Here you'll find reports from the Turkish dailies, some
stuff from international papers and anything else we think is relevant. Please remember that
this is a country involved in a full scale guerilla war and not all the news is printed. Please comment.
Peace-keeping force ready - Ankara presented a force of just under 1000 troops to the press yesterday. These soldiers are destined to form part of any international force of peace keepers sent into Kosovo, subject to the signing of a peace agreement. Turkish F16 jets have been in the Balkan theatre but it is not clear whether they have flown in NATO missions. Turkey's main contribution to the NATO effort so far has been it's acceptance of 12,000 refugees, a number expected to rise to 20,000. 29/04/99
Apo: Specific Allegations - The three judge tribunal destined to try Abdullah Ocalan received a 139 page indictmentfrom Turkish prosecutors listing the alleged crimes of the PKK leader. Press coverage of this event has focused on the emotive accusations that Ocalan directly ordered the murder of Turkish teachers and was directly responsible for the deaths of women and children amongst the Turkish civilian population. The idictment marks the beginning of the trial process proper after an interval of a couple of months. We will be following the developments with some interest on these pages.
Amnesty observer on the way - In an unsurprising move Amnesty has announced that it is sending an observer to the trial of Abdullah Ocalan. Amesty has expressed concern over a number of issues since the capture of the PKK leader. It is not yet known how the Turkish government will respond to Amnesty's interest. They have expressed a belief that the trial need not be open to "observers" in the past. 29/04/99
CIH virus hits Turkey hard - I have to admit to being puzzled as to why the media was full of reports regarding the CIH virus on Monday, when it was too late for 20% of Turkey's PC users, rather than at the end of the previous week when something could have been done. Lots of folk turned on their machines on Monday morning to be greeted by a lack of OS, an absent hard drive or something equally unpleasant. Cost to businesses is estimated at $100 Million. The prevalence of software from mysterious sources, especially with locally assembled PC's probably contributed to the problem. In a mysterious statement a spokesperson for a national computing association advised people not to turn their computers on during the 26th of any month. This seems a trifle shortsighted when many sites on the net are offering fixes and patches to remove this virus, here's some information from Symantec. 29/04/99
PKK alarmed by election results - The postion of the Turkish government regarding Kurdish seperatism seems set to harden as a result of the nationalist MHP strong showing in the recent poll. Clashes, arrests and killings continue in the South East of the country where Turkish security forces have been mounting a concerted effort to clamp down on the activities of sepeartist rebels since the capture of Abdullah Ocalan, PKK leader. 29/04/99
Resignations - CHP leader Deniz Baykal's decision to step down yesterday looks as if it will be followed by a rash of similar decisions as Turkey's political structure wobbles about in the backwash of the weekend's election. 23/04/99
Straight to the point - As the parties that remain in parliament start the coalition tango the tempo has been set by the MHP. They have already made support for the death sentence, in the context of the Ocalan trial, a condition for co-operation 23/04/99
Last week in court
Ozal Baysal - former Director General of the Turkish Development Bank, 12½ years in prison
Erol Yarar - Chairman of the Association of Independent Industrialist and Businessmen, 1 year in prison, 'openly inciting hatred among people'.
Hasan Mezarci - Former deputy, 10 months in prison, 'insulting the moral personality of the courthouse'.
23/04/99
Iran and Turkey to cooperate - Iran has agreed to cooperate with Turkish efforts to eradicate the PKK. This agreement follows a similar pact signed with Syria in Adana. 23/04/99
Another Bomb - Yesterday saw another bomb attack which killed 3 soldiers and one civilian in Adana province. It is also reported that 7 soldiers were wounded near Tokat in an attack by Kurdish rebels. These attacks are the latest in a campaign triggered by the capture and inprisonment of Abdullah Ocalan. For those of you considering a visit to Turkey there are, no doubt, questions you'd like answered about the situation here. Obviously the first thing you should do is check out your own embassy's travel advice, beyond that I can only add that the situation here (Ankara) isn't particularly tense and that, while travel in Turkey is certainly less safe that it was last year, recent attacks seem to have been targeted specifically at local government and military personnel. Its your call. 12/04/99
Northern Iraq - The South-East of the country is still closed to journalists, it has been since the capture of Ocalan, and 5000 troops are in, or close to, Northern Iraq looking for the PKK cells that remain active in the area. Military sources indicate that the effectiveness and organisation of the PKK fighters has been badly effected by the capture of Ocalan. It is reported that 44 PKK fighters have been killed in recent sorties into the mountainous areas inside Iraq. 12/04/99
Heated debate - 2 political parties at opposite ends of the spectrum became involved in street fighting over the weekend. Supporters of HADEP, the political party most closely associated with the Kurdish PKK, and MHP, the most right wing and overtly nationalist of the mainstream parties, came to blows in Istanbul. A HADEP spokesman said that the incident, in which a bus load of HADEP supporters tangled with a similar number of 'Grey Wolves', was one of a number of concerted attacks on his party throughout the city. The Anatolian News Agency says that the HADEP group started the fighting after attacking an MHP office. Arrests? HADEP 30 : MHP 0. 12/04/99
