Memorandum from David Barchard
RELATIONS BETWEEN TURKEY AND THE UNITED KINGDOM
1. INTRODUCTION
This paper attempts to identify the main issues
involved in Turkish-UK relations. It examines Turkey's main characteristics
and considers their impact on issues such as EU enlargement, European
defence, and the national interests of the UK. It briefly considers
possible options available.
2. BASIC INDICATORS
Turkey is about three times the size of the
UK [780,580 sq km] with a slightly larger population [66.5 million
in 2001] but lower per capita GDP [$6,000 in 2000 versus $22,800
in the UK]. Electricity production at 125.3 billion Kwh is about
a third of that of the UK. Approximately 60 per cent of the population
now lives in towns or cities. Population growth, though still
around 1 per cent, has begun to brake sharply in the last decade,
much in line with the experience of other north Mediterranean
countries. At the same time, the country's culture has become
essentially urban and modern, dominated by around 35 TV channels
and increasingly the Internet. With around 12 million people,
Istanbul, Turkey's main commercial centre, is overtaking St. Petersburg
and Moscow as Europe's largest city and has a larger economy of
its own than some European countries. Since the fall of communism,
Istanbul, now a large and lively centre of industry, has to some
extent also recovered its former role as a hub for trade in the
Balkans, Black Sea, and Near East. The new dependency of the Turkish
on trade with Russia however led to a drop of 6 per cent in GDP
in 1999 when the Russian economy faltered. There was an even sharper
drop in the economy, caused mainly by problems in the banking
sector, in 2001. These were also the culmination of decades of
economic development financed by inflation because of a shortage
of investment. According to the Financial Times early in 2001,
annual foreign investment in Turkey compares with what Brazil
receives in a fortnight.
3. ECONOMIC TRENDS
These, and earlier, setbacks have to be set
against a long-term pattern of considerable economic dynamism
and economic expansion at an average of 5-6 per cent for most
of the previous four decades. A return to growth, of around 3
per cent, is likely in 2002. Given the backing of the IMF, medium
term economic prospects are probably of a return to sustained
growth, though this depends partly on increased access to direct
investment from abroad.
4. ECONOMIC RELATIONS
WITH THE
EU
Since 1996 Turkey has had a full customs union
for industrial goods with the EU, and has shown its industries
can compete in EU markets. In some industries, notably textiles
and associated industries, Turkey is the leading supplier of the
EU. Despite this, there is an annual Turkish trade deficit with
the EU in normal years of around $10 billion. (In 2001 Turkish
domestic demand slumped because of the crisis, cutting import
demand, while exports to Britain and the EU continued) Turkey
thus represents a "profit centre" for the EU, since
this deficit is not covered by other financial flows, including
financial assistance and private investment. Turkey in fact is
a rare example of a country proceeding successfully to customs
union with the EU with the minimum of assistance from the Union.
5. TURKISH-UK
TRADE LINKS
In 2000, the UK was Turkey's third largest export
market and its sixth largest supplier of imports. Turkey's size
and increasing affluence means that it is one of Britain's largest
trade partners in a wide area. Many British high street names
are present in Turkey and there is a substantial British business
community in Istanbul.
6. REGIONAL ISSUES
Turkey has borders with eight countries and,
during the Cold War period, because of its size, it was part of
two separate possible strategic "theatres" of conflict:
the Balkans and the Caucasus. Turkish foreign policy since the
1920's has been based on two principles: (1) avoiding local conflicts
and seeking regional stability through good bilateral relations
where possible and (2) emphasising the quest for economic development
and higher living standards.
7. IRREDENTISM
AND LOCAL
CONFLICTS
These pragmatic principles have been repeatedly
complicated by the fact that seven of Turkey's eight neighbours
were formerly ruled by it in the Ottoman Empire and political
currents in at least two of them regard places in Turkey as part
of their historic and cultural heritage. This is seen in Turkey
as potentially irredentist. These problems are a carry-over from
the break-up of the Ottoman Empire with its religiously and culturally
mixed population by the Concert of Europe. It needs to be more
frequently remembered in Western Europe that, taken overall, the
western-backed Christian insurgencies which created the modern
map of southeast Europe claimed many more Muslim lives than the
other way round—an estimated 5.5 million Ottoman Muslim
deaths in total between 1821 and 1923. Substantially larger numbers
were displaced and, to a considerable degree, Turkey is a nation
of immigrant families from outside its present territories.
