CHP EUROPEAN UNION REPRESENTATION Brussels
Turkish News Folder Turkey has a long way ahead, says EU report Turkish Daily News -06.11. 2008 Turkey has made little progress in implementing the key political reforms required to join the European Union, the European Commission said in a report yesterday. “I expect Turkey to re-energize its reform efforts. The pace of negotiations will match the pace of reforms in Turkey,” Rehn said. He lauded Turkey for its role in defusing conflicts in the Caucasus, where a brief war erupted between Russia and Georgia.” “Despite its strong political mandate, the government did not put forward a consistent and comprehensive program of political reforms,” the report said. It listed areas where insufficient progress toward democratic standards had been made, which included the military, anti-corruption efforts, human rights, gender equality and respect for minorities. Read more>>
Baykal: "Secularism provides democray in Turkey" Dünya - 23.10.2008 Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal yesterday said that secularism lies at the foundation of Turkey's democracy and development. Speaking at a symposium at Isparta's Suleyman Demirel University, Baykal said that the republic realized by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his allies, which was meant to renew and change a society, was one of the world's most ambitious projects. Baykal added that secularism is the reason why Turkey's democracy and development is ahead of other Islamic countries. At the symposium, the university also gave an honorary doctorate to British historian Andrew Mango, who is famed for his books on Turkey and Ataturk. Read more>>>
C H P EUROPEAN UNION REPRESENTATION Republican People's Party – Turkey
( Member of the Socialist International )
11, Rond Point Schuman 1040 Brussels T: +32 2 256 7537
F: +32 2 256 5703
brussels@chp.org.tr
www.chp.org.tr
Turkish News Folder
Less than white? A growing row over claims of government corruption The Economist - 18.09.2008 Leaders of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) party like to boast that their acronym means “white” or “clean” in Turkish. No longer so. A succession of corruption allegations is sullying AK’s image of probity. Much mud is being flung over a scandal involving a Turkish charity, Deniz Feneri (“Lighthouse” in Turkish). On September 17th a German court convicted three Turkish men involved in the charity of siphoning off €18.6m ($26m). The money had been raised ostensibly to help needy Muslims, among them Palestinians, Turkish slum-dwellers and refugees in Pakistan. Instead the court found that some funds went to buy real estate in Turkey. Read more>>> Turkey's AKP tarnished by graft case Financial Times -
02.10.2008
A row over corruption allegations is emerging as the new frontline in political battles between the Turkish government and its secularist opponents and could damage the ruling Justice and Development party’s (AKP) carefully cultivated reputation for clean politics. Last month a German court convicted three men for siphoning €18.6m ($26m, £14.7m) from donations raised in Germany’s Turkish community for Deniz Feneri, a big Islamic charity. The court found some funds had been used to buy property in Turkey. Read more>>> Opposition Leader Baykal Criticizes Government Hürriyet - 15.10.2008 Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal yesterday urged Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan to respond to his calls to abolish parliamentary deputies' legal immunity. Speaking at his party's parliamentary group meeting, Baykal accused Erdogan of ignoring deaths in prisons, citing suspects imprisoned under the Ergenekon probe for more than a year before facing a judge, and said democracies must take care of such issues. Read more>>> Erdoğan: We'll not bow to IMF's demands Turkish Daily News - 27.10.2008 The prime minister yesterday opposed the calls to sign an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, as soon as possible.
|2|
Turkish News Folder
“In the crisis period, we'll not bury the future into the darkness by bowing to the demands of the IMF,” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said at his ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) local congress in Altındağ. The government has been reluctant to take concrete measures or devise a multi-billion dollar rescue package as it tries to avoid increasing the perception of an economic crisis in the country ahead of the local elections in March 2009. The urgent step awaited from the government is a clarification on the shape of future relations with the IMF after the final loan agreement expired in May. Read more>>> Roadmap drawn by the Constitutional Court Milliyet - 27.10.2008 Fikret Bila The constitutional court revealed the reasoning for its two significant decisions. Its reasoning of the decisions on headscarf and closure case against the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, serves as a kind of roadmap for political parties. Through the decision that cancelled constitutional amendments on 10th and 42nd articles to liberate headscarf, the Constitutional Court drew the borders of the Parliament's province as well. Read more>>> Blogger.com censored in Turkey Turkish Daily News - 27.10.2008 Following the censorship of YouTube, now the widely used site blogger.com has been shut down, reported daily Radikal yesterday. The censorship decision was made by the Diyarbakır Penal Court on Oct. 20. Together with blogger.com, the site's extension blogspot.com is also not going to be reachable by users in Turkey. Thousands of people who use the site blogspot.com reacted strongly to the news of the ban. Read more>>> Dali in Turkey The Sakip Sabanci Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, standing on a magnificent site on the Bosporus, will be running the exhibition Salvador Dalí, a Surrealist in Istanbul, which will be on show from 20 September to 20 January 2009. www.salvador-dali.org/en_noticies.html?ID=101
|3|