Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
TUESDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2002
DR WILLIAM
HALE, DR
PHILIP ROBINS
AND MR
WILLIAM PARK
20. Would you colleagues like to comment on
what Mr Mackinlay asked?
(Dr Hale) Can I just stay something about the role
of the military first. I think we are looking at two issues here.
One is the military's role in maintaining law and order in the
south-east which, as Philip has mentioned, has involved very serious
human rights abuses and clearly we have to press the Turkish authorities
for the elimination of those. The second aspect is the role of
the military in Government in influencing Government decisions
in fields outside strictly the sphere of national security and
defence. In this regard, there have been changes recently and,
in particular, in the Accession Partnership Document which the
European Union issued in November 2000, they called upon the Turkish
Government to bring the powers and functions of the National Security
Council into line with the practice of other European Union member
states. In response to that, Article 118 of the Constitution was
altered. Previously, the wording of this clause included the statement
that the Council of Ministers shall give priority consideration
to the decisions of the National Security Council concerning the
measures that it deems necessary and so on and this has been rewritten
to say, "The National Security Council shall submit to the
Council of Ministers its view on the advisory decisions that are
taken" and that the Council of Ministers shall evaluate decisions
of the National Security Council. In other words, the rewording
is meant to convert the National Security Council into, more properly,
purely an advisory role. The second change which was made was
in the composition of the National Security Council. The Minister
of Justice is now included as a member of the Council so that
there would be a majority of civilian members of the Council.
21. In your judgment, is that likely to make
a difference?
(Dr Hale) We simply do not know; we have to wait and
see. I think the question relates also to something that Philip
Robins mentioned which is that a large part of the Turkish public
still regard the military with a great deal of respect. Public
opinion polls show that it has far more trust in the military
than it does in their elected politicians. So, changing that cultural
situation is going to be quite difficult.
Mr Illsley
22. It is another one of these circular arguments
where we in the West are saying, "There is no way we are
going to let you into the European Union while you have this military
influence over your Government" and yet without the military
influence over the Government, the politicians tend to verge on
the corrupt and the public at large tend to trust the military
more than the politicians. These contradictions are . . .
(Dr Hale) Many countries have contradictions in political
systems. Can I just go back to the Kurdish question which Mr Mackinlay
importantly raised. Your first question, if I remember correctly,
Mr Mackinlay, was whether there is an equivalent to the SDLP.
Andrew Mackinlay
23. Yes, John Hume, as it were.
(Dr Hale) The HADEP is, at the moment anyway, a legally
established party. Its leadership has always strictly eschewed
the use of terrorism but it is probably the case that a large
number of its grass root supporters either are or have been supporters
of the PKK. So, it would be hard to say that HADEP is in the same
position as Sinn Fein, but there are some parallels there. Apart
from that, it has to be remembered that quite a large number of
members of parliament, probably somewhere between 120 and 150
in the Turkish Parliament out of a total membership of about 550,
are representatives of the Kurds or are themselves of Kurdish
origin. These people do make their point and have their say within
the mainline Turkish political parties and this can, and has done,
open up internal divisions within the political parties over these
issues. So, there is a different situation to Britain. It is as
if both the Conservative Party and Labour Party had a substantial
representation from Northern Ireland for example, which they do
not at the moment. I am not quite as pessimistic as Dr Robins
about the possibilities of change here. Two issues which have
been firmly put on the agenda by the European Union are first
of all permission for Kurdish language broadcasting which is at
the moment forbidden under the broadcasting law, and the second
one is the use of Kurdish in education, although I have to admit
that the European Union was extremely vague about what it actually
was requiring Turkey to do in that regard. On the first issue,
there is widespread support for allowing Kurdish language broadcasting
except in the Nationalist Action Party and I suspect parts of
the police and the security forces, and the army maybe. However,
I do not think it is impossible; in fact, I think it is probable
that there may well be a change on this point in the near future.
