04 17

‘Vavien:’
a taste
of dark

13
humor

Sabanc assasination’s main suspect As a candidate to host the Euro

Fehriye Erdal recieves deferred two- 2016 European soccer event, Turkey
year prison term from Belgian court introduces its championship logo

Yo u r Wa y o f U n d e r s t a n d  n g T u r k e y
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009 WWW.TODAYSZAMAN.COM TL 1.50

page10 Iranian forces clash with protesters in two cities

CHAN, SALH HAMURCU

RELATIONS A polce chef who was shot dead n Diyarbakr

PM vows to build n what was beleved to be an attack by a relgous
fundemantalst group was klled by a specal mltary
model partnership squad, says an former member of the team
with Syria
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan has
Okkan was
PHOTO

announced that Turkey will not give up its determi-

nation to improve ties with neighboring countries
such as Syria just because this move is considered
by some a shift from the West to the East. Erdoan's
remarks came in Damascus as he delivered a speech
at a meeting of the Syria-Turkey Business Forum
during his official visit to this city to co-chair a high-
level meeting between Syria and Turkey.
“Not only are we abolishing visas, we will remove
other obstacles, too. We will append our signature on
partnerships which could be a model for the world.
We have this potential,” Erdoan told the gathering,
while he voiced a wish to expand the partnership
between Syria and Turkey to encompass the entire
region. In mid-October Turkey and Syria removed
visa requirements and “symbolically” abolished their
border. The move came following a visit to stanbul
by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. CONTINUED ON PAGE 04
DIPLOMACY
Greek Cyprus might
harm EU migration
talks, Ba warns
BÜLENT KENE, STANBUL
Turkey's chief European Union negotiator warned
yesterday that Greek Cypriot blockage of EU
accession talks might hinder negotiations between
Ankara and the 27-nation bloc on the readmis-
sion of illegal immigrants. Greek Cyprus, an EU
member since 2004, declared after an EU meeting
earlier this month that it would veto accession
talks on five of the 35 negotiating chapters due to
Turkey's refusal to open its ports and airports to
Greek Cypriot ships and planes. Among these
five chapters is the freedom, justice and security
chapter, which includes issues related to the
readmission of illegal immigrants. CONTINUED ON PAGE 06
ROAD MAP
30,000 mourners attended Okkan's funeral in Diyarbakr, as he was well liked and respected by the
locals. His funeral is believed to be the largest funeral ever held for a police officer killed on duty.
‘Assassins’ were planning to kill high-profile politicians
A police search of the homes and vehicles of
two military officers who were detained on
Saturday on charges of plotting to assassinate
Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arnç revealed that
the two had plans to kill numerous high-profile
politicians and ministers. Among the many tar-
gets were President Abdullah Gül, Prime Minister
klled by a
state team, says
wtness KADR UYSALOLU, OSLO Today's Zaman. Beler, who worked as a General
Staff translator for 14 years, now lives in Norway, near
A translator who worked for the General the capital, Oslo, where he has political refugee status.
Staff in the predominantly Kurdish Beler recalled that shortly before the assassina-
Southeast for many years has claimed that tion, there were rumors accusing Okkan of having
the assassination of a police chief in the links to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers'
region eight years ago was the work of Party (PKK) and declaring him a traitor
an illegal structure inside the military. who should be killed. He said that follow-
Diyarbakr Police Chief Gaffar Okkan
was killed along with five police officers
ing these rumors, Team C was given the
task of killing him. “At the time, Team C
who were guarding him on Jan. 24, 2001.
The assassination was attributed to Turkish
was stationed in Diyarbakr. One day, they
arrived at the Habur checkpoint [at the
Hizbullah, a religious extremist group.
However, Yldrm Beler, a long-time
border with Iraq]. Their clothes were dirty
and muddy. They obviously had executed
translator for the military, claims that Yldrm Beler some orders. Normally, we carry two
Okkan was killed by Team C, a squad un- kinds of arms. In daytime, we have normal
der the Special Forces Command. He also stated that M-16s, and at night, we carry a Kalashnikov and a
he was part of Team C for a short time. Beler, a handgun. We always have a military uniform and a
Kirkuk Turkmen who came to Turkey in 1995, shared PKK uniform. When I saw Team C members that day,
his memories of the day of Okkan's killing with they were in PKK uniforms,” Beler said. CONTINUED ON PAGE 17
Recep Tayyip Erdoan and Parliament Speaker to kill Arnç. Both officers are assigned to the General ment showed that Arnç had been closely monitored
Mehmet Ali ahin. Most observers said the Staff. Gendarmerie and police teams retrieved a by the two officers since March 2009. Several pages
planned assassinations were aiming to create an piece of paper in one of the vehicles of the two offic- of hand-drawn sketches showing the addresses of
atmosphere of chaos in the country. ers which featured Arnç's home address. The teams Gül, Erdoan and ahin were also seized during the
Two members of the Special Forces Command, launched a search of the suspects' houses, resulting search. The sketches were sent to the forensics
Maj. brahim G. and Col. Erkan Ylmaz B., were in the discovery of several maps showing the houses department of the Ankara Police for analysis to
detained on Saturday night on suspicion of plotting of top government officials and ministers. A docu- determine by whom they were drawn. CONTINUED ON PAGE 05

Evacuation of
Makhmour first step Charty offcals detaned
in anti-PKK plan LÖSEV
over Ed al-Adha fraud
head Üstün
ERCAN YAVUZ, ANKARA Ezer was SEDAT GÜNEÇ, ANKARA and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB)
acquitted over Vice President Faik Yavuz were sent
Interior Minister Beir Atalay has discussed an exten- charges of Turkish Aviation Board (THK) to court together with 31 others after
sive plan with Iraqi and US authorities in anti-terror corruption.
chairman retired Gen. Osman they were questioned.
talks he held in Baghdad and Arbil, aimed at gradu- Yldrm has been released after being The suspects were accused of not
ally eliminating the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' detained yesterday over corrupt prac- fulfilling about two-thirds of the orders
Party (PKK) presence in northern Iraq. According to tices in accepting donations during from people who preferred to not be

05 06 17
the plan, the return of Turkish Kurdish refugees in a the Feast of the Sacrifice, or Eid al- directly involved in the sacrifice of ani-
UN-supervised camp in northern Iraq is the first of Adha, while the administrators of mals and donated their sacrifices to
a series of steps to finish off the PKK, which uses other charitable foundations remain these foundations. They are also ac-
northern Iraqi camps as a springboard for attacks in custody. Mehmetçik Vakf cused of committing about TL 40 mil-
on Turkey, as part of a larger initiative at home to (Turkish Soldiers Foundation) lion in fraud in the process. Many
address the decades-old Kurdish problem. General Manager Salih Gürolu, Muslims choose to donate money to
Atalay met with Iraqi, US and Kurdish officials
-- including the president of the semi-autono-
Foundation for Children with
Leukemia (LÖSEV) head Üstün
charitable organizations to sacrifice
an animal on their behalf for the reli-
GENERAL STAFF ON 6 MILLION GAIN CHP DEPUTY CALLS
mous Kurdish administration, Massoud Barzani Ezer, Deniz Feneri (Lighthouse) gious holiday, which commemorates THE DEFENSE IN WAKE IMMUNITY AGAINST FM DAVUTOLU
-- in Baghdad and Arbil during the two-day talks Chairman Mehmet Cengiz and Prophet Abraham's willingness to OF PLOT CRITICISM H1N1 IN TURKEY ‘DAVUTYAN’
held on Sunday and Monday. CONTINUED ON PAGE 04 Turkish Union of Chambers sacrifice his son. CONTINUED ON PAGE 17

Featuring news and articles from

‘ 02 TODAY’S ZAMAN

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

‘ Q U O T E O F T H E D AY
‘ THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009

WORDS OF WISDOM
PRESS REVIEW

colu m ns
Copenhagen is a first step toward If Christ were here today, would he Now that it’s all over, what Crucifixion empathy!
a new world climate order. No not punish the American statesmen did you really do yesterday AHMET TURAN ALKAN ZAMAN
more, but also no less. for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq? that’s worth mentioning? Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bar-
tholomew’s statement, “We some-
German Chancellor Angela Merkel Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Coleman Cox times feel like we are being cruci-
fied,” was met by a meaningless
reaction from some conservative
circles, who have the habit of ap-
proaching all types of opposite and contrary views
with tolerance. Maybe the statement was inter-
preted wrong. It is not my job to attempt to explain
CROSS READER what is misunderstood and why; however, aren’t
we in a position to empathize about “crucifixion” in
a physical sense about how cruel and long-lasting a
FATMA DL ZIBAK
f.zibak@todayszaman.com
pr ess rou n du p torture it is? For many years, when something goes

AA, BURCU BLGN

wrong, we have been called to account. This is also
a kind of crucifixion. We taste the bitterness of be-
ing treated like a second-class citizen in our own
The plot aganst country. Our women with headscarves know this
situation well; so do those covered women who go
Arnç and the General to the door of military facilities for the first time in
order to see their children’s wedding and are cruelly
Staff’s responsblty

PHOTO
turned away. Being crucified must be that or some-
An assassination plot against deputy Prime Minister Bül- thing like that. They drill a hole in your heart with
ent Arnç that was exposed over the weekend has shocked evil words, driving nails in your wrists and placing a
Ankara. Gendarmerie and police teams launched an opera- manufactured and fake crown to your head.
tion to capture the suspects after they received information
that two military officers -- Maj. brahim G. and Col. Erkan
Ylmaz B. -- were planning to assassinate the deputy prime
Yes, there is a scene
minister. The teams detected two suspicious vehicles in the of chaos
vicinity of Arnç’s house. One of the vehicles belonged to MUSTAFA KARAALOLU STAR
the General Staff, while the other was rented from a pri-
What would you say when the prime
vate car rental company. One of the officers allegedly tried
minister of a nation publicly endorses
to swallow a piece of paper when he saw the gendarmerie
the stance adopted by some of the
and police teams approaching. The paper featured Arnç’s
nation’s extreme nationalists when
home address. Police also found several maps showing
he expresses support for an attempt
Arnç’s house in the two vehicles. Now that the military’s
to ban foreign language news broad-
involvement in this shady plot is so obvious, everyone is
casts on television? And when he says: “Let’s bring
asking the General Staff to shed some light on the incident.
this question to the people through a referendum.
Questioning the reasons why Arnç was chosen as a
Let them decide.” But then he realizes this is actu-
target, Zaman’s Mustafa Ünal says Arnç is a person who ally a bad idea and says, “I fell into a trap that was
is well known by the public, who does not avoid saying set for me.” Would you say he experienced a change
what he thinks and who harshly reacts to every military at- in his beliefs? All this happened in Bulgaria. And the
tempt to meddle in politics. He recalls how Arnç reacted prime minister of whom we are speaking is, of course,
when the coup diaries of an admiral were disclosed, say- Boyko Borisov. So, how should we approach this
ing, “Thank God Turkey did not enter a war with another case? One: We could reject his excuses, saying, “Af-
country under the command of these generals.” In Ünal’s
view, Chief of General Staff Gen. lker Babu needs to
Young Turkish violinists brought home five awards ter all, this man was sane beforehand, was he not?”
Two: We could decide that he was “free to do what he
convincingly explain to the public about the assassina- from Romania, where they participated in the Remember wanted” on the basis that, after all, “the whole thing
tion plot against Arnç since it seems to be the work of took place in Bulgaria, and after all, his name isn’t re-
some military members. “Turkey has forgotten, but po-
Enescu international violin competition, which is held ally like ours.” Three: We could say, “Well, admitting
litical assassination means chaos and turmoil. Some cir- to commemorate Romanian composer, violinist, one made a mistake and fixing it is a great virtue.” To
cles want to create an uncertain environment again. The tell you the truth, I am in favor of this final option.
signs, findings and allegations are very serious,” says Ünal. pianist, conductor and teacher George Enescu.
According to Hürriyet’s Erturul Özkök, the General
Staff is repeating a mistake by remaining silent about the
Opposition problem,
akam: “Answer from Cappadocia to Bar- an assassination plot was exposed over the weekend, said
assassination plot against Arnç despite the fact that three tholomew,” read the headline of the daily’s main story he would raise the issue at the National Security Council power/ruling alternative
days have passed since the discovery of the plot. “Just like yesterday, quoting remarks from Bekir Ödemi, a former (MGK) meeting and request information from generals HASAN CEMAL MLLYET
everyone else, I wonder about the answers to these ques- mayor of Ürgüp, a district in Cappadocia, who invited attending the meeting about the plot. Two military officers In our country, politics has suffered
tions. Why were those two military officers there? Were Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew to Ürgüp in were captured by the police as suspects in the case. “I much from the conflict between rul-
they doing something that the General Staff knew about? 1999. Speaking in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” watched the camera recordings, I saw the relevant docu- ing and opposition parties. Or it is
How can these individuals who cannot even keep an ad- for a story that was broadcast over the weekend, Patri- ments. Many suspect I was wiretapped. Prime Minister better to say, this country has lost
dress in their heads and who write it down on a piece arch Bartholomew said he sometimes felt “crucified” in Recep Tayyip Erdoan wants the investigation into the as- too much blood from the conflict be-
of paper serve as intelligence officers? How can some- Turkey, referring to hardships experienced by his com- sassination plot to be carried out to the end,” Arnç said. tween ruling and opposing parties.
one find the courage to attempt to do such a thing af- munity in the country. “We visited the patriarch in 1999. There has never been a time when one says white
ter the Ergenekon trial? The answers to all these ques- We held a service in memory of St. John. It was the first radikal: “Three provinces suffering from unem- and the other hasn’t jumped in to say black. Compro-
tions should be given convincingly,” contends Özkök. time such a wonderful service was held in Anatolia. The ployment the most: rnak, Diyarbakr, Siirt,” the daily mise, dialogue, tolerance, patience… our politics has
Bugün’s Adem Yavuz Arslan thinks Arnç being chosen public showed great love for Bartholomew. There were said in the headline of a front-page story yesterday, refer- never enjoyed these, it could not. Therefore, Turkey
as a target was a correct choice by those masterminding the some who embraced him and wept. The patriarch said he ring to data released by the Turkish Statistics Institute has been polarized and gathered on different fronts
attack because Arnç is known as the “conscience” of the did not feel like a guest in Ürgüp but like a property own- (TurkStat). According to the report, the labor force par- from time to time. Sometimes every party and every
Justice and Development Party (AK Party), and his name er. I am very surprised to now hear his crucifixion re- ticipation rate for Turkey was 46.9 percent. This indicator leader behaved waywardly/independently. The op-
has not been tainted although he’s been in politics for years. marks,” Ödemi said. was highest in Rize, with 66.3 percent, Gümühane (65.4 position, of course, has been wrong before. But today
“Those who wanted to create an environment of chaos in percent) and Artvin (62.5 percent). The lowest participa- the one on the wrong road is not the opposition, but
Turkey could not have found a target better than Arnç,” star: In its top story yesterday, the daily reported tion rates were found in Diyarbakr (26.9 percent), Siirt the “Baykal opposition” and Baykal’s perception of
says Arslan. Stressing the seriousness of the assassination that Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arnç, against whom (27.2 percent) and rnak (29.8 percent). the opposition. Those who care sincerely about stabil-
plot, he says the investigation into the plot should be car- ity in Turkey must deal seriously with the “problem of
ried out meticulously without any evidence being destroyed. the opposition” and the alternative of the ruling party.

