KALEAðASý: ARTICLE 301 POISONS TURKEY-EU TIES
Yonca Poyraz DoÐan

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Aug 30 2007

Turkey’s leading business club’s Brussels delegate said the new
government should immediately act on amending the penal code to
change Article 301, used to prosecute writers and journalists for
insulting Turkishness, before the European Commission presents its
country progress report in November.

TUSÝAD Brussels representative Bahadýr Kaleaðasý says the new Turkish
government should immediately act on amending the penal code to change
article 301.

Bahadýr Kaleaðasý, Brussels representative for the Turkish
Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (TUSÝAD) said changing
the notorious Article 301 should be a priority for the government.In
Ýstanbul for meetings, Kaleaðasý yesterday added: "Article 301 of the
Turkish Penal Code harms Turkey in every way. The fanatic Armenian
and Greek lobbies, the PKK [outlawed separatist terrorist Kurdistan
Workers’ Party] lobbies and fundamentalist Christian groups of Europe
that want to benefit from Turkey’s weaknesses all gained by keeping
the article intact. It poisons Turkey’s relations with the EU."

In last year’s country progress report, the commission strongly
criticized Turkey for undermining its EU membership talks by
slowing the pace of reform on human rights as it condemned Ankara
for failing to amend Article 301 of its penal code. The legislation
used to prosecute Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize-winning author, for
insulting Turkishness, along with many other writers and journalists
for "expression of nonviolent opinion," as the commission put it.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso congratulated
President Abdullah Gul after his election Tuesday, saying this
"provides an opportunity to give fresh, immediate and positive impetus
to the accession process to the European Union through progress in
a number of key areas."

Turkey was made an official candidate to join the 27-nation bloc in
October 2005 during Gul’s tenure as foreign minister. But its long
quest to join has been dogged by problems, in part due to its slow
progress on democratic and judicial reforms.

After taking the presidential oath in Parliament Tuesday to become
the country’s 11th president, he told lawmakers: "It is imperative
for our country that we carry out the political and economic reforms
geared toward EU membership more resolutely. The political climate
in Europe may always change."

Among the other areas of weaknesses that Kaleaðasý said the commission
took note of are intolerance toward non-Muslims, tension between the
military and the civilians, a perception that religious coverings
of women seem to be criteria in bureaucracy appointments and
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink’s murder.

Asked by Today’s Zaman if there have been complaints by the Turkish
side to the commission regarding such appointments, he said: "Yes,
there have been complaints. Before secularism was seen as restricting
individual freedoms but now they ask if Turkey is going toward the
opposite direction. There are questions whether or not Turkey will
ever find the middle ground to solve this issue."

The author of "The Turkish Star in the European Galaxy," Kaleaðasý
said the European Union is now watching the Turkish government to
see how it will act on its words to protect secularism.

Nevertheless, the Western media still wrongly label the AK Party as
"Islamist" and the government needs a serious communications strategy
to get rid of that erroneous branding, Kaleaðasý said: "The label
‘Islamist’ has been strongly associated in Europe with a theocratic
regime like that of Iran. As party officials have repeated several
times, the AK Party is a conservative democratic party."

There are areas in which Turkey should make demands from the EU
as well, Kaleaðasý said, stressing the visa problems that Turkish
citizens face before visiting European Union countries, and said the
Turkish government should develop a full strategy to further prevent
insult to the Turkish Republic.

"The visa problem is a foreign policy problem. Turkish citizens have
been insulted and so has the Turkish Republic. None of the governments
have perceived the issue like that before, and they have not held
meetings in European capitals to end that offense," he said.

"There might be justified reasons for the application of visas, and
we know that some people might be unwanted visitors in Europe, but a
person who applied for a visa and passed all the procedures and was
given a visa should be given a visa for a longer period of time —
like 10 years — not for only a couple of weeks or for a few days —
the length of a conference that the person will attend."

Kaleaðasý also said the European Union should consult with Turkey in
starting trade negotiations with third parties because the Turkish
government has been in a customs union with the EU since 1995.

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