On the question of the use of Kurdish in education, one has a
wide range of possibilities running from at one extreme the use
of Kurdish as a medium of instruction for all subjects in schools
and maybe universities in the south-east. This is most unlikely
to be achieved. The Constitution states quite strictly that the
language of education shall be Turkish. At the other end of the
spectrum, you have the possibility of allowing the formation of
Kurdish cultural societies et cetera which could encourage the
use of the Kurdish language. It remains to be seen what position
the European Union would take on that but of course it also has
to be remembered that there is a wide variety of different practices
within different European Union countries.
Mr Hamilton
24. I want to move us on now to Turkey's role
in the war against terrorism after September 11. Do you think
it is fair to say that in the war against terrorism Turkey's increased
importance has therefore increased the reliance of the West on
Turkey and reduced any leverage that the West may have on Turkey
in terms of internal changes or other issues that we have discussed
this morning? Secondly, what does Turkey hope to gain out of its
increasingly important role in the war against terrorism?
(Mr Park) It is interesting to try to pin down what
Turkey's role is in the war against terrorism, or indeed what
the war is. There is no doubt that Turkey has won itself more
friends in the United States by its very positive support and
its willingness to contribute forces and to play a role in the
UN force in Afghanistan and so on. Afghanistan is interesting
first of all partly because, other than that there may have been
special forces already there, the forces promised did not arrive
because essentially America has achieved its answer before that
happened. The interesting issue is this possibility that the Turks
might take the lead in the UN force when the British give it up.
It is not clear that that will happen because it is not clear
that everybody in Afghanistan would welcome it. In Afghanistan
some people see Turkey as too close to the Uzbeks, to General
Dostum. This is perhaps a little bit of a lesson to everybody,
that we presented Turkey as being Muslim and on our side and therefore
usable but within the Islamic world there are lots of different
splits and factions and Turkey can be seen as on one side rather
than another in Afghanistan. Quite how usable Turkey is in Afghanistan
I think is still to be resolved. More broadly, when one looks
at the international politics, again there is no doubt that Turkey
is prepared to make resources and facilities available, most especially
to the United States, but it is very nervous about Iraq and at
every opportunity is reminding the United States of the risks
of military involvement with Iraq. They fear the dismemberment
of the country because of the impact on their own Kurdish problem,
and also for economic reasons. Again, should the war against terrorism
shift towards action against Iraq, and indeed even Iran, I could
envisage tensions with Turkey. On the way in which we in the West,
most especially in Europe, deal with terrorist groups, there is
also a problem because the Turks would rather that the European
Union had included on the list of prescribed organisations groups
that Ankara itself regards as prescribed and we have not done
that, so it is a little bit inclined to say, "We have long
had a problem with terrorism and one of our problems has been
external support, not least in Europe, for those groups, either
in the form of direct support or at least allowing people to live
here". There is therefore scope for differences of view there:
how far in this war against terrorism are we going to go in prescribing
terrorist groups that essentially operate internally and on behalf
of causes that can be identified as self-determination? If we
are not going to do that then my guess is that we will continue
to have some problems with the Turks. I think there are a lot
of questions about precisely what Turkey's role is going to be
in this whole range of issues, and indeed whether this whole range
of issues that we call the war against terrorism is all moving
in the same direction.
(Dr Robins) I just want to add briefly that of course,
as we know, the world did not begin on 11 September and I think
it would be wrong to give the view that Turkey is only being helpful
in some of these areas since 11 September. A very good example
of this is in peacekeeping operations in that the Turks were frustrated
in not having a role in Bosnia much earlier, and when they did
have the opportunity to play a role on the ground through the
deployment of both military peacekeepers and also police they
performed extremely well in comparison to most of the other international
contingents that were there, and they continue to be there and
they continue to be well regarded on the ground. The Turks were
also part of the international-Italian-led operation in Albania,
for instance. They were also in Somalia. Smaller contingents have
played a role elsewhere as well. I think due note should be given
to this because I think this is evidence of Turkey's willingness
to play a role as, if you like, good international citizen. There
is a sort of middle power role there that perhaps the Turks could
be encouraged to play with the traditional middle power model
in mind. Certainly if one wants to help wean the Turkish military
away from an over-preoccupation with domestic politics then giving
them a role more broadly, a role which would involve a considerable
amount of prestige, which would involve closer relations with
those countries and those other military contingents with which
they feel particularly close, then that would be really quite
an effective and potentially successful way of doing that which
might at the same time lead people to view the Turkish military
in a more textured way.
