At 80 years of age, Turkey is a vigorous, if chaotic, hard-working country, with an anachronistic personality cult, a vast ungainly bureaucracy, a suspicious army and judiciary, and an inexperienced but well-meaning, moderately pro-Islamic government. European Union membership is generally seen as desirable, but analysts rightly worry whether the EU really wants Turkey.

Turkey anxiously awaits to start accession negotiations with the EU

To the south, the small island of Cyprus casts a long shadow over accession talks. And to the east, the continuing violence in Iraq both tempts and repels Turkish involvement. As a regional power, it wants to help establish stability there and reap the economic benefits, but as a former imperial power, its every word or deed provokes accusations of interference and future conquest. Hanging over the east of Turkey, and the northern provinces of Iraq, is the unsolved question of the future of the unfortunate Kurds.

On Nov. 5, the EU published its annual report on the progress of all EU candidate countries. For Turkey, this year’s report was crucial – a detailed measure of the progress made, and the measures still required.

The country became a candidate in 1999, and is impatient for a date for accession talks to start. At the EU summit at the end of last year, Turkey was given another two years to satisfy ‘Copenhagen criteria’ – the democratic and human rights preconditions spelt out by the EU, before any country can seriously be considered for membership. In December 2004, another EU summit will decide whether Turkey has satisfied those conditions. If so, accession negotiations – which would inevitably take several years – could begin early in 2005.

Turkey could then be expected to join early in the second decade of the 21st century.

In the eyes of the EU, human rights issues are the main obstacle for Turkey to overcome

The tone of the EU’s report was friendlier than any previous assessment. Key legislation on human rights was praised – the Turkish Government has passed seven packages of reforms in its one year in power. But some legislation is still needed. And the proof of the pudding, say European commissioners, will be in the eating. Though many laws have been passed, little has changed on the ground. The next 12 months will be tense, as various bodies try to monitor the work of the police, prosecutors and judges to assess whether peaceful demonstrations are allowed, whether writers, journalists, human rights activists and ordinary people can express non-violent views without fear of arrest and prosecution, whether, and how Kurds and other ethnic or religious minorities can express their cultures, and whether the army can refrain, or be restrained, from overt interference in politics.

From a Hungarian perspective, the picture in some ways resembles the battle between reformers and hardliners in the late 1980s. But the picture in Turkey is further complicated by what people know here as ‘the deep state’ – the generals, judges and university rectors who maintain their own power at the expense of individual liberties. Their main claim to respectability lies in portraying themselves as defenders of the secular nature of the republic, against the wicked, but largely non-existent Islamists, who aim to undermine them.

A weekday morning at the Police Academy in Elmadag – Apple Hill – on the outskirts of Ankara looks something like this: professor Vahit Bicak strolls easily down corridors crowded with police cadets – waiting for their classes to start – chatting with past and present students. At his side is a thin, frail inspector, in charge of all investigations of alleged police ill treatment in Turkey. On one staircase, we meet a man with a steel handshake – Turkey’s No. 2 police officer.

Other staff smile nervously at our approach. Professor Bicak is the head of the human rights presidency within Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s office. He is the person with the main responsibility for making sure Turkey fulfills the Brussels human rights criteria. His 22-member staff monitors all human rights complaints in Turkey, and have a hot line to top ministers to propose changes in legislation and implementation. In the labyrinthine world of Turkish bureaucracy, he can take more short cuts than most.

The classroom is freshly painted with a predilection for blues. Blue desks, blue uniforms and blue decorations on the walls. Forty cadets – 39 boys and one girl, leap to attention as we enter.

A compromise on Cyprus is necessary

Professor Bicak runs through the gamut of his favorite subjects – torture in custody, beatings and so forth. The class listens attentively. The majority of police cadets in my classes fully support the reforms, Bicak says afterwards. He believes it will improve their prestige in society and give them the chance to clear their names, if false allegations of mistreatment are lodged against them.

He is more reluctant to pinpoint where the opposition lies. The class is frequently interrupted by the crackle of small-arms fire – they’re just practicing, he jokes. One cadet quickly closes the window. There’s a police shooting range nearby.

