TRKNWS-L Turkish Press Review (May 5, 1995)

From: hristu@arcadia.harvard.edu (Dimitrios Hristu)

Subject: TRKNWS-L Turkish Press Review (May 5, 1995)

CONTENTS

  • [01] CILLER ATTENDING MOSCOW "SUMMIT"

  • [02] ANKARA PROTESTS WESTERN THRACE ATTACK

  • [03] US SEEKING CYPRUS SOLUTION

  • [04] PKK BURNS SHOPS: THREE DEAD

  • [05] FOUR WEIGHTLIFTING GOLDS

  • [06] IRAN PLEASED WITH TURKEY ON EMBARGO

  • [07] TURKEY REPORTS $582 MILLION CURRENT ACCOUNT SURPLUS

  • [08] OSCE DELEGATION MEETS GOVERNOR OF STATE OF EMERGENCY

  • [09] N.Y. TURKISH WEEK TO START NEXT WEEK

  • [10] INAL BATU CRITICIZES UN ON BOSNIA

  • [11] RECORD HIGH IN FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES

  • [12] PKK AND POLICE CLASH IN HAMBOURG

  • [13] GOODWILL PROTOCOL SIGNED WITH RUSSIAN JOURNALISTS

    •

    WITH THE COMPLIMENT OF

    DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION

    TURKISH PRESS REVIEW

    MAY 5, 1995

    Summary of the political and economic news in the Turkish

    press this morning.

    [01] CILLER ATTENDING MOSCOW "SUMMIT"

    Prime Minister Tansu Ciller will hold a summit meeting in Moscow in order to renew Turkish- Russian relations which have become tense following the Russian occupation of Chechnya. Flying to Moscow on Monday, Ciller will hold talks with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and will convey four important messages to them. Ciller will mention issues regarding the joint establishment of natural gas and petrol pipelines which will transport Kazakh oil over Turkey to the Mediterranean. Another issue involves sending an OSCE (Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe) peace force including Turkey to the Azeri region in order to bring about a lasting peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Ciller will also talk about Eximbank credit worth $350 million which was promised to Russia by Turkey and later blocked because of the Chechnya problem. In this connection Ciller will propose solutions to the Chechnya problem to the Russian leaders. Ciller will also meet with German Prime Minister Helmut Kohl and US President Bill Clinton whom she met two weeks ago in Washington, at reception to be given to presidents and prime ministers in the Kremlin on Tuesday evening. Ciller will return home on 9 May. /Hurriyet/

    [02] ANKARA PROTESTS WESTERN THRACE ATTACK

    Ankara has protested in the strongest possible terms the attack against State Minister and Government Spokesman Yildirim Aktuna during his visit to Western Thrace.

    Top government officials have condemned the attack, and President Demirel has described the Greek violence as "thought provoking" in connection with Turkey-Greek relations which have now plunged to a serious low.

    State Minister Aktuna said in a press meeting yesterday that the violent demonstration against the visiting Turkish delegation led by Aktuna was carried with PKK cooperation. He said too that he would be taking legal action against Greek newspapers that had vilified him and Turkish efforts to restore relations with Greece.

    Officials and others confirm that relations with Greece are moving into crisis. Reports say that the attack, during which Aktuna was pushed and shoved to the ground, came as a result of the deep and damaging complexes the Greeks have about Turkey. Describing the attack as "planned provocation" officials said yesterday that Greece was continuing with a strategy designed to incite bad feeling between Greece and Turkey and damage what remaining ties there were.

    Aktuna wound up his press conference by saying that what the demonstrators had done was "against the principles of human rights."

    Turkey protested to Greece at midnight on Wednesday over the attacks on Government Spokesman Yildirim Aktuna during his visit to Salonika. Greek Ambassador Dimitrios Nezeritis, who has just been appointed to Ankara, was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry in the early hours of Thursday morning. Foreign Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Tugay Ulucevik said he had protested against the attack on Aktuna. A similar protest was made in Greece, by the Turkish Ambassador in Athens. "We want the aggressors to be found as quickly as possible. An investigation should be conducted and the people responsible should be brought before the courts" Ulucevik said. Following the note of protest, a Turkish Cabinet statement was made on the issue, condemning the Greek attitude. "This is an ugliness not even seen between countries at war" said State Minister Abdulbaki Atac, who read the statement instead of Aktuna, adding: "It is impossible to understand how the Greek authorities could remain passive during the incident. This is in no way compatible with hospitality" Atac said. Deputy Prime Minister Hikmet Cetin told reporters he blamed the local police for negligence during the attack by a crowd of about 400 Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and Cypriots.

