DECLASSIFIED* AS/Mon(2015) 18 rev 26 June 2015 amondoc18rev_2015 Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe (Monitoring Committee) Post-monitoring dialogue with Turkey Information note by the rapporteur on her fact-finding visit to Istanbul, Şanlıurfa and Ankara (30 April – 4 May 2015) Rapporteur: Ms Josette Durrieu, France, Socialist Group This document is published on PACE extranet website (restricted area for PACE Members): http://assembly.coe.int/extranet. PACE IT Unit staff ([email protected]) remains at your disposal for any technical assistance. * Document declassified by the Monitoring Committee at its meeting on 22 June 2015. F – 67075 Strasbourg Cedex | [email protected] | Tel: + 33 3 88 41 2000 | Fax: +33 3 88 41 2733 AS/Mon(2015)18rev I. Introduction 1. The Parliamentary Assembly adopted on 23 April 2013 Resolution 1925 (2013) on post-monitoring dialogue with Turkey, in which it acknowledged that a large number of reforms had been carried out, but pointed out that these only partially met the Assembly’s expectations, especially the 12 requirements of the post-monitoring dialogue (see Appendix I). 2. In September 2014, I presented an information note following my visit to Turkey1, in which I again referred to developments in the geopolitical context (especially the impact of the crises in Syria and Iraq on Turkey), the Gezi Park demonstrations (June-July 2013) and the subsequent action taken, the anti- corruption operation on 17 and 25 December 2013 and its political and legal consequences, the 30 March 2014 local elections, the Soma mine disaster of 14 May 2014 and the main developments affecting the post- monitoring dialogue. 3. In this note I continue my presentation of the latest developments following my visit to Istanbul, Şanlıurfa and Ankara from 30 April to 4 May 2015, which was followed by a pre-election visit (5-6 May 2015)2, just a few weeks before the parliamentary elections of 7 June 2015, which I observed for PACE in Adana and Mersin 3. That visit focused on the process to settle the Kurdish issue, which was one of the significant developments since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. The resolution of the Kurdish issue and the possibility for the (pro-Kurdish) Democratic Peoples’ Party formed in 2014 to cross the 10% electoral threshold were at the heart of the election campaign. 4. During that visit, I met the major players in this peace process, including Deputy Prime Minister Mr Yalçın Akdoğan, who is in charge of this question, and Mr Önder, of the HDP party – who regularly meets Abdullah Öcalan in prison on the island of Imrali, as well as PKK representatives in Kandil, Iraq –, as well as the highest Turkish authorities. I thank Mr Reha Denemeç, Head of the Turkish delegation to PACE, for all the support he gave for the preparation of my visit, Mr Kasim Gülpinar, a member of the Turkish delegation to PACE, and the authorities of the region of Sanliurfa, especially the governor of Sanliurfa and the sub- prefect of Suruç, for facilitating the visit to refugee camps in Urfa and the crossing of the Kobane border post, which enabled me to measure the impact and violence of the Syrian conflict. The discussions I had in Turkey were dominated by the election campaign underway in the country and by the impact of the Syrian conflict on the area in a wider geopolitical context. 5. At the same time, the discussions with the European Union are continuing, after the election of a European Parliament that intends to put EU enlargement on hold in the present difficult political and economic situation. The global crisis is also affecting Turkey and growth has slowed in the last few months4. The country is also being offered new partnerships, especially with Russia in the energy field5. In the context of the revision of the customs union, talks resumed in March 2015. The authorities would like to open chapter 17 negotiations on economic and monetary policies in the next few weeks6. Progress is also expected on visa liberalisation. I have the feeling that the authorities I met remained committed to an EU accession process and I can only reiterate that the Parliamentary Assembly has urged the opening of chapters 23 and 24 of the accession negotiations, which would make it possible to reinforce standards regarding fundamental rights, the justice system and individual freedoms in conjunction with the expertise that the Council of Europe also stands ready to provide in these areas. 6. Finally, attention should be drawn in these preliminary remarks to Turkey’s decision to become a major Council of Europe contributor, which will strengthen this country’s position both in our Organisation and in the European architecture. At its Sarajevo meeting on 23 March 2015, the Parliamentary Assembly 1 See AS/Mon(2014) 18 rev, Information note by the rapporteur on her fact-finding visit to Istanbul, Ankara and Eskişehir (26–29 May 2014), published on 12 September 2014. 