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.

I'm optimistic about Turkey's prospects for reaching the E.U.'s standards of development, governance, and democracy, whether inside or outside the E.U. Provided you have a prosperous, rational society in Turkey that can interact with Europe and the West, I don't really care what kind of institutional arrangement you have. The point to make about Turkey and Europe is that it's a very long, drawn-out process. What's important is that the process not be stopped, that Turkey and Europe evolve in the right direction, on a path of convergence. Convergence is the name of the game.

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.

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".

Turkey, as an ex-imperial power, is all in favor of empires guaranteeing law and order on its borders. Turkey's and America's basic interests with regard to Iraq are identical. They both want a stable and rational Iraq that would use its considerable oil wealth in order to improve its own lot. But there doesn't seem to be very much prospect of that at the moment.

As things change in Turkey people find in religious observance a certain framework of safety, of continuity. This is quite a common phenomenon. In a strange way it's part of a democratization of society. Although religious observance seems more common these days, it's not that people who did not go to mosques have started to go to mosques. I don't know anyone in Turkey who's become a born-again Muslim. It's a question of individual choice, and it does not stop the organic secularization of Turkish society, which carries on regardless.

Turkey has had a customs union with Europe since 1996, and there's free trade in everything other than farm products and services. And Turkey has shown that it can compete. It's good at making cheap goods - household appliances, food, detergents, cheap clothes. And they make a lot of white goods, cheap TVs, washing machines, electric appliances, steel, and, recently, auto parts. And Turks are gradually moving into IT.