speeches

Ambassador Eric Edelman Speaking at the Turkish American Association

Ankara - October 26, 2004

I’d like to thank both you and ABFT and Larry White and TAA for sponsoring this event, and like to say a word of special thanks to Minister Dervis for agreeing to do this on short notice, and I want to be mindful of his time. Since I need to leave as well, I’ll try to be short, so what I’m going to actually say is not really a speech. My wife was reading “The New York Times” this morning, and she was reading a column by David Brooks -- a column which, if you haven’t read it, I would recommend to all of you.  It describes a special type in Washington who is boring dinner parties even as we speak by explaining to them the intricacies of the polling data in the United States and the cross-tabulations in the different demographic groups about who is going to be the next president of the United States. My wife has told me I am dangerously close to becoming that person, since I’ve been going around Turkey for the last week talking about the U.S. election and what might be the result. So I’m not going to do that today. But I will venture one prediction. Although I won’t predict who is going to be elected a week from today, I will be on very safe ground in saying that, whoever is elected, U.S. policy on the question before this panel, and before the audience today, will not change. I feel fairly confident in making that prediction, because nine American administrations of both political parties for 41 years have supported the objective of Turkey’s ultimate membership in the European Union.  If – and I believe this will be the case -- Turkey receives a date in December, it will obviously be an important milestone for Turkey, and an important step forward for the European Union.  I think it will also be an important victory for a long-term policy of the United States, because we have supported it.  I’m proud of having played, during an earlier part of my career when I was Ambassador to Finland in 1999 during the Finnish EU Presidency, a small part in the American effort to support Turkey’s candidacy with the Union and encouraging the Government of Turkey to take “yes” for an answer once the Union had spoken at the Helsinki Summit. 

I say all these things knowing that I’ve got an EU colleague on the panel here, and that not all EU colleagues have been terribly enthusiastic about hearing from the United States on this subject. As they like to point out, the United States is not a member of the European Union. And as I like to point out, we are not even eligible for membership in the European Union because, unlike Turkey, we still have the death penalty in the United States.  But I think it is worth exploring a little bit why all of these American administrations have supported this, because as frequently as I get asked these days “who’s going to win the election?” I also get asked sometimes “why is it that the United States supports Turkey’s membership in the European Union?” It seems to some people to be a counter-intuitive notion. Why would we support – given the particular transatlantic tensions that exist today -- why would we support having Turkey move away from its transatlantic orientation as a NATO ally and become part of the European Union?  

Now, first I would go back and repair to an earlier fact, which is that despite all the difficulties and the differences that exist between the United States and our colleagues and friends in Europe, it is also the case that we have had 11 different administrations of both political parties for 50 years who have supported the proposition that Europe should become more integrated and supported the notion of an ever-closer union among our European friends and allies.  It is true that from time to time this introduces a complexity into our relations with Europe, particularly in the trade arena, but as Halim Bey said, I don’t think that there is any contradiction between being a member in good standing of the European Union and being a strong ally of the United States or a strong friend of the United States. If you look around at those members of the Union who, even today in a strained transatlantic relationship, have the closest relations with the United States, I would begin with the United Kingdom, but also Portugal, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland.  If you think about all those countries, it is not altogether surprising that they tend to be the countries on the periphery of the European Union. And I think when Turkey takes its place in the Union as a member on the periphery as well, it stands to reason that it will not only want to be a good member of Europe, but also want to maintain a strong transatlantic link. And I fully expect that if and when Turkey becomes a member, that will continue to be the case.  

