1.) THE BEGINNING OF THE PROGRESS AND MAIN PROBLEMS
The relation between European Union and Turkey began officially on 3rd October 2005. However, according to “Negotiation Framework”, this progress has been defined as open ended, whose result cannot be determined before. No matter how open ended this progress is, as a specialist stressed, no country has left the room of negotiation until they get a clear result or complete membership from the EU.
Apart from the negotiation progress, there is another expectation of EU from Turkey . EU wants Turkey to be in good relation with all surrounding countries. Greece , Cyprus Rums and Armenian are the most important countries with which Turkey should be in good relation. Furthermore, what EU stress is, Ankara (Capital of Turkey) should take into consideration all possible rights of EU member countries.
When we look back on the history, after World War I, after all Baltic countries began to declare their independence from Ottoman Empire, what remained for Turkey was only Anatolian territory. And, as the inhabitants of this territory was mostly Turkish people, modernization and westernization movement started from the II Selim, and was continued by II Mahmoud and was tried to make Turkish adopt this progress by new Ittihat Terakki ( Advancement of United Parties) via Young Turks “Jön Türkler”.
The movement of westernization and the nationalization of Ittihat Terakki was started by Ataturk and his friends. Nationalization movement started on 19 May, 1919 with the leadership of Ataturk, and finally resulted after Independence war in 1923, which eventuated with “Lozan Agreement”, and after declaration of Republic. Before Ataturk founded the republic, respectively, Abdulmacid had declared The Administrative Reforms and Abdulhamid 1st and 2nd Monarchical system. However, these movements were not fulfilled because of the fact that the Sultanate was not suitable for the criteria of nationalism movement, as “Sultanate reign and republic cannot be thought together”.
Ataturk took the criteria of organic laws he founded from the European Countries, and his close relation with Europe began after the declaration of these laws in the form of “European Laws” by himself. Without changing the organic laws, Ismet Inonu, the second president of the Republic of Turkey , followed the path that Ataturk followed before, and the relation with Europe grew gradually. Furthermore, after rejection of the requests of (USSR ) United Soviet Socialist Republic , whose goal was to dominate the Bosporus pragmatically for its needs, and to claim the right upon Ardahan and Kars which are the cities in the territory of Turkey Republic, made Inonu closer to the Europe . However, the oligarchic system that started from Ataturk and continued by Inonu, was not acceptable for EU and, the proposal of EU “if you want to be on our side, you should be like us”, made the Turkey Republic to progress Multi-party system and after this development Turkey also progressed to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) membership and as a result of this, felt more secured. So, it is obvious that with the acceptance of European style legal and politic system, and USA (United States of America ) style military system, Turkey is inseparably connected to Europe .
With the enlargement of EU, Turkey applied for the membership for EU in the era of Turgut Ozal the president, and this application was accepted by Europe, but then, EU put forward the rules and criteria of EU in order for Turkey not to violate and to be suitable for the membership of EU. These criteria are also known as politically, legally and economically development. And these rules were essentially about the problem of Kurdish people, Cyprus Rums, and the changing of organic laws. After the human rights came into prominence, religion and racism lost the popularity and fell behind, as a result of this progress humanistic movement gained popularity. Furthermore, and what is more important is, all these progress made the idea of nationalism disappear from the existence, which is among the biggest blocks of gaining the membership to EU. However, Turkey ’s being late to eliminate the problem of nationalism made the nationalist political parties use it in favor of them, and provoke opposite parties to create conflicts. So, nationalism became not only an inner problem but also foreign affair by affecting the progress of EU in a negative way. With the spreading out of this event in Turkey , whose aim is mainly to collect all people live in Turkey under the roof of one flag and one religion, made other minorities and ethnic groups act against this idea severely. However, nationalism not only means to defend its own country and native people, it also means to be homogenous, to be indulgent and tolerant with other religions or ethnic groups.
The main reason of the war happened in Middle-East, for instance, stems from the late acceptance of eradicating nationalism idea. The conflicts of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurdish or Palestinians are all stem from this idea. If they get rid of this idea, and draw the certain borders for each country on the map, in the future there may be a Middle-east Union , just like European Union, but firstly, the idea of nationalism should be removed from the each individual’s brain. The only solution is that these countries should make the idea of one religion and one nation homogenous.