About time - The State Planning Organization (DPT) has approved the putting out to tender of the construction of the Ankara-Istanbul high-speed railway line. The aim of this project is to cut the distance between Ankara and Istanbul to within two-and-a-half hours by train. At the moment it takes twice as long to get to Istanbul from Ankara by train as it does to drive there. 12/04/99
Deputies left in the dark - Speaker of the Turkish Parliament, Hikmet Cetin, recently received a statement from the Minister for Labour and Scoial Security which gave the names of 20 MP's who are er... not paying their electricity bills. It seems that their houses aren't actually registered with the state distribution network. 12/04/99
20,000 refugees - Turkey has been frustrated in its attempts to join in the international effort to alleviate the suffering of refugees from the former Yugoslavia. Many Turks have family ties with those suffering and the historical links between the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire generate a great deal of sympathy here. Initial plans to fund and establish 2 camps with a capacity of 20,000 in Macedonia have had to be reworked after Skopje denied permission for Turkey to operate within the country. In addition to this difficulty Bulgaria refused permission for Turkish transport planes to fly in its airspace. The upshot of all this is that the camps are to be established within the Turkish border and that the 20,000 refugees are to be brought to Turkey. 1,350 people fleeing Kosovo arrived in western Turkey yesterday by plane adding to the 5,000+ who have crossed the border from Bulgaria at Kapikule. 06/04/99
Latest in series of bombs - A suicide bomber killed himself and a 16 year old girl yesterday in what was apparently an attack on the Governor of a South Eastern province. The attack took place in Bingol and the bomber, on seeing the Governor, ran towards him and triggered the explosives attached to his body. This is the latest in a series of attacks linked to the capture and imprisonment of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in February. 06/04/99
Environmental protest - Local residents from the Bergama (Pergamon) area of western Turkey demonstrated outside a silver production facility near Kutahya yesterday. They succeeded in preventing workers from entering the factory. Their concern was the recent disclosure that 18 tonnes of Cyanide had been imported to be used in the processing of precios metals. The focus of anger seemd to be "the imperialistic countries and their hazardous substances" (the plant is operated by Eurogold). 06/04/99
Russian fleet on the move - In 1936 a bunch of countries got together and signed a convention. Black Sea littoral countries, of which Russia is one, can send their warships through the Bosphorous to the Aegean in times of peace. Russia has announced that it will be moving a fleet of 8 ships into the Mediterranean via this route over the next week or so. This is seen as a gesture of defiance directed at NATO in the light of the Russian response to the Yugoslavian issue. Turkey has made no objection to this move.01/04/99
Cooperation - Greece said on Wednesday it was allowing a Turkish military plane carrying aid to neighbouring Albania to pass through its airspace as part of a coordinated Balkan humanitarian relief effort.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that Greece was bending the rules after a telephone request from Turkish Foreign Minister Ismael Cem to his Greek counterpart George Papandreou.
"The government decided to grant the requested overflight permit for humanitarian reasons," the statement said.
Greece and Turkey have long been at odds over a variety of issues including territorial rights in the Aegean Sea, minority rights and the divided island of Cyprus. Greece bans Turkish military flights through its airspace and troops crossing its territory but it is spearheading an effort by several Balkan states to coordinate relief for hundreds of thousands of Kosovo refugees.
06/04/99
Criticism of foriegn press - Concern about the impact on the tourism trade of the bombing campaign currently underway in Turkey is very real. The Kurban Bayram has just finished and the tourist season is about to begin. Bookings and reservations are down and cancellations have been occuring over the last 6 weeks or so. This, coupled with rapid development and investment in tourist related facilities in the past few years, makes for an economic disaster waiting to happen. A meeting of concerned bodies in Alanya, on the Mediterranean coast, including HUR-TURK (The German Turkish Friendship Association), voidec their concern that Turkey is being given a bad press in Europe. It was pointed out that not one foreigner had been killed ina terrorist attack in Turkey and that Turkey should try to combat this "Ugly Propaganda". 06/04/99
Refugees continue to arrive
The influx of Kosovars fleeing the fighting in Yugoslavia and arriving in Turkey is increasing with Turkish authorities trying to handle their entrance and accommodation in the country. More than 2,000 Kosovar Albanians, Turks and Bosnians have arrived in Turkey via Bulgaria over the last four days, and the number is rapidly growing. Mehmet Canseven, the Governor of the border province, said that refugee compounds able to host 3,000 people were ready for the refugees. He added that guest-houses and schools would also be available to shelter the Kosovars. He stressed that all measures were being to ensure the safety of the refugees. Medical personnel and equipment were ready to assist them at the border gate, he added.
01/04/99
Security still high - Driving into the underground carpark of Beyendik, one of Ankara's large supermarkets, cars are searched and their undersides inspected with mirrors and torches. These measures are indicative of the air of tension that has resulted from car and petrol bomb attacks in Istanbul and Ankara over the last month or so. While the rate of bomb attacks is decreasing there is not yet a feeling that this action has stopped. 01/04/99