25. Obviously a lot of the points you make in
your submission to us. Can I come back to something that Mr Park
said earlier about Turkey's role as a Muslim state and the fact
that there are so many divisions within the different Muslim countries?
For example, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Kamal Kharrazi, is
quite opposed to Turkish involvement in Afghanistan, suspecting
an ulterior motive, and you mentioned, quite rightly, Turkey's
connection to the Uzbek warlord General Dostum. Do you think that
Iran is going to object very strongly if Turkey starts taking
a lead role in peacekeeping in Afghanistan? What will Iran's reaction
be, and does it matter?
(Mr Park) There seems to be quite a lot of rockiness
at the moment in the way in which we, the West, are regarding
Iran. For a period it looked a little bit as if there could be
especially some US/Iranian rapport with respect to events in Afghanistan.
More recently these hopes have faded because the Iranians seem
to be supporting their man in Herat quite directly and may also
have been a conduit, an escape route, for al-Qaida. I am not sure
how true that is but it is out there as a possibility. Precisely
what kind of role Iran is playing itself seems to shift from day
to day and maybe is largely explained by domestic Iranian politics,
on which I am not an expert. The more Turkey is involved in what
we will call the war against terrorism, almost regardless of the
form that takes, simply the more it is involved, the more this
will raise problems with its relationships with other parts of
the Muslim world. The big issue is to what extent would it matter.
In this respect I think it much more depends on how far the United
States and Iran fall out with respect to Afghanistan. Turkey and
Iran work quite hard to maintain a relationship between themselves
in spite of everything, but this set of issues and the role that
the Turks might be encouraged (or indeed might volunteer themselves)
to take in Afghanistan could cause problems if there is a bigger
problem in Iranian/US relationships or a bigger problem in the
way Iran views Afghanistan. I think in a sense that the big question
here, in addition to what I have already said about Turkey, is
about Iran. What precisely is its aspiration in Afghanistan? The
rule of thumb is the more that the neighbouring or interested
parties continue to back their side in Iran rather than some notion
of national coalition, the more there will be fall-out. However,
if the Iranians throw their lot in, as initially seems to be the
case, in the creation of an internationally agreed resolution
of the Afghanistan issue, then the Turks could probably become
involved in ways that would not unduly upset Turkish/Iranian relations.
26. I do not know if you saw the Newsnight
programme on Friday about Iran's increasing influence in Afghanistan
with the building projects, especially around Herat. The only
new road being built in Afghanistan in the last 20 years has been
built by Iranian workers which obviously would lead you to think
that Iran is seeking a wider role in Afghanistan. I just want
to ask you finally whether any of you believe that therefore Turkey
could be a conduit towards closer relations of the European Union
and Iran. You mentioned that although there seemed at one stage
to be the possibility of a rapprochement between Iran and the
US, that is obviously not the case, but Iran is making quite strong
efforts to move closer to European Union countries. Is Turkey
the way to do that?
(Dr Robins) The issue of, "Can Turkey be a bridge
for the West to the Muslim world?" often comes up and it
has always struck me as wishful thinking, as a misleading analogy.
