21 May 2004

1. "Are the Turks coming around?", an oft-repeated argument against partitioning Iraq is that Turkey would never tolerate the establishment of a Kurdish state on its southern border, because it fears incitement of its own Kurdish population.

2. "Germany's Merkel Says No Room for Turkey in EU, Hurriyet Says", the European Union shouldn't start membership talks with Turkey, choosing instead to focus on integrating new members from Eastern Europe, Angela Merkel, leader of Germany's main opposition Christian Democratic Union said, according to the daily Hurriyet.

3. "EU and Turkey", Debating the borders of Europe.

4. "Turkey to enter EU in 2015", nearby Bulgaria and Romania will probably join the bloc in 2007, well ahead of Turkey, economists said.

5. "Ankara-Jerusalem relations cool, but experts deny a serious break", is Israel’s relationship with Turkey on the skids?

6. "Turkish forces hunting Kurdish rebels suspecting of planning attacks", security forces in southeastern Turkey are hunting four Kurdish rebels who have allegedly infiltrated the country to mine roads and carry out other attacks, officials said Thursday.

1. - Slate - "Are the Turks coming around?":

19 May 2004 / by Timothy Noah

An oft-repeated argument against partitioning Iraq is that Turkey would never tolerate the establishment of a Kurdish state on its southern border, because it fears incitement of its own Kurdish population. But a news article in the May 19 Wall Street Journal by Hugh Pope and Bill Spindle suggests that this might no longer be so. The Turks and the Kurds have been brought closer together, Pope and Spindle report, by fear of the unstable Sunni and Shiite regions to the south:

Turkish officials privately confirm that a discussion has begun about whether to offer protection to the Iraqi Kurds as a policy to keep refugees and other troubles away from Turkey's border if the U.S. can't control Iraq. "Nothing has been decided yet, and it's not what we want. We can't give up on the hope of Iraq's unity. If you start playing with borders, there'll be no end to it," said one Turkish official. Still, a Turkish protectorate "could result in practice. It could be a kind of insurance policy."

What about the Turkomans, whose fate in a Kurd-dominated state used to worry Turkish officials? "Ankara has let the Turkoman go somewhat," Gareth Stansfield, a Middle East expert at Britain's Exeter University, told Pope and Spindle. "The Turkomans are in a sorry state politically, and their militia is poor and run down." Stansfield is coauthor, with Liam Anderson, of a persuasive new pro-partition book titled The Future of Iraq.

It's all but certain that if Turkish troops had been allowed into Iraq, as the Bush administration twice contemplated, this warming of relations between Turks and Kurds would not now be happening. The Turks would have provoked or been provoked by the Kurds, and Kurdistan would have become yet another flashpoint in Iraq. Hard as it may be to imagine, the postwar occupation could have gone worse than it has. But this is one bullet we managed to dodge.

2. - Bloomberg - "Germany's Merkel Says No Room for Turkey in EU, Hurriyet Says":

20 May 2004

The European Union shouldn't start membership talks with Turkey, choosing instead to focus on integrating new members from Eastern Europe, Angela Merkel, leader of Germany's main opposition Christian Democratic Union said, according to the daily Hurriyet.

Merkel and some members of France's UMP, President Jacques Chirac's party, have said Turkey isn't European enough in terms of its culture and history to join the EU. The bloc expanded to 25 members on May 1 with the accession of 10 nations, while Bulgaria and Romania aim to join later this decade.

The European Union is full and there's no room for Turkey, Hurriyet cited Merkel as telling a rally in Munich, Germany ahead of next month's elections for the European Parliament. Her party, ahead of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats in opinion polls, has proposed a ``special relationship'' with Turkey instead.

EU leaders will meet in December to decide whether membership talks should begin with the mostly-Muslim nation. The European Commission on Tuesday praised constitutional changes the country's parliament passed this month to comply with the EU's political criteria. It called for more.

3. - The International Herald Tribune - "EU and Turkey":

Debating the borders of Europe

PARIS / 20 May 2004 / by Thierry de Montbrial*

With elections to the European Parliament fast approaching, the public debate, particularly in France, has tended to focus on Turkey's candidacy to join the European Union. There may be more pressing issues, but this concentration on Turkey reflects anxiety about the very process of European integration, and the definition of Europe.

From a geological viewpoint, Europe is not a continent. The way we have arranged the division of Europe and Asia does not follow physical geography, but geopolitics. If the Ural mountains are seen as a "natural" division, it is because the bulk of the Russian population is Christian, and lies west of these mountains. Assigning Istanbul to Europe and western Anatolia to Asia is a way of reminding us that Byzantium, renamed Constantinople, used to be a capital city of Christianity.

