FOREIGN PRESS REVIEW (FPR) - ‘Relevant news, views, comments and
analysis from all around the world’
Compiled by Sanli
Bahadir Koç / e-mail : sbahadir@bilkent.edu.tr / tel : +90 533
3597848 - Subscribe to
FPR
In
this issue-Click on the numbers to go to the article. You can return to top by
clicking on the ‘back’ button of your
browser Dýþ Basýnda Türkiye / Western
Press Review / Arab
Press Review / Israeli
Press Review
American Press Review (Slate) / Western Press Review
|
New
York Times Editorial A Plan Without a
Map Clear Terms, Murky
Future By
PATRICK E. TYLER
Slate
Tell a
Vision When is a state not a
state? When it's Palestinian.By
William Saletan Ha'aretz
WHAT IT MEANS: Politically, Arafat
is a dead man walking Analysis / Sharon's
victory, by Aluf Benn Jerusalem
Post ANALYSIS: An offer
they can refuse |
Le
Monde Washington cherche une "stratégie de
sécurité" Financial
Times – David Hale - Recovering
from the dollar The
Economist on the Seville summit,
and the stability pact Semi-final
underdogs will bark but not bite, predicts David
Lacey |
H3
Los
Angeles Times – Cyprus - A Deadline Looms in Paradise By RANAN R.
LURIE
Jerusalem
Post Turkey: Syria deal won't spoil Israel ties EIU - Turkey - Country
forecast summary. New York Times on
Sabancý and art Daily Star Turkey’s
identity crisis follows its players to the World
Cup
IMF
says U.S. economic outlook favorable. Britain
says it will not help finance Turkey's leadership of peacekeeping
force | ||
|
H4 New York
Times Editorial A Plan
Without a Map Clear Terms, Murky
Future By
PATRICK E. TYLER
President's Speech Is
Criticized For Lacking Specific Proposals
Full
text of Bush speech - 'Things Must Change in the Middle
East'
Paul
Krugman - Bush administration: where others might see problems, it sees
opportunities Nicholas
Kristof - bolster terror-infested third world countries like
Pakistan. |
H5 Washington
Post Plan for Palestinians
Lacks Important Details Both Sides Feel
Vindicated By Bush's Peace Proposal Deadly
Progress in the Middle East By
Richard Cohen Even
a 'Bad Man' Has Rights |
H6 Guardian
Bush says Arafat must
go One-sided offer that
will change nothing
US dismisses al-Qaida
claim that network is '98% intact' Africa is forced to
take the blame for the devastation inflicted on it by the rich world
George Monbiot Agency seeks
dirty-bomb material from Soviet farms | ||
|
H7 Slate
Tell
a Vision |
H8 Daily Star Israel’s contortions might tie
America in a knot Arab
Press Review Despite debate on validity, ‘martyrdom
operations’ set to continue |
H9 Ha'aretz
WHAT IT MEANS: Politically,
Arafat is a dead man walking Analysis / Sharon's
victory, by Aluf Benn Yasser won't
go | ||
H10 Los
Angeles Times U.S. on Risky Road if
It Uses Nuclear Bluff - Misguided policy could turn loose a terrible
genie.
U.S. Must Follow Up on
Proposal Pakistan's President
Could Confront Axis of Extremists
Under a worst-case
scenario, three extremist groups could link up to try to topple
Musharraf |
H11 RFE/RL Iran
Report |
H12 Christian Science Monitor A gulf grows between Mideast rhetoric and
action In
Afghanistan, think small a recovery strategy aimed at
security should focus particularly on returning refugees outside Kabul,
and on building community-based small businesses. | ||
|
H13 Financial
Times – David Hale - Recovering
from the dollar Russia
and the WTO - No rush |
H14 Independent US hawks deliver
victory to Sharon in battle over Arafat Q & A: General
Pervez Musharraf |
H15
Le Monde Washington
cherche une "stratégie de sécurité" | ||
|
H16 The Times - Bush
tells the Palestinians: you must get rid of
Arafat WHICH is
more likely to give President Bush problems in his re-election race in
2004: the dollar, or another terrorist attack on the United
States? The
idea that greed is good is no longer an acceptable part of the American
dream Leader-
Bush and africa |
H17 Daily
Telegraph Bush
plan only fuels suspicion that US is firm ally of
Israelis America's
shaky financial position got markedly worse yesterday when the slide in
the value of the dollar accelerated and a political row left the
government in danger of defaulting on its debt. |
H18 RFE/RL EU: Candidates Unfazed By Changes To
Accession Timetable Russia: Putin -- U.S.
