It looks like Turkey doesn't want to be in the EU after all.

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Wycoff

What about its relationship with Cyprus?

Besides, it's not our business who the EU invites and doesn't invite. If they determine that Turkey is not welcomed, then that's that.

The anomalous situation with regard to (Greek) Cypriot membership in the EU is largely of EU's own doing.

The EU has an established policy of not importing foreign policy/border problems of prospective members, but it was conveniently pushed aside for Greek Cyprus. The EU knew about the situation in Cyprus when admitting them. It wouldn't take a genius to guess it would create serious complications in EU's relations with Turkey, but hey, who took serious the very prospect of Turkish membership back then?

Let's move on from there; in the months leading to Greek Cypriot membership to the EU, the UN prepared a carefully and meticulously detailed plan for the reunification of the island, drawing on the established principles emerging from 3 decades of negotiations between the parties (like bi-zonality, bi-communality, equal partnership etc etc). That plan was endorsed by the EU as being fair and just, the Greek Cypriots were expected to accept it prior to their membership and come in clean.

What happened? Turkish Cypriots voted yes, Greek Cypriots; no. I should mention here EU's promise, in reaction, to lift the isolations on the Turkish Cypriots in light of their their constructive behaviour. What happens next? Greek Cypriots are rewarded by EU membership, Turks by further isolation AND demands on Turkey to further reward Greek Cypriots because "they are now members".

The EU has no face to press Turkey on this issue, apart from the pathetic lip service they now have to pay to "Turkey's obligation to implement the full requirements of the Customs Union blah blah blah" (read: open the ports to Greek Cypriots), in characteristic elliptic language hiding behind techinacalities.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Nice tu quoque, junior.

It's not a fallacy when you argue that new members shouldn't be held to standards the existing ones can't meet.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
It's not a fallacy when you argue that new members shouldn't be held to standards the existing ones can't meet.

All the EU demands on this matter is

a) to cease and desist, and
b) stand up for it and work up that history.

Are you arguing, that Germany doesn't meet these standards wrt her history?

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Pekka, stop exagerating with racism, turkey wont be let in, since in turkey you are sent to prison for "insulting turkishness", the cyprus problem, the armenian genocide denial, and many other things regarding human rights in turkey and their democracy, not because they are brown, except those near syria and iraq (mainly kurds), most turks cant be distinguished from greeks, and greece is in.

You are not sent to prison in Turkey for "insulting Turkishness". Yes, there is a law about "insulting Turkishness", and ultra-nationalist lawyers try to make it all inclusive by suing everyone they don't like the views of. Denial of the so called "Armenian genocide" is not punishable by law per se, but people were sued by such lawyers upon their comments on this issue. Courts dismissed these lawsuits after hearing the files.

Though I agree it's more than quaint to have a law on "insulting Turkishness", it's definitely not the case you "go to jail" if you say genocide happened or somesuch.

On Turkey's human rights, there sure is room for improvement. But Turkey's efforts in human rights and enhancing democracy were considered enough for qualifying Turkey for negotiation talks. This process is going on, in consultaion with the EU, and it's a terrible misconception to still imagine Turkey as a place gross violations of human rights as Turkophobes love to make it seem.

[Cort Haus]

What do you think of the role of the military, Ancyrean?

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Turkey slaughtered at least as many Kurds as Saddam Hussein. Now, one gets hung for it and the other permitted into the EU? No ****ing way!

Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds, sparing no method including chemical weapons. The number of people who perished in Turkey's struggle with the seperatist PKK is 30.000, which includes troops as well as PKK terrorists, in addition to people killed by the PKK who had no qualms about attacking fellow Kurdish villages and killing fellow Kurds they deemed pro-government.

I understand the irresistable urge to make a sarcastic connection, though .

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Ancyrean
Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds, sparing no method including chemical weapons. The number of people who perished in Turkey's struggle with the seperatist PKK is 30.000, which includes troops as well as PKK terrorists, in addition to people killed by the PKK who had no qualms about attacking fellow Kurdish villages and killing fellow Kurds they deemed pro-government.

