mardi, 08 avril 2008
EU'S REGIONAL POLICY AND KURDISH QUESTION
The Republic of Turkey has a credibility problem regarding solutions to the Kurdish question. Accepting Kurds as interlocutors seems difficult for those ruling elites whether they are old-style Kemalists or new-fashion Islamists. Turkish governments' approach to comparable situations in other countries and mainly their stance on the Cyprus question shows a clear double standard. On Cyprus, policies to introduce an independent state, if not a federal structure are brought up, whereas a strictly centralist and �Unitarian� approach is adopted for the solution of the Kurdish issue. This is a vast contradiction.14:00 Publié dans CENGIZ AKTAR , ENGLISH EDITION , TURQUIE | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : europe, turkey, kurds, islam, cengiz aktar, europeus
mercredi, 30 janvier 2008
TURKEY: KARAMANLIS, AL BASHIR AND ALLIANCES OF CIVILIZATIONS
A visit to Turkey for a Greek prime minister must have been the most troublesome. In fact Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis was barely able to make the visit that had been announced in 2005. Or since 1959, when Greece's legendary politician and uncle of Costas, Constantine Karamanlis visited Turkey officially in the aftermath of the Sept. 6-7, 1955 pogrom, a rather tense period began. Therefore this official visit was a great success by itself, just because it happened. In fact, no other progress was made during the proceedings.
05:58 Publié dans CENGIZ AKTAR , ENGLISH EDITION , RELATIONS EXTERIEURES , TURQUIE | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : europe, turkey, darfur, cengiz aktar, europeus.org
lundi, 14 janvier 2008
SLEEP TIGHT: TURKEY IS NOW A CENTRAL COUNTRY!
I listened to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's chief foreign policy adviser, Ahmet Davutoğlu, on CNN Türk last Wednesday. After hearing his remarks I realized first that relations with the European Union were considered as an exclusive foreign policy issue. Besides it was not easy to see what the amount of fertilizer to be used in agricultural products or the size of the fish to be caught has got to do with foreign policy, but let's never mind and go back to foreign politics.06:57 Publié dans CENGIZ AKTAR , TURQUIE | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : europe, turkey, cengiz aktar, europeus.org
dimanche, 06 janvier 2008
NEW ISTANBUL
Anything new is of great interest to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), as you might have realized. �Little America� dreams of the 1950s are finally taking shape.Everywhere cities are transformed, as structures need renovations or worn out buildings are demolished eventually. This is inevitable. The question is how the transformation is undertaken, its methods and tools. More than that of its predecessors, the AKP's renewal concept is to have endless touch ups here and there, to engage in many unnecessary or wasteful projects, to market the city with no proper consultation, to commission ordinary building companies to restore priceless archaeological works, to see no harm in forcing old inhabitants out of the city and building luxurious slum houses to replace old slum areas without paying proper attention to legal and humanitarian concerns. Examples of this Turkish �kitsch,� of this visual pollution, can be seen not only in Istanbul but also everywhere in the county. Architecture, a profession of creativity, is being reduced to contracts of vested interests.
15:17 Publié dans CENGIZ AKTAR , TURQUIE | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : Turquie, istanbul, cengiz aktar, europeus.org
dimanche, 16 décembre 2007
NICOLAS ET LES TURCS
S’agissant de la Turquie dans l’Union européenne, Nicolas Sarkozy a l’avantage de la clarté lorsqu’il rejette son adhésion, mais pas forcément l’avantage de la lucidité. Rappelons-nous. En 1999, l’Union européenne déclare que la Turquie est un pays candidat, avec vocation à rejoindre l’Union sur la base des critères appliqués aux autres candidats. La France est signataire. La candidature est réaffirmée en décembre 2004 lorsque la Turquie est conviée à la phase des négociations d’adhésion. Quasi immédiatement, une guérilla politico-diplomatique se met en place en France pour parer à une éventuelle adhésion. Sous Jacques Chirac on tempère, mais avec Nicolas Sarkozy le ton se radicalise. La géographie prend une place de choix dans ce dispositif avec des références saugrenues resituant par exemple la Cappadoce, une terre chrétienne précoce, au-dehors de l’aire européenne. Nicolas Sarkozy martèle : la Turquie, c’est l’Asie Mineure, ce n’est pas l’Europe.
