There was a time when Istanbul was one of the safest cities in the world, because people were afraid of the police. People are no longer as afraid of the police as they used to be. Mugging used to be almost unknown; now everybody is afraid of mugging. In that sense, the downside of liberalization is already being felt in Turkey. And of course some people are afraid of Kurdish ethno-terrorism, which worries Turks very much more than the religious sort.

Accepting Turkey as a member of the European club means that the club is open to outsiders, to Muslims, to poorer people, to developing countries, to countries with a slightly different cultural tradition but basically the same values. I think it's dangerous for the West to close the door; it doesn't do us any good and it doesn't do the rest of the world any good. Also, it reduces the danger of a "clash of civilizations".

We've seen in Europe after the recent terrorist attacks a certain retrogression in human rights. It depends on how threatened the Turks feel. For example, Turkey became much more tolerant towards Kurdish nationalists when the killing of Turkish soldiers stopped in southeastern Turkey and body bags stopped arriving. Now, since June there's been a revival of Kurdish attacks on Turkish troops - something like 150 people have been killed by terrorists supplied from and operating out of bases in northern Iraq. So Turks are feeling much less tolerant of Kurdish nationalism.

The Turkish judiciary has a very strong nationalist tradition, which is gradually changing, but only gradually. And since there was a nationalist outcry against Orhan Pamuk's remarks about Turkey's need to confront its past, I'm not surprised that one public prosecutor in an Istanbul borough should have decided to act. I don't expect the proceedings to lead to a conviction. But in any case one mustn't generalize and say that's the way Turkey behaves; it's the way one nationalist public prosecutor behaves.

Turkey's relations with its immediate neighbors are improving. They were pretty bad for a long time - with Syria they were abominable, and with Iran they were pretty bad. In both cases Turkey sees potential for trade, especially with Iran, where it gets a lot of natural gas. In good times Iran and Turkey find mutually profitable objects of exchange, but with Syria things have been very bad; Syria doesn't have much money and never will.

In recent years the military has gradually been eased out of political life in Turkey. The military budget is now subject to much more parliamentary scrutiny than before. The National Security Council, through which the military used to exercise influence over the government is now a purely consultative body. But Turkish society still sees the military as the guarantor of law and order. The army is trusted, held in high regard - though not by dissident liberals. When things go wrong, people expect the military to intervene, as they've intervened over and over again in Turkish history.

In Turkey religion not only affects society but is affected by it, which is why Turkish Islam differs from Arab Islam. It's a more modern, more rational, more self-confident society.