Turkey could never have something like Silicon Valley.  Islamic culture is far too repressive for something like that to organically grow; SV was the product of a culture which rewarded individualism and free thinking, which is the antithesis of Islamic culture.<p>There&#x27;s a reason SV is located in California, and not Alabama or Mississippi, let alone the middle east.<p>Turkey is NOT European, and it&#x27;s not about geography so much as it&#x27;s about culture.  Spain is far more similar to Sweden than it is Turkey.<p>Now, if Istanbul declared independence from the rest of the country which elected Erdogan, then maybe you could argue that it deserves to be in the EU as much as other places like Kosovo or Serbia.  But Turkey as a whole belongs in the EU about as much as Iraq or Saudi Arabia.