The Politics of Water

Graphic from Alyson Hunt/NPR (Source: United Nations Environmental Program)

Drought conditions in Syria, Iraq, and southeastern Turkey continue to create water refugees out of the hundreds of thousands of people in the region who depend on the flow of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers to maintain their agricultural existence. As National Public Radio reporter Deborah Amos explores in a two-part series, the water crisis results not only from climate/weather conditions, but also Turkey's control of the headwaters of the two rivers and all three countries' mis-management/waste of the supply. In September, Turkey promised to release more than 400 cubic meters of water per second following complaints from Iraqi officials that the supply was fluctuating to at times less than 200 cubic meters per second. Yigal Schleifer covered the water dispute on his blog, Istanbul Calling, last September.

Strange Fruit

PHOTO from Radikal

Two recent mob attacks, one on leftist students in Edirne thought to be PKK supporters and the other on Roma in the Selendi district of Manisa, have again put the question of lynchings front and center. In both cases there are plenty of questions about the police response, accusations arising that the police did little to nothing to curb the violence. According to Bianet, the Dec. 27 Edirne attacks sparked a second wave of protests on the same street on Jan. 3, as well as in Erzincan and Kars. For a video of the Edirne attacks, click here.

Jenny White has an excellent post documenting recent lynch attacks, tieing the Edirne and Manisa mobs to a greater lynching phenomenon. Both lynchings were sparked by the same rising racial-based nationalism that I have written about here before (see, for example, June 26,2008 post), but the increased frequency, and possibly, organization, of these attacks should be cause for concern. In November, convoys of DTP politicians in the cities of Izmir and Canakkale were also attacked by mobs.


UPDATE I (1/15) -- The MHP mayor of the Selendi district in Manisa visited neighboring Gördes district, where up to 76 displaced Roma were re-located, and asked them to return. Some have accused the mayor of refusing to adequately respond to the attack and/or helping to foment it. Any other details as to just how the mayor did the latter are appreciated.

TEKEL Protests Continue

Workers of TEKEL, the former government alcohol/tobacco monopoly, have continued to organize protests in Ankara and Istanbul with the cooperation of the Turkish Worker Syndicates Confederation (Turk-Is). The workers are protesting changes to their employment status as a result of TEKEL's privitization, as well as layoffs. For an account of the labor dispute, click here. On Friday, police detained 42 TEKEL workers following protests in front of the AKP's Ankara headquarters.


UPDATE I (1/23) -- TEKEL workers are now going on hunger strike to protest their being assigned temporary worker status, effectively denying them employment rights they had held previously before the government shutdown the factories in which they previously worked with full rights before the government moved to privatize TEKEL. Bianet reports that 40 workers have joined the hunger strike, and that five of them have been hospitalized. On Thursday, Turk-Is declared it would organize a general strike if the government does not respond to TEKEL's demands by Jan. 26.

Hayirsevener Murder Draws Calls from OSCE, IPI

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the International Press Institute called on Turkey to do more to protect journalists following the murder of Cihan Hayirsevener, who was shot in Bandirma while investigating a local corruption scandal. Police have arrested three people. It is suspected that the killing was committed by organized crime.


UPDATE I (1/15) -- Bianet has more details about the murder of Hayirsevener.

Erdogan and the Press

Perihan Magden
PHOTO from the ESI's Rumeli Observer

From Bianet, in a tone most sarcastic:

The court of Appeals approved a decision of a local court concerning the case on compensation fines to be paid to the Erdoğan family. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had filed a complaint about Radikal newspaper journalist Perihan Mağden, his wife Emine Erdoğan had complained about Tempo magazine journalist Cemal Subaşı.

The Court of Appeals 4th Law Office rejected the appeal and approved the decision as "licit and corresponding to the procedure".

The Erdoğan family will receive a total of 10,000 TL (€ 4,500) from both cases. In a speech at the US American John Hopkins University on 7 December Erdoğan said the following about press freedom in Turkey: "The press freedom in our country is so advanced that there are all sorts of freedoms up to very heavy criticism of the president, the prime minister and our families. The press in Turkey is much freer than the press in the USA".

The prime minister has brought multiple lawsuits in recent years against individuals he sees as unduly critical or insulting. Past cases have involved taking a cartoonist to court for portraying him as a caveman, as well as a group of high school students shouting slogans at a protest rally. The prime minister has also been accused of using the government to force the break up of media that takes critical positions against his government, most notably the government's recent imposition of tax fines on the Dogan Media Group. Radikal is a Dogan paper. (See this article by Karen Krüger from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, translated thanks to Qantara), as well as Sedat Ergin's Dec. 8 op/ed in Hürriyet.

For more on Magden, one of Turkey's more controversial journalists, see the European Stability Initiative's Gerald Knaus interview with her in August 2008. The interview appeared in the ESI's Rumeli Observer.


