed up by an advanced
and independent defense industry, which has recently
displayed a much improved performance, its military
parity with regional adversaries will not be established.
To sum up, given these weak points, Turkey is
only half way to becoming a real regional power. I
think that to act as a regional power under these circumstances is rather dangerous and could even be an
obstacle on the way to becoming a regional power.
PHOTO
A tender for the procurement of smart
boards in Turkish classrooms as part of the
Movement to Increase Opportunities and
Technology (FATİH) project could return to square
one following an appeal from a bidder firm.
Often referred to as revolutionary, FATİH’s pilot
program kicked off in 52 schools in 17 provinces across
Turkey, with a total of 12,800 tablet PCs issued to ninth
grade students in February. The state aims to provide
15 million students with domestically produced tablet
PCs. This makes FATİH the largest program of its kind
in the world, given the number of students it targets.
FATİH will also introduce interactive smart boards
into each school, replacing traditional blackboards.
However, a tender for providing the smart boards
to the classrooms is now expected to return to square
one following a decision by the Public Procurement
Authority (KİK). Turkish electronics manufacturer
Vestel has won the tender. Following a court decision to cease the tender process, KİK started receiving complaints from separate firms participating in
the tender. One of these firms, TR Kurumsal Bilişim
Çözümleri, appealed to KİK, arguing the winning
firm claimed the patent for manufacturing the smart
board. TR Kurumsal said the board should be able
to be manufactured by different firms separately. KİK
rejected this appeal. The issue was later conveyed
to the Ministry of Information. If the ministry turns
the KİK decision down, TR Kurumsal will be able to
appeal to take part in the tender. This means a new
tender would become a necessity.
Having bid the lowest amount at TL 339.6 million, Vestel was announced the winner of the smart
board tender back in January of this year. As part of
the first phase, the company was expected to provide 84,921 smart boards to classrooms across Turkey in the following eight months. The company
said it would bid in tenders for the second and third
phases of the project. The smart interactive boards,
if provided, are expected to enable teachers in some
620,000 Turkish classrooms to reflect any document
around the world they need for the class. The firm
T O D AY ’ S Z A M A N
Smart boards from scratch as
skepticism about FATİH lingers
Turkish students attend a class in front of a smart interactive board. The government expected to distribute 84,921 smart boards to classrooms across Turkey following a recent tender.
introduced a prototype of the smart boards to the
public in the week following the tender. The board
was criticized for failing to be user-friendly, but the
company pledged improvements to it.
The criticisms were not only concerning the
smart boards but also the tablet PCs. In January,
General Mobile obtained the tender for the first
phase of FATİH, which involved the trial of tablet
PCs in 83,000 schools. Some educators have argued
that a swift switch to tablets from traditional pens
Ministry to implement price
ceiling for communication bills
Minister of Transportation, Maritime Affairs and Communications Binali Yıldırım
announced on Saturday that a ceiling price and
services scheme would be implemented on cell
phone, land line, Internet and cable TV bills as
of July 1, 2013.
Speaking to the Anatolia news agency, Yıldırım
noted that protecting the rights of consumers is
crucial and explained that the practice is intended
to prevent unexpected sums on bills putting an
extra burden on consumers. “At times, bills reach
high figures and lead to unhappy customers, but
this regulation will bring end to that, he said.
According to the new regulation prepared
by the Communication Technologies Authority
(BTK), a TL 100 ceiling could be placed on services
customers receive depending on their request.
Furthermore, within the scope of the agreement
between customers and operators, the TL 100
limit could be raised or lowered.
Yıldırım stated that businesses with at least
200,000 subscribers will be held accountable under
the scheme and will have until July 2013 to establish
the necessary technical infrastructure. He stated that
businesses with fewer than 200,000 subscribers have
been left out of the new regulation in order to protect them from a heavy financial and administrative
burden. Under the new regulation subscribers will be
sent warning messages when they hit the ceiling price
limit they have placed on their bill. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
and notebooks would harm the children’s writing
skills. A similar criticism came from Microsoft cofounder and chairman Bill Gates in an interview with
Chronicle of Higher Education last week. Gates said
he believes offering products such as the Surface and
Apple’s iPad “is not necessarily the best way to help
the education of students.” “Just giving people devices has a really horrible track record. You really have to
change the curriculum and the teacher. And it’s never going to work on a device where you don’t have
a keyboard-type input. Students aren’t there just to
read things. They’re actually supposed to be able to
write and communicate,” he argued. According to
Gates, a low-cost PC is the best device for engaging
students because it is a more interactive experience.
Gates’ comments come at a time when different US schools are announcing plans to spend millions on iPads and iBooks. Meanwhile, Microsoft
is on the verge of releasing its Surface Windows 8
tablet with keyboard support. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
Murat Çetinkaya appointed deputy
governor of Turkish central bank
at Boğaziçi University, where he also
Murat Çetinkaya, who had been
gained his master’s degree from the deserving as vice general manager
partment of social studies. Çetinkaya beat Kuveyt Türk Participation Bank since
gan his banking career at Albaraka Türk
2008, was appointed as the new deputy
Participation Bank, where he worked in
governor of the Central Bank of Turkey
the international banking and treasury
on Saturday. According to the written
departments. Later in 2003, he began
announcement published in the Ofworking at the majority state-owned
ficial Gazette on Saturday, Çetinkaya, a
Murat Çetinkaya
Halkbank and held high positions in
graduate of Boğaziçi University, which is
the international banking, structured fione of the top universities in the nation,
nance and investment divisions. In his last two years at
as vice general manager of the bank was responsible
Halkbank, he also served as a member of the board of
for overseeing treasury, international banking and
directors. Currently, he is continuing his doctoral studinvestment banking activities. The new deputy goveries at Boğaziçi University in the fields of international
nor, who was born in 1976, double-majored in politics
finance, economics and politics. Ankara Today’s Zaman
and international relations in addition to sociology
Ankara looks to
increase Syrian trade
‘after revolution’
BUĞRA KARDAN İSTANBUL
Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek on Saturday said tensions between Syria and Turkey
have affected trade relations negatively but that
they are predicted to heal tremendously “after [a]
revolution” takes place in Syria.
Speaking to participants at a panel titled “Turkey
and the Arab Spring: Building New Foundation for
Stability and Prosperity” during the Turkish-Arab
Economic Forum in İstanbul that took place on June
29 and 30, Şimşek noted the warm relations between
the countries disappeared when Turkey criticized the
bloody actions of the Syrian regime. He said, “As a
result, trade activities stopped, investments were affected and even travel between the countries was reduced,” adding, “in the future, relations will prosper
when the Syrian people gain their freedom.”
Recalling that Syria and Turkey have a free trade
agreement, Şimşek said: “We used to have largescale operations in Syria and Turkish investors were
actively working in industries such as tourism and cement but all that’s in the past now. We place high importance on unity and the state of the Syrian people
and plan on contributing to improving relations when
a transition takes place. We believe that when the will
of the Syrian people is reflected by the government,
the country will grow stronger.” Responding to questions by the press, the executive director of Bank Audi
sal-Audi Saradar Group, Samir Hanna, said: “Currently, economic activities are at a minimum and
businesses have stopped investing in Syria. I suppose
the number of projects taking place in the country will
regress.” Stating that Bank Audi holds a 50 percent of
share in a Syrian bank, he complained that the conflicts have reduced business activities in the country.
Minister Yılmaz says
no discrimination
against Iranian banks
ERCAN BAYSAL ANKARA
Development Minister Cevdet Yılmaz said
on Sunday that not all Iranian banks are
currently under embargo in Turkey, and that
if they take steps to open banks in the country
they will not be discriminated against.
During his meeting with a group of reporters on
trade relations with neighboring countries, Yılmaz
raised the existence of the embargo against Iranian
banks, emphasizing that there are some Iranian banks
not included in the embargo that have expressed an
interest in entering the Turkish market and made attempts to do so. He noted that as long as international
law is not violated, these banks are free to submit
their applications to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK). Referencing the meeting
between Turkish President Abdullah Gül and Iranian
Vice President Ali Saidlu on Friday, which focused on
bilateral relations between Turkey and Iran, particularly
concerning the energy sector, Yılmaz stated that Turkey had requested a reduction in the price of natural
gas. He stated that parties are discussing the possible
discount and, if provided, arbitration could be avoided.
Yılmaz noted that Iran had been informed at the
meeting about the new Commercial Code (TTK), effective as of today, which is expected to increase investments and prevent illegal trade in Turkey, while
interrupting the flow of money to terrorist organizations. He also mentioned that due to different methods of calculation Turkish truck drivers had been
paying overly high prices for fuel, and said transportation ministers on both sides are working towards a
solution to compensate for the difference.
Yılmaz suggested that although there are currently
no difficulties in financial relations between Turkey and
Iran, the interference of third party nations could pose
risks to this stability. “Gold trade has been used as a
payment method due to the difficulty of accessing foreign exchange, leading to delays in payments,” he said.
New commercial
code takes effect
as of today
The new Commercial Code (TTK), which is seen
as a “revolution” in the business world, will come
into effect as of today. The announcement informing
the public was published in the Official Gazette on
Sunday. Customs and Trade Minister Hayati Yazıcı
also remarked on Sunday that “the commercial code
is not a holy book. If a change proves to be necessary in
the future, the code can be amended.”
Yazıcı added, “We listened to the recommendations of all of the actors in the business world and held
discussions with experts to remove those codes that
would limit the activities and competitiveness of businesses.” Noting that they have received heavy criticism
during the process, he stated: “Our aim is to ease the
lives of businessmen and lift the limitations. As the Justice and Development Party [AK Party], the focus of our
policy is the people’s satisfaction.” İstanbul Today’s Zaman
DESIGN: SELAHATTİN ÖZDOĞAN
08 TODAY’S ZAMAN
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar on Saturday said
a recently announced urban transformation
project to reinforce structures against earthquakes would commence following the end of
the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
A long-expected project, urban transformation is expected to first start in İstanbul following Eid al-Fitr, the three-day holiday that marks
the end of the holy month of fasting, scheduled
for Aug. 22. The metropolis was chosen first
since it is one of the cities most vulnerable to
earthquakes, and it has the largest population.
Officials from Bayraktar’s ministry have
spent the past few months determining all
the structures in İstanbul susceptible to earthquake damage. Experts are now deliberating
to decide on whether these constructions will
be demolished or reinforced. Strongly backing the project, the government has recently
said it will not condone any misuse.
The government said it will not wait for
the approval of all the apartment owners of
a building that needs to be reinforced or demolished and that the approval of two-thirds
of them will be seen as sufficient to demolish a [shoddy] building. If sufficient approval
is not obtained, criminal complaints will be
filed against apartment owners who do not
allow the building to be demolished, it said.
“The government is serious in not tolerating illegal structures [buildings vulnerable to
earthquakes],” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan had earlier commented.
Speaking at a conference on natural disasters in İstanbul on Saturday, Bayraktar called on
all related parties -- local authorities and NGOs
-- to back the project. “This is a national project
above all politics. … We do not want to relive
past miseries -- due to natural disasters -- experienced in this country,” he asserted. Bayraktar
said around 6.5 million houses in Turkey need
to either be reinforced or demolished.
Urban Planning Minister
Erdoğan Bayraktar
PHOTO
SEVGİ KORKUT İSTANBUL
AA
İstanbul’s urban transformation to kick off following Eid al-Fitr
Tehran says ıt wıll ‘confront’
new european unıon sanctıons
for importing Iranian oil will have to be terminated from Sunday. Also, European companies
will no longer be involved in insuring Iranian oil.
The measures come on top of previous sanctions
levied by the US and the West that have already
hit Iran’s economy. US officials say the American
sanctions have cut exports of Iranian crude from
about 2.5 million barrels a day last year to between 1.2 and 1.8 million barrels now. “We have
not remained passive. To confront the sanctions,
we have plans in progress,” said Bahmani. He
did not elaborate on the plans. On Saturday Bahmani said Iran is “easily” selling its oil despite all
current and future sanctions because some countries have received waivers from the US to import
some Iranian oil despite the punitive measures.
The State Department has announced that China, India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan
have been given waivers from the US in exchange
for “significantly reducing” oil imports. Iran’s Oil
Minister Rostam Ghasemi meanwhile ordered
his staff to “mobilize” against “illegal sanctions,”
Mehr said. It did not say what the measures were.
Late Saturday Ghasemi told state television that
Iran has weathered previous rounds of sanctions.
“I do not see it as a problem that enemies have
imposed an embargo today,” he said. “Simply,
because they have imposed similar sanctions
years ago, and nothing happened.” He said
Iran has already stopped selling oil to many EU
countries and sold to others instead. “Developing countries and countries with fast economic
growth have no alternative to oil. Fortunately,
because of the quality of our country’s oil, all
are interest in using it.” Mehr published its own
analysis listing measures that Iran could take to
counter the sanctions, including shutting the vital Strait of Hormuz off its southern coast that
handles a fifth of the world’s oil supply - a threat
that has repeatedly been made by Iranian officials
in the past. On Sunday, however, Iran’s Defense
Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi made statements to
the official IRNA news agency about the Strait in
which he did not mention any plans to stop it. He
said Iran is the main protector of the waterway,
and that Tehran “has confronted anybody who
tried to endanger the Strait.”
The semiofficial news agency’s editorials
sometimes reflect views held by top Iranian officials who do not wish to state them publically.
Mehr also suggested that Iran could make use of
hard currencies other than the US dollar and the
euro, form its own insurance syndicate to replace
foreign companies that withdraw from the market, store up oil in tanks for later sale so as not to
cut production, or simply reduce oil production
to save its reserves for the future. The US and
EU measures are intended to pressure Iran over
fears that it is developing nuclear weapons. Iran
denies the charges, saying its nuclear program is
aimed at peaceful purposes like power generation and cancer treatment. Tehran AP
China’s manufacturing
slows in June
China’s manufacturing grew in June by its
slowest pace in seven months, a survey released Sunday showed, raising questions about
Beijing’s efforts to prevent the world’s second biggest economy from slowing too quickly.
The European debt crisis is pinching China’s export
manufacturers, while moves to control property prices
have chilled spending on construction, with worries
China’s economic growth will fall below 8 percent in
the second quarter. Although still high by Western standards, that is weak compared with years of double-digit
growth and points to concerns about China’s appetite for
imports from countries increasingly reliant on Chinese
demand. The state-affiliated China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said that its purchasing managers’
index, or PMI, fell 0.2 percentage points to 50.2 percent
in June, just above the 50 level that signifies expansion.
The index was at 50.4 in May, 53.3 in April and 53.1 in
March. The slump comes at a sensitive time for the ruling Communist Party, which is preparing to hand power
to a younger generation of leaders this year. Growth fell
to a nearly three-year low of 8.1 percent in the first quarter. Analysts expect it to decline further before a possible
rebound late this year. China is moving cautiously with
its recently launched “mini-stimulus” plan, mindful of
the painful hangover of inflation and debt from its 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) avalanche of spending, including
a wasteful building boom, in response to the 2008 global
crisis. The government cut interest rates early in June for
the first time in nearly four years, and also cut gasoline
and diesel retail prices. It has promised to pump money
into the economy with spending on low-cost housing,
airports and other projects. Beijing AP
WB cancels $1.2 bln
Bangladesh loan
PHOTO
AP, VAHID SALEMI
Iran has stored up imports and hard
currency for a “battle” against “dastardly” EU sanctions, officials said
Sunday, the day that the measures aimed at
pressuring the Islamic Republic over its controversial nuclear program take effect.
Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said
the country has stockpiled the population’s daily
needs to reduce the impact of the embargo hitting
the oil and banking sectors. “Today, we are facing
the heaviest of sanctions and we ask people to help
officials in this battle,” Rahimi was quoted by state
television’s website as saying at a religious conference. He said the “dastardly sanctions” might
cause “occasional confusion” in the market, but
that the Iranian nation would not be stopped.
Central bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani
also told the semiofficial Mehr news agency that
Iran has “plans” to deal with the embargo and
enough hard currency to meet its import needs.
The EU said earlier this week that all contracts
BUSINESS
The World Bank has canceled a $1.2 billion loan
for construction of a bridge in Bangladesh, saying it has credible evidence of corruption involving a
Canadian engineering company.
The global lending agency said it did not receive a
satisfactory response from the Bangladesh government
after it raised the issue of corruption last year. It said in a
statement Friday that it has evidence pointing to “a highlevel corruption conspiracy” among Bangladesh government officials, executives of Canadian engineering and
construction giant SNC-Lavalin, and private individuals
in connection with the planned 6.5-kilometer (4-mile)
Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project. Bangladesh Communications Minister Obaidul Quader called the World
Bank’s decision regrettable because the government’s
Anti-Corruption Commission was still investigating the
allegations. “Such a decision is unfortunate before the
investigation is complete,” he told reporters Saturday.
The bank said it earlier sent a team to Dhaka to explain
its position and receive the government’s response.
“The response has been unsatisfactory,” it said. The
bank “cannot, should not, and will not turn a blind eye
to evidence of corruption,” it said. Montreal-based SNCLavalin, one of the world’s largest engineering and construction companies, has acknowledged making improper
payments to agents to win contracts on two projects. An
internal probe resulted in the resignation of its CEO and
two other senior executives. The company’s headquarters
was searched by Canadian national police in April.
Bangladesh has been rated one of the world’s most
corrupt nations by Berlin-based Transparency International. The World Bank loan, signed In April last year,
was part of a funding package for construction of the
$2.9 billion bridge, slated to be the country’s longest.
Funding also was expected from the Asian Development Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Islamic Development Bank. Dhaka AP
Apple wins 2nd US
sales ban on Galaxy
An Iranian oil technician makes his way to the oil separator facilities in Iran’s Azadegan oil field. Iran said on Sunday it will stand up against embargoes hitting its oil and banking sectors.
Angela Merkel seen as big loser in eurozone showdown
Angela Merkel was portrayed across Europe
as the big loser of a eurozone showdown in
Brussels after the German chancellor was forced
to accept the crisis-fighting measures championed
by countries struggling with their debts.
Newspapers in Spain, Italy and France on Saturday toasted the triumph of their leaders -- Mario
Monti, Mariano Rajoy and Francois Hollande -- in
pushing Merkel into a U-turn that would long have
been unthinkable. Even German newspapers said
Merkel had been made to accept demands for the
eurozone rescue fund to be able to inject aid directly
into stricken banks from next year and intervene on
bond markets to support troubled member states.
