"Turkey NOT joining the EU is a terrible lost opportunity
How Europe Lost Turkey
It's a slow-motion 'train wreck,' and the imminent crash of Ankara's EU bid is a disaster for everyone.
By Owen Matthews/Newsweek
Dec. 11, 2006 issue - Benedict xvi stood, shoeless, side by side with the Mufti of Istanbul beneath the cavernous great dome of onetime Constantinople's famed Blue Mosque, palms upraised in the traditional Muslim gesture of peace and supplication. What precisely the pope prayed for is a matter between himself and his maker—but surely it involved healing between Christians and Muslims, an issue that has come to define his pontificate and his era. When prayer becomes a geopolitical strategy, there's a problem. The most immediate: an imminent breakdown of relations between Turkey and the European Union. Not so long ago, it seemed that Europe would overcome prejudice and define itself as an ideology rather than a geography, a way of being in the world rather than a mere agglomeration of nation-states. But that chance is now lost. 'Turkey will never be a full member of the EU,' predicts British M.E.P. Daniel Hannan. 'There's a dawning realization of that reality on all sides.' "
More:Adam Ash: Turkey NOT joining the EU is a terrible lost opportunity