The German press is following with close attention the developments following the decision of the Turkish Parliament to intervene in Northern Iraq against bases of the Kurdish separatist movement, the PKK. Christiane Schlötzer comments as follows in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (18/10): “If the Turkish army were to cross the frontier, northern Iraq too would be involved in the spiral of violence… The PKK has been active for almost 25 years; initially it fought for its own state. But the ageing guerrillas are now a prey to frustration, because the Kurdish minority in Turkey gives them the cold shoulder… At the last elections over half of the Kurds in Turkey thus voted for the ruling party of Erdogan: an alliance that only terrorism can destroy. That’s why the PKK is resuming its bombing campaign and the Turkish media are transmitting each day reports on the funerals of soldiers. And the government is bowing to this pressure, falling into the trap of the terrorists”. A comment in the Frankfurter Rundschau (17/10) says: “In the long term, terrorism can only be defeated by cutting off its roots, originated from decades of discrimination against the Kurds as second-class citizens, who are sometimes even prohibited from speaking in their own language”. And the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (18/10) observes: “By taking this decision, the Erdogan government had obtained a carte blanche but it doesn’t leave the decision to others. The generals have undoubtedly been pressing for months to intervene against the bases of the PKK Kurdish rebel movement [in northern Iraq]. But so far Erdogan has not wished to undertake an adventure of this kind, and it’s difficult that he should wish to do so now”. The Polish daily RZECZPOSPOLITA (16/10) writes that the two major parties battling for supremacy at the general elections to be held next Sunday “are running neck and neck”. According to the daily “both the ruling Law and Justice party, and the major opposition party, the Civic Platform, classified as a party of the liberal right, enjoy 33% of popular support. The bloc of the left-wing parties – Left and Democrats – could amount to 9% of the votes, while the Popular Alliance, which also seems set to enter the new parliament, could obtain 7%”. In view of the threshold of 5% of the votes needed to enter parliament, the small parties (including those hitherto in government such as the League of Polish Families – LPR and Self-Defence- Samoobrona) have little chance of having their own MPs in the new parliament. According to the paper, “The number of voters should reach at least 57% of those entitled to vote, thus significantly surpassing the 40% of the electorate who voted in the previous elections in 2005”. The undecided, according to the paper, are only of the order of 14%, but other polls (conducted for example by the daily DZIENNIK ) estimate that the number of those who have still to make up their mind five days before the ballot are over 35%. “Putin is playing a double game. On the one hand he is wooing the Iranians and vetoes the decision of the UN Security Council to tighten the sanctions against the regime in Teheran… On the other, he avoids breaking the common front with the West and exerts pressure on the Iranians to persuade them to suspect work on their nuclear power station at Buchehr”, comments an editorial in the French daily LE MONDE (18/10). “In these conditions – continues the editorial – the dossier on Iran seems to Putin an excellent occasion to oppose the West, as he has the habit of doing on other issues such as Kosovo or arms reductions in Europe”. “He manoeuvres, though without apparently breaking the solidarity of the five permanent members of the Security Council, and assumes the valuable role of mediator. The hardening of the Western position, and in particular that of France, presents him with opportunities. It could help him to wrest concessions, at least formal, from Teheran. In this case” the head of the Kremlin “would succeed, to the detriment of the USA, in enhancing the status of Russia on the international scene, the main objective of his Presidency”. An agreement between Christian representatives and authoritative figures of the Islamic world upholding the freedom and right of each believer to change faith was recently signed in Oslo. The joint pledge is reported by the Italian Catholic paper AVVENIRE (18/10), in which the Islamic scholar PAOLO BRANCA speaks of an “interesting signal that demonstrates that Europe can become a laboratory for important experiences in the Moslem world, especially for the young”. The agreement, says the expert, “demonstrates that in a particular context, like northern Europe, it is possible to develop dimensions that are inconceivable for Muslims in their countries of origin. For the Muslims of the Middle East”, in fact, “religious identification is inseparable from national identification, with the result that conversion is tantamount to treason against one’s own country”. This agreement teaches us “that there is not just one way of being a Muslim, but that this aspect of life is conditioned by the climate of a society, and may even lead to abjuring a tradition like the Islamic tradition of apostasy”.
