The Jerusalem Report
December 25, 2006
WHEN EAST MEETS WEST
by Yigal Schleifer
Turkey and the European Union appear to be on a collision course over
membership talks
Outside the French Consulate and Cultura Center on Istanbul’s busy
Istiklal Boulevard, along with posters advertising an up-coming film
and art exhibit, there is a metal barricade manned by stern-looking
Turkish policemen carrying submachine guns. The reason: widespread
fury in Turkey over the passing of a law in France a few weeks ago,
making it a crime to deny that the mass killing of Armenians by the
Ottoman Turks in 1915 was a genocide.
To the Turks, long intent on sweeping the Armenian issue under the
carpet, this was like a red cape to a bull. Large protests were held
denouncing France and stores put up signs in their windows proudly
announcing that they no longer sell French products. One Turkish
cosmetics company announced that it was dropping its French-sounding
brand name, Francois Patrick, for the more innocuous MW. And by
mid-November, the Turkish military had announced that it was
suspending ties with its French counterpart, even though both
countries are members of NATO.
The uproar is symptomatic of what looks like a fraying in the
relations between Turkey and Europe, casting a shadow over Turkey’s
long-standing bid to become a member of the European Union. Pope
Benedict XVI’s late November four-day visit here provided another
illustration of that when he was greeted with angry protests and
required a larger security detail than George W. Bush required during
his visit to Turkey in 2004. The Pope, who as a cardinal had come out
against admitting Turkey to the EU because of its cultural and
religious differences, also inflamed Turkish passions in a September
speech linking Islam to violence. For many here, this was yet further
proof that Europe does not want the Turks.
And much like the worker who tells his boss, "You can’t fire me, I
quit," Turks are increasingly starting to feel it is they who don’t
want Europe. A wave of anti-Western nationalism has been washing over
Turkey, fueled by a perception that the EU is asking too much of
Turkey and giving it little back in return. Cutting across Turkish
society, from staunch secularists to Islamists, this nationalist
trend threatens to turn the continuation of Turkey’s bid for EU
membership into even more of a challenge.
After waiting at Europe’s door for decades, Turkey was given the
green light two years ago to start negotiations over becoming a
member of the EU. A raft of reform packages were passed in the
Turkish parliament, in order to bring the country’s economy and
political system into line with Europe. These included a new penal
code, an easing of restrictions on the use of Kurdish, and measures
aimed at curtailing the power of the military.
However much has changed since that initial period of euphoria. Faced
with the public’s growing anti-EU mood, the Turkish government of
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has significantly slowed down its reform drive.
Laws such as the one passed by the French parliament have led many
Turks to worry that resolving the question of the Armenian genocide
will become a prerequisite for EU membership. Many are also angry
over what they see as the EU’s failure to reward Turkish Cyprus after
its citizens overwhelmingly supported a 2004 UN plan to reunite the
divided island. Greek Cypriots strongly rejected the plan, but were
still able to become EU members.
EU officials, meanwhile, have been alarmed by an article in Turkey’s
new criminal code that allowed for dozens of its writers and
journalists – including its most famous novelist and new Nobel
laureate, Orhan Pamuk – to be carted off to court for the vague crime
of "insulting Turkishness" with things they had written or said. Some
have been convicted, though Turkey has now announced that it will
amend the offending article.
While support in Turkey for EU membership stood at close to 80
percent two years ago, it has now dwindled to around 35 percent,
according to EU-led surveys. Once a project that united Turkish
society, the question of joining the EU has by now become something
quite different.
"I don’t think joining the EU would be a good thing," says Faruk
Yilmaz, a mustachioed 40-year-old who sells sandwiches of roasted
meat in downtown Istanbul’s historic Beyoglu neighborhood. "Turkey
has wanted to be a member for such a long time. We are always walking
toward them and they send us back to the start."
Suat Kiniklioglu, executive director of the Turkey office of the
German Marshall Fund, an American public policy organization, says a
large part of the Turkish public today sees EU membership as a kind
of threat. "Today it is a dividing issue," he says. "I am afraid that
the people who believe that Turkey belongs in Europe are becoming a
minority."
A mirror image can be seen in Europe, where the public – especially
in countries like France and Austria – has developed major qualms
about admitting the predominantly Muslim Turkey into its ranks,
fearing the mass immigration of low-wage laborers and an influx of
yet more Muslims who will have a tough time adapting to "European"
society.
To make matters worse, EU diplomats have been warning for months of
an impending "train crash" in the membership negotiations with
Turkey. The slowdown in Turkey’s reform process, the court cases
threatening free speech and Ankara’s continuing refusal to open up
its airports and harbors to vessels from EU member Greek Cyprus have
all raised concern in Brussels and other European capitals.
The release in early November of an EU progress report sharply
criticizing the reform slowdown was perhaps the most definitive
signal yet that a further deterioration in Turkish-European relations
could be in the offing.
