Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

ÇILLER: Calls on French support for the economy
By Nazlan Ertan
Turkish Daily News
PARIS- Prime Minister Tansu Çiller, who
arrived in Paris on Thursday for two days of
official and unofficialtalks aimed at boosting
Turkey's investment prospects and salvaging
Ankara's ailing political image in Europe, has
called on France to support her economic program
as well as to "respect" Turkey's political
system and "appreciate" that her government
"ISdoing its utmost" to overcome human rights
violations.
During her meetings Çiller also reiterated
Turkey's continuing European vocation and
Ankara's continuing respect for its political and
economic commitments in this context. Prime
.Minister Çiller was greeted at the airport in
Paris with an official ceremony on Thursday
evening. Shewas welcomed by Minister for
State Douste-Blazy and, following the playing
of the Turkish and French national anthems,
departed for the Crillon hotel where she is staying
during her visit. Çi11er's contacts in France
shortly after she arrived in Paris began with a
meetin~ with French businessmen over a dinner
organIzed jointly by the Turkish-French
. Business Council, the Turkish Council for
,Foreign Economic Relations and the French
Organization of Employers. Expecting angry
protests, French police were out In force at the
building of the French employers' organization
where the dinner was held. .
Çi11erstarted her official contacts on Friday
Morning by receiving. French foreign minister
Alain Juppe at her hotel. Addressing reporters
after the meeting, Juppe described the talks as
"constructive" and referred to the state of economic
and commercial relations between the
two countries as "excellent."
Juppe listed Turkish-European Union relations,
the situation in Bosnia and the work
underway concernin~ the French language
Galatasaray University In Istanbul as among the
subjects that had been discussed. The French
foreign minister also said he planned to visit
Turkey before his country assumed the term
presidency orthe European Union.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hikmet Çetin, who
also attended the Çiller-Juppe talks, also told
reporters thatthe state of relations between the
two countries were "excellent." He said that the
decision to set up a Joint Committee would further
improve relations.
Çetin listen the situation in the Caucasus as
another of the topics that had been taken up
during the talks and said that both France and
Turkey, because of their special positions concerning
the Azeri-Armenian conflict, were
ready to play a positive role in settling this dispute.
.
Referring to the U.N.-imposed embargo on
Iraq, Cetin said that Prime Minister Çi11erhad
underfined that need for the Turkish-Iraqi oil
pipeline to be kept outside of the scope of this
embargo. Cetin said Çiller had also expressed
Turkey's desire to see a continuation of the
understanding that France had shown on this
score at the United Nations. .
Çiller met with French Prime Minister
Edouard Balladur over a lunch that was also
US Secretary of Defense Perry leaves Turkey
Turkish Daily News
ANKARA. U.S. Secretary of Defence
William Perry left Ankara for Zagreb, after
completing his one day official visit to
Turkey on Friday. . .
Perry met President Süleyman Demirel,
Defence Minister Mehmet Gölban, Chief of
Staff Gen. Dogan pürq and Foreign Ministry
~n~ersecretary Özdem Sanberk during his
VISIt.
Perry was originally scheduled to travel to
Sarajevo from Ankara, but this plan was cancelled
after shots were fired at aircraft using
the city's airport. Reuters reported that a
spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo
said,"The visit is definitely off," Asked
whether Perry's cancellation of Friday's visit
had ~ythin~ to do with the shutting down of
SaraJevo' s aIrport, the spokesman said: "You
can draw your own conc1usions."
Perry had been scheduled to meet with the
U.N. commander in Bosnia, Lt. Gen. Sir
Michael Rose. During Perry' s visit, talks with
Turkish officials were focused on the Bosnia
question. After the Bosnian Serbs: unsatisfac-
tory response to the peace plan proposed by
the United States, Russia, Britam, Germany
and France, Perry said tighter sanctions
against Serbia, and the lifting of the arms
embargo on Bosnia may result.
Meanwhile, during the Perry-Galban meeting,
the two reviewed bilateral relations.
Gölban criticized the conditions imposed by
the U.S. Congress, which connect aid to the
human rights and Cyprus questions. "Turks
are upset about these co.nditions," sàid
Gölhan. "Nearly 8,000 soldiers and civilians
have been killed by this separatist terrorist
organization. If we are discussing human
rights, do not forget that all those victims had
ri$hts." He stresSed that. there was no ethnic
dIscrimination in Turkey, citing deputies and
Cabinet members of Kurdish oriP.n' Gölban
also noted that Turkey and Turkish C1Priots
accepted the U.N. Secretary General s plan
for Cyprus, and that it was Greek Cypriot
leader Glafkos Clerides who had rejected it.
Gölhan thanked Perry for his assistance on
the issue of purchasing aircraft from the
United States.
attended by Juppe and Cetin as well as by other
French cabinet ministers.
Sources close to the talks with Balladur and
Juppe indicate that the question of human ri~hts
in Turkey had also come up with both sides
touching on this subject in "diplomatic langua~e."
Çlller is reported to have given the message
that her coalition government was doing its
utmost in this conteXt but that there was the
need for the Turkish constitution to be amended
for significance improvements. She herself supported
such a change to the constitution, she
said, but changes did not come about just
because she wanted them.
"If that was the case, then we would not have
had any problems concerning the subject of privatization,"
she said, referring indirectly to the
recent Constitutional Court decision to cancel
the government's privatization bills and related
decrees. A coalition of human rights grou~s led
by France Liberte, founded by President
Mitterrand's wife Danielle, has criticised
Çmer's handling of Turkey's IO-year:old
Kurdish ~eparatist insurgency, saying military
operations made life "hellish" for Kurds.
Çi11er was not expected to meet either
Mitterrand or his wife during her stay in Paris.
The president is in hospital recovering from
prostate surgery and his wife is in a separate
ho~ital after heart surgery.
t;iller said before her departure for Paris:
"There are recent efforts to create a false image
of Turkey in France." "The terror ~up (PKK)
which wants to divide Turkey IS primarily
against Turkish democracy and human rights.
This truth must be made clearly understood,"
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