TURKISH AUTHOR CALLS FOR FULL EU MEMBERSHIP FOR HOMELAND
Agence France Presse — English
October 3, 2005 Monday 5:31 PM GMT
As Turkey appeared close on Monday to reaching agreement with the
European Union to start accession talks, controversial Turkish author
Orhan Pamuk called for his homeland to be allowed full membership.
“Despite all the criticism of Turkey, I am in favour of it having
full membership of the European Union,” Pamuk said ahead of receiving
a cultural prize awarded by the German city of Darmstadt.
Turkey was due to begin membership negotiations on Monday but Austria’s
reservations over the talks with the predominantly Muslim state forced
foreign ministers into intense negotiations to resolve the standoff.
Austria had said it wanted the possibility written into the
negotiations that Turkey may eventually only be allowed special
partnership status rather than full membership, but late on Monday
it dropped its opposition.
Pamuk, who was recently charged under Turkey’s criminal code with
insulting the national identity after remarks he made about a massacre
under the Ottoman Empire, compared the opposition to his country
joining Europe’s club of 25 nations to someone hanging a “No Entry”
sign on the door.
“The people who have hung up this sign to protect their security,
their possessions and their beliefs, do they have any idea how much
they are insulting others?” Pamuk asked.
Pamuk, the widely translated author of such internationally renowned
works as “The White Castle” and “Snow”, is set to go on trial in
December for telling a Swiss newspaper in February that “one million
Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk
about it”.
He has said he has received several death threats since being charged.

IGNORANCE STILL CLOUDS EUROPE’S VIEW OF THE TRUE NATURE OF TURKEY
Canberra Times (Australia)
October 4, 2005 Tuesday Final Edition
I S TURKEY ready to join the EU? As the debate rages on, there is
only one constant -the appalling ignorance about the country and its
history. Begin with the constant references to Turkey as a moderate
Muslim state. It has, in fact, been a secular state for more than
80 years.
Continue with the other favourite line -that Turkey has no place in a
“Christian club”. Not only is this a slight to the 15 million European
Muslims already living in the European Union -it ignores Turkey’s
long service in that other Christian club, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation.
In Germany, France, Austria, Belgium andthe Netherlands, through which
millions of Turkish guest-workers have passed during the last 40 years,
there is the spectre of an immigrant flood. But the agreement Turkey
reached with the EU last December stated immigration would be subject
to severe limits only to be lifted when Turkey’s economy (which grew
last year by 9 per cent) was deemed sufficiently strong.
Even in countries friendly to Turkey, thereis a worrying fondness
for the “two-Turkey” thesis. By this line of reasoning, half of the
country is racing Westwards, while the other half -the part closest
to Syria, Iraq, and Iran -is mired in its old, Eastern ways.
While it’s true that Turkey is a land ofmany contrasts, it is not and
never will be a game of two halves. To give just one example, most
of Turkey’s Kurds live in the east. If they look poor on television,
it’s because the region is only just emerging from the Turkish army’s
long conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). If they support
Turkey’s EU bid, it’s because they dream of a social democratic future
in which all Turks, whatever their ethnic origins, can prosper.
If modern Turkey has one great untold story, it is the growing
grassroots movement to embrace its diverse ethnic roots, and to face
the less beautiful chapters in its history.
Though the EU has played a central role in this process, it was born
in Turkey
But there is one highly sensitive matter ithas handled very badly. A
bit of history here: at the end of the Ottoman Empire, there were
more Christians living in Anatolia than Muslims. But by the 1920s,
when the Republic of Turkey was founded, they were pretty much all
gone. Anatolia’s Greeks were exchanged for Greece’s ethnic Turks
following an agreement overseen by the Allied powers. The Turkish
state has never acknowledged what most of Europe holds to be true
-that between one and two million were systematically killed or
perished on forced marches; they say “only” a few hundred thousand
died during the chaos.
That the official line was underwritten bythe penal code became
world news last month, when prosecutors charged novelist Orhan Pamuk
with the “public denigration of Turkish identity” for asserting in
a Swiss newspaper that “a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were
killed and no one dares to talk about it except me”. By and large,
some European politicians saw this for what it was: an attempt by
anti-EU nationalists in the judiciary to spoil Turkey’s chances.
