Sabah columnist Asli Aydintasbas writes in her article titled ''Europe Divides Us'' in today's Sabah daily that the latest anti-EU stance of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his speech at the Association of Independent Industrialists & Businessmen (MUSIAD) last week surprised everybody in Ankara.
''Erdogan showed the same stance against the EU during his trip to Norway, too,'' Aydintasbas said, adding that ''Erdogan spoke in a clearer way at the MUSIAD general assembly and stated that: It is true that there are many impositions from the EU. Sometimes we even face such attempts of the EU aiming to divide our country. We should stay strong and firm against such attempts as this is the only way to preclude adoption of negative policies against us.''
Aydintasbas comments in her article that nobody knows why the Premier assumed such a stance against the EU recently. She continues ''Europeans also try to understand what is going on. A European diplomat said that 'the recent remarks of Erdogan created and made bigger the question marks in our minds. What does your prime minister want?''
She says that Prime Minister Erdogan talks about division of the country and this constitutes a basic argument against the EU. ''If this is the case,'' Aydintasbas says ''then why should we want to join an organization that wants to divide us?'' she asks.
''There is another danger of the anti-EU discourse,'' she says comparing Turkey-EU relations to Turkey-US relations which were damaged in the same way.
''The state officials who had the opportunity to speak 'comfortably' against the US in front of the public opinion, later noticed that they had also encouraged anti-Americanism without being aware of that. But it had also been the responsibility of the same state officials to cope both with the negative impact of those statements on the Turkey-US relations and also with the escalating anti-Americanism in the Turkish public opinion,'' she says.
She ends her article commenting that ''wouldn't it be a pity to be drifted into a similar vicious circle with Europe when one takes into consideration the progress recorded in Turkey-EU relations so far?''
The same newspaper also published a news story titled ''EU Confused About Erdogan'', telling that European officials think that the recent remarks of Erdogan who said that 'there were attempts within the EU to divide Turkey' encouraged nationalism in Turkey. In the story it is said that ''a high ranking official from the EU said that the statements of Erdogan shocked Europe although EU gave the message to Ankara that the Turkish government should calm the recent nationalist flow in Turkey. The same official also stressed that Prime Minister Erdogan acted on the contrary and disappointed EU.