Must Join Moscow To Fight Terrorism In Georgia Western
Press Review: Seville Summit, Afghanistan
| ||
|
H19 Washington
Times Fulfillment
diplomacy
Newt Gingrich Protecting liberty in
a permanent war - Ted Galen Carpenter |
H20 Stratfor
The
Palestinian Strategy |
H21 Guardian Finally, a return to
old order Semi-final underdogs
will bark but not bite, predicts David Lacey | ||
|
New York Times/ Washington Post |
Slate (American Press Review/
International Press Review) |
Russia / Caucasus / Asia / Middle East / Arab Press Review / Israeli Press Review Ed.s
from the Hebrew Press / Ha'aretz
/ Jerusalem Post / Debka
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
(RFE/RL)
World Media Reaction (USIA) Periodicals / Think-tanks / Stratfor / Book reviews FBIS (Foreign Broadcasting Information Service) | ||
On Turkey
See also Turkey
in Foreign Press by Basýn Yayýn, German
Press on Turkey, French
Press on Turkey
Los Angeles Times
A Deadline Looms in Paradise
By RANAN R. LURIE
Ranan R. Lurie is a
senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington, D.C., and a syndicated columnist and political
cartoonist.
June 24 2002
There's a remote yet beautiful country in
the eastern Mediterranean, whose name, I would venture, a sizable percentage of
Americans can't even spell: Cyprus. It's a picturesque island, about the size of
Connecticut, that breeds good-natured, easygoing and capable people of Greek and
Turkish extraction. Cyprus has never attacked another state, and "never" in
Cyprus means 10,000 years. The Cypriots are a human treasure that the rest of
the world should preserve as a token of appreciation for the people who really
"made love, never war."
There are two reasons why the Cypriots are so
nonaggressive. They live in an island nation, which means there are no border
frictions. And second, by nature, they're genteel and love to mind their own
business. The downside of this fine character is that Cyprus has been invaded
and brutalized many times throughout history.
On July 20, 1974, a massive
force of Turkish paratroopers, supported by the Turkish navy, descended on
Cyprus and took over the northern part of the stunned island. According to Umit
Pamir, Turkey's knowledgeable ambassador to the United Nations, there was a
reason for that outburst of unhappiness by his country: One Greek Cypriot, Nikos
Sampson, booted the Greek Cypriot president, Archbishop Makarios, out of office
and was planning to annex Cyprus to Greece. All this caused great displeasure in
Turkey, which sent its airborne forces to "protect" the Turkish Cypriot
minority, mostly in northern Cyprus. To the credit of the Greek Cypriots, they
in turn booted out Sampson within days. But Sampson's actions, which triggered
the Turkish invasion, were backed by the Athens junta. Considering the
tremendous fiasco in which its darling Sampson failed so miserably and
single-handedly brought the Turkish punishment upon Greek Cyprus, the junta had
to give up power (the one upside of the Turkish invasion).
Cyprus learned
to live as an island divided between the two people, like a divorced couple who
still have to share a house that has only one shower. Good-natured Cyprus was
invited to join the European Union, something that would make the island's life
much more interesting and flourishing.