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 NATIONAL T H U R S D A Y, D E C E M B E R 2 4 , 2 0 0 9
TCDD to focus on high-speed trains in 2010
CHAN
PHOTO
Turkish State Railways (TCDD)
head Süleyman Karaman has an-
nounced that the directorate will
work to improve the country’s high-speed
train network in 2010. “We have produced
60 projects related to Turkey’s railway system
in the past six years. Turkey ranks eighth in
Süleyman Kara
railway technology worldwide and sixth in
Europe. The TCDD will focus on high-speed
trains in the new year,” Karaman noted.
Turkey began constructing its high-speed
rail lines in 2003. The TCDD purchased its rst
high-speed train engines, with a maximum
speed of 250 kilometers per hour, from Spain in
2007. In March, Turkey launched the country’s
rst high-speed train service, between Ankara
and Eskiehir, on a 240-kilometer segment of
tracks. “Our work on the high-speed train
TODAY’S ZAMAN 03
STANBUL 16° KONYA 13°
ANKARA 11° ÇANAKKALE 18°
ZMR 18° DYARBAKIR 16°
ANTALYA 22° SAMSUN 16°
ADANA 21° BURSA 17°
ERZURUM 7° GAZANTEP 16°
EDRNE 15° ESKEHR 12°
TRABZON 15° MALATYA 13°
KAYSER 14° KOCAEL 17°
KERM
BALCI
line between Ankara and stanbul is ongoing, for every seat that play movies and display the
as is work on the line between stanbul and current position and speed of the train. Spacious k.balci@todayszaman.com
Eskiehir. I believe this line will be operational seats offer plenty of room during the smooth
in 2012 or 2013. We will nish the line between ride. The train can reach speeds of 260 kilo-
Ankara and Konya in 2010. A line to Sivas is meters per hour and will considerably reduce
continuing at the maximum pace. We will reno- hours-long trips. Sensor systems control the
ArmVlle
vate the country’s railway lines in 2010,” Kara- speed, and the trains are designed to prevent
man remarked. The high-speed trains features
many luxuries, including entertainment screens
cars from piling on top of one another in the
event of an accident. stanbul Today’s Zaman
prosecutor
They say 65 million people play daily in the
new Internet “agricultural network” FarmVille.
Sixty-ve million people spend their precious
-- maybe not for them but certainly precious
for humanity -- hours in a digitally created vir-
tual farm trying to sow and harvest their crops.
In the real world, we discuss genetically engi-
neered food, and in that virtual world, they
compete for digitally engineered food!
FarmVille, they say, has its own time-space.
My 16-year-old daughter is a newcomer to
FarmVille, and upon my suggestion that she
should go to our farmhouse and work with real
soil and fertilizer, she replied, “I would if it was
possible to harvest your products in two hours!”
It is not the necessary muscle stretching that
detracts digi-youth from real life situations; it is
the patience of a farmer that they lack.
The time-space of FarmVille does con-
ict with the real time-space of its players.
I have heard of colleagues waking up in the
middle of the night or rushing out of the edi-
torial meeting in order to meet the deadline
for harvesting their eggplants!
FarmVille is a collective dream dreamt in
an electronic brain with certain rules. But it
has the potential to conquer actual reality. A
skillful FarmVille player can always convert
his or her virtual grapes into real money and
buy real grapes. The rules of the virtual mar-
ket are even wilder than the real market. This
new phase of capitalism does not respect any
labor laws. Children are over-employed in
FarmVille. Families are destroyed because of
this and similar “second life” occupations.
This is not a column satirizing the absurdi-
ties of the inexistent realities of the digital world.
I am trying to analogize FarmVille and ArmVille.
ArmVille is a collective dream dreamt in the
garrisons of the Turkish army. You never know
who is the actual dreamer, but the dream itself
is persistent and has its own time-space. Its
time-space often conicts with the real time-
space of the outer-civil world, but it has the ir-
resistible power to conquer actual reality. The
dreamers of ArmVille live anachronistic lives.
In a real-life situation, stationing a colonel and
a major next to the house of the deputy prime
minister and not expecting immediate police
intervention is sheer stupidity. In ArmVille, it
works. In real life even a terrorist, let alone a
trained army commander, knows that it is idi-
otic to carry paperwork during an illegal wire-
tapping operation, especially if one is not good
at swallowing papers without chewing them!
In ArmVille, they do that. In real life, it is mo-
ronic to keep the blueprints of the next military
coup d’état on top of one’s ofce desk. In Arm-
Ville, Gen. ener Eruygur did that…
The dreamers of ArmVille are not 16-year-
old digi-boys. They are colonels, generals, ex-
generals, university rectors, businessmen, jour-
nalists, policemen, politicians… Their dream
is persistent and resilient. They wake up in a
further phase of ArmVille even when they
think they are awake. This is so because the ac-
quisitions of ArmVille are convertible into real
money, power, title and rank.
Several defendants of the Ergenekon case
have been diagnosed with illnesses that exist
only in ArmVille, and thanks to those illnesses,
they managed to evade imprisonment.
In real life, the army prosecutor pros-
ecutes members of the army. In ArmVille,
the army prosecutor is the army’s prosecu-
tor. He prosecutes civilians in the name of
the army, and when it comes to the criminal
“good boys” of ArmVille, they are not only
freed, they are also promoted.
They say Col. E.Y.B. and Maj. .G., who
were detained by the police in front of Depu-
ty Prime Minister Bülent Arnç’s house, were
released by the army prosecutor. They say
the two were carrying documents of illegally
gathered information about the president, the
prime minister and several other ministers.
ArmVille it is!
Which way goes to CiVille!?
 04 TODAY’S ZAMAN
Evacuation of Makhmour first step in anti-PKK roadmap
contnued from page 1
The Makhmour refugee camp is home to more
than 10,000 Turkish Kurds who ed their homes
in southeastern Anatolia at the height of Turkey’s
ght against the PKK in the 1990s. A small group
of Makhmour residents returned home in October
as a good will gesture to support the government’s
ambitious Kurdish initiative -- a democratization
plan aimed at expanding the rights of Turkey’s Kurds
-- but new returns are not expected soon as ten-
sions ared again in the wake of the closure of the
pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) and
violent street demonstrations to protest prison
conditions of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.
A group of former DTP deputies met Makhmour
residents on Tuesday to discuss possible returns.
PM vows for model partnershp
wth Syra despte crtcsm
contnued from page 1
The two countries signed a bilateral co-
operation agreement in September un-
der which top ministers from the two countries
will meet each year. The accord, titled the “High-
Level Strategic Cooperation Council Agreement,”
is similar to a strategic mechanism recently estab-
lished between Turkey and Iraq. It was during the
rst ministerial level meeting of the High-Level
Strategic Cooperation Council between Syria
and Turkey in mid-October, the rst part of the
meeting being held in Aleppo and the second
in Gaziantep, that the two countries symboli-
cally abolished the border between them.
In Damascus, Erdoan led the Turkish
side during the first prime ministerial level
meeting of the council, while the Syrian
side was led by Prime Minister Naji Otri.
State Minister responsible for projects con-
cerning the Southeastern Anatolia region
Cevdet Ylmaz; Foreign Trade Minister
Zafer Çalayan; Justice Minister Sadullah
Ergin; Interior Minister Beir Atalay; For-
eign Minister Ahmet Davutolu; Health
Minister Recep Akda; Energy Minister
Taner Yldz; Agriculture Minister Mehdi
Eker; and Environment Minister Veysel
Erolu participated in the meeting.
Turkey will continue its pro-active
policy regarding the Middle East, Erdoan
said, adding that such activity will not only
help strengthen bilateral relations between
Turkey and Syria but will also help build an
infrastructure for peace in the Middle East.
“Everyone is free to say whatever they
want. However, I nd these [arguments] ma-
levolent. The rapprochement between Turkey
and Syria is actually the normalization of bi-
lateral relations. What is wrong is not today’s
rapprochement; what was wrong was yester-
day’s distance and the visa issue,” Erdoan
said, in an apparent reference to speculation
over Turkey’s foreign policy direction.
Turkey’s expanded presence in the
foreign policy arena has long been visible
to many, with some commentators sug-
gesting that this signies a shift in foreign
policy orientation, with Ankara turning its
back to the Western alliance and moving to-
ward a closer and institutionalized coopera-
tion with the Islamic world instead. Ankara
Belgian court lets Turkish terror suspects walk free
A ruling released on Wednesday by an ap-
peals court in Brussels concerning mem-
bers of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s
Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) was wel-
comed by the defendants, as three of them were
acquitted, while three more were given deferred
prison sentences ranging from two to three years.
The suspects, all members of the DHKP/C,
designated as a terrorist organization by the Euro-
pean Union and the United States as well as Tur-
key, were acquitted in February 2008 in a highly
controversial ruling handed down by an appeals
court in Antwerp, which overturned an earlier de-
cision sentencing the suspects to imprisonment.
But months later, the Belgian Court of Cassation
rejected the acquittals, paving the way for a retrial.
In its annulment ruling, the court said the defendants
could be tried in Belgium for terrorist activities in oth-
er countries. It also dened the DHKP/C as “a terror-
ist organization, criminal organization and a gang.”
The appeals court in Brussels, which began the
retrial process in May, ruled on Wednesday that the
They were greeted by slogans in favor of the PKK
and Öcalan and told the deputies that their return
depended, among other things, on further im-
provement in Öcalan’s prison conditions and
an end to military operations against the PKK.
Turkish authorities believe that about half
of the camp’s population -- some 5-6,000 peo-
ple -- are willing to return but unable to do
so under threats and pressure from the PKK,
which exerts significant control over the camp.
The agreed steps include heightened secu-
rity around the camp so as to minimize visits
to Makhmour by PKK members from the terrorist
group’s mountain camps. This responsibility falls mostly
on the shoulders of the Iraqi Kurdish administration.
Turkey, for its part, will build reception
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attended a welcoming ceremony with their spouses before top-
level talks and the Turkish-Syrian Business Forum took place in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Wednesday.
has constantly rejected such arguments, calling
them reminiscent of the Cold War mentality.
Assad couple’s gesture
Upon their arrival in Damscus on Tues-
day evening, Erdoan and his wife, Emine
Erdoan, received unexpected guests at
the Four Seasons Hotel, where they stayed
during the visit. Assad and his spouse,
Asma al-Assad, visited the Erdoans at
the hotel to welcome them.
The welcome visit was considered a “ges-
ture” since the Assad family is still in mourn-
ing over the death of Assad’s brother Majd
Assad, who passed away earlier this month.
Majd Assad, 35, died at a Damascus hospi-
tal on Dec. 12. The mourning period lasts 40
days. The Assad family is not making any
social visits during this period according to
tradition, but they apparently made an ex-
ception as a gesture to the Erdoans.
DHKP/C defendants welcomed Wednesday’s ruling by an appeals court in Brussels as three of them
were acquitted and three more were given deferred prison sentences ranging from two to three years.
crimes committed by the defendants in Belgium were
not “terror activities,” the Anatolia news agency re-
ported. Instead of calling the defendants members
centers on the border for returnees, which will
take measures for their settlement in Turkey.
The Housing Development Administration
of Turkey (TOK) may build houses for those
who want to return to their villages, mostly de-
stroyed during Turkey’s anti-terrorism fight.
Iraqi authorities have agreed to make neces-
sary arrangements in cooperation with the UN to
grant Iraqi citizenship to those who do not want
to return to Turkey. According to the plan, these
efforts are to bear fruit in a year, following which
persons with no citizenship will face a penalty at
the hands of the Iraqi Kurdish authorities.
In addition to the Turkish Kurds, authori-
ties estimate that there are up to 2,000 Syrian
Kurds within the PKK. Turkey hopes Syria will
Hatay row complicates water talks
The finalization of a mutual agreement on
water issues between Syria and Turkey was
delayed Wednesday by a disagreement stem-
ming from the decades-long Hatay dispute
between the two neighboring countries, news
reports posted from Damascus have said.
Out of more than 50 bilateral agreements
to be signed during Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoan’s official visit to Damascus, one was
about the amount of water Turkey releases to
Syria via the historic Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
According to news reports, the Turkish
side asked the Syrian side to make an of-
ficial declaration recognizing Hatay province
as part of Turkey’s territory before signing
the deal. As of Wednesday afternoon, there
had been no official statement or news report
as to whether Syrian and Turkish officials were
able to overcome the disagreement.
Syrian claims on the southern province of
of a terrorist organization, the court used a lighter
phrase, “gang,” as it didn’t nd evidence provided
by the prosecutor supporting its accusations against
T H U R S D AY, D E C E M B E R 2 4 , 2 0 0 9
respond favorably to requests for cooperation.
Following the evacuation of the Makhmour
camp and the resolution of citizenship prob-
lems, the authorities of the three countries
will move to eliminate the PKK elements in
the mountainous region of northern Iraq. US
and Iraqi Kurdish authorities will urge the PKK
leadership to renounce its armed struggle. Bar-
zani is expected to appoint an ofcial to contact the
PKK leadership soon. The Iraqi and US side say
PKK leaders must be allowed to seek refuge in a
third country, while Turkey is cold towards the idea.
The agreed measures also include strengthen-
ing the security on the Turkish-Iraqi border and
more intelligence sharing between Turkey and the
US on PKK movements in Iraq. Ercan Yavuz Ankara
AA, MEHMET KAMAN
PHOTO
Hatay poisoned the bilateral relations between
the two countries in the past. A few years ago,
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has devel-
oped friendly relations with Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoan, recognized Hatay as Turkey’s
territory. However, Damascus did not formalize
this with an official declaration and Hatay is still
shown as Syrian territory on Syrian maps.
In a September interview with Today’s Za-
man, Assad touched upon the issue of water:
“In the recent past, Turkey fulfilled all its commit-
ments regarding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
But this year it has not been able to fulfill a portion
of its commitments. The amount of water that
was left to us was very little due to some invest-
ments Turkey made. However, the prime minister
has said the amount of water which was sup-
posed to be left over to us will be provided in the
near future. Iraq, Syria and Turkey have reached
an agreement over the Tigris.” Ankara Today’s Zaman
AA, DURSUN AYDEMR
the defendants sufcient, Anatolia said. The agency
noted that the defendants at the courthouse in Brus-
sels applauded the ruling.
Fehriye Erdal and Kaya Saz were each handed
a two-year deferred prison sentence, while Musa
Asolu, described as “the gang’s leader,” was given
a three-year deferred prison sentence, in light of the
time they had already spent under arrest.
Bahar Kimyongür, ükriye Akar Özordulu and
PHOTO
Zerrin Sar were acquitted by the court, which didn’t
take guns and documents possessed by the defen-
dants into account, Anatolia reported.
Erdal, convicted in absentia, is a fugitive want-
ed in Turkey as the main suspect in the 1996 assas-
sination of businessman Özdemir Sabanc. Erdal
was arrested in Belgium in 1999, and she was later
sentenced to four years in prison for relatively minor
crimes she committed in that country. But Erdal, who
was supposed to have been under house arrest in an
undisclosed location in Belgium, disappeared just be-
fore the ruling was announced. She has been at
large since then. Ankara Today’s Zaman with wires
NATIONAL
LALE
KEMAL
loglu@todayszaman.com
Does Turkey
need a natonal
mssle system?
Due to the fact that Turkey has actively been in-
volved in NATO’s missile defense system project,
a project NATO recently decided to speed up, the
question now is whether Ankara should acquire a
national long-range missile system.
Since United States President Barack Obama’s
announcement in September of a new missile de-
fense structure in Europe that will provide missile
defense capabilities sooner, build on proven systems
and offer greater defense against the threat of mis-
sile attacks than the program proposed by former
President George W. Bush, US delegations have been
visiting various NATO capitals, including Ankara. The US
delegations have explained the deployment plans and have
heard the reactions of concerned members of the alliance.
Obama said the change of gears was based on an
“updated intelligence assessment” about Iran’s abil-
ity to hit Europe with missiles.
Turkey is the only NATO member country
bordering Iran, which has been involved in a se-
rious dispute with the international community
over its alleged nuclear arms program while test-
ing long-range missiles as a show of force.
The Hürriyet daily reported early this week
that a US delegation headed by Ellen Tauscher,
under secretary of state for arms control, was in
Ankara in November proposing that Ankara host
radars, a component of NATO’s missile shield
project. She also suggested that while deploying
radars on Turkish territory, anti-ballistic missiles could
be deployed in some other European countries.
The same report stated that Turkey had res-
ervations about the deployment plans. It is un-
derstood that Turkey seeks the deployment of all
systems to all relevant countries instead of host-
ing radars though the missile systems have not
yet been deployed in any given country.
Turkey was engaged in a series of talks with both
the US and Israel over the establishment of a missile
shield in its territory in the early 2000s. But concerned
about its neighbors’ perception that Turkey would tar-
get them, Ankara opted for a NATO missile shield pro-
gram instead, although the alliance’s project has been
moving slowly. But NATO has accelerated its missile
shield project -- something that Turkey is a party to as
the member of the alliance -- in recent years.
While Ankara has been actively involved in
NATO’s missile shield program, the rationale be-
hind its search for the acquisition of costly long-
range missiles should be questioned.
One reason for Turkey’s ill-dened arms pro-
curement policies in general has been its unaccount-
able military, which is not under any civilian, demo-
cratic oversight. The other reason is Turkey’s historic
mistrust of NATO, in which it is a member, as well
as of its close ally, the US, in particular since its arms
embargo following the Turkish operation in Cyprus
to avert a possible Greek invasion of the island.
However, there is a need for the Turkish military to
overcome its mistrust toward the alliance as well toward the
US. Above all, civilian, democratic oversight of arms pro-
curement is vital to prevent unnecessary arms purchases.
Turkey has recently extended the deadline for a re-
sponse regarding its tender for the purchase of 12 long-
range aerial missiles until Jan. 15, 2010. US Lockheed
Martin and Raytheon joined forces in the project,
offering Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) and
PAC-3 systems, while Chinese and Russian compa-
nies are also expected make bids in the scheme.
KKTC’s internal divide
mars settlement
talks in Ankara
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan extended
invitations to both the president and the prime
minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
(KKTC) to hold a joint meeting in Ankara today to dis-
cuss the latest course of affairs regarding the Cyprus is-
sue, yet only the KKTC prime minister had responded
in the afrmative to the invitation as of Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters in Lefkoa on Wednesday,
KKTC Prime Minister Dervi Erolu said both himself
and KKTC President Mehmet Ali Talat have been invit-
ed to Ankara by Erdoan for talks on Cyprus scheduled
for today. Noting that he responded positively to the
invitation, Erolu added: “According to the information
which came to me, Mr. President has not responded
positively. I have been informed that he told Ankara
that he will not travel to Ankara so he must have
thought that our joint visit would not be appropriate.”
At the beginning of December, Talat, accompa-
nied by KKTC Foreign Minister Hüseyin Özgürgün,
had talks in Ankara with both President Abdullah Gül
and Erdoan as well as with Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutolu. Erolu highlighted Erdoan’s invitation
is particularly aimed at listening to the KKTC gov-
ernment’s view of the recent developments. “I don’t
know why the president is not going, it’s his own
decision,” Erolu said, noting that he would fly to
Ankara at noon today and would meet Erdoan in
the evening. Ankara Today’s Zaman with wires
 NATIONAL
Alleged assassination plot puts spotlight on press cards
AYE KARABAT ANKARA
Press cards have become the focus of atten-
tion once again after a fake card was alleg-
edly found in a house search of one of the two
military ofcers who were detained on Saturday
on charges of plotting to assassinate Deputy
Prime Minister Bülent Arnç.
Gendarmerie and police teams launched
an operation to capture the suspects after they
received information that two military ofcers
-- Maj. brahim G. and Col. Erkan Ylmaz B. --
were planning to assassinate the deputy prime
minister. The teams spotted two suspicious ve-
hicles in the vicinity of Arnç’s house. One of the
vehicles belonged to the General Staff while the
other was hired from a private car rental compa-
ny. Turkish dailies claimed yesterday that one of
Would-be assassins were planning to
kill high-profile politicians, ministers
contnued from page 1
Police also seized a fake press card belong-
ing to the colonel during the search. Pros-
ecutors are investigating for what purpose the colo-
nel was planning to use the card.
The two ofcers were released after interroga-
tion by a military prosecutor on Tuesday. The An-
kara Public Prosecutor’s Ofce is examining pos-
sible links between the two and shady networks,
including Ergenekon and Atabeyler.
Ergenekon is a shadowy group suspected
of trying to overthrow the Justice and Develop-
ment Party (AK Party) government. Atabeyler is
a gang whose plans to assassinate Erdoan were
uncovered in 2007.
An examination of video recordings from secu-
rity cameras in the vicinity of Arnç’s house showed
that the major and the colonel had explored the
neighborhood several times with vehicles they had
hired from private car rental companies.
When Ankara police rst received information
in early December from unidentied persons that a
plan to assassinate Arnç had been put into action,
they reportedly focused on leftist groups as the pos-
sible instigators of the plot.
Police believed it was part of a series of planned
attacks on the anniversary of the Hayata Dönü
(Back to Life) operation in 2000, which was staged
to end a hunger strike collectively launched by in-
mates in 20 prisons throughout the country. Thirty-
two died and hundreds were injured in the opera-
tion, in which 10,000 security ofcers participated.
Arnç, who was the parliament speaker at the
time, granted a Supreme Service Medal to Supreme
Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) member
Ali Suat Ertosun for his performance in the opera-
tion. Ertosun was then head of the General Director-
ate of Prisons and Detention Centers.
Leftists groups accuse Arnç of rewarding the
killings that took place in prisons during the notori-
ous operation by awarding Ertosun a medal.
In the meantime, Ankara police have requested
the records of the phone conversations of brahim
G. and Erkan Ylmaz B. from the Telecommunica-
tions Directorate (TB). Police believe the records
could shed light on the links between the two of-
cers and clandestine organizations.
Arnç plans to discuss
assassination plot in MGK meeting
Arnç stated that he plans to discuss the assassination
plot with members of the National Security Council
(MGK) during its next meeting, slated for Dec. 28,
the Star daily reported on Wednesday.
Among the members of the MGK are govern-
Is t a seres of assassnatons that they’re after?
For three days, Ankara has been in shock over al-
legations of an assassination plot targeting Dep-
uty Prime Minister Bülent Arnç. There had to be
an explanation for the capture of two high-rank-
ing ofcers with Arnç’s address, a map and la-
beling information. Information that came in the
other day suggests that the story doesn’t end with
Arnç, but extends to target President Abdullah
Gül, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan, Par-
liament Speaker Mehmet Ali ahin and other
ministers and deputies.
There are many ministers and deputies who
reside in the Çukurambar district. Some people
are surprised that in the middle of the night, two
cars were caught scoping out the scene. Isn’t the
real surprise here that in a democratic country
the deputy prime minister is being targeted, that
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009
the ofcers had tried to swallow a piece of paper
when he saw the gendarmerie and police teams
approaching. The paper featured Arnç’s home
address. Police also found several maps showing
Arnç’s house in the two vehicles.
The security forces also allegedly found a fake
press card in the search of the suspects’ houses but
there were no further details of which media orga-
nization’s name was on the press card and if it was
imitation of the one’s issued by the Prime Ministry
Directorate General of Press and Information.
In Turkey, press cards are issued by the Prime
Ministry Directorate General of the Press and In-
formation and other state ofces usually distrib-
ute their own accreditation cards, like the Min-
istry of Foreign Affairs, the Presidential Palace
and the Prime Ministry. Parliament distributes its
own accreditation cards after the examination of
ment ofcials, the chief of general staff, Gen. lker
Babu, and other army generals.
Arnç said he has discussed the plot with
Prime Minister Erdoan, Interior Minister Beir
Atalay and Ankara Police Chief Orhan Özdemir
so far. “I watched the video recordings from
the security cameras. I also saw other docu-
ments. They told me that the counter-terrorism
teams from the Ankara Police Department took
prompt action when they received information
about a planned assassination. There were two
suspicious vehicles. One belongs to the General
Staff and the other was hired from a private car
rental company. The two detained are ofcers
on active duty. The police launched an operation
[against] them on Saturday night,” the deputy
prime minister noted.
Asked why he could have been picked out for
assassination, Arnç replied: “I have personal com-
ments on such a plot, but it would not be correct to
share them with the public at the moment. How-
ever, I can say that we are always under threat.”
The deputy prime minister also expressed his
wish for a rapid conclusion to the ongoing probe
into the devious plot. “You know our prime minis-
ter’s sensitivity to the issue. He is closely following
developments,” Arnç added.
In the meantime, Erdoan spoke to reporters
on Tuesday about the assassination plot against
Arnç and dened it as “grave and thought-pro-
voking.” He said he hopes the judiciary will con-
clude the investigation in such a way as to clarify
the ambiguity surrounding the incident.
Ex-justice minister:
Plot aimed at fomenting chaos
Former Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Türk
claimed that the plot against Arnç was aimed at
fomenting an atmosphere of chaos in the coun-
try. “Some circles in this country, unfortunately,
exercise violence and hope to attain their objec-
tives through acts of terror,” he said.
Türk escaped unscathed from an explosion at
an Ankara university in April after a woman ap-
proached him and detonated a bomb. An expert
in constitutional law, Türk was about to enter a
Bilkent University hall to give a lecture when a
woman, identied as Didem Akman, approached
him and ignited the fuse of a bomb she was car-
rying on her body, but the bomb did not explode.
“Attacks against politicians occur in many
countries. But they cannot be justied or ap-
proved. I strongly denounce the plotters and per-
petrators of the planned assassination against the
deputy prime minister,” Türk remarked.
NEWS ANALYSIS
FATH UUR
TODAY’S ZAMAN
the top of the state is being observed and black-
listed? According to allegations, Maj. .G. and Col.
E.Y.B. both work at the Mobilization Inspection
Command, the General Staff’s provincial arm.
Ergenekon defendant Fikret Emek had served
in the same division. A fake press card has been
unearthed at the home of one of the suspects.
Weren’t press cards also made for assassin Al-
parslan Arslan, who committed the attack on the
Council of State? Acting on a tip-off 20 days old,
the Ankara police captured these people, with one
a commission in which the Association of Parlia-
mentary Correspondents are represented.
The prosecutors are examining possible links
between two suspected military ofcers and
shady networks, including Ergenekon which is a
shadowy group suspected of trying to overthrow
the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
government.
Doan Tlç from the Middle East Technical
University (METU) Media and Cultural Studies
Program said that there are many dark aspects to
the subject and this is the real danger.
“For real journalists, to have a press card be-
came dangerous, they were even killed. But the
alleged criminals are using them as a sort of pro-
tective shield,” Tlç told Today’s Zaman.
“But not to know and not to be able to
reach accurate information leads us to a to-
Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arnç was the target of a foiled assassination plot allegedly
devised by a group from within the armed forces.
of the suspects attempting to swallow the piece of
the paper with the target address on it. Ten vehi-
cles had been rented using fake IDs, and almost all
of them had been caught on video. The allegations
are serious. The suspects are currently free. This
event which has shaken Ankara so deeply will cer-
tainly have light shed upon it through the investi-
gation of security forces and the judiciary. What’s
being spoken about here is the assassination of the
prime minister’s right-hand man, who at one point
sat in the state’s number-two spot as parliament
speaker. Who is a message being sent to?
Turkey is passing through a critical period in
which prosecutors are investigating coup and at-
tack plans and cage operations as part of court cas-
es. These are days in which, due to assassination
plans in which the Naval Forces Command is also
TODAY’S ZAMAN 05
talitarian regime. There is a blanket of dark-
ness over everything claiming to be ghting
against the darkness,” he said.
Ahmet Abakay, the chairperson of the Con-
temporary Journalists’ Association, also under-
lined the existence of the dark aspects of the plot
and said that as a part of these, the press card
which was found in the house of one of the sus-
pects should be investigated very carefully, too:
“Who supplied it, which organization? It is quite
common for security forces to sometimes use
press cards at social events to lm the partici-
pants. All these things bring extra difculties to
journalism in Turkey,” Abakay said.
He added that in order to prevent this
kind of misapplication of press identity cards,
they should be issued by professional journal-
istic organizations.
TODAY’S ZAMAN, AL ÜNAL
PHOTO
implicated, dozens of ofcers on active duty are
being tried, days in which plans of bombings and
assassinations are popping up all over. And two
such active duty ofcers have been caught red-
handed. It’s also important to not forget Ali Balkz
and Kazm Genç, who were targets of Ergenekon
assassination plans, or the S1 team lists and the
Atabey and Sauna gangs. As Turkey strengthens
its democracy, it has become very clear that there
are those who want to drag the country into chaos
with assassinations. And the state institutions, the
General Staff, the opposition, politicians, appre-
hension and intelligence are all silent. This silence
isn’t a good sign. Isn’t enough for the political
memory to recall the chains of assassinations from
1977-80 that killed the Gün Sazaks, the Nihat Er-
ims and the Abdi pekçis?
General Staff on
the defense in wake
of plot criticism
In a statement posted on its Web site, the
General Staff on Wednesday chose to defend
the armed forces and its members against harsh
criticism over an apparent planned assassination
against Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arnç and
accused the press of reporting on the plan instead
of responding to the people’s questions.
“Protecting the condentiality of an ongo-
ing judicial process is a principle of law. How-
ever, recent incidents have shown that this
principle has lost its validity to a considerable
extent in our country. Details of this incident
concerning two ofcers started to appear in the
media on Dec. 21. There is a difference between
reporting the incident and reporting it with de-
tails and commentary,” read the statement.
Two military ofcers, identied as Maj.
brahim G. and Col. Erkan Ylmaz B, were
detained on Saturday night on suspicion of
plotting to assassinate Arnç. The two are
Special Forces members and are assigned to
the General Staff. A piece of paper discov-
ered in the ofcers’ vehicle contained the
home address of the deputy prime minister.
The statement claimed that the two of-
cers had been assigned by the General Staff
to gather information about a member of the
military who was accused of leaking military
information to third parties. The accused of-
cer resides in an area close to Arnç’s house.
The General Staff also added that the reason
for the existence of a piece of paper with Arnç’s
address and documents seized in a police search
at the ofcers’ houses and ofces will emerge
after an ongoing investigation is completed.
The statement was termed “self-defense” by
many observers. However, what the public was
expecting from the General Staff, according to
observers, was a satisfactory explanation of the
plot controversy. Some urged Chief of General
Staff Gen. lker Babu to hold a press conference
to respond to questions about this newest plot.
The expression of the military’s position on
ongoing developments in the country, mostly
related to politics, is not a rare happening for
the General Staff. Chief of General Staff Gen.
lker Babu held a press conference on the
frigate TGC Oruç Reis last week. He said there
was a psychological war being waged against
the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).
In the meantime, Sabah columnist Mehmet
Barlas criticized the military chief for remaining
silent on the assassination plot despite publicly
voicing his opinion on many issues last week. “I
hope the heavy criticism directed at Gen. Babu
due to his statements [aboard the frigate] will
not discourage him from brieng the public on
the assassination plot against Arnç because the
plot has spurred the public to expect a satisfactory
statement from the General Staff,” stated Barlas.
The columnist also said a similar state-
ment could also be delivered by Defense
Minister Vecdi Gönül.
Hürriyet daily Editor-in-Chief Erturul
Özkök wrote in Wednesday’s column that the
General Staff has not made a statement on the
plot story even though three days had passed
since the capture of the would-be assassins.
Özkök directed a list of questions to the Gen-
eral Staff about their silence on the issue.
Among the questions are: “For what pur-
pose were the two ofcers near Arnç’s house?
Were they planning such a thing with the
knowledge of the General Staff? Could two
people who do not have the ability to remember
the name of a street serve as intelligence agents?
How could they dare to do such a thing after all
that happened after the Ergenekon case?”
Özkök urged the General Staff to re-
spond to the questions and dispel the uncer-
tainty in people’s minds.
Milliyet columnist Fikret Bila also said the mys-
tery of two ofcers who were detained on charges
of plotting to assassinate Arnç needs to be ad-
dressed by the General Staff. “The judicial process
will help remove the shroud of secrecy. But it is
almost a necessity to learn whether the General
Staff will conduct an investigation into the assas-
sination,” Bila noted. stanbul Today’s Zaman
Would-be assassin
linked to Ergenekon
Prosecutors investigating an assassination plot
against the deputy prime minister have discov-
ered links between plot suspect Maj. brahim G.
and retired Maj. Muzaffer Tekin, an Ergenekon
suspect who is currently in jail. Prosecutors are
focused on claims that the major and Col. Erkan
Ylmaz B. may have received orders concerning
the planned assassination from Tekin. Tekin is
accused of directing Alparslan Arslan to carry
out the 2006 Council of State attack aimed at
increasing domestic pressure on the AK Party
government to lead to a coup d’état. Prosecutors
have discovered that the major had dozens of
phone conversations with Tekin. The major also
talked to Arslan 32 times over the phone. They
also discovered that the major had frequent
phone conversations with 10 other individuals.
Prosecutors are now working to unmask the
identities of those individuals. Sedat Güneç Ankara
 06 TODAY’S ZAMAN
Readiye attack was reported by intelligence unit
Intelligence agencies warned security and
gendarmerie forces in advance about an at-
tack in Resadiye in the Central Anatolian province
of Tokat that killed seven soldiers and injured three
others, according to the Akam daily.
The daily reported yesterday that the stanbul
Intelligence Branch had warned the National In-
telligence Organization (MT), police and gendar-
merie 33 days before the attack on Dec. 7 and asked
them to increase security for the soldiers.
Greek Cyprus might
harm EU migration
talks, Ba warns
contýnued from page 1
The Greek Cypriot veto of talks on this chap-
ter at a time when Turkey and the EU are in-
volved in “constructive dialogue” is “tantamount
to the Greek Cypriot administration shooting the
EU and itself in the foot,” chief negotiator Ege-
men Ba told journalists in stanbul. “The Turk-
ish authorities will assess this unwise attitude of
the Greek Cypriot administration in the course of
talks with the EU on readmission.”
Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are be-
lieved to go to Europe via Turkey. Turkish authorities
apprehended approximately 65,000 illegal immigrants
in 2008. The readmission agreement discussed be-
tween Turkish and EU ofcials envisages sending im-
migrants back to their countries of origin via Turkey.
The EU and Turkey have long been at odds over
this critical issue. The EU alleges that Turkey is not
doing enough to tackle illegal immigration coming
from the East, especially from Afghanistan, Pakistan
and the Middle East, claiming the country has failed
to fulll its promises to repatriate illegal immigrants
who pass through Turkey and are later detained
in EU member states. Turkey, on the other hand,
needs the assistance of the EU to establish a reliable
system and to ease worries of whether all detained
immigrants will be sent back after the agreement
is signed. Ba was speaking at a meeting during
which he announced a new communication strategy
to boost EU membership efforts.
Turkey and the EU launched accession nego-
tiations on the environment chapter in Brussels
on Monday, bringing the number of chapters on
which talks have begun to 12. The EU suspended
accession talks on eight chapters in 2006 due to
the Cyprus ports row. France, which is opposed
to Turkish membership, later announced it would
veto talks on ve chapters directly related to ac-
cession. The latest Greek Cypriot veto leaves only
a few chapters available for negotiation.
Ba called on the EU to cleanse the negotia-
tion process -- which is supposed to proceed on
the basis of neutral EU standards to regulate all
walks of life in member countries -- of political fac-
tors, lamenting that the process is stymied by “po-
litical calculations” in some EU member countries.
He did, however, emphasize that Turkey re-
mains committed to EU membership efforts, say-
ing the accession process is a “historic opportunity
to transform Turkey’s political, economic and social
life.” Ba also welcomed the EU’s Lisbon Treaty
and the new EU Commission coming into force.
The chief EU negotiator reiterated Turkey’s
demands for the lifting of visa requirements for
Turkish citizens, saying member countries are
obliged to implement a ruling made early this
year by the European Court of Justice, which
called for visa exemptions for Turks in line with
a 1963 agreement between Turkey and the EU.
More steps in Kurdish initiative
In comments on the government’s Kurdish initia-
tive, Ba said new steps, including opening Kurd-
ish institutes in universities, establishing a state
body to ght discrimination and an independent
human rights board, restoring the former names of
Kurdish towns and villages and lifting obstacles to
election campaigns in Kurdish are on the way.
Ba also criticized the closure of the main
pro-Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party
(DTP), saying his government does not approve
the banning of any political party that operates
within democratic boundaries and in line with
respect for the rule of law.
Patriarchate clarifies: ‘Crucifixion’ means sorrow, hardships
A statement from the stanbul-based Greek
Orthodox Patriarchate said that Patriarch
Bartholomew’s words on a CBS television pro-
gram broadcast in the United States about feeling
“crucied” living in Turkey was meant to reect
sorrow and hardships because of problems.
The patriarchate’s statement said: “There
are similar idioms in all languages, and they are
not evaluated in their narrow meanings but in
their broad sense in that language. While an-
swering questions in that regard, the patriarch
The stanbul intelligence branch, which had
started to prepare the report on Nov. 2 and sent it
on Dec. 4, indicated that an arm of the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) known as the
Maoist Communist Party (MKP) was armed.
Titled “Possible Action” the report stated that
the MKP had formed a new group in Tunceli and it
had sufcient amount of weapons and ammunition.
The report also indicated that soldiers should
choose alternative routes; vehicles should not leave
Ex-DTP deputies Sevahir Bayndr, brahim Binici and Özdal Üçar on Tuesday visited the Makhmour camp with several mayors and administrators from the party.
Former DTP members’
Makhmour vst mght
hurt Kurdsh ntatve
MELK DUVAKLI MAKHMOUR
Some deputies and mayors formerly
of the now-defunct Democratic So-
ciety Party (DTP), who visited the
Makhmour refugee camp in northern Iraq,
where many of Turkey’s southeastern Kurds
who were displaced reside, have referred to
the government’s Kurdish initiative as a proj-
ect to eliminate Kurds.
The DTP was shut down earlier this
month by a Constitutional Court decision on
charges of links to separatist terrorism.
Ex-DTP deputies Sevahir Bayndr,
brahim Binici and Özdal Üçar, several
mayors and party administrators visited the
UN-operated camp on Monday. In their
speeches, they emphasized the importance
of terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
head Abdullah Öcalan as an equal partner
to the state. Turkey has consistently refused
to sit down with the PKK for talks, but as
part of the government’s recent Kurdish
initiative half of the 12,000 refugees at the
camp are to be repatriated. Turkey has also
long accused Makhmour of being a recruit-
ment base for the PKK.
In his speech, rnak deputy Bayndr
said, “We will go to Kandil if necessary for a
solution,” referring to the Kandil Mountains
in northern Iraq, where many PKK bases are
obviously did not intend to imply any pressure
from our government.”
The statement also said that there was a need
to make a public announcement about the issue
because the patriarch’s words were interpreted in
a way that goes beyond their meaning.
Speaking in an interview held in May with
CBS’ “60 Minutes” for a story broadcast on
Sunday night, Patriarch Bartholomew said Tur-
key’s Greek Orthodox community feels they are
treated as “second-class citizens” and he feels
before necessary precautions were taken; personnel
should make sure that traps were not established
in areas of high risk; security precautions should
be reviewed in the premises of the ruling party, the
Justice Ministry, and in the buildings which house
security personnel; intelligence activities should be
increased; and developments should be immediate-
ly reported to the director general of anti-terrorism.
The Frat news agency had announced that the at-
tack was carried out by a unit of the People’s Defense
located. The slogans and chants during the
speech also called for talking directly to the
terrorist leader.
Meanwhile, the politicians’ convoy was
playing PKK anthems as they entered the
camp. “We can’t live without our identity.
You have put up a resistance and come here
for freedom. Now they are saying ‘We will
eliminate [the Kurdish movement] under
the guise of the Kurdish initiative. If the state
really wants a solution, they should listen to
Makhmour. They came to Iraq, why didn’t
they come to Makhmour? We want to act as
a bridge between Ankara and Makhmour. If
we are assigned a task, there are no limits
to what we can do. We can go to Kandil if
necessary. We are here. We will take your
messages to Parliament and the govern-
ment. We envision is a multi-lingual, multi
cultured system,” Bayndr said.
Bayndr recalled that in October a group
of 32 Kandil and Makhmour residents re-
turned to Turkey. The PKK and the DTP refer
to this group as the “peace group.” “They [the
government] wanted to expedite the process.
Now they should solve the problems of the
peace group rst. Unity can only be possible
with a democratic initiative and by ending
clashes. You, who have been forced out of
your villages, can now return freely. You sent
the peace group, now you are saying, ‘let’s
“crucied” living in Turkey.
“As a spiritual leader who is supposed to ex-
press the problems that the Christian Orthodox
community and the Patriarchate have been fac-
ing for years, the patriarch has used his usual
realistic and careful style to articulate these,” the
statement also said.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Chief Negotiator for
the European Union Egemen Ba said that the
expression is used in English and Greek, adding:
“We would not gain anything by saying that our
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009
Forces (HPG), the armed wing of the PKK, but without
an order from the forces or the PKK. The agency reported
that the assault was not the result of a directive from the
HPG command. The HPG also said the assault was re-
taliation against Turkish security forces because of recent
military operations against the terrorist organization.
Following the attack, the General Staff released the
texts of the attackers’ wireless communications. MT
ofcial Emre Taner had said that the conversation style
was not similar to that of the PKK. stanbul Today’s Zaman
CHAN, ALHAN HASANO LU
PHOTO
see what happens to them, and we’ll come
accordingly’.”
During the visit, the Makhmour People’s
Council made a declaration laying down 10
conditions for returning to Turkey. Makhmour
residents asked for the UN to oversee the re-
turns, and also asked for mass residential areas
in Turkey where they could settle together.
They also asked for and end to the isolation of
Öcalan, who is jailed on a prison island, and
for the government to announce its road-
map. Journalists were taken out of the camp
after the declaration. The deputies stayed in
Makhmour overnight. Some believe that the
arrangement was to accommodate a group
of PKK administrators from Kandil, who
would be joining a secret meeting at night.
Erdoan says Türk’s words
unfortunate
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoan said former DTP chairman Ahmet
Türk’s speech announcing the decision of for-
mer DTP deputies to stay in Parliament and
not resign was “unfortunate.” Türk’s speech
made it clear that the deputies were staying
as directed by Öcalan through his lawyers.
“We do not treat any illegal organization or
individual as an equal partner,” Erdoan said,
speaking to the press shortly before his depar-
ture to Syria at Esenboa Airport on Monday.
Turkish brethren who live in the Western Thrace
feel crucied. The important thing is to alleviate
the problems in society. And as we know, there
are not segments in the society without problems.
Our Alevi brothers have problems. Workers have
problems. Armenians have problems. Greeks have
problems. Women have problems. But we have
the will to overcome these problems. Our Turkey
is not the old Turkey. Turkey can face its problems.
It is a country which tries to identify its problems
and produce solutions.” stanbul Today’s Zaman
NATIONAL
Ozan Ceyhun
German social
democrats to sever
ties with CHP
Ozan Ceyhun, a former German mem-
ber of the European Parliament, has said
his Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)
is ready to break its ties with Turkey’s main op-
position Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Speaking with journalists in Ankara on
Tuesday at a gathering of the Parliament Cor-
respondents Association, Ceyhun said German
social democrat institutions have demanded
that the SPD sever its ties with the CHP.
Ceyhun said remarks by CHP Deputy Chair-
man Onur Öymen’s on Dersim were not well re-
ceived by the SPD. Öymen angered Turkey’s Alevi
community by referring to the Turkish govern-
ment’s harsh response to a 1937 rebellion in the
predominantly Alevi city of Tunceli, then known
as Dersim, as an example of ghting terrorism.
Adding that the CHP had not sent any
representatives to the last general assembly of
the SPD, Ceyhun said that as far as SPD mem-
bers were concerned, the CHP is no different
than the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
“When you look at it from Berlin, the CHP
is no different than the MHP. This is what
most people began to think following Öy-
men’s remarks,” he said.
When asked about the closure of the pro-
Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), he said
a decision to close parties is not right in princi-
ple but that there is an opportunity for some of
the DTP deputies to continue under the newly
formed Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).
Ceyhun, who was part of the gathering of
correspondents with Turkey’s chief EU nego-
tiator, Egemen Ba, also said the SPD repre-
sentative for the state of Hesse will be in Tur-
key to talk with Turkish parties and to visit the
predominantly Kurdish province of Diyarbakr.
When asked about the debate regarding a
call to expel the CHP from the Socialist Inter-
national, Ceyhun said: “It is not easy to expel
a party from the Socialist International. But
they [CHP] will have difculty nding a party
to talk there.” Ankara Today’s Zaman
6 million gain
immunity against
H1N1 in Turkey
Four million people have been infected
with the H1N1 virus and 2 million people
have been vaccinated against the disease in Tur-
key, bringing the number of people who have ac-
quired immunity against the pandemic to a total
of 6 million, the Health Ministry has announced.
Yet the ministry noted that the gure was
not sufcient to prevent the spread of the dis-
ease, hence vaccinations should continue in
order to protect public health. The ministry
also warned that H1N1 cases were likely to be
seen less frequently at the end of winter but
they were more likely to increase next autumn.
According to the ministry, the disease has
been found and caused deaths in all provinces
in Turkey so far. Although the disease is seen in
all age groups, it has been more frequent among
children, young people and the middle aged, said
the ministry. The elderly get infected with the
H1N1 virus less frequently but the effects of the
disease are felt more strongly in this age group.
Turkey recorded its rst H1N1 casualty in
early November with the death of a 27-year-
old man, D.., who worked as a custodian at an
Ankara hospital. The death toll has now neared
500. The ministry said one-third of those who
died due to H1N1 was below the age of 50 and
known to be healthy people.
Health Minister Recep Akda dismissed
claims that Turkey had been late in importing the
H1N1 vaccine, saying that the country was among
the rst to import it and begin vaccinations. Akda
was responding to two separate parliamentary
inquiries initiated by Nationalist Movement Party
(MHP) Hatay deputy Turan Çirkin and Republican
People’s Party (CHP) Edirne deputy Bilgin Paçarz
about the import of H1N1 vaccines to Turkey.
When asked about the best way for people to
protect themselves against the virus, Akda said
it was vaccination. The ministry, which frequent-
ly informed the public about the death toll of the
H1N1 virus, has now decided not to disclose the
gures as sharing them with the public has not
benetted public health. Pnar Kaman stanbul
 BUSINESS
Global Bilgi eyes expansion in Eastern Europe in 10th year
ERGN HAVA ÝSTANBUL
Having left 10 years behind in the call
center services sector, Global Bilgi, Tur-
key’s largest call center group, expects to
grow in the international arena via the Eastern
European market.
Speaking to Today’s Zaman during a press
conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the
group, Global Bilgi General Manager Bahadr
Pekkan said his company has gained noticeable
market experience in countries such as Belarus
and Ukraine, the two Eastern European coun-
tries in which the group currently provides ser-
vices, and that their initial target in 2010 will be
to expand to other neighboring countries in the
region. Pekkan said they had started conducting
OPEC keeps
output goals,
seeks quota
discipline
OPEC agreed on Tuesday to keep sup-
ply curbs unchanged but faces a battle
to crack down on those in its ranks who are
failing to comply with quota restrictions if it
wants to drain bulging global fuel inventories.
The 12-member Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that
pumps some 50 percent of the world’s oil
exports has seen crude prices almost double
since the start of the year after it sliced out-
put when recession hit fuel demand. Oil
prices traded just below $73 a barrel on
Tuesday for US crude, near the centre of the
$70-$80 range that many in OPEC say they
prefer. “At between $70 and $80, everyone
is happy,” Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi
said. “The current price is good for consum-
ers, producers and investors.”
OPEC’s biggest producer, Saudi Arabia
has made clear that it does not want to risk
letting fuel prices get out of hand for fear
of stunting a fragile recovery in world eco-
nomic growth.
But Naimi expressed concern over the
poor discipline shown by some OPEC mem-
bers in observing quota restrictions. This has
pushed up inventories in industrialised con-
sumer nations to 60 days worth of demand.
Stricter adherence to the 4.2 million
barrels-a-day (bpd) of reductions in force
throughout 2009 would skim inventories to
levels more acceptable to producers. Asked
for his opinion on compliance, Naimi said:
“We expect more.”
OPEC’s ofcial communique read:
“Member countries repeated their commit-
ment to their individually agreed production
allocations.” But it has little in its armoury
to ensure that happens other than an appeal
to self-interest. “We always ask them to at
least try to implement the decision that has
been taken,” said OPEC Secretary-General
Abdullah al-Badri said. “We can’t really
force countries to adhere 100 percent, but
we always encourage them to comply.”
OPEC estimates show that Saudi and
its Gulf allies Kuwait and the UAE are at or
near full compliance with output cuts. But
Angola, Nigeria and Iran have made little
or no contribution.
Compliance peaked in February at
about 80 percent but has since slipped to
60 percent, adding about 800,000 bpd or
3 percent to OPEC supplies over the past
nine months. Luanda Reuters
stanbul to emerge as fashion corner where East meets West
ZEYNEP KALKAVAN STANBUL
As consumption shifted from the Western
world to the East with the recent global -
nancial crisis, stanbul became the meeting point
of the two, especially in the textile and ready-
to-wear sectors, CNR Holding sales coordinator
Selçuk çinsel has said.
Delivering a speech at a press conference
organized to promote the 15th stanbul Fashion
Fair, which is scheduled to be held at the CNR
Expo Center on Jan. 24-26, çinsel said 125 com-
panies from around the world are expected to
participate in the fair. “Since the last fair [held
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009
market research in the region and are
looking for new investment opportu-
nities, particularly in such countries
as Russia. Among the countries they
are most keen to enter is the Rus-
sian market, Pekkan noted, adding
that they are encouraged by a large
customer potential in this country.
Global Bilgi is the rst and only Turk-
ish company to have entered the in- Bahadr Pekkan
ternational call center market.
Also speaking to reporters, Turkcell CEO
Süreyya Ciliv said they expect to add new call
centers in the Turkish market following the suc-
cess of Global Bilgi in current operations. “We
receive positive feedback from our customers and
are aware that Global Bilgi has earned Turkcell
Dealerships struggled to keep up with surging demand due to promotions by automobile manufacturers looking to continue their performance after the ÖTV discount.
Despite the steep discounts offered throughout most of the year, the number of registered vehicles increased only slightly, by 0.2 percent in October over October 2008.
Vehicle registrations drop by 11.4 pct
in November as full ÖTV reinstated
The number of cars registered in
October increased by 0.2 percent
over the same month last year but
decreased by 11.4 percent compared to Sep-
tember, as the effects of a special consump-
tion tax (ÖTV) discount enacted in the sum-
mer wore off.
According to the Road Motor Vehicles
Statistics released by the Turkish Statistics
Institute (TurkStat) yesterday, the number of
vehicles registered in November was 63,336,
an 11.4 percent decrease on the previous
month. The largest decrease stemmed from
a 43.7 percent decrease in minibuses regis-
tered. The number of cars registered in this
period also decreased by 10.2 percent. Truck
registration increased by 14.9 percent.
Compared to the same month last year,
on Aug. 28-30] coincided with the closing of the
summer season, the number of companies that
attended was very low; however, this time we
are expecting a very high gure,” he said, adding
that he is very optimistic about the fair
and that he expects it to attract
some 30,000 visitors.
çinsel drew attention
to the attendance of Saudi
House, one of Saudi Arabia’s
leading department stores, at
the fair, stressing that this will be
the rst time a Saudi company at-
tends. Moreover, he said, purchase
prestige in customer services both
in Turkey and abroad,” he said. Un-
derlining that they place heavy im-
portance on customer satisfaction,
the Turkcell manager said they are
hopeful for the future of the call cen-
ter services sector and could grow
further with new investments and a
diversication of products. Ciliv also
asserted that they plan to hire new
staff in 2010, irrespective of the neg-
ative impact of the recent global nancial crisis.
“The call center services sector has the ability to
withstand the effects and exit from crises, unlike
many other sectors,” the Turkcell head opined.
Global Bilgi currently holds a 45 percent share
of the Turkish market; it is listed among the 500
the number of motor vehicles increased by
0.2 percent, or a 17.6 percent increase in au-
tomobile sales, reecting the stimulus pro-
vided by the ÖTV discount. Of the 63,336
vehicles registered in October, 39.4 percent
were registered in stanbul, 9.1 percent in
Ankara, and 6.2 percent in zmir.
The total number of motor vehicles reg-
istered between January and October 2009
was 495,584, or a 27.3 percent decrease
compared to the same period of 2008. The
number of total vehicles on the road thus to-
taled 14,260,979, with 49.5 percent consist-
ing of cars. For the 31,571 vehicles receiving
their rst certicate of registration, 15 per-
cent were Renault, 13.7 percent Hyundai,
10.7 percent Ford, 8.8 percent Volkswagen
and 8.8 percent Tofa-Fiat.
specialists from a number of retail chains from
throughout the world, both Eastern and West-
ern countries, are expected to visit the fair this
year. The recession resulted in a
worldwide search for new mar-
kets, and there is currently a
general shift in consumption
from the West to the East
around the world, he said,
adding that stanbul is an
appealing market in this
regard. A reection of this
situation is seen in the
fact that countries from
CMYK
TODAY’S ZAMAN 07
Eastern Anatolia
to receive further
largest companies in the country. Noting that they
expected to reach a TL 260 million turnover and government support
30 percent growth in 2010, Pekkan said Global
Bilgi serves around 2 million customers every day. The government will be providing more sup-
Established in 1999, the company currently port for the Eastern Anatolia Project (DAP)
provides a variety of call center services for cus- through animal husbandry subsidies and the imple-
tomers of both Turkcell and other private and mentation of the Social Support Project (SODES),
public rms. Some 50 million customers from taking cues from the Southeastern Anatolia Project
three countries -- Turkey, Belarus and Ukraine (GAP), according to State Minister Cevdet Ylmaz.
-- are assisted by Global Bilgi’s 9,000 employ- Speaking to the Anatolia news agency yester-
ees. Following their successful operations both day, Ylmaz revealed that the government would
in domestic and foreign markets, the group develop a more substantial basis of government
was named the “best call center” in the Europe, support for DAP and the Konya Plain Project (KOP)
Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region by Con- by mid-2010, adding that efforts to add elements of
tactCenter.World.com in its “2009 Top Ranking GAP to DAP were currently under way.
Performers.” Global Bilgi came in third on the “We will add two elements of GAP to DAP,”
Web site’s list of “best call centers worldwide.” stated Ylmaz, revealing that the Ministry of Agricul-
ture’s support for animal husbandry in GAP will be
implemented in the DAP
project in 2010.
DAP will also include
a second element of the
GAP project, SODES,
TODAY’S ZAMAN, KÜRAT BAYHAN
which aims to eliminate
problems arising from
poverty, migration and
urbanization by increas-
ing employment, enhanc-
Cevdet Ylmaz
ing vocational education,
providing income-mak-
ing opportunities and supporting social activities
such as sports and cultural events. Ylmaz noted that
development agencies would also start working to-
wards completing regional development programs
in 2010, with the hope that in 2011 the state and
PHOTO
agencies would “start turning the pedals in sync.”
Ylmaz, speaking about the progress of GAP,
recalled that the project’s main irrigation pipelines
to Mardin, Diyarbakr and Suruç will have a total
length of 385 kilometers when completed. With the
land consolidation projects -- aiming to combine
small parcels of land in order to increase efciency
-- completed, there will be a signicant increase in
the agricultural production of the region, he stated.
This, along with a rise in exports to neighboring
countries, will play a substantial role in the growth
of the nation, Ylmaz stated. stanbul Today’s Zaman
Koç obtains $425 mln
loan for umbrella firms
Koç Holding has unveiled a loan package
that would provide rms under the Koç um-
brella with a total of $425 million in loans.
The conglomerate revealed yesterday
through the Public Disclosure Platform (KAP)
of the stanbul Stock Exchange (MKB) that it
would provide by means of a consortium of
21 national and international nancial institu-
tions a loan of $425 million for its companies.
The funds will be available for use in the sec-
ond half of January 2010 and comprise $120
million and 211.5 million euros.
The loan has a term of 39 months for the
dollar portion and 27 months for the euro por-
tion. The interest on the dollar-based loan is the
London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) plus 3.25
percent, and the euro-based loan is the Euro In-
The ÖTV discount, which brought terbank Offered Rate (Euribor) plus 2.75 percent.
tax down from 37 percent to 18 percent, The release added that companies under the
was enacted in mid-March and was to Koç umbrella that take advantage of this opportu-
last three months. After the three-month nity will make the necessary public disclosures re-
period, the discount was not fully elimi- garding the use of the funds. stanbul Today’s Zaman
nated but was brought up to 27 percent,
a 10 point decrease from the original tax.
The discount was completely eliminated
on Oct. 1. Automobile manufacturers,
Yap Kredi unveils
however, seeking a strong nish to 2009,
continued to promote their vehicles with
‘expatriate banking’
heavy discounts after Oct. 1. Yap Kredi, a subsidiary bank of Koç Hold-
According to data gathered by the Ana- ing, has announced a new “expatriate
tolia news agency, many manufacturers banking” service aimed at meeting the banking
have surpassed the now defunct 10 percent needs of expatriates living in Turkey.
discount with year-end promotions, and According to a written statement released
some are having difculty meeting the high yesterday by the bank, the new service will ca-
demand for new vehicles. stanbul Today’s Zaman ter to the investment, deposit, insurance, safe
deposit box and wire transfer needs of for-
eigners in Turkey. Executive Vice President of
Credit Cards and Consumer Lending Nazan
Somer noted that 10 Yap Kredi branches lo-
cated in cities with a heavy concentration of ex-
pats would have bankers who can manage the
portfolios of their expatriate customers.
Somer added that the bank would be focus-
ing on stanbul, Bursa, zmir, Ankara, Mula,
Marmaris and Bodrum, where many expatri-
Asia, the Middle East, Europe and America are
ates live. stanbul Today’s Zaman
attending the fair, he said.
The fair will be visited by delegations of 125
purchase specialists from Greece and Bulgaria,
respectively, along with 10 purchase specialists
each from Jordanian and Romanian textile and
ready-to-wear associations. Moreover, the Ser-
bian Chamber of Commerce expected to attend
the fair with a group of eight buyers as will Rus-
sia’s Krasnodar Chamber of Commerce. Other
countries that will be represented by companies
at the fair are China, Egypt, France, Germany,
Lebanon, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, the
UAE, the UK and the US.
 08 TODAY’S ZAMAN THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009
BUSINESS

