New Europe
Sept 13 2009
Turkish opposition says EU, Turkey should be more European
Interview with: Onur Oymen
13 September 2009 – Issue : 851
The Turkish Opposition Party’s Vice President Onur Oymen, former
Ambassador to Germany and to NATO for Turkey talks about leadership,
how France has frozen the Turkish accession process, and why he’s
pessimistic about the Cyprus issue being resolved, Brussels, Belgium,
September 7, 2009
On a recent visit to Brussels to meet with MEPs the Vice-President of
CHP (Turkey’s main opposition and social democratic party) Onur Oymen,
former Ambassador to NATO and Germany took some time out to speak with
Alia Papageorgiou at his party’s representation office to the EU
overlooking the Rond Point Schuman. He commented on Turkey’s accession
process, the EU and what his party sees as the resolution to the
Cyprus and Kurdish issues. He also stressed some facts about
Afghanistan. The conversation that followed is below.
A report was released today (September 7) by the Independent
Commission on Turkey claiming that the European Union institutions
have completely stalled Turkey’s accession process and that this is
harmful to the future business climate of the EU, Martti Ahtisaari,
Chair of the Independent Commission, former President of Finland and
the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate has said that fierce opposition
from some European politicians combined with a growing public
resistance to further enlargement, has deepened resentment in Turkey
and slowed the necessary reforms and that the EU must simply follow
through on previous commitments to keep the path to membership open;
no new promises are needed, do you agree with this statement?
Yes. The majority of member States and the Parliament support Turkish
membership. However, Mr Ahtisaari is one of the few politicians who
made such an honest, right-to-the-point comment. Indeed some negative
attitudes coming from some countries slowing down the process of
membership of Turkey damage the reputation of the European Union in
the World and in Turkey. As a result of this, six – seven years ago,
the popular support for EU membership in Turkey was 72 percent, today
it is only 52 percent. Such negative attitudes perhaps coming from the
internal concerns of the EU, such as domestic politics in some new
country members, create a lot of damage in our relations and also
influence Turkish public opinion negatively. This is clearly in
contradiction with the EU’s global credibility, interests and values.
So you would say that the whole process has stalled then due to
national politics not the EU institutions themselves?
Well some politicians want to get votes from their public claiming
that they are against Turkish membership so there’s no danger to see
Turkey as a member as long as they are against. So they use Turkey’s
accession as an internal political matter. All this information is of
course, reflected in the Turkish press and the Turkish public is fully
aware that Turkey’s issue is exploited for internal political reasons
in Europe.
Your trip to Brussels today stems around the European Parliament and
its new makeup?
Quite often we come to Brussels to maintain our contacts because the
more we understand each other the more we will be able to explain the
realities of Turkey and understand their concerns and find
solutions. Turkish membership is a matter of priority for my party,
CHP. As social democrats, we have been supporting Turkish membership
from the beginning, so it is our duty and ideal to work in this
direction.
How far away do you think that direction is?
Well, unfortunately as Mr Ahtisaari says some chapters are
blocked. Some are blocked on the grounds that the Cyprus problem has
not been solved. Other chapters are blocked by France alone, which say
that those chapters may lead to membership. So it’s an open hostility
of the French government against the accession of Turkey and its
people, which is unacceptable. Definitely unacceptable. And it’s
unconditional, they do not say that Turkey may join the European Union
if it does this or does that. This also creates a serious blow to
Turkish-French traditional friendship and cooperation. And it creates
a lot of reactions in the Turkish public against France. Not only
France but their leading coalition partner Germany is also reluctant
to Turkish membership. This also creates a problem between Turkey and
Germany. These negative attitudes do not only affect negatively the
Turkey-EU relations, but also our bilateral relations; and the
feelings of our people towards the EU and towards these
countries. Moreover, because of these politicians without vision, the
EU is seen by the rest of the World as returning to the darker periods
of its history.
As a contrast, President Gul seems to be very present in the public
eye internationally. What does the governmental position in Ankara
have to say about chapters closing? What is the focus in terms of the
EU?
Well he has a talent of talking with everyone -be it Americans, be it
Europeans, or Iranians, Palestinians, Israelis, Iraqis¦ In reality
there are very different opinions between Americans and Iranians, for
instance Europeans and some radical elements in the Middle East.
Sometimes it creates problems because when you promise something you
create a climate of hope and optimism, but if it’s understood you
cannot deliver what you promise then it creates disappointment. That’s
what we are facing very often on the Cyprus issue and fighting
terrorism in Iraq, these are our main concerns. So there are a lot of
issues where the government promises something, but is not able to
deliver.
