WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Valery Giscard D'Estaing, the former president of France who is now writing a constitution for the entire, vast European Union, had a harsh cruel message for the people of Turkey Friday, "Europe doesn't want you."
And although European Union officials in Brussels immediately disavowed themselves from Giscard D'Estaing's remarks, millions of Turks may well believe he was speaking the literal truth.
"Turkey is an important country close to Europe. But it is not a European country. Its capital is not in Europe," Giscard D'Estaing told the Paris newspaper Le Monde in an interview published Friday.
"The majority of the EU members have in reality (already) spoken out against (Turkey joining them), but they have never said this to the Turks," he said.
EU spokesman Jean-Christophe Fildri predictably denied Giscard D'Estaing's highly undiplomatic remarks. "Turkey's candidacy is not being (opposed) by any EU head of state and government in Europe," he said.
In terms of the strict letter of the law, this is, of course true. But as Turkey's leaders well know, at the very least, they look forward to the grim prospect of not being seriously considered for full EU membership for many years to come.
For the next EU summit scheduled for the Danish capital Copenhagen in December is going to take up the question of allowing no less than 10 candidate nations to join the 15-nation EU, swelling its ranks to 25. But giant, crucially important Turkey is not among them.
To especially twist the knife in Turkish sensibilities, Greek Cyprus, which controls only part of the island since the Turkish Army invaded and stayed in the Turkish Cypriot section of it in 1974, is on that short list. Turkey itself, of course, is not.
Privately, many Turkish diplomats and policymakers in Ankara and Istanbul say that they have been convinced for years that EU member Greece, remains implacably opposed to ever letting them join that 15-nation "rich man's club." For Greece was absorbed in the Turkish Ottoman Empire for almost half a millennium before winning freedom in the 1820s.
A century later, the Greek attempt to conquer large chunks of Asiatic Turkey backfired catastrophically when the Turks rallied and swept the Greeks back into the sea instead. Millions of refugees were created and hundreds of thousands of Greeks killed in that terrible war more than 80 years ago. And the heritage of hatred and resentment continues to smolder in both nations.
Meanwhile France, Greece's traditional ally and protector, remains committed to that view as well, many Turkish diplomats believe. And Germany, the other major insider power that dominates EU policymakers, backs France publicly on all issues involving Turkish admission to the EU.
Underlying Continental European attitudes towards Turkey is a vast sense of demographic insecurity and fear. Turkey, with around 80 million people, virtually all of them Moslem, has a soaring population. There is already a very large Muslim Turkish population in Germany. And the total recent immigrant population of Moslems in the EU is estimated at 20 million, or nearly 6 percent of the total EU population of 350 million. If Turkey were to become a full member of the EU, then all of Turkey's own Moslem population -- which is already almost one quarter the non-Moslem population of Europe -- would be free to work and settle anywhere in the EU.
The governments of the major Western European nations appear unwilling to want to face that possibility in the near future. Turkey's sophisticated leaders and diplomats understand that very well too.
However, the consequences of Turkey's leaders saying to their public that they agree with Giscard D'Estaing could be catastrophic both for them and the Europeans alike. Turkey's leaders have agreed for many years across the political spectrum that their only realistic hope of maintaining political and social stability was to hold out to their people the long-term economic bonanza of joining the EU as a full member.
Even the Islamists who have just triumphed in Turkey's elections go along with that. Their leader, Recep Tovyh Erdagon, publicly dismissed Giscard D' Estaing's public outburst Friday saying he was "nothing else but being emotional."
But Giscard D'Estaing's comments are likely to have a lasting and significant impact in Turkey, as he must have known when he made them. For in many respects, Turkish patience with the endless and humiliating delaying games that the EU as played with them for so many years have been heading towards the breaking point.
Turkey continues to have close relations with its fellow NATO member, the United States. Indeed, the worse Turks feel they have been treated by the Europeans, the more they have tended to try and draw closer to Washington in response. But up to now the State Department has refused to flex any serious muscle with the Europeans to support the Turkish case for EU entry.
So far, no one in the Turkish political establishment has appeared to seriously consider seeking far closer trade and diplomatic ties with the United States instead of chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of full EU membership.
U.S. policy on wooing Turkey is divided in the current Bush administration. Current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz are enthusiastic Turko-philes who see Turkey as a democratic, pro-Western Muslim nation that should be a beacon and example to the nations of the Middle East and Central Asia.
But Secretary of State Colin Powell and his State Department, while not hostile to Turkey, have always put far greater importance on maintaining good relations with the major states of Western Europe and fostering their drive towards eventual unity.
Neo-conservative intellectuals now openly write and dream about replacing their increasingly fractious and critical allies in Western Europe with nations such as Israel, Turkey, India and even Russia. But the breakthrough triumph of the Turkish Islamists suggests that their dreams may be built on shifting sands.
Giscard D'Estaing chose the days after the Turkish Islamists won that triumph to make his undiplomatic but hardly unpremeditated remarks. They suggest that French leaders too may be tiring of the cat and mouse delaying game they have been playing with the Turks.
But if the Turks turn away from Europe, the Islamist victory suggests they may not turn to the United States, but to the Muslim East instead, and provide a very different kind of example to the region than the one Pentagon policymakers hope and expect from them.