Turkish firm invents

Visa: Turkey could lead European credit card market
Visa Europe President and CEO Peter Ayliffe
has said Turkey is Visa Europe’s second-largest
credit card market and may become the largest if it
maintains its current growth rate.
Rising to second place in 25 years is “an unbe-
lievable success story,” Ayliffe said during a press
conference in stanbul on Wednesday celebrating
the 25th anniversary of Visa’s entry into the Turkish
credit card market. At the press conference, Ayliffe
also discussed ndings Visa Europe published in a
report titled “The future of everyday payments in
Europe Who cares?” Turkish companies that are
cooperating with Visa are focusing on innovation,
Ayliffe said, adding: “The innovative spirit is quite
strong here. Turkey is Visa Europe’s most-devel-
oped country in terms of technology.”
Noting that advanced payment systems are
being employed in Turkey, Ayliffe stated that con-
sumers would soon be able to process payments
using their mobile phones alone. As of the end of
November, he said, the total number of Visa bank
cards in Turkey had seen an annual increase of
12.3 percent, reaching 64 million. He also cited g-
ures showing the hike in usage of these cards. As
of the end of September, the use of bankcards had
increased 46 percent over the rst nine months of
2008, while the volume of the shopping done us-
ing Visa cards rose 22 percent to 45.7 billion euros.
Discussing the ndings of “The future of every-
day payments in Europe Who cares” report, Ayliffe
said 80 percent of payments in Europe are still made
in cash and that the sum of the direct and indirect
costs of all payment methods is estimated to be near-
ly 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Using
cash facilitates the expansion of the unregistered,
economy, Ayliffe said, noting that governments all
over the world were taking action to encourage the
usage of cards in shopping. “If the utilization of elec-
tronic payment systems is increased by 15 percent,
the overall size of the unregistered economy will fall
by up to 8.6 percent in Europe,” he said, quoting the
report’s ndings. Additionally, he noted, a 1 percent
more efficient fuel
hike in the use of electronic payments would contrib-
ute to a 0.5 percent increase in consumer spending.
Answering a question after his presentation,
with boron
Ayliffe said the global economic crisis had caused a A Turkish technology rm in Edirne has pro-
change in consumer behavior in terms of card usage. duced fuel with boron through the use of
Europeans have grown more inclined to using debit nanotechnology.
cards rather than credit cards in their payments, Ay- NNT Nanotechnology and Boron Products Gen-
liffe said, adding that today nearly 75 percent of card eral Manager Mehmet Can Arvas said the invention
payments are made using debit cards. Although the was a result of the need to nd alternative energy
use of bankcards in shopping has risen considerably, resources amidst the increased threat caused by the
the volume of transactions is falling, he added. world’s depleting fuel reserves.
Visa Europe operates in Turkey in partner- The new fuel is currently only being used as
ship with 24 banks, and its share in total consum- an ingredient of the gas or diesel used in fuel
er spending is 14 percent. stanbul Today’s Zaman tanks but Arvas is hopeful that it will replace
these carbon-based fuels once compatible en-
gines are produced. “We are so happy that we
have managed to put boron into fuel tanks after
20 years of research and development studies.

Action plan Our company is also carrying out studies to de-

velop boron-compatible vehicles,” Arvas said.

CHAN
sees new tax Speaking to the Anatolia news agency on
Wednesday, Arvas also said the storage problems

laws in 2010 related to hydrogen, which is known as a clean and

PHOTO
environmentally friendly fuel, prompted scientists to
An action plan drafted by the gov- look for an alternative product, nally managing to
ernment is targeting the comple- invent what the company is marketing in Turkey and
tion of the groundwork for a new in- Europe as “Bor Power Nanofuel.”
come tax law in the rst half of 2010. Arvas said vehicles using fuel containing bo-
The action plan envisages a full ron would be able to travel 1,300 kilometers on the
overhaul of the income tax system with same amount of gas that a car using ordinary fuel
the new law to make it wholly compat- would need in order to travel 1,000 kilometers. A
ible with a free market economy and reduction in pollution is another benet of the new
supportive of investment and employ- boron product, he added. stanbul Today’s Zaman
ment for the sake of sustainable growth.
The new income tax system also aims to
facilitate the integration of more people
into the system so as to reduce the size
BDDK chairman:
of the unregistered economy.
The Coordinating Board of Improv-
loans to increase
ing Investment Conditions (YOKK) on
Wednesday released the results of its
by 15 pct in 2010
2009 Action Plan as well as the action Banking Regulation and Supervision Agen-
plan for 2010. YOKK said studies on cy (BDDK) President Tevk Bilgin has said
incentives to encourage small-scale en- while the total amount loans extended in the
trepreneurs and micro businesses will be market grew by only 1 percent from October
completed in the rst quarter of 2010. 2008 to October 2009, it enjoyed a 3 percent
It added that it will continue its work on Energy Minister Taner Yldz growth rate during the 41 days following the
allowing company establishment and regis- end of October, a trend that is expected to con-
tration operations entirely online. As regards tinue in the coming year as well.
employment issues, the YOKK statement Speaking at a meeting of the Ankara Cham-
recalled attempts to take measures against
unemployment such as sounder cooperation
among worker unions, employers and the
Turkey expects to secure ber of Industry (ASO) yesterday, Bilgin stated
that this year banking sector did not see growth
rates as high as in previous years, adding that
government. A subcommittee presided over total assets rose by only 11 percent from Octo-
by the General Directorate of Labor has com-
pleted its studies for a “reassessment of sev-
erance payments with an approach that ob-
ol for new ppelne
Turkey sees Russian, Kazakh and from Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan,” out giving a timeline for nalizing the deal.
ber 2008 to October 2009. Stressing that loans
constitute the largest component of the bank-
ing system, he continued: “Even though loans,
serves a compromise among the social sides,” Turkmen oil lling most of a planned Yldz said. “There are many reasons to back Talks between the two sides have lagged which account for 47 percent of assets, saw a
the statement noted and added that its stud- $4 billion pipeline from its Black Sea this pipeline politically,” he said. “It has stra- over the price Azerbaijan wants to charge for slight increase in recent days, during the period
ies on the elimination of problems regarding coast to the Mediterranean port at Ceyhan, tegic importance and will contribute to Turkey the extra gas, some of which will be used by from October 2008 to October 2009 total loans
the exible work system are still under way. Energy Minister Taner Yldz told Reuters in an becoming a petroleum and natural gas corri- Turkey while the rest will be shipped on to Eu- extended rose by only 1 percent. As of October
Some other items on YOKK’s to-do interview late on Tuesday. Turkey also expects dor.” The 550-km pipeline is expected to have rope. Turkey now buys 6 bcm of gas annually 2009, total loans totaled TL 377 billion.”
list for 2010 include: to sign an agreement with the Azerbaijani a capacity of 1.5 million barrels per day. from Azerbaijan’s Shakh Deniz basin at a dis- However, he added that this gure rose in less
* Increase the number of companies us- government on procuring extra natural gas, count that is about half of what it pays Russia than one-and-a-half months to TL 390 billion, as
ing electronic billing to accelerate the Azerbaijani gas of Dec. 11, explaining that the amount of loans,
Yldz said. A disagreement about pricing and and Iran, its main suppliers of the fuel. Azer-
transition to a registered economy. Cur- which grew only by 1 percent in a period from
diplomatic wrangling over Armenia has held Yldz said the cancellation of a tender won baijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mahmadyarov
rently, only six companies send e-bills to October 2008 to October 2009, enjoyed a growth
up the deal. by a Russian-led group to build Turkey’s rst is scheduled to visit Ankara on Friday for bilat-
their customers. rate of some 3 percent in only 41 days. Bilgin said
Çalk Group of Turkey and Eni, Italy’s big- nuclear power station will not affect planned eral talks that are expected to include energy.
* A new set of administrative regulations he predicts this trend to continue in 2010 as well.
gest energy company, are joint partners in the energy projects. A top court in November “From a technical perspective, I don’t see any
will be introduced to improve the process Loans will grow at a higher rate in 2010 com-
Trans-Anatolian Pipeline that aims to deliver cancelled the results of last year’s tender, obstacle blocking the gas talks with Azerbai-
of value-added tax (KDV) returns.
Caspian fuel from the northern city of Samsun when a consortium made up of Russia’s In- jan. I can’t say that we have reached the nal pared to 2009, Bilgin asserted, adding that it might
* Studies to keep electronic inventory re-
to Ceyhan, terminus for two other oil pipe- ter RAO and Atomstroiexport and Turkey’s point on the transport rates, but I don’t see any be between 10 to 15 percent. stanbul Today’s Zaman
cords of free trade zones will continue.
lines, while bypassing Istanbul’s congested Park Teknik was the only bidder, because serious problems,” Yldz said. “I believe we’ll
* A database containing intellectual prop-
Bosporus channel. Russian companies may the power prices it proposed far exceeded reach an understanding.”
erty rights records will be established.
take a stake in the project, pipeline operator current levels. Turkey is planning another Turks and Azerbaijanis share close lin-
Relevant regulations have already been
completed.
* A bill to improve and make more ef-
Transneft said last week. State-run Rosneft,
Russia’s biggest oil producer, agreed in Octo-
tender in 2010. No technical obstacles were
preventing a deal to procure an additional 8
guistic and religious ties. “We’ve reached
agreements with many countries, our Azer-
Tekel workers
cient the Turkish Patent Institute was
ber to supply the pipeline with its own crude.
“After the Russian initiatives to secure oil
billion cubic meters (bcm) of Azerbaijani gas
and Turkey expects the continuing negotia-
baijani brothers won’t be exceptions,” Yldz
said. “I don’t see a serious problem in the
continue protests at
prepared and submitted to the Ministry
of Commerce and Industry for comment. for the pipeline, we expect fuel to be procured tions to yield an agreement, Yldz said, with- extra gas we’ve requested.” Ankara Reuters Türk- headquarters
Ankara Today’s Zaman with wires
Protests by the employees of Turkey’s alco-
hol and tobacco monopoly, Tekel, continued
for the ninth straight day as workers made redun-
dant due to factory closures in the wake of Tekel’s
privatization gathered in front of the Confedera-
tion of Turkish Labor Unions (Türk-) headquar-
Daily Monthly Yearly YTD MCAP 1-Y Country Change Level ters in Ankara yesterday.
Close Change (%) Change (%) Change (%) Change (%) (million TL) Av.Volum (%)
Türk- Chairman Mustafa Kumlu, speak-
İMKB-100 51.533 0,5% 13,6% 96,7% 91,8% 292.693 1.606 Hang Seng H.Kong 0,69 21.092,0 66.90
İMKB-30
ing at the general meeting of the board, deliv-
65.322 0,5% 13,8% 90,6% 86,6% 239.795 1.190 Nikkei 225 Japan 1,91 10.378,0 52.0 53.37
İMKB-IND 37.057 0,4% 10,2% 96,1% 87,3% 77.469 531 Cac 40 France 1,03 3.911,9 46.63
ered remarks directed at Prime Minister Recep
İMKB-BANK 116.736 0,8% 17,0% 108,7% 108,5% 138.552 712 DAX Germany 0,65 5.969,1 Tayyip Erdoan, noting that the government ap-
33.10
DJIMT 10,90 0,9% 11,0% 58,9% 53,5% - 0,45 FTSE 100 UK 1,14 5.354,4 25.7
proaching its duties as if it were a private rm is
Dow USA 0,70 10.414,0 8.3 9.5
TurkDEX NASDAQ USA 0,61 1.840,0 an “unfortunate situation.”
US$/JP¥ S&P USA 0,47 1.119,3 Native Foreign Native Foreign “The prime minister’s explanation yesterday
65,450 0,73%
EU€/JP¥ 1,527 0,13% BOVESPA Brasil 1,60 66.983,3 Number of Shares M.cap Number of Shares M.cap once again repeated his view that the workers
AT A GL ANCE
CALENDAR who were red were making money without
pected working. The prime minister should know that
No data ex Daily Monthly Yearly
Ticker Price (TL) Daily Change (%) Ticker Price Daily Change (%) Ticker Volumes Price (TL) Yearly Change (%) Tekel’s workers worked their [whole] lives to
Close Change (%) Change (%) Change (%) US$/JP¥ 91,77
EGSER 0,96 7,87% GRUND 0,52 -7,14% GARAN 93,1 6,1 137,48
TL / € 2,172 0,0% EU/JP¥ 131 serve this nation. The decisions regarding the
ARCLK 5,95 4,39% ISAMB 1,95 -2,50% ISAMB 62,1 2,0 134,72 TL / $ 1,518 0,1% EU/US$ 1,427 closure of these factories are not the workers’
MARTI 0,82 3,80% AGYO 1,35 -2,17% YKBNK 52,1 3,2 51,43
fault, but rather the fault of those who privatized
YKSGR 9,80 3,70% AKSA 2,31 -2,12% ISCTR 51,7 6,3 74,48
High Low
them in the rst place,” said Kumlu.
GOLDS 1,01 3,06% SNGYO 2,31 -2,12% ECILC 49,3 2,5 204,11 Price ($) Way Change (%)
Light C. Oil 72,40 -0,8% 73,37 72,24 Kumlu requested that the government nd posi-
Gold 1094,25 -1,7% 1094,25 1094,25 tions in other government institutions for the Tekel
Copper 310,20 -1,3% 313,25 310,20
ÝMKB 100 ÝMKB 30 ÝMKB IND RETAILER BIMAS CARFA BOYNR KIPA workers who were laid off and added that they were
Mcap TL -- -- -- 7.282,4 5.123 1.293 111 755 P/E: Share price divided by earnings per share is a measure of the price paid for a share relative to the currently working on trying to delay the closure of
P/E 2006/12 15,7x 14,9x 12,3x 265,1x 71,2x -95,7x 17,6x -20,2x income or profit earned by the firm per share.
P/E 2007/06t 11,2x 10,7x 9,3x 328,4x 63,5x -545,0x 6,9x -10,4x EV/EBITDA: Enterprise value divided by earnings before interest, tax and amortization; “t” stands for
other Tekel factories by six months.
P/E 2007/09t 10,7x 10,4x 9,3x 358,6x 56,6x -207,6x 5,8x -9,1x trailer and means the data over the last four quarters. Speaking about the Minimum Wage Deter-
(*) Yesterday's closing(**) Updated at 6 p.m. by GMT+2
EV/EBITDA 2006/12* 6,8x 5,3x 8,2x 31,9x 47,3x 16,1x 6,7x 41,2x mination Commission, Kumlu added that Türk-
Disclaimer: The information in this report has been prepared by BMD, Bizim Securities from sources believed
EV/EBITDA 2007/06t* 7,5x 6,0x 8,1x 33,5x 44,0x 19,3x 6,1x 74,2x
to be reliable. All the information, interpretations and recommendations covered herein relating to would not be participating in the talks as they did
EV/EBITDA 2007/09t* 7,2x 5,8x 8,2x 30,6x 41,7x 20,0x 5,4x 35,5x investment actions are not within the scope of investment consultancy. Therefore investment decisions
based only on the information covered herein may not bring expected results.
not want to be accessories to the “inappropriate be-
havior” of the government. Ankara Today’s Zaman
 TRAVEL THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009 TODAY’S ZAMAN 09

SAM ORHAN
Santiago

PHOTOS
CHILE: A WONDER ALONG Students during Frosh Week

THE ANDES MOUNTAINS

Founded in 1541, Santiago is one of the most modern capitals in South America. Situated on the outskirts
of the Andes Mountains at an elevation of 520 meters, the capital has a population of 6 million, making it
Chile’s largest city. High levels of smog are very common in the capital, especially during the winter months
the first place local and foreign tourists stop by in the city. Build-
ings from the colonial period stand out as you tour the streets of
the capital. Paseo Ahumada is one of the busiest streets in the
capital. Shopping centers, stores and stands can be seen on The Presidential Palace in Santiago
both sides of the street. The street is filled with those touring,

YUNUS EMRE HATUNO LU

SANTIAGO -- Chile, a former Spanish colony, is a South American
country. The country, which borders the Pacic Ocean, gained its inde-
pendence in 1810. Located in the southern hemisphere, the capital of
this country of 17 million is Santiago.
Santiago can be reached from stanbul via a connection, either in Madrid,
Brazil or elsewhere. It takes about 21 hours to travel from stanbul to Chile.
While the ight from stanbul to Madrid takes four hours, the ight from
shopping, relaxing, observing and walking their dogs.
Chile as a country is just 200 years old. The presidential palace
served as a mint between 1814 and 1929. You can see the place
where President Salvador Allende died during Gen. Augusto Pino-
chet’s coup in 1973. After the coup, Pinochet ruled Chile with an iron
rst for 17 years before the people removed him from power with a ref-
erendum in 1990. The presidential palace is surrounded by ministries.
President Michelle Bachelet is the country’s rst female president. Her
father was one of the generals that were killed during Pinochet’s coup.
The city has a Mediterranean climate and has many parks. Local ad-

MAP
Madrid to Chile, after a four-hour stopover at the airport, takes 13 hours. ministrations attach great importance to places where the people can
Located in the southern part of South America, Chile is sandwiched relax and enjoy fresh air. The parks are clean and green.
by natural boundaries. While the Andes Mountains stretch from north to The best place to get a bird’s eye view of the capital is Cerro
south in the east, the giant waves of the Pacic salute it in the west. The San Cristobal, the second-highest point in the city, with
total length of its coastline is 6,435 kilometers. Chile has several active an elevation of 880 meters. The hill is named after
volcanoes, and earthquakes have become a fact of life. Tours are avail- St. Christopher. There is a 22-meter statue of the
able from Chile’s southernmost city, Punta Arenas, Virgin Mary on top of the hill. In 1987, Pope John
to the world’s least-explored continent, Antarctica. Paul II celebrated mass there.
Before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, If your trip to Chile coin-
the central and southern regions of Chile were in- [QUICK FACTS] cides with the rst week of class-
habited by indigenous people called the Mapuche. Capital: Santiago es, then it’s likely that you will
The Spanish established control over the indig- Official language: Spanish come across a different picture
enous people and single-handedly ruled the lands Government: Republic as you stroll through the streets
President: Michelle of the capital. You may observe
for close to 300 years. The country’s current popu-
Bachelet Jeria
lation is 95 percent mestizo, or people of mixed a mechoneo, which is a special
Area: 756,102 square
European and Native American ancestry. Three kilometers rite of passage for new students.
percent of the population is of fully indigenous de- Population: 16,601,707 * It includes older students pour-
scent. The majority of the population is Christian. Gross domestic product (PPP): ing vinegar, our, spicy sauces
$245.1 billion** and eggs on top of new stu-
Chile neighbors Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. It has
Main religions: Roman Catholic
long-running land disputes with both Peru and dents, who must then ask
(70 percent), Evangelical (15
Bolivia. Chile has one of the most stable econo- percent), Jehovah’s Witness for money from people on
mies in Latin America and was invited to be the (1 percent) the streets. At the beginning
rst South American country to join the Organi- of the semester, the streets are
*July 2009 estimate full of students celebrating this
zation for Economic Cooperation and Develop-
**2008 estimate wild practice.
ment (OECD) earlier this month. It is the world’s
largest copper producer and exporter. The majority of Chileans are
Founded in 1541, Santiago is one of the Catholic, and the country’s most
most modern capitals in South America. Situated on the outskirts of prestigious university is the Pontical Catholic Uni-
the Andes Mountains at an elevation of 520 meters, the capital has versity of Chile. Chile has two national television
a population of 6 million, making it Chile’s largest city. channels, Channel 13 and UCV.
High levels of smog are very common in the capital, especially during the Chileans love to have a good time. Just like many
winter months. The smog is an indication of air pollution, which is visible in South Americans, Chileans love to dance, drink and
the city even during the summer because the Andes prevent air circulation. have fun. Entertainment is sine quo non for them. In
Some restrictions have been imposed on cars to reduce air pollution in the the evenings, especially Friday nights, they prefer to
capital. Depending on the license plate number, vehicles are prohibited from go to restaurants that offer live entertainment so they
being driven on some days. This is a measure to reduce trafc density. can have a good time while enjoying a meal. The Salvador
The Mapocho River flows right through the middle of San- When it comes to food, Chileans enjoy eating Allende
scallops. There are special and expensive restau- Gossens
tiago. There is an expressway that goes under the river. These monument
kinds of roads relieve city traffic. rants in that capital that serve only seafood.
Plaza Baquedano (Plaza Italia) and Plaza de Armas are the There are no visa requirements for Turkish citizens.
capital’s most popular squares. Even though the building in Pla- The best time to travel to Chile is between December
za de Armas in which the Spanish governor lived during Spanish and March. When it is winter in Turkey, it is summer in
rule is a bakery today, it is still worth seeing. Plaza de Armas is Chile because it is located in the Southern Hemisphere.
A guard by the
Presidential Palace

CMYK
 10 TODAY’S ZAMAN T H U R S D AY, D E C E M B E R 2 4 , 2 0 0 9 WORLD

IRAQ INQUIRY
Brown to be grilled US says arms talks with Russia to drag into 2010
after UK election

AP, ALESSANDRA TARANTINO

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and
other members of his government will not ap-
pear before an inquiry into the Iraq war until
after a general election next year, the inquiry
team said on Wednesday. John Chilcot, who
is leading the inquiry, has said that he wants
it to remain outside of party politics. Public
hearings will be suspended from February
until after the election which must be held by
June. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who
The United States and Russia have
failed to clinch a new nuclear arms
control treaty this year, denying the White
House a quick boost in its efforts to demon-
strate improved relations with Moscow.
The two sides hope to reach a deal
in early 2010, the US said Wednesday.
The American delegation led by
Assistant Secretary of State Rose Got-
temoeller has left for the United States
and will return to Geneva for more
Dmitry Medvedev had been hoping to
sign a new deal before the end of the
year, but conceded last week at climate
talks in Copenhagen that their goal
was unlikely to be met.
The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduc-
tion Treaty expired Dec. 5, and both
countries have agreed to continue to
honor its main provisions until a suc-
cessor treaty is in place. The START
treaty successor is seen as one of the
by at least one-fourth, to about 6,000,
and to implement procedures for ver-
ifying that each side was sticking to
the agreement.
At a summit in Moscow last July,
Obama and Medvedev agreed to cut
the number of nuclear warheads on
each side to between 1,500 and 1,675
within seven years. Russian ofcials
have said previously that Moscow
wants to simplify START’s sprawling

led Britain into the war with Iraq in 2003, will
appear before the inquiry early in the new
year. Alastair Campbell, Blair’s former direc-
tor of communications, has also been asked to
appear in either January or February. Blair said
earlier this month he believed it was right to
oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power
even though no weapons of mass destruc-
tion were found in Iraq. Blair’s order to send
45,000 British troops to take part in the 2003
invasion to topple Saddam Hussein provoked
big anti-war protests in London. London Reuters
negotiations in January, the US diplo-
matic mission in Geneva said.
“Our goal remains to conclude a
solid treaty for the presidents’ signa-
ture as soon as possible,” it said.
Presidents Barack Obama and
most achievable areas of cooperation.
Washington is also seeking help from
Moscow on trickier issues such as the
standoff over Iran’s uranium enrich-
ment program. START required each
country to cut its nuclear warheads
PHOTO
web of control measures, which were
seen as crucial for both nations to keep
an eye on one another’s nuclear stock-
piles even as the Cold War was ending.
The Kremlin now sees them as too
intrusive and unnecessary. Geneva AP The American delegation was led by Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller.
Bin Laden’s

AP
MISHAP closest relatives

Ryanair plane slips off
runway in Scotland
A Ryanair plane slid off the runway after land-
ing at a Scottish airport on Wednesday and
two people were killed in a coach crash in
western England as snow and ice made trav-
elling hazardous. Cross-Channel rail opera-
tor Eurostar advised passengers planning to
travel on Wednesday not to go to St. Pancras
International station in London until after
1300 GMT because its trains were full after a
three-day stoppage. Ryanair, the Irish budget
airline, said all the 123 passengers and six crew
on the ight from Dublin to Prestwick airport,
close to Glasgow, were safe after the incident.
“After a normal landing was completed and
while taxiing from the runway the aircraft en-
countered ice and slid just off the runway on to
the grass verge,” Ryanair said in a statement.
Two Britons were killed and 47 others were
injured when a coach overturned on an icy
road in Cornwall in western England on Tues-
day, police said on Wednesday. London Reuters
SWAP
Hamas leaders
PHOTO
in Iran,Times says
Some of the closest relatives of al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden are living in a
secret compound in Iran, Britain’s the Times
newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The group includes a wife and children who
disappeared from bin Laden’s Afghan camp at
the time of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United
States in 2001, the report added.
It said other relatives found out last month
that the group, including one of bin Laden’s
wives, six of his children and 11 of his grand-
children, had been kept in a high-security com-
pound outside Tehran for the past eight years.
The Times quoted Omar bin Laden, 29, who it
said was the al-Qaeda leader’s fourth-eldest son, as
saying he had no idea that his brothers and sisters
were still alive until they called him in November.
They told him how they had ed Afghanistan
just before the Sept. 11 attacks and walked to the
Iranian border. They were taken to a walled com-
pound outside Tehran where guards said they
were not allowed to leave “for their own safety.”
One of the children, a daughter called
A female anti-government student holds a banner that reads “Death to the dictator” during a protest at Tehran University campus on Dec. 7, 2009. Iman, had recently escaped during a rare trip
outside the compound and made her way to
the Saudi Arabian Embassy. She is now living

weigh Israeli draft

A German mediator gave Hamas on Wednes-
day an Israeli response to a proposed swap
Iranan forces clash wth
freeing hundreds of jailed Palestinians for a
captured soldier, and the Islamist group said
it would need days to review the new draft.
Signaling a possible breakthrough, a Hamas
ofcial said he expected the group to send a
delegation from the Gaza Strip to Damascus
by Thursday to meet exiled Hamas leaders.
Such rare conferences are reserved by Hamas
for important policymaking. Israel kept a lid
on which of the Hamas demands it may meet
there while seeking permission to leave Iran.
Omar bin Laden said that his relatives lived
as normal a life as possible, cooking meals,
watching television and reading. They were al-
lowed out only rarely for shopping trips.
protesters n two ctes As a number of families are being held in the
compound some of the older siblings have been able
to marry and have their own children. London Reuters
The incidents signal rising tension in Iran, six months after a disputed
presidential election plunged the Islamic Republic into its deepest
internal crisis since it was founded three decades ago US military: No
change to Iraq
AP

to recover Gilad Shalit, an army conscript who An Iranian opposition Web site said
security forces clashed with support-
has become a cause celebre during three-and-
pregnancy policy
PHOTO

a-half years’ captivity in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Security cabinet minister Eli Yishai reiter-
ated Israel’s misgivings over a prisoner am-
nesty likely to boost Hamas, which spurns
peace with the Jewish state and is in a power
struggle with Western-backed Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas. “We always say
‘not at any price’ because otherwise our en-
emies would exploit it. But on the other hand,
we have to make every possible effort,” Yis-
hai told Israel’s Army Radio. Gaza Reuters/AP
SECURITY
Pakistan orders
ers of the late dissident cleric Grand
Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri in at least two
A US commander in northern Iraq does not
cities on Wednesday, including his birthplace.
expect to order a court martial for soldiers
If conrmed, the incidents signal rising
who become pregnant, but has not rolled back a
tension in Iran, six months after a disputed
controversial new policy on pregnancy, a military
presidential election plunged the Islamic
spokesman said on Wednesday.
Republic into its deepest internal crisis
A new directive from Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo,
since it was founded three decades ago.
who commands US soldiers in northern Iraq, sets
Police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moqadam said
out possible punishments from reprimand to court
the pro-reform opposition would face “erce”
martial for prohibited behavior, including drink-
confrontation if it continued its “illegal” activi-
ing alcohol, taking drugs or becoming pregnant.
ties, the semi-ofcial Fars news agency reported.
The policy has been criticized by some
Referring to the central city where
Montazeri was born, the Jaras Web site
women’s advocates and on Tuesday four US
senators wrote to the secretary of the US Army
said: “Sporadic clashes started from Tues-
day night in Najafabad and still continued.
on Tuesday asking that it be rescinded.

security for media
Pakistani authorities ordered “foolproof” se-
curity on Wednesday for journalists across the
country a day after a suicide bomber attacked a
press club in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
The attack on the club was the latest in a surge
of militant strikes in Peshawar which began
when the army went on the offensive against
Pakistani Taliban militants in their South Wa-
ziristan stronghold on the Afghan border in Oc-
tober. Reporters have been attacked and killed
in Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun tribal regions
along the Afghan border and elsewhere, but
the Tuesday blast was the rst on a reporters’
club in a city. The blast indicated a new trend in
terrorist attacks and posed a serious threat, the
Interior Ministry said. “In order to avert such at-
tacks in future, foolproof security arrangements
for all press clubs ... and prominent media per-
sons have to be ensured,” the ministry said in
an order to provincial interior departments. A
lone bomber wearing a suicide vest blew him-
self up at the gate of the club when a police
guard tried to stop him from geting in, killing
three people and wounding 17. Peshawar Reuters
The situation is tense in the city. People are
chanting anti-government slogans.”
It also said many demonstrators were in-
jured during clashes with security forces in the
nearby city of Isfahan, which occurred on the
traditional third day of mourning for Montazeri.
Another reformist Web site, Parlemannews,
said at least 50 opposition backers, including
four journalists, were arrested during the clashes
in Isfahan, one of Iran’s biggest cities.
Jaras said protesters who had gathered in
Isfahan to commemorate Montazeri, a erce
critic of the hard-line government of President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose disputed re-
election in June plunged Iran into turmoil.
“Police red teargas to disperse people
... many people were injured ... some ar-
rested,” Jaras said.
It also said plainclothes security agents in
Isfahan surrounded the house of a leading pro-
reform cleric, Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri.
The reported incidents took place two days
after huge crowds turned out in the Shi’ite holy
city of Qom for the funeral of Montazeri, when
Pro-reform campus groups called on students across the country to turn out for massive rallies.
many people chanted anti-government slogans,
Web sites reported.
Reformist spiritual patron
The Web site reports from Isfahan and Naja-
fabad could not be veried independently be-
cause foreign media are banned from reporting
directly on protests.
Government supporters staged counter ral-
lies in Qom on Tuesday and Wednesday, ofcial
Iranian media reported.
Iran’s internal unrest, highlighted by Mon-
tazeri’s arguments that the leadership had lost
its legitimacy, has complicated the dispute over
the Iranian nuclear program, which the West
believes may have military ends, not just civilian
purposes.
Montazeri, who died on Saturday at the
age of 87, was an architect of the 1979 revo-
lution that overthrew the US-backed shah
and was once named to succeed Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader of
“We can think of no greater deterrent to
women contemplating a military career than
the image of a pregnant woman being severely
the Islamic state. But Montazeri, viewed
punished simply for conceiving a child,” Sena-
as the spiritual patron of the opposition
tor Barbara Boxer and others wrote.
movement that led the big protests follow-
Cucolo defended the rules, which took effect for
ing the June presidential election, fell from
his 22,000 soldiers when he took over in northern
grace after criticizing the mass execution of
Iraq in November, as necessary to retain combat
prisoners in the late 1980s.
power as US forces prepare to withdraw from Iraq by
Ahmadinejad’s re-election, in the elec-
the end of 2011. Cucolo’s command includes some
tion that losing opposition candidates said
of the most dangerous areas of Iraq, where ethnic
was rigged, kindled the biggest unrest in the
and sectarian rivalries have fuelled an ongoing in-
Islamic Republic’s 30-year history and split
surgency. Military spokesman Major Jeff Allen said
the political and clerical establishment.
Cucolo, who personally decides what punishment
Despite scores of arrests and security
soldiers violating rules will receive, had claried that
crackdowns, opposition protests have re-
he did not intend to court martial any of his soldiers
peatedly ared up since the vote.
who became pregnant. “I have not ever considered
Montazeri’s death occurred in the tense
court-martial for this. I do not ever see myself put-
run-up to Ashura, on Dec. 27, a politically
ting a soldier in jail for this,” Cucolo said in a confer-
important Shiite religious commemoration
ence call on Tuesday with reporters.
that offers the opposition another opportu-
Yet Allen said that Cucolo, contrary to
nity to show its strength.
what some media reports had implied, had
Opposition backers have seized such occa-
not changed his stance. Becoming pregnant
sions marked in the Islamic revolutionary calen-
remains on the list of prohibited behavior that
dar to raise their voices. Tehran Reuters
could result in a variety of punishments includ-
ing criminal charges. Baghdad Reuters

