'Keep your nose out' Sarkozy warns Obama

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 3:51 pm

Leave Turkey’s bid to join EU to us, Nicolas Sarkozy warns Barack Obama - Times Online

mikeinie · Post by **mikeinie** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 6:07 am

I agree with Sarkozy. The EU is not a group of US friends and allies. Turkey is not part of Europe (well ok physically half of it is) but their culture would not be considered as ‘European’ one.

I for one, at this point in time anyway, would not want them joining the EU.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 6:22 am

mikeinie;1170489 wrote: I agree with Sarkozy. The EU is not a group of US friends and allies. Turkey is not part of Europe (well ok physically half of it is) but their culture would not be considered as ‘European’ one.

I for one, at this point in time anyway, would not want them joining the EU.
Yes, I agree with him also.

I have said this many times before but i live and work very closely with the Turkish Community here. One of Mr O's best friends is Turkish and lives a few houses from us and his wife is one of my best friends also. At times, i get annoyed with the way Mr O's friend treats his wife but i have to butt out as it's their culture. We are in and out of each others houses and there is nothing we would not do for each other but we are talking about a whole different part of the world that they do not consider to be European and nor do we.

Their culture is in the main very 'ME' and their loyalty is always ro Sadam. I can see real problems ahead if Turkey joins Europe.

Obama seems himself as 'the New Messiah' who will heal the world. He 'promised' a bomb free world and yet has just announced he is going ahead with his Iranian missile shield. This is likely to see Russia put more missiles around Eastern Europe. So much for the promise of a bomb free world eh? Obama also talked of raising the white flag to Iran which has now also gone tits up with Iran issuing him an ultimatum over Israel. For him to meddle into who is joing the EU, is dangerous. Turkey are a muslim country. Obama may want to embrace them but he has enough worrie's of his own. He needs to butt out.

Galbally · Post by **Galbally** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 10:22 am

I don't think Mr Sarkozy told Obama to "keep his nose out" in those words, he is essentially saying this is a decision for the EU Mr Obama, thank you very much. Which it is, and Obama knows this; however, he was visiting Ankara today and he had to make the right noises.

My own personal opinion is that President Sarkozy is right, he simply recognizes that Europe has a culture and tradition that Turkey has a stake in, and is part of, but Turkey is essentially a Westernized Islamic country of the Middle East, its not an Islamicized Western Nation. I strongly believe that the EU will lose its political coherence if it trys to turn into all things for everyone, its hard enough making the thing work between nations that all share essentially the same Western, Christian heritage.

Therefore, realistically Turkey should only be given speical partnership status with Europe. The other issue is funds and economic support, and at the present time, forget it. We have enough problems trying to stop the rot in existing EU memberstates, and the prospective Eastern European nations such as Ukraine etc.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 10:32 am

Galbally;1170655 wrote: I don't think Mr Sarkozy told Obama to "keep his nose out" in those words, he is essentially saying this is a decision for the EU Mr Obama, thank you very much. Which it is, and Obama knows this; however, he was visiting Ankara today and he had to make the right noises.

My own personal opinion is that President Sarkozy is right, he simply recognizes that Europe has a culture and tradition that Turkey has a stake in, and is part of, but Turkey is essentially a Westernized Islamic country of the Middle East, its not an Islamicized Western Nation. I strongly believe that the EU will lose its political coherence if it trys to turn into all things for everyone, its hard enough making the thing work between nations that all share essentially the same Western, Christian heritage.

Therefore, realistically Turkey should only be given speical partnership status with Europe. The other issue is funds and economic support, and at the present time, forget it. We have enough problems trying to stop the rot in existing EU memberstates, and the prospective Eastern European nations such as Ukraine etc. Agreed....... There is also the fact that if Turkey is being bailed out right now, I for one don't want to see Europe subsidise another problem.

I think politically, within the public, Turkey joining would have some knock on effect. We have enough anti-muslim problems within britain without embracing a muslim nation as well. Once we accept Turkey, we are no longer 'European'. We will be embracing the ME also.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 10:54 am

I haven't really thought about this, but you are all agreeing it's a bad idea...

So I'll play Devil's Advocate

:

If we did let Turkey in, wouldn't it be the strongest signal possible that Europe is not anti-Muslim, we are anti extremism?

Turkey is at a crossroads in almost every way you can think of. Might we not be able to influence their development more effectively if they are part of us? Equal rights for women, and so on?

If they are good enough to be members of NATO, isn't it a bit hypocritical to say they can't be members of the EU?

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 11:05 am

Clodhopper;1170672 wrote: I haven't really thought about this, but you are all agreeing it's a bad idea...

So I'll play Devil's Advocate

:

If we did let Turkey in, wouldn't it be the strongest signal possible that Europe is not anti-Muslim, we are anti extremism?

