By Yusuf Kanli
TDN- We will continue talking about how the historic Dec. 17 compromise between Turkey and the European Union was agreed to after close to 48 hours of tension, ups and downs, threats of withdrawal, Greek Cypriot demands for the moon and the stars and on and on. One thing is for sure: Turkey and the EU have compromised. Neither we nor the EU is totally happy with all the elements of this compromise, but we have a deal that has opened the door to accession talks and will at the same time trigger a new push for a settlement on Cyprus.
We Turks like to celebrate when something we really want becomes reality. Since late Friday evening, and particularly from the moment Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul arrived back in Turkey from Brussels, the entire country has been engaged in an exuberant celebration of daytime fireworks and parades…
There are also people criticizing the historic compromise. This is normal in any democracy. You simply cannot have the entirety of a country with a huge 70 million-plus population share the same opinion on any given subject. Such a thing could only happen in Saddam’s Iraq of yesterday, in North Korea or in some of our neighbors, where the will of the people just doesn't count and people don’t have the “right” to have their own opinion.
We will be discussing for a long time to come just what happened on the evening of Dec. 16-17; how the tension increased; how Erdogan threatened to fly home; how Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos was told, “Sorry, but even though you're a full-fledged member of the family, we can't sacrifice Turkey to satisfy your demands,” as well as the efforts of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and -- from behind the scenes -- the United States, to prevent a catastrophe for both Turkey and the Western world. Who did what, how and through which methods, the leverage used, the challenges and counter-challenges… These are all issues of the past. We now have to concentrate on what should be done in the present.
We have to understand that the road we have embarked upon will not only be a long and winding one. It will also go through some 31 stations, at each and every of which we will have to compromise -- mostly unilaterally. Turkey will not have many options in the long accession talks process other than to do what it is told. The negotiations will just be a process to check to what extent we have conformed to what is demanded of us.
In this new period, we have to concentrate more on building a realistic picture of Turkey in Europe. Therefore, rather than spending millions of dollars or euros on lobbyists, Turkey must launch an ambitious and comprehensive education drive, very much like the scholarship program former President Suleyman Demirel devised for the Turkish republics. Starting from the next school term, we must start a national scholarship program that will enable Turkish children to be educated in European countries. These children will on the one hand become our cultural envoys in the countries to which they go, while on the other hand will receive a good education and return to Turkey after few years to become a force for change here.
Can you imagine what dynamism these well-educated young Turks will provide to our country? Can you imagine what changes they will initiate in our society?
Thus, on the one hand we would -- for a change -- be funding an effective promotion campaign for our country and help build a realistic image of Turkey in the EU -- which we will badly need if we want to have a warm reception at the time of our accession -- while on the other we would be raising a well-educated new generation of young Turks that this country badly needs for a massive national transformation.
That’s how we can best utilize the next 10-15 years we will spend in accession talks.