CMYK
 WORLD T H U R S D A Y, D E C E M B E R 2 4 , 2 0 0 9
South
Korea’s G-20
challenge
OPINION
Barry Eichengreen*
TODAY’S ZAMAN
BERKELEY -- On Jan. 1, South Korea takes over the
G-20 chairmanship from the United Kingdom. Korea
is not the rst emerging market to chair the G-20, but
it is the rst to do so since the global nancial crisis.
And it is the rst to do so since the G-20 emerged as
the steering committee for the world economy.
G-20 chairs can have considerable inuence.
They coordinate the group’s work. They organize
its meetings. Like most committee chairs, they have
signicant agenda-setting power.
During the UK’s year chairing the G-20, Gordon
Brown had a clear agenda. He saw the G-20 as a
vehicle for building consensus on coordinated mon-
etary and scal stimulus and nancial regulation. He
also viewed it as a forum to address the problems
created for the poorest countries by the global -
nancial crisis. And he used the chairmanship to elicit
commitments to resist protectionism.
In retrospect, Brown’s agenda-setting problem was
easy. Given the nature and gravity of the crisis, it was
brutally obvious what the priorities for the G-20 should
be. The priorities for President Lee Myung-bak are less
obvious. Some will say that he should get G-20 coun-
tries to coordinate an orderly exit from their expan-
sionary monetary and scal policies. But growth in the
advanced economies will almost certainly remain weak
in 2010. With the United States, Europe and Japan still
suffering post-crisis hangovers, this issue can be safely
left to the country that chairs the G-20 in 2011.
Others will say that a priority should be agreement
on slowing climate change. But this is best addressed
in Copenhagen, in the presence of all world leaders,
not in the cozy connes of the G-20. Small countries
-- think of Mauritius -- are often the ones affected most
dramatically by global warming. They are excluded
from the G-20, which is supposed to be made up of the
20 largest economies as a matter of design.
Instead, President Lee should give priority to
four issues, starting with nancial reform, a problem
that Brown targeted but did not solve. Progress here
has been inadequate, despite much talk. In particu-
lar, there has been little action on issues like creating
a cross-border resolution authority to deal with the
failure of a large nancial group, something that can
only be done at the international level.
The window of opportunity for nancial reform
is now closing, and business-as-usual will only result
in more crises and more bailouts. South Korea must
therefore do everything it can to reinvigorate the
debate. The second priority should be more prog-
ress on global rebalancing. Asian countries need to
do even more to stimulate spending, and they need
to move together. China is incapable of solving this
problem on its own because its economy is still only
one-third the size of America’s. But if Asian coun-
tries move together, China will be more willing to let
its exchange rate against the dollar become unstuck.
The second factor contributing to the crisis could
then be addressed once and for all.
Third, the G-20 must address its own legiti-
macy decit. After all, no one anointed these 20
countries as the designated representatives of the
world. Who speaks for the other 173 internation-
ally recognized countries? Why should there be
so many European G-20 members -- other than
the fact that they were incumbent members of the
earlier “G’s” -- and not more African members?
Here, South Korea can propose an obvious so-
lution. Align G-20 membership with the composi-
tion of the International Monetary Fund’s Executive
Board. Twenty-four countries sit there. Big ones have
their own seats, while smaller ones represent groups
of countries, known as “constituencies.” In many
cases, the constituencies rotate the chair among their
members. Everyone is represented.
Finally, the G-20 needs an emerging-markets
caucus. The US and the Europeans are in constant
contact, doing their best to agree on positions and
table common proposals. Emerging markets, fail-
ing to do the same, have punched below their
weight. They have allowed the advanced coun-
tries to drive the G-20 process.
This is the most delicate issue of all for South Korea.
As chair, it needs to act as an “honest broker.” It can’t
be seen as giving emerging markets special encourage-
ment. And, given its location, South Korea would be
torn between encouraging an emerging-market cau-
cus and encouraging an Asian caucus -- for Asia, too,
needs to organize itself better in order to represent its
interests in the G-20.
Thus, the initiative here might best come from
another G-20 country -- maybe Brazil, South Af-
rica or even Russia. But South Korea could use-
fully drop a hint.
*Barry Eichengreen is professor of economics and po-
litical science at the University of California, Berke-
ley. © Project Syndicate, 2009.
Three dead as dust storm
and snow blast Arzona
In all, 22 vehicles were involved in the crashes, including
nine commercial trucks. Five people were severely hurt and
nine suffered lesser injuries requiring hospital trips
US officials examine wreckage on Interstate 10 eastbound near Casa Grande, Ariz. on Tuesday, after a multiple car pileup. The
crash killed three people -- including a teenage brother and sister -- and injured 14 others when a flash dust storm hit Casa Grande.
A strong winter storm wreaked
havoc in Arizona on Tuesday,
leaving at least three people dead
in a series of ery crashes caused by thick,
blowing dust on Interstate 10 and shutting
down I-40 for hours with slick conditions.
One of the dead was a man whose vehicle
was rear-ended by his father’s truck.
The midday I-10 wrecks, about
40 miles south of Phoenix near Casa
Grande, left the eastbound lanes littered
with the smoldering remains of several
big rigs, passenger cars and vans. Both
directions of the freeway connect-
ing Tucson to Phoenix were closed for
hours as crews freed the injured and
dead from the tangled wreckage.
Along 1-40 west of Flagstaff, doz-
ens of cars and trucks were involved
in collisions or slid off the highway
as snow began falling Tuesday af-
ternoon. A stretch of the highway
between Williams and Ash Fork was
closed intermittently. Snowy and
slippery conditions were also report-
ed on I-17 north of Sedona.
Burning vehicles
The crashes near Casa Grande and
a second set a dozen miles further
south near Pichaco were triggered
by dust kicked up from nearby farm
elds. Dust and thick gray smoke
from burning vehicles billowed across
the at sprawl of farms and desert. In
all, 22 vehicles were involved in the
Pakistan Taliban say fighters will
rebuff incoming American troops
A top Pakistani Taliban commander says
he sent thousands of ghters to neighbor-
ing Afghanistan to rebuff incoming US troops,
a claim that comes as a Pakistani army offen-
sive is believed to have pushed many of his
men to ee their main redoubt.
Waliur Rehman told The Associated Press
in an exclusive interview Monday night that the
Pakistani Taliban remain committed to battling
the army in South Waziristan tribal region, but
they are essentially waging a guerrilla war.
Rehman is a deputy to Pakistani Taliban
chief Hakimullah Mehsud, and the man in
charge of the group’s operations in South Wa-
ziristan. “Since [President Barack] Obama is
also sending additional forces to Afghanistan,
we sent thousands of our men there to ght
NATO and American forces,” Rehman said.
The Afghan “Taliban needed our help at this
stage, and we are helping them.”
Col. Wayne Shanks, a US military spokes-
man in Afghanistan, called Rehman’s com-
crashes, including nine commercial
trucks. Five people were severely
hurt and nine suffered lesser injuries
requiring hospital trips.
Edgar Ivan Medina Vargas of Iowa
City, Iowa, was among those killed.
He slowed suddenly because of the
dust storm, and his pickup truck was
struck from behind by his father’s
large commercial truck, said Arizona
Department of Public Safety spokes-
man Bart Graves.
Also killed were a brother and sis-
ments “rhetoric” that were not to be believed.
“We have not noticed any signicant move-
ment of insurgents in the border area,” he said.
Ishtiaq Ahmad, a professor of international re-
lations at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islam-
abad, speculated the comments were just an at-
tempt to worsen the already-tense relationship
between the US and Pakistan.
“When the United States expects Pakistan
to synchronize its own counterterrorism policy
with the troop surge ... the militants issue these
statements in an attempt to create problems in
this relationship,” said Ahmad. Either stance is
nearly impossible to independently verify. Ac-
cess to the tribal belt, especially conict zones, is
severely restricted. Pakistani army spokesmen
could not immediately be reached for comment.
Rehman spoke in a large mud-brick com-
pound in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan.
He looked relaxed as a he sat on a carpet wear-
ing a beige shalwar kameez robe, black vest and
brown wool cap. Shaktoi, Pakistan AP
CMYK
TODAY’S ZAMAN 11
AP, MICHAEL CHOW
PHOTO
AP, NICK OZA
PHOTO
ter in a Jeep, Mark and Katie Eide of
Casa Grande. He was 14 and she was
17, Graves said.
The westbound lanes of I-10 were re-
opened by midafternoon, but state engi-
neers will need to inspect the eastbound
lanes before allowing trafc to resume,
said Ofcer Robert Bailey, a Department
of Public Safety spokesman.
“ADOT engineers have to get out
there and examine the pavement and
see if it’s OK to be driven on after
these res,” Bailey said. Phoenix AP
British universities told: cut courses to
2 years, offer more ‘fast-track’ degrees
Universities must move away from the tra-
ditional three-year courses and offer more
“fast-track” degrees to help reduce education
budgets and boost the economy, the govern-
ment said on Wednesday.
Cutting next year’s higher education budget,
Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said he want-
ed to see more students taking degrees that last just
two years. With Britain slowly emerging from the
longest recession on record, he said the recovery
will need more graduates with work-related de-
grees in areas like science and engineering.
Teaching unions said the announcement
was a “Christmas kick in the teeth” that would
lead to job cuts and a two-tier education sys-
tem which benets privileged students. But
the government said the changes would help
cut public spending, make universities more
exible and create more graduates able to
contribute to the economic recovery.
”The economic situation is extremely challeng-
ing,” said Mandelson. “Across the public sector we
REUTERS, BRIAN SNYDER
PHOTO
Registered nurse Susan Longobucco-Hynes prepares
a dose of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine for patients at
an asthma fair at a Children’s Hospital in Boston.
Other viruses
abound in US
flu season,
tests show
Several u-like viruses are more common
than usual this u season in the United States,
adding to the misery and confusion caused by
H1N1 swine u, one lab company said on Tuesday.
Kansas City, Missouri-based ViraCor Labo-
ratories found that only 6 percent of the samples
it was sent tested positive for inuenza A virus.
Tests by the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention show virtually all inuenza now circu-
lating is H1N1 swine u.The rest include a range
of u-like viruses, each caused by a distinct germ
but all causing similar symptoms. By far the most
common is rhinovirus, one of the so-called com-
mon cold viruses, the testing company found.
This ts in with a report last November from
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where 500
children were hospitalized with rhinovirus in Sep-
tember and October -- an unusually high number
to be that sick with a normally mild virus. ViraCor,
which tested samples from severely ill pediatric
patients around the country, as well as transplant
and other high-risk patients who became ill, found
that 28 percent of the tests showed the patient had
rhinovirus between April and December this year.
The tests also showed that:
* 39.5 percent of tests from children up to age
3 had rhinovirus. The gure fell to 23 percent
among 11- to 18-year-olds and less than 20
percent of adults.
* 4.2 percent of patients tested had metapneu-
movirus but 6 percent of children under 10 had
metapneumovirus.
* 3.2 percent of children 3 and under had respi-
ratory syncytial virus or RSV; it was rare among
older children.
* 6 percent of children under 3 who were tested had
parainuenza virus, as well as 6 percent of patients
over 61. The virus was rare among age groups in
between. “Overall, parainuenza rates are much
higher than expected,” the company’s report said.
* 1.5 percent had adenovirus.
Doctors rarely test patients for respiratory
viruses, in part because few tests are available
and in part because there is little option for treat-
ment other than keeping patients comfortable,
breathing and hydrated.
Antibiotics can be used for bacterial infec-
tions but are useless against viruses. But better
tests are now being developed for u and Vira-
Cor’s xTAG RVP test can diagnose 12 different
viral infections. Washington Reuters
are all facing difcult choices. We will want some
shift away from full-time, three-year places and
towards a wider variety of provision.” The higher
education budget will fall next year by 533 million
pounds to 7.3 billion pounds and universities were
told to stay within limits for new students.
Higher Education Minister David Lammy
said universities must play their part in easing
the pressure on public nances. But the Uni-
versity and College Union, which represents
120,000 academics, said the changes would
damage universities and lead to job cuts and big-
ger class sizes. “It is a real Christmas kick in the
teeth for staff and students,” said UCU General
Secretary Sally Hunt. “You cannot make these
kinds of cuts and expect no consequences.”
The National Union of Students said it
feared shorter degrees would provide higher
education “on the cheap.” “The scheme must
not be about forcing poorer students to choose
courses that are not right for them,” said NUS
President Wes Streeting. London Reuters
 12 TODAY’S ZAMAN T H U R S D AY, D E C E M B E R 2 4 , 2 0 0 9 EXPAT ZONE

One Chrstmas lunch or two?

Oh dear, oh dear. No sooner is Kurban Bayram out of the way than
it’s the turn of Christmas to throw a spanner in the works of normal
life. If that sounds like a pretty mean-minded way of looking at life,
then I’ll offer my apologies immediately, but the truth is that one of
the things I most loved about my rst few years in Göreme was the
fact that I had nally found a way to escape the crass commercialism of
Christmas in the UK. All that frenzied last-minute shopping for pres-
ents no one wanted that were exchanged for equally unwelcome gifts
that then had to be accommodated in already over-cluttered homes.
I’d had more than my ll of all that wastefulness, and it was a relief to
escape here and cut the festive season right back down to size.
That’s not to say that there were no celebrations here in the past. In-
deed I remember a particularly memorable year in which I had barely man-
aged to stuff down a Christmas lunch of turkey and all the trimmings in
CAVE LIFE
PAT YALE
one hotel before it was time to rush across village and force down a second
in another. But at least the commercialism had been stripped out of the
picture, not least because at that time the pool of potential gift options was
very small indeed. After all, no one wanted to insult a friend by foisting a
souvenir fez on them, nor by gift-wrapping a fairy-chimney ashtray.
Slowly things started to change as the eyes of stanbul shopkeepers
swiveled across the oceans and alighted on the potential represented by
the very same commercialism I abhorred. There was just one small prob-
lem, which was that Christmas was intrinsically un-Islamic. Of course we
all know the convenient solution they eventually settled on, which was
to time-shift all the trappings of Christmas onto Ylba (New Year’s). It
took a little longer for the Nevehir retailers to cotton on, but now we too
can buy our “Christmas” decorations even in deepest Anatolia.
But even the most bah humbug of Christmas-phobes has a
tendency to cherry-pick the best bits of the festivities. I was always
especially partial to Christmas trees, which meant that as soon as it
became possible to do so I bought myself a little tree to put up inside
my cave dining room (not a real one sadly -- they’re prohibitively ex-
pensive around here). Every year I dig it out again and place beneath
it in pride of place two plaster statuettes of Father Christmas. To an
outsider they might not look anything special but for me they’re
particularly precious because they were bought for me by my neigh-
bor’s sons at an age when they had barely enough pocket money for
sweets, let alone for plaster Santas to give to their mother’s strange
friend whose every sentence they had to struggle to understand.
And then there’s Christmas lunch. It would take a more mis-
anthropic person than myself to take exception to a gathering of
friends with ne food, a bottle of wine and an atmosphere of cama-
raderie. Still, in the interests of a trimmer 2010, I’ll try and make do
with just the one serving of turkey and sprouts this year.
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia.

A TALE OF TWO
Brigitte Gross explains that people in the German-speaking
community had different reasons for being in stanbul back
when she was growing up: many families had historic ties to the
city, while others were there for work. ‘There were always strong

CHILDHOODS
relations between Germany and the sultans: German master
craftsmen and professors were invited to work in what was then
Constantinople and their families stayed on…’ she explained

THERESA DAY ANTALYA
Turkey is perhaps one of the most
rewarding countries to live in as a
foreigner, says Brigitte Grosse, a Ger-
man. She grew up in stanbul because of her
father’s job and left when she was 15. She tells
us about her charmed childhood, what it was
like to move to Germany as a teenager and
about now raising her daughter in Antalya.
Halcyon days
“stanbul was, of course, very different when I
lived there,” she highlighted, adding: “In 1964,
the population was under 1 million and even
when we left 15 years later, there were still only 5
million people there. It was small but very cosmo-
politan and it felt like a community, not the big,
anonymous city it is today. It was more obviously
a cultural mosaic, and you were more aware of
the different communities who have settled there
over the centuries, e.g., the Albanians, Jews, Ar-
menians, Greeks, Italians and Germans. Some
lived in different areas of the city, maintaining
their distinct identities, and added to Turkish, you
would also hear lots of other languages being spo-
ken as you went down the street.”
People in the German-speaking commu-
nity had different reasons for being in stanbul:
many families had historic ties to the city,
while others were there for work, she pointed
out. “There were always strong relations be-
tween Germany and the sultans: German
master craftsmen and professors were invited
to work in what was then Constantinople and
their families stayed on, creating a German-
speaking community,” she explained, adding,
“When the Turkish Republic was founded, the
German police were also invited to Turkey to
train the police force. The next wave of Ger-
man immigrants were those, both Jewish and
non-Jewish, who ed to Turkey to escape Hit-
ler. This meant that we felt very welcome; it
seemed that everyone was aware of the close
historic ties, and they thought of Germans as
very well-educated and polite people. Unfor-
tunately, that perception changed after Turks
who’d worked in Germany spoke of their expe-
riences there. People in Turkey were both con-
fused and disappointed by what they heard.”
Then there was the thriving, cultivated expat
community that Brigitte’s family were part of. Her
father was the representative of a German com-
pany there. (They were originally going to stay for
three years but liked it so much they left in 1978.)
Embassy staff, people working for international
companies, teachers and doctors and nurses at the
foreign hospitals all contributed to a wide variety
of cultural activities organized through the many
associations and clubs. “I played the ute in
the German orchestra,” she highlighted, add-
ing: “The Christmas fair was always a very
popular event, and each group took charge of
a particular activity such as baking or making
Christmas decorations. Every year my father
made wooden toys for the fair, and our dining
room became a workshop for six weeks.”
Life wasn’t easy for anyone then, however,
she said. “It was a time of political instability,
there was the oil crisis and the Cyprus war -- we
had to put blackouts over our windows at night.
Daily life wasn’t easy, either. There was plenty
of fresh produce, but there wasn’t a large selec-
tion of consumer products -- there was just one
brand of washing powder, for example -- and
there were no imported products such as dis-
posable diapers. It was also a time of shortages,
and sometimes you couldn’t nd sugar or butter
for months. In the ‘70s, when the city was ex-
panding, there were constant electricity and wa-
ter cuts as the city’s infrastructure couldn’t cope
with the extra demand. After all that, I think I
can safely describe myself as chaos-proof.”
The best part of her childhood was the long
summer holidays. “Every three years we’d rotate
between traveling around Greece or Turkey by
car and visiting relatives in Germany,” she ex-
plained, adding, “My parents also rented part of
a ‘yal’ on the Bosporus in the summer. Every
year the same stanbul Italian, Greek and Turk-
ish families rented the other parts of the yal. We
had a very good time and as the water was very
clean, I also learned to swim there.”
Asked if she would change anything about
her childhood, she replied: “Nothing. I was al-
ways a happy child and had everything I needed.
My father constantly reminded me that it wasn’t a
‘normal’ life, however.”
So where’s home?
“When we moved back to Germany, it didn’t
feel like going home for me because we didn’t go
somewhere we’d been before,” she noted, add-
ing, “If we’d moved to Berlin, where my father’s
family was, or near to Cologne, where my moth-
er’s family lives, then it might have been differ-
ent. Instead we moved to a small village near the
headquarters of my father’s company. It wasn’t a
typical German village, however, as many of the
families there also worked for the same company.
Many of them came from different parts of Ger-
many, and some had also lived abroad.”
Settling in wasn’t easy for her. “Academically
I was OK but socially it was a different matter,”
she said, adding: “At the Alman Lisesi in stanbul
-- which followed the German curriculum -- they
taught the compulsory 13 years of school in 12 so
I was a year ahead of my classmates. That, how-
ever, meant it was difcult to integrate with the
other kids: they assumed I was only interested
in studying. As I’d never been top of the class in
stanbul, I was very unhappy at being wrongly la-
beled. Worse still, in stanbul we knew very little
about daily life in Germany; nowadays we have
easy access to all kinds of media, but TV only ar-
rived in Turkey in the mid-1970s. I also wasn’t
up to date on German pop culture, which made
me even more of an outsider. I spent the rest of
the year focusing on my ballet classes and gave
guitar lessons to earn pocket money. As soon
as I could, I used that money to buy a ticket to
stanbul to go and visit my friends.”
“I eventually got used to being in Germa-
ny,” she went on, “but I left the village as soon
as I could. In an attempt to learn about Ger-
man culture and society, I finally decided to
study social work and education. In hindsight
it wasn’t such a good idea.”
So why has she chosen to settle in Turkey?
“I always felt that Turkey was calling me, and I
wanted to nd out if living in here would feel
the same without my family,” she explained.
“I looked for a job and rst came back in 1990
as training manager at the Steigenberger Falez
Hotel in Antalya,” she said. “Then I went to and
fro from Germany, including two stints as as-
sistant producer in Turkey for Turkish-German
lm companies. I also visited other countries
and, added to working in tourism in Germany, I
also worked in Tunisia for a year. Even though I
never envisaged working in the Turkish tourism
sector -- it’s very badly paid -- I kept a at on in
Antalya. I worked for both Lufthansa and Sun-
Express and so I kept coming to Turkey. Then I
met my husband -- a pilot for SunExpress -- in
2003. I’ve been based here ever since.”
Mira’s childhood
Brigitte’s daughter Mira is now almost 4 and
has spent most of her life in Antalya. As a Third
Culture Kid (TCK) herself, Brigitte has rsthand
experience of what it means to be brought up
abroad and what it could mean for her daughter.
“As for the positives, whenever I go somewhere,
I never feel like an outsider and I’m condent
enough to deal with language or cultural dif-
ferences,” she explained, adding, “Being used
to dancing on an international platform also
helps on a professional level, and I’m able to
work alongside many different nationalities. The
other side of the coin is that it’s not nice to feel
rootless, with no sense of belonging. I now also
realize how important a role relatives can play:
my husband’s family -- originally from the Cau-
casus -- are very close to each other.”
So what are her priorities for Mira’s up-
bringing? “Both my husband and I are working
to equip her with the skills to deal with a global
world,” she emphasized, adding, “Mira’s already
aware of different languages and cultures as we go
to Germany to visit relatives and visit a lot of other
places, too. She’s started at the ICCA, the English-
language nursery, and so added to speaking Ger-
man and Turkish she’s now also learning English.
When we have visitors, she now asks beforehand
which language they speak.”
It’s also important to teach her about Ger-
man traditions, but what’s on offer in Antalya?
Brigitte is realistic and recognizes that you can
neither compare stanbul with Antalya nor
what she had when she was a child with what’s
available in Antalya for Mira. “stanbul has al-
ways been Turkey’s cultural and economic cap-
ital, whereas Antalya is a tourism boom town
that’s grown into a city in the last 20 years,” she
pointed out, adding: “They’re totally different
places with different people living there. Any-
way, even though there are still many more cul-
tural activities on offer in stanbul, it’s changed
a lot since I was a child: Nowadays you need a
lot of money to live there comfortably. Antalya
is good for small children as they can spend
most of the year outside. At the Church of
St. Nicholas [the German church] there are
always special Christmas and Easter services
for children, and every Dec. 6 German fami-
lies get together at someone’s house so they
can see St. Nicholas that day, a German tra-
dition. Unfortunately, at the moment, there’s
not much else for children here when they
get older, except for schools. We may move
somewhere else when Mira is older.”
In the meantime, Brigitte isn’t sitting at home
waiting for something to happen, and she and Mira
are always busy. “If you want something, then you
just start it yourself,” she emphasized, adding, “Last
year I held a playgroup at my house, and this year Brigitte Gross, who spent the first 15 years of her life in
a friend and I are doing monthly puppet shows for stanbul after her family’s three year plan of staying Tur-
children from the German-speaking community. key was extended due to their love of the country, says
that back then there was the thriving, cultivated expat
Both the parents and children love them, and there
community which her family was a part of.
were 14 kids at the last one. It’s all a question of be-
ing willing to get something going.”

NOTE: Today’s Zaman intends to provide a lively forum for expatriates living in Turkey. We encourage you to contact us at voice@todayszaman.com and share your experiences, questions and problems in all walks of life for publication in Today’s Zaman.
 CULTURE&ARTS THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009 TODAY’S ZAMAN 13

Porumboiu’s ‘Police’ goes after language abuse Turkish-Armenian

movie premiere
KENNETH TURAN HOLLYWOOD police detective named Cristi (Dragos Bucur) who who’s the ofcial suspect is innocent and the stu-

“Police, Adjective” confounds expectations.

It’s neither a conventional crime lm nor a
police drama. Rather it’s a gently subversive in-
tellectual exercise, a philosophical jest wrapped in
police-procedural clothing that examines not just
the scene of the crime but also the power of langu-
age and the use and abuse of words.
Written and directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, who
did the Cannes prize-winning “12:08 East of Bucha-
rest,” “Police, Adjective” is the latest effort in the Ro-
manian New Wave, the newest bleakly ironic lm to
come from that former Iron Curtain country.
“Police, Adjective” submerges us in the dailiness
of Romanian life, here the particular life of a young
is facing a crisis of condence about his profession.
Cristi has been assigned by his superior to follow up
on a tip that a high school student has been pushing
marijuana. By the time we meet him, he’s followed
the young man for a few days and is already bored
with the assignment. Police work of this kind is te-
dious, demanding the devotion of hours of observa-
tion to the most enervating situations. It’s not only
the stakeouts that lack excitement, other aspects of
Cristi’s life -- the meals prepared by his new wife, the
constant negotiation for information with his collea-
gues -- do not exactly galvanize us with exhilaration.
That doesn’t mean, however, that Cristi is not
involved with his case. He thinks about it constantly
and has come to the conclusion that the young man
dent who tipped off the police is the guilty party. Not
wanting to have it on his conscience that he ruined
a person’s life with an unmotivated arrest, Cristi re-
sists institutional pressure to wrap things up quickly.
If this were a conventional police story, the questi-
on of what actually happened would play a major part.
As it is, that question soon disappears in a series of con-
versations centering on dictionary denitions of words
such as “conscience” and “police.” Wielding the dicti-
onary is Cristi’s supervisor, the man he’s been trying to
avoid, Capt. Anghelache. Potently played by Vlad Iva-
nov, Anghelache’s way with words changes everyone’s
thinking and turns the lm on its ear. “Police, Adjecti-
ve” may not be the lm you’re expecting, but it’s one
that will stay on your mind. © Los Angeles Times 2009
Dragos Bucur plays the leading role in direc-
tor Corneliu Porumboiu’s “Police, Adjective.”
held in Ankara
Ankara’s Büyülü Fener Theater was the ve-
nue for an evening hosted by the Turkish-
Armenian Business Development Council
(TABDC), the Armenian Marketing Associati-
on and the United States Embassy in Turkey on
Tuesday. The reason for the event was the pre-
miere of a new lm, “Aras Kylarnda,” or “On
the Banks of the Aras,” a joint venture involving
all the institutions and organizations mentioned
above as well as the US Embassy in Armenia.
Co-directed by Gevorg Nazaryan and Ser-
dar Dinler, and based on a story written by Din-
ler and Aram Navasardyan, the movie’s two ma-
jor characters are Tamer (played by Sabina Mu-
radyan) and Aras (played by Bulut Öngüner),
with Tamer living in Armenia and Aras in Tur-
key. Tamer’s work brings her into contact with
Aras, and the two begin an Internet-based exc-
hange of viewpoints about their countries, their
history as well as the present.
The river Aras is used both as a symbol of
today’s border separating Armenia from Turkey
and a manifestation of its people’s common he-
ritage and future.
The lm leaves its end open, allowing for
speculation about whether one day Tamer will
be able to meet Aras. Filmed on location and
using the magnicent countryside as its back-
ground, the movie does not point ngers and
does not try to put blame on any one side. It is
much more than a movie about a potential futu-
re romance -- it is a lm that creates awareness
about two countries living side by side with a
closed border separating them from each other.
Upon welcoming guests, Dinler, a member
of the TABDC executive team, stressed the re-
levance of engaging civil society, noting that the
movie is not of a commercial nature.
Speaking with Today’s Zaman, Nergis Öztürk,
one of the two scriptwriters and editors and also a
member of the TABDC executive team, stated that
opening the border is not only a civil society requ-
irement but would bring along much needed tra-
de and business. She said both peoples must learn
more about each other and described how exciting
it had been to shoot the movie on location.
Thomas M. Leary, public affairs counselor at
the US Embassy in Ankara, who addressed the
guests before the screening, later told Today’s
Zaman that the US Embassy in Ankara and
the US Embassy in Yerevan had co-sponsored
the making of the lm as part of their civil so-
ciety engagement and that further civil society
projects and the dissemination of their results
-- albeit not necessarily linked with Armenia --
were in the pipeline for 2010.
Suat Knklolu, deputy chairman of external
affairs for the Justice and Development Party (AK
Party) and spokesman for the Turkish Parliament’s
Foreign Affairs Committee, was also in attendance.
The uniqueness of this lm premiere can be
attributed to the fact that individuals and their sto-
ries -- even if scripted -- often allow for a better
understanding of the wider picture. While states-
men must continue to meet and create the regula-
tory framework for rapprochement between both
nations, ultimately citizens must learn how to live
with each other more closely again. “Aras Kylarn-
da” is much more than a movie! Klaus Jurgens Ankara

