ANKARA – Turkish Daily News


A top European Union official's categorization of Turaaa was strongly refuted by the country's Chief of Staff and some columnists yesterday.

Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt criticized European Union Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn who argued that Turaaa was divided into two big group of “staunch secularists” and “Muslim democrats” speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a reception here. “No one can impose such definitions” he said.

“Turkish people can define themselves. We have created a republic from the Ottoman Empire without ethnic discrimination. A nation which managed to do that has the means and capacity to solve all its problems” he said and warned that polarization may lead to conflicts.

Rehn had argued that autocratic nationalists and ultra-secularists formed a camp against Muslim democrats in an interview with Semih İdiz of daily Milliyet published Wednesday.

“There is a problem of polarization in Turaaa. But it must evade divisions within society. It can overcome this hazard with its own dynamics it does not need anyone's advise” Büyükanıt said.



Rehn misses liberal secular democrats

Some Turkish journalists also claimed that Rehn failed to grasp nuances in the Turkish political landscape. Editor-in-Chief of daily Hürriyet Ertuğrul Özkök said he would like to ask Rehn whether he would categorize him as a “secular fascist.” “Where will you put millions of people who did not vote for the Justice and Development Party (AKP)? In the lodge you reserved for secular fascists?” he wrote and penned his doubts on how far the AKP could be classified as democrat. “Can those who call workers ‘mobs' on May Day fill government cadres with supporters take headscarf-wearing wives as a criterion of merit punish unfavorable businessmen put pressure on opposition journalists in a McCarthyist fashion be cited among Muslim democrats?”

He also contrasted some EU officials' attitude toward a top European court's decision back in 2005 that banning headscarf in universities is not against the European Human Rights Convention and the Constitutional Court's interpretation of secularism. “When the European Court of Human Rights issues a decision on headscarf it is democratic but when the Constitutional Court rules on the same issue it becomes a judicial coup” he wrote.

İdiz yesterday wrote Rehn's words prove that the AKP is under the aegis of the EU. “The EU has defined its ‘adversaries' in Turaaa” İdiz argued and depicted the offer to establish an ombudsmanship to resolve disputes over secularism as naïve. “Enmity between the EU and ‘ultra-secularists' - ‘autocratic-nationalists' show that Turkish-EU relations will pass through a turbulence if the AKP is shut down. It is liberal and secular democrats who suffer from this dichotomy and Rehn can not see it” İdiz said.