However, U.N. Resolution 1251 of
June 29, 1999, reaffirmed the United Nations' position that a Cypriot settlement
must be "based on a state of Cyprus with a single sovereignty, an international
personality and a single citizenship." Thus, if the two groups would come to an
understanding and unite while maintaining social autonomy, says Cyprus'
ambassador to the United States, Erato Markoulli, the 650,000 Greek Cypriots and
the 200,000 Turkish Cypriots could join Europe and almost immediately elevate
their economic situation and quality of life.
Turkey, which also hopes to
join the EU, feels like a chess player who suddenly realizes that a weaker
opponent has managed to move a pawn ahead and that this tiny piece will become a
queen in the next move. Once Cyprus enters the EU, it will be able to cast its
veto against Turkey's admission.
Right now, the Greek and Turkish
Cypriots have a deadline to reach a conclusion of unity by the end of the month.
If the deadline is missed, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf R. Denktash will watch as
President Glafcos Clerides and his clever people on their two-thirds of the
island enter the EU as the Republic of Cyprus.
Clerides, 83, was a bomber
pilot during World War II. He promised that Cyprus would encourage the entry of
Turkey to the EU. "We are interested in a democratic, wealthy and happy big
neighbor to our north," he told me some time ago. "Turkey is the only democratic
Islamic country nowadays," said the veteran official, "and joining the EU will
cement its democracy and economy. Cyprus can only benefit from
it."
Denktash, also a mature leader, knows that the only way to elevate
the Turkish Cypriot standard of living (about $4,000 per capita) and bring it to
the standards of the Greek Cypriots (about $17,800 per capita) will be to join
the EU as one country. This can hurt no one, and would make many
happy.
History may have, for a change, a Greek tragedy with a happy
ending.
Turkey: Syria
deal won't spoil Israel ties
ANKARA Senior
Turkish officials have reassured Israel that two comprehensive military
agreements between Ankara and Damascus, signed last week, will not affect the
strategic ties between Turkey and Israel.
Through a
number of contacts, Turkish Foreign Ministry and General Staff members last week
also assured Israeli government and military officials that Turkey is fully
determined to maintain its ties with Israel.
Saying the
agreements with Syria are only meant to ease relations with Damascus, which they
said has taken considerable steps in recent years to decrease its support of
anti-Turkish PKK terrorists, the Turks added that the move is part of Turkey's
policy of balance, and said Ankara will continue to improve ties with Israel.
Meanhile, the
Turkish military is to start training Syrian officers, and a group of Turkish
military officers will travel to Damascus in the coming months to inspect Syrian
military units, The Jerusalem Post learned.
Syria also
plans to upgrade its military representation in Ankara by sending a military
attache to Turkey for the first time in several years. Syria had kept the
position vacant as a protest of Turkish-Israeli relations.
Under the two
deals outlining mutual cooperation in military training and technical and
scientific studies, the countries will send officers to each other's military
academies during military maneuvers.
"A new era
will be opened in the relations between Turkey and Syria with military
cooperation," said Turkey's Chief of General Staff Gen. Huseyin Kivrikoglu, as
his Syrian counterpart Hasan Turmani applauded the landmark deal.
Turkey and
Syria stood at the brink of war in 1998 when Turkey threatened military action
over Syria's provision of shelter to Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan and
his Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists. Tensions eased in October 1998,
when Ocalan left Damascus, his long-time safe haven, and Syria pledged to
cooperate on security matters with Turkey.
Hovewer,
serious problems remain between the states. Ankara wants Damascus to give up
claims over the southern Turkish province of Hatay, often shown as a Syrian
territory on Syrian maps. And, despite its recent silence, Damascus is also
still unhappy about a number of dams Turkey has built on the Euphrates and
Tigris rivers, which originate in Turkey and flow down to drought-stricken Syria
and Iraq.
Syrian
President Bashar Assad plans to come Turkey soon, as Syrian Prime Minister
Mustafa Miro canceled his trip to Turkey last month because of Turkish Prime
Minister Bulent Ecevit's illness. Last year, Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim
Khaddam brought a message to Ankara of Damascus's willingness to turn over a new
leaf with Turkey, which currently trains F-16 fighter pilots from the United
Arab Emirates.
