The European Commission published its annual report on the performance of newly minted and aspiring members of the European Union on Wednesday. Notable among the findings — often seen as a road map for prospective members to follow — was the view that Turkey has not yet met the civil rights requirements to join, particularly regarding press freedom issues.

The report chided Turkey for a “lack of substantial progress” in ensuring the “right to liberty and security and a fair trial, as well as of the freedom of expression, assembly and association.” The unwritten threat: if Turkey does not secure these bare minimum social freedoms, it will have little hope of joining the EU. But perhaps that is what Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has in mind. While Erdogan said it was his goal to midwife Turkey’s ascension to the EU when he came to power in 2002, he has since turned away from the West amid the European financial crisis and European skepticism about a majority Muslim nation joining the bloc.

Turkey’s minister of EU relations, Egemen Bagis, responded to the news, claiming the EC’s report placed “too much emphasis was placed on isolated incidents.” Yet history indicates that such rights violations, especially in the realm of press freedoms, are far from isolated. It is estimated that around 100 journalists are currently imprisoned, held on suspicions ranging from conspiring against the government to being aligned with the Kurdish separatist and terrorist group PKK.

One of the most highly-publicized cases was that of Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener, who were held for more than a year until their release in March. They were accused with being affiliated with the so-called Ergenekon plot — a shadowy group allegedly aimed at overthrowing the government — but lack of evidence, and severe domestic and internal pressure led to their release. But the Turkish government’s war on journalists didn’t start and end with the Şık and Şener cases, as past arrests of journalists in Turkey have been just as suspicious.

But other reporters rounded up in the Ergenekon case have been left to languish in prison. Forty Kurdish-affiliated reporters were put on trial Monday in the biggest case of its kind.

A recent report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes that the “overall diagnosis” on press freedom in Turkey is “rather bleak” with “more negative than positive developments.”

– Nate Niemann

Turkey, which has the unique distinction of being Syria’s neighbor and a NATO member, is escalating its call for international involvement in the Syrian crisis. Though it had previously been involved in training and arming the rebels (who use their territory as a base), it today reiterated its call for international intervention inside Syrian borders:

Turkey urged the United Nations on Wednesday to protect displaced Syrians inside their country but President Bashar al-Assad, battling rebels determined to overthrow him, dismissed talk of a buffer zone on Syrian territory.

Ankara fears a mass influx such as the flight of half a million Iraqi Kurds into Turkey after the 1991 Gulf War, and has floated the idea of a “safe zone” under foreign protection within Syria for civilians fleeing intensifying violence.

“We expect the United Nations to engage on the topic of protecting refugees inside Syria and if possible sheltering them in camps there,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

France has supported Turkey’s call for a safe zone in Syria, and pressure for action increased after the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday Syria’s refugee exodus was accelerating. Up to 200,000 people could settle in Turkey alone if the conflict worsens, the UNHCR said.

While Turkey frames the issue as refugee protection, it’s very clear this would be a significant military operation — the notion of “safe zones” inside Syrian territory have been the key policy advocated by supporters of intervention against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey’s principal concern is most likely limiting refugee flows into its own territory, which have escalated significantly in recent months as the conflict has:

The waves of refugees fleeing Dara’a, the Damascus suburbs, Aleppo and the Idlib region near Turkey in recent days have provided a barometer of the escalating violence in the 18-month-old conflict, in which neither the government of President Bashar al-Assad nor the opposition seems capable of striking a decisive blow.

[A U.N. spokesperson] said the number of refugees escaping to Turkey had multiplied to 5,000 a day from 400 or 500 daily several weeks ago. In the past 24 hours, she said, 3,000 people had entered Turkey, with 10,000 more waiting.

In Turkey, which had said it would not accept more than 100,000 refugees, officials said they had revised the number to 120,000, and were preparing contingency plans for more.

Speaking about the conflict, Assad told his state run TV station today that “[the army] definitely needs time to bring it to a decisive end. But I can sum it up in one sentence: we’re heading forward.” Meanwhile, his air force has stepped up strikes against rebel forces without much regard for civilian casualties.

Former Defense Secretary William Cohen said in an interview with CNN last night that the U.S. doesn’t want to go to war in Syria, but with tensions mounting between Turkey — a NATO ally — and Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad’s embattled government over a downed Turkish plane, the U.S.’s alliance may require it to:

COHEN: I think that [Assad] wants to be careful. Russia wants to be careful. NATO wants to be careful that we don’t see this spin out of control that suddenly there’s a war declared against Syria by NATO, which I think doesn’t have the power to declare war, but has the power to declare we’re with Turkey if Turkey should respond from a military point of view… We have to be very careful there. We want to avoid that.

I think the shot that’s been fired is a verbal one, saying that Syria, you’re on notice. If you so much as fire one of our aircraft again, we’re going to retaliate, and it won’t be a very low level. So, I think Syria is on notice.

The United States, the other NATO countries, are saying we’re with you politically. We hope we don’t have to be involved in a war, but if war comes, it’s one nation of NATO, it’s all of us.

Watch the video:

Cohen is referring to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty which states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all members, and each “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

Turkey’s stance toward Syria’s brutal crackdown on Arab Spring demonstrations last year and, now, military assaults against civilian areas in its civil war with various rebel factions has grown more aggressive. Turkey hosts the main exiled Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Council, and leadership of the largest rebel faction, the Free Syrian Army. According to reports, Turkey sold anti-tank missiles to the rebels, purchased with Saudia Arabian and Qatari money.