Category: EU Members

European Council decided to open accession negotiations with Turkey on 17 Dec. 2004

Education of Turkish children in Germany overshadows Angela Merkel visit

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has arrived in Turkey for an official visit overshadowed by disagreements over Ankara’s plans to join the EU.

Mrs Merkel opposes full EU membership for Turkey, which began negotiations to become a member in 2005.

There are also disagreements over the education of Turkish children in Germany in the Turkish language.

Germany is Turkey’s biggest trading partner, and nearly three million Turks live in Germany.

Turkey’s sometimes fraught relationship with the European Union won’t be helped by this visit.

After months of avoiding the subject, Chancellor Merkel has chosen this moment to revive her idea of offering Turkey what she calls a privileged partnership with the EU, rather than full membership.

Mrs Merkel has stressed that she does see integration as possible in up to 28 of the 35 so-called chapters of EU law with which Turkey has to comply before it can become a full member of the union.

But her proposal has been firmly rejected by the Turkish government as a breach of the terms agreed when membership negotiations began five years ago.

‘Insulted’

“Such a thing as privileged partnership does not exist,” said Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister for European affairs.

“So we do not take that option seriously because there is no legal foundation of it. At times I feel insulted for being offered something which does not exist.”

The chancellor does have plenty of other topics to discuss here, including Iran’s nuclear programme.

Turkey has recently strengthened its relations with Iran and opposes the tougher sanctions threatened by Western governments.

But their differences over EU membership will cast a shadow over any common ground they do find during this visit.

BBC

March 29, 2010
Belgium: Police suspect PKK ran training camps

Belgium: Police suspect PKK ran training camps

[…]

The arrests followed a three-year investigation. The prosecution says there is strong evidence that the PKK recruited (mostly) Kurdish youth and sent them to training camps in Belgium, Germany and other Western European countries for indoctrination. They also received military training in Greece and in eastern and northern Iraq in order to later fight the Turkish police and armed forces. The PKK is also charged of counterfeiting identity documents and for collecting money by using violence and threats.

[…]

I.I.E.B.

March 25, 2010
Racist BNP and The terrorist links
The conviction of ROBERT COTTAGE for possession of explosives has once again highlighted the link between BNP members and racial violence and terrorism. While the BNP moved quickly to distance itself from the actions of a man who stood in three local elections as a BNP candidate, he joins a growing list of BNP members who have engaged in some form of terrorist or murderous behaviour. Read more.
- DAVID COPELAND – London nail bomber David Copeland brought havoc to London when he set off three nail bombs in 1999. He was a BNP member and activist in East London. He told police when questioned that he wanted to ignite a race war in Britain so that the white population would vote for a BNP government. Read more
- TONY LECOMBER – Nick Griffin’s chief lieutenant Tony Lecomber was convicted and imprisoned for three years for five offences under the Explosives Act after he tried to blow up the offices of a political party. Police found hand grenades and detonators at his home. Despite this the BNP kept him on its payroll for over ten years. He was eventually forced out of his job after he approached Joe Owens to kill a leading politician.
- ALLEN BOYCE and TERRY COLLINS In July 2006 Allen Boyce, a BNP supporter, received a two-year suspended sentence for providing Terry Collins, a BNP activist, with bomb making instructions. Collins himself was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in 2005 for conducting a racist terror campaign against the Asian community in Eastbourne. Read more
- MARK BULLMAN – arsonist Mark Bulman, a BNP activist, was jailed for five years in January after trying to set fire to Swindon’s Broad Street mosque. He used a BNP leaflet as a fuse for his petrol bomb. Read more
- JOE OWENS – gangland hitman For three years until summer 2004 Joe Owens acted as the personal bodyguard to Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, as well as being the Merseyside organiser of the BNP. However, Owens was also known locally as a gangland hitman, whom police had linked to several underworld murders.
Left to right: Mark Bulman, Allen Boyce, Joe Owens , Tony Lecomber (image David Hoffman)

Hope Not Hate
March 15, 2010
Assyrian Genocide Recognition Creates Political Crisis in Sweden

3-13-2010

Sweden (AINA) — The historical decision by the Swedish parliament recognizing Seyfo as a de facto genocide on Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians is creating a considerable political crisis in Swedish politics. The issue has dominated the headlines in Swedish media for several days.

The Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, in a taped interview with Afram Barryakoub for Hujådå, the magazine of the Assyrian federation in Sweden, said he recognized the genocide one week before winning the national elections in Sweden in 2006. This fact is set to create problems between Reinfeldt and his foreign minister, Carl Bildt, one of the most pro-Turkish European foreign ministers.

Bildt has said he will not consider the decision of the parliament but will do everything he can to avoid it becoming official Swedish foreign policy (AINA 3-13-2010). The response to his remarks have come from Hans Linde, the foreign policy spokesman of the Left Party, who said his party will consider pressing charges against Carl Bildt with the national constitution committee.