EIU - Turkey - Country forecast summary.
COUNTRY VIEW
FROM THE
ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT
* The Economist Intelligence Unit's baseline
forecast assumes that Turkey's fragile three-way coalition
government will cling to office for as long as possible to avoid an early
election. However, it appears increasingly unlikely that the coalition can
survive until the end of the parliamentary term in early 2004.
* The deep
divisions in the ruling coalition, a deterioration in the state of the prime
minister's health and the uncertain economic outlook have increased the
likelihood of a government crisis during the next 6-12 months. This could lead
to an early election and derail the IMF-backed stabilisation programme.
*
The outcome of the next election is hard to predict. It could bring about a
major change in the political landscape, owing to the current widespread
dissatisfaction with the established political parties and the emergence of new
ones.
* After a contraction by 7.4% in 2001, we expect weak GDP growth in
2002. Events after the September 11th terrorist attacks on the US have hit
expectations of a strong recovery driven by increased exports and tourism.
Economic growth should regain momentum from 2003, but will be constrained by
domestic imbalances during most of the remainder of the forecast
period.
* Although year-end consumer price inflation will be close to the
government's target of 35% in 2002, the prospects for taming inflation will
depend greatly on the stabilisation of the lira, the effectiveness of a new
inflation-targeting strategy expected during 2002, and oil price trends. We
believe that the new inflation-targeting regime will not provide a sufficiently
rigorous framework to achieve the government's target of 12% by
end-2004.
* The continued weakness of domestic demand should result in
another, albeit smaller, current-account surplus in 2002. The balance is
forecast to return to deficit in 2003-06. Deficits of around 2-3% of GDP and
very high debt servicing will require ready access to external funding, making
Turkey vulnerable to another external payments crisis.
*
Although additional IMF support should help to avoid another financial crisis in
2002, the risk of a destabilising default on, or a restructuring of, domestic
debt remains acute during the forecast period, as real interest rates on new
domestic debt issues are still high.
Key indicators 2004 2005 2006
Real GDP growth (%) 4.0 4.3 4.2
Consumer price inflation (%) 34.2 32.1 31.0
Budget balance (% of GDP) -9.63 -7.44 -6.72
Current-account balance (% of GDP) -2.3 -2.2 -2.4
3-month interbank money market interest rate
(av; %) 50.0 48.0 49.0
Exchange rate TL '000:US$ (av) 2,879.3 3,819.1 5,086.8
Exchange rate US$:Euro (av) 1.01 1.00 0.98
Key indicators 2001 2002 2003
Real GDP growth (%) -7.4 2.5 4.4
Consumer price inflation (%) 54.4 48.8 41.9
Budget balance (% of GDP) -15.75 -13.95 -11.57
Current-account balance (% of GDP) 1.3 0.5 -1.9
3-month interbank money market interest rate
(av; %) 92.0 60.0 52.0
Exchange rate TL '000:US$ (av) 1,225.6 1,532.0 2,154.9
Exchange rate US$:Euro (av) 0.90 0.92 0.97
SOURCE: Country
Forecast.
New York Times
A House as His Home, but a Museum as His Dream
By DOUGLAS
FRANTZ
STANBUL,
June 24 — Sakip Sabanci is a billionaire with, he says, a mission. First, he
wants Turks to have a museum that meets international standards. Then he intends
to reverse the flow of cultural masterpieces departing Turkey for the last
couple of centuries. Finally, he is dead set on instilling a sense of
philanthropy in the country's business elite.
"I want to better Turkey, and art is a very important part of that effort," Mr. Sabanci (pronounced sah-BAHN-ja) said the other day, shaking both fists for emphasis.
Mr. Sabanci certainly has the wherewithal to finance his dreams. He is chairman of Sabanci Holding SA, one of Turkey's largest industrial conglomerates. The family foundation spent $40 million building what quickly became one of Turkey's most respected private universities and financed a string of other cultural and educational projects.
