Europe
Turkey's EU hopes in danger as anti-AKP case opens
By Leigh Phillips
Jul 1, 2008, 23:40

EUobserver - A Turkish court case is to open today (1 July) whose result could bring to a crashing halt Turkey's hopes of joining the European Union.

The country's constitutional court is to hear charges brought by the chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) that they are bent on undermining Turkey's secular constitution and transforming the country into an Islamic state.

If the court agrees with the prosecutor, the AKP will be declared illegal, the prime minister and an unknown number of MPs will be banned from politics and the government will be dissolved.

Although the Turkish military has remained silent on the court case since it was filed in March of this year, the deeply secularist army views with great suscpicion the AKP, which describes itself as a centre-right European Christian Democrat-style party, only Islamic rather than Christian.

The army has overthrown four governments of which it did not approve in the past 50 years. Turkish and foreign analysts believe the prosecutor's aim to be a "stealth coup".

The European Union has been robust in its opposition to the court case, arguing that the move is undemocratic – a position that has boosted popular opinion of the EU in many quarters.

"The reaction in the EU to this court case was one of disbelief," said enlargement Olli Rehn recently. "Court cases to close political parties are not normal in EU democracies."

Enlargement on the line

If the court rules against the government, Turkey's accession hopes are likely to be severely damaged.

The chair of the European Parliament's Turkey committee, Dutch Green MEP Joost Lagendijk, said on Friday during a visit to Turkey "If the court disbands the AK Party, EU negotiations would stall."

However, on Friday, the UK House of Commons Business and Enterprise Committee issued a report, Keeping the door wide open: Turkey and EU accession, that called for EU talks with Ankara to continue despite such a result, arguing that suspending negotiations would signal to a moderate, democratic, secular state that it can never be part of Europe.

Although many analysts believe the court is likely to agree with the chief prosecutor, a softer verdict is also possible – a banning of only certain individuals and cutting off public financial aid to the party.

The AKP, for its part, like its opponents in the army, has kept silent since the case was filed and denied it would set up a new party to get around any court ruling.

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