"The report represents a very important point, politically, as the
trains are heading toward a collision," says Kirsty Hughes, a
London-based European affairs analyst. "There’s going to be a big
fight between the member countries over what to do."
An EU summit is coming up in mid-December, when it is expected that
the 25-member body will agree to freeze its negotiations with Turkey
in part, if not entirely. German Chancellor Andrea Merkel has already
issued a stern warning, telling a German newspaper that if Ankara
refuses to open up its ports to Cypriot trade – something it promised
to do as part of the deal to begin the negotiations – "the EU
accession talks cannot continue in this fashion."
Diplomats and analysts in Turkey are downbeat about the prospects of
Ankara breaking out of its reform slump anytime soon. Turkey will
hold parliamentary elections next November, and observers here
believe that the political parties will try to play up their
nationalist credentials and distance themselves from the currently
unpopular EU accession negotiations.
"Certainly the military and the secularists have turned against the
EU and for them a negative [EU progress] report would be welcomed,"
says the Marshall Fund’s Kiniklioglu.
In some ways, a very strange dynamic is playing out in Turkey. While
the country is closer than ever to achieving the dream of the modern
secular republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, of firmly becoming
part of the West, it is the military and Turkey’s secular
hard-liners, the inheritors of Ataturk’s Westernizing legacy, who
seem most opposed to the EU drive. They fear the Europeans’ demands
will threaten Turkey’s sovereignty and force it to loosen its strict
controls on religious life. Meanwhile, it is the Islamic-rooted
Justice and Development Party (AKP), which leads the government,
which has been pushing the country’s EU ambitions forward and now
finds itself trying to immunize itself from charges that it is
selling out on Turkey’s founding principles.
But if not in Europe, then where does Turkey belong? There have been
suggestions that the AKP might lead Turkey towards a closer alliance
with the Islamic world. Ioannis Grigoriadis, a professor of political
science at Istanbul’s Isik University, says that rather than
eastward, Turkey’s growing nationalism is looking inward. "It could
end up with a Turkey that is very introverted and self-reliant," he
says.
But the reorientation of Turkish policy is a distinct possibility. At
the same time it has been pursuing its EU goals – and maintaining its
close relations with Israel – Turkey, under the AKP’s leadership, has
also been forging closer ties with its Arab and Islamic neighbors.
Relations with Syria and Iran have improved significantly in the last
few years, while Turkey has also taken a more assertive role in the
wider Islamic world. A Turk, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, currently heads
the Organization of the Islamic Conference and took a lead role in
criticizing the Pope’s recent comments about Islam.
"I think that feeling of being pushed around and not being treated
fairly is coupled with another dynamic in Turkish society, something
which started after the Iraq war, which is that they have discovered
that they are Muslims," says Cagaptay. "The AKP has accelerated and
anchored that discovery with its rhetoric and policies. We are
talking about a perfect storm," adds Cagaptay, "in the sense that the
factors are exacerbating one another. More and more Turks are feeling
as if they are not Western as a result of the treatment that they are
getting from the EU and America… and are identifying with Muslim
issues next door."
A rupture between the EU and Turkey, even a temporary one, could also
have important regional implications for Europe. One of the main
benefits of Turkey becoming a member of the EU – even negotiating to
become a member – is that it extends the organization’s influence
into the Middle East. Alienating Turkey deprives Europe of a strong
Muslim voice, and of a literal and figurative bridge into the region.
"Only with Turkey as a member can the EU be a player in the Middle
East," Cagaptay says.
With its large population of 70 million, which could help offset the
potential labor shortage posed by the graying of most European
countries, and its strategic location as a transit route for Central
Asian oil and natural gas, Turkey has much to offer the EU, says
Thierry Malleret, an expert with the Geneva-based World Economic
Forum. "Turkey is perceived by many as a source of risk to Europe; it
may just be the opposite, a potential source of major risk
mitigation," Malleret says.
Furthermore, any rupture with Turkey might be seen by the growing
community of Muslims in Europe, whose own integration into the
continent has been so difficult, as a signal that there is no place
for Islam in Europe. "For them, this is a test of whether they are
European. They are following this very closely," Cagaptay says.
Despite the criticism from Brussels and the nationalist mood in
Turkey, there are indications that both sides are working to reach
some sort of compromise before the upcoming EU summit. Along with the
willingness to amend the law limiting free speech, there are also
efforts to work out an interim deal on the Cyprus issue.
"I think all parties will try until the last moment to prevent this
train crash," says Joost Lagendijk, who heads the European Parliament
delegation to the joint EU-Turkey parliamentary committee. "A real
crisis would be if both parties would be looking for a way out [of
the negotiations], and I don’t think that’s the case right now."
What may also be needed is a change in the way the EU approaches
Turkey.
Isik University’s Grigoriadis argues that if the EU wants to bring
Turkey closer, it has to reel the country in slowly. "You can’t pull
the line too tight, or it will break," he says.