    Aktuna suffered injuries to his legs and arms when the angry crowd hurled rocks, lighters, eggs, lemons and other items at him and his entourage in Salonika. /All papers/

    [03] US SEEKING CYPRUS SOLUTION

    Clinton administration special envoy to Cyprus, Richard Beattie declared in New York yesterday that during the next six months he would be more deeply involved in the Cyprus issue.

    United Nations (UN) diplomats added that US proposals could involve a meeting between Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus President Denktas and Greek Community leader Clerides. Both the UN and US officials have pointed out that after the elections in the Turkish side, an "active" period had begun between the two communities.

    It is expected that UN special envoy to Cyprus, Joe Clark will soon arrive in New York to meet with UN Secretary-General Ghali. /Sabah/

    [04] PKK BURNS SHOPS: THREE DEAD

    During an illegal demonstration in the Istanbul suburb of Kucukcekmece, supporters of the PKK terrorist organization fire-bombed a number of shops in the district. Three people died in the fires, including one child.

    In the general panic following the fire bomb attack, another twenty people were wounded. The attackers vanished into side streets in the con- fusion. Local people have condemned the attacks and security forces are trying to track down the reported fifteen or so PKK terrorists believed to have been behind the attacks. /All papers/

    [05] FOUR WEIGHTLIFTING GOLDS

    Turkish weightlifters have won four more gold medals in the Warsaw Weightlifting Championships. World champion Naim Suleymanoglu added to his collection and Fedail Guler broke another world record by winning three golds. /Cumhuriyet/

    [06] IRAN PLEASED WITH TURKEY ON EMBARGO

    Iran expressed its satisfaction yesterday with Turkey's stance against the US trade and investment embargo on Iran. Iranian Oil Minister Gulam Riza Agazade said in a press conference yesterday that he had learned about Turkey's views on the embargo from President Suleyman Demirel during their meeting on Tuesday. Demirel had said that a confrontation with Iran would be against Turkey's interests. Agazade noted that his visit to Turkey had led to very positive results. "We will export four million tonnes of crude oil to Turkey this year. It was three million tonnes last year. Also we came to a conclusion on the issue of providing natural gas to Turkey. We will export two billion cubic metres of gas annually to Turkey from 1998 on. This amount will eventually rise to 10 billion cubic metres in 2002. In six months, all technical details will be decided" he said. Talking about the US measures, Agazade said: "I think this rash decision was taken in consideration of domestic politics. US President Bill Clinton's advisers proposed this move without assessing it properly. It is not possible to exclude the world's second largest oil exporter from the international oil market. Oil is an important commodity and the world economy depends on it. Playing with oil does not give any results. That's why the US initiative was not welcomed by the international community" Agazade concluded. /Hurriyet/

    [07] TURKEY REPORTS $582 MILLION CURRENT ACCOUNT SURPLUS

    Turkey has reported a $582 million surplus in its current account for the first two months of the year, official figures revealed yesterday. The Central Bank (CB) announced that the current account balance improved sharply from a deficit of $671 million in the first couple of months of last year to a $582 million surplus this year, a rise of 186.7 %. The CB said the Turkish foreign trade deficit in the Jnauary-February period dropped by 14.4 % from last year's $1.238 billion to $1.068 billion this year. It said Turkey's imports and exports in the first two months of the year were $4.215 billion and $3.155 billion respectively. Gold imports fell from $80 million in the same period of last year to $48 million.

