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**AzatHayrenik** · 02-13-2006, 07:38 AM

This article was too long so I had to post it in 3 pieces.

The Case of Turkey in the EU

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?focus=3...3D7757&acat=3D1

10 February 2006 | 19:37 | FOCUS News Agency

BY OGNYAN MINCHEV

In 10 to 12 years Turkey will be a member of the EU. With the
assistance of a whole palette of crafty and logical arguments the
opponents of Turkish membership - overt and covert - console
themselves that this would not happen. Here is a part of their
reasoning: the European public opinion does not accept 80-million
Islamic Turkey as a part of Europe. Turks, who already live in Europe
isolate themselves in close communities, because they are culturally
incompatible with the majority Europeans. In European terms Turkey is
a relatively poor country, and Europe is already charged enough with
supporting the development of the new member states from the former
communist bloc. The Turkish state is authoritarian and oppressive,
with respect for human rights to the lowest sanitary minimum. Turkey
does not fulfill the political standards of European democracy. The
country is ruled over by a doctrine and culture of uncompromising
nationalism, hardly compatible with the post-national stage of
development of Europe

There are only two arguments - though rarely publicly referred to- in
favor of Turkish membership in the EU. First, without Turkey, the
geopolitical construct of the West, called upon facing the challenges
of the 21st century, could not be completed and consistently
protected. The West needs consolidated borders moved eastward which
guarantee the control on the Middle East and Central Asia. The
affluence of energy resources, the resurgence of radical Islam and the
transition of China into a super-power are all challenges that cannot
be faced without a critical minimum of economic, political and
military control of the West over these two regions of key strategic
importance. Second, the necessary depth of geopolitical penetration in
these regions cannot be accomplished only through military-political
and technological instruments. It is needed that the social
structures, representing the identity of the Western civilization -
open economy, democratic political system, and pluralistic culture -
`take roots' in traditionally non-Western societies on the eastern
periphery of Europe in order to provide for the strategic
sustainability of the Euro-Atlantic hegemony. The necessary - and in
many aspects sufficient - condition for this is the full-fledged
membership of Turkey in the main institutions of the West, including
the EU.

The advantage of the previous two arguments in the debate `in favor'
and `against' Turkey's membership is that they are shared by the
strongest economic and political factors of the contemporary West,
capable of definitely influencing each institutional decision. Note -
the French and Dutch voted definitely `no' at the referendum for the
European Constitution in the spring of 2005. One of the main reasons
for the negative vote was due to perceiving the potential membership
of Turkey as a threat. After both referenda the observers were
unanimous - negotiations with Turkey and Ankara's membership in the EU
will be delayed for indefinite future. Several months later, on
October 3, the EU decided to start negotiations with Turkey. It
happened despite the European public opinion, despite the `enlargement
fatigue',despite the actual institutional blockade following the
rejection of the constitutional project.

The opponents of Turkish membership still console themselves with the
`insuperable obstacles', which the procedures for full membership
install and will consistently put up for Turkey. Lastly, the inner
fortifications of the` fortress Europe' are the referenda, which
Austria and France decided to hold for approving each next candidate
country after the entry of Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia in the
Union. Prior to them, however, there are numerous procedures of the
negotiating process, which have to verify that the EU legislation -
acquis communautaire - is adopted and effectively applied within the
Turkish state system. The membership negotiations held with the former
communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe were quite
formal. They floated onthe surface of the normative and
administrative-procedural framework of verification that the candidate
country has adapted its economic, political and social system to the
standards of Europe. The post-communist governments themselves
undertook a strategy of practical consent with all requirements of
Brussels in order to finalize negotiations and get the EU membership
most quickly. Only Poland (and partially the Czech Republic) organized
a substantial negotiation debate from the position of its national
interest regarding the membership conditions. The more the enlargement
process moved to the east and south, however, the more important it is
for the EU to go deeper in the negotiation process from the
normative-administrative surface into inspecting the substantial
application of the adopted norms and procedures in the government of
the candidate country. Bulgaria and Romania were given a postponing
clause in their membership agreements as an instrument of pressure
till the very last moment to practically implement (how much
effectively is another matter) the undertaken commitments for their EU
membership.

