"What is Turkey’s Importance All About?
Monday , 27 November 2006
By Barin Kayaoglu (JTW)
News agencies recently reported that former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt delivered a lecture at Florence last week, arguing that in contrast to popular thinking, Turkey was not a bridge between Europe and the Muslim world and that it was in fact disliked in the Arab world. The heyday of the address allegedly came when Schmidt said that “it is suffice to remember how Arabs suffered under Ottoman rule.” Because of the Ottoman past, incorporating Turkey would be counter-productive to the European Union, Moreover, he continued, Turkey’s EU membership was not in European interests and was indeed pushed by the United States. [1]"
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