Energetic, honest and transformed — so why does Turkey need us anyway?
Norman Stone

THREE OF THE greatest engineering projects of modern times are under way in Turkey. By the Maiden’s Tower, on the Bosphorus, a famous old landmark, two elaborate structures have appeared. They are the surface end of an enormous underwater enterprise, to link the European and Asian sides of the city by tunnel. It will widen the traffic bottleneck that so besets Istanbul, and do much to make it once again one of the great European cities. Already, huge areas of the old European part of the city are being restored, brought back to where they were in 1900, when the city was the heart of a Mediterranean empire.

Then there is the vast Baku-Ceyhan pipeline that brings oil from the Caspian to the Mediterranean; again a gigantic enterprise, negotiating its way through poor mountain country, to keep Europe going. It also brings life to towns such as Kars, in northeastern Turkey, where, with an endless winter, the inhabitants had to heat themselves with “straw bricks” — combinations of animal dung and straw, dried out in the open in the summer and then used to keep the people going in a cold that reaches well below zero. These things — tezek — were used in Alpine Europe until the Fifties, and then, not. Turkey is following that path.

The greatest of these engineering enterprises is the GAP, the “southeastern Anatolian project”, by which great dams are to be placed on the biblical rivers Tigris and Euphrates, flooding an area the size of Belgium and turning what, for centuries, has been a dirt-poor area back into “the fertile crescent” that it used to be. If you go to that mainly Kurdish part of south-east Turkey, you can see the green areas spreading, and towns such as Urfa, on the Syrian border, growing ever more prosperous.

These projects are the background to the debate about whether Turkey should be allowed to join the European Union. A stage army of Euro-Lilliputs has put up objections, humiliating for the Turks in general: too many of them, too poor, too Muslim, too nasty to their minorities, too likely to migrate in droves and set up kebab houses all over the place. The country has, of course, its problems, but the history of the Turks is about getting there in the end.

It is true that in the 1970s there was a Third World demographic problem; Turkey added, every year, the population of Denmark to itself. Schools could not cope, hospitals were swamped, electricity failed for six hours every day, a smog fell across the cities. But Turkish birthrates have fallen to replacement-rate (though there are pockets in the east where the old ways go on).

Nor is the country nearly as poor as legend would have it. Turkish males die on average at 70, Russian ones at 60. The growth rate is enormous and you can see the signs all around: the restoration of battered old parts of Istanbul, or the chains and chains of Central Europe-bound lorries on the main roads. (Kayseri, the old Caesarea, is now a key industrial town, and so is Antep, both of them making things that Western Europe no longer makes for itself.)

If Western Europe opened up the agricultural market as well as the industrial one, you would see a similar process in the countryside of Anatolia. At the moment it is a very odd mixture: near-biblical villages, complete with donkeys and lines of men chewing the cud in teahouses, only a mile or so from a modern farm with irrigation sprinklers pumping away.

Is there a European country of which the above might, easily within living memory, have been said? There is. It is Spain, under Franco. Not long ago the backwardness and cultural difference of Spain were held to be incompatible with EU membership. Turkey also has a Mediterranean culture, complete with clientelistic politics, a family sense of sometimes forbidding strength, and very good hot dinners. Once Spain joined Europe it rapidly “modernised”. Nor did poor Spanish “ guest workers” migrate in droves. In fact, as within Spain, the cultural differences within Anatolia are at least as great as those between Turks and Europeans.

Comparison with Spain brings up another contentious question: minorities. Spain had a vicious civil war, involving them. The Catalans were ahead of the rest of the country, in much the same way as Greeks or Armenians were in old Turkey. Turkey’s minorities had more and better schools; in fact the Turkish language had to be radically reformed in order for the masses to be at all literate (the old, Arabic-based, script could cater for four “z”s and three vowels, whereas Turkish has one “z” and eight vowels).

The problem in Turkey was complicated during and after the First World War, when the Western powers used local Greeks and Armenians to try to carve up Anatolia. Much massacre resulted, with whole regions being “ethnically cleansed”. In the Thirties roughly half the urban population of Turkey was made up of refugees and their descendants, and these can hardly be expected to take kindly to the European Parliament’s resolving that one of these ethnic cleansings, and one only — the Armenian — should be recognised as “genocide”.

