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SPEECH DELIVERED BY ONUR OYMEN, THE VICE-CHAIRMAN OF THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE’S PARTY IN THE EU JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE
ANKARA – 15 APRIL 2005

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a particular pleasure for me to address you this afternoon. I try to summarize our activities in the European Union Harmonization Committee in the Parliament. I am the vice-chairman of this committee. This committee is a relatively new one, established only one year ago by the Parliament and at this moment its status is a subcommittee. Our task is to study the draft laws proposed by the Parliament in case they are submitted to us and compare them with the acquis communitaire, the bulk of legislation of the EU. There are some experts and we also benefit from the expertise of the relevant state organizations, particularly the General Secretariat of the European Union. Besides this, our committee travel frequently to the EU countries, meet with the members of their parliaments and ministers of different countries. We also receive high-rank officials from the EU countries such as the foreign ministers and delegations; we discuss some relevant matters with them related to Turkey-EU relations.

I must say, first of all, that we are not much satisfied with the mandate, therefore, both government and opposition members of this committee have tightly proposed some amendments to the laws establishing our committee and asking more powers to be more effective in Turkey-EU relations. We compared the status of various committees in the EU countries with our status and we discovered that we should have more powers to fulfill our job in a better way. At the same time within our committee a sub committee has been established called the Turkish side of the Turkish-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee. I am also the vice-chairman of that committee and we are meeting with the members of the European Parliament in joint meetings. We organize at least two plenary meetings in a year and we have also board meetings and other specialized gatherings. So we are in a close and continuous contact with the relevant organs of the European Union. This is much for the European Union Harmonization Committee of the Parliament. Profiting from this occasion I would like to raise one or two issues that we currently observe in the studies of our committee.

First of all there is a broad understanding and a unity in the Parliament as well as in the Turkish public opinion about the Turkish full membership to the European Union. We believe that we have accomplished the basic conditions to join the Union, particularly those condition set forth by the Copenhagen Summit in 1993. We think that we should continue our efforts and our reform process and soon we should be entitled to join the European Union as other candidates. We welcome the support and assistance of many EU governments and political parties. We are particularly thankful to those countries like Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium and other governments that are supporting us in our accession process. In these countries both the main and opposition parties are in favor of the full membership of Turkey. But unfortunately, in some EU countries like Germany, France and Austria, there is a strong opposition by the main and opposition parties. Therefore we need to persuade all these political formations because at the end of day we want to join the Union with a broad acceptance of the all of the main political forces of the Union. For that matter we have to inform our European friends, politicians, journalists and academicians about the merits of the Turkish full membership. One should not feel that Turkey would be a burden for Europe but a net contributor to Europe in some areas, in economic field, in political area, in strategy, security and particularly in the field of culture. So how Turkey will contribute to Europe? Those are the main topics that we have to discuss and we have to focus on the positive side. In the meantime I believe that we deserve a better treatment from the EU in general. As promised in December 1999 Helsinki Summit Turkey should be treated equally with the other candidate countries. Whereas in reality what we see is a differentiated treatment and we are particularly disappointed to read the final decision of the EU summit of 17th December 2004. As a matter of fact the conditions set forth for Turkey are totally different from what has been said to other EU countries, particularly a reference to the permanent safeguards in the field of free circulation of persons, labor, agricultural field and social policies created the impression in Turkey that the final purpose may not exactly be the full membership of Turkey but a special status as suggested by UMP in France or Christian Democrats in Germany. Such an approach is totally against to the basic principles of the European Union, developed in the last forty years. Nobody has suggested Turkey, in the meantime, that we might have a second-class status in European Union, on the contrary it is said that Turkey should enjoy the same rights and privileges of all members and we would be able to join as a full member provided that we meet the conditions. So we are told that it is up to Turkey to join the Union and in case we are successful in performing in the areas requested by the European Union based on the other criteria with the candidates, then there would be no problem. But more we accomplish the conditions, more we proceed in the reform process, more we see that there emerge some obstacles not from Turkey but from the internal reasons of some EU countries. This is disturbing and it created some sort of disappointment in the Turkish public opinion. Therefore, we should be careful about not changing the goalposts in our relations in the middle of the game.

