Turkey's Dreams of Accession

David L. Phillips

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004

Summary:  The hope of joining the EU has driven major reforms in Turkey, including economic liberalization, human rights protection, and greater civilian oversight of the military. But these reforms have fueled suspicions among Islamists and hard-line army officers. EU membership would help Turkey become a successful Muslim democracy, strengthen it as an ally in the fight against terrorism, and foster liberalization in the Islamic world.

David L. Phillips is a Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations.

COURTING THE EU

Turkey is a secular Muslim democracy and a crucial ally for the West. The eastern flank of NATO, straddling Europe and Asia, it played a critical role in containing the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the 1990s, it helped monitor Saddam Hussein and protect Iraqi Kurds by permitting U.S. warplanes to use its bases. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, it became a staging area for coalition forces in Afghanistan, where Turkish forces eventually assumed overall command of the International Stabilization Force. Turkey continues to be a pivotal partner in the fight against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, despite attacks by radical Islamists at home.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reaffirmed Turkey's ties to the West by embracing the country's commitment to joining the EU. In anticipation of a December summit at which EU governments will decide whether to open accession talks with Ankara, Erdogan has been pushing domestic reforms. In particular, he has undertaken the thorny task of subordinating Turkey's traditionally strong military to civilian control. This effort has helped him forge common cause with reformers in the military establishment, which has long been committed to the country's secularity. But it has also exacerbated tensions with army hard-liners and other ultranationalists who are reluctant to relinquish prestige, privilege, and power.

For the sake of both Turkey and its allies, Erdogan's overtures to the EU must succeed. EU membership would anchor Turkey in the West, fortify it as a firewall against terrorism, and help make it a model of democracy for the Muslim world. Rejection, on the other hand, would set back domestic reforms and radicalize religious extremists. Instead of a bulwark of stability and moderation, Turkey would become a hotbed of anti-Americanism and extremism. Rather than serving as a beachhead for Western interests in the Middle East, it would join the arc of unstable countries in the region that oppose the liberal values that form the foundation of the EU.

PASHA'S PRUDENCE

In 1923, Mustafa Kemal collected the remnants of the shattered Ottoman Empire to create the Republic of Turkey, hoping to build a truly modern state on a par with its European neighbors. Kemal, known as Atatürk ("the father of all Turks"), abolished the caliphate, secularized academic curricula, and replaced Turkey's Arabic script with a Latin one. He disbanded religious courts, Westernized the legal system, and gave women suffrage and equal rights. Turkey's founding constitution enshrined the country's commitment to secularism and republicanism.

Since then, Turkey's generals have been unflinching guardians of Kemalism. Both the Turkish Armed Forces Internal Service Law of 1961 and the 1982 constitution entrust the military with responsibility for promoting Atatürk's legacy. Officers see their task extending beyond the protection of the country's territory to include warding off threats to the public order, such as separatism, terrorism, and religious fundamentalism.

The military's role as the watchdog of civilian governments is embedded in Turkey's institutions. The constitution, for example, requires the cabinet to give "priority consideration to the decisions" of the National Security Council (NSC), an advisory body of top military and cabinet members, that the NSC deems "necessary for the preservation of the State." Although the NSC is chaired by the country's president and is nominally subordinate to the civilian government, the 1982 constitution requires that half of its members be army officers. In fact, it is the ultimate arbiter of power. Officers of the Turkish General Staff (TGS) have even more influence than political leaders when it comes to setting and advancing national goals.

On four occasions since Turkey's founding, the military has displaced politicians who challenged its power or deviated from Atatürk's ideology. It has overthrown three prime ministers since 1960, and in 1997 it engineered a soft coup to oust the Islamic Welfare Party (REFAH), after just one year at the helm of an improbable coalition. Nonetheless, the military sees itself as the country's guardian, not its ruler. After each intervention, it handed power back to civilian authorities once stability was restored.