The Challenges of Negotiating With Turkey

Negotiations with Turkey will be unique in view of a `double misfit'
of the candidate country with the membership criteria. On one hand,
Turkish state system is the least conforming to the European
requirements compared to any other candidate-country in the EU
history. The very fact that Turkey was acknowledged as a country
fulfilling the political criteria of Copenhagen (without which a
country is not given the status of a candidate-country) was a
tremendous and substantially wrongful political compromise that
Brussels made. Turkey has long-term structural problems of its state
system functioning in regard to standards of relations between the
state and its citizens. The restrictions on free speech, that
intellectuals like Orhan Pamuk and MuratBelge [1] are confronted with,
are only the surface of systematic repression of basic minority,
ethnic, religious and civil rights, applied with the purpose to
protect the official nationalistic ideology of the secular republican
regime, controlled by the military establishment. The totality of the
ideological control of the dominant radical nationalism is best shown
in the official treatment of topics like the Armenian genocide in
1915. The public mentioning of this topic itself was tabooed during
the entire 20th century, and the attempts for discussion today end
with a lawsuit (as in the case of Pamuk and Belge). According to the
logic of the Turkish state ideology it is not disgracefulto commit
genocide, it is disgraceful to confess it. Notwithstanding that
contemporary Turkish statesmen and Turkish citizens do not bear
responsibility for the deeds of their predecessors in the beginning of
the 20th century -besides, of course, the responsibility of admitting
the crime and apologize for it.

Problems of evolution and adaptation of the Turkish state system to
the democratic standards of Europe are complicated by the fact that,
despite its authoritarian nature, the secular nationalist republic
under the control of the military is the only - for now - guarantee
for the pro-Western (within certain limits) orientation of Turkey as a
key country on the border between Europe and the Islamic East. The
moderate Islamist Party of Justice and Prosperity, ruling in Ankara in
recent years, is conducting reforms, which weaken the institutional
control of superior military over state power, but it is currently
premature to judge its ultimate goals and outcomes of this ostensibly
democratic transformation. Whether democracy is a goal or means of now
moderate Islamists is yet to be seen [2]. Furthermore, in the ideology
of political Islam, democracy - as far as it exists - is not
liberal. Thus, the alternatives of state-political development of
Turkey are enlightened secular authoritarianism - manifested by
Kemalism, or Islamic democracy, which may imitate liberal reforms, but
in essence it is alien to the values of Western liberal democracy. To
these two alternatives, in different proportions, the ideological and
political influences of neo-Ottoman, pan-Turkic and Turkic-Eurasian
political doctrines could be added [3]. Neither of these ideological
and political trends includes the democratic values of contemporary
Europe. Kemalism remains relatively most close to European cultural
identity as a project for authoritarian modernization of an Islamic
society on its road to secularization.

Political dilemmas of Turkish remoteness and difficult compatibility
with the project of Europe could be better understood in the context
of economic, social and cultural divisions of contemporary Turkish
society. Similar to any other border society, Turkey is a country with
two, even three, faces. The Western face of Turkey, demonstrated by
modern industrial and commercial cities and regions near Istanbul and
the Aegean coast have actual potential for relatively successful
economic and - to a certain extent - social integration in the life of
united Europe. Central Turkey is rather a well-arranged Middle East
territory. East Turkey - for its poverty, ethnic conflicts, powerful
demographic dynamics and total dominance of traditional Islamic
society israther comparable to poor Islamic countries eastwards than
to any European standards. Huge investments are needed for the
development of these regions for decades prior to whatever strategy
for modernization may bring convincing results. The agenda of any
substantial democratization - especially by European standards - may
come only afterwards.

On the other hand, the negotiation process between Turkey and the EU
will be characterized with a powerful, aggressive and intransigent
pressure on behalf of Ankara on Brussels to recognize the current
political, economic and social status quo in Turkey as satisfactory
for EU membership. It is impossible for Turkey to fulfill
substantially - even partially - thecriteria for membership in the
European Union. It would be too painful to Ankara, however, to undergo
the negotiation procedure, which Eastern Europeans chose: `it is true
that we are not well prepared, but we are obedient, accurate and
diligent- please, take us in.' There are too many and too important
issues, on which Ankara has to `obey' Brussels, if it undergoes this
procedure - the recognition of united Cyprus, community autonomous
status for Turkish Kurds, complete abolition of military control over
political decisions, obliteration of state control over religious
communities - It is only the beginning of the list. The Turkish state
deliberately maintains a campaign of indignation at the `humiliating
requirements' of Europe towards Turkey within the Turkish public
opinion. The timid legislative reforms, made by the government of the
demonstratively moderate Islamist R. T. Erdogan, are presented as
`sufficient sacrifice' made by Turkey in the name of Europe. Dynamics
in negotiations between Ankara and Turkey from this viewpoint are
already evident. On one side, there will be soft, politically correct
and kind, even scrupulous, European administrators and politicians,
trying delicately to show Turkey the necessary steps for adaptation to
European institutional realities. On the other side, there will be
Turkish diplomats equipped with a strategy of unconditional
infallibility and obstinacy. It is not only a `style of diplomacy' -
each retreat from any Turkish position threatens to reveal the whole
gap of discrepancy between Turkish public reality and the European
criteria for membership.

Besides being psychologically imbalanced, negotiations with Turkey
will be perforce motivated by the current political agenda - European
and global. Europe, as part of the West, is getting more vulnerable
to the waves of instability, demographic expansion and religious
radicalization of the Middle East. Chaos in Iraq will be followed by
a grave and prolonged crisis with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. The
victory of Hamas in Palestine and the rising fundamentalist pressure
on the regime in Syria bode no better times for the region as a
whole. A series of small but timely political services, which Ankara
may render to the West in the process of this new round of Middle East
destabilization, would play a decisive role in crushing of nonetheless
enervated reasoning of Brussels for bringing Ankara around
implementing reforms and fulfilling criteria. Thus, negotiations on
Turkish membership will be reduced to a series of political bargaining
- for its strategic services in favor of the West, Turkey will receive
`small gifts' of successfully closed negotiation chapters. Furthermore,
in this international political context it is Brussels and not Ankara
that will be the negotiating party, which is pressed, hasty, and sets
the dynamics of the process, turning a blind eye to Turkish realities`
from A to Z', from the first to the thirty-first negotiation chapter.

Perhaps here we have to mention the objection that all this could not
happen because the European public opinion will not allow it.
Doubtlessly, the European public will have serious influence on the
negotiation process, for which it will not run smoothly - it will have
its dips, crises, even temporary breaks and blockades of negotiations.
It is for sure, however, that the public opinion of Europe, as well as
the political opponents of Turkish membership in the EU, will not be
able to thwart the negotiations and accession of Turkey to the club of
Europe. The truth is that neither Brussels, nor Washington is able to
pay the political costs of repelling Turkey and its potential
animosity and strategic redirection on the border with the turbulent
Islamic world. Besides the long-term drawbacks for the Western
interests in the Middle East, the European repudiation of Turkish
membership application will bring about serious consequences in other
two strategic dimensions. First, it will strengthen and `cement' the
strategic partnership between Turkey and Russia aimed at preventing or
limiting the strategic Western (military, institutional,
infrastructural) presence in the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian
Sea and Central Asia [4]. Secondly, the most unstable and vulnerable
region of Europe - the Balkans - will turn into a border of the EU
with the Middle East. This border could be seriously influenced and
destabilized by an alienated and regionally powerful Turkey. Besides
the relatively sizeable Turkish minority in Bulgaria, on the Balkans
there are many dispersed Muslim communities, traditionally influenced
and dependent on the patronage and suggestions ofAnkara. Certainly,
the accession of Turkey to the EU will not solve this problem- on the
contrary, it will aggravate it, because the whole Balkan region will
fall under the powerful regional influence of the former imperial
metropolis- present Turkey. But this is the Balkan point of view. To
Brussels and evento Washington the problem of Turkish hegemony over
the Balkans after Turkey's accession to the EU will be internal,
European, problem, which Europe will regulate by institutional
mechanisms of influence. As far as it could regulate it, of course...

Turkey itself is not a stranger to the idea of a `Balkan deal' with
the EU. Although the conflicts of 1990s faded away, the Western
Balkans remains a vulnerable region, for which there is a lack of
evident, short-and- mid-term solutions. Engaged in its global
anti-terrorist campaign, Washington has no interest in maintaining
peacekeeping presence in the Balkans, and the EU vacillates between
the dilemma of offering membership to a group of countries without
explicit limits and resolutions, or paying high costs of a
proto-colonial control over a group of mutually hostile de facto
protectorates. It is right here that Turkey, a EU candidate country,
holds out a `friendly hand' - during his visit in Pristina (Kosovo) on
11 October 2005 Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gül said: `The EU
journey has ended and now we're going to the Balkans. We're traveling
by planes to regions our ancestors went on horse'. Commenting on
this, the influential Turkish daily, published in English, The New
Anatolian adds on: `After successfully starting Turkey's EU talks,
Turkey turns attention to historical backyard: the Balkans'[5]. What a
scope, what a dynamics! Yesterday you `conquered' Europe, and today
you return to the Balkans by the right of your ancestors, who have
kept these areas outside Europe for six centuries. The offer to Europe
is clear - `do not worry about the Balkans, your backyard. If you
admit us in the club of Europe, we'll release you, we'll take care of
the Balkans as our backyard - As it goes by - the end remains to you -
and to the Balkans...

