Opinion

 Ankara twists and turns over question of abolishing death penalty

While Istanbul was seeing off participants of the Cruel Death

 ï¿½Joint Forum� of the Organization for the Islamic Conference and the European Union, Ankara was getting ready to welcome EU Enlargement Commissioner Gunther Verheugen on a mission to gauge the progress Turkey had made in fulfilling the EU�s conditions for membership.

Verheugen�s visit, which reminded Turkey of its responsibilities � especially concerning minority cultural rights � also revived discussions about some very sensitive issues, including the death penalty.

The �National Program� announced by the Turkish government last year stipulates that a number of new laws have to be passed by the end of March. Among these are supposed to be laws governing the press, radio and television, education, associations and the use of Kurdish in education. The most significant, though, is a law on capital punishment, which the EU wants Turkey to abolish.

 A statement by Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit sparked off discussion about the death penalty. Ecevit said the problem could be solved without government intervention via agreement between the political parties in Parliament. This statement was a reflection of the dispute raging within the ruling coalition about the death penalty and of the difficulties faced by the government in coming up with a draft bill for abolishing it.

The root of this dispute within the coalition lies with the extreme right-wing Nationalist Movement Party of Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli, which is vehemently opposed to abolition. Yet the issue wouldn�t have gained the prominence it has had it not been for the fact that it is seen as the flip side of a coin, the other (more important) side of which concerns the fate of jailed Kurdistan Workers� Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan. Ocalan (Apo to his friends) has been incarcerated and under a death sentence on the high-security prison island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara, south of Istanbul, since February 1999.

 Bahceli�s party is opposed to the abolition of the death penalty precisely because that would mean sparing Ocalan�s life. This is seen as a crucial issue by a party that owes its success in the elections of April 1999 to its nationalist ideology that is opposed to any form of Kurdish nationalism. In fact, the Nationalist Movement campaigned under the slogan of �Cut off Ocalan�s head.� It goes without saying that the party doesn�t want to have anything to do with pardoning Ocalan (or indeed with anything other than executing him).

Awkwardly for Ankara, this hard-line stance on the part of the Nationalist Movement comes at precisely the time Turkey is trying hard to implement the clauses of the EU�s Accession Partnership Agreement � one of the most important of which is the abolition of capital punishment.

By trying to sidestep the government, Ecevit wanted to save the Nationalist Movement from embarrassment. He calculated that all the other political parties represented in Parliament would support abolition, and that the bill would pass despite the opposition of Bahceli and his colleagues.

 But this only succeeded in igniting another debate. Capital punishment is not only mentioned in the Turkish Penal Code (Article 125), but is also enshrined in the country�s constitution (Article 38) as punishment for certain crimes committed against the state, such as terrorism and waging war.

It is quite a simple matter to amend Article 125 of the Penal Code, which only needs a simple majority in Parliament. Amending the Constitution, however, can only be accomplished with a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Seeing the relative ease with which the Penal Code can be amended, many prominent Turkish politicians said that to do so would be enough to abolish capital punishment. Motherland Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz said: �We have to abolish the death penalty before negotiations on full EU membership start. It is enough to amend Article 125 (of the Penal Code) without amending the Constitution.�

Yilmaz suggested replacing the death penalty with hard labor for life.

Nationalists disagree. Ugur Alacakaptan, for example, says amending the Penal Code and not the constitution would create new problems.

 The only solution, he says, would be to amend Article 38 of the Turkish Constitution. Another nationalist, Ibrahim Kaboglu, says that Parliament should decide on the issue. If Parliament wants, it can say that amending the Penal Code is enough.

Of course, as in any issue of consequence in Turkey, the army has to have its say. In this case, the Turkish military decided that it would be best to amend the Penal Code while leaving the death penalty enshrined in the constitution. Turkey�s army generals believe there is no need at this point in time to remove capital punishment from the constitution.

The two Islamist opposition parties � the Justice and Development Party (AK) and the Saadet Party (SP) � adopted vague positions. While opposing capital punishment on principle to speed up Turkey�s accession to the EU, as opposition parties they don�t want to make the government�s life any easier.

The biggest surprise, however, came from former Prime Minister Tansu Ciller�s opposition True Path Party. When Premier Ecevit suggested that the issue of capital punishment be referred to Parliament, he figured that only the Nationalist Movement would oppose its abolition through amendment of the constitution. Ecevit thought he had the necessary two-thirds majority to amend the constitution (367 out of a total of 550 MPs) in the bag.

The prime minister had misread Ciller�s position. When the debate on the death penalty was well and truly underway, Ciller declared: �Let�s hang Ocalan first and then abolish the death penalty!�

With this position, Ciller killed off Ecevit�s initiative to abolish the death penalty by amending Article 38 of the constitution. After all, the total number of True Path and Nationalist Movement MPs (213) would preclude any vote on abolition winning a two-thirds majority in Parliament. Ciller is now demanding that the �Ocalan file� be referred to Parliament, so that it can do �what it has to do.�

Ciller�s position is rooted in domestic Turkish politics. The former prime minister fears losing her popular base, especially since her right-wing party shares its constituency with the Nationalist Movement.

The Turkish judiciary, meanwhile, is awaiting the verdict of the European Court of Human Rights on Ocalan�s appeal. In the meantime, it doesn�t appear that the death penalty will be removed from the Turkish Constitution. Amending Article 125 of the Penal Code will not be sufficient, at least as far as Europe is concerned.

The issue of the death penalty in Turkey is set to remain as a title for a far more fundamental problem: the fate of Ocalan and the Kurdish question as a whole.

On the other hand, turning the death penalty into a pawn in domestic politics without abolishing it completely will only delay Turkey�s accession to full EU membership.

Milliyet columnist Fikret Bila says: �Everyone is in a bind. A compromise must be found, although such a solution is not easy in a country that is still not completely free of the threat of terrorism.�

Meanwhile, in Yeni Safak, prominent Turkish commentator Fehmi Koru asks: �How wise is it to link the fate of a country � whose future needs fundamental changes to its system of government � to that of a person described as the �head of terrorism?��

Adopting a more realistic tone, Milliyet�s Derya Sazak says Sept. 11 presented a golden opportunity for Turkey as far as its relationship with the EU is concerned. If negotiations for accession begin late this year, Sazak says, the country will definitely become an EU member by 2010. It would be unfair to future generations of Turks, he contends, if this opportunity were lost because of everyday political squabbles over such issues as the death penalty.

Another Milliyet commentator, Taha Akyol, agrees. He says: �Capital punishment must be abolished, including the sentence passed on Abdullah Ocalan. We must allow broadcasting in Kurdish as well. We must make haste in joining the EU to maximize its benefits to our country. We must always remember that a strong Turkey will always be better placed to defend its unity.�

Ankara is waiting to see whether the EU will include the PKK in its soon to be released list of terrorist organizations. Yet even if the PKK were listed as a terrorist organization, it would be superfluous to expect that to affect domestic Turkish positions vis-a-vis the death penalty, which will remain � along with broadcasting and teaching in Kurdish � among the most contentious issues undermining Turkey�s progress towards full EU membership.

Mohammad Noureddine, an expert on Turkish affairs, wrote this commentary for The Daily Star