A self-defeating move?
Reader comment on item: Turkey's Radical Turn?

Submitted by Joshua Truax (United States), Aug 6, 2003 at 02:22

Ostensibly the AKP's attempt to rein in the Turkish military is meant to make Turkey a more appealing candidate for EU admission, but it seems to me that the EU would also be reluctant to admit a nation it sees as tilting toward Islamism.

Were Turkey to be admitted to the EU and later turn Islamist, the repercussions would be staggering for all of Europe. Islamists who hold considerable sway over Muslims across the continent even as things are now, would suddenly have an EU-member government to back them up. While this would hardly turn Europe into Saudi Arabia writ large overnight, it would, at the very least, result in an EU divided against itself - and as Abraham Lincoln once warned, such a house cannot stand.

It is for these very reasons that the EU has historically taken a dim view toward welcoming Turkey into the fold in the first place; that the AKP now seems poised to confirm Europe's worst fears about the country certainly won't help Turkey's chances for EU admission any time soon.

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