Recep Tayyip Erdogan: 'Taking part in the EU will bring harmony of civilisations - it is the project of the century'

The Monday Interview: Prime Minister of Turkey

The opening of Istanbul's new modern art museum may not seem the obvious place for Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to talk about his country's European Union ambitions, but the venue has been chosen to make a point.

Mr Erdogan, 50, leads an Islamic-rooted political party and once served a prison sentence for reciting a religious verse but this week he needs to project an image of his country similar to that of the pristine new Istanbul Modern gallery: progressive, western-leaning and, above all, European.

Europe's leaders will decide on Thursday whether to set a date to start EU membership negotiations with Ankara, and preparations for the summit are marked by tension. But in an airy, whitewashed hall on Saturday, upstairs and away from the crowds thronging the building for a reception, Mr Erdogan is showing no signs of stress even though he has recently returned from a hectic round of meetings in Brussels.

Mr Erdogan knows his strongest card is that a failure to start talks would send a negative signal to the Islamic world - something that Europe is desperate to avoid. Speaking through an interpreter, he says that with Turkish accession "we will be contributing to the reconciliation of civilisations and the EU will prove that it is not a Christian club".

Just as Tony Blair sees Britain linking Europe and the US, Mr Erdogan sees Turkey as the answer to the clash of civilisations, a theory advanced by Samuel Huntingdon, a Harvard University professor.

Mr Erdogan takes such a prospect seriously. "Huntingdon declares that there might be a conflict of civilisations. Turkey is a catalyst to make sure we have harmony of civilisations. It is a bridge between the Islamic world and the rest of the world," he says.

"[To have] a country like Turkey, where the cultures of Islam and democracy have merged together, taking part in such an institution as the EU, will bring harmony of civilisations. That is why we think it is the project of the century. We are there as a guarantee of an entente between the civilisations. The countries that want to exclude us from Europe are not playing their roles in history.

"If Turkey is not taken in then everyone will have to continue with the status quo. This is a danger we have right now." It is more than 40 years since Turkey's first attempt to join the western European club and few would have foreseen Mr Erdogan as the man to lead the country into EU negotiations.

His father was a coastguard in Rize, a town on Turkey's Black Sea coast. He was 13 when the family moved to Istanbul and as a teenager sold lemonade and sesame buns on the street to earn extra cash.

A career as a professional footballer gave way to one as an administrator. But as a devout Muslim who does not drink or smoke, he has been in conflict with the secular Turkish state. In 1980, Mr Erdogan (by then a member of the Islamic National Salvation Party) had to quit a transport authority job after refusing to shave his moustache, a symbol of piety.

Having made his name as Mayor of Istanbul (his administration banned alcohol in city cafes) he was jailed in 1998 for publicly reading an Islamic poem that declared: the "mosques are our barracks". Tens of thousands of supporters escorted him to prison where he served four months of a 10-month sentence.

As premier, he avoids issues such as the ban on women wearing headscarves in official buildings; his wife, who wears a headscarf, does not attend formal functions and his daughters are educated abroad. But Turkey's EU membership prospects were nearly derailed this year when Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) unsuccessfully tried to criminalise adultery.

Mr Erdogan insists he is no fanatic. "I am Muslim, I am Turkish, I am a democrat and my government is a secular government," he says. "Everything else that you hear is speculation. I have proved this during four-and-a-half years of my mayorship in this city. I have proved it in the two years of my prime ministership. My agenda is clear, it is transparent."

Negotiations with Turkey on EU membership will take at least a decade but this week's decision is a turning point because no country that has begun accession talks has ever been denied. However Turkey, with its geographical position straddling two continents, its large Muslim population and its relative poverty, would change the EU fundamentally.

With immigration a hot issue, public opinion in Germany, France and Austria is hostile to Turkish membership. Projections show that, by 2025, Turkey would be the EU's most populous country, and so would have the largest vote under the proposed EU constitution.

Given all that, Austria is pressing for the summit text to include an alternative to EU membership for Turkey, a "privileged partnership".

France, the biggest hitter among the sceptics, says it wants a declaration that negotiations are open-ended. Though Paris supports the objective of Turkish membership, it wants recognition that failure of negotiations might lead to some sort of unspecified alternative relationship - Paris does not use the term "privileged partnership". Michel Barnier, its Foreign Minister, refers to a "third way".