So this is the basic message that we want to give you. The press has a very important role to play. Of course we cannot tell the journalists what to write and what not to write, it is up to them to receive, to observe, to evaluate, to inform and to criticize, and we respect all that. Buts sometimes you read in the Western newspapers some sort of a campaign against Turkey. One after the other, the journalists and newspapers attack Turkey in an exaggerated way. Not comparing Turkey with other countries, they expected an ideal situation from Turkey. However, the reality is that even in the EU countries there are some deficiencies in the same areas. For instance although Turkey recognizes the rights of minorities set forth by the Lausanne Treaty in 1923, Turkey is asked today to accept other groups as ethnic minorities; whereas, France, a leading EU member, does not recognize even the existence of minorities. So how do you expect us the things that you have not recognized at home. This is one point.

A second point is about the rights of a religious group in Turkey, whose cultural and religious rights had been fully observed in the Lausanne Treaty. But when it comes to the cultural and religious rights and privileges of the Turkish minority in Greece, what you observe is that their rights and privileges were severely curtailed. So I wished that the Turks in Western Thrace had exactly the same rights with the Greeks in Istanbul. The reality is totally different. In the field of education and election of religious leaders the Turkish people in the Western Thrace are very wrongly treated. Their status is incomparable, is not commensurate with the relevant European Union values. We are surprised that the Western media are not practically interested in these matters such as the fate of the Turks in the Western Thrace at all, with one exception. There was a report of the Helsinki Watch and its president wrote an article on the Turks in Western Thrace arguing that their position is comparable to the situation in Spain under Franco Regime.

So this was the reality. Although there were some improvements, at this moment, there is a lot to be done. The day before yesterday I asked this questions to the Greek Foreign Minister when he visited the Foreign Affairs Committee at the Parliament but he declined to provide any answer. So those are some facts that created in Turkey a certain reaction. Our people is reacting to some double standards, to some exaggerated criticism and even sometimes to the humiliating remarks particularly on the issue the so-called Armenian Genocide.

Although there is no single document proving the so-called genocide, Turkey is accused not only by individuals but also by some by other parliaments and the European Parliament as if we committed this crime of genocide. So we are strongly reacting and Turkish people are strongly reacting to that. We open our archives. You can study Turkish archives, British archives. The British Minister in Charge of Foreign Affairs said in the House of Commons in 1999 that there is not a single document proving that the Turks have committed genocide crime. But still in EU countries like France, like Sweden, like Greece there were resolutions in their parliaments accusing Turkey of committing this genocide crime. So they are strongly reacting to this. We opened our archives, but Armenian Government still declines to open their archives in Yerevan and also in Boston. So they rejected our proposal to bring together historians to study this matter with a scientific and objective approach. What surprising is that nobody so far, no Western Governments so far has criticized Armenia, because of their refusal to open their archives. So how we can believe here that our Western friends are unbiased on this particular issue.

We have other examples on the Cyprus issue. It is very hard to say that our Western friends are impartial and unbiased on Cyprus issue. If we look at the history of Cyprus must recently there was a proposal of the Secretary-General of the UN, which was very difficult to swallow for Turkey because of a lot of deficiencies. But at the end Turkish Cypriots in the referendum accepted this plan by a large majority. But the Greek Cypriots rejected it by an even larger majority. What happened as a result of that? Being accepted as a full member to the EU the Greek Cypriots were rewarded and Turkish Cypriots were penalized and the international community continued to use embargoes in the field of economy, trade, culture, transportation, tourism and even sport. So how can we explain to our people that our Western friends behaved in an almost decent, unacceptable way?

In sum, we are expecting from the members of the European family a more impartial, constructive and fair treatment. These are some realities that we are facing today. We can elaborate more on these and similar issues. We are to appreciate in case Western press reflects these realities together with the eventual contributions of Turkey to the European Family. It will help tremendously to those people in Europe who are rejecting Turkish membership without knowing exactly the positive side of the coin. So the press has a very important role to play and we hope that you will fulfill this job to utmost responsibility.

Thank you…