Notes from ATAA's 23rd Annual Convention
The Turkish Times - Can Turkey enter NAFTA? Since AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan brought it up during his meeting with U.S. President Bush during their White House meeting on December 10, the word is in the air: "Turkey should enter NAFTA," that is, North American Free Trade Agreement valid between the US, Mexico and Canada.

Some columnists in the Turkish press are already approaching the issue from various angles.

The same question was raised during ATAA's 23rd Annual Convention as well, at the "Turkey and the European Union: What's Next?" panel. If EU was not going to accept Turkey as a full-member, could Turkey enter NAFTA? Wall Street Journal has also raised the possibility in a recent editorial, as confirmed by one of the panelists, WSJ's Editorial Features Editor Tunku Varadarajan .

Alan Makovsky , a foreign policy analyst that Turks know well and who is currently a senior staffer for Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), also reminded that Sen. Patrick Moynihan talked about the same possibility about 2 years ago. "But the EU does not have a Free Trade agreement with the US. So can Turkey sign a free trade agreement with the US within the NAFTA context ? " Makovsky asked.

Those with legal background replied that actually Turkey could NOT enter NAFTA easily since she signed a Customs Agreement with The European Union when Tansu Ciller was PM. Attila Karaosmanoglu, the current Chief Advisor to Istanbul Chamber of Industry, who for 27 years served as a World Bank managing director and before that served twice as a Turkish minister in charge of economic affairs back in the 1970s, reminded that the EU Customs Agreement effectively closes the NAFTA door on Turkey since Turkey still wants to keep the EU door open in 2004.

Amb. (Ret.) Mark Parris of Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, and a former US envoy to Ankara, appropriately reminded the audience that the U.S. Congress blocked even the QIZ (Qualified Industrial Zones) legislation that would have benefited US-Turkish trade. The implication was that a NAFTA-like free trade legislation for Turkey would be attacked immediately on the Capitol Hill by the same forces that blocked QIZ. "US as an alternative is not an easy solution to work out. It is easier said than done," Parris stressed.

Root Cause of EU Rebuff: "Prejudice and Ignorance" or "Politics"?
On about the same the day (Dec 12) EU decided not to announce a firm date for Turkey's accession talks, the issue was discussed in Washington D.C. at a panel held as a part of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations' 23rd Annual Convention. The sense of indignation was the order of the day. There was a unanimous agreement that the EU decision reflected badly more so on EU itself than Turkey.

As Prof. Justin McCarthy of University of Louisville, Kentucky, underlined during a presentation on Saturday Dec 14, Turkey did a lot to meet most if not all the requirements that EU has imposed on her as membership preconditions. Within the last year Turkey has lifted the state of emergency in southeastern provinces, passed laws to allow broadcasting in all non-Turkish languages including Kurdish, has abolished capital punishment and refrained from executing the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan even before abolishing capital punishment.

Previously EU contended that Turkish military establishment would never allow any party with religious-conservative sensibilities come to power alone. Free and fair elections were held on Nov 3, 2002 under the scrutiny of a great number of EU observers. The conservative-center AKP (Justice and Development Party) swept into power.Turkey did all those but she still could not even get a date on which accession talks can begin, the speakers emphasized. A pessimistic Prof. McCarthy said the main reason why EU would not accept Turkey was prejudice based on ignorance. He said the medieval myth of "The Terrible Turk" was still live and well in the minds of many Europeans, at a subliminal (if not cognitive) level for sure.

Onur Oymen, a current CHP (Republican Peoples' Party) deputy at the Turkish Grand National Assembly -- and a retired Turkish diplomat who for long years served as Turkish Ambassador to Bonn, Germany, Undersecretary of Turkish Foreign Ministry, as well as Turkey's representative to NATO -- said the main issue was not one of ignorance but of politics. The Europeans have more Turkish-expert scholars and hawk-eyed diplomats watching every move Turkey makes. So they do know everything that needs to be known about Turkey. However, they will come up with one excuse after another not to admit Turkey due to the fact that they could not yet bend Turkey's will and force Turkey to do what they want her to do, for example, in Cyprus, a frustrated Oymen explained.

Prof. Emre Kongar, former Undersecretary of Culture and currently teaching at Yildiz Technical University, synthesized the two approaches by suggesting that such a politics of discrimination works because there already is such an anti-Turkish prejudice in place. McCarthy seconded that notion.

Amb. Oymen said that although he has examined line-by-line all the resolutions passed by the European Union within the last twenty years he cannot remember a single resolution, "not a single one" he stressed over and over, that gives credit to Turkey on any issue. From Cyprus, to minority rights, to cultural issues, to economic issues, Turkey has been always portrayed as a country that had been 100%-wrong-all-the-time. This is such a consistent pattern so as to defy logic and credulity.

"How can a country be wrong all the time in everything she does for twenty years?" Oymen asked rhetorically and added that self-criticism is embraced as a "national pastime in Turkey." It is now time for Turks first of all to be "proud of themselves," he said, perhaps making a subconscious reference to Ataturk's famous motto "Turk, Be Proud, Work Hard, and Be Confident!" chiseled in granite at the Victory Memorial in Guven Park in Kizilay, Ankara. He expressed his amazement at the volume of self-criticism in Turkish media today which are repeating the same accusations that EU has been directed at Turkey for all these years, despite all the reforms Turkey is undertaking at a rapid pace. It is time to regroup and expose their politics, to "confront them with evidence that this is nothing but pure politics," Oymen said.

Perhaps AKP government's measured and dignified response "to continue despite everything" reflects such a renewed confidence in the process Turkey has undertaken to join EU, despite the great and continuing unknowns in Cyprus

Quitting Quid Pro Quo for "Inevitability"
One interesting approach to Turkey's EU venture was provided by Amb. Mark Parris, Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell's Senior Policy Advisor. He said that, since by the end of 2004 the EU would have new members that could potentially veto Turkey's membership (like Greek-Cyprus), Turkey must strive to take such strides towards fulfilling all the "Copenhagen criteria" unequivocally that there should be an environment, a sense of "inevitability" for offering Turkey a firm date in December 2004.

A second and equally important point was made by Attila Karaosmanoglu, the current Chief Advisor to Istanbul Chamber of. Karaosmanoglu, who at a short-notice kindly replaced Prof. Mumtaz Soysal who could not make it to the ATAA Convention, basically said that Turkey should quit the quid-pro-quo approach to EU membership, i.e. "we will tell you what we will do here and there if first you give us a firm date on which Turkey's accession talks can begin." Turkey should finish whatever reforms that need to be finished immediately, without waiting for what EU may or may not do in the future, because all the reforms in question will first of all benefit the Turkish citizens as well, Karaosmanoglu said. Such a no quid-pro-quo approach would also help create the sense of "inevitability" that Amb. Parris has referred to.

December 12 was a day of awakening but it is also a day of reckoning. Turkey has survived the expected blow without losing anything from her dignity or pro-Western ideals. Now that Turkey knows what it'd take to make it to the destination, she'll be in much better shape come December 2004.