First of all I would like to express my deep appreciation and thanks to Alyson Bailes for all she has done to make this meeting possible and to give me an opportunity to express some of the qualifications of Turkey in a new setting. The heterogeneity of the internal structures and the variety of regions that constitute the neighborhood of Turkey allow me only to point some of the general aspects of the subjects I must deal with and share my views with you. Before I begin, I must stress the point that the views I will express are not representative of the Government of Turkey, as I am, like my Institute is fully private.

At first sight Turkey is situated at the margins of many regions. Its territories are at the South East edge of Europe; North East of the Mediterranean; the West of the Caucasus and Central Asia; North and East of what we call the Middle East. It is neighbor of all Black Sea countries and of Eastern Mediterranean. As such Turkey is at the margins of all these regions, with which my ancestors shared an Empire. From another perspective this multiple marginality may also be considered as centrality in a wide region. Consequently, this center shares values, traditions, knowledge and problems of all these regions.

During the cold war and in the days of strength of the Western alliance Turkey had more or less one major threat perception: Soviet Union and Communism and the Alliance fortified Turkey’s historic polity choice of Westernization and Europeanization. In terms of political geography Turkey was considered a Western country, since Eastern Europe belonged to the Communist camp. Turkey became members in all Western and European organizations, NATO, Council of Europe, OECD, OSCE and others. It applied for membership in the EEC way back in 1959. The ultimate aim of 1963 Association agreement was full membership. The implementation of the accession program envisaged in 1973,however, became an á la carte menu due to no fault of Turkey. The approach of Western powers towards Turkey was one of appreciation of its military role in the alliance no less and no more. I will not dwell on how the relations developed in the post-cold war era. Once the security aspect of the relationship became weaker and Turkish foreign policy agenda was enlarged with the addition of new regions that I mentioned earlier, the asymmetry between Turkish and European approaches to them began to grow. Turkey was still an ally; but against which threat? For Turkey Western Europe was still part of our alliance, but why EU members wanted to keep it out of the ESDP and why did they treat Greece better and made it a member while they treated Turkey worse than former Communist countries of Eastern Europe? Why are they still discussing whether Turkey should become a member or not? While Turkey has been declared a candidate in the Helsinki summit in 1999 and Turkey is making tremendous efforts to fulfill the Copenhagen criteria why Mr. Joscka Fischer says ‘we should not close the door to Turkey’? The examples of actions, such statements and policies create a widely accepted suspicion in the Turkish public on the lack of European desire to see Turkey a member of the EU are many. This widely prevalent suspicion has had a serious effect on Turkish thinking and political attitudes and actions.

Having come out of the cold war with a fairly strong economy (one of the ten emerging economies), a democratic system of government paying greater attention to human rights and freedoms, Turkey became an anomaly to the regimes of its Middle Eastern neighbors. In fact, Turkey was considered as a threat to the stability and durability of religious and/or dictatorial regimes that prevailed in the former Ottoman provinces of Mashrek. While the regimes considered Turkey as a threat, it was a source of envy by the younger generations in those countries. As Turkey was militarily a very strong country destroying this threat could only be achieved by encouraging factors of internal dissent in Turkey. Therefore, Turkey became target of different terror groups that began their activities in Turkey with the support of neighboring countries as from the mid 1970s. While an Armenian terrorist group chose Turkish diplomats in their assassination campaign, Moscow supported extreme left terrorism, created a response in the form of right wing nationalist terrorism, training ground was for Turkish terrorists was the Bekaa valley in Syria.

