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(1) Turkey PM Gets No-Confidence

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Prime Minister Tansu Ciller's center-right government
lost a confidence vote in parliament Sunday, forcing Turkey's first woman
leader to step down.

Lawmakers voted 230-191 against Ciller's government, which has been under
attack for resisting early elections and taking a hard stand against striking
civil servants.

Ciller, a U.S.-trained economist who took office in 1993, had argued that an
early election would harm her economic austerity program and damage prospects
for closer economic ties with the European Union.

Her governing coalition collapsed in September in a dispute over the
belt-tightening measures. The prime minister and her center-right True Path
party then formed a new government by themselves, a move that required a vote
of confidence from the 450-member parliament.

The fall of the government will prolong Turkey's political crisis and may give
more conservative parties a chance at gaining an upper hand, possibly slowing
democratic reforms needed to forge stronger ties with the EU.

In a speech to parliament after the vote, Ciller said her party paid the price
for not giving into demands by strikers for hefty pay increases. "We did not
put our interests before the interests of the country ... Our head remains
high, high enough to touch the sky," she said.

It is now up to President Suleyman Demirel to designate someone to try to form
a new government.

The next general elections are scheduled for fall 1996, but early elections are
possible. Ciller told reporters after a party meeting following the vote that
she would offer parliament early elections on Dec. 24.

Although True Path is the largest party in parliament with 177 seats, it will
be difficult for Ciller to impose her date on the legislature. The EU is
demanding democratic reforms and a lifting of limits on freedom of expression
as a condition for a tighter relationship.

Turkey faces Western criticism for suppressing Kurdish ethnic rights and using
tactics such as forced evacuation of Kurdish villages to fight separatist
guerrillas.

A new government could include the pro-Islamic Welfare Party, which is against
stronger European ties. But no radical changes are immediately expected to
Turkey's Western-oriented policies or its role in the NATO military alliance.

A wave of strikes involving some 350,000 state workers have gripped the country
for the past month. Despite annual inflation of 91 percent, Ciller has refused
to grant pay increases of more than 16.7 percent.

A labor group organized a mass rally in Ankara on Sunday. Several people were
injured when workers clashed with police, who initially tried to prevent
several thousand workers from reaching downtown Ankara. Workers hurled stones
at police, who attacked the workers with clubs.

(2)

By Jonathan Lyons

ANKARA, Turkey (Reuter) - Turkey's Prime Minister Tansu Ciller Sunday called
for snap elections after her 10-day-old government, rocked by political
infighting and labor unrest, lost a decisive vote of confidence.

"Democracy and the country now need a very early general election," Ciller told
parliament minutes after the results were announced. She made no mention of any
date for the elections, originally set for next October.

Official figures showed MPs voted 230 to 191, with six absent, against Ciller's
new government, formed Oct. 5. After weeks of threats by rebel MPs, 13 of 177
deputies from her True Path Party (DYP) deserted her in the end.

President Suleyman Demirel can now ask any other MP to form a new government.
Whoever gets the task is expected to back Ciller's call for early elections.
Ciller, Turkey's first woman prime minister, had steadfastly refused widespread
calls for early elections, even from within her own DYP, after an earlier
coalition with the social democrats collapsed last month under its own weight.

Her supporters, including many in the business community, fear electioneering
would undermine the IMF-sponsored austerity program, imposed amid financial
crisis in early 1994, and hinder reforms needed to seal a customs union with
Europe.

The dramatic roll-call vote, punctuated by cat-calls and near-fistcuffs among
rival deputies, came against a backdrop of labor unrest in the streets and
personal vendetta in the corridors of power.

With Ciller scrounging for every backer, one putative ally announced an hour
before the vote he would withold his party's 10 seats unless the government
immediately settled a month-long strike by public sector workers. The deadline,
laid down by the Democratic Left Party (DSP), doomed the prime minister,
already reeling from high-profile defections in her own ranks and a solid wall
of opposition from most other parties.

Hours before the 3 p.m. vote, thousands of striking workers led by labor
federation Turk-Is rallied in Ankara's central Kizilay Square to demand a "No"
vote. About 15,000 workers chanted anti-government slogans and waving the
star-and-crescent Turkish flag. "We had no role in this. It was solely the
parliament's decision," Anatolian news agency quoted labor leader Bayram Meral,
leader of the Turk-Is labor confederation, as saying after Ciller lost the
vote. Meral had said before the vote: "God willing, this will be the prime
minister's last day." The federation represents about 350,000 striking workers.

One man was detained by police for attempting to attack the union leader as he
left parliament after watching the vote, Anatolian news agency said.

"Independent Turkey, Down with the IMF," shouted the workers, denouncing what
labor says is the International Monetary Fund's hand in keeping wages down.

