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Tag: Recep Tayyip Erdogan

12th president of Turkey

  • Turkey entered a critical phase, says pm

    Turkey entered a critical phase, says pm

    Touching on the reform process in Turkey, Erdogan noted that the Republic of Turkey became a stronger sycamore with the reforms completed.

    World Bulletin/News Desk

    erdoTurkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said that they had entered a “critical phase for Turkey”.

    Speaking at a meeting of the provincial and municipality leaders of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party in Kizilcahamam town of Ankara, Erdogan underlined that they had entered a critical and crucial phase for Turkey.

    “2014 will be a year of elections for Turkey in which critical results would be attained. First of all, there will be local elections in March. In mid-2014, there will be presidential election based on the Turkish Constitution. In this process, the possibility of a referendum may come up on the Turkish Constitution,” Erdogan stressed.

    Touching on the reform process in Turkey, Erdogan noted that the Republic of Turkey became a stronger sycamore with the reforms completed.

    “AK Party has strengthened the bonds between the body of the republic’s sycamore and its roots. AK Party has opened the channels that were blocked and helped the state re-embrace its history and nation,” Erdogan also said.

  • Israel is right to apologise to Turkey – though it leaves some Western commentators looking silly

    Israel is right to apologise to Turkey – though it leaves some Western commentators looking silly

    Daniel Hannan

    Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.

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    Israel is right to apologise to Turkey – though it leaves some Western commentators looking silly

    By Daniel Hannan Politics Last updated: March 23rd, 2013

    A good working relationship is essential for the region

    Israelis like to say that they live in a tough neighbourhood, and it’s true. Since its foundation, the Jewish state has been surrounded by hostile dictatorships. The fact that, through all its wars, it remained a democracy – and a gloriously messy, disputatious, cussed democracy, at that – is little short of miraculous.

    I remember, some years ago, seeing the place where the military authorities had originally placed part of the protective wall, and then the place to which it had been moved following a successful legal challenge. In how many Middle Eastern countries, I wondered, would the rule of law trump the generals’ decision?

    In tough neighbourhoods, you need friends. For a long time, Israel was able to weather the antagonism of surrounding states because it had a workmanlike relationship with Egypt and an entente – it stopped short of being an alliance – with Turkey.

    The worst foreign policy failure of the current government – a government which I broadly support – was to alienate these two countries in succession. In both cases, the rupture came about because of unplanned accidents of the sort that happen whenever soldiers are deployed. No one suggests that the Israeli government wanted its troops to shoot at Egyptian security forces, or to kill Turkish blockade-runners. In both cases, though, a swift and sincere apology would have helped smooth things over.

    Instead, the Israeli authorities became prickly and defensive, refusing to admit any fault and privately claiming that the other side was looking for an excuse to break off links. In the case of Egypt, these claims might have had an element of truth, though a more emollient attitude would none the less have strengthened the hand of Cairo moderates and attracted the goodwill of neutrals. In the case of Turkey, Israel’s reaction was incomprehensible. Turkey, the region’s chief military power, was the first Muslim country to recognise the Israeli state, and the armed forces of the two countries had long enjoyed close relations. It is true that, for some years before the flotilla incident in 2010, Ankara had been critical of Israeli policy in Gaza. All the more reason, then, not to vindicate the arguments of Turkey’s most anti-Israel elements.

    Binyamin Netanyahu deserves credit for having had the generosity and wisdom to correct his mistake. As the civil war in Syria drags on, Israel and Turkey have more reason than ever to work together. His apology has, inevitably, led to some Western writers complaining that the Israeli commandos who stormed the ship were victims rather than aggressors, but it is more than a little eccentric to keep insisting that there is nothing to apologise for when the Likud-led government has already apologised. Most of these writers perfunctorily tell us that Israel “shouldn’t be beyond criticism”; but, in practice, they never seem to allow such criticism.

    Few subjects create such with-us-or-against us sentiment. Simply taking the line I have – that Israel is entitled to defend itself, that it has every right to respond militarily to the Hamas rocket attacks, but that it was wrong to attack a Turkish-flagged vessel in international waters – will convince both sides that I am against them: watch the comment thread that follows.

    Israel needs to engage constructively with democratic forces in the region. It’s true that, in the cacophony that followed the Arab Spring, some previously suppressed anti-Israel voices dominated. But it is equally true that democracies tend to be less bellicose than dictatorships.

    In the long run, Israel’s security lies in cleaning up the neighbourhood – evicting the anti-social louts, so to speak, and replacing them with hard-working families. It won’t be easy. Some of those families will have awkward views, and conversations across the garden fence will often be fraught. But at least the teenagers will no longer be throwing bottles at your house.

    To put it more prosaically, Israel – like the West – needs to develop a decent working relationship with democratic Muslim parties. Repairing relations with Turkey was a vital first step.

    Tags: AK Parti, Bibi Netanyahu, Erdogan, flotilla, Gaza

    via Israel is right to apologise to Turkey – though it leaves some Western commentators looking silly – Telegraph Blogs.

  • Erdoğan’s Decade as Prime Minister of Turkey :: Daniel Pipes

    Erdoğan’s Decade as Prime Minister of Turkey :: Daniel Pipes

    by Daniel Pipes

    Cross-posted from National Review Online, The Corner

    Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has served longer than any person as prime minister of the Republic of Turkey, today marks his completion of a full decade in that office, having entered it on March 14, 2003.

    Born in February 1954, he is now 59 years old. And while he has a potentially long political career ahead of him, he reportedly suffers from some serious ailments that could cut it short.

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    Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in action.

    The only comparable figure in modern Turkish history is Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the republic and dominant figure. It is reasonable to see Erdoğan as the anti-Atatürk, the leader who seeks to undo substantial parts of his predecessor’s legacy, especially his rejection of Shari’a, or Islamic law. One can also see him as the politician who turns Islamism into a nearly viable political program.

    Erdoğan’s main challenges are three-fold: an electorate increasingly wary of his domineering ways, an ever-more restive Kurdish population, and a problematic regional alignment in which, as Ian O. Lesser put it in analysis published yesterday, “Ankara faces some troubling cold wars, new and old, that will shape the strategic environment and the nature of Turkey’s security partnerships.”

    Westerners have been conspicuously slow in understanding just what a threat Erdoğan presents; one can only hope that his second decade will prompt more understanding than the first. (March 14, 2013)

    via Erdoğan’s Decade as Prime Minister of Turkey :: Daniel Pipes.

  • Three Powerful Men Decide Turkey’s Future

    Three Powerful Men Decide Turkey’s Future

    By: Kadri Gursel for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse. Posted on March 12.

    Turkey’s future is to be decided by the nation’s three most powerful men, by the equilibrium they shape among themselves and by deals they forge with each other.

    Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan leaves a wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Ankara

    Recep Tayyip Erdogan leaves a wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, in Ankara, Aug. 1, 2012. (photo by REUTERS/Stringer)

    About This Article

    Summary :

    Kadri Gursel writes on the three men who are critical to Turkey’s future: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan; Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned head of the Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK]; and Fethullah Gulen, exiled head of the Gulen Sunni movement.

    Original Title:
    Three Powerful Men Decide Turkey’s Future
    Author: Kadri Gursel
    Translated by: Timur Goksel

    The first and the most powerful is already at the zenith of political power: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He is also the most powerful, most capable civilian leader after the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. His colleagues who know from his younger days speak of him as “reis,” [”president” in formal usage and ”chief” colloquially]. The people who joined him at his current post call him “patron” [the boss]. In official bureaucratic milieu, among party members and businessmen close to him he is “beyefendi” [sir or esquire]. Not only is he the most powerful man of Turkey, but because he enjoys exercising his power and doesn’t want to share it with anyone else, he is a personality that instills fear in his party AKP, in the state structure and the society.

    The second most powerful man is serving a life sentence and has been in prison for 14 years: Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the separatist, armed Kurdish organization, the Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK] in 1978 and who personally led it until 1999 when he was apprehended in Kenya and handed over to Turkey. Since his imprisonment the PKK has changed drastically. The Kurdish issue became politicized and regionalized and has become a mass movement. Among many political and societal variables the key issue that hasn’t changed in the Kurdish movement has been the loyalty to Ocalan’s historical leadership. This is why the Kurds close to the PKK say “Honorable Ocalan’’ or in brief “the Leadership” when they speak of him. Ocalan is a figure that unites Kurdish nationalists.

    The AKP rule and their media use a code for Ocalan that is derived from the name of the island where his private prison is: Imrali.

    Those in the power, to avoid perceptions that they are in a dialogue with Ocalan through intelligence officials, refrain from using his name and prefer to say “Imrali.”

