Erbakan Meets Le Pen

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.etext.org>

Erbakan Meets Le Pen

ANKARA, Turkey (Reuter) - Turkey's Islamist leader Necmettin Erbakan
and French far-rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen held an unlikely meeting at
a Turkish seaside retreat, the Turkish media said Friday.
                                       
The Milliyet daily said the pair held six hours of talks Thursday in a
hotel at the Aegean Sea town of Altinoluk, where former Prime Minister
Erbakan regularly takes breaks.
                                       
"A meeting of opposites took place. Our leader made recommendations to
Le Pen and told him about Turkey," Milliyet quoted Welfare Party MP
Mehmet Ali Sahin as saying.
                                       
Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz, a bitter critic of Erbakan, responded
wryly to news of the meeting in comments to reporters at his summer
home in the southern tourist resort of Bodrum.  "I did not find it at
all strange. Extremists speak with extremists. (That is) totally
normal.  They are made for each other," he said when asked about his
thoughts on the talks.

A secularist coalition under Yilmaz took over from Erbakan's
beleaguered one-year coalition with conservatives in June.

Other newspapers carried similar stories on the Erbakan-Le Pen
meeting. They said the French politician was on vacation in Turkey. Le
Pen heads the far-right National Front which campaigns fiercely
against immigration into France, mostly from Muslim North Africa. The
Sabah newspaper said Le Pen expressed sympathy for the Turkish
Islamists in their fight against closure by the constitutional court.

The country's top prosecutor has asked the court to ban Welfare for
allegedly threatening Turkey's secular system. Erbakan stepped down as
prime minister in June under pressure from the secularist army after a
stormy year as modern Turkey's first Islamist leader.


Kurdish "Peace Train" Not Allowed in

ANKARA, Turkey (Reuter) - Turkey will close its borders to a planned
trans-European "peace train" trip by activists calling for an end to
the Kurdish conflict in southeast Turke, Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz
said Friday.

"If this train sets off, it won't be let in across the border,"
Anatolian news agency quoted Yilmaz as saying. He said Turkey had been
in contact with European countries about the train journey, due to
begin Aug. 26.

The train is due to leave Brussels and travel through Europe and
Turkey en route to the main southeastern city of Diyarbakir. The
five-day journey is being organized by a pro-Kurdish group in Germany.

Turkey's foreign ministry Wednesday said it thought the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) terrorist group was behind the initiative.

More than 26,000 people have been killed in 13 years of conflict
between security forces and the PKK, fighting for Kurdish
independence. Turkey refuses to negotiate with the PKK which it
regards as a terrorist group.

(Source: Press-Agency Ozgurluk: http://www.ozgurluk.org)

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