With the grand opening of the Sakip Sabanci Museum in a hilltop park overlooking the Bosporus in Istanbul on June 8, Mr. Sabanci, a diminutive man of outsize achievements in the business world, accomplished his goal of bringing an international-quality museum to Turkey.
Istanbul is blessed with wonderful museums, from the Ottoman palace of Topkapi to archaeological and religious treasure houses. But none meet international standards for fire safety, earthquake resistance and other factors that would allow them to act as hosts to major traveling exhibitions.
Mr. Sabanci and an advisory board, which included Makrukh Tarapor from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, put together a plan to remedy that omission.
The result is a stunner — the stately Sabanci family villa was transformed into a state-of-the-art home for Mr. Sabanci's renowned calligraphy collection along with furniture and decorative arts. Attached to the villa by a covered walkway is an all-new contemporary, 15,000-square-foot, glass-walled pavilion for temporary exhibitions. Both buildings meet the standards required by curators and insurers for traveling shows.
For the museum's gala opening, which drew the country's political, business and social A list, the pavilion displayed 140 paintings from Mr. Sabanci's collection. The exhibition contains works by the most famous Turkish painters like Osman Hamdi and Ibrahim Calli.
But the museum's centerpiece is the calligraphy, acknowledged as the premier private collection in Turkey and one of the world's best. The current display features the 70 illuminated books, scrolls and wall plaques that were shown at the Metropolitan in New York in 1999 and at the Louvre in 2000.
The two-story villa's galleries are atmospherically lighted, with deep blue walls that create the feel of a jewel box. On those walls are Koranic manuscripts and verses rendered in exquisite script on marbled paper that trace 500 years of unbroken Ottoman rule.
The idea for the museum, Mr. Sabanci said, grew out of his visit to the United States several years ago. Mr. Sabanci's father was a cotton sharecropper in Turkey who built a conglomerate that today has 30,000 employees and 65 companies, with interests ranging from auto manufacture and banking to hypermarkets and chemical plants.
One of the company's strategies has been to form joint ventures with leading foreign corporations like Toyota, Bridgestone, Philip Morris and DuPont. The idea was to learn from one another, and it rubbed off on the cultural side.
Mr. Sabanci said the inspiration to create a museum sprang from a visit with the duPont family in Wilmington, Del. "They turned the family house into a wonderful museum," Mr. Sabanci said. "I realized that an institution's success and contribution cannot be solely judged on economic criteria."
Mr. Sabanci was living in the mansion overlooking the Bosporus, which his father had bought in 1951 as a summer home. When Mr. Sabanci described his plan, friends told him he was crazy to open his house — and treasures — to the public while he was still alive.
"They told me to wait until I died, but I wanted to do it now, when I am strong and in control," said Mr. Sabanci who, at 69, shows no sign of relinquishing control anytime soon.
As in France, culture is the province of the government in Turkey and there are few private cultural institutions. Likewise, charity is traditionally dispensed from the mosques and private philanthropy is a largely untested concept.
To direct the museum, Mr. Sabanci turned to Emin Balcioglu, a Turkish architect who ran a Turkish cultural center in New York. Along with overseeing the $6.5 million renovation of the villa and construction of the new gallery, Mr. Balcioglu consulted experts to upgrade Mr. Sabanci's collections.
"A private collector buys for his taste or because he got a good deal," Mr. Balcioglu said. "There were gaps we needed to fill to provide a sequence."
For instance, 123 paintings were acquired, bringing the collection to 318, probably the largest private or public holding of quality contemporary Turkish paintings. The calligraphy needed few additions, because Mr. Sabanci had been a major and careful collector for years.
The museum will also run education and training programs through its affiliation with Sabanci University. Chief among them will be a laboratory to conserve and restore paper. Of the 130,000 historic manuscripts in Istanbul, Mr. Balcioglu estimated, 30,000 need restoration.