8. HISTORICAL
PREJUDICE AS
A FACTOR
IN PRESENT
RELATIONS
Though perhaps seemingly remote, this historical
background is still a factor in Turkish-British and Turkish-European
relations. Attitudes towards Turkey in Britain may sometimes be
still unconsciously coloured by related prejudices inherited from
the past. Presumably few people today in Britain would follow
William Gladstone in regarding the Turks as "the one great
anti-human specimen of humanity", and holding that "
No government ever has so sinned, none has proved itself so incorrigible
in sin, or which is the same, so impotent in reformation."
Nevertheless there still seems to be a Gladstonian tendency to
regard Turkey as "different" from its southeastern European
neighbours; to focus attention on perceived shortcomings; and
to promote separatist or centrifugal ethnic currents, whether
actual or potential. A recent British academic study of North-Eastern
Turkey for instance questions the lack of separatist nationalist
sentiment among its population. It is amusing to note that while
hostile attitudes towards Turkey are relatively constant, the
grounds offered for them can change dramatically. In the nineteenth
century, Turkey was berated by British liberals for being an Islamic
theocracy. Today it comes under fire in the same quarters for
its secular system and alleged repression of political Islamists.
More fundamentally prejudice leads to a tendency—stronger
perhaps in parts of continental Europe than in the UK—to
underrate Turkey's strengths and potential.
9. SUSPICION
OF EUROPE
IN TURKEY
The inevitable counterpart inside Turkey to
these attitudes is the suspicion that Western Europe is intrinsically
hostile to the country and its territorial integrity. These doubts
in Turkey sometimes based on personal family memories, fuel scepticism
over human rights issues especially among minor officialdom.
10. LIMITED KNOWLEDGE
OF TURKEY
British comment on Turkey sometimes gives the
impression that the commentator believes he or she knows more
about the Turks and their history than the Turks do themselves.
This attitude, which some might describe as `Orientalist', contrasts
with the striking poverty of Turkish studies in the UK and paucity
of well-informed work about the country, based on at least a secure
reading knowledge of Turkish and Turkish history and culture.
During the last twenty years, several British universities have
wound down Turkish studies programmes. Most of the major British
academic specialists on Turkey are approaching or past retirement
age. Only one is aged below forty. University courses on Turkey
attract much lower numbers than courses on (for example) Latin
America. There is also a notable reluctance in the media and arts
to empathize with the way tens of millions of mainstream urban
Turks live and look at the world. The 250,000 or so Turks living
in the UK have so far strikingly failed to develop notable spokesmen,
though many say in private that they are puzzled and dismayed
about the portrayal of Turkey in the UK. With around a million
Britons visiting Turkey as tourists each year, and a considerable
number of businessmen also travelling there regularly, direct
personal experience and knowledge of the country is growing, but
ironically a good deal of the public discussion and information
about Turkey in the UK is managed by radical groups, many of them
non-Turkish, with antagonistic political agendas.
11. ACCESS TO
THE UK FROM
TURKEY
The UK was one of the last European Union countries
to require a visa from Turkish visitors. During the dozen or so
years the visa requirement has been in force, its application
has become steadily more severe and is now regarded as the harshest
of any European country. It would seem that more than half, perhaps
as many as two thirds, of Turks applying to enter the UK are now
refused visas. All applicants must pay a non-refundable fee of
over £50, travel to Istanbul (since there is only one visa-issuing
office in the country), and produce a plethora of personal details
about property ownership, income. Essentially travel to Britain
is now denied to Turks on average incomes unless on official business.
Businessmen complain that they may have to wait up to five months
even to get an interview. An English language student I recently
sponsored was refused a visa despite my written guarantee because,
in the view of the processing officials, he did not have enough
English to benefit from a course. Another applicant was refused
on the grounds he knew too much English to need to attend a course!
