Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
TUESDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2002
DR WILLIAM
HALE, DR
PHILIP ROBINS
AND MR
WILLIAM PARK
Chairman
1. Good morning, gentleman. May I welcome on
behalf of the Committee Dr William Hale, Head of Political Studies
Department at SOAS, Dr Philip Robins, Faculty Fellow and University
Lecturer, Middle East Politics, Middle East Centre at St Antony's
College, Oxford and Mr William Park, Senior Lecturer and Research
Associate at the Centre for Defence Studies in King's College,
London. Gentleman, we are grateful for your willingness to assist
the Committee in our inquiry. Each of you has submitted a helpful
memorandum for which we thank you. Let me start straightaway in
terms of the Turkish prospects for EU membership which is one
of the key areas for the inquiry and ask you this: Dr Hale, you
said, and I quote, that the UK "should not just stand on
the sidelines, criticising Turkey for its failures over human
rights and other issues, but be actively involved in helping the
authorities to implement the needed reforms." What do you
think we and our European partners can do which we are not now
doing in positively reaching into Turkey and assisting those reforms?
(Dr Hale) I believe that the British
Government is active in this field. I am just saying that I think
it is an important part of what they ought to be doing and that
our other European partners are doing.
2. What more should we do?
(Dr Hale) To be specific about it, I would say that,
for instance, improving the justice system in Turkey is extremely
important. Obviously our criminal justice system is quite different
from the one in Turkey because the Turkish one is based on continental
models. Nevertheless, there are needed improvements in human rights
standards which we could assist with. Another aspect might be
improving the treatment of prisoners by the police, training the
police and I would say urging the Turkish authorities to take
stronger and more effective measures against police who are guilty
of torture and other human rights abuses. Another field would
be advising and helping the Turkish Government in improving the
prison system. These are the kind of things I am thinking about
because I think that improvement in all these fields is important
if Turkey is to become a member of the European Union.
3. How much of this is done already?
(Dr Hale) I believe that it is done to some extent
but perhaps you might like to query later witnesses from the FCO
about this.
4. Are there any areas in which we are not involved
where you think we could usefully contribute?
(Dr Hale) Not that I know of at this time, no.
5. Would your colleagues like to comment on
those areas to assist us?
(Dr Robins) I certainly think that a great deal could
be done in terms of bringing actual implementation in the Turkish
arena. Time and again we have the Turks talking a good game about
their intention to reform and of course at certain moments reform
is actually being implemented in terms of constitutional reform,
penal code reform and so on, but I think there is always a very
big difference between the formal position, the legal position
and the actual implementation on the ground. Therefore, I think
to focus not simply at the legislative level or at the executive
level but also to monitor the situation on the ground and to actually
try to develop a strategy for the implementation of some of these
practices on the ground would be immensely helpful.
6. Would that be welcome by the Turkish authorities
or would it be deemed to be interference?
(Dr Robins) There are obviously differences in Turkey
about whether some of these reforms should be initiated in the
first place and some of those on the political extremes will always
be critical, but I think that there is a big body of opinion in
Turkey which realises that membership of the European Union is
a good thing, which realises that in order for membership of the
European Union to be viable, real reforms have to take place and
that these reforms are in the direction of the Copenhagen Criteria
and in the direction of liberal reforms in general, and I think
would therefore be receptive, if they are actually going to implement
some of these reforms at a formal level, to the idea of the implementation
of these reforms in practice.
(Mr Park) I am not in a position to comment in detail
on the kind of assistance that the Turks get in these areas, but
it might be worth comparing the sort of programmes that have been
available for post-communist Europe, which are quite structured
and quite well founded, with those of Turkey and, in a certain
sense, Turkey lost out on that because it was not part of-post-communist
Europe but maybe needed the same kind of assistance. That is one
way of addressing the issue. Another way is to do with the balance
of the comment that the Turks received and this might be presenting
a perspective as the Turks would themselves see it, but they do
feel themselves, and I think are, on the receiving end of quite
a lot of criticism. So the issue is not only what sort of assistance
might they get and what sort of encouragement might they get but
also how does it balance against the criticism that they get,
and I think they feel that maybe their cup is half full and half
empty and the focus is too much on the half empty.
