TURKEY-PRESS SCAN (1)

ANKARA (A.A) - August 8, 2011 - These are some of the major headlines and their summaries in Turkish press on August 8, 2011. The Anadolu Agency does not verify these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

HURRIYET
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TURKISH FOOTBALL'S IMAGE HARMED
Turkey's national soccer team's coach Guus Hiddink wrote an article for a Dutch newspaper, and said that Turkish football was negatively affected by the recent match-fixing allegations. Hiddink wrote that he personally witnessed this during the drawings of World Cup in Brazil.

DON'T DRAW TURKEY INTO A MILITARY OPERATION
Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu made a call on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and said "western sovereign powers, today, fight with each other, and tomorrow they shake hands. Do not draw Turkey into a possible military operation on Syria."

MILLIYET
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ONE FINAL MESSAGE TO DAMASCUS
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is set to visit the Syrian capital on Tuesday as patience has grown thin in Ankara over the Syrian government's violent crackdown on Syrian protestors. Instead of renewing a call for political reform, Davutoglu is expected to make a final warning to President Bashar al-Asad this time that if civilian massacres did not come to a complete halt, Syria would risk losing Turkey's support. Davutoglu will underline that relations between the two countries cannot continue the same as before under the current circumstances.

FOUR POLICE OFFICERS WOUNDED IN MINE BLAST IN SOUTHEAST TURKEY
Four police officers were wounded when their vehicle was hit by a remote-controlled mine on Sunday in the southeastern town of Cukurca. One of the wounded police officers was reported to be in serious condition. The powerful explosion shrivelled the police car into a pile of metal and shattered windows of nearby houses.

SABAH
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WE WERE WAITING FOR THE PRIME MINISTER
PKK terrorist organization's member Mehmet Kurt, who had attacked the convoy of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the northern province of Kastamonu and had been captured two days ago, was interrogated. Kurt said, "there were four of us. We were waiting for the prime minister. We opened fire and hurled hand grenades, but then we escaped when the security guards in the vehicles responded."

WE ARE VERY CLOSE TO SOLUTION FOR THE FIRST TIME
Kurdish politician Kemal Burkay said that Turkey was on the threshold of solving Kurdish issue, and he gave promising messages. He said: we are very close to peace. In the past, solution offers were considered as betrayal. Today, everything can be discussed. The solution is to lay down arms.