TURKEY'S ROUTE TO EMPOWERMENT
by Mansoor Ijaz and ALFRED von LIECHTENSTEIN, MANSOOR IJAZ and JAMES ABRAHAMSON
Financial Times
October 6, 2004

Prince Alfred von Liechtenstein, Mansoor Ijaz and Lt Gen James Abrahamson (USAF Retired) jointly serve on the Advisory Board of Crescent Investment Management in New York

Today, the European Commission presents its case on whether Turkey has made enough progress in meeting the "Copenhagen criteria" - the standards that need to be fulfilled to become a member of the European Union. The outcome will determine whether or not the country will be granted an early date for EU admission talks.

The debate over Turkish accession has aroused strong passions on both sides. Proponents argue that a modern and market-oriented Muslim democracy could provide a much-needed physical and political buffer between Europe and many of the Islamic world's authoritarian regimes, which are breeding and bleeding extremism.

But opponents fear Turkey's entry would shift Europe's centre of gravity too far to the east, thereby lowering its economic and political standards and diluting its historical secular Christian identity and value system.

Whether the EU commissioners decide to recommend Turkey's accession or not, all sides agree that the overriding strategic objective is to strengthen the country's democracy and move it even further towards a market-based economy.

A new framework should be made ready to fill the policy vacuum that an EU "No" decision would create. Such a plan should move towards securing Turkey's long-term potential away from mostly military and strategic objectives and towards developing strong macro-economic, judicial and social institutions suited to the modern era. But this modernisation process must seek to avoid confrontations with Europe over which identity - secular and European or traditionalist and Islamic - Turkey ultimately chooses.

NATO could be central to the country's development through the use of its existing military and security co-operation agreements. A NATO framework, constructed properly, could also help heal transatlantic wounds left over from disagreements about the war in Iraq.

For example, US technological assistance to the Turkish army, which is 500,000 strong and bigger than any army in Europe, would boost the EU's military capabilities and enable it to send peacekeeping forces into troubled spots where a US military presence is not always welcome.

It would also enable Turkey to act as a primary force for improving European counter-terrorism efforts in areas such as narcotics, illegal weapons and weapons of mass destruction as well as border security.

Turkish NATO training schools, for example, could become home to a hybrid version of the international military and education training programmes run by the Pentagon over the past three decades to modernise and secularise armies in troubled countries.

Equally important will be supporting growth in Turkey's secular democratic institutions. Absolute guarantees for human rights and women's rights, not yet enshrined in the Turkish constitution, could be imported from Canada's judicial and parliamentary systems without creating partisan rancor among European politicians who complain about Washington's undue influence over Ankara.

Turkish ethnicity together with the country's underlying Islamic practices need not be compromised by remote EU demands to change its existing democratic institutions. Turkey's withdrawal of proposed punitive adultery laws last month to appease certain EU member states is a case in point where Turkey's local Islamic traditions clashed with Europe's social culture and legal norms.

The US, Canada and Europe's wealthier nations must join together to offer Turkey increased trade opportunities and long-term structural debt relief to boost its ailing economy. The dollars paid to service the country's debt would be much better spent on social welfare, education and environmental protection programmes.

Examples of this type of co-operation between non-EU countries already exist. The "Barcelona Process", which is creating the world's largest free trade zone, and the "Mediterranean Dialogue", which is enabling Mediterranean states to fight illegal trade in drugs and weapons and improve maritime security, are but two examples.

One could even envision a Nafta-2, or North Atlantic (as opposed to American) Free Trade Agreement, that would enable Turkey and other European states such as Norway to enjoy the benefits of free trade without the political headaches of European membership.

Turkey is not perfect. But it is the world's best example of democracy co-existing with Islam. An empowered Turkey can serve to refute the extremists' argument that power over wealth distribution is the exclusive domain of western societies, and that in order to equalise the widening income gap they must tear the west down.