Flood risk still persists in northwestern Turkey

Environment Minister Veysel Eroğlu has strongly warned İstanbul residents that settlements near watercourses would definitely be demolished to ensure public safety against natural disasters. “What is to be done is pretty clear.

Watercourses will be evacuated. Rivers will return to their natural forms. The prime minister has assigned the State Waterworks Authority [DSİ] and the İstanbul Waterworks Authority [İSKİ] the duty to do just that. We will cancel certificates of proprietorship if necessary,” stated the minister in an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman.

Eroğlu’s remarks came as part of planned measures to prevent the public against natural disasters. Flash floods triggered by torrential downpour turned İstanbul streets into rapid flowing rivers, resulting in the deaths of more than 30 people last week. Houses built near watercourses were blamed for the overflow of rivers. The minister underlined that the government would show no mercy when demolishing buildings around watercourses. “The İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality, İSKİ and DSİ will determine unlicensed buildings. They will be demolished. Those with proprietorship certificates will also be demolished if they are situated near watercourses. We have prepared a circular for the rehabilitation of rivers. We will not face similar disasters if we comply with this circular,” Eroğlu said.

Eroğlu pointed to the Republican People’s Party (CHP) as responsible for last Wednesday’s disaster. “I wanted to demolish shanty houses near rivers when I was the general manager of İSKİ. The CHP opposed the planned demolitions. They applied to administrative courts and hindered the demolitions. Now they are asking why we did not demolish those buildings. We could have overcome the problem if we had cooperated,” he noted.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was also wiretapped during his phone conversation

Daily Cumhuriyet’s reporters and telephone switchboard were wiretapped without a court order as part of the Ergenekon investigation, the Justice Ministry confirmed, but it rebuffed complaints because it said prosecutors had not drawn up an indictment.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, deputy president of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, was also wiretapped during his phone conversation with correspondent İlhan Taşçı. Kılıçdaroğlu applied to the Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges, or HSYK, and lodged a complaint against the prosecutors.

Importance of Article 221 in the Kurdish Initiative

Importance of Article 221 in the Kurdish Initiative

As expectations in Ankara are raised that the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, may reveal the content of the Kurdish Initiative after Ramadan’s Festival of the Sacrifice, the prime minister announced that it would be an ongoing process. “If you call it a ‘package’, it should have a beginning and an end. But this is not a package. This is a process; a mid- and long-term process,” he said, revising earlier statements that it could be handled by the end of the year.

Accordingly, the AKP administration will extend the Kurdish Initiative over a period of time. Economic, social, cultural solutions, as well as the military solution, to end terror may be carried out gradually by the election period. For instance, constitutional change and economic investments will be spread in out into mid- to long terms, if necessary. Steps for the facilitation of speaking the Kurdish language, returning village names to Kurdish, supporting special Kurdish television broadcasts, having Kurdish translators in state institutions and shifting village guards to some other fields would be considered as part of the short-term program. Legal changes will follow in the medium term.