The European Union and Turkish Accession

Mark Muller, Kerim Yildiz

Description

The EU accession process will shape Turkey's future and, in particular, its potential to become a pluralist, democratic state with respect for international human rights. In this timely survey Kerim Yildiz and Mark Muller explain and analyse the process of accession focusing primarily on these associated human rights obligations and the extent of their implementation in Turkey.



The European Union and Turkish Accession addresses the variety of groups in Turkey who are affected by these negotiations and details the background of the Kurdish people - the largest minority group in Turkey - and their relationship to the Turkish republic.



This book is essential for students studying EU enlargement, particularly the human rights issues around the Turkish Accession, and those interested in the ongoing struggle of the Kurds.
Foreword by Noam Chomsky

Introduction

1. Background

2. Turkey and the EU

3. Civil and Political Rights in Turkey

4. Cultural and Minority Rights in Turkey

5. Conflict in the Southeast

6. The international dimensions to the conflict

7. The Military and the Islamist Movement

8. Internal Displacement

9. The EU and the Kurds

10. The Future of the EU Accession

Notes

Index

Sujets

• International Relations
• Human Rights
• Political Science
• Turquía
• European Union
• Turkey

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 mars 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849644013
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The European Union and Turkish Accession

Human Rights and the Kurds

Kerim Yildiz and Mark Muller

Foreword by Noam Chomsky

P Pluto Press LONDON • ANN ARBOR, MI in association with KURDISH HUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT

First published 2008 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright © Kerim Yildiz and Mark Muller 2008 Foreword © Noam Chomsky 2008

The right of Kerim Yildiz and Mark Muller to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN ISBN

978 0 7453 2785 3 978 0 7453 2784 6

Hardback Paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

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Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed and bound in the European Union by CPI Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England

KY To my wife Bridget and my son Dara

MM To my wife Catherine and my children Louis, Charlotte and Isabel

Contents

Map of the area inhabited by Kurds Acknowledgements Foreword by Noam Chomsky List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Background  The Kurds  The Turkish Republic

 2. Turkey and the EU  The route to accession  The opening of formal EU accession negotiations  Turkey’s EU bid in a wider political context  Fulfilment of the Copenhagen Criteria for EU accession?

 3. Civil and Political Rights in Turkey  The proEU reform process  Torture and ‘zero tolerance’  Freedom of expression, publishing and the media  Civil society in Turkey  Political participation

 4. Cultural and Minority Rights in Turkey  Cultural and linguistic rights  EU reforms  Minority rights standards in Turkey  Definitional issues  Substantive rights

5. Confl ict in the Southeast  Origins and development of the conflict  Resolving the conflict  The EU and the conflict in the southeast  The Kurdish question from a Turkish perspective

ix x xi xviii

1

4 4 12

20 20 24 25 29

39 40 42 50 62 67

77 78 90 93 98 102

106 106 110 117 122

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The European Union and Turkish Accession

International Dimension to the conflict6. The  Turkey and Kurdistan, Iraq  Turkish military activity in Kurdistan, Iraq  Turkey, Iran and Syria

 7. The Military and the Islamist Movement  Secularists vs Islamists  The Islamist movement, human rights and the  Kurdish issue  The AKP, Turkey and the Military

8. Internal Displacement  Background to displacement  Conditions and difficulties faced by internally  displaced persons  The government response to displacement  State impediments to return  The international response to internal displacement  in Turkey

 9. The EU and the Kurds  Europe’s role in solving the Kurdish question  Assessment of the EU’s approach  The Kurdish perspective on EU accession

10. The Future of EU Accession  Human Rights and EU Accession  Implications of the Accession Process

Notes Index

126 127 132 137

144 145

147 148

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156 157 163

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169 169 178 184

189 191 193

200 231

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Kurdish Inhabited Area

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Map of the area inhabited by Kurds

km 200

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Johanna Nykanen, Ellinor Hamren, CharlotteAlfred,AnnaIrvin,MustafaGndo˘gduandMorten Thorsted for their invaluable research assistance and Mark Ellison for the map artwork.

The main body of research was compiled in June 2007, and updated in September 2007. For uptotheminute information please refer to www.khrp.org.

