Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[hap0206]

European's getting the message -- Death to the infidels

European press review

The images of death, destruction and suffering relayed from Istanbul provoke horror, shock and condemnation in Friday's European press.

The comment pages and editorials attempt to analyse the reasons for the latest attacks and suggest the reaction needed by governments across the world.

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is at a loss to explain why Turkey has become a major target of terrorism.

"Sick brains, too, follow a logic, however perverse it may be," the paper says.

It argues it is necessary to understand the thinking behind terrorism in order to fight it effectively but fails to see "any political logic" in the choice of Turkey.

The paper adds that a united response is required after the terrorists proved they can strike anywhere in the world.

"Now the community of civilized states must show that it is able to react unanimously to this challenge."


The French Liberation believes it has an answer for the attackers' choice.

Turkey, it points out, is a secular democracy, a member of Nato and a candidate to join the European Union. "In short," the paper adds, "a country that shares the values we uphold, the very same values abhorred by Islamic fanaticism".

In the paper's opinion, the attacks "bear Osama Bin Laden's hallmark", and it sees the successive choice in Istanbul of synagogues last Saturday and now the British targets, as "following the implacable logic of the racial and religious war he has declared on 'Jews and Crusaders'".

"Regardless of what happens in Iraq or Palestine," the paper warns, "Bin Laden's infernal machines will one of these days target Berlin or Paris, just as they targeted New York and Istanbul. In this war, neutrality is not an option," it concludes.

A commentary in the Hungarian Nepszabadsag sees "a message to Tony Blair" in the Istanbul attacks. There were, it says, "a few targets on offer in London", but "police focus on the British capital was exceptionally strong... so the terrorists chose a soft target in far-away Istanbul".

"The content of the message", the paper believes, "lay in its timing" to coincide with President Bush's visit to London. However, it adds, "as is usually the case with terrorist messages" it has proved "counterproductive" for it has "strengthened the resolve" of the US-British coalition to "go to the end of the road it has mapped out in Iraq".

The Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano says Thursday's attacks "leave no doubts as to the existence of a clear strategy of death, implemented with characteristic cynicism in a nation which has historically stood as a bridge between East and West".

But the response to what the paper calls "this cold-blooded criminal project" must be, it stresses, "a strategy of justice and peace" upholding "the values of respect for life, observance of the law, and solidarity among all men".

And Russia's Rossiskaya Gazeta describes events in Istanbul as a "nightmare", adding that the ongoing Muslim festival of Ramadan is "stained with blood".

The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3225632.stm