The border with Armenia was announced as opening last week, how does
this plan seem to you?
CHP wants a fully peaceful and cooperative
Turkish-Armenian-Azerbaijani relationship, among states and
people. Apparently the government conducted confidential talks with
Armenia for three years starting in 2007. They initiated two protocols;
there are a lot of chapters in this protocol but the most important
thing for us is that the government promises to open the border
between Turkey and Armenia. So far all Turkish governments have said
that the border is closed because of the occupation of 20 percent of
the Nagorno-Karabakh territory by Armenia. So therefore to reopen the
borders, Armenia should retreat from all occupied territories from
Nagorno-Karabakh, but in the protocol they have not put any reference
to Nagorno-Karabakh or a possible retreat of Armenian troops. In the
meantime on May 14 our prime minister went to Baku and spoke to the
parliament of Azerbaijan and promised very openly that Turkey would
never open the borders as long as Armenia has not solved the
Nagorno-Karabakh issue.
The Kurdish issue?
CHP asks the solution of the Kurdish issue in full compliance with the
EU’s Copenhagen political criteria. We first released a comprehensive
report 20 years ago and earlier this year again in a very tangible
plan involving cultural freedoms, social reforms and economic stimulus
measures. CHP wants a Turkish Republic which has no ethnic or
religious discrimination or policies. This is a social democratic and
secular approach. Now the government says that it will start the
process of solving this problem and asks the support of political
parties, without telling the public the content of its plan. What are
they planning? What’s their project? So, we as opposition and social
democrats, have expressed our roadmap on the Kurdish issue, on how to
solve the terrorism problem, on how to develop the region, guarantee
the ethnic freedoms… But so far, the government has been unable to
present any concrete ideas.
What are your thoughts, through your background in diplomacy and NATO
ambassadorship on the resolution of the Cyprus issue?
The Cyprus issue should be resolved through talks between the two
parties. There were a lot of talks in the near past on the UN’s Annan
plan. Although we had some serious concerns about this plan Turkish
Cypriots approved it in a referendum that the EU was explicitly
requesting. Nevertheless the Greek-Cypriots rejected it. But this time
Mr Christofias said that the Annan Plan is dead. That’s to say what
they are seeking is an agreement which would be better for Greek
Cypriote nationalistic view than the Annan plan, which means that in
their mind their project would be worse than the Annan Plan for
Turkish-Cypriots. So our government states that the Annan plan is our
bottom line and we cannot go below this. So how can we solve this
issue? There has been some pessimistic analysis from the British
press, from others, what would happen in case there is no
solution. Nobody can wait until eternity for a successful end to these
talks. So the Greek-Cypriots should finalize their position and try to
accommodate also the views of the Turkish-Cypriots as well. So if an
agreement is put on the table that says `fine, Greek-Cypriots only’ it
would definitely not be acceptable by Turkish-Cypriots. At this point
we do not have many reasons to be optimistic on Cyprus, but we hope
that reason and European values will prevail and at the end of the day
there will be a positive outcome.
How do you see the Afghanistan issue today?
It’s an easy issue in a sense because NATO’s involvement in the
beginning was a partial involvement. It’s different from Kosovo; in
Kosovo the NATO council was conducting the war they planned everything
and I was a member of that NATO council and I know how we conducted
that war. In that case we were taking the major decisions avoiding the
micromanagement and the end result was very successful, very
positive. We won the war with zero causalities and a minimum level of
collateral damage, whereas in Afghanistan the operation started as an
American operation and a formal coalition of the willing and NATO had
an additional or supplementary role. In the beginning we were in
charge of the protection of the Kabul and Baghdad airfields. The rest
of the operations elsewhere were conducted by the US and some fellow
member countries. Now, NATO is slightly more engaged today, but still
we do not have the full responsibility of the operation. NATO is
engaging troops, taking risks without having full control of the
situation. That’s the problem. We command the NATO troops, but at the
end of the day you notice that we do not control the political
decision-making system. I believe that NATO should have full
responsibility, command and control, and accountability for the
operations. Now we see a lot of civilian casualties and an incredible
amount of collateral damage. People in Afghanistan think NATO is
responsible. This is also one of the reasons explaining why the
European Union needs to be a stronger political actor and how Turkish
membership will be a great contribution to Europe’s future, not only
in economic terms, but also in terms of security.
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