Turkey seizes 'Iranian' weapons

Turkish authorities have seized weapons hidden on a Syria-bound train from Iran after Kurdish separatist fighters derailed it with a bomb, a prosecutor said.

The arms were found by authorities after the attack on the train on Friday near the town of Genc in southeastern Bingol province, Ismail Sari said on Wednesday.

The Iranian embassy issued a statement on Wednesday denying that the weapons belonged to Iran.

The bomb attack on the train coinicides with Turkey's military build-up on its border with Iraq, which Ankara says is necessary to limit activities of Kurdish separatist groups based in northern Iraq.

The private Dogan news agency said the weapons on the train included a rocket launch pad and 300 rockets.

Turkish authorities suspect Iran is using Turkey as a transit route to send arms to Hezbollah, the Shia group in Lebanon, via Syria.

Military build-up

Meanwhile, Turkey has continued to send military reinforcements to its border with Iraq, amid debate over whether to launch raids on bases of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.

"The PKK must be eliminated as a problem between Iraq and Turkey," said Oguz Celikkol, Turkey's special envoy to Iraq, said on Wednesday.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, on Tuesday called for the US and Iraq to destroy the PKK bases in northern Iraq.

He did not rule out a cross-border Turkish operation.

"Our patience has run out. The necessary steps will be taken when needed," Erdogan said.

'Turkey's business'

Asked whether Iraqi authorities had been informed about a possible cross-border Turkish operation, Levent Bilman, Turkey's foreign ministry spokesman, said the decision was "only Turkey's business."

"We do not have to inform anybody about the possibility of such an intervention," he said.

The Turkish military says up to 3,800 Kurdish separatist rebels are now based in Iraq, from where they launch cross-border operation on targets inside Turkey.

Turkish forces have fought Kurdish separatists in Turkey's southeast since the rebels took up arms in 1984, in a conflict that has killed thousands of people.

In Turkey, conspiracy theories actually hold, because… (1)

EKREM DUMANLI; Zaman Gazetesi

Conspiracy theories receive press in every country. However, in Turkey they receive more press, are more widespread and are actually more believable.
To understand the reasons for this is to take a step toward understanding politics in Turkey because the scenarios in this country, just as they are the fruits of imagination, are also based on reality. For this reason, they are also believable.

During the period leading to the 1960 military coup, there were some unbelievably strong allegations at hand. One example of such allegations was the claim that leftist youths had been captured by police and thrown into meat grinders. These allegations were a huge news item for days. Everyone who heard these allegations was completely horrified. But in reality, the actual names of these “revolutionary youths torn apart in meat grinders” were not known, nor could anyone say where this terrible event had taken place.

Nor could anyone have known these things because they were lies. This made-up news originated from some center, serving to alter the atmosphere in the country. Then when the conditions were ripe, it was time for the military coup to take place. After the 1960 military coup, the Turkish public had been strongly affected by this type of false news story.

Perhaps one of the most striking examples of this phenomenon was prior to the 1980 coup. Towards the end of the 1970s, Turkey was divided along lines of left and right. It was not possible to remain neutral or not being decisively on the right or on the left. Each side leveled accusations of treason at the other. When the armed struggles began, the left claimed it wanted to save the country from the fascist right. And the right believed it was protecting the country from the threat of communism.

There were armed clashes, bombings and assassinations. So much so that at the beginning of the 1980s, 5,000 of the nation’s youth had already been killed, and the daily average death toll from conflict had risen to 30. And in response to critical questions over why the military had “waited for so many people to die,” coup leader Gen. Kenan Evren replied with, “We waited for the conditions to be met.”

Thus on Sept. 12, 1980, the military, with Gen. Evren at its helm, took control of the country. Labor strikes, student protests, assassinations, bombings; everything, yes everything, came to a halt overnight. Years later, Süleyman Demirel, who had been prime minister during that period, asked, “With 30 people dying every day up until Sept. 11, 1980, how was it that on the morning of Sept. 13, everything stopped in one moment?”

Demirel was right to ask this. The many illegal organizations and groups, and the tens of thousands of militants, had their fighting cut short overnight, even though the government at the time gave the military very great power and authority before the coup.

What, then, was the authority they possessed that was not being used that brought the need for a coup to the forefront? This was a question debated for years in the Turkish public, and in the end, the following conclusion was reached: In the period before the 1980 military coup, the powers controlling the right and the left were coming from the same point. In the deadly acts each side was launching against the other, people were being guided from the same center. And the naive youth jumping into the scenario were unaware that they were simply pawns in the game. During the 1970s, former Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit used to talk about an organization called “Gladio.” Ecevit, whose own life was the target of assassination attempts many times, could never prove the existence of this “Gladio” group. But the majority of people in Turkey did believe his claims to be true.

