Turkey back to its old tricks, despite pressure from one region

GOVERNMENT MINISTER OF TURKEY: ARMENIA GATE WON'T BE OPENED UNLESS CONDITIONS MET
MINISTER: ARMENIA GATE WON'T BE OPENED UNLESS CONDITIONS MET
Today's Zaman
May 26 2008
Turkey

Turkey will not open its border with neighboring Armenia, closed for more than a decade, unless Yerevan resolves its problems with Ankara and regional ally Azerbaijan, a government minister has said.

Economy Minister Mehmet Å~^imÅ~_ek, while attending a meeting on regional development in the far eastern province of Igdır, located near the border with Armenia, said Turkey, with its large purchasing capacity of $950 billion, does not need economic ties with Armenia, emphasizing that Armenia should be the one to take steps to normalize its ties with Turkey. "We don't need them, they need us. Turkey wants good economic ties with its neighbors. If they see this fact and take a step toward us, we will take a step toward them," Å~^imÅ~_ek said.

"We have no commercial or political dialogue with the Armenians due to the problems caused by them. Opening of the border gate is unfortunately not possible for the time being without Armenia resolving its problems with Azerbaijan and changing its stance toward Turkey," Å~^imÅ~_ek, who was accompanied by Rıza Nur Meral, chairman of the
Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON), and a 200-strong delegation of investors and businessmen, said late Saturday.

Turkey severed its diplomatic ties and closed the border gate with landlocked Armenia in the last decade, following Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. The Armenian occupation of the Azerbaijani territory has been maintained. Ankara
also refuses to normalize its relations with Yerevan because Armenia seeks a worldwide recognition for claims that 1.5 million Armenians were subject to genocide at the hands of the late Ottoman Empire during World War I in eastern Anatolia and fails to declare that it
has no territorial claims on eastern Anatolia despite Turkish demands to that effect.

Hopes for reconciliation between the two countries resurfaced when President Abdullah Gul sent a congratulatory message to Serzh Sarkisian following his election to power in February. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan had also sent similar messages to their Armenian counterparts following the establishment of the new government in the neighboring country, expressing hopes for anew era that will contribute to regional peace, stability and welfare.

But no visible progress has been achieved on the contentious issues. Armenia rejected a 2005 call from Turkey to jointly examine archives to find out what happened during World War I and Sarkisian vowed in April to step up efforts for international recognition of the genocide claims.

[so Turkey DID receive Armenia's response despite numerous statements to the contrary!!]

Å~^imÅ~_ek said trade with neighboring countries was vital for the economy of the border provinces and lamented that Igdır andneighboring Kars lagged behind compared to provinces l ocated on borders with other neighbors. He noted that the government would continue to channel funds to regional development projects, supporting particularly the agriculture and livestock sectors, and also emphasized that Mount Agrı (Ararat) could become a tourist attraction.

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Turkey: Eastern city desperately seeks investment, jobs
Monday, May 26, 2008
TAYLAN BILGIÇ
KARS - Turkish Daily News

Problems stemming from Turkey's regional inequality and its troubled relations with Armenia were highlighted once again at a meeting in Kars Friday, 1,435 kilometers east of Istanbul and near the easternmost tip of the country.

Garanti Bank, the Turkish lender co-owned by Dogus Holding and General Electric, organized its 52nd -Anatolia Conversations- in Kars. Friday's panel meeting was, in a sense, marked the reunification of Turkey's banking giant and one of the most impoverished cities of the country. Garanti reaped a net profit of YTL 2.4 billion ($1.92 billion) last year, marking the most successful results of its 61-year history. Meanwhile, the closure of the -East Gate- with Armenia in 1993 has rapidly impoverished Kars and the region. Per capita gross domestic product in east Anatolia last year was $4,570, while it was $14,500 in the Marmara region, which includes Istanbul.

Reopening a local branch:
Garanti had closed the only branch it had in Kars, a city of 90,000, back in 1992. The branch reopened last year and Ergun Özen, Garanti's general manager, apologized to Kars residents in his opening speech for being so late. Özen showed two paths for Kars: Tourism and stockbreeding, while underlining the bank's growing support for small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs). Garanti has reached 1 million SME-customers, and is serving them with 1,677 specialized staff, he noted. Craftsmen, tradesmen and small-scale retailers are living through -a
crisis worse than the one in 2001-02,- said Ali Güvensoy, president of the Kars Chamber of Trade and Industry. While his claim was disputed by another guest, Professor Asaf Savas Akat of Istanbul's Bilgi University, Güvensoy said they expect -more flexibility- from banks in credits. -Banks should not kick the person who has fallen into a swamp by refusing to give credit to
them,- he said. The local industrialist also said the -Law of Incentives- has provided nothing to eastern cities, serving only to western ones such as Düzce. The government should take no tax from investments for two decades in regions such as Kars, Güvensoy suggested.

Period of destruction:
Saffet Özdemir, deputy mayor of the city, complained about the closure of state-owned facilities in the city. -The Milk Industry Enterprise, meat complexes, cement, feed and shoe factories were all closed down or sold, only to be also closed down later,- he said, referring to the privatization drive of the last few decades. -As a result, agriculture and stockbreeding came to a point of bankruptcy. Coupled with intense emigration from the city, Kars virtually became a city for sale,- Özdemir complained.

The only chance for Kars was trade with Armenia, the vice mayor said, but with the closure of the border gate, -Kars was left to its fate.- But Özdemir abstained from openly criticizing the government policy against Armenia, claiming that policy is correct.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led mayorship of Kars had, in late 2004, launched a signature campaign with the demand that the border gate should be opened. The mayorship managed to collect nearly 50,000 signatures from the province.

Rising tension:
Tensions rose in the hall when Sevan Nisanyan, a Turkish Armenian and a well-known tourism writer and investor took the floor. The most feasible way to attract tourists to Kars is promoting Ani, the ancient capital of a
medieval Armenian kingdom standing at the border with Armenia. But Turkey has -chosen to erase everything about Armenia and Armenians- from history, he said, giving the -shameful- sign at the entrance to the city. The sign, in an attempt to conceal the Armenian mark at the city, talks about -30 or so civilizations, some highly disputable, but not Armenians,- Nisanyan said, noting that even the name of the city has been changed to -Ani,- which means -memory- in Turkish. -You cannot promote things that you do not know, do not love and ignore,- Nisanyan said. These words drew harsh reaction from some listeners, a few of them members or local leaders of an ultra-right political party. Claiming that Nisanyan was -alleging genocide against Armenians,- these listeners refused to let the experienced tourism writer talk, but they retreated amid applause of support to Nisanyan from other listeners. Concluding his speech, Nisanyan said Ani could be as attractive as Ephesus or Cappadocia if politicians act wisely and -make peace with the past.-

Global division:
Professor Asaf Savas Akat, a renowned economist, meanwhile, talked on problems of global and local economies. The current global problem stems from the division between -those who consume without producing,- and those who -produce without consuming,- he argued, adding that the United States and the West in general belong to the first category, while countries such
as China appear in the latter. Turkey was caught unprepared for such global turmoil, Akat said. -Even before these, Turkey's inflation was rising and growth slowing, while the national currency was overvalued and the current account deficit was dangerously high,- he noted. -Now, one cannot sustain the overvalued currency due to this high deficit, but on the other hand, one cannot let the
economy slow down, due to high unemployment.- Looming political instability is adding to these problems, he added. Still, the country is far from a crisis, he argued, saying -a lot of good has been done for the last eight years.- Akat described Turkey as -a lame duck but strong economy,- drawing laughter from the crowd.

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