“There’s no doubt about it -- the chancellor was
blindsided at the euro summit,” wrote influential
columnist Nikolaus Blome of Bild, a daily with 12
million readers. The summit ended on Friday with
agreement on new steps to try to prevent a catastrophic breakup of the single currency.
Popular at home for insisting on austerity
measures and tough conditions for those indebted
eurozone states getting help, Merkel was quick to
put a positive spin on the summit, telling reporters:
“We had an interest in finding solutions.” There
was no sign that the summit had damaged her
reputation on Friday as both houses of parliament
voted to back the eurozone’s permanent bailout
scheme. And Merkel does not face any particular
political challenge at the moment. But the con-
cessions of “Frau Nein” were far bigger than earlier compromises in the name of saving the euro.
“Merkel caves in -- money for ailing banks,” read
the headline on Germany’s left-leaning Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Bild wrote: “Italy and Spain got
what they wanted: It’ll be easier to borrow excessively again... It was the first time in more than two
crisis years that euro states didn’t follow Germany’s
orders.” Footballing comparisons have been widespread after Italy knocked Germany out of the Euro
2012 tournament in a shock 2-1 victory on Thursday. “This time it was worse, the defeat was about
the euro,” said respected Deutschlandfunk radio.
In France, left-leaning daily Liberation had a
front page splash showing Hollande and Merkel
dressed in their national football shirts with “1-0
to Hollande” over the top. It devoted its first four
pages to his summit triumph. Liberation said it
was the pressure from Hollande, Monti and Rajoy that made Merkel buckle and accept a growth
plan and banking union mechanism. It applauded his negotiating prowess.
“The night the South made Merkel cave
in,” was the headline over a Liberation report
on the Brussels summit. France’s right-leaning
daily Le Figaro called Spain and Italy the real
winners. “Just like in football, it is thanks to
Italy and Spain that the dynamics of the match
have changed and that Angela Merkel has been
forced back against the wall.” Berlin/Paris Reuters
An American judge ordered Samsung Electronics
Co. to halt US sales of its Galaxy Nexus smartphone while the court considers Apple’s claim that the
South Korean company infringed its patents.
In Apple’s second victory in a week against Android
devices, the US District Court of Northern California
said Friday that the Galaxy Nexus smartphone “likely”
infringes four patents held by Apple Inc., including a patent used in the “Siri” voice-activated assistance available
in the iPhone 4S. “Apple has clearly shown that it is likely
to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary
injunctive relief,” Judge Lucy Koh wrote in the ruling
available online. She ordered Apple to post a $96 million bond - an estimated damage sustained by Samsung
from the temporary sales ban -- in case the iPhone maker loses to Samsung in a later trial, scheduled for 2014.
The sales ban in the United States will be effective immediately when Apple posts the bond. The Galaxy Nexus
lawsuit is one in a series of legal battles between Apple
and Samsung. The two world’s largest makers of smartphones together claimed more than half of the global
smartphone market in the first three months of this year.
Samsung and Apple have been embroiled in multiple lawsuits in Asia, North America and Europe since April
2011 when Apple accused Samsung of copying its iPhone
and iPad. Samsung shot back with claims that Apple is using
its mobile technology without permission. The latest order
from the Californian court follows Koh’s decision Tuesday
to temporarily block the sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in the United States. But it is “the first serious
blow” Apple has dealt to Samsung and Google Inc., said
Florian Mueller, a Germany-based patent analyst. Seoul AP
DESIGN: ADNAN SARIKABAK
INTERVIEW
TODAY’S ZAMAN 09
MONDAY, JULY 2, 2012
Jenny Whıte: Turkısh
Muslımhood replacıng Islamısm
TODAY’S ZAMAN, TURGUT ENGİN
‘There is a notion of Muslimhood now in Turkey that has replaced Islamism, or at least pushed it to the fringes of politics. Muslimhood implies a
different understanding of personhood. If you are a pious Muslim and you enter politics, the assumption is that you become an Islamist. But the
theologians behind the Muslimhood model ask: “Why should that be so? Do Christian politicians become Christianists when they enter politics?”’
PHOTOS
contýnued from page 1
She answered our questions last week on this issue and other
topics in Abant, Bolu, where she was one of the participants,
comprising both locals and foreigners, who debated Turkish democracy in a conference titled “Different Perspectives on Turkey.”
Where do you see Turkey today politically?
We have a top-down hierarchical, patriarchal party that is calling the shots. It represents the new elite although it claims to represent the population. It is autocratic and authoritarian in terms of the
way it’s forming policies. This is absolutely nothing new. Some of us
were happy when the [ruling Justice and Development Party] AKP
came to power in 2002 because we thought it was something new.
And in part we thought that because there was a social movement
that preceded it, women were involved. But it’s all gone. The minute
the party won and consolidated power, it became a Turkish political party and the social movement that was part of it is completely
over. The women who thought that they were participating in a
social movement were pushed out and don’t really have any roles
anymore. They are quite bitter about that. It’s now business as usual.
You have been following Turkey since the 1970s, right?
Yes, half of Turkey’s population is under the age of 30, so they don’t
actually remember anything. People who criticize the AKP for being
authoritarian don’t really have a very long memory. Now they put journalists in jail; before they would kill or torture the journalists. You really
need to have the memory of not just the ‘80s but also the ‘70s. In comparison, this is an improvement in a lot of ways because there is at least
a discourse going on about liberalism, individual rights, human rights,
etc. Today you can talk about the Armenians and 1915, whereas in the
1980s you couldn’t talk about it at all. There is a discourse now that
makes it possible to imagine a different direction -- forward or backward, I don’t know, but it was not possible before.
Do you think Turkey is in a period of transition?
Everything is always in a transition, especially in Turkey. If you
compare Turkey now to the ‘70s, it’s a different planet -- the way
it looks, the way people interact, what’s in the stores, etc. In the
‘70s, Turkey was very much like a poor Eastern European country
behind the Iron Curtain in the way it treated its citizens, in the way
people feared the state and the military. There are now more possibilities; people can shape their lives in many different ways. This
is important, especially to the younger generation.
‘Turks pushing aside Kemalist model’
And what would you say in regards to the change related to
Turkey’s national identity?
Being Muslim was also part of this racial category. For instance,
if you meet someone whose name is İshak and who has been here
since Byzantine times, a lot of people in Turkey would not consider
him a Turk because he is Jewish. So you cannot be a Turk because
you are not a Muslim. Where does that come from? It came from
the late 1920s and 1930s when racial theories came to Turkey from
Russia and Europe. Those ideas influenced the Kemalists. Being
Muslim was part of your ethno-racial character. Today, this is becoming less relevant and moving toward an understanding of be-
What’s been happening to women in Turkey? You
touched on the topic of how they were disregarded after the
AK Party’s election.
People are still uncomfortable using the word “kadın”
(woman) even though Parliament has just changed the
names for restrooms from “hanım” (lady) to “kadın.” We
did the same thing in the 1960s and the ‘70s in the United
States. Until then we had ladies’ toilets, not women’s toilets.
The idea was to disentangle women from their social context
and make them individuals. If you are defined as a member
of a group, whether this group is your family, “aşiret” (clan),
community or nation, those groups define who you are and
claim ownership of women’s bodies. Even the state gets involved; Turkey used to have forced virginity tests. Why would
the state be interested in that? The state is the mirror image
of an authoritarian and patriarchal society.
So you are not surprised by what Prime Minister Erdoğan
said in regards to abortions and C-sections.
It is not surprising that the state feels it has ownership
of women’s bodies. Erdoğan talks about cesarean sections,
which are a medical procedure. He feels he has a right to say,
“I’m going to ban this.” Why is that not absurd? It’s because
it follows the old tradition of the state having an interest in
women’s bodies, women’s virginity, women’s moral status or
women’s honor, because that reflects the integrity and honor
of the state. And the discourse of the nation is very much
sexual -- the honor of the nation and the penetration of the
nation’s boundaries are made equivalent to the penetration
of women, so women are symbols of danger to the nation.
The only place for women in the nation is really as mothers of
martyrs. And mothers are not sexual. This is a desexualized
role for women, and that role is also militaristic.
‘Gülen movement not
traditional Islamic movement’
‘Despite polarizing rhetoric,
identities less clear’
What does Islam mean in Turkey?
There are so many different ways of expressing that. There
is a female sheikh [Cemalnur Sargut] on Bağdat Caddesi in
İstanbul who does not cover her head and attracts a lot of professional women who are secular. The question is why? I think it’s
because if you don’t know what it is to be a Muslim, if you don’t
know what it means to be Turkish anymore, then this happens.
For a lot of youth, it is important to get ahead; they are not interested in sacrificing themselves for the state. Now, the state is
mixed in with the government; it used to be separate. Despite the
polarizing rhetoric, identities are less clear. You still want to be
Turkish, but what does that mean? People are searching for authenticity. This female sheikh may be catering to this search for
Turkish authenticity because I am told that she emphasizes that
Islam is something Turkish and it appeals to people who are lost
among international logos in malls. People feel unsettled and
seek their roots. Where are their roots? Are they in the blood, in
the flag? Maybe not so much anymore. Are they in Islam? Are
they in possessions?
In your book “Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks,”
which will come out in November, do you deal with issues related
to Turkey’s national identity and if the identity has been redefined?
Yes, in fact, the whole book is about that. Kemalism was very much
based on race, blood and lineage -- you hear the word “soy” [lineage]
used all the time. A year or so ago, a minister spoke at a university to a
group of scientists to encourage them to improve the standard of Turkish science. In his speech, he said that this was important so that we can
be aware of dangers like importing tomato seeds from Israel -- if you
grow tomatoes from these seed and people eat them, it could negatively affect Turks’ genetic lineage. This statement led to an explanation by the minister of agriculture that Turkey imports only 4 percent of
its tomato seeds from Israel. Another example is that during the 1999
earthquake, one of the ministers rejected blood donations from Greece
because he did not want to mix blood. This relates also to liberals who
can be perceived as mixing everything and having no boundaries. They
have no single group that they belong to. That’s one reason why liberals are not so powerful. Who listens to the liberals here? The power is
in the hands of people who have groups and who know where the
boundaries are and are ready to defend them.
‘Turkish state feels it has
ownership of women’s bodies’
JENNY WHITE
PROFILE
Jenny White, a writer and social anthropologist,
teaches social anthropology at Boston University as
a tenured associate professor. She has published
two scholarly books on contemporary Turkey. “Money Makes Us Relatives,” a description of women’s
labor in urban Turkey in the 1980s, was published
in 1994. “Islamist Mobilization in Turkey” was
published in 2002 and explains the rise of Islamic
politics in Turkey in the 1990s. It won the 2003 Douglass Prize for best book in Europeanist anthropology. Her first novel, “The Sultan’s Seal,” was published in 2006. It was translated into 14 languages
and is available in paperback and as an audiobook.
Booklist has named it one of the top 10 first novels
of 2006 and one of the top 10 historical novels of
2006. It was shortlisted for the 2006 Ellis Peters
Historical Crime Award. The sequel, “The Abyssinian Proof,” was published in 2008 and the third Kamil Pasha novel, “The Winter Thief,” in 2010.
ing Turkish under a broader category, but it’s still unclear what it
is. And that’s why the references to the Ottoman Empire are so
important. Alev Çınar wrote about the changing perception of the
founding moment of the Turkish nation; it used to be 1923 but now
it is 1453. You can go relive this period in a 3-D museum and watch
the film “Fetih 1453.” It is important for identity because it tells
that you are no longer defined by the 1923 borders. Along with
that came the assumption which is taught in schools that in 1923
Turks saved themselves from Western enemies that were trying to
destroy them, and these enemies are still trying to do so now using non-Muslim minorities within Turkey to do their dirty work.
But this is irrelevant now as you can be friends with Armenians,
Greeks, Arabs or anyone else. This is not neo-Ottomanism, this
is post-imperialism -- that you have a new sense of who you are,
where your boundaries are and what you are capable of, though
romanticized and not always realistic. There is this conceptual
opening to the world -- that was what [Turkey’s late Prime Minister and President Turgut] Özal was doing -- which means pushing
aside the Kemalist model that tells you who is Turkish and who
is your enemy. There is a new notion instead that Turkey was an
empire and could be a world power again.
What do you think lies behind Turkey’s
rise to international prominence?
First of all, opening up to the world economically was
Özal’s legacy. There has also been a conceptual opening up to
the world, which has meant pushing aside the Kemalist model
that says there are enemies out there trying to undermine us.
There is also the notion that “we used to be an empire and we
can be a world power again” -- which are the ideas of [Foreign
Minister Ahmet] Davutoğlu. Islamists, led by [Necmettin] Erbakan in various parties, talked about the Ottoman Empire as
a model [for becoming a world power] but they were not open
to globalization. Now, there is an embrace of globalization in
Turkey, liberal economic policies plus the Ottoman period as a
model. Altogether, this allows Turkey to be in the global arena
as a political and economic power.
‘Muslimhood model appeals to Tahrir Square
demonstrators’
There is a clichéd question: ‘Can Turkey be a model for the
countries which were involved in the Arab Spring?’ But what
would you say about being a model for these countries? What
does it mean?
It means different things to different people; they use it as
justification for whatever it is that they want to do. The Egyptian
generals believe they are using the Turkey model when they dissolve parliament and push back the Islamists. This is the Kemalist
model with a strong army which keeps Islam out of government.
But when [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan went to
Cairo, he met with the Muslim Brotherhood, which thought that
Turkey was a model of a Muslim democracy. However, Erdoğan
If you look at the Gülen movement, they are not organized as a traditional Islamic movement would be. They are organized as a series
of networks, of foundations. They are very interested in education
and supporting young people to better themselves and be upwardly
mobile, which is exactly what a Muslimhood model could bring to
Tahrir Square and what the Muslim Brotherhood likely cannot.
It’s not the old-fashioned Islam of rituals and text-based
Islamic practices. It’s a different kind of Islam; it’s not your
grandfather’s or grandmother’s Islam. And there are people
who I encountered during the research for my book, young
men and women, who came by Islam in unusual ways.
For instance, one young woman was reading a novel by the Brazilian writer Paul Coelho. The main character in Coelho’s book needed a spiritual guide to lead him to where he could find meaning in
life. The search for meaning and social justice, however it develops,
can lead to membership in religious networks, or to faith and participation in civil society groups, which are another kind of network.
The young woman I mentioned earlier started to cover her head
and started to read the Quran, but she didn’t join an Islamic community. What she did was to join a secular NGO that works for social
justice. When I say Muslims can now choose how to be a Muslim
and what group to belong to, she is a perfect example of someone
who chose to do something which was probably not possible before. The aim was not to be a good Muslim; the aim was social justice. This is an entirely new way of being a Muslim.
But to be able to do that you have to have gone through the
process that I described before -- globalization, commercialization
and formation of a devout middle class that has the self-confidence
to say, “Yes, I am a Muslim but I’m going to define what that is.”
The Muslimhood model would be a great model for Egypt, but I don’t
think they can get there yet. There is hope that the military would
step back, but it is unlikely to happen; they run a lot of the economy
in Egypt. There is not the economic process to open things up.
told them that Turkey is not a Muslim democracy but a secular democracy. He said that they are Muslims who run a secular state or
regime. In addition, the Ennahda Party in Tunisia explicitly models
itself on the AKP, but Tunisia is like Turkey in many ways already so
it’s not so much a model for change but an expression of the state of
affairs in Tunisia. There is a notion of Muslimhood now in Turkey
that has replaced Islamism, or at least pushed it to the fringes of
politics. Muslimhood implies a different understanding of personhood. If you are a pious Muslim and you enter politics, the assumption is that you become an Islamist. But the theologians behind
the Muslimhood model ask, “Why should that be so? Do Christian politicians become Christianists when they enter politics?”
Can you elaborate more on this?
Their argument is that being a Muslim is a personal attribute, so
when you enter politics, you take that with you -- perhaps as a set of
ethics -- but it doesn’t affect your work in the public arena or how you
run the government. In fact, the AKP is a very Turkish party: top down,
hierarchical, authoritarian, patriarchal, etc., all the things that the other
parties are as well, more or less. People tend to blame these attributes
on Islam because as a young population they have a very short memory
and don’t see the continuities.
The Muslimhood model might be one which the demonstrators at Tahrir Square would have appreciated. They are not interested in the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood -- which is top-down,
hierarchical, authoritarian, patriarchal and ideological. They want
to be modern in their own way and they want to have upward
mobility. The women want opportunities that they did not have
under the old regime. They are not interested in the Islamist ideologies which go back 50 years; they are interested in having a
better life. The Muslimhood model would be a more productive
model for Middle Eastern countries. But to have Muslimhood,
these countries would have had to go through the process that
Turkey did, in which Islam was a personal attribute, rather than
the property of Islamic movements like the Muslim Brotherhood.
DESIGN: KADİR ÖZMEN
10 TODAY’S ZAMAN
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
in its own land,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement after his death.
Shamir professed a commitment to peace, calling it
“the only prize ... that can justify any war,” but insisted
Israel never be rushed into a deal or lose its nerve.
“Big countries, I told myself, can afford to make
mistakes; small ones cannot,” he wrote in his memoir “Summing Up.” Born in Poland with the surname
Yezernitzky, Shamir moved to British-ruled Palestine
before the Holocaust, in which his family died. Steely
and secretive, he ran missions against British and Arab
targets for the hard-line Jewish underground group
Irgun, taking his Hebrew name from an alias used
to evade police dragnets. He later became a leader of
another underground group, the Lehi, or Stern Gang.
Captured and deported to Eritrea in 1946, the diminutive, beetle-browed Shamir missed much of the fighting
that led to Israel’s founding two years later. Upon his
return, he found himself out of step with the country’s
left-leaning political leadership of the day. The Mossad
spy service provided Shamir a back door to power.
Recruited in 1955, Shamir clambered up the Mossad’s
ranks during shadow wars with regional foes and international hunts for Nazi fugitives. Jerusalem Reuters
Yitzhak
Shamir
PHOTO
Yitzhak Shamir, the hawkish Israeli leader
who two decades ago first balked at US calls
to trade occupied land for Middle East peace, died
on Saturday after a long illness. He was 96.
The second longest-serving prime minister after
Israel’s founder, David Ben-Gurion, Shamir clung to
the status quo. Admirers saw strength and resolve in
his position, while critics called him an intransigent
naysayer who allowed Arabs to cast Israel as obstructing reconciliation. “Yitzhak Shamir belonged to
the generation of giants that founded the State of Israel and fought for the freedom of the Jewish people
New Egyptian president
begins struggle for power
PHOTO
EPA
For Egypt’s estimated 82 million people, the prospect of a continuing battle between the military and the Brotherhood,
the country’s largest political group, will only prolong the political instability that has rocked their nation since Mubarak’s
ouster last year. Egyptians have seen the initial euphoria following the revolution turn into a wave of pessimism
Military council head Hussein Tantawi (L) presents the Shield of the Armed Forces to President Mohammed Mursi during a ceremony at a military base in Cairo.
rious Egyptian army returns to being devoted
to its mission of defending the nation’s borders and security,” he said.
