Karma Parlamento Komisyonu Konuşma Metni (İng.)

CONTRIBUTIONS OF DR. ONUR OYMEN TO THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE MEETING
3rd MAY 2006

Dear co-Chairmen, and dear colleagues,

Minister Gül described with his soft language the situation in Turkey and Turkish-EU relations in such a way that you might have the impression that we have practically no serious problem and everything is going smoothly.

Mr. Gül was clever enough to leave us the hard job to tell the truth and to collect hot potatoes.

One last remark about Mr. Gül’s statement, we knew a number of his qualities but we learned only yesterday his ability to joke. When he said that his party is more social democrat than social democratic parties I had the impression that he was joking. It was a black humor.  Because our biggest problem is social injustice, worst income distribution among European countries and worst regional imbalances. Unfortunately we were not able to make progress in the last few years, on the contrary the gap is widening.

Regarding the substance of the opening remarks yesterday I must confess that a number of issues have not been addressed. Mr. Lagendijk and other European colleagues did rightly criticized the PKK. Only yesterday they attacked children in Hakkari wounding 11 of them together with 2 civilians and 8 soldiers.

But nobody said that one of the main reasons of the recent upsurge of terrorists is the logistic base of PKK in Northern Iraq. Unfortunately neither our American friends nor their Coalition partners have done a single move to neutralize these terrorists. Not one single terrorist has been arrested in Northern Iraq and delivered to Turkey. Moreover they do not permit Turkish government to send troops to Northern Iraq and protect our border from the infiltration of PKK terrorists. Northern Iraq is today the only safe heaven for terrorists.

In addition to terrorism, there is also a humanitarian crisis situation in Iraq. In Mahmur region close to Mousul there are 12000 Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin forced to move outside Turkey some years ago.

Now, I would like to summarize the views of the Main opposition Party CHP on the developments regarding the process of membership negotiations between Turkey and the European Union.

I would like to emphasize from the outset that we were expecting a  constructive and balanced Negotiation Framework Document. The text adopted by the Council on 3rd of October 2005 was below our expectations. This document was not  comparable with the documents prepared so far for other Candidates.

The Framework Document has created question marks in the minds of the Turkish people as regards to the ultimate aim of the European Union concerning the full membership of Turkey. Over-emphasis of the ‘absorption capacity’ of the Union in the Document gave the impression that some countries might use this reference to delay, if not to block Turkish membership.

After the 3rd of October last year, we entered in a so-called negotiation period.  A screening process has started immediately and this process was completed for 17 chapters so far. Our authorities are expecting to finish this process by October this year.

The screening process for the first chapter regarding the science and technology has been finished already in November 2005. Although there was no objection to start effective talks on this chapter, no negotiation has started yet. However there was an exchange of documents between Turkish authorities and the EU Commission which leads us to think that despite this delay, we will have no difficulty as regards to the substance of the problem. We are expecting to start genuine negotiations on this chapter before the end of the Austrian presidency.

However, as regards to the Second Chapter related to Education and Culture, we understand that there are some serious problems.  A few countries wanted to insert into this Chapter, and possibly in subsequent chapters, some political issues that are not directly related to the subject matters.

Although we heard that there was a compromised solution on education and culture, we understand that the problem is not over. In the coming weeks, this issue will be once more debated.

We believe that such initiatives are not in line with past practices of the enlargement negotiations with other candidate countries and may cause serious problems in our relations both with the Union and with the countries that are trying to change the goal posts in the middle of the game.

Furthermore, press reports indicate that on Public Procurement Policy and Competition policy chapters there might be more important problems.

We believe that we have to avoid unnecessary delays in our membership process and accelerate the speed of negotiations.

While reading various documents of the European Union, particularly the Counter-declaration of 21st of September, we have the impression that the start of negotiations will not be easy for some important chapters as long as Turkish Parliament does not ratify the Additional Protocol normalizing Turkey’s relations with new members, including southern Cyprus.

I must remind you that from the outset we warned our government not to sign this Additional Protocol without a formal reservation on Cyprus. Because we continue to believe that the actual government of southern Cyprus does not represent the whole island since it was not established in line with the founding Agreements of Cyprus of 1960.

The insistance from the European side to force Turkey to recognize southern Cyprus as the legitimate government of all Cypriots may lead us to a deadlock since no Turkish  government can recognize southern Cyprus before a final settlement was found for the Cyprus problem. No government can accept the entry of Greek Cypriot ships to Turkish harbors and Greek Cypriot aircraft to Turkish airports before the lifting of unjust embargoes against Turkish Cypriots.

Since Turkish Cypriots have accepted Kofi Annan plan and the Greek Cypriots rejected it, the responsibility of the actual blocking of the negotiations process in Cyprus can not be attributed to the Turkish side. And Turkey is not prepared to pay a bill for a situation that she has not created. Any further insistence in the issue of additional protocole will be counter productive and may lead Turkish people to think that those who want to block or delay the Turkish membership process for other reasons might be using the ratification of the additional protocol issue as an excuse.

There are other expectations of the European side from Turkey. Most of them are acceptable for my Party. Indeed, some observations and criticism regarding the policies of the government on economy, finance, taxation, agriculture, food security, education, health, etc. are very close to our own observations and criticism.

We also agree that in the last few months, the government was not as active as it should be. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Gül has announced recently that the government will propose a new reform package to the Parliament in line with the EU expectations. This package consists of draft laws in some areas.