The other minority question concerns the Kurds. They are like the Basques: mountaineers, in part religious-reactionary, in part bandit-revolutionary, in part successful migrants, with several different languages, none much developed. When Kurds move to the cities — two thirds have now done so — they do not vote for the nationalist parties. They do do so in the southeast, but that area has not flourished as the rest of the country has been doing because it is on the Iraqi and Iranian borders.

Problems of “ethnicity” among the north-eastern Kurds are much less than to the south, where a tradition of tribal rivalry persists, making for a sort of civil war that the communist PKK exploited. The answer? Very obviously, an end to the unemployment that these circumstances have created. The southeastern Anatolian project, the GAP, should matter, though much will depend on whether the EU allows free movement of the resulting agricultural produce. That would do more for the Kurds than preaching about minority rights.

The Europeans should forget their objections to Turkey. The country is much more of a prize than all the other new Eastern European countries put together: it has a tradition of hard work and honesty that was never destroyed by communism. It is a Spain in the making.

The country has been doing so well that you wonder if it really needs to join Europe at all. At present the motivation for doing so is mixed: an end to visa queues (the British are gruesome), an escape from the puritanism of small-town Anatolia, a prospect of waves of foreign investment, a hope that “Europe” will mean an end to what the secularists see as religious takeover and what the religious see as a secularist takeover.

But the Europeans arrive with health-and-safety regulations and much else that could just mean the end of much of what makes Turkey tick: those small shops and artisans working till all hours, ignoring silly rules in proper Mediterranean manner and keeping families together in a way that makes for a very healthy social atmosphere (if a handbag is stolen here, it makes the television news).

Can Turkey stand the unemployment, bureaucracy and taxation that the EU really portends? Up to the Turks. But there are those of us who might think that they can carry out the beneficial changes on their own and who might even say that, if they really want membership of the EU, they can have ours.

Norman Stone is Professor of History at Koç University, Istanbul

THE TIMES 03/10/2005

Path to EU opens for Turkey after last-minute deal
By Anthony Browne in Luxembourg

AFTER 40 years knocking on Europe’s door, Turkey became the first Muslim country to start membership talks with the EU early today after Britain brokered an 11th-hour deal and persuaded Austria to abandon its veto threat.

The EU took one of the biggest steps in its 50-year history after two days of negotiations that seemed perpetually on the brink of collapse.

In return, Austria succeeded in forcing the EU to open membership talks with its close ally, Croatia, which took place minutes after the talks started with Turkey. The EU had postponed those talks in March because Croatia was deemed to be protecting a leading war crimes suspect.

Abdullah Gul, the Turkish Foreign Minister, dashed to Luxembourg to start the talks in a special ceremony chaired by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary.

After Turkey’s entry talks began, Mr Straw said: “We have just made history. The EU and Turkey agree we want this ever closer relationship. It means we have an EU founded on values, not history.”

A triumphant Mr Gul said: “I hope this will be good for Turkey, for the EU and the world. It is a win-win situation.”

The start of talks averted a rift between predominantly Christian Europe and its huge Muslim neighbour to the East, and rescued Britain’s EU presidency. Turkey’s entry talks are expected to take ten years, when it would become the largest member state in EU.

At one point the Bush Administration, which wants to tie Turkey firmly to the West, became so concerned that it risked the charge of interference in EU affairs by intervening directly.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, telephoned Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, to reassure him of Washington’s support.

“A Turkey anchored in Europe will be an even more reliable partner for the transatlantic family and a positive force for advancing peace, prosperity and democracy,” the State Department said.

The negotiations lasted for much of Sunday night and into yesterday, with Austria insisting that Turkey should be offered only an “alternative partnership” and refusing to back down. Mr Straw declared at one stage that the talks were “on the precipice”.

European leaders, including Tony Blair, had given warning that blocking Turkey would plunge the troubled EU even deeper into crisis, and inflame relations between Islam and the West. Turkey has threatened to abandon its attempt to join the EU if offered anything less than full membership.

The deadlock with Austria was broken by the timely arrival in Luxembourg of Carla del Ponte, the UN’s chief war crimes prosecutor. She brought with her a report declaring that Croatia was now co-operating fully with her attempt to bring to justice General Ante Gotovina, a leading Croatian war crimes suspect.

The report, which diplomats admitted was surprisingly positive, opened the way for talks to start immediately with Croatia. Its membership talks collapsed in March the day before they were due to start after the UN claimed that it was not co-operating in the hunt for General Gotovina and others.