There was also strong agitation for using religion for political purposes by center and right wing parties. There was a lull in terror when Turkey came under military rule in 1980. The purpose was achieved: Turkey was no longer a democracy. But this was a short lived cease fire. With return of democratic regime terror was back. This time it was not basically extreme left or extreme right. Terror took the form of Kurdish separatism and religious terrorism in the name of Islam. The target for the PKK was to incite a rebellion in South East Turkey destabilizing the whole country. Its headquarters was Damascus and the mountainous nature of the borders with Iraq and Iran they provided safe-havens and logistic centers. As Turkey advanced on its European vocation –application for membership in 1987, acceptance of the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights the same year, separatist terror increased its vehemence. 1980s and 1990s Turkey faced with several dilemmas. The cardinal principles of the Republic, such as unity of the land and nation and of secularism that had so far been preserved either through authoritarian governments or with the military standing in the background had to be tested in a democratic environment that would give greater opportunity for opponents of these principles greater voice in the public and greater cause to the opponents of the regime in Turkey. Separatist threat in the form of the campaign of terror has now diminished greatly although it is still a potential one. This allows Turkey to remove legal impediments for the exercise of the rights of people belonging to different ethnic groups in Turkey.

Religious terror has been alien to Turkish society over the many centuries. Non of the prevalent Islamic sects in Turkey condoned terror; in fact, Moslems and Christians and Jews lived side by side in Turkish lands with proper respect to each others’ traditions and cults. Islamic terror began in Turkey after the Iranian revolution but these terror groups were suppressed. Now, one can no longer talk about terror particularly those belonging to a specific Islamic sect as a national problem. Al Qaeda and Hizbullah or Kaplan group are transnational terror organizations and may cooperate against their common enemies. Israel, US, UK and Turkey today may be their enemies but tomorrow they may have others. Response to this terror can only be through international cooperation.

All through the days of ordeal of terror we can hardly say that we have received even minimal support from our friends in Europe in our fight against terror. The examples of the lack of cooperation are many and I do not want to elaborate too much on this issue. It would be sufficient to mention that considering terrorists as political refugees is tantamount to support for terror.

After a lull of several years, terror struck in Istanbul two weeks ago. This time it was Hizbullah with Middle East links. This terror attack, ostensibly against Jewish and British, (had it not been intercepted also against US) targets, but in reality against Turkey aimed at hitting many birds with one stone: Harming Turkey’s relations with Israel, US and Europe; damaging Turkish economy by frightening tourists; protesting the mildly Islamist government of Turkey that they should not pursue secular and pro-European policies and rescind from the idea of sending troops to Iraq and finally damage the secular, democratic, stable country image of Turkey. Preventing the terrorists from achieving their purposes depends on the reactions to be shown against this action. This terror act may not be expected to cause any significant damage to Turkey’s relations with Israel and the United States as both countries have been targets of international terror themselves and have learned the lesson that one cannot give concession to terrorists. On this subject Turkey’s relations with many European countries, however, are more fragile and the trends are not so good. Although immediate reactions from responsible statesmen were of great support and expressions of solidarity, the official and unofficial practices, unfortunately, have not matched the words. The first incident was a decision of UEFA to remove the football matches, between the two Turkish teams and a British and an Italian team from Turkey to a neutral country. No such decisions were taken when bombs were exploding in London or Madrid or when twin towers were hit in the United States. Secondly, the Danish and British Governments have recommended their tourists not to travel to Turkey and imposed very heavy restrictions on the travel of Turkish citizens to their countries. European Christian Democrats have increased their campaign and have taken benefit of this terror act for passing a resolution from the European Parliament stating that Turkey should be given a neighborhood status instead of membership. Including the Council of Europe many international organizations have suspended their meetings in Turkey giving the impression that Turkey is not a safe country to go.

In Turkey we interpret these measures that were not at all envisaged when similar incidents were happening in UK, Spain or Italy as attempts for qualifying Turkey as a country in turmoil, like Iraq. These measures may have some justification for a very short period of time but if they are prolonged, in the face of continued stability and determined fight against terror, may become rewards given to terrorists in support of their aim.

The Turkish Government according to their statements are determined to continue on their path of secularism and fulfillment of the Copenhagen criteria and is expecting support from European Union countries not in words but also in deeds in its efforts both for fighting terror and also in its drive to become a member of the European Union.