You can hear different numbers in different sources. Pretty much all of them lie, the truth is hard to find. In both cases (Iraq and Turkey) the Kurds are the troublemakers, that much is clear. Whether you call them terrorists (Turkish Kurds in the eye of the West) or freedom fighters (Iraqi Kurds in the eye of the West) is in the eye of the beholder.

I understand the irresistable urge to make a sarcastic connection, though .

Well detected sarcasm. Others weren't that smart.

By the way, I don't care much whether Turkey is accepted or not. If I had my way, the whole EU would be dissolved and may be later refounded in a much smaller way, just this time so, that it works.

[Kuciwalker]

Well detected sarcasm. Others weren't that smart.

I think you're the one who needs to look harder.

[Harovan]

Your one-lined trolls throughout this thread are obvious without looking hard, skywalker.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm trying to figure out how either of those are bad in a troll

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
What do you think of the role of the military, Ancyrean?

The army had a different role in modern Turkish history than was the case in Europe for a number of reasons. Chiefly among them is the fact that the idea of a secular state and a world-view free of religious references are alien concepts for the larger part of the Muslim world even today, let alone 83 years ago in a country which held the caliphate for 5 centuries.

In Turkish history, starting from late Ottoman times, in the absence of an aristocracy or even a middle class, the army has been the sole source of progress; young officers the driving force behind new ideas, progress and change. Understanding this background is hard for Western minds, which developed a sense of civil control of the military as afforded by a totally different historical context.

Those cadre of officers who had seen the collapse and death of the Empire, foreign occupation and a miraculous rebirth of the nation developed an intense devotion to guard the new republic and its core principles. They passed it on to future corps of officers and people in their turn came to see the army in this light.

The army made 3 coups in the past 50 years, with very different reasons and results. The first one in 1960 was against the growing oppression of Turkey's first centre-right party (Ataturk's party was devotedly social-democrat) over the society and the press. If it's not unusual enough to see a military coup for democracy, the resulting constitution was one of the most liberal in Europe's history.

The last coup was in 1980, this time over a totally different reasoning: that the liberal constitution brought anarchy to the country. The result: a restrictive constitution, which was overhauled comprehensively in the course of EU accession process.

Today, many people are confused over the existence of a religious party in power and their "true intentions", however moderate it may seem. The thought of the army as the ultimate guarantee against possible unthinkable course of events is their only source of relief. However, it's also wrong to think the army is running the country, or that a coup is always in the air.

My opinion is that the army should definitely withdraw from its relatively high profile public posture, and the EU process is definitely a good catalyst to make this come about.

However, Europeans in turn can stop overreacting over the army's habitual making of comments on fundamentalism etc, as you cannot expect such change in such short order (particularly when Turkey's membership is not sure, as many Europeans love to emphasise loudly).

[Cort Haus]

Thanks, Ancyrean.

[Chemical Ollie]

EU should make demands that USA accepts Communist Cuba as a member state. That would be similar.

Then, you could always argue that an important criteria for a country to join the EUROPEAN Union should be that the country is located in Europe. Turkey is mostly in Asia.

[RGBVideo]

When judging the information value of a text clip, I usually check out how many facts it presents. Newly discovered facts are the reason why I presume all of us read news. So when I read the article in the OP, looking for facts given to us (the readers). I counted 5, of which 3 were news younger than 5 years old and 1 news younger than 1 year. It's a bunch of interviews of persons which we know nothing about beforehand and the journalist has hand-picked himself, peppered with statements backed up with no facts and clashed between weasel words like "some say that x is true", "many think that y is outdated" and "y, perhaps, is what this is".

If the guy would be up-front about some of his opinions and try to back them up with chains of logic instead of weasel-word backed blank statements this would perhaps qualify for a decent op-ed. Right now it's nothing but an unfounded attack piece.

[RGBVideo]

w00t this is why I love Apolyton: for better or worse, we have our own experts

thank you for your insight-filled posts, Ancyrean.