When geologists warned that the March 2010 earthquake in Turkey was a reminder that the "Big One" could yet devastate Istanbul, it seemed to be almost a footnote to file away as the country faced more immediate troubles.

From the economy to domestic and bilateral political issues, the government in Ankara is having a torrid time of it. While the financial and economic crisis has been far from catastrophic in Turkey, with the economic fundamentals suggesting that the country is poised for growth this year, there continued to be some areas for concern.

Official figures from the Turkish statistical institute put inflation in February 2010 at 10.1 per cent, up from 8.2 per cent the previous month and a high figure in relation to the European Union bloc which Turkey aspires to join, while – naturally, as a result of economic recovery stimulating demand for imports – the country’s current account deficit increased in January for the third consecutive year, to a reported $2.96 billion.

Turkey’s government did, however, show the confidence to bring to an end the long-standing question of whether it would borrow from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
After two years, prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that discussions with the IMF had been terminated, and said that the IMF had agreed that Turkey had no need of a new standby loan agreement.

Ali Babacan, Turkey’s deputy prime minister and economy minister, said that the country would be going ahead with its own economic programme. He confirmed that Turkey and the IMF would meet in May for their annual consultations.

EU aspirations
Few in Ankara could not be mindful of Turkey’s aspirations for EU membership. Negotiations opened in 2005 and were an issue in the 2009 elections for the European Parliament, with president Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris and German chancellor Angela Merkel indicating that they were prepared to offer nothing more substantial than a diluted association agreement rather than fully-fledged EU membership.

Reportedly, Merkel will meet Turkish leaders at the end of March but against the background of recent developments, it seems unlikely that Berlin will suddenly unleash new enthusiasm for seeing Turkey join the bloc.

In February, the European Parliament adopted a progress report on Turkey that said that in 2009, the country had shown only limited advancement on concrete reforms.
Several of the reservations in the report had to do with domestic political issues such as the court ruling shutting down the Democratic Society Party for favouring Kurdish militants; more profoundly, the report made clear that the EU wants to see Turkey doing much more towards a resolution of the Cyprus issue.

Outside the rarified debates of the European Parliament, there were much more dramatic developments as Turkey arrested and charged military officers, alleging that they had been involved in what Ankara said had been an "Operation Sledgehammer" plot to open the way for a coup through staging episodes such as the bombing of mosques and provocations in the long-standing dispute with Greece over air space.

The arrests were reminiscent of the detentions of a range of figures, including former senior military officers, in the Ergenekon coup plot. Underlying the tensions around the military are a number of factors, not least steps by Erdogan in recent years to diminish the traditional power of the military in domestic politics.

For at least some in the EU, a protracted saga involving a power struggle with the military is stuff far too heady for an aspirant member; on the other hand, there are those – in Athens and Nicosia – who would prefer to see Turkey as an EU member, if only because this could provide some mechanism to keep Turkey playing by an agreed set of rules.

Which brings us to Greece (and leaving aside any ironies about Athens and euro-rules) with which relations have long been troubled. The issues are well-known: Cyprus, air space; even though the two have tended to put aside their differences when faced with crises such as earthquakes.

During his recent visit to Washington, Greek prime minister George Papandreou said that he would be meeting Erdogan in the next few months: "I hope that this meeting will also signify and symbolise a renewal of our rapprochement," Papandreou, who is also his country’s foreign minister, said.

Papandreou said that he hoped that Greek-Turkish relations and Cyprus would become "a model of stability and peace". There was much more potential when the countries worked together rather than at odds.

Turkey and Israel
Relations between Turkey and Israel have gone downhill of late, a long way from when, in years past, Ankara played a role in quiet diplomacy. Turkey has been increasingly strident in its criticism, from its fiercely anti-Israel statements after Operation Cast Lead – which led Israel to say that Turkey was disqualifying itself from any role in helping negotiations – to Ankara’s more recent condemnation of the extension of settlements in east Jerusalem.

The patching up of a row in January, after Turkish television showed a programme that portrayed Israeli military personnel as murderers of children and the elderly, came after another spike in tensions towards the end of 2009 when Erdogan described Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a vitriolic hater of Israel, as "our friend".

The occurrence of such rows with increasing regularity and the harsher language being used against Israel by Turkey also saw the US-based Anti-Defamation League urging Ankara to rein in worsening anti-Semitism in Turkey.