REUTERS
dent of significant powers before doing so.
The decrees gave the military legislative authority after the parliament was dissolved by court
order as well as control over the process of drafting
a permanent constitution. It also retained its influence on key domestic and foreign policy issues.
“The armed forces are the shield and sword
of the nation,” Mursi told an audience of several
thousand people, including many members of the
disbanded Islamist-dominated parliament.
“I pledge before God that I will safeguard
that institution, soldiers and commanders,
raise its prestige and support it with all the
powers available to me so it can be stronger,” he added. But Mursi later appeared to
urge the military to hand over all powers to
his elected administration. “The [ruling] Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has honored its promise not to be a substitute for the
popular will and the elected institutions will
now return to carry out their duties as the glo-
Conflicting chants
Military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi’s arrival at the hall was greeted by conflicting chants of “the army and the people
are one hand” and “down with military rule.”
He and Gen. Sami Anan, the powerful chief
of staff, showed no emotion during Mursi’s
address, but did occasionally clap.
The military already has won the first
round, forcing Mursi to take his official oath
of office before the court because there is no
parliament, the traditional venue for inaugurations. The Supreme Constitutional Court
is packed with judges appointed by Mubarak
before his ouster and it is the same tribunal
that ruled two weeks ago that a third of parliament’s members were elected illegally. Cairo AP
PHOTO
Islamist Mohamed Mursi became
Egypt’s first freely elected president on
Saturday, launching his four-year term
with a potentially dangerous quest to wrest back
from the military the full authority of his office.
The outcome of the impending battle between Egypt’s first civilian president and its powerful generals will redraw the country’s political
landscape after 60 years of de facto military rule.
If Mursi succeeds, the Muslim Brotherhood will likely be emboldened to press
ahead with realizing the longtime goal of
making Egypt an Islamic state. Otherwise the
military -- which has been reluctant to give up
the power it assumed after Hosni Mubarak’s
ouster -- will continue its stranglehold on the
country for years, maybe decades, to come.
For Egypt’s estimated 82 million people, the
prospect of a continuing battle between the military and the Brotherhood, the country’s largest
political group, will only prolong the political
instability that has rocked their nation since
Mubarak’s ouster last year. Egyptians have seen
the initial euphoria following the revolution
turn into a wave of pessimism amid a declining
economy, rising crime and a seemingly endless
wave of protests, strikes and sit-ins.
The yearning for stability was expressed
by two prominent figures. Nobel Peace Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, also Egypt’s top prodemocracy advocate, tweeted that it was time
to resolve the thorny issues of the new constitution, the president’s powers and legislation. “Now, the time for building has come, to
achieve the revolution’s goals,” he said.
Gamal Eid, a well-known rights lawyer
and activist, saw in Mursi’s inauguration the
chance for someone in power to be held accountable. “Now the ball is in the president’s
court after he became the first elected president of Egypt. Now we can hold him accountable either with or without authorities.” Both
sides - Mursi and the military - made a show
of unity during the inauguration ceremonies
that began with the 60-year-old US-trained
engineer being sworn in at the Supreme Constitutional Court, then making an address a
few hours later at Cairo University as the ruling generals applauded politely.
Mursi repeated his oath of office in the
university’s gigantic lecture hall and lavishly
praised the military council, which had promised to hand over power to a civilian government by July 1 but pushed through a series
of decrees this month that stripped the presi-
Mursi (R) shakes hands with Farouk Sultan,
head of the Presidential Election Commission, after his swearing-in ceremony in Cairo.
PHOTO
EPA
Chinese President Hu urges new Hong Kong leader to heed ‘problems’
Chinese President Hu Jintao on Sunday
swore in Hong Kong’s new leader who will
have to confront challenges ranging from human rights to a push for democracy in the freewheeling financial center after a year of transition
and protest. Security was tight at the same harbor-front venue where the British handed Hong
Kong back to Communist Party-run China exactly 15 years ago, with hundreds of police forming a solid ring fence to ensure the isolated demonstrations were kept out of sight and earshot.
Hu expressed China’s confidence in Hong
Kong’s role as a free, law-abiding society,
though in a sign of Beijing’s anxiety at recent
Chinese President Hu (L) shakes hands with Hong Kong’s Leung. tensions, he appealed for unity and called on
the administration of Leung Chun-ying, who
was sworn in for a five-year term, to heed “deep
disagreements and problems” in the territory.
A lone protester stood and heckled Hu
as he spoke, demanding an end to one-party
rule and dictatorship in China, before being
wrestled away by security personnel.
Outside the venue, masses of Hong Kong
police and high barricades smothered all attempts
by protesters to approach. Several demonstrators
were taken away in a police van while a truck
draped with black June 4 slogans denouncing Beijing’s bloody crackdown on protesters in 1989 was
forced away and tailed by a police motorcycle.
“Hong Kong has freedoms, and we have the
REUTERS
Yitzhak Shamir, hawkish Israeli prime minister, dies at age 96
right to protest! Why do you even stop us from
walking?” lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan shouted
into a loud hailer as he harangued police blocking him and a handful of protesters. Hong Kong
is a liberal, global financial hub agitating for full
democracy, making it both an asset and a potentially dangerous precedent for China where
people are becoming increasingly intolerant of
rights abuses and curtailed freedoms.
A far larger demonstration drawing tens of
thousands was expected to hit the streets after
the ceremony over a variety of issues including
perceived China meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs and slowing the city’s moves towards full
democracy. Hong Kong Reuters/AP
WORLD
Egypt holds
ıts breath
OPINION
Omar Ashour
TODAY’S ZAMAN
CAIRO -- “You are the authority, above any other authority. You
are the protectors, whoever seeks protection away from you is a
fool...and the army and the police are hearing me,” said Egypt’s
president-elect, Mohamed Morsi, to hundreds of thousands in
Tahrir Square. A man imprisoned following the “Friday of Rage”
(Jan. 28, 2011) took the presidential oath in Tahrir on a “Friday of
Power Transfer” (June 29, 2012). But he almost did not.
Ten days earlier, on June 19, I was with a group of former
Egyptian MPs in Tahrir Square. One received a phone call informing him that a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader was coming to announce that the group was being blackmailed: Either
accept the constitutional addendum decreed by the Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which practically eviscerated the presidency, or the presidential election’s outcome would
not be decided in the Brothers’ favor. An hour later, the senior
figure had not shown up. “The talks were about to collapse, but
they resumed,” said the former MP. “Hold your breath.”
The victory of the Brotherhood’s Morsi in Egypt’s first free presidential election is a historic step forward on Egypt’s rocky democratization path. His challenger, former President Hosni Mubarak’s last
prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, had no chance of winning a clean
vote, despite the support of a huge state-controlled propaganda machine and various tycoons. “How many people can they trick, convince, or buy? We don’t have that short a memory,” a taxi driver told
me when I asked whether he would vote for Shafiq.
Indeed, the Egyptian revolution has defeated Mubarak’s regime and its remnants three times since January 2011: first with
Mubarak’s ouster, then in the parliamentary elections held earlier
this year and now with Morsi’s victory. And yet a military-dominated regime remains a real possibility. The series of decisions by
the ruling SCAF just before the presidential vote clearly indicated
that the military has no interest in surrendering power.
The most radical of these decisions was to dissolve parliament, for
which 30 million Egyptians voted, based on a ruling by a SCAF-allied
Supreme Court. The junta then assumed legislative authority, as well
as the power to form a constitutional assembly and veto proposed
constitutional provisions. It also formed a National Defense Council
(NDC), dominated by the military (11 army commanders versus six
civilians -- assuming that the interior minister is a civilian).
Meanwhile, efforts to clamp down on protests have continued. The justice minister, a Mubarak-era holdover, granted
powers to the military intelligence and military police authorities to arrest civilians on charges as minor as traffic disruption
and “insulting” the country’s leaders.
Now the hard part begins for Morsi, who confronts an intense
power struggle between the beneficiaries of Mubarak’s status quo
-- generals, business tycoons, National Democratic Party bosses, senior judges, media personnel and senior state employees -- and prochange forces, whose largest organized entity is the Brotherhood.
The junta certainly has no intention of abandoning its
vast economic empire (with its tax-free benefits, land ownership and confiscation rights, preferential customs and exchange rates and other prerogatives). It has also no intention of surrendering its veto power, including over national
security, sensitive foreign policy (specifically regarding Israel
and Iran), and war making -- hence the NDC.
In the absence of a compromise -- and forces that can guarantee
its terms -- polarization can lead to bad outcomes, ranging in seriousness from Spain in 1982 to Turkey in 1980, and, most worryingly,
Algeria in 1992, when the military regime’s nullification of an Islamist
electoral victory touched off a prolonged and brutal civil war.
Although Egypt’s generals are by no means as threatened as their
Algerian counterparts were in December 1991, they do have enough
power to flip the tables. Depending on the outcome of the ongoing
negotiations between SCAF and Morsi, the size of protests in Tahrir
Square and elsewhere, and the degree of pressure from the international community, a deadly confrontation cannot be ruled out.
The most likely scenario, however, looks something like
Turkey in 1980: an undemocratic, military-dominated outcome,
but no serious bloodshed. In this scenario, the current constitutional assembly would be dissolved and SCAF would form
a new one to its liking. It would strongly influence the constitutional drafting process in order to enshrine its privileges. In
other words, SCAF, not the elected president, would remain
the dominant actor in Egyptian politics -- an outcome likely to
generate continuing resistance from pro-change forces.
The best outcome -- resembling Spain in 1982 -- is the most optimistic. After the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) won parliamentary elections and formed a government in October of that year,
the right-wing military establishment accepted the new democratic
rules of the game and foiled a coup attempt that sought to block the
advance of the left. The PSOE also realigned the party along more
moderate lines, renounced Marxist policies and led a comprehensive
reform program, El Cambio (the change).
In Egypt, a similar scenario would enhance the prospects of democratic transition. But the SCAF leadership shows no inclination to
emulate the Spanish generals.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership, for its part, usually
takes a risk-averse, gradualist approach to crisis management.
Confronted by a revolutionary situation, however, that approach
could be hard to maintain. Further progress toward democratization would require Morsi to keep intact the broad coalition of
Islamists and non-Islamists that brought him to the fore -- and to
sustain its mobilization capacity in Tahrir and elsewhere.
Successful transitions from military to civilian rule in Turkey,
Spain and elsewhere partly reflected sustained American and European support. But, perhaps more than that, Morsi will need tangible
achievements on the economic and domestic-security fronts to shore
up his legitimacy at home. Otherwise, Egypt’s generals will not be returning to their barracks anytime soon.
*Omar Ashour is director of Middle East Graduate Studies at the
Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, and visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. He is the author of “The
De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements.” © Project Syndicate 2012
DESIGN: KADİR ÖZMEN
TODAY’S ZAMAN 11
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
AP, MIKHAIL METZEL
WORLD
PHOTO
Syrian opposition groups
reject UN transition plan
The disappointed reaction underlined the seemingly intractable nature of the Syrian conflict, which this week saw some of the
bloodiest violence since the start of the uprising against Assad’s regime in March 2011. Activists said dozens of people were killed
and wounded in a powerful explosion on Saturday evening that hit a funeral procession in a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus
A Russian Space Agency rescue team carries US astronaut Donald Pettit shortly after the landing of Soyuz.
SPACE
REUTERS
Soyuz ends mission
with smooth landing
PHOTO
A Russian Soyuz capsule landed on the Kazakh
steppes on Sunday, safely delivering a trio of astronauts who helped to dock the first privately owned
spacecraft during a six-month stint on the International Space Station. The descent capsule, carrying Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA
astronaut Don Pettit and European Space Agency
astronaut Andre Kuipers, touched down with its
parachute in a cloud of dust at 0814 GMT. The crew
left the space station early on Sunday after serving
183 days in orbit, often sharing their experiences
with the public via blogs and Twitter. At the end
of May, the crew released Space Exploration Technologies’ unmanned Dragon cargo, which arrived
as part of a test flight and was the first privately
owned spaceship to reach the $100 billion orbital
outpost, which is a 15-nation project. Three other
ISS crew members -- Russia’s Gennady Padalka
and Sergei Revin and NASA astronaut Joe Acaba
-- will remain in orbit. Moscow Reuters / AP
VIOLENCE
At least 10 killed in
Kenya church blasts
At least 10 people were killed in grenade attacks on Sunday at two churches in Garissa,
a town in northern Kenya that is an important
military base from where ground forces have
been deployed into Somalia to fight al Qaedalinked insurgents. Kenya has been struck by
a series of blasts since it sent troops across the
border in October to try to crush the al Shabaab
militants. The capital and other parts of Kenya
have suffered a string of grenade attacks. “The
goons were clad in balaclavas and hurled the
grenades at the Catholic Church and the AIC
[African Inland Church] in the town,” regional
deputy police chief Philip Ndolo told Reuters.
“So far we have at least 10 killed, and more than
40 wounded following the grenade attacks,” he
said. A blast hit a night club in the port of Mombasa last Sunday, killing one man. Nairobi Reuters
Geneva conference
An international conference in Geneva on Saturday
accepted UN special envoy Kofi Annan’s plan that
calls for the creation of a transitional government
in Syria, but at Russia’s insistence the compromise
agreement left the door open to Syria’s president
being part of the interim administration.
The US backed away from insisting that
the plan should explicitly call for Assad to
have no role in a new Syrian government,
hoping the concession would encourage Russia to put greater pressure on its longtime ally
to end the violent crackdown that the opposition says has claimed more than 14,000 lives.
Syrian opposition figures rejected any notion of sharing in a transition with Assad.
“Every day I ask myself, do they not see how the
Syrian people are being slaughtered?” veteran Syrian
opposition figure Haitham Maleh asked. “It is a catastrophe, the country has been destroyed, and they
want us then to sit with the killer?”
Maleh described the agreement reached in
Geneva as a waste of time and of “no value on
the ground.”
“The Syrian people are the ones who will
decide the battle on the ground, not those sitting in Geneva or New York or anywhere else,”
he said by telephone from Cairo, where opposition groups are to meet Monday.
Bassma Kodmani, a Paris-based spokesperson for Syria’s main opposition group, the
Syrian National Council, said the agreement is
“ambiguous” and lacks a mechanism or timetable for implementation.
“We cannot say that there is any positive
outcome today,” she said. “The Syrians will not
accept engaging in any political track while the
killing continues.”
There was no reaction from the Syrian regime to the Annan plan, but Assad has repeatedly said his government has a responsibility
to eliminate terrorists and will not accept any
non-Syrian model of governance.
State-run newspaper Al-Thawra said Sunday “the Syrians are the ones who can determine their future.”
The UN plan calls for establishing a transitional government of national unity, with full
executive powers, that could include members
of Assad’s government and the opposition and
other groups. It would oversee the drafting of a
new constitution and elections.
PHOTO
contýnued from page 1
Details of the blast in Zamalka remain
murky, but amateur videos showed
gruesome images of bodies, some with their
limbs torn, lying on the ground as people
walked about dazed in a cloud of smoke.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 30 people were killed,
while the Local Coordination Committees activist
network said it had documented the names of 40 of
the dead and that residents were unable to identify
an unknown number of remaining bodies.
Activists blamed government forces for the
explosion, which they said was likely the result
of a car bomb detonated near a mosque where
the funeral of an activist killed earlier by regime
gunmen was being held.
The violence has added urgency to diplomatic
efforts to end the violence in Syria.
REUTERS, DENIS BALIBOUSE
Residents carry the coffins of people protesters say were killed in shelling by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during their funeral in Deraa. Opposition groups meanwhile have rejected the transition plan.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) listens to
Sergei Lavrov at the start of the Geneva conference.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
he was “delighted” with the result. The key point
was that the deal did not attempt to impose a process on Syria, he said. It did not imply at all that
Assad should step down as there were no preconditions excluding any group from the proposed
national unity government, Lavrov added.
Clinton: Assad must go
But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it sent
a clear message to Assad that he must quit. “Assad
will still have to go,” Clinton told reporters. “What we
have done here is to strip away the fiction that he and
those with blood on their hands can stay in power.”
France on Sunday echoed the same sentiments
with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius saying in
Paris on Sunday that a text agreed by members of the
UN Security Council in Geneva on a political transition
for Syria implied that Assad would have to step down.
“The text says specifically that there will be
a transitional government with all powers ... it
won’t be Bashar al-Assad because it will be people that are agreed to by mutual consent. “The
opposition will never agree to him, so it signals
implicitly that Assad must go and that he is finished,” Fabius told television station TF1.
Fabius also said that if the Geneva agreement was not enough, France would return to
the UN Security Council to ask for the plan to
be placed under Chapter 7 of the UN charter so
that it can be enforced.
Chapter 7 allows the Security Council to authorise actions ranging from sanctions to military
intervention.
Annan was appointed the special envoy
in February, and in March he submitted a sixpoint peace plan that he said the Assad regime
accepted. It led to the April 12 ceasefire that
failed to hold. UN observers sent to monitor
the cease-fire suspended their patrols in Syria
on June 16 due to a spike in violence and have
been confined to their hotels since.
Moscow had refused to back a provision that
would call for Assad to step aside, insisting that outsiders cannot order a political solution for Syria and
accusing the West of ignoring the darker side of the
Syrian opposition. The opposition has made clear
it would not take part in a government in which
Assad still held power. Beirut/Geneva AP/Reuters
ELECTION
Iceland president
wins record 4th term
Icelandic President Olafur Grimsson has won
a record fifth term in office, riding a wave of
support for his defiance of Britain and the
Netherlands over massive debts from a bank
crash and asserting the tiny nation’s stubbornly independent streak. A combative former leader of a now defunct left-wing party,
he became a symbol of resistance after the
2008 collapse of Iceland’s banks by taking
the unprecedented step of refusing to sign
into law government bills on repayment of
money lost in the crash to its larger European neighbors. In doing so, Grimsson, 69,
emboldened a presidential office that had up
until then played a mainly ceremonial role
and put himself at loggerheads with the center-left government as well as international
creditors. Reykjavik Reuters
ATTACK
US drone strike
kills 8 in Pakistan
In West Virginia, 232 Amtrak passengers spent Friday night on a train that was blocked on both sides by
trees that fell on the tracks, and they were waiting for buses to pick them up on Saturday. In Illinois, storm damage
forced the transfer of dozens of maximum-security, mentally ill prisoners from one prison to another.
