Washington Post, DC
Jan 20 2007

Turkey’s Trouble With Minorities

Ali Ettefagh – The murder of Hrant Dink in Istanbul by right-wing
extremists may well shatter Turkey’s chances of joining the European
Union.

The killing of the 53-year-old Armenian journalist and the publisher
of a newspaper for the Armenian community merely intended to open
honest discussion about what Winston Churchill called the first
Holocaust of the 20th Century. In late 1970s, the civil war that
ended in a coup was triggered by a very similar murder of a respected
leftist journalist, Abdi Ipekci, by the rightwing "Gray Wolves"
nationalists. Back in 2000, a highly visible Jewish industrialist and
philanthropist was murdered in Istanbul but the matter was stifled as
economic crises overshadowed the matter.

Hran Dink (and 12 other Turkish journalists currently in prison) was
convicted of insulting the ethnic fabric and the "Turkishness" of the
nation, a criminal offence under section 301 of the Turkish Criminal
Code. This is a highly subjective law in Turkey and a topic at the
core of objections by the European Union which insists on fair
treatment of ethnic minorities. The French parliament has demanded
Turkey face its past conduct in respect to the systematic killings of
Armenians back in 1915.

Turkey is certainly in a tough fix: Its EU negotiations are frozen in
their tracks. It has a number of prickly issues and disagreements to
overcome with the EU including the issues of human rights,
recognition of ethnic minorities and the resolution of its no-win
position in Cyprus. Concurrently, it worries about the future of an
Iraqi Kurdistan and its own Kurdish population, some one-third of its
citizens. It has a young population base and close to 100% of its GDP
in national debt. Its private sector continues to bet on a one-way
road of entry into EU as it incurs higher levels of debt. With a
civil war on its border, the Turkish government openly supports and
arms the Turkomen minorities in Kirkuk. And it has other interests in
Bosnia and hostile postures towards Armenia and Serbia.

The sum of such components can further complicate issues in a region
that is revisiting its religious and ethnic roots, dating back to the
times of the Ottoman Empire and the pre-revolutionary Russia. Turkey
must deal with these ghosts in a frank and transparent manner just as
all other secular countries in Europe have done.