"Who lost Turkey? Did anybody?
By Nicolás Meyer*
For the Herald
While this has hardly been asked aloud, there can be little doubt it must have been floating around many Western foreign ministries in recent times. Turkey had been seen as a generally reliable and sensible nation, save for specific issues like the Kurdish question and the level of human rights. All things taken into consideration, an asset in a mercurial part of the world. Whose errors of judgement, whose wrong policies, whose clumsy diplomacy, in what country or countries, changed it into a chum of the likes of Iran and Hamas? Many fingers have pointed at the European Union, but the accusations are misguided.
The reasoning behind those charges is that if the EU had accepted Turkey into its fold when Ankara was really interested, and even before Turkey put its house entirely in order, it would have strengthened the modern-minded, Western-values-attuned elements in Turkish society. This was, after all, the most important goal; the rest would follow.
Turkey, however, is caught in a bigger process in which the attractions of the EU probably wouldn’t have made the decisive difference. "
More:Buenos Aires Herald
