ISTANBUL, Turkey, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Since the end of the Cold War, Democratic and Republican presidents in the White House have firmly agreed that Turkey should be anchored into the West by being brought into the European Union. Former President Bill Clinton used to make a point of telephoning Greek and other premiers at EU summits to push the point, and both the current President George W. Bush and his father urged their European friends to "look at the big picture."
The big picture is important. The low European birth rate means they are short of energetic young workers whose taxes will pay the pensions of lots of European baby-boomers, and Turkey can help provide them. As a largely Muslim country that is also a secular democracy with a broadly improving record on human rights, Turkey can be the classic refutation of those glib theories about a looming clash of civilizations between the West and the rest.
A democratic and peaceful Turkey, prosperously anchored in the EU and spreading that extraordinary tranquilizing effect that the EU has somehow conjured over the endless tribal passions of the Old Continent, would be a prize indeed.
And the door is open. Turkey is more than just a candidate for membership; the formal negotiations on accession began almost two years ago. But the likelihood is that they will be suspended next month, when the EU Commission is widely expected to issue a rather dispiriting report on at least two aspects of Turkey's progress towards the criteria required for membership.
The first is a tough new anti-terrorism law that limits free speech and free association, and is said to threaten journalists with prison, which are the kind of measures that infuriate liberals in the European Parliament, who recall the tough measures the Turkish military has used against Kurdish dissidents in the past.
The Turkish government is unlikely to be quite as wary of the EU liberals as they have been, because of the terrorist bombs that exploded with dismaying regularity last week, apparently set by Kurdish separatists. The Turkish military have started air strikes against Kurdish terrorist bases in Northern Iraq again. And while the United States has been understanding of the pressure that Turkey is under, and has sent the popular former NATO Gen. Joe Ralston to help coordinate, the EU has been rather less sympathetic -- even though EU tourists have been targeted by the bombers.
This problem could, with goodwill, be negotiated. These days most countries have anti-terrorism laws that would have seemed draconian to the EU liberals of the innocent 1990s. But there is not much goodwill about, with important EU leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel openly questioning whether Europe can or should absorb a Muslim nation of 75 million people.
And the second problem concerns Cyprus, where the EU made the historic blunder of breaking its own rule, that no new member state should join the EU with an unresolved border problem. Cyprus has had a border problem since 1974, when the Turkish army invaded the northern third of the island, in order (it said) to protect the Turkish minority from the Greek Cypriots when a bizarre and thuggish coup overthrew the island's federal government.
The coup did not last long, but the Turkish military presence has endured and props up a puppet state that is recognized by nobody but Turkey, and which has missed out on the great surge of growth and prosperity that has made the Greek Cypriots into some of the wealthier of the EU's new members. And while the Turkish Cypriots voted for the U.N.-brokered peace deal that would have restored a federal system and ended the island's division, the Greek Cypriots balked in a referendum -- and in the name of Cyprus the Greek Cypriot government now has an effective veto over Turkey's hopes of joining the EU.
The particular issue on which the EU talks are likely to break down is whether Turkey will open its ports to Greek Cypriot ships. After the 1974 invasion, the Greek Cypriot administration declared that the three ports of Gemikonagi, Girne and Magosa, the "Turkish occupation area," were illegal and any ship that used them would be subject to confiscation. Turkey retorted that any ship flying a Greek Cypriot flag or a vessel whose largest shareholder is Greek Cypriot may not enter Turkish ports.
Turkey wants both bans lifted simultaneously, which seems reasonable. The EU says the ban on Greek Cypriot ships is an illegal obstacle to the free movement of goods and services in the EU Customs Union. In a narrowly technical sense, the EU has a point, but in reality the EU's approach is legalistic and deliberately negative. Turkey sees this as a European ploy to keep them out, while forcing Turkey to accept the humiliation of accepting that the 1974 invasion was not just a crime but a blunder.
There is a further factor. If Turkey does as the EU asks and opens its ports, Turkish officials say that the well-financed and efficient Greek shipping industry is just waiting for the opportunity to dominate Turkey's maritime freight business. And with Turkey's new pipeline from the Caspian oilfields, the Turks fear they will be handing the Greeks some $5 billion worth of oil shipment fees -- most of the money would go to Greek ships flying the Greek Cypriot flag because of the tax privileges.
Of course, everyone knew this was coming and the Turks should have invested in their own tanker fleet by now. But the combination of national pride, oil, shipping costs and the bitter memory (on both sides) of the coup and invasion of 1974 has made this issue into a dauntingly complex obstacle to the kind of talks that could easily smooth the way for Turkey's entry into the EU.
But neither the Turks nor the Greek Cypriots nor the EU currently want to invest the political goodwill that will be required to get over this hump. This is making the proud Turks feel so unwelcome that they are having second thoughts about joining this kind of club, whatever the grand strategy attractions of the Big Picture as seen from Washington, D.C.
