turkey after the start of negotiations with the european union · to launch a project entitled...
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C E S R E P O R TRAPORT OSW
Adam Balcer
Rafa∏ Sadowski, Wojciech Paczyƒski
Turkey after the start of negotiations
with the European Union – foreign relations
and the domestic situation
Part I
W a r s a w J u n e 2 0 0 7
Raport OSW / CES Report
C e n t r e f o r E a s t e r n S t u d i e sOÂRODEK STUDIÓW WSCHODNICH IM. MARKA KARPIA
© Copyright by Centre for Eastern Studies
Editor
Anna ¸abuszewska
Katarzyna Kazimierska
Graphic design
Dorota Nowacka
Project co-ordinator
Adam Balcer
Translation
Ilona Duchnowicz
Co-operation
Jim Todd
Publisher
OÊrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia /
Centre for Eastern Studies
ul. Koszykowa 6a, Warsaw, Poland
tel. / phone +48 /22/ 525 80 00
fax + 48 /22/ 525 80 40
The Centre’s analytical materials can be found
on the Internet at www.osw.waw.pl
More information about the Centre for Eastern
Studies is available at the same web address
Spis treÊci / Contents
TURKEY AFTER THE START OF NEGOTIATIONS
WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION – FOREIGN RELATIONS
AND THE DOMESTIC SITUATION. PART I
Introduction / 5
Theses / 6
The hurdle race. The greatest political and social
barriers in Turkey’s path to the European Union / 7
Adam Balcer
The cold alliance. Turkish-US political relations
after 2003 / 52
Rafa∏ Sadowski
Chasing Europe: the Turkish economy at the onset
of negotiations with the European Union / 71
Wojciech Paczyƒski
Turkey after the start
of negotiations with
the European Union –
foreign relations and
the domestic situation.
Part I
Introduction
The start of accession negotiations between An-kara and the EU is vital for the future of bothTurkey and the Union, including Poland as itsmember state, as well as for the geopolitical si-tuation in Eurasia (the Black Sea region, Cauca-sus, Central Asia and the Middle East). Appre-ciating the significance of these issues, theCentre for Eastern Studies in early 2005 decidedto launch a project entitled ‘Turkey after thestart of negotiations with the European Union– foreign relations and the domestic situation’.The goal of this project is to present, within thecontext of accession negotiations, Turkey’sgreatest internal challenges as well as Ankara’srelations with its neighbour regions, the EU andthe USA. This Report is the first of three whichwill be published as part of the project. The Re-port includes texts on Turkish-US relations since2003, major political and social challenges onTurkey’s path towards the EU and the currentcondition of the Turkish economy. The Reportwas developed between July 2005 and Novem-ber 2006, over which time CES workers and asso-ciates searched for publicly available materialsin Poland, Turkey and EU countries, and went onthree research trips to Turkey, where they metlocal researchers, analysts, politicians and offi-cials. The authors of the Report would like toexpress their gratitude to everyone who haveshared their opinions with them, and to the Po-lish Embassy in Ankara, especially to Ambassa-dor Grzegorz Michalski and Minister AndrzejAnanicz for their expert support and assistancein the authors’ work on this Report. This Reportdoes not present the official stance of the Polishgovernment on the issues discussed therein;instead it reflects the personal views of its au-thors, who have made their best efforts to en-sure that their work is reliable.
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Theses
1. Turkey is an important element of the foreignpolicies of the EU and the USA because of its de-mographic, military and economic potential, aswell as its strategic location in the basins of theMediterranean and the Black Seas, on the fron-tiers with the Middle East, the Caucasus and theBalkans, and because of its NATO membershipand the opening of EU accession negotiations.After Russia, Turkey is the EU’s second most sig-nificant neighbour.
2. Relations with the EU and the USA are essen-tial elements of Turkey’s foreign policy, consi-dering their intense and asymmetric economic,political and military ties, and the fact that tigh-tening bonds with the West is deemed to be themost important strategic goal of Turkish foreignpolicy. Relations with the EU and the USA havealso greatly affected the internal situation inTurkey, considering the requirement of democ-ratisation which is connected with the criteriaof EU membership, together with the US’ veryactive engagement in the Middle East (especial-ly regarding the Kurdish issue).
3. The prospect of EU membership has been thekey booster of democratic reform in Turkey. Ne-vertheless, in the case of Turkey – in contrast toother EU candidates – this prospect cannot serveas a lasting stabiliser for the domestic situationbecause Turkey has more serious internal pro-blems and greater tension in relations with theEU and the Union’s individual member statesthan the previous candidates had. In effect, it ishighly probable that negotiations between An-kara and Brussels will be significantly extended,and possibly even periodically withheld. A sce-nario in which negotiations are deadlocked forgood cannot be excluded either.
4. Since 2001, Turkey has managed to carry outchanges which significantly strengthen its eco-nomy. The prospect of integration with the Euro-pean Union has given extremely strong encou-ragement to improving the economic policy andreforms in other sectors. Doubts about the pathof accession negotiations, which are already ap-pearing now, may yet damage these strong me-
chanisms which have so far mobilised the pub-lic and the political class to reform their country.
5. Turkish-US relations have cooled since 2003,principally due to the US intervention in Iraq,which resulted in an alliance between the USAand the Iraqi Kurdish population. This has inturn has made it more difficult for Turkey tocombat Kurdish separatism, and has posed a riskof Iraq disintegrating as one effect of a possiblelarge-scale civil war and the subsequent emer-gence of an independent Kurdistan. Although re-lations between Ankara and Washington haveto a certain extent gradually improved, a defi-nite thaw can hardly be expected for some con-siderable time. The shape of US-Turkish relationsdepends on the situation developing in the Mid-dle East, while stabilisation of the region is high-ly unlikely in the nearest future.
6. A scenario of Turkey’s relations of with theEU and the USA cooling at the same time seemspossible for the first time in Turkey’s modernhistory. If this does in fact come about, Ankarawill be brought closer to Russia and other Mus-lim states, and cause a regression of the demo-cratisation process. However, considering thescale of relationships between Turkey and theWest, Ankara seems unlikely to adopt a radical-ly anti-Western line in its foreign policy.
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The hurdle race.
The greatest political
and social barriers
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European Union
Adam Balcer
Theses
1. Although accession negotiations started in Oc-tober 2005, it is still uncertain whether Turkeywill be accepted as a member of the EuropeanUnion. In its relations with EU member states,Turkey has more serious internal and externalproblems than previous candidates to EU mem-bership had.
2. The greatest challenges on Turkey’s path to theEU include:– the unenthusiastic attitude of most EU residentstowards Turkey’s potential membership;– the ambivalent attitude of Turkish society to-wards the EU and the West;– cultural differences;– the Kurdish issue;– problems with respecting human rights;– the role of the army in the Turkish political sys-tem;– tensions between the secular establishment andthe governing party, which has an Islamic base;– the need to regulate Ankara’s relations with Cy-prus and, to a lesser extent, with Greece;– references made by some EU member states tothe deportations and massacres of the Armenianscommitted during World War I by the YoungTurks’ regime as genocide, and the related issueof improving relations with Armenia; and– rising nationalism in Turkey, provoked by the Cy-priot, Kurdish and Armenian issues, which trans-lates into Euroscepticism.
3. Those problems are very likely to cause signifi-cant extension of the negotiation period betweenTurkey and the EU, and even a temporary suspen-sion. The possibility of breaking off talks comple-tely cannot be ruled out either.
Box 1. The historical background of relations between Turkey andEurope
Turkey is a unique candidate for EU member-ship. The vast majority of its population is Mu-slim (nearly 97%), while the societies of all EUmember states and other candidate states arepredominantly or mostly Christian, or identifythemselves with Christianity in terms of cul-
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ture. Since the seventh century, the Mediter-ranean Sea area has been the scene of confron-tation and coexistence at the same time, whichcontributed to cultural diffusion between Chris-tians and Muslims. Experiences linked to con-flicts and feelings of mutual incompatibilityplayed a greater part than those of coexistencein developing the image of Muslims amongChristians, and vice versa. In effect, Turkey’s re-ligious distinctness, combined with the nume-rous wars fought in the past between OttomanTurks and Christians, gave rise to feelings ofmutual strangeness, anxieties and negative ste-reotypes between Turkish and European socie-ties. As a consequence, the cultural diffusionfrom the best-developed Western Europeancountries into Turkey happened later than hadbeen in the case of other European regions in-habited by Christians. At the beginning of themodern era, Muslim communities in the Medi-terranean region and in Europe proper (withthe exception of Russia) were predominantlypoorer, more conservative, patriarchal and au-thoritarian than Christian ones, mainly for non-religious reasons. For this reason, in the mod-ern period some elements of Western culture(such as the emancipation of women, the sepa-ration of religion from the state and liberal is-sues) were extremely difficult to adapt to Mu-slim countries, including Turkey. On the otherhand, geography and history deemed that theWest would influence Turkey much more strong-ly than other Muslim countries in the Mediter-ranean area. Ottoman rule in the Balkans andAnatolia, which had lasted for several centu-ries, contributed to the development of nume-rous common cultural elements shared by bothChristian and Muslim residents of the regions.
The Republic of Turkey emerged in 1923 out ofthe Ottoman Empire, which as a result of itsconquests of a significant part of Europe (theBalkans and Central Europe) and areas of Asiawhich had had special historical ties with Eu-rope (Anatolia) had become a part of the Euro-pean system of international and economic re-lations, fighting numerous wars, making allian-ces and signing trade treaties1. (The Ottomanexpansion had a religious aspect (jihad) and thestate had been founded on the Islamic tradi-
tions. However, the Ottoman state had also in-herited the tradtions of the Byzantine state.)From the end of the seventeenth century, as a re-sult of military defeats, the Ottoman Empire lostvast territories to the Western powers & Rus-sia, as well as to Ottoman Christian nationali-ties, supported by the former. Its sovereigntywas significantly limited. Numerous massacresand ethnic cleansings committed by Christiansagainst Muslims and vice versa during the con-flicts in the Balkans, the Caucasus and Anato-lia gave rise to mutual prejudices, which arestill alive in various forms today.Under the treaty of S¯vres (1920), the Empirebecame a protectorate of the Western powers,cut down to the size of a part of Anatolia. Thestruggle against the treaty’s provisions and thememory of the loss of vast territories and com-plete sovereignty as a consequence of the sepa-ratism and expansion of European powers inpre-republican times became the foundinggrounds for the Republic of Turkey and themain reference points for the modern Turkishnational identity. This phenomenon is referredto as the S¯vres syndrome.
The loss of vast territories and complete sove-reignty contributed to the Empire’s decisionto reform, using the legacy of Western civilisa-tion. Turkey’s desire to join the EU is perceivedin Turkey as a continuation of the nearly 300-year-old tradition of pro-Western transforma-tion. The establishment of a secular nationalstate, the Republic of Turkey, by Kemal Atatürkin 1923 was a breakthrough. Atatürk’s inten-tion was to build a homogenously national, de-cidedly secular and modern society based onequal rights for men and women and close tieswith Europe. The implementation of that radi-cal and very ambitious programme had to becarried out against the will of most of the coun-try’s population. In effect, the Republic of Tur-key carried on some pf the authoritarian ele-ments of the political model which had existedin Ottoman times. The greatest consequenceof the changes initiated by Atatürk is that Tur-key is different from the other Muslim statesin the Mediterranean region. This has been ma-nifested by Turkey’s membership in all theWestern world’s organisations (with the excep-
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tion of the EU), its status as a candidate for EUmembership, its functioning as a democracy(although not free from imperfections) sincethe 1940s, the positive perception of the sepa-ration of religion and state by Turkish society,the smaller percentage than usual of religious-ly active people, the greater role of nationalidentity as the basis of social identity, the bet-ter social and legal position of women and thesmaller technological gap between it and West-ern Europe. On the other hand, Turkey is stillmuch poorer and less democratic than West-ern states are. Turkish society is also more pa-triarchal and conservative (especially the fun-damentalist minority) and much more poorlyeducated and less urbanised than societies inWestern Europe.
Box 2. A brief outline of relationsbetween Turkey and the EuropeanUnion
Turkey started making efforts to sign an asso-ciation agreement with the European Econo-mic Community (EEC) in 1959, two years afterthe organisation had come into existence. Theassociation treaty was signed on 12 September19632. On 14 April 1987, Turkey officially sub-mitted its candidacy for EEC membership andadopted laws that expanded the scope of de-mocracy in the country. The European Com-mission rejected Turkey’s application in Decem-ber 1989. However, the Commission deemedTurkey as a potential candidate, i.e. a Europeancountry3. The Commission’s major reservationsincluded the issue of the Turkish army’s occu-pation of Northern Cyprus, territorial disputesbetween Turkey and Greece (the latter being anEEC member), large-scale violations of humanrights (tortures, assassinations and violationsof the rights of religious and ethnic minorities),the insufficiently democratic nature of the Tur-kish political system (especially the unusuallyprominent position of the army) and the prob-lems of the Turkish economy. A Turkish-EU cus-toms union came into force on 1 January 19964.At the Luxembourg summit in December 1997,EU member states granted the status of a can-didate to all those countries which had declar-
ed a will to join the European Union, with theexception of Turkey. The main reason was thesame as in 1989. After that summit, Turkish-EUrelations plunged into the worst crisis in theirhistory; diplomatic relations were even sus-pended for some time. A breakthrough in rela-tions between Ankara and the EU happened inDecember 1999, when Turkey received candi-date status at the Helsinki summit. However,this did not happen because the human rightssituation in Turkey had significantly improved.What really decided the matter was the diffe-rent distribution of political forces inside theEU than that which had existed in 1997. Ger-many, the most powerful EU member state,since 1998 had been governed by the Social De-mocrats, who were favourably disposed to-wards granting the status of candidate to Tur-key. Additionally, relations between Turkey andGreece improved in 1999. Had the Union reject-ed Turkey’s candidacy, the integration processwould have been inhibited for a long time. New,more realistic hopes for EU membership hadcontributed to initiating unprecedentedly deepdemocratic reforms in Turkey, which started inlate 2001. The EU determined at the Copenha-gen summit on 12–13 December 2002 that Tur-key was not ready to start negotiations. How-ever, it decided to reconsider the issue by theend of 2004. Between 2002 and 2004, Turkeyimplemented eight legislation packages, whichsignificantly broadened the scope of democracyand brought the Turkish legislative system clos-er to EU standards5.
On 17 December 2004, the European Councilpositively evaluated the reforms, and set a startdate for negotiations of 3 October 2005. Nego-tiations could start on condition that Turkeysigned a protocol to extend the customs unionto the 10 new EU member states – includingCyprus – which had not been recognised by An-kara, and that it adopted a new criminal codecomplying with EU standards. In its conclu-sions, the Council presented its framework fornegotiations with Turkey. Unlike previous Nego-tiating Frameworks, this one included a provi-sion which enabled permanent exclusions (de-rogations) by member states6. The exclusions,according to the Council, should be revised for
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impact on the operation of the EU internalmarket. The Framework stated that the sharedobjective of the negotiations was Turkey’s ac-cession. However, it was explicitly laid downfor the first time in EU history that the nego-tiations were open-ended by nature, and thatthe outcome was not a foregone conclusion7.Pursuant to the Framework, in case of a seriousbreach of human rights by Turkey, the negotia-tions would be suspended if a motion to thateffect forwarded by either the Commission orone-third of the member states is supported bya majority of EU member states8. In practice,a veto by one country may cause a negotiatingdeadlock, since closing and opening each ne-gotiating chapter requires approval by all theEU member states. On 29 June 2005, the Turk-ish parliament adopted a new criminal code.On 29 July 2005, the Turkish government sign-ed a protocol to extend the customs union tothe 10 new member states. The negotiationsbetween Turkey and the EU were put on trackon 3 October 2005, following the dramatic half-day-long talks between the United Kingdom(which then held the presidency) and Austria9.The EU amended the Negotiating Frameworkto state that the possibility of absorbing newmembers was one of the criteria necessary forTurkey’s accession10. In January 2006, the Euro-pean Council adopted the document entitled‘Accession Partnership’, which had been pre-pared several weeks earlier by the EuropeanCommission. The document was also acceptedby Ankara11. The EU will evaluate Ankara’s ful-filment of the Accession Partnership’s under-takings at the end of 2007, and decide on thenature of its further relations with Turkey onthe basis of the evaluation. In June 2006, re-gardless of Cyprus’s attempts to thwart thebeginning of negotiations, Turkey opened andclosed the first chapter, concerning science andresearch. Between October 2005 and October2006, the Turkish legislation was screened forcompliance with the community’s law legacy(the acquis). In December 2006, the EU decidedto suspend eight negotiation chapters, due toTurkey’s failure to extend the customs unionto Cyprus. In March 2007 the EU opened thesecond chapter of Turkish accession negotia-tions (enterprise and industrial policy).
1. Turkey’s accession as seen by EU societies
European societies’ support for Turkey’s mem-bership in the EU is vital for the success of theprocess of this country’s integration for the fol-lowing reasons:– Turkey’s accession agreement has to be ratifiedby the parliaments of all EU member states andin a referendum by the French public. When vot-ing on the accession agreement, Europe’s politi-cal elites will take into consideration their socie-ties’ opinions on Turkey’s accession to the EU;– the negative attitude towards Turkey’s mem-bership shown by European societies, and the rea-listic prospect that the EU member states or theirsocieties will reject Turkey’s accession, regard-less of the possible outcome of the negotiations,has reinforced Eurosceptic sentiments in Turkey;– due to the uncertainty of EU membership, itsprospect in the case of Turkey does not play therole of an ‘anchor’ stabilising transformation tothe same extent that it did in the case of thosecandidates accepted to the EU in 2004, and lat-terly Romania and Bulgaria.
None of the previous candidates or the potentialcandidates (in the Western Balkans) has raisedsuch serious reservations in the EU as Turkeydoes. According to surveys conducted in 2006,a majority – either absolute or relative – of EU resi-dents are against Turkey’s membership12.
Opposition to Turkey’s EU membership prevailsin most countries where numerous emigrant Mu-slim communities live (France, Germany, Austria,Belgium and Denmark). The societies of a definitemajority of those countries which negatively per-ceive future EU enlargement also show a negativeattitude towards Turkey’s accession (in addition tothe aforementioned countries, Finland and Luxem-bourg). Turkey’s accession is also seen in negativeterms by the societies of most countries whichjoined the EU in 2004 (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia,Czech Republic, Slovakia and Cyprus). Fear of com-petition in the allocation of EU funds may be onereasons for this. The unwelcoming attitude of theGreek and Cypriot societies to Turkey’s accessionis strongly linked to their serious problems in bi-lateral relations with Ankara. Most societies whohave a positive stance on further EU enlarge-
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ment are also positive about Turkey’s accession.European political elites, most of whom supportaccession, are less sceptical about Turkey’s EUmembership. The circles which do not want Tur-key in the EU include the radical right, a signifi-cant part of the right wing and a small part of theleft wing (such as the socialists in Austria).The key reason usually presented against Turkey’smembership is the cultural difference of Turkishsociety as Muslims, with Islam often being de-scribed in radical terms13. According to opponentsof Ankara’s European aspirations, if Turkey join-ed the EU, this would upset the European Union’sinternal integrity, which should be based ona common cultural and religious background. Thisfeeling of difference has intensified since the Sep-tember 11 terrorist attacks. This is also linked toproblems with the integration of Muslims in West-ern Europe, resulting from the unwillingness ofsignificant groups of Muslims to adapt to the Eu-ropean system of values, European societies’ pre-judices against them, and integration policieswhich have been either bad or completely absent.Emigrants from Turkey constitute the most nume-rous group among the Muslim diaspora in theEU14. Other weighty arguments used by oppo-nents of Turkey’s accession include the fact that97% of Turkey’s territory is located in Asia, its bor-ders with the Middle East and the Caucasus, itsproblems with respecting human rights and thefunctioning of democracy, a fear of mass Turkishemigration and of the costs of accepting a poorcountry with a large agricultural sector. Manyopponents of Turkey’s membership believe that
opening negotiations with Ankara was pointlessbecause Turkey’s internal problems and cultural& religious differences will not allow it to meet theUnion’s requirements. Moreover, the negotiatingprocess itself may destabilise the internal situa-tion in Turkey because democratisation will bringradicals to power. For a large group of opponentsto Turkey’s EU membership, the country’s inter-nal problems are more important than the reli-gious difference. According to surveys, many ofthem declare they could change their opinion onTurkey’s accession if the country achieved sustain-able economic stabilisation and democratisation.Supporters of Turkey’s membership believe thatIslam is not an impediment to Turkey meeting EUcriteria. They emphasise the historical and cul-tural ties existing between Turkey and Europe.Their arguments for Turkey’s integration aremainly geopolitical, and are as follows:– as a result of the integration process Turkey willbecome stable and democratic, which will havea positive impact on the neighbouring regions(the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia),improve the efficiency of the EU’s policy towardsthem, and reduce the pressure of Turkish migra-tion to the EU;– Turkey will serve as a model for the Muslimworld and a bridge between it and the West;– the negative consequences of rejecting Turkey(intensifying anti-Western sentiments in Turkey,worsening relations with EU countries, holdingback the democratisation process and raising ten-sion between the state and the Kurds and reli-gious communities);
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Attitude to Turkey’s membership
Absolutely negative(all polls)
Negative(a definite majority of polls)
Indefinite (mixed poll results)
Moderately positive (all or a definite majority of polls)
Countries
Austria
France, Germany, Greece, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Cyprus
Italy, Holland, Lithuania, Malta
Spain, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom, Hungary;Bulgaria and Romania (EU members since 2007)
Forecast
No chance of changing the society’s attitude.
Small or moderate chance of changing the society’s attitude.
An open-ended issue
Probable loss of societies’ support
Table 1. Review of European societies’ attitudes to Turkey’s accession to the EU
Source: Eurobarometer, institutions for analysing public opinion in member states
– Turkey will serve as a transit country for trans-port of oil and gas to Europe and a guarantee ofthe Union’s energy security (diversification of ener-gy sources);– its accession will guarantee illegal migrationand drug smuggling from Asia to Europe throughthe territory of Turkey will be combated moreefficiently;– Turkey’s contribution, owing to its military po-tential, to the development of European securitypolicy.
The role of public opinion in relations betweenTurkey and the EU has significantly grown sincethe French parliament amended the French con-stitution in March 2005, imposing the obligationto hold a referendum on each enlargement of theEU after Bulgaria and Romania’s accessions. Itcannot be ruled out that other EU member stateswill also impose such an obligation.
2. Turkish society’s attitude to the EU; differences in cultureand values
The attitude of Turkish society to the EU and theEuropean system of values is an important issuefor Turkey’s integration with the Union for thefollowing reasons:– the S¯vres syndrome, widely shared by Turks(namely a fear of partition of the country by ex-ternal forces supporting separatism), may in a cri-sis undermine support for EU membership;– public support for membership is essential, con-sidering the need to implement the controversialreforms required by the EU;– the Turkish society is much more conservativethan other EU societies, and as a result of theirconservatism Turks may have problems accept-ing some EU standards in the social sphere;– the strong devotion to sovereignty may make itdifficult to accept the limitation thereof which isconnected with the integration process.In autumn 2006, approximately 55% of the Turk-ish public supported Turkey’s membership of theEU, and around 35% opposed it15. People supportaccession because they believe it will contributeto improving their financial situation and the de-mocratisation of the country16.Turkish society’s support for the EU is greaterthan their identification with the West and Eu-rope. Public opinion polls have indicated thata majority of Turkish society perceives Turkey asa part of the West and Europe, and Turks as Eu-ropeans. Nevertheless, a significant part of thesociety do not identify themselves with the Westor Europe, and some of those who identify them-selves with Europeans have a rather moderatesense of this identity. A clear sign of Turks’ aliena-tion in Europe is the belief shared by a large partof Turkish citizens that the European Union isa Christian club, which has no place to offer forMuslim Turkey17 More than 50% of Turks consid-er being a Muslim as a condition of being a Turk.Additionally, most Turks share a negative opinionof Christians, although they perceive individualEuropean nations in different ways18. Public opi-nion polls indicate that most Turks perceive de-mocracy as the best possible system and gener-ally support basic human rights and, as a conse-quence, the main pro-EU reforms in the political
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sphere. On the other hand, Turkish society is onlymoderately ready to take over the Western systemof values in the cultural and social spheres. Turk-ish society is much more conservative than EU so-cieties are19. The conservatism of Turkish societyis based on the major social role of the family,which is perceived as the foundation of an indi-vidual’s identity, more important than the state,nation or religion20. EU accession raises seriousfears among Turks of negative cultural changes(moral decay, crisis of the family and weakeningreligiousness) and a loss of cultural identity.Turks, unlike European societies, are exceptionallystrongly attached to the sovereignty of their ho-mogenous national state; they have the feelingthat they are deprived of allies in the internatio-nal arena21 and a strong anxiety of loss of territo-rial integrity. Such tendencies are the effects ofthe traditional state control, the S¯vres syndromeand such modern factors as long-lasting bad re-lations with almost all their neighbours as wellas the lengthy and bloody struggle against Kur-dish separatism. The struggle, combined with thedevotion to the national homogeneity of the state,leads to a majority of the Turkish society opposingthe granting of cultural rights to Kurds, and to de-claring its readiness to accept some restrictionsto democracy in an emergency situation in orderto guarantee the state’s security. Moreover, a sig-nificant minority support the authoritarian ruleof the army. A clear majority of Turks believe thatthe EU member states are sponsors of Kurdish se-paratism and intend to partition Turkey.Turks commonly share the belief that the Euro-pean Union employs double standards with re-gard to their country. Although this belief is notgroundless, signs of inconsistencies in the Union’spolicy are often exaggeratedly perceived in Tur-key22.In sociological terms, Turkey’s accession is moststrongly supported by the Kurds, both the re-ligiously conservative and the liberal middle class,the intelligentsia and big business. These socialgroups are interested in expanding the scope ofpolitical and economic freedom (the conservativemiddle class and the Kurds), and they identifythemselves most in cultural terms and have tieswith the West (the liberal middle class and big bu-siness). Support for accession is the weakestamong the nationalist section of those secular so-cial groups who are tied to state structures (the
military, the bureaucracy, the judiciary and someacademic staff), religious fundamentalists and thenationalist-conservative Turkish population ofcentral Turkey (which strongly adhere to Islamas the basis of national identity). The urban popu-lation shows greater support for accession thando residents of agricultural areas.Of the key political parties, Turkey’s EU member-ship is supported most strongly by the ruling Isla-mic-democratic Justice and Development Party(AKP), the Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP)and to a similar extent by the centrist MotherlandParty of Turkey (ANAP). The opposition centre-right True Path Party (DYP) is a cautious supporterof Turkey’s accession, although it continues to em-phasise the need to treat sovereignty and inte-rests of the country as top priority issues. The left-wing nationalist Republican People’s Party (CHP),the largest opposition party, represents a Euro-sceptic point of view23. The radically right-wingNationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the funda-mentalist Saadet (Felicity) Party are staunch op-ponents of Turkey’s EU membership.Social sentiments clearly changed in Turkey be-tween 2005 and 2006. Support for EU membershipfell from nearly 75% to nearly 55%. Opponentsincreased from 15%–20% to around 35%. Confi-dence in the EU and the perception of accessionas a necessity and a good thing have clearly wea-kened. The lessening support for EU membershipmeans weaker identification with the West andEurope. Dislike of Christians and fears of the con-sequences of accession have become stronger.Such negative trends have arisen for the follow-ing reasons, among others:– the escalation of the Kurdish rebellion in au-tumn 2004;– the disillusionment of the Turkish public withthe EU’s stance on Turkey as presented at the sum-mit in December 2004 (e.g. the contents of the Ne-gotiating Framework, the failure to keep the pro-mises made by the European Commission to theTurkish Cypriots, accompanied by the demandthat Turkey should extend the customs union toCyprus);– resolutions on the Armenian genocide passed bythe parliaments of some EU member states andthe European Parliament (see Appendix 2);– imposition of the obligation to hold referendumson each subsequent enlargement by the Frenchparliament, and declarations by politicians from
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other countries that similar laws should also beadopted in their countries; and– tensions in relations between Muslims andChristians (such as the publication of the carica-tures of Mohammed or the fragment of the lec-ture on Islam delivered by Pope Benedict XVI inRegensburg).
There is a correlation between the government’sability to carry out controversial reforms or makeconcessions regarding the Kurdish, Cypriot andArmenian issues required by Brussels and the like-lihood of the membership prospect. The less rea-listic the prospect of EU accession seems, theweaker Turkish society’s support for accession,and hence the smaller the probability that theywill accept the most controversial decisions asa lesser ‘necessary’ evil.
3. The Kurdish issue
The Kurdish issue is the most vital for the pros-pects of Turkey’s integration with the EU, for thefollowing reasons:– Turkey’s most serious internal problem is itsmilitary conflict with the Kurdish guerrilla forces,which has lasted for more than two decades, hasclaimed the lives of over 37,000 people and hascost US$150 billion in direct expenses;– the Kurdish issue is strongly linked to numerouseconomic, political and social problems (poverty,conservatism, fundamentalism, patriarchy, humanrights, the position of the army and developingof the so-called ‘deep state’, a shadowy networkof security structures), which are at the same timeserious reasons for some EU communities’ reluc-tance towards Turkey’s accession;– conditions of accession include guarantee of thecultural rights of ethnic minorities as well as de-centralisation of the administration, while meet-ing such conditions will arouse concern about theintegrity of the state among a great majority ofTurks, and will entail the need to revise the defini-tion of the state (national homogeneity), whichis one of the fundaments of the Republic of Turkey;– the prospect of EU integration has played a keyrole in Ankara modifying its policy on Kurds;– a definite majority of Turks accuse EU memberstates of supporting Kurdish separatism and thedivision of their country; the EU requirements re-garding cultural rights and the activity of Kurdishseparatist circles in EU member states are perceiv-ed by Turks in this context;– the support for accession is much strongeramong Kurds than among ethnic Turks. A clearweakening of likelihood of accession will under-mine Kurdish nationalists’ support for the conti-nued territorial integrity of Turkey;– the serious losses inflicted by the Turkish armyon the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and thetruce declared by Kurdish separatists created fa-vourable conditions for implementing pro-EU re-forms between 2001 and 2004. The re-eruption offights against the Kurdish guerrilla forces in 2004was the main reason for the growing national-ism in Turkey, weakening support for accession,and consequently, a slowdown in the implemen-tation of reforms. The conflict puts the continua-tion of reforms in jeopardy.
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Box 3. Basic information on Kurds
Most Kurds live in regions where they are a mi-nority. This tendency has been reinforced by thelarge-scale migration of Kurds to metropolises(Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Damascus, Tabriz, Teh-ran and Baghdad). This has been happening onthe largest scale in Turkey. Turkey also differsfrom the other countries in terms of its linguis-tic assimilation of its Kurdish population.It is difficult to precisely determine the numberof the Kurdish population due to the lack of ac-curate statistical data and the complicated na-ture of national and religious identity in theMiddle East. The importance of religious identi-ty in the Middle East (Kurds often present a high-er level of religious activity than their non-Kur-dish neighbours), strong family structures, thereligious and linguistic diversity among Kurds,their minority status in the countries whichapply the policy of assimilation and use the ’di-vide and rule’ principle with regard to Kurds,violent conflicts inside the Kurdish community,the complex ethnic structure of the territoriesinhabited by Kurds, their coexistence with otherethnic groups (numerous mixed marriages)and the underdeveloped nature of the Kurdishmodern national identity cause the following:– many Kurds hold religious and tribal identityin higher esteem than a national identity;– some of them identify themselves with othernational groups than the Kurdish one;– identification with the state is very impor-tant for them (especially in Turkey).Consequently, treating Kurds as a uniform na-tional community is a simplification, while it is
more reasonable to use the term ‘people of Kur-dish origin’ to define the whole Kurdish popu-lation.According to estimates by the Turkish pollingcentre KONDA, which conducted the largestsurvey on identity of Turkish citizens in the hi-story of the country (around 45,000 respon-dents), nearly 15% of residents of Turkey indi-cated Kurdish and Zaza (1%) as their mothertongues, and over 10% declared themselves tobe Kurds and Zaza (0.5%). Nearly 10% of re-spondents who declared themselves as Kurdsand Zaza indicated Turkish as their native lan-guage. In turn, 20% of residents of Turkey whoindicated Kurdish and Zaza as their respectivemother tongues admitted that they used Tur-kish more often than they did their mother ton-gues. Mixed Kurdish-Turkish families accountfor almost 4% of all marriages entered into inTurkey. It can be estimated that a certain per-centage of Turkish residents who identify them-selves as Turks and indicate Turkish as theirnative tongue are of Kurdish origin.
The Kurdish problem in Turkey includes the fol-lowing five interrelated aspects; (1) the politi-cal dispute between the Kurdish elites and theTurkish state about the definition of the stateand the status of Kurds, (2) the military conflictwith Kurdish separatists, (3) the clear socioeco-nomic backwardness of the region predomi-nantly inhabited by Kurds, (3) the trans-bordernature of the Kurdish community, which residesin four countries, and (5) the link between thesituation of the Kurds in Turkey and Ankara’srelations with the EU.
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Country
Turkey
Iran
Iraq
Syria
Populationnumber
12–15million
6–7 million
5 million
1,6–2 million
Percentageshare
15–20%
10%
20%
8–10%
Main religions
Sunni Islam,Alevism (nearly 25–30%)
Sunni Islam, Shia Islam(25–30%)
Sunni Islam and Shia Islam (small minorities)
Sunni Islam
Languages
Kurmanji, Turkish (a large part), Zaza (a minority)
Sorani (the largest group),Kurmanji, Gurani, South--Eastern dialects, Persian
Kurmanji, Sorani
Kurmanji
Alphabet
Latin
Arabic
Arabic
Latin
The most numerousethnic-religious group
Sunni Turks (nearly 65–70%)
Shia Persians (nearly 50%)
Shia Arabs (nearly 60%)
Sunni Arabs (nearly 60%)
Table 2. Population of Kurdish origin in the Middle East
a) The Turkish state’s policy on Kurdsand their response thereto
The Republic of Turkey, which was founded in1923 by Kemal Atatürk, defined the Turkish na-tion as a community based on culture, the Turkishlanguage and citizenship. This definition excludedthe possibility of other ethnic communities func-tioning in the public sphere24. Every resident ofTurkey was automatically identified by the stateas a Turk25. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds haveundergone ethnic assimilation. For many of them,even though they have preserved their ethnicidentity as Kurds, the Turkish language has be-come their mother tongue26. However, the pro-cess of assimilation never had a chance of beingfully successful. Kurds constitute a populous mi-nority concentrated in one region which hasa clear Kurdish character. The population growthrate among Kurds is much higher than it is in thecase of Turks27. On the other hand, most TurkishKurds do not identify themselves with Kurdishnationalism28. Kurds usually vote for Turkish par-ties, especially for those close to Islamic tradition.According to independent public opinion polls,the vast majority do not support secession, andmost of them do not sympathise with the idea oftransforming Turkey into a bi-national Turkish--Kurdish state. The confrontation of the Turkisharmy against the separatist guerrillas and terro-rists has not erupted into an open ethnic conflict.Many more Kurds serve in the village militias and
in the Turkish army than in the PKK. Desertionshappen rarely.The military and autonomy-related traditions ofhighlander Kurdish communities, the unpreven-table development of nationalist ideology amongKurds (the concept of their own state), favourablegeographic conditions (mountains) and externalsupport from countries hostile to Turkey (such asthe USSR and Syria) were among the reasons whythe Turkish state’s assimilation policy has metwith armed resistance from Kurdish guerrilla for-ces. The Turkish army quashed many local Kur-dish uprisings in the 1920s and the 1930s29. In the1960s and 1970s, urbanisation, secular educationand the influence of Kurdish autonomy in North-ern Iraq led to a developing Kurdish national iden-tity in Turkey. The Kurdish Workers Party (PKK),with Abdullah Öcalan as its dictatorial leader, wasestablished in 1978. The PKK started terrorist ac-tivity, which erupted into full guerrilla warfarein 1984. Its main goal was to unite all Kurds intoone state, which distinguished it from other Kur-dish groups in the Middle East. The Turkish army& police forces and the PKK violated human rightson a massive scale (tortures, killing civilians andprisoners of war, more then a million people dis-placed)30. The state radically restricted the Kurds’rights and imposed antiterrorist laws, whichstrongly restricted human rights, freedom ofspeech and democracy. A ban on speaking Kurdishin public places was in force between 1984 and1991. A state of emergency (OHAL) was declaredin south-eastern Turkey in 1987.
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Distribution of the population of Kurdish origin in the Middle East
The struggle between the army and the PKK ledto informal relations being created between thesecurity structures and the criminal underworld,leaders of Kurdish clans loyal to the state, and Turk-ish radical nationalists31. Secret structures actingoutside the law (whose methods included assassi-nations, attacks and kidnappings) were created in-side the armed forces. These structures are referredto as the ‘deep state’ (derin devlet). On the otherhand, the conflict produced connections betweenKurdish organised crime and the guerrillas32.
The first Kurdish political party linked to the PKKwas established in 1990. It has been delegalisedand has changed its name three times. Since Octo-ber 2005, it has been operating under the name ofthe Democratic Society Party (DTP). Kurdish partiesusually have a more moderate programme thanthe PKK (autonomy rather than independence).However, they cannot enter the national parlia-ment due to the high election threshold of 10%33.Several offensives launched by the Turkish armyin the second half of the 1990s seriously weaken-ed the PKK, which declared a truce at the end of1998. Clashes became significantly less intense.A breakthrough came with the arrest of Öcalan in1999, who was sentenced to death, although thiswas thereafter commuted to life imprisonment.Although the PKK leader is in a high-security pri-son, he still has a great influence on the military& political Kurdish movement. In April 2005, at hisinitiative, the PKK adopted a new programme fora ‘democratic Kurdish confederation’, which pro-vides for setting up Kurdish republics in Turkey,Iran, Iraq and Syria that will be united in a confe-deration while at the same time formally remain-ing integral parts of the aforementioned countries.The end of the fight against the PKK and the re-quirement to change the status of Kurds, whichwas set as a condition for opening negotiations bythe EU, led to an extension of Kurds’ culturalrights. However, the PKK decided these rights we-re insufficient. On 1 June 2004, the PKK withdrewfrom the truce, which caused an escalation ofarmed clashes. The conflict between the PKK andthe army in south-eastern Turkey was accompa-nied by violent demonstrations by Kurdish natio-nalists between 2005 and 2006, during which de-monstrators engaged in clashes with the policeand the army. The bloodiest riots, the biggestsince the mid-1990s, broke out in late March/early
April 2006; 14 people were killed during the riots.An equally dangerous tendency was demonstrat-ed by street fights between Turkish and Kurdishnationalists and attempted lynches. Such tensionsbetween ordinary citizens had been rare in the1990s34. Following the re-eruption of fights, thePKK became more radical. The Kurdistan FreedomFalcons (TAK), which plotted many terrorist attacksbetween 2005 and 2006, including on tourist re-sorts, left the party. The PKK announced a cease-fire on 1 October 2006, and clashes between thearmy and PKK have become rarer since that time.
b) The regional aspect (Iraq)
The development of Kurdish guerrilla forces inTurkey was strongly linked to the existence oftheir bases in neighbouring countries, especiallyIraq, as well as to the support offered to them bySyria, and to a lesser extent Iran. In 1998, thethreat of a military intervention by Turkey madeDamascus change its policy on this issue. Irangradually changed its policy after the election ofthe moderate president Khatami. Turkey’s rela-tions with these two of its neighbours clearly im-proved after the US intervention in Iraq in 2003.It significantly strengthened the Iraqi Kurds, whichwas seen as a serious threat by Syria and Iran.South-eastern Turkey has especially strong geo-graphical, historical and economic ties with north-ern Iraq. Iraqi Kurdistan has been the most inde-pendent and politically & culturally autonomousKurdish region for over 50 years. In fact, it is rea-sonable to state that an independent Kurdishstate has existed in northern Iraq since 1991. Theregion has been used as a logistical base by Kur-dish separatist organisations from Turkey andIran. In the 1990s, Turkey, using the internal con-flicts existing among Iraqi Kurds, managed to con-vince some of them to engage in a common strug-gle against the PKK. Serious losses were inflictedon the PKK owing to the Turkish army’s ability tocarry out raids deep into Iraq and its co-operationwith Iraqi Kurds. The situation radically changedin spring 2003, when the Turkish parliament vot-ed against the agreement with the USA which pro-vided for launching US attacks on Iraq from Turk-ish territories and for the durable deployment ofTurkish troops tens of kilometres deep into north-ern Iraq35. As a consequence, Iraqi Kurds have be-come the key US ally in the region, and the Turk-
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ish army cannot carry out large-scale operationsin northern Iraq. Iraqi Kurds have significantly ex-panded the area territory under their controlthanks to the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s re-gime and to their alliance with the USA. They havenever been as strong as they are today. They donot want to fight their compatriots from the PKK,who pose no threat to their interests, and they op-pose Turkish intervention in northern Iraq36.
c) The socioeconomic aspect of the Kurdish issue
Kurdish nationalism has also developed due to thedissatisfaction of a significant part of the residentsof south-eastern Turkey with the socioeconomicsituation in the region, which is characterised byexceptional socio-cultural backwardness (the lowsocial position of women, religious and social con-servatism, low levels of education and the high il-literacy rate)37 and by a low level of economic de-velopment. In this context, the Kurdish issue hasa direct link to EU accession, since these pheno-mena cause many Europeans to oppose Turkey’smembership in the EU.The slow process of socio-cultural modernisationis in the first order an effect of the feudal and fa-mily-based structure and the conservative reli-giousness prevalent in the region38, which havepreserved their significance for the following rea-sons:– the limited openness of the region to externalinfluence39;– concessions by the state, which does not havesufficiently effective institutions and economy40;– social needs resulting from military conflicts andaccelerated urbanisation; and– poverty41.Regardless of such negative phenomena, the Kur-dish community in Turkey is not a static and ar-chaic monad. Some social changes took place inthe second half of the twentieth century. Current-ly, most Kurds in Turkey can read and write, live incities and do not treat family identity as the mainpoint of reference. Their religiousness has becomeless orthodox, and their women have been eman-cipated to a limited extent. The most importantsign of the modernisation process is secular Kur-dish nationalism.
d) The EU’s influence on Ankara’spolicy on Kurds
In the early 1990s, Ankara’s efforts to gain candi-date status for the EEC/EU contributed to the libe-ralisation of its policy on the Kurdish issue. Theban on speaking Kurdish in public places was lift-ed in 1991. Since that time, Kurdish newspapersand books have been regularly published (albeitwith great problems until recently) and records inthe Kurdish language have been issued. A Kurdishcultural centre was established in Istanbul in1991. The serious weakening of the PKK, the arrestof Öcalan and conferring EU candidate status onTurkey in 1999 provided grounds for the greatestchanges to the Kurdish policy in the history ofthe Republic of Turkey. Brussels made setting thenegotiation beginning date conditional on thesechanges. In August 2002, the Turkish parliamentpassed amendments to legalise the usage of non-Turkish languages on TV and radio, and on educa-tion in languages other than Turkish. The amend-ments were brought to practice two years later.In June 2004, public radio and television startedbroadcasting short programmes in Kurdish. Before2006, the Kurdish language appeared only spora-dically in local private media. The first program-mes appeared in March 2006, and they covera much wider scope than those broadcast by pu-blic television42. The first Kurdish daily newspa-per in Turkish history has been published sinceAugust 2006.The first private Kurdish language course, follow-ing lengthy efforts, was made available in March200443. Gradually, more courses were launched.However, all the courses were closed by mid-2005due to the lack of people willing to attend them44.A new Kurdish course was opened in November2006. The AKP party, which has ruled Turkey sincelate 2002, has been making attempts to improvethe socioeconomic situation in south-eastern Tur-key by measures including promoting girls’ edu-cation and improving the infrastructure (build-ing roads)45. The process of paying compensationsto Kurds who had been forced to migrate to bor-der regions by the army during military actionshas also begun, yet its implementation has beenrather slow46. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo-gan has also initiated a discussion on the nationaldefinition of Turkey, supporting the concept of po-
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litical identification as the principal one (Türkiyeli)after the American fashion, and recognising theTurkish identity as one of the sub-identities47.Political freedom has also been enhanced. Thestate of emergency in south-eastern Turkey waslifted in late 2002/early 2003. Kurdish politicalleaders who had been sentenced to imprisonmentin 1994, including Leyla Zan, were released in June2004. Between 2005 and 2006, the governmentgranted consent to the gathering of signatures forpetitions to transform Turkey into a Turkish-Kur-dish federation and expressing support for Öcalan.However, the usage of non-Turkish languages inpolitical activities (meetings, congresses and pos-ters) is still banned. The local government reform,which was blocked by the president’s veto in2004, has not been carried out.Minority cultural rights were introduced onlyslowly due to the resistance shown by nationalistcircles in bureaucracy and justice authorities, andby limited public support for the reforms48. Gra-dually, many Turks, considering their support forEU accession, ‘forgave’ the AKP for giving Kurdscultural rights, and have accepted this as a ‘nec-essary evil’ on their road to opening the negotia-tions49. However, this public forbearance has sig-nificantly lessened as a consequence of the inten-sifying clashes between the Turkish army and theKurdish guerrilla forces.
e) The EU aspect
Nearly one million Kurds, the great majority ofwho come from Turkey, live in EU member states.They are both economic and political emigrants.The largest Kurdish communities are in Germany,France, Holland, Sweden and Denmark, wherethey live close to Turkish emigrants. The diasporahas played a very important role in developingKurdish nationalism since the end of the nine-teenth century. It is a melting pot which unifiesKurds from various regions. Ideas of modern Kur-dish national identity have had the liberty to de-velop in exile thanks to the wider scope of free-dom and the opportunities to use Western ideas.Currently, Europe is the main place where booksand magazines in Kurdish are published. Nume-rous Kurdish radio and television stations, asso-ciations and parties operate in EU countries. Someof them have connections with the PKK, whichgathers funds in Europe, including by means of
criminal activities (drug trafficking). The fact thatcircles linked to the Kurdish guerrilla organisa-tion exist in European countries has led to deepdissatisfaction on the part of the Turkish govern-ment and society and reinforces the S¯vres syn-drome. The conflict between Turkey and the PKKalso directly affects EU member states. This is ma-nifested in tensions between Kurdish and Turkishnationalists, Kurdish attacks on Turkish embas-sies, anti-Turkish demonstrations held by the Kur-dish diaspora and the involvement of some PKKsupporters in criminal activities50. Additionally,European tourists have become a target of terroristattacks staged by the TAK organisation since 2005.
f) The prospects for resolving the Kurdish issue
A durable settlement of the armed conflict withthe Kurdish guerrilla forces cannot be achieved bymilitary means alone. The sources of the conflictare deeply rooted in social, economic and politi-cal problems, and can only be resolved by clearlyimproving the position of the Kurds in Turkey. Themajor impediments on the path to ending the con-flict include:– a lack of any clear prospect of Turkey’s member-ship in the EU, without which the implementationof pro-Kurdish reforms and the resultant margi-nalisation of extremists is rather unlikely;– serious differences of opinions between thestate and the Kurdish elites51;– the existence of circles opposing a peaceful re-solution of the conflict on both sides52;– growing support for Kurdish nationalists53;– the lack of any strong Kurdish political forces un-connected with the insurgents54; and– the strengthening position of the Iraqi Kurds fol-lowing the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regimein 200355.
On the other hand, Kurdish guerrilla forces willnot regain the position they used to enjoy in the1990s because the Turkish army has inflicted tooheavy losses on them. The membership of the PKKhas significantly decreased. The organisation hasbecome internally divided following Öcalan’sarrest, and the PKK can no longer count on Syria’sand Iran’s assistance. Currently, the support forarmed struggle is much smaller among TurkishKurds than it was ten years ago. Any further re-
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duction of PKK’s combat capacity in the presentgeopolitical situation depends on Ankara’s co-ope-ration with the Iraqi Kurds, who could success-fully cut off the organisation’s supply routes. How-ever, the Iraqi Kurds will co-operate with Ankaraagainst the PKK only if further pro-Kurdish re-forms are implemented in Turkey56. Internal pres-sure on the Turkish government will intensifybecause the population growth rate is higheramong Turkish Kurds than among Turks.
4. Human rights (torture and ill-treatment, freedom of speech, freedom of religionand the position of women)
The question of improving human rights in Tur-key is linked to the country’s pre-accession effortsfor the following reasons:– political criteria are of key significance and aregiven priority over economic ones when the EUdecides on a candidate country’s status;– Turkey has greater problems in this area thanall previous candidate members have had;– any clear worsening of the human rights situa-tion in Turkey will cause negotiations with theEU to be broken off.
a) The impact of pro-EU reforms on the human rights situation and the development of civil society
Dozens of constitution amendments, new lawsand codes to significantly expand the scope offreedoms of speech, peaceful assembly & associa-tions, to combat the usage of tortures and to limitthe possibilities for delegalising political partieswere passed in Turkey between 2001 and 2006.The process of implementing the new regulationsto be used in practice has lasted since 2004. Thisis being done in a difficult situation, consideringthe military conflict with Kurdish separatists,which has been ongoing uninterruptedly for over20 years now.The government launched the policy of ‘zero tole-rance of torture’ in 2004. In effect, some police-men have been accused of and sentenced forusing tortures and ill-treating inmates, which hashappened on such a scale for the first time in Tur-key’s history. Although the number of lawsuitsagainst policemen on charges of abusing powershas increased, the great majority of the trials stillend in collapse or with suspended sentences be-ing imposed. According to the leading TurkishHuman Rights Association (IHD), the most brutalforms of tortures have been almost totally elimi-nated. Pursuant to the European Commission’sreports for 2004 and 2005 and the Council of Eu-rope’s report for 2006, the usage of torture is notsystematic and is in decline57. Turkish humanrights organisations believe that torture and the
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ill-treatment of prisoners do have a systematic na-ture, since most perpetrators go unpunished.
In 2006, the positive tendencies slowed down,and the human rights situation worsened. Themain reasons for this were the escalation of theconflict between the army and the PKK and thelarge-scale riots in spring 200662. Between 2005and 2006, most of those sentenced for expressingtheir views were Kurds, who were charged mainlywith praising or supporting the PKK and spread-ing separatist propaganda63. Regarding the othersentences, charges of slandering the army and(in fewer cases) other state institutions, influenc-ing court proceedings and propagating radical re-ligious views prevailed.The problems with respecting human rights inTurkey arise from the fact that the Turkish legisla-tion, regardless of reforms, fails to meet EU stan-dards. The new criminal code which came intoforce in July 2005 was described by the EuropeanCommission as adopting ‘modern European stan-dards in line with criminal law in many Europeancountries’64. However, some of the code’s articlesmet with reservations from the EU as posinga threat to the freedom of speech. The most con-troversial is article 301, which concerns insulting‘Turkishness’, the republic and state institutions65.The removal or amendment of article 301 was
one of the most serious EU demands made withregard to Turkey in 2006. As a consequence of theescalating conflict with the PKK and the seriousriots in spring 2006, a new antiterrorist law waspassed. The law, which extends the definition ofterrorism and the powers of security forces to usearms during antiterrorist operations, and intro-duces regulations which provide for the possi-bility of limiting the rights of detainees and forpunishing publications accused of supporting,spreading and praising terrorism, may be condu-cive to human rights violations66. President AhmetSezer appealed against the articles regarding thefreedom of the press to the Constitutional Court.Trials which violate human rights do not only hap-pen because of the excessive rigorousness of thelawanother reason is the strict interpretation ofthe law by the judiciary system, which representsauthoritarian and nationalist views67.Developing civil society has been the main prac-tical effect of passing reforms to expand the fun-damental freedoms. Between 2004 and 2005, theparticipation of Turks in non-governmental orga-nisations grew by 45%, to 7 million (10% of socie-ty)68. Regardless of these positive trends, however,civil society in Turkey is much weaker in compa-rison with Western Europe69.
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Type of human rights violation
Murder committed by unidentified perpetrators
Demonstrators killed by law enforcement agencies during riots
Individuals killed during interrogation
Cases of law enforcement agencies using tortures and ill-treatment
Publications banned and confiscated (posters, tapes, books, newspapers, magazines)
Radio & TV stations and programmes punished by the Radio and Television Board with a temporary broadcasting ban
Delegalised social organisations, political parties, cultural centres and publishing houses
People sentenced for expressing their views
People sentenced under the demonstrations and assemblies act61
2003
160 (2001)
2 (2002)
5 (2002)
over 120059
285
22 stations
nearly 150 (2001)
over 450
over 170
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7
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12
4
over 640
22
2 stations
4
over 226
over 170
Table 3. Data from the Human Rights Association (Insan Haklar Dernegi)58
Source: Insan Haklar Dernegi, http://www.ihd.org.tr
b) Freedom of religion and conscience
Turkey is a secular state where the activity of reli-gious structures is regulated by the Presidency ofReligious Affairs (Diyanet)70. No reservations a-gainst this system have been made in the Euro-pean Commission’s reports; the most criticisedissues include the situation of religious minorities,religious culture and ethics as an obligatory schoolsubject (which in fact teaches religion71), and thespace for entering religion in identity cards.Turkey has over 10 million Alevis (nearly 15% ofthe country’s population), who are followers ofa strand of Islam which is more liberal than Sun-nism and has numerous common theological ele-ments with Shi’ism72. For centuries Alevis hadbeen treated as second-class subjects in the Otto-man Empire, which was based on the primacy ofSunni orthodoxy. In effect, they became staunchsupporters of left-wing politics, including radicalleft, and Kemalism in the twentieth century. Theirsocial liberalism and their tradition of concealingtheir religious identity arouse prejudice amongmany Sunnis. Many Alevis were killed in the mas-sacres in 1978 and 1993 in central Turkey. In 1995,bloody clashes between Alevis and the police brokeout in Istanbul. Alevis have are different ways ofdefining their own identity; some of them perceiveit only in cultural terms, and others believe thatthey constitute a religious minority and as suchshould be entitled to certain rights. The religiousAlevis are dissatisfied with the fact that the statedoes not treat them as a separate community.Alevis have a very sparse representation at the Pre-sidency of Religious Affairs. Their places of worship(cemevi) are not treated as temples, and receivemuch smaller money from the Ministry of Cultureinstead of state subsidies from the Diyanet73. As of2006, the principles of Alevism have been present-ed in the classes of religious culture and ethics.However, Alevis do not like the way their religion ispresented in textbooks for this subject74.The AKP represents only the Sunni electorate (andto a great extent their more conservative part),and so this government cannot be reasonably ex-pected to significantly improve the status of theAlevi community. Admittedly, the Education Mi-nistry in July 2006 promised that it would intro-duce classes on Alevism in the religious cultureand ethics syllabus, and government representa-tives took part in ceremonies held by Alevi orga-
nisations in summer 2006. Nevertheless, the cen-tral government and the AKP-controlled localgovernments do not want to recognise cemevias places of religious worship.Nearly 200,000 followers of religions other thanIslam (mainly members of the Armenian Church,Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Jews) live inTurkey. There are also groups of Protestants. Ge-nerally, the situation of non-Muslims in Turkey ismuch better than that in many Muslim states,yet it is still worse than that of religious minori-ties in western Europe. Armenians, Jews and Or-thodox Greeks enjoy the best legal situation. Thestate recognises their right to religious and cul-tural education75. Foundations of religious com-munities, which represent the vast majority ofreligions, report to the state General Directorateof Foundations, which includes a FoundationBoard. The nature of the foundations is not reli-gious; they play an administrative role (manag-ing the real estate of religious communities). Turk-ish law does not permit the founding of associa-tions which have openly stated religious goals76.The lack of any legal identity and of possibilitiesto educate priests in Turkey are the greatest prob-lems which non-Muslim religious communitieshave77. Ankara does not recognise the ecumenicalnature of the Orthodox Patriarchy of Constanti-nople. Local authorities often cause problems inbuilding and repairing non-Muslim places of wor-ship. Prosecution authorities also (though rarely)launch proceedings against those who celebratereligious ceremonies outside their places of wor-ship. In 2005, missionaries were verbally attackedby public institutions78. Several incidents target-ed against non-Muslims happen every year. Theseare mainly acts of vandalism and threats, some-times beatings. The attacks on Istanbul synago-gues in 2003, in which mainly Muslims werekilled, the murder of a Catholic priest in Trabzonin February 2006, and the deaths of three Ger-man Protestant missionaries in Malatya in April2007 have so far been the most serious assaultsagainst non-Muslims.The problems encountered by non-Muslims resultfrom the strong prejudices of the Turkish authori-ties and society against followers of other reli-gions than Islam, and their dislike of Christianproselytisation79. These prejudices originate fromnumerous wars against Christians, the Israeli-Pa-lestinian conflict and the bad relations modern
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Turkey has with countries linked to some of itsnon-Muslim minorities (e.g. Armenia). The prob-lems of non-Muslims in Turkey are also connect-ed with the rigorous interpretations of the prin-ciple of separating religion from the state and ofsovereignty employed by the authorities.However, pro-EU reforms have contributed to theimprovement in the situation for non-Muslimsin Turkey. In October 2002, the parliament votedfor amendments to the act on religious founda-tions, enabling them to buy real estate80. Theywere deprived of this right in 1974 during the in-tervention in Cyprus. In November 2006, theTurkish parliament accepted amendments to thefoundations act, which gave the following guar-antees to religious communities: (1) the right toregain previously nationalised real estate, (2) pro-tection against arbitrary interference by the stateadministration with the foundation’s internal af-fairs and against nationalisation, (3) autonomy inmanaging their real estates, (4) representation onthe Foundation Board, and (5) facilitations in set-ting up foundations81. The law has not yet comeinto effect, since some of its articles have beenvetoed by the president.A law introducing new identity cards in which theentry indicating the holder’s religion can be re-moved at the holder’s request came into force inApril 2006 as part of legislation adjustments tosatisfy EU requirements regarding the freedom ofreligion. An Alevi who did not want his child toattend the obligatory religion and ethics classeswon a lawsuit to that effect in November 2006. Ifthe award is deemed final and binding by a courtof higher instance, it will set a judicial precedent.
c) Women’s rights
Improving the situation of women in comparisonto other EU human rights requirements posesa special challenge to Turkey. In this case, adjust-ment to EU standards requires serious changesin the mentality of Turkish society. A woman’srole in the family is perceived by the great majo-rity of Turkish society in a traditional way82. Mostresidents of Turkey identify family honour withthe good reputation of the wife, sister or daugh-ter (the cult of premarital virginity and maritalfidelity)83. The attitude to the role of women is oneof the foundations of conservatism in Turkeywhich makes it different from EU countries.
The level of women’s education, albeit consistent-ly improving, is much lower than in the EU84. Justover 25% of women in Turkey are legally employ-ed. They are clearly overrepresented among peo-ple working in the underground economy, whichis significantly larger in Turkey than in the EU85.On the other hand, women in Turkey have a rela-tively good representation in prestigious profes-sions in comparison with some EU member sta-tes86. Women make up less than 5% of membersof the Turkish parliament, and their representa-tion is even worse at the local government level87.However, the situation is much better in the stateadministration and the judiciary system88.The usage of violence against women, which oc-curs on a much larger scale than in EU countries,is the most radical manifestation of the poor so-cial position of women in Turkey. Another seriousproblem is the fact that a large minority of thepopulation, including women, accepts home vio-lence89. Murders of and suicide by women happenmuch more frequently in Turkey than in the EU.Many of them are considered as honour killings;these are committed against women accused of‘promiscuous’ behaviour (which may include sim-ple flirting) and blemishing the honour of the fa-mily90. Murders and violence against ‘immoral’women are linked to the fact that the society em-ploys double standards to the erotic lives of males(acceptance of premarital sex) and females91.Numerous adjustments to Turkish law aimed atimproving the legal status of women have beenadopted since 2001 as part of pro-EU reforms. Theamendments to the civil code introduced in late2001 and the new criminal code adopted in mid-2005 were especially important92. In autumn 2006,the government prepared legislation to improvethe legal protection of female victims of domesticviolence and imposing stricter penalties on per-petrators of home violence. According to Turkishwomen’s organisations, these reforms are insuf-ficient and their implementation has encounter-ed numerous problems93. Women’s organisationshave been demanding further legal changes, suchas introducing quotas (guaranteeing places) forwomen in public life and in the labour market,and adopting a wider definition of honour kil-lings94. The AKP, which is a conservative party,treats such demands with a reserve, and is ratherunlikely to embark on a very active policy toemancipate women95.
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5. The position of the army and relations between secular & conservative religious circles
The role of the army in Turkish political life andthe relations between the secular establishment,which is mainly based on military officers, andconservative religious circles are significant forthe prospects of Ankara’s integration with theEU for the following reasons:– civilian control over the army is one of the keyconditions for Turkey’s accession, and the armyin Turkey has always had the exceptional positionof being the guarantor of the political system’sstability, a situation which the generals do notwant changed;– the secular establishment is in dispute with con-servative circles over the form of separation of re-ligion and the state; these tensions distract themain political forces’ attention from the processof integration with the EU, antagonise them andput any consensus on accession at risk;– the support of the governing AKP party for EUmembership is to a great extent connected withtheir hope of lessening the influence of the armyon public life, and liberalising the rigorous rulesof separating religion and the state.
a) The status of the army in the political system
The significance of the army in Turkey’s modernsocio-political life originates from the importantrole the institution played in the process of moder-nising the Ottoman Empire and building the mo-dern Republic of Turkey. The republic foundingfathers, including Kemal Atatürk himself, wereeither retired or active generals. Until 1989, all thepresidents of Turkey, with the exception of CelalBayar, had been former military officers. The armyperceives itself as the main receptacle of Atatürk’slegacy and the guarantor of the exclusively Turk-ish and secular nature of the state. Since the es-tablishment of political pluralism in Turkey in1946, the army has staged four coups (in 1960,1971, 1980 and 1997). Each time, following inter-vention, democratically legitimate civilian autho-rity has been restored. The army is an institutionwhich enjoys the highest public confidence, andits exceptional position in the political system is
supported by a significant part of the society. Thisspecial position of the army, which is of coursea non-democratic institution, has become one ofthe main reasons for the inherent weakness ofthe Turkish democracy, a key sign of which is thelack of complete civilian control over the army.The army was granted powers to monitor the po-litical situation under the 1961 constitution asa consequence of establishing the National Secu-rity Council (MGK), most of whose directors andmembers were military officers. The governmentwas obligated to pay due respect to its opinionsunder the 1983 constitution96. Since 2001, the po-litical role of the army has been reduced as partof the process of Turkey’s adjusting to Europeanstandards, and the powers of MGK have been sig-nificantly reduced. Officially, civilians have gain-ed the leading position in the Council97. Civiliancontrol of army expenses was introduced in Sep-tember 200698. The number of press articles andpublications of reports criticising the views andactivities of military officers and appealing for fur-ther reforms has increased in the last period99.The generals perceive Turkey’s membership in theEU as the crowning achievement of the country’sWesternisation. However, at the same time theyfear any limitation of sovereignty, and are con-vinced that the integration process is contribut-ing to the increasing popularity of Kurdish sepa-ratism and Islamic fundamentalism. In effect, theyare much less ready for the concessions requiredby the EU. According to Hans-Jörg Kretschmer, theEU’s ambassador to Turkey from 2002 to 2006, notone of the lowest-ranking Turkish generals andadmirals had ever responded to his numerous in-vitations for meetings. The fact that a moderateand pro-European General, Hilimi Özkok, was no-minated chief of staff in August 2002 contribut-ed to the process of reducing the role of the army.Özkok maintained correct relations with the go-vernment and, despite some reservations, sup-ported the process of Turkey’s integration withthe EU. His support was very important for thegovernment’s conciliatory policy on the issue ofCyprus.Regardless of the changes, the position of the ar-my in Turkey’s political system still significantlydiffers from solutions used to that end in the EU.The general chief of staff reports directly to theprime minister The specific position of the TurkishMilitary Forces is connected with the Supreme
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Military Council’s (YAS) legal status. The membersof the council are the prime minister, the ministerof national defence, the chief of general staff, forcecommanders, the commander of the armed forces,the general commander of the gendarmerie, thecommander of the navy, the generals and admi-rals of the armed forces. In additions to its legalduties, the YAS decides on promotion, retirementand disciplinary measures regarding armed forcespersonnel. Decisions in the YAS are made by sim-ple majority vote. In consequence, the YAS –which is constitutionally under the government’sauthority – can take disciplinary measures againstprime minister’s vote. However, its decisionsshould obtain the confirmation of the president.The army has also strong influence on the prepa-ration of the National Security Policy Document.This document, which formulates national secu-rity strategy is determined by the Council of Mi-nisters within the views put forth by the MGK.Practical issues are also important. Turkish gene-rals often comment on the political situation, incompliance with the broad definition of nationalsecurity. Officially, the budget of the armed for-ces is prepared by the parliament, which has theright to make amendments. According to the EU,however, the Turkish parliament is not engagedin any serious debate on the army’s budget.
b) Relations between the secularestablishment and conservative religious circles
Reforms limiting the powers of the army havebeen carried out by the government led by theJustice and Development Party (AKP), which (con-sidering its Islamic roots) is most interested in les-sening the influence of the military on politics,and is the most independent of all the partiesfrom the generals’ influence. On the other hand,the roots of the AKP make the generals especiallysuspicious of its efforts to introduce civilian con-trol over the army. The army is the key element ofthe secular establishment, which includes a ma-jor part of the judiciary, bureaucracy, academics,media and the intelligentsia. The establishmentsupports maintaining the status quo of separatingreligion from the state. Their opinion on this issuediffers from that shared by most of the society,which is conservative and religious and supportsa separation of religion and the state on different
terms (see Appendix 2). The determination of theKemalists to preserve the status quo substantiatesthe existence of the fundamentalist religious mi-nority, which includes groups of extremists whoresort to violence100.
Box 4. Relations between religious and secular circles between 1923and 2002
The government of Kemal Atatürk (1923–1938),who removed religion from public life by force(instituting very limited religious education atuniversity level, removing lessons on religionfrom school curricula and banning the wearingof headscarves in public institutions), hada great impact on the shape of the separation ofreligion from the state. However, the establish-ment of democracy after World War II madethe state depart to a certain extent from the ori-ginal Kemalist version of secularism. Firstly,public religious middle and secondary schools(imam hatip), which used the programmes ofsecular schools extended by religious curricula,were established. Their intention was to pre-pare future candidates for theological studies.However, the number of imam hatips soon ra-dically exceeded the Religion Ministry’s per-sonnel demand, and continued to grow until1997101. Girls also started attending imam ha-tips, although women did not have right to per-form the duties of an imam until 2004. Extra-curricular religion classes were introduced toschools in 1949. Courses of Koranic study start-ed developing. The softening of the state’s ap-proach was manifested in 1970 through theemergence of the first Islamic party, which sup-ported introducing some elements of shariainto the Turkish legal system, opposed the pro-cess of Turkey’s integration with the EEC, andproposed an alliance with Muslim states as analternative. Its ideology was named Milli Gorus(the National Vision). This Islamic party hasbeen banned four times. In the 1990s, at thepeak of its popularity, it operated under thenames of Refah (Welfare) and Fazilet (Virtue).The presence of religion in public life reachedits apogee after the 1980 coup, when thegovernment and the army decided that Islamhad to be treated as an important element of
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Turkish national identity. The policy was inten-ded to neutralise Kurdish nationalism, radicalleft- and right-wing tendencies and Islamic fun-damentalism. As part of it, obligatory religionand morality classes were introduced, and thenumber of imam hatip schools and Koraniccourses was significantly increased. These poli-cies, the general increase in popularity of reli-gious integrationism in the Muslim world, thedifficult financial conditions of millions of Tur-key’s residents caused by the lack of economicstability and mass migrations from villages tocities, disillusionment with corrupt and ineffi-cient politicians and the intensifying feeling ofnot belonging to the Turkish state which manyKurds shared during the armed conflict be-tween the army and PKK, have all contributedto the increasing popularity of Islamist circles,who are seen as the only trustworthy alterna-tive anti-system opposition. Refah won the par-liamentary election in 1995, gaining over 20%of the votes. The party’s leader Necmettin Er-bakan headed the government coalition as thefirst Islamist prime minister in the history ofthe Turkish republic. This was unacceptable tothe army, who forced the dismissal of the go-vernment on 28 February 1997. The new cabi-net the liquidated imam hatip middle schools,imposed scoring rules at university entry exa-minations, which made it very difficult for gra-duates of imam hatip secondary schools to en-rol on other courses than theology, and setmore restrictive rules for opening Koranic cour-ses. As an effect, the number of course partici-pants and imam hatip pupils sharply decreas-ed. The army’s intervention sharpened the pre-viously existing conflict between the moderateand conservative factions inside Refah, whicheffectively split into two parties, Saadet (Felici-ty) and the Justice and Development Party (AKP).The latter set Turkey’s accession to the EU asthe main goal of its foreign policy, and discon-tinued efforts to introduce elements of shariainto Turkish law. The AKP, unlike Saadet, sup-ports the free market, an alliance with the USAand correct relations with Israel together withsimultaneous rapprochement with the Islamicworld. The AKP ideology was named Muhafa-zakar Demokrasi (Conservative Democracy).
