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COMMENTARY
The EU and the Turkey time
bomb
By Simon Allison
ISTANBUL - Turkish Foreign Minister Sukru Sina
Gurel gave the European Union a warning before it issued
its Progress Report on the 13 nations seeking EU
membership. "In the case of disappointment [Turkey not
receiving a date to begin accession talks], it is
inevitable that the negative effects of disappointment
will be reflected in Turkish-EU relations," he said.
Turkey did not receive a date, and Turkey is a
disappointed nation.
"Yes, we are all bitter,"
said one editorial. "We feel Turkey needs much more
encouragement and incentives from the EU. The democrats
who have been pushing for reforms have been left
empty-handed, while the anti-EU lobby will now be up in
arms, saying 'I told you the EU couldn't be trusted'."
The situation is exacerbated by the fact that
Greek Cyprus (that distinction is always made in Turkey)
has been given a date for accession - 2004 - along with
Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia,
the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Malta. The European
Commission also accepted the aspirations of Romania and
Bulgaria to join in 2007.
Turkey's EU rebuff -
it was urged to do more in the human rights field and
increase civilian control over the military - is being
reflected in political opinion polls. The Islamist
Justice and Development Party is leading the more
moderate secularist and pro-EU Republican People's Party
by some 10 percentage points, with a matter of weeks to
go before the November 3 national elections.
From the point of view of the EU, there are a
number of reasons why it is not embracing Turkey with
open arms. Its 72 million population is 90 percent
Muslim, and although it is at present an open, secular
nation, there is a fear that this could change, given
the polarization of nations and religions in the current
climate of the global war against terrorism. Also, if
Turkey is admitted, the EU would suddenly have spilled
over Europe's natural boundaries, and share a common
border with Iran, Iraq and Syria.
And
centuries-old prejudices are hard to overcome. Perhaps
when Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel said that
Turkey was "not mature enough" to join the EU, there
were lingering memories of the day 500 years ago when
the advancing Ottoman "hordes" were repulsed - just
barely - at the gates of Vienna, after a three-month
siege. And many Europeans are most reluctant to take
into their fold a nation where the name Attila is still
given to children - after the brave and successful Hun
leader.
The EU is also waiting on the results of
the November elections as it will be even less well
disposed to accepting Turkey if the Justice and
Development Party does emerge as the core of a new
coalition government. The party is led by Tayyip
Erdogan, who was once jailed for 10 months for "inciting
people to enmity and hatred" on religious grounds, and
thus is ineligible to be part of any government that his
party might form. He can, however, be "prime minister in
proxy", and his party's conservative religious stance
clearly scares the Christian governments of Europe.
But the EU is playing a potentially dangerous
game. Its refusal to give Turkey any definite sign that
it will be accepted into the grouping has already
started to disaffect those who are behind Turkey's
recent, and domestically controversial reforms, such as
abolishing the death sentence and allowing education and
broadcasts in Kurdish. Turkey could also review its
relations with the EU, including the Customs Union that
grants preference to EU firms in Turkey's big market.
Foreign Minister Gurel has also warned that the
refusal to even consider Turkey's entry to the EU would
seal the division of Cyprus between the
internationally-recognized Greeks in the south and the
Turks in the north if it admits Cyprus without a deal to
reunite the island. Turkey has threatened to annex the
north if the southern part of Cyprus is admitted as
representing the entire island. Such a development could
once again pit Greece and Turkey against one another.
Following recent rapprochement between the two, Greece
broke with past policy to proclaim support for Turkey's
bid for EU membership.
Ilnur Cevik,
editor-in-chief of the Turkish Daily News says, "If the
EU doors are shut to Turkey, the militants will gain an
upper hand and that will have serious repercussions in
all fields and may even go as far as to threaten peace
and security in the eastern Mediterranean. With Turkey
completely out of the EU, with the Greek Cypriots in, we
have a recipe for a serious confrontation between Turkey
and Greece."
And Ankara is well aware that the
EU is not Turkey's only option. Given its strong Muslim
population and the fact that it is geographically 90
percent Asian, the country could look east, rather than
west. "Stronger relations with Russia and Iran could be
considered alternatives to European Union membership,"
said Turkey's National Security Council Secretary
General Tuncer Kilinc. The EU might regret its
prevarication should this happen. Just hypothetically:
what kind of influence might a Turko-Russo-Iranian
alliance have on the world? It could upset the status
quo, with the potential to become a counterbalance to
the US. Warm water ports, vast resources, nuclear
weapons, probably the support of the Arab world as well.
Could we be looking at another Cold War?
That's
the extreme, and highly unlikely, option. But it's
undeniable that the position of the West with regard to
the war on terror and Iraq would become a lot more
difficult without Turkish support and cooperation.
Turkey is the US's only North Atlantic Treaty
Organization ally bordering Iraq, and about 100 British
and US fighter jets are already based at Incirlik
airfield. Further, Ankara has also agreed that certain
bases in the south of the country may be used as a
staging point for an invasion of Iraq. These bases are
of vital importance for the US, with Saudi Arabia ruled
out and Jordan doubtful over whether it will allow its
facilities to be used. Turkey, though, has expressed
strong opposition to war in the region as it is worried
particularly about the possibility of a separate Kurdish
state being established in Iraq the aftermath of the
war, which would probably lead to agitation from
Turkey's Kurdish minority, who have similar aspirations.
It has been 75 years since the establishment of
the Turkish Republic. Since Kemal Ataturk, who has
almost a demi-god status in Turkey to this day,
abolished the fez and the veil and enforced a new
Western dress code. But Turkey has done as much as it is
likely to do - it is now up to the EU to decide whether
to accept Turkey as a full European nation, or accept
the consequences of rejecting it. Turkey must get its
carrot, or it could be Europe facing the stick.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contactcontent@atimes.com for
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