1. "Jyllands-Posten (Danimarka)" gazetesinin 19 Şubat 1999 tarihli nüshasında "Türkiye'nin gerçeği" başlığı altında yayımlanan başmakalenin İngilizce çevirisi ikinci maddede sunulmaktadır.

2. Between the EU and Turkey there has in recent years arisen a disheartening development, primarily caused by the wish of an officious left wing to profile itself at the cost of a country which-inexplicably and treacherously in the view of this wing-prefers non-socialist democracy but cannot yet honour all the quality demands of the West.

That the explanation of the imperfection might be rooted in the Turkish history and the Muslim tradition as well as in the country's unfortunate position between Arab and communist dictatorships, even responsible governments chose to ignore. 

The situation deteriorated when Turkey's untiring critics saw their chance - precisely like they earlier saw it in Cambodia, Cuba and Nicaragua- in a rebellion organized by Abdullah Öcalan, the now imprisoned boss of the Kurdish Labour Party (PKK), and Maoistic-inspired, Syrian-paid terror machine.

To Turkey the optics are different. There is no war between Turks and Kurds, and in Turkey there are no mentionable traces of a wish for a Kurdish State. On the contrary, a war is going on between the army and PKK's armed gangs whose clear task is to destroy the only secular democracy in The Middle East.

In step with the fact that the EU countries let themselves be influenced by loud-mouthed extremists, their prestige and influence disappeared in Turkey. Even democratic circles in Istanbul are now viewing Europe with distrust and are accusing her of distorting the relations between Turks and Kurds and o refusing Turkey accession to The European Union, a kind of prolongation of the Crusades mentality so too speak.

The idea of the official Europe was naturally not that they wanted to disassociate themselves from 65 million people, a fast growing economy and an enormous country situated on the strategically important bridge between Asia, Africa and Europe. But this was the outcome. The unofficial agenda gained ground because the European Governments, including the Danish, acted hesitatingly and unwise.

Maybe the left-wing's naivists and squallers should be ignored for a period and efforts should be made to concentrate on the Turkish reality, which is that the Turkish democracy functions, that Turks and Kurds generally live excellently together, that far more than a hundred Kurds are Members of the Turkish Parliament and that the state on behalf of its total population has both the right and the duty to defend itself - latest manifested in the arrest of Öcalan, followed by the military's incursion in Northern Iraq, a region which is outside the control of the Baghdad rule, and where PKK has a series of bases.

Such an initial position prior to the coming trial of Öcalan might remedy rather a lot of unnecessarily tense European-Turkish relations.