UPDATE I (1/16) -- Bianet's Erol Onderoglu reflects on Erdogan's recent lauding of the Turkish press' reportage of this week's diplomatic crisis. In short, Onderoglu asks, why is Erdogan lauding and condemning the press at all? Is this kind of criticism appropriate from the government? And, just how harmful is it?

Americans should actually be asking themselves similar questions in response to the Obama Administration's recent criticisms of Fox News.

And, on the topic of Erdogan filing suit against critics, I would suggest reading Bulent's comment on the perceived need to legally protect people from being insulted. As long as this need is perceived by Turkish citizens, government -- at least to the extent that the courts hears insult cases, and Turkish legislators create law enabling such cases -- there is little chance of te government not intervening. Is there a need to protect private citizens from public insults? And, what about government officials? Again, these are questions for Turkish citizens, the problem here being much more complicated than merely repealing repressive government laws.

The Politics of Engagement

Dr. Berna Turam discusses "Muslim Politics, Secular Predicaments, and State Transformation" at the 15th Annual Campagna-Kerven Lecture on Modern Turkey at Boston University on Nov. 4. Turam is the author of Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement. The talk is a nice summation of the book with a good number of additional insights given recent events. Thanks to Jenny White at Kamil Pasha.

Alleged Intimidation of Iranian Refugees a Potential Problem for Turkey

Some Iranian political dissidents seeking asylum after Iran's contested presidential elections in July continue to assert that they are not receiving adequate police protection inside Turkey. While much has been made of Turkey's ever closer relationship with the largly de-legitimized Iranian regime, it is claims like these, especially when combined with continued political repression and dissent in Iran, that risk a public relations nightmare for Turkey along the lines of that the country faced this past November when it refused to disallow Sudanese president and genocidaire Omar al-Bashir from attending the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) meeting. The Guardian's Robert Tait writes

Some Iranians have expressed doubts about the protection given to them by police in Turkey. Two men in a small town in central Turkey said police threatened to hand them over to the Iranian authorities. Others say Turkish police have warned them to keep quiet about the threats they have received from Iranian agents.

The intimidation campaign comes after a senior revolutionary guard commander, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, told the hardline Keyhan newspaper that foreign-based supporters of the opposition green movement would be targeted as "extensions of a soft coup".

"So far, a large number of the infantry of the enemy has been identified," he said. "The Islamic Republic will not allow the extensions of a soft coup to act on further sedition and if necessary, the government will make them face serious challenges."

Iranians do not need visa requirement to enter Turkey, meaning it would be easy in theory for Iran's state agents to operate clandestinely within Turkey's borders. Western diplomats have privately voiced concerns about the security of Iranian refugees from the election upheaval.

However, Metin Corabatir, external affairs officer with the UN's high commission for refugees, insisted they were safe in Turkey. "The Iranians are under the protection of the Turkish state and Turkey is a secure country," he said. "If there are some high profile people, extra measures are taken to ensure they are protected. But we know of no incident and there is no threat to these people."

While the UNHCR has maintained the asylum seekers are safe in Turkey, the United States has intervened in at least one case involving the alleged assault of a woman who has been particularly vocal in her complaints about continued intimidation by Iranian authorities, pressing the UNHCR to speed up the woman's application for asylum so she can seek refuge in another country.

Turkey was among the first, if not the first, country to congratulate Iranian President Ahmadinejad on his disputed election victory this past July. While it could well be argued that Turkey did not want to make an enemy of the Iranian regime by criticizing the election, the Turkish government broke its diplomatic silence after the phone call when Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu described the election as "dynamic and well-attended," calling on dissidents to succumb to the result while refraining to comment on the human rights violations that caused other governments to raise concern. In October, Prime Minister Erdogan again decided not to comment on continued human rights violations in Iran, critcizing NATO policy toward Iran's nuclear pursuits as failing to take into account Iran's need to develop critical infastructure while calling the country a "friend" with which it has had no difficulties.

While these strategic choices might be well-grounded, continued dissent in Iran, such as that which occurred during Ashura festivities on Dec. 27, does not bode well for Turkey, nor does any harrassment of Iranian political exiles seeking refuge within its borders.

Kurdish Openings and Closings

Largely seen as a dove within the DTP, its leader Ahmet Turk was one of two parliamentarians to be banned from participating in politics for five years. PHOTO from Milliyet

The recent decision by Turkey's Constitutional Court to close the Democratic and Society Party (DTP), Turkey's primary Kurdish political party, will make the government's recent initiative to provide more rights and economic opportunities for the country's Kurdish minority all the more difficult. Not only this, but the decision will play directly into the hands of the terrorist Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK), which will, of course, use the Court's finding as evidence that the Turkish state has little interest in having Kurds represented in Turkey's parliament or dealing with them on an equal basis. The DTP had 21 seats in Turkey's parliament, and performed quite well in municipal elections held on March 29. While not representing all of Turkey's Kurds, there is little question that the party is a powerful force and could have been a hugely potential ally for the AKP-led government's effort to "open" Turkish society to greater Kurdish political participation and rights protections.

