Nobel Winner Fears Attack

Cologne's Stadt-Anzeiger daily said Pamuk's German publisher Hanser had confirmed the cancellation of a national tour that was set to begin with an honorary doctorate award at the Free University of Berlin this Friday and included visits to Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Munich.

"He has cancelled his trip, we do not have further information," said a spokeswoman from Hanser, the company that publishes Pamuk's books in Germany.

The Cologne daily said Pamuk that was concerned for his safety after the assassination of Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian journalist, in Turkey on Jan. 19. Experts, however, said the 54-year-old author would not be in greater danger in Germany than in Turkey, but would be putting himself at risk by leaving his home.

Freedom of speech and Armenian issues

Pamuk's most well known works address clashes between the past and present, East and West and secularism and Islamism.

Dink was among intellectuals, including Pamuk, who have been charged under a controversial law that makes it a crime to insult Turkey's identity, state institutions or security forces.

Pamuk was also tried for insulting "Turkishness" for telling a Swiss paper for his views on the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915. Charges against him, however, were dismissed.

Dink, whose assassination Pamuk has condemned, had also been prosecuted for his views on the World War I massacre that Turkey denies happened.

Ogun Samast, the 17-year-old who has confessed to killing the journalist, said he did so because Dink insulted Turkey's identity in his writings on Armenian issues.

The fatal shooting of Dink has provoked an outpouring of grief in Armenia. Istanbul also saw over 100,000 mourners take to the streets last Tuesday, Jan. 23, for the editor's funeral.

Dink's killing has reignited debate on nationalism in Turkey, which is seeking European Union membership.