David Cameron, the British prime minister, on Tuesday sharply criticized opponents of Turkey’s membership in the European Union, echoing concerns voiced in the United States that the bloc was doing too little to anchor Ankara within the West.
On his first visit to the Turkish capital since becoming prime minister in May, Mr. Cameron likened France’s opposition to Turkey’s bid for membership to the French veto of Britain‘s bid to become part of the European Union’s forerunner in the 1960s.
Turkey began talks with the European Union in 2005, but progress has been painfully slow. Though the technical reason for this is connected to Turkey’s failure to recognize Cyprus, the political backdrop is one of division within the European Union as to whether a large, mainly Muslim nation should be admitted.
“When I think about what Turkey has done to defend Europe as a NATO ally,” Mr. Cameron said, “and what Turkey is doing today in Afghanistan alongside our European allies, it makes me angry that your progress toward E.U. membership can be frustrated in the way that it has been. My view is clear: I believe it is just wrong to say that Turkey can guard the camp but not be allowed to sit in the tent.”
Robert M. Gates, the U.S. secretary of defense, argued recently that if Turkey was looking more eastward it was “in no small part because it was pushed and pushed by some in Europe, refusing to give Turkey the kind of organic link to the West that Turkey sought.”
As Turkey has begun to emerge as a bigger diplomatic player in the region, its relations with Israel have been strained by the death of Turkish activists on a flotilla trying to break the economic blockade of the Gaza Strip. On Tuesday Mr. Cameron said that “the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable.”
Ankara has made it clear that it will not join new E.U. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, a decision seen by some as an example of Ankara’s new assertiveness. At a news conference with Mr. Cameron, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was “definitely against nuclear weapons in our region and we routinely say this to Iran,” The Associated Press reported.
Though Britain has been one of the main supporters of Turkish accession since the 1990s, Mr. Cameron’s comments marked a change from that of his predecessor, Gordon Brown, analysts said.
Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies in Istanbul and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels, said that while British policy remained supportive of Turkish E.U. membership under Mr. Brown, it was not voiced as clearly as under his predecessor, Tony Blair.
“What we see with Cameron is a return to the Blair policy on this topic of very unambiguous support for Turkish accession,” Mr. Ulge said. “I think it is no coincidence that Cameron, just before he came to Ankara, was in the U.S.”
“There is a certain fear factor in what Cameron said in Ankara” he added. “I think in his contacts in Washington they must have talked about where Turkey is heading and the need to anchor Turkey in the West.”
In one passage of his speech, Mr. Cameron quoted remarks made by Charles de Gaulle in his dismissal of Britain’s European aspirations in the 1960s when he was the French president. “We know what it is like to be shut out of the club,” Mr. Cameron added.
Mr. Cameron argued that those opposed to Turkey’s accession fell into three categories: protectionists who see its economic power as a threat, “the polarized” who think that Turks should choose between East and West, and the prejudiced who misunderstand Islam.
His analysis could raise tensions with the Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, both of whom oppose Turkish membership in the European Union. But Mr. Cameron’s intervention is unlikely to make any practical difference within the bloc, which has 27 member nations.
With little progress in talks over the status of the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus, Turkey’s E.U. membership negotiations are stalled. In total, there are 35 “chapter,” or subject areas, that need to be agreed on, of which 13 have been opened and only one — research and development — has been provisionally concluded. Most of the rest are blocked — five by France — leaving the realistic prospect that only a further three could still be opened soon.