PRESIDENT GUL: REFORMS WILL GO ON
Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Oct 5 2007
Gul vows reforms will go on,warns against division of Iraq
The new Turkish president told Europe’s top human rights watchdog
Wednesday that his country’s government was committed to improving
its rights record – an issue that has stymied Turkey’s effort to join
the EU.
President Abdullah Gul, elected in August, said Turkey was more
tolerant and democratic today than five years ago, when the country
launched widespread social and judicial reforms.
"All forms of discrimination are banned. Legal and constitutional
guarantees on the right to association and assembly are reinforced.
Cultural and religious rights have been upgraded," Gul said in
his first speech as Turkey’s president to the Council of Europe’s
Parliamentary Assembly. Gul has been a member of the council for
nine years.
Later speaking to journalists Gul there were problems with a
contentious law that makes it a crime to insult Turkish identity and
it needed to be changed.
Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk and slain ethnic Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink were prosecuted under the law, which the EU wants
Turkey to scrap. Article 301 has been used to prosecute journalists,
writers and academics.
"We know there are problems with regard to Article 301. There’s
still room for improvement and there are changes to be enacted in
the period ahead," Gul told journalists at the Council of Europe. "I
support the idea of Article 301 to change."
Gul said there prevailed an "unfair perception" that people were
jailed because of the contentious law. He said the section of the
penal code was being used for propaganda against Turkey.
Turkey, which aspires to join the European Union, has come under
pressure to amend the law. Gul has previously said the law was damaging
Turkey’s image by portraying it as a country where intellectuals are
jailed for speaking their opinions.
At the Council of Europe, he said there prevailed an "unfair
perception" that people were jailed because of Article 301, and
insisted there is freedom of speech in Turkey.
"No one is going to prison for expressing their view freely," he said
in a question-and-answer session with parliamentarians from the human
rights watchdog’s 47 member states. Also in the speech Wednesday,
Gul warned against any territorial division of Iraq, saying it would
further complicate the volatile situation in the region.
"One should not fall into illusion that the current problems can be
overcome by the partition of Iraq. This would be the worst scenario
for the people of Iraq and the whole region," Gul said.
A U.S. Senate proposal has called for a limited centralized Iraqi
government with the bulk of the power given to the country’s ethnically
divided regions.
Without specifically criticizing the proposal to devolve Iraqi power
to the regions, Gul said that "nobody should look for solutions
alternative to respecting territorial and political unity of Iraq."
The nonbinding resolution adopted by the U.S. Senate calls for Iraq
to be divided into federal regions – controlled by Kurds, Shiites and
Sunnis – which would govern by a power-sharing agreement similar to
that used in postwar Bosnia.
The proposal has been harshly criticized by Iraq’s major political
parties.
Meanwhile, Turkey has been pressuring the United States and Iraq to
wipe out the PKK terrrorist bases in northern Iraq.
Turkey has warned it would carry out a cross-border offensive to
eliminate the rebel bases if necessary.