There is a sense in which it literally is a land bridge for certain
land transported cargoes, but more philosophically, more culturally,
personally I would tend to see the European Union as a bridge
for better relations between Turkey and Iran. Turkey has always
looked west, is very much oriented towards the West, it has tried
to keep out of Middle Eastern politics for many years, going back
to the difficulties it had during the Baghdad Pact back in the
1950s. It does not particularly understand Middle Eastern politics
or Middle Eastern dynamics. It is not comfortable with it. It
is not comfortable operating in those circumstances. I would say
that the European Union, or some European Union countries, have
better relations with Iran than Turkey has with Iran. The Turks
and the Iranians in the 1980s and into the 1990s came to some
tentative understandings. They perhaps realised that it was not
in the interests of either of them to get too much involved in
the politics of the other. Occasionally things would flare up,
particularly over the support that was perceived to be given by
one for the opposition groups in the other, but by and large it
is a relationship which has been characterised I suppose by a
wary stability, or a wariness which has delivered a certain stability
but without there being much interaction or much by way of warmth.
Occasionally it is said, and I think that the Turks themselves
picked this point up a little bit, that September 11 gave them
an opportunity to be a forum or to provide a platform for the
West and the Islamic world to come together, and I think there
was even a proposal by the Foreign Minister that there should
be some sort of a gathering in Istanbul where people should come
together and exchange views and so on. I am sure that we have
all been involved in the last few months in thinking about ways
in which we can increase communication with the Muslim world and
understand perspectives and reassure one another and so on. Those
I have spoken to about whether Turkey could really have a role
here have tended to be somewhat dismissive partly because they
say that Turkey is insufficiently democratic to parade a democratic
platform which fuses Islam and democracy, but on the other hand
are insufficiently inclusive in terms of the moderate Islamist
forces inside Turkey to have a credibility in the wider Muslim
world. While Turkey essentially could play this sort of role in
the future if its democratic component goes up and its domestic
inclusiveness is increased, I think at the moment probably it
is somewhat poorly placed to play that sort of role.
27. Dr Robins, you mention in your submission
to the Committee the huge and profound effect that President Clinton's
visit had in 1999 in warming relations between Turkey and the
US and eliminating some of the suspicions that many Turks have
of the US. Should Tony Blair visit Turkey?
(Dr Robins) It may seem a little bit frivolous to
talk in these terms but I have become more and more convinced
that a substantial amount of the problems that have existed between
Turkey and Europe, Turkey and individual countries, Turkey and
the United States, is one of presentation, of misperception and
so on, so if we can get our presentation in order then we will
not of course address all of the problems because there are major
substantive problems here, but it will certainly provide a much
better context in which we can go at some of these problems together
in a low-key and businesslike sort of way. I think a regular stream
of high level visitors really did serve the United States extremely
well here and that is precisely the sort of thing that has never
really happened with the European Union. Jacques Delors never
visited Turkey, for instance. I think Robin Cook spent four hours
in Turkey during his term as Foreign Secretary. Tony Blair has
not visited Turkey even though I think he is interested in Turkey.
We hear he is interested in Turkey and he is certainly not ill
disposed towards Turkey. High level visits of this kind, even
if they are only vacations with a little bit of official business
tagged on at the end, would mean an awful lot and would certainly
play very well.
Mr Maples
28. Can we move on to European defence? When
the process started up Turkey's misgivings were understandable.
It was a member of NATO, it was not a member of the EU, it was
not likely to become one for some time. With so many of the potential
conflict situations sketched out by the European Union in Turkey's
area of the world, and with the long-standing hostilities with
Greece and Cyprus, one can understand all their misgivings. They
then suddenly seem to have evaporated without any solid evidence
of what they have achieved in exchange for being difficult for
a year or so. I wonder two things. First of all, is there some
agreement in Baghdad that I have missed or is secret and you know
about and I do not, in which they have got some local decisions
on the use of NATO assets in EU operations or which have given
them some joie de vivre on European defence initiatives,
or did they have some collaboration with the United States to
make this happen? In other words, have we got a solution to this
problem or has it just been made to go away for the time being?
(Mr Park) I think the Turks achieved quite a lot.
I will have to modify that statement a little bit, but the achievement
(such as it was) was not between, say, the position in the middle
of November and the position in early December 2001. The achievement
really dates back to the previous summer. Essentially the Turks
felt excluded. It is possible to present the EU's ESDP as exclusive,
discriminatory, to non-EU members and the Turks took umbrage at
that. They entered into these negotiations and I think fairly
early on the form that largely British-conducted negotiations
developed went quite some way to giving the Turks what they wanted.
