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The
decision of the European Union to start negotiations
on Turkey's accession in October 2005 is an enormous
achievement both for the European Union and for
Turkey under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan.
For the EU, it signified the ability of European
leader's to overcome centuries'-old prejudices,
strengthened after 9/11 by an undifferentiated
stigmatization of Islam as identified with
fundamentalism, if not terrorism. The decision
suggests that Turkey will be judged like any other
candidate by a set of universal benchmarks, the
so-called Copenhagen criteria.
There is no doubt that much has still to be done
regarding various aspects of human rights in Turkey,
especially when it comes to minority issues. Yet the
uncritical, negative attitude to Turkey because it
is a non-Christian country has been abandoned and
overcome.
This is equally an achievement for Turkey. The
Turkish development toward modernization did not
start with Kemal Atat rk; it goes back to the 19th
century Tanzimat (Reform) movement of the Ottoman
Empire. True, this has been arduous and far from
successful, but the Turkish road to Europe was not
built yesterday.
That a government led by the AK party with its
Muslim roots has proceeded in this direction, and
has, under Erdogan, even achieved a number of
dramatic reforms which eluded earlier governments in
Ankara, is testimony to the depth and perseverance
of these tendencies in the Turkish political
discourse.
Yet recent developments in Iraq seem to cast a
shadow on this route and appear to bring back echoes
of Turkey's past which one had thought had been
abandoned long ago.
The Iraqi elections have greatly encouraged the
Kurds in northern Iraq in their claim for a more
robust Kurdish autonomy in the three provinces now
comprising the Kurdish region. Given the brutality
and murderousness to which Iraqi Kurds have been
subjected by all Iraqi regimes – and not only under
Saddam – one can well understand this. Equally, one
can sympathize with the Iraqi Kurds' claim to have
the city of Kirkuk – which was "Arabized" under
Saddam through a strategy of ethnic cleansing,
expulsions and the importation of Arab settlers –
included in the Kurdish region.
In these elections, the United Kurdish List won 58%
of the vote in the Tamin province, which includes
Kirkuk, while a list representing the Turkomen
minority gained 16%.
Since the elections, the Turkish government has made
threatening noises regarding developments in Iraqi
Kurdistan, including a somewhat surprising statement
by Erdogan that if Kirkuk "explodes" the US will pay
the price.
One can well understand Turkey's legitimate concern
that development in Iraqi Kurdistan not spillover
into Turkey's southeastern provinces with their
restive ethnic Kurdish population. But it is the
Erdogan government itself that has justly and wisely
realized that the key to the behavior of ethnic
Kurds in Turkey depends on the degree to which
Turkey allows this group to satisfy its cultural and
historical identity within the confines of the
Turkish Republic; and Erdogan's government has
proved more liberal in this respect than its
predecessors.
Equally, Turkey is entitled to be concerned about
the way the Turkomen minority in north Iraq is going
to be treated.
But what is utterly unacceptable – and may
jeopardize the accession negotiation with the EU –
is what appears to be a crude Turkish attempt to
interfere in the internal matters of a neighboring
state. The status of Iraqi Kurdistan is a matter to
be decided by the Iraqi political system: Nobody is
deluded that it is an easy issue, or that it is
clear what the developments in Iraqi will be, though
the elections give one a slight hope.
Nevertheless, a country claiming to be a serious
candidate for EU membership cannot also claim to
have a veto on how another country – troubled as it
may at the moment be – decides to get its internal
affairs resolved.
Turkey may be happy or unhappy about these
developments – and it has a legitimate right to
ensure its own territorial integrity. But what will
happen to Iraqi Kurdistan or Kirkuk is – simply and
bluntly – none of its business within a European
discourse. Unless, of course, it would like to
totally undermine its quest for European Union
membership by behaving according to 19th-century
imperial norms. That would be a tragedy for Turkey,
for the EU – and for the Middle East.
The writer is professor of political science at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
www.jpost.com Jerusalem Post - ISRAEL
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