THE NEW DIRECTION FOR TURKEY EURASIAN UNION |
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Prof. Dr. Ata ATUN |
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The new and the coming advancements in EU do not seem too good for Turkey.
And the proceedings for the accession negotiations are not ad-vancing as well as in the honeymoon days.
The first change took place in Germany.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder passed his seat to Angela Mer-kel. She hotly backed the idea of a “privileged partnership” for Turkey during her leadership campaign and got elected.
After Schröder the Italian prime minister also left the stage. He was one of the two backers of Turkey during its accession framework talks.
On the night of Oct. 3, 2005, when talks broke down and the Turkish delegation stood up to quit, he was one of the two who managed to convince them to return to the table and proceed.
The other of the two backers was British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He is also on his way off stage.
And finally French President Jacques Chirac. Although he wasn’t very sympathetic toward Turkey, he was still in favor of Turkey from time to time. He is to be replaced by Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the French right wing.
Probably with Patrick Devedjian, advocate of the notorious Ar-menian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), Sarkozy will try his best to keep Turkey out of the EU.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is also on his way out of poli-tics. I think this will be the biggest loss for Turkey.
Putin addressed the Duma, Russian Parliament, for the last time in the third week of April.
One of his dreams is to establish a Russian-Turkish Eurasian Union. He is trying quite hard to bring this to life and in his last speech made a call to Turkey for participation as a “full member.”
He made it clear that the Russian people are quite sympathetic toward Turks and that Turkey is the leading country for intermarriages between the two countries. He made a friendly call and asked Turkey to leave the EU and come hand-in-hand with Russia to establish the Russian-Turkish Eurasian Union.
Russian strategists managed to convince Putin to look toward Turkey after sensing that the negative sentiment toward Turkey in the EU was growing stronger.
Now after all the obstacles to Turkey on the road to unification with the EU and the unwillingness for partnership with an Islamic country, it seems the Eurasian Union is more understanding of Turkey than the EU is.
The giants and tigers of Asia are already on their way toward uni-fication, or at least cooperation, in the form of the Shanghai Five. In the Eurasian Union alliance Turkey’s prestigious and decisive seat, especially compared to “privileged partnership,” seems to be the best option for Turkey in the long run.
The world is gradually shifting from a single superpower gover-nance to a bipolar power-sharing.
While the US and EU form one pole, the giants of Asia, China, India, Russia and Turkey, together with the Turkic countries, will form the other.
It seems now that the fog is melting away and the new direction of Turkey is becoming crystal clear — the East and the Eurasian Union.
