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another members goods. If Turkey finally met an official status of EU member state, Turkey can definitely establish the more intense trade relations with EU
member states either bilaterally or multilaterally, and this will certainly be a great advantage for Turkey.
2. The Stability of Domestic Politics
The number of Turkish people who still support Turkey to join the European Union is still more than those who refused even though the figure is
always down in the recent years. Most of those supporters of the accession must also be supporting the Turkish government under Erdogan and his party. Erdogan
used to be a very conservative leader and wanted Islam replace the ideology of secular in Turkey.
214
By that reason, the secular Turkish military hated him and finally toppled him down from his position as the mayor of Istanbul and arrested
him in prison in 1999. Erdogan was arrested for only 4 months because he showed good behavior and manners. After his release, Erdogan returned to the political
field with a more mature strategy. He returned to politics with a more moderate views.
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This moderate view is needed to be implemented by Erdogan to lead Turkey that is still dominated by secular ideology. Erdogan and his ruling party AK
Party need to deal with the willingness of majority in forming any policies. Thus they need to keep maintaining the Turkish accession in Europe. If Erdogan
withdrew the application from the European Integration, most of the supporters of the accession must be turned away from Erdogan and his party, and consequently
214
Tom Lastnit, Rejeb Tayyib Erdogan , Cina: Chelsea House Publisher‟s, 2005, p: 76-77
215
Ibid, p: 87
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the existence of the AKP and Erdogans party would be threatened in the Turkish government. In addition, the opposition party like The Republican Peoples
Party Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP would act against that policy because they
have historically represented the pro-Western side in favour of both the EU process it self and of Turkey becoming a part of the Western countries.
216
Then it would cause a collapse in Turkish domestic politics if PM Erdogan tried to stop
the Turkish accession. Upon that consideration, the PM Erdogan decided to maintain the accession in the European Union in order to keep the political
stability in the domestic of Turkey and also keep the majority votes to keep their sympathetic to him Erdogan and also his party.
3. European Status
