Two jobs for the Turks

This week, the new Turkish parliament convenes for the first time since the July 22 election.

Its first job is to elect a speaker, a less daunting task than the challenge of electing a president. Some are suggesting that Prime Minister Tayyap Erdogan, buoyed by a ringing endorsement at the polls, will proffer Abdullah Gul for the top job again. 

Erdogan will also be parading his new ministers and his programme to parliament.

Aside from questions about how moderate and technocratic his team will be, and whether he will make good on the conciliatory noises he has made since the election, Erdogan's triumph still leaves secular Turks divided about him and his AKP party. 

For many, the AKP still has a disturbingly Islamist character and agenda -- even if tempered by realpolitik. Thus, it is seen to present a much greater threat than its more overtly Islamist, but less electorally successful, predecessors and rivals.  For others, the AKP represents the only credible voice of the centre-right, which has dominated most parliaments since 1950. Its secularist opponents are divided, out of touch and offer a unpalatable diet of nationalist and secularist slogans.

In many ways the debate echoes the ongoing controversy within the EU about Turkey. 

Is it better to admit a pro-Western, economically successful, moderate Muslim country into the EU in order to act as a beau ideal for less friendly and successful Muslim countries? 

Or is Turkey fundamentally alien to the EU and to be kept out in the cold at all costs?