EURO PARLIAMENT WANTS DEEPER PROBE INTO ERGENEKON
Today’s Zaman
Feb 13 2009
Turkey
European lawmakers have urged Turkey to seriously focus on the
Ergenekon network’s probable role in unresolved murders, including
the assassination of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in
January 2007.
Ergenekon, a neo-nationalist group accused of involvement in plans
to stage a violent uprising against the government, was discovered at
the end of an investigation that came upon the heels of a police raid
in June 2007 that uncovered an arms depot in a house in Ä°stanbul’s
Umraniye district. The prosecutor in the Ergenekon case has said the
group worked to create disorder and chaos through various violent acts
so that the public would be willing to accept a military intervention
to restore order.
The group is suspected of involvement in the murder of three Christian
missionaries in Malatya in 2007; the 2006 murder of a priest in the
northern city of Trabzon; the murder of Dink, editor-in-chief of the
bilingual Agos newspaper in 2007; a 2006 attack on the Council of
State; and a grenade attack on the Cumhuriyet daily in 2006.
Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament
on Wednesday adopted the draft for Parliament’s annual resolution
on Turkey’s progress toward European Union accession, which was
drawn up by Dutch Christian Democrat European Parliamentarian Ria
Oomen-Ruijten. The resolution was adopted by 65 votes to one, with
four abstentions.
The European Parliament "welcomes the beginning of the trial against
those accused of being members of the Ergenekon criminal organization;
encourages the authorities to continue investigations and to fully
uncover the organization’s networks which reach into the state
structures; is concerned about reports regarding the treatment of
defendants in this case; urges the Turkish authorities to provide
them with a fair trial and to adhere strictly to the principles of
the rule of law," the report said.
The committee approved an amendment to add a sentence to this paragraph
saying, "While assessing unresolved cases such as the killing of
Hrant Dink, the thesis suggesting that Ergenekon has a role in these
incidents should be taken more seriously," the Anatolia news agency
reported.
The EU member states should consider starting accession talks with
Turkey in areas where the country meets technical criteria set by the
EU, the committee also said. The recommendation did not feature in
the original draft resolution put forward by Oomen-Ruijten, however,
it emerged as a compromise amendment by center-left deputies. The
final resolution called on member states "to consider making progress
on opening of negotiations on chapters in which Turkey, according
to the European Commission’s assessment, fulfilled the conditions
for opening."
Ankara must commit itself to a lasting settlement of the Kurdish
issue, the committee also said. This will require better economic and
social integration of citizens of Kurdish origin, including offering
them real opportunities to learn Kurdish in the public and private
schooling system and to use it in broadcasting, in daily life and in
access to public services, it said, while welcoming the government’s
launch of a 24-hour Kurdish-language TV channel on the state-owned
Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) on Jan. 1.