The idea of nationalism was originally transmitted from Europe to Turkey , but Europe succeeded to get rid of it with the founding of EU. So, Turkey ’s will to be the member of EU with the idea of nationalism created a conflict between EU and Turkey ’s demand. So, the solution of all these conflicts depended upon the concordance of the criteria which were put forward by EU. For example, the 301st rule from the organic law of Turkey is like this: “Whoever, publicly, humiliates the organic laws of Turkey and the Republic of Turkey Turkey just as EU wanted it to, Kurdish people’s rights must be given to them and Turkey ’s democratic development progress must be practiced properly, so that the progress of EU membership will take less time. As I mentioned at the beginning of the essay, Turkey ’s acceptance of European style legal and politic system and USA style military system makes the membership a must for Turkey and it has not another way of development in the world.
2.) THE PROBLEM OF KURDISH PEOPLE
The Kurds are the ethnic group who inhabit around “Zagros Mountains” through Taurus Mountains , and who consist of between twenty and thirty million people. Kurdish people are very heterogeneous in the aspect of religion, and they are home for many different religious ethnic groups. However, most of them accepted Islam religion. Kurdish people in Turkey are spread out mostly in South East and East-Anatolian region and they live in these territories in an amount of fifteen million people as Turkish citizen. Throughout the time, Kurdish people have been in a very close relation with Turkish people and they adopted almost 70% of Turkish culture very soon. However, there is a big hatred between these two groups of people, who live in the same territories hand in glove for a long time, and as a result of this hatred, the dimension reached till hostility.
The cause of hostility stems from mostly PKK (Partiye karkere Kurdistan ), which means Kurdistan Worker Party. PKK is a group of terrorists founded by Adbullah
Ocalan, whose essential aim is to be independent from Turkey and claim their rights against Turkish government. However, apart from these factious terrorism movements, there are no any cultural and religious differences between Kurds and other ethnic groups and also Turkish people. So, the only logical and simple answer to the question “why are they still hostile?” is that Turkey has so many highly nationalist group in its many regions. But, in such cases, if nationalism creates conflict and violate a nation, so we cannot say that the minorities living in Turkey has any fault in this respect. They should live together, or they should learn how to live together in peace. Yes, the answer is too simple. But, let’s think about a family. A family can have one child or more, and having more than one child can create problems among children, but these problems cannot be solved by bad parents, who all the time beat their children or use violence against children just to make them temper in the house they share commonly. Instead of this, they can be educated, and learn how to live together, because they have to learn this, as they share the same house and parents. But, as another solution for children, parents can put each of them in separate rooms to handle the conflict on condition that they cannot use the hall together. This will create another problem, they will be lonely and cannot share anything together, what is worse they will be grown up as a wild individuals and hate each other forever.
All these conflicts are not the only problems for Turkey as inner problem, but it is a problem of foreign affairs, as well. Of course, if there is a conflict in a country, this will reflect outside in a negative way, because, the amount of Kurdish people living in Turkey is not so few and even little problem between these two people, can create a big chaos. As the first condition of EU “peace and human rights”, should be maintained in all countries, should also be maintained in Turkey , so that, the time of acceptance to EU for Turkey can be reduced to minimum.
3.) WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF TURKEY ’S MEMBERSHIP TO EU FOR BOTH KURDS AND TURKS?
The case of what advantages or disadvantages Kurdish and Turkish people will have by uniting with EU is another subject of discussion, because neither Turks nor Kurds have a common idea about this progress. Almost each individual put their ideas forward according to their needs and lists their demands, and they define Europe in their own words.
It is normal that Turks define Europe according to themselves and develop their politics in favor of them in every condition. Because, the intention is not to be a European, it is contrarily, to benefit from the boon of European. Furthermore, as Turkey will lose the popularity of nationalism after taking part in Europe, this will cause a harsh reaction from nationalist region of Turkey . Another reaction from this region will be the difficulty to be obliged to gain back the official ideology of domination of Turkey for eighty years so far through the progress of EU. This means, they will share the domination of Turkey in a specific extent with the other ethnic groups in Turkey which they depreciated and externalized so far. Only because of these two reasons, the membership of EU can be delayed for a long time.
If Turkey accepts to be the member of EU, so it should also accept the Copenhagen Criteria in order to complete its democratic process. However, accomplishing these criteria means that Turkey must be in agreement with EU in some specific subjects and be in harmony in all conditions and even, accept the domination or control by EU itself. Firstly abasement of the army which is almost the highest authority in Turkey is inescapable, and also its being depended on and obey the European army-like system, which is politically controlled, is a disadvantage for Turkey . However, this subject is even now is very difficult to be accomplished, as there is some cases when government is inferior to army and controlled by it.
Turkey Central government will have to transfer the control of some authorities, which it controlled itself before, to the local governments, such as; education, health, economic and inner-security etc. and national income and investments will have to be fairer and the discrimination of regions will have to be abated. The national and religious minorities who live in Turkey , such as; Kurds, Laz people, Circassian, Armenian and Alevis, will have the right to think liberally and freely and develop their peculiar cultures. So, this means, everybody will have the right to name his or her children according to their own tradition and language and will also have the right to perform their cultural and traditional dance freely in public area. What is more important is that they will have the right to educate people in their own language and have the right to speak out publicly freely. All these processes will be completely against Turkish Republic
EU approval of Turkey into their territory will be the biggest advantage for the people who need to live in a democratic system. Turkey ’s integration to EU will remove many boundaries and will make it to be mingled with different cultures. But, of course, Kurdish and other ethnic groups also will have the same rights as Turkey . And this development will give all ethnic groups live in Turkey the chance to speak out in EU public.
However, Kurdish people are also not so advantageous after the membership, because, after the integration with EU, North-Kurdish people will lose the chance to declare their independence in the region. Even if they have this chance, this will not result in the way they wanted. So, it means that the ideology of having an independent country in Turkey will end for Kurdish people. Nevertheless, if we examine the subject from this perspective, Kurdish people seem to be more advantageous. Because, Kurds have never lived independently so far, they lived with Turkish people, adopted the culture, tradition etc, and either gaining independence or living with Turks in harmony and peace will be good for them, at least, they have another option. The most important benefit that they will have as EU member is to be free and liberal in cultural, educational and traditional aspects, and of course they will be free in the way of thinking.
However, all these subjects are not the only problems, which blocks Turkey to be a member to EU. Of course, even in such a difficult condition, Turkey has already been accomplishing some of rules that put forward by EU. But, in spite of its success and desire towards EU membership, why does not EU accept Turkey into their territory? The problems are not only what I listed above, according to explanation of the magazine “The Economist”,
1.) Turkey is very large in population and because of the fact that it will affect the decisions given by EU in negative way.
2.) As the poor population is so crowded, Turkey will invade the Europe with its poor folks.
3.) Turkey has neighbors such as; Iraq , Syria and Iran , and these countries are problematic countries which create conflicts in the world.
4.) Turkey ’s Muslim people will not be able to orientate themselves with a liberal and secular democracy system.
All these problems above are also very important causes of Turkey ’s not being a member of EU.
4.) SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN KURDS AND KOSOVAR
Kosovo was depended to Serbian kingdom until 1398 and after this period, after Ottoman Empire’s invasion, they were dominated by Ottoman Empire until Baltic Wars. After Baltic War, they became under domination of Serbian again until World War II. After World II they were dominated by Yugoslavian which was under domination of USSR , but after USSR and Socialism collapsed, ethnic groups in Yugoslavia , declared their rights of independence. The last group under the domination of Yugoslavia was Serbia , and they also declared independence with referendum, and collapsed Yugoslavia . After falling of Yugoslavia , Serbian attacked Kosovo and invaded. But, Kosovo still has the chance of being independence, with the protection of U.N. As Kosovo is divided into two different groups, Serbian and Albanian, their aim became to found a big Serbia or big Albania . But, for the Kurds it is very difficult to claim the right of founding a big and independent Kurdish country in the territory surrounded by Turkey , Iran , Iraq and Syria .
Kurds are the oldest people in Mesopotamia . Just like Kosovar, they were invaded by Arabian and became under the control of Arabs in the year 650. Having been dominated by Arabian, Kurdish people, after the invasion of Ottoman Emperor Yavuz Sultan Selim, transferred the domination to Ottoman Empire, like in Kosovo; Ottoman Empire dominated both Kurds and Arabs. Again, like in Kosovo, after Ottoman Empire collapsed, all countries depended to Ottoman Empire , declared their independence and separated. As Ottoman Empire fell, the winner of World War French and England invaded Middle-East, where the oil was abundant. With their early anticipation of the importance of oil, they wanted to change the direction of usage of oil to their benefits in the future. They drew the boundaries of Iraq and Syria , and signed the treaty. Arabs, the actual owner of the boundaries were not even taken into consideration. After smartly drawing the boundaries, English and French dispersed the Kurds in Turkey , Iran , Iraq and Syria . And, as Kurds were not a nation, wherever they were dispersed, they created conflicts. Many revolts were stopped after these events in the countries where Kurds live. Saddam’s chemical bomb attack to Halepce (a village where Kurds were living close to Iraq ) , approximately five or six thousand Kurdish people were murdered. After this slaughter, U.S and EU invaded Iraq with the aim of saving people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein.
So far, we examined the similarities between Kurds and Kosovo. But, as to the differences, firstly, Kosovo is the name of a region, not the name given to the people living there, as there are not only Kosovar in the region, there are also, Serbian, Turks and Albanians. But, Mesopotamia is the region where Kurdish people were living and the equivalence for Kosovo should be like, Mesopotamian. Kosovo consist of Serbian and Albanian, and these two groups of people are different in nationality and religion. Serbians are Christian and Albanians are Muslim. In Balkan regions, they have separate countries as Albania and Serbia . However, Kurds are living together with Arabs, Turks and Persian and share the same religion with these people. But, ethnically, they are not similar, and Kurds have not got an independent country. Kosovo has frontier with Europe and it is under protection of U.S and EU, and also it has the opportunity to become the member of EU in the near future, as they live in the Europe continent. But, Kurds live in Middle-East.
In fact, both Turkey ’s and underdeveloped countries in Balkan’s will to become the member of EU creates an accordance between Serbian and Albanian, and prepare basis for peace. But, Turkey ’s being in the Middle-East where problematic countries located, will make EU think about the progress one more time, because Turkey ’s being member of EU means to make also these problematic countries closer to Europe . But, Turkey ’s being member of EU will help Turks and Kurds live in peace, because, the powerful human right system of Europe and the system which is closer to humanitarian legal, will handle and solve the conflicts that Turks and Kurds having. As the abundance of oil in Middle-East has big significance for industry of both Europe and U.S, this benefit is far beyond discussion for both continents. After Turkey ’s integration into EU, EU may have plans to mix also Middle-East into its territory, this will help the sharing of oil income and to handle the Middle-East problem much closer, and in this aspect, EU will have a big opportunity to contribute peace in all over the world. By foregrounding human rights, EU is also an important factor in creating a perfect formula of agreement for conflicted countries such as, Turks and Kurds, Serbian and Albanian, and Arabs and Persian. As human rights are logically acceptable in all over the world, EU will be the biggest supporter of agreement and peace maker in the world in the near future.
5.) THE POSITION OF TURKEY AMONG NEW MEMBERS OF EU
European Union was started with coal and steel factories, which gained value in economy and stipulated to be shared, in 1951. After Euro Atom, the community’s economical cooperation developed and until the beginning of 2007 it broadened its territories and has accepted twenty-seven countries in its own communal territory. With gaining more importance, coal and steel, and adding a plus value for economy, discovery of these valuable sources was seen that both sharing of these sources and productions will give a good benefit to the member countries. Continuing with Atom cooperation, sharing of these sources also resulted in sharing the same currency among all member countries. This community has developed a common foreign policy decision in agriculture and transportation. After economical cooperation, the member countries has also accepted to be cooperative in justice and law, as countries shared the same territory, the matters concerning crime, they took also a common decision for security in their land. EU, whose main aim is to be united socially, culturally, economically and in security, seems to be reaching its goal successfully.