The system seems have problems differentiating between bona
fide travellers and potential illegal immigrants and bogus
asylum seekers. There are numerous complaints about the lack of
courtesy of British visa officials and one leading British resident
of Istanbul has openly accused the visa office of bad faith. It
cannot be desirable that citizens of an industrialised European
country and EU applicant are increasingly denied access to the
UK, their country's third or fourth largest trading partner and
there is an obvious anomaly in a system which allows one million
Britons to visit a country each year when almost all of its inhabitants
can now not make even a short visit to Britain.
12. TURKEY AND
THE EUROPEAN
UNION
Turkey made an initial approach for inclusion
to the EU in the late 1950's and in 1963 negotiated and signed
the Ankara Accord which set up an Association aimed explicitly
at eventual full membership via a customs union. Turkey applied
for full EU membership in 1987, but its applicant status was not
recognized for twelve years. The application, and the Association
which preceded it, were motivated by the desire for full integration
into the western world in general and Europe in particular, the
driving force in Turkish history since the end of the eighteenth
century. Opinion polls continue to suggest that there is overwhelming
popular support for Turkish EU membership, though qualified by
misgivings about EU intentions.
13. PROGRESS
TOWARDS MEMBERSHIP
In the four decades since the Ankara Accord,
Turkey has moved steadily closer towards the point where it can
assume the economic obligations of membership. It has largely
industrialised and per capita income levels are around or even
above those of some of the other applicants. As mentioned above,
the customs union was achieved on time in 1996, but no date has
yet been set for opening membership negotiations. Eventual membership
is not guaranteed until negotiations are opened. Turkish observers
are concerned by the possibility of a Greek and/or Greek Cypriot
veto on the opening of negotiations with Turkey. They also note
that the Nice Summit in December 2000 avoided signalling a full
commitment to eventual Turkish membership and did not identify
the numbers involved in Turkey's post-accession entitlement to
representation in EU institutions. Nice created a model for a
"27-member" Community. The accession of a 28 member,
ie Turkey, will trigger a transition to a new EU structure in
which not all members send at least one Commissioner to Brussels.
This would seem likely to make Turkish accession a generally unpopular
change for reasons unconnected with Turkey itself.
14. TURKISH PREPARATIONS
SO FAR
Because of its progress in commercial policy
and related areas, Turkey has been in a position for some time
to negotiate on some of the 31 Chapters in Accession negotiations.
The National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis,
the keystone of the accession process, was published in April
2001. There is no doubt that negotiations with the EU have been
a powerful spur to constitutional and legal reforms, and that
the pace of reforms has accelerated—perhaps driven by the
desire of Turkish public opinion, including business leaders,
to ensure that the door to Europe is not closed. There has been
a perceptible increase in public interest in, and understanding
of, the EU. Things seem to have gone very smoothly in the preliminary
talks in several EU and Turkish official committees on accession
issues.
15. POLITICAL
ISSUES
Progress has been much less issue on the political
issues. The topics which have proved most recalcitrant in the
Turkish accession programme, relate to Cyprus and rights for ethnic
minorities, including the question of permitting education in
Turkey's two main Kurdish languages. In a historical perspective,
these are direct continuations of the `mixed population' problems
which embroiled the European powers in the affairs of the Near
East in the 19 century. During its first quarter of a century,
the EU was effectively neutral in many of these disputes, but
its position on Cyprus is now inevitably closely aligned with
that of Greece, while in 1999, under the Santer Commission, the
EU failed to distance itself convincingly from supporters of the
PKK during the flight from Syria of Abdullah Ocalan.
16. LACK OF
EUROPEAN SOLIDARITY
WITH TURKEY
Suspicions of this kind in Turkey about European
intentions were revived in December 2001 when the EU excluded
the main two Turkish terrorist organisations, the PKK [Kurdistan
Worker's Party] and the DHKP/C [Revolutionary Popular Liberation
Party and Front] from its list of banned international terrorist
groups. Turkey had asked for these groups, both of which have
injured and killed EU nationals (including Britons) among many
others, to be included.
17. LEGAL REFORMS
AND PLURALISM
From its own point of view, Turkey is being
asked by the EU to take a leap in the dark on issues which it
has traditionally seen as essential to its integrity. Turkish
political opinion currently appears to be divided on how to respond.
On one side there are those politicians who recognize that pluralism
on issues such as cultural identity and languages is an international,
and specifically a European, legal norm and who are prepared to
believe EU assurances that this does not mean endorsing separatist
politics. One the other are those who think that national integrity
can only be safeguarded through permanent severe prohibitions.
