Cyprus Mail, Cyprus
April 26 2005

Tough EU message for Turkey

TURKEY must do more to push through political reforms ahead of its
planned membership talks with the European Union later this year, EU
foreign ministers agreed yesterday ahead of talks with their Turkish
counterpart.

The ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, called for an early signing of
an agreement extending Turkey’s customs union with the EU to all new
member states, saying it would be `an important step towards
normalisation of the relations between Turkey and all EU member
states, including the Republic of Cyprus’.

They also expressed concern about the lack of progress on religious
freedom and minority rights, and called on the Ankara government to
ensure full civilian control of Turkey’s powerful military.

EU leaders agreed last December to open talks with Turkey on October
3, but also set firm conditions for starting negotiations, saying
Turkey had to see through reforms to ensure it met the bloc’s
standards on democracy, rule of law and civil liberties.

`It is a very clear message that Turkey has to move on many fronts
and on many issues,’ Foreign Minister George Iacovou told Reuters.

`A lot of the laws that have been enacted are an empty letter for the
time being, because they have not been put into effect, this is in
particular in respect for human rights, the rights of minorities and
so on,’ he said.

EU and Turkish ministers hold regular talks today to discuss Ankara’s
progress towards membership of the 25-nation bloc.

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said he and his Dutch
colleague had also requested that EU president Luxembourg urge Ankara
to `reassess its past concerning the Armenian genocide’.

Armenia wants Turkey to admit that the killing of up to 1.5 million
Armenians 90 years ago in Ottoman Turkey was genocide. Turkey denies
this, saying the numbers were smaller and Armenians were among many
victims of a partisan war that also claimed many Muslim Turkish
lives.

Turkey’s planned EU entry talks have moved the dispute up the
political agenda. France, home to an influential, 400,000-strong
Armenian community, has promised to seek a Turkish admission of
genocide, although Barnier said this would arise at some point in a
long negotiating process, not as a prior condition.

In a paper outlining what Turkey needs to do, the EU expressed
`serious concerns’ about cases of torture still occurring and called
on Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan’s government to enforce a
zero-tolerance policy to eradicate ill-treatment.

The EU also expressed concern about a lack of freedom of expression
and said more should be done to boost the rights of Turkey’s Kurdish
and Roma minorities.

The ministers said the Turkish army continued to exercise influence
in politics through `informal mechanisms’, adding that Erdogan had to
do more to control the military. `He has to decide whether he really
controls the military or he doesn’t,’ Iacovou said.

The EU paper also urged Turkey to carry out unfulfilled commitments
including enforcing intellectual property rights, removing
discriminatory laws, reducing state aid to industry and allowing
Cypriot vessels to dock in Turkish ports.