In some Virginia suburbs of Washington, emergency call centers were out of service; residents were told
to call local police and fire departments. Huge trees fell
across streets in Washington, leaving cars crunched up
next to them, and onto the fairway at the AT&T National golf tournament in Maryland. Cell phone and
Internet service was spotty, gas stations shut down and
residents were urged to conserve water until sewage
plants returned to power. The outages were especially
dangerous because they left the region without air conditioning in an oppressive heat. Temperatures soared
to highs in the mid-90s in Baltimore and Washington,
where it had hit 104 (40 Celsius) on Friday.
“I’ve called everybody except for the state police
to try to get power going,” said Karen Fryer, resident
services director at two assisted living facilities in Washington. The facilities had generator power, but needed
to go out for portable air conditioning units, and Fryer
worried about a few of her 100 residents who needed
backup power for portable oxygen. Washington AP
PHOTO
Millions across the mid-Atlantic region sweltered
in the aftermath of violent storms that pummeled the eastern US with high winds and downed
trees, killing at least 13 people and leaving 3 million
without power during a heat wave.
Power officials said on Saturday the outages
wouldn’t be repaired for several days to a week, likening the damage to a serious hurricane. Emergencies
were declared in Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, the
District of Columbia and Virginia, where Gov. Bob
McDonnell said the state had its largest non-hurricane
outage in history, as more storms threatened. “This is
a very dangerous situation,” the governor said.
AP
Eastern US storms kill at least 13, cut power to millions
Frances Lukens (L) looks at the tangle of boards and tree
limbs piercing her living room ceiling in Lynchburg, Va.
US missiles fired from a drone in a Pakistani
tribal region near the Afghan border killed
eight suspected militants early on Sunday,
officials said, as the controversial American
strikes continue despite Islamabad’s persistent demands that they stop. The latest attack
killed fighters loyal to militant commander
Hafiz Gul Bahadur, the officials said. Bahadur is believed by residents of the region to
have an informal working relationship with
the Pakistani army, refraining from targeting
the security forces while focusing on US and
NATO forces in nearby Afghanistan. The
continued strikes, despite the likely political
fallout, show Washington’s confidence in the
effectiveness of the drone program against
al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters who allegedly use Pakistan as a base. Dera Ismail Khan AP
DESIGN: YUNUS ASLAN
12 TODAY’S ZAMAN
MONDAY , JULY 2, 2012
Chıld labor ıssues and socıal ınequalıtıes
At least 6 percent of children between the ages of
6 and 17 are working.
More than 15 percent of children in this age group
do not attend school. Turkey is rated the third-worst out
of 16 countries, following Mali and Senegal and in terms
of hours worked weekly by children.
Child laborers work on average 51 hours per
week, and more than half of children aged 6 to 17 work
to support their families’ household income.
Eighteen out of every 100 people in the labor force
are children. These children are deprived of an education
from the get-go and the opportunities that other children their age are provided.
Fifty-six percent of children in the labor force
come from families who have migrated from rural to
urban areas.
We all know that child labor has been a problem
everywhere and continues to be so in some countries.
In order to help put bread on the table or buy a pair of
shoes, children work in unhealthy and unsafe condi-
CULTURAL CORNER
CHARLOTTE
McPHERSON
tions. It is disturbing to know that there are children who
are robbed of their childhood. Until laws were in place
and the US Department of Labor began to investigate,
this problem existed in my home country. Some of my
British friends have told me about the workhouses there
were in England during the Victorian days.
One of the perks of running a bookstore is that you
get to read all kinds of books. A book I read a couple of
months ago on this subject comes to mind. It is part of
Scholastic’s My Story series, entitled “Victorian Workhouse: The Diary of Edith Lorrimer, England, 1871” by
Pam Oldfield. The story is set in 1871 in England. The
book is written as a Victorian girl’s diary, intended to
help children learn about what life would have been like
for a child in the mill industry at that time. It is not the
most pleasant subject. However, it is a nice read for both
boys and girls. I believe you won’t want to put it down!
For children, it will give them a slice of history in a way
that makes it easily understandable for them.
Sadly, child labor in Turkey is an embarrassing fact.
There are some who are aware of this problem in
Turkey and are taking steps to determine what the community can do. Recently, Bilkent University held a seminar on child labor. The presenter, Şule Mann of ILO, discussed the current situation and raised awareness among
the Bilkent community of the issues of child labor.
Şule Mann pointed out that child labor in Turkey
and many other countries in transition needs to be
addressed from many different aspects, including in
terms of demography, education, economics and social development. Mann indicates that the population
of Turkey in 1995 was estimated to be 61.6 million.
Around 35 percent of this population was within the
PHOTO
TODAY’S ZAMAN, KÜRŞAT BAYHAN
Since 2002, every year on June 12 the International Labour Organization (ILO) lends recognition to the cause
of stopping child labor. World Day Against Child Labour
is a way to highlight the plight of these children.
My foreign guests often ask me about child labor
in Turkey. Statistics are not always easily available on
the subject of child labor in countries where this happens. Based on the information available, you could say
that one of the most concerning indicators in Turkey of
economic inequality and discrimination is just this: the
apparently high rate of child labor. I would like to just
share with you some highlights taken from the following sources: a 2009 report called “Give girls a chance:
Tackling child labour, a key to the future” by the International Labour Organization and an article I read
on the Internet called “Child labour in Turkey exposes
growing social inequality” (Aug. 18, 2010) at http://
www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/turk-a18.shtml.
The following points about Turkey are based on reports by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) and ILO.
Students taking the
national Level Determination
Examination for high school
ASHLEY PERKS LONDON
Turkey’s education system is, apparently, bursting at the seams: Despite the mushroom-like
growth of private schools and universities; despite cram courses designed to force feed the little goslings with preparation for high school entry -- the Level
Determination Examination (SBS) -- as well as the new
Undergraduate Placement Examination (LYS) for access
to university; despite being designed so that they might
produce the educational equivalent of foie gras as opposed to the inferior liver pâté, students are increasingly
looking elsewhere -- at least for higher education.
Each year, about 1.5 million students sit the LYS in the
hope of getting into a university in Turkey. But with only
30 percent of candidates actually obtaining a place -- and
even then not necessarily in the course of their choice -the number of Turkish students choosing to pursue their
higher education ambitions abroad is rising.
According to Basil Davies (Today’s Zaman, June 24:
“Brain drain remains a concern as overseas education
gets popular”): “In 2010/11 alone, there were over 22,383
Turkish students enrolled in formal education overseas
(this figure excludes summer schools and short language
programs). … The ministry’s 2010/11 report identifies the
US, UK, Germany and Azerbaijan as favorite destinations.” I’ll come back to these preferences later.
Summer holidays are on the horizon (unless you are
working for an English language course, in which case
the sweat is on!). In the UK, students will be having an
anxious time until their A level results come out at the
beginning of August that will decide the fate of their university education choices. In Turkey, the lucky 30 percent
will know their destiny. The rest will try abroad.
As for the UK and the US
The whole education establishment in the UK and the
US is in upheaval right now. While in Turkey much argument has surrounded the changes to the length of compulsory education (12 years now) and questions are asked
about the standards of pupils and teachers, it has to be
said that compared to other Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, Turkey is moving forwards rather than backwards. The exam
system itself may be open to challenge, and as I have argued in these pages before, pressure to teach/learn to test
(and the temptation for organized cheating) raise serious
questions about archaic rote-learning practices.
Lest you be turning your academic gaze Westward,
however, one or two points need to be made. No econ-
THEIR GRASS IS
ALWAYS GREENER!
While in Turkey much argument
has surrounded the changes to
the length of compulsory
education and questions are asked
about the standards of pupils
and teachers, it has to be said
that compared to other OECD
countries, Turkey is moving
forwards rather than backwards
omy -- advanced, developed or developing -- has successfully solved the question of expenditure to standard/
result ratio. None. Some, however, are doing better than
others. Figures of education expenditure/gross domestic
product (GDP) ratios within the OECD tell some of the
story: Figures for Turkey come in at around 4 percent,
where the OECD average is now 5.3 percent of GDP.
“Turkish government spending on education as a percentage of GDP is significantly behind any of the OECD
countries and it has been stagnant for a long time. … Education spending peaked in 1992 when it amounted to the 20%
of the government budget. From then onwards, there have
been ups and downs but on average 11-12% of the total
budget has used for educational investments. This number
has been on average 14%. In relation to GDP, educational
expenditures increased slightly in 1998 but remained the
same thereafter. Over this period, the average education
spending as fraction of GDP has been 4%. .... .” (“Education
and income inequality in Turkey: Does schooling matter?”
by Anil Duman, Ph.D., Financial Theory and Practice, Volume 32, Issue 3, Institute of Public Finance, 2008)
While the UK and the US may look more impressive
on the surface, they belie serious underlying problems.
So much so that both countries are undertaking a major
EXPAT ZONE
overhaul of their education delivery and testing systems.
More worrying for Turkish students wanting to
study abroad, price is going to factor out all but the
wealthiest or those able to use schemes like ERASMUS
or other scholarships. Fees in the UK are set to treble:
3,000 pounds up to 9,000 pounds for a UK student,
9,000 pounds up to 27,000 pounds for foreign students.
Tougher visa restrictions and quotas are also in mind
under proposals by the current home secretary, Theresa
May, ostensibly to reduce the flow of immigration.
British Education Secretary Michael Gove is a man
on a mission: to retrofit the British education system to
resemble that which had been in place from the 1950s
to the 1970s. Returning to split level exams -- a return to
O levels and Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE), a
two-tier testing system, as well as rolling out “Academies”
and so-called “Free Schools” that are privately owned and
managed by parent groups, as well as a wish to restore the
almost obsolete grammar schools for brighter over-11s, is
setting the UK on a path absolutely contrary to that in other countries outside former British colonies like Singapore!
Universities have long been abandoned to fund
themselves, with grants being pared to the bare minimum and axed at the slightest provocation (read: excuse).
No surprise then that the lucrative milk-cow of foreign
student intake is heading for a serious sucking.
So here’s the thing: According to Davies’ article,
“There is, however, a more positive way of looking at the
situation [brain-drain from Turkey]. The strides taken
by Turkey’s economy in the past 10 years have begun to
make it a far more attractive prospect for graduates from
overseas. And although some [Turkish] students will not
return home after their overseas studies, the ones that
choose to are all the more valuable for their time abroad.”
That’s nice for those who will be able to afford it.
Yes, the grass is always greener on the other side: All the
more reason why, then, the Turkish education system
needs to find space and support for the 70 percent of
high school graduates currently missing out.
NOTE: Today’s Zaman intends to provide a lively forum for expatriates living in Turkey. We encourage you to contact us at [email protected] and share your experiences, questions and problems in all areas of life for publication in Today’s Zaman.
0-14 age group. The number of children in the 6-14 age
group was approximately 11.9 million (Household Labor Force Survey, State Institute of Statistics, October
1994.) An estimated 1.08 million (8 percent) of these
children were employed in business, and another 2.8
million (23 percent) worked in domestic labor (i.e.,
family-operated farms or businesses). Within the same
age group, around 13 percent did not attend school.
Another striking figure was that 18 out of every 100
people in the labor force was a child. These statistics
show us that, unfortunately, not a lot has changed in
this regard in Turkey since the mid-1990s.
The Turkish government is not doing enough to
tackle this problem. No concrete steps are being taken
to eliminate child labor, as stressed by EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood
Policy Stefan Füle in February of this year.
Note: Charlotte McPherson is the author of “Culture Smart:
Turkey” 2005. Please keep your questions and observations
coming: I want to ensure this column is a help to you, Today’s
Zaman’s readers. Email: [email protected]
LEGAL CORNER
BERK
ÇEKTiR
Lawyer Bekir Berk:
a praıseworthy man
If there was a Nobel or Oscar prize for
lawyers, the late Bekir Berk would be
one of the first people to receive it. Earlier this month was the 20th anniversary of his passing. I would like to write
about this awesome man, this brilliant
lawyer and man of law, Bekir Berk.
Berk was born in 1926 in Ordu
and moved to İstanbul with his family in his early years. He studied law
at İstanbul University and graduated
from law school in 1951.
He defended more than a thousand
cases from 1958 to 1972. He traveled all
around Turkey, appearing before courts
in various cities. Sometimes even judges were surprised to see him, thinking
he could not make it on time; he would
have a court case in İstanbul on Monday, another in Rize on Tuesday, a third
in Çanakkale on Wednesday and fourth
in Bitlis, all during a harsh winter with
limited means for travel. The judge of a
Bitlis court wanted to check his ID as he
thought it impossible for Berk to have
made it to court on time.
Bekir Berk was a dedicated lawyer,
fully committed to his cases. He had no
fear -- no threat or pressure could make
him even think about stepping back.
One of his most impressive experiences
took place at a court in Ankara. Berk
had just presented a very good defense
in his characteristic, sharp way. The
prosecutor, Mr. Esenel, knew Berk had
no one in which he could trust or whom
he could ask for help but his belief. Anyway, the prosecutor was concerned that
Berk had secret political power behind
him so he could be harsh and strong
against the court, which had the full
power of the government at that time.
The prosecutor asked a direct, straightforward question: “Bekir Berk, how
dare you talk like this to the judges and
to me? You must be counting on someone, on something!” Berk opened his
briefcase. The prosecutor expected him
to pull out a file, a dossier. Berk took out
a piece of white cloth of the variety in
which Muslims are covered and buried.
He threw it on the prosecutor’s desk
and said, “This is what I count on.”
Such a fearless man, he would
carry around his shroud being seriously
threatened. The prosecutor was frozen,
unable to speak, and sat down. Berk
folded the white cloth with care, put it
back in his briefcase and continued his
defense. Those who may guess what
the atmosphere is like after a military
takeover can imagine the greatness of
this gesture. My personal experience
with Bekir Berk is very interesting. It
happened long after his passing. I was
involved in a very complex case as party
counsel. The case was so complex and
of such importance that we had to seek
the legal opinions of different scholars,
including a retired judge and honorary
president of the high court. This gentleman was a top scholar. Due to his position and advanced age, it was very difficult to get a hold of him, let alone a
legal opinion. Through good relations,
we managed to get an appointment.
The contact who put us in touch with
this gentleman informed us that he had
granted us the appointment because of
the good relations we had established
through professional correspondence
and a good reference, but that he would
only listen to the case and was unwilling to give a legal opinion on the matter. We went to his office for the meeting with questions in mind, thinking
this was still an issue we could solve.
He was a very old person and apparently did not want to get involved in
this very complex and time-consuming
case. He listened to us with patience.
When we finished presenting the case,
he asked me to stay in the meeting
room. While the clients waited outside
with their fingers crossed, this gentleman said: “Under normal circumstances, I would not give you a legal opinion
on this matter. This is a complex, timeconsuming and tedious task. When
you reach my age, you will understand
this feeling better. However, I will do
it because I sympathize with you. You
would never guess the reason. I was a
young judge in Erzurum for a criminal court. There was a case against the
students of Said Nursi. My origins and
political views are based on Marxist ideology and were by all means absolutely
the opposite of those of Said Nursi and
his companions, fellows and students.
One day, a lawyer showed up and presented a fantastic defense. It was epic.
I was shaken, I was so impressed, and
his name was Bekir Berk. I sympathized
with him that day. I sympathize with
you today, only because you have the
same name as he did and you remind
me of him.” Although I did not deserve to be reminiscent of Bekir Berk,
I was greatly touched. Even though he
has passed, I feel Bekir Berk’s shadow
and grace are still here with us. I am so
proud to have the same name as he did,
although I am not even close to achieving what he was able to.
Bekir Berk stopped at nothing for
his belief. When he later had to present
his own defense, he stated it was very
difficult to understand how he could be
accused of a crime without the existence
of a law defining this crime. He stated
that he had defended hundreds of people in the past in terms of the freedom
of thought and that those people had
been found not guilty, with legal experts
and judges all admitting his defense
was correct. He underlined that the
case against him was not actually a case
against a person but against a religion.
He was found guilty of violating former
Article 163 of the Constitution, which
limited freedom of thought; he had
been detained after prayer, arrested for
reading books by Islamic scholar Said
Nursi and was imprisoned for a year
due to political pressure on the court.
I regret not having come to know
him earlier; I first met Bekir Berk in
a very unfortunate way. I came to
know him through the condolences
being offered on the day of his funeral, June 15, 1992, when I was writing university exams for law school.
I wish I had had some time to visit
him. We still have much to learn from
his perseverance and work ethic.
NOTE: Berk Çektir is a licensed attorney at law
and available to answer questions on the legal
aspects of living in Turkey. Please kindly send
inquiries to [email protected]. If a sender’s letter is published, names may be disclosed
unless otherwise expressly stated by the sender.
DESIGN: MELEK ÜNVER
CULTURE&ARTS
TODAY’S ZAMAN 13
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
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t I feel like al
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ment in music
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weren’t fittin
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ne
uc
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m
th
as
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st
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ne else. Durin
yo
an
to
is
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prise to us as
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sa
Gossip’s music a
unk,
mixture of post-p
anceindie-rock and d
l
punk but ‘A Joyfu
studio
Noise,’ their fifth
a sound
album, features
ser to
that is much clo
at songs
disco with upbe
Beth
and lead singer
cals
Ditto’s soulful vo
Singer Beth
Ditto (C) is joined
by Brace Paine on
guitar and Hannah
Blilie (L) on drums in
the indie rock band
Gossip.
Soderbergh ready
for indefinite break
from filmmaking
The countdown is on for Steven Soderbergh.
With “Magic Mike” currently in theaters, the
prolific director has just two more films to finish before he’s “going to drop off the grid for a while.”
The 49-year-old filmmaker says he’s taking a sabbatical from Hollywood, and it could be permanent.
“It’s just time to recharge,” he said. “I’m all or nothing. It’s on or off, and I need it to be off for a while.”
If all goes according to plan, he aims to begin his
indefinite break from the movie business on his 50th
birthday in January. Until then, he’ll be working furiously to finish his final two films.
“The Bitter Pill,” a drama starring Rooney Mara,
Channing Tatum and Jude Law, is nearly done, the
director said, and he’s about to start shooting “Behind the Candelabra,” a Liberace biopic for HBO
starring Michael Douglas as the flamboyant pianist.
Both are set for release in 2013.
