The Turkish
Election on Sunday is an
Occasion for the
U.S. and Europe
to Revise Their
Relationship
By JONATHAN
POWER
April 14th, 1999
LONDON- If Turkey were China there would have been over
the years a massive and continuous uproar in the U.S.
Congress. With a human rights record that far outranks in
the sadistic impulses league anything that goes on in China
and with its continuing, unrelenting, uncompromising,
suppression of its Kurdish minority, not even allowing
instruction in the Kurdish language in schools, it far
exceeds the way Beijing treats Tibet. Yet Turkey continues
as a member of Nato, a favourite of American military
largesse. Turkey now has the largest fleet of F-16 fighter
jets outside the U.S., most of them provided either free or
on highly subsidised terms.
Neither the Clinton administration nor the Republican
opposition raises its voice a decibel to criticize Turkey.
That seems to be left to the Europeans, but that has its own
problems. Led by Helmut Kohl when he was chancellor of
Germany, it was a no-holds fight to tear up the promise made
over thirty years ago to consider Turkey for membership of
the European Union.
Although human rights and the Kurds were used as weapons
the underlying impulse was Germany's fear of being swamped
by Turkish immigrants and Islamic culture. Erasmus'
question, "Is not the Turk also a man and a brother?" still
meets, in most of Europe, with an embarrassed turn of the
head.
Yet, for all its problems, Turkey IS part of Europe. For
centuries Constantinople was the founding seat of Christian
power. It was the official capital of the Roman empire for a
thousand years. Although today the majority of the people
are Muslims the alphabet of modern Turkey is Latin, the
working week is western, the political arrangements are
democratic, the press is relatively free and even the
fundamentalists, who did better than ever before in the last
general election, still attracted only 21% of the
electorate. As Edie Oymen, a senior journalist at Milliyet,
a national daily, put it, "Turkey is like a buoy in the
Bosporus. It may seem to be pulled by the Asian currents
from time to time but, in fact, it is firmly anchored on the
European sea bed".
Turkey is not, as the caricature has it, some Wooden
Horse, from ancient Troy in western Turkey, to be wheeled
into the heart of Europe, only to have jump out hobgoblins
of Islamic fundamentalism, strident nationalism and
authoritarian police practices. It is a country as developed
economically and more developed politically than were Spain
and Portugal when they were given membership of Europe.
Today it can be counted ahead of member state Greece and the
front-of-the-line applicants, Poland and Hungary.
On Sunday, Turkey goes to the polls and once again, by
implication at least, it will assert its right to be
considered a member of the western world. Yet the election
will not solve Turkey's dilemmas. It will not produce a
clear majority in favour of improving its human rights
practices. (The only way that could happen would be for
acting prime minister Bulent Ecevit and his Democratic Left
party to take the enormous risk of confronting Turkey's
powerful generals and team up with Virtue, the Islamists'
party.) It will certainly not produce a concensus on a
rapprochement with the Kurds--even though, now that their
leader Abdullah Ocalan is behind bars, it is the most
opportune time for compromise.
All the indications are that, as before, no party leader
will easily summon up an acceptable majority. The Turkey of
the immediate future will produce more of what has gone on
before--weak governments, leading to weak economic policies
and short-sighted, even counter-productive, army-dominated
policies towards the Kurds.
Turkey is stuck in a deep rut. Neither American
forbearance nor European antipathy is producing an answer.
The means of influencing the polity of Turkey needs to be
re-thought.
On the domestic side there needs to be less of a blind
eye. Turkey may live "in a bad neighbourhood", as Washington
policy makers love to say, but the source of the trouble, at
least half the time, originates in Ankara. This is certainly
true of its relationship with Cyprus and Greece and, until
recently, with Russia. Turkey's long hostility towards
Syria, given the refuge it extended to Ocalan, was
understandable, but now there is no reason why it shouldn't
be repaired. Likewise, now that Washington's relationship
with Iran is improving, Turkey, as it is doing, can afford
to develop a more co-operative relationship of its own.
Turkey is still a front-line state vis a vis Iraq, and
Washington, for the forseeable future, will need to bribe
Turkey not to follow its natural inclination--and economic
self-interest--to make peace with Saddam Hussein.
But all in all Turkey is much less vulnerable and
beleaguered than it was. There is less and less excuse for
Washington not to start to push hard both on human rights
and a better deal for the Kurds.
The Europeans have a different role. Already fully
engaged with the stick, they need to re-invent the carrot.
They should re-affirm their old commitment that they expect
Turkey before too long to join the EU. They need to tell
Turkey that they expect that it will put its house in order
in time to enter the EU along with Hungary, Poland and the
Czech Republic.
This combination of carrot and stick--a reversal of roles
for America and Europe--could change the political landscape
in Turkey within five years. Nothing else is likely to.
Copyright © 1999 By JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail:
JonatPower@aol.com
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