By BENJAMIN HARVEY
The Associated Press
Monday, December 11, 2006; 8:22 AM

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- From the beginning, Turkey's path to the European Union was a diplomatic minefield. The country is large, 99 percent Muslim, prone to military coups and economic crises, and developed to European levels only in small pockets. It has problems with torture, violence, freedom of expression, corruption and minority rights. The vast majority of its land mass is in Asia Minor, where battles against Kurdish separatists have killed some 37,000 people. Most pressingly, it has 40,000 soldiers occupying part of another EU member country, Cyprus, which it invaded more than three decades ago.

At a summit this week, European leaders look likely to partially suspend membership talks with Turkey because of its refusal to trade with or recognize Cyprus. But with so many other issues to deal with, Turks are buckling down to a long, hard slog.

"We'll continue to move forward," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week as rumors swirled that negotiations on key membership issues were about to be cut off. "Look, before they were talking about a 'train wreck' _ there was no train wreck. Now they're just saying the train has slowed. ... We'll continue on our way."

Indeed, Cyprus may turn out to be one of the least of Turkey's problems in its membership bid.

When European leaders granted official candidate status to Turkey in late 1999, they knew it was a leap of faith to believe the country would ever actually join. Seven years and several thousand EU-backed reforms later, that remains the case.

Ask what has to change for Turkey to become a member, and the EU's response is simple.

"Everything," says Rick Flint, spokesman for the EU delegation to Ankara, the Turkish capital. "The EU harmonization process changes everything."

However, the fact that Turkey has embarked upon a fundamental transformation to become part of European society often gets overlooked in Europe's capitals.

The prime minister already takes credit for what he calls a "silent revolution," and he travels the country boasting of his government's accomplishments since 2002 _ like more than doubling GDP per capita from $2,500 to $5,500.

Cabinet members are cheerfully optimistic that Turkey will reform even more, that it will be suitably "European" sometime around 2015 _ the time frame most analysts believe is necessary for Turkey to meet minimum membership requirements.

Already, fundamental changes have taken place.

The EU Information Center in Istanbul says the number of EU-backed reforms, from constitutional amendments to low-level directives, is in the many thousands. Measures have been taken against torture. The death penalty has been abolished. Military influence in politics has been limited. Kurds have been given more rights, and the government is paying more attention to their concerns.

Laws that would have been an embarrassment to a modern democracy are gone, such as the legal concept of the man as "head of the family," so now women in Turkey can have a say in family decisions, including filing for divorce. Other laws that can make Turkey the object of international derision _ like one that makes "insulting Turkishness" a crime _ persist, however.

Yet as the country's leaders pass wave after wave of reforms to harmonize with the EU, they are being confronted with the magnitude of their challenge _ not only in Brussels but also at the street level. More than in any previous EU candidate, they are tackling not just laws and regulations, but fundamental ways of working and interacting, and ways of thinking.

The EU has called this an "evolution in mentalities," and sent a small army of representatives to work with Turkey on reshaping everything from agriculture to finance, cultural rights and diplomatic policy. In 2006, projects in Turkey cost the EU a half-billion dollars, a number expected to at least double soon, says Caner Demir of the EU Information Center. But officials know that's a drop in the bucket.

They also know that most of the work is ahead of them. Without enforcement, the revised laws and regulations are little more than fancy writing in thick books. Look through the EU's most recent progress report, and one sees the difficulties.

"Implementation is not appropriate," the document says about the country's legal reforms. On the subject of women's rights: "implementation remains a challenge." Likewise for Kurdish rights, "implementation raises several concerns." As for agriculture, "implementation is seriously at risk."

The list goes on.