Via reader Lucrece comes the following news; ‘A U.K. committee report Friday cautioned against suspending Turkey’s talks with the European Union, despite acknowledging that the current crisis sparked by the ongoing case questioning the legitimacy of the Turkish ruling party may have extremely serious consequences.’

As most will know, the European Union has condemned the decision of Turkey’s highest court to accept a case in which the prosecutor asks for the closure of the country’s governing party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP). They responded angrily, saying that this was in breach with the principles of democracy and so on. Furthermore, the EU threatened, if the court would indeed close the Islamist AKP, the EU would suspend all talks with Turkey about its wish to become a full member of the EU.

The report of the UK committee warns the EU not to be so aggressive; it argues that Europe cannot afford to alienate Turkey. If the talks are suspended, most Turks will - the report argues - undoubtedly believe that EU countries do not want Turkey to join, simply because it’s a Muslim country.

The report ‘Keeping the door wide open: Turkey and EU accession’ released Friday by the members of the U.K. Business and Enterprise Committee following a fact-finding trip to Turkey in March, called for EU talks with Ankara to continue in good faith, while expressing concerns that negative signals recently sent out by some EU member states would reduce the political will to negotiate.

“This would be a political disaster. Whatever its domestic challenges, Turkey has been pursuing reform. The current crisis, in which its Constitutional Court is considering the legitimacy of the ruling party, is at least taking place within the framework of law, although we recognize it may have extremely serious consequences,” said the 61-page report.

That right there is incredibly important; the closure case is taking place within the framework of the law. You can, as a good friend of mine told me recently, compare it to the possible impeachment of US President when they break the law. The United States too has a Constitution that allows Congress to impeach a president, even though a majority of the American people support him.

The report further said:

“The greatest danger we see is that Turkey may come to believe that the negotiations are not being conducted in good faith, and that accession will never be possible. We believe this would be a great loss to both sides. It must be made clear that, as long as Turkey meets the requirements of the acquis communautaire, the door to EU membership remains wide open,” said Luff.

The committee report noted that Turkey’s accession process has moved far slower than Croatia’s, which opened at the same time, and said that was in part due to the need to reach agreement over Cyprus. Nevertheless, it pointed out, “the earliest accession can take place is 2014.”

“Given time these problems can and should be dealt with, but both sides must demonstrate that the will is there.”

There is only one minor problem; a majority of Turks already feel that way. The UK report should have been written two years ago. At this point in time, increasingly more Turks believe that European countries don’t want Turkey to join the EU. The reason is they - probably correctly - believe that Turkey is a Muslim country. This impression is reinforced by some of the rhetoric in EU countries such as the Netherlands and France; politicians - right-wing politicians that is - often talk about Turkey’s possible accession and bluntly say they do not wish Turkey to join because it would cause churches to be transformed into mosques, and so on.

Better late than never however; there’s still time for Europe to turn this thing around. But European countries have to stop treating Turkey like a lesser country, not truly worthy of EU-membership. As the report accurately says, the EU cannot afford to let Turkey turn its back on Europe.