A Turkey Snub
New York Post, October 13, 2002-The European Union has foolishly snubbed Turkey. Its executive commission has given the go-ahead to admit 10 new countries by 2004 - Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus and Malta.

All are deemed, with varying degrees of honesty, to have achieved stable democracies, the rule of law and market economies capable of surviving in a single European market.

Romania and Bulgaria will be considered for admission in 2007.

Turkey, however, which has long sought to join the E.U., hasn't even been given a date for negotiations.

Why? The claim is Turkey doesn't meet the political criteria: Its human rights situation, though improved, doesn't reach European standards, and its army plays too important a role in state affairs.

But given that the Turks have introduced a raft of reforms to please the E.U. - banning the death penalty, crafting a new civil code, ending a state of emergency in two insurgency-prone provinces and allowing Kurdish broadcasts - they can be forgiven for seeing racism and religious prejudice as the real reason for their exclusion.

In any case, the Europeans are making a big mistake in pushing Turkey away, a mistake that could have global ramifications. After all, what kind of message does it send to the Islamic world to reject the one predominantly Muslim country that has striven for a century to build a secular and democratic order?

Turkey was a vital ally during the Cold War. Its troops made a critical contribution not just to NATO but to the war in Korea. Standing as it does between Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, it is an even more important ally today.

But Turkey won't stay forever half-Western and half-Asiatic. And an alienated Turkey is far more likely to embrace fundamentalism than to reject it.

If Turkey's vigorous economy, powerful army and burgeoning educated population were to become assets of the West's enemies, it won't just be Europe that rues the day it scorned an ally