Two major terrorist outrages, obviously coordinated and probably sponsored by Al-Qaeda and its fundamentalist allies, shook Turkey into realizing that something very serious had changed. On Saturday, November 15th 2003, the biggest Istanbul synagogue – Neveh Shalom – was partly destroyed by a blast while hundreds of Jews celebrated a bar-mitzvah there. Another synagogue in a wealthy quarter of the city was also blown up. The toll was 21 dead and nearly 300 injured. Only 6 of the dead, including an 8-year old girl, were Jews. The rest were Turks – passers-by or residents of nearby houses. The Chief Rabbi of Turkey and his son were among the injured. The casualties do not include the suicide bombers.
Five days later, the targets were British. This time, the British Consulate in Istanbul and the London-based HSBC bank were simultaneously attacked with car bombs that left 32 people dead and well over 400 injured. The British Consul-General, Roger Short, and his assistant, Lisa Hallworth, were killed. Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda claimed responsibility. The total number of casualties in the four bombings reached 53 dead and 712 injured.
Turkey's Minister of Justice and other sources confirmed that all four suicide bombers were Turks who may have been trained in Afghanistan and were probably linked to al-Qaeda and its Chechen allies. However, three of them were from the town of Bingol in the southeast, where the illegal Turkish Hezbollah movement has been active, and the possibility that they belonged to this body is also being investigated. At the time of writing, no definite conclusions have been reached.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the two sets of bombings in Istanbul were similar in execution and "the terrorists who struck on November 15 and those who struck five days later were in some way connected." After the British government announced that "further attacks may be imminent" in Istanbul and Ankara, he criticized Britain for not sharing intelligence about possible further attacks. Erdogan told reporters: "If there is a common platform against international terrorism, such information must be given to the concerned country.... it should not be given to the media."
The British Foreign Office has advised British citizens against traveling to Turkey. Australia did the same. Even Turkish soccer teams have been forbidden by UEFA to hold home fixtures against other European sides in Turkey, causing them big financial losses and reducing their chances of success. Israeli soccer teams have suffered the same discrimination for some years. Britain, which suffered from terrorist bombings by the IRA for many years, and now may well become an al-Qaeda target, is unlikely to receive such treatment. Nor is Spain, despite the terrorist acts of Basque separatists.
Turkey has been anxious to join the European Community for several years. But the EC does not want Turkey. First it postulated reforms. When the Turks introduced them, it began to suggest that Ankara should support the unpopular opposition parties in Turkish Cyprus, which might be convinced to accept a united Cyprus where the Greeks would be paramount. The Turks have rejected this and should continue to do so. Entry to the EU on such terms would guarantee that they would have no influence whatsoever there – and certainly less than the Greeks.
A strong stench of racism emanates from the EC attitude to Turkey, just as the stench of anti-Semitism emanates from the EC attitude to Israel, where it has been heavily financing opposition parties acting against the national interest. Yet in both cases, the EU's barely disguised anti-Americanism is probably its decisive motive. Both Turkey and Israel have cooperated closely with the United States. In West European eyes, this is no recommendation. On the other hand, strengthening the ties with Washington and reinforcing them by far-reaching treaties of economic and military cooperation seems the most promising way by far of protecting Turkey's national interests.
President Bush was visiting London to discuss Iraq when the Islamic bombers struck in Istanbul. He was met by Left-wing protests against his visit and typically "liberal" attempts to sow disaffection and despair helpful to the terrorists' cause such as the Guardian editorial lamenting: "Another terrible terrorist atrocity, another steely vow to crush the terrorists. How long can this go on?" In British Left-wing and liberal circles there has been increasing criticism of the Iraq campaign as it continued and caused more U.S. and British casualties. Some even blamed it for the terrorism in Turkey. To this Blair responded that terrorists are responsible for terrorism. Bush was still there two days after the third and fourth Istanbul bombings to hear that terrorists had fired rockets from two donkey carts at the Iraqi Oil Ministry in Baghdad, setting part of it aflame, that two more carts loaded with rockets were found near the Italian and Turkish embassies in the city and that another rocket attack – on the Sheraton and Palestine hotels used by foreign journalists and businessmen – wounded one person seriously besides cutting others with flying glass. His talks with Blair reasserted the determination of both leaders to finish the job in Iraq.
Blair's support is immensely helpful to Washington – not because Britain is particularly influential within the EU, but rather since he is a socialist like the Prime Ministers of several other EU states including Germany and France, who may therefore not wish to undermine his position.
The British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw reacted to the Istanbul bombings by saying that they might improve Turkey's prospects of joining the EU. The German Minister of the Interior, Otto Schily went further and commented: "The attacks showed the necessity of closer cooperation with Turkey and of opening accession talks [to the EU]. This will be the best indicative of our solidarity with our Turkish friends." He added that al-Qaeda wanted Europe to detach itself completely from the Moslem world and this made Turkey's membership important. However, there are no signs that the West European position on Cyprus has changed – in Germany or anywhere else, and for as long as Turkey has to yield the independence of Turkish Cyprus before it can be accepted into the EU, Ankara may well decide that it will be better off outside it. The "progress report" issued by the EU Commission on November 5th 2003, which praised the reforms legislated by Turkey but said that more needed to be done in the sphere of their implementation must made many Turkish politicians wonder whether the EU would find an excuse for postponing serious talks about Turkey's accession to the EC no matter what they did. Meanwhile, the EU has postponed any serious discussion of Turkish membership until December 2004.
Turkey is thus at a crossroads. It may eventually gain admission to the EU, but only on terms limiting its sovereignty – far more than the sovereignty of France, Germany, Britain or Italy are limited. Turkey is a major regional power used to conducting an independent foreign policy. It is also the only Moslem democracy in the world, where the party in power is unseated just as often as in West European states. Its strategic importance is enormous. Morality cannot be measured by money. The overweening, supercilious attitude of the EU to Turkey is totally unjustified and there is no indication that it will cease if and when Ankara is finally admitted to the Brussels fold.
There is a clear alternative: Turkey can forge an alliance with the United States. The two countries have common strategic interests and can pursue them without treading on each other's toes. Except for Britain, the European Union has not participated in the war against terrorism and has often been critical of it. Its politicians have admitted to their countries millions upon millions of Moslems (many of whom sympathize with the terrorists) and they are afraid that, if they join Bush and Blair, the terrorists will attack Western Europe too. In other words, the EU states will do nothing to protect Turkey from terrorism. United States policies, as now formulated, will weaken Moslem terrorism in the Levant considerably if implemented. Moreover, the United States economy is recovering from the recession faster than the economies of the EU. So a strategic alliance with the United States would probably mean a sizeable volume of U.S. aid.
Would Washington be interested? It should be. An alliance with Turkey is a strategic prize and snatching it from the jaws of the EU would greatly strengthen the American position in Western Asia, putting spokes into European attempts to interfere where they shouldn't. But nothing is certain in this uncertain world, except that those who don't ask don't get.