If EU countries choose to keep away Turkey from fulfilling its European aspirations, this might have serious repercussions in Turkish domestic policies and foreign policies. It may well increase the strength of leftist and rightist anti-European political forces. The center politics which will continue to be pro-European will be castrated and discredited, resulting in weakening of center and strengthening of extremes. If the present trend continue it may become harder and harder for the present Government to maintain the present momentum of political reforms and the solution of the Cyprus and Aegean problems may become more difficult. At this time, Turkey really needs a real signal of solidarity and not of timid statements and disruptive actions.

Speaking about terror, we cannot avoid discussing the current situation in Iraq and particularly Turkey’s interests and obligations in Iraq and the preparations for the future political structure of that country. It is clear that the occupation forces in Iraq are faced with a threat less than classical warfare and civil resistance but certainly more than scattered terrorist attacks. The perpetrators of these attacks are sometimes described as devotees of Saddam Husseyn and some other times as part of the Al Qaida international terror or both. It may not be possible for the occupying forces to eradicate these attacks by simply transferring power to a make-shift Iraqi national government. Even in such a case the attacks both against occupying forces and the national authority may continue. It is not possible for the US and UK with the support of several smaller countries to resolve this question. The trans-Atlantic rift over US policies in Iraq did not have much impact on the conduct of the war.However, the lack of substantial cooperation between Europe and the United States has had a serious negative impact on the developments not only in Iraq but also in the entire Middle East.

For Turkey the situation in Iraq involves certain obligations and interests. Turkey feels obliged that about 5000 armed PKK members must be disarmed and disbanded preferably peacefully. To achieve that the Turkish Parliament has approved a full amnesty for those who were not involved in terrorist activities and serious reduction in prison terms for those who were involved. This offer is valid until February next year. Secondly, Turkish speaking people of Iraq known as Turkmens have been persecuted both by the nationalist governments in Baghdad and also by the Kurds in the North. Their human and property rights must be restored and protected. Thirdly, Turkey wants to see peace and stability in Iraq which is a neighbor and an important trading partner of Turkey. Please remember that a very long oil pipeline from Kirkouk in Northern Iraq to Yumurtalik in Southern Turkey constitutes an important link and was one of the lifelines for Iraq in the course of the food for oil program of the UN. Obviously, Turkey did not want to take part in the war against Iraq and as a consequence did not allow American forces to use Turkey as a staging ground nor it accepted to send Turkish troops to Iraq as occupying forces but as the war was over Turkey accepted the US invitation to send peace keeping troops and the Turkish parliament gave authority to the government to do so in the hope that such a move would also help Turkey to protect its interests and fulfill its obligations in Iraq. In the face of the strong resistance of local tribes acting for different motives, Turkey withdrew its offer for sending troops, expecting the US to fulfill its pledges particularly with respect to disarming PKK.

There is much debate on the future political structure of Iraq. We believe that the formula of setting up three states-Kurdish-Sunnite and Shiite- either as independent states or part of a federation is a recipe for turmoil and chaos in Iraq and possibly also in the Gulf region. We firmly believe that there should be a unified Iraq with as much authority as possible given to local and regional administrations, in that country. There should be a single army, and natural resources should be controlled by the center.

Before turning to Turkey’s EU bid for membership let me make a few remarks on internal political and economic situation in Turkey. For the past year Turkey has been under a single party rule; the party in power won about 35 percent of the votes but because other votes were distributed to too many parties, it has almost full control in the parliament. As this party was originally part of a party boasting for its religious leanings, the current AKP is considered as a dissident because it accepts the cardinal principles of the republic which is secularism and democracy. It has also been a proponent of the market economy. As such it has little different from Mr. Ozal’s Motherland Party or from the True Path Party, both of which did not receive enough votes to enter the parliament. The AKP is making a serious effort to prepare Turkey with respect to legislative and implementation norms of the Copenhagen criteria by the end of 2004. With the passage of seven packages of legislative reforms from the parliament Turkey has completed all legal requirements of the Copenhagen criteria , what remains is to see that these reforms are properly implemented. Most of the reforms are already achieved. Serious efforts are being made to prevent police brutalities and to reform the judicial system. With respect to harmonization of legislation, Turkey is implementing its accession partnership programs and there are four committees under the association council consulting in these issues.