**AzatHayrenik** · 02-13-2006, 07:39 AM

The Major Effects of a Turkish Membership on Europe

The issue on the agenda is what would happen to the EU if it admits
for membership Turkey, more or less like it is today. Turkey would be
the biggest country in the EU, with the greatest number of votes in
decision-making. It is a country with enormous social, cultural and
economic divisions, a country with authoritarian political system,
based on a radical nationalistic project. A country with imperial
past, valued with sense of pride and revisionist ambitions, in which
the historic truth about the violence against subjugated peoples is
rigorously tabooed; a country, where minorities, free speech and
different identity are deprived. A country with immense demographic
dynamics, with tens of millions poor citizens, living in the world of
patriarchal, traditional, Islamic society. The evident answer is that
the EU will cease to exist in its former status of a project for
economic, social, political and cultural integration of Europe and
will be reduced to the status of a customs union, free trade area,
upgraded with a certain amount of common commercial regulation,
administration, and - perhaps - (for most members) single currency.
In order to be impartial one has to acknowledge that even in its
present form- after the accession of ten new members in 2004, the EU
is functioning increasingly difficult as a single political and social
project. There is a growing trend to establishment of internal
alliances and division of interests among various groups of
countries. The blockade of the European Constitution is just one of
the indicators of this institutional and political stagnation. At this
stage, however, there are still considerable opportunities for Europe
to cope with this present blockade and find its `point of equilibrium'
after the unprecedented wave of enlargement with new members
(finishing with the entry of Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia). The
accession of Turkey will destroy these opportunities. National
political elites of European countries could be pressed to vote for
Turkey's membership. But citizens of Western and Central Europe will
not accept either economic and tax sacrifice, needed for the
integration of 80 million - in short-term, 100-million Turkey, or new
flows of poor immigrants running from Anatolia, or the abrupt collapse
of their social, cultural and civil-political standards as a result of
the integration of areally very different society.

There is only one strategic choice, by which Western European
political class can concurrently admit Turkey as a EU member and
satisfy, at least partially, the interests of the citizens, who
intermittently elect it in the institutions of power. And this is
setting up `multi-speed Europe'. This concept is not a novelty. To
some extent, such Europe is already a reality after 2004. This
reality, however, submits to the strong homogenizing effect of
operative European institutions and to the integrative role of the
acquis communautaire. After Turkey's accession however the `old' EU
members themselves will re-nationalize their institutions and
legislation under the pressure of the public opinion aimed at
preventing unwanted invasion of foreign work force, foreign lifestyle,
foreign institutional and civil culture. It is exactly this process,
which will reduce the common European legislation and administration
to a sanitary minimum of trade relations, to the status of a single
customs union. In the place of the EU, degraded to a free trade area,
a new flexible, informal, selective, bilateral, regional and
multilateral process of `inner' integration between the countries of
Western and Central Europe will begin. Britain will keep watching
behind the Channel (EU reduced to a customs union is one of British
old dreams), Scandinavian and Baltic countries will quickly get
further closer, Charlemagne plus Benelux, Austria and Hungary - The
common high standards and rules of EU integration at present will be
replaced with selective integration agreements among particular
countries, filling in and transforming the vacuum of the practically
abandoned European project. As a result of this process a relatively
quick historic restoration of the European integration process in the
internal core of Europe will occur. Peripheral areas of Europe will
remain part of its wider, external economic and strategic environment.