The AKP differs from the secular establishmentin the way it perceives separation of religion andthe state. Its priorities include lifting the ban onwearing headscarves at universities, removingthe barriers at university examinations for imamhatip graduates who want to enrol at other de-partments than theology, and removing limita-tions on opening Koran courses102. These issues,especially the ban on headscarves, are of greatsymbolic significance for both secular and conser-vative circles, and constitute the basis of theirrespective political identities. The headscarf issueis in a way linked to the prospect of Turkey’s in-tegration with the EU. The AKP supported Tur-key’s EU accession among other reasons becauseit counted on the Union’s support for revisingthe rigorous separation of religion and the state.The European Union supported the secular es-tablishment in the dispute over headscarves,because the European Court in Strasbourg de-clared in 2004 and 2005 that the ban on wearingheadscarves at universities in Turkey did not vio-late human rights. Many observers claim thatthese awards have made EU membership less at-tractive to the elite of the AKP, which is the strong-est and most pro-EU party in Turkey.Being unable to implement its main three objec-tives, the AKP has been trying to find some ‘sub-stitute’ topics such as the penalisation of adul-tery and limiting the sale and consumption of al-cohol103. It cannot change the status quo mainlybecause of the firm stance which the judiciaryhas taken. Court awards have blocked the lawspassed by the AKP regarding imam hatip schools,headscarves and Koranic courses. The presentcomposition of the most senior judicial institu-tions (the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Courtand the State Council) will change significantlyfor the next decade at least104.Tension between the secular establishment andthe conservative religious circles clearly increas-ed in May 2006 as a consequence of the murderof a judge of the State Council (Danistay) and thewounding of several others by a religious fanatic.The judges had approved a judgement forbiddinga teacher who wore a headscarf in her private lifeoutside of school to practice her profession. Massdemonstrations in support of the secular natureof the state were held in response. The demon-strators were led by generals, opposition lead-ers, judges and professors. The government, wish-
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ing to avoid an open confrontation with the army,refrained from any disputes. As a result, the situa-tion calmed down. General Yasar Büyükanit, whois said to be a staunch supporter of maintainingthe status quo of the secular state, was nominatedas the new general chief of staff in August 2006.In turn, the AKP is likely to win the parliamenta-ry election in 2007 and will rule the country foranother five years. This composition of forces willuphold the tension between the conservative re-ligious circles and the secular establishment, a ten-sion which may periodically increase.A significant cooling of the dispute over valuesis unlikely in the longer term. Social conservatismwill maintain its influence because of the higherpopulation growth rate among the more tradi-tional and religious part of the society. Their con-servatism will however be moderated by the ris-ing education level and the improving economicsituation.
6. The Armenian issue
The ‘Armenian issue’ refers to the dispute be-tween Turkey and some EU member states overthe matter of recognising the deportations andmassacres of Armenians committed by the YoungTurks regime during World War I as genocide, andthe lack of diplomatic relations between Turkeyand Armenia. It has affected Ankara’s EU acces-sion-related efforts for the following reasons:– the demand made by many European politi-cians that the Turkish government should referto the deportations and massacres as genocide.The uncritical acceptance of the Armenian inter-pretation of those events by many European me-dia provide reasons for growing nationalist andEurosceptic sentiments in Turkey, and strength-en the conviction that EU elites are employingdouble standards;– it is highly likely that some EU countries willmake Turkey’s accession conditional on Ankara’srecognising the events as genocide, a conditionthat neither Turkish society nor its elites willaccept;– the demand to acknowledge genocide is oftenlinked to claims made by many Armenian circlesto territorial compensation, which in effect meansthat when the EU raises this issue, Turkey’s ‘S¯v-res syndrome’ is strengthened;– the guarantee of an open debate on the depor-tations and massacres on Turkish territory is animportant condition stipulated by the EU;– one of the EU’s membership prerequisites isthat the candidate should have correct relationswith its neighbours.
a) The Armenian issue in Turkey’srelations with EU countries and as an internal affair
The issue of referring to the Armenian deporta-tions as genocide arose for the first time in Tur-key’s relations with the EEC/EU soon after Turkeyapplied for candidate status in 1987. In June ofthat year, the European Parliament determinedthat the deportations and massacres of Armenianshad been genocide, and that Turkey’s failure toadmit that was ìan impediment to considering thepossibility of Turkey’s accession to the Commu-nity.’ In September 2005, the European Parliamentadopted a resolution by a clear majority of votes
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stating that recognising the deportations andmassacres of Armenians as genocide was one ofthe prerequisites for Turkey’s accession to the EU.The European Parliament’s resolutions are notbinding, and neither the European Commissionnor the European Council has set such a require-ment for Turkey. However, the recognition issueseverely affects Turkey’s relations with some EUcountries. The Armenian deportations and mas-sacres have been recognised as a case of genocidein various declarations by the parliaments of nineEU member states (Belgium, Cyprus105, France,Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden andItaly). Six of the declarations were adopted afterTurkey was granted EU candidate status in 1999106.Turkey’s refusal to recognise the Armenian geno-cide affects the country’s relations with Franceespecially strongly, as one of the most numerousand most influential Armenian diasporas in theworld is found there. Turkey’s negative responseto the demand to refer to the deportations as ge-nocide significantly increases the probability thatFrench society will reject Turkey’s EU accession inany referendum. In October 2006, the lower houseof the French parliament adopted a law whichprovided for penalisation of the view that theArmenian deportations and massacres were nota case of genocide. The law is unlikely to takeeffect because it would have to pass through theSenate and be approved by the president, whileboth the government coalition and the presidentoppose it. However, it has caused great dissatis-faction among the Turkish elites and public.The demands by some European political elitesthat the Turkish government should acknowledgethe Armenian deportations and massacres asa case of genocide are perceived in Turkey as hypo-crisy and double standards. Both Turkish elitesand the society at large believe that the sameshould be demanded from other candidate andmember states in the cases of other crimes107.A free discussion on the Armenian deportationsand massacres was impossible for many years inTurkey due to strict legal regulations, a situationwhich was criticised by the European Union. Thefirst publications by Turkish and Western histo-rians which challenged the official version ofthose events, which were published in Turkey inthe mid-1990s, encountered many legal problems.As a result of expanding the freedom of speechas part of the pro-EU reforms after 2001, the issue
of the Armenian massacres has been discussedin Turkey on a hitherto unprecedented scale. Morethan ten books and hundreds of articles and in-terviews challenging the official version of eventshave been published in Turkey since 2001108. Someof them have been written by Armenian histo-rians. Foreign historians have found it much easierto gain access to the state archives, although theystill encounter some problems. A scientific con-ference on the situation of Armenians duringWorld War I, which was organised by three pres-tigious Istanbul universities, was held in late Sep-tember 2005. Over 40 researchers, representinga critical approach to the official version of theTurkish historiography on those events, took partin the conference109.In 2003, the prestigious foundation Tarih Vakfi,whose members include hundreds of historiansand a group of liberal intellectuals, prepared a pe-tition in protest against the negative stereotypesof Armenians presented in Turkish history schooltextbooks. Discussions on the deportations andmassacres have been approved by most of the so-ciety, although a smaller part of the Turkish public(nearly 30%) are against it110. However, the vastmajority of the Turkish population does not acceptthat their country’s accession to the EU dependson the recognition of Armenian genocide by theirgovernment. A regulation according to which re-ferring to the deportations and massacres as ge-nocide was an example of a crime against thefundamental interests of the state was removedfrom the new criminal code in July 2005111.Although opportunities for discussing the depor-tations have significantly increased, nationalistcircles use the regulations of the criminal code(specifically article 301) on the protection of na-tional dignity to bring suits against intellectualswho criticise the official version of the country’shistory during World War I. So far, one such suitended in sentencing the defendant to imprison-ment (which was replaced with a fine), and theothers have been discontinued112. Nevertheless,an open discussion on Armenian massacres stillencounters serious hurdles in Turkey, a glaringexample of which was the January 2007 murderof Hrant Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenianorigin who was accused by radical right-wingcircles of denigrating national values.
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b) Turkey’s relations with Armeniaand the Armenian diaspora
Turkey keeps correct relations with all its neigh-bours, with the exception of Armenia. The twocountries recognise one another, although Tur-key does not have a diplomatic representation inArmenia and vice versa. Turkey has maintaineda blockade of the Armenian border since 1993113.The main reasons for that is the Armenian occu-pation of nearly 14% of the territory of Azerbai-jan114, which is officially recognised by Turkey asthe second state of the Turkish nation, as well asthe demands by the Armenian government anddiaspora115 that Turkey should recognise the cri-mes committed against Armenians as genocide.According to Armenia, modern Turkey is respon-sible for the Armenian genocide116. Some Arme-nian elites and a clear majority of the Armenianpublic insist that the recognition of the genocideby Turkey should automatically entail territorialcompensations. However, the Armenian govern-ment has been avoiding any unambiguous decla-ration that it would waive the claims117. Yerevanis ready to establish diplomatic relations with Tur-key without any preconditions. Agreement is addi-tionally impeded by influential and uncompromi-sing nationalist circles in both countries. The Ar-menian diaspora, which provides Yerevan withsignificant financial support, has a great influenceon the country’s policy on Turkey. Nationalism isstronger among the diaspora than in Armeniansociety. On the Turkish side, anti-Armenian atti-tudes are represented by adherents of Pan-Tur-kism, nationalists living in Eastern Turkey (whichhad previously been inhabited by Armenians), anddescendants of emigrants from the Caucasus118.The standpoints presented respectively in Turkishand Armenian historiographies (the latter con-cerning both Armenia proper and its diaspora)completely differ in their evaluations of the Arme-nian deportations and massacres. In Armenianhistoriography, discussion of the dark sides of theirown history is more poorly developed than in Tur-key. Political tensions and the living memory ofthe harm translate into the mutual prejudices ofArmenians and Turks, which are stronger on theArmenian side119. Regardless of the lack of formaldiplomatic relations, however, trade exchangesand economic migration from Armenia to Turkeydevelop120. Improving Turkish-Armenian relations
would undoubtedly bring a solution to the con-flict between Azerbaijan and Armenia closer. How-ever, it is almost impossible that Armenia couldgive up its demands that Turkey recognise the ge-nocide, just as Turkey is unlikely to accept thecondition121.
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7. Cyprus and relations with Greece
A settlement of the conflict between Greek andTurkish Cypriots, establishing Turkish-Cypriottrade relations, recognition of Cyprus and set-tling the territorial disputes between Greece andTurkey are vital for Ankara’s relations with theUnion. This is for the following reasons:– Greece and Cyprus have been members of theEuropean Union, since 1981 and 2004 respective-ly, and their consent is necessary to open and closeevery chapter of negotiations;– the fact that Greece and Cyprus are EU memberstates makes it difficult for Brussels to play therole of an unbiased and efficient mediator in re-solving the problems;– Turkey’s accession to the EU will be impossibleunless the aforementioned problems are resolved;– the issue of Cyprus and the EU’s stance towardsit are major sources of nationalism and Euroscep-ticism in Turkey122;– since 1974, Turkey has not recognised Cyprusand has impeded its membership in internation-al organisations; such a situation has not takenplace so far in relations between any EU candi-date state and EU member state.
Box 5. An outline of relationsbetween Greece and Turkey and the Cyprus issue
Modern Greece and Turkey have defined them-selves through mutual opposition, trying tomarginalise any of the common cultural ele-ments which have arisen from a nearly mil-lennium-long period of mutual relations123.Four Greco-Ottoman wars were fought fromthe beginning of the nineteenth century (1821––1829, 1897, 1912–1913, 1917–1918 and 1919––1922). Greek rebellions supported by Athens(such as the Cretan rising)124 also happened inthe Ottoman Empire. These conflicts were ac-companied by massacres, ethnic cleansings andforced displacements. However, temporary im-provements of Greco-Turkish relations werealso a fact. The longest period over which rela-tions between Turkey and Greece were goodlasted from 1930 to 1955. They worsened dueto the issue of Cyprus, a former British colony
inhabited by communities of Greeks (nearlythree-quarters of the residents) and Turks (near-ly a fifth of the residents)125. This has been thegreatest problem in Greco-Turkish relations un-til today. The Greek population of Cyprus want-ed unification with Greece, to which TurkishCypriots responded by dividing the island126.The United Kingdom, Greece and Turkey con-cluded a treaty in London in 1960, pursuant towhich Cyprus gained independence as a bina-tional state, having no right to unite withGreece or to divide the island. The signatoriesreserved the right of military intervention incase of a gross breach of the constitution. Thepolitical system was based on the very exten-sive veto powers granted to the Turkish com-munity. The veto right was the main source theGreek community’s dissatisfaction; they pro-posed changing the system to transform Cyp-rus into a Greek national state and grant mino-rity status to the Turks. The Turkish Cypriotsfeared that unification of the island with Greecewould be the next step. This led to ethnicclashes recurring at intervals of several years127.Radical Greek nationalists took over power ina coup in 1974 and promised unification withGreece. They also committed a massacre againstthe Turkish population. As a result Turkey, us-ing the powers granted under the LondonTreaty, carried out a military intervention128.This ended in the Turkish army’s occupationof nearly 37% of the island129. The internatio-nal community recognised Turkey’s invasionof the northern part of Cyprus as an act of occu-pation. Soon after the invasion, the Turkish Fe-derated State of Cyprus was set up, which in1983 proclaimed independence as the TurkishRepublic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), which wasunrecognised by any state with the exceptionof Turkey130. Numerous efforts by the interna-tional community to find a compromise be-tween the conflicting communities has failedto produce a solution.
As a consequence of the Turkish invasion of Cy-prus, relations between Turkey and Greece werevery bad for the subsequent 25 years. In the1980s and 1990s, Athens maintained close tieswith countries which were Ankara perceived asenemies or rivals (such as the USSR to 1991,
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communist Bulgaria, Armenia, Syria and Rus-sia). The process of improving Turkish-Greek re-lations started in spring 1999. Its symbolic be-ginning was marked with a meeting of the fo-reign ministers of Turkey and Greece, the first inforty years. The main reasons for changing therelations between Athens and Ankara were thefollowing:– the clear rapprochement of Turkey and theUSA, and a simultaneous weakening of the in-ternational position of Greece as a consequenceof the negative stance taken by Athens on theNATO intervention in Kosovo and its givingshelter to the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan inthe Greek embassy in Kenya;– the prospect of Greece entering the euro zone(1 January 2000) and the related conviction bythe Greek government of the need to cut its de-fence expenses in order to adjust the macro-economic indexes to meet the euro zone re-quirements;– Ankara’s strengthening position in the EUupon the electoral victory of socio-democrats inGermany, who support Turkey’s EU accession;– the appointment of Ismail Cem, a supporterof improving relations with Greece, to the postof Foreign Minister of Turkey in 1999;– mutual aid offered after the earthquakes (Au-gust – September 1999);– the upcoming EU Helsinki summit in 1999,at which time a decision on the possible grant-ing of candidate status to Turkey was expectedto be taken. Ankara wanted to improve itsrelations with Athens because this would addstrength to its position131.
a) An outline of relations between Greece and Turkey and the Cyprus issue
Greece supported granting Turkey candidate sta-tus at the Helsinki summit in December 1999.Since that time, all serious political forces in Greecehave supported Turkey’s accession to the EU. Thissupport is based on the conviction that havingTurkey as a democratic, stable EU member state isin Greece’s long-term interest132. The support of-fered for the first time by both states to the mostserious plan to resolve the Cyprus problem, whichwas devised by the UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan following the EU Copenhagen summit in2003, was the most significant consequence of theimprovement in Turkish-Greek relations.
Box 6. The Annan Plan
The plan provided for establishing a United Re-public of Cyprus as a loose confederation of twocomponent states, the Turkish Cypriot State (theformer KKTC) and the Greek Cypriot State (theformer Republic of Cyprus). The main commoninstitutions were to be the bicameral parlia-ment (including the Senate, in which both re-publics would have equal representations),which would elect the Presidential Council(4 Greeks and 2 Turks) which would elect thepresident and the vice president by rotation, aswell as the Supreme Court, the panel of whichwas to consist of equal numbers of both com-munities’ representatives as well as three for-eign judges. The constitution could be amendedonly by a majority of votes cast by representati-ves of both component states. The federal au-thorities’ tasks were to cover foreign, fiscal andcustoms policies and communications. TheGreek part would be increased in three years by8% of the island’s territory controlled by theKKTC and over 1% of the British sovereign baseareas. The border in the central part of the is-land would significantly reduce the territory ofits Turkish part. Both component states weregiven the right to impose limitations on the per-manent residence of citizens of the other ethnicorigin in case their number reached 18% of theirrespective populations within the period of 19years, or until Turkey’s accession to the EU. Thissolution was especially important for the small-er Turkish community. Refugees were offeredthe right to regain one-third of the value of lostproperty, and to compensation for the remain-ing two-thirds within a period of three to fiveyears. The plan also provided for granting Cy-priot citizenship to a majority of settlers fromTurkey within four years. The military contin-gents of Turkey and Greece were to be reducedby 2011 (to 6,000 personnel each), by 2018 oruntil Turkey’s accession to the EU (3,000 per-sonnel each) and after that date (650 personnelin the Turkish contingent and 950 in the Greekcontingent).
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During that summit, Turkey’s support for the set-tlement of the issue of Cyprus was determinedas one of the key conditions for setting the dateto open negotiations with Ankara and for hold-ing a referendum on this issue133. This was heldon 24 April 2004134. Nearly two-thirds of TurkishCypriots and less than 25% of Greek Cypriotsvoted in favour of the plan135. Soon after the refe-rendum, the European Council (without Cyprusat that time) declared it was determined to liftthe isolation of the KKTC and obliged the Euro-pean Commission to prepare a concrete propos-al. In July 2004, the European Commission cameup with the proposal to offer 259 million euro inaid to the KKTC for the period between 2004 andAugust 2006, and to open the EU market on prefe-rential conditions for exports from the KKTC,which was to be the first step towards lifting theinternational embargo. The EU accepted the trans-fer of 200 million euro to the KKTC as late asOctober 2006,although the Union has still notagreed to open its market to goods from theKKTC as of today136. This situation is principallya result of the stances taken by Greece and Cyp-rus. Their behaviour may be motivated by the fearthat ending the economic isolation of the Turkishpart of Cyprus will lead to an improvement in itseconomic situation, in effect strengthening itsnegotiating position. Their stances found favour-able conditions in the situation of a lack of defi-nite support for Turkey’s accession from EU mem-ber states. In July 2005, the Turkish governmentsigned a document to extend the customs unionto Cyprus137. However, the protocol on extendingthe customs union has to be ratified by the Turk-ish parliament. At the same time, it made a decla-ration stating that signing the protocol did notmean the recognition of Cyprus by Turkey. On 21September 2005, the EU responded with a coun-ter-declaration, which rejected the Turkish go-vernment’s declaration and stated that in 2006Ankara should bring the customs union into effectwith regard to all EU member states, that is,opening Turkish air and sea ports to Cypriot pla-nes and ships. Pursuant to the European Union’sdeclaration, Turkey’s failure to carry out this de-mand will adversely affect the negotiating pro-cess, and Turkey must recognise Cyprus beforejoining the Union138. This declaration is not bind-ing on Turkey. Nevertheless, the condition of ex-tending the customs union to Cyprus by the end
of 2007 is provided for under the Accession Part-nership signed by Turkey and the EU. In January2006, Turkey presented a plan to simultaneouslylift the trade embargo imposed on the KKTC andopen Turkish sea and air ports to Cypriot shipsand planes. This plan met with a cold receptionfrom Greece and Cyprus. In September 2006,Finland (which held the EU presidency at thetime) suggested lifting the trade isolation of theKKTC by opening the port of Famagusta underUN supervision and bringing the small town ofVarosha, located in the Turkish part of the is-land, under UN control. Turkey was to open seve-ral ports to Cypriot ships in exchange for that.However, the Turkish-Cypriot talks ended in fail-ure. As a consequence, the European Union decid-ed in December 2006 to exclude 8 chapters fromnegotiations until Turkey extended the customsunion to Cyprus.
b) Disputable issues in the Aegean Sea region
The issue of borders in the Aegean Sea is a sourceof a serious dispute in Greco-Turkish relations. InJune 1995, Greece signed the United Nations Con-vention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (not rati-fied by Turkey), which set 12 nautical miles asa top limit of territorial waters. 148 states and theEU ratified UNCLOS by 20 September 2005139. Tur-key did not because it opposed the expanding ofGreek territorial waters from 6 miles, a zone res-pected by Athens since 1936, to 12 miles. Accord-ing to Ankara, this regulation increased the areaof Greek territorial waters in the Aegean Sea from44% to 71%, and reduced the scope of interna-tional waters from nearly 49% to less than 20%.Soon after Greece’s ratification of the convention,the Turkish parliament adopted a resolution, ac-cording to which Greece’s expansion of the bor-ders of its territorial waters to 12 miles was a ca-sus belli. Since the intervention in Cyprus (1974),Turkey has also started challenging the 10-miledistance, which was determined by Greece as thescope of Greek air space in 1931. This means thatincidents between both countries’ military aircraftoften happen in the disputed zone. In the 1990s,Turkey and Greece twice found themselves on thebrink of war over the ownership of tiny islands inthe Dodecanese archipelago140. More than 30 Gre-co-Turkish meetings have been held since 2002 to
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discuss the territorial disputes linked to the Aege-an Sea, and still no solution has been found. A po-sitive event was the establishing of a governmenttelephone ‘hot line’ in June 2006 between Ankaraand Athens to alleviate tensions in case of inci-dents in the disputed zone. Joint manoeuvres bythe Turkish and Greek navies were held in earlyOctober 2006 for the first time in history.The status of minorities is also a source of misun-derstandings in Turkish-Greek relations. Nearly5,000 Greeks live in Turkey, while the populationof Greece includes between 100,000 and 120,000Turks. Both parties, pursuant to the LausanneTreaty of 1923 which marked the end of the Turk-ish-Greek war, recognise them not as ethnic butreligious minorities. However, neither Athens norAnkara fully respects the treaty’s provisions re-garding the two minorities’ cultural and religiousautonomy.Problems in bilateral relations between Greeceand Turkey are of secondary importance in com-parison with the issue of Cyprus. If the latter wasresolved, compromise on other Greco-Turkish dis-putes would become significantly easier. The EUhad little chance of success at linking Cyprus’ ac-cession with the regulation of Greco-Turkish rela-tions on the island because of the firm resistanceto such moves by Greece, which has been a mem-ber of the EEC/EU since 1981. As an EU memberstate, Greece could veto any EU decision. Anotherreason why European integration could not beused as a tool in the process of regulating Greco-Turkish relations in Cyprus was the lack of anyclear support by European elites to Turkey’s mem-bership in the EU. As a result, Brussels conferredcandidate status on Cyprus (1997), conductedmembership negotiations with it (1998–2002),and then accepted its membership (2004) with-out trying to reunite the island before that.
c) Conclusions and forecasts
The prospect of EU membership, which has beenthe main driving force for initiating democraticreforms in Turkey, cannot effectively and durablystabilise the internal situation. The country has tocope with more serious problems, both internaland external, in its relations with the EU and theUnion’s individual member states than any otherprevious candidate has had to. As a consequence,negotiations between Ankara and Brussels are li-
kely to be significantly prolonged and even tem-porarily withheld. The possibility that the nego-tiations will finally be broken off is also real.Currently, opening Turkish sea and air ports to Cy-priot ships and planes is the key issue in Turkey’srelations with the European Union. Pursuant tothe Accession Partnership, the Turkish parliamenthas to ratify an additional protocol to extend thecustoms union to Cyprus and provide Cypriotships and planes with access to all its ports andairports by early 2008. Turkey has made the ratifi-cation dependent on a total removal of the tradeisolation of the KKTC. The Turkish parliament willcertainly not vote for the customs union unlessthe EU simultaneously lifts its isolation of theKKTC. Reaching an agreement with the EU on thispoint will not mean that the Cyprus issue will stopbeing one of the biggest problems in Turkish-EUrelations. The issues of Turkey’s refusal to recog-nise Cyprus and the unification of the island willremain unresolved. Cyprus will continue makingits consent to open or close a subsequent chapteron the recognition of its statehood by Ankara,which in turn will not make such a decision un-less the island is unified. Nicosia will probably de-mand unification of the island on more favourableconditions than those provided for under the An-nan Plan. Ankara is very unlikely to make any sig-nificant concessions regarding this issue. There-fore, the stance of the key EU members and theUSA on the unification of Cyprus will be of key im-portance in this case.A crisis in Turkish-EU relations may be provokedat the beginning of 2008 by a possible insufficientimplementation of the Accession Partnership byAnkara. The main impediment to its implemen-tation will be the conflict with the Kurdish guer-rilla forces. The situation may be additionally com-plicated by the possible disintegration of Iraq andthe emergence of an independent Kurdish statein its northern territories. Strong nationalist andEurosceptic sentiments will have a detrimentaleffect on the government’s readiness to satisfy theEuropean Union’s requirements. In 2007, the go-vernment’s determination to do so will also be re-duced due to upcoming elections141 as well as pos-sible tensions between the new general chief ofstaff and the prime minister over the definition ofthe secular state. The parliament’s election ofa new president will be a very sensitive issue. Thesecular establishment does not want a politician
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whose wife will wear a headscarf to be nomina-ted to the post. The prime minister, whose wifewears a headscarf, did not initially rule out run-ning for the post, although it now appears thathis most likely replacement, the former foreignminister, is also married to a woman who wearsa headscarf.US intervention in Iran, which would lead to Tur-key’s greater engagement in Middle Eastern af-fairs at the expenses of European issues, and toan intensification of anti-Western sentiments (theconflict will be perceived in religious terms), can-not be ruled out in the immediate future.Reforms will not be put on a faster track after theelections, if nationalism and Euroscepticism re-main popular ideas in Turkey. Ending the militaryconflict with Kurdish guerrilla forces and impro-ving the EU’s attitude to Turkey’s candidacy couldcontribute to reducing public support for them.However, to achieve success in the fight againstKurdish guerrillas, apart from military actions, itis necessary to take brave and difficult political de-cisions (such as declaring an amnesty for Kurdishprisoners). Radical changes in Ankara’s policy to-wards the Kurds are highly unlikely, as the pros-pect of EU membership has become less real. Inturn, the possibility of accession will not becomemore real unless the support of European societiesand political elites for Turkey’s membership rises.Existing tensions between the West and Muslims,economic, political and social problems in indivi-dual EU member states, and problems with defi-ning the political system of the Union itself anda possible lack of improvement of Turkey’s inter-nal situation142 all lessen the probability of rever-sing Europeans’ negative attitude to Turkey’s can-didacy. Even if the perception of Turkey’s acces-sion improves in the EU and the negotiations endin success, its membership will be uncertain untilthe last moment because Turkey’s accession hasto be accepted by all member states. In turn, somemember states and communities in the EU pre-sent a sceptical or very sceptical attitude to Tur-key’s possible membership of the EU.If the European Union decides to suspend nego-tiations, because of Cyprus or a negative evalua-tion of the tempo of Turkish reforms, this will giverise to a crisis in relations between Turkey andthe Union. Its probable consequences will include:– a regression of the democratisation process inTurkey;
– growing tension between the army and the AKP;– a smaller chance for any peaceful solution to theKurdish conflict;– intensifying anti-Western sentiments among theTurkish society and elites, which will accordinglyaffect foreign policy;– impediments to political and economic co-ope-ration between Ankara and the EU countries;– problems with integrating the Turkish minorityin the EU (the Turkish government’s support foranti-integration tendencies in the diaspora);– worsening relations between Turkey and Greece;and– Turkey’s rapprochement with Russia and Mus-lim countries.On the other hand, the scale of economic and po-litical ties existing between Turkey and EU coun-tries makes it highly unlikely that Turkey willadopt a radically anti-Western foreign policy.Adam Balcer
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Appendix 1Public opinion poll results
1. Attitudes to the West and Europe
In the survey entitled NATO and Turkish ForeignPolicy, conducted in June 2004 by Pollmark re-search centre, 47% of Turks declared that Turkeywas a Western country and 36% stated it was anEastern country (Asia), 54% had a positive atti-tude to the West and 29% had a negative attitude.The proportions of the answers to the questionswhether Turkey should be a Western state werealmost identical.According to the survey Euroscepticism in Turkeyconducted in late 2003 by Hakan Yilmaz, 52% ofTurks believed that Turkey was historically a partof Europe. In Eurobarometer no. 63 (spring 2005),58% of Turks declared that Turkey was to someextent a part of Europe in historical terms. 29%were of the opposite opinion, including 16% whowere radically opposite.At the end of 2003, 48% of Turks were proud ofbeing Europeans, and 24% were somewhat proudof that. At the end of 2004, the number of Turkswho defined themselves as somewhat proud fellto 15%. In Eurobarometer for candidate countriesno. 2003.4 (autumn 2003), 41% of Turks declaredthey felt dedicated or very dedicated to the no-tion of ‘Europe’, 26% felt slightly dedicated and31% were not dedicated at all. In spring 2005, thefirst group reduced to 30%, and the proportionof respondents who declared a slight dedicationto Europe had risen to 36%. A lack of dedicationwas declared by 29% of Turks.There are no more up-to-date surveys, althoughidentifications with being Europeans, Europe andthe West have probably lessened due to the EU’sreducing support for Turkey’s membership.
2. Attitude to the European Union
In the survey Türk Dis Siyaseti Arastirmasi carriedout in late 2003 by Pollmark, to the question ofwhich countries Turkey should co-operate with inthe long term, over 50% of respondents chosethe EU, 23% the Turkish republics, 13% the MiddleEast and 6% the USA. In the poll conducted byANAR centre in November 2006, the followinganswers were given to the question of ‘With
which countries should relations be given high-er priority by Turkey?’: nearly 32% answered withthe EU, 23% with the Turkish republics, 21% withMuslim countries, 15% with neighbours and 3%with the USA.The fact that Turkish society treats EU member-ship as a matter of priority was proven by the sur-vey conducted by Pollmark company in 2004 be-fore the EU summit in December, when the deci-sion to open negotiations with Turkey was expect-ed to be taken. 56% of Turks answered that ifa date was not set, Turkey should continue its ef-forts to attain EU membership. 37% were of theopposite opinion. At the present moment, the ma-jority of those supporting a continuation of themembership-related efforts would probably besignificantly smaller.According to Eurobarometer, 60% of Turks hada positive attitude to the EU and 20% had a nega-tive attitude in autumn 2005. In mid-2006, Euro-barometer (no. 65) showed that 43% of respon-dents presented a positive attitude and 26% a ne-gative attitude to the European Union. The 2004Transatlantic Trends survey revealed that 70% ofTurks believed that EU membership was a goodthing, and less than 10% thought it was a badthing. According to the same survey carried outin 2006, 54% of Turks were of the opinion thatTurkey’s EU membership would be a good thingand over 20% thought it would be bad. The Euro-barometer survey at the end of 2005 showed that35% of Turks distrusted the EU and more thanhalf trusted it. The same survey in 2006 showedthe reverse proportion.According to the A&G centre’s survey in autumn2004, 67% of Turks believed that Turkey’s EU mem-bership was a necessity. 9% were of the opinionthat Turkey should not join the EU. In autumn2006, the former opinion was supported by 32%of respondents and the latter by 25%. The mostnumerous group presented neutral views.
3. Attitude to democracy
Surveys conducted by World Value Survey, GallupInternational, the Pew Research Centre and Turk-ish public opinion research centres have shownthat a vast majority of Turks perceive democracyas the best system. According to the survey enti-tled Türkiye’de Muhazakarlik – Aile, Din, Devlet,Bati conducted by Hakan Yilmaz in 2006, nearly
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75% of respondents declared that tortures andcensorship could not be used in any situation.On the other hand, in the public opinion poll car-ried out by Ali Çarkoslu and Ersin KalayicogluTürkiye’de Sosyal Tercihler Arastirmasi in 2006,more than a half of respondents stated that dis-respect of human rights was permissible in a si-tuation of serious threat to state security and that,if necessary, a strong leader should be able to ruleunrestricted by any legal limitations.A great part of Turkish society is sceptical aboutthe possibility of building democracy in Turkey. Inthe Pew Research Centre survey conducted insummer 2006, nearly 40% of Turks stated that de-mocracy could not operate in Turkey as a purelyWestern invention.