One problem is that it’s not entirely clear what peoples’ rights are to demonstrate, says Jonathan Sugden, a researcher on Turkey for Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental agency. It’s not clear to the police, it’s not clear to the public. And that vagueness is a recipe for confrontation – which happens almost every day.

Sugden praises Turkey’s judges, for increasingly throwing out cases that, in his view, should not have been prosecuted in the first place. But he blames prosecutors for continuing to bring them. “By and large the prosecutors here don’t seem to have got the message ... We see a lot of cases being opened against people who are discussing or criticizing the role of the army in Turkish politics, or saying that they would like to see their ethnicity reflected in politics.’’

Certain state bodies, like the Higher Education Board (YOK) and the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK) wield considerable power. The new government is trying to clip their wings, but despite enjoying 368 seats in the 550- member Turkish Parliament, it is too weak to confront secular authorities.
At the Mesopotamian Cultural Center in Istanbul, a bookshop sells CDs and tapes of Kurdish songs banned from broadcast on Turkish radio, and staff grumble that it is still impossible to hold even private Kurdish classes. They cite one recent case from the town of Batman, in eastern Turkey, where a class failed to get permission to hold a Kurdish class because council officials said the door was five centimeters too narrow. Put such complaints to Bicak, and he replies: “Of course there are bureaucrats looking for excuses. The trick is not to give them any.’’ Bicak’s human rights’ presidency has two main tools to get things done. At the top, there are monthly meetings of Turkey’s Reform Monitoring Group, which includes three ministers, and has ultimate power to pass decrees and clear away what is called ‘secondary legislation,’ which often prevents the implementation of laws passed by parliament. At a local level, local reform committees, answerable to Bicak’s office, include regional governors, and members of the bar association who have the right to inspect police stations and prisons.

Sugden of Human Rights Watch praises the new steps but fears Bicak’s office is too small, with an insufficient budget for this vast country of 70 million people.
He calls it a small engine for a very big ship. Integration into Europe has been Turkey’s top foreign policy goal since 1923. Human rights implementation is the single biggest obstacle. He believes many more resources should be put into it.
Another problem overshadowing EU accession for Turkey is Cyprus. On May 1, Cyprus will join the EU, along with nine other countries including Hungary. But the island has remained divided into Turkish and Greek areas since the 1974 war. A United Nations plan was largely agreed upon last year, but the Turkish government of Rauf Denktas in the north was blamed for blocking a final agreement. Elections will be held in the north on Dec. 14. The EU is hoping the more pro-EU leftists will win, and remove the last obstacles. Cyprus could then join the EU as a re-united island. If the conservative nationalists stay in power, that would be more difficult. According to this year’s European Commission report on Turkey, the absence of a settlement could become a serious obstacle to Turkey’s EU aspirations.

That sent frissons of alarm down many Turkish spines. If the nationalists win again in December, Erdogan’s government in Ankara may try to force acceptance of the UN plan – against army and nationalist opposition in mainland Turkey.

As with human rights legislation, that policy would run the risk that Turkey makes all the concessions required by the EU, and then still fails to be given an accession date. And that could provoke serious backlash.

The anti-Turkish lobby in EU states remains strong – not least for practical, rather than ideological reasons. The population of Turkey could one day outstrip that of Germany. That would make it the biggest country in a future EU – outside one day, in a position of considerable power the next. Another fear in Brussels is of an influx of millions of Turkish workers.

One headache for Turkish leaders has however eased – the question of whether or not to send troops to Iraq. On Oct. 7, Turkey’s Parliament approved a government proposal to send up to 10,000 troops. Special training began, military vehicles were loaded onto trains and Turkish-Arabic phrase books issued. But bitter opposition to Turkish involvement by the interim Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), and the failure of Americans to foresee the problem, or to persuade the IGC back down, led to a change of heart in Ankara. No Turkish troops will now be sent, and the way is open for Turkey to take part in the rebuilding of Iraq in other, more peaceful ways.

On his pedestal, surrounded by a sea of flowers, a stern Ataturk looks down on a country that has loyally followed his words for 80 years. A strong wind batters Istanbul. Somewhere below my office, a window swings off its hinges and shatters. The traffic restarts. But where is the kitten?