The Court's decision was announced on Dec. 11, and effectively not only closed the DTP, but banned 37 of its members from participating in politics for five years. Most important of these 37 are parliamentatians Ahmet Turk, the party's leader, Aysel Tugluk, both largely considered moderates in their party. Interestingly, the Court's decision did not ban some DTP members who have adopted a harder line against the government's initiatives and have made less of an effort to make gestures toward peace and reconciliation. After the decision, the Court's head, Hasan Kiliç, said the DTP had become "a focal point of activities against the state's unity." As Amnesty International reports, Kiliç also said the DTP was at odds with the "independence of the state, its indivisible integrity within its territory and nation."

The indictment that initiated the case against the DTP was filed in November 2007 by the same prosecutor who filed against the AKP the following March. Legal scholars have criticized the evidence presented in both indictments as shaky and not meeting international standards. Turkey's Law on Political Parties easily allows parties to be closed, and thus closures have become commonplace in Turkey's political terrain.

However, since the adoption of Article 90 into the Turkish constitution in 2004, which stipulates that the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms trumps national law, legal scholars like Ergun Ozbudun have insisted that the Consitutional Court must follow European standards despite the fact that it has yet to amend its Law on Political Parties. Amendment of this law has has long been requested by the European Union (EU) and human rights groups, and the AKP pledged to make the legislation a priority after its own near closure experience last year. Amending the Law on Political Parties is essential to Turkey meeting the Copenhagen political criteria for EU acccession. Recently, Ria Oomen-Ruijten, the EU parliament's rapporteur charged with reporting Turkey's progress toward accession, pointed to Turkey's failure to change its party law during a discussion about the DTP closure case.

The Venice Criteria

Significantly, the Court's verdict followed its rapporteur's decision that the DTP had strong enough ties to the PKK to consider it deserving of closure under the Venice Commission's criteria for party closure. The Venice Commission, formally the European Commission for Democracy Through Law, is an advisory organ of the Council of Europe set up to legally advise European democracies of proper legal procedure. Under the Commission's Guidelines on Prohibition and Dissolution of Political Parties and Analogues Measures, it is legally appropriate to close "parties which advocate the use of violence or use violence as a political means to overthrow the democratic constitutional order, thereby undermining the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution." Whether the DTP had in fact done either is contested, the question of fact likely to eventually go before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). However, as a note, undermining the perceived unity of the Turkish state or calling for autonomy does not in itself meet the Venice Criteria and so the Constitutional Court's final judgement will make an interesting read. For DTP's part, its leaders have repeatedly denied having "organic ties" to the PKK, which the ECHR used in June to uphold the Spanish government's closure of Batasuna, a Basque party affiliated with ETA. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International agree that the Venice Criteria cannot be applied to the case of DTP. A broad swath of human rights groups in Turkey have also widely condemned the ruling, including the Human Rights Association (IHD). However, many of those who thought the DTP's closure might well be justified under the Venice Criteria were opposed to it since the politial impact will indeed be great. (For one example, see Ihsan Dagi's column from last year.)

Aftermath

After the closure case, protests broke out throughout the Kurdish southeast, as well as in Istanbul and Ankara. From Jurgen Gottschlich:

Thousands of angry demonstrators fought bloody street battles with the police and gendarmes. In Hakkari, Van and Diyarbakir Kurdish youths barricaded off whole districts and held prolonged skirmishes with the police.

On Saturday 12 December businesses in all Kurdish cities remained closed in protest against the ban. For some time there has been talk of a Kurdish intifada.

. . . .

The PKK has meanwhile declared that with the constitutional court's decision, dialogue can definitively be said to have failed. The PKK prisoners said that state, media, military, police and judiciary had shown their racist, colonialist faces.

The prisoners have announced a hunger strike and called on the population to show "resistance on the streets". With the attack on a military vehicle last week, for which the PKK claimed responsibility just a few hours before the constitutional court's judgement last Friday and in which seven soldiers were killed, the mood was already tense.

These protests succeeded a an earlier round sparked by reports on the prison conditions of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The earlier round led to a 23-year-old university student shot in the back by police. The PKK is already using the closure case to mobilize more street protests, and it is likely PKK attacks will escalate as the group reorganizes and finds its bearings post-DTP. Indeed, political analyst Mehmet Ali Birand wrote before the closure case that many in the PKK were desperately hoping that DTP would be shut down since "the PKK is fed up with difference in opinion within the DTP and is looking for a new party and members that will strictly obey."

Pressed by Turkey's recent retrenchment with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and fears that the government's Kurdish initiative might actually turn out to be successful, the PKK is now likely to experience an increase in new recruits, and perhaps, greater sympathy with Kurdish leaders in the KRG who have previously denounced PKK violence and sworn to crack down on the terrorist organization.