There is still a mind-boggling lack ofinterest in what Turks themselves
have to say. So -to give just one example -there was glancing interest
last northern spring in the government-condoned closure of a conference
organised in Istanbul by Turkish scholars to depoliticise the Armenian
question and open it up to serious, non-partisan study. There were
mentions of efforts to ban a second attempt at the conference last
weekend. But you will need a fine-toothed comb to find mention of
the conference itself -which was a resounding success.
Only a hundred demonstrators turned upto throw a few eggs -in Turkey,
this was viewed as a humiliation for the nationalists.
The burning issue last week was not the Armenian question but whether
or not Turks had the right to discuss it. The important news for Europe
should have been that, whether or not their penal code gave Turks the
right, there was more than one Turk daring to break a 90-year taboo.
There was, however, no mention of thiswatershed last Wednesday, when
the European Parliament made a resolution pinning Turkish entry on
an acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide. Once again, Christians
tell heathens what to do.
If Europe fails to bring Turkey into theEU, and if Turkey -angered,
misunderstood, and disrespected -moves away from social democracy,
Europe only has itself to blame.

HISTORY ENSURES AUSTRIANS REMAIN BITTERLY OPPOSED
by Stephen Castle
The Independent
October 3, 2005
Across Europe, opinion may be divided on whether Turkey should be
allowed to enter the EU. But in Austria there is little sign of a
debate because history ensures that the issue touches the rawest
of nerves.
In 1683 the Ottoman army of Kara Mustafa Pasha was routed at the
gates of Vienna in a defeat that marked the last Turkish effort to
take the city. All around the Austrian capital are reminders of the
battle and so strong is the event in the national consciousness that
newspapers have characterised Ankara’s EU bid as a new siege of Vienna.
To complicate matters further Austria is a strong supporter of
(Christian) Croatia, which also wants to join the EU. This step has
been held up because of a row over Zagreb’s lack of co-operation in
surrendering a suspected war criminal, Ante Gotovina.
Austrians feel it would be wrong to start talking to Turkey while
holding back on Croatia. Vienna’s critics suggest darkly that Austria’s
own past may prompt it to worry less about punishing war crimes than
other nations.
Taking a tough stance has proved politically popular for the Austrian
Chancellor, Wolfgang Schnssel, but his party was crushed in regional
elections yesterday.
Elsewhere in Europe, the echoes of history have played a part in the
debate. France, home to Europe’s largest Armenian population, has
sometimes had difficult relations with Turkey. In 2001 its parliament
formally recognised the Armenian genocide (during the collapse of
the Ottoman empire) provoking fury from Ankara.
Ironically Ankara’s biggest rival, Greece, has not sought to hold up
talks, believing that a Turkey inside the EU would be more modern,
restrained and susceptible to outside influence.

ARMENIA TO HOLD REFERENDUM ON CONSTITUTION NOVEMBER 27
Agence France Presse — English
October 4, 2005 Tuesday 5:05 PM GMT
Armenia will hold a referendum on November 27 on plans pushed by
the Council of Europe for constitutional reforms that would diminish
presidential authority, the president’s office said Tuesday.
In a statement, President Robert Kocharian’s office said that he had
signed a decree ordering “the holding on November 27 of a referendum
on the plan for constitutional reform.
The plan, drafted with direct participation of experts from the Council
of Europe, received final approval from the Armenian parliament in
a vote on September 28.
In addition to redressing the balance of power between the president
on the one hand and the parliament and government on the other, the
plan also calls for the abolition of laws banning Armenian nationals
from holding double citizenship.
That provision would permit millions of members of the Armenian
diaspora to obtain Armenian citizenship if they choose.
The proposed constitutional changes were described last month as
part of Armenia’s obligations to the pan-European Council of Europe,
a body that promotes democracy.
“During our meetings with representatives of the Council of Europe,
it was made clear to us that if the referendum fails we could face
severe sanctions, including the possible exclusion of Armenia from
this organization,” Rafik Petrossian, chairman of parliament’s legal
affairs committee, said on September 28.
The Council of Europe groups 46 states. Membership is open to all
European countries which accept the principle of the rule of law and
guarantee fundamental human rights and freedoms to their citizens.