But even then a deal was uncertain. Turkey started raising objections, insisting that it had not given its own seal of approval, and Mr Gul delayed his departure to consider the draft text. Ankara was concerned about a paragraph in the negotiating framework which insisted that it align its policies in international organisations with those of the EU.

The Turkish National Security Council ordered the Government not to agree to the talks until the implications of this condition were clarified. The fear in Ankara was that it meant that it will not be able to veto Cyprus, which it occupies with 35,000 troops, from joining Nato.

Turkish media has been speculating that if Cyprus joined Nato, it could invoke the “self-defence” clause and insist that the US defend it against Turkey’s illegal occupation.

THE TIMES 04/10/2005

Turkey wins deal to start EU talks
By David Rennie in Luxembourg
(Filed: 04/10/2005)

Europe changed for ever last night after Britain secured agreement from all 25 EU nations to begin membership talks with Turkey.

The deal, which followed a sleepless night and two days of rows, paves the way for Turkey, a nation of 70 million Muslims, to join what has hitherto been a Christian club.


	Exhausted: Jack Straw after the gruelling negotiations

Looking exhausted, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said: "This is a truly historic day for Europe. This has been a pretty gruelling 30 hours of negotiation."The entry of such a large Muslim state was "proof that we can live, work and prosper together".

Croatia will also begin entry talks after objections to its record on hunting war criminals were dropped.

During a day of intrigue and brinkmanship, Turkey had turned the tables on the EU and forced Mr Straw and other foreign ministers to wait anxiously at the summit in Luxembourg for final word on whether Ankara would accept the deal on offer.

A text setting out terms and conditions was finally sent to Ankara at 2.30pm London time, only an hour and a half before the formal deadline for Turkey to begin talks.

As darkness fell, Abdullah Gul, the Turkish foreign minister, announced: "Agreement has been reached and insh'Allah [Allah willing] we are heading for Luxembourg. Turkey has embarked on a new era." Mr Gul arrived in Luxembourg after midnight and went straight to a ceremony marking the beginning of talks over Turkish membership.

After 42 years of waiting, Turkey now faces years of talks in which every aspect of politics, human rights and civil liberties will be scrutinised by a sceptical EU. The process is due to end in 2014. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, had told the EU that it had the choice between embracing his nation and becoming a truly global power or admitting it was merely a "Christian club".

It emerged that Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, had called Mr Erdogan to stop Turkey from giving up. Austria, where 80 per cent of voters are against Turkish entry, gave up almost all of its demands after standing alone in opposition.

Ursula Plassnik, its foreign minister, won only a form of words saying that entry would depend on the EU's ability to "absorb" new nations.

Austria's climbdown was made more palatable by good news for its close ally and neighbour Croatia, whose own EU membership talks were effectively unfrozen by a formal United Nations report that its government was "fully co-operating" in the hunt for indicted war criminals from the Yugoslav civil war.

In a major surprise the United Nations chief war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, reversed her earlier negative assessment on Croatia by saying that it was now "doing everything it could to locate and arrest" the indicted war criminal Gen Ante Gotovina.

DAILY TELEGRAPH 03/10/2005

Turkish question in the balance until the very last
By David Rennie in Luxembourg
(Filed: 04/10/2005)

After 42 years in the waiting room of Europe, Turkey generated one last day of tension and brinksmanship.

Jack Straw's grim expression said it all as he headed in to brief EU foreign ministers early yesterday on the chances of reaching a deal by the end of the day. It had been a long night of bilateral meetings with his Austrian counterpart, the expensively coiffed and groomed Ursula Plassnik.

"We are at a difficult stage and I cannot say what the outcome will be," Mr Straw said, looking grey after just two hours' sleep.

Behind his exhaustion lay frustration with Austria, whose diehard stand seemed increasingly untenable, even "baffling" to diplomats.

Austria was still demanding that Turkey's invitation to open membership talks be rewritten, to play down a pledge that EU talks were aimed at full membership, and play up the chances of failure. Behind the doors of the British delegation office a climbdown by Austria seemed both maddeningly out of reach, but at the same time inevitable - especially as some officials already knew that Vienna was to be handed good news on a plate later in the day.

They knew Carla del Ponte, the United Nations chief war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, was poised to deliver an unexpectedly positive verdict on the behaviour of Croatia, a key Austrian ally.

That would clear the way for the Balkan nation to begin its own membership talks with the EU - a development that would be hugely popular in Austria, and make it easier for Mrs Plassnik's government to sell a climbdown to a Turkophobic electorate.

