TURKEY BECOMES VERY OPEN, VERY FAST, SAYS COUNTRY’S CHIEF E.U. NEGOTIATOR
Turkish Press, MI
Feb 6 2007
ANKARA – European Union hopeful Turkey`s Chief Negotiator Ali Babacan
praised his country`s rapid transformation toward openness.
"Turkey has become very open, very fast," Babacan told Christopher
Power in a commentary published in the "Business Week".
The assassination of Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink "looks
like an anachronism," Babacan stated. "It`s not compatible with the
open society we are looking for."
Dink was shot dead on January 19th, outside the offices of his Agos
weekly in Istanbul.
Babacan also underlined that "a mental reform" was still needed in
Turkey and that certain things "were not changing overnight."
-TRANSFORMATION OF TURKEY-
Christopher Power said in his commentary that Turkey has striven
to come up to EU standards of openness to prepare its bid to join
the Union.
"A whole new media web has sprung up in the Eurasian nation of 75
million people, where almost none existed before," Power wrote.
"From a single state-owned TV station, more than 300 channels have
emerged. Eleven hundred radio stations crowd the airwaves. Every
private school is now linked to the Internet, and the government is
distributing 400,000 PCs to pupils."
Power cited other dynamics in Turkey`s transformation toward openness:
"The Governor`s Office in Istanbul has dispatched thousands of Turks
to work alongside civil servants and others in the EU states to learn
the way of life of the Western societies," he said.
Power also stated that Turkey has opened its economy to a surprising
degree.
"In the last five years exports have soared from $36 billion to $86
billion. Foreign direct investment has zoomed from $1 billion to $18
billion. GDP growth has averaged 7 percent," Power said.
"But Turkey does not want to lose its economic gains in an atmosphere
of political murders and terror fomented by a small minority. It
wants the payoffs of globalization, not the blowback," Power added.