Another senior Armenian lawmaker said the constitutional changes were
needed to ensure further democratic development in the former Soviet
republic in the Caucasus.
“The issue is not about avoiding sanctions from European bodies,”
Tigran Torossian, deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament, told
AFP last month.
“The adoption of constitutional changes is important for the country
as it marks the start of a second cycle of democratic development of
state bodies” in the country, he said.
The planned November 27 referendum would mark the second attempt
by the country’s leaders to win approval of the constitutional
modifications. A first effort in 2003 failed to win sufficient support
among voters.
To pass, the reforms must receive assent from at least half of the
voters who take part in the referendum, who must also number not less
than one-third of all eligible voters in the country.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA TO HAVE CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM REFERENDUM ON NOV 27
By Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
October 4, 2005 Tuesday 3:50 PM Eastern Time
Armenia will have a referendum on constitutional amendments on
November 27.
The parliament passed the draft on a constitutional reform in the
third reading on September 28. The existent constitution has been
in effect since July 1995, and amendments result from the Armenian
commitments to the Council of Europe. They will balance powers of
legislative and executive authorities.
European experts have approved the draft.
The amendments will lift the ban on double naturalization, which is
important for more than 5 million Armenians residing abroad.
The constitutional reform is very important for the European
integration of Armenia, President Robert Kocharian said.
Constitutional amendments have once been put on a referendum. The
referendum was held simultaneously with parliamentary elections in
May 2003 but did not gain support of voters.

CIS COUNTRIES REGISTER INDUSTRIAL GROWTH-EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
October 4, 2005 Tuesday
All the CIS countries have registered a rise in industrial production
over the first six months of the current year. The only exception
is Kyrgyzstan where the industrial slump amounted to 9.8 percent in
January-June, says a report by the Commonwealth Executive Committee,
circulated before a meeting of the CIS Economic Council, scheduled
for October 12.
Azerbaijan gained the highest industrial growth in the first six
months – 20.1 percent. It is trailed by Georgia – 12.8 percent,
Belarus – 10.5, Tajikistan – 8.9, Uzbekistan – 7.5, Kazakhstan – 7,
Ukraine and Armenia – 5 and 5.3, respectively. Russia and Moldova had
the lowest rates of industrial grown – 4 and 4.6 percent, respectively.
Oil production increased in all the CIS petroleum-producing
countries, apart from Ukraine where it slid by 0.9 percent down
to two million tonnes. Azerbaijan boosted petroleum recovery by 25
percent up to 9.6 million tonnes as against the corresponding period
in 2004. Kazakhstan’s growth in oil production edged up on 11 percent
up to 31.1 million tonnes, in Russia – three percent up to 230 million
tonnes and Turkmenistan – one percent up to 4.8 million tonnes.
Kazakhstan boosted its gas recovery by 29 percent over the six months
of this year as against the corresponding period in 2004, Turkmenistan
– 3.4 percent and Azerbaijan – 2.0 percent. The growth amounted to
0.7 and 0.9 percent in Ukraine and Russia, respectively.
The Russian Federation mined more coal by 3.0 percent, Ukraine –
by 1.0 percent and Kazakhstan registered a nosedive of three percent.
Moldova increased power generation by 13 percent over the above period,
Georgia – 6.0 percent, Ukraine – 5.0 percent, Azerbaijan and Armenia
– 4.0 percent each, Kazakhstan, Russia and Tajikistan – two percent
each. Belarus generated seven percent less power, and Kyrgyzstan –
0.3 percent.

FRENCH COMMENTARY SEES GOVERNMENT AT ODDS WITH PUBLIC OVER TURKISH EU ENTRY
Le Figaro, France (translated)
Oct 3 2005
Text of commentary by Luc de Barochez entitled “Paris’ and Istanbul’s
secret love affair” by French newspaper Le Figaro website on 3 October
Never in the Fifth Republic has French diplomacy been so at odds
with public opinion. Rarely has France’s foreign policy been so much
decided by a single person, the president, against the advice of his
parliamentary majority. Four months after the French people’s “no”
vote in the referendum on the European constitutional treaty, Paris
has just confirmed its go-ahead to negotiations whose stated aim is
Turkey’s accession to the EU. The debates that accompanied the 29 May
vote showed, however, how much concern the prospect of that country’s
accession to the European club causes to a large proportion of the
French people (footnote: Only 21 per cent of French people questioned
are in favour of Turkey’s accession, 70 per cent are against it,
and 9 per cent have no opinion, according to an Eurobarometre poll
conducted by the European Commission in July 2005.)