Turkey is at a crossroads in almost every way you can think of. Might we not be able to influence their development more effectively if they are part of us? Equal rights for women, and so on?

If they are good enough to be members of NATO, isn't it a bit hypocritical to say they can't be members of the EU? The equal rights for women would stand up if the muslims already here abided by British law for equsl rights for women. Instead, they have brought in Sharia law to continue with their own laws and not adopt EU laws. Turkey would do the same.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 11:11 am

Clodhopper;1170672 wrote: I haven't really thought about this, but you are all agreeing it's a bad idea...

So I'll play Devil's Advocate

:

If we did let Turkey in, wouldn't it be the strongest signal possible that Europe is not anti-Muslim, we are anti extremism?

Turkey is at a crossroads in almost every way you can think of. Might we not be able to influence their development more effectively if they are part of us? Equal rights for women, and so on?

If they are good enough to be members of NATO, isn't it a bit hypocritical to say they can't be members of the EU?
"Turkey, with 5 percent of its land mass and 10 percent of its people on the European side of the Bosporus and 95 percent of the country and 90 percent of its population in Asia Minor, wants to become a full-fledged member of the European Union. This would give EU a common border with Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, a notion that has already given Europeans an acute attack of Turkophobia.

EU membership negotiations, scheduled to start this week, are to last 10 years. By then, Turkey's population will have increased from 71 million to 82 million, making a Muslim country the largest in the 25-nation European Union. That's why it isn't going happen.

But the European players, eyes blazing with insincerity, have to convince the spectators that if the negotiations succeed and Turkey agrees to all European demands, preconditions, codicils and 80,000 pages of EU law, membership, strongly endorsed by the U.S., will follow.

Turks begin to question the utility of what now strikes them as a charade whose pantomime hints have already been correctly interpreted. These now say Turkey should distance itself from a Europe that doesn't wish to go beyond "privileged partnership" status.

Most European leaders understand rejection could tip Turkey, now governed by an Islamic party, into the camp of radical Islam. But one European opinion survey after another says Turkey does not belong in the EU.

French and Dutch voters rejected the proposed new European constitution last spring because the move was widely interpreted as facilitating Turkey's membership application.

A fear that transcends all others in Europe these days is called "Eurabia." This conjures a nightmare of militant Islam overshadowing a Judeo-Christian Europe. The Ottoman Empire and before that the sword of Islam carved out a nice chunk of Europe through the Iberian Peninsula into southern France.

The Muslims of 1,000 years ago put the Europeans to shame. It took Europeans several centuries to match their architecture and gardens. The Muslims also outclassed Europeans in astronomy, medicine, engineering, geography and mathematics (algebra is an Arabic term). Cordova, their capital in Spain, was Europe's richest city, with magnificent palaces and mosques.

The age of Islamic military conquest lasted until 1669, when the Ottoman Empire made its last acquisition by conquering Crete from the Venetians. Fourteen years later, it was curtains for the Ottomans in Europe. They failed to take Vienna and retreated in disarray.

On the southwestern end of Europe, Islam's armies collapsed almost 200 years earlier when they lost Granada, the last Islamic city in Spain, in 1492, the year Columbus arrived in America.

Islam's big mistake was to ban the printing press, by Ottoman decree in 1485. It would have been a sacrilege, flat-Earth clerics decided, to use the Arabic language in mechanical equipment. That was the geopolitical ball game. When Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798, Cairo had no printing presses. By then the European intelligentsia had been embarked on self-improvement through books for almost two centuries.

Today, there are approximately 20 million Muslims, including 3.8 million Turks, living in Europe, a number projected to double by 2020. Poor, mostly illegal, immigrants continue flowing into EU countries from the Middle East, including Turkey, North Africa and sub-Sahara Africa.

New arrivals fade into the masses of mostly unemployed Muslims that huddle in the poorer neighborhoods of Europe's major cities. For the most part, they are not integrated. Even second- and third-generation European-born Muslims, who now hold EU passports and can freely travel to the United States without visas, resist assimilation.

Their hero is neither European nor American, but Saudi. Pro-Osama bin Laden literature can be found at kiosks all over Europe and on thousands of Web sites.

In Europe, would-be jihadis continue volunteering to fight in Iraq. They use the Internet to learn how to make bombs from store-bought chemicals. They also learn the names of mosques in Syria and Jordan that can hide a jihadi making his way into Iraq, and then to learn the different locations in Iraq where jihadis should report for training and combat assignments.

An unknown number have already returned from Iraq with newly acquired terrorist skills, the ability to form sleeper cells and to encourage others to sign up for "holy war against the infidels."