Assyrian International News Agency

March 14, 2010
Sweden culls its resurgent wolves

Grey wolves have made a comeback since hunting was banned

Swedish hunters have begun culling wolves for the first time in 45 years after parliament ruled that numbers needed to be reduced again.

More than half the quota of 27 may have died on the first day alone with nine shot dead in Dalarna and up to nine killed in Varmland, Swedish radio says.

Hunters have until 15 February to complete the cull, which will leave Sweden with an estimated 210 wolves.

Some 10,000 hunters were reported to be planning to take part in the hunt.

Hunting in the county of Dalarna was halted as the county’s individual quota was nine wolves.

Varmland’s quota of nine “may also have been filled”, the radio reported later on Saturday.

‘Five injured’

In Dalarna, hunters reportedly injured another five wolves.

Every time a hunter shoots and hits a wolf he has to report it to the county authorities, so they can keep track of the local cull.

Earlier, hunters insisted there were measures in place to prevent them shooting too many.

“There’s a lot of regulation, hunters have to check the quota every hour,” Gunnar Gloersson, of the Swedish Hunters Association, told Swedish radio.

Nevertheless, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation was critical of the decision to proceed with the cull, saying it was against EU legislation as the Swedish wolf population had not reached a healthy level.

A formal complaint was to be issued to the EU Commission, Swedish radio said.

The hunt is timed to end before the mating season, which begins in mid-February.

Snow vital

Wolves were hunted to near extinction in southern Scandinavia until a hunting ban was imposed in the 1970s.

Sweden and Norway have worked together to reintroduce the species to the forests along their border. When Norway culled some wolves in 2001, saying the population had spread too far, Sweden lodged a protest.

But the Swedish parliament recently decided there should be at most 210 wolves in Sweden.

Michael Schneider of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency says that was the level last year, and since then more than 20 pairs of wolves have had pups.

“We have to remove this increase to keep the population at this level,” he said.

Mr Gloersson, of the hunting association, said: “We have a lot of problems with wolves – in reindeer areas, with livestock, and for hunters they kill our valuable dogs.”

“Since they came back we have to live with them, but we have to keep their numbers down.”

He said the success of the cull would depend on the weather.

“The only easy way to hunt wolves is if we have snow, so the hunters can track them on the snow. If we don’t have snow I don’t think we’ll even be able to reach the quota of 27 wolves,” he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8436670.stm

March 14, 2010
Sweden, Turkey jointly denounce genocide vote

(Reuters) – The foreign ministers of Turkey and Sweden condemned on Saturday a vote in the Swedish parliament that defined the early 20th-century killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.

Luke Baker

SAARISELKA, Finland Sat Mar 13, 2010

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt (C) and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu (R) talk to the media after their meeting in Saariselka Inari, in the Finnish Lapland March 12, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Lehtikuva/Jussi Nukari

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who is holding informal talks with foreign ministers including Turkey’s Ahmet Davutoglu in northern Finland, said he was upset by the vote on Thursday and concerned it could affect Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.

“It’s regrettable because I think the politicization of history serves no useful purpose,” he told reporters.

“We are interested in the business of reconciliation, and decisions like that tend to raise tensions rather than lower tensions,” he said.

Sweden’s parliament, by a vote of 131-130, backed a resolution that branded the killing of up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Ottoman Turks as a genocide, a term that Turkey resolutely rejects.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt phoned his Turkish counterpart, Tayyip Erdogan, on Saturday and said he disagreed with the resolution, according to a statement on the Turkish prime minister’s official website.

The vote followed a decision by a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives the week before approving a nonbinding measure condemning the 1915 killings.

In both cases Turkey responded angrily, withdrawing its ambassadors to Washington and Stockholm.

The vote in the Swedish parliament was particularly galling for Turkey as Sweden is one of Ankara’s strongest backers on issues such as Turkey’s desire to join the European Union.

Reinfeldt told Erdogan Sweden would continue to back Turkey’s EU bid and that the vote was driven by domestic politics and would not affect bilateral relations, the statement said. Erdogan canceled a planned visit to Sweden this month, and the government recalled its ambassador from Stockholm.

Davutoglu said Turkey would not stand by quietly if other nations took similar steps to describe the 1915 killings as a genocide and said it was pointless for countries to think they could put pressure on Turkey.

“We will not be silent and we will not just show the usual attitudes. For each case we will have a different (set of) measures,” he said.

“What is the purpose of this? If the purpose is to make pressure, nobody can make pressure on Turkey. if the purpose is to get local domestic concerns raised, Turkish historical events should not be misused for these narrow issues.”

Davutoglu, the architect of Turkey’s foreign policy of re-engaging with its neighbors, including Armenia, said it was wrong for parliaments to think they could define history purely via a vote.

He also said he was concerned about the impact the vote could have on efforts by Armenia and Turkey to reconcile their history and find a political common ground at a time when they are making progress toward normalizing relations.

(Editing by Matthew Jones)

March 14, 2010