Word: turkish
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...according to a report published Sept. 7 by a panel of European grandees. Chaired by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a mediator, the Independent Commission on Turkey says some E.U. leaders are mining popular fears over the specter of Turkish membership. "Attacks on the E.U.-Turkey process [have become] a proxy for popular concerns about immigration, worries about jobs, fears of Islam and a general dissatisfaction with the E.U.," the report says. "Negative statements by some European leaders ... and obstacles put in the way of the negotiations have...
...This hostility has not been missed by the Turkish. Support in Turkey for membership fell from over 70% in 2004 to 42% by the end of last year. The sense of being excluded has further demoralized Turkish reformers, the report says, leading to "a regrettable slowdown in the reform process" that is a condition of membership. This, in turn, feeds skeptics in European countries who point to the lack of reforms as proof that Turkey is unworthy of joining the E.U. It's a vicious circle that jeopardizes Turkish domestic reforms and hurts the E.U.'s own interests...
...Turkey itself has to take some blame for the impasse. Since the ruling Justice and Development Party came to power in 2003, it has been jostling with the army, raising fears of a military coup. Speaking in Brussels in January, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted the crisis had delayed E.U. accession talks. The report by the Independent Commission on Turkey says the country still needs to shed its "authoritarian legacies." (Read "Behind the Turkish Prime Minister's Outburst at Davos...
...Europe's last closed frontiers may finally be reopening, marking the end of almost a century of animosity between the two countries that stems from the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish army. On Sept. 1, the two countries launched six weeks of negotiations aimed at normalizing diplomatic relations. The goal is for both parliaments to ratify a deal by Oct. 14. The border could then reopen by the end of the year. (See pictures of the streets of Istanbul...
...much at stake. Securing the Caucasus region, which is veined with oil and gas pipelines, has become a priority for both Russia and the U.S. But history is a potent saboteur in this part of the world and talks have collapsed before under its weight. In 1915, the Ottoman Turkish army, fighting against Russia to maintain its territories, sent the region's Armenian population on a "death march" toward Syria. Armenians say 1.5 million were killed in a genocide. Turkey rejects that term, maintaining that the expulsion was a wartime measure necessary to quash Armenian nationalists who sided with...