Swedish Parliamentary Delegation Meets Turkish Industry Minister Coskun

Turkish Press
May 7 2005

ANKARA (AA) – Swedish Parliamentary Industry and Trade Commission
Chairperson Marie Granlund and accompanying delegation met Turkish
Industry & Trade Minister Ali Coskun in Ankara on Tuesday.

Coskun told reporters, “Turkey has met the Copenhagen criteria and
become an unproblematic country in terms of economic and political
stability,” he added.

“Turkey will also complete the Maastricht criteria until 2007.
Europe proposes long timetables for Turkey. However, we want to join
EU sooner as a full member. Turkey has been waiting for 42 years to
join the EU. We do not want to wait any more. Unfortunately, as long
as Turkey meets conditions, EU asks Turkey to meet different conditions
which have not been imposed on any other candidate countries. So-called
Armenian genocide can be shown as an example,” said Coskun.

Coskun noted, “a civil war period which happened in Ottoman Empire
is now brought onto agenda of European parliaments. Turkey supports
peace. We think that people in the world need peace. Turkey is a bridge
between Balkans and Caucasia as well as Middle East and Central Asia
and wants to have peaceful relations.”

“Trade volume between Turkey and Sweden is not at the desired
level. Foreign capital flow to Turkey which was 2.5 billion USD in
2004 will reach 5 billion USD in 2005. Foreign trade volume is 170
billion USD,” said Coskun.

Meanwhile, Swedish Commission Chairperson Granlund said that they
visited Turkey for the first time.

Granlund noted that the Prince of Sweden will visit Turkey this
year adding that also representatives of 30 Swedish companies had
recently visited Istanbul. Granlund said that they hoped that the
project between TeliaSonera and Turkcell would be implemented.

Granlund added that there are 100,000 Swedish citizens of Turkish
origin in Sweden.