Soderbergh said he’s looking forward to “a new
year with a new start.” He already has ideas in mind
for paintings and drawings he’d like to make. Other creative interests include photography, collage
and “one more film book.” “I’ll always be making
things,” he said. “They’ll just be other things.”
Soderbergh, who has been nominated for
three Academy Awards and won for directing
2000’s “Traffic,” said the type of material that
appeals to moviegoers has changed during his
27-year career. “American movie audiences
now just don’t seem to be very interested in
any kind of ambiguity or any kind of real complexity of character or narrative -- I’m talking
in large numbers, there are always some, but
enough to make hits out of movies that have
those qualities,” he said. “I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that
people who want to see stories that have those
kinds of qualities are watching television.”
He said if he returns to the entertainment
industry, “it’s more likely I would end up in
television.” Los Angeles AP
Özpetek’s newest film
wins 2 Silver Ribbons
from Italian critics
Italian-based Turkish filmmaker Ferzan Özpetek’s most recent directorial effort, “Magnifica Presenza” (Magnificent Appearance), won two
awards at the prestigious Nastro d’Argento (Silver
Ribbon) movie awards in Italy over the weekend,
Turkish news agencies reported on Saturday.
The drama, Özpetek’s ninth feature, won the
awards for best costume design and best subject in
the 66th edition of the Silver Ribbons, which are
given out annually by the association of Italian film
critics, officially the Sindacato Nazionale dei Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani.
“Magnifica Presenza,” starring Elio Germano
in the title role and Turkish stand-up comedian
Cem Yılmaz in the supporting cast, follows a young
wannabe actor from Sicily who moves to Rome to
pursue an acting career but ends up working in a
bakery at night in order to earn a living. The film
premiered in Rome in late March and was released
in Turkish theaters in April. It was nominated in
nine categories at the Nastro d’Argento awards,
including best soundtrack and editing.
The big winner of the night was Paolo Sorrentino’s “This Must Be The Place,” which won best
film. The best screenplay award went to Marco Tullio Giordana’s “Romanzo di una strage” (Story of a
Massacre), the Anatolia news agency reported.
“Magnifica Presenza” is in the running for
four other awards this week, including best director and best actor at the Globo d’Oro awards -- the
Italian equivalent of the Golden Globes -- which
are given out annually by the Foreign Press Association in Italy. The awards will be announced
on Tuesday in Rome. İstanbul Today’s Zaman with wires
France’s Dujardin,
175 others asked
to join film academy
Review: Kirk Douglas revisits an epic in ‘I Am Spartacus!’
In a brisk and entertaining memoir, actor
Kirk Douglas revisits the unusual intersection
of personalities, politics and perfidy that swirled
around the creation of a Hollywood classic.
Fans of “Spartacus,” directed by Stanley Kubrick from a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, will
revel in the details of how Howard Fast’s novel
struggled to reach moviegoers in 1960. The movie
remains a standout among swords-and-sandals
epics, a rare action film that tells an exciting but
personal story amid historical sweep.
In the driver’s seat was Douglas, the film’s top
producer as well as its star. Besides the usual headaches of moviemaking, such as hiring a cast and
keeping an eye on the bottom line, he had to deal
with a problem unique to the era: the blacklist.
For more than a decade, film studios wouldn’t
openly employ anyone who was uncooperative with the congressional hunt
for communist influence in Hollywood.
Those who said they had or were suspected of communist ties also faced the
prospect of being denied a job. Some
blacklisted writers, though, could find
work using a pseudonym or a “front,”
a person who falsely claimed to be the
author of a script.
As a producer, Douglas played the
game, hiring Trumbo under the table
to work on a script for a different movie. A member of the Hollywood Ten whose imprisonment had kicked off the blacklist era, Trumbo was
accustomed to writing in secret. His “front” had won
an Academy Award for “Roman Holiday” in 1953.
Three years later, one of his aliases
won for “The Brave One.” Douglas
decided his producing partner Edward
Lewis would be Trumbo’s latest front
as he worked on “Spartacus.”
With Trumbo doing a great job, the
sham didn’t sit well with Douglas or
Lewis. Not unlike Spartacus deciding
whether to risk everything by leading
a slave revolt in ancient Rome, Douglas
debated whether to give Trumbo his
screenwriting credit even if Universal
might pull the plug on the movie. He
also had to deal with censors and ballooning costs
-- the film eventually cost three times more than
expected -- as well as an irascible actor in Charles
Laughton and a brilliant if cold director in Kubrick.
A lively narrator, Douglas puts the “I’’ in “I
Am Spartacus!” No more modest today than he
was a half-century ago, he takes lots of credit for
a fine movie made against bigger odds than most
films faced. He gives credit, too -- and plenty of
hell to those who tried to stand in the way of
what has become his signature film.
Douglas is admirable not just because he’s
still writing at 95 -- this is his 10th book -- and
pushing back against a speech-impairing stroke
he sustained in 1996. His voice in the pages of “I
Am Spartacus!” carries the power of a self-made
man who continues to meet life on his own
terms but with grace and aplomb.
“I Am Spartacus!: Making a Film, Breaking
the Blacklist,” by Kirk Douglas, published by Open
Road Douglass K. Daniel AP
The Oscar-winning and nominated stars
of “The Artist” and “The Help” have been
invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences.
The film academy announced its roster of
potential new members Friday. It includes best
actor winner Jean Dujardin and supporting actress Octavia Spencer, along with nominees
Berenice Bejo and Jessica Chastain. Oscarnominated “Bridesmaids” star Melissa McCarthy, “Albert Nobbs” supporting actress Janet
McTeer, “A Better Life” star Demian Bichir and
best director winner Michel Hazanavicius are
also among the 176 moviemaking professionals
asked to become academy members.
Academy president Tom Sherak called the
invitees “some of the most talented, most passionate contributors to our industry.” Other actors on the list include Matthew McConaughey,
Bryan Cranston, Kerry Washington, Jonah Hill
and Andy Serkis. Los Angeles AP
DESIGN: MEHMET ULGA
14 TODAY’S ZAMAN
AP, BURHAN ÖZBİLİCİ
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
PHOTO
Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoğlu (R) with
KRG President Massoud
Barzani on June 3, 2010.
TURKEY’S POLICY
OPTIONS IN IRAQ
OTHMAN ALI*
In his most recent visit to Tehran Ahmet
Davutoğlu, Turkey’s minister of foreign affairs,
stated that Turkey would not allow the start of a
new cold war in the Middle East. This was a clear reference to the rising Shiite-Sunni rivalry.
But the spillover from the Arab Spring and the US exit
from Iraq have forced Turkey to make unhappy adjustments
to its foreign policy by cutting old alliances and forming new
ones. These have made its foreign policy of having “zero problems” with neighbors a thing of the past, and thrust the country into a new regional strategic game pitting Sunni regional
governments, and to some extent the masses, against Iran and
its newly gained allies in Iraq. These circumstances, though
not a creation of Turkey, have limited Turkey’s options in Iraq.
It is my contention that those few options are confined
to supporting the formation of a Kurdish-Sunni Arab axis,
assisting Sunni Arabs in their goal of having one or two
autonomous regions in a less centralized federal Iraq,
building bridges with the Shiite National Iraqi Alliance
and replacing the current prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.
Should Turkey and Maliki’s opponents fail in their ongoing efforts to unseat him, the alternative for Turkey will be
to use its soft power in Iraq to make him less authoritarian and to pursue a less aggressive policy towards Iraqi
Sunnis. The clear and unfailing support of the US and the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) are essential to
the success of Turkey’s policy options in Iraq.
The factors beyond the current crisis
There is unanimity among the observers of the Iraqi political scene that it is not the change in Turkey’s foreign policy
which created the crisis between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and the Iraqi regime. Turkey’s policy in Iraq was to remain above sectarianism and
stand at an equal distance from all Iraqi political groups. In
the past Turkish politicians were always emphasizing that
their policy in Iraq was encouraging national unity and
Established on January 16, 2007 NO: 1696
Monday July 2, 2012
bringing economic prosperity to all Iraqis. The major factor
that gave birth to the current tension is the non-existence of
a government ruling with national consent.
This was further exacerbated with the exit of US
troops in December 2011 from Iraq. The US troops provided a buffer between Iraqi Kurds, Sunni Arabs and
Shiite blocs. Maliki has been trying systematically to use
the vacuum created by the US troop withdrawal to consolidate both his personal power and the Islamic Dawa
Party’s authoritarian rule. Furthermore, “This is about an
escalating power struggle in Baghdad combined with the
regional conflict between Iran, Turkey and the Gulf Arab
states being played out in Syria and Iraq,” Hasan Turunç,
a fellow at Oxford University, was quoted as saying.
During the last few months Iraq has witnessed incidents
of sectarian war which were similar to what happened a few
years back. Any further escalation of sectarian war will endanger Turkey’s national security gravely, considering the
instability and disintegration of Iraq, possible acts of ethnic
cleansing against Turkmens and the immense economic
losses. It is noteworthy that Turkey’s trade with Iraq last year
was second only to its trade with the EU, and it is expected to
exceed $30 billion by the end of the decade. Turkey is in the
process of building three more strategic crossings into Iraq.
This will make Iraq Turkey’s gate to the promising market
of the Arab world. Finally, Turkey is currently negotiating
a promising energy deal with the KRG and these deals will
have a profound impact on its energy needs.
Furthermore, an upsurge in ethnic and sectarian war
would adversely affect Turkey’s strategic alliance with the
KRG and its president, Massoud Barzani, to combat violence
perpetrated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
This in no way means Turkey has no role in the current tension with the Maliki government. The AKP government decided from the very start to side with Ayad
Allawi’s Sunni-dominated Iraqi National Movement,
more commonly known as the al-Iraqiya List. This policy
was perceived by Iraqi Shiites as Turkey joining the Arab
League’s hostile policies towards the Shiite-dominated
government in Baghdad. The frequent visits by Maliki opponents such as Ayad Allawi, Tariq al-Hashemi, Sayyid
Muqtadi al-Sadr and Barzani to Ankara were also irritating to the Shiites in Baghdad. Turkey tried to allay the Shiites’ fear through visits from top Turkish officials to Iraq.
During his last trip, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan made sure to spend equal time with all political representatives in Iraq by visiting Baghdad, Najaf and
Arbil. In addition, Turkey tried to evenly distribute its
economic investments in the Shiite- and Sunni-dominated regions. It appears that these measures were not
sufficient enough to allay the fears of the Shiite political
circles that Turkey is now joining the anti-Shiite axis in
the Middle East. What Turkey failed to do was take steps
before and after the US troop withdrawal from Iraq. One
may wonder why Turkey did not try, for example, to
push more vigorously, in collaboration with the US, for
effective implementation of the Arbil Agreement, which
formed the basis of the Maliki government. Or one
might ask: How did Turkey not foresee Maliki’s attempt
to establish his sectarian authoritarian rule?
US support for Turkish policy in Iraq
It is safe to assume that Americans believe that they have
created a successful model state in Iraq. Antony Blinken, US
Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, for example, stated in March of this year: “Iraq today is less violent,
more democratic and more prosperous … than at any time
in recent history.” It appears Blinken is referring here to the
three national elections held in 2005, 2006 and 2010. Maliki
secured a second term in 2010, after March elections that produced inconclusive results. Extended multi-party negotiations,
combined with a modus vivendi which the US and Iran had
reached on Iraq, produced the Arbil Agreement of November
2010, a complex power-sharing deal which divided cabinet
posts between the numerous parties that did well in the elections and placed constraints on Maliki’s power.
A close examination of those election results will give
a very dim picture. Iraqis voted along sectarian and ethnic lines. On top of this, the Obama administration has
come to the conclusion that it has to disengage from Iraq
at all costs. For these reasons, it pretended to not see that
Maliki was reneging on his obligations under the Arbil
Agreement. Political observers point to the fact that it was
after his return from a short trip to the US that Maliki
inaugurated his policy of repression and exclusion of his
opponents, especially Sunni politicians from his government. Maliki has been taking a hard-line and confrontational approach with the Kurds, too. CONTINUED ON PAGE 17
Thýnk tank cafe´
OPINION
MARKAR
ESAYAN
[email protected]
On abolıshıng
specıally
authorızed courts
Parliament has recently embarked on
discussions to rearrange the specially
authorized courts. As I pen this article,
Parliament was discussing the matter,
but we, as the general public, did not
know anything about this critically important change. Specially authorized
courts are judicial bodies established
in 2004 under Articles 250-252 of the
Code of Criminal Procedure (CMK).
The introduction of these courts was a
turning point for Turkey. As a matter of
fact, it was a judicial revolution.
Indeed, there was a law passed in
1913 by the Committee of Union and
Progress (CUP) --which was effectively a
criminal network in the guise of a political
party that caused the Ottoman Empire to
enter an imperialist war and brought the
country to the brink of destruction. Under
this law, public servants could be tried for
the offenses they committed only if their
superiors endorsed the investigation, and
their superiors tended to be accomplices
in the offenses in question, or show professional solidarity.
The motive behind the CUP’s passing
of this law was to prevent the prosecution
of the crimes it was planning to commit
against pro-Ottoman liberals in such incidents as the Forced Relocation of 1915.
Indeed, assassinations and corruption
were among their most natural methods
of working. And they passed such a law
in order to conceal their crimes and not to
be held responsible after the fact.
How many years did this law
remain in force? About 90 years. In
other words, it was abolished in 1999
after seeing two states and numerous
governments. In 2004, the CMK’s Article 250 was introduced.
This article heralded the transition
from the law of rulers to the rule of
law. Thanks to this legal arrangement,
law enforcement authorities started to
effectively combat criminal networks
nested within the state, irrespective
of the identities of their members. Of
course, it should be noted that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK
Party) has lent support to this process.
Previously, prosecutors were unable
to conduct investigations about members
of the military. They were even unable to
step into military zones. With the referendum of Sept. 12, 2010, this legal arrangement acquired a constitutional basis.
Thanks to this arrangement, prosecutors were able to conduct searches
and investigations in cosmic rooms of
the military. They could launch probes
into coups and other offenses committed by members of the military. These
probes, as well as the judiciary’s capability to penetrate into the military
sphere, have played a significant role in
thwarting the military tutelage.
Now it is reported that the government is on the move to abolish these
courts completely and to introduce the
prerequisite of obtaining authorization
from the prime minister, a relevant minister or administrative head before launching any investigation into or trial regarding public servants, including members of
the military. As I said above, the law was
about to be passed, and no one knows
the content of the legal arrangement the
government is working on. Is it sane to
pass such important legislation without
discussing it thoroughly and convincing
the general public of its necessity?
This is nothing but an attempt to
grant immunity to state officials. In the
past, Turkey suffered great sorrows under
those who committed crimes on behalf
of the state. Specially authorized courts
are currently dealing with 22,000 cases.
Supposing that prime minister, relevant
ministers or administrative heads will act
in good faith, is it possible that they can
correctly examine and understand these
complicated cases and felicitously employ the permission mechanism? This
has the potential of creating doubts about
the proper usage of this mechanism by
the government. Members of the current
government may be held responsible for
this mechanism by future governments.
It is claimed that some prosecutors
and judges misuse their powers and authorities or misconstrue their scope. True,
the detention periods are lengthy. There
are some cases in which prosecutors and
judges have failed to act meticulously in
issuing detention decisions. They made
grave errors concerning the arrests of
journalists Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener.
But the proper way to deal with these errors is not to abolish a correct and necessary law, but to identify these members
of the judiciary and make the Supreme
Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK)
rectify the errors. To focus on specific errors in assessing a correct law --one that
allows the judiciary to investigate and try
everyone who commits a crime, be it a
member of the military or the bureaucracy
-- means unfairness to all prosecutors and
judges, doesn’t it? In which democratic
country across the globe is there a sphere
protected from rule of law?
Moreover, the European Court of
Human Rights (ECtHR) found Turkey
in violation of the Convention because
of many antidemocratic legal provisions, particularly the Counterterrorism Law (TMK), in a record number of
cases, while it could find no illegality in
the practices of the specially authorized
courts in the applications filed by Tuncay
Özkan, a defendant at the case against
Ergenekon -- a clandestine organization nested within the state accused of
trying to overthrow or manipulate the
democratically elected government -and by Çetin Doğan, a defendant at the
case against the Balyoz (Sledgehammer)
coup plan. The European Court *is this
‘of Human Rights’ or ‘of Justice’? Thank
you* held that evidence is sufficient and
litigation is fair and arrest decisions are
felicitous. In other words, neither the
ECtHR nor the European Union argues
that these courts should be abolished.
In sum, the abolition of specially
authorized courts does not overlap
with any need or demand. Any effort
to rectify the errors is understandable,
but stripping these courts of their
powers and authority is not.
Daðýstan
Çetinkaya
[email protected]
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DESIGN: KADİR ÖZMEN
COLUMNS
TODAY’S ZAMAN 15
MONDAY , J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
The Turkısh model ın the matrıx of polıtıcal Catholıcısm
A book I am reading with great interest is a volume co-edited
by Alfred Stepan, a distinguished American political scientist
from Columbia University, and Ahmet T. Kuru, a Turkish political scientist who teaches at San Diego State University in
California. The book is titled “Democracy, Islam and Secularism in Turkey” (Columbia University Press, 2012).
Stepan, author of “Problems of Democratic Transition and
Consolidation” and “Crafting State Nations: India and Other
Multinational Democracies,” among other books, is the winner
of this year’s Karl Deutsch prize in comparative politics. Unfortunately, none of his studies, highly relevant to students of
political science in Turkey, have been translated into Turkish.
I suspect Turkish readers are familiar with Kuru’s book “Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion: The United States,
France and Turkey” (Cambridge University Press, 2009), which
is available translated into Turkish.
“Democracy, Islam and Secularism in Turkey” includes –
along with an article co-authored by Stepan and Kuru that deals
with a comparison of the implementations of “laïcité” in Turkey, France and Senegal -- contributions by Karen Barkey, Şükrü
Hanioğlu, Ergun Özbudun, Ümit Cizre, Joost Lagendijk and
ŞAHİN
ALPAY
[email protected]
Stathis N. Kalyvas, all of which are valuable analyses that deal
with different aspects of politics in Turkey today.
The contribution to which I would like to bring attention
here is the article by Kalyvas, a Yale professor of political science
who is perhaps best known for his study “The Rise of Christian
Democracy in Europe” (Cornell, 1996). What makes his article,
titled “The ‘Turkish Model’ in the Matrix of Political Catholicism,” particularly interesting is its analysis of the similarities
between the evolution of Catholicism-based political mobilization in Europe and the Islam-based one in Turkey.