Turkey is interested in this inevitable devolution of the European
project to a free trade area for two reasons. First, by this means
Ankara will evade - or at least reduce - the ceaseless embarrassment
of explaining in the European institutions one or another disparity
between European standards and institutional practices in Turkey.
Second, devolution of the politically integrated EU to a loose network
of regions with various statuses will greatly favour the ambition of
Abdullah Gül and his colleagues to return quickly andby modern means
to the place where their ancestors have been riding horses- in
Southeastern Europe. No great efforts are needed for this purpose.
Powerful forces of economic, demographic and geopolitical gravity work
in favor of Turkish ambition. In Istanbul - the only mega polis in the
region -live at least twice as many people as the whole population of
Bulgaria. The vigorous process of migration from East Turkey to
western industrialized regions is intensified by the demographic
dynamics of traditional Kurdish and Turkishsociety. The industrial
infrastructure of western Turkey cannot manage to integrate any more
these newcomers. Presently, in the region of Istanbul, Bursa, Izmir
and Odrin there are already millions of people (according to some
estimates- between 5 and 6 million) without systemic subsistence.
Lifting the border barriers between Turkey and the EU will set these
people free to seek their living in other countries - the first
possible destination is Bulgaria and the other countries in the
Balkans. The scope of Turkish economy, Turkish armed forces, and the
potential of the Turkish state inevitably allot Turkey the role of
regional hegemonic power in Southeast Europe. The intensity of this
hegemony will directly depend on the willingness and potential of the
rest of Europe - to what extent it will preserve itself as a single
subject - to influence the economic, political and social development
of the Balkan countries.

The aspirations of Bulgaria, Romania and the other Southeast European
countries to be members of the European Union are motivated by the
long-term interest of these societies to break away from their
historical dependencies on the empires of the East - Ottoman and
Russian (Soviet inclusive) - and to re-integrate in the civilization
project of Europe. The irony of history however may fling them back to
the hands of their former imperial masters in direct result of their
realized ambitions for EU membership. If Turkey accedes tothe EU and
realizes without any excessive efforts its project for `return' or
hegemony on the Balkans, the first direct result of this would be the
triumphant geopolitical return of Russia in the region. Balkan Eastern
Orthodox societies have complex identity as a result of the
vicissitudes of their history. These are societies of two faces - one
looking to the modern West,and the other - to Russia, which has always
been the only historical hope for dispelling the oppressive Islamic
empire of the Ottoman Turks from the home of Balkan peoples. A Europe,
losing the charisma of its integrationist project and leaving its
member states in the Balkans in the hands of the revived Turkish
expansionism will be the most direct and effective invitation to
Moscow for returning to the region. It would be a particularly
interesting process inview of the new - and most likely long-term
partnership between Russia andTurkey in the Black Sea and its adjacent
regions. Thus, the Balkans will be returnedto the channel of
Russo-Turkish rivalry and partnership, and Europe will be pushed out
of the region due to the paradoxical logic of its own unwise expansion
- the incorporation of Turkey into the EU.

Strategic Priorities to Influence Turkey's Membership Talks

In the context of this most likely scenario for Turkey's membership in
the EU the strategies of the main political, economic and civil
factors, affecting the process of decision-making in the European
countries, the US and the Balkans (however comic their inclusion
alongside the first two this may seem) gain a special importance. The
division between proponents and opponents of Turkish membership will
remain in the future, but yet a third group of arguments and opinions
will have a greater importance - giving account for the considerable
probability for Turkey to be admitted and trying to influence the
process aiming at its optimal development in the interest of a united
Europe, of preserving the democratic European project, and in the
interest of most positive democratic evolution of Turkey itself. The
strategy of this `third option' between all `pros' and `cons' for
Turkey's membership should include several basic components.

First, in terms of importance and long-term effect, cooperation is
needed between democratic institutions and civil structures in Europe
and Turkish democrats and Turkish civil society. Turkish intellectual
and civil society elite equals to the best quality standards of Europe
and the world. Yet, being a democrat and citizen in Turkey is much
harder than in Europe, much harder than in the Balkans after 1990.
Notwithstanding the reforms, which the current government undertook
under the pressure of Europe, independent public opinion and free
speech in Turkey are still mercilessly prosecuted, when empowered
institutions consider that the official state ideology is offended.
Therefore, Turkish democrats, civic activists and minority groups'
representatives are most interested not just in Turkey's success in
becoming EU member, but in a successful democratization of Turkey,
motivated by the objective for European belonging. Turkish civil
society should receive comprehensive and utmost support from Europe,
Balkans, and the whole democratic world, in order to succeed in
setting irreversibility and dynamism of democratic reforms in Turkey.
Turkish civil society is the main, crucial and unique ally of Europe
in the negotiation process with Ankara; an ally, capable of exercising
parallel pressure over structures of authoritarian state nationalism.
Each attempt for repression and restrain of civil rights and liberties
on behalf of official institutions in Ankara should resonate in a
powerful protest of European public opinion and pressure on European
institutions for staunch negotiation process with Turkey. Turkish
civil society should be regarded as an integral part of the European
civil society, and any encroachment on it should be considered as
encroachment on civil liberties in Europe.

