By Murat Yetkin
The subject of the weekend meeting of Wilton Park, one of Britain's leading think-tanks, was Turkey. Can renewed enthusiasm be found for Turkey's European Union accession talks?
In fact, when we look at the list of participants, it became clear that there's no way this will happen for at least for this year. For example, there was nobody from EU Term President Germany, but there were people from France, Greece, both the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and the Greek Cypriot administration, new Eastern European countries which recently joined the EU (they watched the discussion rather than take part), and Armenia. Under the rules of Wilton Park meetings, no details can be written about what was said at the meeting, but I can say the participants from Armenia weren't silent, and that this caused heated discussions.
The participants from the EU could see at the beginning that the meeting would be fruitless. Turkey's chief EU negotiator Ali Babacan had the most boring speeches of his life. But really, what could he say except to reiterate Erdogan's commitment to change Turkish Penal Code (TCK) Article 301?
Can one expect Turkey to take steps this year to improve its relations with the EU (which already closed its doors), when it faces two elections and many problems arising from Iran and Palestine?
Especially when opposition to Turkey's EU membership is being used as political fodder in France's presidential election campaign, whose two rounds are set for April and May, wouldn't it be unfair to expect Turkey to continue to take unilateral steps?
The tension between the government and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and its place in Turkish politics were also discussed at the meeting.
However, the most-pondered issue was whether Erdogan will be president or not, and if so, what kind of developments this will lead to. How will this affect Turkey's domestic and foreign policy choices? How will this affect the coming general elections? Will a coalition government be formed?
There is a paradoxical situation for European Turkey-watchers. Turkey's importance is rising owing to its secular, democratic state and market economy in a tough region where religions, cultures, and regimes intersect, although most of its population is Muslim. Even people who want to eliminate entirely the TSK's role in politics couldn't ignore the possibility that Turkey's regime could be hurt both in terms of security and secularism. Maybe this is among the realities of our region, country, and age.
Turkish-EU relations have been frozen. The technical talks are continuing, and some chapters could be opened by June, they say. But this is meaningless both for Europe and Turkey.