“I get the feeling that Turkey is at the stage of maintaining its national values but within the concept of being a Turk, different interpretations are allowed,” says Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights who was in Turkey last week and held many meetings with officials and different nongovernmental organizations. In an exclusive interview with Today's Zaman, he said the military judiciary should be very limited. He also praised the encouraging steps Turkey was taking on the road to improving its human rights track record. He also pointed out the healthy discussion over sub-identities in Turkey. “Observing this new stage is very interesting for Europe,” he said. “We place a lot of emphasis on what we call self-definition. If someone feels that ‘Yes, I am Turk but within this concept I am... [read full story]