The two issues are not linked officially. Jacques Chirac stressed in
advance that they are “completely unrelated”. Voters were consulted not
about Turkey but about the draft constitution. And it is conceivable
that the EU could continue to expand without acquiring the means
to move towards political union. The paradox is that this path,
which French diplomacy now seems to be taking, is that which Paris
has always claimed to reject. Successive presidents have voiced the
wish, at least since Britain’s accession to the Common Market in
1973, that each enlargement be accompanied by an intensification of
European unity.
This link is threatened following the shelving of Valery Giscard
d’Estaing’s draft constitution. The Treaty of Nice, unanimously deemed
inadequate, marked the last advance towards EU integration in the
year 2000, during the French presidency. That treaty was intended to
prepare for the accession of the 10 countries that joined in 2004,
as well as that of Bulgaria and Romania. The start of negotiations
with Turkey, and soon with Croatia, shows how mistaken some voters
were in thinking that they could oppose enlargement by voting “no” on
29 May. Is France in earnest in encouraging the start of negotiations
with Turkey? The closer the fateful day has drawn, the less France’s
leaders have had to say about the subject. And if they have spoken,
it has been to stress that the talks would be long, complex and not
necessarily successful, and that even if they were successful the
French people could still disrupt everything by refusing to ratify
Turkey’s accession by referendum. None of this is very encouraging.
“How can membership negotiations be started unless this prospect is
considered both possible and desirable?” a French diplomat involved
in the negotiations asked. Valery Giscard d’Estaing was even more
explicit last month, when he lamented France’s “double talk”.
Though there is a before and after 29 May in French leaders’ public
statements, the basic line has not changed. Hence the impression
of embarrassment and vagueness that prevailed during the summer. On
2 August Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said: “It seems to me
inconceivable that any negotiations process could begin with a country
that did not recognize every member of the EU.” Since then Turkey has
still not recognized the Republic of Cyprus, the prime minister has
had to eat his hat, and that which was inconceivable is about to take
place. Chirac was very specific, addressing the Ambassadors’ Conference
on 29 August: “Pledges have been made that France will honour.”!
The policy of a single man, France’s endorsement of Turkey’s marriage
to Europe is also a promise kept. To Turkey, but also to Germany,
and to our other EU partners. In 1999 the Helsinki European Council
session, with the support of the French cohabitation government,
established that Turkey was “destined” to join the EU. It confirmed
that the criteria applied to that country, whatever its particular
religious, demographic or socioeconomic characteristics, would be “the
same as are applied to other candidate countries”. In December 2004
the European Council session in Brussels confirmed that negotiations
would begin on 3 October 2005 if Turkey satisfied in the meantime
a number of conditions, which included neither recognition of the
Armenian genocide nor recognition of the Greek Cypriot government’s
sovereignty over the whole of the island of Aphrodite.
Like a secret love affair, which cannot be revealed in public, the
relationship between Paris and Ankara remains very discreet. France
is still among Ankara’s allies within the EU. On every key issue the
president has opposed demanding from Turkey more than it can give, for
the present. Jacques Chirac believes that the interest of the West,
in the broad sense – Europe’s influence in the world, its relations
with Islam, and the imperative of guaranteeing the continent’s energy
supplies – combine to encourage progress with Turkey. “A secular
Turkey having fully adhered to the values of the rule of law and
building a modern and competitive economy would be an asset for the
EU,” one diplomat close to the Elysee [president’s office] said.
Officially, nothing is being said. And Istanbul and Ankara greatly
resent the vagueness of France’s policy. The Turkish elites,
traditionally pro-French, are moving away from a partner that they
now consider neither reliable nor honest. At the time of the latest
enlargement, France ruined the confidence that it enjoyed in Poland
because of an attitude that was perceived to be both hesitant and
arrogant. It could now achieve the same result in Turkey.

