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.

Politics - With the recent elections generating a fair bit of stuff we've moved domestic politics to a page of its own.

Apo Trial in second week - With the trial of Abdullah Ocalan under way many eyes will be turned to Imrali Island. Follow the story here.

• Vote of confidence a formality - Turkey's 57th goverment is expected to be confirmed today by a vote of confidence in the National Assembly. As the coalition holds more than the 267 seats necessary for the vote to be carried there shouldn't be a problem.09/06/99

• Cologne summit - The absence of Turkey's name on the list of candidates for EU membership has prompted a rash of editorials and, yesterday, comments from Mr. Ecevit. There is a feeling that Turkey has made enough concessions and that next time the issue comes up Europe will have to approach the Republic over membership. Turkey is an associate member of the Western European Union, the body that will be embraced by the European Security and Defence Initiative currently being discussed in an attempt to reduce Europe's dependence on America in the light of the Kosovo situation. Without EU membership Turkey, with the largest armed forces in the region may become subject to this body without being involved in the formulative discussions.09/06/99

• PKK may be collapsing - Reports keep appearing in the National press indicating that Abdullah Ocalan's attempts to disassociate himself from the PKK and its activities are leading to the break down of the organisation in the field. The security forces have been active in the South East of the country since Ocalan's capture and may be in the process of breaking up the active units that remain.09/06/99

• Press reactions - Reactions to the Ocalan trial in the domestic press have been fairly predictable. The general expectation (unspoken perhaps) seems to be that the trial will last for about a week, Ocalan will continue to represent himself as repentent and a key player in any future peace and that, at the end of the trial, he will be condemned to death. Stress is being placed on the fairness and openess of the trial and selected quotes from foreign newspapers and governments are being used to illustrate the international approval of the trial process. The Head of the Political Department, British Embassy, was quoted as saying that he found the trial to be "well organised". A Canadian diplomat was quoted as saying that Ocalan appeared "quite healthy". 02/06/99

• Draft bill for civilian DGM's - A bill is being prepared that will, if passed, remove military judges from the DGM (State Security Court) mechanism and replace them with civilians. The DGM's are used to try matters of state security, the current Ocalan trial is being tried by a DGM. The inclusion of military judges on these panels in the past has led to strong criticism from human rights activists within and oustside Turkey. This bill has been under preparation for some time and Ocalan's defense team tried to engineer a postponement on the gorunds that the bill would be passed in the near future.

• Parties United - The newly formed coalition government is already united on one issue. Their praise of the Ocalan trial as a model of judicial practice and openess. Spokesmen for the MHP, DSP and ANAP as well as the FP and DYP all stated publicly their support for the trial process and their pride in the legal sytem of the Turkish Republic. The trial began on Monday, for details see this page.01/06/99