Posted on 03/04/2003 12:51:37 PM PST by a_Turk
In rejecting US requests, Ankara has demonstrated its identity and democratic credentials
Among the more tiresome fixtures of US-European exchanges over the past decade have been the perennial requests from Washington to speed up Turkey's admission to the European Union. Whenever a minister or official travels one way or another, you can guarantee that the European representative is read a lecture about the urgent need to anchor Turkey in Europe. Sometimes, the Americans even say "please".
Their argument is that Turkey, with its large and youthful population, its secular constitution, its crucial geo-strategic position and its impeccable record of loyalty to the North Atlantic alliance, deserves its place in Europe. The US fear, usually left unspoken, is that if Turkey is not accommodated, and fast, there is a risk that it will ditch its secularism and fall into the Islamic camp.
The inescapable reality until very recently, however, was that Turkey fell very short of meeting even the most elementary criteria for membership of the European Union. It still had the death penalty; its court system was highly suspect; its prison and punishment system even more so; and the weakness of its democracy gave the generals a whip hand, even when the appearance of civilian government was maintained. Looming over everything was the philosophical question of Turkey's identity: is Turkey essentially European or Asiatic, and where should the EU's border run?
My view tended to be that Turkey was forever condemned to be a border state straddling two worlds, belonging fully to neither. European identity is one of those things that are hard to pin down; you just know it when you see it. Lithuania, Slovenia, yes; Bulgaria – maybe; but Turkey – no. For all the shocked condemnation his words elicited back in November, I doubt that I was alone in quietly agreeing with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing when he said that Turkey had "a different culture, a different approach, a different way of life" and that Turkey's accession would spell the end of the EU.
Even with the recent constitutional changes, including abolition of the death penalty, and last year's satisfactorily democratic election, it seemed to me that Turkey was not EU material and would not be for a very long time, if ever. The European Union, I felt, had to set its border posts somewhere, and the Bosphorus was as natural a dividing line as any.
The Turkish parliament's vote on Saturday has changed my mind. In rejecting a string of US requests to station troops in Turkey for deployment against Iraq, Ankara demonstrated its sense of national identity and its democratic credentials. In voting as it did, Turkey's parliament has done more than any institution in any other country to force a re-think in Washington, at least of means, if not of ends. And even if Turkey's parliament reverses its vote today – or sees it overridden on economic or strategic grounds – that will not alter two striking facts. On Saturday, Turkey's parliament showed itself, perhaps for the first time, prepared to resist the will of its transatlantic patron. It also showed itself more in harmony with popular sentiment across Europe than with Washington's war plans.
A host of reasons, by no means all of them admirable, can be advanced to explain the Turkish parliament's defiance. Ankara may have been playing for more time or more money. Perhaps it did not trust US undertakings that it would preserve Iraq's territorial integrity (and so rule out the formation of a separate Kurdish state). Turkey's new members of parliament may have been flexing their muscles in anticipation of a subsequent retreat. Or perhaps the Islamic element in this parliament and government meant that they heeded the anti-war sentiment that prevails in the Arab world more than they might have in the past.
Underlying all these reasons, however, is the reality that on Iraq, the interests of the US administration and those of Turkey are rather different, if not actually in conflict. What is more, Turkey's priorities – an unthreatening, stable, unified and solvent Iraq – have more in common with those of what Donald Rumsfeld contemptuously called "old Europe" and popular sentiment in Europe as a whole than they do with the calls for forced disarmament and regime-change coming from Washington and London.
Turkey's split from its US patron may also signify something broader. So long as Ankara was content for its western credentials to be validated by its membership of Nato, it remained unerringly loyal to the US. Now that it sees its future in the European Union, and the EU and the US are increasingly at odds, it is gravitating towards the EU. My hunch is that it is only a matter of time before the same route is travelled by the "new Europeans", those central and east European countries so assiduously courted by Washington as allies against Iraq.
So long as Nato membership, with its security guarantees, was their central objective, they saw relations with the US as their priority. As the EU becomes their club of choice, however, these "new Europeans" will tilt back towards the "old Europe" – where countries such as Poland and Hungary feel they have always belonged. Any old Europe/new Europe divide will then be exposed as the malign, Washington-inspired stratagem it really was all along.
Underlying all these reasons, however, is the reality that on Iraq, the interests of the US administration and those of Turkey are rather different, if not actually in conflict. What is more, Turkey's priorities – an unthreatening, stable, unified and solvent Iraq – have more in common with those of what Donald Rumsfeld contemptuously called "old Europe" and popular sentiment in Europe as a whole than they do with the calls for forced disarmament and regime-change coming from Washington and London.
This paragraph is an absolute lie, almost purposely disinformation. American aims are unity. "Old Europe" wants the continued civil war in Iraq, oppression, and maintenance of the status quo - which hurts Turkey economically. Real "Differences" do exist about the Iraqi Kurds, Turkomans, and such issues, though.
The EU pulls its punches? All I see is various countries attempting to impose their will on the others within the group.
The last paragraph is mischeivious:
So long as Nato membership, with its security guarantees, was their central objective, they saw relations with the US as their priority.
Whoever said this? This is a false dichotomy. The US, and UK, pushed hard for the EU to allow Turkey in. "Old Europe" is vehemently against it. Schizophrenically she mentions d'Estaing's comment - reflecting French policy, then suggests America is the barrier. Will the "EU" be a military configuration too? Many nations against this. Thereby NATO is still relevant.
As the EU becomes their club of choice, however, these "new Europeans" will tilt back towards the "old Europe" – where countries such as Poland and Hungary feel they have always belonged. Any old Europe/new Europe divide will then be exposed as the malign, Washington-inspired stratagem it really was all along.
It's amazing that one off-hand comment by Rumsfeld about German and French obstructionism has caused such a flurry in Europe. Since the hyper-centralizing wing of EU supporters see dissension, it's best to blame America and it's "malign" motives, rather than accede that there are different alternative views. The EU has existed for years without the need to vilify America. Money is the issue, and whose will will control the EU.
They won't let Turkey in as a full partner. Ever. Count on it. Turkey's historical and natural interests are with the US. Natural interests are also with Russia and a new (and unified) Iraq.
Why? Just wait until the EU decides its phoney openness to Turkey has no more use. You'll know about one week after Saddam falls.
Anyway, the US Govt. is too busy acceding our econnomic health to China and the like.
Sounds a lot like racism to me.
European identity is one of those things that are hard to pin down; you just know it when you see it.
The smell is usually a reliable indicator as well.
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