    The third powerful man is a Sunni religious leader living in voluntary exile in the United States for 14 years: Fethullah Gulen. Gulen, who started out as a mosque imam, is the founder of an Islamic socio-political movement that is now spread worldwide. He is its spiritual leader. The movement has several labels: “Gulen Movement,” “Service” or the most popular version in Turkey, “Cemaat” [a congregation or faith community]. Their followers are known as “Gulenists.” Those who admire Fethullah Gulen call him “hocaefendi” [a scholar esquire].

    Those who don’t like him call him ‘’Pennsylvania’’ after the state he moved to in 1999 when he left Turkey because of military pressure. Some call him “Across the Ocean.”

    The main engine of the Gulen Movement that has long become globalized is education. They have close to 1,000 schools in more than 120 countries, including universities.

    In Turkey they have a nationwide school and student hostel network with tens of thousands of teachers and hundreds of thousands of students. Vast majority of their students are on scholarships. The revenues that turns the wheels come from their capitalist ventures and donations collected by a network of organizations of powerful businessmen. The movement also has a strong media network with daily Zaman and Samanyolu TV channels as its flag ships.

    But the most extraordinary political power attributed to the Gulen Movement is the network it has reportedly built inside the state mechanism, especially in judiciary and security sectors.

    Today, many impartial observers agree that the current neo-Islamist rule of Turkey has been able to eliminate in just three years the military-bureaucratic tutelage power centers that saw themselves as the guardians of the Ataturk Republic with police actions and judicial procedures mainly thanks to harmonious work of the Gulenist cadres in the police and the judiciary.

    Although their statures are widely divergent, there are commonalities in the leaderships of Erdogan, Gulen and Ocalan that render them powerful and consequential.

    All three are extremely charismatic, all three have exceptional influence on their constituencies, all three are visionaries and finally all three have alternative societal projects. All three with their visions and leaderships carried changes they brought about to outside of Turkish borders.

    And there is no fourth man who has similar attributes.

    Until recent past, chiefs of general staff used to be counted among the powerful figures of the land but not anymore. Turkey has changed and will change more.

    The change in Turkey now proceeds on two axes: Erdogan’s overly personalized authoritarian president project, and peace with the Kurdish movement.

    What Turkey’s new regime will look like and status of Turkey’s relations with the Kurdish reality in the Middle East will largely be determined by the interaction between these two axes.

    To make is clearer and more concrete we must say this:  Although there was no cause-and-effect relationship, the a la carte presidential model Erdogan wants for himself and settlement of the Kurdish issue became linked to the peace negotiations at Imrali. Despite efforts to keep them under wraps, it is now known that the negotiations between Turkish intelligence officials who represented Erdogan’s authority and Ocalan have been going on since last October.

    The negotiation platform of a “new constitution” on which the presidential system and peace issues were debated was in a format of give-and-take.

    For the presidential system Erdogan desires, a constitutional amendment is required as well as for the settlement of the Kurdish issue. To meet the equality demands of the Kurds a neutral definition of citizenship that doesn’t require “Turkishness,” education in the mother tongue and partially fulfilling the demand for autonomy by empowering local administrations are all required constitutional adjustments.

    If progress is wanted in the peace process, then the constitution has to be amended to meet these Kurdish demands. Erdogan’s AKP doesn’t have enough parliamentary seats to submit a constitutional draft to a public vote. AKP can negotiate only with the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party [BDP] for a presidential system. Other parties are categorically refusing to negotiate for such a system.

    A reality emerged when the daily Milliyet on Feb. 28 published the minutes of the meeting three BDP parliamentarians held with Ocalan at Imrali a few days earlier. The topic of BDP supporting the presidential system was on the agenda of the Imrali meeting and Ocalan, despite some reservations, was amenable to support Erdogan’s presidency.

    Nevertheless, it will not be easy for the Erdogan government to market a “AKP-BDP constitution” to majority nationalist conservative Turkish public unless the PKK military forces  leave Turkey before a possible constitutional referandum in the fall and for Turkey’s 30-year terror question to be considered as done with.