Later, on Nov. 3, 1996, there was an odd traffic accident that took place in Turkey, and for many Turks, this accident came to represent a turning point. The car involved in the notorious accident in Susurluk contained a former leader from the right wing sought all over the world (Abdullah Çatlı), one top-level police official (Hüseyin Kocadağ) and a parliamentary deputy (Sedat Bucak).

It was said that there was strong evidence that Çatlı had been sent by the state abroad to incapacitate Armenian terrorists operating internationally. This was the same person who, before 1980, had been involved in bloody protests and who had been accused personally of being the cause for the deaths of so many leftist youth in Turkey.

Meanwhile, Police Chief Hüseyin Kocadağ, who died in the Susurluk accident, was known for his identity as a leftist and an Alevi. Thus the people of Turkey were shocked when a famous right-wing terrorist and a renowned leftist police commander were revealed to have been in the same car. The weapons present in the car, the fact that the car itself belonged to a deputy who was also the family head of an enormous clan from the Turkish East, the fact that an unknown woman was also present in the car... Everything turned in one moment into a mysterious puzzle and one which still hasn’t been solved.

Deputy chief of the Turkish Police Intelligence Bureau at the time, Hanefi Avcı, talked during a live television program of a “gladio” that had settled itself into the workings of the government. At that time, then-general Veli Küçük blamed Intelligence Bureau Chief Mehmet Eymür and current DYP leader Mehmet Ağar. According to Avcı, the structure that had rooted itself in the government was a triangle consisting of the military, police and politics. For saying these words, Avcı was arrested, but then later returned to his post, where he carries on to this day. But the curtains of secrecy have never lifted on this event because the people named in the Susurluk accident never came to court to give their testimonies.

There have, however, been frequent reminders of the gladio organization that former Prime Minister Ecevit used to mention so often because the phenomenon of unsolved murders has continued on while different groups in society become hostile to one another. Because of psychological wartime techniques, the people themselves have experienced polarization.

Suspicion in Turkey over gladios and gangs has carried on until today. And there are connections between some of the events we see occurring today and some of the secret structures within the government.

And with no transparency being endowed on any of these suspicions, every event that takes place in Turkey winds up with a question mark hanging over it.

Armenia: What's At Stake In Parliamentary Vote?

By Harry Tamrazian

Yerevan residents have their doubts about the validity of the election's outcome.

(AFP)

May 11, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Harry Tamrazian, the head of RFE/RL's Armenian Service, discusses why Armenia's parliamentary elections are important -- and why they may not be clean:
Will Armenia have free and fair elections? Ask that question anywhere from the streets of Yerevan to a remote country village and the answer will usually be "no."

There have been 10 national polls since Armenian gained independence. Of those, eight failed to meet international standards for a clean and democratic vote. The sole exceptions came early on -- a referendum on independence and the first presidential elections, both in 1991.
Since then, vote-rigging, ballot-stuffing, and forged signatures have all become well-documented tactics in Armenia's electoral process. This year, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has already voiced concern about the election campaign, prompted by reliable reports of voter intimidation and bribery by pro-government party activists.
Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian says a repeat of serious irregularities would be a "big blow" to Armenia's reputation -- one with more than just "moral" consequences.
The official mind-set in Yerevan seems to be that it's not only that the parties of power must win. The opposition must also lose. Opposition figures like Artur Baghdasarian and former Armenian Foreign Minister Aleksandr Arzumanian have in recent weeks been attacked for alleged treason or arrested on dubious charges. And the price tag for television advertising is unreasonably steep -- $300 a minute, a price that leaves many alternative voices off the air.
Perhaps the real question about the parliamentary elections is not who will win, or whether the vote will be fair, but why this vote matters.
In its 15 years of post-Soviet history, Armenian presidents have hired and fired nine out of the country's 11 prime ministers. After these elections, however, prime ministers will no longer be easy prey for the president.
The May 12 ballot will usher in a parliament with broader powers than the current one. According to Armenia's newly amended constitution, the next generation of lawmakers will have far greater control in appointing the head of the government. Whoever comprises the ruling majority will be able to effectively block any presidential nominee for the prime ministerial post.
To wit, whoever wins the parliamentary elections will be able to appoint a prime minister and use the administrative resources of incumbency to launch a successful bid for the next presidential elections, due to take place in early 2008.
That's why it's significant -- barring a surprise result that could only come with a truly clean election -- that the likely winner of the May 12 vote is the ruling Republican Party, led by the second-most powerful man in Armenia, Prime Minister (and former Defense Minister) Serzh Sarkisian.