In that sense, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 can still be felt some 450 years after the event. Many of the intellectuals arguing against the Turkish candidacy still draw a map of Europe which essentially coincides with the Middle Age concept of the Christian world. The essence of geopolitics is that ideology, which includes the way one looks at history, also shapes the map. The real question for the European Union, therefore, is what is its underlying ideology? The answer is not simple, since the ideology has changed tremendously since the collapse of the Soviet Union and, even before, with the first enlargements of the "European Community" to include such countries as Britain and Greece.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that the following key words encapsulate the current ideology of the EU: reconciliation, democracy, rule of law, human rights and the protection of minorities, secularism, market economy, security and solidarity.

What we want to achieve in Europe is a new kind of political unit, whose identity is based on these concepts. French-German reconciliation, for example - by no means obvious after World War II - is now taken for granted. To look positively at the Turkish candidacy, therefore, is to share the grand vision of a reconciliation between the three monotheistic religions through secularism. Many in the Muslim world, particularly in Arab countries, look at Euro-Turkish relations with this in mind. Yet strangely enough, French intellectuals - who invented the French concept of secularism, "laïcité" - have never resorted to the idea of Christendom more than today.

In concrete, political terms, the relationship between the European Union and Turkey has been shaped by a sequence of mutual commitments - including the 1963 association treaty, the 1999 Helsinki European Council decision to recognize Turkey as a candidate and the EU decision in 2002 that made the opening of negotiations conditional on Turkey's fulfillment of the 1993 Copenhagen political criteria, which are related to some of the concepts above.

These commitments set the following timetable: In late September or early October, the European Commission will issue a report assessing Turkey's fulfillment of these criteria. Based on this report, the European Council will decide if and when negotiations are to commence.

If the Turks perceive the report to be unfair, failing in particular to recognize Ankara's efforts regarding Cyprus, there could be a major political crisis in Turkey. It is important to remember that according to public opinion polls, three quarters of the Turkish population accept the reforms demanded by the commission, but a majority of these believe that whatever they accomplish, European leaders will find a pretext to say no.

If, on the contrary, a date is set to start the negotiations, it should be clear to everybody, both in the European Union and in Turkey, that the negotiations will take a lot of time and will have to be extremely detailed.

At the end of the day, were an adhesion treaty to be signed it would stand no chance of being unanimously ratified unless all shadows have been swept away. Moreover, the difficulty of getting unanimity for the admission of a new member increases with the number of existing ones.

At some point, further enlargement could become practically impossible. Rather than some abstract geographical or cultural notions, the ratification process would then become the de facto mechanism for setting the boundaries of Europe.

European integration is a long-term process, whose "soft power" has already demonstrated a remarkable vitality. The collapse of the Soviet Union forced us to move ahead at excessive speed, putting the whole construction at risk.

Hence the vertigo over Turkey, a country more populous than Germany, and one which most Europeans are not yet culturally prepared to regard as "one of them." We need time to adjust. But surrendering to emotions next fall, when the time comes to fulfill our commitments, and refusing to start negotiations even if the conditions we set ourselves are met, would be a fatal mistake.

* Thierry de Montbrial is the founder and president of the Paris-based French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).

4. - MSNBC - "Turkey to enter EU in 2015":

Nearby Bulgaria and Romania will probably join the bloc in 2007, well ahead of Turkey, economists said.

20 May 2004

According to the results of a survey conducted by the Reuters news agency among leading economists, Turkey will not be ready to enter the European Union until 2015.

According to the 38 economists polled, Bulgaria has a 70 percent chance of joining the EU in 2007, with Romania having a 60 percent chance in the same year, while Croatia will join the EU in 2009, and Serbia and Montenegro in 2012.

The poll’s mid-range forecast showed a 40 percent chance that the EU will agree at its December summit to open accession talks, up from 30 percent in the last poll.

“In terms of EU-related reforms and implementation, the road ahead seems to be long and steep. Moreover, meeting the economic criteria is likely to take many years of hard work,” said Khatija Paruk of Deutsche Bank in London, one of the economists surveyed by Reuters.

Dagmar Alpen at Oppenheim Research in Cologne was quoted as saying that support from the EU Commission is clearly evident for Turkey. However, he said was unlikely the EU would do give a date for talks against the explicit wish of France.

“So it’s basically a question whether the French government will change their mind until December. So far we’ve seen little indication of this,” he said.

5. - Jewish Telegraphic Agency - "Ankara-Jerusalem relations cool, but experts deny a serious break":

Is Israel’s relationship with Turkey on the skids?

ISTANBUL / 20 May 2004 / by Yigal Schleifer

Such fears came to the fore when a Lebanese newspaper, quoting sources in Ankara, reported recently that Turkey was freezing future military contracts with Israeli firms. According to the paper, the step was decided on by Turkey’s Islamic-oriented government, which rejects strategic military cooperation with Israel.

Turkish officials were quick to deny the claim, noting that a decision to cancel bids for weapons systems, in which Israel was competing, was part of an effort to boost local production and increase cooperation with European firms as Turkey fights for a place in the European Union.