    An interesting feature of the “’Imrali Minutes” report was the harsh accusations of Ocalan against the Gulen Movement. Ocalan claimed the summons by the specially authorized prosecutor of Hakan Fidan, the undersecretary of National Intelligence Organization for questioning on Feb. 7, 2012, was “”actually a coup attempt” and implied it was the Gulen Movement behind it. Ocalan went as far as to claim that the objective of the summons was to arrest the prime minister on charges of treason and labeled the Gulen Movement as new “counter-guerrilla.”

    We will perhaps understand better in the future why Ocalan made such severe accusations against the Gulen Movement. The Gulen media since 2009, especially after 2011, have been increasingly supportive of police operations that resulted in arrests of thousands of Kurdish activists, there has been a perceptible antipathy against the Gulen Movement in Kurdish public opinion. But this is not enough to explain Ocalan’s outburst.

    What is definite is this: The crisis that began Feb. 7, 2012, with the summons for questioning of Hakan Fidan, the MIT undersecretary who happens to be one bureaucrat Erdogan trusts most, culminated in ending the de facto partnership for power between the Gulen Movement and the AKP.

    It is true that the Gulen Movement, with its media assets, its undeniable influence over conservative voters and its potential power within the state, is a key actor. But what is apparent is that the movement has not yet decided its final position on Erdogan’s presidency and the peace process with the PKK and that they are somewhat undecided with these issues.

    The Gulen Movement has adequate power to influence these processes this or that way once it makes up its mind.

    The clarification of the interaction among “the three” also depends on the Gulen Movement to determine its inclination.

    Kadri Gürsel is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor‘s Turkey Pulse and has written a column for the Turkish daily Milliyet since 2007. He focuses primarily on Turkish foreign policy, international affairs and Turkey’s Kurdish question, as well as Turkey’s evolving political Islam. He joined the Milliyet publishing group in 1997 as vice editor-in-chief of a newly launched weekly news magazine, Artı-Haber, and was Milliyet’s foreign news editor from 1999 until 2008. Gürsel was also a correspondent for Agence France-Presse between 1993 and 1997, and in 1995 was kidnapped by the PKK, an experience he recounted in his book Dağdakiler (Those of the Mountains), published in 1996. He is also chairman of the Turkish National Committee of the International Press Institute.

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/erdogan-ocalan-gulen-turkey-pkk-peace-process-presidency.html#ixzz2NRFfoUTn

  • Aubrey Rose: Discovering Huntington’s Fallacy in Turkey

    Aubrey Rose: Discovering Huntington’s Fallacy in Turkey

    As a Christian American studying international law half way across the world in Turkey, I’m constantly confronted with the question of Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.”

    Huntington told us that people’s cultural and religious identities are the primary source of conflict in our era. On a macro level, it is about an inevitable clash between Western and Islamic civilization. On a micro level, it is about an inevitable clash between Christian-Americans and Muslims. My challenge to this theory is: come follow me around Istanbul for a day.

    Huntington took a black marker and drew a harsh line between civilizations, linking Western identity to progressive values and Islamic identity to traditional values. Huntington said Turkey was living on a “fault line” because it has been torn between Islamic roots and “Westernization” since the 1920s. In the future, he said, Turkey must take a side and pick one of the civilizations it bridges together.

    However, recent developments in Turkey have demonstrated that this division is a simplistic way to view the world. While Huntington’s theory gives the West a monopoly on progressive values, Turkey is more than 90 percent Muslim and has made more strides on human rights issues in the past 10 years than the United States. This includes, most notably, abolishing the death penalty and improving prison conditions. While Turkey still has a long way to go to satisfy international human rights law standards, it is Turkish Muslim advocates, not Westerners, who are demanding more progressive laws to reflect their own values. With Prime Minister Erdoğan recently declaring that Turkey could pave its own path without European Union membership, it looks like Turkey doesn’t wish to pick a side in the civilization clash.

    One inspiring advocate fighting for Turkey’s progressive legacy is my International Human Rights Law professor. When I first heard my professor voice the all-consuming conviction she felt as an attorney at the European Court of Human Rights, I recognized myself in her. Sitting in that Turkish classroom, I was reminded of the burning feeling I got when I first learned about America’s serious human rights violations and my peers didn’t seem to care.

    Catholicism and Islam both honor the value of human dignity, refusing to treat any human as a means to an end. Just as my passion for legal advocacy cannot be detached from my Jesuit Catholic upbringing, my professor’s passion is closely intertwined with Islam. Our interactions remind me of the greatest gift of interfaith dialogue: solidarity. When dealing with issues as morbid as execution and torture, the divider between complacency and conviction is the most important fault line for Christian and Muslim advocates alike.

