In recent years however, Turkey has withdrawn from the modernization begun by Kemal Ataturk and moved more into the Islamist camp with the election of a religious party to run the government in 2002.
As a result of the retro political changes in Turkey, Europe has gradually grown unenthusiastic about that country's joining the EU (although Obama thinks it's a swell idea).
Somehow, Prime Minister Erdogan doesn't appear interested in his country joining the EU, judging by recent remarks of a hostile nature.
Erdogan urges German Turks not to integrate, The Local, March 17, 2010What if Europeans don't want to be injected with Turkish culture? Apparently Islam is to be forced upon them, according to Erdogan as he follows the Islam script.At the meeting last month, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Turks living in foreign countries to take out citizenship of the new homelands — not to integrate, but rather to become more politically active, according to the website of news magazine Der Spiegel.
Ali Ertan Toprak, deputy chairman of the Alevi community in Germany, told the magazine government representatives had said: "We have to inject European culture with Turkish."
Erdogan told the meeting countries that did not allow dual citizenship violated basic rights and also likened Islamophobia to anti-Semitism.Turks might want to stay home if they are so deeply attached to their unique culture. Europeans and other civilized people don't care much for Turkish immigrants importing honor killings and totalitarian "religion."Participants told Spiegel that Erdogan repeated elements of his widely criticised speech in Cologne in 2008 in which he said: "Assimilation is a crime against humanity."
And anyway, immigration without assimilation is invasion.