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.
Feb 28 - US Air attacks halt the flow of crude oil from Iraq to Turkey.
Feb 28 - The aftermath of the Ocalan operation continues to wreak havoc as Greek politicians seek to make capital out of perceived errors. "In the case of Abdullah Ocalan, we provided all possible humanitarian assistance" - Greek Primi Minister Costa Simitis.
Feb 28 - President Suleyman Demirel arrives at the D-8 summit in Bangladesh.
Feb 28 - One of Ocalan's lawyers calls for increased security measures to protect himself and his colleagues.
Feb 28 - A group of 2,000 people, relatives of Turkish soldiers who have died in the confict in the East, demonstrate in support of capital punishment for Ocalan.
Feb 27 - Just for a change, Turkey, in the shape of Suleyman Demirel, threatens military action against Greece, something to do with ongoing support of the PKK.
Feb 27 - One of the three women spirited out of Africa last week and described as a key Ocalan aid, has thanked the Greek government that gave her political asylum by implicating it in an international conspiracy to capture Ocalan and return him to Turkey.
Feb 25 - Vural Savas, Chief Prosecutor, requests that HADEP (pro-kurdish political party) be prevented from entering candidates for the April 18 election.
Feb 25 - Lawyers meet with Ocalan on the prison island of Imrali, they meet their client for 20 minutes in the presence of a judge and are restricted to asking him questions regarding his health.
Feb 24 - Necmettin Erbakan, former Prime Minister states his intention to run for election as an independent, 3 days later the state will rule that he can't.
Feb 23 - Abdullah Ocalan, held on Imrali island in the Sea of Marmara, is formally arrested and charged with treason.
Feb 22 - Med-TV, the Kurdish channel operating out of Belgium, is warned by its host country after calling for resistance against Turksih security forces.
Feb 22 - President Demirel declares Turkey's "Right to self defense" with reference to Greece's support of "Seperaist terrorism".
Feb 20 - Prime Minister Ecevit is quoted as saying that another country helped in the capture of Ocalan, popular speculation focuses on the CIA and MOSSAD.
Feb 20 - 7000 Kurdish demsotartors march on the Israeli Embassy in Berlin after guards at the Israeli Consulate kill three Kurdish protesters.
Feb 19 - The South East will be the target of an intensive investment programme.
Gotcha - So, Apo is in Turkey, held awaiting trial in an unspecified location somewhere near Istanbul. It doesn't look as if the Kurdish protests at Greek Embassies around the world are going to die down for some time but it seems unlikely that these will exert any pressure on the Turkish Republic.
Turkey is capable of putting Ocalan to death. Whether or not it will do so is quite a complex question.
Prime Minister Ecevit has appealed to Kurdish sympathisers to abandon the PKK and return to mainstream Turkish Society where they will be able to 'take advantage of the law of repentance'. The Turkish Ambassador to London was on CNN last night explaining that Kurds have political representation in Ankara, this is true, but he neglected to mention the ongoing efforts to close down HADEP, the political party most closely associated with the PKK. It's all very messy and seems like the sort of situation ripe for manipulation by the unscrupulous as an election approaches.
Their are two competing processes at work in the generation of public opinion in this country and they will both be swinging into heavy duty overtime action. The government, or, certain influential figures within the sphere of government, can suggest to the media what they think would be nice for people to read and see. The people reading the newspapers can then benefit from the editorial ability of their democratically elected representatives. The speed and violence of the anti-Italian demonstrations at the end of last year bore witness to the power of the press to whip up a storm.
The army, aware of this process, exerts its influence either directly on individuals - having friendly little chats with any politician who feels like appealing too obviously to the Islamacist vote - or by publishing itself. This was already going to be an interesting period in Turkey, building up to the April elections. With a wild card like Apo cut into the deck it will undoubtedly become more so.
My hot tip for the top is Tansu Ciller, back from relative obscurity and walking a fine line between courting the Islamicists (who may pole 30% this time) and trying not to antagonise the military to the point where they will act. She has an uncanny ability to build support out there in Anatolia where people have forgotten, or don't care about, the suspicions of graft and corruption hanging over her head.17/02/99
Kenya? - Sickening pictures of Kurdish protesters staggering around in flames greet us all over the Internet this morning. I've been too busy to get to this page for a fortnight or so but I find that, in that time, the absurd has given way to the tragic. I'm resisting the temptation to put up the picture of a young man burning in the streets of Athens, or that of a women suffering the same, self-inflicted fate in Copenhagen.
It's difficult to empathise with these people, try as I might to walk a mile in their shoes it's beyond me.
The story seems to be this. Abdullah Ocalan is refused somewhere to hide out in Greece but the Greek authorities have somewhere he can lay low for a while in Kenya.
This he proceeds to do for a couple of weeks, either at the Greek Embassy in Nairobi or a diplomatic residence, until emerging for some unknown reason in the last couple of days.
Reports that he is being held by the Kenyan authorities are as yet unsubstantiated. Kurdish reaction to this chain of events has been extreme and directed at Greece, perhaps perceived as having handed the Kurdish leader over to a country which might surrender him to Turkey, where he faces the death penalty. 16/02/99
Elections approach - The recently formed interim government, led by Mr. Ecevit, is having difficulties passing any legislation as deputies absent themselves from the National Assembly to concentrate on the process of making sure they secure nomination for the upcoming April elections. Recent speculation as to whether the military would arrange to have the elections postponed until the Islamic faction could be neutralised by the introduction of a two-tier electoral system was quashed last week and it looks as if we're going through with it. An increase in support for the Virtue party, reformed from the ashes of the disbanded welfare party, seems likely although the repercussions of a strong Islamic vote are unpredictable. 16/02/99
Incirlik - As Turkey slowly aligns herself with the US/Anglo stance on Iraq Washington states that any threatening moves made by the Iraqis towards the air base at Incirlik will be met by action on the part of the allied forces in the area. Tarik Asiz's visit to Turkey in the last few days seems to have been an attempt to woo Ankara away from it's pro American stance. 16/02/99
Where else? - Having been turned away from Rotterdam Abdullah Ocalan may now be on the tarmac at Athens. That's where Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit says he is anyway. Turkey accused the Italians of letting him back in again a couple of days ago but now seem fairly convinced that he is on the ground in Greece awaiting a decision from the Greek authorities. Spokespeople for Athens deny this accusation strenuously and the Greek ambassador has been summoned a couple of times in the last 24 hours. Greece would be a very provocative place for Apo to be. (02/02/99)
Two Tiers - Moves are under way to try and alter the electoral process in Turkey. After 6 governments in 4 years it is hard to defend the current system which suffers from the fragmentation of the secular parties. The strength of the Islamicists, now holding 21% of the seats in parliament and looking to increase that share, may be the stimulus that Ankara requires to move to a 2 tier system. In some ways this is blatant manipulation of a political system with the sole aim of keeping the most popular single party out of power. Not a debate for these pages really. The planned mechanism would give the zillion secular parties a chance to compete against each other and then have all their voters unite behind the winner to hold of the spectre of fundamentalism. The army will like it anyway. 02/02/99
Mirror signal maneuver - The 1990's have seen 52,500 deaths on the roads of Turkey. That's about 20 people a day. 610,000 injuries were sustained in 2.5 Million accidents. The war in the South East has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives over a significantly longer period of time. (02/02/99)
Snowy - Heavy snowfalls in the Diyarbakir region of Eastern Turkey and Edirne, on the Turkish Greek border in Thrace have caused a few problems. The heavy weather is set to continue for a while.
