Turkish Republic's goverments European Unity politicials, 1983-2004.

The relations between Turkey and EU, which was denominated as AET at that time, started in 1959 when Turkey applied for membership. At the very beginning, Turkey demanded to be a member of the community with political expectations more than economic ones; but with the economic growth of member countries, Turkey became more enthusiastic about it. Although CHP, which was led by İsmet İnönü at that time, signed a partnership treaty which covered membership terms, the anticipated progress in affairs couldn?t be achieved. In 1970s, Turkey wasn?t able to struggle to become a member as it was engaged with terrorism and economic problems. Relations between Turkey and the Community come to a virtual freeze following the military coup d'etat on 12 September 1980 but after the parliamentary elections in 1983, Anavatan Party came into power which resumed negotiations.It was this period when Turkey started to develop a more scheduled relations with the community. Anavatan Party applied to get full EEC membership in 1987 which made the situation irreversible as every government that came into power tried hard to make a further progress about the membership. For instance, in the first half of 1990?s Doğruyol Party signed Customs Union, Anavatan Party enacted adjustment laws in the second half of 1990?s. At the beginning of 21st century, in spite of the opposition of its coalition partner MHP, DSP (Turkish parliament) adopted over 30 amendments to the constitution in order to meet the Copenhagen political criteria for EU membership. AKP, which came to power in 2002, even altered some policies which were maintained for years for instance it started to support the unity of the divided island Cyprus.Despite all these endeavours, relations will never come to an anticipated level hence the aim of getting full EEC membership will persist being an ambition to be achieved for every political party that came to power.