Turkey's main English-language daily http://www.turkishdailynews.com
has a survey on its web site and the results so far are rather interesting.
According to the survey of some 800 respondents, Turks see themselves as their own best friends! The USA came in third in the survey behind the UK, but only 11.7% respondents chose America as Turkey's best friend. One of the surprises of the survey is that it shows that only 6.1 % of respondents chose the Islamic world as Turkey's best friend. Here are the results as of Sept. 22
No one but Turks 31.1%
UK 18.9 %
USA 11.7%
EU 11.5%
Islamic World 6.1%
The Sept. 22 online edition of the TDN also had a report about Congressional legislation which has been endorsed by the Armenian lobby in Washington DC. The main Turkish-American organization ATAA http://www.ataa.org
is concerned that such legislation will do more harm to relations between Washington DC and Ankara, but Congressional supporters of the bills maintain that this will not happen.
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2 comments:
Sound as though you want us to accept Turkey, How about Turkey accepting responsibility for its errors in the past?
EU Raps Turkey For Stopping Armenia Conference
(RFE/RL)
23 September 2005 (RFE/RL) -- The European Commission has called a "provocation" a Turkish court's order to suspend an academic conference on the 1915 massacre of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population.
A court in Istanbul ordered the suspension on 22 September, a day before the start of the conference.
The EU executive's spokeswoman for enlargement, Krisztina Nagy, said today the timing of the decision and the absence of legal motivations looked like "another provocation" less than two weeks before Ankara starts entry talks with Brussels.
Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn had previously described as a provocation Turkish plans to prosecute novelist Orhan Pamuk. He faces up to three years in jail for backing assertions that Armenians suffered genocide at Turkish hands 90 years ago.
Wow, a comment from someone I don't know! I beg to differ with your reasoning for us 'not accepting Turkey' on the grounds of a historical controversy which occured 90 years ago and some 8 years before the Republic of Turkey was established. I sympathize with the Armenians, and I hope we can have a resolution to this political nightmare one day. I will also point out that one of the Armenian lobby's prime supporters former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Ks) asked the National Archives in Washington DC to refrain from putting forth an exhibit on Hiroshima some ten years ago. I think all countries, including Turkey, the United States and EU member countries, should be open to discussing controversial chapters in their respective histories and I am not supportive of a decision to cancel a conference on the Armenian controversy in Istanbul. But, Turkey was also a key nation in providing the US with a victory in the Cold War and it is the most Western Muslim country in the Islamic world. As the Middle East will likely become increasing hostile to our interests, I am sure Turkey will emerge as another vital ally. Alas, Turkey is always going to be a controversial country because of its geography and the historic legacy of the Ottman Empire, but I feel no hypocricy in supporting my father's country even if my support is not always in concert with my generally left of center political views of the world.
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