As for Mr. Sabanci's other goals, he said that he had seen progress in building a domestic market for Turkish art and cultural artifacts and that Turkish buyers were repatriating works bought years ago by Americans and Europeans.
He is optimistic, too, that private philanthropy will expand among other rich Turks. Toward that end, he happily ushered a number of them through his museum on a recent Saturday evening, laughing as he joked about leaving the house, with its art and furnishings, three years ago, taking with him only his pajamas.
Daily
Star
Turkey’s identity crisis follows its
players to the World Cup
The Turks are being true to form.
There has been no diminution of their capacity to drag politics into virtually
any issue, including art and sport.
They still haven’t allowed the remains
of the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet to be brought back from Moscow
where he died and was buried in 1951 to be re-interred in his native
Anatolian soil, for no reason other than that he was a communist.
They
spurned the talents of the country’s master film maker, the late Yilmaz Guney,
because he was a Kurd.
When the celebrated novelist Yasar Kemal began
supporting the call for the Kurds to be granted cultural rights, he became one
of the regime’s hate figures.
And because of the Kurdish origins of singer
Ibrahim Tatlises, Turkey’s most famous pop star has recently been on the
receiving end of a relentless campaign of vilification accusing him of giving
money to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party.
No one ever knows whose
turn will come next. Anyone can incur the wrath of the regime if they are
perceived to be stepping out of line, even if they are international
celebrities. But few expected it to reach as far as South Korea and Japan, where
the Turkish national soccer squad has been competing in the 2002 World Cup
championship.
If there is any Turkish player who is of world class and
renown, it is most definitely Hakan Sukur, the star striker and former hero of
Istanbul’s top club Galatasaray, where he was nicknamed Bull of the Bosphorus,
because of his skill as a header of the ball.
Sukur put Turkey’s name on the
world soccer map. And after the national team
won qualification for the
championship tournament, for only the second time in 50 years, all eyes in the
country were bound to turn to him.
But as it happened, they were not turned
to his magical feet or his golden head. They were turned, instead, to what he
and a number of his teammates did on June 7, when they joined a congregation of
South Korean Muslims at Friday prayers.
A great hue and cry was raised
by hard-line secularists in Istanbul, outraged that members of the national
squad could have the effrontery to give public expression to their faith, and
join in prayer ahead of a crucial soccer match.
Never mind that this was no
more than a matter of players trying to settle their nerves or bolster their
self-confidence prior to an important game via an act of devotion.
Many
European and Latin American players habitually do the same by crossing
themselves before taking to the pitch, or after scoring goals by way of giving
thanks. No one ever takes issue with that, or claims that it has any bearing,
for better or worse, on the performance of the individual player or the team as
a whole.
But certain Turks do. As ever, they could not pass up this golden
opportunity to make a political issue out of the “incident” of Hakan Sukur
attending communal prayers.
Sukur was savaged by Tuncay Ozkan, a
commentator for Milliyet newspaper known for his close links to the military and
intelligence establishments, in the name of secularism and the Turkish
educational system. Ozkan implicitly demanded, in almost threatening tones, that
coach Senol Gunes take the country’s best goal scorer out of the team.
“Sukur is someone who was educated in this country, and he should behave in
a way that is consistent with the education he received,” Ozkan fumed, before
adding another warning to the rest of the team: “They must be made to understand
very clearly, that supplications are not enough!”
In light of the
“incident,” when, after a disappointing start to the championship, the Turkish
team defeated China, the Islamist newspaper Yeni Safak headlined its report of
the game “Faith Triumphs,” whereas the secularist daily Hurriyet opted for “The
Sun Is Now Rising” a word-play on coach Gunes’ surname, which means sun.
As well-known analyst Cengiz Candar pointed out, neither headline was
about soccer. Other agendas were at work. And if Sukur was done down because of
his religious faith, Gunes has also been denigrated because he hails not from
sophisticated Istanbul but the provincial Anatolian heartland.
