ABSTRACT
Introduction For both the EU and Turkey, security considerations have played an important part in their policy formulation vis-à-vis each other (Cremasco, 1990; Kuniholm, 1991; Karpat, 1995; Sezer, 1997; Muftuler-Bac, 2000; Bilgin, 2003; Oguzlu, 2003). During the Cold War era, Turkey’s foreign policy was, to a large extent, shaped by the fear of the Communist threat coming from the Soviet Union. In those days, it was the Soviet threats and territorial claim from Turkey in the eve of the Second World War that compelled Turkey to join all kinds of organizations in the Western bloc during the Cold War era (Aybak, 1995; Calis, 1996; Ugur 1999). Turkey saw all these Western organizations as the epitome of its commitment to the emerging Western alliance. From this perspective, she applied for associate membership of the EU. After the end of the Cold War, security factors have remained a significant part of EU-Turkey relations; in fact, Turkey’s security assets have not only amounted to solid grounds for the EU to make an effort to maintain closer relations with Turkey, but also it has provided a strong argument for Turkey to make her membership more acceptable to the EU (Redmond, 1993; Lesser, 1993; Tashan, 1996; Muftuler, 2000; Eralp, 2000b; Kramer 2000; Larabbee and Lesser, 2003; Bagci and Kardas 2003).
