TURKEY FACES OBSTACLES ON PATH TO EU MEMBERSHIP

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SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/23/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM OSCE EU TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY FACES OBSTACLES ON PATH TO EU MEMBERSHIP

REF: ANKARA 6763

Classified by Acting DCM James Moore; reasons 1.4 b and d.


1. (C) Summary: Now that Turkey has begun EU accession talks,
it faces the difficult prospect of meeting EU requirements
regarding Cyprus, minority rights, religious freedom,
civil-military relations, and freedom of expression. This
will require Turkey to open debate on sensitive topics and
change longstanding state policy and ideology, while at the
same time implementing difficult, EU-driven economic reforms.
The challenge may be further complicated by the strength of
Turkish nationalism. The GOT will also have to alter its
practice of delaying reform until shortly before a looming
deadline. End Summary.


2. (U) The GOT over the past four years has adopted a vast
array of legislative reforms in pursuit of Turkey's EU
candidacy. While the reforms are impressive on paper, the EU
and other observers have often noted that implementation of
the changes has lagged. Nevertheless, the EU in December
2004 determined that Turkey "sufficiently fulfills" the
Copenhagen political criteria in order to begin accession
talks, which started in October.


3. (C) Now that the accession process has begun, the GOT will
need to enact far more profound changes to advance toward
membership. Turkey will have to open debate on a long list
of taboos -- on issues such as minority rights, religious
pluralism, and civil-military relations -- and change some of
the fundamental concepts dating to the founding of the
Republic of Turkey in 1923. "Changing laws is not enough,"
said Sema Kilicer, political officer at the European
Commission Representation to Turkey. "Unless Turkey can
re-define citizens' rights in a more liberal way, it will not
make it. Now things are going to start getting tough."

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Turkey Faces Obstacles on EU Path
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4. (C) Turkey will be able to set its own pace -- the
accession process will take 10 years at a minimum. But the
GOT will have to make sustained, steady progress to overcome
a unique set of obstacles. Consistent EU pressure brought
Turkey to the start of accession talks -- just as IMF
pressure has led GOT economic reforms -- but Turkey will have
to create its own momentum to complete the process of fully
complying with the political criteria and adopting the
80,000-page EU acquis. As it does so, the following factors
are likely to prove particularly troublesome:

-- Cyprus: The unanimous approval of the EU Council will be
required to open and close each of the 33 acquis chapters.
This will effectively give Cyprus 66 opportunities to freeze
the process. The EU in 2006 will review Turkey's compliance
with the Customs Union. EU officials have made clear to the
Turks that full compliance requires allowing Greek Cypriot
vessels access to Turkish ports, something GOT contacts say
is out of the question unless the EU moves first to alleviate
the isolation of the "TRNC." Ultimately, the EU will not
allow Turkey to accede until it recognizes Cyprus, and the
GOT will not grant recognition until there is a full Cyprus
resolution.

-- Minority Rights: Despite the reforms, the GOT continues to
cling to a restrictive, anachronistic concept of
"minorities." At the founding of the Republic, Ataturk
established a unitary "Turkish" identity. Based on its
interpretation of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, the state
recognizes the existence of only three minorities -- Greek
Orthodox Christians, Armenian Orthodox Christians, and Jews.
The open expression of any other identity outside the
mainstream is considered a threat to national unity. As an
example, shortly before the EU released its Progress Report
November 9, Justice Minister Cicek warned that the GOT would
issue a protest if the report referred to Alevis as a
minority (it did not). As long as Turkey maintains a
definition of minority completely at odds with the Western
concept, it will not be able to meet EU requirements on

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minority rights. GOT officials sometimes argue that the
Turkish concept of minority rights is consistent with that of
France; EU contacts say there is some truth to that, but note
that France was an EU member long before the Copenhagen
Criteria were established in 1993.

-- Religious Freedom: For the same reasons, the state also
considers religious pluralism a threat to national unity.
The EU is pressing Turkey to expand freedoms for religious
minorities, while avoiding the issue of Turkish state control
over Islam. Many pious Turkish Muslims resent official
restrictions on Islam, such as the ban on Islamic headscarves
in universities. The Islam-oriented ruling AK Party has made
little headway in addressing these issues, and is loath to
expand freedoms for religious minorities without delivering
on issues important to its Islamic political base. The
recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights
upholding the headscarf ban underscored this dilemma.

