Confident Turkey looks east, not west

[Dover]

Source: The Guardian

Confident Turkey looks east, not west


Simon Tisdall
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian


Turkey was not invited to Europe's big birthday bash yesterday despite being an official candidate for EU membership. Ankara expressed disappointment at a "missed opportunity". Media reaction to the perceived snub was sharper.
"In the 1990s, the EU was a giant organisation governed by prominent leaders," said leading columnist Mehmet Ali Birand. "Today it has become a fat midget that lacks perspective and is governed by small-thinkers."

Disillusion with the EU has deepened since Brussels part-suspended talks in December after a row over Cyprus. The hostility, as seen from Ankara, of French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has poisoned the pot further.

But anger and frustration is slowly giving way to a new, more assertive idea: that perhaps Turkey does not really need Europe after all ... - ... and the EU will come to regret its insultingly complacent chauvinism as Turkey goes its own way.

"Europeans underestimate the importance and influence of Turkey," said Fuat Keyman, professor of international relations at Istanbul's Koc university. "If they are serious about the future of Europe as a power in global affairs, they need to change their thinking."...>


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/story/0,,2042846,00.html

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I'm already regretting it....

...The "reformed Islamist" government in Ankara is also cultivating the Arab and Muslim world. It signalled a new strategic relationship with Egypt this week. It sent peacekeeping troops to Lebanon last year. It talks to Iran when many will not or cannot. Close links to Israel have not prevented the building of ties with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. And despite tensions with the Kurds, Turkey is northern Iraq's main economic partner. Istanbul is the likely venue of next month's Iraq summit.