Gul showed the importance he attaches to Europe’s top human rights watchdog only a few months after being elected to the top state post in August 2007, making his first international public appearance in Strasbourg, where he delivered a speech at the autumn 2007 session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), now headed by a Turkish deputy, Mevlut Cavuţođlu.

Gul’s October 2007 speech was a first. Although Turkey has been a member of the council since August 1949, none of Turkey’s presidents had delivered speeches at PACE plenary sessions before then.

Turkey saw another first with the election of Cavuţođlu last month, as the Antalya deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) became the first-ever Turkish citizen to head PACE. Yet this is not just a “first” for Turkey; it is also a first in the institution’s history: Until Cavuţođlu’s election last month, 24 deputies from 11 member states had headed PACE. As Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutođlu noted, Cavuţođlu also became the first-ever PACE president to be elected from a country east of Vienna. Another first will be experienced when Turkey takes the helm of the Committee of Ministers, the executive arm of the CoE, in November 2010 for sixth months.

One can better comprehend the symbolic and substantive weight of the position if one recalls the fact that the European Union, which Turkey has aspired to join for decades, agreed to open accession talks with Ankara in 2005 only after the CoE, the guardian of European norms and values, decided in 2004 to lift its previous monitoring of Turkey’s compliance with European human rights and democracy standards.

Ankara has always highlighted that EU membership is a strategic goal for Turkey, but it also points out that what is more important than EU entry is the standards that eventual membership would bring in.

“Taking the helm of the Committee of Ministers will also serve as a useful tool in Turkey’s efforts to make reforms that are necessary for a fully democratic country. Recognize that the EU is a formation based on values; the more you claim these values, then the weaker the arguments of your opponents within the EU will become,” Turkish diplomatic sources told Sunday’s Zaman. “There is no difference in the values of the EU and the CoE; there are European standards, and engagement of Turkey in both of the bodies will lead to a situation where the two processes feed each other,” the same sources added. “If we were not so close to the EU as a negotiating country, Cavuţođlu’s election might not have been possible. There are many ongoing efforts to make progress on EU reforms, and Cavuţođlu’s election is in a way an appreciation of these efforts, basically a tip of the hat,” the sources said.

It’s no secret that Turkey’s file in the CoE’s various bodies, such as PACE, contains a considerable number of significant controversial issues. The CoE is currently engaged in a “post-monitoring dialogue” with Turkey. When closing the full monitoring procedure for Turkey in April 2004, PACE listed 12 outstanding issues on which it urged progress. These include lowering Turkey’s 10 percent electoral threshold, local and regional government reform, expanded freedom of expression and association -- especially for political parties -- training of security forces and judges, a policy of “zero tolerance” on torture and the protection of minorities.

In a speech delivered earlier this week, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdođan referred to the concept of “democratic maturity.”

In an apparent reference to recent debates on the democratization of civilian-military relations in Turkey, Erdođan said mistakes made in the past would not justify turning these mistakes into so-called traditions. “I’m telling those who ask, ‘Why today, why now, why did you wait for seven years?’ that Turkey has just attained this democratic maturity. Conditions have just been created now. We haven’t arrived at this point easily,” Erdođan said on Tuesday at a parliamentary group meeting of his AK Party, which has been in power since 2002.

Turkey’s painful history of democratization can also be read as a history of bitter ironies and absurdities. Looking back at developments ahead of Gul’s trip to Strasbourg to address PACE can be helpful in understanding Erdođan’s reading of this country’s democratization. It may also be helpful in better understanding the importance attached by Ankara to both Cavuţođlu’s election and the upcoming presidency of the Committee of Ministers.

The Turkish military has ousted four governments in the past 50 years, most recently in 1997 when it drove out a Cabinet viewed as too “Islamist.” In April 2007, it almost triggered a political crisis by signaling its opposition to Gul, widely viewed as a “conservative democrat,” becoming Turkey’s president. Erdođan then called a snap parliamentary election that his party won resoundingly. Gul later became president via an election in Parliament in August.

Today, Gul will shake hands with Jagland as the president of a country that is assertive in its drive toward democratization.