US embassy cable - 04ADANA109

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ADANA 000109 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PINS, PGOV, PHUM, IZ, TU, Press Summaries, ADANA 
SUBJECT: SOUTHEAST TURKEY PRESS SUMMARY AUGUST 20, 2004 
 
 
This is the Southeastern Turkey press summary for August 20, 
2004. Please note that Turkish press reports often contain 
errors or exaggerations; AmConsulate Adana does not vouch for 
the accuracy of the reports summarized here. 
POLITICAL, SECURITY, HUMAN RIGHTS 
SABAH, MILLIYET: Working on a tip, police from Izmir Security 
Directorate arrested two alleged PKK/Kongra-Gel suspects with 
one kilo of C-4 bombs in a house in Ciftlikkoy. The suspects 
told police during questioning that they had been planning to 
attack the touristic Cesme town of Izmir. 
ULKEDE GUNDEM: Villagers found two unidentified dead bodies in 
Findik district of Guclukonak, Sirnak province, yesterday. 
Jandarma took the dead bodies to Guclukonak to identify them. 
ZAMAN, ULKEDE OZGUR GUNDEM: 600 people evicted from their houses 
in Ilicak (Germav) village of Beytussebab, Sirnak province, have 
been living in tents under very tough conditions for about a 
month now. The villagers told the visiting Diyarbakir HRA 
Committee that in one case 21 persons were living in one tent. 
Soldiers from the Beytussebab Jandarma Command reportedly told 
villagers that they should move, for security reasons, to the 
right bank of the Ilicak Creek that runs through the village, 
but the villagers unanimously told the HRA Committee that the 
GOT forces evicted them from their houses for having assisted 
and harbored the PKK. They said that PKK militants had not 
visited their village for over a year, but that villagers had 
provided food to the militants in the past out of fear. Some 
women in the tents complained that their children were suffering 
from skin diseases. The Beytussebab Sub-governor Cihan Demirhan 
told the HRA Committee that the villagers had not been forcibly 
evicted, and that they could return to their houses if they 
wanted. 
MILLIYET, HURRIYET: Hasan Tabak, 23, who had managed to escape 
from the highly-secure Kurkculer F-type prison in Adana on May 
7, 2004, was rearrested in Adana. Tabak is being charged with 
attempted murder, and with being a member of a criminal 
organization. Tabak was also involved in a fight after he had 
escaped from the prison. 
VAKIT: Based on a tip, the Jandarma team from Hilvan, Sanliurfa 
province, seized 3.4 kilos of hashish and 2,279 roots of hemp in 
a field in Bahcecik village that belonged to Resat Y., who was 
later imprisoned. 
MILLIYET, HURRIYET: President Bush's National Security Advisor 
Condaleeza Rice stated that the United States was doing what it 
could, with non-military methods, to weaken the PKK and make it 
less active. During a speech Rice delivered at a Washington 
think-tank in Washington, in response to a question about 
combating the PKK, she said "In order to confront the threat 
imposed on Turkey by this irregular force, which we have 
declared as a terrorist organization, we are discussing with 
Turkish authorities about what can be done on both sides of the 
border." 
EVRENSEL: In Adana, some NGOs and political parties condemned 
the U.S. attacks in Najaf, Iraq. The demonstrators, who gathered 
in the Inonu Park, carried placards stating "Do Not Go to Iraq, 
Do Not Shed Brothers Blood," and shouted anti-American slogans. 
The Adana HRA Secretary, Ethem Acikalin, claimed that the United 
States is attempting to activate its Broader Middle East Project 
by invading Najaf. 
MILLIYET, ULKEDE OZGUR GUNDEM: With initiative from the 
government, the Radio and Television High Commission (RTUK) 
prepared a new regulation opening the path for broadcasting in 
languages other than Turkish on TRT and other national TV 
channels. Given the demand from the Southeast for broadcasting 
in Kurdish, and taking into account the sensitivity in the 
Southeast into account, RTUK requested opinions from some 
government agencies, including Interior Ministry and National 
Intelligence Organization (MIT), about whether or not 
broadcasting in Kurdish in Diyarbakir is permissible. The 
Diyarbakir Governorate, inresponse to an Interior Ministry 
inquiry said that the most widely spoken Kurdish dialect in 
Diyarbakir was the Kirmanci dialect. RTUK informed the 
Diyarbakir Soz and Gun TV stations and the Cagri-TV in Batman, 
which had applied for permission for broadcasting in Kurdish 
some time ago, to submit their applications. Military circles 
are not sympathetic to broadcasting in Kurdish before a detailed 
study has been made in the region. 
AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS 
YENI SAFAK: In Viransehir, Sanliurfa province, the Chamber of 
Agriculture Vice President Hammut Babac said that the yield in 
cotton was going to be lower than last year's production due to 
the problems they experienced in electricity and irrigation. He 
said that they produced 140,000 tons of cotton from 280,000 
acres in 2003 and that they were expecting the yield from the 
same area to be between 80-90,000 tons in 2004. 
 
 
REID