The response of the European Union to the closure case filed against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came as a surprise to many.

Deeply convinced that the EU was ready to welcome a pretext to finish off the accession process, ultranationalists were shocked to see that Brussels was instead ready to defend Turkish democracy. Be it a response to this endorsement or a pre-planned project, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's re-launching of the EU reforms during his visit to Sweden has lent a mutual refreshment to intentions and brought new life to an already rotting corpse. The AK Party's Cankiri deputy, member of the Parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee and one-time German Marshall Fund's Turkey Director Suat Kiniklioglu recalled to Today's Zaman what Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said a few months ago: 2008 will be the year of the EU.

The EU's response to the closure case of the AK Party was rather an endorsement of Turkish democracy. It seems that although they haven't opened the door to let us in, they also don't want us to turn away completely. Am I wrong?

First of all, the EU's endorsement of Turkish democracy didn't come as a surprise to me.

Leaving the Europeans or the Americans aside, even the Middle Eastern countries shouldn’t regard such an intervention into democracy as acceptable. But examining [EU enlargement commissioner] Olli Rehn’s statements last week that he is not helping the AK Party but is rather supporting democracy, I may suggest that Brussels is receiving pressure from certain circles here in Ankara. Europe’s support is not the issue here. The issue is the fact that we are using Commissioner Rehn, the Europeans and the Americans as tools; we are trying to pull them into our own discussion. The EU has reconfirmed with its firm resolve on this issue that it does not want to lose Turkey and is willing to continue with the accession process. Had the enlargement committee not wanted Turkey in, as some people here believe, they would have used this pretext to make that clear. Last year we held a survey within the framework of the German Marshall Fund and observed that 66 to 70 percent of the members of the enlargement committee supported Turkey’s membership. What Olli Rehn did through his declaration against a possible closing of the AK Party was to re-affirm the position of the EU inclusiveness to the Turkish public.

What about the US response? They were swifter this time.

They should have learned their lesson from the April 27 e-memorandum, when the US kept silent for four days. This delay was very telling for us, for the people who urged further democratization and consolidation of the democratic culture in Turkey. Matt Bryza said that party closures were unacceptable in democracies and that the national will as reflected in the ballot boxed cannot be dismissed [in this way]. You’ll see the Americans making further declarations according to the development of the process.

The EU endorsed Turkey, but this also gave a new impetus to Turkey’s EU-related reforms. The prime minister spoke about Article 301 and a prospective Kurdish language TV channel. Were you speaking about all these beforehand, or has it all come as a response to the EU gesture after the closure case?

Indeed we were speaking. Article 301 [of the Turkish Penal Code] and the Kurdish, Arabic and Persian language TV channel was already on the desk. The amendment of Article 301 was stuck in intra-party disagreement over the wording of the change. But the party managed to reach an internal consensus. I assume it will come to the assembly soon after the Social Security Law, which is on the table now.

These were already on the table, as you said. What are you speaking about, then? What is the government’s next step?

The next thing we need is to re-create the excitement of 2003-2004, so the communications side has to take priority. The technical side, the negotiations, the surveillance process is continuing with low-level diplomacy. The people may not know this, but they are going on. What is needed is rather a public diplomacy that will tell our people what the EU is and tell the Europeans what Turkey is.

Our public needs to realize the advantages of membership in the EU and the advantages of the process itself. A few months ago I was in one of the villages in my constituency, called Sabanözü. There a river improvement project was carried out with the EU funds. About YTL 2 million was spent for a park, the closing of the riverbed and the building of bridges. Well, we barely found an EU flag for the opening ceremony. It is not just to wait for all our citizens to understand the internal working procedures of the EU. The Turkish people do not know what the European Parliament is, or what the enlargement committee means. A week ago the EU’s Court of First Instance decided that on a certain list the case to list the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization was not justified. Our people thought that the European countries had taken the PKK completely off of their list of terrorist organizations. Our people receive this as the collective position of 27 European countries. Because of these facts the communication processes of the EU should be well regulated.

Would you submit to the idea that an EU Ministry would be helpful to coordinate this and similar EU-related tasks?

