Pan Armenian News

ANKARA HOPES NEW POPE WILL CHANGE POSITION ON TURKEY’S EU MEMBERSHIP

22.04.2005 07:19

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `I hope that newly elected Pope Benedict XVI will
re-consider his position on Turkey’s EU membership’, Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated, Yerkir online reports. Leading Turkish editions
recollected Pope’s anti-Turkish statements. For example, in 2004 in an
interview with the newspaper Le Figaro, when asked about Turkey’s effort to
join the European Union Cardinal Ratzinger stated, `Turkey had always been
in permanent contrast to Europe and linking it to Europe would be a
mistake’. As reported by NTV Turkish TV Company, Erdogan noted that at that
time Cardinal Ratzinger expressed `his personal opinion’.