GOVERNING BUT LACKING POWER
BY H. BULENT KAHRAMAN (RADIKAL)
In Malaysia on Saturday for the first stop of a two-nation
trip to Asia, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with that
country’s Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar. Later in the day,
Erdogan flew to Islamabad and met with his Pakistani counterpart
Zafarullah Han Cemali to discuss a number of issues,
including
the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India. Erdogan said
that Turkey favored a peaceful solution for the violence-torn
border region, adding that any proposed solution must deliver
justice to both sides. During the meeting, Erdogan also urged
Pakistan to support the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ (TRNC)
bid to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
/Aksam/
Appearing on state TV channel TRT 2 over the weekend,
Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc criticized the United States’
policy on Iraq. “It is wrong to forcefully impose a political
regime on another nation,” said Arinc. “The Iraqi people should
be allowed to express their own free will. The US willfully
ignores the United Nations regulations and does whatever it
wants to in Iraq without taking into consideration the wishes of
its people. I hope this mistaken policy will be reversed
immediately and a truly democratic regime established in the
region as soon as possible.” /Turkiye/
Energy Markets Regulatory Authority (EPDK) head Yusuf Gunay
yesterday defended the government’s decision last week to take
over two power stations, arguing that it was both reached
unanimously and constitutionally sound. The two stations,
Cukurova and Kepez Electric, had been administered by the
controversial Uzan group, which the government contends violated
provisions of their 1998 concession agreement on the facilities.
/Hurriyet/
Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ugur Ziyal flew over the
weekend to Washington in a bid to mend bilateral relations which
were strained in the wake of Turkey’s refusal of US troop
deployments prior to the Iraq war. During his four-day visit,
Ziyal is expected to meet with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz and Assistant Secretary of State Marc Grossman, the
latter a former US ambassador to Ankara. He will convey a
message to the Bush administration that Turkey is ready to
cooperate with the US on Iraq’s reconstruction. He will also
deliver an address tomorrow on “Perspectives in Turkish Foreign
Policy: Looking Forward After Iraq” at the American Enterprise
Institute and speak to National Press Club on Wednesday on the
subject of “Mending the Rift Between the US and Turkey.” /Star/
Diplomatic initiatives of both the European Union and the
United States to resolve the Cyprus issue are picking up speed.
Thomas Weston, the US special envoy to Cyprus, is due today to
meet with Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) President
Rauf Denktas in Lefkosa. Weston recently also met with Greek
Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos. Following his talks with
Denktas, Weston will also meet with representatives from various
TRNC political parties and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
/Anatolia News Agency/
Didier Bouteiller, the commissioner for horizontal issues and
liaison with multilateral institutions for the European Union’s
Economic and Financial Affairs Committee, over the weekend urged
Turkey to continue its reforms in order to speed its pace
towards EU membership. Remarking that the December 2004 EU
summit would be a critical event for Turkey’s membership bid,
Bouteiller stated that Ankara’s priority task should be
preparing for this date when its membership negotiations are due
to be scheduled. “I hope that Turkey’s membership talks will
begin in 2005,” said Bouteiller. “However, I must stress that
Turkey still has a long way to go.” He also added that the EU
was planning to boost its financial aid to Turkey in 2004-2006.
/Turkiye/
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini, whose nation
will take over the EU term presidency in less than two weeks,
over the weekend stated that he believed the European Union had
certain responsibilities towards Turkey. Stressing that Italy
would support Turkey’s EU membership bid, Fini remarked that his
country respected Turkey’s calendar and believed that Ankara
would do its utmost to fulfill all the necessary criteria on
time. “I can’t think of a Europe without Turkey,” added the
Italian deputy prime minister, echoing statements by his
superior, Silvio Berlusconi. “Turkey will adopt itself to
European norms, develop its economy and improve its democracy.
During our term presidency, my country will always support
Ankara’s efforts towards these goals.” /Cumhuriyet/
Speaking to daily Sabah yesterday, Belgian Prime Minister Guy
Verhofstadt stated that since the European Union cannot
rightfully exclude a country which fulfills all the necessary
membership criteria, Turkey’s fate rested in its own hands.