Second, though directly related to the first point, support is needed
to all pro-European factors and social movements in Turkey, even to
those, which do not completely fit in the European concept of
democratic identity. A considerable part of Turkish state
establishment undertakes a `double strategy' in regard to EU
membership. `This is Turkey, let it in - let it out of the EU, that's
your will.' That's the message of this part of the political elite. `
If we do not accede to Europe, we have an alternative - we are a part
of the Middle East, part of Eurasia - `The alternative' is an
important part of Ankara's pressure resource within the negotiation
process, based onthe understanding of the strategic importance of the
country as an ally of the West. Reaching a distinct pro-European
public and political majority against `the alternative' in Turkey is a
crucial element of the Western strategy. Like any ideology, the
dominant Kemalism in the Turkish state is potentially heterogeneous.
On one hand, Kemalism is an authoritarian nationalistic project, on
the other - it is the European, modern project for Turkey. Under
certain circumstances the second may overrule the first.

Third, increasing the public and civil control and pressure on the EU
institutions accountable for negotiations with Turkey is crucial.
Precise civil monitoring on Brussels' decisions is capable of quickly
identifying the undue ` gifts', which the European Commission could be
forced to make to Ankara during negotiations as a result of lobbying
pressure. Sources of this pressure should be identified and publicly
announced, regardless of their origin. Developing independent civil
lobbying instruments is needed for influencing the governments of the
US, the UK, Italy and Poland, which most determinedly and
unconditionally support Turkey's membership in the EU. The civil
strategy for public control over negotiations with Turkey should avoid
classic divisions between left and right political parties and social
movements in Europe- utmost finicality to processes of democratization
and adaptation of the Turkish state and society to European social and
political standards is in the interest of all Europeans, regardless of
their political affiliation. This finicality is necessary whatever the
final result of negotiations with Turkey is - positive or negative for
Turkey's membership in the EU.

Fourth, maintaining the principle debate among European politicians
and public opinion on `pros' and `cons' Turkish membership in the EU
is counter-productive. The principle decision has been made. Europe
missed the advantageous period for defending a common position in
favor of a `privileged partnership status' for Turkey in 2003 -
2004. During this period Turkey's position on the war in Iraq
ultimately chilled the relations between Ankara and Washington,
reducing to minimum the principle and strong American support for
Turkey's membership in the EU. Instead of taking advantage of those
facts on the ground, particular European politicians (most of all, the
German Chancellor G. Schroeder and Foreign Minister J. Fischer) had
preference for cashing petty advantages, tempting Turkey with an
unexpected proposal for membership in order to draw Ankara to the
`European side' in the growing Transatlantic rift. Today it is
already past, and any retreat - to abandoning the European commitment
to Turkey's membership - would have severe and unjustified
consequences. Such a European stance would be unprincipled and would
incite strong animosity in the Turkish public, a punch of the
authoritarian state machine on the fragile process of democratization
- and most likely - strategic redirection of Turkey from partnership
to rivalry with Europe. A sound European strategy after 3 October
2005 requires mobilization of European institutions, public opinion
and national elites in Europe for an ultimately effective pressure on
Ankara for deep and principled transformation of the Turkish state and
society, and adaptation to European standards of social, economic and
political life. This pressure should be strong, uncompromising and
based on the explicit understanding of the complete legitimacy of the
EU requirements to Turkey in negotiation process. Each misunderstood
`political correctness' in this process will be at the expense of
future generations of a `big Europe'.

Fifth, last but not least, is the necessity for reaching principled
agreement between the EU and the US regarding the purport, procedures
and requirements to Turkey aimed at successfully fulfilling the
criteria for membership in the club of Europe. This point may cause
disagreement of a kind -`Why Europe has to agree with the US on a
issue of its sole concern?' Without denying the principled validity of
such an argument, from a practical point of view I consider it more
advantageous for European countries to engage Washington in a common
position of the West towards requirements to Turkey. Otherwise Europe
should be ready to experience a strong, informal and non-public
political pressure from the other side of the Atlantic, which counts
only at the strategic importance of Turkey for the West. A principled
agreement between Europe and Washington on problems of Turkey's
membership in the EU could substantially limit the discomfortably
large perimeter of maneuvering of Ankara in favor only of Turkish
strategic interests. When it is beneficial to Turkey, it is a part of
the Western union, in other occasions - just a part of Europe, or - a
Middle East country, or - a Eurasian country. However understandable
such a `strategic pluralism' may be, provided the territorial location
and geopolitical position of Turkey, it is far from beneficial for its
Westernpartners.