Andrew Mackinlay
7. I have listened carefully to all that the
three of you have said but it does require two to tango and, whilst
there might be individuals who are receptive and no doubt some
are arguing for much more modernisation et cetera, you still have
to have the willpower in government to say, "We want help
and assistance." It is not as if there is nothing on offer,
clearly there is. In a sense, we know what we would like but the
Turkish state as such is not wishing to absorb this, unlike countries
of the former central Europe where, although they needed coaxing
and encouraging, by and large they said, "Teach us civic
society." That was the big difference. Even if you look at
the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia where you did not have
the question of requiring each side's accommodation of their minorities,
nevertheless the carrot and stick of getting into the European
Union has been a great dynamic. There is no demonstration of comparable
circumstances in Turkey. If there are, can you explain them to
us because, and I do not mean this disrespectfully, you have not.
(Mr Park) I agree with quite a lot of what you say
actually. In a sense, the Central Europeans presented a tabula
rasa - they saw themselves on the receiving end of wisdom and
knowledge—whereas the Turks approached the whole situation
of Europe from a position that they already had and needed to
be shifted from. I think that the Turkish case is sometimes more
difficult for the reasons that you identify. I think that within
Turkey there are all sorts of splits; there are very positive
forces. You mentioned the state, actually even within the state;
for example, in the foreign minister who I would say generally
is a quite positive reforming person within Turkey. In some ways—and
I do not know what we can do about this but I think the situation
is stymied a little by the political system and the political
culture—it is hard for a Turkish government, because it
is a coalition government normally of ideologically quite disparate
groups, to arrive at a position and stick to it and to implement
what they say because it always generates problems internally.
I have to say—and I do not want to say it—that I agree
with what you say.
Chairman
8. Is there any dissent?
(Dr Hale) If I can just add to what Bill Park said,
to be more specific about it. Within the present Turkish Government,
you have three parties. The Democratic Left Party, which is Prime
Minister Ecevit's party, is I think generally liberal on most
of these questions and I think there is a desire to reform on
the part of most parts of that party. There certainly is also
in the Motherland Party which is the third party in the coalition.
I think the problem arises in the case of the Nationalist Action
Party which is a strongly nationalist party, especially on the
Kurdish question. It is difficult to convince people who support
it and people in the party of the need for change, especially
on human rights issues. Do not forget that there is a reason for
this and that is that, between 1984 and the late 1990s, the was
a vicious internal struggle going on between the Turkish authorities
and, I may say, quite a large part of the Kurdish population on
the one side and the PKK on the other side. Thousands of people
lost their lives in that bitter struggle and it is not easy to
erase the memories of that loss on the part of a large part of
the population. We have a roughly similar situation, I suppose,
in Northern Ireland although, thank goodness, the casualties were
never so serious as they were in Turkey.
(Dr Robins) I certainly do not dissent from much of
what Bill Park has said but I think that we have to remember that
Turkey itself has come a long way in the last 15 years or so.
Up until the mid 1980s perhaps, there was very little civil society
in Turkey at all. The civil society that has emerged over the
last 15 years has been a very mixed bag but included in that bag
has been, for instance, the emergence of at least three major
human rights organisations that I think have very significant
membership bases and which do good work and which are committed,
perhaps not without their flaws, to actually monitor the situation
in the country. So Turkey too has changed although the dramatic
nature of that change has paled when compared to the former Eastern
Bloc in Eastern Central Europe. What I think it would be desirable
to do is really to work with those who are well disposed towards
change, and they are considerable in number in civil society within
political parties and even within the state, and try to persuade,
cajole and reassure as well those who are instinctively against
change.
9. The Turks sometimes say that they are being
faced with double standards in that their own political economic
deficiencies are no different in kind to those of some of their
neighbours, Bulgaria and Romania, who have already started the
accession path. Do you have any sympathy with that view?
(Dr Hale) I think it is fair to say that there is
prejudice against Turkey, unreasonable prejudice, on the part
of some people within the European Union and there have been examples
of that during the 1990s. On the other hand, the position which
the European Union has taken is that no country can begin accession
negotiations with the Union until it meets the political part
of the Copenhagen Criteria and Turkey has failed to meet those
criteria as yet. It is making progress towards meeting them but
there is still some distance to travel. Therefore, in that respect,
I think the European Union can claim that it has been quite fair
and that it has not adopted double standards; it has applied the
same standards to other applicant countries.
Sir John Stanley
10. For the record, when Dr Robins referred
to the emergence of three significant human rights organisations,
could he name the three organisations that he was referring to.
