" Turks at Europe's Gates
CFR Turks at Europe's Gates - Council on Foreign Relations
Myriad obstacles stand in the way of easy EU accession for Turkey. (AP Images/Osman Orsal)
There were no hidden messages in Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s first major trip abroad since taking office in late August 2007. Gul traveled not to Iraq, where tensions with Turkey are running high; not to Germany, a major center of the Turkish diaspora; not to the United States, Turkey’s primary security partner. Instead, he traveled to Council of Europe meetings in Strasbourg, France (Turkish Daily News). “We specifically chose Strasbourg,” Gul explained. “The Council of Europe is an institution that Turkey has been in since 1948. It is a school for Europe. Democracy, human rights, and supremacy of the law are pillars here.” Gul’s point was clear: he hopes to reaffirm Turkey’s fervent desire for European Union (EU) accession and reiterate the country’s efforts to reform on issues like democracy and human rights, where it meets rebuke from EU ministers (CNN).........
ET SI L'EUROPE PUISSANCE PASSAIT PAR LA TURQUIE
by Cengiz Aktar
Les opposants les plus subtils à une Turquie européenne se veulent pour la plupart des européistes convaincus et partisans de l’Europe puissance. Ils nous disent en substance ceci : avec l’arrivée de la Turquie, cheval de Troie des Etats-Unis mais aussi de l’islam, et sorte de seconde Angleterre, le projet d’une Europe puissance (carolingienne) sera dilué, dénaturé et partant, rendu caduque. Avec l’intégration de l’altérité turque disparaîtra la frontière identitaire entre l’Europe et la non-Europe et du coup la possibilité…Turkism in Turkey and Azerbaijan in the 1990s
by Büsra Ersanli BEHARby YONCA POYRAZ DOĞAN
Suspicious villagers reject EU funding
Turkish Weekly Comment - Turkey's Booming Economy and the European Union
Swedish Web sites targeted by Turkish hackers after publication of Muhammad drawing - International Herald Tribune
STOCKHOLM, Sweden: Hackers in Turkey have attacked more than 5,000 Swedish Web sites in the past week, and at least some of the sabotage appears linked to a Swedish newspaper's publication of a disparaging caricature of Islam's prophet, an Internet company and a media watchdog said Sunday."...
Mehmet Kamış Turkish universities mired in ideology
SFGate: World Views : Turkey's new constitution and headscarves: "Protecting" or pressuring women?
EDM AKP FACING A CONSTITUTIONAL TRAP OF ITS OWN MAKING
Mustafa Akyol Turkey's Jewish Islamists
AFP: EU lawmakers try carrot, rather than stick, approach with Turkey
JTW News - Turkey's Europeanness
Baykal is right; the referendum should be cancelled
Mehmet Ali Birand
The EU (democratization) path: A solution to the Kurdish issue
Cengiz ÇANDAR
Derviş' Europe
Gila BENMAYOR
European Court to decide on the fate of religion classes
The European Court of Human Rights will issue its verdict Tuesday on a case brought forward by two Alevi Turks against compulsory religion lessons in Turkish schools. The plaintiffs say that the...
Legal crisis for referendum continues over votes at border gates
Removing the controversial article of the constitutional package which states that the Turkish president should elected by popular vote has sparked political debate between the....
Şemdinli trial goes to military court
A court in the eastern Anatolian city of Van decided Friday that the case of two noncommissioned officers and an informant in regard to the bombing of a bookstore in Hakkari's...
Yusuf Kanlı: The culture of ambush...
If the “culture of ambush” is not abandoned urgently by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the new constitution drive is not placed on a sound platform, it is probable that rather than a pluralistic discussion atmosphere required to produce a text of consensus we will land in a cacophony not conducive definitely to efforts aimed at producing a new and more liberal charter than the 1982 Constitution. What we wrote yesterday about the danger of a closure case being filed against the AKP with the Constitutional Court (with the pretext that by attempting to annihilate the existing constitution and introducing a new one it committed a constitutional crime tantamount to “treason”)
Let's leave Sarkozy alone
Mehmet Ali Birand
Gül not involved in domestic debates
President Abdullah Gül yesterday distanced himself from the heated domestic debates going on in Turkey about the Oct. 21 referendum. Asked if he would run again for the presidency...
IHSAN DAGI: Do liberals support the AK Party?
Did liberals support the AK Party during the last election process and act as “legitimizers” for the AK Party in Western quarters? Not liberals in person, but liberal values have served the legitimizing of the AK Party both in Turkey and abroad -- but not without reason.
Reminders concerning Turkey’s ‘constitutional accident’
The statements made in a recent interview by former Chief of General Staff Gen. Hilmi Özkök (see Milliyet newspaper, Oct. 1-6), who served in the post between 2002 and 2006, has led to renewed debates around Turkey’s Iraq policy.
Hopes of reaching contemporary civilization, neo-Turkish diaspora, MHP and Gen. Özkök
Even though bureaucratic oligarchy, with its media and political branches, is trying to convince us that Turkey is an underdeveloped Third World country, there are all sorts of signs that we have almost reached the level of contemporary civilization, despite the ferocious attacks of the old elite. Among many excellent examples I will focus on three.
Article 301 test for AK Party
There is growing international criticism of the notorious Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which has been used to prosecute many Turkish intellectuals, journalists and authors -- including slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk - on charges of insulting “Turkishness.”
The thing that is ignored
by MAHİR KAYNAK, STAR
Even though a common understanding cannot be reached in ongoing discussions and contestations regarding lifestyle, completely independent debates on these issues should be opened up.
Tension, crisis and the CHP
by HAYRETTİN KARAMAN, YENİ ŞAFAK
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) reappears with a harsh and retrogressive style, pressuring the government to cancel the referendum just as soon as we say “Everything is settled, now it is time to start the services awaiting the politicians.”
Views on preventing crisis over presidential post
It seems that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), together with the support of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), will circumvent a possible crisis over the current president’s legitimacy by amending an article in the constitutional package, which will be voted on through a referendum on Oct. 21.
Negative discrimination
by GÜLAY GÖKTÜRK, BUGÜN
The women’s quota issue is on the agenda once again with respect to the preparation of a new constitution, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan explained again why he is opposed to having a quota for women in Parliament.EU Says Turkey Must Improve Freedom of Speech | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 07.10.2007
Turkey's Democracy in Transition: Changing Perceptions in Turkish Society
Democracy and Transition: EU Integration and Turkish SME
Turkey at the Turning Point? - The New York Review of Books
EU - Turkey: reforms welcome but penal code must be changed
Nostalgia de consumo
by Francisco Veiga
Cartelera de "Son Osmanlı" ("El último otomano"), comic y film que tienen como protagonista a la réplica otomana de Lawrence de Arabia, aunque su estética "kıro" no tiene nada que ver con la del lampiño arqueólogo y agente secreto británico......
How Are Christians Faring in Turkey Since the Malatya Murders ?
by Celal Birader
Turkish Protestants have reported increasing attacks and threats in recent months despite claims by President Abdullah Gul this week that Christians in Turkey are not targeted.