Armored personnel carriers, topped with water cannons, and dozens of riot
police stood by the square and police helicopters hovered overhead. Police
sharpshooters were positioned on surrounding buildings. Police said they had
mobilized 4,000 officers for the rally, designed to pressure the government
into a last-minute wage settlement before the vote. "We want to stop Ciller
from getting the vote of confidence," said Ali Celik, a road labourer from the
western city of Izmir. "There is no turning back now."

(3)

ANKARA, Oct 15 (Reuter) - Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller on Sunday urged
early general elections for December after she lost a vote of confidence in her
minority government. "We find it appropriate to bring elections onto Turkey's
agenda on December 24 as the earliest possible date," Ciller told reporters
following a meeting of her True Path Party (DYP).

Ciller said her party would present a bill to parliament on early elections as
soon as possible. She lost the vote of confidence 230 to 191 after 13 of her
own deputies deserted her and a left-wing party, undecided until the last
minute, opposed her.

Ciller had resisted frequent calls in recent months from the opposition and
some of her own MPs to call snap polls. President Suleyman Demirel can now
nominate any MP to form a new government. Whoever gets the task is likely to
favour early elections.

By Ferit Demir

TUNCELI, Turkey, Oct 13 (Reuter) - An elusive Kurdish rebel chief is
mounting a campaign of diversionary hits in eastern Turkey to relieve his
guerrilla mountain stronghold from army pressure, security officials said
on Friday.

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) regional commander Semdin Sakik has toured
several provinces in recent weeks to encourage rebel attacks that will
allow the core of his forces in rugged Tunceli province to stock up for the
harsh winter, they said.

"They are carrying out hit-and-run actions in surrounding provinces," a
security official in Tunceli told Reuters. He said Sakik was trying to draw
some of the 50,000 Turkish troops in Tunceli out to the nearby provinces of
Erzurum, Erzincan, Sivas and Malatya.

About 30 guerrillas killed a member of the security forces and the head of
a college in a well-planned attack on a roadside service station in a
remote area of Sivas on Thursday, local officials said.

"It must have been the PKK, no one else would do this," a spokesman for Sivas
governor's office told Reuters. The rebels cut the building's telephone lines
before striking. Sakik is also believed to have inspired the killings on
Tuesday night of seven people in Malatya, 70 km from the scene of the Sivas
attack.

PKK fighters firing rockets and assault rifles killed four village guards and
three watchmen at an iron ore mine and a nearby state-owned telecommunications
station in Malatya.

Sivas and Malatya have only small Kurdish populations and are outside the
10-province state of emergency region where the PKK is usually active.

More than 18,000 people have been killed in the PKK's 11-year-old campaign for
Kurdish autonomy or independence in southeast Turkey.

Sakik, also known as "Fingerless Zeki" after losing a thumb while firing a
rocket in northern Iraq, has been commanding rebel forces in a large area of
eastern Turkey from bases in Tunceli for more than a year. He has often led
assaults on military and civilian targets but did not take part in this week's
attacks, security sources said. He is said to be back in Tunceli organising the
storing of food and supplies after leaving small bands of rebels in the
surrounding provinces.

The state-controlled Anatolian news agency said security forces killed one of
a group of up to 20 guerrrillas in Sivas earlier in the week. A large military
drive failed to capture Sakik and force the PKK from Tunceli last winter but
the army says the guerrillas are suffering from a severe lack of supplies.

Security forces have killed at least four PKK fighters in the province in the
last 24 hours, security officials said. Two Turkish planes bombed suspected PKK
positions in the almost inaccessible Kutuderesi ravine in Tunceli on Thursday.

(6)

ANKARA, Oct 13 (Reuter) - A Turkish security court investigating a business
tycoon for comments he made on the Kurdish issue has decided not to press
charges, Anatolian news agency said on Friday.

"No reason was found under the Turkish penal code and the anti-terror law
to bring charges," the agency quoted a prosecutor at the Diyarbakir state
security court as saying.

Prosecutors had been looking into a speech by magnate Sakip Sabanci to a
meeting of businessmen in the city, the biggest in the mainly Kurdish
southeast.

Turkey's tough restrictions on freedom of speech have drawn fire from
Western critics who say they are used to suppress debate on the volatile
question of Turkey's Kurdish minority.

Sabanci, who is not Kurdish, had described the Kurdish issue as an ethnic
problem, going against the government line that an 11-year-old Kurdish
guerrilla campaign was only a matter of "terrorism." A rags-to-riches
tycoon, Sabanci owns Turkey's second-biggest conglomerate, Sabanci
Holdings, which has interests in hotels, car production, banking and
textiles.


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 * Origin: APS Amsterdam (aps.nl), bbs +31-20-6842147 (16:31/2.0)