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ANKARA, 17 March
2005 — Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said
yesterday he would pay a state visit to Syria in
April, despite US fears it may send the wrong signal
at a time when Damascus is under international
pressure to quit Lebanon. NATO member Turkey’s
relations with its Arab neighbor, once tense, are
now warm and Ankara has stayed largely quiet in
recent weeks as the United States and European
countries have piled pressure on Syria to pull its
forces from Lebanon.
Syria pulled intelligence agents out of Beirut and
large parts of Lebanon yesterday in response to the
US and Lebanese opposition pressure. Many of its
troops have already returned home or have been
redeployed to eastern Lebanon. Asked if he would
still go to Syria, Sezer told reporters during a
reception at his palace: “Of course we will go.”
Turkish media say he will visit Syria on April
13-14.
The US ambassador to Ankara, Eric Edelman, said on
Monday he hoped Turkey would join the “international
consensus” behind a UN Security Council resolution
co-sponsored by Washington and France urging Syria’s
immediate withdrawal from Lebanon.
He stopped short of asking Sezer to postpone or
cancel his visit, but Turkish media interpreted his
remarks as a veiled call to Sezer not to go. US
diplomats said they expected Sezer to deliver a
strong message to Syria if he did decide to go.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul insisted
Ankara was already part of the international
consensus on Syria. “Democracy and the spread of
freedoms across the region are Turkey’s basic
policy. Turkey is part of the international
community,” Gul told reporters.
Opinion in Turkey seems split over the trip, with
some saying Sezer should call it off due to the UN
resolution but others taking a more nationalist
line, saying Ankara cannot risk appearing to kowtow
to the United States. “(Edelman) uses phrases as
though he is interfering in Turkey’s internal
affairs. Turkey’s policies are independent,” the
Vatan newspaper quoted opposition deputy Nuzhet
Kandemir as saying.
Turkey and Syria, once bitter foes, have found
common cause in recent years on regional issues,
especially Iraq, where both fear the Kurds might try
to set up their own state, which could in turn stoke
separatism among their own Kurdish minorities.
Meanwhile, 13 political activists in Turkey face six
months imprisonment for having spoken in Kurdish at
a congress of the Rights and Freedoms Party
(Hak-Par) early last year, the semi-official
Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. Prosecutors
in Ankara have filed a case against former and
current leaders of the party claiming in an
indictment that only the Turkish language is allowed
to be used at congress meetings of political
parties. There was no mention in the Anatolia report
why prosecutors had taken more than a year to bring
the case to court.
The indictment noted that there was no Turkish flag,
no posters of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of
the modern Turkish republic and that the national
anthem was not played at the January congress in
Ankara. In additions to some of the speeches at the
congress being made in Kurdish, invitations to the
congress, letters from Iraqi Kurdish leaders and
placards waved by supporters were in Kurdish, the
indictment said.
Invitations to the congress included Kurdish and
letters from Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq were
read in Kurdish to the attendees and a number of
speeches were made in Kurdish, the prosecutors
claimed. Hak-Par was founded in 2002 by members of
the Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP) fearing that
the constitutional court could rule to close it
down, as it has done a number of times to its
predecessors. It is not clear when the trial of the
13 Hak-Par leaders will begin.
arabnews.com (Agencies)
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