2 See the statement by the pre-electoral delegation 7 May 2015. 3 See the press release published on 8 June 2015 and report of the election observation (Doc. 13822) of 22 June 2015. 4 The Turkish economy posted growth in 2014 of 2.9%, which was below the government’s forecasts, and is suffering from considerable public deficits (nearly 8% of GDP in 2013) and high inflation (8.17% in 2014). Since January 2015, the Turkish lira has lost 11% of its value against the dollar (AFP dispatch of 14 April 2015). At 15 June 2015, the unemployment rate was 10.6%. 5 Russia and Turkey reached a decision on 1 December 2014 on the construction of a Russian-Turkish pipeline and decided at the same time to abandon the so-called South Stream Russian-European gas pipeline. Turkey, which imports most of its energy from Russia and Iran, also plans to build three nuclear power stations with a total capacity of 5,000 megawatts, which should provide 8% of its electricity needs in 2020 and 20% in 2030. 6http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ankara-expecting-eu--to-open-chapter-17-soon- .aspx?pageID=238&nID=79869&NewsCatID=338. 2 AS/Mon(2015)18rev decided to enlarge the Turkish parliamentary delegation to 18 members (against 12 at the moment) and 18 alternates. II. A regional context marked by the Syrian conflict a. An ambiguous and complex geopolitical positioning 7. The continuation of the conflict in Syria since 2011 is still hitting Turkey hard, with the destabilisation of the Middle East, the inexorable advance of Daesh7 and the fact that no way out of the Syrian crisis is emerging at the moment. Turkey has to address a number of sometimes contradictory strategic options. Its role is regarded as ambiguous in the region: it makes repeated calls for the departure of Bashar al-Assad, who failed to put in place a secular and democratic regime that would have been more favourable to the Sunnis. Turkey therefore hesitates to join the anti-Daesh coalition led by the United States, with which it has, however, begun to train Free Syrian Army members in Turkey. The broadcasting of a video on the interception of lorries of the Turkish secret services on the Syrian border in January 2014 has reignited the debate on Turkey’s possible support for Daesh militants. However, the authorities have denied this, stating that the weapons were destined for Syrian Turks. It should also be pointed out that, in a regional context of Sunni-Shiite confrontation, Turkey has indicated its support for Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen and severely criticised Iran’s desire for domination in the region. 8. The Daesh attack on Kobane destroyed the town that had been fiercely defended by the Syrian Kurds of the PYD and resulted in thousands of civilians fleeing in just a few days. Turkey opened its border to 200,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees from Kobane who had arrived in less than a week, looked after thousands of wounded in its medical centres close to the border and authorised the passage of Iraqi Kurdish reinforcements (Peshmergas) to fight alongside the Kurds in Kobane8. However, it has prevented young Turkish Kurds from joining the ranks of the PYD, an organisation affiliated to the PKK. 9. During the Daesh offensive against Kobane, Turkish tanks took up positions a few hundred metres from the Syrian border, witnessing the fighting but without intervening. Although the parliament created a legal framework on 2 October 2014 authorising the government to send troops to Syria and Iraq to intervene against the Islamic State or any other terrorist organisation if it wished to do so, the authorities maintained a position of defensive neutrality9. This provoked outrage among the Turkish Kurds and led to violent clashes in the country between Kurdish and Islamist factions and the deaths of around forty people. It also resulted in the tightening of the country’s security laws (see below). The partly wait-and-see attitude adopted by the Turkish authorities has left its mark on the Kurdish population. These events are also likely to have had an influence on Turkey’s Kurdish electorate during the last parliamentary elections on 7 June 2015.10 10. More recently, the PYD’s advance to retake the strategic, still Daesh-controlled town of Tal Abyad on the border with Turkey triggered a new wave of refugees in mid-June 2015. After dealing with a wave of 13,500 additional refugees in one week, Turkey decided to restrict entry to humanitarian cases. Water cannons and warning shots were used by Turkish law enforcement officers to turn back the refugees.