A LESSON FROM ROMAN HISTORY: AN EARLIER EMPIRE’S WAR ON IRAQ
By Gary Leupp
CounterPunch, CA
Oct 4 2005
The Roman emperor Trajan reigned from 98 to 117 and brought the empire
to its maximum extent. He is generally considered to be one of the
“good emperors” who ruled from 96 to 180, and indeed his administration
was marked by relative tolerance (towards Christians, for example)
and efficiency. Among his mistakes, however, was an attack on the
Parthian Empire beginning in 115 or 116. He personally led his troops
into Mesopotamia (what we now call Iraq) capturing the capital of
Ctesiphon on the Tigris near modern Baghdad. He reached the Persian
Gulf and in Edward Gibbon’s words, “enjoyed the honour of being the
first, as he was the last, of the Roman generals, who ever navigated
that remote sea.” A man of boundless ambition, he dreamed of sailing
from there to far-off India.
Iraq was Persian (Iranian) territory then. We call its people “Arabs”
today because they speak the Arabic language, just as we call Moroccans
and Egyptians and Syrians “Arabs” for the same reason. But the original
Arabs inhabited the Arabian Peninsula and what today is the kingdom
of Jordan. Trajan had annexed the later (then called Arabia Petraea)
about 106, bringing a large Arab population into the empire for
the first time. Meanwhile he drew other Semites into the fold. By
conquering Mesopotamia, with a population of perhaps a million Jews,
he brought almost all the world’s Jews under Roman rule. (See Norman
F. Cantor, The Sacred Chain: The History of the Jews, 1994).) (We
tend to assume that the Jews were all concentrated in Judea, but there
were according to Philo one million Jews in Alexandria, Egypt in the
early first century, while Josephus writing later in the same century
wrote that the Syrian cities of Antioch and Damascus had huge Jewish
populations. At the time there were at least 10,000, and perhaps as
many as 40,000 Jews in Rome itself.)
These Middle East conquests did not turn out well for Trajan. The
Mesopotamians rose up in rebellion; a nephew of the king (who had fled
beyond the Zagros Mountains) organized Parthian resistance, attacking
Roman garrisons. According to F. A. Lepper (Trajan’s Parthian War,
1948) “traders and middlemen of all kinds” opposed the invasion. Local
Jews who had been comfortable under Parthian rule constituted a key
component of the uprising. Meanwhile Jews in Roman Judea, having
revolted in 66-70, were again rebelling in what historians call the
Kitos War (115-17).
Elsewhere too Semitic monotheism attached itself to political
upheaval. In Cyrene (in what is now Libya) Jews revolted under the
leadership of a self-styled messiah, Lukuas, in 115. His forces
destroyed the Roman temples and government buildings in Cyrene,
slaughtering Greeks and Romans, and advanced on Alexandria where
they destroyed more pagan temples and the tomb of Pompey. Jews on the
island of Cyprus rebelled as well, under one Artemion. (New Testament
readers will recall reference to Jews in these far-flung locales:
Simone of Cyrene who carries Jesus’ cross, and Paul’s traveling
companion Barnabas, a Jew of Cyprus.)
Religious-based terrorism became the order of the day, if we’re to
believe the third century Greek historian Dio Cassius, who records
(no doubt with some exaggeration) that Jewish rebels killed 220,000
in Cyrene and 240,000 on Cyprus. Rome, having invaded Mesopotamia, was
unable to contain the fighting to that one front. The war exacerbated
simmering anti-Roman resentments, fanned religious fanaticism and
intolerance, and produced terror as far away as Northern Africa. But
with great effort Trajan’s forces suppressed the several Jewish
revolts, although some fighting continued about a year after the
emperor’s death. (As a result of this episode, according to Dio,
Jews were expelled from Cyprus entirely.)
Trajan had not gone in to the war intending to provoke rebellions or
terrorism. His ostensible reason was to punish Parthia for political
interference in the kingdom of Armenia, which Rome considered part
of its sphere of influence. But Dio Cassius called this a “pretext”
and declared that Trajan simply wanted “to win renown.” Julian Bennett
in his recent biography of Trajan agrees with this assessment (Trajan,
Optimus Princeps: A Life and Times, 1997).
