Some pictures on TV the other day showed what it's like in eastern Turkey.
That's enough for me. I never wanted the EU anyway. Maybe it's time to go
west. Montana?
"TonyZ2001" <tonyz2001@aol.com> skrev i meddelandet
news:20041213095615.22097.00002235@mb-m06.aol.com...
December 13, 2004
Turkish leader warns of terror wave if EU rejects membership
By Suna Erdem
Summit must decide whether to open talks
RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, the Turkish Prime Minister, has told European Union
leaders that they will pay a heavy price in continued and escalating
violence
from Islamic extremists if the EU rejects Turkey as a member and confirms
itself as a Christian club.
"Accepting a country that has brought together Islam and democracy will
bring
about harmony between civilisations. If, on the other hand, it is not
welcomed,
the world will have to put up with the present situation," he said,
referring
to terrorism by such groups as al-Qaeda - whose local affiliates hit
Turkey
last year, bombing the British consulate and three other targets in
Istanbul.
"That is the very clear and present danger and it is all around us today.
There is nothing we can do if the EU feels that it can live with being
simply a
Christian club . . . but if these countries burn their bridges with the
rest of
the world, history will not forgive them."
Mr Erdogan's powerful warning came just days before the EU summit that
will
decide whether to start formal accession talks with Turkey and against a
furious European debate about the effects of incorporating Turkey's 70
million, mainly Muslim, population into the Union.
He was speaking before opening Istanbul's first modern art museum - an
event he had ordered to be brought forward from early next year to help to
project a modern image of his country ahead of the summit. After knocking
on
the EU's doors for four decades, Turkey is painfully aware that it is
viewed
abroad as a poor and backward country and that, despite its secular
constitution, much of the West is currently afraid of its Muslim
tradition.
Mr Erdogan is a declared "conservative democrat", but his background as an
Islamic firebrand has led to so many questions that his face broke into a
"not again" smile at the mere mention of the problem.
"We are Muslim, we are Turkish, we are democratic and our country is
secular," he said, emphasising every phrase. "Nothing else need be said."
Nevertheless, he believed that the EU, in trying to add safeguards and
get-out
clauses in the draft for the talks, was discriminating against Ankara.
"I am of the opinion that Turkey is being faced with tougher criteria
compared to other candidate countries," he said. "No other country had to
wait for 41 years at Europe's door. We have fulfilled all the criteria,
but
despite this Europeans are hesitating."
Although loath to say so, he feels upset, maybe even betrayed, by
suggestions
from some, including France, that Turkey might be offered an alternative
form
of association with the EU if talks fail.
"There are 400,000 Turks already living in France . . . what have we done
to
make them so afraid? We find it hard to understand what it is the French
do not
understand about us that makes them so wary. There is no such thing in the
EU
as privileged partnership. No other country has been offered this and
there is
no way that we will accept such an option for Turkey," he said.
He also rejected suggestions that talks could be open-ended. "At the end
of
membership negotiations either there is full membership or there is
nothing.
Full membership is not automatic anyway - it may be that we don't manage
to
fulfil our side of the bargain and it all ends in failure. So why hobble
the
process from the start?" Conditions other than the existing political and
economic criteria would be unacceptable, he said, especially any permanent
brake on the freedom of movement of Turks, millions of whom were already
economic migrants in Europe.
Turkey's economy has been transformed after a crisis in 2001, while
numerous
reforms, including the abolition of the death penalty, have improved the
human
rights situation and reduced the power of the military - an institution
that
staged three coups between 1960 and 1980 and effectively wrote the present
constitution. Mr Erdogan acknowledged that the more difficult phase of
implementing all these reforms lay ahead, but he was adamant that Turkey
had
done enough so far to begin negotiations.
A former semi-professional football player, he resorted to sporting terms
to
describe the situation: "We are not bringing any conditions to this
ourselves. But we are seeing here that new rules are being introduced
while the
game is being played. As this is unacceptable in a game of football, it is
equally wrong in a process like this."
Despite his criticism, he remains optimistic, saying that he expected to
be
offered a start date within the next year for talks with the goal of full
membership. He said: "In the last days of the Ottoman Empire we were then
called the sick man of Europe. Note, of Europe, never the sick man of
Asia. You
said so yourself."
.
