CHP SNUBS BABACAN, GETS EU REFORM PLAN BY MAIL

Today’s Zaman
Sept 10 2008
Turkey

The government sent an extensive reform program to the main opposition
Republican People’s Party (CHP) by mail after party officials refused
to meet with Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and Foreign Ministry
diplomats for a briefing on the blueprint.

The CHP rejected a request from Babacan to meet with its leader,
Deniz Baykal, to introduce the draft Third National Program, a
more-than-400-page blueprint outlining reforms to meet European Union
standards for membership. Babacan was told he could contact Deputy
Chairman Onur Oymen instead. Babacan then said a Foreign Ministry
delegation would meet with Oymen, but officials told Today’s Zaman
that Oymen later cancelled the appointment. "We have sent the program
by mail," Babacan told a conference in Ankara on EU-Turkey civil
society dialogue. Senior officials from the Foreign Ministry and the
Prime Ministry’s Secretariat-General for EU Affairs visited Osman
Cakır, deputy chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP),
another opposition party whose leader, Devlet Bahceli, rejected a
similar request from Babacan, to introduce the national program later
on Tuesday.

Cakır said the MHP refusal to meet with Babacan was not because his
party was against the EU, saying instead it was a protest against a
visit by President Abdullah Gul on Saturday to Armenia.

Opposition leaders’ refusal to meet with Babacan underlines
the tensions between the government and the two main opposition
parties. Both the CHP and the MHP are cool towards the government’s
reform efforts in many areas, saying national interests are being
sacrificed for the sake of meeting EU standards. More recently, the
two parties slammed the government for Gul’s visit to neighboring
Armenia, with which Turkey has no formal ties. Babacan accompanied
Gul on the visit, the first by a Turkish president since Armenia
declared independence from Soviet Union in 1991, and had talks with
his Armenian counterpart on ways to normalize relations.

Babacan called on the two parties for dialogue and compromise and said
the EU reform process should not be sacrificed for domestic political
disputes as local elections loom on the horizon. "The leaders of the
two political parties did not want to listen to us. I hope this does
not mean they will reject everything that the government does even when
interests of the Turkish people are at stake," Babacan said. "I hope
our opposition parties will support the reforms, which will benefit
the Turkish people. I hope at least they will try to understand what
reforms are planned."

But experts say given the cool stance the CHP and the MHP have
towards the EU, it is no surprise that they refused to meet with
Babacan. "Their opposition to amending Article 301 [on freedom of
expression] and taking the EU-backed reform of the Foundations Law
to the Constitutional Court underline that they are not pro-EU," said
Cengiz Aktar of Galatasaray University. "What they do is nothing but
cheap nationalism."

According to Aktar, opposition parties backed the past national
programs in 2001 and 2003, helping in the emergence of a national
consensus on the EU membership goal. But now, the stance of the two
opposition parties is undermining this national consensus, he said.

Speaking after talks with EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn in
Brussels on Monday, Arzuhan Yalcındag, leader of Turkey’s biggest
business group, the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s
Association (TUSÄ°AD), also said the opposition parties must be
mobilized to support the EU process. "We acted in a spirit of national
mobilization to achieve EU membership a few years ago. We discussed
what we can do to restore this sprit and excitement," she said after
talks with Rehn.

The government, criticized by the EU for a slowdown in reform pace,
prepared the Third National Program as part of its efforts to speed up
the process. The program has been personally introduced by Babacan to
other parties in Parliament and sent to more than 80 nongovernmental
organizations so they could assess it before it becomes final.

Babacan said the government expected the political parties and the
nongovernmental organizations to state their views on the national
program in the next two or three weeks so that the program could
be debated and passed in Parliament when it returns from its summer
recess on Oct. 7.

The government pledged to reinvigorate EU reform efforts after a period
of slowdown amid fierce political tensions at home last year. Babacan
said in his speech that the coming period was a time for Turkey to take
brave steps and make essential reforms on its way to EU membership.

Despite criticism of a slowdown, Parliament has passed 29 reform
laws in the past one year alone, Babacan said. "It is impossible to
take such courageous steps in a short time without strong public
support. The policy to become an EU member-country is a strategic
target for Turkey, and it has become state policy as well. But Turkey
is also a country that has a long way to go in terms of political
criteria," he added.

He said, however, that Turkey has achieved much in the way of
fundamental rights and freedoms as well as ensuring that the rule of
law is respected. "When you look from abroad, these achievements are
described as revolutions," he said.

Babacan also said that Turkey has changed a lot over the past five
or six years, not only in economic terms but also in the level of
democratization. "Turkey is now a country, an economy and a society
which is more open when compared to five or six years ago," Babacan
said.

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