REPORT PUTS TURKEY’S EU HOPES IN JEOPARDY
By Daniel Dombey in London and Fidelius Schmid in Brussels

Financial Times, UK
Oct 31 2006

Turkey’s bid for European Union membership will be dealt a fresh blow
next week when an official report will slate Ankara for failing to
make enough progress on freedom of expression, curbing the use of
torture and establishing civilian control over the military.

The draft European Commission report, obtained by FT Deutschland,
the FT’s sister paper, comes at a particularly sensitive time, with
EU officials struggling to keep the accession talks alive.

Some EU member states, including the UK, fear that the pro-European
consensus within Turkey may be fragmenting, and that the debate within
the union on future enlargement has had the effect of alienating Turks,
rather than encouraged reform.

"We would have hoped that Turkey would have delivered a lot more during
the past 18 months, certainly since the beginning of negotiations in
October last year," said one EU official. "If Turkey had been moving
more, if there was greater freedom of expression, if there wasn’t
any torture, things would be a lot more promising."

Instead, the debate over Turkey’s accession will come to a head at
an EU summit in December, when Ankara will be judged both for its
reaction to an EU deadline to open up its ports to ships from Cyprus –
which so far it has refused to do – and to its broader reform record.

The Commission’s report faults Ankara for failing to allow access
to Cypriot ships, which it states infringes the EU’s customs union
agreement with Turkey. It is this issue that could formally halt
negotiations, since as an EU member state, Cyprus wields a veto over
Turkey’s possible accession.

However, Turkey’s reform record will also set the mood in December.

"Turkey needs to relaunch the reform process with full determination,"
Olli Rehn, the EU’s enlargement Commissioner said last week, urging
EU member states to focus on the issue.

The draft report, which Mr Rehn will present in its final form next
week, says that "prosecutions and convictions for the expression of
non-violent opinion…are a cause for serious concern." It cites the
example of a journalist who was given a suspended six months prison
sentence for articles he wrote on Armenian identity.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, said at the weekend
that he had no plans to change the article of the penal code used in
such cases, which makes it a crime to insult the Turkish state. "On
this matter, there is no work in hand," he said.

The Commisison draft adds that "cases of torture and ill treatment
are still being reported, in particular outside detention centres,"
although it also notes a diminution in the incidence of torture.

"The armed forces have continued to exercise significant political
influence," the report also says, citing statements made by senior
military officials on Cyprus, secularism and the country’s Kurdish
minority.

The draft report faults Turkey for corruption, insufficient
independence of the judiciary, and inadequate protection of minority
rights.

However, it does commend Ankara for training the judiciary and for
its steps towards establishing an ombudsman to help citizens win
redress against the government.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress