Yemen and Turkey Deepen Ties With New Accords - NYTimes.com

This just in from the New Your Times: Yemen and Turkey Deepen Ties With New Accords - NYTimes.com

Video: Turkey Rising - Sinan Ülgen

A good interview with Sinan Ülgen, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, about Turkish foreign policy. His basic argument is similar to what I have been advancing on this blog: that Turkey is not "turning East" but pursuing a broader foreign policy agenda in the face of EU's cold shoulders, and that it is primarily up to the EU to act so as to rejuvenate the accession negotiations.

Turkish-German row over Cyprus

German PM Angela Merkel criticized the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot leaderships during a trip to the Cypriot capital of Nicosia Tuesday. Praising Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias for his efforts, she chided the Turkish side for not reciprocating.

Unsurprisingly, reactions in Nicosia were as delighted as the Turkish response was angry. According to Cyprusnewsreport.com, the Politis newspaper (whose headline was an exuberant "Angela! Angela!") reported that Merkel's remarks "made President Christofias smile." The Fileleftheros noted that "She didn't mince her words," while the communist party organ, Xaravgi, exclaimed: "We Support You."

Ergoğan, for his part, did not mince his words in responding to Merkel:

I guess Ms. Merkel has forgotten what she has said. It was herself who said that it was wrong to admit southern Cyprus into the European Union. It is also clear that she does not know about history of the Cyprus issue.

It is hard to tell what, if anything this row means for the stalled negotiations but it is unlikely to help. Cyprus is undoubtedly a central obstacle to further progress, albeit not the only one. Nonetheless, my sense is that it is now largely up to Turkey to take some decisive steps toward a resolution - irrespective of the history or who is to blame for the current situation. The obvious matter to be resolved by Ankara being the implementation of the Additional Protocol of the Turkey-EU Association Agreement (ending the blockade of Greek Cypriot ships in Turkish ports).

Dutch news - Serious Concerns about Turkish-Dutch Youth

A group of 10 successful Dutch Turks have signed an open letter to the Dutch authorities expressing concern over what they see as the increasing isolation of many Dutch youths of Turkish origin. The group had apparently tried to raise this issue with Dutch authorities but decided to publish a letter in the newspaper De Volkskrant instead when they did not get the desired response.

I am myself increasingly concerned that many European countries are in the midst of a vicious circle in which marginalization and alienation of immigrant communities, an associated radicalization and militancy among (still very small) pockets of especially young Muslims, and growing xenophobia and discrimination in the dominant host societies feed on and exacerbate each other.

The aftermath of the recent failed suicide bomb attack in central Stockholm, Sweden, during the Christmas shopping rush illustrated the negative potential of this dynamic, but also some positive signs from surprising sources. The reactions to the bombing (which left only the bomber dead, as he for some reason detonated his bomb on an empty side street rather than the busy shopping street a block away - the better part of me wants to think that he came to his senses at the last moment, but I don't know if the issue has been determined) in mainstream media outlets were generally measured.

But there were exceptions, such as the columnist in the large Swedish evening paper Expressen, who worried (article in Swedish) that Swedes were in the process of "abolishing" themselves due to the higher birth rates of the Muslim population in Sweden (said population constitutes ca 4.3 % of the total Swedish pop of 9.4 million), describing this demographic scenario as a "war." And the Swedish blogosphere was replete with reactions that were anything but measured. In short, my concern is that if even a failed bomb attack with no casualties (except the bomber) elicits such latent hostility, what if the attack would have succeeded? Or what happens when an attack does succeed?

Many immigrants already feel discriminated against in comparatively liberal and open Sweden - experiments at Stockholm University showing that many employers treat applicants with identical CVs apart from whether they had Swedish or foreign-"sounding" names differently gives credence to such sentiments - and it is reasonable to assume that this increases the alienation of many young men, who are the recruits of choice for militant extremist groups. The thought that it could get a lot worse is not encouraging. Changes in Dutch public opinion following the murder of Theo van Gogh is a warning-sign of what could come.

The positive surprise in the aftermath of the failed bombing in my view came from an unlikely source - the "secret police." SÄPO (the Swedish Security Service) was heavily criticized for a report that they coincidentally published just days after the attack (it had been commissioned in February and completed in the month before the attack), in which they evaluated the threat from militant Islamic extremism as

currently not a threat to the fundamental structures of society, Sweden’s democratic system or Central Government

even though it posed a threat to individuals, especially abroad. This sounds like an entirely reasonable assessment to me. What was even more encouraging was that SÄPO spokespersons continuously rejected calls in the media and elsewhere for more extensive and intrusive surveillance. In one radio interview, the spokeswoman on counter-terrorism was asked why SÄPO did not know about the activities of a person who had traveled to both the UK and the middle east, and responded quite reassuringly that in order for SÄPO to track everyone with the same traveling patterns (the current author would be included in this group!), we would no longer live in the open society that Sweden now is.