But Mr Straw had another reason for deep gloom. He knew that hardliners in Turkey were suddenly objecting to a scrap of language in paragraph five of the talks agreement, which "required" Ankara to "progressively align" its foreign policies with common positions adopted by the EU.

The problem was that two weeks ago, Cyprus had insisted on the small change to the paragraph to end Turkey's habit of vetoing Cypriot membership of a host of regional and international pacts and groupings.

Unexpectedly, the generals and hawks in Ankara decided the clause was intended to strip Turkey of any power to block Cypriot entry into Nato.

Legal advice was produced, assuring Turkey that an EU treaty could never have any bearing on the membership of Nato. Turkey was unmoved.

But by lunchtime it emerged that the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, had telephoned the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to assure him that Nato was not an issue in the EU talks. Cyprus, meanwhile, signalled that it was not looking for a confrontation.

DAILY TELEGRAPH 04/10/2005

Britain persuades the EU to talk turkey
(Filed: 04/10/2005)

Britain assumed the presidency of the European Union in the wake of French and Dutch rejection of the constitutional treaty. In the more sombre atmosphere produced by those votes, at least among integrationists, it has had to drive forward two long

The first, securing agreement on a framework budget for the years 2002-13, always promised to be daunting, given that it hinged on the Government's accepting a freeze on the British rebate.

The second, opening accession talks with Turkey, while controversial, appeared to have been settled by successive summits in December and June. In stepped Austria, however, and demanded that Ankara be offered something less than membership, despite the fact that the chancellor, Wolfgang Schüssel, had previously gone along with his EU partners. Cyprus added its own misgivings, and the whole relationship with Turkey, painstakingly formed over four decades, threatened to disintegrate. The applicant was kept waiting as Britain tried to isolate the Austrians and secure a unanimous negotiating mandate.

Yesterday in Luxembourg, British diplomacy all but prevailed. The Austrians backed down on their main demand, while securing mention in the framework agreement of the absorptive capacity of the EU. At the same time, they were compensated by a report from Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, that Croatia was co-operating fully over the bringing to justice of the former general Ante Gotovina. That opened the way to accession talks between Brussels and Zagreb, a major goal of Austrian foreign policy. The last-minute bickering was unedifying but hardly surprising in a union that has repeatedly shown a dismaying lack of strategic sense over Turkey.

It now has a chance to redeem its reputation by negotiating in good faith with a Muslim country that has boldly persisted with its claim to a European future while the relationship between the Islamic world and the West has soured.

Absorbing a poor country of some 70 million will not be easy. But the negotiations and the transition period thereafter are expected to be protracted, giving Turkey ample time to pass further reforms and European leaders to prepare their electorates for the integration of a vibrant democracy that straddles the great cultural divide of our age.

Mr Schüssel's eleventh-hour objections were a politically expedient search for a foreign scapegoat for domestic failings; in the event, Land elections on Sunday deprived his People's Party of its grip over Styria for the first time in 60 years. EU members will have to set their sights higher than that if they are to meet their promises to a country that has wooed them with extraordinary persistency.

DAILY TELRGRAPH 04/10/2005

Q&A: stumbling blocks
(Filed: 03/10/2005)

After years of build-up, the launch of EU entry talks with Turkey in Luxembourg should have been an occasion for celebration.


	Why is Austria so against Turkey's membership?

But Austria raised last-minute objections, and the EU only came up with a last-minute offer for Ankara. We look at the main issues of contention.

Q: What had caused the deadlock in talks?

A: Austria wanted to change the wording in the negotiating text to make it clear that Turkey might have to settle for less than full membership of the EU.

Q: Is there anything else which held up the talks?

There are two other issues of contention. Neither on their own are holding up the talks, but they are being used by Austria and other hostile countries as reasons for keeping Turkey out of the European bloc.

Firstly, EU politicians have demanded that Turkey recognise the killing of more than one million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 as genocide. Turkey refuses to do so, insisting the death toll was much less, and that most people died inadvertently from starvation, disease and exposure.

Secondly, Turkey's unwillingness to recognise the Greek Republic of Cyprus causes a problem because southern Cyprus is a member of the 25-nation bloc.

Q: Why is Austria so against Turkey's membership?

A: Austria's animosity towards Turkey goes back a long way. It began with a failed attempt by the Ottoman army to storm Vienna in 1683.