Sarkisian has been a close associate of the current president, Robert Kocharian, for more than 20 years, and is generally expected to step up to the plate when Kocharian's second term expires next year.Kocharian, for his part, has announced he does not intend to be the youngest retiree in Armenia. (He is a relatively young 53.) His dilemma is much the same as the one facing Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is also nearing the end of his constitutionally mandated second term -- how does a former president maintain a major role in politics?
In Kocharian's case, it may be by stepping comfortably into the prime ministerial post. Many local observers believe this explains Kocharian's keen interest in the May 12 vote and his evident desire to build a power base in the new, more muscular legislature.

Genocide Recognition More for Benefit of Turkey than Armenia

The Turkish Embassy once again champions the Turkish proposal of establishing a "joint commission of historians" to investigate the issue of Armenian Genocide of 1915 (Re: "Turkish Offer of Joint Commission with Armenians Still on the Table." Letters, May 2). It is not clear from the letter how such a commission can be put together and produce results when Turkey refuses to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia, imposes illegal unilateral coercive economic measures against land-locked Armenia in a form of a blockade, deliberately destroys and distorts Armenian cultural heritage in Eastern Anatolia, and spends millions of dollars annually in a futile attempt to convince the world that it was Armenians who committed genocide against Turks.

How can we take the Turkish proposal seriously when impartial Turkish historians who dare voice opinions different from the state-imposed genocide denial are labeled traitors and have no other choice but to leave their own country? Will Turkey be ready to recall all those exiled historians and include them in the proposed commission, or will we have to deal with staunch genocide deniers only?

The Turkish notion of "equal suffering" of Armenians and Turks during the First World War is absolutely immoral. In a matter of weeks a whole nation disappeared without any trace from its historical homeland.

Nobody denies that thousands of Turks died during that war. But during the Second World War more than 10 million Germans died, too. Does that justify the Holocaust?

Turkey needs the recognition of the Armenian genocide more than Armenia. It needs it in order to come to terms with the most shameful page of its history, and to prove itself worthy of entering the European family of nations.

Armenia and Turkey are neighbours, and they eventually will have to normalize their relations. For the 16th year in a row, Armenia proposes to establish formal relations and to open the Armenian-Turkish border, the last surviving segment of the Iron Curtain. The time to stop this unfortunate counting of years is long overdue.

ARMAN AKOPIAN
Chargé d'Affaires
Embassy of Armenia, Canada

Vive la France! But what about Turkey?

AMANDA AKCAKOCA; Zaman Gazetesi

Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory on Sunday ushers in a new era of French politics. The son of a Hungarian immigrant who abandoned him and his brothers when they were small, Sarkozy has succeeded through sheer guts and determination. Nowadays he is a man in a hurry. When he takes over from Jacques Chirac on May 16, he will have a long to-do list, including: kicking off his ambitious reform agenda including unemployment, economic growth, labor market regulations and immigration; moving along the infamous EU Constitutional Treaty -- Sarkozy favors a “mini-treaty” which would not have to go to public referendum. He wants to get it off his desk as soon as possible so that his first years in office are not bogged down by this ongoing problem; and, lastly, put France back on the world stage on which, according to Monsieur Sarkozy, it has played an unacceptably minor role over the last few years. However in many of France’s migrant communities his election was met with despair, resulting in a number of riots. Known for his heavy-handed policies on security and migration, Sarkozy suppressed riots in ethnically mixed suburbs in 2005, when he served as interior minister, during which time he infamously claimed he would work to “hose away the scum in France.” This made him a hugely unpopular figure with France’s North African communities, with many feeling they were being treated like second-class citizens. He has a huge mountain to climb here.

Coming to Turkey, it is well known that Sarkozy does not support Turkish membership of the EU, claiming that it would be the end of political Europe. Rather he favors, as does his counterpart in Germany, some type of “privileged partnership” and the development of a “Mediterranean Community,” whatever that might be -- he has not expanded on that gem as yet. I am not convinced that Sarkozy will launch himself into an all-out assault to bring Turkey’s talks to an end. More likely he will put the issue on a back-burner and deal with more pressing domestic concerns first. In any event he will have to abide by the decision taken by the European Council in Copenhagen and listen to France’s influential business community, who are strong supporters of Turkish membership. Sarkozy is a pragmatic man and will not want to rock the EU boat just as he has climbed aboard. However at the same time France may look for ways to further slow the accession process for Turkey, and when France takes over the EU Presidency in the second half of 2008 they will probably sit on their hands.

