Turkey's relations with EU face deeper strains

It's no secret that Turkey's recent engagement with the European Union has not boded well for a happy marriage between the Muslim majority country and its Western neighbors.

EU diplomats have been warning for months of an impending "train crash" in the membership negotiations with Turkey. The country's stalling political reform process, dozens of court cases threatening free speech, and Ankara's continuing refusal to open up its airports and harbors to vessels from EU member Cyprus have raised concern in European capitals.

But the release Wednesday of an EU progress report sharply criticizing Turkey's reform slowdown and threatening unspecified consequences if it doesn't open its ports to Cyprus by mid-December is the most definitive signal yet of a further deterioration in Turkish-European relations, observers say.

"The report represents a very important point, politically, as the trains are heading towards a crash," says Kirsty Hughes, a London-based European affairs analyst.

While both sides appear to remain committed to ongoing negotiations, any eventual fallout could have significant implications not only for Turkey and the EU but the broader region as well. As the Turkish public becomes increasingly opposed to EU membership, analysts are warning that such a turn could hurt the democratization process under way in Turkey and reduce Europe's prospects for developing better relations with other Middle Eastern countries.

"Only with Turkey as a member can the EU be a player in the Middle East. Without Turkey, it has no say, no leverage, in Middle East issues," says Soner Cagaptay, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

At a summit next month, the 25-member body is expected to agree to freeze its negotiations with Turkey in part, if not entirely. German chancellor Andrea Merkel has already issued a stern warning, telling a German newspaper that if Ankara refuses to open up its ports to Cypriot trade – something it has promised to do as part of the deal to begin the negotiations – "the EU accession talks cannot continue in this fashion."

But diplomats and analysts in Turkey are not optimistic about the prospects of Ankara breaking out of its reform slump anytime soon. A wave of anti-Western nationalism has been washing over Turkey, fueled by a perception that the EU has been one-sided on the Cyprus issue and by European moves on the Armenian issue, such as a recent law passed by the lower house of the French parliament that makes it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottomans were a genocide.

According to a June poll by the Pew Research Center, Turkish support for the EU has fallen to 35 percent, down from almost 80 percent three years ago.

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