Public opinion in Austria is also anti-Turk, and with general elections looming the current government may be playing to the electorate. Eighty per cent of Austrians don't want Turkey in the EU.

Q: Can the Austrians alone spoil the talks?

A: Yes, because agreement on the opening of any EU expansion talks requires unanimity.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, keeps pointing out that the Austrians fully signed up to the exact terms of the Turkey enlargement negotiations last December and again in June.

Q: So what's changed?

A: Nobody's quite sure, but there has been a hardening of views in Vienna, based on two rejections of the EU draft constitution in France and the Netherlands. The proposed membership of Turkey was one of the reasons for the rejections.

Linked to this is Austria's unhappiness that the EU has put enlargement talks with Croatia (Austria's close ally) on hold because Zagreb is not co-operating in the hunting down of war criminals.

Q: So what does Austria want exactly?

A: It wanted to toughen the Turkey text, deleting a reference to "full membership" as the EU's shared objective of the talks and amending that to a "privileged partnership".

It also wanted to replace a reference to the "strongest-possible bond" with Turkey to "an alternative bond".

Finally, it wanted to harden up a clause which allows the EU to pull the plug if it can't "absorb" Turkey by the time the enlargement negotiations end in about 10 years.

Q: What does Jack Straw say?

A: There is little room for concession on the first and second requests, but there may be some leeway on the wording "absorption".

But Mr Straw says the final text already clearly states that the negotiations with the Turks are "an open-ended process, the outcome of which cannot be guaranteed".

Q: Isn't that good enough for the Austrians?

A: Clearly not, but they are totally isolated. France and a few other members have their doubts about Turkey, but all European states except Austria agree talks should begin.

One reason given is that beginning the talks will send a positive signal to the Middle East that the EU is not merely a "Christian club".

Q: If the talks do go ahead, when will Turkey join the EU?

A: Even if the talks start on time, they will last 10 years, and some countries, including Austria and France, will have referendums on the outcome, which will almost certainly vote down the Turks.

DAILY TELEGRAPH 04/10/2005

Deal heralds historic talks over Turkey's membership of EU

By Stephen Castle in Luxembourg

Published: 04 October 2005

Overriding deep divisions and hostile public opinion, the EU launched membership talks with Turkey yesterday in an historic gesture aimed at reconciling Europe and the Muslim world. Thirty hours of wrangling in Luxembourg ended with a decision to embark on the EU's most difficult and controversial expansion yet for fear that a rebuff to Turkey might lead it to turn away from Western ideals.

The hard-fought agreement cleared the way for at least a decade of negotiations aimed at bringing into the EU a mainly Muslim country with a population of 70 million and a land border with Iraq.

Turkey first knocked on Europe's door in 1963 when it signed an association agreement with European Economic Community and Ankara's long journey is far from over. Both France and Austria intend to hold referendums before any decision to give final approval to Turkish entry.

But yesterday's decision could be one of the most far-reaching taken since France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, first embarked on their experiment in European integration half a century ago. A project originally designed to heal the divisions in Europe is now in the vanguard of efforts to build bridges between the West and the Islamic world.

Britain, which holds the EU presidency, battled for hours to overcome an internal rift which took Europe to the brink of a deep crisis. Austria, the leading sceptic on Turkish accession, had demanded a series of changes to the negotiating mandate for talks. Though it won only one relatively minor change, its ally, Croatia, was given the green light for EU membership talks.

That paved the way for the breakthrough on Turkey. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in the US in 2001, in Madrid in 2004, in London in July this year and on Saturday in Bali, embracing a modernising, secular state with a mainly Muslim population is seen as a key signal of reconciliation.

The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said: "It is truly an historic day for Europe and the whole of the international community. Every enlargement that has taken place within the EU made both the existing members and the new member states both stronger and more prosperous. I have no doubt that these benefits will flow from this enlargement. It will bring a strong, secular state which happened to have a Muslim majority into the EU. This is proof that we can live and prosper together."

The sight of the EU almost tearing itself apart over Turkey's European ambitions took some gloss off the decision.

But last night Turkey's government accepted the terms on which the negotiations will take place, after raising last-minute objections to the changes to the text on the table.

Vienna failed in its bid to keep open the possibility of a second-class status for Turkey. Behind the scenes Austria faced massive pressure, including private threats from the United States a strong backer of Turkey.

The EU also gave the go-ahead to the launch of membership negotiations by Croatia an ally of Austria. The prospect of membership talks for Zagreb smoothed the way for Austria to back down over Turkey.