Why do we support this?  First, Turkey has been an important European ally for a long time. It has been a member of NATO for 50 years. It has been part of the OSCE for 30 years.  It seems to us that in a period when the United States and Turkey are moving from a relationship that has been largely defined by those things that Turkey and the United States were both against -- Soviet expansionism in the Cold War, and the regime of Saddam Hussein in the decade after the Gulf War -- we are now in a period (post-Cold War, post-Saddam) when we are more united by those things that we are both for than by those things that we are against.  We are for the set of ideas that emerged out of the Cold War.  I don’t know if you want to call it, as my friend Frank Fukoyama calls it, “the end of history,” or if you want to call it, as Michael Mandelbaum has called it, “the ideas that conquered the world.”  But it is the general belief that the best way to secure prosperity for people, to satisfy the needs of the public, and to allow them, as we say in the Declaration Of Independence, to engage in the pursuit of happiness, is to have democratic political regimes with free market economies and open societies.  The result of Turkey’s EU candidacy has been the changes that have taken place here in Turkey -- starting with the 1999 decision at the Helsinki summit -- and pursued under the last two governments. Turkey has made enormous progress in moving in the direction of fully and completely meeting those norms that we all share.  So we see the importance of this in strategic terms.  As I said, a lot of times our friends in Europe have a concern that the United States is thinking about this in strategic big-think, which is all very well, but the EU has to pay the cost and bear the burden of integrating a very large country into Europe in a period of time when Europe has already bitten off quite a lot to chew in the enlargement that has already taken place. I do think that in the last several years, the strategic difference between Americans and Europeans on this question has closed. A couple of years back, Joschka Fischer was captured on video tape during the run-up to the Copenhagen Summit, saying he didn’t think that Turkey would ever be a member of the EU.  Today he is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Turkey’s membership in the European Union. I think that is because, although we have our squabbles across the Atlantic, there is a greater and greater common understanding of the strategic importance of Turkey finishing the course that it has been on for 80 years of greater modernization, democratization, and movement towards a fully open society with a market economy.  There is an understanding that EU membership for Turkey is the best way to assure that trajectory is completed.  It does have a strategic importance for the United States that goes well beyond Europe.  We think it’s good for Europe, we think it’s good for Turkey and, obviously, we think it’s good for the United States.  We think it’s good for the United States because it goes beyond just the completion of Europe, but also in the direction of providing a very powerful example of success for other largely Muslim populated countries to undertake a similar process that Turkey has undertaken.  I don’t want to get into the vexed debate about whether Turkey is a model or not.  I try not to use that word for a variety of reasons, but I do think that Turkey’s success will have a very powerful demonstration effect for others who are considering what we are asking them to do.  And when I say we, I mean we collectively -- the G-8 countries, the western world. We are asking these countries to undertake a very tortuous, difficult path of modernization. It is a path that requires, sometimes, several steps forward and a couple of steps back. But the existence of a country that has actually traversed this path successfully is a powerful incentive for others to be willing to take on what will be a very difficult and wrenching task -- what Dr. Rice calls a generational commitment.  So I think the strategic gap is shrinking.  I think Europeans understand as well as Americans that this is important for the future security of Europe and of the world.  I also think that an argument Prime Minister Erdogan made at Harvard last January has begun to resonate as well.  It is an argument, I think, that needs to be discussed on the European side of this debate. We focus a lot of times on the Turkish side of the debate, but I hope the panelists will have a chance to focus a bit on the European side of this debate.  Because although European elites have very clearly moved in the direction I suggested -- a convergence with the United States on the strategic importance of this – it is clear that European publics still have concerns and questions.  It is, in my view, the task of leadership and the task of statesmanship for the political elites in Europe to begin to educate public opinion at home about the importance of this country and to speak honestly about it.  But the point that the Prime Minister makes, which I think is a powerful one, is that in societies with very large Muslim populations and with concerns about whether the Muslim populations will integrate into European societies, there cannot be a better signal sent to those populations than to have an open European Union integrating a democratic, secular Turkey that is building its own open society, and welcoming and integrating that Turkey into the European community of nations to which it has aspired for a long time.  

I think that if you look at what’s happened over the last several years, Turkey’s success should be seen as a huge success for the European Union, because the Union has helped Turkey transform itself by holding to high standards.  We believe that the EU should continue to do that.  The goalposts shouldn’t move, but they should be the same as they have been for other members and Turkey has to meet that.  I would say that December 18 or 19 or shortly thereafter, having gone through this process at the beginning when I was the number two in our Embassy in Prague in early 90s, the big shock for Turks will be that the process that will begin is one that is going to require much of Turkey.  It is going to be a difficult process, and I don’t think anybody should kid anybody about that. It will be a wrenching adjustment.  One of the things that people will have to understand is that the beginning of accession negotiations is not a negotiation of the kind that Turkey has been used to in the past.  This is not going to be a negotiation about trading off one good for another, or having more of “x” and less of  “y”. This is going to be an exercise in which the parameters set out by the 80,000 or so pages of the ‘aquis comunitaire’ are going to stand as a sort of Platonic ideal. The question is not going to be which parts of that ideal get changed.  The question is going to be how close Turkey can approach that Platonic ideal and how fast, so that each respective chapter of the ‘aquis’ can be completed and the process can move on.  

