Turkey. Flying in the wrong direction

Turkey's government may be turning away from Europe

CONSIDER two examples from the many worrying recent events in a country that aspires to membership of the European Union. In Diyarbakir, some 80 Kurdish children face as many as 24 years in prison for taking part in violent protests after the funeral of four PKK separatist rebels on March 28th. Their lawyers say most were beaten and tortured. The second is the arrest in Fatsa, on the Black Sea coast, of a local leader of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party on charges of insulting Ataturk, after an officer saw him chew gum as he laid a wreath before a statue of modern Turkey's founding father.

Far from trying to end such incidents, the government wants to limit free speech even further in a new anti-terror bill. This would reintroduce jail sentences for journalists accused of "propagating terrorism", deny suspects access to a lawyer for the first 24 hours of detention, and license security forces to shoot anybody who doesn't surrender on first command. Critics say the bill could spell a return to abuses at the height of the PKK insurgency in the 1990s, when hundreds of writers were imprisoned, thousands of detainees were tortured and many were slain in extra-judicial killings by security forces.

These measures call into question as never before Turkey's commitment to the reforms that helped it to start EU membership talks last October. Some observers wonder if Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, is so disgusted by the efforts of such EU countries as France and Austria to erect new hurdles to Turkey's membership that he is giving up on Europe. A European Court of Human Rights ruling upholding bans on the Islamic headscarf in Turkish universities may have upset him. Disillusion with Europe may also explain his government's flirtation with Iran, Syria and Hamas.

Yet Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister and arch-proponent of EU membership, firmly denies that the government is moving away from the EU. To the contrary, new measures are being introduced to bring greater transparency to defence spending. Mr Gul insists that the anti-terror law is needed to deal with the mounting threat posed by PKK rebels since they ended a unilateral five-year truce in June 2004.

Clashes between security forces and the PKK in the mainly Kurdish south-east have been increasing. Taking aim at Turkey's tourism industry, the rebels have vowed to attack resorts. Nationalist passions spiral with each funeral of a Turkish soldier killed in the fighting. Yet Mr Erdogan's critics insist that Turkey's laws are harsh enough. They see the anti-terror law as part of a bigger battle between the government and its foes in the security establishment (the "Deep State"), whose power is threatened by EU-inspired reforms.

In this battle, the generals seem to be gaining the upper hand. Take the case of Ferhat Sarikaya, a prosecutor in the eastern city of Van. The generals called for him to be investigated for abusing his office after he named General Yasar Buyukanit, a leading army commander, in his indictment of three military-intelligence operatives accused of blowing up a Kurdish bookshop in the town of Semdinli last November. Mr Sarikaya was later fired and the investigation squashed. Yet Mr Erdogan, who had earlier vowed to get to the bottom of the Semdinli affair "no matter where it leads", has not uttered a word of reproach. The alleged perpetrators, whose trial began this week, may now get off the hook--and the scandal may be buried.

The prime minister's change of heart may merely reflect a desire to win nationalist support ahead of parliamentary elections next year. An even bigger prize would be to secure the generals' blessing for his hopes of becoming president when the determinedly secular incumbent, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, retires in May next year. Mr Erdogan now commands a big majority in parliament, which elects the president. With the veto-wielding Mr Sezer out of the way and another AK party leader installed as prime minister, a President Erdogan could at last satisfy his pious constituents' demands for an easing of restrictions on the headscarf and on religious education.

That is why the generals do not want Mr Erdogan, or anyone from the AK party, to capture the presidency, the last lever of civilian secular power. With help from Mr Sezer and Deniz Baykal, leader of the opposition Republican People's Party, the army is again conjuring up the twin spectres of radical Islam and Kurdish separatism in a bid to force early elections. Their hope is that Mr Erdogan may lose his majority--and with it the presidency.

It is a dangerous game. After years of robust growth since the 2001 financial meltdown, the economy is looking vulnerable. A widening current-account gap is less likely to be filled by tourism revenues if PKK terrorism spreads. An early election could increase instability and frighten foreign investors. Would the army, which owes its strength to an enduring popularity among most Turks, be willing to take the blame for a fresh economic crisis?

The biggest threat of fundamentalism may be brewing in the south-east, where many unemployed Kurds, disillusioned by the government, the EU and the PKK alike, are turning to Islam. Turkish Hizbullah, a radical Islamic outfit that was tolerated by the authorities in the 1990s because its main targets were nationalist Kurds, but was later crushed, is re-organising throughout the south-east under new labels. Its influence is palpable in the shanty towns round Diyarbakir, where unemployed youths say that "Islam should rule the world."

Past experience suggests that repressive laws and a military crackdown cannot stamp out terrorism. If anything, they produce a steady stream of recruits. As Mr Erdogan said in his groundbreaking speech in Diyarbakir last year, "more democracy" is the real answer. If combined with employment-generating investment, EU-inspired reforms could still attract millions of votes for Mr Erdogan. And they remain the best guarantee against the generals' worst nightmare: the dismemberment of Ataturk's secular republic.

Turkey's government may be turning away from Europe.