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Nationalists And Islamic Conservatives Stoke The Anti-Europe Passion

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  • Nationalists And Islamic Conservatives Stoke The Anti-Europe Passion

    NATIONALISTS AND ISLAMIC CONSERVATIVES STOKE THE ANTI-EUROPE PASSIONS
    By Amberin Zaman in Camlihemsin

    Daily Telegraph, United Kingdom
    Sept 2 2005

    No country other than Turkey has had to wait 42 years at Europe's
    door. With each new condition the European Union places on Turkey's
    joining the EU, anger has risen and now the country is engulfed by
    anti-EU feelings.

    "If I were Erdogan [the Turkish prime minister] I would tell them to
    go to hell," said Ender Buberoglu, a farmer in the town of Camlihemsin
    in the Black Sea province of Rize, where nationalist passions run
    especially high. "I would say, if you don't want us, we want you
    even less."

    Anti-EU feeling has been increasing since December when EU leaders
    agreed to open membership negotiations for Turkey on Oct 3, but with
    a string of conditions viewed as humiliating by many Turks.

    Unprecedented political stability and economic revival under prime
    minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's mildly Islamist government has boosted
    national confidence. The surge of patriotism can be seen in the number
    of Turkish flags hanging in windows across the country.

    The swelling army of Euro-sceptics believe that Europe's "real" agenda
    is to weaken and dismember Turkey. Their suspicions are sharpened
    by demands within the EU that the Kurds be granted further rights
    and that Turkey apologise for the mass slaughter of Armenians by the
    Ottomans during and after the First World War.

    "Turkey cannot allow itself to be deceived... to be forced to
    make irreversible concessions on Cyprus, the Aegean Sea, Armenian
    allegations and minority issues," said Gunduz Aktan, a former Turkish
    ambassador, who heads a conservative think-tank in Ankara.

    In a sign that the anti-EU camp is gaining ground, a prosecutor in
    Istanbul this week charged one of Turkey's best known authors, Orhan
    Pamuk, for "denigrating the Turkish people".

    Pamuk could face up to three years in prison if found guilty for
    telling a Swiss newspaper in February that "30,000 Kurds and one
    million Armenian were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares
    to talk about it". His comments triggered accusations of treason and
    even death threats.

    Some Western diplomats speculated that the timing of the case -
    just as EU foreign ministers were preparing to discuss Turkey -
    was planned by a coalition of anti-EU elements, who want to sabotage
    Turkey's membership.

    The same forces are also thought to be quietly stoking the tension
    between Turks and Kurds, which spilled over into violence last week
    when a Kurdish family was lynched by a crowd in the town of Seferhisar
    in western Turkey after they were accused of being terrorists.

    Mr Erdogan travelled to Diyarbakir, the largest city in the
    predominantly Kurdish south-east last month, where he became the
    first Turkish leader to publicly concede that Turkey had mishandled
    the Kurds. In a landmark speech that infuriated his nationalist
    opponents. Mr Erdogan pledged to address the Kurds' grievances.

    Mr Erdogan's words were hailed by EU officials as proof that he will
    not buckle under nationalist pressure, but he is facing criticism
    from conservatives within his own party, who are disgruntled over his
    failure to ease restrictions on Islamic education and on the wearing
    of the Islamic headscarf.

    The Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, warned in a recent
    interview in a recent interview, that a "no" from Europe would be seen
    throughout the Islamic world as proof that the EU is a "Christian
    Club." He added: "That is when the clash of civilizations may well
    and truly begin."
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