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Turkey bagel with cranberry jam

By Hugh Sykes, BBC News, Turkey, June 11, 2011
Turkish ambitions both in the Middle East and the EU have created a divided nation, as public opinion, and even politicians, appear unsure about the path Turkey should take.

Sitting at an open-air kebab cafe—which is like a big tree house with tables on platforms straddling a waterfall and some of the tables in the water—the sun shining through wide leaves on fig trees, families eating their lunch and a little girl throwing pieces of bread to some geese—Syria seems far away.

But it is not.

At the souvenir stalls by the waterfall, alongside a corny portrait of Che Guevara (in classic pose with beret), there is a corny portrait of President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian border is half an hour away.

There is a no-visa agreement between Damascus and Ankara.

Syrian businessmen and tourists often visit the mountain gorge where this cafe is.

Many of the road signs in southern Turkey point to Halep, Turkish for Aleppo, the must-visit ancient city in northern Syria.

But the inscrutable and rather baby-face of Syrian terror is hardly an association Turkey wants to project to the world in election week or during EU accession talks.

The prime minister went on TV this week to reassure frightened Syrians heading across the border that it would not be closed to them.

Turkey is trying to, and has mostly succeeded in, moving away from its dark past of army coups.

After the most recent military takeover, not so long ago—in 1980—hundreds of thousands of Turks were rounded up and jailed without trial. And 50 were hanged.

The army here has always regarded itself as the custodian of Turkish secularism, as promoted by the founding father of the modern Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Now the politicians here say: “No, we are in charge.”

The last elections, in 2007, were in effect a referendum on the power of the army. The generals threatened to take over if the very Muslim Abdullah Gul became president.

The Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan held the 2007 election early, calling the army’s bluff. He won. They lost.

Abdullah Gul became president. There was no coup.

And the crackdown in Syria is an alarming disappointment to the Turkish government.

Turkey’s foreign policy has been described as “zero problems, maximum trade, with neighbours”.

Through the Levant Forum, Ankara has been promoting a free trade area with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

And Turkey has a huge trade surplus with Iraq, selling fridges, air conditioners, electric fans, food, cosmetics, chemicals, construction materials, electronics, vehicles and tyres.

Turkey is still officially trying to get into the European Union.

But enthusiasm for membership is waning. Many people I have met here over the past 10 days have told me they do not want to join.

“Too many problems,” said Ahmed, a market trader in the bazaar in the southern city of Antalya.

“Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland. We don’t want any part of that.”

There is a deep instinct for courteous behaviour here and there is immense kindness.

I have been greeted with nothing but friendly smiles everywhere I have been—town and country.

Children seem confident, happy and well-treated.

In old neighbourhoods they play in the street.

And they are friendly to strangers, which suggests they feel safe. That is priceless.

Coiffeur by sputnik 57 on Flickr.

derinkuyu underground christian city bathroom - cappadocia, turkey.

That pretty much ends the game.