CAIRO, 20 December 2004 — The European Union’s decision to give Muslim-majority Turkey a date for membership talks drew a warm welcome yesterday from Middle Eastern states keen to see the wealthy European club expand to their doorstep.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned from Brussels to a hero’s welcome Saturday, after obtaining the date — Oct. 3, 2005 — for the launch of the negotiations.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit welcomed the prospect of Turkey’s integration into the economic superpower, which already counts 25 countries and 455 million inhabitants.
“Turkey’s accession would bring Europe to Arab borders and Turkey would become the only Muslim country in the EU,” he said on Saturday. “Europe on the borders of Syria and Iraq would give a new dimension to Euro-Mediterranean relations.”
The EU decision gives Turkey a new position in Europe and the Islamic world, Foreign Minster Abdullah Gul said yesterday.
“Turkey is a very different country than two days ago,” Gul told supporters in Ankara. “We sense this inside Turkey. You see this when we’re together with all our neighbors. You see this in Europe. In all the Muslim countries, in Arab countries, in the Caucasus, Turkey’s position has changed.”
Turkey still needs to undertake huge efforts to match membership criteria, improve its human rights record, solve its dispute over Cyprus and overcome widespread Turkoskepticism among member countries.
In addition to Syria and war-torn Iraq, Turkey’s accession would also leave the European Union nestling up against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“We welcome any development which forward the interests of Turkey, a neighboring and brotherly country,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters yesterday.
Jordan’s Al-Arab Al-Yawm newspaper said Turkish accession would mark a “new and unprecedented reality in history”.
“The EU will grow and enlarge, reaching Syria, Iraq and Iran in the heart of the Middle East but not as an exclusive Christian club,” it said in an editorial.
The Al-Rai daily praised the Turkish premier for securing a start date for negotiations without sacrificing his country’s foreign policy priorities and asked why Arab governments were not as successful in their diplomacy.
“Turkey’s political activity is bearing fruit and is a strong indicator of an effective, pragmatic and flexible balance between concessions and gains,” the paper said.
“The question is: Where is the Arabs’ role in all of this?”
The leader of France’s right-wing ruling party, Nicolas Sarkozy — a leading Turkosceptic — asked how the European Union could say no to other Muslim-majority states after saying yes to Turkey.
“If we include Turkey, what will we say to other Mediterranean nations — Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia?” asked Sarkozy, who is widely tipped as a future president.
Around 99 percent of Turkey’s 70 million inhabitants are Muslim.
In neighboring Syria, people saw no reason for Turkey to be allowed into the European club and not their own country.
If Turkey joins, “Europeans will get to know Islam well and Turks will learn to be more open like Europeans,” a 26-year-old shopowner said. “Maybe it will be Syria’s turn next.”
But many remained skeptical about Europe’s real willingness to accept either country, given the discrepancy in living standards and cultural values between the Islamic world and the European Union in its current form.