The advantages of newly accepted countries to EU are that they are located in Europe continent and also they have so many common sides with Europe countries. So, it also seems almost certain that Balkan countries which are out of this community will soon be added to the list. However, Turkey has not so many advantages as newly accepted countries, nevertheless; Turkey is on the way of achieving its goal. Just as I mentioned before, when it was founded, Republic of Turkey laid its foundation in the same system of law with Europe and its military system with U.S, so it is impossible for Turkey to change its route, which is on the way of modern civilization since the beginning.
Other problems, such as; education, health and so on, are also has big significance for EU, and for peace in the world. As Europe has already solved such problems, it also tries to implant the method of solving these problems to the other applicant countries, by this act, EU helps also countries develop faster. If other underdeveloped applicant countries do not increase and improve their living standards, this will also affect the continuing development of EU to slow down. For that reason, the countries that unable to harmonize themselves for improvements and changes, creates problem both for themselves and other developed countries, and they reach their goal late. So, in this fact, Turkey should go on developing itself faster than it can, because the development for other countries is not stable, so every single step to improvement for Turkey also means another step of other countries to development.
However, other EU member countries, compared to Turkey , have some negative aspects in some cases. Amsterdam , for instance, is a member of EU and taking many kinds of drugs in this country are almost legal. As an EU member, Amsterdam is known for its freedom of drugs almost by all people all over the world and this knowledge about this country has become almost the basic element that creates Amsterdam ’s first image on people’s mind. So, this also affects the reaction of people’s manners against EU and its authority upon all over the Europe . However, while compared to Turkey , taking drugs is completely illegal. Furthermore, in Turkey, it is now being decided to ban smoking in public area and this law is almost put into effect, let alone taking drugs freely. So many people from other countries visit Amsterdam only for drug experimentation which is a big risk for human life and health. This aspect of Amsterdam is not only dangerous for its own country, but also it influences other countries in many negative ways. For example, lately, in Turkey so many drug sellers, who transport drugs from Amsterdam , have been caught by police. “According to narcotic police, 36 thousand pills of ecstasy were found which were ready to danger so many people’s life.” In this case, if EU can tolerate such actions in Europe, and if a country like this can be in an important part of Europe, so there should not be so many confusions or problems for this community, which is quite sensitive for human health, rights and security, not to take Turkey in its territory. While human life is in danger in Turkey by PKK, human health is in danger in Amsterdam by drugs almost officially. So, the only difference is that, former one is almost impossible to control as terrorists’ attacks is not depended to Turkey’s governmental authority, because terrorists fights for their affairs, but latter one is controllable by government, as the security of health and lives of so many people is in question.
Another approach in favor of Turkey ’s integration into EU is that almost all members and candidates of EU, was once under domination of Ottoman Empire, whose country is Turkey and whose capital was Istanbul then, after approximately four-hundred years of domination. And also, four-hundred years of domination gave Turkey the experiences of culture, politic, social and legal of EU. And, starting at the middle of 1960s, so many Turkish workers continued to go toward the west to be closer to Europe, and now they are almost two-and-half million Turkish populations, that is to say, European Turks in Western Europe . Furthermore, Turkey has already signed many treaties with Europe . So, after all these improvements, we can say that Turkey has accomplished many conditions of Europe and with the experiences before, it has so many common aspects with Europe, so in that case the membership of Turkey to EU should be inescapable in the future.
To conclude, in order for the relation between Turkey and EU be good, Turkey needs to wait for a long time with so many problems it has. EU is a community that, logically, does not want to mingle itself with others’ problems, while living in peace now. Turkey is a weak country both economically and politically, and these are very important factors for EU to maintain its power and speed-up its development. With Turkey ’s acceptance to EU, European most probably will lose its power in a serious degree, as; first of all, Turkey is not a small country. Furthermore, if Turkey is accepted to EU, it will be the largest European country and that means the people even all over the Europe will not be able to benefit from possibilities and facilities of Europe more than Turkey . The problem is not only political and economical, but also Turkey , geographically is located far from Europe and close to many problematic countries. In this respect, the waiting time for Turkey to integrate into EU will most probably be more than twenty years, and the only solution to shorten the this time is that Turkey, with all its power and determination, will have to solve its main problems and improve its economy and politic soon.
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