Monday, Aug 04, 2003
Islam no hurdle to E.U. membership: Turkey
By Batuk Gathani
BRUSSELS AUG. 3. Turkey's Minister for Religious Affairs, Mohamet Aydin, has said that the nation's Islamic character should not be a reason for preventing it from joining the European Union. Currently, 98 per cent of the 65-million people of the country are Muslim.
If Turkey joins the E.U., it will be the largest Muslim country in the predominantly Christian European Union, which currently has an indigenous and migrant Muslim population of 25 millions.
The E.U., which will be expanded to 25 members in 2004, will have a population of 500 millions. With Turkey becoming a member, its Muslim population will go up to 90 millions, constituting 18 per cent of the total population.
However, all this is an academic exercise, as the prospects of Turkey joining the E.U. appear remote at this stage, although it applied for the membership of the Union over two decades ago. The current Chairman of the European Convention, Giscard d'Estaing, triggered a major controversy early this year when he stated that Turkey did not qualify to join the E.U., not because of Islam but because that country was not the traditional inheritor of Europe's cultural, moral and political values.
The current pro-Islamist Government in Turkey has initiated "a revolution of sorts'' by taming the country's secularist military Generals and initiating political reforms to give more credibility to its quest for full membership of the Union.
On Thursday, Mr Aydin said the repressive policies in some countries against women were a misinterpretation of Islam and launched a scathing attack on the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan.
He said these three countries could not be considered religious states. "If you do not have a clear vision of equality among humans, that means you do not have a clear vision of religion.
I am ashamed to hear about a debate in Saudi Arabia, about whether women should be allowed to drive cars. This belongs to another age''.
Mr Aydin said he may soon appoint a woman as deputy `mufti', director of religious affairs in Istanbul, and women would be encouraged to pray in all parts of mosques, rather than confine to them to separate sections.
The Government placed two reformist bills in Parliament this week, aimed at clipping the wings of the powerful military establishment.
The military, which regards itself as the custodian and protector of Turkey's secular legacy, staged the last coup to topple an elected pro-Islamist government.
The Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan's Islamist party, which came to power two years ago, maintains a love-hate relationship with the military but has initiated reforms, ostensibly to boost the country's prospects of joining the E.U.
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