Turkey (country)

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9

Abdullah Ocalan and the PKK

Relations with Italy were strained by the Italian decision to refuse the extradition of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who had applied for asylum in Italy. Ocalan was released in December 1998, after Germany had withdrawn the international warrant for his arrest, and he left Italy for an unknown destination in January. The following month Ocalan was captured by Turkish special forces in Nairobi, Kenya, where he had been given shelter in the Greek embassy. His arrest was followed by the occupation by Kurdish sympathizers of Greek and Kenyan embassies in many European cities, and in Australia and Canada. The occupation of the Greek Embassy in London, which lasted for three days, was brought to a peaceful conclusion, but three Kurds were killed during an attempt to occupy the Israeli consulate in Berlin. Ocalan was flown to Turkey and later formally charged with treason.

May saw increased PKK violence within Turkey despite calls for peace from the now-incarcerated Ocalan. On June 29 Ocalan was sentenced to death for treason. Reaction within Turkey and abroad was relatively subdued. Three days later Ocalan called for a truce in the war between the Kurds and Turkey and for the PKK to withdraw from Turkey as of September 1. The truce was supported by the PKK’s rival, the People’s Liberation Army of Kurdistan (ARGK). After Ocalan’s death sentence was upheld in November, a final appeal was rejected by the Turkish courts on December 20, 1999, although no date was set for the sentence to be carried out. In February 2000 the PKK announced an end to its 15-year-old armed struggle (which is said to have claimed the lives of 30,000 people), and declared that it would reconstitute itself as a political party.

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10

Earthquakes in Izmit, Gölcük, and Düzce

On August 17, 1999, an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the open-ended Richter scale hit the cities of Izmit and Gölcük in the north-west of the country. It killed 17,118, injured 27,000, made 200,000 homeless, and damaged 72,000 buildings. It was Turkey’s worst earthquake since 1939. Turkish officials estimated the earthquake caused between US$5 billion and US$7 billion worth of damage, but many observers said the cost of the earthquake could reach US$25 billion. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank offered Turkey more than US$500 million in emergency funds. Much assistance also came from Greece. Relations with Greece improved, and later in the month senior Turkish and Greek diplomats began a series of meetings in Ankara aimed at easing decades of tension in their relations.

On November 12, 1999, a second earthquake hit north-western Turkey. It measured 7.2 on the open-ended Richter scale and killed more than 700 people and injured at least 5,100 others. The earthquake’s epicentre was near the town of Düzce. Turkish officials estimated the earthquake would cost the Turkish economy as much as US$10 billion.

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11

Candidacy for the EU

On the final day of the European Union (EU) summit in Helsinki, Finland, in December, Turkey was among seven countries invited to become a candidate for membership. Greece welcomed Turkey’s invitation. However, EU leaders insisted that Turkey must improve its record on human rights and refer its territorial disputes with Greece to the United Nations International Court of Justice before its long-held wish to join the EU would be considered. However, Prime Minister Ecevit announced that Turkey had no intention of changing its position on such issues in response to EU pressure, but a programme of sweeping economic and political reforms was formally presented by the foreign minister in March 2001 and cautiously welcomed by the EU.

In January 2000, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou signed a series of agreements with his Turkish counterpart, Ismail Cem, covering tourism, environmental protection, investment, and the fight against crime and terrorism. In March Turkey confirmed its plans to build its first nuclear power plant at Akkuyu Bay on the Mediterranean coast. The announcement came despite opposition from Turkey’s neighbours and local residents, who claimed that the plant would be dangerous because the area is prone to earthquakes.

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12

President Sezer Elected

In May 2000 the Turkish parliament elected a leading judge, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, as president to replace Suleyman Demirel. Sezer became the first Turkish president not to be an active politician or a senior military officer.

A political crisis caused by a public row between Sezer and Ecevit in February 2001 triggered the flotation of the lira, in an attempt to avoid losing billions of dollars of scheduled loans from the IMF. After two days of talks with the IMF in March, newly appointed economy minister Kemal Dervis announced that a programme had been agreed upon for reviving foreign investors’ confidence.

