Anchoring Ankara
Leader
Friday September 9, 2005
The Guardian

Europeans, or more precisely the EU member states, voted for Turkey last
Christmas when they solemnly promised to start long-awaited negotiations
with Turkey on its membership of the club. The date they gave was
October 3 2005, now less than a month away, and there is a whiff of
panic in the air that maybe, after all the fuss, this may not happen.
Turkey, long a trusted member of Nato, thought its European “vocation”
had been finally and definitively recognised in 2003, when the then
15-member EU was finalising its historic 10-country enlargement. But
anti-Turkish feeling in several countries and last summer’s rejection of
the union’s new constitution in France and the Netherlands have created
grave doubts. Thus yesterday’s warning by Jack Straw, in the hot seat of
the EU presidency, that it is vital to stick to that solemn promise,
even if, as expected, the actual negotiations take many years.

The biggest problem is the ever-tangled question of Cyprus, one of last
May’s newcomers. It had been hoped that UN efforts to reunite the island
would bear fruit before it joined. Since they did not (though more
because of the Greek than the Turkish side), and Ankara is refusing to
recognise the Nicosia government, the start of accession talks is in
jeopardy.
France has been very negative. But there is a bigger obstacle looming in
Germany, assuming Angela Merkel’s CDU wins this month’s election. Ms
Merkel wants Turkey to be offered only a “privileged partnership,” not
the full membership that has awaited all other candidates at the end of
their negotiations. To offer something different exclusively for Turkey
would seem to prove the resentful charge that the EU is a “Christian
club” that cannot accommodate the world’s only secular Muslim democracy
– and risk a dangerous backlash.

It bears repeating that the magnet of EU membership has already
generated huge advances under the conservative government of Recep
Tayyip Erdogan. Torture has been banned; there are now Kurdish language
broadcasts and the grip of the military has been weakened. It is thus
regrettable – and a gift to Turkey’s enemies – that at this delicate
moment the renowned novelist Orhan Pamuk is facing Ataturk-era charges
of “belittling Turkishness” over his brave comments about the Armenian
genocide of 1915. Countries that join the EU must be able to confront
their own past, and respect free speech. Still, Mr Straw is right. The
talks must begin on schedule. Any delay would be a betrayal of trust
that could weaken Europe’s battered credibility, and damage Turkey’s
reforms.

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