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