So, the UK claims to be Turkey’s best friend and strongest advocate for EU accession. All well and good, except that then, Britain turns around and runs one of the most restrictive visa policies of any nation toward Turks who want to immigrate to Britain.

One of my Turkish friends in Liverpool recently told me he was infuriated by the resistance and even hostility that he and other Turkish immigrants have faced in getting visas, work permits and citizenship from the United Kingdom, even as the UK claims to be so strongly on Turkey’s side for EU accession (which would of course later facilitate Turkish worker migration to the UK anyway).

I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t wash. I’m strongly in favor of Turkey’s EU succession as 10 Downing Street also claims to be, but if the UK government really believes this, then they’re hypocrites when they simultaneously slam the door on Turks who want to make a better life for themselves in the United Kingdom. Especially when there seems to be a potential budding Anglo-Turkish alliance, why the arrogance and exclusivism toward Turkish migrants to the UK? It just looks, for all practical purposes, like the British government is talking the talk while not walking the walk– blowing smoke up Erdogan’s a** w/o a true commitment to opening up to Turkey.

If the UK actually wants to credibly demonstrate its support of Turkey as an EU member, then Britain should start by treating Turkey as it treated Poland recently– opening up Britain to Turkish workers who want to come and contribute to the UK’s economy, just as the door was opened to Polish workers.

To do anything less than this is nothing but sheer hypocrisy on the part of the British government.

Sorry, but in your otherwise sober analysis, you’re stretching about 200 km to make this (rather ludicrous) claim. How, exactly, can you interpret the CHP’s loss as a defeat for Sarkozy at all, much less a “substantial defeat”? Was Sarkozy campaigning for the CHP? Was he sending dastardly French agents to sabotage the AKP’s campaign rallies?

Sarkozy just came into office himself in France, and he and his country had just about zero impact on the elections in Ankara. Just like in the USA and UK, the Turkish elections were 80% about local issues and domestic concerns, and in this case were convened in the first place, as you say, due to disagreements about Gul as the President between the AKP and the army. I doubt that Sarkozy could have cared less, and I doubt that the Turks could have cared less about Sarkozy in making their decision.

Besides, I question your conclusion that the AKP’s victory is necessarily a good thing for Turkish EU accession. Granted, the AKP aren’t as nationalistic as the other parties, but then, they’re also a good deal more Islamist and this is in fact already raising even more question marks in the minds of the bureaucrats in Brussels and the leaders of the constituent nations. If anything, my sense is that a weaker AKP (and a less Islamist government in Ankara) might have taken some of the punch out of Sarkozy’s opposition and those of other EU states, but with a now even more Islamist government in the Parliament, it only strengthens Sarkozy’s hand. The AKP has hardly been any less adamant on Cyprus than the CHP, and if anything, the AKP might be even more intractable (and less prone to compromise) on the Kurdish question, which will come to a boil as soon as the USA starts withdrawing from Iraq, which may be less than a year away.

BTW, again I *do* agree with most of what you say here and I applaud your evenhanded treatment of this issue. I’m also in favor of Turkish accession to the EU, it’s just that my pragmatist side says it won’t happen due to the facts on the ground. Sarkozy is just the first of many just about insurmountable barriers for Turkey– France has a referendum on new EU members’ accessions, and the French people have been vehemently opposed to Turkey’s joining from the start, by about 59% against to 27% for– and this was before Sarkozy’s election. Many other referenda, plus my own fears about the coming mess in Kurdistan. Portugal really can’t pull much weight for its 6-month term and, besides– soon after Portugal, it’s Sarkozy’s turn at the EU helm. Genuinely wicked timing for EU accession proponents– I don’t like it, but it’s the truth on the ground.