TIME FOR EU-TURKEY ‘URGENCY’
By Hugh Pope

Wall Street Journal
10108233.html
Dec 16 2008

An abrupt and unusual word buried in a European Union declaration
on Dec. 8 showed the mounting risks of a breakdown in Turkey’s EU
membership talks. Ankara’s need to solve its problems with Cyprus,
foreign ministers warned, has become "urgent." Thanks also to Turkey’s
failure to meet EU reform benchmarks since the negotiations started
in 2005, a showdown looks inevitable over the next year.

David KleinFailure to reform and deep political polarization have led
to a sense of lost direction in Turkey. Nationalism and human-rights
violations are on the rise again. As the adoption of EU norms look more
distant, ethnic tensions between Turks and Kurds have occasionally
spilled over into neighborhood violence and attacks on shops even
in major western cities. The great progress made in a golden era of
reform from 2000 to 2004 is at risk.

The EU accession process was the principal anchor of Turkey’s economic
miracle this decade. This new prestige has led some policy makers
in Ankara to declare that the country could be a self-standing
regional hub that doesn’t need the EU. But such thinking stood on
shaky ground even before the global financial crisis exposed Turkey’s
vulnerability. The Balkan countries to Turkey’s west are mostly in
the EU already or moving toward that goal, and even countries such
as Ukraine and Georgia are more interested in EU accession than in
any special partnership with Turkey.

For Europe, the costs of losing Turkey are substantial as well. No
doubt, European access to one of the biggest and fastest-growing
nearby markets would become more difficult if the membership talks
broke down. France’s opposition to Turkey’s EU membership in the last
two years has cost it a great deal of business: French MP Pierre
Lellouche earlier this year estimated the value of contracts lost
at â~B¬5 billion. French diplomats say they’ve had to close their
military sales office in their Ankara embassy due to the lack of
Turkish interest, and the Turks also blocked Gaz de France from
joining the Nabucco natural-gas pipeline project.

In fact, the souring EU relationship has been an impediment to
progress on Nabucco altogether. Designed to bring Caspian or Middle
Eastern reserves across Turkey and eventually to a hub in Austria,
Nabucco is the EU’s first formal effort to strengthen energy security
by diversifying away from Russian gas supplies. What’s more, an EU
that proves unable to work on an equal basis with Turkey will deepen
a belief in the Islamic world that the West rejects Muslims.

There are many reasons for this damaging EU-Turkey divergence. EU
populations and politicians are cooler to enlargement than ever
before. Sound arguments about Turkey’s long-term contribution to
the EU are losing ground to nostalgia for an idealized vision of a
homogenous European past, along with fears about radical Islam and
the potential loss of jobs to Turkish immigrants.

In Turkey, disillusionment began with the EU’s 2004 admission of
Cyprus as a divided state. The EU move rewarded the all-Greek Cypriot
government, even though in 2004 it was the Turkish Cypriots who
accepted, and the Greek Cypriots who rejected, the EU-backed United
Nations peace plan. The EU then reneged on its promise to open direct
trade with Turkish Cypriots.

French and German opposition to Ankara’s right to join the EU further
demotivated Turkish leaders, who slowed the adoption of EU law to
a crawl. Additionally, half of the 33 negotiating chapters are now
frozen for political reasons by the Greek Cypriots, who want Turkey
to change positions in the Cyprus dispute, and Paris, which says
it wants to block talks with Turkey on any issue applicable to full
EU membership. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan angrily dressed
down EU diplomats at an Ankara dinner in September, telling them:
"Forget about drawing water from this well. [The EU has] got the
bucket so stuck in the bottom of the well, it’ll be a miracle to get
it out at all."

In such an atmosphere, Turkey-skeptic EU states, perhaps in tandem
with Turkish politicians angry with Europe, may try to suspend the
negotiations altogether. One pretext could be Turkey’s promise, made
in order to win the opening of negotiations in 2005, to normalize
relations with Cyprus and to open its seaports and airports to Greek
Cypriot traffic. When Turkey had failed to do so by December 2006,
the EU said it would study the issue "in particular in 2007, 2008 and
2009." Brussels’ new warning that the issue is "urgent" implies that
this ambivalent wording is now seen as a deadline. Absent any good
news on EU-minded reforms by Turkey, diplomats even in pro-Turkey EU
capitals warn that a suspension of negotiations is possible.

Paradoxically, this cooling of relations comes just as Turkey
is showing how much it can do to complement EU goals. Ankara has
played key roles in representing the EU point of view over Iran’s
nuclear policy and nudging Lebanese factions toward compromise on
a new president — actions which Brussels acknowledged in its 2008
Turkey progress report. This year it has mediated talks between Syria
and Israel, and opened up dialogue with both the Iraqi Kurds and
even an old enemy, Armenia. In recognition of Turkey’s responsible
foreign policy, the country was elected to a two-year seat on the
U.N. Security Council.

EU politicians must do their share to avoid a crisis. They should
recognize their past mistakes on Cyprus, engage even-handedly in
support of the promising new Cypriot talks in progress since September,
and publicly commit funds to a future Cyprus settlement. The dangers
of failure were highlighted last month when the Turkish and Greek
navies and Greek Cypriot-chartered oil-prospecting ships sparred over
territorial rights in the Mediterranean.

Since 1963 the EU has repeatedly promised Turkey full membership
once it meets all criteria. Now would be a good time to reaffirm this
promise. Also, the EU would win by following the call of Sweden and
other pro-Turkey EU states to deepen strategic dialogue with Ankara.

Unfortunately for Ankara, EU politicians care more about the
anti-enlargement mood at home than about Turkey’s geostrategic
role. Turkey’s government and opposition will have to overcome their
mutual hostility, implement the long-delayed reform program, and
relaunch work on a new, more democratic constitution. Only a full
adoption of European norms can prove that Turkey truly wishes to be
part of the EU family.

Mr. Pope is Turkey/Cyprus project director for the International Crisis
Group and author of "Sons of the Conquerors: the Rise of the Turkic
World" (Overlook Duckworth, 2005). Crisis Group yesterday published
its new policy report "Turkey and Europe: the Decisive Year Ahead."

–Boundary_(ID_uGpZQR+jPMiGwxVGBnnKh A)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress