Most recently, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan participated in the EU Foreign Minister’s informal meeting in Brussels – the first time since years.
Despite that, the accession of Türkiye to the European Union has stalled since years, too. Ankara’s demands for an actualization of the customs union are being denied by Brussels, where, in exchange, still a hostile tone is being heard specifically in regard to the self-determination of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Moreover, the European Union continues targeting Türkiye’s territorial integrity and national unity, says Prof. Hasan Ünal from the Başkent University in Ankara in interview with UWI.
Cyprus, Aegean Sea and PKK
What conditions does the EU impose on Türkiye?
EU requirements have nothing to do with official criteria. It has nothing to do with the Acquis Communautaire of the EU. For example, why should we give up all our interests in Cyprus and allow the Greek side to realize its national ambitions? What does this have to do with the EU Acquis? Or accepting all Greek conditions in the Aegean Sea, satisfying even Armenia, can have nothing to do with EU Acquis.
After that, the demands of the PKK were added to it. The EU included them in the summit decisions. More importantly, they were added to the “Negotiations Framework Document”. And based on this, Türkiye should become a federation or something like that to satisfy the EU.
“Federation” demand
Then we must ask the following. Why didn’t you turn Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, which were members of the European Union before Türkiye, into federations? The societies in these countries, which can be called minorities, are much more clearly separated from the main body. They are separated from the main body of the population by international agreements. Besides, they have long been recognized as minorities. They have a large population, but none of them have been told, “Sir, you must convert your state into a federation. That is the only way you will be able to enter the European Union.”
But when it comes to Türkiye, they want to create an autonomous region of Kurdistan. In reality, they want another state which is to be a part of, even a surrogate mother of ‘Kurdistan state’ to be established in West Asia. That is why Türkiye cannot become a member of the European Union.
To get concessions on important issues
Why is the EU playing with Türkiye?
The answer to the question “Why did the European Union initiate the membership process with Türkiye?” is to deceive Türkiye as if it would become a member in a short term, to convince Türkiye to make important concessions in Cyprus, the Aegean, the ‘Kurdish issue’. But as I said, that is deception. Even if these conditions are met by Türkiye, the EU would say, ‘Membership is not that important. What matters more is that you meet these modern standards’. And so-and-so forth…
Hypocrisy of European officials
In sum, Türkiye’s EU membership process has failed. Why? Because of the hypocrisy of European officials. Today, restarting that process is more difficult than raising the dead. In fact, it became clear that the reason behind Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan being invited to an informal meeting of the EU foreign ministers was to reopen the situation in Cyprus, which, in the EU’s view, had reached an impasse.
How did the situation get blocked? Türkiye continued its misguided Cyprus policy until 2017. Unfortunately, as our foreign minister of those years often said, Türkiye continued its nonsensical policy of “federation for federation’s sake”, “negotiation for negotiation’s sake”. In 2010, Türkiye tried to finalize the Crans-Montana talks with very big concessions but thank God the bigotry of the Greeks prevented this. The fact that what the Greek Cypriot side wrote about these talks in their memoirs was not refuted by any person on the Turkish side, not by any dignitary, will be a note for history.