Israeli officials also denied that relations had deteriorated, noting a cordial exchange between the two countries’ foreign ministers at a recent conference in Dublin.

Despite the assurances, however, all is not necessarily well in the alliance between the two regional powers.

“For several weeks now we have seen the Turkish attitude become cooler towards Israel, particularly because of the policies of” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Sami Kohen, a veteran columnist with the Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet.

“We were in a period of warm relations. Now it’s cooling off,” he said, citing the assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin in March as a turning point.

Turkey currently is ruled by the Justice and Development Party, known by the acronym AKP, a socially conservative party led by veterans of Turkey’s political Islam movement.

While Turkey says it maintains a “balanced” approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the country’s prime minister and AKP leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been harshly critical of Israeli actions against the Palestinians.

Israeli officials complain that Erdogan and his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, have yet to visit Israel, while Sharon’s requests to visit Turkey have been rebuffed.

Cengiz Candar, a Turkish political analyst, said he didn’t expect high-level visits of that sort anytime soon.

“The ruling party doesn’t have positive sentiments for Israel,” Candar said. “They have taken the relationship as a fact of life, but they have no intention of nourishing the relationship.”

During the AKP’s almost two years in power, Turkey has vigorously pursued efforts to join the European Union, passing a number of human rights reforms and liberalization laws.

At the same time, Ankara has been working to improve strained relations with its Arab neighbors and other countries in the Islamic world. For example, relations with Syria have warmed up significantly in the past year, after the two countries almost went to war in the late 1990s because of Syrian support for the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which was waging a guerilla war in southeastern Turkey.

Last January, Syrian President Bashar Assad came to Turkey for a three-day visit, the first by a Syrian head of state.

Assad reportedly asked Turkey to act as a mediator with Israel, an offer that Sharon rejected because of Syria’s continuing support for Hezbollah and several Palestinian terrorist organizations.

Kohen and other Turkish analysts say Erdogan saw Sharon’s refusal as an indication of an unwillingness to cooperate on peace efforts. Israeli officials said they thought Syria merely was trying to evade U.S. pressure to end its support for terrorism and wasn’t serious about restarting peace talks that had been abandoned in 2000.

“I think at this point, when Turkey is opening up to the Arab world, to the Islamic world and also to Europe, where there is such a wide consensus criticizing the Sharon government, Turkey doesn’t want to seem like it alone is supporting him,” Kohen said.

The relationship between Turkey and Israel began to warm up in the early 1990s, when the two countries signed military cooperation agreements. Though it predominantly is Muslim, Turkey at the time was isolated in the Middle East and faced ongoing conflicts with several of its neighbors and with the PKK.

At the time, the alliance with Israel — also isolated in the region — made sense politically and militarily. But with several of its conflicts now resolved and as relations with its neighbors improve, Turkey may no longer consider its relationship with Israel as important as before, Candar said.

“Circumstances are different now, 180 degrees different. It’s not all dependent now on the image of a Turkish-Israeli axis in the Middle East,” he said.

Israeli officials point out that the two countries have moved beyond purely military relations to forge strong trade and tourism links. Still, for Israel, the relationship with Turkey remains a significant strategic asset.

Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, said Turkey and Israel still have shared regional interests, such as the threat of Islamic extremism and concerns over Iran’s nuclear program.

That should keep any cooling of relations from leading to a complete break, he said.

“Turkey is still in the Middle East and they still have to worry about some of the same things that Israel has to worry about, and it needs allies like Israel,” Inbar said.

6. - AFP - "Turkish forces hunting Kurdish rebels suspecting of planning attacks":

ANKARA / 20 May 2004

Security forces in southeastern Turkey are hunting four Kurdish rebels who have allegedly infiltrated the country to mine roads and carry out other attacks, officials said Thursday.

The probe was launched after a Kurdish militant surrendered to authorities in the border province of Hakkari Tuesday after crossing illegally from Iraq, where rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are hiding, Hakkari Governor Erdogan Gurbuz told AFP by telephone.

"He told police in his testimony that he had sneaked in together with four others who are planning to plant mines on roads among other things," the governor said.

"We are trying to verify his claims... Precautionary security measures have been taken," he added. The governor denied media reports that the four militants were suicide bombers. Four soldiers were killed in two separate incidents in the region last week when their vehicles hit mines, believed to have been planted by the PKK.

Authorities also discovered four powerful remote-controlled bombs on a road in Tunceli, eastern Turkey.
In the most recent incident, a policeman and a guard were killed late Tuesday when suspected Kurdish rebels opened fire on a police station in the southeastern town of Pervari.

PKK violence has notably abated since September 1999 when the group said it would lay down its arms in favor of a peaceful resolution to the conflict, but the rebels are still attacking government targets, though more rarely.

Since 1999, the group has several times changed names and is now known as KONGRA-GEL. Its reincarnations have also been put on the list of terrorist organizations by both the United States and the European Union. The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed about 37,000 lives.