What was then interesting was that the Turks said it was not enough
until they decided in December 2001 that it was enough. It is
not clear that something new was offered to them, that they had
suddenly been able to accept at the end of November, beginning
of December.
29. Do you know what they were offered six months
earlier?
(Mr Park) I think they were essentially offered what
they had been offered months earlier and that they had argued
was not enough. Suddenly it was enough. There was a meeting on
November 27, I think, and early in December the Turks said, "Okay,
we are now satisfied". I do not think anything happened then,
but what they signing up to was something they did not have when
these negotiations first started back in May. To that extent,
from the beginning the Turks causing a fuss did actually get them
something, but what made them change their mind and accept what
they had been offered is quite interesting and a little bit lost.
My guess is that it was something to do with the United States
here. There is no doubt that the United States were lobbying quite
heavily. I have no proof but I am struck by the link between the
Turks saying, "We will now sign up to what you are offering
us on ESDP" and the EU saying to Turkey, "You can now
become a member of the Convention that looks at the future of
the European Union". I have no proof that these things are
connected, but it did seem to me that the EU and Turkey shifted
positions on these issues at roughly the same time, so maybe there
is a connection. One of the problems I have, and I think both
Philip and Bill are more experienced than I am on this, in interpreting
Turkish diplomacy is that it at least seems to me that it is very
often characterised by a kind of brinkmanship. I am never quite
sure whether the position really is as tough and as uncompromising
as it appears to be or whether that is a negotiating tactic or
a final position. Another interpretation is that the Turks dug
in, asked for more, recognised by November or December that they
were not going to get more, and decided to accept what they had
been offered. It might be that they just appreciated that they
had gone as far as they could go. They have never publicised in
Turkey exactly what the terms of this understanding are. I roughly
know what they are but they never publicised them.
30. Can you tell us what your understanding
of the terms is?
(Mr Park) Basically the Turks were arguing for something
beyond assurances that the EU would not do two things. One was
that it would not get involved in anything to do with Greece and
Turkey or Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, and the other that it would
not get involved in anything in what Turkey regarded as an area
of vital concern, which covers most of the places probably where
crises are likely to develop, because it is the Balkans, it is
the Caucasus, it is the Middle East, and so on. The threat was
that if they did not get satisfaction on this they would veto
the EU's access to NATO assets. Basically what the British/American
negotiating team offered them was assurances that of course Turkey's
views would be taken seriously. What the Turks sought was guarantees,
and that is essentially the difference. The language used was
involvement in "decision making", which the EU said,
"You cannot have", and "decision shaping"
which basically the British said, "You can have" and
which the Turks said (until early December) was not acceptable.
The Turks seem to have accepted "decision shaping".
They have accepted that the EU will not be involved; an assurance—I
do not think it is more than that—that the EU will not be
involved in arguments between NATO states. My guess is that the
Americans would make sure that that is the case anyway, and maybe
the Americans did do something that satisfied the Turks there.
The other is that the Turks had been promised that on a case by
case basis they will be consulted at an early stage in a more
or less inclusive and formalised manner on any EU consideration
of operations in those areas that Turkey regards as vital to its
interests. The mechanism for achieving this is basically upgrading
committees. There is a Committee of Interlocutors, which I think
the British came up with, which is essentially NATO non-EU states.
The Turks wanted this to be a standing committee and the British
promised that it would meet when it was necessary. Somewhere in
there is a fudge that the Turks now say is satisfactory. The other
is the Committee of Contributors, that is, those countries who
might be prepared to contribute to an operation will be consulted
fully and at an early stage. Again there seems to have been some
diplomatic language which satisfies the EU's requirement that
it makes decisions whether it is going to have an operation, and
Turkey's requirement that it is included in that from the beginning.
It seems to me that these two committees, on both of which Turkey
will sit, will have a kind of terms of reference that will ensure
(I believe) that Turkey will be consulted at an early stage. The
Greeks have objected to this so technically the EU has now not
been able to accept this deal, because the Greeks have said that
in fact the EU's insistence on the autonomy of its decision-making
has been eroded or undermined by this deal. The British position
is that it has not; the Greek position is that it has; Turkey's
position is that it is now a problem between Greece and the EU.
We are talking about the niceties of the terms of reference of
these committees, on the distinction in practice between decision
making about an operation and decision shaping, on how much Turkey's
involvement towards the front end of a set of considerations about
an operation means involvement as if it were an EU member, or
involvement as if it were something less than an EU member, and
all of this obviously is a matter of interpretation depending
on where one sits, and clearly the Greeks sit in a position that
is quite different from where Turkey sits.
(Dr Hale) I would go along with Bill Park's suggestions
about the techniques of Turkish diplomacy. I think that probably
is the way they operate. One other thing I would add is that the
ESDP issue did not seem to awaken an enormous amount of public
interest or sharp feeling in Turkey itself. People in Turkey at
the time during last year were primarily concerned with the economic
situation of the country and when it came to foreign policy issues
there was Cyprus, relations with the EU in general, Afghanistan,
etc. The ESDP tended to drop into the background and I suspect
that that was what made it easier for the Turkish to reach an
agreement eventually with the EU via the British Government than
would otherwise have been the case.
Mr Pope
31. Turning now to drugs, most of the heroin
that is used in the UK passes through Turkey and most of the heroin
that passes through Turkey passes through the south east of Turkey.
Clearly this is an area under fairly strict military control.
It struck me that if one of the concerns of the military is that
politicians (maybe not just in Turkey; perhaps here as well) are
short-termist, possibly corrupt, not really very trustworthy,
in truth it is at least arguable that the military are not much
better. They must know about the trade in heroin that is going
through south east Turkey. It is possible to conclude that they
even control some of it. I just wondered what your view was as
to whether they can stop it if they wish, why do they not stop
it, what is their involvement?
(Dr Hale) It is an impossible question to answer,
to be honest, Mr Pope. There is virtually no reporting about this
in the Turkish press and certainly no serious admissions by officialdom
about it. What does seem to be the case is that various tribal
chieftains are probably engaged in this trade and that they may
very well have corrupt relationships with local authorities, but
this is guesswork. It is a conclusion which one reaches from the
outside evidence without internal evidence. There was one particular
incident a number of years ago in the Susurluk crash which, if
I remember, took place in November 1996, in which a senior member
of the Turkish police force plus a well known and indeed convicted
drug smuggler, plus a Kurdish tribal chieftain who was also a
member of parliament for what was then the ruling party, were
together in a motor car along with the mistress of one of them.
Mr Maples
32. This was not reported in the Turkish press?
(Dr Hale) This was widely reported in the press. The
crash happened, by the way, in the western part of Turkey. Susurluk
is near Balikesir in Western Anatolia. This produced evidence
of these kinds of corrupt relationships. Maybe this was simply
the tip of the iceberg.
Chairman
33. The Army had not been implicated?
(Dr Hale) No, the Army was not implicated.
34. And have not been?
(Dr Hale) I do not know of any cases where this has
come to light.
Mr Pope
35. I must say If I had been involved in the
car crash it is the sort of thing I would like to keep out of
The Accrington Observer. There is obviously a number of
obstacles to Turkey's accession to the EU and we are going to
talk about human rights and Cyprus and so on, but surely this
issue of drugs must be one of them. It would hugely assist Turkey
if you could try and close down the trafficking in heroin through
its borders. Most of that heroin is destined for EU nations. I
would have thought that most EU nations would feel much better
disposed towards Turkey if it were being proactive on this issue.
I just wondered if that was a political view that was shared by
Turkish politicians, that it is in their own interests to do something
about it.