    [08] OSCE DELEGATION MEETS GOVERNOR OF STATE OF EMERGENCY

    A 14-person delegation from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) yesterday visited Governor of State of Emergency Unal Erkan at his office in Diyarbakir. The delegation, which arrived in Turkey last Monday, is paying a one-week visit on the invitation of Parliament Speaker Husamettin Cindoruk. During his meeting with the OSCE delegation led by Willy Wimmer, the deputy president of the OSCE Parliamentarians' Assembly, Erkan said Turkey was determined to fight terrorism and that it would continue the struggle until the problem was solved. Erkan said that since 1984, a total of 4,025 people, including 452 women and 450 children, had been killed in massacres carried out by the PKK and 4,471 civilians had been injured. There was documented proof that these attacks were the work of the PKK. Erkan continued by saying that within the past decade, a total of 8,512 separatist terrorists had been killed in the clashes between the security forces and the PKK and that 194 terrorists had been injured and 1,787 arrested. He noted that 1,154 terrorists had turned themselves in to the security forces. In reply to a question, Erkan said that no one in Turkey had ever been put on trial just because of their Kurdish origin. He stressed that terrorism was being used as a tool by the PKK to divide Turkey. He said while the PKK argued that it represented the Kurds, it had in fact killed 5,000 people of Kurdish origin. He recalled that the PKK had camps in Syria, that it took shelter in Iran and in northern Iraq, that it had opened bureaus in Greece, that it had founded a so-called "parliament-in-exile" in Holland and that it extorted money from people in Germany. Erkan said mere statements made by the West were not sufficient and that sanctions should be applied against Syria for allowing the PKK to set up camps, and that arms sources should be cut off. He added that in order to prevent the PKK from making advantage of the power vacuum in N.Iraq, Iraq's territorial integrity should be respected. /All papers/

    [09] N.Y. TURKISH WEEK TO START NEXT WEEK

    The traditional Turkish Day Parade and Turkish Week celebrated every year in New York will include Anatolian, Azeri, Balkan, Karachai, Kazakh, Crimean, Cypriot and Turkmenistan Turks this year between May 12-22, the Anatolia news agency reported. Some 20,000 people are expected to participate in the walk on Madison Avenue on Saturday.

    [10] INAL BATU CRITICIZES UN ON BOSNIA

    Ambassador Inal Batu, Turkish Permanent Representative at the UN, has said that "The UN, which was founded with the aim of defending human rights and international law" treats the aggressor and the victim in Bosnia in the same way" the Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. Batu stated that a peace agreement based on this attitude could never be a just and permanent one.

    [11] RECORD HIGH IN FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES

    The Central Bank's (CB) foreign exchange reserves have reached $12.3 billion, the highest level ever, the Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. According to the April figures of the CB, the reserves, which stood at $11.29 billion on March 31, climbed to a record high of $11.73 billion on April 7 and finally reached $12.3 billion on April 28.

    [12] PKK AND POLICE CLASH IN HAMBOURG

    Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) supporters and police clashed yesterday in Hambourg, Germany. During the clashes eight police officials were wounded and 51 PKK supporters were arrested.

    PKK supporters demonstrated in front of the British Embassy in Hambourg to protest a meeting in Britain to discuss a German request for the extradition of European PKK representative, Kani Yilmaz, who is still under arrest in England. PKK supporters also demonstrated in Athens for the release of Kani Yilmaz. /Hurriyet/

    [13] GOODWILL PROTOCOL SIGNED WITH RUSSIAN JOURNALISTS

    A goodwill and cooperation protocol between the Turkish Journalists' Association and the Russian Journalists' Union was signed during a ceremony yesterday in the Sepetciler Pavillion by Turkish Journalists' Association Chairman Nail Gureli and member of the Board of Directors and Deputy Chairman of the Russian Journalists' Union, Dimitri Denisov. Gureli gave a speech in the ceremony and said that the press had great importance in the age of communications and information. He stressed that "Freedom of the press is the guarantee of democracies. Everyone who believes in democracy must support the freedom of the press". Gureli added that the cooperation protocol would be beneficial for the Turkish and Russian press. Denisov also said that the visit which was the first contact of its kind, would be constructive. Denisov noted that the information exchange in the protocol would play a very important part in the developing freedom of the press in Russia. /Hurriyet/

    END

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