US embassy cable - 03ADANA88

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ADANA 0088 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PINS, PGOV, PHUM, IZ, TU, ADANA, Press Summaries 
SUBJECT:  SOUTHEAST TURKEY PRESS SUMMARY 
MARCH 27, 2003 
 
 
1. This is the Southeastern Turkey press summary 
for March 27, 2003.  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 
 
 
Radikal: The US applied to Turkey for permission 
to use Incirlik, Batman, and Malatya air bases 
for striking Iraq as it faced difficulty in 
advancing to Baghdad from the south. The Turkish 
government responded that Incirlik AB could be 
used for transporting wounded soldiers and 
damaged vehicles, but a motion was required for 
using new bases and for purposes other than 
specified above. It is also reported that 
reciprocal suspicion concerning goals in Northern 
Iraq have not been totally eliminated. While 
Turkish diplomatic sources complain about lack of 
knowledge about "what the US has exactly promised 
to the Kurds", the US suspects that "Turkey bears 
undeclared intentions about Northern Iraq." 
 
 
Radikal/Sabah/Tercuman: In order not to 
experience the difficulty it has been facing in 
the south in the war on Iraq, the US wants to 
include Turkey in the Military and Humanitarian 
Relief Coordination Center to be established in 
Salahaddin and thus form an air bridge that would 
connect Northern Iraq to the Mediterranean. The 
US reported its expectations from Turkey within 
the framework of this plan to Ankara recently. As 
it was disclosed by the US Commander in 
Selahaddin, Lt. Gen. Henry Osman, establishment 
of a liaison office in Silopi has been requested. 
The US request's conformity with the Turkish 
Constitution and laws is being examined, and a 
meeting between the US, Turkey, and Northern 
Iraqi Groups is being considered. The sides are 
in total agreement that Turkey should supply all 
sorts of needs of the refugees who would flow to 
the Turkish border, but the needs of the Northern 
Iraqis who would remain in their houses, 
including food, energy, medicine, infrastructure 
and security should be provided by the US. It is 
believed that the US units hundreds of kilometers 
away from their nearest headquarters in Iraq 
could not fulfill this task without cooperation 
of Turkey. 
 
 
Radikal/Milliyet: Two days after they evacuated 
their base in Nusaybin, the Americans resumed 
construction work at the factories they rented in 
the Organized Industrial Zone on Kiziltepe-Mardin 
highway. The US soldiers surrounded the factories 
with barbed wire, and sand bags. The US also 
rented land behind a yarn factory for 
constructing a helicopter pad, and carried 
logistical material in trucks. Reporters were not 
allowed to the site which had been turned into a 
logistical support center. The soldiers 
positioned on the roofs of the factories remain 
on guard round the clock and control the area 
with binoculars. Tens of armored vehicles, 
antiaircraft batteries, medical equipment, and 
radio equipment are deployed on the base. 
Radikal: In addition to physical measures taken 
in Cukurca of Hakkari and Silopi of Sirnak for 
the likely flow of refugees to the Turkish 
border, the Health Ministry announced it would 
send 30 thousand units of protective shots, and 
dressing kits in addition to the medical supply 
they would dispatch to Van, Hakkari, Sirnak, and 
Mardin provinces. The officials said the refugees 
to be admitted to Turkey would be given 
protective shots, and dressing kits would be kept 
in hospitals. 104 health clerks temporarily 
assigned to the Southeast from Istanbul were 
dispatched to the region by military aircraft. 
 
 
Radikal/Hurriyet/Milliyet: The US and Dutch 
soldiers deployed at Batman AB will be fined on 
grounds of contaminating the environment. It has 
been determined that the soldiers who have been 
staying on the base for 25 days now have been 
dumping their waste into Batman River that flows 
by the base. Batman Directorate of Environment 
has the authority to give a fine ranging from 
approximately $-6,000.- to $-56,000.- per day. 
Hurriyet/Radikal/Cumhuriyet/Turkiye/Dunya/Mil li 
Gazete/Sabah/Bolge/Tercuman: At a press 
conference in Diyarbakir yesterday, the head of 
TGS, Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, gave important messages to 
the domestic and international public about how 
the Turkish Armed Forces viewed the Iraq war. 
Gen. Ozkok said only under the following three 
conditions the Turkish army would penetrate into 
Northern Iraq. 
1. There are components of the Turkish Army 
in Northern Iraq. In case of an attack at 
these forces of the Turkish army. 
2. Eruption of a large flow of migration, 
depending on the developments in the war. 
3. Eruption of instability due to clashes 
that might brake out between armed forces 
in the region, or attacks at civilians. 
Gen. Ozkok said if they reached the conclusion 
that the  existent forces could not cope with 
threats and dangers 
that might erupt, a decision for the Turkish 
Armed Forces to send additional forces to Iraq 
could be made, and added they would not enter 
Northern Iraq to fight or occupy if developments 
reached to that point, and had no intention of 
forming permanent buffer zones there. The general 
said suspicious, unjust and sometimes humiliating 
statements by some friends and allies effected 
the Turkish people deeply, and he had difficulty 
in understanding the attitude of the ones talking 
about the oversea threat to themselves not 
finding Turkey's claims of the same threat right 
beyond its borders. Gen. Ozkok said they would 
provide support to prevent any instability from 
happening in Northern Iraq, had no secret 
objectives or hostility against anybody, and 
would not enter into hot clashes with anybody 
except in self-defense circumstances. 
 