The Closing of the Kurdish Opening?

With increased hostilities and the likelihood of more PKK attacks akin to the PKK shooting of 7 Turkish soldiers in Tokat earlier this month, the AKP is likely to find the political atmosphere for reform more difficult. While the AKP has stated its opposition to the closure case, calling it a regrettable development and having Interior Minister Besir Atalay meet with Turk, it has not taken a strong line nor does it plan to push for political parties reform any time in the near future -- both gestures that would strengthen its legitimacy with Kurds.

Prime Minister Erdogan has been particularly critical of the DTP since he announced his initiative in July. Erdogan's announcement followed Ocalan's declaration that he was drawing up a roadmap for peace to be released Aug. 15. Erdogan beat Ocalan to the process, and Ocalan's roadmap ended up not being released, falling instead into the hands of an Istanbul prosecutor. Erdogan's criticism of DTP was particularly virulent following DTP-planned celebrations surrounding the rather bizarrely planned surrender of 26 fighters entering Turkey from Northern Iraq as "peace messengers." The prime minister will no doubt find more difficulties following the removal of moderate figures like Turk. In June, speaking ahead of the announced initiative, Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertugrul Gunay declared Turk to be the most important person for peace in Turkey.

Kurdish Politics

As to the future of DTP, after announcing that the 19 remaining MPs would resign from parliament, the party has reversed its decision and plans to join the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), established shortly after the closure case was opened in November 2007. In order to form a parliamentary group, independent MP Ufak Uras will likely join the party to meet the threshold of 20 MPs required to do so. Ironically, more hardline Selahattin Demirtas and Emine Ayna are now among the contending figures to be elected as chairs of the new party.

DTP is the fourth Kurdish party to be closed in Turkey. For a basic accounting, see Ayse Karabat's reporting on party reorganization efforts after the March elections. For more understanding of developments and rivalries within the party, see past posts, especially Aug. 12, 2008 and July 22, 2008, as well as Ayse Karabat's reporting on an open conference DTP held this past July when both the government and Ocalan were talking about reforms, the peace process, and potential amnesty for PKK fighters. After it became clear that the AKP would not push amnesty for PKK fighters as part of the peace process, the DTP became particularly insistent on the point, as well as on Ocalan's release, and moderate voices in the party were drowned out.

In the past, figures like Turk had treaded a middle line, frequently denouncing violence as a legitimate strategy (as he did this past May following a mine blast that killed 6 Turkish soldiers) and praising government intiatives like the Ergenekon investigation and limited cultural rights reforms. In recent months, though, even Turk has become harder line. At Newroz festivities in March, he compared Ocalan to Nelson Mandela and stood by as more militant Leyla Zana -- who is not a member of DTP, but was among the 37 politicians banned by the court (she is actually serving a prison sentence at the moment) -- insisted disarmament be a final step in the peace process, some might argue thus tacitly legitimizing violence. He has also recently insisted that the Kurdish problem will not be solved until Ocalan is released. However, Turk's constituency must also be kept in mind, and him urging for Ocalan's release and saying it is necessary for peace in no way means he supports PKK violence.

Many politicians and intellectuals in Turkey have long argued that Turkey's peace process is contingent on negotiating with the PKK, following examples of negotiations with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) in Northern Ireland and, recently, the Spanish government's negotiations with ETA after the group declared a permanent ceasefire in 2006 (though ETA's ceasefire was broken nine months later and negotiations ended).

FYI -- For a nice briefing and short analysis of the AKP's recent initiative, see former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Mort Abramowitz and Kurdish expert Henri Barkey's recent article, "Turkey's Transformers," in the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs.

Will the Chinese Fund Ilisu?

PHOTOS of Hasankeyf, which the dam would destroy, from the Atlantic.

Yigal Schliefer at Istanbul Calling has posted a stirring report by Peter Bosshard, policy director at International Rivers, an NGO in California, on possible Chinese funding for the Ilisu damn project in the southeast. I wrote an extensive post on the troubled development project and the politics surrounding it back in July (see July 26 post). From Bosshard:

Turkey is so indebted it cannot finance the dam from its own resources. Reliable sources have told us that the Turkish government is currently discussing support for the Ilisu Dam with China. For years, the Turkish and Chinese governments have strongly disagreed over the treatment of the Uighur population, which is ethnically Turkic, in China’s Xinjiang Province. Yet in June 2009, Turkey’s President visited China and signed several cooperation agreements, including in the energy sector.

Under a plan which is currently being discussed, Andritz Hydro, the main contractor for the Ilisu hydropower project, would manufacture the turbines for the project in China rather than in Austria. Sinosure, an insurance company set up and owned by the Chinese government, would insure the bank loans for the contract. In a new twist in its emerging role, China would thus not enable its own dam builders to go abroad, but would underwrite the exports of Western dam builders which have shifted part of their manufacturing base to China.

