Madam, - Nicholas Birch's Letter from Istanbul in your edition of May 19th should serve as an alarm call for anyone still unconcerned at the prospect of Turkish membership of the EU.
In my view, what is happening in Turkey is nothing less than a systematic attempt to dismantle the secular state established by Mustapha Kemal. The ruling (and politically unassailable) AKP party has deep roots in an Islamic movement that is now banned. In an earlier life Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was a noted Islamist firebrand who was barred from standing in the general election of 2002 due to a conviction for inciting religious discord.
Nicholas Birch writes: "It is difficult to see what Turkey's secularists can do to block the AKP." EU member-states could and should be offering support to those secularists by throwing off their collective myopia on the Turkish question. The latest Eurobarometer poll reveals real public concern about Turkish membership with just 31 per cent of EU citizens in favour. As usual the European Union is just not listening, not even to the outcome of its own opinion poll.
At a stage when The Irish Times is acknowledging a "clash of civilisations" between Islam and the Western world the prospect of Turkish membership of the EU represents an approaching misadventure of enormous proportions. This is no time for misguided multiculturalism.
Those who may be inclined to view my viewpoint as "Islamophobia" need to be reminded that a phobia is an irrational fear and there is nothing irrational about seeking to ensure that the largest and most powerful state in the EU is not run by an Islamist government.
The EU Council and Commission would do well to listen to the words of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, author of the EU Constitutional Treaty, who has declared that "Turkish membership will be the end of the European Union". - Yours, etc,
CONOR O'BRIEN,
Mount Anville Park,
Dublin 14.