[Event of the week]
Munitions-laden truck in Turkish capital raises eyebrows

The truck was being driven by a civilian who was accompanied by a noncommissioned officer and a corporal in civilian attire. It was stopped by Ankara police in Ümitköy late on Wednesday upon receipt of an e-mail from an unidentified individual. The e-mail alleged that the weapons and hand grenades in the truck would be distributed to violent groups in eastern and southeastern cities on March 21 during Nevruz, the Kurdish New Year’s celebration. The munitions would be used to foment clashes between civilians and security forces.

According to the Regulation on Transportation of Explosives, the armed forces is required to request a police escort for the transfer of large amounts of munitions from one city to another. However, no such request was received by the Ankara Police Department, police sources reported. The Muğla Police Department also announced that they had no prior information about the truck and the munitions.

 The truck had set off from the western province of Muğla. The munitions were carefully hidden in amongst packages of A4 paper. According to Ernail Hayırlı, an expert on the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR), the munitions-filled truck should have been escorted by police.

“Forty-six countries have signed this agreement. Turkey is expected to sign it soon. In accordance with this agreement, explosives need to be carried by road by drivers who have licenses proving that they are capable of such transport and under police escort. Vehicles carrying explosives should use a different route from other vehicles in order to prevent any danger on the roads,” he said.

The Diyarbakır-Bursaspor game on Saturday was cancelled in the 17th minute when Diyarbakırspor fans started throwing items onto the field. A journalist covering the match was seriously injured and taken to the hospital. One referee was hit by a stone, which caused him to fall to the ground.

March 7 Sunday

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on all women and mothers in Turkey to strive for an end to terrorism perpetrated by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Speaking at the “Southeastern Anatolia Project and Strengthening of Women” conference in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa on Sunday, Erdoğan congratulated the women of Turkey on the occasion of March 8, International Women’s Day, while seeking their support to end terrorism in the country.

 Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had talks with senior Syrian officials on Sunday that focused on the Middle East peace process as well as tensions between Lebanon and Syria.

Davutoğlu had separate closed-door meetings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. Later in the day, he also met with his counterpart, Walid al-Moallem.

 A fire that broke out on Sunday night in an electricity generation unit at İstanbul Atatürk Airport was extinguished without any casualties. The fire caused panic at the airport, and 80 firefighters from the Bakırköy, Yeşilköy, Kocasinan, Fatih, Seyrantepe, Bağcılar and Avcılar districts of İstanbul were involved in fighting the blaze alongside airport-based emergency teams.

Republican People’s Party (CHP) parliamentary group deputy chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said his party would back a general amnesty if that would help settle the long-standing Kurdish question.

March 8 Monday

A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6 hit eastern Turkey on Monday, killing 41 people and knocking down houses in six villages. The mayor of Kovancılar, Bekir Yanılmaz, said the victims of the quake were from the villages of Göçmeler, Okçular, Yukarı Kanatlı, Aşağı Kanatlı, Yukarı Demirci and Aşağı Demirci, where it toppled stone and mud-brick homes and the minarets of mosques.

The Union of Judges and Prosecutors for Democracy and Freedom Association shared its version of a sample bill to consolidate the independence of the judiciary, from the high courts to the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), at a press conference on Monday. The co-chairman of the association, Osman Can, said their suggested bill should be evaluated as a first step towards a new judicial reform and a test of sincerity for those who wish to establish a democratic judiciary.

Ankara residents woke up to a major disruption in public transportation as dolmuşes failed to run during the busiest hours of the day, while privately owned city buses did not operate at all during the day in protest of a court decision decreasing bus and metro fares to 2003 levels.

Gender inequality and sexual violence were on Turkey’s agenda this March 8, International Women’s Day. A United Nations Turkey report noted that almost half of the country’s female population has been subject to sexual and physical violence at the hands of their husbands. It also noted that there are only 52 women’s shelters in Turkey, despite a female population of 35 million.

Prime Minister Erdoğan said his government holds all doors open to women by supporting their right to pursue a political career, during a speech addressing women delivered on International Women’s Day. The prime minister was speaking at the International Women’s Rights Summit, held at Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) headquarters. “We have always opposed male-female discrimination and continue to do so,” he said, addressing the women who were present at the meeting, held by the AK Party’s women’s branches.