In 117 the proud emperor wisely elected to withdraw from Mesopotamia,
and died in retreat in Cilicia. His adopted son and successor,
Hadrian, returned Mesopotamia to Parthia the following year. “Thus
it was,” wrote Dio, “that the Romans, in conquering Armenia, most
of Mesopotamia, and the Parthians, had undergone severe hardships
and dangers for naught.” But as historian B. W. Henderson put it,
“it was very wise to abandon what could not be kept.” Mesopotamia
resumed its former status as a prosperous part of Persia. The citizens
of Rome didn’t suffer from the loss of a couple of briefly-held
eastern provinces, or the revival of Parthian power up until that
empire’s fall over a century later. Nor did it suffer when Hadrian,
on the island of Britain at the other end of the empire, elected to
build his famous barrier between Rome and “barbarian” Celtic tribes.
Hadrian’s Wall, marking the boundary of Roman Britain, denoted the
realistic recognition of the limits of imperial power.
* * *
Ibn Khaldun, that fine fourteenth century North African Arab Muslim
scholar, one of the greatest historical thinkers of all time,
cautioned against judging “by comparison and by analogy.” Many, he
observed, “draw analogies between the events of the past and those
that take place around them, judging the past by what they know of
the present. Yet the difference between the two periods may be great,
thus leading to gross error.”
Point well taken. I draw no analogies here. The current empire is
mired in Iraq, drawn there by an emperor using a pretext to win
renown, producing by his invasion widespread outrage conditioned by
religious fanaticism. The empire’s troops face what the Romans faced in
Mesopotamia—in Gibbon’s words, the legionnaires were “fainting with
heat and thirst, could neither hope for victory if they preserved their
ranks, nor break their ranks without exposing themselves to the most
immanent danger. In this situation they were gradually encompassed
by the encompassing numbers, harassed by the rapid evolutions, and
destroyed by the arrows of the barbarian cavalry. ”
Yes, there are parallels. But if America is comparable to Rome,
George Bush is surely no Trajan, and to draw an analogy between the
two would indeed produce gross error.
Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct
Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants,
Shophands and Laborers in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors:
The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial
Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is
also a contributor to CounterPunch’s merciless chronicle of the wars
on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.

TURKEY INSULTINGLY REJECTED BY THE EU AGAIN
by M. S. Ahmed
Media Monitors Network, CA
Oct 4 2005
“It is no exaggeration to conclude that it is Ankara’s readiness
to dance to the tune played by Europe that is encouraging the EU to
treat it so shabbily and keep it at the EU’s gates for so many years.
Turkey is a large and strategically important country, and the EU
countries are interested in maintaining economic ties with it,
as German chancellor Schmits (for one) confirms. Paradoxically,
one way Ankara can raise the EU’s interest in having it as a member
would be to forge and strengthen ties with other Muslim countries and
work publicly and seriously for a Muslim union, while suspending its
efforts to join the European Union.”
Turkey has been a trusted and valued member of NATO for a long
time, as it has been an associate member of European economic
organisations. Turkey first applied to join what was then the
EEC in 1959 and signed an association agreement with it in 1963,
which strongly implied that it would later become a member. In 1995
it joined the Custom Union, and the EU officially accepted it as
a candidate for membership four years later. And, finally, the EU
agreed last December that Ankara could start entry talks on October
3. But some EU member-states insisted that the talks could start only
if Turkey recognised Cyprus, which became a member of the EU in May,
while others insisted that the talks would not be about Turkey’s full
membership but about “privileged links”. Nor surprisingly, Ankara,
which had fulfilled the previous conditions set for full membership,
refused to comply with the new ones because they were felt to be
humiliating, and the schedule of talks seemed to be doomed.
However, EU member-states began to modify their position slightly,
agreeing that the talks would be about membership after all, and by
September 22 the negotiations between the two parties appeared to be
on schedule. But very little has in fact changed, as the conditions
which Ankara found humiliating do not attach to the opening of the
talks but to Turkey’s full membership of the EU. Turkey must, for
instance, recognise Cyprus if it is to become a member, and those
member-states that object to its admission will continue to do so.
Thus nothing has really changed and it is again insulting to
expect Ankara to be happy that the talks will begin on October 3,
as scheduled. In any case, the membership talks might conceivably
last ten years or more, as EU officials openly admit.
