Turkish poll will do little to thaw ice

Date: 08/04/1999

Despite apparent optimism among some EU officials, there is precious little evidence that the 18 April elections in Ankara, or the advent of a new government, will bring a fresh rapprochement between Turkey and the Union. Simon Taylor investigates

DESPITE optimism that the Turkish elections later this month will usher in a new era of political stability in Ankara, hopes of a thaw in relations with the EU seem very faint indeed.

The consensus among pollsters is that current caretaker Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit and his Democratic Left Party (DSP) stand the best chance of forming a new government in coalition with Mesut Yilmaz's Motherland Party.

Ecevit's fortunes have been buoyed not only by the capture of Turkey's public enemy number one, Kurdish Workers' Party leader Abdullah Ocalan, but also by the way he handled the case.

Instead of performing the usual politician's trick of claiming responsibility for everything good that happens, Ecevit gave credit to the people responsible for seizing the man the Turks blame for 30,000 deaths in the conflict between the Turkish military and Kurdish forces.

He also survived attempts by the Islamicist Virtue Party, the largest group in parliament, to topple him and delay the elections.

Crucially for Turkey's future political direction, an Ecevit-Yilmaz coalition is seen as the outcome most favourable to the country's armed forces, which still wield an uncomfortable degree of power in political life. Ecevit's high standing with the military dates back to 1974, when he ordered Turkish troops into Cyprus to protect the island's Turks against an alleged Greek Cypriot coup.

Paradoxically, some observers believe that confidence in the new coalition among the armed forces could be the best way to convince the generals to scale back their influence on everyday life.

The powerful role of the military is seen by Turkey's pro-western political élite as a bar to progress on a range of issues which would cement the country's future within the camp of European nations.

Most notably, reduced interference from the generals would open the door to much-needed improvements in Turkey's human rights record and the workings of its public authorities. For example, the country's judicial system still employs emergency courts which, the European Commission stated last year, “are not compatible with a democratic system and run counter to the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights”.

Yet while Ecevit's coalition could mark the start of an era of political stability in Ankara, the one policy area where there may well be no major improvement is in relations with the EU.

Ecevit himself has never really capitalised on anti-Union sentiments among Turkey's 63-million-strong population, even though he has made a number of populist gestures to rid himself of his former image as a genteel intellectual.

But by the same token he has never made any overtures to the EU to improve relations, unlike his predecessor Tansu Çiller. Meanwhile, Turkey's participation in the NATO action in Kosovo has given the country's governing class a new focus for its westward ambitions.

WHILE Ocalan's arrest sent Ecevit's political stock soaring at home, the saga has plunged EU-Turkey relations to a new low.

Ankara's fierce attacks on Greece, accusing it of being a country which supported terrorism and arguing that it should be shunned by other Union member states, were seen as deeply offensive and prompted outrage among Greece's EU counterparts. Privately, government officials said Ankara had used up all the available political goodwill.

In Germany, which currently holds the Union presidency, frustration over Turkey's behaviour was especially marked, given that the new Social Democrat-Green government had made special efforts to keep open the door to EU membership for Ankara.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, in particular, had gone out of his way to distance himself from the view of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl's administration that Europe was a Christian club which automatically excluded Muslim countries like Turkey.

But as the Ocalan affair escalated, Bonn swiftly made its displeasure known, rebuffing attempts by Acting Foreign Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek to boost cooperation between Turkey and the EU.

Van Den Broek wrote to Fischer at the end of January suggesting ways of revitalising cooperation with Ankara. “The time is ripe to help improve the current atmosphere through a number of well-targeted initiatives,” he argued, suggesting that Turkey should be invited to a number of bilateral meetings including sessions on enlargement.

But, so far, Germany has not replied to the Commissioner's overtures, signalling its belief that Turkey overstepped the mark in its attacks on Greece.

AS A result of this combination of a lack of political impetus towards greater integration efforts from Ecevit and the furore stirred up by the Ocalan affair, despondency has crept into Turkish attitudes towards relations with the EU.

The days when Ankara reacted with outrage to Union rebuffs, as it did when EU leaders issued a declaration at their summit in Luxembourg in December 1997 stating that Turkey had to meet special human rights criteria before it could join the Union, are long gone. Instead, Turkish officials shrug their shoulders and say that cooperation with the EU has ground to a halt.

Commission officials are, however, more positive. They point out that recent meetings between officials from both sides have offered an opportunity for an exchange of information. “There is still sufficient ground to deepen relations between the EU and Turkey,” said one.

But Turkish officials stress that the instrument which provides the biggest opportunity for deepening relations with the Union - the European Strategy for Turkey - stands next to no chance of being approved.

The strategy, which would provide €135 million in development aid plus a further €15 million to help Ankara meet the technical demands of its customs union with the EU, faces its biggest obstacles in the European Parliament. MEPs are expected to attach a range of political conditions to the aid which, according to Turkish sources, will not be accepted by Ankara.

COMMISSION staff are nevertheless hopeful that a new government in Turkey could unblock the log-jam.

” We hope for a government which is more Europe-friendly and which would allow us to have an in-depth dialogue on areas of mutual interest,” said one official.

The ideal scenario, he suggested, would be to go back to the situation before the Luxembourg summit in 1997 when Turkey suspended its political dialogue with the Union.

But for the time being at least, there is little hope of a breakthrough in EU-Turkish relations.

As James Ker-Lindsay from the Royal United Services Institute explains, the Union sees Turkey quite differently from the US, which treats Ankara as a valuable strategic ally in the region.

Washington's clear position that Ocalan should have been handed over to the Turkish authorities straight away was in stark contrast to the prevarication of EU governments, who shuffled the fugitive leader from one member state to another.

While the US rewards Ankara for its support in NATO, the EU still tends to see Turkey as an untrustworthy partner on the Union's borders. It is left out of pan-European energy and transport plans because of fears that a sudden shift in political mood or a strengthening of the Islamicists could expose the EU to blackmail.

There is a risk that trying to keep Turkey marginalised will strengthen the very forces in Ankara which the EU wants to discourage. But for the time being, Union governments are content to keep on walking the tightrope.