These are some of the major headlines and their brief stories in Turkey's press on March 7, 2002. The Anadolu Agency does not verify these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

HURRIYET (LIBERAL)
------------------
REFRENDUM FOR EU
State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz said, ''I believe that most of our nation wants European Union (EU) membership. I favor holding a referendum in this respect.'' Yilmaz said preparation of legal conditions was not difficult.
Yilmaz said, ''the studies that have been made support my idea. It is beneficial to hold the referendum now to be guiding to the political authority and to overcome the hesistations which were tried to be created.''

HE DIED IN ROBBERY WHICH HE MADE FOR HIS SICK FATHER
Suat Durmus (29), a carpenter, and his friend Mustafa Muratoglu, an oil engineer, tried to rob branch of Finansbank in Kadikoy district.
Durmus tried to shoot the security guard Engin Bozkurt, but his pistol did not work, and he started to hit the guard with the back of the pistol.
Bozkurt later stood up and shot Muratoglu and Durmus to death who were trying to escape.
Muratoglu and Durmus were living in Aydinlar Sitesi on Gokay Street which was 150 meters away from the bank.
Finansbank Deputy General Manager Resat Aytac told reporters that the two robbers came to the teller's window and put 38 billion TL, 50,000 USD and 30,000 Euros in a bag and tried to escape.

MILLIYET (LIBERAL)
------------------
SHAMEFUL FINAL
For the first time in Turkey, jurisdiction decided that a former prime minister is a falsifier. If the two years four months imprisonment terms is approved in Supreme Court of Appeals, Erbakan's political life will end.
Ankara High Criminal Court no: 9 sentenced Necmettin Erbakan, the former leader of the banned Welfare Party (RP), to 2 years and 4 months in prison in the case of missing trillions on Wednesday. Erbakan was sentenced to 2 years in prison in accordance with Article 345 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) on charges of falsifying documents of his banned RP.
Erbakan was accused of falsifying party records to hide millions of dollars of cash reserves that were ordered to be seized after RP was banned in 1998.
The verdict said, ''imprisonment term of Erbakan was increased by one sixth to 2 years and 4 months in accordance with Article 80 of the TCK because a total of 139 false document were prepared with the same intention.''

PRESIDENT SEZER FINDS COALITION GOVERNMENT AS BOLD
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who attended the meeting of businessmen in Bratislava, briefed about the success of the coalition government in economy.
Speaking at the meeting, Sezer said Turkish economy has been going through a radical change in the recent years, noting that the goverment recorded an important success at this process. Sezer said, ''Turkey is trying to overcome the problems caused by a serious economic crisis. I would like to stress that our goverment recorded an important success, and particularly took bold steps in re-structuring of finance and banking sections.''

SABAH (LIBERAL)
---------------
CHHIBBER: TURKEY SHOULD ATTRACT FIVE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS FOREIGN INVESTMENT PER YEAR
World Bank Turkey Director Ajay Chhibber said that there were not facilities in Turkey to make more borrowing, noting that Turkey should find direct foreign investments if it wants to reduce inflation rate and to sustain five percent economic growth every year in the coming 10 years.
Chhibber addressed the opening of ''Foreign Capital Arena'' held by Strategic Technical and Economic Researches Center, and said State Minister Kemal Dervis had his team work successfully to provide macro stability. Chhibber said macro stability was necessary for stability, but not sufficient, adding that additional steps have to be taken this year.
Pointing out that time came to be more serious, Chhibber said increase of direct foreign investments in Turkey would be beneficial for the economy and the citizens.
Chhibber stressed that Turkey should attract 5-6 billion U.S. dollars foreign investments per year.

