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Continental Divide: Some Europeans unconvinced Turkey belongs in EU

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  • Continental Divide: Some Europeans unconvinced Turkey belongs in EU

    TIME
    Oct 2 2005

    Continental Divide

    Some Europeans aren't convinced Turkey belongs in the E.U. Their
    opposition is helping Turkish nationalists keep Europe at bay

    By ANDREW PURVIS



    AP PHOTO / MURAD SEZER
    PROTEST: A Turkish girl chants slogans as she makes a nationalist
    gesture during an anti-EU rally in Ankara.

    Kemal kerincsiz has a formidable intelligence. At Istanbul's top law
    school, he graduated with the best grades ever; now he is applying
    his smarts to a different cause. He is fighting to stop his
    motherland from joining the European Union. Kerinçsiz's strategy is
    simple: to try to block the reforms that the E.U. is imposing by
    rallying Turkish nationalists to his cause. Late last month, by
    seeking a last-minute injunction, he almost succeeded in shutting
    down a conference on the mass killings of Armenians in 1915, one of
    the most brutal episodes in Turkish history, and one which has never
    been officially acknowledged by a Turkish government. The conference
    went ahead following the personal intervention of the Prime Minister,
    Recep Tayyip Erdogan - and sparked protests widely interpreted in
    Western media as evidence of Turkey's un-European behavior. But
    un-European is something Kerinçsiz is proud to be. "History taught us
    that we cannot trust these Europeans," the lawyer, 42, told Time.
    "Look at what happened in 1920: they divided up the Ottoman Empire,
    even though they had pledged not to do that. People call us paranoid,
    but we're not."

    The mistrust is mutual. Since the E.U. officially invited Turkey to
    start talks last December, European misgivings have deepened. Last
    week, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel tried to insist on a
    last-minute change to the terms of the negotiations to allow for less
    than full E.U. membership. Much now hangs in the balance. Erdogan's
    political survival depends on talks going smoothly; if they fail or
    encounter unexpected resistance, nationalists will gain at his
    expense prior to elections in 2007. A new nationalist government
    would be less friendly to Europe. And many believe that turning
    Turkey away would send a dangerous signal to the Islamic world. "We
    cannot afford to get this wrong," British Foreign Secretary Jack
    Straw said last month. The alternative of finding ways to bridge West
    and East "is too terrible to contemplate."

    But there are real concerns in Western Europe over the wisdom of
    welcoming into the E.U. a mostly Muslim nation of 70 million people.
    A recent opinion poll by the Washington-based Pew Research Center
    found that nearly two-thirds of French and Germans are opposed to
    Turkey joining the E.U. The unease in Europe plays into the hands of
    Kerinçsiz and other opponents of membership by making it harder to
    sell unpopular reforms. "The rise of nationalism in Turkey has a lot
    to do with Turkey's internal dynamics, but it is being compounded by
    the E.U.'s attitude," says Hakan Altinay, head of the Open Society
    Institute in Turkey. "We are being exposed to the pettiest side of
    the E.U."

    Kerinçsiz belongs to an influential and increasingly vocal segment of
    Turkish society, one that encompasses members of the military and the
    judiciary, and which is vehemently opposed to E.U. membership and the
    changes to Turkish law and customs that it would require. The aim of
    these groups is not only to derail talks but also to discredit
    Erdogan, accession's most enthusiastic proponent. Many see his
    concessions as a betrayal of Turkish national interests. "Tayyip
    bey," says Kerinçsiz dismissively, "has dug his own grave." In the
    runup to the E.U. talks, Turkey's two main right-wing and nationalist
    parties - which together form the main opposition to Erdogan's
    government - mobilized, bringing tens of thousands of sympathizers
    onto the streets of several cities, including Ankara. These protests
    grabbed attention in Turkey, but it was the case brought by a state
    prosecutor against the world-renowned novelist Orhan Pamuk in August
    that generated outrage beyond the country's borders. The charge
    against Pamuk - that he insulted Turkey's good name by discussing the
    mass killings of Armenians and Turkey's Kurdish conflict in an
    interview with a Swiss newspaper - carries a possible three-year
    sentence. (In practice, Pamuk is unlikely to go to jail and the
    publicity surrounding the case has embarrassed the government.) "No
    country can shoot itself in the foot," said Foreign Minister Abdullah
    Gul, ruefully, "like Turkey can." The charges were brought by a
    prosecutor aligned with nationalist causes. "These people will find a
    reason, any time and anywhere, to be against this journey [toward
    E.U. membership]," says Güler Sabanci, head of leading conglomerate
    the Sabanci Group and one of Turkey's best-known business leaders.

    Opponents of accession are still in the minority in Turkey.

    In polls, between 60-70% of Turks believe Turkey would be better off
    in the E.U. But that number is dwindling, down at least 10% from just
    one year ago, according to the German Marshall Fund. Moreover, 30% of
    Turks now believe that their country will never join the club.

    The E.U. has not made the process of accession easy, demanding a
    range of reforms, some of which are deeply unpopular in Turkey - and
    not just with nationalists. These include loosening restrictions on
    the use of the Kurdish language, and on Kurdish media, even as a new
    Kurdish insurgency is gaining momentum in the southeast.

    Demands that Turkey recognize Greek-controlled Cyprus and changes
    aimed at bringing Turkey's penal code in line with Europe's are also
    controversial, seen by many as undermining the integrity of the
    Turkish state. In a recent poll, 51% of Turks said that they now saw
    the E.U.-inspired reforms as a repeat of the widely reviled 1920
    Treaty of Sèvres, which led to the Ottoman Empire being dismantled by
    foreign powers. "Turks are fed up," says Haluk Cetin, a 30-year-old
    nationalist activist and manufacturer of ice-cream-making equipment.
    "Rising terrorism, economic hardship and now all this pressure from
    the E.U. Turks are patient people, but once they reach boiling point,
    anything could happen."

    Erdogan understands that his government is at risk from nationalists,
    but he also has his own political constituents to cater to, many of
    them in the prosperous conservative Muslim heartland of Anatolia.
    They too are restive for change, having failed to see Erdogan deliver
    on campaign promises like the lifting of a ban on head scarves in
    universities and public offices. For them E.U. membership is a
    potential guarantee against military rule and restrictive laws aimed
    at curbing religious expression. Last week Erdogan heeded that base
    and Turkey's other pro-E.U. voices. He circumvented a local court
    ruling, and hence enabled the conference on the Armenian massacres of
    1915 to go ahead - the first meeting of its kind ever to be held in
    Turkey. "There's no turning back for [Erdogan] now," says Altinay,
    who attended the conference. "He's burned his bridges."

    That's the kind of toughness E.U. leaders want to see. As do many
    Turks. "Turkey is committed to the E.U. path, not only for the sake
    of becoming a full member, but essentially for itself," says Sabanci,
    adding, "The Turkey that will enter the European Union is not the
    Turkey we have today." But there's still a yawning gap between that
    putative future Turkey and today's reality. The conference was the
    first public discussion of a topic that has been taboo in Turkey for
    more than 80 years. Participants included an 80-year-old former
    minister, whose description of what happened to his home town of
    Tokat - its Armenian population reduced in a decade from 8,800 to 700
    - left many attendees in tears. "There was a real sense of moral
    responsibility in the air," says Altinay. "I've never experienced
    anything quite as emotional as this." Then he left the hall - and was
    promptly showered with eggs and tomatoes by flag-waving protesters.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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