The Dutch intelligence service – AIVD – says radical Islam in the Netherlands now encompasses a multitude of movements, organizations and groups that embrace the fundamentalist line, 20 of them hard-line Islamist. In London, authorities believe as many as 3,000 veterans of al-Qaida training camps over the years were born or based in Britain. And in France, a study of 1,160 recent French converts to Islam found 23 percent identified as Salafists, another term for Wahhabis.

EU countries are tightening their immigration laws in response to popular demand to retard growth of their Muslim populations. So talking turkey about Turkey in this environment can only produce a turkey."

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 11:11 am

The equal rights for women would stand up if the muslims already here abided by British law for equsl rights for women. Instead, they have brought in Sharia law to continue with their own laws and not adopt EU laws. Turkey would do the same.

Oh, you don't get social change overnight. But I wonder if the daughter of your frined (if she has a daughter) would put up with being treated that way? I know a lot of Indian families who say the biggest problem they face is not racism, but cultural differences with their more Westernised kids. The process would be slower in Turkey itself, but wouldn't it still occur?

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 11:13 am

Clodhopper;1170682 wrote: Oh, you don't get social change overnight. But I wonder if the daughter of your frined (if she has a daughter) would put up with being treated that way? I know a lot of Indian families who say the biggest problem they face is not racism, but cultural differences with their more Westernised kids. The process would be slower in Turkey itself, but wouldn't it still occur? It's irrelevant to me...... Just the EU having borders with Syria etc is just nonsensical.

Vesuvius · Post by **Vesuvius** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:41 pm

Totally agree, having Turkey join the EU would be tatamount to allowing further pressure from Islamic fundamentalists, and we have enough of that already in the UK. Turkey has yet to answer for the manner in which they turn their backs on Human Rights. Not the Cherie Blair 'uman rights' fiasco, but the genuine basics which Turkey do not recognise.

We need them like a hole in the head!

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:49 pm

mikeinie;1170489 wrote: I agree with Sarkozy. The EU is not a group of US friends and allies. Turkey is not part of Europe (well ok physically half of it is) but their culture would not be considered as ‘European’ one.

I for one, at this point in time anyway, would not want them joining the EU.

Half!

Turkey is maybe ten percent European at best (in land area) and less than that culturally.

The main point though is that it's damn all business of the US whether the EU invites them to join or not.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:53 pm

oscar;1170676 wrote: The equal rights for women would stand up if the muslims already here abided by British law for equsl rights for women. Instead, they have brought in Sharia law to continue with their own laws and not adopt EU laws. Turkey would do the same.

Turkey is constitutionally prevented from using Sharia law.

Kemal Ataturk went out of his way to ensure that Turkey became a secular society with complete separation of state and religion - it would need a revolution to reverse it.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:59 pm

Bryn Mawr;1170919 wrote: Turkey is constitutionally prevented from using Sharia law.

Kemal Ataturk went out of his way to ensure that Turkey became a secular society with complete separation of state and religion - it would need a revolution to reverse it. Thankyou Bryn, I didn't know that.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:01 pm

Bryn Mawr;1170915 wrote: Half!

Turkey is maybe ten percent European at best (in land area) and less than that culturally.

The main point though is that it's damn all business of the US whether the EU invites them to join or not. I agree with Sarkozy and given previous US foriegn policey, I find it 'cheeky' for want of a word that Obama see's fit to comment. He seems to think he was elected to preside over the world.

Vesuvius · Post by **Vesuvius** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:00 pm

Whilslt I am a huge fan of America and love the American people, and have been there many times, I too wish President Obama would take the view that European business is just that..Europes! It is perfectly acceptable to comment on our policies and our various Governments, however, playing the hand of the Superpower by insisting on having a major say in what is being discussed or decided is tantamount to making Europeans feel their lives are being controlled not by themselves, or by those they elect to power in their own countries, but by the USA.

Time to work on his own country which we all know needs help...and leave us to do the same.

It could be said Obama is simply concerned about terrorism coming out from Europe, but we are able to deal with this ourselves, and Sarky was right... all Nations should be there for each other, but not to interfere.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:51 pm

Vesuvius;1171461 wrote: Whilslt I am a huge fan of America and love the American people, and have been there many times, I too wish President Obama would take the view that European business is just that..Europes! It is perfectly acceptable to comment on our policies and our various Governments, however, playing the hand of the Superpower by insisting on having a major say in what is being discussed or decided is tantamount to making Europeans feel their lives are being controlled not by themselves, or by those they elect to power in their own countries, but by the USA.

Time to work on his own country which we all know needs help...and leave us to do the same.

It could be said Obama is simply concerned about terrorism coming out from Europe, but we are able to deal with this ourselves, and Sarky was right... all Nations should be there for each other, but not to interfere.
Very well said.