Turkey: the case for and against

The debate about Turkey’s application to join the EU has been on the table for 29 years and while it has been granted associate membership no decision is expected any time soon largely due to the opposition of France and Germany. Pro-EU supporters in the country are pinning their hopes on a positive decision in 2023 which will also mark the centenary of the Turkish Republic and a key turning point in the country’s history. The migrant crisis has changed all that and there are no real hopes that the application can be fast-forwarded in return for Turkey’s compliance in helping to stem the flow of refugees into Europe.

Supporters of Turkey’s application argue that the country brings a lot to the table. The country is a major player which influences not only the Black Sea and Caspian Sea geopolitical regions but also the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Turkey is also a long-standing member of Nato which it joined in 1952 and next to the US possesses the second largest armed forces in the alliance. The air force base at Incirlik is regarded as a key Nato asset and was used by coalition forces in the war to oust President Saddam Hussein of Iraq in 2003. It is also in heavy use today in the air operations over northern Iraq and eastern Syria. From a purely military point of view the concept of Turkey in Europe has much to recommend it not least because it sits neatly between east and west - part of Europe but also a window into the Arab world.

The country is also in the enviable position of maintaining a healthy economy with current figures showing a 3.5 per cent rise in growth. Unlike most EU countries Turkey managed to weather the global downturn in the last decade and according to recent EU figures the average Turks are financially more secure and better off than their opposite numbers in Romania and Bulgaria – both near neighbours and regional partners. Its infrastructure is also good with a high-speed rail network and recent modernisation of rail and road bridges and tunnels. The national airline is also one of the world’s largest with a route network which is the envy of many western rivals.

It also helps the economy that Turkey provides the main route for Russian petrochemical exports through the Nabucco pipeline which runs from Ahiboz to a major hub on the Danube in Austria. One of its major shareholders is a state-owned Turkish oil and natural gas company and a recent survey by Forbes Magazine showed that Istanbul was the fifth major location for billionaires – after London, New York, Paris and Moscow.

All these are powerful incentives and bolster claims that because Turkey joined the modern world a century ago it has a right to be considered a European country. Certainly, in the nineteenth century when it was the capital of the Ottoman Empire it was a major ally of both Britain and France and in that respect it is noteworthy that UK prime minister David Cameron has been one of its most vocal supporters in its bid to become a member of the EU. One of his first official visits was to Ankara in 2010 when he expressed concern about the slow pace of negotiations and argued that “a European Union without Turkey at its heart is not stronger but weaker”. The US has also expressed a preference for Turkey to be accepted by the EU.

While expressions of support from London and Washington are welcome in Ankara there is a cultural bias which can probably only be decided by the Europeans themselves. Eight years ago President Barack Obama’s plea for Turkey to join the EU was met with a withering response from his French opposite number Nicolas Sarkozy who argued that while Turkey was a valuable partner and neighbour it could never be a member of the EU because it was not a European country. That clash of ideology still lies at the heart of Turkey’s application and it is unlikely to change until the tide of refugees becomes an unstoppable flood.

AGAINST

Just as Turkey’s enviable geographical position is used a reason for accepting her application to become a member of the EU so too do opponents argue that it provides grounds for rejection. They claim that the country’s proximity to Syria, Iran and Iraq, with all of which it shares borders, properly make it a Middle Eastern country with shared interests. While this is true – less than ten per cent of Turkey’s land mass abuts with Europe – it is in reality in a geographical no-man’s land. History, culture, religion and politics also intrude on the equation and help to argue that Turkey can never hope to be part of Europe as conceived by the founders of the EU.

Turkey is a relatively young country. Although it was the leader of the Ottoman Empire with its capital in the wealthy and culturally important city of Istanbul (previously Constantinople) the decline of that mighty empire plunged Europe into crisis in the nineteenth century and was at the heart of many of the continent’s problems. Remember the Eastern Question? The diplomatic problem posed in the 19th and early 20th centuries by the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, centring on the contest for control of former Ottoman territories? At its height the Ottoman Empire stretched from the Persian Gulf in the south to Budapest in the north, and from the Caspian Sea in the east to Algeria in the west.

It is not unfair to claim that despite Turkey’s decision to embrace the modern world in the early twentieth century its historical and cultural origins lie not in Europe but in the shared experience of its neighbours in Central Asia and the Middle East. While this is not an insuperable problem it is balanced by an argument which claims that Turkey has missed out on common European experiences such as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Religion is also part of that conundrum. Although the modern state is secular in its approach to religion Islam is the predominant influence and in an age when fundamentalism is gaining strength in the Muslim world there have been long-running concerns over dress codes, especially the use of head-dress by women. Most Turkish Muslims are Sunni, forming over seventy per cent of the population.

Because modern Turkey still has fairly recent democratic traditions the biggest concern about EU membership is its ability to assume liberal attitudes to the question of human rights. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has demonstrated a growing intolerance of any political opposition, cracks down heavily on public protests and attempts to silence critics in the media. It has not helped matters that in recent weeks the IMCTV channel was closed down for allegedly broadcasting anti-government views and last week the Turkish government caused international outrage by taking over control of the opposition Zaman newspaper and removing its editorial independence. In response Turkish officials quote Article 28 of the constitution which states that the press is not free to publish news articles that “threaten the internal or external security of the state”.

More than any other factor it is Turkey’s haphazard approach to the maintenance of human rights that undermines the application to join the EU. Amnesty International’s latest annual report contains a sorry litany of human rights abuses including widespread torture, denial of free speech, violations of minority rights, illegal trials and failure to protect women.

However, the biggest single domestic problem is the position of the Kurdish population leading to fears that if Turkey were accepted by Europe that confrontation would be exported and turn into as big a social problem as the current flood of migrants. Living mainly in the south-east of the country where they form a distinctive ethnic group Kurds make up some 20 per cent of the population but many resent their inclusion in the state. Since 1982, Turkey has been fighting an armed rebellion by the Marxist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). As happens in any conflict of this kind the fighting has been savage and conducted with little regard to human rights or the laws of war. Both sides have been guilty of atrocities but the government forces have been particularly brutal as it is official policy to destroy any village or settlement suspected of offering support to the PKK.

According to Amnesty International over 14,000 places have been razed in this way, causing widespread hardship and creating millions of refugees. One of the stumbling blocks is the Turkish military which is still an influential factor in the country’s social and political life. Many senior commanders regard the PKK as a criminal terrorist organisation and tend to treat all Kurds in the same harsh way. Although Turkey is a party to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment it is a fact that as far as the Kurds are concerned these values have not been honoured in any meaningful way.

Just as intractable is the position of Cyprus which is already an EU member as is Greece, Turkey’s great rival on the island. More than any other factor this could derail any agreement with Turkey which still has a 30,000 strong garrison on Cyprus following its invasion in 1974. On Friday the Cypriote prime minster Nikos Anastasiades gave a clear indication of his position on Turkey and the EU and his refusal to budge when he said: “I will never accept being forced, and I will never give my consent.”