ISTANBUL // Frustrated with resistance within the European Union to Turkey's accession, the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has asked the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for help in getting the country admitted to the Shanghai Five, an organisation of Asian powers that includes China and Russia.
Mr Erdogan's statements, made in a television interview last Friday, appeared to signal a strategic shift for a country that is a long-standing member of Nato, and that has been seeking to join the EU and its predecessors for half a century.
Several western diplomats and analysts said the prime minister's remarks should be seen as a sign of the depth of Turkey's frustration with the EU, rather than an imminent fundamental policy shift. They said Mr Erdogan may have been trying to scare the EU into a more welcoming attitude towards his country.
"He was sending a message to the EU that said: 'We don't need you'," said Beril Dedeoglu, a professor of political science at Istanbul's Galatasaray University and one of the group of journalists and intellectuals who interviewed the prime minister.
In recent years, especially after Ankara voted against Iran sanctions in the UN Security Council in 2010, western governments expressed concern that Turkey, led by Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP), a party with roots in political Islam, may end its traditional western outlook and turn east. In that context, Mr Erdogan's statement "exploded like a bombshell", Prof Dedeoglu said yesterday.
During the interview on Kanal 24, a Turkish news channel, Mr Erdogan said Turkey was not about to "forget about the EU accession process" by itself, but that the EU was trying to discourage Turkey from pursuing its membership attempt.
"I told Mr Putin the other day: take us into the Shanghai Five," Mr Erdogan said. "Take us into the Shanghai Five, and we will say goodbye to the EU, we will leave them."
He was referring to a regional organisation originally grouping China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The organisation was renamed Shanghai Cooperation Organisation after Uzbekistan joined in 2001. Turkey became a dialogue partner of the organisation last year.
Joining the Shanghai Five would bring Turkey into close military and economic cooperation with China and Russia. Abandoning the EU process would mean giving up a long-held principle of Turkish foreign policy that has the aim of making the country a full member of the club of European democracies.
Turkey's EU accession talks started in 2005 but have made little progress, partly due to the unresolved Cyprus conflict, but also because of the reluctance of several key members to embrace the Muslim Turks as new members.
"As the prime minister of a nation of 75 million, you start looking elsewhere if that goes on like that in a negative fashion, if you want it or not," Mr Erdogan said.
He also said the reason for the EU's reluctance was because Turkey was a Muslim country, adding that some EU ministers had said so openly. "What's the use of being fobbed off like this?" he asked.
"The Shanghai Five are better, they are much stronger," he said.
A Turkish diplomat underlined that the prime minister had said Turkey was not giving up on the EU. But there is no doubt about Turkey's frustration with the lack of progress in Brussels, he added.
In Washington, the US state department reacted cautiously to Mr Erdogan's statements.
Asked about the possibility of Turkey joining the Shanghai Five, Victoria Nuland, a department spokeswoman, said such a development "would be interesting, given the fact that Turkey's also a Nato member. We'll have to see how that goes".
A European diplomat in Ankara played down the prime minister's interview. "The Shanghai Five is not an organisation that would be remotely as important to Turkey as the EU is," he said. "If the Turks think they can scare people in the EU with this, they are mistaken."
But Prof Dedeoglu said the remarks should be taken seriously. Even if the government did not have any immediate plans to turn away from the EU, it was significant that the prime minister was talking about it openly, because this showed the level of dissatisfaction with the EU in Turkey, she said.
According to a poll conducted last month for the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, a think tank in Istanbul, two Tiurkish voters out of three feel the country should abandon its goal of EU membership.
Support for EU membership in Turkey, which stood at more than 70 per cent in 2004, has decreased significantly over recent years, as voters and politicians expressed disappointment with the EU's reluctance to take their country in.
At the same time, Turkey's growing economic power has nurtured a feeling of strength and independence that has pushed the EU issue, the most important political subject in Ankara in the first years of the AKP era from 2002 onwards, into the background.
Prof Dedeoglu said those factors had given Mr Erdogan the feeling that he could talk about joining the Shanghai Five without angering important sections of the electorate before local, parliamentary and presidential elections next year and in 2015.
"He was relaxed when he talked about it, because there is a mood in the public at large that says we don't need the EU," she said.
tseibert@thenational.ae
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Trans fat is typically found in fried and baked goods, but you may be consuming more than you think.
Powdered coffee creamer, microwave popcorn and virtually anything processed with a crust is likely to contain it, as this guide from Mayo Clinic outlines:
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Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
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Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
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Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
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Building boom turning to bust as Turkey's economy slows
Deep in a provincial region of northwestern Turkey, it looks like a mirage - hundreds of luxury houses built in neat rows, their pointed towers somewhere between French chateau and Disney castle.
Meant to provide luxurious accommodations for foreign buyers, the houses are however standing empty in what is anything but a fairytale for their investors.
The ambitious development has been hit by regional turmoil as well as the slump in the Turkish construction industry - a key sector - as the country's economy heads towards what could be a hard landing in an intensifying downturn.
After a long period of solid growth, Turkey's economy contracted 1.1 per cent in the third quarter, and many economists expect it will enter into recession this year.
The country has been hit by high inflation and a currency crisis in August. The lira lost 28 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2018 and markets are still unconvinced by the readiness of the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to tackle underlying economic issues.
The villas close to the town centre of Mudurnu in the Bolu region are intended to resemble European architecture and are part of the Sarot Group's Burj Al Babas project.
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
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A foster couple or family must:
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- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
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- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
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Scotland 220
K Coetzer 95, J Siddique 3-49, R Mustafa 3-35
UAE 224-3 in 43,5 overs
C Suri 67, B Hameed 63 not out
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SERIES INFO
Schedule:
All matches at the Harare Sports Club
1st ODI, Wed Apr 10
2nd ODI, Fri Apr 12
3rd ODI, Sun Apr 14
4th ODI, Sun Apr 16
UAE squad
Mohammed Naveed (captain), Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Shaiman Anwar, Mohammed Usman, CP Rizwan, Chirag Suri, Mohammed Boota, Ghulam Shabber, Sultan Ahmed, Imran Haider, Amir Hayat, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed
Zimbabwe squad
Peter Moor (captain), Solomon Mire, Brian Chari, Regis Chakabva, Sean Williams, Timycen Maruma, Sikandar Raza, Donald Tiripano, Kyle Jarvis, Tendai Chatara, Chris Mpofu, Craig Ervine, Brandon Mavuta, Ainsley Ndlovu, Tony Munyonga, Elton Chigumbura
