TURKEY - July 1 - Sezer Blocks Human Rights Reform.

A report in The FT says: "[Pres.] Ahmet Necdet Sezer yesterday [June 30] vetoed a central element of a human rights reform package designed to meet the European Union's criteria for starting accession talks with Turkey. Sezer opposed the abolition of article eight of the anti-terror legislation, which had been used to jail academics and journalists for expressing pro-Kurdish points of view, even after the defeat of a separatist insurgency by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terror group. 'There is a strong possibility that the removal [of article eight] will create important dangers to the existence of the Turkish state and the indivisible unity of the state with its country and people', the president said. The former judge's veto can be overriden by parliament if, as a deputy prime minister promised last night, deputies return the legislation unchanged. The veto came ahead of a planned parliamentary debate today on new national programme listing all the reforms needed to qualify for EU membership. In a step that would make the country's candidacy irreversible, EU leaders are due to decide in Dec. 2004 whether to start negotiations with the bloc's largest and only predominantly Muslim candidate. But the presidential move underlined internal resistance from the establishment in Ankara to the changes being promoted by the country's reformist eight-month-old government. The ruling Justice and Development Party, which commands a big parliamentary majority, was backed by the opposition Republican People's Party when the package was adopted unanimously by parliament last month. But Pres. Sezer may have been influenced by objections to the change raised by still-influential generals at a meeting of the military-dominated National Security Council last week. 'The change makes it no longer a crime to say 'I support an independent Kurdistan', although it would still be a crime, in line with EU practice, to say 'I support using violence to create an independent Kurdistan'', explained one political insider. 'But what the president's move shows is that fundamental change is difficult to enact, and will be even more difficult to implement'".