HOURS AFTER Tony Blair left Washington, after a surprisingly productive family visit in which indigent Africans pocketed almost as much American cash as did Cherie, President Bush entertained another visitor at the White House.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan lacks Mr Blair’s star quality. The Turkish Prime Minister is the kind of man who can empty a room simply by entering it. His wife commands no fees on the Destitute Housewives circuit. The weight of his country’s past sits uncomfortably on Mr Erdogan’s sloping shoulders. He is to Suleiman the Magnificent what John Major was to Henry V. His visit went duly unremarked in the Blairs’ vapour trail.

But the leadership shortcomings of this rather vapid prime minister should not obscure the importance of his country. For centuries Turkey has been the pivotal nation in the Eurasian landmass. In the Cold War it was a vital block on Soviet ambitions towards the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

Post-9/11 it became even more central to American and Western aims. As the one real example of a functioning democracy whose inhabitants happened to be Muslim, it was, if not a model, then, in the words of its own leaders, an “ inspiration” for the rest of the Islamic world. If we could get the likes of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia to construct political systems that were half as democratic and pluralist as Turkey’s, we would be well on the way to snuffing out the hate-filled ideologies of Middle Eastern tyranny.

This inspirational vision for Turkey was what has helped to drive the EU towards extending, albeit reluctantly, the prospect of membership to the Turks. The US too, has worked hard to persuade Turkey to stay in the modern c it has been a happy recipient of US assistance, and an unusually generous IMF programme in 2001.

But the terrible truth is that we are steadily losing Turkey. The Turkey rejectionists in France and the rest of Europe are rising just as American irritation with Turkey is reaching dangerous new heights. And all of this is taking place as developments at home in this great teeming country of 70 million people are pushing Turkey away from a Western embrace.

Joining the EU and continuing Nato membership remain the avowed policies of the Erdogan Government, but the fire is steadily going out. Instead, feeling unloved in Brussels and Washington, and under growing pressure at home from those who favour Islamic solidarity over Western alliances, the leadership is looking elsewhere.

In some ways you can’t blame the Turks. For years they have been told to get their house in order if they want to belong to a rich Western club: entrench their fledgling democracy with civilising laws and legal codes; withdraw the military from public life; be nice to the Greek Cypriots; promote economic liberalisation.

They have met these demands more than halfway. They have abolished the death penalty and subjected themselves to the post-modern interventions of the European Court. The military has been escorted politely to the sidelines of political activity. The Government has made hitherto unthinkable concessions on Cyprus. Their economy has, since the last crisis of 2001, been among the zippiest in Europe, with growth of about 9 per cent annually. In short, the Sick Man of Europe is up and about, and performing acrobatic feats to demonstrate its fitness to be a true European.

But the rewards do not seem forthcoming. French voters last month extended a Gallic middle finger to the prospect of Turkish EU membership. In Germany, a new government likely to take office this autumn will add the index finger to make it a full European V sign. Though accession negotiations will presumably start on October 3, no one seems to think they are likely to proceed quickly to EU membership.

Relations with the US are no better. The Bush Administration still blames the Erdogan Government for failing to get Turkish parliamentary support to help in the invasion of Iraq two years ago. The Turks are deeply unhappy that the PKK, the Kurdish terrorist group, is intensifying its campaign against the Turkish military with apparent impunity, or (in a conspiracy-theory-rich country) even with American connivance, from inside US-patrolled Iraq.

Ugly strains are developing in domestic politics. Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, elected three years ago, is a conservative religious party, dedicated to easing the tight controls that separate religion and the state. There is no immediate threat to Turkey’s longstanding secularist constitutional approach, but there are ominous developments Anti-Semitism is spreading; Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion both sell well. The country’s religious leaders have taken to excoriating Christian missionaries for their supposedly political campaign to undermine Turkey by proselytising, even though, by the Government’s own estimate, this missionary campaign has succeeded in converting precisely 368 Turks in the past five years.

Increasingly, Turkey is looking east and south. The country has for neighbours some of the nastiest regimes on earth. But Mr Erdogan has recently visited Bashar Assad, of Syria, and his country is maintaining warm relations with Iran. Turkish officials talk about a foreign policy built on “strategic depth”, code for a reorientation of policy from the West towards the Muslim world, the Caucasus and even Russia.

Turkey is not lost. Not yet. But the needle on the country’s geopolitical compass has shifted sharply in the past few years. Its foreign-policy thinkers are aware that their country’s geostrategic significance is no less than it was in the post-Second World War world. They are starting to explore some of the opportunities it represents. For Europe and America, who strove hard to keep Turkey in the right camp throughout the Cold War, that ought to be worrisome news.

gerard.baker@thetimes.co.uk

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