TURKS FRUSTRATED OVER TOUGH BID TO JOIN EU
By Tom Hundley
Tribune foreign correspondent
Chicago Tribune, IL
Dec 8 2006
Many experts say shunning the modernizing Muslim democracy would send
negative signal
ISTANBUL — The last few weeks have been a roller coaster ride for
Turkey’s European Union aspirations.
The next day, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body,
announced that it would recommend suspending accession talks with
Turkey because of Ankara’s long-standing refusal to open its ports
and airports to Greek Cyprus, an EU member since 2004.
On Wednesday, Turkey offered to open one port and one airport to the
Greek Cypriots, but only if the Greek Cypriots agreed to the same
for the Turkish portion of the divided island. The EU said it would
study the offer.
Next week’s EU summit in Brussels could produce what EU enlargement
Commissioner Olli Rehn gloomily described as the slow-motion "train
wreck" of Turkey’s hopes to join the club–bad news not only for
Turkey and the EU, but also for the United States, which has been an
energetic cheerleader for Turkey’s inclusion.
Many international relations experts believe that failure to find
a way to integrate a modernizing Muslim democracy into the EU would
send a negative signal to moderates across the Islamic world and to
the 15 million Muslims already living within the EU. It also could
encourage Turkey to reconsider its Western orientation and seek
alliances elsewhere, most likely with Russia or Iran.
Former U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke recently likened Turkey’s
importance to that of West Germany during the Cold War, calling it a
"frontline state" that the West could ill afford to abandon.
Invited to join in 1999
The EU extended an invitation to Turkey in 1999. The process was
expected to take 10 to 15 years, and few would deny that Turkey already
has made huge progress toward meeting the EU’s membership criteria.
But Sept. 11 happened, followed by terrorist attacks in Madrid
and London. Those events widened the gulf between the West and the
Islamic world.
The EU’s self-confidence took a hit in 2005 when voters in France and
the Netherlands rejected a new EU constitution. In the minds of many
voters, the question of Turkey’s membership had become conflated with
fears about immigration.
Polls show that only about 1 in 3 EU residents supports Turkey’s
membership bid.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair says that excluding Turkey would
be a "serious mistake." But Blair, who steps down next year, does
not have to face worried voters.
Nicholas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, the expected pairing in France’s
presidential elections next spring, do. Sarkozy kicked off his
candidacy by declaring that "Turkey’s place is not in the EU" and
challenging Royal to match that. Royal responded that she shared the
view of the French public.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is home to 3 million
Turks, favors a "privileged relationship" for Turkey, not full
membership.
At times it seems that European politicians are doing everything they
can to poke a sharp stick in Turkey’s eye. In October, the French
National Assembly passed a bill making it a criminal offense to deny
the 1915 Armenian genocide.
Linking Turkey’s membership to a resolution of the Cyprus dispute,
and in effect giving the Greek Cypriots blackball power over Turkey’s
application, also seems provocative.
In 2004, when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan brokered a deal on the
Cyprus question, Ankara worked hard to persuade Turkish Cypriots to
support it. They did, but Greek Cypriots turned it down. The Greek
side of the divided island got into the EU anyway.
"Why is the side that said `no’ in the EU, while the side that said
`yes’ is being punished?" asked Nazlan Ertan, an Ankara journalist.
Feeling unwanted and disrespected, Turks have started to turn their
backs on the EU.
A recent German Marshall Fund survey found that the percentage of Turks
who saw EU membership as a good thing had fallen from 74 percent in
2004 to 54 percent today.
Among young, self-aware Turks, there appears to be a growing sense that
the cultural gap between Turkey and Europe may be too wide to bridge.
"Economically and strategically, we are important to Europe, but
culturally we are very different," said Merve Yildirim, an English
literature student at Istanbul’s Bogazici University.
"The Ottoman Empire has a long history, and our traditions are
different from the Christian world, especially in eastern Turkey,"
she said. "Improving living standards for these people [in eastern
Turkey] would be a good thing, but in some ways these are Christianized
standards, and imposing them could be dangerous."
Others, usually a bit older, remain deeply influenced by the secular,
pro-Western outlook of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s
founder. Soban Kotukoglu, a merchant in Istanbul’s bazaar, said he
no longer believes the EU is crucial to Turkey’s economic success
but that it would be disastrous if Turkey slipped out of the West’s
orbit. He doesn’t trust Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling
Justice and Development party, which has Islamist roots.
"They have two faces," he said, "the one they show to the West
and another one which they keep hidden, and which is much more
fundamentalist."
Turkey, straddling Europe and Asia, often seems to be looking in two
directions at once.
This month Christmas lights that would put Macy’s to shame are
twinkling in the shopping malls of Turkey’s major cities. Turkey is
99 percent Muslim, but the Christmas custom has spread rapidly in
the last decade or so. Turks say they are celebrating the New Year.
Head scarves are banned in schools, universities and government
offices–the result of the country’s rigorously enforced
secularism–but Islamic swimwear, covering females from head to toe,
made gains at the beach last summer.
Turkey produced a Nobel laureate in literature in 2006, Orhan Pamuk,
but earlier, when he spoke publicly of Turkey’s mistreatment of
Armenians and Kurds, right-wing nationalists tried to prosecute him
for "insulting Turkishness." The case was a reminder that Turkey still
has a way to go in the human-rights department, but Meliha Altunisik,
a political scientist at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University,
said the EU accession process had helped consolidate many reforms.
"We have to admit that the EU anchor has been good for Turkey’s
democracy. It has really transformed the Turkish state," she said.
Ertan, the journalist, doesn’t think this week’s summit will produce
the slow-motion train wreck predicted by Rehn and others but merely
a slow train.
"The danger with a slow train," she said, "is that it might get slower
and slower until it finally just stops."