Late in the day Ankara protested about a passage in the text which, it believed, might imply its agreement to future applications by Cyprus to international bodies such as Nato. That provoked frantic telephone diplomacy as Ankara indulged in a show of 11th-hour brinkmanship and the EU put out a statement to clarify the issue.

Last night's deal marks only the beginning of a lengthy and difficult path for the Turks towards EU membership.

Formal negotiations will stretch out over more than a decade, and Turkey will have to meet rigorous standards laid down in more than 80,000 pages of text. To qualify for membership Ankara will have to close agreements with the EU over 35 different areas of policy.

To do that, it will have to convince both the European Commission and a committee of representatives from each of the member states that it has complied with EU requirements.

That may be no easy task since several member states are likely to take a tougher line with Turkey than with previous enlargements. In addition to Austria, a possible change of government in Germany is likely to lead to a harder position.

Moreover, the pledge by France and Austria to hold referendums before giving final approval for Turkey to join the EU poses another huge obstacle.

The long and winding road to unity

* 1951 France, Germany, the Benelux states and Italy sign a treaty to establish the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC).

* 1957 Signing the Treaty of Rome the six ECSC members set up the European Economic Community (EEC), a customs union for free move- ment of capital and labour.

* 1973 Britain, Denmark and Ireland join the EEC.

* 1981 Greece joins the EEC.

* 1986 Portugal and Spain join and the European flag is unveiled.

* 1991 The European Union emerges from the Maastricht treaty, which paves the way for a monetary union. The treaty comes into effect two years later.

* 1995 The Schengen pact relaxes border controls as Austria, Finland and Sweden join the EU.

* 2002 The euro, the single currency, is launched in 12 participating states. The UK, Sweden and Denmark stay out.

* 2004 Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania and seven more countries join the EU, which has now 25 member states.

* 2005 France and the Netherlands vote against the new EU constitution.

The Independent 04/10/2005

'Membership of the EU would mark the culmination of all Ataturk's work'

By Peter Popham in Istanbul

Published: 04 October 2005

It was an American intervention that saved Turkey's EU accession talks from breaking down even before they had started. As Britain and the others bore down on a recalcitrant Austria, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to say that whatever did or did not happen in Luxembourg, Turkey's status within Nato would be unaffected.

Although potentially embarrassing for European diplomacy, the deus ex machina arrival of the Americans illustrated how the Turkey/EU negotiations have a dimension that stretches far beyond the borders of both. Turkey's long and deep commitment to secularism, its relative stability in the world's most tumultuous region, its solidity over five decades in Nato all make it of vital importance for the US that the accession talks proceed. The last thing either the US or Europe need is a Turkey that is angry and ready to peel away.

Kemal Ataturk created his nation out of the ashes of empire with the clear goal of making for the Turks a modern, secular, European nation state. What was intended to get under way yesterday in Luxembourg was another such step. Nobody in Turkey doubts the importance of the fact of accession talks finally starting, 42 years after it became an associate member. This is where Turkey has been going since 1923, or since the turn of the 19th century, or since the siege of Vienna - whenever the Big Look West is deemed to have begun.

That it remains the national dream is without question. But more and more influential Turks are asking themselves whether Europe wants Turkey any more; whether Turkey really needs Europe: and if the answer to both those questions is "no", then what are the new roads that open up?

Haluk Sahin, Turkey's most respected television news anchor, said: "It's the way the debate is being carried out by the French and the Austrians that offends us. I've always thought Europe would be very good for Turkey, with its higher standards of democracy, free speech and so on, and that pursuing these criteria would give Turkey a boost. But there are moments when I find myself thinking about the psychological costs. Do I have to allow them to insult me in these racist, demeaning terms?"

Mehmet Ali Birand, a leading writer, said: "Membership of the EU would be the culmination of everything Ataturk did. It will mean that our crisis of identity - does Turkey belong to European values or the Islamic world? - will be over. But we are still waiting at the gates of Vienna. The Europeans have made such a big mess of it."

Turks are making this complaint in measurable numbers. The accession talks were supposed to start last December, and if they had done, public support was at 75 per cent. Less than a year on it is down to 60 per cent.

When the leader of the extremist Nationalist Action Party rallied his supporters in Ankara on Sunday, the tens of thousands who turned up, waving banners that read "We don't believe in the EU" were of the political fringe. But what they are saying reflects the hurt pride of the masses. The argument is also heard, with increasing confidence, that Turkey's membership of the EU is not for Turkey to win but for Europe to lose.

