Turkey’s government has won international praise for efforts to end a bitter dispute with Armenia and expand rights for Kurds, but a fierce battle is brewing at home over the highly charged issues.
Parliamentary sources said the government will put the two issues before lawmakers soon after they resume legislative work on Tuesday — five days after parliament re-opens. But it will have a tough time winning over opposition parties that have already raised objections to both projects.
For Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the two issues are of utmost importance to the nation’s standing on the international arena, but they could also cost him politically at home.
His government has been accused at home of making concessions that damage Turkey’s interests and of selling out Azerbaijan, which is locked in conflict with Armenia over the breakaway enclave of Nagorny Karabakh.
Turkey has long refused to establish diplomatic links with Armenia over Yerevan’s efforts to have World War I-era massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks recognised as genocide — a label Turkey rejects.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically killed between 1915 and 1917, and the massacres have been recognized as a genocide by France, Canada and the European parliament.
Reconciliation between Ankara and Yerevan would bolster Turkey’s bid to join the EU, as would a government plan to introduce measures to boost the rights of the Kurdish minority and erode support for a campaign by Kurdistan Workers’ Party rebels for self-rule.
The government remains tight-lipped on the contents of the package, but media reports say it may include steps to lift restrictions on teaching Kurdish in schools, renaming Kurdish villages that have Turkish names and allowing campaigning in Kurdish. Ankara could also open the way for the return of some 12,000 Turkish Kurds exiled in northern Iraq. Kurdish activists, on the other hand, want the government to recognize the Kurdish identity and culture in the Constitution, a proposal that Erdogan has rejected.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not