Turks veto farm plan for minefield

Hostility to foreign investment in a sensitive border area has forced the Turkish government to shelve plans, June 2009, to turn a minefield along its frontier with Syria into organic farmland.

Turkish media linked the issue to the growing international debate about foreign investors buying land in poorer countries to secure food supplies.

But the issue reflects a nationalist streak in Turkish politics that also endangers efforts to make progress on issues such as Kurdish identity and reconciliation with Cypriots and Armenians. 'The most crucial gap in this country is the one between nationalists and globalists,' wrote Mustafa Akyol, a political commentator.