4. The feeling of cultural difference
In the Gallup poll in 2001, 45% of Turks said thatthe West had a bad influence on Turkish culture.Sexual permissiveness, pornography and drugabuse were the most frequently mentioned exam-ples of negative Western influence on Turkey. Onthe other hand, 73% of Turks admitted that theWest made good films and music. In that survey,Turks stood out among other polled Muslim socie-ties (such as Indonesia and Pakistan) as they em-phasised democracy and human rights and nottechnological development as the advantages ofthe West.In Eurobarometer no. 63 (spring 2005), 57% ofTurks (33% of whom were totally in favour) agreedwith the opinion that the cultural differences be-tween Turkey and Europe were so great that theywould prevent Turkey’s accession to the EU. Ac-cording to the survey Türkiye’de Muhazakarlik –Aile, Din, Devlet, Bati, conducted by a team led byProfessor Hakan Yilmaz at the end of 2005, be-tween 35% and 40% of respondents believed thatTurkish society should rely only on its own tradi-tions in the field of culture, between 30% and 35%supported limited Westernisation in this area, andbetween 20% and 25% firmly supported copyingWestern cultural models. In the same survey, res-pondents stated that Turkey’s EU membershipwould have a detrimental effect on religious val-ues (63%), young people’s morality (61%) and thefamily structure (52%). In comparison to the 2003Euroscepticism in Turkey survey, these fears hadincreased by 5% to 10%. According to the Trans-
atlantic Trends 2005 survey, 42% stated (includ-ing 24% firmly) that the EU was a Christian club,where no place for Turkey could be found. 52%were of the opposite opinion.
5. Attitude to sovereignty
Eurobarometer surveys carried out between 2003and 2005 showed Turkish society as being verysceptical about the possibility of subordinatingthe Turkish armed forces to a hypothetical Euro-pean defence ministry. On the other hand, theTurkish public supported a common European de-fence and foreign policy, often more readily thanpeople in some EU countries. Due to worseningrelations between Turkey and the EU, in 2006 thenumber of respondents who did not have an opi-nion on the issue significantly increased, whilethe number of supporters of such policies de-creased. The Transatlantic Trends 2005 poll show-ed that readiness to use force to defend the inte-rests of their state was quite widespread in Tur-key; it is stronger than in Europe and similar tothat in the USA. However, Turkish society’s devo-tion to their state’s sovereignty does not meanthat Turks totally reject any compromises in for-eign policy; this was best illustrated by their viewson the plan for the unification of Cyprus in April2004. In a poll conducted at that time in Turkeyby Pollmark centre, 47% of respondents support-ed the plan and 38% were against it.
6. Fears of threats posed by the Westand Europe to the country’s integrity
The Euroscepticism in Turkey survey conductedby Hakan Yilmaz in 2003 showed that 36% ofTurks feared that Turkey’s EU membership wouldcause their country to split up along ethnic lines.According to Türkiye’de Muhazakarlik – Aile, Din,Devlet, Bati poll led by Hakan Yilmaz in the begin-ning of 2006, between 65% and 70% of Turkswere convinced that European countries support-ed Kurdish separatists and wanted to divide Tur-key. In the same poll, over 45% of respondentsstated that the conditions imposed by the EU onTurkey reminded them of the provisions of theTreaty of S¯vres signed in 1920, pursuant to whichTurkey had lost most of its territories and sove-reignty. In 2003, this opinion was supported by36% of respondents. In the case of both surveys
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a significant part of the respondents did not havean opinion on this issue. In the survey Türkiye’demilliyet˜ilik carried out in spring 2006, 50% ofrespondents claimed that the EU wanted to divideTurkey, and one-third stated that the EuropeanUnion’s requirements were no different from theprovisions of the Treaty of Sevres.
7. Conservatism and views on the secular state
According to the survey What the World Thinks in2003 conducted by Pew Research Centre, 73% ofTurks fully supported the separation of religionand the state, and 15% supported it to a greatextent. Similar results were shown by Ali Çarko-glu and Binaz Topak in their survey Degisen Tür-kiye’de Din, Toplum ve Siyaset carried out in 2006, inwhich over 76% of Turks opposed introducingsharia law in Turkey and 8% supported the idea.Surveys in 1999 showed over 20% support forintroducing sharia. In the survey Türkiye’de Din,Toplum ve Siyaset in 1999, nearly 15% of respon-dents supported introducing into Turkish lawnew rules regarding divorce, marriage (polygamy)and inheritance which were based on sharia anddiscriminated against women. In the same poll,over two-thirds of Turks declared that publish-ing books which denied the existence of God andselling alcohol during the holy month of Rama-dan had to be banned. In the same poll, 7% ofrespondents stated that marital infidelity shouldbe punished by execution, 1.5% would impose thelash, 17% imprisonment and nearly 16% wouldimpose a more lenient penalty (such as a fine). Inthe Pollmark survey in 2004, in a debate on thepenalisation of marital infidelity, 37% of respon-dents supported introducing a regulation to pe-nalise adultery in the criminal code, even if thatwould cause breaking off relations with the EU.In the survey Türkiye’de Sosyal Tercihler Arastir-masi conducted in 2006, over 30% of Turks de-clared that boys and girls should be educated se-parately.According to the poll Türkiye’de Muhazakarlik –Aile, Din, Devlet, Bati carried out in 2006, over 40%of respondents claimed that a woman who de-clared herself a Muslim should cover her head.25% admitted they felt uncomfortable seeinga woman without a headscarf, while 35% claim-ed they did not fast during Ramadan. More than
half felt uncomfortable at the sight of ‘scantily’dressed women and nearly two-thirds felt uncom-fortable about unmarried couples. On the otherhand, nearly 40% of Turks felt uncomfortable atthe sight of women wearing charshafs (black ro-bes covering all the body) and of bearded menwearing religious headgear. In the survey WhatThe World Thinks in 2003 (Pew Research Centre),25% of Turks fully agreed and 12% partly agreedwith the opinion that limitations on commonwork of women and men should be imposed. Ac-cording to the survey Is Yasami, Üst Yönetim veSiyasette Kadin carried out in 2004 by Binnaz To-prak and Ersin Kalaycioglu, over 20% of respon-dents believed that common work of men andwomen was improper.
8. Views on the social position of women
According to the survey Türkiye’de Muhazakarlik– Aile, Din, Devlet, Bati carried out in 2006, near-ly 90% of Turks believed that women shouldhave absolutely equal rights as men in all areasof life. At the same time, two-thirds agreed withthe opinion that if a woman could not combineher professional work with her home duties, sheshould give up work because taking care of herhome and husband was her natural duty.Additionally, in a special Eurobarometer entitledSocial Values, Science and Technology (conducted inearly 2005), 58% of Turks stated that men weregenerally better political leaders than women.This was the highest coefficient among all the EUmember and candidate states. 51% presented thisview in the survey Is Yasami, Üst Yönetim ve Siya-sette Kadin held in 2004. 36% of men would notagree to their wives’ involvement in political acti-vity. On the other hand, the same survey showedthat 78% of Turks did not mind having a womanas president. 74% supported guaranteeing wo-men places on lists of candidates in general elec-tions. According to the survey conducted in 2006by the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP), over three-quarters of respondents sup-ported the guaranteeing of a certain number ofparliament seats to women.According to various surveys, between 30% and45% of Turks agree with the statements that uni-versity education is more important for boys thangirls. On the other hand, in the poll Is Yasami, Üst
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Yönetim ve Siyasette Kadin, 83% of respondentsadmitted that the lower level of women’s educa-tion has inhibited Turkey’s development. In turn,64% declared a readiness to accept additional tax-es for the benefit of women’s education.In the poll on the sexual life of Turks carried outfor Hürriyet newspaper in summer 2005 byTNS–Pinar, nearly half of the respondents werefully convinced that men should marry virgins.More than a half claimed that a daughter’s vir-ginity was a token of her husband’s or father’shonour. A small minority of parents declared per-mission for their daughters to engage in prema-rital sex (the percentage was much higher in thecase of sons). A significant minority accepted pre-marital erotic experiences which did not causeloss of virginity. Young people were more liberalon these issues.In the Turkish Demographic and Health Surveycarried out regularly for decades by the Hacet-tepe University Institute of Population Studies,nearly 40% of Turkish women stated that theirhusbands had the right to hit them in certain si-tuations. Nearly a quarter of respondents agreedwith this opinion in the survey Türkiye’de Muha-zakarlik – Aile, Din, Devlet, Bati.
9. Religiousness
Turkish society is less religious than most Mus-lim societies. Still, Turks are much more religiousthan residents of the West. According to surveyscarried out in 2006 by Ali Çarkoglu and BinnazToprak, 64% of women in Turkey wore headscar-ves (some of them were compelled to do so bytheir families); the number of women wearingheadscarves had decreased by almost 10% since1999. According to the survey by A&G in 2003,32% of Turks prayed regularly five times a day,39% quite often, 5% only on important holidaysand 20% never. In another survey, conducted bythe Pew Research Centre in 2002, 33% declaredthey did not pray at all or prayed only on impor-tant holidays. According to Ali Çarkoglu’s surveyin 2003, 43% of Turks went to mosques at leastonce a week. A survey carried out at the end ofRamadan in 2003 by Pollmark showed that 65%of Turks had fasted regularly during the whole ofRamadan, 15% on some days of Ramadan and20% had not fasted at all. All the polls prove theexistence of differences between the generations;
young people adhere to religious rules to a less-er extent. Public opinion polls indicate that over60% of residents of Turkey support lifting the banon wearing headscarves by students and (toa slightly smaller degree) by public servants. Morethan half of Turks also support changing the uni-versity examination rules, which pose a seriousbarrier to imam hatip secondary school gradu-ates who want to enrol at departments other thantheology. On the other hand, a clear majority ofthe society do not consider the existence of theserestrictions as discrimination against religiouspeople. On the other hand, although the ban onwearing headscarves is believed to be discrimi-natory, this issue is not a serious problem for mostTurks. The conviction that religion is importantin their lives has strengthened among Turks overrecent years. In the survey carried out by Ali Çar-koglu and Binnaz Toprak in 1999, 25% of respon-dents declared to be religious and 6% identifiedthemselves as very religious. In 2006, the propor-tions were 46% and 13% respectively. In 1999, 36%of respondents identified themselves as Muslimsfirst, and in 2006 the percentage grew to 45%.
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Appendix 2Armenian deportations and massacres during World War I
According to Turkish school textbooks, a great re-bellion broke out during World War I among theArmenians, who were collaborating with Russiaagainst the Ottoman Empire, and the state wasforced to deport them as a result. Reportedly,300,000 Armenians (nearly a quarter of the popu-lation) died. Most of them were killed by disease,hunger and exhaustion. At the time of the depor-tation, massacres were also committed by Kurdishtribes, recalcitrant army units and paramilitarytroops. Armenians committed numerous crimesagainst the Muslim populations. There were moreMuslim victims in absolute numbers, yet propor-tionately they were less numerous than the Ar-meniansAccording to Armenian history textbooks, the ge-nocide claimed the lives of one and a half millionArmenians (nearly three-quarters of the popula-tion). Armenians were defenceless victims of theOttoman government’s policy, which was aimedat the physical eradication of the entire nation.Armenian historians often compare the Armeniangenocide to the Holocaust against the Jews inWorld War II. They even claim it was a paradigmfor all the genocides committed in the twentiethcentury, and call it the first genocide of the cen-tury. Some believe that the genocide was plannedbefore the outbreak of the war. Both versions raiseserious reservations.The Tsar’s army already included volunteer unitsconsisting of Ottoman Armenians before the war.Caucasian Armenians, including senior militarypersonnel, constituted a significant part of theTsar’s troops who fought against the OttomanEmpire. Over the period which lasted between theOttoman Empire joining the war (autumn 1914)and the deportations (spring 1915), the followinginterlinked processes were taking place in EasternAnatolia: a regular Ottoman-Russian war was be-ing fought, Armenian guerrilla activity was deve-loping behind the lines, Ottoman troops were pa-cifying Armenian villages and slaughtering the ci-vilian populations, who were considered as a Rus-sian ‘fifth column’, and Armenian guerrillas com-mitted crimes against the Muslim population,albeit on a smaller scale. The massacres commit-
ted by the Ottoman army spurred on the activi-ty of Armenian guerrilla forces. Thousands of Ar-menians deserted from the Ottoman army to jointhe guerrilla troops or the Tsar’s army. In winter1915, those Armenian conscripts who had remain-ed were discharged from military service andtransferred to labour battalions. Many of themdied of hunger, diseases and fatigue. In springand summer 1915, they were executed.To sum up, a large group of Ottoman Armeniansdid join the struggle against the empire. However,this group was clearly a minority of the Arme-nian population. Armenian military activity, con-trary to the official Turkish thesis, did not takethe form of a mass uprising. Nevertheless, it wasnot a marginal issue, as the Armenian side wouldlike it to be seen.The deportations began at the time when the Ot-toman Empire found itself in a very difficult mili-tary situation. The Ottoman army had sufferedheavy defeats on all fronts, especially in the Cau-casus. In spring 1915, the Russian army and Ar-menian rebels occupied the strategic city of Van,and the Entente forces landed in Gallipoli, closeto the capital city of Istanbul, as well as in Kuwait,and were also marching towards Baghdad. Thedeportations, which had began in the east, ex-tended over several months to Central and West-ern Anatolia. A minority of those Armenians whodid not leave the empire’s territory between 1915and 1918 survived the deportations. (Some Arme-nians performed public functions over the entirewar period.) Tens of thousands fled in 1915 fromthe east of the country to the Russian-controlledCaucasus and Iran, where many of them died ofhunger and diseases in subsequent years. Accord-ing to some moderate Armenian historians (suchas Ronald G. Suny) and Turkish historians whorecognise the deportations as genocide (TanerAk˜am and Halil Berktay), over 800,000 OttomanArmenians (nearly a half of the population) diedduring the war.The deportations took different forms in the East-ern and Western areas of Anatolia, as well as inindividual regions. In Eastern Anatolia, the Otto-man army, paramilitary troops and Kurdish tribeson one side were fighting against Armenianguerrilla forces and the Tsar’s army on the otherduring the deportations. No railway networkexisted. In effect, Armenians from Eastern Ana-tolia were forced to walk long distances in un-
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favourable climate and geographical conditions.Most of them died (due to diseases, hunger, thirstand fatigue) or were killed by Kurdish highland-ers, Ottoman soldiers and members of paramili-tary troops.Armenians from Western Anatolia were deport-ed by rail, avoiding massacres and long marches.All deportees were forced to settle in Syria, main-ly in camps situated in the desert. The climateconditions, food and water shortages and diseas-es killed thousands of them. Several months later,subsequent massacres were committed in east-ern Syrian camps, in which thousands of Arme-nians were killed. At the same time, the Tsar’sarmy – supported by Armenian volunteers – oc-cupied Eastern Anatolia, which was followed byretaliatory massacres of the Muslim populationand by many Muslims fleeing to Central Anatolia.The course of the deportations and the fate of thedeportees at the local level depended on the be-haviour of the Ottoman personnel. Tens of middle-and high-ranking officers and officials treated Ar-menians in a humanitarian way or resisted thedeportations.These deportations were based on the principle ofcollective responsibility. The authorities deport-ed a clear majority of Armenians, including fromthose regions where no military activity had beenconducted. The deportation decree passed by thegovernment gave the army the right to crush re-sistance by any means necessary. Women, chil-dren and old people were noticeably overrepre-sented among the deportees. The deportation wasaccompanied by a confiscation of Armenian pro-perty. Special regulations imposed very seriousrestrictions on regaining property and compen-sations. The authorities settled Muslims, mainlyrefugees, in place of the deported Armenians.Many thousands of Armenians were forced to con-vert to Islam. Most crimes against Armenianswere committed by units which were linked,either directly or indirectly, to the state. The stateimposed very lenient penalties on some of thosewho were guilty of the crimes, and it often usedrepressions against those officials and officerswho had treated Armenians humanely or resistedtheir deportations. Even historians who do not re-cognise the deportations as genocide admit thatthe state treated Armenians during the war muchworse (regarding such matters as supplies andprotection) than Muslim refugees and the Otto-
man army. Some of them believe that the repres-sions against Armenians were clearly dispropor-tional to the threat posed by them to the empire.The Ottoman war casualties would have beenmuch smaller if the deportation had not beencarried out. The number of Armenian victims kill-ed by Muslims during the war exceeded the num-ber of Turks and Kurds killed by Armenians bymany times.The term ‘genocide’ has a very wide scope. It isused in international law to define very differentcrimes, ranging from the Holocaust of the Jewsthrough to the Srebrenica massacre committedby Bosnian Serb forces during the Bosnian War(1992–1995). In the opinion of most historians, re-searchers of Armenian affairs and experts on ge-nocide (including the author of the term, R. Lem-kin), the Armenian deportations and massacresdo in fact meet the definition of genocide. Manyexperts on the history of the Ottoman Empireare of the opposite opinion.
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1 The Empire had also conquered Northern Africa and theMiddle East, yet its centres were located in the Balkans andWestern Anatolia. An Economic and Social History of theOttoman Empire 1300–1914, ed. D. Quataert, H. Inalcik,Cambridge 1994.2 In the course of the negotiations, the Turkish side fruit-lessly tried to include a provision that would specify the dateon which Turkey would be accepted into the EEC, providedthat it had satisfied the required conditions. The Communitydid not want to agree to that, and as a result, article 28 wasadded to the agreement, which provided that if adequateconditions for Turkey’s joining the EEC appeared, then bothparties should consider the issue of Turkey’s membership.3 At the same time, Morocco’s application was rejected, be-cause the Commission deemed it a non-European state.4 The European Parliament insisted it would ratify the unionon condition that Turkey amended its constitution to expandthe freedom of associations and trade unions, amended anti-terrorist legal regulations and released Kurdish party MPsfrom detention. In response to the requirement, the Turkishparliament passed 12 amendments, which convinced Euro-MPs to ratify the customs union. Its scope is broader thanthat of a typical customs union.5 As a result of the amendments, the death penalty was abo-lished, the scope of the freedom of speech, gathering and as-sociations was significantly enhanced, the possibility of edu-cation and broadcasting in languages other than Turkish wasintroduced, the legal status of women was improved and theposition of the army in the political system was diminished.6 Negotiating Framework, October 2005, http://ec.europa.eu/comm/enlargement/turkey/pdf/st20002_en05_TR_frame-doc.pdf7 On the other hand, it has to be admitted that all negotia-tions are implicitly governed by such a rule.8 Negotiating Framework, ibid.9 Vienna claimed it would agree to start negotiations withTurkey on condition that an equivalent decision was takenwith regard to Croatia, and insisted that a provision on pri-vileged partnership (special relations) as an alternative toTurkey’s membership in the EU should be included in theNegotiating Framework.10 This condition was for the first time explicitly stated in theNegotiating Framework. Nevertheless, it was one of the Co-penhagen criteria, adopted in 1993, which set the rules of EUmembership.11 The key requirements under the Accession Partnershipinclude guarantee of civilian control over the armed forces,related expenditure and the process of developing the secu-rity policy; adopting a ‘zero tolerance’ policy regarding tor-ture and ill-treatment; ensuring the exercise of the freedomof expression, including freedom of the press; implementa-tion of all reforms covering the freedom of associations andof peaceful assembly; adopting a law which comprehensivelyaddresses all the difficulties faced by non-Muslim religiousminorities and communities in line with the relevant Euro-pean standards; adopting and implementing provisions con-cerning the exercise of freedom of thought, conscience andreligion by all individuals and religious communities (remo-ving the category ‘religion’ from identity cards and removing
the obligation to attend religion classes), and establishingconditions for the functioning of all religious communities,in line with the practice of member states. This includes legaland judicial protection (inter alia through access to legal per-sonality) of the communities, their members and their assets,the teaching, appointing and training of clergy, and the en-joyment of property rights; implementing legislation relat-ing to women’s rights, pursuing measures against all formsof violence against women, including crimes committed inthe name of honour, establishing shelters for women at riskof violence in all larger municipalities, in line with currentlegislation, further promotion of the role of women in society,including their education and participation in the labour mar-ket and in political and social life, and supporting the deve-lopment of women’s organisations to fulfil these goals; en-suring effective access to radio/TV broadcasting in langua-ges other than Turkish, adopting appropriate measures tosupport the teaching of languages other than Turkish; abo-lishing the village guard system in the south-east; improv-ing the economic situation in south-eastern Turkey; pursu-ing measures to facilitate the return of internally displacedpersons to their original settlements, ensuring that thosewho have suffered loss and damage as a result of the secu-rity situation in the southeast are fairly and speedily com-pensated; implementing fully the Protocol adapting the An-kara Agreement to the accession of the 10 new EU memberstates including Cyprus; continuation of the efforts to re-solve any outstanding border disputes in conformity withthe principle of peaceful settlement of disputes and unequi-vocally committing to good neighbourly relations, and ad-dressing any sources of friction with neighbours.Council Decision of 23 January 2006 on the principles and con-ditions contained in the Accession Partnership with Turkey,http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=32006D0035&model=guichett12 In some countries, the results of surveys conducted at a si-milar time differed significantly. The results probably varieddepending on whether the question regarded only Turkey orall candidates and countries aspiring to the candidate status.The countries which have joined most recently or will soonbecome EU members (Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania) pre-sented a positive attitude towards Turkey’s accession.13 In the Transatlantic Trends 2005 survey conducted by theGerman Marshall Fund, in nine countries, the total popula-tion of which constituted a majority of EU residents, 35% ofrespondents said that Turkey as a Muslim country could notbecome a member of the EU. In the Eurobarometer 63 sur-vey conducted in spring 2005, 54% of EU residents declaredthat the cultural differences between Turkey and Europe weretoo significant to enable Turkey’s integration with the EU.33% were of a different opinion. However, 42% of respon-dents believed that to a certain extent, Turkey was in histo-rical terms a part of Europe; the same percentage of respon-dents shared the opposite view. Eurobarometer 63, spring2005, pp. 366 and 369.14 Over 4 million people originating from Turkey (Turks andKurds) currently live in the EU. The most numerous Turkishcommunities live in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France and
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Austria. Higher population growth, migration and the ac-cession of Bulgaria, where 750,000 Turks live, will contributeto increasing the number of the Turkish diaspora in the EU.Members of the Turkish community in the EU predominant-ly come from poorer, less modernised (with low levels of edu-cation) and more conservative regions of Turkey. Over deca-des, the Turkish diaspora has undergone profound transfor-mations; for example, it has become more liberal than thesociety in Turkey proper. However, the Turkish communityis still more poorly educated, financially poorer and moreconservative than European societies. The most serious pro-blem the Turkish diaspora faces is the high unemploymentlevel, which results from the fact that it is a young and worse-educated community. On the other hand, according to theOECD, the education systems in many EU member states donot provide sufficient educational opportunities for studentswho come from blue-collar workers’ families.15 The Turks’ attitude to the EU has been shown by surveysregularly conducted by the Turkish research centre Pollmark.http://www.pollmark.com.tr/16 Some cold calculation can also be noticed in Turks’ atti-tude towards the EU. In public opinion polls conducted inautumn 2004 in the four largest cities by the Turkish Inter-national Strategic Research Organisation, 35% of respondents(the largest group) indicated EU member states, especiallyGermany, as ones which Turkey could rely on in case of anemergency (e.g. an earthquake or war). The United States wasmentioned in the second place (over 25%). InternationalStrategic Research Organisation, ISRO 2. Foreign Policy Per-ception, http://www.turkishweekly.net/survey-tfpps.pdf17 Paradoxically, some respondents who supported this view-point declared at the same time a readiness to vote for Tur-key’s accession to the EU in a hypothetical referendum.18 The negative perception of Christians, rooted in the legacyof numerous wars, has strengthened over recent years. Inthe 1990s, several wars were fought between Muslims andChristians in the Balkans and the Caucasus. Muslims, beingthe weaker side, sustained much heavier losses. These re-gions have historical ties with Turkey, and a significant partof Turks come from there.Recently, the main reasons for this include the US interven-tion in Iraq in 2003, growing tension in Europe betweenMuslims and other Europeans after September 11, and ten-sions in relations between Turkey and the EU. In the Pollmarkand Pew Research Centre surveys conducted between 2004and 2006, the share of respondents’ negative opinion onChristians ranged from over 50% to nearly 70%. Pew GlobalAttitudes Project, http://pewglobal.org/reports/19 The conservatism of Turkish society is especially stronglymanifested through patriarchal family and community beha-viour, moral rigour (especially regarding the sexual life of wo-men), a lack of acceptance of any criticism of fundamentalreligious truths, and the arrangement of marriages. A signifi-cant part of marriages in Turkey are still arranged, althoughthese are in a minority now, in contrast to previous genera-tions.20 The pivotal role of the family in Turkish society’s systemof values was proven by the Türkiye’de Muhazakarlik – Aile,Din, Devlet, Bati surveys conducted in early 2006.
The proofs of the strong position of the family include theproportionally smaller number of divorces, unmarried cou-ples living together, persons living alone, nursing homes,children’s homes and kindergartens, as compared to the EU.The family has maintained its great role in social life mainlybecause of the inefficiency of the state, the high rate of reli-gious practice and the specific social structure (a high shareof the population living in villages and small towns).21 In surveys conducted in 2002 by Ali Çarkoglu and KemalKirisci, over 40% of respondents either declared that Turkeydid not have a best-friend state in the international arena,or were unable to indicate such a country. Ali Çarkoglu andKemal Kirisci, ‘The View from Turkey: Perceptions of Greeksand Greek-Turkish Rapprochement by the Turkish Public’, inGreek-Turkish Relations in an Era of Detente, ed. Ali Çarkogluand Barry Rubin, London 2005, p. 125.22 Using double standards by Brussels does not consist intreating Turkey in an especially strict manner, but in exces-sive leniency in dealing with other countries, which usual-ly fail to satisfy EU standards to a lesser extent than Turkey.Examples of such an approach by the EU:– very lenient criticism of Greece, which rejects any culturalrights to Macedonians, Roms, Vlachs and Albanians (who donot come from new emigration), and discriminates againstreligions other than Orthodox Christianity. Ill-treatment andtorture are not rare in Greece, and the perpetrators usuallygo unpunished;– failure to require from any member or candidate state todetermine certain crimes as genocide (e.g. the exterminationof between 5 million and 10 million of people at the turn ofthe twentieth century in the Congo, which was governed atthe time by the Belgian King Leopold, and the killings of near-ly 300,000 Serbs, Jews and Roms in the fascist IndependentState of Croatia, a satellite of Nazi Germany), while at thesame time demanding that Turkey call the Armenian mas-sacres committed during World War I genocide;– Turkey’s different treatment compared to other countrieswhich started negotiations before Ankara; the situation doesnot concern Turkey alone (referendum on every new enlarge-ment in France and the text of the Negotiating Framework);– proportionally much smaller financial aid from the EU forTurkey in comparison to that offered to the Central Europeancandidates;– the EU’s failure to fulfil some promises (such as the failureto end the isolation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cy-prus in exchange for support to the Annan Plan, which manyEU politicians had promised before the referendum washeld in April 2004).23 Between 2002 and 2004, the CHP voted in favour of mostpro-EU reforms. However, it firmly opposed the government’sconciliatory policy on the key issue of Cyprus. In September2006, the CHP declared it would not support any furtheramendments to Turkish laws as required by Brussels.24 Three religious minorities, Jews, Orthodox Christians andArmenians, were treated as an exception.25 Erik-Jan Zürcher, ‘Young Turks, Ottoman Muslims and Turk-ish nationalists: identity politics 1908–1938’, in Ottomanpast and today’s Turkey, ed. Kemal H. Karpat, Leiden 2000,150–179.
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Ahmet Yildiz, ‘Ne Mutlu Türkum Diyebilene’ Türk UlusalKimligi’nin Etno-Sekuler Sinirlari (1919–1938), Istanbul 2004.26 The most vivid example is the leader of the Kurdish sepa-ratist movement, Abdullah Öcalan, whose native languageis Turkish. It is used, along with Kurdish, by the media whichsympathise with the separatists.27 In 2000, every woman living in south-eastern Turkey,where Kurds are in the great majority, had 5 children on ave-rage; the national average was 2.5. Türkiye Istatistik Kuru-mu, Bölgesel Istatistikler http://www.tuik.gov.tr28 In the Türkiye’de milliyet˜ilik survey in spring 2006, nearly7% of respondents stated they felt they were Kurds first ofall. The respondents in the survey were only legally maturepeople, while Kurdish identity is stronger among youngpeople. In surveys conducted at the same time among peo-ple who could vote for the first time, the support for the Kur-dish party was higher by 70% as compared to general sur-veys. Public opinion polls show that a definite majority ofthe Turkish society identify themselves first as Muslims andcitizens of the Republic of Turkey.‘Terörün sonu milliyet˜ilik’, Radikal, 6 April 2006, http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=183584Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924), the major ideologist of the Turkishnational philosophy, was of Kurdish origin. Three Turkishpresidents have had Kurdish ancestors. Currently, Kurds arepresent in all state institutions. They are also representedamong intellectual elites and business circles.29 These were fights in defence of autonomy and against se-cularisation rather than national uprisings.30 Kemal Kirisci, Gareth Winrow, The Kurdish Question andTurkey: an Example of a Trans-State Ethnic Conflict, London,1997.31 These relations were brought to light in 1996, when a po-lice officer and a local crime boss who had links with theGrey Wolves ultranationalist organisation were killed in a caraccident in Susurluk. Their companion, a Kurdish memberof a right-wing party, who was the head of one of the mili-tias, survived. The investigation and trials failed to convictthe main suspects.32 Such factors as the trans-border nature of the Kurdishterritories, which are located along the main heroin smug-gling route running from Afghanistan to Europe, the fami-ly structure and the Kurdish diaspora in Europe contributeto the development of Kurdish organised crime.33 Theoretically, Kurdish nationalist candidates could enterthe parliament if they sought election as independent can-didates.34 It is worth emphasising that information on fights is cur-rently much more available to public opinion, consideringthe improvement of the freedom of speech, than it was inthe 1990s.35 Kurdish members of the governing AKP party were espe-cially against this. Some of them voted against the agreementin religious solidarity with the Sunnis, and some in ethnicidentification with the Kurds in northern Iraq.36 Trade exchange has been developing on a mass scale (main-ly exports from Turkey) between Turkey and Kurdish north-ern Iraq since 2003. Turkish investments have also been grow-ing. Numerous construction contracts have been implement-
ed by Turkish firms. Pipelines from oilfields in northern Iraqrun through Turkish territories. There is no other countrywith which Iraqi Kurdistan has such extensive economic ties.Turkey’s stance on the political system of Iraq (centralisa-tion), which had been uncompromising at the beginning,has been revised. In 2005, Turkey accepted the federal sys-tem of Iraq and established intensive diplomatic relationswith Iraqi Kurds. The status of Kirkuk, where rich oilfieldsare situated and Turkmen supported by Ankara live, is stilla disputed issue. According to Turkey, Kirkuk should not bemade part of the Kurdish autonomous area. Turkey is afraidthat control over them will make Iraqi Kurds more indepen-dent of Ankara. According to the Iraqi constitution, a refe-rendum on the status of Kirkuk has to be held by the end of2007. The lack of precise voting rules (constituency bordersand rights to vote) may create tension between Turkey andthe Kurds. In the future, Ankara will have to face the chal-lenge of the possible establishment of an independent Kur-distan in the Northern Iraq, which may secede if the civilwar in the central part of the country intensifies. Probablesupport from the USA and Israel for an independent Kurdi-stan in northern Iraq, the self-rule of Iraqi Kurds (who areaware of the negative attitude to Kurdish separatism present-ed by such stronger countries as Iran, Syria and Turkey), An-kara’s need to unite efforts together with Iraqi Kurds againstthe PKK and the economic dependence of northern Iraq onTurkey may result in good relations being established be-tween Turkey and Kurdistan.International Crisis Group, ‘Iraq: Allaying Turkey’s Fears OverKurdish Ambitions’, Middle East Report N°35, 26 January2005, http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/mid-dle_east___north_africa/iraq_iran_gulf/35_iraq_allaying_turkey_s_fears_over_kurdish_ambitions.pdfInternational Crisis Group, ‘Iraq and the Kurds: The BrewingBattle over Kirkuk’, Middle East Report N°56, 18 July 2006,http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/middle_east___north_africa/iraq_iran_gulf/56_iraq_and_the_kurds___the_brewing_battle_over_kirkuk.pdf37 The Kurdish population is more patriarchal, conservative,religiously active and fundamentalist than Turks. Kurds areclearly overrepresented in the Islamic terrorist organisations(which are incomparably weaker than the PKK) which wereresponsible inter alia for the Istanbul attacks in November2003. On the other hand, proportionally more Kurds thenTurks are Alevis, these being a more liberal branch of Mus-lims than Sunnis. Violence against women (including mur-ders) is more common among Kurds than among Turks. Theilliteracy rate is higher, and the professional activity of Kur-dish women is very low. Compulsory marriages happen morefrequently among Kurds than among Turks. They commit in-comparably more honour killings. Failure to send girls toschool is practiced almost exclusively by Kurds. Accordingto the government’s estimates, 25% of girls did not starteducation in south-eastern Turkey in 2004.38 South-eastern Turkey follows the Shafii legal school ofthought, which is more rigorous than the Hanafi schoolfound in the rest of the country.39 South-eastern Anatolia is a limited to external influenceby its geographical nature, where mountains and desert
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predominate, and its unfavourable climate. It has been a pe-ripheral region of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey for cen-turies.40 Examples of rotten compromises between the state andthe pre-modern social structure include alliances with Kur-dish tribes in fights against rebels, i.e. village militias, andthe co-operation of political parties with the tribal aristoc-racy (either whole tribes vote for a candidate indicated bythe sheik, or the sheik himself is engaged in politics), andthe lack of agricultural reform. David MacDowall, A ModernHistory of the Kurds, Oxford 2004, pp. 395–401.41 South-eastern Anatolia was much poorer than the West-ern part of the country even under the Ottoman Empire,and the disparity widened in the twentieth century. Be-tween 1914 and 1928, with some breaks, south-eastern Tur-key was the scene of very bitter clashes between the Otto-man and Russian armies, between the Kemalists, the Frenchand the British supported by Armenian and Assyrian guer-rilla forces, and then between Turkish troops and Kurdishinsurgents. These battles brought death, displacements andmigrations of millions of people, and vast economic losseson a scale incomparable to the other regions of Turkey.D. MacDowall, ibid., pp. 21–109.Nowadays, poverty is a consequence of the large role playedby backward agricultural practices and shepherding in theregional economy, the family-based and feudal structure ofland ownership (currently, nearly 10% of landowners ownalmost half of the land), the high rate of population growth,the war against the PKK, which has lasted for more than 20years and scared away private investors, and insufficient pu-blic investments due to the centralisation of the adminis-trative system. Between 1990 and 2001, public investmentsin this region, which is inhabited by nearly 10% of thecountry’s population, accounted for 7% of the state budget.Between 1994 and 2004, Ankara allocated slightly morethan 3% and less than 5% respectively of the public fundsdesignated for investment in those sectors to educationand healthcare in this part of the country. It must be addedthat such unequal distribution of public spending also af-fects regions of the country inhabited by ethnic Turks. Onthe other hand, the economic disparities inside Turkish so-ciety have been reduced over the whole country during thelast decade. Özsel Beleli, ‘Regional policy and EU accession:Learning from the GAP experience’, Turkish Policy Quarterly,Vol.4, no.3 2005, pp 7–8. http://www.esiweb.org/pdf/esi_turkey_tpq_id_37.pdf42 The Radio and Television Board imposed time limitationson information, political commentary and educational pro-grammes, and an obligation to use Turkish subtitles in theother programmes. Kurds mainly watch Kurdish channelsbroadcasting from Europe and Northern Iraq. Turkish autho-rities have made attempts to block broadcasting by stationslinked to the PKK.43 Zihni Erdem, ‘Kürtce yayinda sinirlar kalkiyor’, Radikal,16 June 2006, http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haber-no=189892Courses could be held only on weekends. Age limitationswere imposed in order to exclude a significant part of young
people. A non-Turkish language could not be the languageof instruction.44 The main reasons for the closures were rigorous regula-tions on opening courses, high prices, illiteracy, many Kurds’assimilation into Turkish culture, and the lack of support byKurdish nationalists, who believed the courses were an in-sufficient concession by the government.45 More roads were built in south-eastern Turkey over a pe-riod of two and a half years (2003–2005) than in the entireperiod between 1923 and 2002.46 216,000 applications were submitted by September 2006.The authorities responded positively to 33,000 of them.European Commission, Turkey 2006 Progress Report, p. 21.47 In August 2005, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stat-ed during his visit to the south-east that the Kurdish prob-lem did exist, it had to be resolved through further democ-ratisation, and that the state had made numerous mistakeswith regard to the Kurds. In his subsequent speeches, PrimeMinister Erdogan said that Turkey was an ethnic mosaicand proposed America as a model to be followed. Accordingto the prime minister, residents of Turkey shared a ‘higher’political identity (as citizens of the republic), as part of whichvarious ‘lower’ value-related and ethnic identities operated,including the two major ones, Turkish and Kurdish. In res-ponse to allegations that he was pushing Turkey closer to-wards a Yugoslavian scenario, Prime Minister Erdogan repliedthat the residents of Turkey shared a common religion, whichwas the strongest substance cementing the ethnic mosaictogether. Erdogan was again criticised for emphasising therole of religion. These declarations by Prime Minister Er-dogan have failed to produce constitutional changes. ErhanSelen, ‘Kürt sorunu benim sorunum’, Yeni Safak, 13 August2006, http://www.yenisafak.com.tr/arsiv/2005/agustos/13/p01.html48 In a survey conducted by the Turkish public opinion poll-ing centre Pollmark at the end of 2003, 58% of respondentsdeclared they were against using Kurdish as the languageof instruction at schools (31% were for). The percentage ofrespondents opposing Kurdish-language courses was onlyslightly smaller. Nearly 50% of respondents displayed a ne-gative attitude (40% were in favour) towards Kurdish broad-casts in the media. The polls showed very clear differencesof opinion between Turks and Kurds (who showed great sup-port). In a survey conducted in mid-2004, over 46% of resi-dents of Turkey declared a positive attitude to programmesin Kurdish broadcast by public television. However, nearly45%, including a majority of ethnic Turks, were of theopposite opinion. Pollmark, http://www.pollmark.com.tr/arastirmalar.49 In the Pollmark survey conducted in mid-2004, over 60%of Turks declared they did not think Kurdish TV program-mes posed a threat to the state integrity, and nearly 30% ofrespondents claimed the reverse. In spring 2005, followingthe riots during Nevruz, which is the most important holi-day for Kurds, over 30% of respondents stated the riots hadbeen sparked due to excessive democratisation, while a ma-jority of respondents were of the opposite opinion.Pollmark, Ibid.