(Dr Robins) There are two organisations which have
generally the same names and I will supply you with the acronyms
of those, but there is also a third which is an Islamist one which
I think is an interesting experiment and which, from my vantage
point of interacting with them—and this is Mazlum-Der—seemed
to —
11. Can we have the three names, please.
(Dr Hale) There is the Insan Haklari Dernegi, which
is the Human Rights Association; there is the Turkish Human Rights
Foundation—I think I have the right initials; and then there
is Mazlum-Der which is the Islamist Human Rights Organisation.
There are others but these are the three main ones.
(Dr Robins) I would say that those are the most prominent.
Mr Illsley
12. My question follows on from what we have
been discussing and, put quite simply, does Turkey's candidacy
for the European Union deserve special treatment bearing in mind
of course that they first applied in 1959 and there has always
been this recruitment to incorporate them into the European Union?
You have maintained that, since the 1980s, they have made great
strides but it still always seems "a long way down the road"
is the usual quote. Forty years on, should we give special treatment
or not? Are they willing to meet the Copenhagen Criteria? Are
they willing to address human rights abuses?
(Dr Robins) Personally, I think that there should
be no special pleading for Turkey because, having spent an enormous
amount of time saying that there is an objective set of criteria,
a view that took the Turks a long time to take on board, I think
that now to suggest that in any way that does not exist, could
be relaxed or could be changed would be confusing, would be counterproductive
and I am not sure it would run anywhere; I am not sure it would
run within the European Union. I think that would not be a good
way forward. Having said that, I think that the Turks certainly
feel very bruised by their experiences with the European Union.
After all, they will say, "We were negotiating seriously
with the European Union back in 1963. We were making serious efforts
to become full members of the European Union while most of those
who are now ahead of us in the queue were actually part of a military
alliance which was at least formally dedicated to the break-up
of the free world and to the undermining of the free world."
They will also say, "At an economic level, we have taken
the reformist, liberalising changes back in the late 1970s and
early 1980s that the European Union has asked increasingly of
aspirant members well before others were actually doing this and
well before that was part of the criteria." I think it is
important to take on board the sensitivities and the frustrations
which exist inside Turkey but I think we should not do anything
which suggests that the Turks might get away with anything less
than the sort of standards we would expect on human rights and
on the treatment of minorities and so on.
13. I just want to pass the argument across
because presumably, Dr Hale, you might argue that the Copenhagen
Criteria was specifically directed at countries like Turkey and
might argue that they got special treatment from the other way.
Is that what you were saying earlier?
(Dr Hale) I do not know that they were specifically
directed against countries like Turkey. If I remember correctly,
they were passed by the Copenhagen meeting of the European Council
in 1993 and of course at that stage the other applicant countries,
even those in the so-called first wave, were still quite a long
way back down the track. So, I do not think it was specifically
directed towards Turkey. There may have been other considerations
at the time. For instance, worries about whether democratic Government
was going to survive in other Eastern European countries following
the fall of communism. So, I suspect that there were a number
of other considerations at the time. It is important primarily
for Turkey at the moment because, in the judgment of the European
Union, Turkey is the only candidate country which has not yet
met the political part of the Copenhagen Criteria. However, I
would agree with Philip Robins completely and I am not suggesting
that we should have to apply special terms for Turkey. Coming
back to one other point that you did mention, Mr Illsley, which
was the question as to whether the Turks themselves were prepared
to make the changes which were necessary, I think we have covered
some of the ground here already. I think there are different forces
at work here. I think that, on the whole, the forces in favour
of meeting the Copenhagen Criteria are stronger, certainly in
the public at large, in the media and I would say in the parliament
than the forces opposing them. This is a hopeful sign. If you
look at public opinion polls, they indicate a very strong majority
in favour of Turkey becoming a member of the European Union and
I think a significant part of that is that when people are asked
why they support Turkey's eventual accession to the European Union,
Turkish respondents reply first of all because it would improve
Turkey's economic situation, secondly because it would improve
Turkey's standing in the world but the third reason is because
it would improve human rights and democratisation. This is seen
as a positive advantage by something like 70 per cent of the public
which I think is quite significant.
14. It appears that we are in something of a
circular argument in that you could argue that if they were given
European Union membership, human rights would improve as a consequence.
On the other hand, you could argue that, until you improve your
human rights, your membership is going to lie on the table.
(Mr Park) Turkish reformers do make that case very
strongly, that we need lots of green lights so that we can move
this.
15. Could the British Government be doing anything
to address this idea of Turkey's exclusion from Europe and the
fact that membership is a long way down the road and is distant?
