There are various expectations from the new year, but there is almost a consensus that this year needs to see the expeditious implementation of reforms that were delayed due to the political turmoil that haunted the country last year. There are also expectations that the government will shed some light on a number of attacks that were committed against non-Muslim citizens in 2007 that damaged Turkey’s image in the international arena. Zaman’s Mümtaz’er Türköne predicts that 2008 will be dominated by major reforms in all fields, which he thinks will be facilitated by the drafting of a new constitution. “Radical reforms are a must for the year 2008. Most importantly, the society is expecting these reforms. There is a government in power that received the vote of one out of every two voters. The presidency is ready to pave the way for reforms. We have many reasons to boost our expectations for the year 2008,” says Türköne. “Humans live as long as they harbor hope. Our hopes are raised by the settled stable environment in the country. Turkey now needs to make the major reforms it has delayed for years, and it needs to rid of obsolete institutions,” he adds.
Radikal’s Hasan Celal Güzel expects a newly written constitution to be the most significant development of the new year. He believes that the adoption of a democratic and pro-freedom constitution will be the start of a new period in Turkey. In the foreign policy area, he suggests that Turkey should launch a new action plan. He advises that it should further develop its recently improved relations with the US and Central Asia. In general, he urges engaging in intense relations with all of Turkey’s neighbors as well as the Middle Eastern countries. He also strongly recommends speeding up reforms to accelerate the EU accession process. “2008 should be a year of reforms. The reforms that were blocked by the outgoing president should be completed this year,” he contends. For Turkey’s fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists, Güzel notes that the cross-border operations that were launched in late 2007 should also continue in 2008 along with social and economic measures for the country’s southeastern region aimed at rooting out the social base of the PKK.
Referans’ Cengiz Çandar hopes that the government will crack down on the organizations and gangs who target non-Muslims in Turkey in 2008, recalling the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and the murders of three Christians at a publishing house in Malatya last year, which still remain unexplained. “I call on all the newspapers in Turkey to spare space for this issue on their front pages every day and wage a democratic campaign. I call on all the nongovernmental and business organizations to keep this issue hot on their agenda in an attempt to get concrete results. No matter what you do, you cannot save the honor and dignity of being a Muslim and Turk as long as you don’t stand up for the rights of our non-Muslim citizens and expose the perpetrators of the crimes committed against them,” he says.
