BY HURSIT GUNES
MILLIYET- Columnist Hursit Gunes comments on the recent EU Progress Report on Turkey. A summary of his column is as follows:
When the Progress Report on Turkey prepared by the EU Commission put forth the Cyprus issue as a precondition, some people here protested, because Ankara wants to get a date for its membership talks as soon as possible. Another reaction came from Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. Both of these responses should be evaluated.
The Cyprus issue has long been a problem for Turkey. The rights of Turks on the island were guaranteed under the 1959 London Agreement. However, in the ‘60s the Cyprus Republic was transformed into a Greek Cypriot state with Turks suffering under oppression until 1974, when Turkey cried enough. This history shouldn’t be ignored today. In addition, no other country besides Turkey has recognized the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Thus Turkey has been caught in between the security of the Turkish people on the island and international recognition. So the solution is to create a guarantee including international recognition, and this might come through the European Union. However, when the EU is giving the Turkish Cypriots a guarantee, it shouldn’t propose political solutions that would treat them unjustly. This is our problem with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. If the EU announces our date for negotiations and adds that we should solve the Cyprus problem as part of this timetable, solving all these problems would be easier.
In the past there was no EU but now it exists, and the Greek Cypriot administration will soon join it. Of course it can’t be expected that the Greek Cypriots will oppress the Turkish Cypriots. However, including the Cyprus issue in the report as a precondition was unnecessary and it also made things harder. Gul spoke of a gap in the report, rather than emphasizing the superfluous sections. In Gul’s view, certain articles about headscarves should have been included in the section on human rights and freedoms in Turkey. Normally a country’s foreign minister defends his own country, as is his duty. Never before have we seen a FM complaining about defects in his own country, but now it’s happened in ours. This is also a blunder, because facing the same problem, France is trying to exclude headscarves from public places. Thus Gul is at odds with France.
If the EU wants Ankara to take a harsher stance on the headscarf issue in the coming months, will the Justice and Development Party (AKP) ask Turkey to turn back on its EU bid? This is critically important. In other words, I wonder if the main reason behind the AKP’s support for our EU bid is its expectation of more freedom on headscarves? If this is the situation, what a pity!