From the economic point of view, following the serious economic crises of 1999, Turkey has returned to its traditional pattern of growth of around 5.5% and the efforts of bringing down the inflation are bearing fruit and Turkey is hopeful that in 2005 the inflation will be a single digit figure. Economic policies and reform of economic institutions in cooperation with IMF and World Bank are yielding positive results and the budget deficits are being reduced. In one area however, there are serious problems. That is the creation of a favorable atmosphere for direct foreign investments. These difficulties vary from bureaucratic barriers to macro-economic environment. The good news is that these obstacles are being identified and removed one by one. The government hopes that EU membership will constitute an anchor for the persistence of structural reforms and for making Turkish economy a sophisticated one.

Already Turkey can call itself an industrial country with over 90% of its exports composed of industrial products. A few other figures might be interesting: the number of universities in Turkey has reached 80, the number of people attending in various levels of educational institutions is over 18 million. The number of cellular telephone subscribers is around 30 million. In a city like Ankara about 300 new cars enter the traffic daily. In Istanbul three times as much. The urbanization rate in Turkey in 1965 was only 15 per cent, it has now become 67%. I give these figures to show how economic developments affect the demographic structure of the country that in turn influences the political structure of the nation. There is no elitist political system as in the past, grass-roots politicians can easily come to power. This dynamic process of change in economy and demographic structure, coupled with institutional reforms enhance democracy, make Turkey a young country with a most dynamic nation. Turkish diasporas in Western European countries are now around four million and about one fifth own their businesses, they are now in local assemblies and some in national parliaments and even in the European Parliament.

To end my presentation I would like to say a few words about Turkey and the European Union and why most Turks want to join this truly European economic, political and security integration project that will eventually form Europe without frontiers. As you may know well the decline of the Ottoman state began and gained speed with the industrialization of Western Europe and with the Turks turning their backs to this process of reforms and change. Persistent military defeats awakened Turkish sultans to the need for reform. But all their attempts to bring about reforms were artificial and imitative. Having become part of the European concert in 1856 did not mean much because Turkish society and political system remained backward as every legal measure and action had somehow to be justified on the grounds of Islamic religion giving undue power to mollas as the ordinary people depended on their interpretation of the rules of Islam as the Qoran could only be read in Arabic. . Extra territorial rights destroyed the economy and 13 wars fought with Russia caused the loss of territories in the Balkans and Eastern and Northern Black Sea and finally the First World War brought an end to the empire. The great Turkish leader Ataturk was not only a commander to lead Turkish armies to a complete victory in a war against Greek invasion of Turkey but also to determine Turkey’s borders as result of an international treaty, the only treaty negotiated after the end of the WWI an consequently stil in force. His aim or rather what is called the principles of Kemalism are principles to build a modern, democratic and secular state structure involving respect for the rights of the individual, equality of men and women and unity of the nation. These principles are still valid and many people believe these are the principles shared with the developed societies of Europe and Turkey can best preserve them if it becomes a part of the European society so that modernization of Turkey becomes a shared process with other partners of Europe.

That is why Turkey wants to anchor itself in Europe so that it can better preserve its modern and secular institutions and radiate European values and human rights to defend itself and Europe against forces of darkness that would like to create chaos and push the world back to the Middle Ages..

This can best be achieved by placing Turkey’s European vocation on an irreversible track, that this is to begin membership negotiations as early as possible.

Because of the shortage of time I have not been able to tackle Turkey’s relations with US, Cyprus issue and other specific problems.

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[*] For presentation at a Panel Organized by SIPRI and EU Commission Representation at Stockholm on December 4, 2003