I hope that as the Union moves ahead on this decision, the question of Turkey’s membership does not get caught up in broader questions about the governance of the European Union and the European Constitution.  It seems to me those issues need to be settled on their own terms, but that’s clearly one that the United States won’t have a say in since, as I said earlier, we are not a member.  I think we also need to counsel our friends in Turkey on two important things.  First, with regard to the period between now and December 17, as far as I can see the most important sentence in the report issued by the Commission on October 6 is that “Turkey has largely completed the criteria for accession and negotiations should begin.”  I would not waste a lot of time agonizing or submitting other parts of the report to a close textual analysis.  The point is to get started, and I think that’s a very important point for all to bear in mind.  I would also say that this is going to be a difficult process for Turkey, and the key is going to be on follow-through and implementation  --  taking what is written on paper and turning it into practical reality. If I were going to give any advice to our colleagues in Turkey about how they should approach this based on my observation of other candidate countries, that would be the biggest test.  It is going to require a lot of the Turkish people.  It is going to require a tremendous amount of statesmanship and leadership on the part of Turkey’s political leaders, on the part of the leaders of traditional elites here in Turkey.  It is going to require a lot of statesmanship on the part of the leaders of the countries in the European Union.  But I am absolutely convinced that the benefit for all -- the benefit for Turkey in making it a fully integrated partner and member of Europe and member of the social and economic institutions of Europe, as it has been in the security institutions -- will be incalculable.  I think the benefit to Europe will be enormous, both in promoting political stability more broadly beyond the bounds of the Union, and important for the United States in global strategic terms.  I know that the challenge and the sacrifice will be worth it to all, and I believe we will try as the United States to be helpful with all parties concerned to get to that outcome.  Why don’t I stop there.  I’m happy to take maybe a question or two before turning the floor over to Mr. Dervis. 

Question:  I am from an international transport company.  I am transporting to Iraq.  My name is Abdullah. I would like to say to the Ambassador that we are very worried about our drivers.  We were happy that two weeks ago there was an improvement in the convoys for Turkish drivers. But we know there is war in Iraq.  We know that American soldiers are also in danger. We know that Iraqi people also in danger, but we want more security for our drivers. 

Amb. Edelman – Yes.  Well, I certainly understand the concern and share it.  We have been working as an Embassy with the Foreign Ministry, but also my colleagues in Iraq have been working with the authorities at the border to try to ensure that we can provide as much security as possible, not only the drivers, but also for the Turkish workers who are working as subcontractors for some of the prime American contractors.  This is a subset of a larger problem that is important both to Turkey and to the U.S., because so much of the sustenance for the forces in Iraq comes through the Habur gate from Turkey. But it is a subset of a larger issue which is the security of foreign workers in Iraq, and there are many others of course – Nepalese, Philipinos, Britons, Italians and others, and I don’t want to insult any nationality if I have left any out, because there are so many who have been involved.  It is a very difficult security environment, and we have been working as best we can to do what we can to provide better security.  It has improved, as you say.  Much of the issue, I think, is communication.  There are some difficulties, because we don’t have a working cell phone network up in Northern Iraq.  But we continue to try to find ways to improve the situation, and we are trying to establish a mechanism so that our movement control teams that are in northern Iraq and responsible for providing the convoy security can link up with Turkish officials, representatives of the truck drivers, and also the Iraqi interim government, which has to take on more and more of this responsibility as it becomes better established and exercises its own sovereignty.  So it is a difficult issue that we are going to continue to have to work on. There is not going to be a solution.  There is only going to be better management of it.  

Question – Hello. I am Cenk Polat.  I am from BOTAS, the Turkish Petroleum Pipeline Company.  What is your opinion, Excellency, about potential Iraqi natural gas sales via Turkey to the European Union. Is there any chance for this? 

Amb. Edelman – I am sure there is, but right now the problem we have is just providing fundamental basic security for the energy infrastructure in Iraq and getting it back up.  One of the things that we did underestimate before the war was how bad the infrastructure in Iraq was, in particular in the energy sector.  It had been allowed to run down quite a bit during the years, so I’m not sure that I can give you a definitive answer at this point, because our main concern is to get the energy economy of Iraq working right now so that it can help support the reconstruction of Iraq.  I think once we get to a more stable situation, there are tremendous prospects.  I think maybe I should turn the floor over to Kemal Bey, since I know that he is pressed for time as well.