Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-28-Speech-3-073"
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"en.20050928.3.3-073"2
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"Mr President, two principles appear to be clashing where Turkey is concerned. Which is more important: democracy and the Copenhagen criteria or Turkey's significance as a geo-strategic partner? There is a serious danger that those who favour the geo-strategic argument are underestimating the gaps in Turkey's democratic attainments to date.
Views are deeply divided as to whether matters are improving or deteriorating in terms of meeting Copenhagen criteria. The decision to press charges against Orhan Pamuk on grounds of having libelled the Turkish Republic because he had spoken critically of the Armenian genocide and the treatment of the Kurdish minority is deeply worrying. In a fully democratic state these cannot be grounds for criminal proceedings.
There are those who would overlook these and many other shortcomings on Turkey's part, not least by saying that they are 'road accidents'. The trouble with that approach is that it gives too much leeway to those who are not really interested in the democratic transformation of Turkey. Equally, it disheartens the country's committed democrats. What is the point of being committed to democracy if others can get away with non-democratic behaviour?
All this raises a difficult question: does the Turkish Government have control over all the institutions of the Turkish state? If it does not, then there is no way that Turkey can comply with Copenhagen criteria. That in turn raises the even more difficult problem of the Turkish armed forces, which still have the right to intervene in the political process as guardians of secularism and the country's territorial integrity. Is that compatible with Copenhagen criteria?"@en1
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