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17 Aug 2006 02:38 pm
Turkey's Drift Away From the West
It's been accelerated by the Israel-Hezbollah war, argues the Times' Bronwen Maddox. Participating in an army in Southern Lebanon has increased the tension. Money quote:
As the columnist Yusuf Kanli put it in the Turkish Daily News: "Things are changing in Turkey. People are becoming more conservative. Conservatives are becoming more nationalist. And nationalists are becoming racist." He asks, like many of Erdogan's critics, why "Turks [should] die in Lebanon for the security of Israel but not ... in northern Iraq for the security of Turkey"? Lebanon is a diversion, some argue, from Turkey's own battle against Kurdish separatist rebels in the southeast.
Many others say it will distract the Government from the arduous and expensive task of qualifying for EU membership — and of persuading an increasingly sceptical public that this is still in Turkey’s best interests.
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