Posted on 09/17/2005 10:02:35 AM PDT by joan
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Friday blamed “weak governments” in France and the Netherlands for failing to tackle public opposition to Turkish membership of the EU.
He also singled out for criticism Angela Merkel, the Christian Democrat opposition leader who may become Germany’s first woman chancellor after next Sunday’s general election, for coming out against Turkey joining the EU.
“There are a few governments in the EU which have a negative attitude toward us,” Mr Erdogan told top business leaders, NGOs and academics meeting at the Clinton Global Initiative forum in New York. Blocking Turkey would mean the EU would remain a “Christian club”, he said.
Mrs Merkel, along with Nicholas Sarkozy, France’s presidential hopeful, have both expressed opposition to full EU membership for Turkey. Instead, Mrs Merkel is pressing the EU to offer Turkey only a “privileged partnership” – a position shared by the Austrian government.
Mr Erdogan said Turkey had tackled obstacles to Turkish membership, including recent efforts to resolve differences with Greece over the occupation of Cyprus. He sharply criticized the accession of the divided island of Cyprus to the EU, describing it as “a big mistake”.
This week, Britain and France agreed provisionally that Turkey should recognise all EU member states, including Cyprus, as early as possible before the EU could declare it ready for accession.
The move puts pressure on the Ankara government to upgrade its relations with the Nicosia government in Cyprus and to resolve other outstanding disputes such as the ban on Cypriot ships docking at Turkish ports.
Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, told reporters in New York this week that he strongly favoured starting accession negotiations with Turkey on October 3. But he suggested that negotiations would take a long time and face considerable public opposition in Europe.
“Will Turkey accede to the EU?” he asked. “Nobody knows.”
Many political observers said voters in France and the Netherlands defeated the EU’s constitutional treaty partly because of unease about the prospect of Turkey joining the EU. But Mr Erdogan blamed weak governments in these countries for failing to defend the vision of an “alliance of civilizations” between Moslem Turkey and a Christian western Europe.
But Gwynneth Paltrow said the Europeans are so much more multiculturally minded than the US -- how can they reject Turkey?
What I can't understand is why a thriving, growing, steadily advancing country like Turkey would want to join a retread, regressive organization like the EU.
"He sharply criticized the accession of the divided island of Cyprus to the EU, describing it as “a big mistake”."
The big mistake was allowing Turkey to exist after WWI.
The big mistake was breaking up the Ottoman Empire after WW1. They had kept the Arabs in line, allowed religious freedom, and were moving towards a democracy. Toss in Ataturk's secularization and, 90 years later, Osama bin Laden would be no more dangerous than Pat Robertson.
"allowed religious freedom,"
Tell that one to the Armenians!
"The Ottoman Empire and its successor, Turkey, has a history of taking in and giving freedom to Jews -- including some of my ancestors, for whose sake I remain grateful -- that dates at least back to the Spanish expulsion of 1492."
One of my law partners has a similar ancestry and feels a similar gratitude. I can't say as I blame you for feeling the way you do. My ancestors, on the other hand, were enslaved by the Turks for 400 years.
However grevious a tragedy that may have been, it's no justification for one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in the 20th century. As the above poster suggested, keeping the Ottomans in charge of the Levant and Arabia would have solved many, many problems.
Let me see, Armenians attacked Turks to claim the Northeastern Anatolia, isn't that war?
So when your Armenian friends attack the goverment it is by right and if the government responds its a genocide :)
That is a nice dream..
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