US embassy cable - 04ANKARA6116

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ANKARA 006116 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/27/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, TU 
SUBJECT: HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT CALLING FOR NEW CONCEPT OF 
"MINORITY" SPOTLIGHTS FUNDAMENTAL CHALLENGES FOR TURKEY 
 
REF: ANKARA 3236 
 
Classified By: (U) Classified by Polcouns John Kunstadter; reasons: E.O 
. 12958 1.4 (b, d). 
 
1. (C) Summary: A GOT human rights board's report 
recommending Turkey update its concept of "minority" to make 
it consistent with Western European practices has stirred 
sharp controversy.  Report notes Turkey continues to apply a 
narrow, discriminatory definition of "minority" based on 
Turkish State's mis-interpretation of 1923 Lausanne Treaty. 
These "non-Muslim" minorities are de facto barred from 
holding positions in core State institutions.  FM Gul and 
other GOT officials have criticized the report, asserting it 
reflects only the views of a minority of board members. 
However, the report's conclusions are consistent with our 
observations and many contacts affirm the substance of the 
report.  In the midst of a tense GOT-EU debate over the 
definition of "minority," head of the EU Commission office in 
Ankara asserts the GOT's narrow definition may violate a 
number of international conventions signed by Turkey.  This 
long-overdue debate reveals that Turkey, despite major legal 
reforms on paper, remains distant from the West in 
fundamental civil-society respects.  End Summary. 
 
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Report Calls For New "Minority" Definition 
------------------------------------------ 
 
2. (U) The Minorities Working Group of the Prime Ministry's 
Human Rights Consultation Board on October 22 submitted a 
report calling on the GOT to develop a new concept of 
"minority" consistent with practice in contemporary Western 
societies and underscoring the discriminatory way in which 
those who are not Muslims are not considered "Turks". 
 
3. (U) The report notes that while the West has recognized 
the existence of ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities 
for centuries, Turkey continues to apply a narrow, legalistic 
definition of "minority" rooted in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty. 
The Lausanne text refers to the rights of "non-Muslim" 
minorities; it makes no reference to ethnic or linguistic 
minorities.  Moreover, the Turkish State interprets the 
treaty as conferring legal minority status exclusively to 
only three "non-Muslim" communities -- Greek Orthodox 
Christians, Armenian Orthodox Christians, and Jews -- 
although these groups are not specified in the text. 
 
4. (U) The report draws attention to the Turkish State's 
continuing practice of ignoring a Lausanne article stating 
that "all Turkish nationals" have the right "to use any 
language they wish in commerce, in public and private 
meetings and in all types of press and publication media." 
Turkey has long restricted the use of Kurdish and other 
non-Turkish languages; under recent EU-related reforms 
non-Turkish news and cultural broadcasts have been permitted 
only under tight restrictions (reftel). 
 
5. (U) To this day, according to the report, the Turkish 
State has based Turkish identity on the Turkish language and 
the Muslim faith.  "Non-Muslim" Turks are blocked de facto 
from participating in key State institutions such as the 
armed forces, the MFA, law enforcement, and the Turkish 
National Intelligence Organization, according to the report 
(Note: this is consistent with our observations.  End Note). 
Turks who are not Muslim or who speak languages other than 
Turkish are discriminated against -- including by the courts 
-- for being "of foreign origin with Turkish citizenship" 
rather than Turks.  The report calls on the GOT to amend the 
Constitution and all relevant laws to embrace the Western 
concepts of equal rights for all citizens and cultural rights 
for all ethnic/linguistic/religious groups. 
 
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Officials Reject Report 
----------------------- 
 
6. (U) The report was drafted by a subcommittee of the 
78-member Consultation Board.  Many Board members -- who 
include police, Jandarma and government officials, in 
addition to human rights observers -- reacted angrily when 
they learned of the report, and accused Board Chairman 
Ibrahim Kaboglu of adopting the text without the approval of 
the majority of Board members.  Kaboglu, an Istanbul 
University professor, insists that the report was adopted 
according to Board regulations -- by a majority of members 
present at a meeting attended by more than half the Board 
members. 
 
7. (U) High-level GOT officials have also criticized the 
report.  FM Gul asserted that the report's conclusions were 
inspired by "jealousy" and claimed that the GOT had not asked 
the Board to prepare such a report.  Vahit Bicak, head of the 
Human Rights Presidency (attached to the PM's office), 
declared that the report does not reflect the GOT view. Board 
members were temporarily locked out of their meeting room at 
the Prime Ministry.  Fethi Bolayir, president of the Societal 
Thought Association, reportedly applied to the prosecutor's 
office to press treason charges against the lead author of 
the report. 
 
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EU Has Also Raised Minority Issue 
--------------------------------- 
 
8. (U) The report surfaced in the press at a moment when 
Turkish sensitivities on the question of minorities are at a 
peak.  The GOT and EU are engaged in a tense debate over the 
way the Turkish State defines minorities.  GOT officials and 
Turkish pundits criticized the EU Commission for referring to 
Kurds and Alevis as minorities in its October 6 reports on 
Turkey.  Ambassador Kretschmer, head of the EU Commission 
Representation to Turkey, has said publicly that Turkey's 
official definition of "minority" may be in conflict with a 
number of international conventions signed by Turkey. 
 
