UK-Turkey Relations

Robert Walter Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Ottaway]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I share his assessment of the situation; I do not think that the process is dead. There was optimism that the question might have been resolved by the end of June, but given the need to work to such a tight deadline, that has proved impossible.

[Mr Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, before we talk about blockages by Turkey on issues such as energy or the recognition of Cyprus, it is important to acknowledge that a blockage to better relations between NATO and the EU is being created when, every time the subject crops up in the EU, it is blocked by Cyprus, which is not prepared to welcome Turkey into EU operations?

[Richard Ottaway]

I note what my hon. Friend has said. The report is careful not to take sides in the dispute between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus, but I am sure that the House will have heard his point.

I was talking about how the situation with regard to gas reserves off the coast of Cyprus was deteriorating, rather than improving. Turkey is a rising regional economic power within reach of about 70% of the world’s gas and oil reserves. It forms part of the southern gas corridor, which is critical to reducing the EU’s dependence on Russia as a supplier of gas. Frustratingly, the stalling of Turkey’s EU accession process seems to be losing the EU influence over Turkey’s energy policy decisions. I would be grateful if the Minister addressed that point.

Cyprus is not the only major obstacle to Turkey’s EU accession. Let us turn to the sensitive matter of human rights. Shortcomings in the Turkish justice system are damaging the country’s international reputation. During our visit, we were struck by the country’s economic dynamism and international ambition, but we were taken aback by Turkish legal procedures and by the detention of large numbers of military figures, officials, elected politicians, journalists and activists. Such practices do not accord with the human rights standards that we fight for in the west. We were astonished to hear that, at the time of our inquiry, more journalists were in detention in Turkey than in China. The opaque nature of the system seemed to be part of the problem. Information about legal cases is hard to obtain, and we formed the view that the climate in Turkey was limiting freedom of expression and the media.

Improvements are in progress, however, and we are grateful to the Turkish ambassador for keeping us up to date. Only on Monday, the Turkish Parliament passed an important judicial reform package, which should reduce pre-trial detention and lead to some actions against journalists being dropped. It is clear that the situation is fast moving, and the Foreign Office should help in practical ways to achieve further improvements. That should be done gently and sensitively, however, with quiet reminders that we could support Turkey’s inspirational role in its region more strongly if it improved its democratic and human rights practices.

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[Mr Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con)]

I congratulate Ministers on the Treasury Bench on singling out the topic of UK-Turkey relations and Turkey’s foreign policy when considering the estimates for the Foreign Office.

Turkey is a delightful country. I think you know that, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I think you have been there on a number of occasions. I was reminded of it only yesterday when I got into a taxi in Belfast with a number of colleagues. The taxi driver asked where we were going for our holidays and then told us that he was going back to the same hotel, in the same town in Turkey, as he had for the past 19 years. He and the hotel owner were on such good terms that he no longer had to pay for the hotel room, and just for his flights; I do not know how much Guinness he drank when he got there. I, too, shall spend time in Turkey over the summer recess. As many colleagues know, my wife is Turkish, but my interest in and commitment to supporting Turkey’s role in European institutions long predates my marriage.

Turkey is a fascinating country, and there are similarities with our own history. We lost an empire; Turkey lost its empire about 50 years before we lost ours. Turkey’s greatest area of influence, political, economic and cultural, is in the former Ottoman empire, and we ignore that at our peril. Conservative estimates suggest that the EU neighbourhood policy costs in the order of €1.4 billion a year. When we add the cost of the new EU External Action Service, we can see that the EU spends an awful lot of money on our neighbourhood. Our political and economic effectiveness, however, is dwarfed by Turkish foreign policy in that very same neighbourhood.

A key argument to embrace Turkey and its foreign policy is our joint approach to our common neighbourhood; most of Europe’s neighbourhood was, in fact, part of the Ottoman empire. In areas of conflict and of post-conflict reconstruction, Europe has benefited from Turkey’s influence. In the Balkans, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, Turkish influence is not to be underestimated, and we should recognise that. In the Maghreb—the countries of the Arab spring—Turkey was the first back in, in terms of influence, and it had influence that predated us in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. In the middle east, Turkey’s influence on its near neighbours—Iraq, Iran, Palestine and Syria—is something on which we should capitalise, and which we should not ignore.

It is not just in areas of conflict or post-conflict that Turkey has influence; it has economic influence in the Balkans, the Maghreb and the middle east, as well as the Caucasus and central Asia, particularly the Turkic-speaking nations of central Asia. Europe’s neighbourhood is Turkey’s neighbourhood. The Ottoman empire, to which I referred, significantly predated the British empire. In the middle ages, it dislodged Byzantium. By the mid-19th century, it was in serious decline. It was Tsar Nicholas I of Russia who coined the phrase that Turkey was the “sick man of Europe”. He thought that Britain and France would stand by while he took control of the Crimea, but he was mistaken. We reacted, not because we wanted to prolong the rule of the Ottoman empire but because we wanted to limit Russian influence, which has very much been part of our foreign policy ever since.

The final demise came in world war one, when Turkey backed the wrong side. The treaty of Sèvres in 1920 effectively destroyed the unity of the Turkish state and partitioned the Ottoman empire between the allied powers. Many educated Turks—and this is key to modern Turkey—were totally dissatisfied with that. The war of independence, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who we now know as Ataturk, the name given to him by the Turkish Parliament, resulted in the 1923 treaty of Lausanne and the modern Turkish state.

