"EUROPE NEEDS TURKEY"

Expatica, Netherlands
Feb 20 2007

AMSTERDAM – "In the long term Turkey not only needs Europe, but Europe
needs Turkey. If we forget about Turkey, all hell will break loose,"
says Geert Mak, journalist and non-fiction writer.

Mak’s most recent book De Brug (The Bridge), set in Istanbul, is being
given away free at bookshops during this year’s Book Week (14 -24
March). Mak makes these comments in the booklet Boekenweek CV 2007,
which appears in March and contains excerpts from Mak’s work as well
as a reader’s quiz.

Turkey’s accession to the EU is on the agenda in the Netherlands once
again because of Queen Beatrix’s state visit to the country planned
for next week.

Mak writes in the booklet: "It is already of strategic importance
that a bridge be built to the Middle East via Turkey. A modern Turkey
will also function as a beacon of modernisation for the Islamic
world within a few decades. If we let Turkey go, on the other hand,
all hell will break loose. There is a good chance that the country
will fall prey to fundamentalism and become an unguided missile in
this sensitive region," Mak say.

More than 40 representatives from the Dutch media have signed up
to report on Beatrix’s visit to Turkey. The country has featured
prominently in the news over the past few months because of its
prospective EU membership, dubious record when it comes to human
rights and the (denial of the) Armenian genocide in 1915.

It does not look as if these thorny issues will be broached during
the state visit. "The visit should accentuate and strengthen the
historically good relations between the two countries," says the
Government Information Service.

Turkey expert Professor Erik-Jan Zurcher said on Monday that the
genocide is not a question that should be stirred up publicly, like
Liberal VVD MP Hans van Baalen would like to do.

"Intervention like that is not wise. In doing so you certainly don’t
help out the Turks who are willing to enter the debate. These people
cannot afford to be labelled a mouthpiece for Europe." The debate
on the genocide has been opened, Zurcher says, but by a ‘small
intellectual elite.’

Zurcher says that in the meantime enthusiasm among Turks for entering
the EU is waning. "For a whole generation at least 70 percent said
‘yes’ to the EU, now it is only 50 percent in some opinion polls."

Still Turkey cannot be expected to ever entirely abandon its hopes
to join. "Europe serves as an example, they want to join, but they
have some reservations. It is widely thought that Europe does not
have the best intentions for Turkey, that it is also a force that
could threaten unity."