More important in Turkey’s relations with France is whether Sarkozy decides to ratify the bill, passed by the French Parliament in October, making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide. One of Sarkozy’s closest friends and advisers is Patrick Devedjian, a high profile member of Armenia’s diaspora community. To what extent he will influence Sarkozy remains to be seen. France is home to a large Armenian immigrant community, with up to 500,000 people of Armenian descent. The community is a powerful political lobby. Sarkozy will have to perform a balancing act as he needs to guard French bilateral relations with Turkey -- particularly business interests -- while at the same time keeping the Armenian lobby and others happy. Therefore even if Sarkozy does not ratify the bill he will certainly attempt to use the whole genocide issue as a bargaining tool whenever the opportunity arises.

In any event the first challenge Sarkozy will face will be the parliamentary elections in June. Securing a workable majority in the National Assembly would greatly ease the passage of Mr. Sarkozy’s planned reforms. Mr. Sarkozy is a passionate, dynamic human-dynamo who is both smart and charismatic. Being the president of a country that is known for being stubborn and unpredictable, Sarkozy will certainly need all these qualities.

Socialist İnternational must expel the CHP

SAHIN ALPAY; Zaman Gazetesi

Last week I published a column in the Zaman daily calling on the Socialist International (SI) to expel the Republican People’s Party (CHP) from membership. I would like to explain for foreign observers of Turkish politics why I really believe the CHP, with its current leadership and policies, has absolutely no place in the global organization of social democratic, socialist and labor parties of the world. The “Ethical Principles” adopted at the 22nd congress of SI held in Sao Paolo in September 2003 stated the following: “The Socialist International member parties defend pluralistic democracy. This means allowing citizens to make their choice at free, coordinated and clear elections; changing of governments in a peaceful way and providing freedom for citizens; showing respect to the rights of minorities and individuals; standing for an independent and neutral judiciary system based on the rule of law, a free and pluralist press, and administrating the parties in a democratic way.”

If SI is to remain true to its “Ethical Principles,” it has to conclude that the CHP of Turkey as led by Deniz Baykal no longer deserves membership in the organization, mainly due to the following reasons:

The CHP is not at all a party that is “administrated in a democratic way.” Baykal and his clique have established autocratic rule over the party, eliminated all dissenting views and members from the party and alienated all true social democrats.

The Baykal clique has turned the CHP increasingly away from the people and basically aligned it with the bureaucratic elites. It has increasingly turned the party away from social democracy towards a 1930s-style Kemalism that refuses to recognize the ethnic and religious diversity and cultural rights of Turkey’s citizens and fully supports an authoritarian type of state secularism that does not separate state and religion, and restricts religious rights and freedoms.

The Baykal clique is not only disrespectful of democratic rights, but increasingly of democratic processes. It has made the party a spokesman for the civilian-military bureaucracy which continues to think that the Turkish people at large are not mature enough for democracy and wants to preserve its tutelary powers over the regime.

The Baykal clique has pursued a policy of polarizing the electorate over the issue of secularism, with a view towards increasing his party’s sinking share of the popular vote. His statements have led many to conclude that he is using the threat of military intervention to achieve his political goals.

Baykal has not uttered a single word against the memorandum issued by the military threatening the parliament against the election of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as president and thus has tacitly supported the military’s intervention in the democratic process. Baykal and his clique have openly opposed “pluralist democracy” SI stands for. One of the vice chairmen of the party who most clearly reflects the widespread militarism among the ranks of the CHP came out and said he is in full agreement with the memorandum, which states among other things that: “All who do not share the understanding ‘Happy is he who says he is a Turk’ are enemies of the republic and will remain so,” in a thinly veiled reference to citizens of Kurdish origin who defend their ethnic identity. Baykal’s CHP is in growing agreement with nationalist parties in support of continued suppression of Kurdish identity.

During the recent crisis over presidential election, Baykal called on the Constitutional Court to declare unconstitutional the election process that has been used to elect the last three presidents and warned the court that the country would otherwise risk domestic conflict and “clashes.” He has thus displayed his disrespect for an “independent and neutral judicial system based on the rule of law.”

In summary, the views and policies of Baykal’s CHP are in open conflict with principles of both social and political democracy. There may be nothing wrong within Turkey with the CHP being a statist and nationalist party, but it surely has no right to describe itself as a “social democratic” party, and this needs to be made clear to them by SI. The CHP’s expulsion from SI may perhaps help end the Baykal clique’s domination of this important actor of Turkish politics and open the way for democratic reform within it.

'Never again' for Armenians too

Several American Jewish groups abandon their anti-genocide zeal when it comes to Turkey's massacre of Armenians.

By Daniel Sokatch and David N. Myers, DANIEL SOKATCH is executive director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance. DAVID N. MYERS teaches Jewish history at UCLA.
May 1, 2007

THIS YEAR, Congress established April 15 as Holocaust Memorial Day, commemorating the Nazi genocide of European Jewry. Just nine days later, on April 24, Armenians throughout the world observed the commemoration of their great tragedy: the massacre of as many as 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Turks that began in 1915.

In many ways, it was the 20th century's first genocide that helped set the stage for its largest, including Rwanda and now Darfur. Adolf Hitler reportedly said, on the eve of his invasion of Poland in 1939, "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

For the last 60 years, the Jewish community has labored to avoid granting Hitler, in the words of philosopher Emil Fackenheim, "a posthumous victory." Jews have taken as their motto "never again," and most tend to understand that this charge refers to all of humanity, not only to fellow Jews. One of the last surviving leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Simha "Kazik" Rotem, once said that the central lesson of the Holocaust to him was that the Jewish people should stand vigilant against genocidal acts directed at any people.

This is why it is troubling that some major Jewish organizations have lined up in support of Turkey's efforts to keep the U.S. Congress from recognizing the Armenian massacres as an act of genocide. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and B'nai B'rith International recently conveyed a letter from the Turkish Jewish community opposing a resolution recognizing the genocide.

The ADL and the JINSA also added their own statements of opposition, suggesting that the massacre of Armenians was a matter for historians, not legislators, to decide.

The American Jewish community has insisted, and rightly so, that the U.S. Congress, the United Nations and other governmental bodies formally commemorate the Holocaust. Why should Jews not insist on the same in this case, especially given the widespread scholarly consensus that what happened to the Armenians from 1915 to 1923 was genocide? After all, the man who coined the term "genocide" to refer to the Holocaust — the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin — cited the Armenian massacres as a precedent.

The unfortunate and well-known answer to the question is that Turkey has fiercely opposed efforts to call the Armenian massacres "genocide." Moreover, it has asked its friends to help beat back the attempts at historical recognition.

Jewish opposition to recognizing the Armenian genocide comes mainly from a desire to safeguard the important strategic relationship between Turkey and Israel. Alone among the world's Muslim nations, Turkey has forged close military, political and economic ties with Israel. In addition, Jews remember with a deep sense of gratitude that Turkey served as an important haven for their forebears fleeing persecution, from the time of the Spanish Expulsion in 1492 to the dark days of Nazism and beyond. And it is not just that Turkey has been kind to Israel and the Jews. It is a critically important U.S. ally in a dangerous region racked by religious extremism.

Nobody is suggesting that Jews forget Turkey's historic friendship. But it is a mistake for Jews — or, for that matter, anyone — to surrender the moral imperative of condemning genocide in the hopes of avoiding a perceived, but by no means necessary, strategic loss. Similarly, it would be a mistake for Turkey to hinge its own strategic interests on the denial of past criminal acts. Coming to terms with the past, as democratic Germany has done in the aftermath of the Holocaust and South Africa in the wake of apartheid, is the best path to political legitimacy.

Turkey, a trusted ally and friend of the Jews and the United States, must come to terms with its past for its own sake. It is that battle that leading Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and martyred Armenian activist Hrant Dink, have been waging so nobly. We should do all in our power to strengthen the hands of these figures and avoid the abyss of historical revisionism.

Sixty years (and millions of historical documents) later, the world still has to contend with those who deny the Holocaust. We need only recall the shocking words and deeds of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on this score.

In response to such denials, all decent-minded people, and Jews in particular, must continue to declare loudly "never again" — not only to future genocides but also to the attempted denial of past genocides, regardless of who the perpetrators or victims are.