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On the other hand, in the survey conducted by he KONDAcentre in October 2006, 80% of respondents stated that com-bating terrorism was the only way to resolve the Kurdishissue. Two-thirds did not agree with the opinion that treatingKurds differently from other citizens was a cause of the con-flict with the PKK, and 75% believed that the war in thesouth-east was an effect of the Kurds’ desire to set up theirown state.‘Kürt sorunu yabanci kiskirtmasi’, Milliyet, 24 March 2006.http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2007/03/24/guncel/agun.html50 Martin van Bruinessen, Transnational aspects of the Kur-dish question, 2000, http://www.let.uu.nl/~martin.vanbru-inessen/personal/publications/transnational_Kurds.htm51 The maximum imaginable concessions by Turkish authori-ties, to be implemented against the will of most of societyand realised over a certain time span – extracurricular Kur-dish lessons at schools, liberalising the rules of broadcastingKurdish information and educational programmes, loweringthe election threshold to the level of 5%, and amnesty forall excluding the PKK’s leaders – may still be insufficient forKurdish nationalists, who want Kurdish to be recognised asthe second official language, to be used to the same extentas Turkish in the media, schools & offices, and who demanddeep decentralisation. Another problem is the support ex-pressed by many DTP leaders and junior party members foramnesty for Öcalan and for recognising the PKK, as the IRAwas in Britain, as a partner in negotiations covering thestatus of Kurds. Ihsan D. Dagi, ‘Kürtler ne istiyor?’, Zaman,31 March 2006, http://www.zaman.com.tr/?hn=271416&bl=yorumlar&trh=2006033152 Many PKK fighters, who have been engaged in militaryactivity for years, do not recognise any other methods thanviolence. The Kurdish terrorist organisation called the Kur-distan Freedom Falcons (TAK), which chooses uncompromis-ing struggle using any possible means, has been operatingfor more than two years now. A part of the army, which isinterested in preserving the status quo and continuing thehard-line approach on Kurds, are ready to fight them usingterrorist methods. In early November 2005 a bombing hap-pened in the town of Semdinli. The bombers appeared to beofficers of the military gendarmerie wearing civilian clothes.They were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment in Ju-ne 2006. According to many commentators, those who hadordered the bombing remained unpunished because theyhad higher positions in the hierarchy. ‘Susurluk Semdinli’de’,Radikal, 11 November 2005, http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=16967253 Regardless of the PKK’s defeat in 1999, the ethnically Kur-dish party is today much more popular than it was ten yearsago. In the 1990s, Kurdish nationalism became stronger,especially among young people. Judging from previous his-torical developments, further urbanisation, the change ofthe status of Kurds in Iraq and progress in education willreinforce Kurdish identity in Turkey. The development ofKurdish nationalism does not necessarily mean only nega-tive consequences for Turkey, since its secular nature con-tributes to the emancipation of women and the weakeningof social conservatism.
54 Apart from the DTP, which maintains contacts with thePKK, other Kurdish political forces are weak and are oftenintimidated by radicals (by means of assassinations).55 The de facto independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq isused as a model by Turkish Kurds and as a base for the PKK.Its existence adversely affects the readiness of the Turkishside to conduct reforms for fear of escalating Kurdish de-mands.56 The declaration of halt military actions was made by thePKK on 1 October 2006 under pressure from the USA and theIraqi Kurds. The latter probably see this move as an encou-ragement for Turkey to accept a referendum on the statusof Kirkuk.57 According to IHD statistical data, in 2003 not a single caseof ill-treatment and tortures was reported in nearly 65% ofthe administration units (il). The remaining 35% cover bigcities (Adana, Ankara, Bursa, Izmir, Konya and Istanbul) andthe south-eastern part of the country. The great majority ofthe victims were individuals of Kurdish origin. Insan HaklarDernegi (IHD), http://www.ihd.org.tr58 Turkish human rights organisations present differentdata on the violation of these rights.59 In 2003, over a third of the cases were beatings. IHD, ibid.60 Obviously, not all cases of using tortures and ill-treatmentare registered by human rights organisations. However, theyadmit that the number of victims who have asked them forhelp has significantly increased.61 Some of those sentenced were punished just for partici-pating in demonstrations, and some for assaults againstpolicemen and acts of vandalism.62 Hundreds were detained after the riots. Many of themwere tortured and ill-treated.63 In some cases similar sentences, considering the tighteningof antiterrorist laws in Europe, could also have been im-posed by courts in some EU member states.64 European Commission, Turkey, 2005 Progress Report, No-vember 2005, p.15.65 The prime minister declared in autumn 2006 that this ar-ticle could be amended. However, AKP politicians are afraidthat this decision could lead to a drop in support from thenationalist part of their electorate.66 The law authorises the police to use arms without hesi-tation during an antiterrorist operation in the situationwhen the person pursued does not react to the request forsurrender and is ready to use a weapon. Public prosecutorshave been given the right to notify only the closest family ofthe person suspected of terrorism of their detention. Accor-ding to the law, the suspect detained on charges of terror-ism can have only one defence counsel. The court may im-pose a 24-hour ban on the detainee’s contacts with the law-yer. However, the police and prosecution authorities cannotinterrogate the suspect over the duration of the ban. ‘Mah-kemeye gidecek: Terör yasasina ‘serhli’ onay’, Radikal, 18 July2006, http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=19322367 Provisions under article 301 provide for a less rigorous in-terpretation. Clause 3 states that if the goal of the statementis criticism, such a statement shall not be punished. Thesurveys Türkiye’de Insan Haklari ve Ifade Özgürlügü con-ducted by Metin Toprak and Ihsan Dagi in late 2002 showed
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that judges were less liberal regarding human rights andtend to notice fewer human rights violations than the rest ofsociety. Baskin Oran, ‘Bu kafayla AB ger˜ekten zor’, Radikal,2 July 2003, http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=80055Hukuk˜u Birligi (the Union of Lawyers), led by Kemal Kerin˜-siz, is an organisation which very often brings suits ‘indefence of Turkishness’.68 ‘7 milyon Türk dernek üyesi’, Radikal, 26 October 2006.http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=20265569 The opinion that the key weaknesses of the non-govern-mental organisations in Turkey are their fragmentation, he-terogeneity and elitism stated by C. Rumford in 2002 is stillrelevant. C. Rumford, ‘Placing Democratisation within theGlobal Frame: Sociological Approaches to Universalism andDemocratic Contestation in Contemporary Turkey’, Sociolo-gical Review, vol. 50, no. 2, 2002, p. 273.70 This model subordinating religious structures to secularauthorities originates from the Byzantine and Ottoman tra-ditions.71 In the survey conducted by Ali Çarkoglu and Ersin Kalayi-coglu Türkiye’de Sosyal Tercihler Arastirmasi in June 2006,more than half of Turks supported replacing the obligatoryreligion lessons with extracurricular classes. Pinar Aktas,‘Türkiye saga kaydi’, Milliyet, 14 June 2006. http://www.milliyet.com/2006/06/14/guncel/agun.html72 In Turkey also live several hundred thousand Shia Twel-vers and followers of the other non-Sunni varieties of Islam(such as the Alawi), whose status is identical to that of theAlevis.73 In June 2006, the local government in a district of Istan-bul for the first time recognised the cemevi as a place of re-ligious worship, and granted land for building the templeto a local association of Alevis.74 Before 2006, Alevis brought suits against the state to theCourt of Human Rights in Strasbourg, accusing the govern-ment of violating human rights through the obligatoryclasses in ‘religious culture and ethics’, which did not pre-sent the rules of Alevism. Some suits have been brought bysecular circles, who generally oppose the obligatory natureof this school subject.75 The authorities claim that these privileges are based onthe Treaty of Lausanne signed in 1923. However, Turkey hasfailed to meet its provisions because the treaty provides forguaranteeing cultural and religious rights to all non-Muslims.Otmar Oehring, ‘Human Rights in Turkey-Secularism = Re-ligious Freedom’,http://www.missio-aachen.de/Images/MR%20T%C3%BCrkei%20englisch_tcm14-11238.pdf76 Roman Catholics and members of Protestant churches donot have their own religious community foundations; theyhave only private foundations.77 Non-Muslim clergymen have been deprived of the possi-bility of religious education in Turkey since 1971. The Turk-ish government emphasises that it is necessary to find a so-lution that will include the possible education of priests inthe general system of higher education, so as to avoid settingthe precedent of separate religious educational institutions.Pursuant to Turkish law, priests of all religions, with the ex-
ception of Roman Catholicism and some branches of theProtestant Church, must have Turkish citizenship. AlthoughTurkish law allows missionaries to conduct their activity,they still encounter many administrational problems. Cur-rently, over 1,100 missionaries operate in Turkey. US Depart-ment of State, ‘International Religious Freedom Report 2005,Turkey’, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51586.htm78 In spring 2005, Diyanet prepared an exhortation for imamswhich attacked missionaries for their alleged connectionswith foreign powers and their desire to ‘take possession ofyoung Turks’ souls’, and published a book which stated thatChristian missionaries (unlike Muslims, who limit themsel-ves to explaining the principles of Islam) use all possiblemethods, including violence, in their proselytising activity.US Department of State, ibid.79 Public opinion polls indicate that most of society sharesa negative opinion on non-Muslims, although they accepttheir right to religious practice. However, they are in favourof curtailing proselytising activity (see in Ali Çarkoglu andErsin Kalayicoglu, Türkiye’de Sosyal Tercihler Arastirmasi).Pinar Aktas, ‘Türkiye saga kaydi’, Milliyet, 14 June 2006.http://www.milliyet.com/2006/06/14/guncel/agun.htmlPublic dislike of missionaries has historical roots. Many nine-teenth-century missionaries represented the interests of fo-reign powers and minorities.80 In January 2004, the Minorities Subcommittee, which mo-nitored minorities’ activity, was liquidated. The state has le-galised several Protestant associations and temples over re-cent years. In 2004, the authorities accepted nominationsof Greek citizens to the council of patriarchs supervised bythe Patriarch of Constantinople. Until then, Turkish authori-ties had not agreed to foreigners performing religious func-tions, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church andreligious communities linked to diplomatic agencies. In mid-2005, non-Muslim places of worship received the same rightsas mosques regarding the usage of water, power supplies, etc.81 Foundations will be able to open branches abroad. Foreign-ers will be allowed to establish foundations and hold execu-tive posts in them. Foundations will have right to receiveforeign aid. Religious minorities are dissatisfied with theimposition of the 18-month deadline for submitting appli-cations to regain real property, and with the failure to un-ambiguously determine the status of real estate which hasbeen bought from the state by third parties.82 In the survey conducted in 2002 by E&G, nearly 67% ofrespondents stated that the person whose opinion was mostimportant at home was the husband, 27% both spouses,and less than 6% that of the wife. The poll also revealed signi-ficant regional differences between the Western part of thecountry and the more patriarchal East. ‘Ege erkegi light, Ka-radeniz ma˜o’, Radikal, 11 September 2002. http://www.radikal.com.tr/veriler/2002/09/11/haber_49517.php83 On the other hand, the declared conservative perceptionof women’s sexuality differs from the social reality, which isproven by the fact that the average age of female sexual ini-tiation is lower than the average age of marriage.84 In 2000, 19% of women and 6% of men were illiterate. Inthe 2003–2004 school year, girls accounted for 43% of sec-ondary-school pupils and nearly 42% of university students.
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In 1990, the number of female secondary-school pupils cor-responded to 65% of male pupils, and in 2003 the propor-tion rose to 74%. In 1990, the number of female universitystudents was equal to 53% of males; in 2003 it was 74%.The most extreme difference between the EU countries andTurkey is that every year nearly 10% of girls are not sent toschool by their parents, almost exclusively in the south-east-ern part of Turkey, which is inhabited by Kurds. Toplumsalcinsiyet göstergeleri, pp. 18–20; http://www.kssgm.gov.tr/toplumsalcinsiyet.pdf85 In the surveys conducted in 2004 by Binnaz Toprak andErsin Kalayicoglu Is Yasami, Üst Yönetim ve Siyasette Kadin,nearly 20% of non-working women stated they did notwork because their husbands did not allow them to.86 According to data from the Turkish State Institute of Sta-tistics (DIE), in 2000 women constituted 32% of economists,28% of legal sector workers and 27% of financial consul-tants and accountants, over 25% of professors and nearlya third of PhDs. Toplumsal cinsiyet gˆstergeleri, p. 8.http://www.kssgm.gov.tr/toplumsalcinsiyet.pdf87 Women constitute only 0.5% of mayors and 2.4% of coun-cillors at the community (il˜e) level, and 1.8% at the pro-vince (il) level.88 In 2001, women constituted 18% of judges and publicprosecutors. In 2002, they accounted for nearly 21% of me-dium- and higher-level state administration officials, includ-ing 5% of undersecretaries, 17% of heads of governmentagendas, 7% of directors general and 13% of deputy direc-tors general. Ibid., pp. 9–11. It must be added that women’srepresentation has been slowly, albeit consistently, growingin the parliament and local governments.89 According to the survey conducted in March 2003 by theHuman Rights Centre of Bilgi University, over 30% of wo-men stated their husbands had used physical violence againstthem. ‘Dayak kadinin alin yazisidir’, NTV, 8 March 2003,http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/207773.asp. It is worth ad-ding that the survey has demonstrated a link between vio-lence against women and low education level.90 According to statistical data from the Human Rights Asso-ciation (IHD), 44 women were victims of honour killingsand 116 women were killed by a family member in 2005.There were 30 suicides by women, often committed underfamily pressure. Imposing stricter penalties for honour kill-ings has caused a significant increase in the number of sui-cides by women forced by their families. 79 suicides by wo-men, 38 honour killings and 126 murders committed by fa-mily members were reported in 2006. http://www.ihd.org.trThe number of suicides committed in Turkey is much lowerthan the European mean. On the other hand, the number ofmale suicides in Turkey is slightly smaller than that of fe-male suicides, whereas in Europe women commit suicidesmuch more rarely than men do.91 Such double standards mean that marital infidelity is fre-quent in Turkish families (this mainly concerns husbands),which indirectly contradicts the desire to maintain the sta-tus of the family as the most important social institution.In the Global Sex Survey 2005, nearly 60% of Turks (womenand men) stated they had had extramarital sex. This was thehighest result (much higher than in ‘libertarian’ Western
countries) among the 41 states surveyed. The vast majorityof them were men. At the same time, a great majority ofTurks condemn marital infidelity, and a significant part ofthem support its penalisation.92 The amendments to the civil code adopted in November2001 abolished the provisions which stated that the manwas the head of the family and consequently its legal rep-resentative, which gave him the right to decide the place ofresidence, among other matters, and required that both spou-ses had to grant mutual consent in case one of them soughtemployment. The new code also determined that the un-paid housework done by women constituted their financialcontribution to the family budget, and in effect grantedwomen equal rights to property acquired after marriage,the ownership title to which was held by one of the spouses.In the previous code, individual ownership title had beengiven priority.In July 2004, the parliament voted for a law which imposedan obligation on each municipality with a population exceed-ing 50,000 to establish a shelter for women exposed to do-mestic violence.The new criminal code imposed penalisation of rape in mar-riage, imprisonment for holding medical virginity tests with-out a court’s consent and penalties for sexual harassmentat work. It abolished regulations discriminating against un-married women and the article which made avoiding a pe-nalty for rape possible if the rapist and the victim got mar-ried. The code also abolished the general rule of applyingmitigating circumstances in the case of murders committedin the name of honour against women who were accusedby their families of bringing disgrace on them (although itprovided for the possibility of making exceptions from thisrule by imposing the obligation on the court to considerthe individual context of each murder), and included a newprovision that murders ‘in the name of custom’ should bepunished by stricter penalties than ordinary murders.Women for Women’s Human Rights, http:// www.wwhr.org93 For example, although the number of shelters for femalevictims of home violence grew between 2004 and 2006,their quantity is still much lower than necessary.94 In autumn 2005, a division of the Supreme Court appliedthe definition of murder ‘in the name of custom’ only tomurders decided by family councils. According to the court,in the case of a murder of a woman by a man it is possibleto apply the principle of mitigating circumstances (a crimeof passion). On the other hand, strict sentences imposed incases of honour killings in 2006 prove that judges have ceas-ed treating the defence of honour as a mitigating circum-stance.95 The AKP, proportionally, has half as many female MPs thanthe opposition left-wing CHP. In the internal AKP electionsheld in March 2006, contrary to the prime minister’s pres-sure to guarantee 30% of representation by women, only10% of places in the decision-making structures of theparty at the level of municipalities were won by female can-didates. As few as 5 women are among the 850 party headsat the municipality level.‘AKP’de kadinlar liste disi kaldi’, Milliyet, 28 March 2006,http://www.milliyet.com/2006/03/28/siyaset/siy05.html
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96 The position of the army in the Turkish political systemis sometimes overrated. Turkish politicians are often said tobe totally subordinated to military officers. However, strongpoliticians have been able to successfully implement poli-cies against the wishes of the army. The late President Tur-gut Özal pushed through his nomination of a candidate tothe position of the chief of staff, although he resigned sometime later in protest against the president’s foreign policy.97 In October 2001, as part of the ‘National Programme’, theTurkish parliament adopted amendments which introduc-ed an equal number of civilians and military officers ontothe National Security Council, and abolished the provisionswhich had determined opinions presented by the Councilas binding. In 2003, representatives of the council were re-moved from other public institutions. In July 2003, the powerto choose the secretary was taken from the general chief ofstaff and granted to the prime minister (proposing a candi-date) and the president (approval). In August 2004, the coun-cil was chaired by a civilian. In October 2006, the parliamentadopted amendments to the act on military courts, whichdeprived them of the possibility to try civilians.David Greenwood, ‘Turkish Civil-Military Relations and theEU: Preparation for Continuing Convergence’, November 2005,Centre for European Security Studies, Istanbul Policy Centre,pp. 8–10. http://www.cess.org/publications/occasionals/pdfs/occasionals3.pdf98 In May 2004, one of the amendments to the constitutionremoved the provision which excluded defence expensesfrom control of the Audit Court. It came into force in Septem-ber 2006. A public finance law was introduced in December2003 which included the Foundation of Turkish Armed For-ces and the Arms Industry Support Fund in the defence mi-nister’s budget. The law came into force in January 2005.Both institutions are to be liquidated by 31 December 2007.Ibid., 32-35.99 The most important report is Almanak Türkiye, GüvenlikSektoru ve Demokratik Gözetim, published in summer 2006by the TESEV foundation. http://www.tesev.org.tr. It wassharply criticised by the generals.100 The main Islamic terrorist organisations are Hizbullah andthe Great Eastern Islamic Raiders’ Front (IBDA-C). They areresponsible for tens of deaths. Numerous detentions havevery seriously undermined their combat capacity. Accordingto surveys conducted by the Pew Research Centre between2002 and 2006, between 20% and 25% Turks believed thatin certain situations, killing civilians in defence of Islam wasjustified (such as suicide attacks), and nearly 10% said it wasjustified only in exceptional situations. The same surveysindicated that confidence in Osama bin Laden was at the verylow level. Pew Global Attitudes Project, http://pewglobal.org/reports/ Another survey, Degisen Turkiye’de Din Toplum vaSigaset, conducted in 2006, showed that less than 10% ofTurks supported suicide attacks against civilians.101 14 imam hatip schools with less than 900 pupils existedin 1952. Over 1,200 such schools, attended by over 500,000pupils, i.e. nearly 10% of all middle and secondary schoolpupils in Turkey, were operating in 1996. Hakan Yavuz, Isla-mic Political Identity in Turkey, Oxford 2003, pp. 122–129. Inthe survey by Ali Çarkoglu and Ersin Kalayicoglu, Tür-
kiye’de Sosyal Tercihler Arastirmasi, published in June 2006,almost half of Turks stated they had considered sendingtheir child to an imam hatip.102 In June 2004, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sug-gested a compromise solution offering private universitiesthe right to decide on whether their female students couldwear headscarves. University teachers, supported by thearmy, responded negatively to the proposal.In December 2003, the AKP government suggested intro-ducing regulations to facilitate the opening of Koran courses.The government gave up this idea under pressure from thearmy. However, the authorities extended the duration of thecourses from three to five days a week. In February 2005, theState Council deemed that regulation illegal, and applied tothe Constitutional Court for the possibility to eliminate hold-ing summer and weekend Koran courses for younger pupilsas being contrary to the constitution. The application wasgranted by the Constitutional Court.In May 2004, the AKP voted for abolishing the scoring sys-tem used in university entry examinations, which seriouslyreduced the chance of imam hatip graduates’ enrolling toother departments than theology. The amendments werevetoed by President Ahmet Sezer. The government decidedit would not repeat the vote on them. In December 2005, theeducation ministry passed a decree which enabled transfersof pupils from vocational secondary schools, including imamhatips, to general education secondary schools, and in effectomitting the high thresholds at university examinations forgraduates of vocational secondary schools. Facilitations forimam hatip secondary school pupils were especially favour-able. However, the State Council deemed that decree uncon-stitutional in February 2006. Ahmet T. Kuru, ‘Reinterpretationof Secularism in Turkey’, in The Emergence of a New Turkey,ed. Hakan Yavuz, Salt Lake City 2006, pp. 136–159.103 After the AKP came to power, the prices of alcoholic beve-rages, rose, especially of wine. In November 2005, the AKPgovernment adopted a decree which enabled local govern-ments to limit alcohol consumption through setting specialzones for holders of licences to sell alcohol. The State Coun-cil deemed the decree illegal in April 2006.In September 2004, as part of work on the new criminalcode, the government suggested amending the articles onthe penalisation of adultery, which had not been appliedunder Constitutional Court awards as of 1996 and 1998. Theold code provided for the possibility of prosecuting adulteryex officio. The amendment only authorised spouses to bringsuch charges. The government, under pressure from the se-cular establishment and the EU, gave up the introduction ofthis amendment to the new code.Many commentators believed that the arrest of the presidentof Van University in April 2005 on charges of heading a cri-minal group responsible for corruption and embezzlementswas a kind of revenge by the government on secular circles.The matter was discontinued following the lengthy deten-tion of the university president.104 The constitution of Turkey gives the president the rightto nominate judges to the Constitutional Court, the SupremeCourt and the State Council. The AKP has been interested inamending the constitution so that it would authorise the
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parliament to nominate a part of judges to the most impor-tant Constitutional Court. However, to do that, the AKP wouldhave to get support from two-thirds of MPs (including theopposition) and also convince the generals to accept theamendment.105 The parliament of Cyprus adopted the resolution on thegenocide in 1982, 22 years before the country joined the EU.106 All the declarations are very brief and fail to take intoaccount Muslim victims. The statements of reasons for thedeclarations often uncritically present the Armenian out-look on the course of events during World War I.107 One example of the inconsistency of the votes by parlia-ments of European countries which Turkey has mentionedis the failure to recognise as genocide the ruthless exploita-tion of Congo (Kinshasa) by the administration of the BelgianKing Leopold at the turn of the twentieth century, which wasaccompanied by large-scale massacres. The policy claimed thelives of between 5 and 10 million victims. Turkey also re-proaches the West for failing to adopt resolutions to recog-nise the massacres and ethnic cleansing of Muslims from theCaucasus by Tsarist Russia in the second half of the nine-teenth century as genocide.108 A classic publication as part of the ‘anti-official’ trend isthe book by Taner Ak˜am, Türk Ulusal Kimligi ve Ermeni So-runu, Istanbul 2001.109 Since that time more conferences have been held in Tur-key where researchers, including Armenians, who believethat the 1915 events were a case of genocidehave been ableto present their point of view. However, most of the speak-ers have supported the official version promulgated by theTurkish government. One of the faults of the September 2005conference was that researchers representing the oppositepoint of view were not invited. It is worth adding that somedifferences of views on the course of those events and of theputative Turkish responsibility for the crimes, can be noticedamong Turkish researchers who do not recognise the depor-tations and massacres as genocide.110 Turkiye Gündemi Arastirmasi, March 2005, p. 96.http://www.pollmark.com.tr/arastirmalar/gundem/Pollmark_TGA_Mart2005.pdf111 The fact that the book by G. Levy, The Armenian Massac-res in Ottoman Turkey, has won awards and has been pro-moted by Turkish embassies, proves that the Turkish officialstandpoint has evolved somewhat. The author does not re-cognise the deportations and massacres as genocide in termsof international law. Instead, he declares a readiness to usethe word in the moral meaning (as a slaughter, a massacre)He also believes, in contrast to the official standpoint, thatthe Turkish repressions against Armenians were unjustified.He rejects the arguments of the civil war and the similar res-ponsibility of both sides for the crimes. According to Levy,nearly 650,000 Armenians were killed during the war, twiceas many as claimed in Turkish textbooks.112 The trial of the Turkish journalist (of Armenian origin)Hrant Dink, who received a suspended sentence of impris-onment for spreading an opinion on Turkish-Armenian rela-tions which was not directly linked to the genocide issue,was an exception.