Should the British Government be doing anything to address that
and to try and assuage Turkey's feelings in that regard?
(Mr Park) To some extent, I agree with everything
other team members of the panel have said. I do not think that
Turkey is ready to be considered, but I think that I might put
the question the other way round a little as well. I do not want
to particularly pick on Bulgaria or Romania, but I would also
question whether everything that takes place there really satisfies
the Copenhagen Criteria and, even if it does, how deep those changes
are. To that extent, I think the issue is not that Turkey is being
unfairly treated but that they might feel discriminated against
because others have been over fairly treated. That is one way
of looking at the question. What you do from now on in is quite
interesting and it raises questions about the European Union at
least as much as it does about Turkey. There is scope here for
interpretation of things like the Copenhagen Criteria. As we enlarge
the European Union, we are expanding it from some sort of—I
do not know how to put it—Central European chocolate box
core Europe. Europe is quite a diverse place and Turkey is at
the extreme end of its diversity. So the question is not only
what we can expect from Turkey—and we have had questions
that indicate the thinking—but it is also to what extent
can the European Union be rigid in its application in all respects
of the Copenhagen Criteria which after all derived from that relative
handful of states where the Copenhagen Criteria are unquestioned.
Europe is moving into new territory. Turkey is very much new territory
but I would suggest that it is not alone. I think there is that
question: what is the European Union becoming? Turkey raises that
question emphatically but is not alone in raising that question.
(Dr Hale) Can I just add something to what Bill Park
said. Your question was, what should we do in this regard? One
matter that I think we have to be very careful about is to make
sure to avoid statements either in this country or more probably
in other European Union countries to the effect that Turkey can
never become a member of the European Union because it is a Moslem
country. I believe that if such statements are made, either in
this country or anywhere else, then our Government and as many
as possible governments within the European Union should contradict
that as sharply and strongly as they can. It is completely contradictory
to the engagements that the Union has already entered into apart
from other extremely unlikeable ideological aspects of that attitude.
Mr Maples
16. The whole process has been dragging on for
a long time and there have been a number of difficulties and you
have gone through those in the last half-hour or so. Supposing
this were to grind to what looks like a 20 year time horizon and
the Turks and the European Union did not come to a formal conclusion
that this was not going anywhere in the next generation but it
became pretty clear that it was not, is that going to change Turkey's
foreign policy? Does it have an alternative to the essentially
fundamental strategic alliances that it has with the West? In
NATO, and it has been very co-operative over various other things
by taking over leadership of the Afghanistan force; it has a close
relationship with the United States; it has a base for operations
into Northern Iraq. Is that likely to change? Does Turkey have
anywhere else to go?
(Dr Hale) It is conceivable that, if the scenario
you mentioned occurred, Turkey's likely best option in that situation
would probably be to seek a stronger bilateral relationship with
the United States covering defence issues, maybe economic issues
et cetera. I do not know whether the United States administration
at the time would be willing to go along with that but that, it
seems to me, is the only other option there. It was an option,
incidentally, which was considered in the very early days of the
Cold War while NATO was still forming and before Turkey was admitted
to NATO that they might work for that kind of relationship. I
cannot see any other viable options from their viewpoint. It is
very hard to see what kind of environment we might have in 10
years' time which would obviously affect the issue.
(Mr Park) I suppose I might question how much the
future of a country like Turkey in this kind of scenario can be
analysed in the terms of different options. As I have already
indicated, I think the future of the European Union is quite interesting.
I am not sure that deepening and enlargement work easily together.
I am not sure that the European Union can be that exclusive in
the future in a whole range of areas. So, even a Turkey outside
the European Union would still trade very heavily with the European
Union and would probably be in some sort of security defence arrangement
with the European Union and so on. Also, I think, as Bill Hale
said, Turkey in effect already has a whole range of other relationships
which even membership of the European Union would not terminate.
They do have a special kind of security relationship with the
United States. They are in a region of the world which is quite
different from that that most EU members inhabit and they have
all sorts of relationships, sometimes good, sometimes bad, in
that area. I suppose I am not sure that either membership or non-membership
of the European Union would profoundly alter much of that. It
would shift the emphasis around a little but all of these aspects
of Turkey's foreign policy relationships would still exist under
any imaginable scenario.