 
Evrensel: As a result of unknown armed clashes 
between village guards on duty in rural Karamese 
village of Sason township, Batman province, 
Suleyman Tas, a village guard from Tasyuva 
village was killed. A large scale investigation 
is underway, officials said. 
 
 
Evrensel: With the cooperation of the Civil 
Defense Office in Diyarbakir, a Norwegian team 
conducted drills on how people should protect 
themselves from NBC weapons. The Deputy Governor, 
Nusret Miroglu, who observed the drills said hot 
developments were taking place nearby and such a 
drill was required. 
 
 
Evrensel: The Regional Administrative Court of 
Gaziantep decided to stop implementation of a 
decision by Harran University in favor of seven 
students who were expelled from the schoolon the 
grounds of filing a petition with the university 
for teaching of Kurdish as an elective class at 
university. The students will be able to attend 
school again. 
 
 
Radikal/Turkiye: The Court of Cassation's Chief 
Public Prosecutor, Sabih Kanadoglu, charged DEHAP 
provincial chairmen in Hakkari, Gaziantep, 
Kahramanmaras, and Kars of "assisting and 
harboring the separatist terrorist organization" 
and demanded in writing from DEHAP to terminate 7 
of its administrators in a month. In case DEHAP 
does not terminate its provincial representatives 
in provinces mentioned above, Kanadoglu will be 
able to apply to the Constitutional Court to give 
a reprimand to DEHAP, and sue DEHAP. 
 
 
Cumhuriyet/Milli Gazete: 34 mayors from HADEP, 
closed down by Constitutional Court, joined DEHAP 
and transferred their staff to the same party 
yesterday. Former HADEP mayors and supporters 
will take positions in the administration in 
DEHAP after its national convention in May. In 
his address to the new DEHAP mayors, DEHAP's 
Chair, Ahmet Turan Demir criticized the US-led 
war on Iraq and AKP's attitude toward the war. 
The mayors are getting ready to call on the 
President, Prime Minister, and the Turkish 
National Assembly's Spokesman to demand a general 
amnesty. 
 
 
Turkiye: According to the Hakkari governor's 
office 6 kilos of heroin was seized in a car a 
three persons involved in the trafficking were 
ordered held by the court. 
 
 
Turkiye: Based on a tip, the police in Mersin 
seized many historical items, and three persons 
involved in smuggling the items were imprisoned. 
 
 
Evrensel: KESK --Public Employees Unions 
Confederation--, DISK -Revolutionary Workers 
Unions Confederation, TTB -Turkish Chamber of 
Doctors--, and TMMO --Turkish Architects and 
Engineers Chamber- holding a meeting at the 
Chamber of Doctors in Adana called out to the 
people to exercise the right they derive from 
production to stop working on March 27. The 
workers who are going to stop working in Adana 
today will convene for a press announcement at 
Ugur Mumcu Square by the Railway Station. A 
similar meeting is scheduled to take place today 
in Diyarbakir, too. 
 
 
ECONOMIC AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS: 
Turkiye: The Provincial Director of Agriculture 
in Adana, Abdullah Keskin, announced that mouth- 
and-foot disease had been diagnosed among the 
cattle in villages of Yuregir district, but had 
taken it under control very rapidly. Mr. Keskin 
said the Ministry of Agriculture's anti-mouth- 
and-foot disease campaign for the spring of 2003 
still continued in 13 townships of Adana, and 
27,715 of 112,772 cattle were already given 
shots. Mr. Keskin asked the citizens to help 
their teams and reminded them that they would 
suffer a loss of 40-50 percent in meat and other 
dairy products if they failed to have their 
cattle shot. 
On the other hand, Mr. Keskin said as the crops 
in the region grew, yellow-rust disease was seen, 
and that he would notify the villagers when to 
use pesticides. 
HOLTZ