Kalyvas’ argument can be summarized around the following
points. The Kemalist model in Turkey, which stands for the establishment of a secular nation-state in Turkey, was hailed in the early
1920s and particularly in the decades following the end of World
War II as one of the most successful models for modernization.
This first “Turkish model” has gradually faded away, and a new
one has replaced it. The new “Turkish model” rests on interaction
between religiously rooted politics and a process of liberalization
and democratization. Although there are many elements that are
specific to Turkey, it still shares several elements with another now
largely forgotten case of Catholic mobilization that took place in
19th century Europe, the precursor to Christian democracy.
According to Kalyvas, it is clear that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey has challenged the hard-line secularism of Kemalism, while it has been at the forefront of an effort
to put forward an understanding of Islamic identity that reconciles with social and political modernization. Despite its Islamist
coloration, the AKP has not implemented radical, anti-system
policies that would undermine the secular nature of the Turkish state or its democratic institutions. It has, on the contrary,
helped strengthen these institutions through reforms adopted in
the course of the process of accession to the European Union.
Kalyvas points to the parallelism in the evolutions of Christian democracy in Europe and Muslim democracy in Turkey
(dubbed conservative democracy by the AKP) as follows. The
EMRE ÖZDEMÝR
YAVUZ
BAYDAR
[email protected]
[email protected]
İHSAN
DAĞI
[email protected]
Puzzlıng Turkey
“When the Bush administration sought permission to transit its
Iraq invasion troops through Turkish territory in early 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ankara’s soon-to-be installed prime minister and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) bluntly refused.
Their bold defiance of America’s will won plaudits around the
Arab world, not least from Syria.”
This start to an article by Simon Tisdall in the Guardian, titled
“Turkey learns who its real friends are -- so much for ‘strategic realignment’” (June 27, 2012) shows how wrong you can be of your
analysis if you get your facts completely wrong (many other fragments in the rest of the article are also exemplary of shallowness,
based on misreadings of Turkey’s complex political reality).
Some time ago I was at a meeting in which the baffling aspects of
Turkey’s history, sociology and politics were presented and discussed.
The deeper it was dealt with, the more surprised our foreign guests
(journalists, political experts and academics from Europe) became.
On the way out after the conclusion, I overheard a conversation between two foreigners. “What do you think, confusing, isn’t
it?” the lady said. The man responded, “Well, I am still confused,
but on a higher level!”
A new article by Steven Cook and Michael Koplow of Foreign
Affairs magazine is therefore very timely and spot-on to raise such
confusion to new heights. Written by two real insiders, it manages
also to take a sharp snapshot of Turkey 2012, filled with lessons to all
those who look at the fresh realities with yesterday’s spectacles.
Titled “The Turkish Paradox,” the authors try to help us all to
understand whether or not Turkey under the ruling AKP “would
embrace or abuse democracy.”
They conclude that “what is becoming clear is that Erdoğan’s
strategy is to do both, simultaneously.”
The criteria the authors employ is hidden in Robert Dahl’s (a
Yale political scientist) definition of democracy: that it is defined by
the extent to which citizens can participate in civic life and whether
they can contest the government’s power.
Cook and Koplow then line up examples: During the decade
of its rule, the AKP has introduced a series of reforms that allowed
more Turkish citizens to participate in the political process. Turkey’s minorities have also benefited from AKP reforms. Kurds can
now teach their language in private schools and universities and
address crowds in Kurdish at campaign rallies. There is also a staterun Kurdish-language television station.
Other minorities, from Armenians to members of the Greek
Orthodox Church, competed in last year’s parliamentary elections
for the first time in decades, and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu
called for more Turkish Jews to serve as diplomats.
“These steps have allowed more Turks to participate in civic life
than at any time in the modern republic’s history,” the authors argue.
“The recent parliamentary elections featured the most candidates
ever. AKP legislation has overturned laws that prevented Turkish
citizens from belonging to more than one labor union or collectively
bargaining, filing requests for information from the government and
traveling abroad without restriction. As a result, since the AKP came
to power, Turkey’s Freedom House scores for political rights and civil
liberties have gone up, putting Turkey close to becoming a ‘free’ nation, the highest ranking that Freedom House assigns.”
But, there is also the dark side: “But their power to contest the
government has come under attack. Over the last five years, Erdoğan
and the AKP have proved relentless in their targeting of anyone perceived to contest their power or be a threat to their dominance.”
Intimidating the media and public dissent in general is one aspect. Another one, “a dangerous trend,” is what they see as the
“suppression of the armed forces” (in a sense that the downfall
of the officer corps would lead to wider campaigns of harassment
and punishment of the opposition in general). Also, its attempts
to subject the political parties through legal cases of corruption
and take-over of key institutions such as the Academy of Sciences
cause concern. In general, AKP rule has tried to limit the ability of
ordinary Turks to “question its power.”
“Turkey has thus become more open in some ways and more
closed in others, allowing for greater participation and less contestation,” the authors conclude.
The next benchmark will be the new constitution. “Should the
AKP successfully push for a strong executive without concurrent
checks and balances, Turkey will sink more deeply into its paradox.”
It ends with a remark for all those who might be ready to jump into
clichés and shallow conclusion: “Turkey will not likely revert to fullblown authoritarianism. But an autocratic slide will undermine its international standing, built largely on its democratization. Should Turkey’s liberalization falter, the country may quickly lose that influence
-- suggesting that there are consequences to having it both ways.”
Catholic political movement set out with the aim to challenge
the liberal and secular character of European political modernity
but gradually transformed itself to contribute to the consolidation of liberal democracy and to entirely forget its anti-liberal
origins. This transformation, which is reflected also in the evolution of social democracy, tells the story of the capacity of democratic institutions to absorb their enemies while expanding.
Kalyvas argues that the basic message of the new Turkish
model is this: Liberalization and democratization are more likely
in places where states provide rewards for moderation while
sanctioning anti-system behavior. In Turkey, the state has, by
preventing radicalism and rewarding participation, paved the
way for the mutual adaptation of moderate Islamism and democratic transformation. This message shows the way for Arab
Spring countries to eventually establish new democracies.
I agree with most of Kalyvas’ analysis. But if he is arguing
that the military-bureaucratic tutelage of the regime in Turkey
has helped democracy take root in Turkey, I would say he needs
to take a closer look at the Turkish experience. Military-bureaucratic tutelage has hindered rather than facilitated the consolidation of democracy in Turkey, which is still pending.
Egypt and Turkey,
mılıtary and
democracy
No good optıons wıth Syrıa and Iran
ÖMER
TAŞPINAR
[email protected]
With tensions between Turkey and Syria reaching new levels last
week, it is becoming impossible to avoid the thorny issue of deteriorating Turkish-Iranian relations, as collateral damage.
Although much attention is being paid to Russian support for
the Syrian regime, the real force behind Damascus is Tehran. Turkey’s relations with Iran have gone from bad to worse in the last
year due to three factors. First came the shock when Ankara decided
to host radars for the NATO missile defense system. Second, Iraq
emerged as a growing problem in relations with Iran, mainly because of Turkey’s support for the Sunni camp and secularist Shiite
groups in the country. Third, Syria is now exacerbating the situation.
Turkey is frustrated by Iranian support for Damascus and is
concerned about Iran’s domineering influence in Iraq and Lebanon.
Yet there is not much Ankara can do to hurt Tehran, because Iran
holds two important cards against Turkey: the Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) and Turkey’s energy dependence. As far as Damascus
is concerned, the Turkish government is still determined to avoid a
full-blown war with Syria, yet relations between Ankara and Damascus have clearly reached a new level of potential confrontation
after the events of the last couple of weeks. The two countries are
now flexing their muscle with military mobilization at the border.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made it clear that from
now on Turkey considers Syria a hostile state and that the Turkish
military’s rules of engagement have been changed in order to meet
any future Syrian provocations with effective retaliation. NATO has
thrown its support behind Turkey with a diplomatic statement expressing strong condemnation of Syria and solidarity with Ankara.
Despite such escalation of tensions and growing signs of
potential confrontation, a Turkish-Syrian war is still not in the
cards, as all diplomatic, non-military options have not yet been
exhausted. For most democracies and rational actors in international relations, war is the last resort when all other avenues have
failed. Clearly, the outlook for a diplomatic breakthrough in Syria
is bleak. Damascus is engaged in regime survival, and the increasing death toll in the last couple of weeks is now reaching the
kind of levels that may be observed in a civil war. Yet, as we have
witnessed over this weekend in Geneva, the international community has not given up hope for a political transition in Syria.
Special UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan is once again
at the heart of these efforts to find a diplomatic solution that would
avoid Western or regional military intervention. His strategy is to
reach a consensus between Washington and Moscow to formulate
a roadmap to peace in Syria. As a result, in a typical diplomatic compromise, where every word of the final statement matters, the world
powers that attended the Geneva meeting have agreed on a plan for
a unity transitional government in Syria. Although Moscow doesn’t
rule out Bashar al-Assad leading such a transitional government,
the US argues that anyone with “blood on their hands” would not
be chosen for the transitional administration. US Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton went so far as to say that the Geneva plan
implicitly signals Assad’s departure because it calls for “mutual consent” of anyone serving in the transitional government.
It seems like the text is one of these compromise documents where anyone can find something to their satisfaction.
What is sure, however, is that the Geneva meeting is absolutely irrelevant in relation to dynamics on the ground. No
diplomatic statement will force Assad out of power or stop
Syria from disintegrating into civil war. To understand this,
one has only to look at the language of the communiqué,
which hopelessly reaffirms a demand that Annan’s six-point
peace plan be implemented as soon as possible. Everyone
knows that the Annan plan in Syria has absolutely no chance
of being implemented. It has been ignored by everyone.
What such diplomatic efforts manage to achieve is a superficial sense of hope that military intervention may be avoided.
The democratic experiment in Egypt continues without a clear destination in sight. Contrasts and contradictions in the process make
it difficult to be optimistic about the end result. On the one hand a
democratic election was held for the presidency, but on the other
the power of the elected president has severely been curbed by the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). Parliament was
formed last year by a popular election and began functioning but
the Constitutional Court recently dissolved it. Egyptians now have a
democratically elected president who has neither a parliament nor a
democratic constitution, but instead only the SCAF overseeing him.
All of this makes the Egyptian military the new “king maker”
of the country. It has carved an autonomous political and economic
space by positioning itself over all state institutions. In fact the Egyptian military is now what the late Samuel Huntington called “ruling but not governing military.” This was in fact the position of the
Turkish military after the 1961 constitution that made the rules of the
game, determined the limits of the governing civilians and established itself as the supervising institution all over state institutions.
In this the responsibility belonged to the civilians who were elected
by the people but the real power remained within the hands of the
military. The elected civilians were supposed to build dams, roads,
hospitals, but not interfere in the basic determinants of the system
including the constitution of the state and the identity of the nation.
This is to say that in the Turkish tutelage democracy the politicians sat in the driver’s seat, but the wheel was commanded by
the military. Yet the presence of a semi-democratic system provided the military tutelage with popular legitimacy.
I am afraid Egypt is drifting towards this old “Turkish model” military rule hidden behind the legitimacy of an electoral
democracy which is incapable of evolving into a fully functioning liberal democracy. Thus democratic elements recently inserted into the system may remain a mere façade for a military
dominated tutelary regime in Egypt.
What I see in Egypt is incredibly familiar to what we have experienced in Turkey for around fifty years. I think the elements of
the old regime in Egypt is imitating the “Turkish model” the old
version in which democratic actors and institutions existed along
with the tutelary ones. But the trick of this system is that tutelary
institutions not the representative bodies have the ultimate say.
Elections are held, governments are formed according to the
popular elections and parliaments function. But the political actors
and institutions are granted to function within a limited area. This was
the model for years in Turkey. In such model popular participation
in terms of elections will only serve to legitimization of the tutelage.
Egyptian politicians, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood that
is eager to cooperate with the military in order to protect the new
democratic elements in the system may end up being a simple an
organization that legitimizes military tutelage. The longevity of the
military tutelage was guaranteed by this way in Turkey since 1961.
The Egyptians should decide. Not to cooperate with the military
and leave it on its own without providing it with popular legitimacy
may indeed mean a shorter and safer way to attain democracy.
Otherwise the military establishes itself as indispensible in the
system. Under a military tutelage it is the politicians who are accountable and responsible to the people. Once they fail in providing
services or get stuck into a political crisis the whole blame go to the
politicians. They will be regarded corrupt, self-interest seeking, incapable of governing the country. Thus they will lose the trust of the
people while the military that places all the rules of the game and
makes the system impossible to function properly would emerge
an immaculately clean, self-sacrificing and capable. As a result the
military will emerge as the occasional savior of the system.
The advantage of Egypt is that there is no such thing like
Kemalism that would provide the tutelage system with an ideological justification. Protecting the “Kemalist regime” was effectively used in Turkey to curb the power and mandate of the
popularly elected governments.
Yet we know that authoritarian regimes do not have any
shortage of excuses. Securitization of politics is shortcut to hijack
the power of the elected by the military. In the Egyptian case
there are avenues of securitization. Relations with Israel have
always been fertile ground Middle Eastern regimes to suppress
politics, prioritize security and postpone democracy.
Egyptian people would be happy to see the military setting limits to a Brotherhood dominated parliament and the Brotherhood’s
elected president. The SCAF will even be encouraged to act as “deterrent” to the political and social extremities of the Brotherhood.
I am sorry to say but I see the Egyptian revolution is being
hijacked by the military and the opportunists.
DESIGN: SELAHATTİN ÖZDOĞAN
16 TODAY’S ZAMAN
LEISURE
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
tv guıde
Gregorian Calendar: 02 July 2012 C.E. Hijri Calendar: 12 Shaban 1433 A.H. Hebrew Calendar: 12 Tamuz 5772
[email protected]
movıe guıde
Today is the 18th anniversary of the Madımak incident. On this day in 1993, 37 people were killed in an
arson attack on the Madımak Hotel in the Central Anatolian city of Sivas. The arson was apparently provoked by
either a deep state group or by unknown circles. Several
Alevi intellectuals were killed in the fire, from which Aziz
Nesin, a prominent author in Turkey, was saved.
Today is the birthday of German poet and novelist Herman Hesse (1877-1962). In 1946 he received the
Nobel Prize in Literature. His best known works include “Steppenwolf,” “Siddhartha” and “The Glass Bead
Game” (also known as “Magister Ludi”), which explore
the individual’s search for spirituality outside society.
Today is the anniversary of the first Zeppelin flight.
On this day in 1900 German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin managed to successfully fly his first air vehicle,
which later came to be known by his name.
Today is the Palio di Provenzano in Siena, Italy.
“Lo Contrario Al Amor”
ICE AGE 4: CONTINENTAL DRIFT
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İSTANBUL: Beyoğlu Beyoğlu 12:00 15:00 18:00 21:00
Crossword
REUTERS, BRENDAN MCDERMID
The American band Maroon 5, led by frontman Adam Levine,
released their newest album, “Overexposed,” last Tuesday.
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portrayer
Daniel
Increases
threefold
Final stage
of a chess
match
Words that
end
bachelorhood
Off- ___
(awry)
Come to a
point
Muscat
resident
“The ___
Incident”
(Henry
Fonda film)
Waterloo’s
state
Ayes’
opposites
Scandinavian
capital
Dalmatian
docs
Comfortable
state
Forest game
PREVIOUS PUZZLE ANSWER
06:40 Cairo Exit
08:20 I Am Slave
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11:30 Twilight Portrait (Portret V
sumerkakh)
13:20 Inside Job
15:15 Who Killed Bambi? (Qui a
tué Bambi?)
17:30 Our Life (La Nostra Vita)
19:15 Amigo
21:30 Summer Of '62
(Cartouches Gauloises)
23:10 Breathing (Atmen)
00:45 A Mysterious World (Un
Mundo Misterioso)
02:35 Special Treatment (Sans
Queue Ni Tête)
04:10 Who Killed Bambi?
c.kızı[email protected]
06:15 The Favor
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09:20 Beachhead
12:25 Fitzwilly
14:10 Rich in Love
16:00 Stanley & Iris
17:45 Hoodlum
20:00 Las Vegas
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00:25 White Lightning
02:05 Rich in Love
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Sudoku
HARD
EASY
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© 2012 Universal Uclick
www.upuzzles.com
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00:00 Identification
and Programming
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HOW TO PLAY? : The objective of the game is to fill all the blank squares in a game
with the correct numbers. There are three very simple constraints to follow. In a 9
by 9 square Sudoku game:
travelers’
s.o.s
7/1
MOVIEMAX STARS
09:15 Alfie
11:00 New York Stories
13:05 Phoenix
15:00 Save The Last Dance
17:00 Pretty In Pink
18:50 Blink
20:50 River King
22:45 Hollywood Homicide
00:45 Someone Like You
02:25 Save The Last Dance
04:20 Pretty In Pink
06:00 To Sir With Love
MGM
Mr. DıploMAT!
many
start-ups
It may
have an
attachment
for you
Some have
been
checkered
Fax’s older
cousin
Cap worn
with a kilt
Codger
Puerto ___
Enthusiastic
liveliness
Arkansas
city
Holiday
antecedents
Introduction
to the public
Mr. Walesa
Repeating
sound
“How Great
___ Art”
Creep
through the
cracks
Bond
06:15 Good Night For Justice
08:05 Gulliver's Travels
09:45 The Romantics
11:35 My Father's Will
13:20 Little White Lie
14:50 Held Up
16:40 La Mission
18:50 Burlesque
21:00 A Memory Of Lies
22:50 Is Anybody There?
00:30 The Virginity Hit
02:00 Return To House On
Haunted Hill
03:25 Woke Up Dead
04:10 Little White Lie
05:40 Held Up
MOVIEMAX FESTIVAL
HARD
LO CONTRARIO AL AMOR
EASY
13:30 15:30 17:30 19:30 21:30
“Moves Like Jagger,” featuring Christina
Aguilera, which has sold 5.2 million copies in the US since June 2011 according to
Nielsen SoundScan. The song’s success
was fueled by Levine and Aguilera’s roles
as judges on “The Voice,” which has seen
their popularity soar in the last year.
But Maroon 5 also makes sure on
the new album to feature its
acoustic roots from 10 years
ago, showcasing Levine’s
voice against a guitar-driven
melody on “Beautiful Goodbye,” and in the anthemic
“Daylight.” Levine gives
his rawest performance in
“Sad,” a piano ballad of
heartbreak and personal anguish.
