TRKNWS-L Turkish Daily News (April 12, 1996)

From: TRKNWS-L <trh@aimnet.com>

Turkish News Directory

CONTENTS

TURKISH DAILY NEWS / 12 April 1996

[01] Turkey opens up to Israeli warships after combat jets

TDN Parliament Bureau

ANKARA- Defense Minister Oltan Sungurlu on Thursday revealed details of a military agreement between Turkey and Israel that was signed by Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Cevik Bir on February 23.

Speaking at a press conference at Parliament about the agreement, Sungurlu said that both countries hoped that it would be a model for democracy and set an example for the region. The agreement concerns military training and cooperation between the two countries.

In addition to joint air force training activities, naval vessels of each country would have access to the other's harbors.

Sungurlu said the agreement includes the following terms:

1) Exchange of military information, experience, and personnel.

2) Access to each other's military academies and headquarters.

3) Joint training activities.

4) Exchange of military personnel to observe each other's military exercises.

5) Access by naval vessels to each other's harbors.

6) Exchange of social and cultural information.

7) Access to each other's sports and arts facilities on military bases.

8) Cooperation and use of one another's military documentaries, films and darkroom facilities.

Sungurlu pointed out that all air force planes using the airspace of the other country must be unarmed. He added that the accord would allow Israeli naval vessels to come to Turkey for social visits.

The agreement has not yet been approved by the Cabinet but it has already begun to be implemented.

Four times per year

"Under the agreement, Israeli planes could come to Turkey four times a year for training. Each time, the Israeli aircraft will be allowed to stay in Turkey for only one week," Sungurlu said.

Sungurlu noted that the Israeli planes will not carry out their flights at night but in daytime. The planes will not be allowed to carry any arms or electronic warfare or intelligence equipment during their flights over Turkish airspace. Sungurlu noted that all types of airplanes owned by the two countries are included in the agreement.

Sungurlu said that the commander of the Dutch ground forces had asked him to give permission to his country's air force to train in Turkish airspace.

Sungurlu pointed out that all countries in the region have bilateral relations except Turkey and Israel. He said that because of changing world conditions, Turkey must act in its own best interest.

Criticizing Iran's concerns over the military agreement between Israel and Turkey, Sungurlu said that he couldn't understand Iran's concerns. He indicated that there were two agreements between Turkey and Israel. The first was signed last September and concerned training flights of military planes. The second agreement, signed last February, concerned general training issues.

Sungurlu concluded by saying that Turkey has no bad intentions towards any its neighbors, adding that he doesn't know how the Israeli press presented the agreement to the public. He added that Turkey is always cautious in its relations with its neighbors and he hoped that those countries had a similar approach.

[02] It is also in Iran's interest to maintain good ties with Turkey

Turkish Daily News

Relations between Ankara and Tehran are once again sour simply because serious mistakes have been made by some Turkish newspapers and, unfortunately, the Iranian authorities have fallen into the trap by reciprocating...

Some major Turkish newspapers have accused several Iranian diplomats of being involved in a series of assassinations of prominent Turks in recent years. The papers have actually further antagonized Tehran by calling Iran "a murderer" and publishing photos of Iranian diplomats. All this was really out of order and we raised our objections at the time, both in these columns and on our special TV programs aired on Channel 7.

We said Turkey has a vital interest in maintaining good ties with Tehran and calling a country "murderer" would only serve to hurt these interests. Besides, Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz took a very cautious approach, announcing that there was still no proof to suggest Iran had a role in the assassinations in Turkey...

Later, news came that Turkish officials had gathered some important information on these allegations and had relayed it to Iran...

The Turkish Daily News was told at the time that Turkey wanted to solve the issue through silent diplomacy without creating any fuss. Yet, someone who wanted to sabotage Turkish-Iranian relations unfortunately leaked information to the press and things started to deteriorate to the point of no return.

Thus, we are now living through a tit for tat situation where the Iranians have created artificial spying charges against Turkish diplomats serving in their country and are asking the Turkish government to withdraw them... Turkey in return could not use silent diplomacy to send back four Iranian diplomats and is now in the embarrassing position of having to withdraw its diplomats and see our relations deteriorate with Tehran at the most inopportune time, when our forces have launched an all-out offensive to dislodge PKK terrorists in southeastern Turkey which borders Iran...

Iran is our gateway to the East. Iran is a fuel supplier for Turkey. Iran is our neighbor and a trading partner. All this means we have a vested interest in maintaining good relations with Tehran, but it is not a one-way street. Iran also has a vested interest in maintaining good relations with Ankara.

Turkey could easily have joined the Western effort to isolate Iran but it didn't.

There are too many countries who want to destabilize Iran and Turkey until now has shunned any suggestion of supporting them.

This should not be taken as a position of weakness. On the contrary, it shows Turkey is a mature and serious country which regards regional stability as more important than other kinds of gains.

So Iranian authorities should not fall into the trap of thinking that Turks are against their country and are joining other forces to harm their country. If Turkey desired such a thing it would have done it several years ago when Iran was in a more fragile situation, fighting a war against Iraq...

[03] Turkish & Iranian 'spy-diplomats' prepare for simultaneous departure for their capitals

Turkish Daily News

ANKARA- Turkey and Iran, locked in a controversy in which both accuse the others' diplomats of spying, are expected to overcome the problem by simultaneously withdrawing their diplomats.

After Turkey announced that it will withdraw its diplomats for their own security, Iranian diplomats in Turkey said that they were preparing to go home.

"There has been no official order for us to return, but we have begun preparations. For us to stay on in Turkey after this would be a diplomatic embarrassment," Mohsen Karagier Azad, press attache at Iran's consulate in Istanbul, told Reuters.

