UK-Turkey Relations

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I am pleased to be able to speak in this debate, which is on an interesting subject. It has been an honour to listen to many speeches, not least from the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who introduced the debate and presides over a Committee that does some really good work, which should be recognised.

I have been to Turkey—mainly Istanbul, which is a vibrant, exciting city. I went there several years ago, partly because some friends of mine were moving their business interests there. I found it fascinating to watch how they were integrating with the Turkish business community and how Turkey was becoming quite an exciting place in which to invest. I did invest, incidentally, in a fez. The only useful thing that did was to alert all other traders to the fact that I was a tourist and should be approached immediately to see whether I would buy anything else.

I have also visited Cyprus and there I took note of the partition of that country between Greece and Turkey. I know that it is an important obstacle to Turkey’s eventual membership of the European Union, which I hope will be a reality some time in the future.

We have heard a little about the Ottoman empire, and quite right too. One thing to remember about the Ottoman empire is that its rise, its life and above all its fall were interesting to the rest of Europe. We should recognise that we are influenced by what goes on there, and we should be attempting to influence that area now. On that premise I shall make a number of points, not just about foreign policy, but about the economic situation in Turkey, which I have already mentioned. A country as big as Turkey, with a relatively vibrant economy—even a decline in growth rate will still give it a growth rate higher than ours for some time—is one that we should be cultivating as a potential partner in the European Union. We must develop trade and it is important that we focus on doing that.

I agree with some of the speakers who emphasised some of the difficulties that that process entails. This morning I was at a breakfast discussing trade with China. There we heard about the importance of our diplomats and our embassies in promoting trade, and we learned just how powerful and determined the Americans were at promoting business in other countries. The American diplomatic service is robust and determined to promote businesses. We even heard that ambassadors were present at various meetings for banks in competition with other banks, including one based in Britain. It is important that we recognise the strength and the power of our diplomatic corps in promoting business, and that certainly applies to Turkey.

As one or two other Members have pointed out in connection with energy, the European Union has another interest in Turkey because of energy development and other industrial and entrepreneurial activity. It is critical that we do not lose the opportunity to bind Turkey into the European Union at a time when that is feasible. Feasibility can be judged on several criteria, one of which is human rights. I recognise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) that 10% of all cases currently before the European Court of Human Rights are from Turkey. The highest number of cases are from Russia, to which Turkey is second. That is a strong signal that Turkey must improve its human rights record, and we need to make sure that it is one of the tools that we bargain with, in order to encourage Turkey to think about human rights so that it can join the European Union at some time.

A change of Government in Turkey has altered the tendency to think western rather than eastern. We should recognise in our deliberations about Turkey that the new feeling in the Turkish Foreign Ministry is that, although it would be a good idea to join the European Union, there are other options. We should bear that in mind as we consider how we might tackle the issue. Many speakers in the debate mentioned that France in particular and Germany are slightly concerned about Turkey’s membership of the European Union. Germany, with its tradition of guest workers, will clearly have to think carefully about that, not just because of the history of that tradition, but because of the number of Turks currently in Germany.

France is an interesting case. I think that we should take a leaf out of Edward Heath’s book—oddly enough—because he recognised that getting Britain into the European Union depended not on persuading the Germans or any other country, but on persuading the country that was least keen on it, which was France. That is why he was so right to visit President Pompidou and ensure that he squared that off before going to the other nation states, unlike Harold Wilson, who did it in exactly the opposite direction, which inevitably ended in failure.

Turkey has some really interesting foreign policy issues that we need to think about swiftly and carefully. The first is that it has changed its mind about two key countries in its region. It used to be a pretty strong supporter of the Assad regime and the Syrian Government in general, but obviously now it is not. It is learning what to do, reacting to changes and is itself a change agent. Likewise, Turkey’s attitude to Israel has changed in recent years, demonstrating that it is thinking about its position in the region, which is something that Britain and the European Union as a whole need to understand, because Turkey will not sit there idly while the rest of us watch and wait. That is yet another reason why we should be very sensible in how we judge and calibrate exactly what we do and say to Turkey with regard to foreign policy.

One thing that is critical, but which has not really been mentioned in the debate in the context I am speaking about, is the fact that Turkey currently has an Islamic Government, but a moderate Islamic Government. Therefore, we should have a relationship with Turkey to influence the rest of the region through a Government who have some semblance of democracy and some interest in the west as well as the east. In other words, Turkey is a conduit to the places where we need more influence than we currently have. It seems to me that we should recognise that description of Turkey and apply the logical consequences. If we feel that it is a friendly Islamic country, we should be cultivating our friendship with it. That is one of the most important reasons why we should be talking about Turkey in a constructive way.

I will draw these threads together, because it seems to me that there is something very potent about recognising that human rights, economic interest and, in effect, good governance can be tied together. We can then demonstrate that the European Union, when it can request, prove and then expect all those things to be saluted for membership, is making progress. However, we can also take those three things and say to Turkey and the rest of the region, “These are the things we want and that are better for you, with regard to economic development, political stability and the recognition of states.” Of course, the situation in the middle east is the obvious and important example of that. It is just like the Helsinki accords in 1975, which effectively allowed in eastern Europe the recognition of human rights, economic interests and good governance, and the key driver then turned out to be human rights. That was the key driver motivating the signatories to the Helsinki accords, and the ones who were least confident and least free, with regard to their political rights, were the ones who ended up using them to get their freedoms eventually.

Through a combination of recognising that Turkey has economic interests that are akin to ours, that is has regional interests and is a moderate Islamic state that we can talk to and use as a conduit, and that there is enormous economic potential not just in Turkey but in the vicinity, we should think carefully about how, in the long run, Turkey can become a member of the European Union. It will not happen overnight or within a few years, but we should work for it, because it will mean good foreign policy in the long run.