-- Civil-Military Relations: The EU is calling for the
Turkish military to withdraw from the political sphere; the
November Progress Report calls attention to recent speeches
by leaders of the armed forces on political matters. As
noted reftel, no elected Turkish government can force
military leaders to cease the practice of commenting on
political matters. The political role of the armed forces is
a firm tradition in Turkey, supported by the vast majority of
Turks. Military leaders will have to be persuaded to phase
out their political influence. "This one will take time,"
said Koksal Toptan, AK MP and chairman of the parliamentary
Justice Committee. "There are some things we cannot change
as quickly as they can write in Brussels."

-- Nationalism: Turkish nationalism runs deep and wide. It
has blended with every other ideology in Turkey -- socialism,
Islamism, etc. It is well represented in every significant
political party. At some level, all Turks are nationalists.
Hardcore nationalists are already opposed to EU membership,
which they see as a ploy by Western powers intent on
weakening and dividing Turkey. The accession process, which
a Polish official reportedly described as "humiliating," will
provide numerous opportunities for nationalists to win people
over to their cause. When the EU insists on further reform
in sensitive areas such as minority rights and religious
freedom, nationalists will cite this as evidence of a plot to
create divisions in Turkish society. EU economic
requirements will force dramatic changes, such as a major
reduction in the number of agricultural workers, who
currently constitute a third of the workforce. These
changes, painful in the short term, will create a pool of
disaffected workers vulnerable to an anti-EU message. Of
course, this challenge is not unique to Turkey. Nationalism
is also strong in many of the 10 states that joined the EU in

2004. But those countries had recently emerged from behind
the Iron Curtain and were eager to re-join Europe. They
could blame communism, which was forced on them, for their
deficiencies, and thereby save face. Turkey's history is
different, and Turkish nationalism may therefore prove to be
a greater handicap.

-- Freedom of Expression: Free speech is the fundamental tie
that binds all other human rights problems in Turkey. Anyone
making controversial statements on the issues listed above
risks prosecution. EU-related reforms have done little to
expand freedom of expression. It remains illegal to "insult"
the Government, the state or its institutions, Ataturk, or
"Turkish identity." The GOT has amended the law so that
speech intended to "criticize" but not "insult" is no longer
prohibited. However, the law does not define the concept of
"insult," so prosecutors continue to open cases against those
who contradict the official view on sensitive topics, as
demonstrated by the case against Orhan Pamuk. Moreover,
defamation laws provide greater protection to public
officials than to ordinary citizens, a fact that PM Erdogan
has exploited by repeatedly suing political cartoonists whose
work he found offensive. GOT officials claim to support
freedom of expression in principle, but are very rarely
prepared to defend the right of citizens to speak out on
sensitive topics.


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-- Negotiating Tactics: The Turks have a tendency to
negotiate by inflexibly maintaining their position,
compromising only at the last moment. This has been Turkey's
approach to the EU process to date; the GOT has often given
in to EU pressure and enacted reforms shortly before an EU
Summit or Progress Report. "That's the way we work," laughed
Kaya Turkmen, MFA DDG for EU Affairs. Turkmen told us he has
warned colleagues that this approach will no longer serve
Turkey now that accession talks have begun. The European
Commission, he said, will set benchmarks on a wide range of
acquis requirements and task the GOT with developing a valid
plan for compliance. There will be no deadlines to force
action. The GOT will have to make gradual, steady progress
without outside political pressure. The Commission will set
requirements, and will generally not engage in the kind of
political haggling the GOT is accustomed to. "We shouldn't
call it a negotiation really," said Kilicer. "We should call
it 'cut, copy, and paste.'"

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Comment: Political Pressure to Continue
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5. (C) In a perfect world, Turkey's EU candidacy would now
drop below the radar screen, allowing the European Commission
and the Turkish bureaucracy to work through these issues
without political pressure. But that is highly unlikely.
The accession process will force Turks to confront all of the
sensitive subjects they prefer to avoid. This will
inevitably cause public controversy, and when it does, those
opposed to Turkey's EU candidacy -- both in Turkey and Europe
-- will turn up the heat.


MCELDOWNEY