Missteps hobble Turkey-EU waltz

Barely six months after the European Union ended years of indecision by starting talks aimed at allowing Turkey to join the club, doubts about the wisdom of that move are coming to the fore on both sides of the table.

A series of well-publicized court cases, including one Tuesday, against Turkish writers has made Europeans wonder anew whether Ankara really shares their understanding of freedom of speech. Many Turks, meanwhile, see a double standard over head scarf bans and a proposed French law that would ban any suggestion that the Armenians did not suffer genocide in 1915.

The dubious mood clouding the "talks about talks" that Turkish and EU officials have been holding since the beginning of the year indicates just how long and bumpy the process of turning Turkey into a full-fledged European nation will be, say observers on both sides of the Bosphorus.

"There is a sense that the political will in Ankara is not as strong as it was, if there's any left at all, to invest in this process with Europe," says one EU diplomat in the Turkish capital, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue. "The commitment ... that they are still professing is less convincing because it is not being reflected by their actions on the ground."

Especially worrying to the Europeans is the way prosecutors have used a controversial article of Turkey's revised penal code against writers accused of insulting state institutions or Turkish identity. A number of these cases, such as the one against author Orhan Pamuk, have been dropped after sharp EU criticism. But Tuesday, the trial began of an Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor who is charged with "attempting to influence the judiciary" against the penal code. The editor, Hrant Dink, was met with shouts of "traitor" as he entered the courtroom.

Rights activists also fear that a planned anti-terror bill, which would allow the imprisonment of journalists found guilty of "propagating terrorism," might be used against anyone expressing support for Kurdish separatists. A recent upsurge in violence in the majority-Kurdish southeast of Turkey, meanwhile, could lead the military to reassert itself in domestic affairs.

The EU last month urged the Turkish authorities "to make sure that the security forces show the necessary restraint" in the wake of street clashes that left 16 people dead and 36 children in jail, some facing 24 years in prison.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has brushed aside charges of "reform fatigue," insisting recently that "our reform efforts aimed at raising standards and practices in all areas of life to the highest contemporary standards will resolutely continue."

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