Retired Col. Fikri Karadağ, currently jailed as a suspect in the Ergenekon trial, was interrogated on Monday as part of an ongoing investigation into an apparent military plot to overthrow the government. Karadağ was arrested in late 2008 on charges of membership in a terrorist organization, namely Ergenekon. Ergenekon is a clandestine criminal organization accused of working to topple the AK Party government.

March 9 Tuesday

CHP leader Deniz Baykal lashed out at Kılıçdaroğlu for bringing a proposal of general amnesty to the country’s agenda. “Those remarks are wrong. It is not right to bring such proposals to the agenda,” he said, and added that he does not share Kılıçdaroğlu’s views.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli reiterated his criticism of the government, saying the rule of law has deteriorated, politics has become far removed from values and the Turkish economy has been wiped out under AK Party rule.

An armed 29-year-old man was shot while attempting to enter the Ukrainian Consulate in İstanbul after announcing that he was carrying a bomb. The attacker, Volkan Özbudak, was taken to a nearby hospital, reportedly without life-threatening injuries. The bomb turned out to be cables attached around a piece of pastry.

Turkey will take its time to make a broad assessment of bilateral relations with the United States after a US congressional committee last week branded the killings of Anatolian Armenians during World War I as genocide, Prime Minister Erdoğan said on Tuesday.

After a mine exploded killing one soldier and injuring three others on Monday in the southeastern province of Hakkari’s Şemdinli district, a second explosion occurred in the same region on Tuesday, killing another soldier.

March 10 Wednesday

Opposed by top officials of the CHP regarding his remarks favoring a general amnesty, CHP parliamentary group deputy chairman Kılıçdaroğlu took a step back and says he was misunderstood.

 Police detained 23 suspected hackers who are believed to be working for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in simultaneous operations in 13 Turkish provinces, including Diyarbakır, İzmir and Hatay.

Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin on Wednesday met with representatives of opposition parties to ask for their support for legal amendments to improve the condition of minors who run afoul of the law. Objecting to some of the text in the bill, the CHP claimed that such a regulation would pave the way for the retrial of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara.

Two separate statements released early Wednesday by the Turkish Treasury and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announcing a suspension in talks over a stand-by deal until May raised doubts that the long-expected agreement will actually be realized. Observers argued that a stand-by deal with the fund is no longer on the table, as Turkey already proved that it can stand on its own two feet without foreign support during the 2009 global credit crunch.

A truck filled with munitions that was discovered in Ankara late on Wednesday turned out to be carrying weapons and hand grenades belonging to the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) to a military facility in the Turkish capital, raising questions over why the armed forces ordered the transport of explosives in a civilian vehicle without any security escort for protection.

March 11 Thursday

Prime Minister Erdoğan visited Elazığ, which was hit by a magnitude 6 earthquake on March 8, with a number of other officials to announce that new houses would be built for the quake’s victims by August. “New houses will be constructed before Ramadan, which starts on Aug. 11, to replace the collapsed houses. … We need to take a lesson from this incident. We always talk about urban transformation and urban change. We have initiated a project to build 420 houses in our country’s 81 provinces,” Erdoğan said.

Prime Minister Erdoğan strongly criticized the Council of State over its recent decision decreasing bus and metro fares in Ankara to 2003 levels, saying the court should have considered the possible outcome of the ruling in its deliberations.

Ankara’s 2nd Administrative Court ruled to grant a stay of execution to the bus fare ruling decreasing bus and metro fares in Ankara. The Ankara Chamber of Minibus Drivers had filed a lawsuit with the court seeking the cancellation of the fare reduction. The stay will apply to buses as well.

One teenager was killed and two others injured when a land mine exploded in the Uludere district of the eastern province of Şırnak.

Only a week after a US congressional committee labeled the killings of Anatolian Armenians during World War I as genocide at the cost of damaging bilateral relations between Ankara and Washington, the Swedish parliament branded the same killings as genocide on Thursday, prompting Ankara to recall its ambassador to Sweden in a show of protest.

Two high school students died and one was injured after they were hit by a tram in İstanbul’s Güngören district on Thursday evening. The injured student was reportedly in serious condition.

March 12 Friday

Turkish actress Türkan Şoray officially became the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Turkey goodwill ambassador at a ceremony held in İstanbul on Friday.