Word: turkishly
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...surprised if Abdullah Gul's smile looks a little forced when he arrives in Luxembourg for Tuesday's talks on Turkey joining the European Union. The Turkish foreign minister will be all-too-aware that his hosts have spent days wrangling over just how reluctant and conditional Europe's invitation to Turkey should be. And although Austria's proposal that the Turks be offered something less than full membership was finally nixed, the episode showed a growing tendency among Europeans to openly express misgivings over Turkish membership in keeping with the sentiments of European electorates...
...Nowhere in the EU is rejection of Turkish membership as strong as it is in Austria, where polls find between 80 and 90% of voters opposed. An incendiary campaign by the far-right Freedom Party played a role in stoking that opposition, as did atavistic memories of the Ottoman Turk army at the gates of Vienna in 1683. The Austrian government channeled that sentiment by opposing the idea that the talks, expected to last at least nine years, would be premised on the "shared objective" of "accession." Vienna wanted language that could have allowed talks to end in something less...
...Despite losing the battle, those opposed to Turkey's membership may yet win the war. The likely next German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has long argued for something short of full membership for Turkey. And French president Jacques Chirac, who says he favors Turkish membership, has pressed through a constitutional amendment demanding a referendum in France to approve any new member of the EU. An editorial in Germany's centrist Sueddeutsche Zeitung sensed a whiff of hypocrisy in the pressure on Austria to kick the ball forward again. "The Austrian government deserves merit for speaking openly what a majority...
...graduated with the best grades ever; now he is applying his smarts to a different cause. He is fighting to stop his motherland from joining the European Union. Kerinçsiz's strategy is simple: to try to block the reforms that the E.U. is imposing by rallying Turkish nationalists to his cause. Late last month, by seeking a last-minute injunction, he almost succeeded in shutting down a conference on the mass killings of Armenians in 1915, one of the most brutal episodes in Turkish history, and one which has never been officially acknowledged by a Turkish government...
...Kerinçsiz belongs to an influential and increasingly vocal segment of Turkish society, one that encompasses members of the military and the judiciary, and which is vehemently opposed to E.U. membership and the changes to Turkish law and customs that it would require. The aim of these groups is not only to derail talks but also to discredit Erdogan, accession's most enthusiastic proponent. Many see his concessions as a betrayal of Turkish national interests. "Tayyip bey," says Kerinçsiz dismissively, "has dug his own grave." In the runup to the E.U. talks, Turkey's two main right...