The last, but in order of importance, argument in favor of a
transatlantic dialogue on Turkey's membership is that the sustainable
integration of Turkey in Europe is a responsibility of the West as a
whole, and not only of the EU. The process of Turkey's integration in
the EU will bring about a series of political, financial and social
dilemmas, which have to be resolved jointly by the transatlantic
community. Otherwise, the integration of Turkey in the EU could turn
from a matter of common interest for a prospective Western strategy
into a reason for additional alienation and tension between
majorpartners in the transatlantic community.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

**AzatHayrenik** · 02-13-2006, 07:40 AM

NOTES:

1) The novelist Orhan Pamuk was charged with `denigrating the Turkish
national identity' under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code due to
a pithy remark he made in an interview to the Swiss magazine Tages
Anzeiger on 6 February 2005 in which he stated that `one million
Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands [Ottoman Turkey]
and nobody but me dares talk about it'.

An inquiry has been started against Murat Belge, renowned Turkish
intellectual, professor of literature and civil rights activis, for
his participation in an academic conference held in Bilgi University
focused on the same theme, which is forbidden for public discussions
in Turkey.

2) The definition of Prime Minister Erdogan for democracy is widely
known. Yet in his capacity of mayor of Istanbul, he said: `Democracy
is as a streetcar: you ride it until you arrive at your destination,
then you stepoff...', `Will Turkey Make It?' by Stephen Kinzer, New
York Review of Books,Vol. 51, # 12, July 15 2004

3) The original version of the ideology of Kemalism is a
non-expansionist one - it examines the Turkish national project
entirely within theframework of the state, under the slogan `Peace in
Turkey - Peace in the world'. After the occupation of northern Cyprus
in 1974, and - especially - after the 1980 military coup d'etat, the
elements of imperial nostalgia and expansionist nati onalism started
increasing in the Turkish state doctrine. During the governance of
Turgut �-zal - Prime Minister and President in 1982 - 1993 -
neo-Ottomanism and pan-Turkism turned to be a substantive part of the
state ideology. The collapse of the Soviet Union opened practical
space for the implementation of the pan-Turkism but the results of the
Ankara's campaign towards the ex-Soviet republics in the Caucasus and
Central Asia were not quite convincing. The Balkan crises of the `90s
related to the collapse of Yugoslavia and the success of the Movement
for Rights and Freedoms in establishing control over the ethnically
mixed regions in Bulgaria inspired the neo-Ottoman ambitions in
Turkey. The Balkan policy of Ankara, however, is very reticent and
cautious. The European ambitions of Turkey do not permit the
development of an expansion beyond the `Chinese drop method' -
silently and unnoticeably gaining positions that serve long-term
goals. The Turkish Eurasianism is a kind of` substitute ideology',
which aims at threatening Europe - i.e. Turkey has an alternative - as
well as at serving the stronger and stronger mutual interest in
cooperation with Russia for preventing the penetration of the West in
the geo-strategic realm of the two former empires - the Russian and
the Ottoman empires. In the implementation of the pan-Turkic,
neo-Ottoman and Eurasion ambitions of Turkey the importance of Islam -
as an instrument formanipulation and governing of the Turkish and
other Muslim communities in the neighboring countries and regions - is
growing.

4) The strategic partnership between Moscow and Ankara for control
over the Black sea and the resources of the strategic direction Black
sea -Caucasus - Central Asia is already a fait accompli. Ankara does
its best to discomfit the presence of NATO international forces in the
Black sea aquatory, referring primarily to the Montreux Convention,
and Russia maintains a series of ` frozen conflicts' in the Caucasus
for preserving the corridor to Central Asia practically impassable for
the Western security infrastructure and economic development. The
monopoly, established by the Russian concern Gazprom for
transportation of gas from Asia to Europe could be preserved only in
cooperation with Turkey with the aim to put a stop to any alternative
projects for gas transportation to Europe from Iran, Kazakhstan and
Turkmenistan through Asia Minor.

5) The New Anatolian, Wednesday, October 12, 2005

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