An
agreement to open
official membership
negotiations for
Turkey to join the
European Union is a
welcome and important
step - for Turkey, for
Europe and for other
countries that want to
build a world in which
identity is based
primarily on shared
respect for human
rights, not ethnicity or
religion.
True,
the agreement is marred
by some unfortunate
omissions and
references. These may,
justifiably, pique the
Turks, who first sought
entry into the European
Economic Community, the
precursor to the
European Union, 45 years
ago. For one, there is
no end date for
negotiations. Also, the
agreement states that
negotiations may be
stopped if Turkey
backslides in its
reforms, a tenet that is
implicit in the talks
and thus did not need to
be made explicit.
Such
conditions might satisfy
a growing resistance to
Turkish membership in
the European public, but
it could also feed
Turkish suspicions that
some European leaders
are looking for ways to
hold Turkey at bay.
It
will be up to the Turks
to overlook these
slights, and for Turkish
and European leaders to
make the powerful
arguments for Turkey's
membership. Turkey's
prime minister, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, has not
flinched from the goal
of making the Turkish
republic a secular
democratic state - the
primary criterion for
union membership.
In
return, the Europeans,
by accepting the
predominantly Muslim
country, show that Islam
does not preclude
embracing European
values. Indeed, as an
associate member of the
European community since
1963 and a NATO member
since 1952, Turkey has
as strong a claim to a
place in Europe and the
West as the new east
European Union members.
The
negotiations are
expected to take about
10 years - plenty of
time to resolve existing
issues. Along the way,
the Turks should be
given annual progress
reports that close in on
a specific end date, so
they are not required to
be endlessly patient.
Forty-five years is
already long enough.