113 Turkey closed the border in response to Armenia’s enga-gement in the conflict between Azeri citizens of Armeniaand Azerbaijan.114 The occupation is a consequence of the armed secession ofNagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian autonomous region whichis an enclave inside Azerbaijan. The secession would nothave been possible without the strong support offered byArmenia, the Armenian diaspora and Russia. The demandto make Nagorno-Karabakh a part of Armenia, which arosein 1987-8, was not made in response to any threat by Azer-baijan to limit the province’s autonomy. During the war,which was fought between 1991 and 1994, Armenians oc-cupied 7% of Azerbaijan’s territory located outside the pro-vince’s borders. 11,000 Azeris and 6,000 Armenians werekilled in the war. 750,000 Azeris and 350,000 Armenianshave been displaced. Officially, Armenia does not recognisethe independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, it is in facta part of Armenia and is bound by strong political, militaryand economic ties with it. Thomas de Waal, Black Garden:Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, New York2004.115 The Armenian diaspora is proportionally the second larg-est in the world, after that of the Jewish people. As a con-sequence of its economic position, it has strong influence insome countries (e.g. USA, France and Russia).116 The continuity between the Young Turks regime and theRepublic of Turkey is a complex issue. On the one hand, Ke-mal Atatürk represented a different ideology than the YoungTurks, and believed that the state founded by him was a to-tally new entity; he was even ready to recognise the crimescommitted against Armenians. On the other hand, Kema-lism did to a certain extent originate from the Young Turksmovement, and some of the activists responsible for theArmenian massacres were offered high positions in Turkey.This issue has been investigated into by the Turkish histo-rian Taner Ak˜am, who recognises the deportations as ge-nocide. See T. Ak˜am, ‘Sevr ve Lozan’nin Baska Tarihi’, Tür-kiye’de Etnik Catisma, ed. Erik Jan Zürcher, Istanbul 2005,pp. 51–88.117 Turkey wants Armenia to officially recognise the KarsTreaty, which was concluded by Turkey and Soviet Russia in1921. The treaty delimited the present border betweenTurkey and Armenia. The Armenian government answersthat the present Armenian state, being a successor to So-viet Armenia, recognises all the treaties concluded by itspredecessor, and there is no need to make a special decla-ration. Ruzanna Khachatrian, a journalist in the Armeniansection of Radio Free Europe, has stated that ‘at the sametime, Armenian authorities regularly reject Turkish demandsto declare that Armenia will never make any territorial claimsregarding areas currently located in eastern Turkey.’ Arme-nia’s president Robert Kocharian has stated, ‘the issue ofgenocide recognition is on our agenda today. Any ensuinglegal consequences of such recognition will be a task for fu-ture presidents and politicians.’ Some Armenian politiciansemphasise that the Kars Treaty was dictated to Armeniaagainst the country’s will, which challenges its legal status.Ruzanna Khachatrian, ‘Dashnaks Insists on Territorial Claimsto Turkey’, 27 January 2006, http://www.armenialiberty.org/
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armeniareport/report/en/2006/01/8a45c245-31e3-4ad2-ad80-8aee76832e8b.aspEmil Danielyan, ‘Turks Renew calls for Armenian GenocideStudy’, 13 April 2006, a4d65118d462.asp118 Nationalist circles prevented an agreement which themoderate presidents, Turgut Özal of Turkey and Levon Ter--Petrosian of Armenia, had wanted to sign in the 1990s.119 The common survey conducted in 2005 by the Turkishfoundation TESEV and the Armenian centre HASA showedthat 45% of Armenians did not want to have a Turk asa neighbour, and almost the same number would not like towork with a Turk. 67% would refuse medical care providedby a Turkish doctor, and 93% would not like their son tomarry a Turkish woman. Analogous answers from Turkishrespondents on Armenians showed results at the level of25% in the first two categories and 63% in the latter cate-gory. Ferhat Kentel, Gevorg Poghosyan, Ermenistan ve Turki-ye Vatandaslari Karsilikli Algilama ve Diyalog Rapor,Istanbul 2005, p. 37, http://www.tesev.org.tr/etkinlik/Turk_ermeni_rapor.pdfIn a Pollmark survey held in spring 2005, 30% of Turks de-clared themselves opponents of Armenians. Pollmark, http://www.pollmark.com.tr/arastirmalar/120 According to official statistical data, trade exchange be-tween Turkey and Armenia in 2004 reached the level of near-ly US$47 million (over 2% of Armenia’s trade exchange).Unofficially, the trade balance is close to US$100 million,considering exchange via third countries. The local govern-ments of South-Eastern Turkey support opening up the bor-der with Armenia, as they are interested in developingtrade. Nearly 37,000 Armenians visited Turkey in 2005. It isestimated that approximately 40,000 Armenians (nearly 1%of the population of Armenia) work, mostly illegally, in Tur-key. The estimated number of their families is 30,000. Turk-ish Airlines has operated a link between Yerevan and Istan-bul since autumn 2004, with frequent flights available.Foreign Trade of The Republic of Armenia 2004, http://www.armstat.am/Publications/2005/trade_2n/indexeng.html121 In March 2005, Turkey suggested establishing a Turkish-Armenian historical commission to investigate the sequenceof events of the Armenian deportations. The prime minis-ter declared his readiness to accept all its findings. Armeniarejected the proposal, and suggested that an intergovern-mental commission should be created instead to resolve cur-rent issues. Turkish and Armenian historians are highly un-likely to reach an agreement on the evaluation of the crimescommitted against Armenians during World War I. Attemptsto develop a common standpoint by the Turkish-ArmenianReconciliation Commission, which operated between 2001& 2004 and consisted of political scientists and ex-diplo-mats, ended in failure.122 In Turkey, the Turkish intervention in Cyprus in 1974 isseen as an act of self-defence in the process of Muslim mas-sacres and displacements from territories of the OttomanEmpire which were conquested by Christians since the endof the 17th century.123 During the centuries-long Turkish expansion in Anatoliaand the Balkans, military actions, hunger and diseases claim-ed the lives of many thousands of Greeks. Ottoman rule
caused major changes in the ethnic and religious structuresof these regions as a consequence of Turkish colonisation,Islamisation, and the assimilation of the Greek populationinto the Turkish language and migrations. In the Islamicstate, Christian Greeks became second-class subjects (theywere forced to pay higher tax rates, banned from havingguns (with numerous exceptions), banned from proselytis-ing to Muslims, treated unequally by the law, and subjectto restrictions concerning building churches and their wayof dressing, among other measures). On the other hand, the‘infidels’ in the Ottoman Empire were treated much betterthan those in Western Europe before the Enlightenment.The Orthodox Church received a guarantee of its legal sta-tus (extensive fiscal and administrative powers). NumerousGreek islands and highland regions were given autonomyor other privileges. Greeks had a dominant position in theEmpire’s economy and held important posts in the state ad-ministration (diplomacy and finance). (Before the early se-venteenth century, a significant part of the Ottoman armyconsisted of Christian soldiers, including Greeks.) Until theend of the seventeenth century, the security level in the Ot-toman Empire’s lands (which then covered more of the Bal-kans than Anatolia) was much higher than in the pre-Otto-man period, or in then Western Europe. Moreover, the so-cial and property status of peasants significantly improvedafter the Ottoman conquest, and was better than in manyregions of Europe. The population of the Balkans and Ana-tolia grew as a result. The Empire’s internal problems, whichhad been deepening from the late seventeenth century, caus-ed a worsening of Greeks’ situation (abuses by the local ad-ministrations, growing taxes, strengthening control of Mus-lim nobles over peasants and the activity of robber gangs).As a consequence, uprisings had become more frequentamong the Greek population, who sought foreign support.Modern Greece emerged as an outcome of the largest anti-Ottoman uprising (1821–1829). Until the 1920s, the maingoal of the Greek policy was the Megali Idea (Great Idea), i.e.the reconstruction of the Byzantine Empire by expandingtheir territories at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, inclu-ding areas which at that time were predominantly inhabitedby Muslims. J. Dalegre, Grecs et Ottomans 1453–1923. Paris2002.124 R. Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge 2002.125 Cyprus has been inhabited predominantly by Greek peo-ple from antiquity to modern times. In 1571, when Cypruswas conquered by the Ottoman Empire, the process of Turk-ish immigration and Islamisation, and consequently theassimilation of part of the Greek population to the Turkishethnicity began. Before the British took control of the islandin 1978, the Muslim population was more numerous than itis today.126 The Turkish population used to live scattered around thewhole island. There were larger Turkish enclaves in someregions.127 Violence was used much more frequently against Turks.30,000 Turks were driven out or escaped from ethnically mix-ed regions to more homogenous ones. In effect, a system ofde facto autonomous Turkish enclaves emerged. Tensions inthe island caused tens of thousands of Greeks to leave
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Turkey (such as the pogrom in Istanbul) and thousands ofTurks left Greece after 1955. In effect, the Greek minority inTurkey was radically reduced, and the size of the Turkishminority in Greece decreased significantly.H. Ibrahim Salih, Cyprus Ethnic Political Counterpoints,Lanhem 2004, pp. 8–15.W. Mallinson, A Modern History of Cyprus, London 2005,pp. 26–27., pp. 39–41.128 The Turkish intervention caused the collapse of the natio-nalist regime and led to Cypriot-Turkish talks on the politicalsystem of the state. Turkey set forth an ultimatum requir-ing the creation of either a federation or 6 Turkish cantons(either of which was to cover 34% of the island’s territory).The new Cyprus government failed to provide an answerby the set deadline, which was very short, and the Turkisharmy resumed the offensive. N. Tocci, T. Kovziridze, Cyprus,http://www.ecmi.de/jemie/download/1-2004Chapter2.pdf129 Over 160,000 Greeks were driven out, escaped or emigrat-ed from the north, and 70,000 Turks did so from the southduring the fighting and over the next few years. Migrationwhich was not forced by direct pressure happened more fre-quently in the case of Turks than among Greeks.130 Serious demographical changes have taken place in theKKTC over the period of more than 30 years since the Turk-ish invasion. Tens of thousands of Turkish Cypriots have leftCyprus, and a more numerous group of settlers from Turkeyhas come in their place. Ahmet An, ‘Günümüze Kibris TürkToplumu’, in Kibris Dün ve Bügün, ed. Masis Kürkcügil, Istan-bul 2003, pp. 341–372.131 A. Evin, ‘Changing Greek Perspectives on Turkey: An As-sessment of the Post-Earthquake Rapprochement’, in Greek-Turkish Relations in an Era of D¯tente, ed. A. Çarkoglu, B. Ru-bin, New York 2005, pp. 4–20.132 Panayotis J. Tsakonas, Thansos P. Dokos, ‘Greek-TurkishRelations in the Early Twenty-First Century: A View fromAthens’, in The Future of Turkish Foreign Policy, ed. LenoreG. Martin, Dimitris Keridis, Cambridge Massachusetts 2004,pp. 101–126.133 In the case of Turkey, the decisive events were the estab-lishment in 2002 of a government led by the pragmatic Is-lamic-democratic Justice and Development Party (AKP) andsupport for the plan from the chief of staff of the Turkisharmy.134 The Comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus Problem,http://unannanplan.agrino.org/Annan_Plan_MARCH_30_2004.pdf135 According to Greek Cypriots, the main faults of the planwere the regulations which provided for too slow a with-drawal by the military, the continuation of the system ofguarantees given in 1960, too broad powers being offered tothe Turkish component state, and excessive restrictions onthe regaining of property and return of refugees.136 ‘Turkey disappointed by EU aid deal on northern Cyp-rus’, http://www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/turkey-dis-appointed-eu-aid-deal-northern-cyprus/article-152958137 The government was bitterly criticised for accepting thiscondition at the EU summit in December 2004 by the Turk-ish opposition, who ‘forgot’ that regardless of the member-ship negotiations, Turkey was obligated under a separate
protocol to the Ankara Agreement (1970) to extend the cus-toms union to all EU member states.Mehmet Ugur, ‘Müzakerelerden Üyelige: AB-Türkiye Gün-demindeki Sorunlar’, Istanbul 2005, pp.163–169.138 ‘EU Enlargement: Turkey – Declaration by EuropeanCommunity and Member States’ (21 September 2005: Brus-sels) http://europa-eu-un.org/articles/en/article_5045_en.htm139 For example, UNCLOS was not ratified by the United States.140 The archipelago belonged to Italy between 1912 and 1947.Turkey, indicating the lack of ratification of the 1932 agree-ment regulating the ownership of small islands in this re-gion with Italy, claims that some of them belong to it. Tur-key’s standpoint on this issue is contrary to the provisionsof the Treaty of Lausanne signed in 1923, which states be-yond doubt that the territorial waters of Turkey are limitedto a distance of three nautical miles. On the other hand,Greece has created a military infrastructure in some islandsof the archipelago, although under the Paris Peace Treaty of1947, the Dodecanese was to remain a demilitarised area.141 According to poll results, the AKP will win the election andthe CHP will take the second place. However, the MHP willprobably also manage to enter parliament, and DYP is notwithout hope either. In such a case, there may be a problemwith forming a government coalition. Generally, the futureof Turkey’s pro-European policy will depend on the exis-tence of a stable pro-European majority.142 This is a kind of a vicious circle, because an improvingsituation in Turkey depends on the EU’s attitude to Turkey’smembership. Turkey’s chances will clearly lessen if the 2007presidential election in France is won by Nicolas Sarkozy,who is a staunch opponent of Turkish accession.
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The cold alliance.
Turkish-US political
relations after 2003
Rafa∏ Sadowski
Theses
1. From the end of World War II, Turkey and theUnited States formed a close partnership – albeitwith some periodical tensions arising – whichwas cemented by the threat posed by the SovietUnion. After Communism collapsed, their partner-ship was based on Turkey’s strategic location, ofbordering on instable regions (the Middle East,the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans), someof which had rich deposits of oil and gas (CentralAsia and the Middle East).
2. The most serious crisis in Turkish-US relationshappened in 2003, which was directly caused bythe US intervention in Iraq and Turkey’s negativestance towards it. Turkey did not agree to theopening of a northern front from its territory.
3. The greatest problems in Turkish-US relationsinclude the following questions: (a) the alliancebetween the USA and Iraqi Kurds and Washing-ton’s ensuing passive approach to the existencein Northern Iraq of bases of Kurdish guerrilla for-ces, which fight against the Turkish army, (b) theemerging possibility of the creation or declarationof an independent Kurdistan in Northern Iraq asa result of a large-scale civil war in Iraq and thepossible disintegration of the country, (c) the hardline adopted by the US in its Middle Eastern poli-cy on Iran and Syria, while Turkey’s relations withthe two countries have improved, and those withIsrael, the US’ closest partner in the region, haveworsened, and (d) the mutual crisis in trust since2003 (the high level of anti-American sentimentsamong the Turkish public and elites, and dislikefor the Turkish government among the US elites).
4. Turkey’s strong sense of sovereignty and theimprovement of its relations with Russia clashwith American attempts to significantly increaseUS military presence in the Black Sea region.
5. Regardless of these significant disagreements,the US-Turkish partnership is still based upon so-lid foundations. The two countries also have somecommon interests, such as the long-term stabili-sation of the regions neighbouring on Turkey (thuscombating Islamic terrorism and preventing arm-ed conflicts), support for Turkish accession to the
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European Union, and military & energy securityissues.
6. The future shape of US-Turkish relations great-ly depends on the way the situation in the MiddleEast develops. The region is unlikely to stabilisesoon. Therefore, the current cooling of relationswill probably last for quite some time.
1. Brief description of thedevelopment of Turkish-US relations after World War II
a) The Cold War period
Turkish-US relations after World War II were shap-ed to a great extent by the bipolar geopoliticalorder which had come to exist at that time. Fromthe point of view of Washington’s interests, Tur-key was a major player in the policy of ‘contain-ing Soviet expansion, which was the major rea-son for US engagement in developing relationswith Ankara. Turkey was important because ofits geopolitical location in the Black Sea region,in the area between the Soviet Union, the MiddleEast and the Balkans. It directly bordered on theSoviet Union in Caucasus. For Turkey, close co-operation with the USA was an essential ele-ment of its foreign and security policy, one of thekey objectives of which was to counteract andprevent the serious threat posed by the USSR,which for its part was making territorial claimsagainst Ankara1.There were better and worse periods in the Turk-ish-US relations during the ‘Cold War’. Mutualrelations developed without any problems in theimmediate aftermath of World War II. Startingwith 1946, Americans openly supported Ankaraand, inter alia, assigned as part of the TrumanDoctrine a sum of US$400 million annually tosupport the military development of Turkey andGreece2. In 1948, Washington started transfer-ring economic aid to Ankara as part of the Mar-shall Plan. Close co-operation was strengthenedas Turkey sent its troops to fight in the Korean War(1950–1953), and above all when it joined theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in19523. The Soviet threat invariably made the se-curity issue the main area of Turkish-Americanrelations, as a result of which the Turkish armedforces began playing a major part in relations be-tween the two countries.
Relations nevertheless cooled in the 1960s. Thefirst element to increase tension in mutual rela-tions was the withdrawal in 1962 of the Jupiterintermediate-range ballistic missiles by Americansfrom Turkey without consulting Ankara; this hap-pened after the end of the Cuban missile crisis
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and the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba4.Yet the key factor in the worsening of relationswas the issue of Cyprus. In 1964, during the con-flict between the Cypriot Greeks and Turks, inwhich Turkey supported its compatriots, the USPresident Lyndon B. Johnson wrote a letter con-demning the actions taken by Ankara. He statedthat the Turkish intervention would pose a threatof the Soviet Union becoming engaged in theconflict, and warned that in such a case the USAand other NATO allies would not be able to offerhelp to Turkey. The letter gave rise to resent-ment and upset Ankara’s confidence in its NATOally5. A subsequent crisis in mutual relations wasprovoked by the Turkish military intervention inCyprus in 1974, to which the US reacted by im-posing an embargo on arms sales to Turkey in1975, which was lifted in 1978. Ankara reacted bysuspending the Common Defence AgreementDuring that period, additional tensions in Turk-ish-US relations were also caused by the problemof large-scale poppy cultivation in Turkey whichwas used for heroin production. The principles ofoperation of the US military bases in Turkey wereanother disputed issue. This crisis in relationswith the USA gave to the development of a ‘multi-directional’ approach in Turkish policy in the1970s. Turkey started taking a balance betweenMoscow and Washington, and when relationswith the US had worsened, it established closercontacts with the USSR.Relations improved markedly following the 1980military coup in Turkey. The Turkish army wastraditionally more willing to co-operate with theAmerican partner than the civilian political elitehad been. The USA supported the coup leaders.The election of the staunchly pro-American Turk-ish Prime Minister, Turgut Özal (who was after-wards elected president), together with the factthat Ankara gave up the ‘multidirectional’ ap-proach to its foreign policy, greatly contributedto improving mutual relations also.Turkish-American relations improved despitesome differences in interests and standpoints,such as the US offering more funds in financialaid to Greece than to Turkey, the US imposing im-port quotas on Turkish goods, the opinion sharedby the majority of American elites that the depor-tations and massacres of Armenians should be re-ferred to as a genocide, and the influence of Ar-menian and Greek lobbies (unfavourably for Tur-
key) on the US politics6. For Americans, the al-liance with Turkey acquired more significanceafter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979and after the Islamic revolution in Iran in the sameyear7. Military co-operation, especially US mili-tary aid to Turkey, was crucial. It took variousforms, such as financial aid, privileged credits, freesupplies of weapons, contracts to sell militaryequipment and training Turkish soldiers. Theamount of financial aid granted by the UnitedStates to Turkey for military purposes between1980 and 1998 totalled US$6.064 billion8. In ad-dition to that, Americans trained over 3,000 Turk-ish officers between 1983 and 2000, which costmore than US$40 million9. Since Washington hadplaced so much emphasis on the security issue,it criticised Turkey much more leniently for theviolations of human rights which resulted fromAnkara’s conflict with the separatist KurdistanWorkers Party (PKK) in the 1980s and 1990s thanthe EEC and later the EU did.
b) The 1990s: new security challenges
The end of the Cold War and the collapse of theUSSR marked the beginning of a new era in bilate-ral relations. The bipolar geopolitical structureand the threat from the Soviet Union, which hadstimulated co-operation between the two coun-tries, no longer existed. At the same time, new se-curity threats appeared, first the Iraqi invasionof Kuwait in 1990, the emergence of new statesin the post-Soviet area, and the conflicts in the Bal-kans and Caucasus. These events meant that Tur-key, considering its geopolitical location, remain-ed an important partner – from the perspectiveof American interests – and the security issue re-mained the most significant area of co-operation.
Turkey firmly supported the United States duringthe first intervention in Iraq in 1991, both politi-cally and militarily. Ankara made its air space andair force bases available to the US and British ar-mies and deployed nearly 100,000 of its troopsalong the Iraqi border, which tied Iraqi troopsdown in Kurdistan10. Moreover, Turkey joined theeconomic sanctions imposed on Baghdad, eventhough it sustained serious economic losses itself,principally from the cutting Iraqi oil supplies. Theperson who played a crucial role in Turkey’s tak-ing such a definitely pro-American stance, against
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the opinion of most of the society and of the gen-erals, was then-President Turgut Özal. He wasconvinced that such a policy would help hiscountry to win EEC candidate status becauseWestern European countries, in addition to theUSA, were key members of the anti-Iraqi in-ternational coalition.The Gulf War of 1990–1991 left many Turks dis-illusioned with US foreign policy. This feeling wascaused by the financial losses Turkey sustained asa result of the international sanctions imposedon Iraq since 1991 and by the estalishment (withWashington’s consent) of the exclusion zone inNorthern Iraq, which was controlled by Kurds andwas independent of Baghdad. The establishmentof Kurdish-American co-operation was regardedwith great anxiety by Turkey since the Kurdishissue was of the utmost importance for Ankara,both in internal and in regional terms11. The con-flicts of interests regarding the Kurdish issuewhich then came into existencere-emerged dur-ing the Second Gulf War, and caused the worstcrisis in bilateral relations in 2003.Differences in the policies of the two countries to-wards Iraq under Saddam Hussein appeared inthe 1990s. Ankara supported the policy of con-tainment and control of Iraq’s developing militaryforces; however it made some objections againstAmerican and British air raids attacking Iraqi tar-gets (in 1998, 1999 and 2001). In the face of strongobjections from Washington, Turkey intensifiedits trade exchange with Iraq. It also resumedflights to Iraq in 2000, following a nine-year break.In January 2001, it established full diplomatic re-lations with Baghdad and opened a second bordercrossing point. This policy was based on the be-lief that excessively weakening Hussein’s regimewould enfeeble the territorial integrity of Iraq andthus strengthen the position of the Iraqi Kurds.In the 1990s, regardless of discrepancies betweenWashington and Ankara over Iraq, Turkey tight-ened its relations with Israel, the US’ most impor-tant ally in the Middle East. It also supportedNATO enlargement (although it attempted to usethe issue as a bargaining chip in its relations withthe EU) and the American policy in the Balkans,which was demonstrated by the full engagementof Turkish forces in the operations in Bosnia (1995)and Kosovo (1999). In turn, the United States ac-tively supported Turkey’s attempts to be givencandidate status for EU membership. American
diplomatic efforts helped Turkey obtain this sta-tus at the EU Helsinki summit in 1999. The US-Turkish relations reached their peak in 1999, whenTurkish intelligence services, assisted by the CIAand under US diplomatic pressure, arrested Ab-dullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdistan WorkersParty (PKK). His detention seriously underminedthe activity of Kurdish separatists. To emphasisethe special nature of Turkish-US relations at thattime, they were named as a ‘strategic partnership’in September 199912. In early 2001, the UnitedStates played a major part in convincing the In-ternational Monetary Fund to help Turkey duringan economic crisis. The IMF then granted an un-usually large loan of US$39.5 billion13. In 2001,soon after the terrorist attacks of September 11,Turkey definitely supported Washington in the‘war on terror’ declared by the latter. It activelyhelped the Americans, offering them political andmilitary support. This included sending its troopsto Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led operationISAF, taking command of the mission twice. Du-ring the US-led actions in Afghanistan, it agreedto the use of the US military base in the Turkishtown of Incirlik. Additionally, it provided Ameri-cans with intelligence assistance and engaged insupport for the Pakistani leader, General PervezMusharraf, who co-operated with the USA in thewar against the Taliban regime14. The Turkish go-vernment supported the US intervention in Afgha-nistan, although public opinion in Turkey wasclearly against it15.
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2. The 2003 crisis
The most significant event in American-Turkishrelations, which has essentially determined thepresent shape thereof, was the 2003 US interven-tion in Iraq and the Turkish parliament’s refusalto provide US troops with access to Turkish ter-ritory for that operation.The ‘war on terrorism’ declared by the USA afterSeptember 11 offered the Turkish government anopportunity to internationalise the problem ofKurdish separatism and its fight against PKK guer-rilla forces, which had existed since the early1980s. Moreover, Islamic terrorism was also a pro-blem for the Turkish authorities. Although Turk-ish organisations of Islamic radicals (such as Hiz-bullah and the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders’Front (IBDA-C)) had had rather limited potential,subsequent attacks in Istanbul in November 2003,in which over 60 people were killed, proved thatdue to their connections with Al-Qaeda they werecapable of plotting large-scale operations thatcould put Turkey’s security at risk. However, fromthe very beginning of the ‘war on terrorism’ theTurkish government had raised serious objectionsto any military operation in the Middle East, es-pecially in Iraq. They were anxious about thethreat of destabilisation of the region on whichTurkey bordered, and about the possible disinte-gration of Iraq and the establishment of an inde-pendent Kurdish state in the northern part of thecountry.The breakthrough happened on 1 March 2003,when the Turkish parliament refused US troopsaccess to Turkish territory, which they wanted touse for Operation Iraqi Freedom, and did not agreeto the establishment on its territory of a northernfront to attack Iraq in exchange for admittingTurkish troops into Northern Iraq16. The resolu-tion fell only four votes short of approval.Talks on the US troops’ attack against Iraq fromTurkish territory started in December 2002 andlasted until the end of February 2003. During thatperiod, the government changed in Turkey; thedemocratic-Islamic Justice and Development Party(AKP) won the elections in November 2002. Thegovernment was temporarily headed by AbdullahGül, since the party’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdo-gan, had to wait until the parliament had votedfor an amendment to cancel a ban prohibitingparticipation in political life for people who had
been sentenced by a court. This meant that untilMarch 2003 the AKP was focused on forming a newgovernment. At the same time, negotiations onthe unification of Cyprus, which were very im-portant for Turkey, were being conducted underUN auspices. Regardless of those problems, thetalks with the US ended in an agreement, whichwas approved by the government on 25 February2003 and supported by Erdogan. However whilenegotiating, the AKP leaders failed to make effortsto convince their society that supporting the USwas in Turkey’s interest17. They did not do so be-cause of the extreme unpopularity of the invasionof Iraq among the Turkish public. Many AKP mem-bers were also strongly opposed to the attackagainst Iraq. According to many observers, Erdo-gan chose not to exert too much pressure on hisparty’s MPs because he was afraid of a split. 264AKP MPs (70%) voted were in favour, 250 MPs(some of the AKP and the entire opposition Repu-blican People’s Party, the CHP) were against themove. 19 AKP members abstained from voting.The agreement was nevertheless rejected as it hadnot received the necessary support from half ofall MPs.Those AKP members who voted against or ab-stained from the voting mainly came from theKurdish south-eastern part of Turkey. Their stancecould have been motivated either ethnically (MPsof Kurdish origin opposed the entry of Turkishtroops into Iraqi Kurdistan) or religiously (object-ing against the US invasion of a Muslim state).The opposition CHP, which imposed a party whipduring the voting, mobilised as many of its MPsas it could. The nationalist CHP was definitelyagainst letting foreign troops onto the country’sterritory. Moreover, the party leaders hoped thata rejection of the bill would cause relations be-tween the AKP government and Washington toworsen.The army’s stance on the US opening a northernfront was also unclear. The supreme commandwas in favour of Turkey’s participation in the Iraqoperation. However, they met with internal resis-tance from some military circles who were againstletting foreign troops into their country, and fear-ed that the Iraqi Kurds could become strongerand that Iraq might disintegrate. Some analystshighlighted the differences of opinions inside thesupreme command, regarding the extent to whichtheir troops should engage in co-operation with
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Americans18. The military were trying to playa political game, as a result of which the parlia-ment would be held responsible for taking a deci-sion that would be very unpopular among thepublic. Therefore, the army adopted a very pas-sive approach in the public discussion on makingTurkish territory available to US troops, and didnot exert any pressure on either the AKP’s or theCHP’s politicians. On 1 March 2003, shortly beforethe vote in the parliament, consent to the agree-ment with the USA was rejected at the meetingof the National Security Council (MGK), membersof which included the highest-ranked comman-ders of the armed forces, the president and theprime minister.Turkey tried to mitigate the negative consequen-ces which the vote of 1 March 2003 had had onits relations with the USA. On 8 March, the Turkishparliament voted for a resolution permitting theUS air forces to use Turkish bases and air space.American-Turkish talks to send Turkish forces tocentral Iraq started in summer 2003. An initialagreement on granting an US$8.5 billion loan toTurkey was even signed in September 200319. On7 October 2003, the parliament in Ankara agreedto send 10,000 Turkish troops to act as peace-keeping forces in central Iraq. However, the deci-sion was taken too early, before an agreement de-fining the rules of the Turkish troops’ presencewas achieved with the Americans, and the movemet with determined resistance from all politicalforces in Iraq. In effect, the USA and Iraq chosenot to accept the Turkish offer. The decision by theTurkish parliament was motivated less by an at-tention to good relations with the United Statesthan by attempts to prevent the emergence of anindependent Kurdish state in Northern Iraq.Attempts to improve Turkish-US relations wereunsuccessful due to the deep crisis of mutualtrust. The negative result of the 1 March vote toallow US access to Turkish territory was sharplycriticised by representatives of the US adminis-tration, who saw it as a sign of their ally’s dis-loyalty20. In turn, Turks’ trust in Americans wasundermined due to the detention of Turkish in-telligence officers by US forces in Suleymaniyahin Northern Iraq on 4 July 2003. At that time near-ly 100 American soldiers carried out an operationas a result of which 11 Turkish intelligence offi-cers were captured. They were treated as terror-ists (they were disarmed, handcuffed and their
heads were covered) and were accused of at-tempting to murder the Kurdish governor of theprovince. Information on that event was leakedto the press by Turkey, although the most seniorstate authorities do not seem to have had any-thing in common with the leak21. To many Turksthis incident proved that the Americans were treat-ing their NATO ally Turkey unfairly, and were clear-ly discriminating in favour of the Iraqi Kurds22.
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3. Discrepancies in bilateralrelations in the Middle East
a) Iraq
Ankara is in favour of ending the conflict Iraq,setting up a stable state and preserving its terri-torial integrity. For this reason it can be believedthat the Turkish government is interested in thesuccess of the American mission in Iraq. However,Turkey has very serious objections against themethods used by the USA. These concern Wa-shington’s alliance with the Iraqi Kurds, whoseposition has been significantly strengthened since2003; thousands of casualties among Muslim civi-lians caused by American actions; and the emer-ging threat of a massive civil war in Iraq, the dis-integration of the country and the possible ap-pearance of an independent Kurdistan23. There-fore, any improvement of Turkish-American rela-tions depends to a great extent on stabilisingthe situation in Iraq itself and on the US inter-vention succeeding.The USA entered into its alliance with Iraqi Kurdsas a result of the Turkish parliament’s refusal toopen a northern front on 1 March 2003. IraqiKurds, together with Israel, are currently the mostpro-American nation in the Middle East. Militaryand political co-operation with Americans hasdefinitely reinforced the position of Iraqi Kurdsin the international arena, Iraq and the region atlarge. Thanks to this, the area under their con-trol has been significantly expanded. Washingtonis currently playing the role of their protector.Never before in their modern history have IraqiKurds been as powerful as they are today. In ex-change, their alliance with the Iraqi Kurds hasgiven the Americans a guarantee of peace in a lar-ge part of Northern Iraq, where US bases may beset up in the future. The north of Iraq is strategi-cally important for Washington, considering theproximity of Syria and Iran, which the USA per-ceives as its most serious regional opponents, aswell as the large deposits of oil and gas locatedthere. As a consequence of their common inte-rests and the US’ serious military engagementsin other parts of Iraq, American troops have notundertaken any active military operations againstTurkish Kurd units. The former PKK party, whichis considered a terrorist organisation by the USA,has its bases on Iraqi Kurd territories and launch-
es its attacks from there against targets in Tur-key. The US, fearing that a war could break outbetween Turkey and Iraqi Kurds, has not agreedto Turkish military expeditions entering deeperinto Northern Iraq; the Turkish army used to doso, thus causing very serious losses to Kurdishseparatists during Saddam Hussein’s rule. Theformer PKK has benefited from this situation,and has been able to partly rebuild its potential.American passivity towards the PKK and the lackof permission for any Turkish intervention in Iraqare the most serious complaints made by Turksagainst the USA, and are the key causes of thehigh level of anti-American sentiments amongthe Turkish population. For over a year now Wa-shington has been trying to adjust its policy to-wards the PKK by intensifying its co-operationwith Turkish intelligence services. Washingtonhas also supported Turkey’s efforts to delegalisemedia and associations which support the PKK, aswell as its financial bases in European countries.In summer 2006, according to the Turkish press,American intelligence materials were used for twosuccessful operations conducted by Turkish secu-rity forces against Kurdish separatists24. In April2006, during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’svisit to Turkey, Ankara put pressure on Washing-ton by deploying nearly 200,000 soldiers alongthe Turkish-Iraqi border.In late August 2006, Washington appointed Ge-neral Joseph Ralston as coordinator for counteringthe PKK. His task is to intensify intelligence andmilitary co-operation between Turkey and theUSA on this issue. A change in the US’ approachto Turkey’s fight against the PKK has also beenconfirmed by Kurdish media reports of bombard-ments of Northern Iraq by Turkish artillery andair forces25. On 20 September 2006, the Iraqi go-vernment banned the activity of the PKK on itsterritory26. On 1 October 2006, the Kurdish Work-ers Party announced a cessation of armed opera-tions. However, the main problems (American pas-sivity towards the PKK and the lack of permis-sion for Turkish intervention in Iraq) remain un-resolved.Turkish elites are particularly anxious about thepotential disintegration of Iraq and the possibleemergence of an independent Kurdistan. ManyTurkish politicians and generals see such a sce-nario as a beginning of the process of secessionof Turkish Kurds and the building of a ‘Greater
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Kurdistan’. For this reason Turkey has long oppo-sed the US-supported idea of transforming Iraqinto a federation.Ankara finally accepted the fede-ral system of Iraq in 2005. However, it has main-tained its negative stance on including Kirkuk inthe Kurdish region. Large oil and gas deposits maybe found around the city. Turkey fears that if Kir-kuk is made a part of the Kurdish region, this willincrease the Kurds’ independence from both An-kara and Baghdad.Turkey’s concern about the possible disintegra-tion of Iraq is additionally strengthened by thenumber of casualties in the clashes between SunniArabs and Shiites, which has been growing ra-pidly since early 2006, thus increasing the risk ofa massive civil war. Many Turkish politicians andmilitary officers believe that mistakes made byAmericans after the intervention in Iraq (such asthe failure to dissolve religious militias) have con-tributed to the situation. To prevent war, Turkeyhas been trying to include Sunnis in the govern-ment structures.Moreover, Turkey has reservations against the US’giving permission for Kurdish people to settle incities inhabited by the Turkish-speaking Turkmen,which is happening simultaneously with the ex-pansion of the Kurdish region in Northern Iraq27.The problem especially concerns the city of Kir-kuk, which is surrounded by oilfields.Turkish-American relations have also been adver-sely affected by the deaths of many thousands ofMuslim civilians caused by US activities. This hasbeen very sharply criticised by many Turkish po-liticians. Especially severe criticism has been di-rected against the bombardments of towns sup-porting the insurgents, in which many civilianshad been killed, and against US forces using tor-ture against people suspected of involvement inthe insurgence. Such criticism has often takenvery harsh forms (one AKP MP called the assaulton Fallujah an act of genocide; Americans in Iraqhave also been compared to Nazis). The Turkishpublic, who are predominantly Sunni Muslims,feel more sympathy for Sunni Arabs, who are themain opponents of the American army there28.
b) Iran, Israel and Syria
Although the USA and Turkey define their long-term strategic goals regarding the Middle East (de-mocratisation; ending the Israeli-Palestinian con-
flict by building a Palestinian state; preventingthe proliferation of nuclear weapons; the develop-ment of regional co-operation) in similar ways,there are still significant differences in the levelsof implementation thereof29. Turkey prefers thepolicy of persuasion and dialogue with the autho-ritarian elites, while the United States has chosenthe policy of pressure. In effect, the stances andthe actions taken by the two countries with re-gard to the region are often different and mutu-ally contradictory. Such differences are most clear-ly apparent in the respective approaches the coun-tries take towards Syria and Israel, and to a certainextent towards Iran.As recently as 1998, Ankara very seriously threa-tened Syria with a military intervention becauseof the support offered by Hafez Assad’s regime toPKK guerrillas. Also, relations with Iran were quitetense for several reasons: (1) Iran’s support forArmenia in the latter’s conflict with Azerbaijan,which in turn was supported by Ankara, (2) Turk-ish criticism of the position of the Azeri minorityin northern Iran, (3) Iran’s support for the PKKand Islamic radical circles in Turkey, and (4) Tur-key’s close co-operation with the USA and Israel.Since 2003, these relations have improved for bothinternal and external reasons, the most signifi-cant of which are the strengthening position ofthe Kurds as a result of the US intervention in Iraq,and the electoral victory of the Justice and Deve-lopment Party (AKP) in 2002, which sees Islam asan important point of reference and supportscloser relations with the Islamic world30.Ahmet Davutoglu, international policy advisor toPrime Minister Erdogan, can be recognised as theinitiator of the new Turkish policy towards theMiddle Eastern neighbours. In his book namedStratejik Derinlik (A Strategic Depth) he presents a concept for strengthening Ankara’s internatio-nal position by improving and developing com-prehensive co-operation with all the regions bor-dering on Turkey. As can be expected, this wouldmake Turkey a more attractive candidate for theEU and could help Ankara become a better part-ner in relations with Washington. On the otherhand, in the case of any problems in relationswith the EU or the USA, close ties with regionalpartners could provide an alternative to a pro-Western line of Turkish foreign policy31. Coolingrelations with the United States and tensions incontacts with the European Union have led to
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voices urging Turkish foreign policy to reset itslong-term priorities now by rapprochement withRussia, Muslim states and China32. However, suchopinions currently have no place in Turkey’s main-stream foreign policy.The emergence of the common platform of inte-rests as a result of the change in the balance offorces in the region following the US interven-tion in Iraq has been of key significance for Tur-key’s rapprochement with Iran and Syria, whichhas also been supported by Turkish public opi-nion. The common platform principally coveredregional security and economic co-operation. TheTurkish parliament’s decision on 1 March 2003 notonly caused a caesura in Ankara’s contacts withWashington but also affected Turkey’s relationswith its Muslim neighbours. Turkey, Iran and Syriawere critical of the US intervention in Iraq, sincethey shared a common anxiety about the possibleemergence of a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq.Turkey’s stance on Iran and Syria has been great-ly affected by the change in those countries’ ap-proach to the PKK. Their governments, under so-me pressure from Ankara, have taken active mea-sures against PKK guerrillas. Syrian and Iraniansecurity forces have contributed to the liquidationof PKK bases on their territories, a step which hasbeen welcomed by Turkey. In late 2003, Syria alsohelped Ankara capture the co-planners of the ter-rorist attacks on Istanbul. According to media re-ports, Turkish and Iranian armed forces have beensporadically engaging in tactical co-operationagainst the PKK33.Numerous diplomatic visits, during which manytreaties and agreements were signed, have prov-ed that Turkey’s bilateral relations with Iran andSyria are improving34. Syria has given up its terri-torial claims on Turkey (the Hatay region) and nolonger criticises the building of a dam on the Eu-phrates and Tigris rivers, which is also a token ofwarming relations with Ankara. The Turkish go-vernment has appealed to the Syrian regime fordemocratisation, co-operation with the UN dur-ing the investigation into the murder of the Le-banese prime minister and the withdrawal oftroops from Lebanon, which was done under in-ternational pressure in 2005. However, Ankara hascategorically refused to take a tough line on Da-mascus (such as sanctions or the threat of a mili-tary intervention).
