News from our neighbours, Turkey‏

(Greek Orthodox seminary to be re-opened?

See how it's reported in the West.

See then how the Turks are considering this.

This is only a sop for Europe, not a reform)

Marching along
Jul 2nd 2009 | ANKARA
From The Economist print edition
Tension between the army and the government may promote reforms
AP



COULD it be Turkish democracy’s great leap forward? On June 26th Turkey’s parliament,

dominated by the Justice and Development (AK) Party, passed a groundbreaking law

allowing civilian courts to prosecute army officials. Four days later a civilian prosecutor

charged and briefly arrested a serving colonel for his alleged involvement in a plan to

overthrow AK.

Colonel Dogan Cicek is at the centre of an alleged conspiracy that has rocked the political

establishment since it was exposed by a Turkish newspaper last month. The army has

ordered an investigation. But it has just as promptly declared the colonel to be innocent

and the document, entitled “The Plan to Combat Islamic Fundamentalism”, a fake. In the

old days, the army’s growls would have cowed the civilians into silence. But contrary to

speculation that he would retreat, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, appears this

time to be holding his ground.

So is General Ilker Basbug, the chief of the general staff. He is said to be pressing the

government to reconsider the bill that will allow coup plotters to be tried in civilian courts.

He made his views known during a day-long meeting of the National Security Council on

June 30th. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) also wants the

constitutional court to strike the law down, saying it violates other provisions of the

constitution. Never mind that CHP deputies voted in favour of it: they claim they were

“tricked” into doing so by AK. All eyes will now turn to Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s president,

who could send the constitutional amendment back to parliament on the grounds cited

by the CHP. “If he does so, his credibility will suffer an enormous blow,” argues Taha Ozhan,

who runs SETA, a liberal think-tank in Ankara. “This [bill] constitutes the biggest challenge

of this [two-year-old] presidency,” he adds.

It is also the biggest challenge to the army’s immunity. Ever since catapulting into

government seven years ago, AK has been chipping away at the generals’ power. The

National Security Council, through which the generals often dictated foreign and domestic

policy, has been downgraded to an advisory role. A string of abortive coup plans leaked

to the media and crude attempts to block Mr Gul’s elevation to the presidency have dented

the army’s image and bolstered that of AK.

The latest coup talk may have galvanised Mr Erdogan into a fresh burst of reformist zeal.

The government is talking of reopening a Greek Orthodox seminary on the island of Halki

off Istanbul, a long-running demand of the European Union. Mr Erdogan also says that talks

with the IMF for a new standby deal will resume soon. This helped the Istanbul stockmarket

to recover this week, despite the news that gdp had shrunk by a whopping 13.8% in the

year to the first quarter of 2009.

Turkey’s secular elite, which has often seen the army as the sole guarantee of a freewheeling

lifestyle inspired by Ataturk, is understandably nervous. Many fear that AK’s real mission is

not to democratise Turkey but to convert it to Islamic rule. They might take heart from a parade

in Istanbul’s main square on June 28th to mark international gay pride day. Girls in tightly

wound Islamic headscarves took turns to be photographed with scantily clad transvestites.

“We have nothing against them, Allah created us all equal,” opined a bystander who identified

himself as a pious Muslim. “This is the kind of freedom we long for in Iran,” sighed Ali Akbar,

an Australian tourist of Iranian descent.

The deeper worry among Turkey’s secular elite is not about creeping Islam but over a loss of

power to an encroaching class of pious bureaucrats and entrepreneurs that has become

increasingly visible since Turgut Ozal, a modernising former prime minister, liberalised the

economy after the generals’ third and most recent direct coup in 1980. And are the days of

coups over? That the question can still be posed suggests that a risk remains of further

military intervention, however small. “The generals feel cornered, and that makes them

dangerous,” says a veteran military observer. That may explain why some in the government

would be relieved if the constitutional court did indeed strike down their new law.

Hurriyet, Turkey
June 28 2009
Turkey to reopen Orthodox school shut 38 years ago: report

ANKARA - Turkey is planning to re-open a Greek Orthodox seminary that
was shut down nearly four decades ago, Turkeys culture minister was
quoted as saying Sunday.


The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, and the United
States have long pressed Ankara to re-open the theology school on the
island of Halki, off Istanbul, to prove respect for the rights of its
tiny Christian minority.

Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay said the government was inclined to
re-open the school, even though a final decision was not yet made, the
mass-selling Milliyet daily reported.

"Both my personal conviction and the general inclination I see is that
the school will be opened," Gunay was quoted as saying.

"The school does not currently fit into our university system, but
another formula will be worked out... There is no political problem,"
he said.

The minister explained the authorities were grappling with "the
technical problem" on whether the seminary should have the status of a
university or a vocational high school.

The century-old seminary was closed down in 1971, depriving the
Eastern Orthodox Church, seated in Istanbul since Byzantine times, of
its only facility to train clergy in Turkey.

The closure was the result of legislation bringing institutions of
higher education under state control, an arrangement into which the
seminary did not fit.

Gunay conceded that Turkish-Greek tensions over the island of Cyprus
at the time were also a prominent factor behind the move.

"What happened in the past is left behind... We need to say new things
now," he said.

Keen to boost its struggling EU membership bid, Ankara has in recent
years moved to improve the rights of its tiny non-Muslim minorities,
mainly Greeks, Armenians and Jews. (eh?)
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