(Dr Robins) One of the problems in driving this up
the list of policy priorities in Turkey has been on the one hand
that there has not been, certainly not until recently, an appreciable
amount of use inside Turkey of drugs and certainly not hard drugs,
so there has not been a domestic pressure for this to be taken
very seriously inside Turkey. It is not perceived to be a problem
that they have. At the same time, to be fair to the Turks, they
have had a number of other issues, particularly to do with the
south east of the country and to do with cross-border issues—terrorism,
insurgency and so on—which have been very much more important
and where the resources have gone in in greater amounts. One certainly
could say that as the insurgency in the south east of the country
has died back, so Turkish authorities have started to take the
drugs issue more seriously, and certainly if you talk to the gendarmerie
who are the branch of the military that are responsible for policing
functions in the rural areas, they seem to have undertaken certainly
internal reorganisations and the shifting of resources from about
1997 onwards to take into account a lower level of insurgency
on the one hand and drugs as a bigger problem on the other. There
are certainly domestic reasons why the Turks perhaps have not
taken this issue so seriously in the past. Talking to Turkish
officials more recently about this, I think that there is a perception
(and whether it is a reasonable and accurate perception is another
question) that if they do very well in certain areas that are
of interest to the European Union that will be taken into account
and that will somehow be taken to compensate for the fact that
they may do slightly less well in other areas. I get the impression
that hard drugs and co-operation over hard drugs has been earmarked
as one of those areas where they really can focus on and they
can do better than expected. As I said earlier, certainly over
the last two years there has been a big improvement in co-operation
and you now have a situation in western Europe where not only
the Dutch and the Germans are saying that the Turks are very co-operative
over this, but even British law enforcement agencies are saying
this as well, and they tend to have been some of the most critical
parties in the recent past. Where we are at the moment is in a
situation where things are really starting to be much better than
they were in the past. It is also interesting to note that the
last couple of years or so has been the time when the Turks and
particularly the Turkish military have set about trying to clean
up the Turkish state, trying to weed out corrupt practices in
the state, arresting people who have been involved in cronyist
business ventures on the back of political relationships and so
on. I suspect that moving in this area is seen as part and parcel
of cleaning up some of the very bad and unhealthy practices which
crept in between 1993 and 1997, which were if you like a negative
by-product of the war against the PKK which we have been talking
about.
(Mr Park) I agree with everything that Philip has
said on this. One thing we have to bear in mind about the percentage
of heroin that goes through Turkey is simply the map. It comes
through Turkey because it comes from the east of Turkey. An increasing
amount of it, it is believed, also goes through the former Soviet
Union, but it kind of has to go through Turkey or somewhere close
to it and after that fans out to its markets. One of the things
we have to say, and this is not an observation about Turkey, is
how effective drug smuggling is throughout Europe. It happens
to be effective in Turkey percentage-wise because that is where
it goes through. It gets into Britain and into Germany and into
Holland as well, whether we want it or not. A second point is
that the Turks do have a natural advantage in this business, which
is that they have a large Turkish and Kurdish diaspora scattered
throughout Europe and this link also is quite important. Otherwise
everything that Philip has said is absolutely the case. As there
is more control in south eastern Europe, also with greater commitment
that has taken place for other reasons, the Turks do seem to be
making more effort and being more effective in this area.
(Dr Hale) If it were possible to stop the drugs trade
running through Turkey then it also ought to be possible to stop
drugs entering the countries of western Europe. It is extremely
difficult. There is a large, perfectly legitimate, civilian truck
traffic between Turkey and its eastern neighbours and drug smugglers
will exploit that to infiltrate drugs through the system.
(Dr Robins) Apropos of the point about Iran earlier,
which is an important one, one of the difficulties in terms of
the Turks addressing this question has been that there has tended
to be very little co-operation across the border with the Iranians.
This is not because the Iranians are uninterested in the issue.