Ataturk is somebody we should focus on. He was the man who wanted to create Turkey and reinforce it as a modern European state, a secular state. In the early years he set about banning the fez and the turban, and later the veil and the headscarf, all the paraphernalia of a religious state. Arabic script was banned and replaced by a Latin alphabet. Religious schools were outlawed. Women were given equal rights and universal suffrage. Islamic law was replaced by a civil code based on the Swiss model and a penal code based on the Italian model. This is the basis of modern Turkey.

The question which I know some of our colleagues in Germany and France still ask is, “Is Turkey a European country? Should it be a member of the EU?” We have already heard that it is a member of NATO, a founder member of the OECD, a member of the Council of Europe and a member of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. It was an associate member of the Western European Union, and it participates in European Union battle groups, EU military operations and is also a participant in the European Court.

Turkey applied to join the European Union in 1963. That was also the year of the first French veto against our membership, but we joined eventually in 1973 and Turkey is still trying to join. In 1995 the customs union was concluded with the European Union, and 59% of Turkey’s exports go to the European Union—some 10% to Germany and 6% each to France, Italy and the United Kingdom. It is the fastest growing economy in Europe. It grew by 9% in 2010 and by 8.5% in 2011. Growth is slowing this year, but Turkey is still the fastest growing economy in Europe.

Politically and economically, Turkey brings so much to the table that we delay her membership at our peril. There are those who say that Europe is a Christian club and Turkey is a Muslim country. I suspect that Turkey would not have succeeded in joining the Holy Roman empire, but this is the modern Europe. It is a place for all cultures and we should not be discriminating on the basis of the predominant religion in that country. Our own nation is a good example of that, as are many others. European Union membership for Turkey is not without its problems, but Turkish membership is in our interest economically, politically and strategically. Turkey has always been a strong ally of Europe and should be recognised as such today. Europe should recognise her contribution and grant her membership as soon as possible.

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[Mr Jackson]

No, I will not, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind, as he has not been present for the whole debate.

I have concerns about justice and home affairs. I find it quite astonishing that the Home Office—or any Government Department—has not looked in any systematic way at how many people would be likely to move from Turkey to other European countries if the freedom of movement directive applied and after any transition period that was put in place. Figures ranging between 500,000 and 4.4 million are often cited.

Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, has stated that Turkish criminal groups are significantly involved in various forms of organised criminality, including the trafficking of heroin and synthetic drugs and the trafficking of cocaine to Europe from South America via Turkey and the Balkans. It has described “very high” levels of human trafficking to Turkey and high levels of trafficking through the country, as well as people smuggling and other criminal activities including fraud, firearms trafficking, money laundering and copyright offences.

Turkey has become a prominent stepping stone in irregular flows of migrants coming from further afield who aim to enter the European Union. The Turkish ambassador to the United Kingdom recently told the Home Affairs Committee that nearly 800,000 illegal immigrants have been apprehended while attempting to cross Turkish territory over the past 15 years. By October 2010, 46% of all irregular immigration detected at the EU external border took place at the land border between Greece and Turkey and the authorities estimated that up to 350 migrants were attempting to cross the 12.5 km land border near the Greek city of Orestiada every day.

EU accession would have implications. The length of the external land border with Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Iran and Syria would put great stresses and strains on the EU’s external border, given that the EU has already been critical of the Turkish border security capacity. The Minister may wish to comment on the fact that there has been no impact analysis of Turkish accession on future migration trends. We need to take a serious look at that, even though accession may be many years away.

It is appropriate to mention the Armenian genocide, which is an issue of great hurt and offence to Armenian people across the world. It began on 24 April 1915 and, with the systematic deportation and murder of up to 1.5 million people, it is the first modern example of genocide. Armenians perished as a result of execution, starvation, disease, the harsh environment and physical abuse. A people who had lived in Turkey for nearly 3,000 years lost their homeland and were decimated in the first large-scale genocide of the 20th century. I concede that that was 97 years ago, but it is difficult to accept the fact that the Turkish Government refuse to countenance the idea that it is an incontestable historical fact.

[Mr Walter]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. For many years, historians have tried to define genocide. He is trying to condemn the Government of the modern Turkish state post-1923 for a crime that was, or was not, committed by the Ottoman empire, of which both Armenia and the Turkic peoples were part.

[Mr Jackson]

I yield to no one in my enormous respect for my colleague in the Inter-Parliamentary Union and his great love for Turkey and affinity for the country. I bear no malice as a candid friend to the wonderful, decent people of Turkey but I quote Leo Kuper, who was an eminent academic at the University of California, Los Angeles and said:

“The Armenian genocide is a contemporary current issue, given the persistent aggressive denial of the crime by the Turkish government—notwithstanding its own judgment in courts martial after the first World War, that its leading ministers had deliberately planned and carried out the annihilation of Armenians, with the participation of many regional administrators.”

My point is not that that series of events did not happen at the end of the Ottoman empire in Anatolia, which is now part of modern Turkey, but that a key issue in assessing the suitability and fitness of a country seeking to be part of a club founded on the bedrock of legality, fairness and equality is the fact that it should acknowledge past mistakes and crimes that took place almost 100 years ago. In that respect, just as the Turkish Government have to move on the issue of Cyprus and countenance the right of the Cypriot people to self-determination, democracy and freedom, they must accept that the Armenian genocide happened. They have to apologise and move forward, as happened in Northern Ireland, South Africa and elsewhere, with a truth and reconciliation process to put to rest that disastrous, despicable, appalling series of events almost 100 years ago.

We have had an interesting debate. I do not agree with everyone who has spoken, but these issues are of such great importance and clarity historically that they must be raised.