TURKEY: Turkey's stock market hit an all-time high and the press celebrated victory yesterday, hours after Ankara received the go-ahead for European Union accession talks it has coveted for more than 40 years.
However, on the streets of Istanbul there was little jubilation.
"Everybody's talking as though Turkey has joined the EU," said shopkeeper Yunus Hakeri. "As far as I can see, the Europeans don't want us, and sooner or later they'll find an excuse to keep us out."
"I guess you can call it a victory," agreed Elmas Alabeyoglu, a housewife out shopping for the feast which precedes the holy month of Ramadan, due to start tomorrow. "But my pride has certainly been dented."
Like many Turks, she declares herself shocked by the intensity of European hostility to Turkish membership.
Due to take place on Monday afternoon in Luxembourg, the ceremony marking the start of Turkish accession proceedings was delayed until the early hours of yesterday while diplomats haggled over the details of the document framing negotiations.
Back in Turkey this afternoon, foreign minister Abdullah Gul gave little hint of the tensions of the day before, describing his country's date as "a historic event for the whole world."
But he did admit that "the road to full EU membership is not a tarmac road."
With polls showing a slump in Turkish support for membership from 70 per cent last year to under 60 per cent now, opposition parties were quick to accuse the government of humiliating itself.
"Turkey is being pushed towards a special relationship, not full membership", parliamentary opposition leader Deniz Baykal said.
It's a view disputed by Turkish analysts. The negotiating framework makes no mention of Austrian demands that Turkey's accession proceedings could end in something less than full membership.
The United States government intervened in an apparent effort to assure Turkey that EU demands that it accept "common" EU policies did not mean it would have to allow Cyprus, which it does not recognise, into Nato.
"There is no doubt in my mind that this is a framework Turkey can work with relatively easily," former Turkish foreign minister Emre Gonensay told the private television station CNN-Turk yesterday.
But he added that Cyprus, divided since the Turkish invasion of 1974, represented the biggest potential obstacle to Turkish progress.
With French politicians reaffirming their intention to call a referendum on Turkish membership when the time comes, Turkey is also faced with the problem of the lack of European support for its bid.
Only 22 per cent of Europeans surveyed by the German Marshall Fund this July said they thought Turkish membership would be a good thing for the EU.
Mr Gul expressed the conviction that negative impressions would change. "Just three years ago, Turkey was in the midst of the biggest economic crisis in its history," he said.
"Since then it has grown by 30 per cent. I believe that within five or six years Europe will realise the benefits Turkey can bring it."
European commissioner for enlargement Olli Rehn is due in Ankara next month to begin the process of bringing Turkey into line with European law.
It will mark the start of a transformation of the country far more radical than that triggered by the EU's decision in 1999 to accept Turkey as a candidate for accession.