    When President Obama spoke to the Turkish parliament in 2009, newspapers read “Obama Declares An End to Clash of Civilizations.” In this era, a nation like Turkey doesn’t have to abandon Islam to progress as a democracy and realize human rights for its citizens. In the same way, a Catholic pre-law student does not have to suppress her religion to feel a sense of comradery with a Muslim lawyer fighting for human dignity.

    Turkey and my experiences here re-affirm my hope that the differences between our religious identities will not overshadow the common convictions that bring us together.

    Aubrey Rose is a prelaw and international relations student at American University. Right now, she is studying abroad in Istanbul, Turkey. In high school, she founded a local interfaith student organization with a Muslim friend in their hometown of Frederick, Maryland. Through conferences and leadership training, Interfaith Youth Core helped Aubrey promote cooperation between her Catholic church and a local mosque. Raised in a family with strong Catholic social justice values, Aubrey hopes to pursue law school and work for non-profits that promote criminal justice reform and an end to the death penalty.

    via Aubrey Rose: Discovering Huntington’s Fallacy in Turkey.

  • RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN, WILL BE ARRESTED FOR TREASON?

    RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN, WILL BE ARRESTED FOR TREASON?

    Tayib Erdogan

    RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN, WILL BE ARRESTED FOR TREASON?

    The Kurdistan Workers’ Party commonly known as PKK is a terrorist Kurdish Communist organization which has since 1984 been fighting and launching an armed struggle against the Turkish state for an autonomous Kurdistan in Turkey in 1984, calling for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey.
    The group, which has Marxist-Leninist roots, was founded in 1978 in the village of Fis in Turkey and was led by İmralı killer Abdullah Öcalan. The PKK’s ideology is originally a fusion of radical left, Marxist and their goal is to disintegrate Turkish Republic and to spread revolutionary socialism and Kurdish nationalism. Since his imprisonment, the İmralı killer Abdullah Öcalan has abandoned orthodox Marxism.
    The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including United Nations, NATO, the United States and the European Union and the PKK have been blacklisted in many countries.
    Since the invasion of Iraq by US-led coalition forces in 2003, the PKK terrorist organization have taken northern Iraq as a safe haven area and been protected by both US and Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
    Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, and the US-led coalition forces and Iraqi central government have not done enough to combat the PKK and dislodge them from their base in the northern Iraqi mountains.
    Since then, more than 40,000 innocent Turkish citizens have died by the PKK terrorist organization. During the conflict, which reached a peak in the mid-1990s, thousands of villages were destroyed in south-east and east of Turkey, and hundreds of thousands of villagers fled to cities in other parts of the country avoiding PKK terrorist attacks.
    In the 1990s, the PKK terrorist organization rolled back on its demands for an independent Kurdish state, calling instead for more autonomy for the Kurds. However, the PKK terrorist organization in 1999, suffered a major blow when terrorist leader, Abdullah Öcalan, was arrested and jailed in İmralı for treason.
    Between 2009 and 2011, high-level secret talks took place between the PKK and the Turkish government in Oslo, Norway, but negotiations collapsed after a clash between Turkish soldiers and terrorist PKK in June 2011, in which 14 Turkish soldiers were killed.
    After the dialogue failed, the conflict escalated rapidly, with some of the heaviest fighting seen in three decades. The PKK took its campaign to a new level by launching major attacks in urban areas of south-eastern Turkey. As a consequence hundreds of Kurdish terrorist prisoners went on hunger strike in October 2012 demanding better conditions for İmralı killer Abdullah Öcalan and the right to use the Kurdish language in the justice and education system.
    Recently, the Turkish government established TV channel TRT6 that broadcast in Kurdish language. The positions of Prime Minister of Turkey (1983-1989) and President of Turkey (1989-1993) were both held by Halil Turgut Özal who was of Kurdish origin.
    Nevertheless, a direct order from Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Intelligence Officials, Milli İstahbarat Teşkilatı “MIT” started negotiations with the terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan on December 2012 on the island of Imrali, where he has been held while a peaceful settlement is found to end this conflict.
