Sunday, November 5, 2006; 4:19 PM
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- The cautious courtship between Turkey and the European Union looks like it might be headed for a messy and acrimonious breakup.
They were a mismatched couple from the beginning: one wealthy, mostly Christian and liberal, the other far poorer, overwhelmingly Muslim and largely conservative. Perhaps it's no surprise the initial optimism over Turkey's bid to join the bloc has deteriorated into mutual recriminations and a seemingly hopeless inability to communicate.
The mood is likely to worsen after Wednesday when the EU releases a progress report on Turkey's bid which says Ankara is dragging its feet on reform and failing to meet minimum human rights standards, according to a draft copy viewed by The Associated Press.
The consequences of worsening relations between Turkey and the EU could be dramatic and far-reaching: At stake is an ambitious vision of bringing a Muslim nation into European society, proving that a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam is not inevitable.
Many analysts say that is why negotiations are likely to continue for the foreseeable future, with neither side committing to a clean split that would send the message to Muslims everywhere that the West is not prepared to deal with them on equal footing.
"Of course I support the EU (bid)," said Bayram Kapici, a 38-year-old security guard in Istanbul. "But the question is, what will our place in the EU be? I mean, we're Muslims. Are we barbarians? How will they see us?"
For the moment, enthusiasm toward Turkey's bid has cooled dramatically on both sides, and Turkish leaders' passionate claims it could bridge the gap between Europe and the Muslim world are starting to ring hollow.
Turkish public support for membership has fallen below 50 percent, and many believe that perceived insults from the EU _ in the form of frequent criticism and seemingly endless demands for reform _ play directly into the hands of nationalists and Islamists who are largely opposed to the bid.
Europeans, meanwhile, have a litany of complaints about Turkey, including its poor record on human rights, intolerance to free speech and hardline attitudes toward adultery and homosexuality.
Many Europeans also say Turkey has refused to look objectively at its past, notably the massacre of Armenians after World War I that many historians call a genocide. Turkey acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians died, but says the overall figure is inflated and that the deaths occurred in the civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Many Turks fault the country's old rivals Greece and Cyprus for the growing acrimony, claiming they are lobbying the EU to take a hard line over Turkey's refusal to open its ports to planes and ships from the Greek-speaking part of Cyprus. Turkey does not recognize the Cypriot government and props up the internationally unrecognized administration in the north of the island.
A last-ditch meeting last week to settle the Cyprus issue was canceled, leaving the Turks with very little time to negotiate before the EU's year-end deadline to concede or see talks suspended.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in remarks released Sunday that the standoff over Cyprus was "very serious." Asked if the talks would be frozen, she said: "The EU cannot simply carry on. Turkey must understand that there will be no simple 'carry on' if there is no movement" on Cyprus.If talks collapse, the symbolic value of having an overwhelmingly Muslim, democratic nation firmly integrated into the West would be lost. Turkey's 71 million citizens, taught to look to Europe for inspiration since the secular Turkish state was founded in the 1920s, might look elsewhere for positive reinforcement.
The Islamic countries of the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa, with which Turkey's Islamic-rooted government has been forging increasingly close ties, could be natural surrogates.
"Nationalists are benefiting from this, there's no question about it," said pollster and political science professor Hakan Yilmaz.
But many Turks feel that a complete breakup with the EU is out of the question.
Yilmaz said many EU leaders were just playing to the crowd by publicly belittling Turkey.
"Some in the European Union public love this humiliation _ particularly in France," he said, alluding to a proposed French law that would make it a crime to deny the Turkish genocide of Armenians.
Meanwhile, some leading politicians on both sides are trying to make the relationship so miserable that Turkey will just walk away on its own, said Ilter Turan, a political analyst at Istanbul Bilgi University.
Turan said, however, the government would be excoriated by the Turkish public if it walked away from the EU, despite the current anti-EU mood in the country.
The key question appears to be how to persuade Turkey to reform without damaging national pride.
"There is one thing where the Turkish public seems to be rather adamant," Turan said. "If there is to be a union, it is to be on equal grounds."
___
Associated Press Writer Stephen Graham contributed to this report from Berlin.
No comments:
Post a Comment