TRKNWS-L Turkish Daily News (April 20, 1996)

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

Turkish News Directory

CONTENTS

TURKISH DAILY NEWS / 20 April 1996

[01] Gonensay says meeting with Pangalos may mark beginning of new dialogue process

Gonensay suggests comprehensive talks between Turkey and Greece on all aspects of ties

By Yusuf Kanli

Turkish Daily News

CONSTANTA/ANKARA- Foreign Minister Emre Gonensay said his scheduled meeting with Greek Foreign Minister Thedoros Pangalos during the security summit in Bucharest could serve as the beginning of a new dialogue process between the two NATO countries.

Talking with the Turkish Daily News during the one-day working visit of President Suyleyman Demirel to Romania Thursday, the foreign minister stated that the scheduled May 27 meeting between himself and the Greek foreign minister "should not be over emphasized" as Greece has not accepted Turkey's calls for a comprehensive dialogue covering all outstanding disputes between the two countries.

The minister said the Bucharest meeting will be held with an open agenda. "We hope that the meeting will mark the beginning of a comprehensive dialogue which would cover all problems between our two countries," Gonensay said. The minister stressed that if Greece agrees to take all problems with Turkey to the International Court of Justice at The Hague, Turkey would consent to that, but he ruled out any unilateral appeal to The Hague by Turkey vis-a-vis the Kardak (or Imia in Greek) crisis that brought the two countries in February to the threshold of war.

"Greece wants us to go The Hague. We shall not do that.

However, if Greece wants to take all problems between our two countries regarding the Aegean Sea -- that is the territorial shelf, airspace, flight information region (FIR) and such -- we may give out consent to that. But, we prefer to solve all these issues through bilateral dialogue," the minister said.

Responding to a question of whether Ankara was planning to suggest the establishment of a bilateral technical team to draw the sea borderline between the two countries in the Aegean, Gonensay recalled that there were no disagreements between the two countries regarding land borders, but because the sea border between the two countries had not been established, the two were often encountering serious problems in the Aegean. Gonensay said if the meeting with Pangalos succeeds in launching a new dialogue process between the two countries, that process would include all outstanding problems, including the bilateral and international borders of the two countries in the Aegean. He said after a dialogue process is initiated, a technical team composed of experts from the two countries could handle that specific problem.

The minister said Ankara believed that any problems between Greece and Turkey could be solved through dialogue. "We believe that the prerequisite of eradicating our bilateral problems is to launch a comprehensive dialogue with political will to solve those issues," he said.

The undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry

Responding to another question about the latest claims in Turkey that Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Onur Oymen had not adequately informed former Prime Minister Tansu Ciller during the Kardak crisis, Gonensay said as far as he was concerned that issue had been properly addressed during the parliamentary debate on the Foreign Ministry's budget.

"I do not understand why that issue is rehashed again. As far as I am concerned, there is no longer such an issue," he said.

The minister appeared irritated with the discussion.

Meanwhile, veteran diplomatic sources told the Turkish Daily News that bringing up the issue, which had been dropped from the agenda of the country long ago, might be part of a scenario to replace Oymen with a political appointee.

"Until now, the undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry has never been appointed with political considerations. If an end is put to such a tradition and the post of the Foreign Ministry undersecretary becomes a domestic policy issue, Turkey may suffer from such a development in the future," he said.

[02] Iranian Foreign Minister Velayati in Ankara

Turkish Daily News

ANKARA- Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati arrived in Turkey on Friday for a one-day visit after a tense period in bilateral ties caused by mutual accusations of espionage by the other's diplomats.

The visit, which aimed at smoothing the relations between the two neighbors, served to highlight the differences of opinion over the Turco-Israeli military training accord.

Iran, along with much of the Muslim world, has criticised Turkey for allowing Israeli air force jets to train in Turkish air space under a military training accord. Turkey's assurances that the Israeli jets will only use Turkish territory for training flights, unarmed and with electric monitoring equipment, did not persuade Iranians.

Diplomatic sources said that Iranian Foreign Minister Velayeti had been told by Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz that no country had any right to dispute Turkey's right to have an agreement with Israel.

"Just as Turkey can have nothing to say to an agreement between Iran and Armenia, Tehran can have no say when Turkey increases its cooperation with Israel," Yilmaz said, adding this was Turkey's "sovereign right." "The relations between Iran and Turkey, as two important neighborly and brotherly countries, is of importance for both of us," Velayati said upon arrival at Ankara's Esenboga airport. "I agree with my counterpart Emre Gonensay, who has just called Turkey and Iran two great countries of the region." Gonensay, for his part, said that the two countries, whose border has not changed for centuries, had conducted their relations with respect of each other's territorial integrity, sovereignty and the principle of nonintervention in domestic affairs.

Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz, receiving Velayati at noon, said that the two countries had close ties. "Despite the difference of regime, we want to strengthen and improve our relations with Iran, based upon respect of legitimate rights and nonintervention in domestic affairs," he said. "I believe that the Iranians share the same view." Turkey and Iran have asked each other to withdraw four of their diplomats in a row that began when Ankara accused Tehran of links to the killings of secularists and Iranian dissidents in Turkey.

Tehran, acting in retaliation during a crucial visit of a senior diplomat, accused four Turkish diplomats of espionage in western Iran. The Iranian diplomats have returned to Tehran and their Turkish counterparts are due home soon.

Velayati's visit was originally scheduled to invite President Suleyman Demirel to the opening of a Meshet-Turkmenistan highway in May.

Before his visit to Demirel, Velayati met with Welfare Party (RP) Chairman Necmettin Erbakan at the Iranian Embassy.

Cancelling his scheduled press conference when the meeting extended beyond twenty minutes, Velayati merely made a statement instead, which said he had discussed with Turkish officials the bilateral relations and the developments in the Middle East.

He said he and Erbakan shared similar views.

[03] German public broadcaster opens office in Istanbul

ISTANBUL- One of the largest German television stations, ZDF, officially opened a representative office in Istanbul on Friday at a ceremony held at the Istanbul Hilton Hotel. Most of the people attending the occasion were either representatives of the Turkish and foreign press or parliamentarians.

Professor Dieter Stolte, who is the director general of ZDF, Germany's second television station, said at the opening ceremony that he had believed it was not right that a television channel which had 17 bureaus abroad didn't have a permanent correspondent in Turkey. Before this, ZDF had to send reporters to cover any breaking news.

According to Stolte, ZDF believes that to provide news more sensitively it is necessary for a journalist to be a part of the life of a country, in addition to being an expert on it. He said that given the fact that as time went by financial resources were contracting, the decision to open another bureau in a foreign country had been a difficult but well-thought out step.

The television station's board finally made the decision to do so, keeping in mind that this was not just a duty owed to the German public but also to the two million Turks who live in Germany.

Manfred Bainczyk has been appointed to head the ZDF representation office in Istanbul. He worked as the Brussels correspondent for ARD, the other large German television station before joining ZDF, so he has had an opportunity to get thoroughly acquainted with the internal structure of the European Union. During that time he sent reports from Greece and Turkey to German viewers.

Vergau stresses the importance of ZDF opening

The German ambassador to Turkey, Hans-Joachim Vergau, at a dinner which he and his wife hosted on Thursday evening stressed how important it was that ZDF was opening an office in Istanbul. Along with ARD German television, it will provide a continuous source of information from Turkey directly to the German public.

Vergau characterized this as an important step which showed that Turkey's political importance had been understood and that its leadership in terms of democracy and the market economy in a problem-filled region and its increasing importance for Europe would be evaluated correctly.

ZDF, a second public service network

ZDF or Second German Television was set up in 1961 as Germany's second public service network and it offers program alternatives to ARD, the other German public network. In 1992, following the unification of the two Germanys, ZDF became the national broadcasting network for all of the country's 16 regional states. This made ZDF Europe's largest broadcaster.

ZDF is a public broadcasting network with a mandate to provide information, education and entertainment in its programming. It endeavors to provide objective, high-quality reporting on events that shape and shake the world.

[04] Lake: EU-Turkey meeting a milestone

ISTANBUL- The first meeting in Turkey of the European Union- Turkey Joint Economic and Social Committee, held on Friday, was described as by the EU ambassador to Ankara as another milestone on the path of integration of Turkey with the West.

"This achievement (the Customs Union between Turkey and the EU) adds up to a substantial program of integration which touches most if not all levels of our societies," EU Ambassador Michael Lake told the meeting.

Lake further characterized the group as "the only such committee which brings together the patronat -- the employers, the trades unions and the sectors and consumers -- indeed the operators who must make our new customs union work".

The ambassador called the customs union between Turkey and the EU the most concrete link between the two societies and pointed out that it made Turkey the most intimate partner worldwide of any non- EU country.

"It will eventually change the way the outside world looks at Turkey and it paves the way for further integration which will anchor Turkey ever more firmly in Europe. In my view the path to further integration remains legally and practically unlimited," he said

Lake stressed that Turkey faced difficulties in its further integration with the EU, including the delay in the Turkish Parliament's budget debate and intensified Greek opposition following the crisis over the territorial waters in the Aegean.

However he also noted that financial and business indicators were showing positive signs and the markets appeared to believe that the customs union had been achieved.

But he warned that confidence is required to consummate the ties between Turkey and the EU.

"Fears of massive business failures, or a huge trade gap, of Turkey paying the price and so on, have remained unfulfilled.

We need to accentuate the positive in the customs union," he said.