Alliance officials´ remarks concerning NATO´s Allied Air Component Command in İzmir, the main mission of which is to be prepared to conduct the full range of air operations throughout NATO´s area of operations, were delivered to the Anatolia news agency on Friday. The announcement came hours after Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said NATO clinched an agreement on Thursday to take over command of all allied military operations in Libya from the United States.

The alliance needs the approval of all 28 of its members to coordinate the operation, and Turkey had set conditions before it would approve. “The coalition that was formed following the Paris meeting will abandon the mission and hand it over entirely to a single command system under NATO,” Davutoğlu told reporters late on Thursday. “All of Turkey´s concerns, demands on the issue have been met,” he said, and NATO has promised to complete the work needed to take over the Libya mission “within one or two days.”

In Brussels, NATO officials have said it would take 72 hours after the directive is approved to activate the command and a decision was expected on Sunday on whether to broaden the mandate to take full command, including over attacks on ground targets to protect civilian areas under threat from Muammar Gaddafi´s forces. Earlier on Thursday, Davutoğlu joined US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe in a conference call to discuss coordinating that process.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmus-sen, meanwhile, told reporters on Thursday after four days of grueling negotiations among ambassadors of the 28 NATO states that the US-led military alliance´s new mandate did not extend beyond enforcing an arms embargo and the no-fly zone, although NATO could act in self-defense.

Asked whether NATO would be able to strike at ground forces or take action against Gaddafi, Rasmussen said, “At this moment, there will still be a coalition operation and a NATO operation.”

However, he said talks on giving NATO a broader role would continue and a decision would be made in coming days. In the meantime, there would be close coordination to avoid conflicts.

NATO officials said if all 28 states agreed to expand NATO’s role, it would give the alliance political control of military operations. Yet, they said it would “take into account” the guidance of a high-level political platform to include Arab states expected to be established at a conference in London on Tuesday. This would represent a compromise between the positions of NATO members France and Turkey, who have held up a deal.

France, which launched the air campaign with Britain and the United States on Saturday, has argued NATO should provide its command structure while an ad hoc steering group of coalition members, including the Arab League, should exercise political control. France wants to put the operation under a broader umbrella to include Arab states, arguing that having NATO in full charge would erode Arab support because of US unpopularity in the Arab world.

Turkey has wanted to be able to use its NATO veto to limit allied operations against the country’s infrastructure and avoid casualties among Muslim civilians that it fears could result from bombing raids.

Before the NATO deal was clinched, Turkey already said earlier on Thursday that it had been assured over concerns regarding the format of the meeting in London for political talks about Libya and is considering accepting Britain’s invitation for the meeting.

On Friday, the UK daily The Guardian reported that the London conference will consist of two meetings: “a war council made up of the main governments taking part in the military action, as well as a broader assembly including Arab and African countries devoted to Libya’s future.”

“We had two conditions: one, a framework within which the UN Security Council and the universal values of the UN will be sovereign. We are trying to provide this. The second is regional participation. The meeting in London will be within this framework. We have made consultations on this point, too. Thus, the meeting in London is not a continuation of the meeting in Paris. This [meeting] will take place via participation of NATO, the UN elements which will take part in this operation and the regional elements,” Davutoğlu said, while speaking to reporters late on Thursday.

He was referring to the Paris summit that paved the way for the French-US-British coalition’s attacks on Libya and warned of serious consequences if the Western coalition sets a precedent for similar cases in the future. The summit to which neither Turkey nor Rasmussen were invited was harshly slammed by Ankara, with leaders calling the way it was held “against international norms and practices.”

On Friday, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told reporters that while military command would strictly remain within NATO, the conference in London on Tuesday would set “the wide political guidance” for action against Libya. Rasmussen will attend the meeting, she said.

Overall command in Naples

NATO Group Captain Geoffrey Booth said on Friday that the overall mission would be run from NATO’s Joint Operations Command center in Naples, which already supervises naval embargo operations. It will be under the command of US Adm. Samuel Locklear, the operations commander of the coalition mission, but rules of engagement for the NATO mission will be clearly delineated, Booth said. In Ankara, on Thursday afternoon, during a meeting with opposition Democratic Left Party (DSP) leader Masum Türker, Davutoğlu said “the NATO command in İzmir may be included in the planning,” Foreign Ministry officials told the Anatolia news agency. The officials’ remarks were correcting an earlier statement by Türker who told reporters that Davutoğlu told him that the operation would be run from İzmir. Foreign Ministry officials said no such information was given to Türker.

The raid at the publishing house started late Wednesday and continued through Thursday. The search was ended after police seized a draft copy of a book by jailed journalist Ahmet Şık. Ezel Demirkol, the lawyer for the owner of the publishing house, said civilian prosecutors ordered a new search at the publishing house after they found the results of Wednesday’s search inadequate.

The search followed the arrest of six journalists, including Şık, earlier this month on charges of membership in Ergenekon. Şık was working on a new book, which he planned to name “İmamın Ordusu” (The Imam’s Army), before he was jailed. The book reportedly talks about followers of the faith-based Gülen movement in the police force.

