Germany opposes “watered down” EU Turkey talks

By Carsten Lietz

BRUSSELS, Dec 13 (Reuters) – Germany insisted on Monday any accession
talks between the European Union and Turkey should be with the goal of
Ankara becoming a member, rejecting calls for more limited partnership
options.

Three days before EU leaders are seen giving the green light to entry
talks, new controversy emerged as France said it would seek Turkish
recognition of a 1915-23 killing of Armenians as genocide once those
talks begun, drawing an immediate denial from Ankara.

The main Istanbul share index, the ISE National-100 <.XU100>, climbed
three percent to close at a record high of 23,634.75 points on Monday
on expectations that Ankara will win a date to start talks.

“This is about negotiations with the goal of entry,” German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder told reporters in Berlin, rejecting calls for the
25-member bloc to offer Ankara a privileged but limited partnership
status.

“Any watering down of this goal … would sound the death knell for
the successful modernisation process in Turkey,” echoed his Foreign
Minister Joschka Fischer as he arrived for talks on Turkey with
counterparts in Brussels.

EU foreign ministers were making final preparations for the landmark
decision ahead of the summit.

Ankara reaffirmed it could not accept anything less than negotiations
towards membership for the poor, largely Muslim country of some 70
million.

“Membership is not automatic,” Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan
told the Spanish daily El Pais.

“But we will never be ‘privileged partners’ because that term doesn’t
exist,” he said, rejecting a formula proposed by Austria and Germany’s
opposition Christian Democrats.

YOUNG TURKS

Few doubt that EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday
will give the go-ahead for negotiations to start. But questions remain
as to the timing of the start of talks — seen lasting over a decade
— and any conditions attached.

France said it would seek Turkish recognition of the Armenian killings
as genocide, but only once talks began.

“France will pose this question,” Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told
a news conference in Brussels. “I think that a big country like Turkey
has a duty to remember.” France has the largest Armenian community in
the EU with some 300,000 members.

Armenia says 1.5 million of its people died between 1915 and 1923 in a
systematic genocide. It says the decision to carry it out was made by
the political party then in power in the Ottoman Empire, popularly
known as the Young Turks.

Turkey reiterated denials of genocide. “Our position is well-known. We
do not recognise any so-called genocide and we will never recognise
it,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

“DEATH BY ENLARGEMENT”

The prospect of Turkish membership is hugely controversial in Europe,
with a new poll in the French daily Le Figaro showing 67 percent of
French voters and 55 percent of Germans oppose Turkey joining the EU.

The Ifop institute poll found the main arguments of Turkey’s opponents
were poor respect for human rights, including women’s rights, and “too
many religious and cultural differences.”

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, a leading sceptic on Turkey’s
entry, told Austrian magazine Trend that Turkey’s human rights record
remained a concern, as did the cost of bringing in the poor, largely
agrarian country.

Other sceptics weighed in, with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh
Rasmussen quoted as saying he backed Austrian proposals for a “plan B”
offering a limited partnership if entry talks failed.

“It underlines there is no automaticity that in starting negotiations
they lead to membership,” he told Danish news agency Ritzau.

The leader of the conservative European People’s Party, the largest
group in the European Parliament, said he was concerned Turkish
membership would mean “enlarging ourselves to death.”

“We are afraid. That is not a good basis for solidarity in European
Union and we will destroy it,” Hans-Gert Poettering told a parliament
debate.

One potential threat to an agreement to open talks in 2005 receded
when Cypriot Foreign Minister George Iakovou made clear Nicosia was
not thinking of using its new EU membership to veto the decision,
which requires unanimity.

“We’ve never started from that position,” he told reporters on arrival
in Brussels when asked if Cyprus would use its veto.

Iakovou also appeared to soften past demands that Turkey, which has
35,000 troops on the island and is the only country to recognise the
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, should grant Cyprus full
diplomatic recognition before negotiations start.

(additional reporting by Sebastian Alison and Carsten Lietz in
Brussels, Timothy Heritage in Paris and Adrian Croft in Madrid)

12/13/04 15:05 ET