Opinion: Is Turkey coming in from the cold in Europe?

Soner Cagaptay, Special to CNN

 

Is the EU is ready to hold its nose in dealing with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's authoritarian administration?

(CNN)Turkey is facing the largest wave of terror attacks in its history -- in the past six months alone, the country has been hit by five deadly attacks. 

Islamic State (IS) has targeted Istanbul twice and Ankara once since October 2015, killing at least 120 people, and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has hit the Turkish capital Ankara twice, killing at least 65 people.

How Europe responds to the crisis facing Turkey could be crucial to the country's future -- as well as Europe's.

The only silver lining for Turkey at the moment is the reopening of the country's European Union (EU) accession talks. 

Although Turkey and the EU entered into membership negotiations in 2005, the country's membership process came to a halt soon after.

Recently, though, Turkish-EU ties have taken on new life. In December 2015, Ankara and Brussels opened a new chapter in accession talks covering monetary policy, and earlier this month the two reached a deal on a plan for handling refugees.

This is because Brussels realizes that it needs Turkey's help with the refugee crisis threatening to break the EU at its seams. Turkey is a frontline state in the refugee crisis, and the EU needs Turkish cooperation.

Accordingly, talks have restarted and the EU is ready to hold its nose in dealing with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's authoritarian administration.

Why Europe has a bigger terror problem than the U.S.

Benefits to both

Turkey has its own reasons to get back on track with the EU.

In 2005, soon after membership talks commenced, Erdogan's government put EU accession on the backburner, declaring 2005 the "Year of Africa" in foreign policy in a clear snub to Brussels, and then pivoting Turkish foreign policy to the Middle East.

As Turkey turned away from Europe and towards Erdogan's foreign policy dream of marching into the Middle East to become a regional star in the last decade, the public pivoted away from Europe with him.

Opinion polls conducted by the German Marshall Fund (GMF) show that whereas 73% of Turks were in favor of joining the EU in 2004, in 2010, this number had dropped to 38.

And then the Arab Spring took root at Turkey's doorstep and emboldened Ankara to throw its support behind anti-Assad rebels in Syria to oust the Assad regime on its own.

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