Dormen putting on
A fresh taste of dark humor musical in Kurdish
Veteran stage actor-director Haldun Dormen
is preparing to stage a Kurdish-language

from the Taylan brothers
EMNE YILDIRIM STANBUL
One of the best Turkish lms out in
theaters this week, directing brothers
Yamur and Durul Taylan’s “Vavi-
en,” achieves the kind of satire and dead-pan
comedy seldom seen in Turkish cinema. One
wants to shout “nally!” especially conside-
ring a socio-cultural environment where the-
re is so much material for irony and paradox.
Written by comedian Engin Günaydn,
one of the favorite actors of the hit Turkish
TV show “Avrupa Yakas” (The European
Side), the lm illustrates a parable of deceit
in a run-of-the-mill Anatolian town.
Celal (Günaydn), a middle-aged electrici-
an, is not the nastiest person you could meet,
but his spinelessness can be smelled from mi-
les away. His sweet but naïve wife, Sevilay
(Binnur Kaya, also a favorite from “Avrupa Ya-
kas”), loves her husband, but is clueless as to
how to save her unhappy marriage. Under the
surface of their idyllic country life lays a multi-
layered secrecy that transforms their predica-
ment into a potpourri of tragicomedy for the
informed outsider: Celal has a huge crush on
a washed-out singer in the neighboring town;
Sevilay’s father has been wiring her cash from
Germany for the past 15 years without Celal’s
knowledge; Celal is hiding his vast porn col-
lection from Sevilay; their son, Mesut, has dis-
covered papa’s extracurricular collection and is
secretly enjoying it as well.
The funny thing is that without revealing
anything to his family, Celal actually knows
about what’s going on. Not only about his
son’s freeloading but also about the 75,000 eu-
ros Sevilay has saved over the years.
Here’s the catch though: Celal is planning
something big that involves conscating his
wife’s savings and at the same time getting rid
of her for good. He hatches up a perfect freak ac-
cident. Needless to say, things get out of hand,
and Celal nds himself in a Coen brothers-style
movie, specically reminiscent of “Fargo.”
One of the most enticing elements of “Va-
vien,” beyond its plot and narrative, is the uni-
que portrayal of country life that has its mo-
ments of embellishment for comedic purpo-
ses, but that also carries a verisimilitude that
refrains from glamorizing the rural regions as
the sweet innocent redemptive places that can
be common in lms set in the country.
Hypocrisy and superciality are not just
characteristics found in the city, but all aro-
und as is manifested in most of the charac-
ters in the lm. Celal is the epitome of sel-
shness and cunning while Sevilay’s secrecy
is caused by fear of her husband. Sevilay’s
boss, the town’s local administrator (played
by the brilliant Serra Ylmaz), is unaware of
her snobbery as she imposes her “I’m going
to save this town” attitude, and Celal’s sec-
ret crush -- the singer -- is only after his mo-
ney while she sweet talks him.
Except for Celal’s older brother and bu-
siness partner, Cemal, none of the characters
are likable, but all with good reason since the
Taylan brothers make an effort to create an at-
mosphere in which the viewer is placed in the
comfortable zone of smirking from afar. It is
not the characters that draw us to this lm, but
the absurd situations they nd themselves in.
Günaydn’s script is an example of spot-
on and rhythmic dialogue although the story’s
structure takes the easy route after its climax.
After the supposed death of Sevilay, her sud-
den reappearance brings fertile ground for sus-
pense and psychological tension for the audi-
ence. It is at this point that Celal, along with
the viewer, is left hanging; the script reaches its
well-crafted peak -- does she know what Ce-
lal has done to her, or is she still unaware upon
her return? Kaya shines in this moment of ac-
ting as she delivers a performance that oscilla-
tes between naïveté and shrewdness.
When the tables turn, one expects the
nale to take on a bleaker ending since all
the way through the rst 70 minutes the
misery and hypocrisy of the characters are
shown with such brutality. However, it se-
ems that the story opts for a sensibility that
tries to satisfy the masses by resorting to a
kind of supercial happiness that was the
target of the lm in the rst place.
Nevertheless, “Vavien,” via its awless
ensemble acting, succeeds at creating an
eerie atmosphere, and its technical brilli-
ance brings a refreshing example of black
comedy to Turkish cinema.
musical version of the Turkish play “Bir K Öykü-
sü” (A Winter Story) in early 2010 in the southeas-
tern province of Diyarbakr.
The musical, titled “Çi-
rokek Zivistane” in Kurdish,
is based on renowned 20th
century Turkish journalist-
playwright Cevat Fehmi
Bakut’s well-known stage
play “Buzlar Çözülmeden”
(Before the Ice Thaws, 1964). Haldun Dormen
Adapted into musical
form by Dormen and Kemal Uzun, “Çirokek Zivis-
tane” will have its premiere at the Diyarbakr Metro-
politan Municipality’s City Theater in February, the
Anatolia news agency reported on Wednesday.
The play recounts in a comedic approach the
story of a town in southeast Anatolia that is isolated
from the rest of the world due to heavy snow blocking
the roads in winter. A series of amusing incidents oc-
cur as a young man who claims to be the newly ap-
pointed local administrator comes to the town.
Dormen, noting that this will be the rst time he
is putting on a performance in Kurdish, told Anato-
lia that this was “a personal attempt at achieving pe-
ace to eliminate the Kurdishness-Turkishness deba-
te.” Dormen said, “The world is running out of water,
running out of fresh air, and instead of thinking abo-
ut solutions to these problems, we humans are still
trying to kill each other over trivial problems.” Dor-
men intends to schedule the musical’s premiere be-
fore Feb. 20. stanbul Today’s Zaman with wires
 14 TODAY’S ZAMAN THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009 OPINION

TURKEY EXTENDING ITS AXIS

RECEP TAYYP ERDOAN*

CHAN, SA IMEK

I greet you with the sincerest sentiments, and it is my
pleasure to meet with you in Konya on the occasion of
the commemoration of the 736th “reunion” anniversary
of Mevlana [Jelaluddin Rumi]’s death. I am sure that most of you
know that reunion in our language means a “reunion with one’s
beloved.” Mevlana, in the lines he wrote before his death, had

PHOTO
described the moment and the day of his death as a “reunion
with his beloved God.” Following his death, the anniversary of
Mevlana’s death has been called “eb-i Arus,” in other words the
“wedding day.” Mevlana, whose message spread across these
lands and throughout the world beyond these lands for seven
centuries, succeeded in bringing together humanity and human
values through his reunion with his beloved one. We owe our
meeting today on the occasion of this dinner to great Mevlana.
We remember him once more with grace and gratitude.
Today Mevlana’s universal messages have even more
meaning and signicance than ever before. The world is going
through difcult times. There are both positive and negative
aspects to globalization, as demonstrated by various global
problems that we confront today. Issues such as poverty, wars,
conicts, terror, immigration and intolerance are becoming
greater threats to humanity. Humans are increasingly moving
away from trying to understand each other. Segregation and
polarization are instead becoming preferred methods.
As the last global crisis indicates, the gap between the rich
and the poor is growing, and this gap results in less cooperation
and solidarity among people.
I have no intention of drawing a negative picture. Despite
this negative state of affairs, I have very strong hopes for the fu-
ture. I know that there are alternatives, and I sincerely believe
Turkish PM
that we can build a different world. During the times of Mevlana
Recep Tayyip
Jelaluddin Rumi, this region was seriously threatened by Mon- Erdoan while
golian invasions. Many books and libraries were burned, men of delivering
knowledge were killed and cultures and civilizations were de- a speech in
stroyed. Yet, thanks to Mevlana and men like him, the qualities Konya on
Dec. 17
that humanity possessed continued to illuminate the world.

Mevlana’s inspiration of hope
Mevlana inspired us with hope. “If the clouds couldn’t cry then
how could the meadows smile?” said Mevlana. He welcomed
the rising of the sun after each sunset, reminding us that every
day was a new day. In fact, despite all wars, conicts and de-
struction, humanity has been able to recover once again.
Today, with the experience gained from history, we believe that
we can change this negative picture, preventing greater sorrows and
destruction.
We have to understand one another. We have to make an ef-
fort to understand each other. We must put aside our prejudices
and preconceptions and be tolerant of one another. If the rich
sympathize with the poor, poverty is allayed. Sorrows are less-
ened when they are shared. Happiness grows when it is shared.
Welfare becomes permanent through solidarity.
Conicts do not make our world and lives better. Quite the
contrary, it is friendship and brotherhood that make them liv-
able. Conicts going on even at this very moment in many parts
of our world can’t guarantee our future; on the contrary, they
threaten the future of our regions and our world.
Terrorism does not help anybody, including itself. It is a
threat even to those that protect, favor and oversee it. This is the
reason why, on such an important evening, I emphasize once
more the importance of building alliances. I emphasize once
more solidarity and cooperation. I underline once again the im-
portance of friendship and brotherhood. Alliance, peace, solidar-
ity, friendship and brotherhood are difcult to attain. Yet, it is
beyond question that we need these ideas and sentiments.
European integration and Mevlana
I believe that our meeting on a day of such historical im-
portance is very meaningful in terms of Turkey’s European
Union accession process.
European integration, founded on values of tolerance,
compromise and dialogue, is consistent with Mevlana’s phi-
losophy, which has illuminated humanity since the 13th cen-
tury. Mevlana’s teachings, based on compassion, made this
land a center of universal values for centuries.
Today we will participate in the international events orga-
nized to commemorate the 736th anniversary of Mevlana’s “re-
union,” remembering these values once again.
Dec. 17 is an important date for us for another reason. Today,
Dec. 17, is also the fth anniversary of the Brussels summit, where
Turkey was given a date to start accession negotiations with the EU.
As you may well know, Turkey’s integration with the EU ofcially
started in 1959 with the application made by the late [Adnan] Mend-
eres. Unfortunately, no signicant steps were taken since then. With
this awareness, at the end of 2002 when we came to power, we iden-
tied EU membership as Turkey’s strategic objective, and since then,
we have demonstrated great determination concerning this end.
With this determination, we took signicant steps for the
fulllment of the Copenhagen criteria within a short amount of
time, two years. Turkey’s EU accession process gained new dy-
namism and enthusiasm with the Brussels summit on Dec. 17.
I once again would like to underline that EU membership
is an objective over which the Turkish people have reached a
consensus on. Based on this consensus, we have taken extreme-
ly important steps and realized reforms of historical importance
over the last four years. We also made every effort to transform
this social consensus into one of social participation and have
pursued, and continue to pursue, a participatory approach to the EU
accession process. The EU process is currently being discussed all over
the country, in 81 provinces. It is a priority not only of the Turkish
government but also of the 72 million Turkish citizens. Currently, 12
chapters are open for negotiations. One of those chapters was closed.
Turkey closer than ever to EU
Today Turkey is closer to the EU and is integrated with the EU and
member states more than ever. We are determined to maintain the
enthusiasm that emerged with the opening of the accession negotia-
tions, maintain social consensus and continue the reform process at
the same pace. In line with this objective, we are taking yet another
very important step, which is to assign one deputy governor respon-
sible for the EU process in each province by establishing EU contact
points in all 81 provinces. This is another clear indicator of our deter-
mination in this process, as is the appointment of Egemen Ba as
the rst chief negotiator and minister for EU affairs.
I would like to refer to the signicance of the opening of the
stanbul ofce of the Secretariat General for EU Affairs on Dec.
5. I already expressed this at the opening ceremony, which many
of you also attended. I would like to take this opportunity to
emphasize one issue in particular. As we fulll our responsibili-
ties in the EU accession process and display a resolute political
will in this regard, we expect the EU to fulll its commitments.
The Turkey-EU process, which is based on a constructive under-
standing and a win-win relationship, should not be allowed to
be overshadowed with ungrounded discussions.
As you may know, UNESCO declared 2007 “Mevlana Year”
to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Mevlana’s birth. I
would like to draw your attention to this fact as we understand
that humanity needs more than ever the eternal message of Mevlana.
We can see that greed and extremism are the greatest threats
against today’s order. The growing support lately for racist and ex-
treme rightist movements, especially in Europe, may be explained
by this greed. The EU’s fundamental understanding is to “renounce
grudges, hatred, animosity and hostilities and unify around common values.”
Mosques have never overshadowed the freedom of church-
es, synagogues or other religious centers in this geographical
area. There is no community in this geographical region that was
ostracized or cast as the “other” based on race, identity or reli-
gion. Neither was there any religion whose religious practices
were questioned or toward which hostility or discomfort was
expressed. Love overcame hostility and mercy overcame anger.
This happened with the guidance of Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi and
other scholars highlighting love, peace, justice and humanity.
For this reason, my advice to those who attach religious and
cultural meanings to their fallacies, identify Islam with terror-
ism and fuel fear of Islam and anti-Semitism is to read Mevlana.
My advice to those who resort to referendums for fundamental
rights and freedoms and perceive freedom of religion for people
living in their country as a threat is to listen to the doctrines of Mev-
lana. This philosophy makes Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi universal.
In fact, every doctrine that leads humanity to kindness,
beauty and truth is universal. Mevlana’s words “One man is the
mirror of the other” are no different from those of [Johann Wolf-
gang von] Goethe, “We don’t get to know people when they
come to us; we must go to them to nd out what they are like.”
Today being able to repeat after Mevlana and say, “Come, come
again, whoever you are” has become more signicant than ever.
We note sadly that Turkey’s foreign policy has been a
cause of concern lately. Some claim that Turkey has been shift-
ing its axis. No, Turkey is extending its axis. What can be more
normal for a country like Turkey, which has demographic
similarities, a common culture and a common history with the
countries in its region, than to establish friendly relations and
to improve its trade relations with its neighbors and the coun-
tries in the region? As a condent and stable country, Turkey’s
development of strong, sound and sustainable relations with
its neighbors and the countries of the region is extremely ben-
ecial for the region at large. A stronger relationship with the
East means a stronger relationship with the West. Similarly, a
stronger relationship with the north also means stronger rela-
tionship with the south. This is because Turkey is both a cen-
tral country but also a country at the crossroads.
We are taking historically important steps in order to improve
our friendship with all nations and countries in the world. Ow-
ing to its historical and strategic situation, Turkey can establish
dialogue with countries within a large geographical area and use
its soft power efciently within that geography. This makes Tur-
key a strong and privileged country. Isn’t it meaningful that Tur-
key, along with Spain, is co-chairing the Alliance of Civilizations,
which is an extremely critical project? Who can easily dismiss
Turkey’s election to the UN Security Council with 151 votes cast by
member states out of a possible 192, which is nearly a record in the
history of the UN? Can we underestimate the increasing inuence of
Turkey in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia and its role
as a reliable mediator to end conicts in the region?
Turkey has realized all of these by mobilizing its potential. As a
result of our determination, Turkey has become an important actor
not only in its region but also in the world, contributing to the solu-
tion of global problems. I feel that I should express frankly that Turkey
today is very different from seven years ago. Turkey today is distinct
in its region in regards to its economy and politics and its enhanced
standards of democracy. Issues that could not be discussed or could
not even be brought up ve or 10 years ago are freely discussed today.
We believe that the future will be much brighter than today,
and we are making great efforts to ensure that. Doubtlessly, a
strong and stable Turkey would be an element of stability for its
region and for Europe and would strengthen the region. I would
like to once again remind you that we expect the support and
constructive contributions of our friends.
*The text is a translation of a speech made by Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoan on the occasion of the 736th anniversary of Mev-
lana’s death in Konya on Dec. 17, 2009.

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 COLUMNS THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009
Dear Babu: We are watng for convncng answers
The two most recent events, Lt. Col. Ali Tatar’s suicide and
the discovery of a plot to assassinate Deputy Prime Min-
ister Bülent Arnç, have broken the camel’s back. Tatar’s
suicide is the eighth mysterious suicide. All suicides are
linked to Ergenekon in one way or another. The active duty
and retired military ofcers who allegedly committed sui-
cide are people that knew a lot about the allegations in the
Ergenekon case. All suicides are suspicious. The dominant
public opinion is that these military ofcers were silenced.
In the words of the prime minister, the incident related to Arnç
points to a perilous and thought-provoking process. Pay attention;
we are talking about a process, a process that is continuing, grow-
ing, escalating and harboring dangerous developments. The people
that were caught watching Arnç’s home since March with sketches
of the house were active military ofcers. Artillery ofcer Maj. .G.
and engineer Col. E.Y.B both work at the General Staff Mobilization
Inspector General Directorate. Notebooks belonging to the ofcers
contained information about President Abdullah Gül, Prime Minis-
MUHAMMED
ÇETN
cetin.m@todayszaman.com
Plots, assassnatons
and the madness
of bureaucratc
red herrngs
Madness is prevailing in the deep state in Turkey. While the pub-
lic expects common sense and constructive action from civilian and
military bureaucrats and opposition parties, the discourse and action
of these groups contradict civic and legal norms, traditions and the
Constitution. They go on acting with deant and unaccountable un-
restraint. Simultaneously, Kurdish political and militant organizations
are leading all matters down a difcult road which lacks any resolution
or compromise despite the wishes of an unprecedented of majority of
Turks from all walks of life. Also, with every day that passes, military
ofcers from the Special Forces Command are caught red-handed or
exposed in the media to be involved in another plot or assassination.
On top of all this, the chief of General Staff has just dispatched
orders to the judiciary, the media and the public to move against the
enemies of the nation and military. Countless intellectuals have con-
demned this as an act that would only be suitable in a Third World
country under the rule of a junta. Although this is not the rst such
blunder by the chief of General Staff, this time stories of deep disap-
proval and rifts within the military and the top brass are being leaked
to the media. Not only civilians, but even some commanders now leak
and dispute such brazen shows of power and interference in civilian
and governmental affairs, viewing them as undemocratic and uncon-
stitutional. Obviously, some top ofcers are manipulated by the junta
into conspiring against their own people, government and state.
Any failed junta anywhere in the world, when its intentions and
the guilty parties are revealed, starts killing or eliminating its own
members for personal, ideological and other ulterior motives. Sev-
eral ofcers implicated in the plots and coup-planning in Turkey have
recently committed suicide. But the media, their colleagues and the
public do not buy into these claims of suicide and have been discuss-
ing whether these suspicious deaths are attempts to silence people
and restrain the progress of prosecutions of top ofcers. Why is the
chief of General Staff not collaborating with civilian judges in the coup
investigations? Why does the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) try to con-
ceal or destroy evidence from the judicial process, even though some
ofcers on the inside have revealed the voice recordings and original
documents of plots devised in the military headquarters? Faced with
all the caches of weapons and munitions, the assassination plans, the
evidence of military personnel caught up in an assassination attempt
on Bülent Arnç and on the “black box” of Ergenekon, retired Gen.
Levent Ersöz, why this madness to protect their ofcers?
The Turkish public and the media acknowledge the closure of the
Democratic Society Party (DTP) as an overt strategy by the deep state
in the judiciary to thwart the government’s attempts to resolve the
ongoing Kurdish conict. When Turks and Kurds needed common
sense and a positive contribution to the resolution, the court played
the issue into the hands of violent, extremist, deep state provocateurs,
the Kurdish Democratic Confederation (KCK), an urban arm of the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The KCK is known to often be at
odds with the moderates of the DTP. Furthermore, the demands by
the DTP for direct negotiations with Abdullah Öcalan on an equal ba-
sis and status with the Turkish state, demanding a sovereign, autono-
mous state with its own security forces and other demands that could
have been made more moderately, have all led to further crises. Talk
by some DTP and opposition party members of heading up to the
mountains to resolve the issue through ghting is yet more madness.
The public advocacy and defense of Ergenekon members by the
Republican People’s Party (CHP) cannot be reconciled with social de-
mocracy or Turkish law. The CHP deputies sit with the accused and
their lawyers in court in open deance of the Constitution. Presum-
ably, they have some assurances from the deep state within the judi-
ciary, those same people to whom they always turn for the rejection of
constitutional amendments made in line with European Union regu-
lations. Their mastermind in all those acts, the “honorary president” of
the Supreme Court of Appeals, Sabih Kanadolu, who devised many
judicial interpretations to thwart the presidential and parliamentary
elections and the elimination of the discriminatory coefcient in uni-
versity entrance tests and who has been presented as the one who is
the most expert on the interpretation and practice of the law, is now
declining to testify in the Ergenekon probe. If he is as expert and objec-
tive as he is claimed to be, he should have no fear of any legal argu-
ments or moves against him. However, as he refuses to testify, the
situation must now be too serious for any legal twists or distortion.
The would-be assassins and their leaders’ attempts to save them
from civilian trials, the acts of the CHP deputies and some Kurdish
leaders against any sustainable resolution along with law-defying le-
gal experts must surely all be a part of the deep-state delirium or just a
tale, as claimed by their new foreign defender, Gareth Jenkins.
HÜSEYN
GÜLERCE
h.gulerce@todayszaman.com
ter Recep Tayyip Erdoan, some state ministers and several deputies.
What kind of armed forces do we have? Cage action plans, plans
to detonate dynamite placed in a submarine while primary school
students tour a sea museum, traps against the country and democ-
racy, plans to place weapons in the homes of innocent students and
then to declare them members of a terrorist organization and to try
them in military courts, memorandums, explosives buried under-
ground, bombs and loaded light anti-tank weapons. And beside
each one of these there are active and retired ofcers from all levels.
The General Staff cannot continue to stay quiet in a country like this.
Dear Babu: You need to speak up. As a commander, you
No Comment
A crucxon
ANDREW
FINKEL
a.finkel@todayszaman.com
“Some people think the Crucixion only took place on Cal-
vary. They better wise up! Taking Joey Doyle’s life to stop him
from testifying is a crucixion. And dropping a sling on Kayo
Dugan because he was ready to spill his guts tomorrow, that’s
a crucixion. And every time the Mob puts the pressure on a
good man, tries to stop him from doing his duty as a citizen,
it’s a crucixion. And anybody who sits around and lets it hap-
pen, keeps silent about something he knows that happened,
shares the guilt of it just as much as the Roman soldier who
pierced the esh of our Lord to see if he was dead.”
Anyone who spent the same wasted youth as myself
inside a darkened cinema watching old movies, will recog-
nize these words as belonging to the battling priest played
by Karl Malden in “On the Waterfront” -- a lm in which
Marlon Brando’s conscience forces him to blow the whistle
on the mob that controls the docks. The director, Elia Kazan,
was born in Kadiköy, only a few miles from my own stanbul
neighborhood, and Kadiköy (to continue the free association)
or the ancient Chalcedon was once the metropolitinate of the
current ecumenical patriarchate, Bartholomew -- a man now
much in the news.
The patriarch, too, used the word “crucixion” to describe
the agonizingly slow death of the Orthodox community in
Turkey -- the appropriation of property and the refusal to al-
low the theological seminary in Halki on Heybeliada, an island
off stanbul, to resume the training of priests. His words, ed-
ited from an interview he gave last spring into a segment for
the US news show, 60 Minutes, has managed to jump start
the self-righteous anger of many a columnist and prompted
a ticking-off from Turkey’s foreign minister, seconded by the
president himself.
The most objectionable aspect of the patriarch’s critics is
need to explain to us what is happening. No one was convinced by
the threats you made from a battleship. Believe me, neither did it
scare any democrat that is determined to defend the truth, rule of
law and accountability. The reality you can’t see or choose not to
see is that Turkey is no longer the same Turkey.
Our rst question is: In a democratic country can a chief of
general staff declare a portion of its own citizens an enemy with-
out due process from a battleship that was paid for by citizen
taxes? We don’t know of any other example like this, do you?
Do you believe anyone and everyone that defends binding the
military to civilian will should be silenced?
Question 2: You always talk about the rule of law and the
armed force’s respect for the judiciary. Instead of sending implicit
threats and putting pressure on prosecutors, why don’t you apply
to the judiciary? Why don’t you le a lawsuit against those who are
leading an asymmetrical psychological warfare?
Question 3: Among those you were referring to when you
said, “Can’t talk, should not talk,” there are politicians. The one
AFGHANISTAN, REUTERS
that they use language that only goes to reinforce his complaint
that the Greek community is now treated as second-class citi-
zens in a land where they were born. How dare the patriarch use
such evocative language to criticize a country in whose military
he served yet in which he is somehow still a guest. The cover-
age in this newspaper has been fair, but one headline “Patriarch
Bartholomew talks tough against Turkey” fell into that trap. The
column from the editor-in-chief of Today’s Zaman yesterday
defending not just the patriarch’s right to speak out but the sub-
stance of his remarks, was, therefore, right and timely.
Indeed, the patriarch’s comments seem temperate given
the horrifying set of revelations which have emerged even in
the months since he gave that interview. This is that there exist-
ed within the armed forces something called the “Cage Opera-
tion Action Plan” to target Turkey’s minority community, carry
out assassinations, all in the interests of prompting a military
coup. Even as it is, the patriarch travels with an armed guard.
Of course 60 Minutes could have produced a more round-
ed report. They traveled to Saint Catherine’s Monastery,
Mount Sinai, to retrieve a pledge of tolerance issued [to Chris-
tians] by the prophet Muhammad. They could have made a
much shorter trip to Grecian Thrace to discover a Turkish mi-
nority which also complains of historic ill-treatment. And, of
course, those so incensed by the patriarch’s comments might
question why the foreign ministry attacks a Turkish citizen for
speaking his mind, yet feels it must defend the president of
Sudan who stands accused of committing war crimes.
It was not all that long ago that we witnessed the perse-
cution of Hrant Dink, the editor of an Armenian newspaper
who tried to call for modern Turkey’s reconciliation with its
Armenian community. His words were twisted in the Turk-
ish press to make him appear to be an enemy of the coun-
try in which he was born; he was tried in the courts for the
“thought crime” of offending Turkishness and his ultimate
punishment was meted out by a street tough who red a
bullet into his head. To be persecuted for doing the right
thing is, pace those political leaders and all those columnists
tut-tutting over the patriarch’s supposed offence -- and in
the language of the Karl Malden character -- a crucixion.
TODAY’S ZAMAN 15
politician that speaks the boldest is Bülent Arnç. Now a plot
to assassinate him has been discovered. What if, God forbid,
something happened to Arnç? Wouldn’t you have been ac-
cused of making him a target? Now do you accept that your
speech was wrong in terms of responsibility?
Question 4: Are you informed about military ofcers that en-
gage in illegal activities, including those who were caught in front
of Arnç’s home? If not, then under whose direction do they act?
Where do they nd the courage to do it?
Question 5: There are many cases of neglect of duty, efforts to
weaken the army and illegality. Is there a serious investigation into
these situations? Is anyone being questioned? For example, Tokat’s
Readiye district is under gendarmerie jurisdiction. How were vil-
lains able to freely walk around and kill our unarmed soldiers? What
was the weakness here? Who is responsible? What actions have
been taken against those who are responsible?
Dear Babu: The public is waiting for convincing and explanatory
answers from you. How much longer are you going to stay quiet?
EMRE
USLU
e.uslu@todayszaman.com
Solvng the
mystery of the
assassnaton attempt
on Bülent Arnç
Two members of the Special Forces Command were detained
on Saturday night on suspicion of planning to kill Arnç. Gen-
darmerie and police teams launched an operation to capture the
suspects after they received information that two military ofcers
-- Maj. brahim G. and Col. Erkan Ylmaz B. -- were planning to
assassinate the deputy prime minister. The teams detected two
suspicious vehicles in the vicinity of Arnç’s house. One of the
vehicles belonged to the General Staff while the other was hired
from a private car rental company. Turkish dailies claimed, and
Arnç conrmed, that one of the ofcers tried to swallow a piece
of paper while he was waiting for military ofcers to come to the
police station where the two were being held (in the Turkish ju-
dicial system military personnel cannot be detained by the police
alone. When a member of the military is detained, police must
inform the military to come and take them to military holding
facilities). The paper featured Arnç’s home address. Police also
found several maps showing Arnç’s house in the two vehicles.
Turkish dailies are not debating whether the ofcers were
planning to kill Mr. Arnç or not. Examining all the informa-
tion available at the moment, it would seem that, whatever
they were doing in the vicinity of Arnç’s house, they were
doing it as part of their ofcial duties. Perhaps they did not
even know that the target was Arnç himself.
Let me analyze the available information and try to make sense
of what the military ofcers were doing there. First, it was reported
that the police received a tip from an anonymous source that provid-
ed detailed information, including the ofcers’ names and the mod-
els and plate numbers of the cars, saying that the two ofcers were
planning to kill Arnç. Second, the ofcers had Arnç’s home address
written on a piece of paper, and when they were detained, one of
them tried to swallow the paper. Third, police found additional doc-
uments in the ofcers’ houses that show that Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoan and President Abdullah Gül were being monitored
by the military ofcers as well. Fourth, the ofcers had rented cars
earlier and parked them in front of Mr. Arnç’s house before leaving.
Bringing all the pieces together, we can predict the following
points: The details in the tip indicate that the operation against Arnç
was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. It rather indicates that
whatever the two ofcers were doing was part of a planned opera-
tion. Perhaps the operation was part of a formal exercise that was
conducted by the Special Forces Command. If it was the work of the
two ofcers or more ofcers, without the knowledge of the high-
ranking ofcers of the Special Forces Command, it would be less
likely to leak to the police in such detail. Second, from the fact that
Mr. Arnç’s home address was written on a piece of paper, we can
suspect that because it was part of a formal operation conducted by
the Special Forces Command, the ofcers did not even know who
the target was and what they were doing there. It is very likely that
the task that was given to the two ofcers was to park the rented
car in front of Mr. Arnç’s house and return to their units. As Turk-
ish press reported, they had done exactly this many times previously
before being detected by the police.
This is an important detail that law enforcement agencies
should focus on. Although the Turkish press reported that the of-
cers were parking the rented cars in front of Mr. Arnç’s house
to tape his conversations while he was at home, this is not very
likely. First, it is not the job of special forces units to conduct such
an operation. Second, it is unlikely that such an operation would
be conducted with rented cars because of the technical equipment
needed to tape conversations remotely.
What is likely, however, is that they were trying to check for se-
curity gaps in front of Arnç’s house. Parking a rented car in front
of a house is one of the easiest ways of checking the security in the
vicinity of the house. Given that special forces units are known for
conducting such operations (in 1996, a special forces unit parked a
car with explosives near Abdullah Öcalan’s house in Damascus in an
assassination attempt), we can suspect that at least some people in
the special forces unit were trying to see whether they could park a
car near enough to assassinate Mr. Arnç.
More importantly, it is likely that the two ofcers were told to
park the car at the address that was written on the piece of paper.
They were going to park the rented car and return to their units in
the car that belongs to the General Staff. Thus, it is very important
to nd out who ordered the two ofcers to park the rented car in
front of Mr. Arnç’s house, and why.
 16 TODAY’S ZAMAN T H U R S D AY, D E C E M B E R 2 4 , 2 0 0 9
LEISURE

