Turkey bows for Denmark

Turkey is jeopardising its chances to become an EU-member by demanding an apology from the Danish goverment over the publication of the Moh-toons in Jyllands-posten. Namik Tan, official spokesman of Abdullah Gül, foreign minister of Turkey demanded an apology from the Danes.

"The spokesman of the Liberal ruling party, Jens Rohde, condemns the statement, saying that this will only make it more difficult for Turkey to act as a mediator and it will not be helpful if they want to be accepted into the EU.

"The Danish government can under no circumstances apologize for the actions of a private newspaper," Jens Rohde is quoted as saying to Ritzau.

"This doesn’t exactly make them more qualified to be mediators - nor does it help them qualify to be members of the EU, to be frank," Jens Rohde says of the Turkish statement."

The Turks are now denying (Turkish) that they asked for an apology.

This makes something obvious. Turkey is run by the Prosperity Party, the most religious party in power in the history of the Kemalist republic. This government came to power in 2002. If this very religious party does not demand apologies for the cartoons, for fear of losing something then the status of the Mohammed Cartoons in Islam is less offending than many Muslims spokesmen have insisted it is. It also shows that standing up to Muslims make pays.

Why do the Danes stand up to the Muslims and other goverments do not? An important factor is the very strict and limiting Danish immigration policy. Fewer Muslims are entering Denmark. So standing up to the Muslims is less of a risk for Rasmussen than for Blair whose country is still being flooded by Muslim immigrants. So it shows, that just strongly limiting immigration, increases the political freedom of Western peoples.