Word: tayyip
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Early last week, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had reason to be optimistic. During a meeting in Ankara, Pope Benedict XVI said he was in favor of Turkey joining the European Union. This reversed an opinion he had delivered previously as a Cardinal, saying the move would be "a grave error against history." But the good news was short-lived. Just days after the Pope's remarks, Olli Rehn, the E.U.'s Commissioner for Enlargement, recommended that the E.U. suspend a portion of Turkey's membership talks just 13 months after they began. The reason: Turkey's continued unwillingness...
...Gestures: The gradual reversal over the past week of Benedict's original opposition (as a Cardinal in 2004) to Turkey's eventual entry into the European Union - alluded to both by Vatican officials and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - was symbolically sealed like a gift on Thursday with the Pope's joint declaration with the Orthodox Patriarch that referred "positively" to European Union expansion. Notably the two Christian leaders cited the singular priority of religious freedom for any joining E.U. members...
Thankfully, this ecumenism is not limited to a strictly religious arena, for politics ought to go hand in hand with spiritual dialogue. Though the Vatican has adamantly claimed that this trip had no political overtones, the mildly Islamic government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan desperately needs a political hand for Turkey’s bid to enter the European Union. And true enough, Benedict landed at the political heart of the Turkish Republic, Ankara, before going to Istanbul today. Turkey can only benefit from the Pope’s visit...
...Eastern Orthodox Church, which represents a nervous 0.01% of the country's population. The Turkish government, miffed that as a Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger had opposed Turkey's urgent bid to join the European Union, finally issued its own belated offer for 2006. But even now, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has discovered a previous engagement that will take him out of the country while Benedict is in it. Although modest, sales of a Turkish novel subtitled Who Will Kill the Pope in Istanbul? (the book fingers everyone but Islamists) have increased as his trip approaches. The country is expected...
...current Prime Minister, to go abroad to study. When a woman named Merve Kavakci won election to the Turkish parliament wearing a head scarf in 1999, she was booed out of the Assembly and subsequently stripped of her citizenship. Now the country's conservative Muslim Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to lift the head-scarf ban, and millions of conservative Turks would be pleased if he did. But Erdogan risks provoking the ire of hard-line secularists. At a recent secularist demonstration in Ankara, a chanting mob surrounded a woman passing by in a head scarf and ordered...