Mutual mistrust between Turkey and the EU must be overcome for discussion to progress

Outstanding dilemmas mean suspicions held by both sides may deepen after December 17

By Burak Bekdil - Kathimerini English Edition

A cartoon in a newspaper depicts Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walking side by side with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, both men with sullen faces, and Mr Erdogan complaining to Mr Gul of a fresh EU condition for the start of EU entry talks: «Now they say we must shave off our moustaches!» The cartoon echoes an emerging change in the Turkish perception of what the start of accession talks will really mean.

Blame it on false publicity! Mr Erdogan's party apparatus, along with the mainstream press, has long been brainwashing the Turks that December 17 will mean an imminent victory. The date would mark the beginning of a Midas touch on a country that has been zigzagging between the East and the West for several decades. The wrangling over all three draft summit statements on Turkish candidacy has visibly soured the Turks' appetite for membership.

Former president (and seven-time prime minister) Suleyman Demirel, now a pro-EU «wise man,» sums it up: «Turkey existed before the EU. It will exist in the future too (with or without membership).»

At last the Turks are slowly waking up to reality - that all the reforms many of them have painfully digested over the past three years are not the end but only the easy beginning of a far more difficult journey.

The EU's diplomatic wizards may or may not find the right wording on the final draft to please everyone across the bloc and in Ankara, but the friction between Ankara and Brussels over the right language has already signaled how sore and fragile the talks can be.

Inevitably, Cyprus will be a bad starter. True, the EU is not pressing Turkey for immediate recognition - only an expression of intention that recognition will come at some point before the start of talks would be just fine enough to save December 17. True also, there are subtle messages from Ankara that recognition will come at some point. For example, Yigit Alpogan, secretary-general of the National Security Council, has said that «there are other things that need to be done about Cyprus before recognition in the short term.» Reword the phrase, and it says that recognition will come some time after the «short term.»

The difficulty is timing. Ankara is fully aware that it cannot negotiate for membership in a bloc while not recognizing one of its full members. But it cannot scrap its entire thesis on the Cyprus dispute overnight and practically declare itself an occupying power of EU territory. Not even the risk of failure to start membership talks will smooth out Turkey's rigidity «for the time being.» The prize must be bigger than just a date.

There are also other «problems of trust.» Many in the state establishment believe Turkey will come under pressure to give its Kurdish populace a Basque-style autonomy as membership negotiations mature. This is still an explosive issue in Turkey, and will probably remain so during the entire negotiation process.

Last week, a group of Kurdish politicians and intellectuals published a full-page advertisement in the International Herald Tribune and in Le Monde, listing their demands from the Turkish government. The text not only raised eyebrows in the conservative state establishment, but also unnerved the pro-EU reformists - Mr Erdogan's government included.

The sensitive issues of Cyprus and Kurdish autonomy came just a week before December 17 and in de facto connection with the summit. Bad luck if it was pure coincidence. Good job for Turkey's anti-EU and the EU's anti-Turkish camps if it was not coincidental. Within a week, Turkish perceptions on EU membership have begun to take a new direction other than cliched, undisputed positivity.

An odd incident in Sweden last week just added to deepening Turkish skepticism. Possibly for their first ever «pro-Turkish» mission, a group of PKK supporters gathered for a demonstration in support of Turkey's EU bid, further confusing minds in Ankara. Several policymakers had to sit down and ponder, «Well, if these guys are supporting Turkish membership, it can't be good for Turkey!» (Some of them use the same asymmetrical thinking for Greece's support for Turkish membership.)

No doubt the problem of trust between the Turks and Europeans may deepen after December 17, regardless of the wording chosen for the summit statement. It is unfortunate that membership talks will open, if they do, on poor ground. Suspicion of one's negotiating partner is a sure-fire way to guarantee that talks will fail.