Paul Zarembka wrote:
Thanks, Ahmet.
Two further questions: Is it correct that the vote is confidential from the Turkish people, but not the political leadership (which means that they know whom to pressure, but the people don't who would be pressured and who may cave in)?
It seems correct; that is also my understanding.
Second, I have Turkish students in one of my classes and I privately congratulated them. They were pleased, but one also said "you will see, the vote will be reversed!" Do you share this opinion as a likely outcome? I myself rather think it would be difficult to recall the same vote and not make it 100% obvious that pressure had been applied.
In its original form the resolution will have no chance to pass in this parliament.
Furthermore, I understand that any re-vote is unlikely before next week and, in the meantime, the U.S. cannot just sit and wait but must consider alternative strategies which may require implementation this week (e.g., redirecting the battle ships off Turkey through the Suez to the Arabian Gulf -- which takes time.)
Domestically speaking, there are two important developments in terms of timing of any new resolution:
1. This Sunday the leader of the governing party AKP, Erdogan, will become a member of the parliament and then he is expecting to form a new cabinet. Even if this process happens very smoothly, it will take at least 2-3 weeks.
2. The former leader of Turkish Islamic politics, Erbakan recently regained his political rights and already started to intensify his efforts to steal those oppositional members of AKP to his own party and is eventually with the sufficient number of parliamentarians hoping to form a group in the parliament so that he can act as a power broker.
Paul
*********************************************************************** "Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists", Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science ******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
On Tue, 4 Mar 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Re. The confidentiality of the vote:
Although the session was a closed one, but the vote itself was not confidential in that session. In fact, there is a news coverage that the leader of AKP, Erdogan, apparently requested the list of AKP members,who opposed to the resolution, from the speaker!
Re: Turkish military-whether it was weakened:
No. Because it did have opportunity to openly support the government's proposal a day before the voting through the National Security Council meeting and it chose not to. The military itself had its own worry vis-a-vis the possibility of the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq. This intention is always supported by the politicians and this parliament will pass anything needed to facilitate this shared policy. In fact, the military did not, does not need any parliamentary approval to penetrate Iraq to neutralize Kurds. As we all know, the Turkish forces are already in Iraq. Moreover, the military, as they see it, has this proud tradition of independence and, as they exercised it in the case of Cyprus intervention,in the last analysis, can act independently of the US. The recent negotiations with the US were evolving in such a way that the Turkish military was a bit irritated by the US requirement of the exclusive command, including the Turkish forces. Re: Political persecution:
It should be expected to decline regarding certain type of activism, e.g. anti-war and anti-imperialist ones. The ones which are challenging the foundations of political structure through outside the mainsteram political channels will be treated much more harshly. Ahmet Tonak
Re: Re: It's not over in Turkey by Paul Zarembka 03 March 2003 03:55 UTC
Sabri, Was this vote confidential?
I recall that the last one on base construction was confidential. Also, is the Turkish military being weakened now because of yesterday's victory, and could political persecution be expected to decline? Thanks, Paul
*********************************************************************** "Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists", Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science ******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics
Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230
Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