Trade exchange between Turkey, Syria and Iranhas also significantly grown over recent years35.Nevertheless, its level is rather limited in compa-rison with Turkey’s economic relations with EUmember states and the USA. Co-operation on ener-gy issues with Iran, the development of whichhas met with Washington’s discontent, is impor-tant for Turkey. Thanks to gas supplies from Iran,Turkey has been able to reduce its dependenceon Russian gas and renegotiate the disadvanta-geous gas contract with Gazprom in 2004. How-ever, energy co-operation between Turkey andIran has not been developing well, and manyproblems still exist in this area. Turkey criticisesIran for its unreasonable cuts to gas supplies andits habit of breaching contracts, and wants to re-negotiate them since it has overestimated its de-mand for gas.The clear improvement in Turkey’s relations withIran and Syria led to sharp criticism from Wa-shington in 200536. However, regarding Turkey’spolicy on Syria, Washington has recently modi-fied its stance, and has started to treat Turkey asan intermediary in communicating with BasharAssad’s regime37.The United States wants to bring about the com-plete isolation of those countries which it hasbranded as ‘rogue states’. Iran was also classifiedas part of the ‘axis of evil’ in the strategy for thewar on terror which George W. Bush announcedin January 2002. In turn, Syria was accused byWashington of sheltering members of SaddamHussein’s regime, and supporting Iraqi insurgentsand terrorists who destabilised the situation inIraq. The Syrian regime was also sharply criticis-ed by the Bush administration for interfering inthe internal affairs of Lebanon (supporting Hez-bollah) and its bad relations with Israel.The USA perceives Iran as the most serious threatto the region, and America itself, because of Iran’sofficially stated desire to destroy Israel, support-ing anti-American radical Shiite groups in Leba-non (Hezbollah) and Iraq, and in particular be-cause of its nuclear programme, which Washing-ton believes to be aimed at building a nuclearbomb. Turkey and the USA would not like Iran tohave nuclear weapons. Currently, the United Statesand Turkey have given top priority to negotia-tions conducted by countries which belong tothe UN Security Council plus Germany. Ankara hasdeclared its readiness to support possible inter-
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national sanctions that could be imposed by theUN on Iran, even though they would have an ad-verse effect on the Turkish economy. However,Ankara is definitely against any military inter-vention in Iran, which the present US adminis-tration has not ruled out. This sceptical approachby the Turkish government to a possible US attackon Iran results from its fear of Iranian counter-action (large-scale terrorist activity) which coulddestabilise the regions that border Turkey. De-finite support for US actions by Ankara has beenruled out due to the strong anti-Americanism ofthe Turkish public and elites, as well as fear thatIran could support Kurdish and Islamic terrorismin Turkey.In turn, the modification of approaches in theTurkish policy of warming relations with Muslimstates has caused a cooling in Ankara’s relationswith Israel. This has been negatively received byWashington, which is a close ally of Tel Aviv.Good Turkish-Israeli relations had been based onmilitary co-operation, the respective alliances ofthe two countries with the USA, common inter-ests in the region (including conflicts and dis-putes with Syria and Iran) and dynamic econom-ic co-operation38. However, the AKP government,which relied on an Islamic electorate, has starteddistancing itself from Israel in its policy, a changewhich was welcomed by a majority of Turkishsociety. Turkey’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinianconflict under the AKP government became morefavourable to the Palestinian side. In spring 2004,following the Israeli attacks on Rafah, Prime Mini-ster Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of using‘state terrorism’, withdrew Turkey’s ambassadorfrom Israel for consultations, and raised the rankof the Turkish diplomatic agency in the Palesti-nian Autonomy to that of an embassy. Informa-tion in June 2004 that Israeli intelligence hadbeen training Kurdish troops in Iraq certainly con-tributed to the worsening relations between Tur-key and Israel39. The Israeli government deniedthe information, although a BBC report broadcastin September 2006 showed that former Israelisecret service officers employed by private com-panies had in fact worked as military instructorsin northern Iraq40.From the point of view of Turkey, which takesa strong stance the Kurdish issue, these eventsundermined its confidence in its Israeli partner41.In February 2006, leaders of Hamas made a pri-
vate visit to Turkey. During the visit, the Turkishgovernment appealed to Hamas to recognise thestate of Israel and renounce the use of terror.The visit was very strongly criticised by bothIsrael and Washington. In turn, the Israeli inter-ventions in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip in Juneand July 2006 were opposed by Prime MinisterErdogan, who claimed they were not a justifiedreaction. Many Turkish MPs left the Turkish-Is-raeli friendship group. Some of them suggestedthat Israel’s actions reminded them of Nazi poli-cy. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül criticised theUSA for its unconditional support to Israel which,according to Ankara, made settling conflicts be-tween Israel and its neighbours more difficult.Ankara, in contrast to Washington, supportedFrance in its appeal to reach a truce as soon aspossible. Regardless of these tensions, Turkey isstill the country with which Israel has the bestrelations in the region. This has been proven byIsrael’s support for the participation of Turkishtroops in the UN-led operation in Lebanon, whichTel Aviv has not granted to any other Muslimcountry.
c) Turkish anti-Americanism
One of the underlying reasons for the change inTurkish policy towards the United States is theintensifying anti-American sentiments amongthe Turkish society, including the political elites.This concerns not only Islamic circles, who are tra-ditionally believed to be anti-American, but alsoa much broader group of nationalists, Kemalistsand secular liberals42. Furthermore, the impactof public opinion on foreign policy has grown inconnection with Turkey’s ongoing democratisa-tion as part of its adjustment to EU requirements.Turkish anti-Americanism has caused Americansto perceive Turkey in a less favourable way. Soonafter the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001,Turkey was presented by the USA as a model Mus-lim state, whose political system was based onsecularism. At that time, the AKP was praised asan Islamic democratic party. However, as of 2003,the US administration has definitely ceased pro-moting Turkey and the AKP as models to be fol-lowed by the Muslim world. Representatives ofneo-conservatives, such as Michael Rubin and Da-niel Pipes, who provide the ideological base forthe present administration, have started accus-
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ing the AKP of Islamising the country in theirpublications.
Turkish anti-Americanism consists of a criticalperception of the US foreign policy43 as threaten-ing the interests of the Turkish state, is unilater-al and does not take into account the interests ofTurkey or other countries, and is in general defi-nitely anti-Muslim. Public opinion polls haveshown that Turks clearly differentiate their sen-timents on the United States, Americans and Pre-sident George W. Bush. For example, polls con-ducted in June 2005 by the ARI Haraket instituteshowed that 27% of respondents had a very nega-tive attitude towards Americans, 49% towards theUnited States and 71% towards George W. Bush44.Answers given by Turkish respondents concern-ing the reasons for and consequences of US poli-cy in the Middle East are similar to the opinionsof the French or German publics, as has been in-dicated by polls conducted by Pew ResearchCentre between 2002 and 2005. However, Turks’dislike of Americans is much stronger than thatfelt by Western European societies45. This is con-nected with a feeling of religious solidarity and,above all, with a negative opinion on Americans’relations with Iraqi Kurds and tolerating PKK bas-es in Iraq. However, the general dislike of Ame-ricans does not translate into hatred of indivi-dual Americans, which happens in some Arabcommunities46.In the late 1990s, a definite majority of Turks hada positive opinion of the USA and Americans.America’s image among Turkish society startedworsening due to the operation in Afghanistan,strong US support for Israel and the eruption ofthe second intifada. However, a turning pointcame with the US intervention in Iraq and pre-parations for it. In spring 2003, the amount ofpositive opinions on the USA reached its lowestlevel of 12% (at the end of 2002 it had been ashigh as 30%) and rose slightly thereafter47. Sur-veys for Foreign Policy Perception, which havebeen conducted regularly since 2003 by the Turk-ish International Strategic Research Organisation,have shown that approximately 25% to 30% ofTurks believe that the USA poses the most seriousthreat to the security of their country. In pollsconducted by Pollmark in early March 2005, over30% of Turks stated that the USA could attackTurkey in the near future. Polls conducted by the
same firm at the end of 2004 indicated that theUnited States was perceived by nearly 85% ofTurks as a country which posed a threat to glob-al peace (the highest result of all the survey-co-vered countries, including Russia and Iran, andgiving a significant lead for the USA over othercountries) and by over 30% as the country thatposed the greatest threat48.The negative approach of Turkish society to USpolicy has also indirectly influenced the activitiesof the Turkish government. Out of respect for pub-lic opinion, the governing AKP party and its lead-er Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not take any ac-tions that could adversely affect public supportfor his party. On the other hand, US politicianshave reacted negatively to this passivity on thepart of Turkish authorities in overcoming anti-American stereotypes and opinions among theTurkish population.
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4. The platform of commoninterests
Regardless of existing discrepancies and negativeopinions, Turkey and the United States sharea broad platform of common interests. Ankara’sreserve in its policy towards Washington has notfundamentally affected the activities undertakenby the USA with regard to Turkey. For the UnitedStates, a Turkey which is stable, democratic andintegrated into Western structures (NATO and theEU) is a necessary precondition the for stabilisa-tion and democratisation of the Middle East,which is a top priority objective of US policy. Thekey areas of Turkish-US co-operation principallycover the process of Turkey’s European integra-tion. In this context, the issue of divided Cypruscan be used as a positive example, which playsan important role in mutual Turkish-US relationsand is essential for the Turkey’s prospects of join-ing the EU.Security co-operation, which covers combatingterrorism, preventing ethnic conflicts and mili-tary & energy collaboration, is still very impor-tant. Owing to the extensive field of common in-terests, the US-Turkish alliance still works, regard-less of existing differences of opinion on theIraqi issue.
a) Turkey’s integration with the European Union
EU membership is a priority of the Turkish go-vernment’s policy. The United States also sees the‘European anchor’ as the most effective tool toguarantee Turkey’s establishment in the Westernworld and for maintaining a democratic politicalsystem in the country49. For this reason, Washing-ton has for many years been the chief advocateof Turkey’s EU membership. The intensified acti-vity of US diplomacy can be proven by its enga-gement in lobbying among European partners(especially Germany) for establishing a customsunion between the EU and Turkey (1995) as wellas during the Helsinki summit in 1999, whenTurkey was officially granted candidate status50.The USA lobbied for Turkey in European capitalsbefore each summit when the EU took decisionson future relations between Ankara and the Union(2002, 2004 and 2005)51.
However, Washington’s ability to support Tur-key’s membership using political means was re-duced as a consequence of the outbreak of thesecond war in Iraq, which led to a sudden wors-ening in trans-Atlantic relations. This was affect-ed by the following two factors: (1) the crisis inrelations between the USA and France & Germany,the countries which play a key role in the Union’sdecision-making process and (2) the cooling ofUS-Turkish relations and the increasing similari-ty of Turkey’s position to that of its Europeanpartners.Washington’s support for Turkish membershipmay still turn into a disservice for Ankara. ManyEuropean politicians fear that American supportfor Turkey’s accession stems from the US’ desireto weaken the European Union by preventing itsfurther internal integration, as a result of whichBrussels could become a more equal partner intrans-Atlantic relations. In the opinion of thesepoliticians, such support is also a manifestationof American arrogance. The negative reception tothe US lobbying for Turkey in Europe was perfect-ly illustrated by a statement made by the FrenchPresident Jacques Chirac in June 2004; ‘It’s a bitas if I told the United States how they shouldmanage their relations with Mexico’52.The US operation in Iraq posed a dilemma forTurkish diplomacy; whether to support the UnitedStates or the European Union, mainly France andGermany, which had adopted a critical stance onAmerican activities. Turkey’s negative opinion onUS policy towards Iraq brought it closer to theEU’s position. However, from the end of 2004, pro-blems appeared in relations between Turkey andthose EU member states which had become in-creasingly critical of Turkey’s membership aspira-tions. As a consequence of the criticism, Turkeystarted feeling rejected by the European Union.This situation created a possibility of the worst-case scenario coming true, in which Turkey’srelations with both the EU and the USA wouldclearly worsen53. A dangerous effect of that couldbe a certain revaluation of Ankara’s foreign policyand closer relations with Russia, Iran and Syria54.Although such a scenario is currently far fromcoming true, it still cannot be excluded. To side-step this potential threat, Washington – regard-less of the bilateral tensions – continues its effortsto maintain correct relations with Turkey andstrongly supports Turkish membership in the EU.
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However, the United States does see certain pro-blems that may arise out of Turkey’s rapproche-ment with Europe. If Turkey establishes closerrelations with the EU, Ankara will have to har-monise its foreign policy activity with Brusselsto a greater extent, and not with Washington, ashas so far been the case. Differences of opinionsand controversies existing between Americansand Europeans may provide another point of dis-pute in US-Turkish relations in addition to thecurrent three major areas of disagreement, whichare the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Turkey’s sup-port for the establishment of the InternationalCourt of Justice (ICJ) and the stance on possiblemilitary intervention in Iran55.
b) Cyprus
The unsettled conflict over the divided island ofCyprus is a major issue in Ankara’s relations withboth Brussels and Washington, and is one of thekey problems in the process of Turkey’s integra-tion with the EU. In turn, from the United States’perspective, it is a significant factor in buildingstability in the Mediterranean region. AlthoughCyprus does not currently play a major role inTurkish-American relations it could still be a sig-nificant stimulant to improve relations betweenthe two countries, thanks to the positive recep-tion by the Turkish side of the US engagement insettling the conflict.During the cold war period, the United States at-tached great significance to alleviating the nega-tive consequences of the division of Cyprus. Themain objective was to prevent a conflict betweentwo NATO allies, Greece and Turkey, for whichthis issue was the main point of dispute.As of 2002, the United States, along with the UNand the EU, actively participated in developinga plan for the peaceful unification of the island,the so-called Annan Plan. It very warmly welcom-ed the constructive engagement by Prime Mini-ster Erdogan in activities for a peaceful settlementof the problem of Cyprus; he played an essentialrole in convincing domestic Turkish public opi-nion to accept some of the concessions necessa-ry for the conflict resolution. He backed the poli-tical forces which supported the Annan Plan(these were now ruling the Turkish Republic ofNorthern Cyprus (KKTC)), and appealed to the Cy-priot Turks to vote for the Plan in the referendum
on 24 April 2004. However, the Annan Plan didnot come into force, as it was rejected by theGreek community in the Republic of Cyprus. Dueto the rejection of the peaceful plan, the processof political settlement of the conflict was with-held. Thereafter, the United States concentratedits efforts on economic support for the Turkishpart of the island and reinforcing democratic in-stitutions. In 2005, the American programme ofsupport for the KKTC economy was worth US$30.5million56. The United States also activated con-tacts with representatives of the Turkish Cypriots.A US trade delegation made an official visit toNorthern Cyprus on 17 February 2005. In turn, on19 June 2005, the US and KKTC ambassadors inTurkey met in Ankara57. The official visit in Wa-shington on 28 October 2005 by the KKTC Presi-dent Mehmet Ali Talat, who had been invited bythe Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was a ve-ry important event. During her visit to Greeceand Turkey in April 2006, the American head ofdiplomacy criticised the policies of Athens and theCypriot Greeks and appealed to them to changetheir stance on the KKTC. Although the problemof Cyprus had not been settled, the efforts madeto do so were positively received by the Turkishpublic. In Ankara’s opinion, the position taken byWashington is much more constructive and fa-vourable than the EU policy, which is believed tobe insincere58.
c) The Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative
The US intervention in Iraq was part of a broaderconcept to democratise the Muslim world, whichthe Bush administration perceived as a necessaryprecondition for achieving a lasting stabilisationof the Middle East and eliminating terrorism. Theconcept was translated into the Broader MiddleEast and North Africa Initiative (BMENAI), whichis a priority issue of US foreign policy59. The pro-ject was initiated by the United States in June2004 at the G-8 summit in Sea Island. Its objec-tives include socioeconomic reforms and the de-mocratisation of Muslim states from Moroccothrough to Pakistan. Turkey has declared its sup-port for the initiative. Ankara’s engagement inthe BMENAI may provide a significant stimulusto improving Turkish-US relations. Turkey belie-ves that it can be helpful in the following three
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areas60. Firstly, it can act as a mediator betweenthe West (including the USA) and Iran & Syria. Se-condly, Ankara can play a similar part in the Is-raeli-Palestinian conflict. Thirdly, it can contributeto fostering democratic processes in the countrieslocated within the area covered by the BMENAI.However, Turkey’s participation in the project israther potential than certain at this stage, due toa number of limitations. Turkey is too weak an in-ternational actor to be able to play a major rolein negotiations with Iran. It also lacks any instru-ments to influence the government in Tehran.Turkey has a greater potential for playing the partof mediator in the case of Syria, although an im-provement of relations between Damascus andWashington primarily depends on the settlementof the Syrian-Israeli conflict over the GolanHeights. As for the conflict between Israel andPalestine, the Israeli side has lost confidence inAnkara as a result of worsening Turkish-Israelirelations, which makes it difficult for Turkey toact as a trustworthy mediator for both sides. Fi-nally, in the context of engagement in democra-tisation in the BMENAI area, there are two majorproblems concerning Turkey. Firstly, the secularmodel of the Turkish state, which is presented asone to be followed by Muslim states, is not attrac-tive to many of them and seems impossible toadopt. This is related to the special circumstancesof Turkey’s historical development. Secondly, Tur-key focuses too much on stabilisation in fear ofthe negative consequences of overly hasty demo-cratisation61.
d) Co-operation in the areas of security and economy
Security co-operation is still the main platform onwhich the alliance between Turkey and the USAis based. Although differences of opinions havesomewhat weakened it, the existing threats –above all terrorism and destabilisation of the situ-ation in Turkey and neighbouring regions, andcommon interests in the fields of energy and thearms industry – still form a solid basis for furtherco-operation. Turkey and the USA are co-operat-ing especially intensively within the frameworkof NATO. Turkish and US armed forces participatein common operations in Afghanistan and Koso-vo, as well as in the Alliance’s manoeuvres. Thetwo countries co-operate as part of NATO’s Part-
nership for Peace with Moldova, Ukraine and Cau-casian & Central Asian countries. They both sup-port Georgia’s and Ukraine’s NATO membership,and are especially engaged in modernising theGeorgian army. The Incirlik Air Base has been ofkey logistic significance for the US operation inIraq. Many of the supplies for US troops in Iraqare also delivered from Mediterranean ports byground transport through Turkey.However, Turkey’s strong sense of sovereignty,together with improving Turkish-Russian rela-tions since 2003, have given rise to certain prob-lems in Turkish-US military co-operation, espe-cially in the Black Sea region. Rapprochement be-tween Turkey and Russia is an effect of the wors-ening relations of these two countries with theUSA as well as tensions in Turkish-EU relations.This move is intended to expand the room for ma-noeuvre for both Russia and Turkey in their rela-tions with Washington and Brussels62. Turkeydoes not want the American military presence inthe region to grow significantly because it seessuch a scenario as causing confrontation withRussia and diminishing Turkish influence. In April2005, Turkey’s abstention enabled Russia to pre-vent the USA from being granted the status of anobserver in the Organisation of Black Sea Econo-mic Co-operation (BSEC), the most important re-gional organisation, although the USA finally re-ceived the status in September 2005 togetherwith Belarus, which was accepted at Moscow’sspecial request.The American desire to increase their military pre-sence in the Black Sea region was manifested inthe idea of expanding the NATO-led antiterroristoperation Active Endeavour over the Black Sea.However, to do so, it would have been necessaryto renegotiate the Montreux Convention (1936),which imposes a certain limit on the presence ofwarships of other countries than those border-ing the Black Sea. The proposal was opposed byTurkey, which saw the Convention as a pillar ofits national sovereignty. The US stopped pressingTurkey on this issue in May 2006. According tosome analysts, Washington wanted to put off An-kara’s closer co-operation with Moscow by reco-gnising Turkish interests63. As a result, in earlyJune 2006, Turkey took part in the new pro-Ame-rican regional initiative, the Black Sea Forum,which was ignored by Russia.
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Another significant element to cement Turkish-US co-operation is the implementation of commonenergy projects64. Turkey, after Russia, is the mostimportant country for energy transit from CentralAsia and the Caucasus65. Ankara and Washingtonare interested in developing this role for Turkey,and effectively reducing the Russian dominationof the energy market. The most important pro-ject in which Turkey and the USA currently par-ticipate is the start-up of the Baku–Tbilisi–Cey-han (BTC) oil pipeline, which officially took placein July 2006. The BTC pipeline enables oil transitfrom the Caspian Sea region without involvingRussia. This is one of the largest oil projects thathave been recently implemented; its construc-tion cost nearly US$4 billion. The construction ofthe Baku–Tbilisi–Erzurum gas pipeline, plannedto be launched in autumn 2006, is another pro-ject in which the USA and Turkey are strongly en-gaged. Since early 2006, Washington and Ankarahave been trying to convince Turkmenistan to ac-cept the idea of exporting gas via the Caspian Sea,Caucasus and Turkey, and skipping Russia.As part of its plan to diversify its energy sources,Turkey is planning to build three nuclear powerplants by 2015. Pursuant to an agreement withthe United States, which was accepted by theTurkish parliament in July 2006, the nuclear tech-nology will come from America.Last but not least, the United States and Turkeyare engaged in very close military co-operation,the key manifestations of which are the educationof Turkish officers at US military universities andthe purchase of US military equipment by theTurkish army. A great majority of weapons in itsarsenal come from the USA66.For Turkey, the United States has been an impor-tant trade partner for many years (on average, ittakes fifth place, and trade exchange with the USAaccounts for nearly 5% of Turkish trade exchange)as well as a significant foreign investor (fourthplace, nearly 10% of foreign investments). TheUSA is also a guarantor of financial aid grantedvia the International Monetary Fund (IMF) andto a lesser extent via the World Bank to the Turk-ish economy, which is still not exactly stable.Turkey is the most significant IMF debtor.
5. Conclusion and forecast
In 2006, three years since the emergence of thecrisis, the greatest problems in US-Turkish rela-tions have not been solved. These have mainlybeen caused by the lasting instability in the Mid-dle East region, especially in Iraq. One can hard-ly expect that the main problems of the MiddleEast, the Kurdish issue, the stabilisation of Iraq,Iran’s atomic programme and the conflict be-tween Israel and the Arab world will be resolvedsoon. It must be taken into account that theseissues may cause some problems in relations be-tween Washington and Ankara for a long time tocome. The status of the city and environs of Kirkukmay be an especially controversial issue in the im-mediate future. The Iraqi constitution providesfor a referendum on the status of Kirkuk to be heldby the end of 2007. Considering the problemswith setting the borders between polling dis-tricts and designating the electorate authorisedto vote, the referendum, if held, may cause ten-sion between Turkey and the USA.However, it is worth noting both sides’ clear willto improve mutual relations. Neither the USA norTurkey wants to escalate the disputes. Regard-less of their existing differences of opinion, since2003 many major Turkish politicians, diplomatsand military officials have visited the USA, andvice versa. Both countries have been trying totake actions that will bring them closer to rappro-chement. In early July 2006, during the visit bythe Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül to Wa-shington, both countries signed a document in-tended to revive the strategic US-Turkish part-nership. The Strategic Vision document specifiesareas of their co-operation (including the stabilisa-tion of Iraq and the region covered by the BMENAI,Central Asia and the Caucasus; settling Arab-Is-raeli conflicts; combating terrorism and otherthreats such as smuggling, arms trafficking, etc.)and is aimed at intensifying the dialogue to carryout specific tasks67. The United States has beentrying to emphasise Turkey’s significance as a keyally and partner during the visits. Events of thiskind improve the atmosphere of mutual relations,even though they do not predetermine that thecrises will be overcome.The USA needs Turkey’s favourable stance to-wards and support for its policy in the Middle East,especially on the issues of Iran and Iraq. A grad-
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ual improvement of stability in Iraq would enableTurkey, the Kurds of northern Iraqi and the USAto take more effective political and military actionagainst the PKK, and thus to remove one of thegreatest problems in their mutual relations. A fur-ther change of Turkish internal policy on the Turk-ish Kurds is equally important to resolve the pro-blem, however. If the conflict between Iraq’s Sun-nis and Shiites escalates further and turns intoa full-scale civil war, the country may disintegrateand another challenge, to wit the possible inde-pendence of Kurdistan, may arise in Turkish-USrelations. Washington would have to take on thedifficult task of finding a modus vivendi betweenAnkara and Irbil, without alienating any of thepartners.Turkey’s favour for the American policy in theMiddle East would certainly grow if the USA andthe EU could reach a compromise in their talkswith Tehran. Unfortunately, such an optimisticscenario is rather improbable. Possible UN sanc-tions on Iran will be supported by Ankara, whichwill not take the risk of being isolated by the in-ternational community. This policy will be unpo-pular in Turkey because of the financial losses itwill entail. If the violent scenario is realised andthe USA attacks Iran (bombardments, paratroopsattacks by special units), Ankara’s consent forthe US Air Force to use the airbase in Incirlik willbe a problem. Turkey will probably accept Wa-shington’s request, if the United States receivesapproval for its activities from the EuropeanUnion. As was the case in the US intervention inIraq, the great majority of the Turkish public willbe against the American actions. Turkish-US re-lations may worsen as a result of Tehran’s reac-tion to an American attack (such as large-scalesupport for terrorism), which would destabilisethe situation in the region. If the internationalcommunity grants only limited support for theattack on Iran, this may also lead to Turkey re-fusing the US access to the airbase in Incirlik.Another development in the Turkish-Americanrelations which would have grave consequencesmay be the potential vote by the US Congress ona resolution concerning the Armenian genocide.Such a motion has became even more likely as theDemocrats, who enjoy close ties with the Arme-nian lobby in the US, secured a majority in the USCongress in the mid-term elections in November2006.
The process of Turkey’s integration with the Eu-ropean Union will also have a great impact onthe further development of US-Turkish relations.A possible failure of the Turkish-EU negotiationsmay lead to anti-Western sentiments rising, andthe Turkish government’s search for compensa-tion for such failures by developing relations withMuslim countries, Russia and China. Such a swingin Turkish policy would undoubtedly make it im-possible to maintain a close alliance with the USA.A crisis in Turkey’s relations with the EuropeanUnion does not have to mean a collapse of its al-liance with the United States, provided that a mo-derately positive scenario is realised in the MiddleEast. In such a case, the alliance with the USAcould become an alternative for Ankara to its re-lations with the EU. In turn, the USA would gainan important ally in its possible political rivalrywith Europe.The ‘worst-case scenario’, i.e. open enmity be-tween Turkey and the EU & the USA, and Anka-ra’s rapprochement with anti-Western states israther unlikely. Washington will try to avoid sucha situation, as will some of the EU’s member sta-tes. The scale of politico-economic relations be-tween Turkey and the West is so great that an un-certain alliance with China, Russia, Iran and Syriais perceived by a majority of realistically–dispos-ed Turkish elites as merely a sham alternative tothe Western direction. However, it is possible thata prolonged period of colder relations betweenTurkey and the Western world is imminent.Rafa∏ SadowskiCo-operation Adam Balcer
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1 F. Stephen Larrabee, Ian O. Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policyin an Age of Uncertainty, RAND, 2003, p.162.2 Çagri Erhan, ‘Türkiye-ABD iliskileri mantiksal ˜er˜evesi’, inTürk Dis Politkasi, (ed.) Idris Bal, 2004 Ankara, pp. 139–150.3 George Sellers Harris, ‘Turkish-American Relations Sincethe Truman Doctrine’, in, Turkish-American Relations: Past,Present and Future, ed. Mustafa Aydin, Çagri Erhan, London2003, pp. 66–91.4 F. Stephen Larrabee, Ian O. Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policyin an Age of Uncertainty, RAND, 2003, p.163.5 Mehmet Y. Kalin, Implications of EU Admittance of Turkeyon Turkish-EU Relations and Turkish-US Relations, U.S.Army War College, Carlise, 2005, p.166 In 1975, the US Congress passed a resolution on the issueof the Armenian genocide. 38 states (parliaments and gover-nors) made declarations regarding this issue. The Greek andArmenian diasporas in the USA are much more numerousand wealthier than the Turkish community. The previouslygood relations between Turkey and the Jewish lobby havebeen weakened because of the worsening relations be-tween Turkey and Israel. Suhnaz Yilmaz, ‘Impact of Lobbieson Turkish American Relations’, in, Turkish-American Rela-tions: Past, Present and Future, ed. Mustafa Aydin, CagriErhan, London 2003, pp. 181–212.7 Çagri Erhan, ibid.8 Çagri Erhan, ibid.9 Çagri Erhan, ibid.10 F. Stephen Larrabee, Ian O. Lesser , Turkish Foreign Policyin an Age of Uncertainty, RAND, 2003, p.166.11 Approximately 15 to 20% of Turkey’s residents, i.e. 12 to15 million people, are Kurds. They account for nearly half ofthe Kurds living in the Middle East. Kurds are also numer-ous among the populations of Turkey’s neighbours (Iraq,Iran and Syria). In 1984, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),a Marxist organisation of Turkish Kurds (which was notsupported by most of Turkey’s Kurdish community), starteda rebellion in south-eastern Turkey, striving for setting upan independent Kurdistan. According to estimates, between35,000 and 40,000 people have died so far in clashes betweenthe PKK and the Turkish army.12 Mehmet Y. Kalin, The Implications of EU Admittance ofTurkey on Turkish-EU Relations and Turkish-US Relations,U.S. Army War College, Carlise, 2005, p. 16.13 Ömer Taspinar, Changing Parameters in U.S.-German-Turk-ish Relations, 2005, p.19.14 Steven A Cook, U.S.-Turkey Relations and the War on Ter-rorism, 2001. The participation in the operation in Afgha-nistan was also expected to enable Turkey to reinforce itsinfluence in the Central Asian region, which it has culturaland historical ties with.15 In autumn 2001, two-thirds of Turks were against the US-led operation in Afghanistan. In turn, in 2004, nearly half ofthe respondents were against Turkish involvement in Afgha-nistan. See Transatlantic Trends 2005, p. 39. http://www.transatlantictrends.org/doc/2005_english_top.pdf16 The Turkish parliament voted to decide on consent to de-ploy 62,000 US soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division, the 3rd
Armoured Cavalry Regiment, 255 aircraft, 65 combat heli-copters and an unspecified number of special and support
units to take part in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The deal alsoincluded permission to send Turkish troops to northern Iraq.Pursuant to arrangements with the Americans, Turkey couldhave sent nearly 60,000 troops to the 30-kilometre borderzone, extended to 40 kilometres, and would have gained con-trol over the roads to Mosul and Kirkuk. Additionally, theUnited States would have given Turkey US$15 billion in fi-nancial aid and loans. It is worth adding that although a greatmajority of the Turkish public were against the Americanintervention, at the same time in March 2003, more than halfof Turks supported the engagement of the Turkish army innorthern Iraq, and a significant minority (nearly 40%) be-lieved the rejection of the deal had been a mistake. Soner Ari-kanoglu, ‘45 bin asker yolda’, Radikal, 28 February 2003,http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=6752117 Barak A Salmoni., ‘Strategic Partners or Estranged Allies:Turkey, the United States, and Operation Iraqi Freedom’,Strategic Insights, vol. II, issue 7, July 2003.18 Ibid.19 Gareth Jenkins, ‘Turkish parliament votes to send troopsto Iraq’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, no. 659, 9–15 October 2003.20 In May 2003, Paul Wolfowitz in an interview for CNN Türksharply criticised the Turkish parliament’s decision, and espe-cially the passivity of the generals. Deputy Secretary of De-fense Wolfowitz’s Interview with CNN Türk, http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030506-depsecdef0156.html21 Michael Rubin, ‘A Comedy of Errors: American-Turkish Di-plomacy and the Iraq War’, Turkish Policy Quarterly, Spring2005.22 Soner Çagaptay, ‘Whither the U.S.-Turkish Relationship?’,Middle East Quarterly, 2004.23 For more information on the Kurdish issue, see the chap-ter The hurdle race: The greatest political and social barrierson Turkey’s way to the EU.24 ‘Rice Visit to Turkey: A New Turning Point for US-TurkeyRelations’, The Journal of Turkish Weekly, www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=3055725 The US policy adjustment may be a result of informationon the tactical co-operation of Turkish and Iranian armedforces against the PKK. Ümit Enginsoy, ‘US probes shellingof northern Iraq’, 24 August 2006, Turkish Daily News.26 ‘Irak PKK’yi yasakladi’, Milliyet, 20 September 2006.27 Michael Rubin, ‘A Comedy of Errors: American-Turkish Di-plomacy and the Iraq War’, Turkish Policy Quarterly, Spring2005.28 The great majority of Turks condemn suicide attacks. How-ever, in some surveys, such as those conducted by the Poll-mark centre, most Turks have expressed positive opinionsabout the anti-American resistance in Iraq. For the poll re-sults see the Pollmark website; http:// www.pollmark.com.tr29 Conversation with Sanli Bahadir Ko˜, a specialist at theCentre for Eurasian Strategic Studies (ASAM) in Ankara inJuly 2005.30 In June 2004, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, representing Turkey,was elected secretary general of the Organisation of IslamicStates.31 Ahmet Davutoglu, Stratejik Derinlik, Istanbul 2001.
