TURKEY’S NEW PRESIDENT
Henning Andre Søgaard

Huffington Post, NY
eys-new-president_b_62263.html
Aug 29 2007

The new Turkish president faces skepticism from within and outside
his country. But the West has little to fear from the new leader.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul is expected to be voted in as Turkey’s
new president today after months of confrontation with the secular
establishment.

As a member of the ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development
Party (AKP), secularists’ fear he plans to dilute the country’s
strict separation of religion and state, dating back to the country’s
founding in 1923. Furthermore, his wife wears the Islamic headscarf,
considered a provocation by the very same group.

In May, millions of Turks demonstrated against the prospect of
a president from the AKP and the military, which has ousted four
governments since 1960, issued stern warnings about the threat to
secularism.

But the AKP went on to win almost one in every two votes in an early
parliamentary election, propelled inter alia by the country’s strong
economic growth. The headscarves-issue did not bother a majority of
the voters, who believes religion belongs in the private sphere. In
fact, the AKP’s efforts to loosen the country’s ban on headscarves
proved popular amongst more than 60 % of the country’s women, who
prefer covering up when entering government buildings and universities.

Yet, this also provoked this spring’s protests, which were led by
the country’s secularist military elite.

The new president also faces scepticism from abroad. On Monday
27 August, France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, reiterated his
unequivocal opposition against Turkish membership of the European Union
(EU), Turkey’s number one foreign policy goal. German Chancellor Angela
Merkel holds more or less the same view. A recent survey by the Centre
for European Policy Studies concluded that Turkey-scepticism is on the
rise throughout the entire continent, mainly because Europeans feel
that their identity would be threatened by allowing a predominantly
Muslim country to join. Some U.S. officials have also expressed
concern about the rising influence of Islam in one of Washington’s
primary Middle East allies, though Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice recently said she would support a new democratically elected
AKP-affiliated president.

Based on the new president’s track record in government, the West
has little to fear.

In course of his five years as Foreign Minister, Mr. Gul and his
government have cultivated an image of moderation across the board.

It has not passed one single law that could be described as Islamist.

At the same time, it has liberalized restrictive laws on the
property of Turkey’s religious minorities, Greeks, Armenians and
Jews. And more importantly, it has introduced sweeping reforms that
scrapped legal restrictions on freedom of speech and granted Kurds
more cultural rights, reforms that last year allowed Turkey to open
formal negotiations to join the EU.

As Foreign Minister, Mr. Gul has consistently pursued pro-Western
policies, for instance by staging high-level visits to the White
House and preventing a trip to Iran by his former boss, then Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at a rather politically sensitive time
in September 2003.

With regards to anti-Semitism, the AKP have displayed a very different
manner than did former Islamist parties. Mr. Gul himself has repeatedly
strongly condemned it, including in speeches to the Organization of
Islamic Countries. Furthermore, he has made it a priority to improve
relations with Israel and positive trend in bilateral relations has
remained unabated as seen in the conclusion of new joint projects such
as the modernization of helicopters by the Israeli defense industries.

But developments in other parts of Turkey’s "near-abroad", in
particular, in neighboring Iraq, are less promising.

Ankara accuses members of a Kurdish separatist group, the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK), of seeking shelter in northern Iraq, and Turkey
has reportedly amassed over 200,000 troops on its Iraq border.

Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Steven Cook recently warned that
border operations remained "extremely dangerous" for Turkish troops.

He said the PKK security threat continues to sow discontent within
Turkey, potentially boosting nationalist power. A recent report from
the Center for Defense Information concluded that a Turkish invasion
could significantly undermine the US mission in Iraq.

The AKP-affiliated new president has a great opportunity to allay
fears of both the secular population and international decision makers
by contributing more actively to the resolution of challenges facing
the region. That also includes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In doing so, Mr. Gul would show the face of a tolerant Islam that
would be accepted by all Turkish people, by the EU and the West,
direly needed right now. The country could finally become the bridge
between east and west, at the junction between the Orient and Occident,
as its geography and history suggest.

But Western leaders, in particular within the EU, must also do more.

President Sarkozy and others should stop their negative rhetoric
and instead focus on how to speed up ongoing accession-talks with
the country.

If not, the country could eventually drift towards militant secularism
among nationalists, which poses a far greater risk than a president
with a wife wearing a headscarf.

–Boundary_(ID_A7FxteZwso5nhK0rL9Qofw) —

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress