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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ANKARA 002897 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR INR/R/MR, EUR/SE, EUR/PD, NEA/PD, DRL 
JCS PASS J-5/CDR S. WRIGHT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KMDR TU
SUBJECT: ANKARA MEDIA REACTION REPORT 
MONDAY, MAY 22, 2006 
 
 
In Today's Papers 
 
The Deadly Attack on the High Court and its Aftermath 
Hurriyet, Milliyet, Sabah, Cumhuriyet, Radikal, Zaman, Yeni 
Safak and others:  Over the weekend, Turkish police detained 
nine suspects in connection with Wednesday's deadly attack 
on the top administrative court, the Council of State 
(Danistay,) in which a lawyer burst into the deliberation 
room and shot dead judge Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin and wounded 
four others.  One of the judges said that the gunman, 
Alparslan Aslan, shouted that he was a `soldier of God' 
during the attack.  The mastermind of the attack, Muzaffer 
Tekin, a captain sacked from the military in 1982, was 
hospitalized with a knife wound near his heart after he 
reportedly attempted suicide on Saturday.  Monday papers 
speculate that the attacker was linked to a coalition of 
extreme nationalist and Islamist groups.  Police said he 
also took part in the recent bomb attacks on Turkey's 
staunchly secular Cumhuriyet daily. 
 
The day after the Danistay raid and over the weekend, up to 
120,000 people walked to Ataturk's mausoleum and tens of 
thousands took part in a ceremony at the court in the 
largest secularist protest in Ankara since those following 
the 1993 car bomb killing of a newspaper columnist.  The 
fatal shooting brought a harsh and intense public reaction, 
and angry demonstrators hurled insults and plastics bottles 
at members of government who attended the funeral of Judge 
Ozbilgin.  Justice Minister Cemil Cicek was chased out of 
the funeral ceremony by people carrying Turkish flags, and 
deputy PM Abdullatif Sener was booed by protestors who also 
chanted slogans against PM Erdogan. 
 
Top government officials issued calls for common sense. 
Foreign Minister Gul and Deputy Prime Minister Sener 
stressed that an escalation of tensions would harm national 
interests, and warned the nation against a return to the 
'old days of turmoil,' saying the government had 'the power 
to overcome paranoia.'  In Egypt's Sharm al-Sheikh over the 
weekend to participate in a World Economic Forum meeting, 
Prime Minister Erdogan said the police were close to 
revealing the details behind the mysterious attack.  Erdogan 
had earlier criticized general Hilmi Ozkok, chief of Turkish 
General Staff, after Turkey's top general called on Turks to 
continue their protests in defense of secularism. 
'Expecting such protests and reactions in the future and 
commending such actions is not the right thing to do. 
People holding positions of responsibility should know well 
what to recommend and how,' Erdogan said, referring to 
comments by Ozkok.  Ozkok's call was seen as a warning to 
the government from the military, which forced an Islamist- 
leaning government to step down in 1997. 
 
Erdogan Meets Zoellick, Mubarak in Egypt 
Hurriyet, Milliyet, Sabah, Cumhuriyet, Radikal, Zaman and 
others:  Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan met on Sunday with US 
Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick on the margins of 
the World Economic Forum summit meetings in Sharm al Sheik. 
Erdogan urged Zoellick to implement a stronger mechanism 
against the PKK presence in northern Iraq, while Zoellick 
explained to the PM the structure of the new government 
established in Iraq.  Zoellick also asked for Turkey's 
support to sustain Iran's relations with the IAEA.  Erdogan 
expressed concern over the fact that the new Iraqi 
government has only one Turkmen minister in the new cabinet, 
adding that this was inappropriate in a representative 
system of government. 
 
Erdogan told foreign journalists after the summit talks that 
 
ANKARA 00002897  002 OF 004 
 
 
sanctions imposed on the Palestinian Authority would only 
breed hatred, and described efforts to isolate the ruling 
Hamas party as a mistake.  Erdogan likened the attempt to 
isolate Hamas to the way Israel and the West tried to 
ostracize Yasser Arafat before the 1993 Oslo peace 
agreements legitimized his leadership.  'We must not repeat 
the same mistakes we have made in the past.  Condemning the 
people of Palestine to famine and further suffering will end 
up in worse repercussions,' he said.  Erdogan said Turkey 
will provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people. 
'Turkey and Egypt have agreed that we have to provide aid to 
Palestine, because this our responsibility as a country in 
the Middle East,' he added.  Erdogan also held a meeting 
with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday to discuss 
Iraq and other regional issues. 
 
Turkey-US Disagree on Strategic Vision Document 
Cumhuriyet wrote on Friday that Turkish and US officials had 
failed to agree on the final details of the strategic vision 
document, and that this week Turks would travel to the US to 
continue discussions.  The Turkish side has insisted on 
adding to the document steps for fighting the PKK, while 
Washington wanted the document only to say that the US would 
support Turkey's struggle against the terrorist 
organization.  The US also refused to include in the 
document provisions for boosting direct trade with Turkish 
Cyprus. Cumhuriyet expects the document to be finalized 
during the visit of Prime Minister Erdogan to the US. 
 