"Turkey's performance in the last two and a half to three years has eliminated all the excuses against our bid," Mr Erdogan said. Europe, he said "will either show the political maturity to become a global actor ... or it will become a Christian club."

The solitary Austrian holdout obscures the fact that right across the EU, doubts about Turkish entry are manifold. Opposition averages at 50 per cent; in Austria it is 80. Britain is seen to be in favour because the arrival of Turkey would permanently wrest the EU out of the control of the French and Germans; for that very reason deep apprehension remains in those states.

Yet overshadowing all such calculations is the fear that a snub could have brought the 42-year Turkish-European courtship juddering to a halt. Beyond that is the fear of what kind of a neighbour an embittered and isolated Turkey could become.

THE INDEPENDENT 04/10/2005

Barroso fires EU warning to Turkey

Staff and agencies
Tuesday October 4, 2005

The European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, today warned that Turkey's EU membership was "neither guaranteed nor automatic".

As formal accession talks - which could last for up to 15 years - finally got under way in Brussels, Mr Barroso said Turkey, which has a mainly Muslim population of more than 70 million, had to win over sceptical Europeans before its entry into the union could be agreed.

"Turkey must win the hearts and minds of European citizens," he said. "They are the ones who, at the end of the day, will decide about Turkey's membership."

Surveys suggest less than 40% of EU citizens want Turkey to join, with the figure falling to around 20% and 10% in France and Austria respectively. Both countries have said they intend to hold referendums on whether Turkey should be allowed to join the EU.

The campaign to win over doubters today began in earnest after talks on its membership almost failed to get off the ground following objections from Austria.

Austrian politicians eventually withdrew demands that Turkey should only be granted "privileged partnership" status in the face of unanimous opposition from the other 24 EU members.

British EU delegates - who had championed Turkey's membership as a way of improving relations with Muslims within the EU and further afield - said the union would benefit from the expansion.

"Every enlargement that has taken place within the European Union has made both the existing and the new member states stronger and more prosperous," the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said.

"I'm in absolutely no doubt that the benefits will follow from this enlargement and bring a strong secular state, which happens to have a Muslim majority, into the European Union."

The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told the country's parliament he would have called off talks had Austria not backed down from demanding less than full membership for Ankara.

"We stood firm and got results," Mr Erdogan said. "Common sense prevailed over prejudice. From time to time, there were moments when they made us lose our tempers, when we were made to feel really tired, when we went through difficult moments."

Meanwhile, the Austrian chancellor, Wolfgang Schuessel, said his drive to ensure that Ankara meets all the strict requirements for entry was not just political brinkmanship. "It wasn't a game ... it wasn't a manoeuvre," he said. "It was about the union and how it deals with prospective candidates."

The French president, Jacques Chirac, said Turkey would need to undergo a "major cultural revolution" to fulfil EU membership conditions. "Will it succeed? I cannot say," he said. "I hope so. But I am not at all sure."

The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi said shutting the door to Turkey would have been "unpardonable".

However, the former French president, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who led the project to draw up the EU constitution, said he felt "sadness and astonishment" about the 25-member body's decision to begin entry talks with Turkey.

In an interview with French radio station RTL, Mr Giscard d'Estaing credited Britain for achieving its goal of expanding markets, calling the start of accession talks a "victory for the large free-market zone".

Talks on Turkey's membership could cover 35 "chapters" including everything from the free movement of goods to judicial reform.

Turkish media described the start of talks as the fulfilment of a long-held dream, but also as the beginning of what could prove to be a long and arduous journey.

"The journey has begun," the liberal daily Radikal, headlined. Hurriyet, one of Turkey best selling newspapers, said the country's "42-year-old EU dream is coming true".

"Turkey, which was turned back from the gates of Vienna twice in history, is now entering the gates through peace and integration," it wrote - a reference to Austria halting the Ottoman empire's advance towards Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries .

Turkey's IMKB-100, the stock exchange's benchmark index, rose 3.25% in the first five minutes of trading to reach a record high of 35,094 points.

Ankara has sought to join the EU since being made an associate member in 1963. For years, its aspirations were frustrated by Greece, but Athens withdrew its objections in 1999 in the hope that eventual Turkish membership would help end long-standing disputes with its traditional rival.

GUARDIAN 04/10/2005