To the mind
of commentator Fehmi Koru, this all relates to the way the powers-that-be
operate in Turkey and the “assortment” of forces that front for them in every
walk of life.
This “assortment,” he says, comprises two or three newspapers
that behave as though they are entitled to impose their opinions on the public
at large, including by means of their vilification campaigns against Sukur and
Gunes.
It includes those who seek to “wreck Turkey’s European dreams for the
sake of a convict on Imrali Island” a reference to hard-line nationalist
Deputy Premier Devlet Bahceli, who is demanding that Ankara resist European
Union pressure to repeal the death sentence passed on Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Ocalan.
And the “assortment” also extends to those “who want to
keep a patient in his sick-bed” without any voice emerging from his party to say
“enough” a reference to the officially-maintained pretense that ailing
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit is fit enough to remain in office.
Koru
contrasts the warm praise he heard lavished on the Turkish soccer team by a
German taxi driver, with the way the “mouthpieces of doom” at home have been
attacking the players for attending Friday prayers, and the coach because of his
central Anatolian origins.
Everyone who could find an appropriate angle
appears to have seized on the World Cup finals to promote their political agenda
for Turkey.
Foreign affairs commentator Sami Kohen looked to the soccer
squad to provide the nation with a badly-needed morale boost to help it out of
its political and economic crisis. “The victory (over China) revived feelings of
hope and self-confidence that have been shattered recently by politics and
economics,” he reflected. “We needed the flush of victory to dispel the harsh
and pressing climate that was prevailing within us.”
Kohen went on to
argue that Turkey’s politicians could learn a lot from its sportsmen about
preparation, organization and team spirit. “Why can’t Turkey progress beyond the
current ‘round’ in its relations with the European Union and qualify for the
next one, which is full membership?” he wondered, adding the doleful reflection:
“If only we could get past the first round in politics as we did in soccer.”
Another prominent commentator, Taha Akyol, used the World Cup to argue in
favor of extending cultural rights to Turkey’s Kurdish population, a move
strongly opposed by Bahceli’s National Movement Party.
He wrote that the
people of the predominantly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir
enthusiastically celebrated the Turkish team’s victory over China, implying that
it is only the constraints on their right to express their culture that
alienates Kurds from the Turkish state.
Why else, Akyol asked, “would
Diyarbakir give 62 percent of its votes to HADEP (the Kurdish-oriented People’s
Democracy Party), and yet so rejoice at the triumph of our national team?”
Mohammad Noureddine is an expert on Turkish affairs. He wrote this commentary for The Daily Star
Back
to top
Reuters
IMF says U.S. economic outlook favorable.
By Mark Egan
WASHINGTON, June 24
(Reuters) - The U.S. economy's outlook is favorable and interest rates need not
be raised until the recovery gathers steam, according to a new International
Monetary Fund report notable for its criticism of the Bush administration's
economic performance.
In the lender's annual assessment of the world's
richest economy, placed on the U.S. Treasury's Web site without fanfare late on
Friday, the IMF said: "The Fed has some room to wait until the recovery is more
clearly established before acting, given the minimal signs of impending
inflation pressures and the still uncertain economic outlook."
The powerful
U.S. central bank last cut its key short-term interest rate target in December
to 1.75 percent, a four-decade low. The Fed meets this week to set interest-rate
policy and is expected to leave borrowing costs unchanged.
But the IMF
cautioned the Federal Reserve to remain wary of "the possibility that delaying
action would require larger and more disruptive policy adjustments later
on."
The IMF said it expects growth to moderate from the rapid 5.6 percent
annual pace of expansion seen in the first quarter, but nevertheless sees the
recovery being sustained by an uptick in business investment and strong consumer
spending.
But it said "important uncertainties remain," notably the prospects
for corporate profits and investment, household demand strength and the large
U.S. trade deficit.