In June Turkey’s constitutional court banned the Pro-Islamic Virtue Party upholding the claim that it had been involved in anti-secular activities. The following month former party members formed the Saadet “happiness” Party (SP), under the former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan.

A package of reforms was introduced in October to ease Turkey’s admittance into the EU. They included the banning of the death sentence for certain crimes, allowing Kurdish broadcasts, and reducing the influence of the military in the National Security Council. In changes to the civil code women were given equal status to men in certain areas of life, including employment.

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Justice and Development Party Comes to Power

Eight ministers stood down from the government in July 2002 after failing to remove Ecevit from office. Among them was foreign minister Ismail Cem, who formed a new party (the New Turkey Party) in time for the upcoming elections. The elections were held in early November 2002 and saw the 550 seats divided between the Justice and Development Party (363), the Republican People’s Party (178), and a number of independent politicians. Prime Minister Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP) won just over 1 per cent of the vote, which hastened his departure from the post. On November 16, President Sezer asked Abdullah Gül of the Justice and Development Party to form the new government. It pledged to introduce a further series of reforms to enable Turkey’s quest for EU membership to continue. However, the country received a setback in December 2002 when it was not listed as one of the new invitees to join the EU in the next wave of expansion in 2004, but was encouraged to continue the ongoing reforms.

In domestic politics, constitutional changes were made to allow the head of the Justice and Development Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to run for parliament and thereby take over as prime minister from Gül, Erdogan had been barred from public office because of a previous criminal conviction. In March 2003 Erdogan won the seat and almost immediately took over as prime minister. Gül became deputy prime minister and foreign minister. Straightaway, he was embroiled in the debate discussing proposed US troop deployments from Turkey into neighbouring Iraq in the US war on the country to topple Saddam Hussein. Ultimately, permission was not given though the US forces were permitted to use Turkish air space in their prosecution of the war.

There was an earthquake centred on the Bingöl region of the country that led to more than 150 deaths in May 2003. In November İstanbul became the focus of a concerted terrorist campaign: 25 people were killed and hundreds injured when car bombs went off near the city's synagogues; days later the target of the bombers were British interests—a British bank and the consulate. In this second atrocity 28 people were killed.

Turkey continued to seek talks over its membership of the European Union, and continued its progress by recognizing Cyprus’s admission to the organization. At home, the government approved more reforms, including those concerning women’s rights and Kurdish culture and language. EU talks commenced in late 2005 after Turkey recognized Cyprus as an EU member.

After more than two decades of fighting the PKK, the Kurdish separatist group, once again put forward plans for a ceasefire in September 2006 at the urging of the jailed rebel leader Abullah Ocalan. However, the truce offer was rebutted by the Turkish military. The summer of 2006 had seen repeated bomb attacks on resorts in Turkey, responsibility for which was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a supposed radical offshoot of the PKK.

Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot in January 2007. The death of Dink, a vocal critic of the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 and a supporter of Armenian rights in Turkey, was widely condemned, both in Armenia and by the government in Turkey. Street protests were held by protestors angered by the killing. A trial commenced in July, in which a number of Turkish nationalists were indicted. The presidential election, due to be held in April 2007, was declared void by the constitutional court after a single round of voting by MPS after opposition parties refused to participate. The AKP (Justice and Development) candidate Abdullah Gül was the only nomination. In order to offset the impasse parliamentary elections were brought forward to July. The AKP won more than 340 seats despite fears that the party was intent upon an Islamist agenda. Significantly the poll also saw the election of 20 Kurdish members to parliament. Following the election Gül once more stated his intent to stand as president and was eventually elected at the end of August, pledging to uphold the secular state. Despite a presidential veto of the plans by his predecessor, parliament is keen to move forward with proposals for the president to be directly elected in future elections and for the term of office to be cut from seven years to five.