The balance seems to be tilting in favour of the first group,
not least since it is can be plausibly argued that Turkey's integrity
and national interests would be best protected within the EU.
Permitting some education in Kurdish languages however remains
very contentious. Against this, Turkish society today is vastly
more pluralist and secularist in outlook than it was one or two
generations ago and many young Turks regard the restrictions as
anachronistic. Yet until work on liberalising the constitution
and related legislation is completed—and seen to be operating
in practice along lines familiar elsewhere—it is unlikely
that the EU will rule that Turkey complies fully with the political
criteria of Copenhagen and that accession negotiations can begin.
The issue is complicated by the fact that the adaptations which
Turkey is being asked to make were not required of some existing
EU members.
18. ALTERNATIVES
TO OPENING
ACCESSION NEGOTIATIONS
There seem to be no satisfactory alternatives
to trying to find ways to speed up the accession process, at least
to the point where negotiations can begin. By committing itself
to accepting the Greek Cypriots as full members of the EU on their
own if necessary, the Union has imposed a sort of guillotine on
itself in this regard, since it may be assumed that unless negotiations
with Turkey have already been opened, the Greek Cypriots will
veto them permanently after their accession. The accession process,
as already noted, is a stimulus to economic and administrative
progress and pluralism in Turkey. Deferment of it, for whatever
reason, could well weaken Turkey's ability to cope with its internal
problems, from corruption to radical Islamism, and the international
impact of these problems in a strategically-placed country of
67 million people cannot be discounted. Deferment could also exacerbate
problems surrounding emigration, while a smoothly proceeding integration
process may reduce them. Integration into Europe has reduced the
propensity for large-scale migration into northern Europe from
other Mediterranean countries, and with larger flows of investment
and trade, a similar effect can be expected in Turkey. Equally
the exclusion of Turkey from the EU, even on a temporary basis,
might well create an unmanageable migration outflow similar to
that of the southern border of the United States.
19. SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS
WITH EUROPE
In any case, a realistic deferment option does
not exist. Attempts to create a `special relationship' as a substitute
for membership, such as that recently advocated by Mr Rheinhold
Bocklett, Bavaria's European Affairs Minister, will simply not
be acceptable to government or public opinion in Turkey and there
will continue to be sustained pressure for the EU to honour its
commitments. It was held with earlier applications that public
opinion in the applicant countries could not be rebuffed. It is
hard to see why the situation should be different for the Turks,
not least since their own experience since Greek accession in
1981 has shown them how essential it is to be present inside European
meetings when decisions are taken. A special relationship will
not cope with this requirement.
20. THE VETO
SCENARIO
The alternative scenario (assuming current efforts
for an agreed resolution of the differences between the Greek
and Turkish Cypriots fail) is that Greek and/or Greek Cypriot
vetoes kill any foreseeable prospects of EU membership for Turkey.
This is likely to be an uncomfortable outcome with severely destabilising
effects both for the region and for EU-Turkish and British-Turkish
relations. At best it would mean a missed opportunity—a
serious failure to extend European values, and the pluralism and
prosperity which spring from them to an area which is historically
intrinsically part of the European system. At worst it could mean
a slide over time towards a serious direct confrontation between
the EU and a large regional power, essentially, on the basis of
nationalist historical disputes.
21. STRATEGIC
ISSUES
Turkey followed strongly pro-Western defence
policies throughout the Cold War, despite some experimentation
with "Third World" type foreign policies in the 1960's
and 1970's. By insulating the Arab Middle East from the Soviet
Union, it played a part in ensuring stability in the area which
was too often taken for granted. Since the end of the Cold War,
it has actually expanded its military cooperation with the United
States and NATO by permitting use of Incirlik Base, at Adana close
to the eastern Mediterranean, and latterly some other bases in
regional conflicts. This closer military cooperation between Turkey
and its western partners began during the Gulf War with the late
President Turgut Özal but has continued in the post-September
11 `War Against Terrorism.' Limited numbers of British and also
French military personnel are now present alongside the Americans
at Incirlik. This support, particularly in the Gulf War, has been
expensive for Turkey, in terms of both lost cross-border trade
with Iraq, (variously estimated at up to $40 billion) and of a
much less friendly stance towards Turkey in the Arab world. At
the same time Turkey appears to have drawn informally somewhat
closer to Israel.