move gude
“Süpürrr!”
AVATAR
STANBUL:Bakrköy Cinebonus Capacity
12:00 15:00 18:15 21:30 00:30 14:00 17:15
20:30 34:45 Beyolu AFM Fita 11:00
14:10 17:30 20:50 00:10 Caddebostan AFM
11:10 14:30 17:50 21:15 ANKARA: Ata On
Tower 12:00 13:45 15:15 18:30 20:15 21:45
Gregorian Calendar: 24 December 2009 C.E. Hijri Calendar: 08 Muharram 1431 A.H.Hebrew Calendar: 07 Tevet 5770 tv gude
calendar@todayszaman.com
E2
08:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Today is Christmas Eve in the Western world. In ing. The Japanese also observe the Santa Claus tradition General Assembly resolution stating that Libya should 09:00 Merlin
10:00 The Martha Stewart Show
most societies, this day is treated to a greater or a during Christmas. The Santa Claus figure developed out become independent before Jan. 1, 1952. The kingdom of 11:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
lesser extent as a public holiday. The night is a celebra- of the personality St. Nicholas, whose reputation for gen- Idris lasted until 1969, when a 27-year-old army officer, 12:00 The Rachael Ray Show
13:00 Desperate Housewives
tion of the arrival of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem for erosity and kindness gave rise to legends of miracles he Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, staged a coup d’état 14:00 The Martha Stewart Show
the birth of Jesus. In European countries, religious ceremo- performed for the poor and unhappy. against him. 15:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
16:00 The Rachael Ray Show
nies and celebrations such as lighting a Yule log or hav- Today is Independence Day in Libya. Though Libya Today is the birthday of James Prescott Joule (1818- 17:00 Merlin
18:00 The Martha Stewart Show
ing a special Christmas meal after attending church take was relinquished by Italy under the terms of the 1947 1889). Joule was the English physicist and inventor after 19:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
place. Some traditional stories associated with Christmas peace treaty with the Allied powers, real autonomy came whom Joule’s Law was named. The joule, a unit of mea- 20:00 Family Guy
21:00 Chuck
Eve are that animals can talk, water turns to wine and hid- only after Libya declared its independence in 1951 as the surement for energy, is named after him as well. He also 22:15 The Prisoner
den treasures are revealed. In modern Western societies, United Kingdom of Libya, a constitutional and hereditary worked with Lord Kelvin to develop the absolute scale of 23:00 The Tonight Show With
Conan O'Brien
Christmas Eve is associated with Santa Claus and gift giv- monarchy under King Idris, in accordance with the UN temperature, and he made observations on magnetism. 00:00 The Prisoner
01:00 The Jay Leno Show
02:00 The Tonight Show With
Conan O'Brien
03:00 Chuck
04:00 Family Guy
05:00 The Prisoner
06:00 The Tonight Show With
New ‘Alvn and the Chpmunks’ Conan O'Brien
07:00 The Jay Leno Show

CNBC-E
17:55 The Simpsons
00:00 Bilkent Cinebonus 14:20 17:45 18:50 The Jay Leno Show
21:10 00:30 ZMR: AFM Forum Bornova
11:00 14:15 17:30 21:00 00:15 Cinebonus
Konak Pier 11:00 14:15 17:45 21:00 00:15
ANTALYA: Cinebonus Migros 17:45 21:00
00:00 14:30 11:45 15:00 18:15 21:30
album contnues genre’s success 20:00 Scrubs
20:30 Aliens in America
21:00 Ghost Whisperer
22:00 Yumurta
00:00 The Jay Leno Show
01:00 Scrubs
SUSAN CARPENTER LOS ANGELES

AP
You’re making a legitimate album.”
BAKA DLDE AK More than 100 tracks were licensed
01:30 Aliens in America
02:00 Ghost Whisperer
STANBUL: Beyolu 12:15 14:30 16:45

PHOTO
03:00 Yumurta
19:15 21:30 ili Megaplex Cevahir 11:30 In the years since an aspiring and recorded by Dee’s Chipmunks and 05:00 Ghost Whisperer
13:30 15:45 17:50 20:00 22:00 Kozyata 06:10 The Jay Leno Show
Cinepol 11:15 13:15 15:15 17:15 19:15 21:15
small-time actor named Ross Bag- Chipettes for the new movie, most of
23:15 aknbakkal Megaplex M&S 11:15 dasarian bought a variable-speed which ended up on the cutting-room floor. GOLDMAX
13:15 15:15 17:15 19:15 ANKARA: Cinebonus tape recorder and sang “The Chipmunk “You don’t know if a song will work 08:55 What Lies Beneath
Panora 11:00 13:05 14:30 15:15 17:30 19:45 11:05 A Night At The Roxbury
21:00 22:00 ZMR: AFM Passtel 11:15 13:45 Song” into its embedded microphone in until you record it,” said Dee, who esti- 12:30 The Hustler
16:00 18:30 21:00 ANTALYA: Megapol 11:15 14:50 Flight Of The Phoenix (2004)
1958, his mischief-making rodents have mates there’s enough leftover material for 16:50 I Love You, I Love You Not
13:15 15:15 17:15 19:15 21:15
sold 47 million copies of their 31 albums a triple album of B-sides. 18:30 October Sky
VAVEN and amassed a worldwide fan base. The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) 20:15 Donnie Brasco
22:25 Into The Wild
STANBUL: Bakrköy Cinebonus Capacity
11:00 13:00 15:15 17:30 19:45 22:00 00:15 In fact, though “Alvin and the Chip- Satisfaction” and Van Halen’s “Jump,” for 00:50 Psycho II
02:45 Valley Of The Dolls
Beyolu AFM Fita 11:40 14:00 16:20 munks: The Squeakquel” only opened in example, were both recorded but discard- 04:45 The Last Supper
18:40 21:00 23:45 Caddebostan AFM 10:30
12:50 15:10 17:30 19:50 22:10 Kozyata US theaters Wednesday, the soundtrack to ed because “Monkicizing the vocal sucks
Cinebonus Palladium 12:45 15:00 17:15 the sequel to 2007’s breakout animated hit the life out of it,” Dee said.
MOVIEMAX
06:45 Scary Godmother: The
19:30 21:45 00:00 ANKARA: Ata On
Tower 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:15 19:30 21:45 is already a bona fide success. While the soundtrack to 2007’s “Al- Revenge Of Jimmy
07:40 Road House 2 : Last Call
00:00 ZMR: AFM Forum Bornova 11:30 Released on Rhino Records on Dec. 1 vin and the Chipmunks” featured mostly 09:15 The Year Without Santa Claus
13:45 16:20 18:45 21:20 23:45 ANTALYA: and featuring hits by the Kinks, Katy Perry new songs created by Dee specifically 10:50 Burn After Reading
Cinebonus Migros 12:15 14:30 16:45 19:00 12:30 CJ7
21:15 23:30 and Beyonce, the album sold 77,000 copies for the movie and versions of songs such 14:10 Rails & Ties
in its first two weeks of release, compared as “Witch Doctor” that were originally 16:05 Midnight Clear
SÜPÜRRR! 18:00 17 Again
STANBUL: Esentepe Cinebonus Astoria with just 7,000 for the first two weeks of sales penned and recorded by the elder Bag- 20:00 The Valley Of Light
11:00 13:00 15:00 17:15 19:30 21:45 00:00 for the 2007 film’s soundtrack, which went dasarian, the “Squeakquel” soundtrack is 21:50 Cloverfield
Kozyata Cinebonus Palladium 12:30 14:45 23:20 The Jane Austen Book Club
17:00 19:15 21:30 23:45 ANKARA: Bilkent on to move more than 1 million copies. dominated by hits from artists such as the 01:05 Town Creek
Cinebonus 11:40 14:10 16:40 19:10 21:40 Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and his wife Janice Karman with stuffed chipmunks Simon, Alvin and Theodore. 02:50 Rails & Ties
“It’s hard to be miserable when you Bee Gees and Keys. “On the first movie, 04:30 Half Past Dead 2
00:10 Cinebonus Panora 11:00 13:05 15:15
17:30 19:45 22:00 ZMR: AFM Passtel hear those voices,” said Ross Bagdasarian people were a lot more tentative as far
11:30 14:00 16:30 19:00 21:45 ANTALYA: Jr., 60, speculating on the enduring appeal animated television show for NBC. “The first step is to recognize that we’re as roping in talent or artists; for brand- MGM MOVIES
07:10 Pascali's Island
Deepo 11:30 13:30 15:30 17:30 19:30 21:30 While actors including Justin Long and working with one of the biggest groups out
of furry critters chirping out cover songs. name songs, people just flat-out denied 08:55 The Greatest Story Ever Told
ACI AK Bagdasarian Sr. voiced the original Christina Applegate voice the Chipmunk there,” he said. “I know I sound out of my us,” said Mike Knobloch, executive vice
12:10 Monkey On My Back
13:45 A Doll's House
STANBUL:Beyolu AFM Fita 11:30 13:50 characters in the “Squeakquel,” the songs mind when I say that, but the Chipmunks
16:10 18:30 20:50 23:30 Caddebostan Chipmunks and pioneered the “vari-speed” president of film music for Fox. “On the 15:25 Far North
in the film were performed by New York have sold [a ton of] records. Once you rec- 17:00 Cotton Comes To Harlem
AFM 11:10 13:30 16:00 18:30 21:00 23:20 recording technique that transformed his [second] one, people were a lot more ea- 18:50 A Family Thing
ANKARA: Bilkent Cinebonus 11:45 adult voice into the higher-pitched, kid-i- producer Ali Dee and four of his studio ognize the brand as being legitimate, then ger to be involved. Not only did we have 20:45 Buy & Cell
13:00 14:15 15:30 16:45 19:15 21:45 00:15 22:25 Young Billy Young
ZMR: Balçova Cinebonus Kipa 10:45 fied sound so associated with the group. singers, who employed the same vari- you can hit the production and make the a hit movie with the first one, we had a 00:00 Up In The Cellar
12:45 15:00 17:15 19:30 21:45 00:00 After his death in 1972, his son Ross and speed technique Bagdasarian used. Chipmunks sound competitive against Jay- platinum record in a climate where re- 01:35 A Doll's House
ANTALYA: Cinebonus Migros 12:15 03:45 A Family Thing
14:30 16:45 19:00 21:15 23:30 Ross’ wife Janice kept the franchise alive, There are two things that go into pro- Z or Alicia Keys,” he added. “That’s the cords going platinum is largely unheard 05:35 Two For The Seesaw
voicing 16 more Chipmunks records and an ducing a Chipmunks record, Dee said. mind-set: You’re not making a kids record. of.” © Los Angeles Times 2009
COMEDYMAX
08:00 American Dad
08:30 Til Death
09:00 The Cosby Show
10:00 According to Jim
11:00 Everybody Loves Raymond
Crossword Mr. DploMAT! Cem Kzltu
c.kiziltug@todayszaman.com
12:00 Reaper
13:00 Everybody Hates Chris
13:30 Curb Your Enthusiasm
970 14:00 American Dad
14:30 Til Death
ACROSS 60 Conceals a 21 Mozart’s canal locale 15:00 The Cosby Show
1 Drums’ present “L’___ del 47 Use the
16:00 According to Jim
edges 63 Speaks Cairo” overhead
5 Addition unclearly 23 Provides compartment 17:00 Everybody Loves Raymond
figures 64 Way to keep with a crew 48 Peter of 18:00 3rd Rock from the Sun
9 Cote chorus the keel? 24 Diminish in Peter, Paul 18:30 Everybody Hates Chris
13 Superior to 65 “The Grapes intensity and Mary 19:00 The Cosby Show
14 Ship’s front of Wrath” 27 Boggy earth 50 Behind bars 19:30 Curb Your Enthusiasm
15 Ragout of migrant 28 Baby wipes 51 The “C” in 20:00 American Dad
roasted 66 Change for additive C.S. Lewis 20:30 Til Death
game a hundred, 29 Grammy 52 Truck 21:00 According to Jim
16 Seasonal perhaps winner stopper
21:30 Everybody Loves Raymond
position 67 In ___ (owing Lovett 53 Cholesterol,
18 Balance money) 30 Unweaned e.g. 22:00 Reaper
sheet listing 68 Abandons deer 54 They make 23:00 Entourage
19 Accordion bachelor- 31 Be heartsick a bloom 23:30 Weeds
fold hood 32 “With this blossom? 00:00 Til Death
20 Love, hate, DOWN ring, I ___ ...” 55 Boundless 00:30 Curb Your Enthusiasm
fear, etc. 1 Some pinball 34 Anti- 56 Atoll 01:00 American Dad
22 Orderly targets smoking org. component 01:30 According to Jim
25 “Avast!” 2 Mediterra- 35 Abalone 57 Treat like a
responder nean boot? product pariah
26 Wild 3 Some 38 Calorie 61 Abe’s
30 Some
spare tires,
beauty
marks
counters,
hopefully
birthday
month
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essentially 4 Food fight 39 Affliction 62 You’ll have a
33 Indian bread sound 40 Class blast with it
36 Without
compassion
37 Classic
effects
5 Whirlpool
whereabouts
requiring
goggles
45 Auditory
Sudoku TRT Toursm Rado
00:00 Identification and
Programming
ghost story 6 Barista’s 00:25 Music
41 Early container PREVIOUS PUZZLE ANSWER HARD EASY 07:25 Identification and
invention 7 Liturgical
HARD

2 3 4 8 9 6 1 5 7
Programming
42 Price list song
word 8 Hindu 9 6 4 8 9 5 7 2 6 9 1 5 3 7 2 4 8 6
07:30 Music
08:30 News (English,
43 Extraordi- teacher 8 6 7 1 5 4 3 9 2 French, German)
nary shoe 9 Vatican
width attraction 2 1 2 1 4 6 9 2 5 8 7 3
08:40 Live Broadcast
44 Speedom- 10 “And (English, German, Russian)
7 9 3 4 8 1 2 6 5
eter part another 10:30 News (English, French,
46 Like some thing ...” 4 8 9 4 9 6 8 5 5 2 8 7 6 3 9 4 1 German, Greek, Russian)
cheeks or 11 Worship- 10:45 Live Broadcast
4 5 1 6 3 8 7 2 9
futures per’s “So (English, German, Russian)
49 Not be it!” 3 5 2 6 8 9 2 1 7 5 3 4 12:30 News (English, French,
permissible 12 Uses a tuffet German, Greek, Russian)
3 7 2 5 4 9 6 1 8
55 Deeply felt 15 Like 12.45 Live Broadcast
58 Root used in
perfumery
Rushdie’s
“Verses”
8 7 6 3 2 1 7 9 6 5 2 (English, German, Russian)
EASY

1 9 7 5 4 8 6 2 3 15:00 News (English, French,

59 They may be 17 Worry © 2009 Universal Uclick
scattered obsessively German, Greek, Russian)
www.upuzzles.com 4 9 3 5 3 8 2 1 6 7 9 4
15:15 Live Broadcast
6 2 4 7 9 3 5 8 1
(English, German, Russian)
9 1 5 3 8 7 2 4 6 18:30 News (English, French,
5 2 4 1 6 8 2 9 7 8 6 4 2 9 3 1 5 German, Greek, Russian)
18:45 Live Broadcast
2 4 3 1 6 5 8 7 9
4 3 6 9 3 8 1 8 7 1 6 5 4 9 3 2
(English, French)
21:30 News (English, French,
3 5 2 9 7 1 4 6 8 German, Greek, Russian)
3 6 2 6 9 8 4 6 9 8 3 2 1 5 7
21:45 Live Broadcast
(English, Greek)
23:58 Identification

HOW TO PLAY? : The objective of the game is to fill all the blank squares in a game Every row of 9 numbers must include all digits 1 through 9 in any order Broadcast Areas:
Alanya FM 94.4
with the correct numbers. There are three very simple constraints to follow. In a 9 Every column of 9 numbers must include all digits 1 through 9 in any order Ankara FM 100.3
by 9 square Sudoku game: Every 3 by 3 subsection of the 9 by 9 square must include all digits 1 through 9 Antalya FM 92.1
Ayvalk FM 101.1
Bodrum FM 97.4
Fethiye FM 103.1
stanbul FM 101.6
travelers’

Ambulance: 112 Fire: 110 171 Police: 155156 Maritime: 158 Unknown numbers: 118 Turkish Airlines: 444 0 849 U.S. Embassy: 0312 455 5555 U.S. Consu- zmir FM 101.6
Kalkan FM 105.9
late: 0212 2513602-3-4 Russian Embassy: 0312 439 2122 Russian Consulate: 0212 244 1693-2610 British Embassy: 0312 455 3344 British Consulate: 0212
s.o.s

Kapadokya FM 103.0
293 7540 German Embassy: 0312 455 5100 German Consulate: 0212 334 61 00 French Embassy: 0312 455 4545 French Consulate: 0212 292 4810-11 Indian Kuadas FM 101.9
Marmaris FM 101.0
Embassy: 0312 438 2195 Pakistani Embassy: 0312 427 1410 Austrian Embassy: 0312 419 0431-33 Austrian Consulate: 0212 262 9315 Belgian Embassy: Pamukkale FM 101.0
Trabzon FM 101.5
0312 446 8247 Belgian Consulate: 0212 243 3300 Egyptian Embassy: 0312 426 1026 Egyptian Consulate: 0212 263 6038 Israeli Embassy: 0312 446 3605

CMYK
 CONTINUATION THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009 TODAY’S ZAMAN 17

Charity administrators detained over Eid al-Adha fraud Ensar Öüt

the Mehmetçik Vakf went to the THK, but in The charities and the meat rms also al-
AA, VOLKAN FURUNCU

contnued from page 1

The investigation, which began with or-
ders from the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Of-
ce, also found that the Mehmetçik Vakf char-
ged excessively for sacricing cattle. The of-
cials of the THK, which collects sheepskins
to help the development of the state aviation
sector, allegedly prepared fraudulent docu-
ments on more than 150,000 sheepskins.
PHOTO
actuality they were sold to private rms. In ad-
dition, the THK was supposed to solicit at le-
ast three offers from different rms for the sale
of sheepskins, but only one rm was contacted
and false papers were prepared to show that
more rms had been contacted.
In addition, slaughterhouses that signed
contracts with the foundations to carry out
legedly prevented inspectors from doing the-
ir jobs, reportedly putting laxatives in the beve-
rages of the inspectors who were supposed to
keep a record of the actual slaughters.
In order to complete the falsied records,
the organizations allegedly used ear tag num-
bers from animals sacriced by other organi-
zations. Both LÖSEV and Mehmetçik Vak-

The investigation started on Dec. 20, when
56 people were detained. With the detention
of several more people believed to have enga-
Dozens of suspects who were detained on corruption char-
ged in improper conduct, the total number of
detainees in the scandal has increased to 63.
ges for accepting donations during the Feast of the Sacri-
fice were sent to court yesterday after being questioned.
Sources said that falsied papers showed
that sheepskins from some sacrices done by
the sacrices were found to have not comp-
lied with religious requirements and sacri-
ced fewer animals than the number specied
in their contracts. Moreover, several inspec-
tors from the foundations, notaries public, ve-
terinarians and imams have been accused of
malpractice for being involved in the offense.
f sent messages to the people who had cho-
sen to do their sacrice through the organiza-
tions, saying: “Your sacrice has been done in
accordance with Islamic practices. May God ac-
cept it.” In a written statement issued on Mon-
day, LÖSEV dismissed claims that the founda-
tion did not sacrice animals on Eid al-Adha.
CHP deputy criticizes
government’s silence
over Kurdistan map
Following a gaffe by Republican People’s Party (CHP)
Deputy Chairman Onur Öymen when he ange-
red Turkey’s Alevi community by referring to the Turkish
government’s strong response to a 1937 rebellion in the
predominantly Alevi city of Tunceli, then known as Der-
sim, as an example of ghting terrorism, CHP deputy En-

Police Chief Okkan was killed sar Öüt on Tuesday made a similarly racist statement, cal-
ling Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutolu “Davutyan,” an
Armenian-sounding last name.
Speaking at a press conference held at the CHP Erzurum
Provincial Directorate, Öüt reacted to an American NBS TV

by a state team, says witness station broadcast that labeled a part of Turkey as “Kurdistan.”
He claimed that the government has remained silent over the
dispute. Asserting that Foreign Minister Davutolu is also si-
lent on this, Öüt allegedly made a comment that was meant
to insult Turkey’s Armenian citizens, observers said.

