In an unprecedented action earlier this month, the Turkish government levied about a 1.7 billion-euro tax penalty against the country’s largest media group, Dogan, which had already been fined 340m euros in February. The penalties — the largest ever imposed on a Turkish company — could become a hurdle for the country’s EU bid.

Dogan Media Group, which owns dozens of newspapers, magazines and TV channels, says it is being targeted because of an ongoing dispute with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). In March, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the public to boycott the Dogan’s newspapers, for allegedly smearing the AKP’s reputation through “baseless” corruption stories.

The articles contained allegations of government involvement in the defrauding of Lighthouse e.V., a charity founded in Germany by Turks. According to the media, millions of donated euros were embezzled and transferred to Turkey in 2007.

A German court charged three Turkish citizens with corruption, and sent all of the documents to Turkey’s judicial sector for further investigation. The court also said that some members of the AKP could be tied to the corruption, including Zahid Akman, a close friend of Erdogan’s.

for full story http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2009/09/16/feature-01

Floods in the centre of Istanbul and the city’s districts of Catalca, Silivri and Ikitelli claimed 26 lives, the Anadolu news agency quoted Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying Wednesday (September 9th).

Another “five citizens died in the northwestern province of Tekirdag. Currently, nine people are reported missing”, he told reporters in Istanbul. The city has not seen this much rain in about 80 years.

Turkish daily Hurriyet quoted Erdogan as saying that the government would provide nearly 1.4m euros in emergency aid to deal with damage caused by the floods.

Hundreds of rescue workers and firefighters, six military helicopters and 30 inflatable dinghies took part in a major operation to save lives in and around Istanbul on Wednesday.

for full story http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2009/09/10/feature-01

The decision was announced in a joint statement by the Turkish and Armenian foreign ministries following months of bilateral discussions mediated by Switzerland. It said the two sides would start internal political consultations over two protocols — on the establishment of diplomatic relations and on the development of bilateral relations.

The consultations would be completed within six weeks, after which the protocols would be signed and submitted for ratification to the Turkish and Armenian parliaments, according to the announcement.

“Both sides will make their best efforts for the timely progression of the ratification, in line with their constitutional and legal procedures,” said a joint statement mediated by Switzerland.

While Turkey was among the first countries to recognise Armenia’s independence in 1991, the two have not established diplomatic ties. Their common border has been sealed since 1993, when Ankara closed it in protest of the former Soviet republic’s backing of ethnic Armenian separatists in Azerbaijan’s breakaway mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

full story on http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2009/09/01/feature-02

28/08/2009

“At the end of the day, the lack of security agreements might put our personnel on the ground at risk,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

NATO’s new secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, urged Greece and Turkey this week to improve ties, stressing that their ongoing disputes are impeding the Alliance’s efforts in Afghanistan and Africa by putting ground troops at risk.

“I do not think we could allow a lack of security because of all these political disputes — we have to find pragmatic solutions,” Rasmussen said Thursday (August 27th).

Cyprus is at the core of tensions between the two neighbouring nations, both NATO members. Ankara does not recognise the Greek Cypriot-run part of the ethnically divided Mediterranean island, which joined the EU in May 2004, minus its Turkish Cypriot-controlled north.

In response, Turkey has prevented Cyprus’s inclusion in strategic co-operation between the EU and NATO, thus making it impossible for the Alliance to ensure adequate protection for the 27-nation Union’s trainers in Afghanistan.

“At the end of the day, the lack of security agreements might put our personnel on the ground at risk… It is a subject of real concern to me,” Rasmussen said.

The former Danish prime minister, who was sworn in as the Alliance’s 12th secretary-general on August 1st, voiced hope before the start of his trip Wednesday that he will see an improvement in the ties between the two key NATO allies during his term. “While these are bilateral issues, the effects of these tensions are felt far beyond, NATO-EU relations being the most obvious,” he said.

In Athens, Rasmussen held talks with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis and Defence Minister Evangelos Meimarakis. Aside from the relations between Greece and Turkey, other topics included the situation in Afghanistan, the process of formulating a new NATO doctrine and the Alliance’s relations with Russia, according to Greek news agency ANA-MPA.

full story on http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2009/08/28/feature-01

Azerbaijan and even Russia and Turkmenistan have also been eyed as potential suppliers.
Sunday, 20 September 2009 10:14
Turkey and Iraq have discussed signing a memorandum of understanding to ship Iraqi gas to Europe via Turkey through the planned Nabucco pipeline, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Saturday.

Turkey and four European Union countries signed a transit deal in July for the $7.9 billion euro EU-backed pipeline to carry Caspian and Middle Eastern gas to central Europe, aiming to cut dependency on Russia.

No concrete supply deals have yet been signed for Nabucco, which plans to pump 31 billion cubic metres of gas to Europe by 2014, but backers of the Vienna-based consortium have said Iraq could be among the suppliers.

