Bashir invite raises EU fears

Inclusion of Sudan’s indicted president on guestlist for next week’s OIC summit in Turkey fans dispute

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (left) shakes hand with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu yesterday prior to their lunch at the Foreign Ministry in Paris. Davutoglu was on a one-day visit in the French capital to discuss Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

By Thomas Grove - Reuters

ISTANBUL – A dispute between Turkey and the European Union over Sudan’s indicted president highlights the risks Turkey will face when it hosts an Islamic summit with some new friends who are not to the taste of its Western allies.

The gathering next week will boost EU candidate Turkey’s quest to deepen ties with the Muslim world but at the risk of alienating traditional American and European allies. Turkey’s president accused the European Union of interfering after the bloc asked Ankara to reconsider inviting Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Bashir, who has an international arrest warrant against him for war crimes, and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, engaged in a standoff with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program, are among leaders who will attend an Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) meeting in Istanbul on Monday.

The one-day summit will add to growing concerns in some Western capitals that Turkey, an important regional ally of Washington, is shifting away from its pro-Western foreign policy and embracing countries such as Iran and Syria, while distancing itself from its friend Israel.

“I think this summit will put Turkey again on the front line, both in regards with Iran and Bashir,” said Hugh Pope, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group.

That concern was laid bare open yesterday after President Abdullah Gul, asked about a request from Brussels that Turkey drop Bashir from the guestlist, said: “What are they interfering for? This is a meeting being held in the framework of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. It is not a bilateral meeting.” Although the 57-nation body’s meeting has been billed as an economic summit to discuss trade and anti-poverty measures, the economic goals are likely to be overshadowed by other issues.

Western powers are seeking to exert pressure on Tehran for concessions on its nuclear program, and Ahmadinejad could use the summit to undermine efforts to isolate the Islamic republic and to give one of his trademark anti-Western speeches. The West fears Tehran’s nuclear program is a covert plan to develop nuclear weapons but Iran has denied this and says it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity.

The visit by Bashir, who has traveled to African countries since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued the arrest warrant against him in March, promises to be another hot issue for NATO member Turkey when he arrives in Istanbul.

Muslim Turkey has not ratified the 2002 Rome Statute that established the ICC but it is under pressure to do so to bring it closer to EU standards.

It has deepened commercial ties with Khartoum and rebuffed calls from rights groups to arrest Bashir.

The attendance of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad might also add weight to the summit of the OIC, which has little political power.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday he did not wish to run for re-election in January, voicing disappointment at Washington’s “favoring” of Israel in arguments over relaunching peace talks.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in what would be his first trip abroad since his re-election was announced this week following a fraud-marred ballot, is also expected to attend. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Istanbul will follow a state visit last month by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Tehran, in which the two countries signed trade and energy deals.

Ankara’s growing attachment to Iran has fueled worries that Turkey, a moderate Muslim democracy, is turning its back on Washington and the EU, something it denies.

“Policymakers in the West are getting worried that Turkey’s growing ties with Iran – by lessening that country’s sense of isolation – may frustrate diplomatic efforts to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear bomb,” Katinka Barysch, of the Center for European Reform think tank, wrote this week.

Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which has roots in political Islam, has sought to expand Turkey’s influence in the Middle East – a process analysts say has run in parallel with Ankara’s frustration at perceived EU misgivings over its membership bid.

During his warmly received trip to Tehran, Erdogan blasted Western powers for treating Iran “unfairly” and said the Islamic republic’s nuclear program was for humanitarian purposes.

Ian Lesser, from the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said that by inviting Ahmadinejad and Bashir, Turkey might deepen perceptions its foreign policy is ambiguous.

“It is an example of the risks that Turkey is running by trying to be too many things in too many places at the same time and without too much discrimination,” Lesser said.

PARIS (AFP) – Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu urged France yesterday not to block Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, saying his country holds the key to a new relationship with the Muslim world.

In Paris for meetings with senior officials, including his counterpart Bernard Kouchner, Davutoglu said that the French government’s opposition to Turkey’s European ambitions was a grave mistake.

“We’ve had strong relations with France since the 16th century. No other nation in Europe can better understand Turkey’s importance,” the minister told the daily Le Monde before his meeting with Kouchner.

“Today again, Turkey and France have influence in the same regions. True cooperation could create a new dynamic in the Mediterranean, in North Africa, in the Caucasus and in the Middle East,” he said. “This would also help the European Union. That’s why all the mistakes and misunderstandings that are sometimes expressed in France have no historical or political basis,” he argued.

Turkey began EU membership negotiations in 2005, but has so far opened talks in only 11 of the 35 policy areas that candidates must complete, while France, Germany and other member states have sought to slow or halt the process.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has led opposition, arguing that Turkey should settle for a special partnership agreement. “We want Turkey to be a bridge between East and West,” Sarkozy declared in June during an appearance with US President Barack Obama.

“I told President Obama that it’s very important for Europe to have borders. For me, Europe is a force for stability in the world and I cannot allow that force for stabilization to be destroyed,” Sarkozy declared.

But Davutoglu argued that Turkey had been promised that if it met the bloc’s entrance requirements in terms of political and economic reform and guarantees on human and civil rights, it would be admitted.

“No one can force us to accept an option like a special partnership,” the minister declared. “We’re not looking for a favor or special treatment, just for agreements to be respected. The European Union’s key selling point is its respect for agreements. It’s thanks to that principle that the EU has become a draw. If it loses that, it loses all its legitimacy,” he said.