Turkish General Causes Controversy With Call for Turkey to Stop Seeking European Union Membership

When Turkish military leaders speak, history dictates that the country's politicians take notice. So, when General Tuncer Kilinc, the secretary of Turkey's powerful National Security Council, in early March said that the country should abandon its efforts to become a member of the European Union and turn towards regional neighbors Russia and Iran, politicians and pundits across the country snapped to attention.

"I believe that the EU will never accept Turkey," said the general. "Thus Turkey needs new allies, and it would be useful if Turkey engages in a search that would include Russia and Iran."

With EU membership a goal of Turkish foreign policy since the 1960s, and major constitutional changes underway to try and bring the country more into line with EU policy, the general's remarks appeared to pull the rug from under the feet of dozens of the country's diplomats and politicians. Not surprisingly then, reactions were swift.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer told reporters that, "We are preparing for full (EU) membership by rapidly completing democratic, social, cultural and economic reforms" - despite General Kilinc. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit then added, "We cannot be swayed by the obstacles and difficulties we have faced on the path to EU membership and look for other options."

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz - who is also leader of Motherland, the smallest party in the three-way coalition government, and the administration's EU affairs minister - described a Turkish-Iranian-Russian link up as "a nightmare scenario."

Yet despite this broad condemnation, there were some voices raised in support of the general's views - and some notable silences. Principle among the later was Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the coalition's second largest group, the rightist National Action Party (MHP). The MHP has long had a problem with the kind of reforms the EU is demanding Turkey make before membership talks can begin. These include greater rights for minorities, abolition of the death penalty and some shift towards an end to the de facto division of Cyprus. They also include measures to radically reform Turkey's massive state bureaucracy and often discredited legal system.

All of which runs counter to the MHP's deepest nationalistic beliefs. In recent weeks, there has been an increasingly heated argument between Bahceli and Yilmaz over further steps towards reform, with Bahceli alleging that the Motherland leader was "playing a dangerous game" and exploiting people's desire for EU wealth. But while Bahceli may have party political reasons for attacking Yilmaz, his concern over the EU does also touch a nerve in the country at large - and in the military in particular.

"Terrorist groups targeting Turkey are currently being supported by some European countries," Chief of the Turkish General Staff General Hùseyin Kivrikoglu said recently, referring to the Kurdish separatist PKK and armed Turkish leftist faction, the DHKP-C, which continue to operate legally in some EU member countries.

This underscores a widespread perception in Turkey that the EU cannot be trusted to uphold Turkey's national interests. Many Turks also feel that the Union operates a double standard against them, as while East European countries that only 10 years ago were under Soviet rule are now about to join, Turkey has pressed its membership claim since the early 1960s. "The EU is a Christian club," Kilinc also said, referring to another widespread feeling in Turkey that the Turks are being discriminated against because of their Muslim beliefs.

Turkish-EU relations have gone through many troubled patches. Most recently, the private emails of the European Commission chief in Ankara, Karen Fogg, were hacked into and published in a leftist newspaper. Although the editor of the paper and the chief of the party it was affiliated to have now been taken to court, the case caused more hostility towards the EU than sympathy for Fogg over the violation of her privacy. Nevertheless, in opinion polls, some three-quarters of Turks regularly favour EU membership.

"The entire society is confused," says leading columnist Mehmet Ali Birand. "But for the first time, the Turkish public is beginning to reveal its doubts and worries regarding the EU."

As for Russia and Iran, both are traditional rivals. The General Staff itself had also issued a report only the week before accusing Iran of backing fundamentalist terrorist groups in Turkey. Kilinc's message most likely had a purely Brussels address then, rather than a Moscow or Tehran one. "His is the kind of approach that does bring to mind the fact that Turkey too has bargaining chips in the EU process," wrote columnist Fikret Bila in the mass circulation daily Milliyet.

Yet the value of those chips may also be on the way down, according to Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, who has been central in pushing forward Turkey's EU bid. "This turn of events has started doing harm both to ourselves and to our relations with the EU," he told journalists after Kilinc's remarks. "We are cutting the bough we stand on."