After the raid on the publishing house, police officers headed to the headquarters of the Radikal daily in the İkitelli neighborhood. The search came after rumors that a copy of Şık’s book was being kept there. Police took copies of some documents in the computers at the daily, but it was not clear whether the documents belonged to Şık’s book.

It was not immediately clear either whether police detained anyone at Radikal by the time Today’s Zaman went to print.

The owner of İthaki Publishing House, Ünal Koçan, said he was shocked by the police raid. “It was not clear yet whether we would publish the book. Police carried out the search based on just an assumption,” he complained. According to Koçan, police officers questioned him about Şık’s book during the raid.

The raid came on the orders of Zekeriya Öz, the chief prosecutor in the Ergenekon investigation. Ahmet Öz, an editor at the publishing house, said police officers carried out the search in order to seize a copy of Şık’s book, which the journalist sent them in the past when working with the publishing house. “Police seized the hard copy and destroyed an electronic copy of the book,” he noted. The editor also added that the publishing house would later give a detailed explanation about the raid.

“We had not made any preparations for the publication of the book. We moved to our new office only two days ago, and we were busy moving,” he added.

According to earlier news reports, a draft copy of Şık’s book was seized from the computer of Soner Yalçın, the jailed owner of the odatv.com news portal. Yalçın is also accused of membership in Ergenekon. A notice reportedly written down by Yalçın, which was seized by police during a search of Odatv in February, read: “This book should absolutely be published before the [June parliamentary] elections. It should be more striking than Simons.” By Simons, Yalçın was referring to jailed Police Chief Hanefi Avcı’s “Haliç’te Yaşayan Simonlar” (Simons in the Golden Horn.) In the book, Avcı argues that the Ergenekon trial is a conspiracy run by the government to silence its critics but at the same time acknowledges he has no proof to back up these allegations.

Editor Öz also stated that he had talked on the phone with Şık’s wife a couple of days ago about the journalist’s plan to have his book published. “I think the police wiretapped the conversation. I did not even read the first 20 pages of the [Şık’s] book. We had not made any preparations for the publication of the book. They [police] only seized a copy of the book. The search was longer than expected due to technical problems. Prosecutor Öz has an opinion about the book, and the raid followed the opinion,” he stated, adding that the publishing house failed to publish Şık’s book due to time constraints before the journalist was arrested. “For this reason, Şık was contacting other publishing houses to have his book published.”

Turkish Journalists Association (TGC) Chairman Atilla Sertel described the police raid at the publishing house as an “infamous act” that does not conform to the standards of democracy. “The era of suppression and violence in Turkey should end. Words are inadequate to express what we are feeling. Turkey will remember these days as a time when unpublished books were censored and writers were jailed for books that were yet to be published,” he said. Sertel also called on judicial bodies to immediately release jailed journalists from prison

As part of the project, launched due to the criticism that foreign languages are not taught well in the country, “English cafés” will be opened, popular cartoons and children´s shows will be aired in English with Turkish subtitles and foreign language education sets will be distributed to students. The project will run for five years at an estimated cost of TL 1.5 billion. The project aims to be the foundation of the nation´s foreign language teaching policy.

With the project, a total of 40,000 English teachers will arrive in Turkey over the next four years and activities will be held during weekends and the summer vacation with the participation of Turkish teachers of English and native English-speaking teachers.

In English classes, native English-speaking teachers will accompany Turkish teachers and take part in extracurricular activities. The native teachers will also hold speaking classes for both the students and the Turkish teachers of English.

Speaking with the Anatolia news agency, Education Minister Nimet Çubukçu said Turkish students cannot speak English properly despite their foreign language classes, a reality that has led the ministry to initiate this project. She said the native English-speaking teachers will be of great help for students to practice English.

Addressing recent speculation that these teachers will replace Turkish teachers of English, Çubukçu said the project does not prevent Turkish teachers from being appointed as teachers, but it has been prepared to teach and help learn English better.

The head of the ministry’s projects department, Ünal Akyüz, said they have looked into similar programs in South Korea and Japan. He said 70 percent of local teachers and students are happy with the project in South Korea. While noting that English language teaching in Turkey is generally based on teaching English grammar, Akyüz said: “The new system focuses on speaking. We aim to show that English language education is not limited to teaching grammar, but that speaking and writing are important as well.”

The guest teachers will sign a one-year contract, and if the schools and teachers are happy working together, the contracts can be extended. “We will establish criteria prospective teachers will need to meet. We will look into their teaching experience and criminal records,” Akyüz said. The project will start in big cities first and later spread to other parts of the country. Agencies that will coordinate the employment of the guest teachers will be determined through a tender.

“We will only decide on a standard salary. It may change from province to province. The accommodation of the teachers will be provided by the agencies,” Akyüz explained, noting that the guest teachers are paid $1,500-2,000 per month in Japan and South Korea. He added that a similar system is already in place in several private schools throughout Turkey.

The materials to be used in English language classes will also comply with international standards and modern English education sets will be purchased to be used in Turkish schools, Akyüz stated. The project will pave the way for the teaching of English to start from pre-school.

The ministry is also preparing multimedia centers in schools to pave the way for distance English learning. Akyüz said 1,000 English teachers will be hired from the US for distance learning in the first phase of the project.