The future of Turkey

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For those who dont know Hrant Dink is: ''Hrant Dink (September 15, 1954 ? January 19, 2007) was an Turkish-Armenian editor, journalist and column writer. He came into prominence as the editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, and thus became one of the prominent members of the Armenian minority in Turkey. He was assassinated on January 19, 2007 in the Istanbul district of Şişli, in front of the offices of the newspaper. He left behind a wife and three children.''(Taken from Wikipedia) Mr.Dink believed in the so-called genocide but he was not one of those rabid fanatics who loves attacking Turkey at every chance they get. He was a man of peace. He was approachable, he was against violence, he was a die-hard supporter of freedom of speech. He believed in communication.

Today marked the seventeenth anniversary of tragic events in Baku (Azerbaijan), when Gorbachev ordered the special troops to enter the city and crash the independence rally in then Soviet Azerbaijan. According to various sources, about 26,000 Soviet troops attacked the protesters firing in the crowds. The shooting, which resulted in murdering of about 130 civilians and wounding 700, continued for three days. US and European politicians remained silent. While the objective of sending the troops was to crash the independence movement, the end-result was quite opposite and only united the society in its strive for restoring its independence. Later, on April 27, 1995, while in Istanbul, Gorbachev recognized that

Hirant Dink was killed in Istanbul just before he was entering the AGOS newspaper building in Sisli area, today 19th January 2007. The killer suggested that 18-19 years old. Police held 2 young people around Taksim area. Right now, In Istanbul, taksim area people are gathering to PROTEST KILLING. Left wing parties, militant and activists took street of Istanbul... They are chatting as LONG LIVE BROTHERSHIP OF THE PEOPLE. STATE IS THE MURDERER. I am sorry to inform this painful news. Mustafa I AM AN ERMENIAN!

Couple of weeks ago, as I always do, I did a visit to Turkeys most visited online newspaper web-site Milliyet; www.milliyet.com. At top story they wrote about an Iraqi insurgent who sad to have shot 37 American soldiers. When I clicked a link to read related visitors comment, I was chocked. I had never seen such American hatred openly in such a major newspaper. The newspaper we are talking about is one of more west friendly ones and absolutely most visited. I have already taken screen shots of all comments and they are stored on my hard drive just in case they decide to delete these. The link to article is;

Daria Vaisman's article was a very fine piece, punchy and counter intuitive - thank you. Turkey is, in one sense, in an unfortunate position - in a very short space of time it has gone from a rather closed society to one that is now being poked and prodded by everyone; because of both the Republic's historical inheritance and the mistakes that were made in its early years there are staggering animosities to deal with (both within and without); an easier path now for Turkey would have been to redefine Ataturk's European perspective and give up on the drive for EU membership - then the country could revel in being one of the only democracies of the region (albeit with some qualfications) instead of being measured against the harsh and (as Vaisman points out) sometimes hypocritical criteria of Western Europe.

Where is the discussion, or even mention, of the Greek genocide committed by the Turks? Not at to discount the Armenian, Assyrian, or Kurdish genocides. However, it is perplexing to read of proposed EU / UN resolutions for Turkey to recognise the Armenian genocide without mention of the Greek or Assyrian. http://www.hellenicgenocide.org/

Well, interesting discussion as always when it comes to Turkey's "accession talks". As a proud Turk living in the States, I agree with the ones who think Turkey's better off by herself. Even though that doesn't mean Europe past its "sell by date". Except trade and transportation practicality, EU doesn't have too much to offer to Turkey. Contrary to how it seems, Turkey's growing economy (9.6%growth in '04 !!!!) and much stronger politics inside and out (remember some of the mess 5-10 yrs ago) is very promising. Besides that, Turkey's under18 population is more than Greece's population or more than a few smaller EU countries combined. That means much stronger Turkey in the near future if everything goes as it is, not big unemployment rates, no social security, etc. I believe, if Turkey was accepted, rather than benefiting from EU, it would have to shoulder some of the burden that's facing EU. And, I'm talking about 10 years from now, not today. There is no point talking about today since Turkey is not going to be fully joined (if at all) in 12 years.

Orthodox Christians have been in Turkey from the very beginning of Christianity, (St John the Divine, the Evangelist is buried in Ephesus, early councils were held at Nicaea etc. etc.) Bombs are still thrown at Christians and their churches, and the Government still does everything it can to destroy the last vestiges of the Church there. ORTHODOX Problems between the Turkish authorities and the Patriarchate Patriarch Bartholomew: «As everybody knows the church of the Presentation of the Madonna was also struck in the barbarous attack on the British Consulate in Istanbul a year ago, suffering significant damage which has made it unusable.

I would like to respond to Mr. Alex Ronda's article after 10 months. In two sentences the price of rejecting Annan plan was based on a price discriminatory structure. The price of rejecting the Annan plan for the Turkish side was terribly hard. The high price for Turkish side was understandable since the current quo in Turkey until the AKP administration has been a more traditional approach. Those of us, extremely dissappointed with the Luxembourg summit 1997 following the breach of the 1958 Cypriot constitution by allowing the country to annex to European Union also regretfully obseved the non proactive behaviour of the foreign ministry of Turkey. In fact a turkish diplomat in United Nations , admitted that Turkey has never considered the EU would never be willing to let an uncompromised Cyprus in until 2001. These non productive approaches in Turkey was only solved following the candidacy perspective provided to Turkey.

After reading all the posts about this topic, I was shocked by the contents, by what some people said. I am a European, living in Istanbul for 9 years, and I believe this gives me a right to speak up. Most messages talked about religion, and how the Europeans, especially the French are discriminating Turkey because of its religion, but I think this is not true. To explain this, I have to tell you all some of my experiences and thpughts from living in Turkey's biggest city. You do not know the Turks if you haven't lived here!!! Let me say this all very quickly. Turkey, 10 years ago was a bunch of barely-connected villages. It has seemed to have industrialized very quickly, but it has not, in truth! Of course it is true that the population in cities has grown, this is because now all the village people are here!

Fred Halliday's article displays a Murdochesque morgue and caricatural anti-europeanism, mingled with a strong stench of anti-catholicism. Plus, it is already outdated, as the EU members have indeed accepted the Turk's candidature, with opening of the negociations in 12 years. - He seems to ignore the Greek roots of Christianism. The new Testament was written in Greek. Most of the foremost christian thinkers were of greek culture (e.g Saint Paul). Most of the christian theology originates in the Greek classic philosophers (Socrates, Plato, etc.) : the immortal soul, Paradise, etc. In particular, Christianism is partly a flavour of Stoicism. Christianism was poorly practicized in the Middle East, but was adopted by the Graeco-Romans in a few centuries.

IF Turkey wants to become one of the members it has to play fair and be responsible for its acts and killing of 1.5 million Armenians.Ofcourse then there is the matter of Cypress. There are lots of Issues with Turkey and Turks have to face them.