    Despite terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan being locked away in prison, İmralı killer Abdullah Öcalan’s authority to speak on behalf of the Kurds has endured. Last November, hundreds of Kurdish political prisoners ended a hunger strike after he ordered them to do so. As a Turk, it is a shame to see that the mighty Turkish government is negotiating with the terrorist Abdullah Öcalan from his prison cell and this clearly shows the lack of the leadership and the weakness of the current government in Turkey.
    Now Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is bargaining through intermediaries with the most famous terrorist prisoner who has committed many atrocities in Turkey over the new regime to be set up in Turkey.
    On the 23rd of February 2013, three members of the parliament from pro-Kurdish party “BDP” were permitted to visit terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan in his prison.
    The minutes of their meeting between Kurdish lawmakers and the jailed leader of the PKK were leaked to the press, and published by the mainstream daily Milliyet newspaper.
    The leaked information confirmed that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is haggling with the terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan for the position of presidency in return for peace.
    In addition it was revealed that, the terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan’s plan included three stages; starting with a ceasefire, withdrawal of PKK fighters from Turkey to rebel bases in northern Iraq and finally legal and political reforms aimed at improving the rights of Turkey’s Kurds and strengthening local self rule, in exchange for an end to the fighting.
    If the negotiation process fails, terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan threatens to wage a war with 50,000 people against the Turkish state. Also in the minutes, terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan claimed that the PKK helped in bringing the AK party to power and implying that the AK Party owes being in power for 10 years to terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan. In addition terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan stated that the PKK will support Erdoğan’s possible bid for the presidency if the country switches to a presidential system.
    Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to start peace talks with terrorist Abdullah Öcalan has been harshly criticized by Turkish people in general and especially by Devlet Bahçeli, the chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), who accuse the Recep Tayyip Erdogan of selling out to Kurdish separatists in the hope of winning the presidency in 2015.
    The objective and goal of Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to achieve a breakthrough to end the Kurdish conflict which could be a trump card for him in upcoming elections.
    In addition, Devlet Bahçeli stated that talks with terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan should immediately be ceased. A new foreign policy should be shaped based on national interests. All terrorist camps in northern Iraq should be destroyed. Border security should be secured. PKK terrorists should lay down their arms unconditionally. Any intention to add a clause to the new constitution that could destroy the national unity of the country should be given up. All humanitarian and financial resources of the terrorist PKK should be destroyed.
    In my opinion, instead of Turkish government focusing on the negotiation with the PKK terrorist organization, it would more efficient for the Turkish government to focus on the root cause for the problem prior to the negotiations with the PKK terrorist.
    There are several countries that are arming the PKK terrorist organization in north of Iraq especially when Iraq became under American occupation. Also the PKK has propaganda offices in many E.U. capitals. The terrorist organization is probably the only terrorist organization that has satellite TV channel Roj TV that has been broadcasting from Denmark.
    The PKK media in European countries are involved in money laundering, and the PKK terrorist organization uses these resources to finance its activities. The PKK has offices in Denmark, Belgium and in many other Western European cities. Greece and the Cyprus openly supported the PKK activities in the past. Although PKK is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including United Nations, NATO, the United States and the European Union and the PKK have been blacklisted in many countries.
    In my opinion, a tough approach toward the Kurdistan Regional Government in Northern Iraq is one way to eliminate successfully the PKK terrorist organization bases in northern Iraq. In addition, other effective measures could be taken by the Turkish government to ensure the PKK terrorist organization has fully dismantled such as.

