Turks enter the valley of EU wolves

The Muhammad caricature controversy has produced an unlikely alliance between current EU-presidency holder Austria and Turkey.

Austria, which had opposed opening accession negotiations with Turkey in October last year, has recently been at the centre of a series of initiatives to reconcile Europe and the Muslim world, with Turkey playing the role of mediator. Last weekend (10-11 March), Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah G�l opened a debate on the cartoons backlash at the informal EU foreign ministers' meeting in Salzburg.

But has the controversy strengthened or weakened Turkey's EU member- ship bid?

For many Turks, the cartoons affair has demonstrated insensitivity on the part of the Europeans and they pressed their government into taking sides. Nevertheless, the government has sought to play a conciliatory role.

G�l claims the incident emphasises the need for Turkish participation in Europe. "Turkey is capable of better understanding the sensitivities of the west and the Islamic world," he told European Voice.

"Since the crisis erupted Turkey has essentially played a conciliatory role in trying to find a way to ease the tension by establishing a common ground for dialogue and mutual understanding."

In Denmark, which gained unwelcome notoriety as the country where the conflict started, support for political parties has been affected by the caricature controversy. The clear winner is the far-right Danish People's Party (DPP), which has an informal coalition with the centre-right government and opposes Turkey's bid for EU membership.

Backing for the DPP is up 4.9 points since elections a year ago to 18.2%. The 11-year-old DPP, which in 2002 compared Islam to a "plague", may overtake the Social Democrats as Denmark's second biggest party.

According to Mogens Camre, who represents DPP in the European Parliament, his party has no formal strategy to link Turkey's accession bid to the cartoons controversy. Nonetheless he sees the recent events as strengthening the hand of those opposed to Turkish accession and claims that the authority to decide on Turkey's bid has shifted away from the EU and national governm- ents towards the people, through national referenda.

The Danish government itself has recently moved from supporting Turkey's EU candidacy to becoming more circumspect. Denmark's government spokes-man said that Turkey's bid was weakened after a spokesman for Turkey's foreign office requested that the Danish government apologise for the cartoons. The following day Turkey's new ambassador to Denmark, Namik Tan, downgraded the request to a call for the Danish government to distance itself from the cartoons, which it already had done.

Charlotte Antonsen, the ruling Liberal party's EU spokeswoman, said she saw Turkey's handling of the controversy as a test of its commitment to European values.

The controversy comes at a bad time for Turkey. Even before the cartoons were published a Eurobarometer survey showed support for Turkish EU membership among the European public to be low in most countries. Simultaneously the waning influence of supporters, such as France's President Jacques Chirac, and the rise of sceptics, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy, could shift the emphasis from full membership towards a special partnership with the EU.

Given that he expects Turkey's accession to be a long process, G�l remains unfazed: "I am confident that certain circles will realize that their misperceptions are ungrounded.

"Turkey by the time it becomes ready to join the EU will not be the Turkey of today," he added.

When he met EU foreign ministers in Salzburg to discuss the cartoons problem, G�l was under domestic pressure to take a more confrontational stance.

The unprecedented popularity of a recently released anti-Western Turkish film The Valley of Wolves: Iraq, suggests the government in Ankara has to tread carefully.

Just as European leaders struggle to convince their electorates to accept Turkey's EU membership, so too do Turkey's leaders have a hard time selling western values and the European perspective to their people. Turkish and European leaders might have found they have some common problems.

• Joel Malan is a freelance journalist based in Copenhagen.

Author takes a look at the impact of the recent controversy surrounding the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in European newspapers on Turkey's bid for accession to the European Union.