Last July 22 the Republic of Turkey held an important national election, returning to power the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Recep Tayyip Erdogan that had been in power since 2002. Fourteen political parties along with some independent candidates contested the election. Seven parties gained the required 10 per cent of the total votes for proportional representation in the Grand National Assembly. Despite the restiveness of the military and the threats of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) on the border with Iraq, the elections were a good measure of the vitality of Turkey's democracy.

Whether the election results hinder or help Turkey's present complicated application to join the 27-member European Union is still anyone's guess. There are major difficulties on both sides. Europeans are having problems with millions of immigrant Turks, and a vocal minority of Turks remains unconvinced of the benefits of joining Europe.

Geographically, Turkey lies at the crossroads of Europe and Asia and represents in many ways the cradle of European civilisation. For more than 10,000 years some 13 major civilisations have occupied Anatolia and the interesting peninsula that straddles the Bosporus and borders the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the Aegean and the Mediterranean. Turkish culture and history constitute an essential dimension of European history and culture. Unfortunately in Europe, much of that history has been repressed.

The Neolithic city of Çatalhöyük, near Konya, dates from 9000 years before the birth of Christ. Other cities across the mountains and valleys of Anatolia illustrate the antiquity of urban civilisation long before Europeans emerged from caves. Before the 20th century a succession of Hattis, Hittites, Phrygians, Urartians, Lycians, Ionians, Lydians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks, and Ottomans had conquered, converted and contributed significantly to the wider history of the Mediterranean and the world. Ruins of ancient Troy, Ephesus, Pammukale, Aspendos and Perge bring to mind writings of Homer, Herodotus, and Pliny.
All the major Western religions - pagans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims - played a creative role in lands that today comprise a part of modern Turkey. It was vital to the early slave trade when the principal commodity consisted of Slavic people (hence the word slave) transported for sale in the Mesopotamian ports of the Mediterranean like Izmir, Phaselis and Antalya. Moreover, parts of the famous commercial "silk road" ran between Izmir in Asian Turkey and China.

Alexander the Great conquered the territory and his royal road still runs from Istanbul to the borders of Afghanistan.
The Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, made Christianity the state religion and moved the imperial capital from Rome to a strategic city on the western side of the Bosporus that he renamed after himself. By his death in 337 it was a magnificent city. Emperor Justinian assembled the famous Roman legal codes from Constantinople, watched chariot races from its impressive Hippodrome with the Egyptian obelisks dating more than a century before Christ.
He constructed the magnificent architectural wonder, the Hagia Sophia, which served as the primary church of Christendom for almost a millennium. One of its doors came from Tarsus, the home town of the apostle, Paul. Two years after starting the wall across Britain, the Emperor Hadrian travelled through a large portion of Turkey on his way to Egypt.

The savage Christian crusades largely destroyed the flourishing Christian cities in Turkey between the 10th and the 12th centuries but Christian communities remained until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Several of the disciples of Christ came from Turkish towns. Mary Magdalene spent her final days with the disciple John in a modest stone house in a beautiful pine grove near Izmir. Mount Ararat, revered by Christians as the landing place of Noah's Ark, is the highest point in Turkey. The New Testament mentions Ephesians, Colossians and Galatians to whom St Paul wrote letters. The fantastic Topkapi Palace in Istanbul claims to have in its treasury relics including the original staff of Moses and the footprints of Mohammed. Altogether, Turkey is an integral part of the Holy Land.

The fall of Constantinople (which was renamed Istanbul) established the Ottomans as the dominant imperial military and naval power between the fragmented states of Europe, Asia and Africa. Until the Crimean War of the mid-19th century, the principal European states all sought to make opportunistic alliances with the Ottoman Empire. In 1853 the French, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia fought Russia and Bulgaria ostensibly over protection of the Holy Land and access to the Black Sea and the Danube River. During the war, the Jamaican-born Mary Seacole and the Italian-born Englishwoman Florence Nightingale made outstanding contributions to military medical science especially in the field of nursing.

By the First World War the Ottoman Empire was rapidly disintegrating. France had taken control of Egypt. England had "borrowed" Cyprus and inspired by TE Lawrence, was agitating for the independence of most of Arabia. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina and several of the Balkan states had gained varying degrees of autonomy. At the same time a reformist group of zealous Young Turks were advocating constitutional reforms. The Allies divided the Ottoman Empire after the war, but by 1920 a nationalist revolution led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk reversed much of the results. Altogether, 40 new states were created from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey is a modern, progressive, economically viable state. Since its independence in 1923 it has been officially secular. Nevertheless, its population is almost totally Muslim. Slightly larger than the state of Texas in the USA, Turkey is one of only seven countries in the world today that adequately feeds its population of almost 72 million. All things being equal, it would be an excellent candidate for admission to the European Union.

Ironically, Turkey's population represents a major stumbling block for admission. With its predominantly Muslin population Turkey would become the second largest member after Germany. Along with Catholic Poland it could also be in a position to dictate constitutional changes within the community. That alone is enough to give Europeans pause. Race, religion and culture still present formidable obstacles to the ethnocentric and xenophobic European mind.

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