Azerbaijan and even Russia and Turkmenistan have also been eyed as potential suppliers.

Yildiz did not provide more details of the possible MOU with neighbouring Iraq.

But during the signing ceremony of the Nabucco transit deal in Ankara between Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria in July, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Europe could receive 15 billion cubic metres of Iraqi gas via Turkey.

Turkey has said it will stand by its commitments for Nabucco despite also backing alternative pipeline projects such as Russia’s South Stream, which Moscow aims to build before Nabucco.

Yildiz also said Turkish petroleum firm TPAO and Turkish Petroleum’s foreign exploration unit TPIC would enter Iraq’s second oil auction later this year. Turkey and Iraq have deepened their political and economic ties in recent years.

http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=47466

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.

The impending disaster in İstanbul was pointed out in a report prepared by experts from the DSİ, İSKİ and the İstanbul Municipality’s technical affairs department in 1997. The report drawn up by experts stated at the time that 58 of İstanbul’s 174 streams and rivers had the potential to cause flooding, listing these rivers as highly dangerous and demanding immediate measures against the risk of overflowing and flooding. However, the warning remained no more than words on paper despite a notice sent from Eroğlu when he served as İSKİ general manager to the city’s municipal administrations.

14 September 2009, Monday
ERKAN ACAR  İSTANBUL

for full text http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-187033-100-minister-vows-to-show-no-mercy-for-settlements-near-watercourses.html

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.

Thursday, September 17, 2009
ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

for full story http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=chp-questions-justice-minister-on-wiretapping-scandal-in-cumhuriyet-daily-2009-09-17

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.

As I wrote at the beginning of the Kurdish Initiative, the AKP will not force the “red lines.” Meaning, expectations of radical steps, such as constitutional changes or a general amnesty, in the short run are unrealistic. However, this doesn’t mean that the AKP has no plan to bring the members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, down from the mountain, although, the government seeks no general amnesty. “If there are 4,500 people up in the mountains, 1,500 of them are not Turkish citizens. The remaining 90 percent are eligible for Article 221 of the Turkish Penal Code, or TCK. They are not involved in any terrorist activity. They are passive members of the PKK. In this case, those who surrender will be set free,” said Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek this week.

The emphasis Çiçek made is very critical because it gives an important clue for the Kurdish Initiative. At this point Çiçek implicitly revealed the government’s tactics to bring PKK terrorists down from the mountain. When I previously wrote about discussions over Article 221, my source was an influential minister. The plan seems to work and the ruling party can facilitate the return of the PKK members in the mountains by making simple changes in the article that already regulates effective repentance.

Friday, September 18, 2009
GÖKSEL BOZKURT

quoted from http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=the-corridor-2009-09-18

09/09/2009

ANKARA, Turkey — Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin insisted on Tuesday (September 8th) that the Court of Appeals should reverse a decision to launch an investigation against President Abdullah Gul. The corruption charges against Gul were pressed by a court in Sincan, near Ankara, which insisted in May that Gul, though having presidential immunity, should face trial over a case back in the 1990s, when millions of US dollars went missing from his Justice and Development Party’s funds. Ergin told reporters in Ankara that his office has sent a request to terminate the trial. Gul has denied all corruption allegations.

In other news Tuesday, Georgia released the captain of a Turkish vessel who was arrested in August and sentenced to 24 years in prison for sailing illegally in the breakaway region of Abkhazia. Instead of the initial sentence, Mehmet Coskun, 24, received a provisional sentence and a fine. The decision followed a meeting earlier in the day between Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. (Zaman – 09/09/09; Reuters, Anadolu news agency, Xinhua – 08/09/09)

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/newsbriefs/setimes/newsbriefs/2009/09/09/nb-06

Sharma is in Ankara to attend a meeting of Turkey-India Economic & Technical Cooperation Joint Committee.

Following his meeting with Sharma, Caglayan told reporters that they reached an understanding with the Indian minister on a working group on a free trade agreement which was planned to be signed between Turkey and India.

He noted that the officials who would take place in the working group would meet in October.

Caglayan said that the trade volume between Turkey and India had been 3 billion USD in 2008.

Infrastructure and super structure construction projects –worth of 500 billion USD– would be implemented in India in the next ten years, Caglayan said that it was important that Turkish contractor companies would undertake those projects.

Caglayan also said that the two countries could cooperate in medicine, chemicals, communication, information technologies and textile sectors.

Caglayan said that India would become neighbor with Europe via Turkey with the free trade agreement they were planning to sign.

Meanwhile, guest minister told reporters that they would provide more incentives to companies in public sector, adding that they would encourage companies for mutual investments in Turkey and India.

Sharma said that free trade agreement and general economic cooperation would develop the relations between Turkey and India.

http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=46933