Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) Party? LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL , ouch my stomach is hurting now.

Posted by: JanuaryMan at June 15, 2006 8:25 AM

While the majority of those interviewed said they were in favour of democracy, some 40 percent think that "in some instances" military rule is better than an elected government.

If the elected government is an Islamic one, then yes, military rule may be better. Full democracy would not be appropriate for Turkey for that reason.

Posted by: Interested at June 15, 2006 8:25 AM

This is a good place to post the address of a petition against the EU membership of Turkey:

http://www.voiceforeurope.org/

Choose the flag of your country and sign the petition.

Posted by: Saatanan Islam at June 15, 2006 8:34 AM

It is time for the Turkish army to take over again and forbid the operation of the Islamic party.

Posted by: FIVEOFNINE at June 15, 2006 8:49 AM

I'd like to sign the petition, but I have a strong adverse reaction to posting my personal information anywhere.

Posted by: Jesus Christ Supercop at June 15, 2006 8:51 AM

Just call yourself J.C. Supercop.
They'll never know.

Posted by: Kim Hartveld at June 15, 2006 10:00 AM

"Turkey: Support for EU Membership Falls"

Good news.

Posted by: FreeSpeech at June 15, 2006 11:21 AM

Several different things explain the declared loss of interest in EU membership:

1. Recognition that this is unlikely to happen, and that the process of candidacy will expose Turkish practices and Muslim beliefs to close, possibly humiliating, scrutiny. The fiction that Turkey is secular, advanced, Western, etc. will be exposed.

Both Turkish "secularists" and Turkish True-Believers will not wish to humble themselves, or see themselves receive a rejection that they already feel as a humiliation, so like anyone touchy who forefeels he will be turned down for something, they claim to have lost interest.

2. Recognition that Turkey cannot possibly obtain such admission without changing so many things that it will be a threat to the Army as the guardian of Kemalism -- and this is something that some Turkish secularists are unwilling to sacrficie.

3. Recognition that Turkey cannot possibly obtain such admission without changing so many things that this will threaten Erdogan and his supporters, and the re-appearance of Islam as a political force, that Islamic parties and supporters may have decided that whatever worldly (economic) gains may be achieved for Turkey, the damage to Turkey as an Islamic state, the danger posed to its Muslimness by further contamination from the West, is not worth it.

These motives vary and reflect contradictory fears from different people. The end result is the same.

Posted by: Hugh at June 15, 2006 2:44 PM

There is no appetite whatsoever for any EU expansion, let alone accession that includes Turkey. Stop worrying about Turkey. Turkish accession will never happen in our lifetimes. I have repeatedly said that a far more important country to watch is Albania. The fact that Albania has not yet begun membership negotiations, and Turkey has, is of no consequence. If Albania is able to transform itself, as well as join the EU, things could change for Turkey. Of course, Albania is tiny, inside of Europe and has considerable religious minorities. We should also watch Bosnia and Kosovo. All three are infinitely more likely to accede than Turkey, albeit in the distant future.

Oli Rehn recently said that after Romania and Bulgaria join in a few months, it would be 2010 at the earliest before any country (Croatia?) could have the opportunity to join. To make matters worse for Turkey, the EP and EU have been signaling an end to all expansions after the upcoming one. Don’t forget the 2005 EU constitution votes in France and Holland. Those votes were not just about stopping good-looking Polish plumbers from doing work in Western European cities for low wages, they were about Turkey.

Posted by: Kafir Nonbeliever at June 15, 2006 6:17 PM

Democracy and islam are like water and oil. yeah islam has the oil, but the two do not mix. that is prol the people prefer dictatorship to control the mulim clerics. they need to totally destroy islam to have a Western style democracy. Let Iran have chaos with their people wanting more freedom and Democracy, their muslim clerics cannot control the people without their absolute power.

Posted by: Lulu at June 15, 2006 6:26 PM

Is Kosovo already an independent country? I thought it was still a part of Serbia.

As for Albania and Bosnia, I think that as long as they are Islamic, they are only quantitatively less of a threat to Europe than is Turkey.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at June 15, 2006 9:17 PM

RE: Kosovo

It is not yet independant, but will likely be soon very soon. It will likely wish to join Albania shortly thereafter. There is no surprise there.

Posted by: Kafir Nonbeliever at June 15, 2006 9:24 PM

Re: " The majority - 65 percent - also favoured the introduction of curbs on the activities of Christian missionaries in Turkey."

Turks want Europeans to become less Christian and accept Islam on the European continent and yet they don't want Christianity to grow in Turkey.

No more Turkish duplicity!

Posted by: Johnathan at June 16, 2006 12:50 AM

"Recognition that Turkey cannot possibly obtain such admission without changing so many things that it will be a threat to the Army as the guardian of Kemalism -- and this is something that some Turkish secularists are unwilling to sacrficie."

This is something that infidels should put there hope on. You cannot implement all the improvements on "human rights" required by EU membership without endangering the very existence of Kemalism in Turkey.

In addition, there is no genuine political will among the EU leaders (except the most gullible and stupid ones like the Finnish Prime Minister) to admit Turkey into the EU. The only ones actively pursuing Turkish EU membership are the EU bureaucrats responsible for the negotiations and even they must, at some point, admit that no progress has been made in human rights, recognition of Cyprus or recognition of Armenian genocide.

Posted by: Saatanan Islam at June 16, 2006 3:42 AM

Kafir Nonbeliever

Don’t forget the 2005 EU constitution votes in France and Holland. Those votes were not just about stopping good-looking Polish plumbers from doing work in Western European cities for low wages, they were about Turkey.

I was just going to say the same thing, Turkish membership of the E.U. is a non starter. The vote over the new constitution for the E.U. was in reality a vote against Turkish membership and was voted out in the referendums in France Holland and Denmark which have the most problems witht the people of the religion of peace. They cannot get in before 2010 at the latest. We have all seen how the German society has been polerizing and its changing attitude towards Muslims as was shown in the last polls showed that I think 60% of the German population thought that Islam was incompatible with the Western life style. In Denmark it is 79% by the way. If it come to a proper referendum concerning Turkish membership the Germans will vote to keep them out as well as the above counties. It doesn't matter what the
Turks think or vote in there own country they wont get into the E.U.

Posted by: Holger Dansker at June 16, 2006 4:04 AM

EU expansion prospects for Turkey dim further:

EU Raises Barriers to Expansion in Warning to Turkey, Croatia.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aCM1O54W68gY&refer=europe

Posted by: Kafir Nonbeliever at June 16, 2006 9:31 AM

What has Turkey done not merely to prosecute the murderer of Don Andrea Santoro, the priest murdered on February 7, 2006, but to publicize, throughout Turkey, exactly what it was that prompted those teenagers to harass him, to demand money, and then finally to return to kill him -- he who in Trebzon (Trebizond) did nothing to anyone, but merely had a congregation of eight, or perhaps nine, people, several of them Georgian women?

Turkey may think that the Santoro episode is over, but it will never be over, just as the Armenian murders will never be over, or the bombing of the Galata synagogue, or hundreds of other outrages big and small, until the Turkish population connects what has been done, not by "Turks" but by "Muslim Turks," following the tenets, or prompted by the attitudes, of Islam, to the contents of Islam itself. The secularists, the beneficiaries of Kemalist restraints on Islam, have a duty not only to resist Erdogan, but to undo him altogether, and then to push, push even harder those Kemalist constraints which they accepted without sufficient gratitude or understanding.

Kemalism was not meant to make Turkey merely safe for commerce, for the assorted Sabancis of this world. It was meant to transform, by offering the most advanced a way out of Islam (without open apostasy) and offering the primitive a substitute cult (the cult of Ataturk replacing the cult of Muhammad, the cult of "The Turk" replacing, or limiting the appeal of, Islam). The fault of the Kemalists is not that they went to far, but that they never went far enought; as long as some could be free, they did not think they had to pursue the link between Islam and crimes committed, either in the past, or in the present, by Muslims in Turkey. Wrong.

Start with a simple case. Start with the murder of Andrea Santoro.

For more on the case, see Corriere della Sera, February 9, 2006, page 10, especially the article "Insulti e minacce al prete, il giorno prima di ucciderlo" by Marco Imarisio.

Posted by: Hugh at June 16, 2006 9:45 AM