Quite the contrary: they have a very big domestic hard drug problem
themselves. It is because most of their efforts go into their
eastern border, into stopping the transport and flow of drugs
into Iran and into the major cities of Iran. But of course the
fact that the Iranian effort is directed to the east means that
there is relatively little cross-border co-operation with the
Turks to the west and on the Turks' eastern border. This is certainly
an area where some of those people working in the area of combating
hard drugs have been trying to focus and I think there is a lot
of potential there for trying to bring about closer co-operation
between the Turkish and Iranian governments to the benefit of
both parties and of course ultimately to the benefit of all of
us.
36. Clearly there is an illegal trade in the
east anyway, is there not? I was reading an article in The
New York Times that was talking about a trade in oil between
Turkey and Iraq and that if they allow that to take place, which
is sanctions busting, then presumably it is quite hard to prevent
other illegal smuggling.
(Dr Robins) There has always been a lot of cross-border
livestock smuggling across that border, for instance, but I think
the oil smuggling — everybody knows it is there, everybody
knows it happens. There are just a lot of blind eyes being turned
to it because of the economic impact of sanctions on the south
east of Turkey.
(Dr Hale) And also the economic impact of closing
that trade on the Kurds in Iraq on the other side.
Sir John Stanley
37. Turning to human rights, can we start by
getting the benefit of a broad perspective which you have as to
how far away you judge Turkey to be in time terms from meeting
human rights standards for EU accession. Would you put it at a
five-year progress? Is it a ten-year progress? Is it a 15-year
progress? Perhaps you could give us a view as to the length of
time which it is realistic to expect Turkey to be able to make
the changes to meet the EU accession standards.
(Dr Hale) There are a number of different fields in
which changes have to take place. The first changes would be changes
to the law, especially the penal code and various other statutes.
This could be accomplished within two or three years, I would
imagine, maybe less. Most recently, for instance, the Justice
Commission of the Parliament, which is the equivalent of the Standing
Committee, passed various changes in particular to Article 312
and Article 159 of the penal code which I mentioned in my paper.
These changes were regarded as quite insufficient. Indeed, critics
have argued that the new versions of those articles are even less
respectful of human rights than the previous versions, but there
is very widespread opposition to these proposed drafts. It appears
that Parliament will now be taking this issue up in March.[1]
My judgement is that those drafts are likely to be substantially
altered and that there is a reasonable possibility that this and
similar items of legislation could be brought into line with the
European Convention on Human Rights. The second field of human
rights, which will be more difficult to achieve, would be protection
of minorities, as was mentioned in the Copenhagen criteria. On
this issue it is not exactly clear, as I referred to earlier,
what the European Union would regard as adequate. Changes will
be difficult to achieve but again I think they can be achieved
within a medium term perspective.
38. Numbers of years? What is your medium term?
(Dr Hale) By, say, 2004, 2005. The third and more
difficult issue is improvements in the prison system, in the working
of the criminal justice system, and in the treatment of prisoners
in detention. There have been some shortening of the period that
prisoners can be held in detention prior to being brought before
a judge. This now stands as 48 hours which is, I believe, the
same as it is in Italy, and other changes to the Criminal Courts
Procedures Act are apparently on the agenda. However, to eliminate
the use of torture as a regular means of extracting evidence or
confessions from people held in detention would require a much
more effective system for prosecuting police officers who commit
those offences. This will be, I think, far more difficult to achieve
and could take a number of years. Improvements in the prison system
would also be required. This is not a field in which I have any
expertise at all but these are the kinds of fields in which one
imagines that changes would be harder to achieve. Again I would
not like to exclude the possibility that they could be achieved.
39. In that last most difficult area is your
timescale out to five years and beyond?
(Dr Hale) Yes.
1 Note by Witness: In fact, the Turkish parliament
debated these Articles on 6 February 2002, the day after this
evidence was given. Both Articles affect freedom of speech and
communication. Article 312 of the Penal Code was amended, so as
to apparently bring it into line with Article 10 of the European
Convention on Human Rights. Article 159 was left largely unchanged,
except that the punishments applicable were reduced, whereas many
would argue that it should have been withdrawn, or at least substantially
re-written. Back
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