Turkey in International Media

One year after the mine disaster in Soma, the rage continues.
 
May 13 marked the first anniversary of Turkey’s worst industrial accident after a fire broke out in the coal mine of Soma and 301 workers died. The extent of the tragedy was almost certainly aggravated by costs cutting exercises after the state-run mine was leased to a private company in 2005. Ventilation shafts and even gas masks were poorly maintained.
 
One year later, relatives expressed their fury at the government’s inaction in huge rallies where protestors carried photographs and the names of their dead colleagues and relatives. Critics complain that the cosy relationship between government officials and mine executives was at the root of the criminal negligence. Families of the dead as well as survivors of the fire, many of whom were to lose their jobs protested the lack of justice and financial compensation.
 
Worse, the government has yet to learn the lesson of the disaster. According to numbers collected by the Istanbul Council of Occupational Safety and Health (ISIG) some 500 people have already died in work accidents since the beginning of 2015.
 
Turkish freighter attacked near the Libyan coast.
 
On the night of Sunday, May 10, a cargo ship said to be carrying gypsum from Spain to Libya came under attack 13 miles (24km) from the port of Tobruk. The ship was attacked by ground artillery fire in international waters that left several crew members hurt and the third officer dead. A spokesmen of the official Tobruk government denied that the ship was in international waters and said it had fair warning and that its destination was the rebel held port city of Derna.
 
Financial Times reporter Daniel Dombey explains, that the latest incident shows how Turkey is seen as a hostile force by the Libyan government where civil war is also viewed asa proxy fight between Egypt and the United Emirates, with Cairo supporting the internationally-recognized government, and Turkey and Qatar helping breakaway Islamists.
 
 
Turks fear military alliance with Saudi Arabia will drag them into war with Syria.
 
The AP reports that frustration with Washington’s reluctance to bring down Syrian President al-Assad has prompted Turkey and Saudi Arabia into agreeing to support rebel groups inside Syria. Despite the US priority to degrade the Islamic State and fear the Assad regime might be succeeded by radical Islamicists, Turkish President Erdoğan and Saudi King Salman sealed a pack in early March, overcoming disagreements over the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Syrian opposition. The new joint command centre in northeastern Syrian province of Idlib has been successful in eroding the Syrian military’s frontline and capturing territory, according to Usama Abu Zeid, legal adviser to the Free Syrian Army.
 
This has raised concerns in Turkey itself  that armed forces might be drawn into to conflict, with troops entering the Syria to set up a buffer zone in the north. These fears are fuelled by eyewitness reports that weapons and foreign militants are crossing the Turkish-Syrian where Turkish units are deployed. One theory the columnists discuss if only to reject is President Erdoğan will invade Syria as an excuse to postpone June general elections.
 
Turkish enthusiasm to join the fight against Assad contrasts to what the New York Times describes as Turkey reluctance to confront Isis. A report from the border says there is little attempt to conceal the transport of the fertilizer ammonium nitrate in Syria, a material used in bomb. Few have doubts that the potentially lethal chemicals will end up in jihadist hands, the paper says.
 
Kenan Evren, leader of Turkey’s 1980 military coup and former president dies at the age of 97.
 
On Saturday, May 9, one of Turkey’s most controversial figures died of multiple organ failure at Ankara’s GATA military hospital. As Turkish chief of staff, Kenan Evren seized power from the civilian government on 12 September, 1980 with ‘’the intention of saving the country from a slide into anarchy.’’ But that coup unleashed a wave of arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings.
 
Over 500,000 Turks were imprisoned under martial law on political charges. Some 300 died in custody, many of torture. In 1982, Evren secured the voters’ approval to become president for the following seven years under a constitution which gave government a strangle hold on civil society.
 
By 2014, the tide had turned sufficiently to allow Evren to be convicted of crimes against the state and sentenced to life imprisonment – a punishment he was too ill to serve. “As the chief orchestrator of the 1980 military coup, the choreographer of ruthless oppression and the architect of the restrictive order which still, after three decades, holds Turkey in a straitjacket, Evren will go down in history as the dictator who could get away with a big crime,” Yavuz Baydar summarised Kenan Evren’s legacy in an interview for the New York Times two years ago.
 
Erdoğan tries to appeal German-Turks during his campaign tour politicalising Islam to boot out oppositional parties.
 
At presidential elections last August, Turkish citizens living in Germany were allowed for the first time to cast a vote. To increase the low voter turnout of 8 percent Erdoğan visited Karlsruhe, a city in Germany’s south, in a supposedly “non-partisan” campaign. Unfortunately, most of the German newspapers didn’t swallow the Turkish President’s claim to be impartial. Following Erdoğan’s speech last Sunday, May 10, leftist newspaper taz wrote of an “illegal electoral campaign appearance” and reported about the protests of German-Turks, leaving three people injured after supporters and critics of Erdoğan clashed. Daily FAZ, too, accused Erdoğan of violating the president’s constitutional mandate not to support a political party.
 
Both German and Turkish media accused Erdoğan of exploiting Islam in the election campaign to weaken out the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP) and the Republican People’s Party (CHP). He openly criticised the opposition parties for their plans to close down the Religious Affairs Directorate, known as the Diyanet. Many see the Diyanet as ideological tool of the AKP, fuelled with huge financial resources.
 
Turkey-Russia pipeline deal may foil EU’s plans to diversify its energy supply.
 
On a visit to Ankara on Thursday, May 7, Alexei Miller, chief executive of Gazprom announced that the Russian gas company had reached agreement on the “Turkey Stream” project to channel natural gas from Russia to the Turkish-Greek border via the Black Sea by December 2016. If the project goes ahead, this will frustrate the EU’s plans to free themselves from dependence on Russia by purchasing gas from Central Asia via Turkish territory.  Two projects would not be viable.
 
This follows the cancellation of the “South Stream”, meant to carry Russian gas to Europe via Bulgaria, “Turkey Stream” would keep Europe as a Russian market while excluding Ukraine as a transit country.
 
 

Tags: libyan coast, russia, soma, turkish freighter