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Non-Muslims Have Second-Class Status 
------------------------------------ 
 
9. (C) A wide range of contacts has expressed to us views 
consistent with the report.  Baskin Oran, the Ankara 
University professor who headed the subcommittee that drafted 
the report, told us recently that the Turkish Republic has 
failed to establish a modern, pluralistic concept of 
"Turkishness."  Turkish identity, he averred, continues to be 
defined in the context of a "millet residue" -- a reference 
to the "millet" system under which non-Muslims in the Ottoman 
Empire maintained separate legal and educational systems and 
were generally treated as second-class subjects.  To this 
day, you cannot be considered a "real" Turk if you are not 
Muslim.  Turks refer to the country's non-Muslims as "Turkish 
Citizens" -- by which they mean non-Turks who hold 
citizenship -- while Muslims are simply called "Turks." 
 
10. (C) Suavi Aydin, a Hacettepe University anthropologist 
and expert on Anatolian minorities, asserted to us that the 
ethnic aspect of Turkishness is complex, and less significant 
than the religious/linguistic aspect.  In the 19th and early 
20th centuries, large numbers of Islamized immigrants -- 
principally from the Balkans (mostly of Slavic origin but 
including people who had converted, at least nominally, from 
Judaism) and the Caucasus -- poured into Anatolia.  It is 
widely known that many Turks today are descendants of these 
immigrants.  Aydin said no one knows what percentage of 
modern Turks actually descend from the original Turkmen 
population of Anatolia; he estimated it is probably around 50 
percent (note: his estimate is widely at variance with the 
figure of 6,000,000, or 8.5% of the population, used 
confidentially by the Turkish State, according to leading 
 
SIPDIS 
national security analyst Faruk Demir.  From our own 
observations throughout Anatolia and the comments to us of 
other anthropologists and sociologists, we thing Demir's 
figure is accurate.  End note). 
 
11. (C) Turks rarely openly analyze their nation's ethnic 
diversity, but they recognize it in the faces of their 
compatriots, Aydin continued.  Since the early days of the 
Republic, immigrants have been pressured to speak Turkish 
exclusively, adopt Islam (at least nominally; practicing the 
faith is optional) and leave behind their native language and 
culture.  All who did so were accepted as Turks, in the 
interest of establishing a large, unified, uniform nation. 
Any efforts to study or comment on ethnic diversity are 
viewed as threats to the State.  Oran recalled a saying 
posted on the classroom wall when he was in elementary 
school: "Citizen, Speak Turkish."  At the time, he viewed it 
as encouragement to use proper Turkish grammar; he now 
recognizes it as a warning to immigrants. 
 
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Kurds, Alevis Present Dilemma 
----------------------------- 
 
12. (C) Aydin said the Kurds represent a unique dilemma for 
the Turkish State -- they are Muslims, but many of them 
maintain their mother tongue and assert their cultural 
identity.  This explains why the State long tried to deny the 
existence of the Kurds as a distinct group, asserting until 
the early 1990's that they are "mountain Turks" who speak a 
"dialect."  There appears to be no discrimination against 
Kurds as long as they are assimilated into mainstream Turkish 
society and do not make an issue of their Kurdish identity. 
Such Kurds can hold high positions in the government and 
bureaucracy.  But those who speak Kurdish or otherwise 
highlight their ethnic/cultural identity are viewed as 
separatists. 
 
13. (C) Tunc Ugdul, MFA Deputy Director General for 
International Political Organizations, recently confirmed to 
us the State's awkward relation to the Kurds.  Ugdul 
criticized the EU for referring to Kurds as a "minority," 
averring that, "We do not consider the Kurds a minority 
because Kurds can become soldiers, police, judges, and 
high-level government officials.  They are not one of the 
minorities that is prevented from holding those kinds of 
positions."  When asked whether it is official policy to bar 
minorities from government jobs, Ugdul bobbed and weaved, 
answering uneasily that non-Muslims are underrepresented in 
government. 
 
14. (U) Alevis also face suspicion as a large group outside 
the Sunni Muslim mainstream.  Some Alevis do not consider 
themselves Muslim, while others view Alevism as a branch of 
Islam.  The GOT rejects any description that implies Alevis 
constitute a religious minority.  During a visit to Germany 
in 2003, PM Erdogan stated that Alevism is "not a religion" 
and that Alevi Cem houses are "culture houses" rather than 
"temples."  Many Alevis claim that Turks who openly identify 
themselves as Alevi are barred from higher-level positions in 
government.  However, at least until recently, a fair number 
of senior officers in the Turkish military were reportedly 
Alevi. 
 
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Comment 
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15. (C) Owing to the "secular" nature of the working group, 
the report fails to examine the status and role of religion 
as it relates to the unresolved questions of minorities, 
individual and national identity, and development of civic 
society.  Nevertheless, the report cogently exposes the heavy 
social, intellectual, and psychological costs stemming from 
the Turkish State's fearful and discriminatory approach to 
minorities,  Moreover, in concert with the EU's October 6 
reports, the report has sparked a long-overdue debate on one 
of the most sensitive, unresolved issues in Turkey. 
 
16. (C) Unfortunately, there are as yet no voices on the GOT 
side calling for change.  The EU-related reform process has 
focused on legal amendments, and the GOT has racked up 
impressive accomplishments on paper in that field.  But 
Turkey's antiquated, suspicious approach toward minorities 
serves as a reminder that the gap between Turkey and the West 
is in some areas much wider than is usually acknowledged.  A 
pro-Turkey Danish diplomat formerly assigned to Ankara used 
to say that the Turkey that joins the EU will have to be very 
different from the Turkey that begins its harmonization 
process.  We agree.  If harmonization is to be successful, 
Turkey will have to undergo a profound, radical change in the 
relationship between the State and its citizens.  In this 
regard, as many of our Turkish interlocutors admit, a Turkey 
that hasn't figured out what it means to be "Turkish" will 
not have the self-confidence truly to integrate with Europe. 
EDELMAN