Turkish Nationalists Seek To Block EU-Oriented Reforms

ANKARA, Aug 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Powerful far-right Turkish leader Devlet Bahceli plans to appeal to the country's top court to block newly adopted reforms considered vital to Ankara's bid to join the European Union, news agencies reported Sunday, August 4, 2002.

Bahceli and his Nationalist Action Party (MHP) are vehemently opposed to two of the reforms - the abolition of the death penalty and legalization of language courses and broadcasts in Kurdish - on the grounds that they would harm Turkey's unity.

"I have asked my colleagues to make preparations to apply to the constitutional court to annul the abolition of the death penalty as well as education and broadcasts in one's mother tongue," Bahceli said, the Anatolia news agency reported Sunday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The legislation adopted by Turkey's parliament on Saturday, August 3, 2002, after a marathon session is essential to Ankara's hopes of obtaining a date for the start of accession talks with the European Union (EU) by the end of the year, when the 15-nation bloc draws up its enlargement calendar.

The new measures will become law once signed by the President and published in the official gazette, both expected to happen soon.

EU supporters were keen to push the legislation through after parliament last week agreed to bring elections forward to November 3, in a bid to end months of political turmoil triggered by Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's ill health and a rift in his coalition government over the reforms.

The United States gave its support for the overwhelmingly Muslim but officially secular nation to join the EU. Turkey already belongs to NATO and is a key strategic ally of both the U.S. and Israel.

The reforms were adopted despite a bitter fight by the MHP - a partner in the three-party coalition and now the largest party in parliament after a mass defection from Ecevit's Democratic Left Party.

The MHP believes improved Kurdish cultural rights will play into the hands of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which led a 15-year armed campaign against Ankara for self-rule, and rekindle ethnic unrest in the mainly Kurdish southeastern part of the country.

It also wants to see PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, on death row for treason, executed rather than allowed to serve out a life sentence. Dozens of other people on death row are also still alive since a moratorium on executions was put in place in 1984.

Both issues are highly controversial in a nation that has been traumatized by the loss of more than 36,000 lives in the conflict.

"Those who have competed with each other to save [Ocalan] from the punishment he deserves have done evil to this country," Bahceli told party supporters in the central Anatolian province of Kayseri.

The reforms will "dynamite Turkey's national unity and existence," he charged.

For his part, Ecevit, battling to keep power after the government lost its majority in parliament, on Sunday urged the EU to set a date for accession negotiations, saying Turkey had fully complied with its demands.

"Turkey has fulfilled all the (EU's) political criteria with the package and will implement the reforms. No one can claim otherwise," Ecevit said. "Turkey now expects full membership from the EU as soon as possible."

The 77-year-old five-time Prime Minister was forced into calling the early election after ignoring calls to resign over his ill health, absenting himself from official duties while the country battles its worst recession in half a century.

The European Union, which is expected by 2004 to admit another 10 members out of 13 candidate countries, welcomed the democracy package, but stressed that it would keep a close eye on their implementation.