ERDOGAN MUST RAISE HIS GAME ON CYPRUS
Simon Tisdall

guardian.co.uk,
Monday 19 April 2010 17.00 BST

Hopes for Cypriot reunification are petering out, leaving Turkey’s
prime minister with much to do to secure EU accession

Tayyip Erdogan insists talks will continue despite the election
victory of nationalist Dervis Eroglu in northern Cyprus. Photograph:
Mohammed Obaidi/AFP/Getty

If, as most analysts agree, resolving the Cyprus problem is a
prerequisite for Turkey’s membership of the European Union club, then
Turkish Cypriot voters have just effectively blackballed Ankara’s bid.

But longstanding doubts about Turkey’s suitability and readiness to
join were in any case already reviving, thanks in large part to its
combative prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan.

Sunday’s presidential election victory by the veteran nationalist
Dervis Eroglu in the unrecognised, Turkish-backed republic of northern
Cyprus is a possibly terminal setback for the island’s UN-brokered
reunification talks. Erdogan was quick to insist the talks would
continue – and they probably will, at least for now.

But the positions of the two sides are diverging and hardening, with
key issues such as security and property nowhere near solution. The
process, resuscitated once after the Greek Cypriot rejection of the
UN’s Annan plan in 2004, is back on life support. Unless something
dramatic happens, it looks doomed to peter out, hastening the day
when partition becomes permanent.

Mehmet Talat, the defeated, left-of-centre Turkish Cypriot president,
warned earlier this month that victory for the hardline Eroglu would
kill the negotiations. "The Turkish Cypriots will be blamed and blame
will mean the consolidation of isolation. It will be a difficult time
for Turkish Cypriots," he predicted.

Now Talat’s worst fears have been realised, it could be a difficult
time for Turkey, too. The Cyprus impasse has severely impeded its
EU accession talks. Eighteen of the 35 negotiating "chapters" are
currently frozen, mostly because of this dispute. It’s possible that
the 12 chapters now under discussion may be completed this year,
at which point Ankara’s bid could hit a dead end.

Tempers are fraying. Cemil Cicek, Erdogan’s deputy, this month accused
"certain EU countries" of behaving "unethically" in using the Cyprus
issue to conceal a deeper hostility to majority-Muslim Turkey. This
was an allusion to opposition on political, religious and racial
grounds in countries such as Greece, Germany, Austria and France.

After recent unproductive meetings with Germany’s chancellor, Angela
Merkel, and France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy – both of whom urged
Turkey to settle for a second-class "privileged partnership" – Erdogan
was more forthright. "The EU will only be a Christian club without
Turkey," he said. As in Cyprus, the lack of progress has impacted
public opinion, with fewer Turks now favouring membership. This
trend could in turn hurt Erdogan who faces a strong nationalist,
secular challenge in elections due in July 2011.

Erdogan and his Justice and Development party (AKP) were, to some
degree, viewed in the west as tame Islamists after first winning power
in 2002. But his attempts to loosen restrictions on headscarves,
outlaw adultery, and raise taxes on alcohol and tobacco have rung
alarm bells at home and abroad.

These concerns have intensified as Erdogan has pursued a crackdown on
the military, alleging extensive plots to overthrow him, inserted
his own man in the presidency, and tangled with the judiciary
and independent media – all self-appointed guarantors of Turkey’s
secular Kemalist tradition. Contentious reform proposals currently
before parliament would alter, among other things, the way judges
are appointed. If the changes are blocked by the courts, it could
trigger a constitutional crisis and early elections.

Erdogan’s voluble opposition to new sanctions on Iran, his avoidable
row with the Obama administration over a congressional committee’s
vote to recognise the "Armenian genocide", and his fierce criticism
of Israel have given ammunition to those who argue Turkey is not and
never will be European.

Turkey’s outreach to Arab neighbours has, meanwhile, led the new
social democratic opposition party, the Turkey Movement for Change,
to suggest the republic’s traditional pro-western, transatlantic
outlook, embodied in its Nato membership, is being undermined.

Democratisation and reform are badly needed but Erdogan is going
about it the wrong way, said Katinka Barysch of the Centre for
European Reform. "A changing Turkey needs a new system of checks and
balances …

Nevertheless, the system that now seems to be emerging is flawed,"
she wrote. Erdogan’s reforms "smack of political manoeuvring and could
discredit the process of constitutional renewal" while the established
opposition parties "lack a vision for a modern, dynamic Turkey".

With polls suggesting the AKP may struggle to retain its overall
majority at the next election and with Turkey’s EU hopes clouded,
Erdogan needs to raise his game. A unilateral initiative to settle the
Cyprus issue by year’s end (his stated aim) starting, say, with staged
Turkish troop withdrawals, would be a bold beginning. For added effect,
he might even unveil it during his historic visit to Athens next month.