IMF EUROPEAN I DEPARTMENT'S DIRECTOR DEPPLER SAYS HE BELIEVES TURKEY'S FUTURE IS PROMISING
Michael Deppler, the IMF European I Department's Director said that as Turkey successfully implements its economy programme, its future is promising in respect of economy.
Speaking to NTV and CNBC-E tv channels in Washington D.C., Deppler said that IMF hopes to see five percent growth and an inflation rate of 20 percent in Turkey next year.
The economy in Turkey has strong foundations today, he said adding that time has to be given to economy to yield results.
Deppler said that the export figures of Turkey were lower than expected due to the global economic conditions, stressing that the real reason of that was not the fact that Turkish Lira revaluated. The value of foreign exchange in Turkey shows the trust in the market, he said and noted that IMF supports floating exchange rate system. ''We can see that the trust in the market is high as the intereset rates are also low,'' he said adding that IMF is not warm to the idea of giving special incentives to certain real sector circles.

CUMHURIYET (LEFT)
-----------------
RAID ON TERRORIST HEZBOLLAH HIDE-OUT: TWO DIE
Security forces raided a house belonging to the terrorist Hezbollah terrorists in Aydinlar district in southern Adana province killing Hatip Dag and Arif Keser, the two terrorists.
Nine policemen were injured in the clash which broke out when terrorists threw hand grenades. One woman and four children went out the house without receiving any injuries.

DEATH PENALTY TO CAGRICI
Supreme Court of Appeals no:9 Criminal Department on Wednesday approved the verdict given to Irfan Cagrici, the member of illegal Islamist Action Organization, who was involved in many illegal activities including killing of journalist-author Cetin Emec and Turan Dursun, and Ali Akbar Gorbani who opposed the regime in Iran.
Supreme Court of Appeals also approved the verdicts given for Mehmet Ali Seker, Cengiz Sarikaya and Tamer Aslan, who were given life sentence.
The Department also overruled various sentences given for seven suspects.

RADIKAL (LEFT)
--------------
KANADOGLU WARNS EIGHT POLITICAL PARTIES
Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor Sabih Kanadoglu wanted eight political parties including the Motherland Party (ANAP), the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) ''to make the necessary changes in their regulations, and to provide election of whole central decision and executive board by the great congress in a secret vote''. Kanadoglu also wanted these political parties to inform the Supreme Court of Appeals on the results within two months. Kanadoglu added, ''election of central decision and executive board members from candidates named by leader of a political party is contrary to the Political Parties Law.''

TURKIYE (RIGHT)
---------------
PRESIDENT SEZER: ''GOVERNMENT IS VERY COURAGEOUS''
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer who paid a visit to Slovakia, said, ''the government has provided very important achievements in Turkey which exerts great efforts to overcome the problems of the economic crisis.'' Speaking at the opening of the Turkish-Slovak Business Council meeting in Bratislava, Sezer pointed out that courageous steps were taken especially in restructuring the finance and banking sectors. President Sezer stated that Turkey implementing a comprehensive programme in privatization issue gave special importance to the success of that programme. Sezer also said, ''Turkey and Slovakia share the purpose of the membership to the European Union'', adding this is also a facilitating factor to fulfil the cooperation between the two countries.

AVALANCHE CALAMITY IN AGRI
Avalanche killed two children and injured another who went to ski in Catalpinar village in Eleskirt township of eastern province of Agri. Search and rescue teams could not reach the area due to bad weather conditions in the region. Local residents found bodies of Orhan Cakan, 15, and Zafer Sabuncu, 15. Ibrahim Balikci, 13, survived the avalanche with injuries. He was rushed to a nearby hospital for medical treatment.

ZAMAN (CONSERVATIVE)
--------------------
BAN TO RUSSIAN PLANE TUPOLEV TO BE BENEFICIAL FOR TURKEY
The flights of Russian Tupolev planes will be forbidden to the European countries as of April 14, 2002, and because of that 10 percent more Russian tourists are expected to visit Turkey. The ban for landings and take offs of the Russian planes to the European airports can be good for Turkish tourism. TU–154, TU–134, IL–62, IL–86, K–40 models are among the passenger planes which have been forbidden to land the European airports. The ban will be implemented in the European countries as of April 14, 2002. Most of 4,500 flights from Russia to Europe are expected to turn towards Turkey.