Indeed, it would be good. Our government is actually working on a series of options that would activate the EU negotiation process and our EU policies. Among these, one can imagine an institution that would regulate and promote strategic communication. Whether this will take the shape of a communications agency or of a ministry, as you suggested, is something our prime minister should decide. Many East European countries created their own EU ministries in the process of accession. An EU ministry would be fruitful as it give a clear message to the EU that Turkey is taking this issue seriously. Well, we shouldn’t forget that when our chief negotiator became the foreign minister also, this was well received in the press for the same reasons: It was perceived as a symbol of the importance Turkey attributes to the issue. And having a ministry would probably make EU issues enter the agenda of the prime minister more frequently.

Public diplomacy is needed not only for our own public but also for the European public. Once Turkey reaches the final stages of the accession, we will need their votes in the referendums.

That will be one of the duties of the institutional structure I mentioned. This will incorporate the efforts of nongovernmental organizations, communications experts, academics and artists. We will organize tours to European capitals to speak for ourselves, and we will invite them to come and see with their own eyes. European parliamentarians -- I am not speaking about the people on the street -- do not know the economic developments in Turkey. We cannot wait for them to realize this; we have to act proactively and tell them our own story.

Let me give you an example: The goods produced and consumed in Turkey are one of the sources of employment in Europe and vice versa. Turkey is a market Europe cannot give up; the workers at Danone, Volksagen and Mann+Hummel do not know this, but at least the politicians should know that the employment of those people is possible partly because of Turkish consumption. Turkish workers in the Doblo factory in Bursa should also know that if not for the European market that is consuming Doblos, they would probably be left unemployed. We have to understand that our membership process is not taking place in a normal milieu. We are a candidate for membership in a post-9/11 world, while bombs are blowing up in Madrid and London, while women are being killed in the streets by their own brothers for honor. It is harder and harder to tell the people of Europe that Turkey has a place in the union.

These parameters have religious connotations, but our bid for membership is being run only in a secular world. Would it be meaningful to cooperate with, for example, the Directorate of Religious Affairs and the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religion (DITIB) foundation, which has a large network of mosques in Europe?

That is something we should consider. During my trips to European cities I saw that well-educated religious attachés are able to do an immense job by means of lobbying for Turkey. Unfortunately these are not organized efforts. If we can work with the DITIB or other Turkish networks, we can overcome this religion-related prejudices. But we shouldn’t forget that the EU is not only a civilization project. It provides a “quality certification,” as journalist Hasan Cemal calls it. It provides a standard of living that our citizens also deserve. In the past I would give the example of milk products. Europeans do not import milk from Turkey, saying that our milk is not healthy. That is the milk we give our children. Nowadays we can include the Venice criteria, which regulate the closing of a political party -- that is a quality certification as well.

We shouldn’t forget that the support for EU membership is dropping in Turkey as well…

You are right. We are swimming against the current. We have to accept that there is a growing wave of nationalism in Turkey. This may explain the ultranationalist (ulusalci) surge also. But it also sets upon us the burden of communication. Today it is not enough to create good policies only; you should create communication policies as well. If we can mobilize the role models of the society -- the actors, football players, politicians and popular characters -- to endorse the EU process, we can recreate the excitement of 2003-2004.

One of the reasons the excitement has been lost is because we have lost our self-confidence. We should have more self-confidence. Turkey is no longer the Turkey of the 1970s. Today we are a country admired by all its neighbors. We are the only Muslim country in the world that can have Shimon Peres [Israeli president] and Mahmoud Abbas [Palestinian president] address its parliament. We are a country that was able to facilitate Saudi Arabia and Syria’s participation in the Annapolis conference. We are a country that could play a central role in ending internal strife in Lebanon. Why shouldn’t we be self-confident?

I have always defined myself as Turkish, Muslim and Southeast European. I am at peace with all three of these identities, and with self-confidence I can sit at the table with our foreign interlocutors. I believe that we Turks can mingle our Ottoman heritage with Mediterranean culture and can considerably contribute to Europe. As a democratic society with a Muslim majority, Turkey has an indispensable place in the imagination of a peaceful and wealthy Europe of the future.