Papadopoulos Emerges Stronger from Elections 
All papers report that Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos' 
party DIKO gained ground in early results from Sunday's 
parliamentary election, increasing its vote to 19.4 percent 
from the 14.8 it scored in 2001, a sign that voters approved 
of his hardline policies on Turkey.  Communist AKEL, a 
ruling coalition partner, had 31.1 percent of the vote 
against 30.3 for the main opposition DISI.  Turkish papers 
say the elections marked a second failed attempt to reunify 
the divided island, with Hurriyet carrying a headline, 'Mr 
No's Election Victory.' 
 
Turkish Day Parade in New York 
All papers report that thousands of Turkish Americans joined 
the 25th annual Turkish Day Parade in New York over the 
weekend with Turkish lawmakers Mehmet Ali Sahin, Egemen 
Bagis, Zeynep Damla Gurel, Reha Denemec, Sukru Elekdag and 
Mevlut Cavusoglu participating in the parade.  Sahin said he 
wanted to see Turks living in the US as members of the House 
of Representatives and Senate, so that 'Turkey can have a 
strong lobby group in US politics.' 
 
Turkish Contract for Purchase of Attack Helicopters 
A news-commentary in the mainstream mass appeal daily Sabah 
says Turkey is to decide in June on the purchase of 50 
attack helicopters in which the French-German partnership 
Eurocopter has been competing with Russian and South African 
companies.  Eurocopter was relieved when US firms Boeing and 
Bell-Textron pulled out of the Turkish state contract, 
citing difficult conditions with respect to technology 
transfer.  Eurocopter CEO Fabrice Bregier said it was a 
relief for them to see US Apache helicopters out of the 
competition.  However, the Americans have begun lobbying 
activities in Ankara again.  Ankara, stuck between the EU 
and US companies, will have a hard time deciding the winner. 
 
 
Editorial Comments 
 
Turkish Democracy and Secularism 
Ali Aslan wrote from Washington in the Islamist-oriented 
 
ANKARA 00002897  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
Zaman (05/22):  "In the American system, no single 
institution of government has supremacy over the others. 
Instead, each institution exercises control on the others 
through a system of checks and balances.  In this way, 
crises can be overcome in a short time through a culture of 
conciliation and a tradition of pragmatic consensus.  Viewed 
from Washington, we can see that Turkey has not yet reached 
this stage of political maturity.  In Turkey, one of the 
most important reasons for political tension is the fact 
that the legislative and executive authorities are more 
religious, while the judicial authority is more secular.  So 
when I spoke last week to a former US Ambassador to Turkey, 
he said that with last week's attack against the Danistay, 
Turkey is entering a period in which secular-religious 
tensions will be intensified.  In the US vision, there is a 
Turkey that is both secular and democratic.  The Americans 
say this both publicly and in private.  They argue that 
secularism and democracy are not principles that contradict 
one another, but rather principles that complete one 
another.  Washington doesn't want Turkish secularism to harm 
its democracy, nor Turkish democracy to harm secularism. 
The Americans want to see a solution, including to the 
question of the presidential election, reached through 
conciliation. 
 
Before the Issue Comes to the Agenda Again 
Sami Kohen commented in the mainstream daily Milliyet 
(5/20):  "The French Parliament did not pass the bill that 
would ban the denial of the Armenian Genocide.  Armenians 
were deeply disappointed that the draft bill was not 
approved.  Of course, this outcome is comforting for Turkey, 
but just for the moment.Because this draft was not rejected 
by a parliamentary vote.  The Socialists in France could 
bring the issue on the agenda once again next fall.  There 
are lessons to be learned from this latest development in 
the French parliament.  First of all, the French government 
clearly stated that it did not support this bill.  This 
shows that if the government is energetic in its opposition, 
it is possible to prevent the such bills from winning 
approval.  The French government's stance also shows us that 
Turkey has an important place in French foreign policy.  As 
in many other countries, Turkey failed to act in a timely 
way in France on the Armenian issue.  But the possibility 
that this bill could pass the French parliament roused the 
Turkish government and Turkish people, and initiatives were 
taken to block it.  This proves that with some creative 
efforts, the negative sentiments about Turkey on the 
Armenian issue can be changed.  What Turkey needs to do is 
to face the world with a new strategy and a new image on 
this issue." 
 
 
TV News 
(NTV, 8.00 a.m.) 
 
Domestic News 
- Foreign Minister Gul told a provincial AKP gathering the 
deadly attack on the Council of State (Danistay) was an 
attack against the state and the government, stressing that 
Turkey must not go back to the chaos of the past. 
 
- Former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit remains in a coma 
after being operated on following a brain hemorrhage on 
Friday. 
 
- Prime Minister Erdogan told the World Economic Forum 
meeting on Sunday that his government plans to increase 
Turkey's national income to 800 billion USD by the year 
¶2012. 
 
 
ANKARA 00002897  004 OF 004 
 
 
- This week the Turkish parliament will discuss a draft law 
that would task the Prime Ministry with coordinating the 
fight against terrorism. 
 
- Turkey's main Kurdish party DTP co-chairman Ahmet Turk 
called on Prime Minister Erdogan to launch a dialogue with 
his party in an effort to solve the Kurdish problem. 
 
International News 
- Israeli Prime Minister Olmert warned that Iran is just a 
few months away from acquiring the technological know-how 
that will allow it to produce nuclear bombs. 
 
- On Sunday, 55.5 of Montenegrins voted for independence, 
according to unofficial results.  Belgrade will reportedly 
not object to the outcome. 
 
 Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at 
 
  http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/ankara/ 
 
WILSON