(Dr Robins) I certainly do not think that there is
an alternative system or multi-lateral organisation that Turkey
could turn to which would be in any way comparable to the European
Union. To some extent, there was a little flirtation with some
of that in the creation of Black Sea co-operation and things like
that, nothing of course anywhere near as important as the European
Union. However, I do not think that we should necessarily come
to the conclusion that, say, the freezing of the relationship
or freezing any prospect of accession over 20 years would not
have a cost in terms of Turkish/EU relations. I think the sort
of areas where costs may be borne would be in those areas which
are not the sort of big areas, the big security areas, the areas
that would have an implication for Turkish relationship with the
United States or even the Turkish relationship with NATO, both
of which are valued extremely highly in Ankara, not least by the
military, but I think the sort of areas where there would be a
cost would be in some of the more bilateral areas with the European
Union and here I am thinking about possibly co-operation over
illegal drugs, possibly co-operation over illegal immigration,
possibly even co-operation over the issue of Cyprus although of
course there is more of a US dimension to that as well. It is
certainly very noticeable that since the Helsinki decision to
give candidate status to Turkey, the Turkish Government and the
Turkish State seems to have been more generally co-operative in
a number of different areas where perhaps co-operation was less
than perfect before and I think the area of illegal drugs might
be a good example of that. Co-operation with Europe was improving
before the Helsinki summit agreement, but since then I think it
has been much easier for people in Turkey to pull together and
to agree that this is generally the right way to go. I think that
if signals from the European Union were to become more confused
and more ambivalent in the future, it might have costs in this
direction and I suppose that, apropos of the last question, a
return to the sort of Luxemburg atmosphere where Turkey always
seemed to be in a minority of one as the country that was being
left out was not being considered seriously by the European Union
as it interacted with non-member states is the sort of context
to which we probably do not want to return. It is much more comfortable
and it is much more productive to be in a Helsinki atmosphere
than to be in a Luxemburg atmosphere.
Ms Stuart
17. Can I just pick up on a few points that
you have made. Mr Park made the point that there are more questions
about the future of the European Union in terms of the Turkish
accession than really about Turkey, not least because we will
have a country with a population that may well soon be the largest
population and largest Moslem population. In that context, I was
pleased to hear that it will be extremely damaging if we start
going down the road of saying that Turkey will never be a member
of the EU. Within that context, I was very pleased that Turkey
has actually been given a place of convention with all the other
accession statuses despite the fact that it is in a waiting room
for the next waiting room! I wonder if you would like to comment
further recognising the very deep historical differences which
we have to deal with within Turkey, not least the role of the
military and their deeply entrenched role within civic government.
Do you think that is one of the fundamental problems, that is
their role as a safeguard of the civic state which is a concept
which really we find very difficult to deal with? Is there any
change in that in the foreseeable future and to what extent is
it actually a barrier to EU membership?
(Mr Park) I think it is a very, very interesting question.
My personal view is probably not very politically correct on this.
It seems to me that the problem with Turkey is not really the
role of the military, it is the way in which the political system
has operated. I am not sure that Turkey's evolution would have
been more favourably regarded by the European Union if the military
had not involved themselves from time to time. In other words,
I think their involvement has sometimes been not entirely negative,
to put it at its minimum. It is inevitable that the European Union
is going to have an uneasy attitude towards this but I think that
one of the problems that are created in EU/Turkish relationships
is that the EU approaches the issue from the position of simply
being against the military's involvement in politics rather than
in some sense an understanding of it. Again, operationally, I
do not know what conclusions that might lead you to but I think
we perhaps could be a little more sensitive about why the military
is involved in the way that it has been involved and what the
impact of that has been. It is not necessarily all bad. This might
lead you to quite negative conclusions about Turkey's real prospects
for the European Union. I agree with what I think might have been
the spirit of what you said, that the military's involvement is
not easily going to evaporate in Turkey. Partly this is because
of the way the military think and indeed are constitutionally
empowered to think about their role in Turkish politics, but also
because of things about Turkish politics itself and maybe Turkish
society as well. So, I do not think it is going to go away as
an issue. If the European Union is to insist that this degree
of involvement in politics is in itself an ultimate barrier to
Turkey's membership, then I think that Turkey's membership will
continue to be a long way off; it probably is for other reasons
as well but this is an additional reason. As I say, the question
is also about the European Union. Is the European Union capable—and
I am not proposing this—of accepting different models of
civil military relations amongst its members or candidate members?
If it were to regard the military's involvement in Turkish politics
as not all negative, it might find it easier to start thinking
along those lines.
