Etiket turkey

La saison de la Turquie; triggers debate over Turkey in France

Manon Loisel Lots of Turkish newspapers rejoice at the fact that the Eiffel Tower was for five days, from 6 to 11 October, wearing the Turkish flag’s red and white colours. This was a wink at the “Saison de la Turquie”, which is currently taking place in France and will last for nine months. Whereas Turkish newspapers consider it a success, the French media hardly deal with it.For a few weeks now, posters of Aya Sofia and Bosporus are flooding the Parisian Metro; and not only in Paris but also in such cities as Lille, Marseille, Lyon, Strasbourg and Bordeaux. For nine months the “Turkish saison” celebrates Turkey’s culture through examples of contemporary art, architecture, photography, theater, dance, music and cinema at an estimated four hundred exhibitions.This event has been expected for a long time by lots of Turkish newspapers. On 10 September, the Turkish Daily News celebrated the successful start of The Saison by using lots of superlatives. But in France, the big newspapers, such as Le Monde, Le Figaro and Libération, chose to be either discreet or polemic. In an editorial by Ara Toranian, rather a militant spokesman for the Armenian diaspora in France, (Le Monde, 06/09/2009) he used the argument that no reference was made to the “Armenian genocide.” “Is Cultures France, the organizer, amnesic?” he was asking.Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, the director of Cultures France, the organizer of the event replied to Toranian describing his article “a little excessive and let’s say it, also intellectually dishonest.” The director mentions in his article that a series of discussions are taking place since September where taboos in the Turkish media are being discussed, including the Armenian question. He also points out that Ahmet Insel, one of the signatories of the letter asking for apology from the Armenians also took […]

Gateway to government but not to democracy

Aslı TUNÇLast week Gordon Brown’s battered and bruised government made a bold move and appointed Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, to help the British government to make its data more easily available online. The prime minister apparently jumped on the bandwagon alongside with Obama administration to make the State more transparent and accountable to the citizens. In fact, this tiny news item did not get much coverage because of all the scandals that are shaking up Number 10, however I thought it was pretty important. Sir Berners-Lee originally devised the technologies behind the world wide web in the early ’/90s while working at the particle collider laboratory at CERN (Centre Européenne pour la Recheche Nucléaire) in Switzerland. He was trying to devise a method that would allow researchers to get easy access to documents for a future project they were working on. So the Internet, as we know today, is the outcome of those efforts. Obviously nobody could have been more qualified than Sir Berners-Lee for the position of opening up of access to government data on the web. The main objective will be the creation of a central data source from which all sorts of government data can be accessed. Also this project has recently been introduced by the Obama administration in the US.While the American and British governments are still working on answering a public demand for citizens’ digital engagement, believe it or not, the Turkish government already managed to launch an E-Government portal (http://www.turkiye.gov.tr/) on December 18, 2008. With the slogan “”Gateway to Government” or “Shortcut to Government”, the portal began to serve all Turkish citizens as well as the business community with a single point of access to E-Government services. After I surfed on the website, I found out that all […]

“Nobody can commission us, we just play our historical role”

Prof. Ahmet Davutoglu, the chief foreign policy advisor of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was in Washington on the eve of US President Barack Obama’s visit to Turkey, seeing top White House officials. At a press conference in Washington Davutoglu said that there has been differences of opinion between Ankara and the previous US administration, but with the new Obama team he has found out that foreign policy objectives of the two allies are now completely coinciding. Responding to arguments back in Turkey that Obama’s demands from the Turkish government during the Ankara talks might put Turkey in a difficult position, Davutoglu said, “Nobody can commission us, we are just playing our historical role.” Davutoglu met with James L. Jones, the National Security Advisor of President Obama, George Mitchell, the special US envoy to the Middle East and other officials. “During the term of the previous president Bush we had differences of opinion with the US. Syria was an example. Now with the Obama administration’s approach we see that Turkey’s policies are almost on parallel lines. Turkey’s foreign policy activities in the Middle East, Caucasus and Afghanistan are appreciated here,” said Davutoglu. He also pointed out that former US president Bill Clinton visited Turkey on the seventh year of his presidency and George Bush came to Istanbul during his fourth year in the office. “President Obama will pay his second bilateral visit to Turkey after his first to Canada. This shows the importance that US gives to Turkey. President Obama’s decision to visit Turkey is the sign of the beginning of a historical period in constructive cooperation in the relations of our two countries,” said Davutoglu. “Everybody now sees that Turkey’s strategic importance has increased greatly,” he added. Davutoglu said that work is underway on a scenario in the interests of […]

Obama’s visit raises opposing views among Turkish opinion makers

aNiyazi Dalyanci “President Barack Obama’s visit to Turkey underlines the importance the new US administration attributes to Turkey as a ‘pivotal’ nation in the region that might undertake more crucial functions beyond and above simply acting as a mediator,” wrote Cengiz Candar, veteran foreign affairs commentator of mainstream daily Radikal. “Why is he coming? Surely, he is coming not to give but to take,” with these words Onur Oymen, the vice-chairman of the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) expressed his interpretation of the presidential visit. As expected, the new US President Obama’s visit to Turkey, scheduled for the beginning of April, gave politicians and journalists the opportunity to express sometimes diametrically opposing feelings. However, both those who view the visit with some apprehension and those who claim that Obama’s choice of Ankara as the destination of his second trip outside America shows how Turkey’s strategic importance has increased in the eyes of the US administration, agree on the topics that would be discussed during the talks. “It is obvious what he would want. He is giving priority to Afghanistan. While he is shifting his forces from Iraq to this country, he is going to ask for combat units (to serve in Afghanistan) from Turkey. Another topic is the opening of the border with Armenia. He would demand the solution of the Cyprus problem in a satisfactory manner for the Greek Cypriots. Also the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq via Turkish territory will also be on the agenda. There is no chance for the government to say ‘No’ to any of these demands,” said Oymen. Oymen also claimed that Obama will use the Armenian genocide bill in the Congress as a lever to apply pressure on the Turkish government. Leading Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand agrees on the possible […]