Our feeling is that these areas cover only a part of the issues that the government is expected to address by the Union. Unfortunately no action has been taken on other major issues so far, like the lifting of parliamentary immunities, referred to in the Progress report of the Commission and strongly supported by my Party.

On some other political problems raised in the Progress Reports of the EU, we notice that it would be difficult to reach to a rapprochment between the two sides since some of these expectations are not emanating from the acquis communautaire and are contrary to the backbone of our society. My Party is in favour of the adoption of the acquis communautaire as such but not the unilateral conditions that some member countries may try to impose to Turkey to satisfy their own national aspirations.

On the issues like civilian-military cooperation, we believe that we have to make more efforts to dissipate  wrong impressions about the role of the Turkish army in the political life. As a matter of fact, the highest political authority in Turkey is the Turkish Parliament and there is absolutely no way to undermine the political authority of the Turkey’s Grand National Assembly.

At this stage, we are of the opinion that we have to avoid unnecessary confrontations between Turkey and the EU and focus our attention on how to make progress in each and every chapter with a positive sprit.

As regards to human rights, fundamental freedoms, the freedom of expression, I would like to say that my Party is engaged at least as our sister Parties in Europe. We have no tolerance whatsoever to any violation of human rigts irrespective of the authors, victims and the grounds of them. We bring all serious allegations to the Parliament and to the attention of the public opinion.

However, we cannot accept that such humanitarian issues be used for other purposes. Turkey should not be portrayed as a country where human rights are permanently violated. In case of the individual problems related to ill treatment of detainees and similar situations, it is the duty of the government and the judiciary to take immediate action. The Parliament is watching all of such situations and monitors the government’s policies and practices.

The expectations that some of the Turkish ethnic or religious groups should be recognized as minorities go beyond our legal obligations coming from Lausanne Treaty. There is no standard rule in EU countries on recognition of minorities. And no stipulation of the acquis communautaire says that all ethnic and religious groups should be recognized as minorities. The European Framework Convention on Minority Rights leaves the individual governments to decide which groups should be considered as minorities.

I believe that I don’t need at this stage to refer to some laws and practices in some EU countries. I would like to remind you however that some EU countries are even not accepting the existence of minorities on their soil. Others brought excessive limitations to minority rights in a way incompatible with European values.

The recognized minorities in Turkey enjoy their religious and cultural rights unempeeded. We should also not forget the rule of reciprocity set forth in the Lausanne Treaty. Those who expects Turkey to take further steps should also be ready to confront with their own realities.
A general improvement of human rights and minority rights throughout Europe will be certainly beneficial for all.

We remember that in 19th and early 20th centuries, some big Powers of the time tried to use minorities in the Ottoman empire as a leverage for their expansionist policies. Obviously today the political environment in the world is not suitable for such practices and we do not believe that any country may have such an intention. However, when our citizens read in the press excessive criticism coming from European countries on the issue of ethnic or minority rights, they can’t stop remembering our history.

We, as CHP, will continue to look after basic rights and the rights for minorities and take necessary steps in case we notice a shortcoming. In the meantime, we would like to express our expectation from our European friends to urge their own governments to avoid any unnecessary restrictions on the rights and privileges of Turks living in their countries and fight effectively against all sorts of racial discrimination and animosity against foreigners.

Another important issue is the Armenian genocide allegations. We deplore that some radical groups are still using propaganda documents of the First World War to persuade general public and the Parliaments that Turkish authorities have comited a genocide and killed over 1 million Armenians during the First World War. Our Parliament has unanimously decided to invite Turkish and Armenian historians to discuss this matter and we urged all interested governments to open their archives for that matter on 13rd April 2005. Unfortunately there are many governments that have not accepted so far our offer and no meaningful meeting took place among the historians up today.

We noticed however that some Parliaments of friendly countries have adopted some resolutions accepting the allegations of genocide. Furthermore a draft law has been presented to the French
Parliament that would penalize, if accepted, all those who claim that no genocide took place. We consider this move as a clear violation of the freedom of expression as set forth by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights. We urge our French colleagues to communicate their government  that the Turkish public will consider such a move as an unfriendly attitude and Turkish-French cooperation will be damaged consequently.

We noticed with pleasure that 19 French historians have urged the French Parliament to reverse their decision on the genocide allegations and not to try to guide scientists with political motivations.

Co-Chairmen,

we notice for a long time that the Joint Parliamentary Committee is mostly used as a forum where Turkey is accused for various wrongdoings on different areas. With few exceptions, we see the same attitude in the resolutions of the European Parliament on Turkey, particularly referring to resolutions related to the allegations of Armenian genocide. We believe that to spread a negative mood in the European public opinion about Turkey and to say very little about the achievements and the possible contributions of Turkey to European family would not be a good service to our societies.

We are of course ready to discuss any unbiased criticism or any friendly suggestion provided that we are also permited to raise some shortcomings in European countries the rights and freedoms particularly the situation of foreigners. I urge our colleagues however to stress more to positive side of our relations and to make our Commission a vehicle, which will facilitate and encourage Turkish membership as early as possible.

In short, Co-Chairmen,

We need to improve our dialogue for a better understanding and our cooperation for our common future. We consider ourselves as members of the European family and we extend our hand of friendship to other European nations. We will appreciate your efforts aiming at persuading your own public opinion that the membership of Turkey to Europe will bring more benefits than problems for the entire European family.