Rob Sheffield at Rolling Stone called
“Overexposed” the band’s “best yet,” giving
it three-and-a-half stars out of five. Caroline
Sullivan at British newspaper The Guardian said the album’s “hooklines and characteristic high-shine production are there,”
but didn’t replicate the “blue-sky charm”
of “Moves Like Jagger,” giving the record
three out of five stars. Los Angeles Reuters
MOVIEMAX PREMIER
PHOTO
dies ... and bratty put-downs of some Everygirl who always disappoints.” He said the
“strongest wordcraft” was in the album title.
Levine, who co-wrote each track on
the album, stuck to the themes that Maroon 5 is best known for -- love and heartache, with playful innuendos. The singer
also conjures up the troublesome femme
fatale throughout the album
in tracks such as “Lucky
Strike” and “Tickets,” where
Levine sings of his female
subject being “perfect on the
outside, but nothing at the
core.” In “Ladykiller,” Levine
pays a subtle homage to the
late Michael Jackson with his
falsetto in the chorus singing “she’s in it
just to win it, don’t trust her for a minute.”
The band revive ‘80s disco sounds in
tracks such as “Tickets” and “Doin Dirt,”
and club-friendly beats in “Lucky Strike”
and “Love Somebody” -- the two tracks on
which One Republic’s hit-maker Ryan Tedder makes his mark on lyrics and production.
The move towards pop comes after the
band scored its biggest hit with the single
Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine
may have charmed TV viewers as a
judge on NBC’s hit singing competition “The Voice,” but music critics have given
mixed reviews to the band’s latest album
“Overexposed,” released last Tuesday.
The album is the fourth studio effort from the Los Angeles quintet led by
Levine, who shot to fame in 2002 with singles “This Love,” and “She Will Be Loved,”
from its debut album “Songs About Jane.”
“Overexposed” sees the band moving away from the alternative rock that
influenced their previous records, and
embracing pop music whole-heartedly.
The set has already spawned a hit with
the angst-driven lead single “Payphone”
featuring rapper Wiz Khalifa, and the
band is following up with reggae-infused
second single “One More Night.”
But reviews for “Overexposed” are
mixed, with the album earning a score
of 51 out of 100 on review aggregator
site Metacritic.com.
Entertainment Weekly’s Adam Markovitz criticized the album’s lyrics, saying
“verses alternate between horndog rhapso-
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51 Expression
of gratitude
53 Submarine
weapon
56 Ugandan
dictator Amin
57 “___ making
myself
clear?”
58 Ring wear
64 Game show
group
66 Exclamation
to startle
67 Amid the
waves
68 Children’s
author Madeleine L’___
69 Be in the red
70 Turns from
ice to water
71 Cautious
person’s
concerns
72 Is, in history?
73 Having
irregular
edges
DOWN
1 Boo-boo
memento
2 Bean variety
3 “30 Rock”
co-star
Baldwin
4 Sound of a
wind chime
5 More
impudent
6 Turkish
official
7 Common
shape for a
dog biscuit
8 HarleyDavidson
rider
9 Open up, as
a flower
10 Type or sort
11 It provides
juice for
on this day in 1778. His political ideas influenced the
French Revolution, the development of socialist theory
and the growth of nationalism. With his “Confessions”
and other writings, he practically invented the modern autobiography and encouraged a new focus on the
building of subjectivity that would bear fruit in the work
of thinkers as diverse as Hegel and Freud.
Ernest Miller Hemingway (b. 1899) died on this
day in 1961. This American novelist, short story author and journalist, nicknamed “Papa,” achieved a rare
cult-like popularity during his lifetime. Hemingway
received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for “The Old Man
and the Sea” and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
Hemingway’s distinctive writing style is characterized
by economy and understatement and had a significant
influence on the development of 20th century fiction.
Hemingway, who suffered from several illnesses, including paranoia, killed himself.
Maroon 5, Adam Levıne get
‘Overexposed’ on new album
CHERNOBYL DIARIES
ACROSS
1 Blind
components
6 Flow back,
as a tide
9 Muscle that’s
a gun, in
slang
14 Eyelashes
15 Miss Piggy’s
pronoun
16 Andean pack
animal
17 Sunday
assents
18 What a squid
squirts
19 Creole
veggies
20 Alleyways
23 Went after
the worm
24 Be untruthful
25 Spanky,
Alfalfa and
gang
27 Did a
cobbler’s job
32 No longer
worth
discussing
33 U.N. workers’
agcy.
34 Take great
pleasure (in)
36 Choral
composition
39 Black
Halloween
critters
41 Three-masted
sailing ship
43 Word with
“Cal” or
“Georgia”
44 Initial phase
46 Ecuador’s
former
currency
48 P, on some
sweaters
49 Beautiful and
graceful girl
Known locally simply as Il Palio, this is the most famous
horse race in Italy, held twice each year, on July 2 and
Aug. 16, in Siena. A magnificent pageant precedes the
race, which attracts visitors and spectators from around
the world. July 2 is fixed as the date of the race since this is
the day of the Feast of the Visitation and the date of a local
festival in honor of the Madonna di Provenzano, a painting once owned by Sienese leader Provenzano Salvani
that was supposed to have miraculous curative powers.
On this day in 1566 French astrologist and oracle Nostradamus died. Michel de Nostredame (b. 1503) was a reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that
have since become famous worldwide. He is best known
for his book “Les Propheties,” the first edition of which
appeared in 1555. His fame was boosted once again in the
20th century as his fans started to realize his prophecies
applied to contemporary events as well.
Another French figure, Jean Jacques Rousseau, died
E2
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Jay Leno
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Jay Leno
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Every row of 9 numbers must include all digits 1 through 9 in any order
Every column of 9 numbers must include all digits 1 through 9 in any order
Every 3 by 3 subsection of the 9 by 9 square must include all digits 1 through 9
Ambulance: 112 Fire: 110 171 Police: 155156 Maritime: 158 Unknown numbers: 118 80 Turkish Airlines: 444 0 849 U.S. Embassy: 0312 455 5555 U.S. Consulate: 0212 2513602-3-4 Russian Embassy: 0312 439 2122 Russian Consulate: 0212 244 1693-2610 British Embassy: 0312 455 3344 British Consulate:
0212 293 7540 German Embassy: 0312 455 5100 German Consulate: 0212 334 61 00 French Embassy: 0312 455 4545 French Consulate: 0212 292 4810-11
Indian Embassy: 0312 438 2195 Pakistani Embassy: 0312 427 1410 Austrian Embassy: 0312 419 0431-33 Austrian Consulate: 0212 262 9315 Belgian Embassy: 0312 446 8247 Belgian Consulate: 0212 243 3300 Egyptian Embassy: 0312 426 1026 Egyptian Consulate: 0212 263 6038 Israeli Embassy: 0312 446 3605
Alanya FM 94.4
Ankara FM 100.3
Antalya FM 92.1
Ayvalik FM 101.1
Bodrum FM 97.4
Fethiye FM 103.1
Istanbul FM 101.6
Izmir FM 101.6
Kalkan FM 105.9
Kapadokya FM 103.0
Kuşadasi FM 101.9
Marmaris FM 101.0
Pamukkale FM 101.0
Trabzon FM 101.5
DESIGN: ADNAN SARIKABAK
CONTINUATION
TODAY’S ZAMAN 17
M O N D AY, J U LY 2 , 2 0 1 2
Greek Cyprus takes over six-month term presidency of EU
and defense fields until the end of the year. The
Turkish dispute over the Greek Cypriot presidency
stems from the decades-long Cyprus issue between
the two countries. UN-backed talks between Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders aimed at reuniting
the island have so far failed to yield progress on
any of the substantial issues under dispute, such as
property rights in a reunited Cypriot state.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said
when Greek Cyprus assumes the presidency, Turkey
would continue to collaborate with the EU but would
not attend any event that Greek Cyprus presides over.
But despite the snub, Greek Cypriot Minister
Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis left the door open for
dialogue, saying the Greek Cypriot presidency
would reserve a chair for Turkey if it decides to
move forward with its accession negotiations
with the EU in the next six months.
The Greek Cypriot administration took over the
reins of the EU from Denmark on July 1, a presidency that EU candidate Turkey does not recognize.
Turkey has said it will suspend dialogue with the
EU presidency during the Greek Cypriot term for
the next six months. Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris
Christofias will submit a program of the country’s priorities for the EU presidency to the General Assembly
of the European Parliament on July 4.
The Greek Cypriot administration, which applied
for EU funds due to the economic crisis, will be under
the supervision of the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during its presidency.
It will be the first time in the EU’s history that a
state will conduct the presidency role under the supervision of member states. Greek Cyprus, the eurozone’s third smallest economy, will also assume
the presidency of the Council of Europe’s security
EU that has told Turkey it should respect the EU presidency as the main institution of the 27-nation bloc.
“No matter how right Turkey’s reason is, and
whether you like it or not, Greek Cyprus is a member
of the EU, and Turkey is the only country who does
not recognize Greek Cyprus. While pursuing foreign
policies, Turkey should consider these facts, and not
the economy or demographic structure of Greek Cyprus,” said Kozakou-Marcoullis, adding: “For us, we
are ready if Turkey is ready. There are three chapters
right now on which we can open talks. If Turkey decides to [start the talks], we are ready,” she said.
EU candidate Turkey served notice last year
that it would break off relations with the EU
presidency during Greek Cyprus’ six-month
term unless there was progress in reunification
talks between Turkish Cypriots living in the
north and Greek Cypriots. Ankara Today’s Zaman
The minister warned last Friday that Turkey’s
aspirations to put in place a visa-free travel regime
with the EU would face obstacles because of Ankara’s
refusal to normalize its relations with her country.
“Turkey is creating more problems for itself by not
recognizing [Greek] Cyprus. This is something Turkey should deal with urgently. Turkey will create more
troubles for itself if it continues with its arrogant and
insulting policies,” Kozakou-Marcoullis told Today’s
Zaman in an interview. Kozakou-Marcoullis said Turkey’s refusal to have normal ties with her government
is an obstacle to the implementation of the readmission deal. “Many things are impossible. How can you
implement the readmission agreement if you refuse
to cooperate with the Cypriot authorities?” she asked.
The Greek Cypriot minister said Turkey’s boycott
decision is “regrettable” and “disappointing,” pointing out it is not only her government but the entire
REUTERS, MURAD SEZER
PHOTO
The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) on Sunday
released a statement announcing that they had
dispatched two F-16 fighter jets from the İncirlik air
base on Saturday to patrol the Syrian border.
The statement said the jets flew near the border
on June 30, 2012, after a Syrian Mi-17 helicopter approached within four miles of Turkish airspace, although it remained in Syrian airspace. The F-16s were
dispatched “for the purpose of patrolling the area.”
The Syrian helicopter was flying just south of Hatay,
a province near the Syrian border. The Turkish jets
patrolled the skies between 9:12 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.
On the same day, two more F-16s were scrambled to the same region, after a Syrian Mi-8 helicopter came within four miles of Turkish airspace.
This incident occurred at 3:05 p.m. The Turkish
jets stayed in the air until 4:58 p.m. Later in the
evening, two F-16s were dispatched from the Batman air base after a Syrian Mi-8 helicopter neared
Turkish airspace. There were no violations of the
airspace, the TSK said. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
Turkey’s policy
options in Iraq
contýnued from page 14
Turkey needs to convince the US that it has
the moral and political motivation to assist it in its
Iraq policy to stop the country from quickly reverting
to a one-party dictatorship. This support could take
the form of stopping the many ongoing economic
exchanges, as well as weapons sales to Iraq, and of
becoming open and public with condemnation of
Maliki’s repressive policies and his attempt to destroy
the democratic institutions which Iraqis, along with
the US, have achieved with great sacrifices.
Ousting Maliki from power
Turkish EU Affairs Minister and Chief EU Negotiator Egemen Bağış attended a meeting for visa liberalization for Turks in the Turkish capital last week.
ization. The draft says the Commission will present
to the Council and member states, as well as the European Parliament, “regular reports detailing its assessment of Turkey’s fulfilment of the requirements
set out in this Action Plan.” In a strongly worded
sentence, the draft names the Council, i.e., the
member countries, the “masters of the process.” It
reads, “The Commission will take into utmost consideration the political conclusions of discussions in
the Council,” explaining that the Justice and Home
Affairs Council will have a discussion at the end of
each semester to evaluate Turkey’s progress.
The draft action plan makes the highest number
of demands from Turkey in the area of the readmission of irregular immigrants, which is a highly sensitive issue. According to the draft, Turkey should:
“Fully and effectively implement the readmission obligations existing with the Member States;
“Fully and effectively implement in all its
provisions the EU-Turkey readmission agreement
... ensuring that readmission procedures function
Victims of Madımak massacre to
be commemorated after 19 years
Victims of the Madımak massacre will be
commemorated today, the anniversary
of the July 2, 1993 massacre in which 37 people
-- most of whom were visiting the city for an
Alevi festival -- died after an angry mob set the
Madimak Hotel on fire.
With the expiry of the statute of limitations,
the case against perpetrators of the massacre
was dropped earlier this year.
Participants at the Alevi Pir Sultan Abdal
Cultural and Literary Festival, who were staying at the Madımak Hotel in downtown Sivas,
took refuge in the hotel, besieged by a rioting
crowd that set the venue and nearby vehicles
Fenerbahçe, sure to play in the UEFA Champions League next season after missing out in
2011-12, officially signed Valencia’s Turkey midfielder
Mehmet Topal on Sunday in a four-year deal.
According to the deal, Fenerbahçe will pay the
Spanish La Liga side 4.5 million euros for the player’s
buyout clause. Twenty-six-year-old Topal will receive
a fixed salary of two million euros next season and an
additional 10,000 euros per match. That will increase
to 2.5 million euros for the 2013-14, 2014-15 and
2015-16 seasons, but the amount per match will
remain the same. Topal started his playing career
with second division Çanakkale Dardanelspor and
joined Galatasaray in 2006, having played for Dardanelspor for four years. He was a member of the
Galatasaray team, which won the 2007-08 Super
League championship. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
TSK sends jets to
patrol Syrian airspace
Turkey has a long way to go
before visa liberalization with EU
contýnued from page 1
After consultations within the Commission and with member countries,
the draft will eventually be discussed and approved by the European Commission.
Diplomatic sources told Today’s Zaman that
the current draft is thought to represent 80 percent
of what the final document will be, arguing that the
input by member countries could result in the text
being longer and stronger in terms of its conditions.
These sources believe the final text may be sent to
Turkey in either September or October for signature. They also believe visa-free travel to the EU for
Turkish citizens could be possible as early as 2017 or
2018 if everything remains on the right track in the
difficult marathon of visa talks.
Critics say Turkey should have not agreed to
negotiate any conditions as visa-free travel is already a right given to Turkish citizens by the Ankara Agreement of 1963 and Additional Protocol of
1973. Critics also point to the many decisions by European courts that have struck down visa requirements for Turkish citizens under certain conditions.
The action plan outlines four major fields in
which Turkey should initiate and implement a series of reforms, laws and directives. In addition to
Turkey’s to-do list in the areas of document security, migration management, public order and security and fundamental rights, the draft asks Ankara
to fulfill a specific set of requirements in terms of
the readmission of irregular migrants, which would
be monitored by the Commission.
Very similar to the language used in Turkey’s
embattled accession process, the draft says the
pace of progress for visa liberalization will depend
on Turkey’s achievements in the adoption and
implementation of the measures and fulfillment of
the requirements set out in the action plan.
The draft makes it clear that all member countries, in a veiled reference to the Greek Cypriot
administration of the EU not recognized by Turkey, along with the European Council and the European Parliament, will, in a regular and detailed
manner, be informed about the progress. The
European Parliament says members will be made
aware of “each step” in the process with “the full
participation of Member State experts in assessing
Turkey’s progress in fulfilling the requirements.”
Through a mechanism similar to that monitoring Turkey’s progress towards membership in the
EU that sees the Commission issue a progress report
in each autumn, the Commission will also present
regular reports on the progress Turkey has made in
terms of fulfilling the requirements for visa liberal-
Fenerbahçe signs
Topal from Valencia
ablaze. When the fire was finally extinguished,
37 people were found dead, including two
members of the mob and two hotel workers.
Dozens of people were put on trial in the
Madımak case. However, earlier this year the
case was dropped due to the expiration of the
statute of limitations.
In a statement released regarding the incident, Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertuğrul
Günay said on Sunday that the passage of years
since the incident had not healed the wounds
in society. Offering his condolences to families
of the victims, he said the incident was a crime
against humanity. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
properly in relation to all Member States;
“Establish and implement internal procedures allowing for the rapid and effective identification and return of Turkey citizens, third-country
nationals and stateless persons who do not, or no
longer, fulfill the conditions for entry to, presence
in, or residence on the territories of one of the
Member States and for the facilitated transit of persons to be returned, in a spirit of co-operation;
“Strengthen the capacity of the competent authority to process readmission applications and reduce the number of pending readmission requests;
“Ensure that applications for readmission
are processed in compliance with the domestic
and the EU data protection requirements;
“Compile and share in a timely manner
with the competent authorities of Member States
and the European Commission detailed statistics
on readmission;
“Effectively seek to conclude and implement
readmission agreements with the countries that rep-
resent sources of important irregular migration flows
directed towards Turkey or the EU Member States.”
The EU is handing to Ankara a long list of
demands in the following fields: Passports/travel
documents, ID cards and breeder documents,
border management, visa policy, carriers’ responsibility, asylum policy, illegal immigration,
the prevention and fight against organized crime,
terrorism and corruption, judicial co-operation in
criminal and civil matters, law enforcement, cooperation, data protection, the freedom of movement of Turkish citizens, conditions and procedures for the issue of identification documents
and citizens’ and minorities’ rights.
If everything goes according to the action plan,
the Commission will present a proposal to the Council for the lifting of the visa obligation at the end of the
process. The Council will then make a majority decision on the basis of the proposal and after consulting
the European Parliament. No country will have veto
rights to kill the process if it is successfully concluded.
Ill-equipped ambulance took
Özal to hospital, DDK reveals
A report by the investigative body of Turkey’s
presidential palace has found that former
President Turgut Özal, who according to official records died in 1993 of a heart attack, was taken to a
hospital by a 1970 model, ill-equipped ambulance.
The State Audit Institution (DDK), part of the
President’s Office, released a report on Özal’s death
last month announcing its findings regarding allegations that Özal might have been poisoned. The DDK
found the death of then-President Özal to be “suspicious,” calling on prosecutors to investigate the case.
