We are impressed! (So are we...)

This columnist thinks Turkey wore both hats during the Israeli military offensive on Gaza, but will eventually go back to where it belongs: the Islamic world instead of the West.

Same newspaper, same day, another page, another columnist. This time generous praise goes to Mr Erdoğan’s "landmark visit to Brussels" last week, accompanied by a quote from an unnamed European leader: "Erdoğan is a perfect leaderÉ and most leaders at the European Parliament were impressedÉ"

At first sight it looked as though Mr Erdoğan traveled all the way to Brussels after four years in order to lecture the European leadership on the virtues of Hamas and to threaten gas-starving Europe with stalling the Nabucco gas pipeline project if Europe pressed Turkey hard on Cyprus. Now we know we were wrong to think so. He went to Brussels to impress Europe’s leaders.

My impression from private meetings with some European Union diplomats in Ankara is that their governments did not know what exactly had slowed down Turkey’s EU reforms. Until last week everyone thought that Mr Erdoğan’s government was being reluctant on reforms. Last week, we were all relieved to hear from our prime minister that that was not the case. It’s all because of the opposition, Mr Erdoğan told everyone who apparently stood at attention to be impressed. The opposition has the habit of blocking every government effort to pass new reform laws.

I am intrigued, though. With a tiny presence in Parliament where Mr Erdoğan’s ruling party almost has enough seats to amend the Constitution how would the opposition miraculously block EU reforms? But since Europe’s prominent leaders were all impressed, we all must respect Mr Erdoğan’s explanation. I was glad to hear from a diplomat friend from an EU heavyweight that his embassy would now divert all accession contacts from the AKP to the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, and Democratic Society Party, or DTP. He, too, did not know these three parties were the real culprit for the slackened process.

It was precisely because of the same ignorance that the German Economy Minister, Michael Glos, accused Mr Erdoğan for blackmailing Europe on the Nabucco-Cyprus trade-off. Minister Glos did not know why Mr Erdoğan made that threat. I reveal: The CHP’s Brussels liaison office did not only shamelessly distribute to several European institutions an article from the Middle East Quarterly magazine, "Gülen’s Grand Ambition: Turkey’s Islamist Danger," but also successfully infiltrated its men into Mr Erdoğan’s working group in Brussels and changed his speech notes. The Nabucco threat was from a page slipped by these agents into the original text. I think Mr Glos should apologize.

Apart from that little misunderstanding of no importance everyone in Brussels was impressed. They were privately told that the AKP’s real reform campaign would take off after the local elections in March. At this point, I get confused. Why would the AKP freeze its reform campaign because of elections? Because it thinks EU reforms could cost it votes? Yes. Why, then, would the reforms cost the government votes? Because the Turks would not like them? If so, why, after four decades of membership efforts, are the Turks believed to be (or really are) bitter about reforms? Is this a fundamental incompatibility?

Most EU diplomats prefer not to talk about the possibility of a fundamental incompatibility for understandable reasons. It may be a fact, but spelling it would serve no one’s interest. Apparently, after March 29 there will be "some action" possibly overshadowed by not-so-good news from Nicosia. I recall Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Ciçek’s important Ñ but disproportionately covered Ñ remarks recently that "we hope the EU will not force us into a choice between Cyprus and membership." We’ll see. But let’s hope the CHP will not implant agents into the Turkish Cypriot statelet (as well as the AKP camp) and spoil the reunification talks.

Oh, but everyone among the corps diplomatique in Ankara is so very excited about the new chief negotiator, Egemen Bağış. I agree that Mr Bağış’s appointment is an indication of Mr Erdoğan’s commitment to the reform process. I just do not understand how an extremely complex matter like the eventual Turkish membership could be dependent on the personality of one man, or a few men. Four decades after the Crescent and Star took off with Europe as target destination it is changing course since it has demographically become "something else" during the very long journey. In the words of Soner Cağaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, "This is not your mother’s Turkey." Another two decades and someone else will probably hate to say it, but it won’t even be Mr Erdoğan’s "schizophrenic Turkey." The columnist my first paragraph referred to has a point: this is destination neo-Ottomanism!