“Ankara itself will determine the beginning date of its
membership negotiations,” said the Belgian prime minister. “The
EU criteria for candidate countries are very clear. Turkey can
begin its membership negotiations as soon as it manages to
fulfill these. Therefore, the Turkish government should pick up
the pace of its work.” He also criticized certain EU circles’
misconception of a monocultural Europe completely dominated by
Judeo-Christian values, adding, “Everybody must understand that
Europe is not made up of only Christians and Jews.” /Sabah/
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli
charged yesterday that the sixth European Union harmonization
package sent recently to Parliament failed to take into
consideration the indivisibility and structure of Turkey’s
unitary state. “The harmonization package might hurt the nation
because it would make fomenting ethnic and religious
discrimination easier,” said Bahceli. “Misleading and ignoring
the nation would be the greatest disrespect.” Formerly a top
political and government party, the MHP last fall failed to win
enough votes to enter Parliament. /Aksam/
Yesterday over 1.5 million students across the country took
their Student Selection Exams (OSS) in order to gain admission
to a university in Turkey or the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus (TRNC). Savas Kucukyavuz, the head of exam authority the
Student Selection and Placement Center (OSYM), said that the
three-hour exam had gone smoothly. /All Papers/
A special issue of National Geographic Turkey on newsstands
now honors 100 years of Turkish history with 100 photographs
from over the last century. The commemorative magazine supported
by Garanti Bank draws from National Geographic’s vast photo
archives to enlighten and educate its readers on the breadth and
scope of Turkish history. /Anatolia News Agency/
Columnist Fikret Bila comments on Athens’ policy of
protesting flights by Turkish military jets. A summary of his
column is as follows:
“How is Ankara dealing with the recently increased tensions
raised by Greece under the pretext of protesting Turkish
military flights in the Aegean? NATO, to which both Ankara and
Athens belong, was both aware of the Turkish flights and
permitted them. In addition, the results of an investigation by
NATO Central Command’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
(SHAPE) definitively disproved Athens’ claims. However, Athens
is continuing its current policy, and meanwhile it’s targeting
the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). For example, Greek Defense
Minister Yannos Papantoniou yesterday criticized the TSK again.
He claimed that ‘generals’ are governing Turkey. In addition,
Greek Cypriot administration Foreign Minister George Yakovu
charged that Turkey was keeping Cyprus’ future European Union
lands ‘under military occupation’ and that this made it
ineligible to join the EU.
Athens is now carrying its stance on Cyprus to the Aegean
problem. It thinks that this policy, which it knows to have been
influential in Cyprus, will work on the Aegean as well. It will
continue to follow this path through next year. Ankara knows
Athens’ intentions and aims and thinks them up to no good. For
instance, Ankara thinks that Greece failed to return its own
goodwill gesture of not putting pressure on Athens on the
terrorist PKK issue.
Will Athens’ pressure policy affect Ankara’s stance on the
Aegean issue and military flights? Civilian and military circles
I spoke to yesterday both said no. They told me that Turkish
jets were flying under a training program with NATO’s full
awareness and permission and that therefore these flights could
neither be halted nor changed due merely to Athens’ tactics.
Athens also knows this, but is trying to wear the TSK down.
Military analysts’ take on the situation is this: Athens is
trying to pressure Turkey from two sides. It wants Ankara to
follow an appeasement policy because of its goal of EU
membership. It’s trying to use the Iraq problem and the postwar
conditions in the east, and to create pressure by pushing the
Cyprus and Aegean issues to the west.
Turkey isn’t getting any return for the well-intentioned
steps it recently took on the EU road. Ankara is expecting to
get a response for the steps it’s taken to implement needed
reforms.”
Columnist H. Bulent Kahraman writes about a rift between the
Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and the country’s
bureaucratic establishment. A summary of his column is as
follows:
“Close watchers of the AKP government should have noticed
that it recently launched a new campaign for our country’s EU
membership bid. Following Justice Minister Cemil Cicek’s call
for judges to implement EU reforms in their rulings, the
government is now urging all non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
to promote and speed up Turkey’s integration into the Union.
Surprisingly enough, this campaign came in the wake of
controversial remarks by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
charging that a bureaucratic ‘oligarchy’ was trying to lord over
Turkey’s elected politicians. That is, the prime minister was
admitting that the AKP holds the government yet lacks the real
reins of political power. These three developments in fact
briefly summarize the basic contours of Turkey’s political life
and structure over the last century.
True, the AKP is the government, but it lacks political power.
And the bureaucracy really is one of the reasons for this. The
definition of Turkey’s bureaucracy should be flexible in that it
constitutes an alliance, which I call a ‘historical bloc.’ By
bureaucracy, I mean a specific quarter in Turkish political
history, an alliance which was initially made up of ‘the
military, bureaucracy and intellectuals’ back in the early years
of the republic. This bloc is in a sense the established order,
and its raison d’etre is to protect the overwhelming dominance
of the regime’s founding ideology. And apparently, the
government is now in a conflict with this alliance.
However, in fact all our governments since 1950 have had
tense relations with this bloc, notably Adnan Menderes’s
Democrat Party (DP), Suleyman Demirel’s Justice Party (AP), and
Turgut Ozal’s Motherland Party (ANAP). Each of these three
prominent figures had their own sociological reasons for
conflict with the bureaucracy, and more importantly they were
aware of them and used them against the bureaucracy. This is
what the AKP now lacks. It fails to understand the meaning and
function of its mass support, and instead is merely blaming the
bureaucratic establishment. In so doing, it cannot overcome the
dilemma of being the government while lacking real power.”