"I have no connection with the incidents," Azad said. "I deny what has been written about me." "First, Turkey leaked the incidents to the press. Newspapers published our names and pictures. Iran, too, must appease its public. Turkey accused Iranian diplomats of murder and terrorism. Turkey says its diplomats' lives are not safe. Well, here our lives are not safe," he said.

Turkey said the spy claims were baseless, but that it would withdraw its diplomats for security reasons and asked Iran to bring home its diplomats, originally implicated by the media.

Ali Tuygan, the Foreign Ministry deputy undersecretary, said the precautions for the security of the diplomats was "under the arrangement" of the embassy in Tehran.

Tuygan said the spy charges were unconvincing, and brought simply as a countermeasure to Turkey's accusations.

"We would not have wanted relations with Iran to come to this stage," Tuygan said as he arrived in Ankara Thursday morning from Tehran. He said he was going to brief Foreign Minister Emre Gonensay on his talks in Iran.

"We are assessing the developments," a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said.

Turkey and Iran had smooth relations in the 1990s; however, a number of incidents have strained relations. In February, Turkey accused Iran and Syria of dodging questions about their possible role in sending arms Ankara said were destined for Kurdish rebels in Turkey.

A week later Tehran protested to Ankara over allowing an Iranian opposition group to hold a demonstration in Turkey and hundreds took part in an anti-Turkish rally in Tehran.

Relations were further damaged last month when Turkish police said that a Turkish Islamist hit man, who confessed to killing two Iranian dissidents in Turkey in 1992, had received training in Iran. Iran denied the accusation.

The Iranian media has adopted a tough attitude toward Turkey and distorted the facts by saying Iran had expelled the diplomats. An article said that the four diplomats were offering the information they had gathered in Iran to Israel. Iranian Information Minister Huccetulislam Ali Fallahiyan, meanwhile, linked drug smuggling in Iran to Turkey, France and Germany, accusing those countries of trying to deliver a "political blow" to the Islamic regime.

The Azerbaijan Cultural Association in Turkey, for its part, made a statement saying that the Iranian accusations about the Turkish diplomats were "a way for Iran to distract attention from the activities of the Iranian diplomats in Turkey." "The Iranians are afraid of the 30 million Turkish population in the country," he said.

[04] Bonn says it won't talk to Kurdish PKK leader

ANKARA- The German government reaffirmed on Wednesday that it would not enter into talks with Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which it holds responsible for several waves of violence in Germany, Reuters reported from Bonn.

Parliamentarian Heinrich Lummer, who relayed a message from Ocalan to the Turkish government last year, told the weekly Die Zeit that Germany should consider talking to the banned PKK if this helped to reduce the violence. Lummer's meeting with the terrorist leader, which took place in Damascus, had drawn an angry reaction from Ankara, but it did not become a full diplomatic crisis.

German government spokesman Herbert Schmuelling told a news conference: "The government sees no need for discussions with Ocalan, either today or in future. He's not the right person for the government to talk to." The PKK has carried the conflict to Germany, which has around half a million Kurds in a Turkish population of over two million.

Lummer told Die Zeit, according to an advance release from Thursday's edition, that he did not believe Bonn should enter into a full dialogue with the PKK, banned in Germany as a terrorist organization.

"For us it can only be a matter of seeing to it that no more acts of violence are carried out (by the PKK) in Germany," he said. "If contacts can help to achieve that, then one should take them up." Ocalan himself offered dialogue with Germany in an interview with Die Zeit last week, but he also said he could unleash a wave of bomb attacks unless Bonn ended what the PKK says is its support for Ankara's repression of the Kurds. He has placed German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel on the list of "enemies."

Georgia's Kurdish Association rejects talks with PKK

In a separate development, Zaza Kalashov, the president of the Kurdish Cultural Association in Georgia, announced that he has turned down a "merger" with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Kalashov told the Anatolia news agency that the offer was conveyed to him by supporters of the group in Tbilisi.

"Any talks with the PKK can happen only if the group abandons terrorism and its present policies which do not only target Turks but Kurdish civilians," he said. Kalashov also noted that the PKK had caused divisions among the Kurds in Georgia, Russia and in other countries, adding that the PKK supporters were "being used" by Moscow and by Athens.

[05] United States tells Athens it is concerned by PKK activities in Greece

By Ugur Akinci

Turkish Daily News

WASHINGTON- The United States raised the issue of terrorism in general, and PKK activities in Greece in particular, during a breakfast meeting at the U.S. State Department hosted by Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Wednesday morning.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis and Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos had the chance to hear firsthand how concerned the United States was about PKK activities. Both Greek leaders previously tried to explain away the PKK's presence in Greece as the legal activities of "Kurdish refugees" who had been given political asylum.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns confirmed "we did raise the issue of terrorism" during the breakfast meeting.

"Secretary of Christopher raised the issue of terrorism after we had the attack on the (U.S.) Embassy last month (in Athens)." TDN learned from another source that U.S. Ambassador to Athens Thomas Niles, who was present at the meeting, reportedly took the lead in bringing up the attack on the Embassy.

The issue of specific PKK activities was brought to the attention of Simitis and Pangalos during different conversations they reportedly held by Acting Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs John Kornblum and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, who were also present at the breakfast. Richard Beattie, President Clinton's special coordinator for Cyprus, was also invited.

"In a very effective way we did raise the issue of the PKK. We know that there are PKK people inside Greece, offices, and so forth," Burns said. "We don't have any evidence that the Greek government gives logistical or financial support to the PKK," Burns continued. "But we are concerned that private groups in Greece may be supporting the PKK. The PKK operation in Greece is a point of concern for us."