IRAN ACCUSED OF KILLING PROMINENT TURKISH JOURNALIST
By Safa Haeri with reports from Ankara
PARIS-ANKARA 112TH May (IPS) Relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and staunchly secularist Republic of Turkey entered a new zone of turbulence as Turkish press accused Tehran of "direct participation" in the assassination, seven years ago, of Mr. Ugur Mumcu, one of the Turkey's most prominent secularist journalist and writer.
As the Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry maintains a cautious stance vis-a-vis Tehran over the allegations of Iranian involvement in the Mumcu's brutal murder and many other cases, Turkish authorities are waiting for Iran's response to the claims, the English-language Turkish Daily News (TDN) said Friday.
Despite a news blackout imposed by the State Security Court, the Turkish press has published the names of the main suspects and their Iranian contacts, as well as details on how the murder was carried out.
The investigation, stalled for a long time, apparently gathered speed after clues were found among coded documents seized during nation wide raids on Turkish Hizbollah centres earlier this year. Testimonies given by some of the Islamic radicals arrested after dozens of bodies of people murdered by the Hizbullah organisation were found in several locations around the country, provided new leads.
According to the Turkish press quoted by "Turkey Update", Yusuf Karakuþ and Abdülhamit Çelik, the two main suspects were in Ankara shortly before the bomb exploded on 24th January 1973. They are alleged to have been watching the area in order to distract police attention while two Iranian experts were placing the bomb in Mumcu's car.
Indeed, several of the men recently arrested, most of them former ultra-nationalists turned Islamists, were known to the police. Yusuf Karakuþ served 12 years in jail for the murder of two trade unionists in 1977. He was sentenced again in 1997 for his involvement in the kidnapping of a dissident Hizbullah leader, Fidan Güngör.
More surprising still is the fact that Abdülhamit Çelik, who was apprehended in 1996 in connection with the murder of Iranian opponents, had then confessed to being an Iranian agent. He even named as his contact the same Iranian official, Mohsen Kargar Azad, whose identity has been revealed in recent days. Despite the extensive details he provided in his testimony, Çelik was then acquitted for "lack of evidence".
Mehmet Ali Tekin, former editor in chief of the Islamist newspaper Selam, is alleged to have brought the men to Tehran for training. One of the Iranian agents said to be involved, Kargar Azad, worked at the Consulate in Istanbul at the time, and the explosive was brought into Turkey through the diplomatic bag.
Turkish daily "Star" also alleged that an Iranian journalist working at the Iranian official news agency IRNA's office in Ankara also took part in the assassination.
From the first days after Mumcu's assassination, fingers had been pointed at Iran, but no proof had been found.
In a statement, IRNA denied the charges, saying it's journalists always worked professionally and in accordance of the laws of the countries were they work.
Rjecting the allegations as "baseless" and, as usual, attributing them to "plots by Zionist circles" to undermine Tehran-Ankara "brotherly co-operation", the Iranian Foreign Ministry officially called on the Turkish authorities to stop the anti-Iranian campaign at a time that Turkey is looking to Iran's support for endorsing Mr.Yasar Yakis as the next Secretary General of the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), currently under Iranian presidency.
As the Turkish side would remind that the Turkish press was free and doing its job, the Iranian press has asked the authorities not to back Yakis "since such an election would mean that the office of secretary-general would pass to Israel".
Although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly stressed that it has no concrete evidence of Iranian involvement, diplomatic sources say Iran's attitude will be very important regarding whether to pursue relations or not.
"In the event of credible evidence that Iran has been involved in many murder cases, the killing of journalist Ugur Mumcu in particular, diplomatic sources say it would be totally up to Iran whether to forget the past or maintain the same antagonist policy towards Turkey", the Turkey Update observed.
"If Iran comes out and tells us that these incidents happened 10 years ago and that they no longer pursue such a policy, then we would evaluate this as a bona fide gesture", a Turkish diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
Security sources said if Iran keeps supporting (Islamist) terrorist organisations in Turkey, then the same policy applied to Syria might be valid for Iran as well.
Turkey obtained the deportation of Mr. Abdollah Ocalan, the leader of the outlawed (Turkish) Kordistan Workers Party (PKK) from Syria in 1998 after it openly menaced Damascus of military action. Mr. Ocalan was latter kidnapped in Nairobi by Turkish Special commandos and is now in jail in a Turkish remote prison-island.
Since his return from Tehran to Ankara two weeks ago, the Iranian ambassador to Turkey Mr. Mohammad Hossein Lavasani has delivered several messages to the Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry including one from the Iranian President Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami to the president-elect, Ahmet Necdet Sezer to wish him success in his new post.
The second, the Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told his Turkish counterpart, Ismail Cem that while Iran is interested "genuinely" to pursue co-operation between the two countries, including on security issues, it also expects that all bilateral issues be discussed within the framework of joint committees.
Relations between Iranian theocratic regime with the neighbouring Turkey have never been easy ever since the victory of the Islamic revolution of 1979.
As Ankara repeatedly accuses Tehran of supporting Turkish Islamist groups and terrorist organisations working for the creation of an Islamic Republic similar to the one in place in Tehran in the one hand and backing and sheltering Turkish separatists of the PKK on the other, Iran opposes Turkey's alliance with the United States but particularly the security and military pact Ankara has signed with Tel-Aviv. ENDS IRAN TURKEY MUMCU 12500