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32 As a matter of convention, we can assume that this trendbegan in March 2002, when General Tuncer Kili˜, the Secre-tary of the National Security Council, gave up efforts to-wards EU membership and established closer co-operationwith Iran and Russia.33 Ümit Enginsoy, ‘US probes shelling of northern Iraq’, 24 August 06, Turkish Daily News.34 The most significant were the visits by the Syrian Pre-sident Bashir Assad in January 2004, and by Prime MinisterRecep Tayyip Erdogan in July 2004 to Iran and in December2004 to Damascus.35 Iran is a major import partner for Turkey, and Turkey isa major partner in Iran’s exports (in both cases seventh oreighth position in importance). It is estimated that the tradeexchange between Turkey and Iran exceeded US$5 billion in2006. Turkey has an enormous trade deficit in its relationswith Iran. Turkish exports to Iran constitute as little as under20% of Iranian exports to Turkey. Syria is not an importanttrade partner for Turkey, while Turkey has become one of thekey trade partners for Syria since 2004 (second or third inimportance, over 10% of trade exchange). ‘T.C. BasbakanlikDis Ticaret Müstesarligi’, http://www.foreigntrade.gov.tr36 The US Ambassador in Turkey, Eric Edelman, openly criti-cised President Ahmet Sezer’s visit to Syria in April 2005.37 In November 2005, after Turkish Foreign Minister AbdullahGül’s visit to Syria, Damascus transferred those suspectedof the murder of the Lebanese prime minister to the UN. Ab-dullah Gül visited Damascus shortly after meeting Condo-leezza Rice at the Bahrain summit of the Broader Middle Eastand North Africa Initiative. In early July 2006, during a visitby Foreign Minister Gül, Secretary of State Rice thanked Tur-key for its diplomatic mediation between the USA and Da-mascus.38 Turkey is one of Israel’s major trade partners (seventh oreighth in importance, nearly 3% of Israel’s trade exchange).Their co-operation in the arms industry is especially impor-tant. Apart from that, many Israeli tourists visit Turkey everyyear.39 Seymour M Hersh., ‘Plan B’, 30 June 2004, The New Yorker,http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/040628fa_fact40 One of the companies was directed by a former head ofIsraeli special forces. BBC, ‘Kurdish soldiers trained by Israe-lis’, 20 September 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/program-mes/newsnight/5363116.stm41 Brian Mahler, Israel’s Shifting Geopolitical Security Con-cerns Threaten its Relationship with Turkey, 2004.42 Soner Çagaptay, Changing Turkish Public Attitudes to-ward United States: Premises and Prospects, 2005.43 Ömer Taspinar, ‘The Anatomy of Anti-Americanism in Tur-key’, The Brookings Institution, 2005.44 ARI Hareket, Turkish Public Opinion about the USA andAmericans, p. 3, http://www.ari.org.tr/arastirma/Turkish%20Public%20Opinion%20on%20the%20Americans%20&%20the%20United%20States.pdf45 Transatlantic Trends 2005 surveys concerning the attitudeto the USA among selected NATO member states indicatedthat the attitude is the least favourable in Turkey. In the caseof Turkey the rate was 28 points on the scale from 0 (very
cold attitude) to 100 (very warm attitude), while the nextstate whose society was negatively disposed to the USA wasSpain, with the rate of 42 points. Transatlantic Trends 2005,p. 34. http://www.transatlantictrends.org/doc/TTToplineData2005.pdf.46 According to Pollmark surveys conducted in March 2005,a definite majority of Turks did not mind the possibility ofan American receiving Turkish citizenship, or working andliving together with an American. Most respondents also ac-cepted the possibility of marriage of a close relative with anAmerican woman.47 ‘US Image up slightly but still negative’, pp. 44-45. http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/247.pdf48 Pollmark, http://www.pollmark.com.tr/arastirma.asp49 Morton Abramovitz, ‘An American Perspective on Turkeyand the EU’, Zaman, 30 December 2005.50 Ömer Taspinar, Changing Parameters in U.S.-German-Turk-ish Relations, 2005.Morton Abramovitz, ibid.51 On 2 October 2005, when Austria’s resistance put the be-ginning of EU-Turkish negotiations in jeopardy, Prime Mini-ster Erdogan asked Washington for help. Political pressurefrom American diplomacy was one of the reasons why Viennachanged its stance.52 Joshua Chaffin, ‘EU anger as Bush calls for Turkish mem-bership’, 30 June 2004, Financial Times.53 Soner Çagaptay, European Recalcitrance toward Turkey:An Agenda for U.S.-Turkish Ties in Summer 2005, 2005.54 Considering the fact that Turkey is competing with Iranand Russia in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East,such an alliance would be tactical and calculating in its na-ture.55 Morton Abramovitz, ‘An American Perspective on Turkeyand the EU’, Zaman, 30 December 2005.56 John Sitildes, ‘The Road Through Brussels: Cyprus on theUS-Turkey Agenda’, Turkish Policy Quarterly, vol. 4, No. 1,Spring 2005.57 Soner Çagaptay, Turkey at a Crossroads: Preserving An-kara’s Western Orientation, Washington, 2005.58 Soner Çagaptay, European Recalcitrance toward Turkey:An Agenda for U.S.-Turkish Ties in Summer 2005, 2005.59 Turkey on the Threshold: Europe’s Decision and U.S. Inte-rests, ed. Morton I. Abramovitz, Richard R. Burt, AtlanticCouncil, Washington, 2004.60 Ömer Taspinar, Changing Parameters in U.S.-German-Turkish Relations, 2005.Yakup Beris, Asli Gurkan, Broader Middle East Initiative: Per-ceptions from Turkey, 2004. TUSIAD, Turkey in Focus, issue 7,July 2004, http://www.tusiad.us/Content/uploaded/TURKEY-AND-BROADER-MIDDLE-EAST-TURKEY-IN-FOCUS-ISSUE7-FINAL.PDF61 Turkey criticised the fixing of the parliamentary electionsin Azerbaijan in 2005 much more mildly than Washingtondid. The latter has gradually softened its criticism of IlhamAliev’s regime. However, the USA and Turkey took a simi-larly critical stance on the Andijan massacre in Uzbekistanin 2005, for which Islam Karimov’s regime was responsible.62 Turkey and Russia do not want any significant enhance-ment of the US presence, especially military, in the Black Sea
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region or in the Caucasus. They are sceptical about the US po-licy of putting pressure on some authoritarian regimes, forexample Syria. They are critical of the US intervention in Iraq,a possible attack on Iran and Washington’s unconditionalsupport for Israel. Turkey and Russia claim they are willingto co-operate in the transit of Russian gas through Turkeyto Europe and the Middle East.However, Turkish-Russian relations are ambivalent in manyfields, and the two countries’ interests are often in conflict.Russia’s approach to the US engagement in Asia is more un-compromising than that of Turkey. Ankara is interested incommon activities with the USA, however on the under-standing that it is treated as a partner, which means lessdirect involvement by the USA. Russia is Turkey’s second big-gest trade partner; however, this trade exchange is basedon the enormous (and still growing) deficit on the Turkishside. Russia’s key export commodity is gas, which Turkey de-pends on. Due to unfavourable trade contracts entered intoduring the 1990s, the gas prices are high and supplies ex-ceed Turkey’s demand. Ankara has for several years been try-ing in vain to convince Russia to renegotiate the contracts.Turkey is interested in diversifying its energy sources, andin the transit of gas and oil from Central Asia without Mos-cow’s control. Russia and Turkey also have differing visionsof the planned routes of pipelines to go around the straits.Ankara has curtailed the activity of supporters of Chechenseparatists, and Russia that of the PKK sympathisers. How-ever, Russia has not included the PKK in its list of terroristorganisations. In turn, some local AKP activists have sup-ported Chechen separatists. Moscow is the patron of Arme-nia, which Turkey has very bad relations with, and supportsCyprus in the international arena, which has not been re-cognised by Ankara. Most importantly, Moscow is not inte-rested in significantly increasing Turkey’s influence in theCaucasus, the Middle East, Central Asia ir the Black Sea re-gion, or in Turkey’s EU membership. According to Fionna Hilland Ömer Taspinar, ‘As both sides will admit, there is not yetmuch political substance to their relations. The states arestill more natural rivals than regional allies.’ Fionna Hill,Ömer Taspinar, Turkey and Russia: Axis of the Excluded?,p.10. http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/fhill/2006_survival.pdf63 Umit Enginsoy, ‘US drops Black Sea plan, Turkey relieved’,Turkish Daily News, 8 May 2006.64 Agata ̧ oskot, Turkey – an energy transit corridor to the EU?,CES Studies no. 17, 2004, http://www.osw.waw.pl/en/epub/eprace/17/01.htm65 The Turkish armed forces’ equipment includes over 1600M60 tanks (some of them are older models which have beenmodernised), over 3300 M-113 armoured personnel carriers,280 F-16 aircraft and over 150 F-4 aircraft, more than 70Blackhawk helicopters and 40 Cobra helicopters, and 11 fri-gates built by the United States. International Institute forStrategic Studies, Military Balance 2006; http://www.iiss.org/publications/the-military-balanceIn January 2007, Turkey and the United States signed a me-morandum of understanding for the U.S.-led F-35 JointStrike Fighter program, officially making Ankara one of thenine partner states in the production of the next-genera-
tion aircraft. Turkey announced plans to buy 100 F-35s worthnearly $11 billion over the next 15 to 20 years. The F-35program is the largest and most strategic defence procure-ment project in Turkey’s history. On 7 February 2007, theTurkish state-owned TÜSAS Aerospace Industries (TAI) sign-ed a letter of intent with a principal member of LockheedMartin’s F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft team to be a secondsource for the aircraft’s construction, a deal which was worthmore than $3 billion for TAI.66 Ümit Enginsoy, ‘Turkey, US invest hopes in shared visiondocument’, 7 July 2006, Turkish Daily News.67 Yüksel Söylemez, ‘The first testing of Turkey’s shared stra-tegic vision with the United States’, 23 July 2006, TurkishDaily News.
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Chasing Europe:
the Turkish economy at
the onset of negotiations
with the European Union
Wojciech Paczyƒski
Theses
1. Over the last four years, Turkey has managedto implement changes which have significantlystrengthened its economy. This has been possi-ble thanks to a coincidence of several external andinternal factors, both economic and political. Theprospect of integration with the European Unionhas played a pivotal role in improving Turkey’seconomic policy and its progress in other fields.Its effect may last into the future, provided thatthe prospect is real. Uncertainties about the ac-cession negotiations, which are appearing now,may seriously weaken that same mechanismwhich has mobilised Turkish society and its poli-ticians to carry out reforms. It is still unclear whe-ther the social and political consensus necessaryfor further transformation can be achieved if theprocess of Turkey’s integration with the EU findsitself in a serious crisis.
2. In terms of demographic and economic poten-tial, Turkey is comparable to the bloc of 10 stateswhich joined the European Union on 1 May 2004.The country’s development level is still similarto, or even slightly lower, than those of Bulgariaand Romania.
3. For several decades Turkey has been stronglyintegrated with the European Union in terms oftrade. The rapid growth in foreign direct invest-ments noticeable since 2005 may be a significantfactor contributing to the modernisation of thecountry.
4. The major challenges Turkey’s social and eco-nomic policy will have to face include ensuringgood conditions for creating new jobs for peoplewho reach working age or have left agriculture;increasing employment; improving the educationsystem; raising the levels of education & employ-ment of women; and lessening the developmen-tal differences between particular regions.
5. Short-term forecasts for Turkey’s economic de-velopment are optimistic, although a risk of ma-croeconomic instability cannot be excluded.
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1. A brief historical overview of the Turkish economy’s development during the twentieth century
When the Republic of Turkey was established in1923, it was a very poor and backward country.Between 80% and 90% of its inhabitants werefarmers and could not read or write. Over the sub-sequent eight decades, Turkey has made a civili-sational leap. Currently, nearly 30% of its popu-lation are employed in agriculture, and only about13% of the country’s residents are illiterate. Al-though the civilisational gap between WesternEurope and Turkey has significantly shortened,it is still quite considerable. Since the 1920s, Tur-key has been developing at an average rate of over4% annually, yet its per capita GDP growth hasbeen significantly lower (nearly 2.5%). This is aneffect of high population growth1, the rate ofwhich has consistently been falling, as well as theconsiderable slowdown in the Turkish economybetween the mid-1970s and the beginning of thiscentury.From the onset of the Republic until the early1980s, Turkey’s economic policy was state-con-trolled and protectionist. It yielded high economicgrowth, on the average at over 7% annually (withthe exception of World War II), although in the1970s, when globalisation of the world’s economyexpanded and the oil shocks took place (in 1973and 1979), this policy proved inefficient2. In the1980s, Turgut Özal’s government started free-market economic reforms (liberalisation of trade& finances and privatisation). However, politicalinstability (the conflict with Kurdish separatistguerrilla forces) and the continuation of the popu-list economic policy by subsequent governments(including social expenses) caused high inflation(the average annual rate was nearly 90% in the1990s), the development of the informal economy,high growth of public and foreign debt, and re-peated economic crises (1994, 1999 and 2001).This led the economic growth to be smaller incomparison with the preceding periods (the ave-rage annual rate in the 1980s and 1990s wasabout 4%)3. The last of these crises was the worstin the Republic’s history, although Turkey mana-ged to overcome it thanks to support from inter-national financial institutions (principally the In-
ternational Monetary Fund)4. Then Ankara, moni-tored by those institutions, carried out structuralreforms (such as making the central bank inde-pendent, amending the banking laws andchanging the system of agricultural subsidies),which created favourable conditions for an eco-nomic stabilisation for the first time in the lastpast 25 years.
2. General characteristics of the present condition of the Turkish economy
Turkey is now in a crucial moment of its econo-mic history. As recently as six years ago, follow-ing a very serious financial crisis, its economywas in deep recession, the inflation rate reached70% and the public debts exceeded 90% of theGNP. The depreciation of the Turkish lira by 50%,interest rates of nearly 100%, the serious break-down in the banking sector and a wave of bank-ruptcies were elements of a rather sad picture.Nevertheless, recovery from the crisis has appear-ed to be rapid and successful. Beginning in 2002,Turkey showed fast economic growth and mana-ged to restore its macroeconomic balance; for thefirst time in the past 35 years the inflation ratehas dropped to single digits, and the proportionof public debt to the GNP has decreased fromnearly 100% in 2001 to 55% in 2005.Turkey owes its recent success to several factors;political stabilisation since the 2002 elections,the prospect of European integration and backingfrom international financial institutions have allhelped it embark on an ambitious reform pro-gramme. Deep-seated changes in the operationof public finances, the institutional basis of themonetary policy and labour, commodity and fi-nancial markets offer an opportunity for Turkeyto break out of the vicious circle of economic in-stability which the country has been trapped infor decades. On the other hand, further reforms,which are necessary to maintain the high paceof economic growth, reduce delays and bring thecountry closer to European standards of develop-ment will be hard, and successes in this field willnot be easy to achieve.The prospect of European integration still playsa key role in stimulating reforms. The European
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Union’s decision to start accession negotiationswith Turkey in December 2004 and the beginningof the negotiations in October 2005 was an im-portant sign for the government, society and fi-nancial markets. According to an optimistic sce-nario, the mechanism will work for many yearsas Turkey will slowly make progress on its waytowards EU membership (which, however, willnot take place any earlier than 2014). However,on the other hand, a positive outcome of the ac-cession negotiations is not a foregone conclusion,and the idea of accepting Turkey into the EU re-mains very unpopular in many member states.Therefore, making a strong connection betweenTurkish reforms and the accession process can alsobe risky. If the process encounters serious impe-diments, either posed by the EU or arising inter-nally in Turkey, confidence in the reforms couldsuddenly be undermined, which may cause seri-ous unrest or a financial crisis.
3. Turkey as compared to Europe and the world
Turkey is one of the largest European countriesin terms of territory and population number. In2004, the number of Turkey’s inhabitants (over71 million) was equivalent to over 15% of the po-pulation of the entire European Union. Moreover,population growth is much faster in Turkey thanin EU countries. Between 2003 and 2004, Turkey’spopulation grew by as much as 1.5%, while thesame rate was at 0.4% in the EU-15 and even low-er in most of the new member states. Turkishsociety is very young; the share of people under15 years of age in the total population reached29.2% in 2004, as compared to 16.2% in the EU-15,17% in Poland and 14% in Germany, the latter be-ing the only EU country whose population is larg-er than that of Turkey.
Turkey’s economic role in Europe is also signifi-cant, albeit definitely smaller than its demogra-phic potential. According to data from the Inter-national Monetary Fund, Turkey’s GDP in 2005,calculated according to market currency exchangerates (US$362 billion), is the 19th largest in theworld and 8thlargest among the group of EU mem-
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Notice: Data for 2005 are forecasts.Source: Eurostat
Figure 1. GDP per capita at purchasing power parity in 2000 and 2005 (EU-25 mean = 100)
HungaryCzech RepublicEU 15 Poland Latvia Croatia Bulgaria Romania Turkey
ber and candidate states, just behind Belgium. Ifthe comparison is based on currency exchangerates which take into account the purchasing po-wer parity (PPP), Turkey would rise to 6th in thegroup of EU member and candidate states, just infront of the Netherlands and Poland. In terms ofGDP per capita, Turkey is the poorest country ascompared to the current EU member states andthe candidates to membership engaged in acces-sion negotiations, although the differences be-tween Turkey and Romania or Bulgaria are verysmall.
Other standard of living indices do not reach thelevels that a developed country would normallyhave. In 2004, life expectancy in Turkey (71) wasdefinitely lower than in any other country whichbelonged to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the sameyear, Turkey’s infant mortality rate was over threetimes higher than the highest in the EuropeanOECD member states, namely Slovakia, Polandand Hungary5.According to the Human Development index pu-blished by the UN, Turkey is 92nd of the 177 coun-tries for which the index has been calculated.For comparison, Poland is 37th, Bulgaria 54th andRomania 60th 6.The vast gaps in the level of development be-tween the western and eastern regions of Tur-key (which are larger than those in EU memberstates) are a serious problem. This concerns boththe GDP per capita rates and many other humandevelopment indices such as life expectancy, edu-cation, infant mortality, etc. Moreover, althoughthe poorer regions are developing economically,the richer part of the country is developing even
faster, and so in some areas the differences haveincreased rather than lessened.
A characteristic feature that distinguishes Turkeyfrom its European partners is its employment stru-cture. Nearly 50% of professionally active Turks,including over 30% of non-agricultural workers,are employed in the informal sector. The under-ground economy generates more than a third ofTurkey’s GDP7.The rate of professional activity in Turkey is muchlower than in any EU member state. Moreover,some data indicates that the levels of professionalactivity and employment have fallen over recentyears. According to Eurostat’s data on economicactivity in 2005 (data for the first three quarters),only 46% of Turkey’s residents aged between 15and 64 were employed. This was about 2 to 3 per-centage points less than in the years 2000–2001.For comparison, the same survey indicated thatthe employment rate was at nearly 64% through-out the EU, 56% in Bulgaria and 58% in Romania.This disproportion is an effect of the especiallylow professional activity by women in Turkeywhich, at 27% in 2006, was less than half of therespective levels in the EU, Bulgaria or Romania.The low level of professional activity by womenis principally a consequence of the patriarchal andconservative model of a major part of Turkish so-ciety, and the low education level, which serious-ly diminishes opportunities of employment in ot-her sectors than agriculture or the informal eco-nomy. In effect, uneducated women who migratefrom rural to urban areas are unable to find legaljobs, and work in the informal sector much moreoften than men do.
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Category
GDP per capita (PPP) in US$
Total fertility rate
Infant mortality (per 1000 live births)
Hospital beds per 100,000 residents
Rate of illiteracy among the entire population
Agricultural employment share (data for 2005)
East Marmara Region(Western Turkey)
9668
2,0
40
228
7%
19%
North-Eastern Anatolia
2881
3,8
62
184
16%
62%
South-Eastern Anatolia
3550
4,8
42
134
22%
30%
Table 1. Regional differences in Turkey in 2000
Source: Türkiye Istatik Kurumu (Turkish Board of Statistics), http://tuikapp.tuik.gov.tr
Agricultural employment share, which was 29%in 2006, twice as much as in Poland and almostsix times more than the average in the OECD, isvery high8. However, the share has been droppingas a consequence of rural-urban migration; asrecently as six years ago it exceeded 40%.The aforementioned issues give a true picture ofthe vast challenges Turkey has to face, the need toprovide conditions to ensure the very fast emer-gence of new jobs (mainly in the services sector)for legions of young people and emigrants fromrural areas, and to reduce the informal sector.In comparison to EU member and candidate states,Turkey has much poorer results in the fields ofeducation and investment in human resources.Nearly 13% of its residents cannot read or write,and the illiteracy rate among women is even high-er, reaching nearly 20%. Regardless of significantthe progress which has been made in this field,pre-school education is at a level several timeslower than in EU member states; nearly 10% ofchildren between the ages of 6 and 14 (predomi-nantly girls) do not go to school, and despite re-cent enormous changes the disproportion in thenumbers of male and female students at secon-dary schools and higher education facilities is stillsignificant. Improving the accessibility, universa-lity and quality of education, especially women’seducation, is of key importance for many econo-mic and social processes in Turkey. For example,the problem of the low professional activity bywomen in cities does not concern women withhigher education at all, and affects female secon-dary-school graduates only to a limited extent.
4. Trade integration with the EUand direct foreign investments
Turkey is very strongly integrated with the Euro-pean Union in terms of trade. In 2005, over 52%of total Turkish exports went to the 25 memberstates. Over 42% of its total imports came fromthe EU. Turkey also has quite strong trade rela-tions with Romania and Bulgaria (nearly 4% of ex-ports and 3% of imports), which are about to jointhe Union in 2007. Trade integration with the EUis not a recent issue; from as early as the 1950s,nearly half of total Turkey’s foreign trade hasbeen carried on with the 25 countries which now
make the European Union. For the EU, Turkey isnow its sixth or seventh biggest trade partner.Turkey’s other key trade partners, apart from theEU, are Middle Eastern countries, the USA, Chinaand other Asian states, and Russia, from whichTurkey imports a significant part of its raw ener-gy materials, mainly gas. Russian gas suppliesmeet around 60% of Turkey’s demand.Since 1996, Turkey has been the only country withwhich the EU has a customs union. The customsunion does not cover trade in agricultural or steelindustry products (these areas of trade are regu-lated under separate agreements), or service ex-
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Figure 2. Geographic structure of Turkish exports, percentage shares (2005)
Figure 3. Geographic structure of Turkish imports, percentage shares (2005)
Source: Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey
Source: Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey
change (this is not regulated under any agree-ment). The union has caused not only a signifi-cant growth in the trade exchange between Tur-key and the EU but also a deepening trade deficiton the Turkish side. Practically, the customs unionobliges Turkey to adjust its trade policy to that ofthe European Union. In the EU’s opinion, Turkeyhas failed to meet all its commitments related tothe operation of the customs union9. Turkey hasalso signed free trade agreements with EFTA andwith several countries in the Mediterranean Searegion (including Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ma-cedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina).
Turkey mainly exports textiles to the EU (makingup nearly 40% of its total exports), while theUnion’s key export merchandise to Turkey are ma-chines and equipment (28%) and chemical pro-ducts (16%). Turkish imports from Russia are do-minated by raw energy materials (over 70%) andmetals.A relatively large part of Turkish foreign trade isofficially unregistered, and so the statistical dataquoted above should be seen as giving only an ap-proximate picture of the trade structure. This ob-viously has a great impact on the operation ofsome commodity markets, as well as serious fiscalconsequences. For example, liquid fuel smugglingis a big problem. As a consequence of very heavytax levies, petrol and diesel oil prices in Turkey arehigher than in most OECD countries10. The large-scale smuggling causes serious problems to oilsector companies, especially as this is happeningwhile reforms intended to improve the operationof the sector are being conducted, and where therapid growth of domestic demand should be con-tributing to new companies entering the refinerysector.Exports of services, especially tourist services, aregrowing rapidly. Turkey has become a popular de-stination for European tourists. Between 2001 and2004, sales of tourist services doubled. 21.2 mil-lion tourists visited Turkey in 2005, most of whocame from the EU and candidate states. However,the latest statistical data indicates that the num-ber of tourists for 2006 will be lower by nearly20%.In contrast to the new EU member states and can-didates to membership, the level of foreign directinvestments in Turkey was relatively low untilrecently. Comparison to other South-Eastern Euro-
pean countries also shows Turkey in a disadvan-tageous light. In 2004, Moldova and Greece werethe only two countries to have lower FDI-to-GDPrates than Turkey. However, the results for theyears 2005–2006 and forecasts for the immediatefuture are much more optimistic11. In 2005 theFDI influx (including real estate) reached US$9.8billion. The amount for 2006 exceeded a record-breaking level of US$20 billion. For comparison, thetotal value of foreign investments made in Turkeybefore 1999 was as low as US$2.1 billion, and in-creased in the period 2000–2004 to US$10 billion.Approximately 75% of the FDI flowing into Turkeybetween 2000 and 2006 came from the EU. In turn,the absolute majority of Turkish investments wentto the European Union. Turkey is an importantpartner for EU investors in the strategic energysector, since it can become a transit state, andthus enable the diversification of energy suppliesfor the EU. In May 2005, Austrian, Bulgarian, Ro-manian, Turkish and Hungarian companies sign-ed an agreement to construct the Nabucco pipe-line, to enable gas supplies from the Middle Eastand Asia to run through Turkey to the Balkans andCentral Europe. At the same time, Turkish foreigninvestments were increasing; between 1999 and2005, Turkey invested nearly US$5.7 billion abroad.
It cannot be said that Turkey’s lower FDI inflowsare caused by the activity of foreign investors be-ing hindered. Turkey has one of the most liberalregulations of the OECD countries concerning suchinvestments. However, a real barrier is posed byproblems which all enterprises, domestic and fo-reign, have to face, namely red tape, a weak judi-ciary authority, changing regulations, includingtax regulations, and corruption. The factors whichdiscouraged investors in the past were the ratherunpredictable political situation and a lack of ma-croeconomic stability. In the World Bank’s DoingBusiness in 2007, which ranked 175 countries ac-cording to the ease of doing business (regulationsand practice), Turkey was 91st, a position that –in comparison with EU member and candidatestates – was better only than that of Croatia, Ma-cedonia and Greece12. In the Transparency Inter-national 2006 report, which presented the per-ception of corruption in 146 countries, Turkey re-ceived 3.8 points on the 1–10 scale, which put itahead of Croatia, Macedonia, Poland and Roma-nia. In the Economic Freedom 2007 report prepared
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by the Heritage Foundation, Turkey’s economywas determined as ‘mostly unfree’. The countriesamong EU member and candidate states to havereceived worse results than Turkey were Croatia,Greece and Poland. Only these four countries wereranked as countries whose economies are mostlyunfree13. Therefore, eliminating these shortcom-ings is the key to increasing FDI inflows, whichwould contribute to the modernisation and struc-tural transformation of the Turkish economy.
5. Current economic trends
Turkey has shown strong economic growth since2002. Over that time it has managed to achievemacroeconomic stabilisation, which gives hopethat these good trends will be continued in thefuture (Figure 4).
The structural change to the inflation mecha-nisms which enabled price stabilisation was pos-sible inter alia thanks to fiscal reforms. After theperiod of double-digit deficits in the public financesector in 1999–2003, the deficit was reduced tojust under 2% of the GDP in 2005. The continua-tion of a responsible fiscal policy in the immedi-ate future (regardless of the results of upcoming
parliamentary elections) is of key importance tominimise the risk of financial instability.The institutional background of the monetary po-licy changed as of January 2006, when Turkey join-ed the group of countries which have adopted thedirect inflation targeting strategy. The centralbank announced target inflation levels at 5% forthe end of 2006, and of about 4% for the end of2007 and 2008. However, the significant reduc-tion of the price of the Turkish currency in Mayand June 2006 is likely to raise inflation in the se-cond half of 2006 and in 2007. Maintaining andreinforcing the reputation of the central bank asa successful inflation stopper and achieving a sta-ble low level of inflation expectations are the hardtasks which the monetary authorities will haveto handle.The current high influx of capital to Turkey is asign that investors believe that this country hasgood prospects. However, this influx also poseschallenges to the country’s economic policy dueto the growing current account deficit (over 6%of the GDP in 2005) and the pressure of apprecia-tion on the lira. In addition to a cautious fiscalpolicy, reforms must be undertaken which willincrease the adjustability and competitiveness ofthe Turkish economy.
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Sources: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database and Turkish Statistical Institute
Figure 4. GDP growth and average annual inflation between 1999 and 2005
GDP growth Inflation
6. Prospects
Short- and mid-term forecasts for Turkey are rela-tively optimistic. Strong domestic demand, includ-ing investments encouraged by low interest rates,makes it possible to continue the economic growthat the annual level of 4% to 5% in 2006 and 2007.Considering the weakening of the lira, inflationat the end of 2006 is likely to reach a higher levelthan that targeted by the central bank. Still, thereis a chance that the inflation growth will only betemporary. The low public-finance sector deficitwill enable further reduction of the public debt-to-GDP ratio. Nevertheless, the risk still exists ofa financial destabilisation that may prevent thisoptimistic scenario from being realised (proof tothis being the size of the current account deficitand the debt structure). Continuation of an ambi-tious and internally consistent reform programmeis therefore vital.The key goals of Turkey’s economic policy are clo-sely related to its ambition to join the EuropeanUnion, and to the task of reducing the develop-ment differences and achieving a level similar tothose of EU member states. The following fourmain areas of the country’s developmental chal-lenges can be distinguished:– a stable and responsible macroeconomic policy,– fair social and human resources development,– a good business climate, and– a system for managing natural environmentand disaster responses14.
Limiting the state’s role in the economy (by con-tinuing privatisation) and reducing the scope ofthe informal economy appear to be the majortasks for the economic policy. It is estimated thatas much as one-third of urban workers, and up tothree-quarters of those working in rural areas, arenot registered in the social insurance system15.
In the longer term, further improvement of theeducation sector is also a serious challenge, consi-dering the role education plays in preparing youngpeople to function in society, and in particular onthe labour market. It is also essential to continuework on increasing social integration; contem-porary Turkey is to a great extent divided on theone hand into traditional rural communities(mainly farmers), characterised by very weak tieswith the state institutions and low standards of
living, and on the other, much more ‘modern’ ur-ban communities associated with the servicessector and partly with industry. Creating condi-tions for the better social integration of womenis also a task that cannot wait.
The scale of the problems and the very ambitiousgoal of EU membership have obliged Turkish po-liticians and Turkish society in general to take onvery difficult tasks. Previous reforms have beensuccessful inter alia thanks to the existence ofa clear goal, namely EU membership. The wayTurkish politicians and the EU use the accessionnegotiations as a mechanism to mobilise reformefforts may decide on the prospects of the coun-try’s development in the next decade. The Euro-pean Union is aware of this fact, at least at the le-vel of official publications. The Communiqué fromthe European Commission of November 2005 no-tes that ‘in Turkey, the effectiveness of conditio-nality in driving reforms depends on maintaininga credible political perspective for eventual inte-gration into the Union. Aspirant countries canbest sustain public support for bold and oftenpainful reforms when the EU supports them,works with them, and keeps its own promises’16.(January 2007)Wojciech PaczyƒskiCASE – Center for Social and Economic ResearchCo-operation Adam Balcer
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1 Turkey’s population increased nearly six times, from 12million to 72 million, between 1923 and 2006.2 Between 1970 and 1979, the average annual inflation rategrew from less than 10 percent in the preceding period to25%. Turkey’s foreign debt rose from US$2 billion to US$14billion. The levels of public debt and the trade deficit signi-ficantly increased. Deniz Akagül, ‘L’economie turque depuisl’avencement de la République: performances ou contre-per-formances’, in La Turquie, ed. Samih Vaner, Paris 2005. pp.463–464.3 Ibid.4 Ankara concluded three financial agreements covering asa total US$40 billion with the IMF in 1999, 2002 and 2005.So far, it has borrowed over US$30 billion from the IMF.http:// www.internationalmonetaryfound.org5 Ibid.6 UNDP (2006), Human Development Report 2006, http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf7 Teoman Pamuk˜u, Ahmet Hasim Köse, ‘L’Èconomie grise’, inLa Turquie, ed. Samih Vaner, Paris 2005. pp. 468–470.8 The agricultural sector (in contrast to Poland) also has a si-gnificant share in generating added value in the economy,up to almost 12% in 2003 (compared to 3% in Poland), al-though the values are not really comparable. In absolute va-lues, Turkey has the largest agricultural population amongall the other candidates to EU membership. On the otherhand, the agricultural employment share in employment asa whole is higher in Romania than in Turkey. It is worth ad-ding that as recently as the early 1980s, most professional-ly active people in Turkey worked in the agricultural sector.OECD, OECD in Figures 2005 Edition, Paris 2006.9 A discussion of this subject has been presented amongother documents in the European Commission’s Turkey 2005Progress Report; http://ec.europa.eu/comm/enlargement/report_2005/pdf/package/sec_1426_final_en_progress_report_tr.pdf10 International Energy Agency, Energy Policies of IEA Coun-tries. Turkey 2005 Review, Paris 2005.11 US Department of State, 2005 Investment Climate Sta-tement: Turkey, http://www.state.gov/e/eb/ifd/2005/12 Doing Business in 2007, http://www.doingbusiness.org/EconomyRankings/Default.aspx?direction=asc&sort=1 _13 The ranking considers the following criteria: propertyrights, regulation, informal economy, prices and wages, bank-ing and finance, foreign investments, fiscal policy, state in-terventionism, trade and taxes. Heritage Foundation, 2007Index of Economic Freedom, http://www.heritage.org14 World Bank, Country Assistance Strategy Progress Reportfor the Republic of Turkey for the Period FY 2004 – 2007,2005, World Bank, Turkey – Country Economic Memorandum,Report No. 33549-TR, 2006, http:// www.worldbank.org.tr15 World Bank, Turkey – Labor Market Study, Report No.33254-TR, 2006, www.worldbank.org.tr16 European Commission, Communication from the Com-mission. Enlargement Strategy Paper, COM (2005) 561,Brussels, 9 November 2005.
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