The New York Times
October 7, 2004 Thursday
Late Edition – Final
A Step Closer To Europe, Proud Turks Hold Off Glee
By SUSAN SACHS
ANKARA, Turkey
Turks reacted with relief on Wednesday to the European Commission’s
qualified endorsement of their country’s bid to start talks for
membership to the European Union, but civic and business leaders
acknowledged they face a more formidable battle to win the hearts and
minds of the European public.
In the boardrooms of Turkish companies, in the offices of human
rights groups and on the streets of the capital, many people said
they would reserve their celebrations for mid-December, when European
Union leaders will make their decision whether to put Turkey on the
road to eventual entry.
”It’s not a ‘yes,”’ said Can Paker, chairman of the Turkish
Economic and Social Studies Foundation. ”It’s a ‘yes, we’ll see what
you’ll do.’ There’s nothing unfair in this. Every situation is
politically different.”
The European Commission, the executive body of the 25-member bloc,
said Turkey had generally fulfilled the objective criteria for
advancing to the next stage of the membership process.
But its report also spoke of ”specific challenges” to Turkey’s
eventual entry and suggested it be held to a stricter standard than
other recent candidate countries and given no guarantee that
negotiations would result in full membership.
The preconditions, which were generally anticipated here, were a
reminder of the political divisions in many European countries over
whether to accept a largely Muslim labor-exporting nation into the
European Union’s fold.
As many Turks readily point out, the country’s focus has been on
Europe since 1923, when it emerged as a new nation from the ruins of
the Ottoman Empire.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, its revered founder, saw Europe as the model
and aspiration for Turkey, a way of thinking that has been instilled
ever since in every Turkish schoolchild.
Over the past few months, as a debate has raged in Europe over
whether Turkey is fit for European Union membership, many Turks have
grown increasingly resentful that their credentials have come under
question.
”Frankly, I am so bored with all this back and forth about whether
they’re going to accept us or not, whether we are Asian or whether
we’re European,” said Atila Yildiz, 38, a government worker who was
taking a newspaper break on Wednesday in downtown Ankara.
”They talk as if we come from a completely different world,” he
said. ”But we’re the descendents of ancient civilizations on this
soil. We’re as civilized as they are.”
Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan, who has pushed through
substantial legal reforms to bring Turkey’s laws in line with
European Union standards, has occasionally displayed a similar
impatience with European misgivings about Turkey.
In a recent interview he noted that Turkey has been a full member of
NATO for 52 years.
”My country has given martyrs to NATO,” Mr. Erdogan said. ”Nobody
there has talked about a special kind of membership or special
conditions for us.”
Despite such public statements of indignation, many Turks who have
been deeply involved in Turkey’s European Union campaign said they
were not surprised that the commission hedged its recommendations.
Kemal Kirisci, director of the Center for European Studies at
Bosphorus University in Istanbul, said he considered the special
conditions set for Turkey’s accession talks an attempt to create
”breathing space” for Turkey’s advocates to argue its case to the
European public.
”We have to open up skeptical European minds to reality and try to
dismantle their fears,” he said. ”But if Turkey lives up to what is
expected of it, I don’t see how the skeptics can object without
dynamiting very foundations of the European Union as an institution
founded on the rule of law.”
The public debate over Turkey is likely to turn more bitter in
advance of the decisive Dec. 17, European Union summit meeting in
Amsterdam, where Turkey’s advancement to the next stage of the
accession process will be settled.
Armenians living in Europe have already begun lobbying for a
rejection of Turkey unless it admits that the Ottoman government
practiced genocide against Armenians in the early 20th century, a
charge long denied by modern Turkish governments.