After nearly two hundred years of efforts for modernization through greater participation in Europe,  Turkey’s efforts are nearing culmination, even though the negotiation process that began on the 3rd of October this year may continue at least for another decade and it is open-ended.

In my presentation I would like to tackle the possible impact of Turkey’s eventual membership on Turkey’s overall political and security dynamics and its relations with the her neighbourhood, particularly with her Arab neighbours. The impact must be reviewed in two phases: The first phase could be described as the period leading to membership, that is pre-accession phase and the second as the membership phase. As the pre-accession period will be a long one due to the difficult negotiations covering almost every aspect of Turkish social life, what is of immediate concern is the current period. The second would be the full membership phase.

The transition or negotiation period will be marked by different features in economic, social political and security relations between Turkey and the European Union. These differences will have varying implications for Turkey’s relations with her neighbours. When Turkey’s membership materializes, this will have a profound impact on Turkey’s foreign policy and relations with her neighbours. My intention is to look at these phases particularly from the perspective of Turkish Arab relations:

Pre-Accession phase:

1.Economy: Since 1995 Turkey has a customs union arrangement with the European Union that covers industrial products and processed agricultural products. An important aspect of the Customs Union is that it makes Turkey follow the same foreign trade regime with the European Union. In other words, Turkey applies the same import tariffs to third countries as does the EU. This prevents Turkey from signing free trade agreements with countries that do not have free trade arrangements with EU. As the import duties of EU from third countries are fairly low for industrial products this does not cause a major problem for Turkey’s external trade. With the current protectionist policies of EU we do not expect any hindrance on Turkey’s agricultural policies. This will mean that without restrictions of CAP Turkey may be able to continue and augment import and export of its agricultural products, at least for a long time to come.

A similar situation exists in the field of energy as the European energy community was enlarged to include all South East European countries Turkey has refused to join this community until it becomes a full member so that it can follow independent energy policies, aiming at making Turkey a land of criss-crossing hub of oil and gas pipelines. For this purpose Turkey maintains an active link with her neighbours in the field of energy. Two major gas pipelines link Turkey to Russia, one gas pipeline to Iran. Baku-Tibilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline will be supplemented with a gas pipeline. Turkey is linking its gas network to Greece and from there to Europe. When conditions return to normal in Iraq, the current oil pipeline may be supplemented with a gas pipeline and there may be further gas pipelines linking Turkey to other Middle East countries

As Turkey’s imports and exports increase greater it becomes necessary to make multi-lateral arrangements to foster trade economic cooperation. Examples of this type of cooperation are the Black Sea Economic Organization that brings together the riparian countries of the Back Sea including the Southern Caucasus countries and most of the Balkans, the Economic Cooperation organisation consisting of Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and several Central Asian countries. The third multi-lateral frame work is the Islamic Conference Organization. We do not have a multi-lateral cooperation scheme that would bring us together only with the Gulf Countries or with Mashrek. The Euro-Mediterranean program which foresees a Mediterranean free trade zone fails to cover this gap.

In the year 2000 at the Turkish Foreign Policy Institute we organised a Turkish Arab conference to see how we can develop our economic relations. The conference adopted a number of recommendations and they are enclosed to this paper. Unfortunately, involved governments have taken very little action on these recommendations.

Nevertheless, the major economic reforms Turkey has been implementing since the middle of 1980s have begun to bear its fruits and Turkish economy has begun to achieve a stable growth rate. Particularly with membership prospects increasing in recent years, foreign investments in Turkey have reached a record high and the stock exchange in Istanbul has broken all bullish records. Investments from Gulf countries have begun to trickle but we hope these investments will also rapidly grow

Political and Security Dialogue:

What has led to the beginning of membership negotiations were mainly tremendous socio-political reforms that Turkey began to adopt and put into practice after 1999 when Turkey’s candidacy was declared by the EU Council. As it will be recalled after the creation of the Turkish republic a dramatic reform (inkilap) program was carried out as part of Turkey’s campaign for modernization. However, during the cold war Turkey being on the front-line lagged behind in legislation and implementation of democratic reforms and human rights as well as liberalization of the economy. Turkey is now in the process of stabilizing a democratic public system with full respect to human rights without infringing personal set of beliefs and religion. This degree of realization of a democratic order in a mainly Moslem society is considered by many as remarkable and great achievement. After all most Turks are convinced that the way to modernization of the society and religion largely depend on the adoption of the principles of democracy and secularism, including gender equality.

The secular-democratic system of Turkey enables her, both to take part in the affairs of Europe and also allows her to maintain its historic ties with her neighbors and contribute to stability and cooperation in her region. It is no coincidence that while Turkey is negotiating to enter the EU, a Turk has been chosen as the Secretary General of the Islamic Conference Organization, and Turkey together with Spain initiate efforts for an alliance between cultures, and Prince Hassan Bin Tallal and Professor Dogramaci, could together initiate a Parliament of Cultures. The conservative government of Turkey has time and again declared itself in favor of drastic reforms in the Moslem societies if we all want to benefit from the fruits of modernization. Turkey is being shown erroneously as a model for Moslem societies by many Europeans. This is meaningless, Turkey’s modernization experience is sui generis due to its unique geographical and historic experience. Each country and nation must choose its own modernization paradygm. Maximum Turkey can do is to share its experience with others who would like to learn about them.