For Bosshard's full report, click here.

Row Over HSYK Reveals Institutional Weaknesses

The intersection of politics and the judiciary is difficult for many countries, but has been partiuclarly problematic for Turkey. Among one of the many thorny issues pertaining to Turkey's judicial system is its appointment of judges and prosecutors through the High Council of Prosecutors and Judges (HSYK). The HSYK appoints all judges and prosecutors, and usually a list of appointments is announced each June. However, the ongoing Ergenekon investigation, as well as investigations into war crimes committed by the Turkish gendarmerie (the military police force) have brought increased importance to the appointment process. Last week, HSYK member Ali Suat Ertosun sparked a firestorm of controversy when he indicated that prosecutors involved in the Ergenekon investigation of crimes committed by individuals alleged to be members of Turkey's "deep state" might not be re-nominated. Though there have been justified concerns about the politicization of the investigations, Turkish government officials and civil society groups strongly protested Ertosun's declaration.

Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin and Justice Ministry Undersecretary Ahmet Kahraman also sit on the HSYK, a seven member board established by Article 159 of the constitution. The board is chaired by Ergin, and oversees the appointment, transfer, and dismissal of Turkey's judges and prosecutors as the justice minister. The other five members of the HSYK are nominated by the president, the Supreme Court of Appeals, and the Council of State. (For a summary of Turkey's judicial system, click here.) There have long been concerns about the criteria used to select prosecutors, as well as the Council's representation of the judiciary as a whole. From the EU Commission's report of Turkey's progress toward accession:

Concerns remain about the impartiality of the judiciary. On some occasions senior members of the judiciary made public political comments which may compromise their impartiality in future cases. As regards independence, there has been no progress on the composition of the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors or on the reporting lines of judicial inspectors.

The selection criteria of judges and prosecutors was amended in December 2007, though complaints persist that the criteria are open to subjective interpretation.

Institutional conflict within the Turkish state is often summarized as occuring between the elected executive/legislative branches of the government and the judiciary. The judiciary has long been home to pro-status quo politicians often seen as representative of the Kemalist old guard, and to some extent, the political and legal legacies that came into effect after the 1980 coup. This understanding of institutional conflict was manifested in the AKP closure case of last year when the Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals filed a case to close AKP for violating the constitution and the Law on Political Parties. The power of the judiciary was also on display in April 2007 when the Constitutional Court invalidated the election of President Gül, claiming a two-thirds quorum of 376 PM's was needed to elect the president. The Constitutional Court also has the authority to veto legislation, including the headscarf amendments of last year and law creating an office of ombudsman. The ideological orientation of the judiciary is also evinced by the composition of the Judges and Prosecutors Association (YARSAV).

The appointment of judges and prosectors has always been a polemical process within Turkish politics, especially alongside accusations against AKP for allegedly abusing its executive power to appoint judges and prosecutors sympathetic to what are seen as its Islamic-oriented politics. The Ergenekon investigation has only served to heighten these accusations as many public opinion leaders critical of the party have characterized AKP as using the investigation to destory its political enemies and ensure its dominance over the state. The Ergenekon investigation is being led up by top prosecutor Zekeriya Öz, whose position, alongside other Ergenekon prosecutors, is among those rumored to be in jeopardy. Other prosecutors' whose replacement is rumored appeared on a list published by Bugün:

A Turkish daily released the names of judges and prosecutors Ertosun wished to replace on Monday.

According to the Bugün daily, Ertosun demanded the replacement of Ergenekon prosecutors Zekeriya Öz, Mehmet Ali Pekgüzel and Fikret Seçen.

İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin and Deputy Chief Prosecutor Turan Çolakkadı are also on the HSYK member's list.

Bugün also wrote that Ertosun is not pleased with the head of the Diyarbakır High Criminal Court, Dündar Örsdemir. Örsdemir is well known for his investigations into unsolved murders in the Southeast.

The HSYK member also demanded that Murat Gök, a prosecutor who conducted various probes into criminal organizations in the Aegean city of İzmir, be removed from his position.

Rüstem Eryılmaz and Resul Çakır, the judges who ordered the arrest of Col. Dursun Çiçek -- whose signature was found on a highly disputed action plan against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Gülen movement, are also on Ertosun's list.

Though Çiçek was arrested on suspicion of links to the plot, he was soon released after an appeal by his lawyer.

Ertosun also demanded the replacement of İdris Asan, a judge at the İstanbul 9th High Criminal Court. Asan has ordered the arrests of several Ergenekon suspects.

Alleged HSYK interference in the Ergenekon case was also on display this January when HSYK announced that it would be appointing more prosectors to İstanbul in an effort allegedly designed to stifle the investigation.

