TOP EU OFFICIALS IN TURKEY AMID POLITICAL TENSIONS
Turkish Press
April 10 2008
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso arrived for talks
here Thursday as simmering political tensions pose a new threat to
Turkey’s struggling bid to join the European Union.
Barroso, accompanied by Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, is
expected to urge Ankara to re-focus on reforms demanded by the EU
when he meets President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and parliamentary opposition leaders later Thursday.
The visit comes as a pending court case threatens Erdogan’s ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP) with closure on charges of
seeking to undermine Turkey’s secular order and replace it with an
Islamist regime.
EU officials have slammed the prospect of a ban on the AKP as
undemocratic, Rehn warning that Turkey’s accession talks could be
derailed.
The AKP, the offshoot of a now-banned Islamist movement, has disowned
its religious roots and pledged commitment to democracy, launching
a series of reforms that led to the start of Turkey’s EU accession
talks in 2005. It was re-elected to a second term in July with almost
47 percent of the vote.
AKP supporters see the court case as a fresh attack against their
party by hardline secularists, whose prominent members include senior
judges, the military and some academics.
Critics, however, argue that the AKP aims to advance its Islamist
ambitions under the guise of improving religious freedoms in line with
EU norms and point at the abolition of a ban on the Islamic headscarf
in universities and the prohibition of alcohol in restaurants run by
AKP municipalities.
Many Turks are frustrated with what they see as inadequate EU support
for the country’s much-cherished secular system.
EU officials are "expected to emphasise the issue of secularism and
criticise some AKP moves with the same sincerity with which they
emphasise democracy," columnist Semih Idiz wrote Thursday in the
daily Milliyet.
Under fire for slackening its EU reform drive, the AKP moved to mend
its credibility on the eve of Barroso’s visit, submitting to parliament
a proposal to amend a law the EU has denounced as a threat to freedom
of speech in Turkey.
The proposal aims to soften Article 301 of the penal code, which
calls for up to three years in jail for "insulting Turkishness" and
has been used mainly against people contesting Turkey’s official line
on the massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire.
The provision has landed dozens of intellectuals, among them 2006
Nobel literature laureate Orhan Pamuk, in court.
Some — including slain ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink —
were convicted, but their sentences were suspended and no one has
been jailed so far.
Turkey has so far opened talks on only six of the 35 policy chapters EU
candidates must complete before accession. Brussels froze negotiations
on eight chapters in 2006 over Turkey’s refusal to grant trade
privileges to EU member Cyprus, which Ankara does not recognise.
Opposition to Turkey’s accession by some EU members, including France
and Germany, has also slowed progress of the talks.