Turkey's Pamuk cancels German trip amid safety fears

BERLIN, Jan 31 (Reuters) Nobel-prize winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk has cancelled a trip to Germany at short notice, his German publisher said today, as concerns for his personal security grow.

Pamuk's safety became an issue after the murder this month of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul. A key suspect in that murder, escorted by police into a court house, warned Pamuk to be careful.

Pamuk, 54, who won the Nobel prize for literature in October, had been due to visit several German cities, including Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Munich on a book reading tour starting at the end of this week.

''We heard from him yesterday afternoon that he had decided to cancel,'' said a spokeswoman for Hanser publishers in Munich.

''It was his decision but he gave no reason.'' German media reported the writer had been worried about a possible attack although Berlin police said they were unaware of any threat. The government declined to comment other than to say they did not know the reason for Pamuk's decision.

The murdered Dink had been a hate figure for ultra-nationalists because he had urged Turks to acknowledge the mass killing of Armenians on Turkish soil in 1915, still a highly sensitive issue in Turkey.

Both Dink and Pamuk have been prosecuted under laws restricting freedom of expression in Turkey, which wants to join the European Union.

Pamuk was tried for insulting ''Turkishness'' after telling a Swiss paper in 2005 that 1 million Armenians had died in Turkey in World War One and 30,000 Kurds had perished more recently.

Although the court dismissed the charges on a technicality, other writers and journalists are still being prosecuted under the article and can face a jail sentence of up to three years.

PEN, a body which speaks up for persecuted writers, said threats against Pamuk had to be taken seriously and urged the EU to be strict with Turkey.

''A country in which freedom of expression is not guaranteed cannot be allowed to enter the EU, but we should keep the door open so that democracy can continue to grow there,'' President of PEN Germany Johano Strasser told Reuters.

About 18 writers and journalists have been given police protection in Turkey since Dink's killing, according to the Istanbul governor's office and even before the murder, writers like Pamuk had faced threats from ultra-nationalists.

The government and police have been criticised for not protecting Dink, especially since media reports that the police had been warned a year earlier of a plot to kill him.

Pamuk, whose best-known novels include ''Snow'', in which the main character is shot Frankfurt, has a big following in Germany, home to about 2.5 million people of Turkish descent.

Kenan Kolat, head of the TGD Turkish Communities in Germany, said he did not know the background to the affair but he saw no danger for the author if he came to Germany.

''Of course there are nationalists here, too, but I would really not expect any violence,'' Kolat told Reuters.

Last year a Berlin opera house caused a storm in Germany when it cancelled a production of Mozart's ''Idomeneo'' which showed Prophet Mohammad's severed head, citing security fears.

Reuters SP DB2127