22. MILITARY
RESOURCES
Because of its perception of itself as an exposed
frontier country in a very uncertain region, Turkey devotes a
substantial slice of its resources to military spending—about
$10.6 billion in 1999 or 5.6 per cent of GNP. (This compares with
about $37 billion and 2.7 per cent of GDP in the UK; and $6.12
billion and 4.91 per cent of GDP in Turkey's neighbour, Greece.)
The Armed Forces are popular and generally regarded as the country's
most effective institution and the guarantors of its stability.
23. OPPOSITION
TO MIDDLE
EASTERN TERRORISM
Turkey's role as a bulwark in the region extends
to its firm opposition to terrorism. Turkey does not permit Middle
Eastern terrorist groups to operate on its territory or to use
Turkey as a transit route to Europe. If it had been more permissive
towards such groups, the impact of Middle Eastern terrorism on
Europe would surely have been much greater.
24. PROSPECTS
FOR TURKISH-EU
MILITARY PARTNERSHIP
Turkey's military resources are among the most
important assets that it offers the EU as a potential candidate
for accession. Its resources are already potentially extremely
significant in international operations to cope with regional
disputes, from the Balkans to Afghanistan, especially when a Muslim
element is involved. Turkey's misgivings over the emergence of
a European army seem to derive from the possibility that, if it
was excluded from decision making and planning, it could one day
find Europe's new military capacity being deployed against it:
for example in a divided Cyprus. So far however the EU has shown
limited interest in the potential of a military partnership with
Turkey.
25. TURKEY AND
THE NEW
EUROPEAN SECURITY
ARCHITECTURE
Turkey has not however tried to block, as it
could have done, changes in the architecture of European defence
over the last half decade. It ratified the expansion of NATO to
include former Warsaw pact countries which are now ahead of it
in the line for EU accession. Last year, it accepted a compromise
position on ESDP in the "Ankara Text". Behind this however
lies a confident awareness of Turkey's continuing strategic importance
and the certainty that its close bilateral relations with the
United States will continue for the foreseeable future. However
Turkey's willingness to be flexible reflects its expectations
of progress in its overall relations with the EU and a basic trust
that the new European force will not become a factor in any Greek-Turkish
disputes.
26 SOME CONCLUSIONS
Turkey's aspirations for membership of Europe
and its relatively advanced degree of industrialisation and urbanisation
make its candidacy for EU accession a logical step. A successful
Turkish accession should bring many benefits to both sides, in
terms of the reduction of regional tensions, increased prosperity,
and the spread of pluralist European values in the Near East and
beyond. Blockage of Turkish accession will exacerbate regional
problems. As the UK continues to be closely involved in the region,
it may experience the impact of any failure more acutely than
some of its EU partners. Most of the obstacles and complications
in the way of Turkish EU accession arise, directly or indirectly,
from ethnic and cultural tensions, and long-standing western prejudices,
dating back to the late Ottoman period. These to some extent complicate
even the good working relations which normally exist between the
UK and Turkey. However Turkey's size and large population means
that the task of `digesting' it in the EU will be a formidable
and prolonged one and both sides have to be realistic in recognizing
this fact and coping with it. There needs to be a quantitative
and qualitative improvement in British understanding of Turkey,
and a shift away from reliance for information about the country,
on groups with axes to grind. More needs to be taught about Turkey
in schools and universities. Turkish participation should be more
frequently sought—and perhaps more broadly based—at
international meetings, seminars, and other occasions. Efforts
need to be made to ensure that an effective and thoughtful dialogue
replaces the present tendency to talk too often in stylised mutual
accusations. In the post-September 11 world, Turkey's strategic
role for the western world as a whole, and the EU in particular,
will remain very important for the foreseeable future, especially
if there is a reconfiguration of American partners in the region,
away from the Arabian Peninsula and towards Russia. It is important
that efforts to ensure an effective and deepening partnership
with Turkey continue and that in this area, as in others, any
possible drift towards an adversarial relationship for essentially
secondary reasons is forestalled.
David Barchard
January 2002
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