x

Foreword

Noam Chomsky

Turkey is, one may argue, a country of contrasts. The oftemployed definition of Turkey as ‘a bridge between the East and the West’ is only the beginning of the numerous disparities that exist in modern Turkey. There are enormous opportunities, but at the same time, great threats; huge potential but continuous misuse of it; optimism, let down by dark pessimism; modernism but backwardness; rapid reforms swiftly followed by periods of radical conservatism. Such uneven existence can be traced as far back as the founding of the republic in 1923, when a new identity was forced upon the population by the ruling elite; the Turks, arguably, still feel uneasy about their identity and are in constant search of a comfortably constructed mould in which to place themselves. Perhaps no country has tried to ‘Westernize’ itself as much as Turkey. Though criticism of its ‘Western’ credentials from some European quarters can be harsh, it is nonetheless true that Turkey has yet to fully embrace the values that make a country truly modern: human rights and democracy. The Kurdish population of Turkey is the most obvious victim of Turkey’s continuing identity crisis and uneven approach towards modernization. Turkey was founded on an idea of a homogeneous nation state, ‘one state, one nation’, in which all citizens were defined as ‘Turks’. The Illusion of a homogenous population was shortlived, but the strong state and it’s repressive attitude towards any non Turkish elements within the republic, alas, prevails. Needless to say that such an approach and its implementation is constantly blocking Turkey’s way to genuinely break free from the contrasts that have so often contributed to the struggle to truly modernize herself. The depressing reality of today’s Turkey is that severe repression and violence continue to reign. Anyone who speaks against the official state policies, practising the fundamental right of freedom of speech, faces the threat of being prosecuted for offences such as ‘insulting Turkishness’ or using the Kurdish language in public. I have been greatly privileged to catch a glimpse of Turkey from Istanbul in the west, to Diyarbakır, the capital of the Turkey’s Kurdish southeastern region. However, much to my surprise, I returned from

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The European Union and Turkish Accession

Turkey feeling far more optimistic than when I went. It was truly inspiring to witness firsthand the courage and dedication of the leading artists, writers, academics, journalists, publishers and others who carry on the daily struggle for freedom of speech and human rights, not just through statements but also through regular civil disobedience, facing penalties that can be severe. Some have spent a good part of their lives in Turkish prisons because of their insistence on recording the true history of the miserably oppressed Kurdish . population: sociologistIsmail Beßikci, to mention one notorious case, was rearrested in 1993 for publishing a book on state terror in Turkey, having already spent 15 years in prison. He also refused a $10,000 prize from the US Fund for Free Expression in protest against Washington’s strong support for Turkish repression, which is virtually unknown in the US, in accord with the standard principle that one’s own crimes must be effaced. It is ironic that while promoting human rights and democracy, the US highly praises Turkey for its counterterror methods. Traditionally, the US and Turkey have a ‘special relationship’. On the outbreak of the Cold War, the US quickly realized Turkey’s geostrategic importance as a Western enclave in an otherwise volatile region, and granted her a NATO membership in 1952. Over 50 years later the Europeans are still debating Turkey’s suitability to join their ‘Western club’ and are even more suspicious of any feasible security arrangements with Turkey. Turkey remained a loyal ally of the US throughout the Cold War, and the collapse of communism in the late 1980s witnessed a renewal of the partnership in keeping with emerging US strategic concerns. Rather than acting as a bulwark against the Soviet threat, Turkey was now a channel through which to influence the heartland of Eurasia; Central Asia. Turkey was the most devoted ally of the US in the first Gulf War of 1990–91 and, as a result, received vast economic assistance, and substantial military aid. The post9/11 ‘War on Terror’ era kickstarted a new dimension to the relationship. Despite clear evidence of grave breaches of human rights of the Kurds in Turkey, no Security Council resolutions have ever been passed on the matter and the furthest that the US is willing to acknowledge the problem is to qualify it as an internal one. The US administration’s ‘Back to Realism’ approach is very much in line with that of the military hardliners in Turkey. And in a country where the military has such a prominent role in politics, it is the rigid stance of the military that, to a large degree, shapes mainstream policies. It is, however, paradoxical that the US appears to have great concern

Foreword

xiii

for the human rights and wellbeing of the Kurds of northern Iraq but turns a blind eye to serious human rights violations across the border in Turkey. Such contradictions inevitably serve as evidence that US foreign policy is more driven by strategic interests than genuine human rights concerns. In recent years, there have been growing arguments that the ‘special relationship’ between the US and Turkey is falling apart and that Turkey is growing more and more antiAmerican. However, many observers judge such arguments as mere fallacy. As former Turkish ambassador Özdem Sanberk has stated: ‘Any talk of “alternatives” [to Turkey’s proWestern foreign 1 policy] is just talk.’ Speaking from personal experience, which I bring up with diffidence, for what it may be worth, there seems to be a good deal of public support in Turkey for the people who are carrying out the struggle for free speech and human rights, and who should inspire not only great respect but also humility among their Western colleagues. The record of abuses continues day after day, and could be brought to an end with public support in the West. The courage of the people is beyond my ability to describe, from children in the streets wearing Kurdish colours – a serious offence, for which punishment of the families could be severe – to a large and enthusiastic public meeting I attended in Diyarbakır. At the end of this meeting several students came forward and in front of TV and police cameras, presented me with a Kurdish–English dictionary. This was an act of considerable bravery, and a precious gift; right at that time students and their parents were being interrogated, reportedly tortured, and facing imprisonment for submitting legal petitions requesting the right to have elective courses in their native language. On the front page of the dictionary they wrote the following words:

Do you know the pain of not seeing our dreams in our mother tongue? We would like to see our dreams in our mother tongue. And we gave 1600 applications to see our dreams in our mother tongue. And we are being judged ‘human interference’ in order to see our dreams in Kurdish. And we are being arrested to see our dreams in Kurdish. Our main goal is to shout our language that has lost its voice for ages.

Denial of even these minimal rights is cruel beyond words. They have the support of many brave and honourable people in Turkey, facing prison or worse. They ask only that we offer them every form of