    1. Closing the Khabour border gate with Iraq which is currently under the control of Kurdistan Regional Government. The Khabour border gate has been used by the PKK for smuggling, weapons, drugs and human trafficking.
    2. Official requests from Iraqi central government and Kurdistan Regional Government to close and evacuate all the PKK terrorist training camps and bases that have been used in northern Iraq within a period of two weeks. If these demands are not met, tough action needs to be taken by the Turkish government.
    3. An international arrest warrant should be issued for the Kurdish members of Kurdistan Regional Government whom are supporting the PKK terrorist organization including Masoud Barzani who has been supporting the PKK terrorist organization with arms, medical supports, and treatment and safe haven area. It is Iraqi government responsibility for the removal of the PKK terrorist organization from northern Iraq. However, the Americans simply ignored the PKK terrorists for since then. The PKK established training camps, army bases etc. They established logistic stores. They collected donations and bought arms. The drug smuggling and human trafficking continued to be the financial source of the PKK. The collected money went to the European PKK propaganda network and terrorist activities in Turkey.
    4. Barzani and Talabani groups saw the PKK as a guarantee of their independence. Turkey was seen as the only country that could prevent a Kurdish independent state in Iraq and as Turkey was fully engaged in struggling against the PKK terrorism they were unable to become involved in Iraqi policies.
    5. Closing the Turkish airspace for flight that goes into and out of Kurdish controlled region. This would definitely deteriorate Kurdistan Regional Governmental support of the PKK terrorist organization.
    6. Turkish armed forces should establish a safe zone area inside of Iraq to prevent the PKK attacks against Turkish villages and armed forces.
    7. Cease the transportation of goods and oil supplies from and into Kurdish regional controlled area.
    8. Attack Kurdish Parliaments, military bases and hydraulic and electricity powers stations and governmental building until the demands of the Turkish government are fulfilled.
    9. Expelling the ambassadors of the countries that are directly involved in supporting terrorist organization with finance and media propaganda such as Denmark which has been providing a satellite TV station broadcasting from Ankara to Western Europe and Northern America. This Al Qaeda channel encourages violence in the west and always calls for terrorist attacks against the western targets. Satellite TV broadcasting promotes terrorist propaganda.
    10. Turkish government should establish Turkish assassination groups to eliminate the Kurdish terrorists whose hands are smeared with the blood of innocent Turkish citizens. These terrorists have been using some of the European countries as a safe haven area for plotting attacks toward the Turkish republic.
    11. Turkish government should negotiate only with the Iraqi central government and put economical blocks against the Kurdistan Regional Government.
    12. Turkish government should also review the Anti-Terror Law and give more power to the Anti-Terror police to make the arrests for the terrorist whom are committing terrorist activities toward the Turkish state.

    Many Turks have been very surprised to see the Turkish government fully engaged in negotiations with the PKK terrorist organization which has been responsible for the many atrocities which have led to the death many thousands of innocent Turkish and Kurdish citizens. We need to remember that the PKK is a terrorist organization. A negotiating of the integrity and sovereignty of Turkish Republic shall be only negotiated with the legitimate government not with a terrorist organization.
    How is the Turkish government going to guarantee from this negotiation that the remaining of the PKK terrorist organization is not going to establish new terrorist organization in northern of Iraq or in Syria and Iran?
    How is the Turkish government going to deal with the PKK whom are active inside of Turkey? It is very strange to see that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is pushing for this negotiation? Is it a technique to win the vote of the Kurds in Turkey or it is another technique to trim the wings of the armed forces and limit their power in the modern Turkey? Did the US government negotiate with the Al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden or Ahmed Al-Thwaheri for peace?
    Would the Iraqi government like to see that Turkey is supporting, training and funding Al-Qaida organization? Would the European countries like to see Turkish republic supporting, providing arms and training camps for IRA and ETA?
    Did the US government allow Osama Bin Laden to enter Pakistan and to be greeted as a hero by the Pakistani people? The Turkish government allowed numbers of the PKK members to enter Turkey under the noses of the US and Iraqi Kurdish Regional forces. These PKK terrorists were received as heroes by the PKK supporters and Turkish Kurdish members of parliament. In my opinion, the people who are negotiating with the PKK terrorist organization are not representing the general opinion of Turkish people.
    How about the right of thousands of Turkish soldiers who died fighting the PKK terrorist organization and how about the innocent Turkish citizens whom were a victim of PKK terrorist organization attacks?
    Despite AKP party removal of the capital punishment. In my opinion capital punishment should be revoked and terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan shall be executed and this would be justice to compensate the pain and agony of the members of security forces and veterans families who lost their lives in the battle with PKK terrorist organization.
    The execution of Abdullah Öcalan would be a good lesson to the other members of the PKK terrorist organization to show that the Turkish government will not allow terrorists to escape without impunity. AK party negotiations with the PKK terrorist organization and protection of its leadership have no justification. This can only be described as treason. The continuation of this utterly unacceptable negotiation would lead sooner or later to the arrest of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for treason. In the view of many Turks, the prime minister should not forget that what he has been doing and the policies he has been following are treason
    According to the international law, Turkey has the legitimate right to protect its citizen and sovereignty from terrorist attack. The international countries have the obligation to arrest and try these terrorist organizations in order to bring peace and stability.

    Mofak Salman