Will they Split before they Marry?
October 3, 2005
Spiegel
[...]
Another popular line is that the only friends Turks have are themselves. This school of thought has gained currency following the recent debate about the genocide of Armenians. Internationally renowned Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, the recent recipient of the peace prize of the German Booksellers' Association, got an unwanted glimpse of that recently. He didn't just get hate mail and death threats after making his recent comment that 1 million Armenians were murdered in the Ottoman Empire and 30,000 Kurds in modern Turkey. He is also scheduled to stand trial on Dec. 16 as a result.
DPA Nationalist commotion at Istanbul's Bilgi University, where protesters tried to counter a conference on Armenian genocide a week ago. It gets worse. After Turkey's justice minister vilified the organizers of an academic conference on the question of Armenian genocide as "traitors to their country," a court banned the meeting. Last week, a private university disregarded the court and held the conference, but protestors showered participants, including a former Turkish foreign minister, with eggs.
[...]
For his part, Erdogan has valiantly countered the wave of chauvinism in his country. Last week, he condemned the court's decision to ban the Armenia conference, "because I want to live in a Turkey in which freedom of expression is all-embracing." The Kurdish problem, he said, needs to be solved "with more democracy, greater civil liberties and increased prosperity." Not even an assassination attempt on Erdogan at the hands of a misguided nationalist two weeks ago was enough to disturb his peace of mind.
But in reality, diplomats in Ankara are reporting that the prime minister has given up his belief in the goal of the EU process. But they say he still hopes that the British EU presidency, which is well disposed to Ankara, will be able to open negotiations with one or two unproblematic issues -- national statistics or the environment, for example, two disciplines in which Turkey is already operating at European standards today. When Turkey-critic Austria assumes the EU presidency in January, the Turks believe the negotiations will come to a temporary standstill.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
Spiegel
[...]
Another popular line is that the only friends Turks have are themselves. This school of thought has gained currency following the recent debate about the genocide of Armenians. Internationally renowned Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, the recent recipient of the peace prize of the German Booksellers' Association, got an unwanted glimpse of that recently. He didn't just get hate mail and death threats after making his recent comment that 1 million Armenians were murdered in the Ottoman Empire and 30,000 Kurds in modern Turkey. He is also scheduled to stand trial on Dec. 16 as a result.
DPA Nationalist commotion at Istanbul's Bilgi University, where protesters tried to counter a conference on Armenian genocide a week ago. It gets worse. After Turkey's justice minister vilified the organizers of an academic conference on the question of Armenian genocide as "traitors to their country," a court banned the meeting. Last week, a private university disregarded the court and held the conference, but protestors showered participants, including a former Turkish foreign minister, with eggs.
[...]
For his part, Erdogan has valiantly countered the wave of chauvinism in his country. Last week, he condemned the court's decision to ban the Armenia conference, "because I want to live in a Turkey in which freedom of expression is all-embracing." The Kurdish problem, he said, needs to be solved "with more democracy, greater civil liberties and increased prosperity." Not even an assassination attempt on Erdogan at the hands of a misguided nationalist two weeks ago was enough to disturb his peace of mind.
But in reality, diplomats in Ankara are reporting that the prime minister has given up his belief in the goal of the EU process. But they say he still hopes that the British EU presidency, which is well disposed to Ankara, will be able to open negotiations with one or two unproblematic issues -- national statistics or the environment, for example, two disciplines in which Turkey is already operating at European standards today. When Turkey-critic Austria assumes the EU presidency in January, the Turks believe the negotiations will come to a temporary standstill.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 8:02 AM
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