CHAN, KADR UYSALO LU

contnued from page 1 Öüt claimed that when an American TV station broad-
He also recalled that on the night of casts a divided map of Turkey, no US ofcials react. “The TV
the assassination, members of Team station in question does not even say sorry, it does not say it
C had a meeting with a military ofcer code- made a mistake,” Öüt added. He also claimed that if Ameri-
named Mete (retired Col. L.G., currently ja- cans show a divided map of France, Germany, Italy or Greece,
iled as a suspected member of Ergenekon, a strong reactions would follow from these countries.
clandestine network charged with plotting “He [the foreign minister] does not issue a statement.
to overthrow the government). Beler reco- He makes no explanation. Foreign Minister, are you good
unted that the colonel ordered them to go to for anything? Is your last name Davutolu or Davutyan?
northern Iraq and to avoid being seen. Ac- Just so we know. If you are Davutyan, you are making

cording to him, members of Team C went to
the town of Sulaymaniyah, where they sta-
yed for three or fourth months. “After three
or four months, things had settled down. Du-
ring this time, Hizbullah claimed responsibi-
lity for Okkan’s assassination,” Beler said.
We tortured, Okkan
defended democracy
Beler emphasized that Okkan was an in-
telligent man and a visionary. “Okkan was
trying in those times to do what the Justice
and Development Party [AK Party] is doing
now with its democratic initiative. He didn’t
think like us. When we captured PKK mili-
tants, we tortured them. He knew that this
was the wrong method. He thought that you
couldn’t get anywhere with torture and be-
lieved that everything should be based on
mutual tolerance and understanding, whe-
reas we would turn life into a hell for a per-
son just because we would nd a tape of
[Kurdish folk singer] Shivan Perwer.”
Beler also said Team C was very active and
was behind major atrocities between 1990 and
2001 that make the Okkan assassination seem
insignicant. “The soldiers working for this
team believed they did what they did for the
motherland and the nation,” he noted.
According to Beler’s account, this squad
was destroyed in a May 16, 2001 plane crash
in Malatya. He said after Team C returned to
Diyarbakr, they were ordered by L.G. to y to
Antep. “This was the military type CASA pla-
ne that crashed in Malatya on May 16, 2001.
All 34 onboard died. All the perpetrators of
the Gaffar Okkan murder, the entire Team C
of 20 people, were on that plane.”
Beler also believes that Team C was
destroyed because they were partially expo-
sed. “Their cover must have been blown at
some point; otherwise, they wouldn’t have
been killed. This is how things work at MAK
[the Wartime Search and Rescue Unit]: If you
are not exposed by the enemy, you’ll live a
hundred years. In any other case, you are ins-
Yldrm Beler, a longtime translator for the military, claims that Gaffar Okkan was killed by Team C, a squad of the Special Forces Command.
tantly executed,” he said.
He said he was on Team C for a short
time. “Capt. H.B., who used the code name
Rza at the time, was in charge. He also died
on that plane that crashed in Malatya.”
Not JTEM but MAK
Beler also provided information on MAK, un-
der which Team C operated. Beler said the
“real jobs” inside the special forces were taken
care of by the MAK group, which had about 30
squads functioning under a captain, a lieute-
nant and 12 staff sergeants in each team. Beler
said Team C, which carried out the Okkan mur-
der, was one of the most active squads.
Beler also said it was not the dreaded J-
TEM -- an illegal and shady intelligence unit in-
side the military believed to be responsible for
many crimes committed against residents of the
Southeast in the 1990s -- but MAK that is, cur-
rently, the most dangerous unit among the il-
legal structures known to exist in the military.
He said although members of most of
the lower and intermediate ranks of these
groups have been captured as part of the Er-
genekon investigation, the higher ranks still
remain untouched. “These people have also
taken control of private security compani-
es. Actually, there is this: MAK once had a
scheme in which one non-commissioned
ofcer from the special forces was an orderly
to every general. Now, you have an ex-MAK
man as an orderly with every brigade com-
mander. Why do they choose ex-MAK pe-
ople? This way, they can keep all generals
under control. An orderly knows everything
about a general. He can render a general
ineffective, even kill him, when he wants to.
Go ask any brigade commander in which
branch of the military his orderly began to
serve. They will all say the special forces.
This was L.G.’s plan,” he said.
Beler also said that since the AK Party
came to power, MAK has slowly been elimi-
PHOTO
nated. “Actually, when the AK Party won, that
marked our end. They gave orders to reduce our
numbers. We were very comfortable under co-
alition governments. Nobody ever touched us.
They even encouraged us.”
Beler remembers yet another detail abo-
ut the CASA plane that crashed in Malat-
ya. He says Ergenekon defendant L.G. tried to
stop Sgt. Ümit Baaran, who wanted to see his
ancée, from boarding but had to give him per-
mission when the sergeant insisted.
In the CASA crash of May 16, 2001, 34
soldiers died including Sgt. Baaran. Of-
cials announced that the majority aboard
were from the special forces. emdin Sakk,
a PKK commander, had claimed that Mah-
mut Yldrm [also known as Yeil] was also
on the plane. Yeil is one of the most noto-
rious gures in Turkey, a hit man suspected
of some of Turkey’s most mysterious politi-
cal killings. He disappeared 13 years ago, but
some have claimed that he is still alive.
an Armenian initiative. What is your rst name, your last
name? Are you a Turk? Are you the foreign minister of Tur-
key? Why does the prime minister not react? Maps showing
‘Kurdistan’ have been broadcast many times; why is no one
doing anything?” he said. Although there was no immedia-
te reaction to the CHP deputy’s charged statement, in a te-
levised speech he later denied insulting Turkey’s Armeni-
an citizens. According to experts, Öüt’s words, questioning
the foreign minister’s ethnicity, are clear discrimination.
Many found the comments uncalled for because the CHP
deputy was speaking about a map depicting “Kurdistan” in
southeastern Turkey, not Armenia. stanbul Today’s Zaman
Ergenekon suspect’s
attacker sent to jail for
backing terrorist gang
Erhan Keskin, who was caught with two guns in his
possession at stanbul University Hospital, where reti-
red Gen. Levent Ersöz -- a key suspect in an investigation into
a clandestine organization -- was a patient, on Saturday night
was arrested on charges of aiding and abetting a terrorist or-
ganization in addition to threatening a civil servant on duty.
Ersöz is undergoing treatment at stanbul University’s
faculty of medicine’s infectious disease department, repor-
tedly for a deadly esh-eating bacterial infection, which he
claims to have contracted at a hospital after surgery.
Keskin was taken into custody when he was caught by po-
lice in the infectious disease department of the hospital whe-
re Ersöz, a primary suspect in the trial of Ergenekon, a clan-
destine network charged with plotting to overthrow the de-
mocratically elected government, has been receiving treat-
ment. Keskin was sent from the counterterrorism department
of the stanbul Police Department to the Beikta courthouse
in stanbul on Tuesday. He was interrogated at the courthouse
for ve hours by prosecutors, who decided to send him to the
9th High Criminal Court. Keskin was imprisoned on charges
of threatening a civil servant on duty and aiding and abetting a
terrorist organization. It was also reported that Keskin was qu-
estioned by Ergenekon prosecutors. stanbul Today’s Zaman with wires
Prosecutor’s office to
investigate links between
Ergenekon, Atabeyler
Prosecutors are to examine possible links betwe-
en the Atabeyler gang and Ergenekon, a shadowy

Euro 2016 candidate Turkey introduces logo
AHMET TEKN STANBUL
A candidate to host the Euro 2016 Euro-
pean soccer event, Turkey introduced its
championship logo yesterday at a meeting at-
tended by State Minister for Sports Faruk Na-
z Özak and Turkish Soccer Federation (TFF)
Chairman Mahmut Özgener.
Turkey will submit its bid to host the Eu-
ropean Football Championship, also known as
Euro 2016, the third largest sporting event after
the Olympic Games and the soccer World Cup,
and will wage campaigns until May 27, 2010,
the day before the host country is decided by
UEFA, the top soccer authority in Europe.
The cities and stadiums planned to host
the organization will also be announced. Whi-
le Fenerbahçe’s ükrü Saraçolu and Beikta’s
nönü stadiums were kept out of the plans for
failing to comply with necessary criteria, the
Atatürk Olimpiyat Stadium and the Türk Te-
lekom Arena, the construction of which is still
under way, will host the soccer games if Tur-
key is selected. In addition to stanbul, the pro-
vinces of zmir, Konya, Antalya, Bursa, Eskie-
hir and Ankara will also host games during the
event in the event of Turkey’s selection.
State Minister Özak said in his inaugural
remarks that as the government, they will fully
support the event, which is critical for the pro-
motion of the country. “Having made its mark
on the world and European soccer since the mid-
crime network which has alleged links within the state
and is suspected of plotting to topple the government,
after the merger of the Ergenekon investigation with
1990s, Turkey is one of the leading countries the trial in the Council of State shooting, which claimed
which is open to success and development. The- the life of a senior judge in 2006.
refore, investments in soccer are highly valued.” Atabeyler is a gang whose plans to assassinate Prime
Orhan Gorbon, the coordinator of the Euro Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan were uncovered in 2007.
2016 Committee, said that 2.2 million people fol- There are currently 10 suspects, including two chiefs of po-
low the championship in stadiums, with 6 milli- lice and four military ofcers, on trial for membership in
on following it on the streets through giant scre- Atabeyler. The gang came to the agenda again after an as-
ens. About 5 billion follow the competition on sassination plot was discovered over the weekend against
television and 1.2 billion on the Internet. A total Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arnç, with some sugges-
of 51 games will be played in Euro 2016 and each ting that the plot might be the work of Atabeyler.
city will host at least four games. The latest hearing in the Atabeyler case was held at the
Having been a candidate to host the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court yesterday. In order to
2008 and 2012 European Football Champi- examine the possible links between Ergekenon and Ata-
onships, Turkey will compete with Italy and beyler, prosecutors petitioned the court to ask for the Erge-
France, who have both hosted the event nekon le from the stanbul 13th High Criminal Court. The
twice, to host Euro 2016. case was adjourned until Feb. 25, 2010. Emrullah Bayrak Ankara
 18 TODAY’S ZAMAN
8th & 9th GRADERS
READ THE TEXTS (A-D) AND MATCH THEM WITH THE FIVE HEADINGS.
SHOPPING MALLS
…………… (A)
Most shoppers are fully aware
that supermarkets deliberately put
candy and magazines at the checkout
counters, where they can easily tempt
bored, cranky and hungry shoppers.
But it doesn't stop there. Throughout
the store, supermarkets strategically
arrange products on shelves in a way
that makes you buy more.
Take, for example, the cereal aisle
-- it's usually located directly across
from the candy section. "It's a moth-
er's greatest nightmare," Phil
Lempert, a supermarket industry ex-
pert, says. "You'll find breakfast cere-
als on one side and candy on the oth-
er." Why? So kids can check out the
candy while mom is filling up the cart
with cereal -- a must-buy on most
shopping trips. Likewise, sugary kids'
cereals are always on the lower
shelves, at a child's eye level and
within reach of little arms.
What you can do: If possible, leave
the children at home so you don't end
up buying too much junk food.
What you can do: Never enter the supermarket hungry.
Exercise 1 (Shopping malls)
1. Follow your nose
2. Cozy cafes
3. Eye candy
4. End-aisle deception
5. Shelf shuffles
CEM KIZILTUÐ
ILLUSTRATIONS
Last week’s answers: Sport injuries 1-B, 2-B, 3-C, 4-A, 5-A, 6-A, 7-A Penguins 1-C, 2-B, 3-A, 4-C, 5-A, 6- C, 7-B, 8-A Match: 1-D, 2-E, 3-A, 4-C, 5-B, Fill in the gaps 1- searched, 2- dive, 3- Unlike, 4- average, 5- speed
T H U R S D AY, D E C E M B E R 2 4 , 2 0 0 9 TODAY’S LEARNING
* THOUGHT OF THE DAY
TODAY’S ZAMAN
We used to build civilizations. Now we build
shopping malls.
Bill Bryson
PHOTO
CÝHAN
PHOTO
Joke
A man was pulled over for driving too fast, even though he
thought he was driving just fine.
Officer: You were speeding.
Man: No, I wasn't.
Officer: Yes, you were. I'm giving you a ticket.
Man: But I wasn't speeding.
Officer: Tell that to the judge!
(The officer gives the man the ticket.)
Man: Would I get another ticket if I called you a jerk?
Officer: Yes, you would.
Man: What if I just thought that you were?
Officer: I can't give you a ticket for what you think.
Man: Fine, I think you're a jerk!
Otherwise, distract them and buy more stuff, according to What you can do: Get your caf-
Lempert. The tactic also encourages feine fix before you go shopping and
…………… (B) consumers to try new products, which try to get in and out of the supermar-
Most folks assume that items lo- are typically put in the place where ket as fast as you can.
cated at the end of the aisles (i.e., top-selling items are usually found.
those items displayed as you do your What you can do: Before trying …………… (E)
U-turn into the next aisle) are chock that new brand, check the price to see Notice how the mouthwatering
full of sale items. Not necessarily. if you're spending more than you smell of cookies greets you at the su-
"People think that if it's out on that would for your old favorite. If you are, permarket entrance? While super-
end, it must be some kind of a special take the time to track down what you markets don't fabricate smells, ac-
deal," says Jack Taylor, professor of were originally looking for. cording to Lempert, they do use
retailing at Birmingham-Southern smells to encourage more shopping.
College in Birmingham, Alabama. …………… (D) "The more the store can attract all our
"More often than not, it isn't." Has your supermarket become so senses, the more we're going to buy,"
Needless to say, food manufactur- comfortable that you feel like you he says.
ers are well aware of this. "That real could practically spend the whole day Whole Foods supermarkets, for
estate is so valuable, companies actu- there? That's exactly the plan. example, have chocolate-making sta-
ally pay the store to have their mer- "Whenever a supermarket can keep tions in many of their stores. And
chandise put there," Taylor says. you in the store longer, you'll spend don't think that putting the rotisserie
What you can do: Go through the more money," Lempert says. "We see chicken near the entrance is an acci- Tarantula
aisles to search for better deals. more supermarkets putting in coffee dent. "It's one of the first things you
shops to make the shopping experi- see when you walk into the store won- Tarantulas are part of the family of spiders ……… (1)
…………… (C) ence longer." dering what to make for dinner," Hairy Mygalomorphs. These are the spiders that, scien-
Suddenly can't find your favorite Another ploy: Playing slow music, Kimberly Danger, founder of tists believe, have been around ………… (2) millions of
jar of peanut butter? Supermarkets which encourages you to move slowly as Mommysavers.com, says. Don't forget years and have not changed much in that time! There
regularly move items throughout the you walk through the aisles -- and buy samples, either: Those very conve- are around 700 kinds, or species, of Tarantulas.
store so shoppers walk around longer more stuff that you don't really need. niently trigger your appetite. Tarantulas are found in the rainforests and jungles
of South and Central America, in Africa and in the south-
ern part of North America. Many Tarantulas …………
Exercise 2 (Shopping malls) (3) in burrows underground. They will either use their
1. deliberately a. causing something to begin to happen or exist fangs to dig them or else take someone else's burrow-
2. checkout counters b. find, or find information about something, home. Even though they do not spin webs, Tarantulas
after a difficult or long search use their silk to make doors …………. (4) soft walls for
3. aisles c. food looking or smelling extremely nice their burrow.
4. merchandise d. on purpose, not by chance Tarantulas are nighttime hunters who will pounce on
5. encourages e. goods that are bought, sold or traded their prey. They eat insects, beetles and grasshoppers.
6. track down f. a long, narrow gap that people can walk along between The Goliath Bird-eating Tarantula species will eat larger
rows of seats in a public building such as a church prey, ………… (5) as lizards, snakes, frogs, bats and
or between rows of shelves in a supermarket small birds.
7. practically g. precisely All Tarantulas have an interesting way ………… (6)
8. exactly h. long, narrow table or flat surface at which defending themselves. They have hairs on their ab-
customers are served domen (stomachs) that have sharp little barbs, or pokey
9. mouthwatering i. almost things, on them. When threatened, the spider will rub
10. trigger j. you give somebody confidence these hairs ………… (7) their legs and shoot them at
their predator. That would hurt!
Predators that the tarantula would be afraid of are
weasels, hawks, owls, skunks and snakes. Their
………… (8) enemy is the spider-wasp. The female
wasp will paralyze the spider by stinging it. She then
………… (9) a hole and puts the spider and an egg into
FILL IN THE GAPS WITH THE APPROPRIATE OPTION it. When the egg hatches, the baby wasp will eat away
An appointment at the paralyzed spider. The spider could stay buried
Ann: Hello. a. pleasure alive for ………… (10) days before the larvae hatch.
Dorothy: Hello.
Ann: I have an appointment (1) ………………… . b. to see Mr. Eric
Fill in the gaps with the appropriate option.
Dorothy: Mr. Eric?
c. through this door 1. A) calling B) calls C) called
Ann: Yes.
Dorothy: (2) ……………… You are in the right place. d. meet you 2. A) for B) at C) in
Ann: Right. Thanks. My name is Ann. 3. A) lives B) living C) live
Dorothy: Hello Mark. My name is Dorothy. e. Oh great
4. A) but B) while C) or
Ann: Nice to (3) …………, Dorothy.
Dorothy: Mm. It is a (4) ………… . 5. A) so B) such C) but
Ann: Is Mr. Eric here? 6. A) of B) over C) above
Dorothy: Yes. You just have to go through that door. 7. A) within B) while C) with
Ann: Oh (5) ………………………? OK, OK.
8. A) worst B) the worst C) worse than
Thanks very much. Nice to meet you. Dorothy.
Dorothy: Wonderful. Bye. 9. A) digging B) digger C) digs
Ann: Bye. 10. A) much B) many C) any
 SPORTS Van Persie’s World Cup hopes take nosedive
Injured Dutch striker Robin van Persie’s hopes of being fit for the World Cup took
a nosedive when Arsenal said he could be out of action until May. “If you are very
positive you would say [he will be back in] April,” manager Arsene Wenger
told the Premier League club’s Web site (www.arsenal.com). “If you’re a bit
cautious you say May. It is virtually the rest of the season.” London, Reuters

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009

BASKETBALL

AP, NG HAN GUAN

Women’s junior team
reports to camp
The Turkish women’s junior national basket-
ball team began training on Tuesday in prep-
aration for the upcoming FIBA Under-17
Black Eagles’ fall

PHOTO
World Championship for Women, which
will be held on July 16-25 in France next year.
The training camp at the Pamukspor facilities
will continue until Dec. 26. Hasan Frat Okul
is the head coach of the team, and the fol-
lowing players are participating in the train-
from grace continues
ing camp: Olcay Çakr, Özge Kavurmacolu, The Eagles’ winless streak has increased to four after their defeat in Manisa, and Michael Schumacher
Pnar Melodi Çalkan (Pamukspor), Aye
Cora, Hande Melis Karasu, Yasemin Koç, most fans are fed up with coach Denizli’s lame excuses. The coach has a one-month
Gülah Duman (Beikta Cola Turka), Ferda
Yldz, Büra Akgün (Antalya Koleji), Merve
break to put his house in order and return prepared for the season’s second half Schumacher
agrees to drive

T ODAY ’S ZAMAN
Aydn (Mersin Büyükehir Belediyesi), Me- OKAN UDO BASSEY STANBUL
like Yalçnkaya (Ceyhan Belediyesi), Pelin
Derya Bilgiç, Elif Emirtekin and Cansu Yeti
(BOTA Spor). stanbul Today’s Zaman
History has proven beyond a doubt
that the Turkish Cup, rightfully
for Mercedes
Seven-time Formula One champion Mi-
dubbed the “tournament of upsets,”
chael Schumacher has agreed a one-year
SOCCER is a competition in which minnows often

Hakan Arkan
undergoes surgery
Injured Beikta goalkeeper Hakan Arkan
has undergone surgery on his left wrist. Dr.
Ufuk Nalbatolu, who performed the sur-
gery at the Kadköy Acbadem Hospital, said
on Tuesday that it was a very successful op-
eration. Club doctor Devrim Urgun said the
keeper was to be released later on Wednes-
day. “His wrist will be in a cast for three
weeks, and after the rst week, he will start
wrist exercises. The treatment will last for six
weeks,” Urgun stated. stanbul Today’s Zaman
SOCCER
Former ‘Busby Babe’
Scanlon dies at 74
Former Manchester United winger Albert
Scanlon, one of the ‘Busby Babes’ who sur-
vived the 1958 Munich air disaster that killed
eight teammates, has died at the age of 74.
Manchester United paid tribute on their Web
site (www.manutd.com) to a player who
made his debut at the age of 19 for Matt Bus-
by’s rst team in 1954 after coming through
the United youth system. Scanlon won two
titles as an outside forward in 1956 and 1957
and was on the ight from Belgrade to Man-
chester that crashed after a refueling stop in
Munich following a European Cup match
in February 1958. Fifteen passengers and
crew were also killed in the disaster. Scanlon
stayed with United after recovering from his
injuries, making 127 senior appearances and
scoring 35 goals. London Reuters/AP
ICE HOCKEY
Sharks take top
spot in NHL West
The San Jose Sharks defeated the Chicago
Blackhawks in a battle for top spot in the NHL
Western Conference on Tuesday, withstanding
a erce third-period onslaught to hold on for a
3-2 victory. San Jose netminder Evgeni Nabo-
kov made 45 saves, many of them in the nal
minutes, while Dany Heatley, Joe Thornton
and Jason Demers netted to help the Sharks
snap the Blackhawks’ (23-9-3) four-game win-
ning streak. “Our goalie gets an A-plus but as a
team that’s not the way you want to win hock-
ey games,” Sharks defenseman Dan Boyle told
reporters. Other NHL results (home teams in
CAPS): Anaheim 4, COLORADO 2 and VAN-
COUVER 4, Nashville 1. Chicago Reuters
show no respect for soccer prodigies.
This competition again lived up to its name
on Tuesday night when Turkcell Super League
newcomer Manisaspor beat the visiting Beikta
Black Eagles 2-1 in their Ziraat Turkish Cup
Group D opener at Manisa’s 19 Mays Stadium
-- thereby rubbing salt into the wounds of the
slumping stanbul soccer powerhouse.
Goals by 26-year-old Canadian striker
Joshua Christopher Simpson in the 37th
minute and 22-year-old Turkey international
striker Ergin Kele in the 61st compounded
the Eagles woes and tribulations. Brazilian
striker Deivson Rogeiro da Silva (Bobo) got
the consolation goal for Beikta in the 48th.
How the mighty have fallen. The Beikta
Black Eagles, who clinched the domestic
league and cup double back in May, are almost
unrecognizable nowadays. Already eliminated
from all European competitions, the embattled
Beikta nished a distant fth at the halfway
point in this season’s Turkcell Super League.
Winless streak
The Black Eagles, going into Tuesday’s match at
Manisa, were winless in three domestic league
matches and one UEFA Champions League
match this month. They drew 0-0 in the Turk-
cell Super League with Diyarbakrspor, 1-1
with Manisaspor and were beaten 3-2 by Bur-
saspor. They were also defeated 2-1 at home
by Russian outt CSKA Moscow in the Cham-
pions League, a result that sent them packing
from Europe this season.
Tuesday’s debacle in the Ziraat Turkish
Cup Group D -- which also includes stanbul
Büyükehir Belediyespor, Kasmpaa and
Konya ekerspor -- has increased the Eagles’
winless streak in December to four games. And
this, without mincing words, is relegation form.
Disallowed goal
As in every game so far this season, the Manisa
match also was not without controversy. A
goal scored by Nigeria striker Isaac Promise
in the 49th minute, exactly one minute after
Beikta equalized, was ruled offside by referee
Hüseyin Göçek and therefore disallowed.
Interestingly though, the coaches of both
teams dwelled mostly on the match itself in
their post-match new conferences, not on the
referee’s decisions or non-decisions.
“The tempo was incredible,” visibly happy
and smiling Manisaspor coach Mesut Bakkal
said. “Our rst match [in the league] ended
1-1. And I am sure the fans watched an exciting
Manisaspor players celebrate their victory over the Beikta Black Eagles in a Ziraat Turkish
Cup Group D match at Manisa’s 19 Mays Stadium on Tuesday night.
The Beikta Black Eagles, in a far too frequent occurrence nowadays, leave the Manisa 19
Mays Stadium pitch with their heads bowed after Tuesday’s cup debacle.
match, plenty of scoring positions and a goal
that was scored but disallowed. I therefore con-
gratulate the players of both teams,” he stated.
It is true that the Beikta Black Eagles
were highly depleted in the Manisa match.
Several key players, including the top two
goalkeepers Rütü Reçber and Hakan
Arkan, were sidelined due to injury and
the fate of the “mighty” Eagles was left in
the hands of young and inexperienced ju-
nior keeper Korcan Çelikay. But that team,
nonetheless, was Beikta and so there can
be no excuse for losing.
“We played well, but if you don’t reap
the fruits of your labor, you can’t be happy,”
P H OT OS
deal to come out of retirement and drive for
Mercedes in 2010, Bild newspaper reported.
Formula One driver Nico Rosberg has
welcomed reports that Michael Schumacher
was to be named as his Mercedes teammate
for next season, but warned the former world
champ will have a difcult task to make his
comeback successful.
Schumacher, 40, was expected to be
announced as a Mercedes driver later on
Wednesday after three years in retirement.
“It will not be easy for him,” Rosberg
in German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung.
“When you stay away from F1 for a long time,
it takes time to get used to all the test sessions
again. It’s not simple.”
The Bild newspaper said the 40-year-old
German, who won his titles with Benetton and
Ferrari and retired at the end of 2006, signed
the deal at the team’s ofces in Brackley, Eng-
land, after a month of talks.
Schumacher will earn 7 million euros ($10
million), according to media reports, in what
would be an all-German line-up.
Mercedes, who have taken over champi-
ons Brawn, have signed Nico Rosberg as their
other driver for 2010.
Schumacher turns 41 in January and, if con-
rmed, will be returning to F1 after aborting
plans for a comeback with Ferrari this year as a
stand-in for injured Brazilian Felipe Massa due
to a neck injury caused by a motorcycle accident.
A move to Mercedes would reunite him
with Britain’s Ross Brawn, the technical di-
rector who guided Schumacher to his record
seven titles and 91 race wins and who is now
the team principal.
It will also take Schumacher’s career full
circle, since the German drove for the Mer-
cedes sportscar team before breaking into For-
mula One with Jordan in 1991.
Since his retirement the German has worked
said Beikta coach Mustafa Denizli. “It was
a rough and tumble match, but we allowed
as a consultant for Ferrari, but the Italian team
has said that is not a binding agreement.
our opponents to have the upper hand. We
committed too many turnovers and did not
Age no barrier
defend well,” he lamented.
Former champions Damon Hill, Schumacher’s
But who is Denizli complaining to, if we
rival in the 1990s, and Nigel Mansell have both
may ask. It is his duty to right the wrongs at
said that age will be no impediment and that
Beikta and that’s why he is there.
the German could return as a winner.
As a matter of fact, most fans are fed up
“It wouldn’t surprise me if Michael chal-
with Denizli’s lame excuses. He has a one-
lenged for another world championship,” Brit-
month winter break to put his house in order
ain’s 1992 champion Mansell, who won his
and return well prepared for the season’s sec-
title aged 39 and competed in Formula One
ond half -- or face the music. That is it!
until the age of 41, said at the weekend.
In the other Ziraat Turkish Cup on Tues-
“It doesn’t matter what age you are as long
day, Eskiehirspor beat Antalyaspor 1-0 away.
as you are professional, committed and fo-
cused,” added the Briton. Berlin Reuters

SOCCER
Feyenoord piles on
agony for Alkmaar
Kobe Bryant’s 40 helps Lakers eclipse Oklahoma City Thunder
REUTERS, FRANK POLICH

Kobe Bryant scored 40 points and shook off ibility and was able to bounce back but it was still coach Phil Jackson. “Oklahoma had been in LA longer
A goal by Georginio Wijnaldum earned Fey-
a knee scare to help the Los Angeles Lakers scary,” Bryant told reporters. than we were. Fortunately we had a good third quarter
enoord a 1-0 home win over league cham-
survive a nail-biting nish and defeat the Oklaho- “We made adjustments after the rst half, it’s and played the way we anticipated we should.”
pion AZ Alkmaar in the Dutch Cup fourth
ma City Thunder 111-108 in the NBA on Tuesday. really about grinding it out and winning games.” Derek Fisher nished with a trio of three-
round. It represented another blow for Al-
With the Thunder pressing late in the fourth Kevin Durant scored a team-high 30 points and pointers and 15 points while Pau Gasol added 15
kmaar which also failed to qualify for the
quarter, the Lakers made six consecutive free throws Westbrook added 21 and 13 assists (13-14) for the and 11 rebounds for the Lakers. It was the Thun-
knockout stages of the Champions League
in the nal 90 seconds and breathed a collective sigh Thunder, who slumped to their fth loss in six games. der’s 12th consecutive loss to Los Angeles.
and is seventh in the Dutch league, 19 points
of relief when Russell Westbrook missed a potential The league-leading Lakers (23-4) got off to a slow Other NBA results on Tuesday (home teams
behind leader Twente Enschede. Alkmaar
game-tying three-pointer in the nal seconds. start in their rst game back at home following a ve- in CAPS): CHARLOTTE 88, Detroit 76; WASH-
sacked coach Ronald Koeman earlier this
All-Star guard Bryant was among six Lakers to game road trip. They trailed by 12 in the second quar- INGTON 105, Philadelphia 98; BOSTON 103, In-
PHOTO

month, bringing in Dick Advocaat as his

score in double-gures, and added eight rebounds ter and were down by seven at halftime before their diana 94; NY KNICKS 88, Chicago 81; MEMPHIS
successor. Sparta Rotterdam also reached
and six assists. He also survived a scare when he came defense stiffened to capture the 16th win in their last 121, Golden State 108; Atlanta 112, MINNESOTA
the last eight with a 5-0 victory over amateur
down awkwardly on his left knee late in the fourth. 17 contests. “Just getting ourselves back into the ow 87; Portland 85, DALLAS 81; and HOUSTON 108,
side Baronie Breda. Rotterdam Reuters Kobe Bryant
“I was scared. I did a lot of work with my ex- (after the road trip) took some time,” said Los Angeles LA Clippers 99. Los Angeles Reuters/AP