CRITICAL REPORT
The report was critical of the Bush
administration's handling of fiscal policy - something it was happier with
during the Clinton years when the budget was balanced.
"The fiscal outlook
has deteriorated markedly over the past year," it said, while also panning
recent U.S. trade policy.
The international lender, best known for its
dealings with economically troubled nations like Argentina and
Turkey, also offers annual economic advice to its richer member
nations.
While many of those appraisals are notable for their lack of
criticism of governments' policy actions, the latest U.S. report card took issue
with the Bush administration's actions.
On the fiscal front, the IMF said
projections of a unified surplus of 2.5 percent of gross domestic product for
fiscal 2002 had evaporated in the past year into a likely 1 percent deficit. The
report also noted that while the budget projects surpluses after fiscal 2004,
deficits would remain after excluding the surpluses of Social Security trust
funds. And, it added, "medium-term fiscal projections could be
optimistic."
The Bush administration has proposed meeting higher military and
security spending through cuts elsewhere, something the IMF said, "could be
difficult to sustain, especially given the apparent weakening of fiscal
discipline."
Indeed, the report said that the fiscal position has
deteriorated so much that, "consideration may need to be given to revenue
measures" - IMF code for either raising taxes or reducing tax breaks offered to
households and companies. Without such measures, it said, "the pending cuts in
marginal income tax rates may need to be reconsidered."
But if American
taxpayers might worry that the Bush administration is about to hike taxes to
keep the IMF happy, they can take solace in the fact that Republican presidents
religiously ignored similar IMF advice throughout the 1980s.
The report said
budget projections may also, "significantly understate the growth of Medicare
outlays." Moreover, the lender said it cannot rule out a further erosion of tax
revenues as a ratio of gross domestic product.
Calling for a return to a
balanced budget, the report said longer-run fiscal pressures from an aging
population "remain worrisome." Placing Social Security and Medicare on a sounder
financial footing was also needed, the IMF said.
But it was on trade matters
that the IMF was most critical. It said the measures taken to protect the steel
industry, appear "likely to impose significant costs both domestically and
abroad and, by raising trade tensions, could undermine momentum for multilateral
trade liberalization."
It also said massive farm subsidies, "were damaging
from both a domestic and international perspective" and will "encourage
production of crops already in chronic oversupply and adversely affect producers
abroad, while also undermining domestic fiscal objectives."
The IMF also
panned the paltry 0.1 percent of economic output America earmarks for overseas
aid, saying that even plans in place to increase that amount would leave the
world's richest nation as "the lowest among industrial countries" when it comes
to helping those in need.
U.S. counterterrorism expert opens conference in Turkey
Mon Jun 24,11:23 AM ET
ANKARA, Turkey - A top U.S. counterterrorism official opened a regional conference on battling terror Monday and said that global cooperation was vital in fighting groups like al-Qaida.
|
|
|
Francis X. Taylor, the head of the State Department's office of counterterrorism, said that security forces have already disrupted planned attacks by Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites)'s al-Qaida network.
"I am convinced ... that we are making success against al-Qaida. We are disrupting their networks. We have disrupted plans for attacks and we will continue to work to do that," he said. He gave no details.
Taylor, a retired U.S. Air Force general, opened a three-day regional conference in Ankara, Turkey, on fighting terror. The conference includes representatives from Central Asia, including Afghanistan ( news - web sites) and the Caucasus and observers from countries including Britain, China and Russia.
The regional conference, which is held annually, took place last year in Istanbul.
"We are here to roll up our sleeves and talk practical issues of cooperation," he said at a press conference.
"We are focusing on ... how nations can work together on closing the seams that terrorists operate in around the world and particularly in this region," he added. He gave no details and the conference was not open to the press.
Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country that has backed the U.S.-led anti-terror campaign and is heading an international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, has been identified by U.S. officials as a potential target for international terrorist acts.
Britain says it
will not help finance Turkey's leadership of peacekeeping force
Mon Jun 24, 2:18 PM ET
LONDON - Prime