In contrast, public opinion leaders on the other side of the political equation have criticized the institutional structure of the HSYK as allowing for too much executive involvement. CHP deputy chair Onur Öymen has said it is impossible for the HSYK to act independently when the Justice Ministry is not only on the council, but chairs it. Many taking this side of the issue have argued for the removal of executive influence over the HSYK, and subject to particular scorn is the rule that the HSYK cannot meet without being called by the justice minister. Criticism of the HSYK's institutional arrangement also includes its lack of an independent secretariat and dependence on the Justice Ministry for its budget.

The release of the list by the HSYK will continue to be delayed until some sort of consensus is reached between Ergin and Ertosun. For newspaper coverage of the deadlock, see these articles from Hürriyet and Today's Zaman, the latter of which levelled insinuations that Ertosun and YARSAV head Ömer Faruk Eminağaoğlu are affiliated with Ergenekon.

Debating larger institutional arguments are two op/ed's recently published in Hürriyet. The first is authored by Rıza Türmen, columnist for Milliyet and former ECHR judge, and the second by Özlem Türköne, an AKP MP and memberof the Turkish delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). While Türmen argues the HSYK should function more independently of the judiciary, Türköne assesses the politicization and establishment bias of the HSYK and the judiciary. The two columnists talk past each other, though both bringing up valid points and arguments for meaningful reform.

Worth looking to is TESEV's 2007 report on the independence of the judiciary. TESEV also recently released a book on people's perceptions of the judiciary (see report in Turkish).

Ilısu Dam Project in for Hard Times Despite Government Plans

PHOTOS of Hasankeyf from the Atlantic

On July 7, the German, Swiss, and Austrian governments announced plans to withdrawal from the Turkey's 1,200 megawatt Ilısu dam, an ambitious engineering project designed to generate 3.8 billion kilowatts/hour of electricity to the country per annum. The dam is part of Turkey's larger Southeast Anatolia Project, commonly referred to as GAP. Plans for GAP date to the 1970s, and the total project is estimate to cost an estimated €32 billion of which the Ilısu project was expected to cost €1.2 billion. From Amnesty International:

In March 2007 the German, Swiss and Austrian governments agreed to support companies from those countries to supply equipment and engineering services for the construction of the Ilısudam. This support was provided through ECAs [export-credit agencies], which arepublic or semi-public institutions thatgrant government-backed loans, guarantees and insurance to domestic companies that seek to do business overseas. Germany's Euler Hermes Kreditversicherungs-AG, Austria's Oesterreichische Kontrollbank Aktiengesellschaft(OEKB) and Switzerland's Swiss Export Risk Insurance(SERV) agreed to disburse a total of 450 million Euros in export risk guarantees.

When the three ECAs granted their support, a committee of independent experts was set up to evaluate and monitor the implementation of an agreement between the governments of Switzerland, Germany and Austria and the Turkish government on the impacts of the dam, including the social and environmental impacts. The agreement required the Turkish government to put in place mitigating measures, adequate compensation and a comprehensive scheme for the resettlement of affected communities. Following repeated breaches of this agreement, the governments of Germany, Switzerland and Austria put the contracts of national companies on hold for 180 days at the end of 2008. On 7 July 2009, when the Turkish government had not met the agreed standards, they decided to withdraw their support to companies involved in the project.

Had the ECA support not been withdrawn,Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as the companies receiving export credit guarantees, would be at risk of complicity in human rights violations and/or profiting from a project involving serious human rights violations.

The holds were ordered on Jan. 6 and the social and evironmental impacts referred to involved the expropriation of land from villagers who live on the proposed site and the failure of the Turkish government to conduct environmental impact assessments adequate to the demands of the ECAs. Since the Turkish government did not meet the 153 funding criteria placed on the project by the German government, Germany suspended funds and Switzerland and Austria followed suit. The German share of the project was €450 million. The funding criteria reflected World Bank environmental and heritage standards.

Ilısu would have been constructed on 300 square kilometers of expropriated land, involved the displacement of some 80 villages (mostly Kurdish) and 55,000 people (though Hürriyet reports it would have displaced 65,00 people), and flooded heritage sites, in particular the village of Hasankeyf, a city dating to Roman times and said to be home of over 20 cultures. The town was destroyed by the Mongols, but rebuilt by Selcuk Turks in the eleventh century. I posted on Hasankeyf in December.

Despite the withdrawal of foreign investment, Turkish Environment and Forestry Minister Veysel Eroğlu has said Turkey will continue to the poject. Particularly disconcerting, Eroğlu chalked opposition of the project up to From the AFP via Hürriyet:

"We have successfully carried out some important work in order to realize the project in accordance with international standards . . . The criticism is untrue. This is the work of foreign powers that do not want Turkey to become a regional power," he added.

An article in TDZ made no reference to Eroğlu's combative remarks, but did note the minister's insistence to carry on with the project for the economic good of the country's east and southeastern regions.