A photograph of the ambulance that transported Özal to Hacettepe University Hospital
was published by several dailies on Sunday.
The DDK has been in contact with the current owner of the ambulance, Gürsev Gür, a collector. Speaking to the Akşam daily, Gür said he
bought the ambulance at auction and learned
that it was the ambulance that carried Özal to the
hospital after the DDK made contact with him
requesting to examine the ambulance.
“I did not change anything in the vehicle. A
14-member DDK team came to me to examine the
vehicle. .. They might have even harmed Özal while
trying to put him in the ambulance. It would have
been better if Özal had been carried in his official
car. There are no medical supplies in the ambulance
other than a stretcher,” he said. İstanbul Today’s Zaman
Unlike the many Arab regimes in the area which have
been thrilled with the successful Turkish experiment
and which are trying to open up to Turkey, Maliki
was never a fan of Turkey. Furthermore, Maliki is now
party to an Iranian-Syrian Shiite axis which is fully
dedicated to fighting Turkey and its interests in the region. It is reported that Maliki has told his close circles
that if Damascus was to fall to the Sunni opposition,
the next round of fighting will be at the gates of Baghdad. Lately, Maliki has branded Turkey a “hostile nation” and Erdoğan as an enemy of Iraq. Furthermore,
Maliki’s attack on his Sunni opponents coincided
with the attack on Turkish interests in Iraq. Hashemi,
who was secretary-general of the Iraqi Islamic Party
until May 2009, was targeted for his pro-Turkish view,
and the pro-Dawa Party mobs have been besieging
and threatening Turkish companies and educational
centers in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul. Recently, Turkish companies were replaced by Korean and Chinese
companies in many lucrative business deals in Iraq.
For these reasons, Turkey has no option but to
assist Maliki’s opponents in democratically unseating
him. Unless the Iranian government pulls strings with
the Sadr bloc to calm them down, the Iraqi parliament
seems to be heading for a clear vote of no confidence.
Turkey should assure the Shiites that it is not working
against their interests in Iraq and Turkish diplomats
need to intensify their efforts in lobbying Sunni Arab,
Kurdish and Turkmen members of parliament to support the vote of no confidence against Maliki.
Finally, If Maliki manages to survive the vote of
no confidence, which he might, he will emerge more
powerful and, like a wounded tiger, will be more antiTurkey. In this case the Turkish government will be
left with only one viable option, which is encouraging Sunni provinces to establish federal regions in Iraq
similar to the Kurdistan region. Turkey could use its
soft power to promote its interests in these regions.
As time goes by Sunni Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds
will be able to see that their interests require working more closely, and Barzani, backed by Turkey, has
the potential to be the emerging leader for these three
groups. For these reasons Turkey’s national interests
in Iraq are immense and no efforts should be spared
in helping Maliki’s opponents remove him democratically from power. The US and Barzani are indispensible in this regard.
*Dr. Othman Ali, Ph.D., is head of the Turkish-Kurdish
Studies Center in Arbil, Iraq.
DESIGN: ADNAN SARIKABAK
SPORTS
Seedorf in
inks two-year deal with Botafogo
Brazilian top-flig
top-flight club Botafogo have agreed to sign 36-year-old Dutch midfielder Clarence
Seedorf on a two-year
two
deal, his new side announced on Saturday. “He’s the greatest foreign
player ever to sign for a Brazilian club,” Botafogo President Mauricio Assuncao told
Reuters in a telephone interview after the club made the official announcement on
their webs
website. The Dutchman, who ended a 10-year spell with Italian giants AC Milan
earli
earlier this month, has a Brazilian wife and often spent holidays at a beachfront
apartment in Rio de Janeiro, local media reported. Rio de Janeiro, Reuters
PHOTO
GÜLCAN, NEVİN, POLAT GRAB
GOLDS FOR TURKEY AT HELSINKI
REUTERS
MONDAY, JULY 2, 2012
Allyson Felix is seen after winning the women’s
200-meter final at the 2012 Olympic trials in Eugene.
US sprinter Felix
runs fastest 200
meters in 14 years
Harting adds European gold
medal to world discus titles
Gülcan Mıngır of
Turkey won the women’s
3,000 meters steeplechase final at
the European Athletics Championships,
while Polat Kemboi Arıkan won the
men’s 10,000 meters event. Nevin Yanit
capped off a glorious day for the Turks
by clinching a gold medal in the
women’s 100 hurdles
Two-time reigning discus world champion
Robert Harting of Germany added the European Championships title to his resume on Saturday, beating Olympic gold medalist Gerd Kanter.
A strong throw of 68.30 meters in the rain and
cold gave him a title that had eluded him, meaning
only Olympic gold is now missing for the 27-year-old
German. Kanter’s best effort fell 1.87 meters short.
While others struggled in the conditions, Harting thrived. In fact, he had been yearning for the wet.
“I wished for a rainy competition before London and I got it,” said Harting, who is counting on
typically British summer weather to provide a wet
London Olympics.
With driving rain, temperatures of 15 Celsius
(59 Fahrenheit) and few established stars competing, the championships were short on thrilling
performances on Saturday with only 21,104 fans
braving the conditions at Olympic Stadium.
In the women’s 200, Ukraine dominated, with
Mariya Ryemyen beating Hrystyna Stuy for gold,
leaving defending champion Myriam Soumare of
France to settle for bronze.
In the men’s 200, it was a Dutch double
with Churandy Martina taking gold ahead of Patrick Van Luijk.
In the triple jump, Italy’s Fabrizio Donatao
had a massive leap of 17.63 meters on his first
attempt and no one got close, leaving Sheryf El
Sheryf of Ukraine with silver. It would have been
a world-leading mark but for the blustery excessive winds of 2.8 mph at his back. His second
best of 17.53 was legal and good enough for
second best in the world.
In a tight pole vault final containing few real stars,
Jirina Ptacnikova of the Czech Republic won with a
vault of 4.60 ahead of Martina Strutz of Germany and
Nikolia Kiriakopoulou of Greece on count-backs.
Merlene Ottey, 52, anchored the Slovenian 4x100
team but she failed to get her team into the final.
Left with too much to make up on the final
straight, Ottey crossed the line in sixth place. Only
the top three automatically advanced from the
semifinal heat.
Ottey won three world titles as a Jamaican - - the
200 twice and one sprint relay - - before she moved
to Slovenia in 1998. Helsinki AP
Serena Williams
soars, Murray
beats the clock
PHOTOS
AP
OKAN UDO BASSEY İSTANBUL
Turkey had a great day at the European Athletics
Championships in Helsinki on Saturday, clinching
three gold medals and sending a strong message to
rivals about the upcoming Olympic Games in London.
Gülcan Mıngır of Turkey won the women’s 3,000 meters steeplechase final in Helsinki, while Polat Kemboi
Arıkan won the men’s 10,000 meters event. Nevin Yanit
capped off a glorious day for the Turks by clinching a gold
medal in the women’s 100 hurdles.
The 23-year-old Mıngır finished in a time of nine minutes and 32.96 seconds ahead of Ukraine’s Svitlana Schmidt
(9:33.03) and Antje Möldner-Shmidt of Germany (9:36.37).
Born in the town of Döğer in Afyonkarahisar province in
western Turkey, she is a member of the Fenerbahçe athletics club, where she is coached by
İhsan Alptekin. Mıngır is current
a physical education and sports
student at Dumlupınar University
in Kütahya. The Turkish middle
distance runner was also the gold
medalist in the 3,000 meters race
at the 2011 European Athletics
U23 Championships, which was
Gülcan Mıngır
held in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Yanit clocked 12.81 ahead
of Belarus’s Alina Talai (12.91)
and another Belarusian Ekaterina
Poplavskaya (12.97).
The 26-year-old Mersinborn Yanit is currently a student
of physical education at Mersin
University and also a member
of the Fenerbahçe athletics club.
Nevin Yanıt
She is the current national record holder of both the 60 and
100 meter hurdles. Yanıt won the silver medal at the
2007 Summer Universiade in Bangkok.
Kenyan-born Arıkan, who won the bronze in the 5,000
meters race on Wednesday night, raised the bar in the 10,000
on Saturday to take home the gold.
The Kenyan-Turkish runner clocked 28:22.27, providing
the best finish in a slow race, to finish ahead of Italian Daniele
Meucci (28:22.73) and Yevgeniy Rybakov of Russia (28:22.95).
Arıkan -- born Paul Kipkosgei Kemboi on Dec. 12, 1990,
in Cheptiret, Kenya -- switched allegiance to Turkey on June 8,
2011, and changed his name to Polat Kemboi Arıkan.
Two-time Olympic silver medalist Allyson Felix ran the sixth fastest 200 meters
of all time as she won the US Olympic trials in
a blazing 21.69 seconds on Saturday.
The performance, the fastest in the halflap event in 14 years, set Felix up for a London showdown with Jamaican Olympic Veronica Campbell-Brown, who has defeated
the American in the last two Games.
“I was thrilled with my race,” Felix told reporters. “I feel like everything came together. I
felt like I executed today and ran a great curve,
which is something I’ve been working on.”
World and trials 100-meter champion
Carmelita Jeter finished almost a half second
behind Felix in 22.11 seconds.
Sanya Richards-Ross, the trials’ 400m winner, also made the US team in a second event
by finishing third in 22.22. But Felix’s training
partner Jeneba Tarmoh missed a spot on the
team in the 200 with a fifth place finish in 22.35.
The sparkling race came minutes after
world indoor hurdles champion Aries Merritt had cruised to the year’s fastest 110-meter
high hurdles in a lifetime best 12.93 seconds
despite wet conditions. “I had a great start and
I’m a build hurdler, I get faster as I go. I fulfilled
my dream today,” said Merritt, who became
the 14th hurdler to break the 13-second barrier but remains behind the world record of
12.87 set by Cuban rival Dayron Robles.
World champion Jason Richardson, who
had broken 13 seconds for the first time in the
semi-finals, was second in 12.98 while Jeff Porter claimed a surprising third in 13.08.
Ailing American record holder and
Olympic medalist David Oliver missed out on
a trip to London when he finished fifth, running 13.17. “I just didn’t get it done,” said a
hobbling Oliver. Eugene, Ore. Reuters
Turkey’s Polat
Kemboi Arıkan
crosses the finish
line to win the men’s
10,000-meter final at
the European Athletics
Championships in
Helsinki.
Germany’s Robert Harting makes an attempt to
win the men’s discus final at the Euros.
Serena Williams fired down a Wimbledon
record 23 aces, Yaroslava Shvedova blitzed
through a record 24 consecutive points and
Andy Murray beat the clock on another night of
late drama as the All England Club ushered in
the AN -- after Nadal -- era on Saturday.
Forty-eight hours after brazen Czech Lukas Rosol turned tennis’s world order on its
head by bludgeoning Rafa Nadal out of Wimbledon and 24 hours after Roger Federer came
within two points of falling through the same
trap door, Murray waged his own battle under
the floodlights - this time with the clock.
Wimbledon rules state that Centre Court
matches must finish by 2300 local time and with
the seconds ominously ticking down, it seemed
as if Murray would be left hanging in no man’s
land till Monday to complete his third-round
match against Greek Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis.
As it was he survived a series of falls, was
penalized for allowing a string of balls to pop
out of his pocket in mid-rally but still managed eke out a nerve-shredding 7-5, 3-6, 7-5,
6-1 win as the clock struck 2302 local time the latest ever finish at the grasscourt slam.
“I was under the impression that at 11 p.m.
we were stopping regardless of what the score
was, and I think I actually broke serve to go 5-1
at that time, and then walked to the net because I
thought we were going to have to come back on
Monday,” a relieved Murray said after speeding
through the fourth set. Time was also an issue
for his next opponent Marin Cilic. London Reuters
DESIGN: SELAHATTİN ÖZDOĞAN
Baldwin marries yoga instructor in NYC
Alec Baldwin and his yoga instructor fiancee tied the knot on Saturday in a New York
City church, with a guest list that included family and famous Hollywood pals. Baldwin, 54, and Hilaria Thomas, 28, married at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in a Catholic
ceremony performed by the Rev. George Deas. His “30 Rock” co-star Tina Fey, actress
Mariska Hargitay and director Woody Allen were among those in attendance. NY, AP
WWW.TODAYSZAMAN.COM MONDAY, JULY 2, 2012
who is not involved with the Cruise-Holmes case, called
Holmes’ East Coast filing “a tactical move” that signifies
“there will be an attempt to gain an advantage.” New
York’s comparative-fault divorce laws could be advantageous for Holmes, he said. The couple lived in Los Angeles.
Cruise and Holmes married in 2006 after a whirlwind
love affair. He proposed at the Eiffel Tower. Their wedding was held at a 15th century Italian castle.
She filed for divorce Thursday, ending her first marriage. This will be Cruise’s third divorce. He was previously married to actresses Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, with whom he has two children. Cruise showed up
alone at the recent Los Angeles and London premieres of
his latest film, “Rock of Ages.” Holmes also was absent
earlier this month when Cruise received the Friars Club
Entertainment Icon Award in New York. But he did bring
Suri with him, allowing her to stay up late for the raunchy
proceedings. “Divorce will actually help Katie Holmes’
brand,” Clark said. “More people are going to be thinking about her and aware of her. This is generating a lot of
sympathy and interest from people.”
Holmes, 33, rose to fame on the teen soap “Dawson’s
Creek.” She went on to appear in “Batman Begins,” and
earned raves for her roles in independent films such as
2003’s “Pieces of April” and 2005’s “Thank You for
Smoking.” She took a break after giving birth to Suri
in April, 2006, and marrying Cruise in November.
She did just a handful of roles until stepping things
up in 2011. Holmes played Jackie”
Kennedy in the Emmy-winning miniseries “The
Kennedys,” appeared in Adam Sandler’s “Jack and
Jill” and just wrapped a film with William Hurt. She
said she’s set to start another project in July.
Meanwhile, Cruise, who turns 50 on Tuesday,
has remained a megastar. His latest role, as an Axl
Rose-style rock star in “Rock of Ages,” has won
him strong reviews (though not corresponding
box-office results), and his most recent “Mission
Impossible” installment, “Mission Impossible:
Ghost Protocol,” has made more than $690 million (548.05 million euros) worldwide.
“Tom Cruise’s brand has always been the dynamic, likable hero -- the ‘Mission Impossible’ star
that you’re rooting for -- and it becomes harder for
the public to get behind someone as a hero and
want to go to the box office and cheer them on when
there are serious questions about what kind of
husband and father he is,” Clark said. Los Angeles AP
Tom
Cruise
REUTERS
When Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes first
got together, he jumped on a couch, she
gushed girlishly, and many of their fans
said, “Huh?” Their split could cause just as much
drama. Not only are the images of two Hollywood
stars at stake, so is the future of 6-year-old Suri, with
some speculating that Holmes’ decision to file for divorce in New York might mean she’s seeking sole
custody of their daughter.
Ultimately, Cruise may have the most to lose.
“There’s no question this divorce is going to hurt
his public image,” said Dorie Clark, author of the
forthcoming “Reinventing You: Define Your Brand,
Imagine Your Future.” “His brand was already tarnished significantly when he first got together with
Holmes five years ago and was infamously jumping
up and down on Oprah’s couch, and shortly afterward the videos of him praising Scientology were
leaked,” she continued. “This divorce is another
opportunity for questions to be raised about his
personal life, his religious beliefs -- which many
consider outside the mainstream --and that’s not
Katie
what a box-office star really wants.”
Holmes
California divorce attorney Michael Kelly,
PHOTO
PHOTO
IGUEZ
AP, TONI RODR
CUSTODY, IMAGES AT STAKE IN CRUISE-HOLMES DIVORCE
Michael Carpenter chants along with the other participants after hiking to Ensign
Peak in Salt Lake City during a mass resignation of Mormons on Saturday.
150 Mormons quit church in mass
resignation ceremony in Salt Lake City
A group of about 150 Mormons quit
their church in a mass resignation ceremony in Salt Lake City on Saturday
in a rare display of defiance ending decades of disagreement for some over
issues ranging from polygamy to gay
marriage. Participants from Utah, Arizona, Idaho and elsewhere gathered
in a public park to sign a “Declaration
of Independence from Mormonism.”
“This feels awesome,” said Alison Lucas,
from West Jordan, Utah, who took part
in the rally amid soaring temperatures.
“I don’t know if I would have had the
courage except in a group.” The Utahbased Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints is known for its culture of
obedience, and the mass ceremony was
a seldom-seen act of collective revolt.
After gathering in the park, participants
hiked a half-mile up nearby Ensign
Peak, scaled in 1847 by church President
Brigham Young to survey the spot where
his Latter-day Saints would build a city.
At the top, those gathered gave three
loud shouts of “Freedom,” cheered,
clapped and hugged. “It’s been a hard
journey and this is a symbolic end,” said
event organizer Zilpha Larsen, of Lehi,
Utah. “I just hope that it boosts people
up and helps them feel more comfortable
in their decision.” The church bills itself
as the one “true” Christian faith, and
its theology promises families eternal
relationships among those who remain
faithful, sealing those gifts through special religious rites. Among the reasons
cited by those resigning are the church’s
political activism against gay marriage
and doctrinal teachings that conflict
with scientific findings or are perceived
as racist or sexist. Salt Lake City Reuters
New Mexico Mom spends a night
in jail for overdue ‘Twilight’ book, DVDs
A New Mexico woman was arrested
and spent a night in jail for not returning the book “Twilight” and two-DVD
set “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”
back to the library on time. The Albuquerque Journal reports Lori Teel was
arrested and handcuffed at her Portales
home in front of her five small children
earlier this month for the $36 worth
of library materials not returned since
2010. Her attorney says arrest warrants
were mailed last year to an address at
which Teel hadn’t lived since childhood, but Teal was arrested by officers
investigating a disturbance. Her charges were dismissed. Albuquerque, NM AP
Maryland police: Man uses slingshot
to fire marbles at speed camera
Police in Maryland say a man has been
charged with assault for using a slingshot to fire glass marbles at a speed camera van. Authorities say Bruce Lawrence
May of Ellicott City was arrested last
week. The 50-year-old Lawrence was
also charged with destruction of property
and reckless endangerment. He was released on $3,000 bond. Howard County
police say that at about 5 p.m. Tuesday,
the van was near Manor Woods Elementary School when the operator heard
something hit the side of the vehicle. The
operator saw a minivan pass and saw the
driver with a slingshot fire another projectile at the speed camera van. Police say
that May had received two speed camera violations recently. Ellicott City, Md. AP
DESIGN: YUNUS ASLAN