Andrew Mackinlay
18. Can you just paint a canvass for us as to
where we are in regards to the Kurdish situation because I think
it is inextricably part and parcel of what we are talking about,
whether or not it is robust or not and so on. Whilst analogies
are dangerous in international affairs, is there an equivalent
of what I would call the SDLP and Sinn Fein to give us some sort
of shading? Firstly, I would like to know about this canvass and
whether various groups are represented; secondly, one of the matters
we are debating is whether or not we should take this into account
and if we should see people. I do not know if you can help us
on this area.
(Dr Robins) On that situation just picking up the
military and bridging into the Kurdish issue, while it is certainly
the case that in certain circumstances, the military may have
been a force for good, I think we have to remind ourselves that
the period when the military has been most influential in Turkish
politics in recent times, ie the period after 1993, coincided
with the period of the worst excesses of human rights abuses that
we have seen in that country for some considerable time and the
emergence of the "deep state", the absence of real accountability,
the provinces in the south-east of the country where emergency
rule was brought in with the suspension of the normal rights that
functioned in the rest of the country and made the south-east
an untransparent black hole in the country which was a very serious
development which did result in a great deal of loss of life and
the razing of villages, extrajudicial killings and things like
that. I think it is important as well to make the point that the
military do themselves express frustrations with civilian government.
They say, "We have no desire ourselves to run the country
or to govern the country. We are frustrated with the short-termist,
self-serving nature of the political parties in the country."
I think it is not an entirely altruistic situation that we have
there. In terms of the Kurdish situation, I think that is one
of considerable frustration and disappointment. When we had the
insurgency, which I suppose began in its infancy in 1984 and built
up to a real intensity from about 1989 onwards and was perhaps
at its height from about 1992 until about 1996 and then went on
at a lower level to the PKK cease-fire since we have had since
1999, it was said that it would be very difficult to go ahead
with real reforms that would be inclusive as far as the Kurdish
population was concerned under such circumstances, partly because
it would be seen to be rewarding violent insurrection and partly
because domestic public opinion would not stand for it particularly
amongst the Turkish majority and it would be very difficult to
implement on the ground against such a background of insurgency.
There was some plausibility to that as long as the violence was
taking place and I think it has been extremely, as I say, frustrating
and disappointing that there has been such little movement on
the issue of the Kurdish issue since 1999. I think the situation
since then has been that there have been one or two flickers in
the direction of reform which will be helpful, liberal reform
some of which we were touching on at the beginning of this session;
there have been one or two meetings, for instance, between the
then President Demirel and the HADEP mayors, HADEP being a Kurdish
ethno-nationalist party but one which is certainly more moderate
than the PKK. So there were one or two indicators that things
might improve. However, I think that, over the last three years,
they have mostly been disappointed expectations. We now have the
situation where the prosecution case against the existence of
HADEP is still hanging over that party; it has been delayed, it
has been postponed, it has been delayed a little bit more now.
It is very difficult for such an organisation to operate normally
and freely under such pressure. We have of course had the closing
down of two earlier versions of HADEP, HEP and DEP, earlier on
in the 1990s although, as I say, against a rather different political
background on the ground. I think there have certainly been mistakes
on the Kurdish nationalist side as well. Some of the actions of-self-conscious
Kurdish parliamentarians in the early 1990s were, I think, precipitate
and unwise. So even amongst those who seek to occupy the middle
ground, I think there have been mistakes on both sides. I certainly
think that what we should be looking for is a building up of the
middle ground. In the 1990s, there was a great polarisation of
politics on Turkey on this issue. Now the fighting is largely
over, we should be looking to try to build up that middle ground
and secondly, constitutionally and legally, we should be looking
to a system in Turkey which is more inclusive, inclusive of different
minorities, inclusive of different political shades, whether they
be ethnic shades or ideological shades.
Chairman
19. When you say "we should be building
up the middle ground", who are the "we" in that
context?
(Dr Robins) I think I said that we should be looking
towards ... I think it would be difficult and inappropriate for
people to start marching in with their big feet and trying to
tell the Turks what to do, but I think looking for some change
in this direction would be very desirable. The "we"
in all of this is, I suppose, those who want to see, I would say,
not only a liberal, democratic and accountable Turkey but also
a Turkey that is a much better Turkey for those who live there
as well. Here, things are often couched in terms of what we want
and what the Turks want, whereas actually my perception is that
most Turks want to have a more stable, more prosperous and more
democratic system as well.
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