cagaptay.com: Turkey - Obama's Two Dollars and Turkey - by Soner Cagaptay

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Turkey - Obama's Two Dollars and Turkey - by Soner Cagaptay

It is a tough economy, but if President Barack Obama has $2 to invest in Turkey, I would suggest that he put one buck into consolidating Turkey's liberal democracy, and the other into moving forward the country's European Union accession, for a non-European Turkey would be a big loss for Washington. Since the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, came to power in Turkey in 2002, Turkey's media has been transformed for the worse. The government has used legal loopholes to confiscate ownership of independent media and sell it to its supporters. In 2002, pro-AKP businesses owned less than 20 percent of the Turkish media; today pro-government people own around 50 percent.

Not only has Turkey's media ownership been transformed with a pro-government bent, but media freedoms have been eroded as well: according to Freedom House's freedom of press index reports, Turkish media is less free today than it was in 2002, slipping from 100 in 2002 to 103 in 2008. As Turkey ought to be moving toward the EU, its record on media freedoms should have improved significantly since 2002, not stagnated. Something is not right in Turkey today. Mr. Obama ought to put his money into Turkey's free media since, without a free and independent media, as well as the accompanying freedoms, Turkey risks looking more like Russia, and nobody, neither the EU nor Mr. Obama, wants two Russia's on Europe's eastern frontier.

There is no longer a grey area in which Turkey can position itself. Turkey will either become an EU member and part of the West, or fold into the "Muslim world," as per al-Qaeda's vision. This is already a risk, with the number of Turks who identify as Western decreasing, especially among the youth. Mr. Obama ought to invest in Turkey's EU accession in order to keep Turkey Western and to consolidate its liberal democracy. All it takes is two bucks from Obama's wallet. Hard as times might be, this is not the time for Washington to lose Turkey, or let go an important ally.