Some nations want to soothe domestic anxieties about immigration by having the right to bar Turkish workers from their labour markets indefinitely. The current summit draft text says that might be considered.

And Cyprus, which joined the EU as a Greek-Cypriot entity earlier this year, is pressing Turkey to recognise its existence. The draft does not go that far but suggests implicit recognition by asking the Turks to extend a customs union to "the 10 new member states".

Calmly, Mr Erdogan stakes out Turkey's position, in an unemotional voice. He cites the European Commission advice that Turkey, which once had a poor record on human rights abuses including torture and discrimination against minorities, has made rapid progress. Ankara had, it said, met enough of the "Copenhagen criteria" on human rights to begin talks.

Mr Erdogan argues: "I am a statesman. I am not gambling here. I'm conducting politics. Certain criteria have been put on the table for us and Turkey has fulfilled all of those criteria.

"When the European Commission has announced that Turkey has fulfilled the criteria, Turkey has done her homework. Now we want our European colleagues to pass the examination successfully."

He rejects the idea of "privileged partnership" as "a status that does not exist in the EU", adding: "Turkey is a country whose candidature was accepted at the summit of Helsinki [in 1999]. Twenty-five countries, and now some more, have not had to deal with this status of privileged partnership, therefore we cannot accept it for Turkey."

But having staked so much on starting EU membership talks, can Turkey really say "no", even to tough terms? Mr Erdogan does not answer the question directly but lays out what he needs from the deal, hinting he will be unable to sign up to anything less.

"We are expecting four important things," he says. "One is unconditional full membership talks. Two is having the exact date of the start of negotiations without having the need to have a second meeting to get that.

"Three and four go together: no political criteria that are not included in the Copenhagen political criteria should be pressed upon Turkey. These are permanent limitations [on areas such as the free movement of workers], [recognition of] Cyprus, other things. There can be some temporary limitations [on workers] but having permanent limitations is against the [EU law]."

Turkey is particularly sensitive to pressure over Cyprus since it was the Greek Cypriots who voted earlier this year against a plan to reunite the island proposed by the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan.

Mr Erdogan argues: "The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has already said 'yes' to the Annan plan and this was the desire of the EU countries. However, southern Cypriots have said 'no' to the demands of the EU and voted against the Annan plan. And the southern Cypriots, with their border problems, have been included within the EU. Bringing the Cyprus issue as a pre-requisite for European Union negotiations for Turkey is a major mistake."

The Turkish premier adds: "It is not possible for us to accept any pressure on any issue that is not included in the Copenhagen political criteria. We are not coming out with any conditions, we are just expressing our outrage at the extraordinary conditions that are being used to try to pressure us. The rules of the game should not be changed while the game is going on."

But behind the tough rhetoric are signs that the Turks are ready to accept some compromise. Asked specifically whether he can accept extension of the customs union to Cyprus, Mr Erdogan replies: "Our guys are working on that, analysing it."

And he seems resigned to open-ended negotiations. He says he does not want a form of words suggesting talks will fail, after all "if you want to make an investment you expect a result". But he concedes that membership of the EU will not automatically be the result of the negotiations. "If perhaps we do certain things our European friends can say 'we are stopping negotiations'. Perhaps Turkey could do the same thing."

In a recent speech the former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing argued against Turkish membership of the EU, pointing out that only 5 per cent of the country's territory and 8 per cent of its population live in Europe, the rest being in Asia.

So does Turkey belong in the EU? Mr Erdogan smiles: "During the last days of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey was called the sick man of Europe, never the sick man of Asia. We were Europeans even at our worst."

Then it is downstairs to the museum inauguration, where Mr Erdogan sweeps up to the podium and declares that, in both politics and the arts, "Turkey is entering a completely new era". So, barring hitches, is the EU.

THE CV

Born Rize, on Turkey's Black Sea coast, in 1954

Education Marmara University College of Business

Career Became Mayor of Istanbul in 1994; served four months in prison for inciting religious hatred and was banned from holding public office for life in 1998; became Prime Minister when the ban was lifted after his Justice and Development Party won a majority in the Turkish Parliament in 2002