A portrait of a politician: Deniz Baykal

MEHMET KAMIS; Zaman Gazetesi

After the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup, all political parties in Turkey, including the Republican People’s Party (CHP) were banned. It was 12 years later that Deniz Baykal, a former member of the Social Democrat People’s Party (SHP) and his friends re-established the party. The group decided they would set up the CHP with a new motto. On Sept. 9, 1992 Baykal told the nation that his party would embrace the teens in clubs and bars as well as the teens in Islamic vocational schools, the imam-hatip high schools, “Those with mini skirts and those with headscarves are both our children,” Baykal said. Then in 1993 Baykal visited Bosnia and distributed headscarves as a symbol of virtue and innocence. This act prompted a different view of the CHP as a leader in the country. The illusion was that Turkey had finally understood its realities and Baykal would lead the CHP with a completely new vision. Baykal’s promises were very disturbing for the status quo that refused change and wanted the policies of the ‘30s and ‘40s to return. Would Baykal become the arbitrator between the nation and the government? The leader of the other left wing party, the Democratic Left Party (DSP), Bülent Ecevit, was advocating laicism that respected religion. Since the public supported Ecevit’s idea, Baykal had envisioned adopting a similar stance. But after Baykal became the CHP’s leader, he failed to continue that line of thought. It was criticism from extreme laics such as Türkan Saylan that prevented Baykal from adopting or promoting any policy that would threaten the status quo. After Baykal became deputy prime minister, in 1995 he revealed a shocking report on imam-hatip high schools and the headscarf. The report promoted former policies and had no suggestion for improvement. It contained the words of an old CHP that had not changed in the least. Everything had returned to the past…

The CHP’s stance during the Feb. 28 process was even more frustrating because Baykal had become a completely different person. He was ill-tempered, harsh and provocative. There was no sign of the Baykal that only a few years ago had promoted a laic regime respectful of religion. In a battle with the Welfare Party (RP), Baykal offended a wide religious class in Turkey. But the CHP leader paid the price for his attitude at the polls. CHP failed to meet the election threshold and did not win any seats in Parliament. Shortly afterwards, Baykal resigned.

He returned to the spotlight in 2001. A new start as a new man, Baykal began the term with a quote from Sheikh Edebali. Realizing that his stance during the Feb. 28 coup had harmed Turkey and its public, Baykal decided to reconcile with the public through Edebali. Referring to Edebali, Baykal emphasized the need for a laicism that respected religious values. He defended that peace between the public and the government would be maintained only if spiritual and religious values were respected. The public showed their appreciation and rewarded Baykal for his words at the 2002 elections.

And now today it seems Baykal has lost his balance once again, owing to the tense atmosphere of the presidential election. The Baykal today is a leader that complains about politics to other institutions and does not honor the decisions of the Parliament. He is a militarist and statist politician that places the concerns of a certain group before everyone else’s.

During crises Baykal forgets the words he has spoken. He is like a man who becomes a werewolf at night. He does not care about preventing a crisis, calling for moderation, finding a balance or defending liberty. He becomes more laic then the laic elite and more militarist then the military elite. While his words offend most of the society, in particular those that respect religion, he has lost the opportunity to become a mediator between the public and the regime.

Today there are debates in the political arena on whether the CHP should be banned from Socialist International because it has almost no signs of a socialist democratic party. It is simply a laic party. It is unfortunate because Baykal could have been remembered as an inspirational leader. What Turkey needs is a true social democrat leader, not a spokesman for laicism…

You cannot have democracy without secularism, or secularism without democracy

Mehmet Y. Yilmaz: Hürriyet Gazetesi


A declaration from the military in Turkey is not a situation which should be counted as very ordinary in our nation! Our Constitution defines the groundwork for where the military can, if necessary, make its views clear in relation to problems the country may be having: the National Security Council (MGK). That's why it's there.

So, if there are developments occuring in Turkey which elicit warnings from the military, the place to do it is at the MGK, not in the public eye.

On the other hand, the 2nd article of the Turkish Constitution defines the Turkish Republic wjth characteristics like "democratic, secular, and a state of social justice."

And the 4th article then goes on to stress that these characteristics are "unchangeable and not open to proposals of change."

But it is not an acceptable stance that in defending one of the above characteristics, one of the others could be discounted. Just as the Turkish Republic's "secular" character is crucial, its "democratic" character is also just as important. And institutions who are charged with defending the order defined by our Constitution cannot prioritize these chacteristics according to whim.

Of course, the AKP's actions in relation to the presidential process cannot be ignored in so far as the damage they inflicted on the principle of secularity. But while saying "I will protect secularity," the path is not to push democracy to one side.

Those who really love Turkey will make it clear that they understand both sides of this matter, and that just as you cannot have democracy without secularism, you also cannot have secularism without democracy.