This claim is up to debate and figures into what has long been a debate about both the Ilısu project and Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP)as a whole. As Gareth Jenkins pointed out in an article last year, GAP is a long-standing project that has heightened tensions in the region for over thirty years. Though AKP has been quick to tout the project as benefitting the southeast, this is a dubitable claim. Additionally, it is largely seen by many Kurds and observers of Turkish politics as part of what Ece Temelkuran has termed Turkey's "Islamist banana" poltiics. (For Jenkins and "banana politics," see my post from last March.

So far, Turkey has invested an estimated total of $20 billion in GAP, and though GAP's irrigation projects have increased yields two to three times, it is reported to have left many of those whose lands were expropriated in an even greater state of poverty. Yigal Schleifer, in an article for Eurasianet last June notes a recent study by the Turkish Confederation of Young Businessmen (TÜGIK). According to TÜGIK, despite the investment in GAP, "the region’s share in the national income is lower today than it was 40 years ago. While the 2007 per capita income in the region around Istanbul was $14,500, in Turkey’s southeast it was only $5,200." The Ilısu dam project made up a significant sum of the $12 billion Prime Minister Erdoğan promised on May 27, 2008, and which he spoke of on his visit to Diyarbakır last summer. As for Ilısu, Schleifer points out little attention was paid to building local manufacturing jobs or to food processing facilities, industries that would have seen a real benefit for economic development in the largely Kurdish southeast. In the same piece, Schleifer writes that not all of those forcibly removed in previous phases of GAP received compensation and interviewed some of the displaced who were now working as loaborers on the farm lands they had once inhabited on the fertile Harran plains.

The Ilısu project was slated to be completed in 2013, but the ECA withdrawals -- despite the claims of Minister Eroğlu -- leave its completion up in the air. It is not at all clear, especially amidst the havoc of the financial crisis, that Turkey has the funds it needs to complete the project. However, as the Guardian reports, the dam, first planned in the 1980s, "has a history of troubles." The British construction company Balfour Beatty scrapped plans for a £200m investment in 2001 under pressure from environmentalists and human rights groups." Will the Turkish government complete the project, or will it look for funding elsewhere?

Socialist International Condemns CHP Opposition to Military Courts Reform

The Socialist International (SI) has condemned the CHP's opposition to recent legislation requiring civilian courts to try military officials who pose threats to national security, constitutional violations, organizing armed groups and attempts to topple the government in peace time. The CHP had supported the legislation during its passage, but after claimed it had been duped by the AKP. The SI has released a statement quoted from in Today's Zaman:

The Council of the Socialist International … condemns in the strongest terms the coup d'état against the government of President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales in Honduras,” inspiring people on the streets in Turkey to carry banners with the message “The CHP can now join the government in Honduras,” accusing the party of aligning itself with coup supporters. The SI defines itself as an “association of political parties and organizations which seek to establish democratic socialism.” Therefore, political parties affiliated with the SI should by definition be social democrats and should never inspire this kind of public criticism.

Click here for full article.

This criticism from TDZ is not new, and is echoed not only by TDZ, but by leftist Turkish intellectuals and critics who actually have a stake in the SI and have long criticized CHP's inconsistent policy positions alongside its SI membership. (See, for just one example, Baskın Oran's call in 2008 that the CHP be expelled from the SI.) The SI, for its part, has also long been critical of the CHP. This July, CHP leader Deniz Baykal did not go to the SI's summit in Greece. Former vice-chairman of SI, Baykal lost his seat to Iraq's Jalal Talabani.

The SI, unlike some conservative entities in Europe, has long been supportive of Turkey's accession to the European Union. However, in a rather bizarre twist for outsiders of Turkish politics, the CHP has often opposed efforts to pass important political reforms required for Turkey to come into harmony with the EU's Copenhagen criteria for membership. The CHP opposed cosmetic reforms to Article 301, amendments to Turkey's law on foundations, and reforms pertaining to expanding the cultural rights of Turkey's Kurdish minority. It might be said that the CHP would be more supportive of these reforms if they were not the party in opposition, but the CHP's political positions and nationalist rhetoric is all that most people hear. The generation of this opposition rhetoric seems to be more the priority of Baykal's CHP than any effort to work with the AKP on developing substantive policy to move Turkey all the closer to satisfying the EU's political criteria for membership. For another socialist European leader's take on the CHP, German Foreign Minister Frank Walter-Steinmeier's recent comments. TDZ columnists Klaus Jurgens and Orhan Kemal Cengiz, neither leftists, echo familiar criticisms of the CHP regarding the inconsistensy of its policy positions with the SI platform.

I have posted rather frequently on the state of the Turkish left on this blog, and would refer to my previous posts for more information on the political context in which CHP's conservative political positions are taken. Not since Bülent Ecevit's DSP has there been a powerful Turkish party on the left that has addressed traditional social democratic concerns like the expansion of neoliberalism rather than focus on the preservation of Turkey's traditional nationalist/laicist regime. See also Ron Marguille's article from 2007 on the state of Turkish socialism in response to the AKP's neoliberal moderate Islamism.

