How long will Turkey be knocking on EU doors?

PanARMENIAN.Net - If students were to decide everything, Turkey would have long become a EU member. But no matter how hard the Turks try “to make it clear” for the Europeans the “charm” of their integration into the EU, 60% of the Germans and French are totally against such a move of the EU. France and Germany are the most important opponents to the integration of the 70-million Muslim country into Europe, which is already facing partial Islamisation. A special stance on this issue has the French president, no matter who is in this position. “Turkey cannot join the EU, as it has no place in the Union,” kept saying ex-President of France Valery Giscard d'Estaing. The stance of current Head of State Nicolas Sarkozy is even stronger. According to a recent opinion poll, among the reasons of Turkey’s non-admission into the EU are the Kurdish question, the unresolved Cyprus problem and human rights, a painful issue in Turkey, to put it mildly. Mass arrests of journalists, persecution of writers, and assassination of Hrant Dink hardly have any chance to add to Europeans’ love for Ankara. According to Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, the decision of the Turkish court to impose a fine on Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk is a wake-up call.

In his report Hammarberg says the reason for the court decision on penalty in the amount of 6000 TL (approximately 2 500 €) was Pamuk’s interview published in a Swiss newspaper in 2006, where he spoke of killings 1 million Armenians and 30.000 Kurds. In fact, Article 301 of Turkish Criminal Code, which was allegedly changed, still works. And Pamuk just stated the truth...

But it’s not just human rights. According to Bulgarian politicians, Turkey cannot join the European Union. “Turkey still owes compensation to descendants of the Bulgarians that were persecuted by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century,” said Leader of Bulgaria's nationalist VMRO party Krasimir Karakachanov. Similar claims against Turkey are laid by Armenian people who are still waiting for recognition of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in the years of the World War I. And however hard Turkish politicians try to convince that Turkey is not a successor of the Ottoman Empire, the essence of the issue remains the same.

But a much more painful issue for Turkey is the Kurdish question. Despite assurances from Prime-Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who promises equal rights to Kurds, yet another outbreak of violence proves the contrary. Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) held its first parliamentary group meeting last week in Diyarbakir, challenging the government to release their detained members and make major changes towards Kurdish rights in the constitution, giving them the right to speak their language, have a newspaper and express their opinion. Unless the government steps back from its position, the BDP parliamentary group says they will convene in Diyarbakir every week. In fact, Kurds prepare to establish an independent Kurdistan. Paul Kubicek, a professor of political science at Oakland University and expert on Turkish politics, says the possibility of a Kurdish “alternative” parliament is “very alarming and destabilizing”.

Well, and finally the Cyprus problem. Occupying the Island of Cyprus in 1974, Turkey still does not withdraw its 35 thousand contingent, saying the troops guard the Turkish Cypriots. The martial contingent also prevents the Greek and Turkish communities of the island from coming to an agreement, so that the situation in Cyprus cannot change until they depart. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), recognized only by Turkey and Azerbaijan, is trying to become a subject of international law, but the Republic of Cyprus, ready for any kind of negotiations, refuses to recognize TRNC, saying it’s an artificial formation that survives at the point of the Turkish bayonet.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu declares that Turkey can freeze relations with the EU, if before July 12, 2012 the problem of Cyprus islands division remains unsolved. According to him, if the Greek Cypriots win a victory in the negotiations and take over the EU Presidency, it will lead Turkey to a dead end, which, in its turn, will freeze all other relations with the EU. There is nothing new in Davutoglu’s words: all the same policy of blackmail that dates back to the Ottoman times. The world has changed much since then, but Turkish diplomacy consistently continues following the same course and, admittedly, it achieves certain goals. The mere fact that Turkey, despite the support of the “Arab Spring”, is still more oriented to the West, in the long run is the right choice of Ankara and of Turkish diplomacy.

Nevertheless, the EU still holds firm: Turkey is an Asian country and it has no place in Europe. The geographic factor may become the finishing point in half-a-century negotiations. In the end, the European part of Turkey is about half of Istanbul and that’s all. But still no one can predict what turn the events will take in the Middle East and how far the West will be interested in Turkey’s assistance in cancellation of undesirable consequences of Arab revolutions that seem to be endless.