(Note - I am not saying that it was a good thing that SÄPO was unable to prevent the botched attack or that they should not survey militant extremists. Just that they were an unexpected voice of sanity in the post-attack debate.)

I won't end with any wise suggestions for how to get out of the negative spiral that we may find ourselves in, merely note my concern over it. Perhaps on another day I will feel more inclined to be constructive.

(Link to the Dutch article courtesy of Turkish Digest.)

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UPDATE 2010-01-13: 
In an interview with De Volkskrant, Turkish government minister Faruk Çelik has responded to the open letter, according to DutchNews.nl, which quotes him as saying:

The fact that Turkish Dutch youngsters still feel they are second class citizens, that they are not welcome and that they are discriminated against, shows the Dutch authorities that they should revise their integration policy.

A part of that which the Netherlands calls integration policy has isolated immigrants, rather than integrated them.

Turkey will be in the EU, says Sweden's foreign minister - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt continues to express support for Turkey's EU membership bid. As I previously noted, on Dec 10 last year Bildt wrote a NYT op ed together with the foreign ministers of Finland, UK, and Italy in which they expressed their support for Turkish membership.

And in a recent interview with the Turkish TV channel Skyturk, Bildt reiterated his views. As reported by Hürriyet Daily News, Bildt argued that

Historical experience shows that a democracy that knocks on the door of the democratic European Union will at the end of the day never be refused

I think that Bildt is doing an important job - if for no other reason than to let supporters of both continued reforms and eventual EU membership in Turkey know that they have friends in the EU. While I have heard him make the argument in Swedish media on at least one occasion, I have not noticed him being quite as active in Sweden as he has been in international and Turkish media. It may well be that I have missed something, so I don't want to press this point. But it does point to a more general challenge for supporters of Turkish EU membership in EU member states: making the case for a Turkish membership at home.

Turkey to allow 50% foreign ownership in broadcasting

This just in: Turkey to allow 50% foreign ownership in broadcasting

Europe's new Berlin Wall?

The TurkEU Blog is returning from the dead (or at least the holidays)!

The big recent news is the Greek decision to erect a 12 km long wall/fence along its border with Turkey, to curb immigration flows across the border. The original plan - to build a wall/fence along the entire 200+ km border - was scaled back after heavy criticism from human rights groups and various European commentators. But even this smaller version is receiving criticism from international bodies like UNHCR, Amnesty International, and even the EU. A Commission spokesperson stated (on Jan 3) that

Fences and walls have proven in the past to be really short term measures that don't really help address and manage the migratory challenges in a more consolidated and structural way.

Greece’s Citizen Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis emphasized Monday that the wall should not be seen as being directed against Turkey as such, but was instead a way to "boost mutual cooperation" between the two countries. Exactly how a three meters tall concrete wall and barbed wire fence will serve to further cooperation across the border remains to be seen.

As always, it is interesting to consider European media reactions. Germans, in particular, of course have experiences with big walls and Spiegel Online has a summary of some recent editorials in German newspapers, most of which are critical of the wall, and some of which are quite eloquent in their criticism. But not all. Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung (center-right) makes the EU-Turkey link and

Holiday break until Jan 6

The TurkEU Blog will be inactive until January 6.

Happy New Year!

Orhan Pamuk: Turkey is Europe's "mirror image"

A more leisurely post during the holidays. An interview from 2009 with Orhan Pamuk, in which he pontificates on the significance of identity - both Turkish and European - for the Turkish EU-bid. Courtesy of Euronews.

Enjoy, and happy holidays!

Slanted reporting on Turkey's stalled EU bid

I will continue on the theme of slanted media reporting of Turkey-EU relations, simply because there's a lot to cover. Don't get me wrong - most of the reporting is good and even the bad usually contains bits and pieces of good information. But a growing number of news stories appear to be converging around a simple explanation for the lack of progress in Turkey's accession negotiations, and I think that this explanation is one-sided. (Fortunately, it is not yet a consensus, and I will quote reports with a different take to emphasize that there is another side to the story.)

But let me give just one recent example, posted yesterday on the South East European Times website SET.com (find the article here). (The SET, btw, is sponsored by the US European Command.) The article sums up recent developments concerning Croatia's progress toward accession, and then turns to Turkey. Here is what the piece says about Turkey, in its entirety:

Turkey, which also began its membership talks in October 2005, has been moving at a much slower pace in the negotiation process. It was able to open only one negotiating chapter this year, bringing the total to 13, and has closed only one since the start of its negotiations with Brussels.

The main reasons for the slow pace are Turkey's sluggish reform progress, as well as its refusal to open its airports and ports to traffic from EU member Cyprus. As a result, negotiations on eight of the chapters have been frozen since late 2006.