It is ridiculous that a country that has been a loyal ally of the
West should be treated in this manner, while former enemies that were
recently members of the Soviet Union have been readily admitted.
After all, Ankara has fulfilled all the conditions demanded of it
by the EU: it has abolished the death penalty, accepted Kurdish as
a language for teaching in schools, scrapped state security courts,
revised the penal code and tightened civilian control over the country,
for instance This disdainful attitude of the Europeans explains why
support for EU membership is decreasing in Turkey itself. Recent
polls show that backing has fallen from about 93 percent to about 63
percent of Turkey’s population.
The animosity in the EU towards Turkey and dislike of its aspirations
for membership are evident not only among the majority of its people
but also among their political and religious leaders, who publicly
argue that a Muslim country cannot belong to a Christian society.
This, for instance, explains why Turkey’s application for membership
became a prominent issue in Germany’s recent elections. Mrs Angela
Merkel, whose party won a simple majority of votes, rejected Turkish
accession, conceding only “privileged partnership”. Even liberal German
political leaders backed her, somewhat unexpectedly. On September 15,
for instance, she won support from Helmut Schmidt, the former Social
Democrat chancellor, who said that he completely supported her position
in an interview with the liberal weekly Die [Das? ] Zeit. Saying
that it was nonsense to suggest that Turkey could ever join the EU,
he added: “The Turks belong to a completely different cultural domain
from us. Economic cooperation, yes, customs union, yes, but no freedom
of movement for population excesses [sic.] that arise in Turkey.”
But it is not only the European on the street and European politicians
who object to Turkey’s membership of the EU. Even Benedict XVI, the
new pope, has asked whether admitting a Muslim country to the EU is
compatible with “European values”. This has made him a controversial
figure in Turkey. But even so, president Ahmed Necdet Sezer has
invited him to visit Turkey next year, the foreign ministry said on
September 15. If the pope in fact visits Turkey, he will be the third
pontiff to do so: a clear demonstration that the overwhelmingly Muslim
(though officially secular) country is not as hostile to Europeans
on religious grounds as Europeans are to Muslims.
In fact successive Turkish regimes have been keen to show how European
their country’s values are and how well it qualifies to be a member
of the EU. This explains their readiness fulfill the conditions to
be met before accession talks can be held or even considered. Ankara
is required to show that it is modern, democratic, regretful of its
treatment of minorities such as the Armenians, and also prepared to
compensate them now. How keen the current regime is to comply is shown
by prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s reaction to the cancellation
of a conference in Istanbul on the massacre of Armenians in 1915.
A court in Istanbul ordered the cancellation of the conference on
September 22 on the application of the Turkish Lawyers’ Union – “a
hardline nationalist organisation”, as one EU newspaper has described
it. But although the office of the governor of Istanbul announced
that permission had not been given for the conference to go ahead,
Erdogan reacted strongly to the court’s decision to cancel it. “This
decision has nothing to do with democracy and modernity,” he said;
“I condemn this decision.” In fact it is his unwarranted public
interference in judicial affairs, and his anxiety to comply with the
dictates of the EU that have nothing to do with democracy. Likewise nor
has the refusal of EU member-states to treat their Turkish minorities
anything to do with democracy. In fact they are treated so badly,
despite most of them being citizens of the countries they are in or
have legal residence of, that it is strange that Erdogan and other
Turkish leaders are not exercised about this blatant departure from
democratic practice.
It is no exaggeration to conclude that it is Ankara’s readiness to
dance to the tune played by Europe that is encouraging the EU to
treat it so shabbily and keep it at the EU’s gates for so many years.
Turkey is a large and strategically important country, and the EU
countries are interested in maintaining economic ties with it,
as German chancellor Schmits (for one) confirms. Paradoxically,
one way Ankara can raise the EU’s interest in having it as a member
would be to forge and strengthen ties with other Muslim countries and
work publicly and seriously for a Muslim union, while suspending its
efforts to join the European Union.

CHRISTIANS SEEK RECONCILIATION BETWEEN CIVILIZATIONS THROUGH TURKEY-EU MEMBERSHIP TALKS
Christian Post, CA
Oct 4 2005
While the European Union (EU) membership talks with Turkey was delayed
on Monday due to divided opinions within the nations, Christians
in Turkey urged the European leaders to hasten the negotiation,
saying that Turkey’s entry to EU will “cultivate reconciliation
between civilizations”.
