Muslim extremist party likely to be win election in Turkey

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World News

October 31, 2002

The allies' dilemma

Challenger who gives Europe the jitters

From Roger Boyes in Berlin

Minarets are our bayonets

Domes are our helmets

Mosques are our barracks

Believers are our soldiers.

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN was jailed in 1999 for reading aloud that century-old poem. Now he leads a party with strong Islamist roots that is expected to win Turkey’s general election on Sunday.

Europe is nervous not only about the rising popularity of Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK), but also the whole political constellation, the uneasy geo-politics of a weakly led country bordering three of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints: Iraq, the Caucasus and the Balkans. An unstable Turkey — a Nato ally pivotal in any war against Iraq — could bring crisis to our doorsteps. The critical question is whether the European Union can increase Turkey’s stability by speeding up its membership negotiations, or whether it is best left to simmer on the sidelines.

Diplomats in Ankara are uncertain about Mr Erdogan. He presents himself as a moderate conservative committed to democracy and to the principles of a modern secular state as set out by Turkey’s founding father, Kemal Ataturk. The AK may also have to enter a coalition with the social democrats of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), whose most respected figure is Kemal Dervis — a former Economics Minister and skilled crisis-manager whom Europe trusts.

But those bayoneted minarets and true-believing soldiers — the militant edge of Islam — cannot be ignored.

Since Ataturk created Turkey from the rubble of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, the country has wavered between the poles of military dictatorship and Islamicisation. It was never going to be easy to find a balance in a country that straddles Orient and Occident, fundamentalism and tolerance, planned economy and market.

Observers wonder whether Mr Erdogan’s apparent moderation masks a more militant Islam and whether his untested party is really equipped to steer Turkey along the hazardous road ahead.

The risks are manifold. Turkey clearly does not want a war with Iraq. During the 1991 Gulf War, 500,000 Kurdish refugees, some of them guerrillas, crossed into Turkey. Its chief concern now is that an independent Kurdistan is declared in northern Iraq after the fall of President Saddam Hussein, destabilising Turkey, with its 12 million Kurds. An AK-led government might even be tempted to march into a new Kurdistan to protect the rights of northern Iraq’s Turkmenians.

Washington is pressing the EU to give Turkey greater hope of membership to deter it from extremism. That greatly enhances Turkey’s bargaining power and its politicians are skilled at exploiting the country’s fragility to gain international advantage.

How this mastery of brinkmanship will play out in the EU enlargement process remains to be seen. One obstacle is Cyprus, the divided island whose EU membership is to be approved in principle in December. Turkey has always insisted that the Turkish Cypriot enclave in the north should have its sovereignty recognised, in effect legitimising its 1974 invasion.

A likely scenario is that an AK-led government would resume talks to resolve the island’s division some time in the new year, providing that it is given a firm date for the beginning of negotiations on Turkish EU entry. But the Cyprus issue could yet take a more dramatic turn; there are even rumours that the Turkish military could annex the north of the island before the December 12 EU summit to hold up Cypriot entry.

Within the EU bureaucracy there is disagreement about how much pressure should be exerted on Ankara. If Turkey is set a firm date for the opening of EU entry talks, then it might feel that there is no urgency to address human rights issues. If setting such a date is made conditional on Turkey introducing a fully functioning democracy and market economy, then any welcoming signal will be sunk in a haze of uncertainty.

It is also an unspoken but unavoidable fact that many EU states have deep reservations about offering membership to a country whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim. In the German elections last month, Edmund Stoiber, Gerhard Schröder’s conservative rival, was quick to assert that he saw no place for Turkey in the European Union: he knew that he was tapping into the popular mood.

Germany has a pivotal role to play. It has more than two million Turkish inhabitants and in some communities they have become the most dynamic element, opening businesses in a time of recession. But there is resistance to opening the frontiers to yet more Turkish immigrants.

Herr Schröder, the Chancellor, is thus exposed. He must mend fences with the United States, having wooed voters during the election by opposing a US-led invasion of Iraq. But he cannot do that if he opposes America’s demand that Turkey be offered speedy EU membership.

-- Anonymous, October 31, 2002


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