05:52 Publié dans CENGIZ AKTAR , TURQUIE | Lien permanent | Commentaires (18) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : europe, turquie, sarkozy, cengiz aktar, europeus.org
mercredi, 21 novembre 2007
TURKEY: EXPECTING DEMOCRACY FROM AKP
Since 2002 the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been the lead actor in Turkey's democratic change. The European Union-inspired reforms and introduction of pious segments of society into the public sphere are the fundamentals of the party's democratic performance in its first two years. Today, based on these past credentials many are expecting the AKP to continue the reformist path. Ready to swallow manifold anti-democratic implementations of recent years they suppose the AKP will bring democracy to the country once difficult times are over.01:58 Publié dans CENGIZ AKTAR , TURQUIE | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : turkey, islam, akp, cengiz aktar, europeus.org
mercredi, 14 novembre 2007
BULGARIA'S TURKS AND TURKEY'S KURDS
The new leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) brought up the model of pro-Turkish Rights and Freedoms Party (RFP) of Bulgaria as a solution to the problems Kurds are facing in Turkey. That has triggered polemics, likely to continue for long. As a matter of fact, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan previously noted the similarities and suggested that the RFP would set a model for Kurds in certain aspects. However, there are opinion makers talking through their hats as always.
11:15 Publié dans CENGIZ AKTAR , ENGLISH EDITION , TURQUIE | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : europe, turkey, bulgaria, kurds, cengiz aktar, europeus.org
vendredi, 02 novembre 2007
NEVER CHANGING FOREIGN POLICY AND THE WAR
How quickly we have surrendered to the logic of war while talking diplomacy, dialogue and moderation. The responsibility lies with the political elite that keeps murmuring about the same old clichés of a non-existing world. There are foreign policy positions of Turkey reminiscent of military fortifications. These are at the very foundations of the Republic and were thought as definite answers to the problems inherited from the Ottoman era: The Armenian, Greek and Kurdish questions. Nothing has changed in Turkey's position regarding these three issues, except a parenthesis on Cyprus, which opened and quickly closed in 2004 after the rejection of the Annan Plan by the Greek Cypriots.16:15 Publié dans CENGIZ AKTAR , RELATIONS EXTERIEURES , TURQUIE | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : Turkey, Irak, PKK, Cengiz Aktar, europeus.org
mardi, 16 octobre 2007
TURKEY: ARTICLE 301 TALES
We have been talking about article 301 since the Turkish Penal Code (TPC) entered into force on June 1, 2005. Articles 159 and 312 of the old penal code we focused on previously. In a way, we are living in a “Turkey by figures.” Legal experts designated a total of 26 articles similar to 301, restrictive to freedom of expression in the TPC. Quite to the contrary of what politicians pretend, 29 people were tried for article 301 in 2005 and 72 in 2006. We are patiently waiting to see the figures for this year.18:36 Publié dans CENGIZ AKTAR , ENGLISH EDITION , TURQUIE | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : turkey, penal code, cengiz aktar, europeus.org
mardi, 09 octobre 2007
WHAT EU SHOULD BE TELLING TURKEY?
On the eve of this year's progress report by the European Commission (EC), our European Union (EU) accession fever is revived again. A heavy traffic of meetings, statements and visits is the case. This hustle and bustle is as real as EU works are virtual. Mutual expectations are so low that even the tiniest “not negative” wording or an infinitesimally small gesture is exaggerated to the limit. Works to be done are self-evident, it is said. Turkey will roll up sleeves, benefit from the rosy environment created after the July 22 elections, pass foundation laws, abolish articles 301 and sail away to the brightest of the bright horizon as though nothing has happened. That is playing Pollyanna to the utmost degree. We are talking about bilateral relations in which mutual trust is badly eroded. If only were easy to rekindle this! Let's see the facts.16:25 Publié dans CENGIZ AKTAR , ENGLISH EDITION , TURQUIE | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : turkey, EU, europe, cengiz aktar, europeus.org