According to the Saturday edition of the Italy-based news agency
AsiaNews, the Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II wrote a letter to 732
members of the European parliament and to ministers of European
nations, pleading their support for Turkey’s entry to EU.
“In these days, when we hear talk about clashes between the
civilizations of East and West, between Christians and Muslims,
when we see how terrorism is destroying peace among civilizations,
we think that the most basic objective of the European Union should be
that of seeking to cultivate a ‘reconciliation between civilizations’
and a multi-cultural society, as we – especially Christians of the
East – ardently desire,” wrote the spiritual leader of Armenian
Orthodox Christians.
In Turkey, more than 99 percent of the population follows Islam. The
Armenian people are the largest non-Muslim community and are
traditionally Christians in their Turkish homeland of almost 3,000
years.
In the letter, Mesrob claimed to speak in the name of the Armenians
as well as the Hebrews, Syrians, Greeks, Chaldeans and Protestants,
who are all strong Christian proponents of Turkish EU membership.
In response to opponents who claimed that the majority Christian EU
was not ready to absorb the predominately Muslim Turkey, the patriarch
described the entry of Turkey to EU is a “vital step towards world
peace”.
“We Christians of the East, who for centuries have lived in a Muslim
word, can testify to this endeavor, and fortified by long experience,
we can affirm that this event could be significantly enriching for
Christians in the West who have started to live with Muslims and to
experiment a multi-ethnic lifestyle only recently,” Mesrob continued
in the letter obtained by AsiaNews.
The patriarch reiterated that Turkey’s bid in the EU was “not for
Turks alone, or for Europeans, but for world peace.” Therefore,
he called on “those who work for western peace” to help them.
At the same time, Mesrob showed his concern that “those who oppose
it and who nurture attitudes of suspicion may disrupt the road to
democracy, making Turkey turn in on itself.”
“We pray for the success of the process of civilization and peace in
the European Union and so that Turkey and the Armenian Christians,
who make up the country’s largest non-Muslim community, may find their
right place in it,” the patriarch concluded with prayer in the letter.
It was the crisis over Turkey’s EU-bid last week that prompted the
Patriarch’s call. The European Parliament meeting in Brussels last
Wednesday had seen a heated debate over Turkey’s EU membership. EU
ambassadors harshly criticized Turkey’s record on human rights and
religious freedoms, claiming it has failed to meet the corresponding
standard on the EU Constitution.
Austria has taken a hard-line stance and has pushed for a privileged
partnership between the EU and Turkey, saying Austrians and others
across Europe do not support full membership. France and the
Netherlands had previously showed their dismays.
In an attempt to reach consent within the 25-member bloc, the chairing
country Britain called an emergency foreign ministers’ meeting in
Luxembourg on Sunday evening. The late-night negotiations, however,
failed to break the deadlock and the talks dragged on through the
afternoon, according to a report by AFP on Monday.
Amid the dispute, the British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, a supporter
for Turkish membership, warned of a “theological-political divide,
which could open up even further down the boundary between so-called
Christian-heritage states and those of Islamic heritage,” BBC reported
on Monday.
During a brief address at the Luxembourg’s meeting, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “Let us be sincere, honest and
principled. I invite all European leaders and our friends all over the
world to show common sense for the sake of global peace and stability.”
“If the EU wants to become a global power, if it aims to eliminate
the conflict of civilizations, the concert of civilizations must be
achieved,” Erdogan said, according to AFP.
An interfaith conference called “Meeting of Civilizations” was
held last week by the Turkish Prime Minister in a bid to ease out
the criticism over its religious intolerance. Around 2,000 Jewish,
Christian and Muslim delegates attended.
“To those wishing for a clash of civilizations we must be able to
say this: no to a clash of civilizations, yes to an alliance of
civilizations,” Erdogan said at the conference.
According to the latest report by the Associated Press (AP), the
European Union opened membership talks with Turkey early Tuesday –
“a momentous step that is bound to transform the bloc as it prepares
to take in a predominantly Muslim nation and expand its borders to
the Middle East.”
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told AP, “After the negotiations
start, the whole world will benefit.”
“God willing, it will be beneficial.”