THREE and a half weeks to go and Britain’s attempt to get Turkey into the European Union is looking a bit more hopeful than it did last week. But this battle, which has suddenly flared up to dominate Britain’s six-month presidency of the EU, is far from won.

Even if Britain succeeds in getting talks started by the target date of October 3, it then faces a long struggle to win support for Turkey’s actual membership, a policy that seems less popular by the day.

Jack Straw offered pragmatism yesterday about how he would win this month’s fight, and a passionate defence of the principles involved. In the next few weeks the EU should sidestep the row about Turkey’s refusal to recognise Cyprus and let talks start as planned on October 3, the Foreign Secretary said, speaking at the Institute of Public Policy Research.

But Britain may yet have to call an emergency EU meeting to try to get a deal. “If necessary, we will,” he said.

When Britain took on the EU presidency, the Turkish talks looked to be an opportunity for glory — for consolidating a British vision of Europe. But the row could yet make the presidency seem a failure.

The are three reasons why it has boiled up now. Its roots lie in the French and Dutch rejection of the EU Constitution earlier this summer. That seemed to show “enlargement fatigue” — voters’ distaste for ever-widening EU borders.

Playing to those fears, the German opposition has said that it objects to full Turkish membership. Angela Merkel, the centre-Right favourite to win elections on September 18, has said that she wants Turkey to have only a “privileged partnership” — a glorified trading deal.

Finally, in the past fortnight Turkey itself threw a spanner in the works. It signed a deal extending an EU customs union to Cyprus and nine of the other countries that joined the EU in 2004 — but added a note saying that did not recognise the Cypriot Government. This upset Cyprus, among others, including France. This was Straw’s retort:

And beyond? Straw’s pitch mixes a history lesson with an appeal to generosity — and to fear. “The land which is now Turkey has been a part of European history for centuries”. For 50 years Turkey has been signing deals with NATO, the EU and the EU’s predecessors.

“By welcoming Turkey we will demonstrate that Western and Islamic cultures can thrive together as partners in the modern world”, he argues, adding that “the alternative is too terrible to contemplate”.

His pitch to governments this month may be easier than that to voters in the years to come. At the moment, Cyprus, France and Austria are opposed to the talks. Germany may be, if Merkel wins. Britain’s hope is that, in practice, she will not overturn settled policy.

British officials and Western European diplomats are still hopeful of a deal by October 3. The row helpfully remains separate from other controversies such as farm income, they say. Straw argues “we normally get agreement in the end”, even if at the eleventh hour.

But if talks do begin, the problems for EU governments are only starting — they will then have to convince voters (though only France has said that it might hold a referendum on Turkish entry). A poll this week from the German Marshall Fund found little support. In nine EU countries it found 29 per cent opposed, 42 per cent undecided and 22 per cent in favour. In Germany only 15 per cent backed Turkish entry, 11 per cent in France.

Straw argues that this is not genuine “enlargement fatigue”. “In some countries, the prospect of Turkey’s membership has turned into a lightning rod for what I see as other discontents,” he said. But that is a dangerous assumption. He may be right — or people may simply not want Turkey in.

If Straw wins the battle of October 3, he will have the luxury of years to test his theory and convert those voters.

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