Erkan's field diary

EU plays 'good cop, bad cop' with Turkey

Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn reassured the country that the EU will remain committed to its future EU membership, after the Slovenian EU Presidency cancelled an accession conference scheduled for 21 April due to "insufficient progress" in negotiations.

Turkey may be fit for EU in a decade, enlargement chief says

European Parliament - News - Press service - Info - Foreign Affairs Committee urges faster pace of reform in Turkey

EU Commissioner Rehn says EU must stand by Turkey in critical phase : Europe World

EU Plans New Accession Negotiations with Turkey at Critical Time | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 21.04.2008

A legal first in Turkey in marital rape

The Supreme Court of Appeals has accepted for the first time a verdict by a local court sentencing a person with the initials H.A. to prison for raping his wife more than once, a newspaper reported

Mixed feelings at Malatya massacre memorial

Hundreds of members of Turkey's Protestant community gathered Sunday afternoon to remember Necati Aydın, Uğur Yüksel and Tilman Geske, the three Christians who were brutally

Yusuf Kanlı: 'EU cannot be an arbiter in AKP closure case'

The first time she captured headlines in almost all newspapers was in December 2005 when Turkey was trying to negotiate a date for the start of accession talks with the European Union. Together with the new emerging political chief actor in Germany, Angela Merkel, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik was talking rather tough at the time and advising Turks to accept the possibility of a “second option.” The “second option” she was talking about was not of course the “member a la carte” model that Norway and Switzerland have developed with the EU, but a “privileged partnership” – a status that Ankara already possessed as the sole non-EU country that has become part of the


Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots start preparations for re-unification talks (SETimes.com)

 

Isn't a memo a way of giving notice?

By ERGUN BABAHAN, SABAH

Retired Adm. Yener Karahanoğlu has reportedly denied reports that he called Constitutional Court President Tülay Tuğcu before last year's 367 decision and told her, "If you don't make this decision, a coup will be staged."

No Middle Ground

By Jenny White on Religion

For the radically secular nationalist forces trying to close down the popularly elected AKP, there is no middle ground. AKP has used its liberal orientation to push for religious rights, for instance, allowing female students to wear headscarves while attending university. This prompted a case now before the Constitutional Court to close down the AKP and ban 71 of its politicians from politics, effectively bringing down the elected government.

The Associated Press: Turkey under fire over laws banning insults to "Turkishness"

Diyarbakır Bar’s Tanrıkulu: Kurds are losing their faith in democratic solutions

By AYŞE KARABAT

Sezgin Tanrıkulu, the head of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, says a considerable part of the Kurdish population sees armed struggle as legitimate because they think they are excluded from the democratic process.

Turkey's Problematic Middle East Role - Council on Foreign Relations

Pros and cons of closure case

CÜNEYT ÜLSEVER

AKP is not run well

Mehmet Ali Birand

Is AKP-CHP dialogue possible?

MURAT YETKİN

Time for denials

"If I intended to try my hand at a coup d'etat, would I have done it through a public announcement system?"
When I read this question as an affront to a claim, in circulation for some time, to the effect that an army commander used his friendship with a Constitutional Court judge, who was appointed to the bench from the military ranks, to put pressure on the other members of the Constitutional Court to reach a decision regarding the 367 vote to army's liking, I was flabbergasted.

Can crisis turn into opportunity?

The case before the Constitutional Court in Turkey for the closure of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which won the parliamentary elections last July in a landslide victory, has pushed the country into a political crisis. It has undermined the authority of the government at a time when the country is faced with serious challenges in terms of the economy, the Kurdish question and the Cyprus problem.

Will the West lose Turkey?

This is not an exaggeration, it is a serious possibility. For the pro-status quo forces, Turkey's Western connection that stresses democracy, human rights and the rule of law is a threat today.

What will the military do?

Now that they have outsourced the problem of dealing with the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to the judiciary, our generals seems conspicuously silent. Is something cooking in their kitchen?

Why would Özal and Demirel want power?

By HASAN CEMAL, MİLLİYET

I wrote my book "Story of Özal" in 1989, when Turgut Özal had not yet become president. While leafing through the pages of this book before writing this article, I thought about Özal once again and the question of which parts I would have written differently if I wrote it today crossed my mind.

Should Baykal attend President Gül’s April 23 luncheon?

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal's announcement that he would not attend a luncheon at the presidential residence in the capital on the occasion of April 23, Children's Day, has triggered different reactions in society.

The politics of a one-man show

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) will hold its general assembly meeting this weekend. Deniz Baykal, the party's current leader, is yet again most likely to be the uncontested