Continental Divide

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Kemal kerincsiz has a formidable intelligence. At Istanbul's top law school, he graduated with the best grades ever; now he is applying his smarts to a different cause. He is fighting to stop his motherland from joining the European Union. Kerinçsiz's strategy is simple: to try to block the reforms that the E.U. is imposing by rallying Turkish nationalists to his cause. Late last month, by seeking a last-minute injunction, he almost succeeded in shutting down a conference on the mass killings of Armenians in 1915, one of the most brutal episodes in Turkish history, and one which has never been officially acknowledged by a Turkish government. The conference went ahead following the personal intervention of the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan — and sparked protests widely interpreted in Western media as evidence of Turkey's un-European behavior. But un-European is something Kerinçsiz is proud to be. "History taught us that we cannot trust these Europeans," the lawyer, 42, told Time. "Look at what happened in 1920: they divided up the Ottoman Empire, even though they had pledged not to do that. People call us paranoid, but we're not."

The mistrust is mutual. Since the E.U. officially invited Turkey to start talks last December, European misgivings have deepened. Last week, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel tried to insist on a last-minute change to the terms of the negotiations to allow for less than full E.U. membership. Much now hangs in the balance. Erdogan's political survival depends on talks going smoothly; if they fail or encounter unexpected resistance, nationalists will gain at his expense prior to elections in 2007. A new nationalist government would be less friendly to Europe. And many believe that turning Turkey away would send a dangerous signal to the Islamic world. "We cannot afford to get this wrong," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said last month. The alternative of finding ways to bridge West and East "is too terrible to contemplate."

But there are real concerns in Western Europe over the wisdom of welcoming into the E.U. a mostly Muslim nation of 70 million people. A recent opinion poll by the Washington-based Pew Research Center found that nearly two-thirds of French and Germans are opposed to Turkey joining the E.U. The unease in Europe plays into the hands of Kerinçsiz and other opponents of membership by making it harder to sell unpopular reforms. "The rise of nationalism in Turkey has a lot to do with Turkey's internal dynamics, but it is being compounded by the E.U.'s attitude," says Hakan Altinay, head of the Open Society Institute in Turkey. "We are being exposed to the pettiest side of the E.U."