Victory for Graduates of Imam-Hatip Schools

From Jenny White at Kamil Pasha:

Graduates of theological high schools and other vocational schools will now be able to enter college on the same basis as graduates of academic high schools. On Tuesday, the Higher Education Board’s (YÖK) General Council abolished the system of using a lower coefficient to calculate the university admission examination (Student Selection Examination [ÖSS]) scores of graduates of vocational high schools. Entrance to a college and field of study is decided exclusively by the student’s score in a single nation-wide exam, leading to an entire separate industry of private cram schools that remains unaffected by this ruling. In the old YÖK system, graduates of vocational high schools had points deducted from their admission scores when they applied to a university department unrelated to their curriculum. This system made it more difficult, for instance, for an imam-hatip high school graduate to gain entrance to medical school than a student from a normal high school with the same ÖSS score.

Professor White goes on to explain the formation of imam-hatip schools and the lower co-efficients, as well as to note that the reform will have little impact on türban-wearing women whom are restricted from entering public universities. For coverage from Today's Zaman, which has a pro-headscarf perspective, click here.

Middle East Diplomacy Continues

Additionally, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' recent visit further evidenced Turkey's desire to position itself as a mediator between Fatah and Hamas, as well as between Israel and a Palestinian national unity government. Abbas came to Ankara amidst somewhat of a brouhaha after visiting Cyprus and allegedly declaring his support of Greek Cypriot president Dimitris Christofias' position on Cyprus' longstanding dispute with the Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, though Abbas and the Palestinian Authority was careful to emphasize that the PLA had no position on the issue. President Gül eschewed the controvery altogether, instead taking the opportunity to re-affirm Turkey's commitment to a two-state solution and press for an agreement between Fatah and Hamas. Turkey attempted to position itself as a mediator between Hamas and Israel during the Israeli invasion of Gaza last December, though Egypt ended up ultimately leading the talks. Nonetheless, Turkey remains committed to bringing all parties together in an effort to prove its diplomatic clout in the region and is seen as uniquely positioned to do so as a result of its strategic relationships with both Israel and the Arab states. Turkey's western orientation yet predominantly Muslim population, as well as its non-involvement in Arab internecine conflicts, are also thought beneficial to the relationship. Also singificant is Gül's rejection of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solona's proposition of a deadline for recognizing a Palestinian state sans a consensus. It would be interesting to know what attempts, if any, have been made to coordinate Turkish policy with that of the European Union. For an analysis from the Eurasia Daily Monitor, click here.

At the same time, Turkey is eager to facilitate Syria and Israel in indirect peace talks. Following Abbas' departure, Prime Minister Erdoğan visited Syria, both endorsing the normalization of relations between Turkey and Syria and emphasizing the importance of Israeli-Syrian rapprochement. Israel and Syria have long been deadlocked on the issue of the Golan Heights, though Turkey remains optimistic that it can help barter a solution. The United States, initially ambivalent about Turkey's mediator role, has since endorsed Turkish-led peace talks. How successful they will be is another question. For analysis of the prime minister's trip to Damascus, click here for another piece from the Eurasia Daily Monitor.

Smoke Like a Turk?

(updated below)

Last January, Turkey passed law that would prohibit smoking in public places, including restaurants, cafés, and even nargileh. That law went into effect this Sunday, leaving many Turks anguished with the fact that the long tradition of smoking indoors has been brought to an end. While the law was enacted for public health concerns, many Turks are framing the issue in terms of individual rights. This has manifested itself in numerous public attacks on the AKP government, the smoking ban joining other charges that the government is bent on pushing an Islamic value scheme. Hürriyet's Yusuf Kanlı exemplifies this opinion among those less than happy about the ban:

What is indeed the intention of the government of Sultan Recep the First? Is it....aimed at confining Turks to their homes? Are we leaving through a process of advancing red zones in the cities? Or, is it as Le Monde or some other Western media outlets implied in their reports, an effort by the neo-sultan in the footprints of Murat the Fourth aimed at avoiding Turks coming together and criticizing his all benevolent and all capable government?

According to Bianet, the Ministry of Health has set up a hotline by which citizens can report on smokers who violate the law. The law also includes a mesaure that allows police to assess a 25YTL fine on smokers who throw cigarette butts on the ground, as well as provisions to fine businesses who are found to be in violation and restrictions on advertising.

UPDATE 8/1 -- A university professor recently completed a study on smoking in Turkish coffeehouses. Among the findings, while only 30 percent of Turks smoke, 70 percent of coffeehouse goers smoke (and a lot). The study also notes that coffeehouses are important places for men and women to gather to talk. This findings gives reason to wonder if the smoking ban will have on Turkey's public sphere. Coffeehouse cultures have long been appreciated as important spaces for political discourse. Will the smoking ban end up squeezing valuable public space in Turkey?