Economist
Oct 20 2006
Troubles ahead
Oct 19th 2006 | ISTANBUL
>>From The Economist print edition
There may be serious fall-out from Turkey’s present poor relationship
with both the European Union and America
AP
"THERE’S a lot of talk these days of a train-wreck later this year
bringing Turkey’s negotiations for membership [of the European Union]
to a shuddering halt. Is this exaggeration? Or just brinksmanship?
Neither, I fear. The danger is real." These valedictory words from
the outgoing British ambassador, Sir Peter Westmacott, reflect a
growing concern over Turkey’s relationship with the EU.
The trigger for the looming derailment is Cyprus, which joined the EU
as a divided island in 2004. The EU insists that Turkey must honour
its pledge to open its ports to Greek-Cypriot ships and aircraft.
Turkey retorts that part of the deal was to end the economic isolation
of the Turkish-Cypriots. It will not budge on the ports until the
embargo on Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus is lifted. If this row
is not settled by the end of the year, the EU membership talks may
be suspended.
A longtime NATO ally, Turkey’s strategic importance and size mean
that a rupture with the EU would have effects far beyond its borders.
It would confirm suspicions across the Islamic world that the union
is a Christian club. Mindful of the stakes, Finland, which holds the
EU presidency, has been pushing a plan that would let Greek-Cypriots
use Turkish ports and Turkish-Cypriots export their goods, under
union supervision, from the Turkish-controlled port of Famagusta.
This week Abdullah Gul, the Turkish foreign minister, and Ali Babacan,
the economy minister and lead negotiator with the EU, both said they
were hopeful of a breakthrough before the European Commission issues
its progress report on Turkish accession on November 8th.
In private, Turkish officials say that any deal would have to include
reopening northern Cyprus to commercial air traffic, because tourism
is the only way of ending its dependence on handouts from Turkey. And
the Greek-Cypriots say this is out of the question so long as Turkey
refuses to recognise their government as the only legitimate one on
the island.
Barring a last-minute miracle on Cyprus, the best hope is that
negotiations are allowed to continue on chapters that are unrelated
to trade or other matters that affect the Greek-Cypriots directly.
But that means persuading the Greek-Cypriots to lift their veto on
opening new chapters. And the suspicion in Ankara is anyway that
countries such as Austria and France, where there is strong public
resistance to Turkish accession, would be only too happy to see the
talks suspended.
How else, say the Turks, can one explain the French National Assembly
vote for a bill to criminalise denial that the mass slaughter of the
Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 was genocide? Or the demands by
French politicians that recognition of the genocide should be made
a condition for Turkey’s membership, even though the enlargement
commissioner, Olli Rehn, has firmly declared that it should not be?
Given the public response in Turkey to what are seen as European
snubs, some are now speculating that it will be Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
the Turkish prime minister, who is the first to walk away from the
talks. With support for EU membership dipping below 50%, a firm show
of defiance might be a good way of drawing nationalist votes to Mr
Erdogan’s mildly Islamist AK party in the parliamentary election that
is due by next November.
As ever, pro-European Turks are pinning their hopes on America to
ride to the rescue. The economic and political ructions that many fear
would follow a suspension of the EU membership talks might galvanise
America into using its influence with heavyweights such as Germany’s
chancellor, Angela Merkel, who is due to assume the EU presidency
in January.
The trouble is that Mr Erdogan now has so few friends left in
Washington. His failure to deliver on promises to facilitate America’s
invasion of Iraq and his overtures to Iran and Syria have made him
seem an unreliable partner. This matters as America ponders the best
response to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
At home too, Mr Erdogan is facing problems with the country’s hawkish
new chief of the general staff, General Yasar Buyukanit. Since taking
over in August, the general and his fellow commanders have turned up
the volume of rhetoric they aim at both the government and the EU.
When Mehmet Agar, leader of the opposition True Path Party, declared
last week that he would not allow the generals to talk when he came
to power, General Buyukanit responded that he would continue to talk
"even if you are in charge."
The army’s assertiveness is aimed in part at bullying Mr Erdogan
into renouncing his presumed ambitions to succeed the determinedly
pro-secular Ahmet Necdet Sezer as president when his term expires in
May. Mr Sezer has spent the past three years blocking any legislation
proposed by Mr Erdogan that he has deemed to be a threat to the
secular tenets of the constitution. For secularists the presidency
is their sole remaining bastion; should the overtly pious Islamist
Mr Erdogan conquer it, they fear that it will be the end of Ataturk’s
republic. The knee-jerk anti-Semitism displayed by some of Mr Erdogan’s
colleagues has not helped him.
General Buyukanit may well be tempted to voice these concerns when
he visits Washington shortly. His views on Iran (he once described
Iran’s theocracy as the "antithesis" of Ataturk’s republic) will
undoubtedly appeal to his hosts. Should the EU talks collapse, the
army may be given an even freer hand. There is loose talk of a repeat
of the generals’ so-called "soft coup" in 1997, when they managed to
lever Turkey’s first Islamist-led government out of power.
Yet although some in America might be tempted to welcome such an
outcome, the chances of its happening remain tiny. Unlike 1997,
the opposition parties lack the parliamentary strength to form
a government. Foreign investors, crucial to sustained economic
growth, would take fright if the army moved. Another risk is that
opposition to a military-backed government would no longer come only
from mainstream Kurdish and Islamic groups, but from their militant
hardcore detractors, with suspected ties to Islamist terrorists.
That such scenarios are now seriously conjured up only goes to show
that EU membership, warts and all, is the best-and possibly the
only-guarantee of Ataturk’s dream of a firmly pro-western democracy.
With the right vision and selfless leadership Mr Erdogan could still
go down in history as the man who made it come true. But he will have
to show statesmanship-and the EU (and America) will have to help him
along the way.