Turkish Press
July 13 2005

Press Review

HURRIYET

BABACAN SPEAKS AT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

State Minister Ali Babacan yesterday spoke at the European Parliament
for the first time with the title of chief negotiator, saying that
Turkey had no alternative besides full European Union membership.
Speaking to the European Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee,
Babacan thus had his first test before an EU body, and faced a host
of questions from MEPs on subjects such as religious freedom for
non-Muslims and the southeast, Cyprus and Armenian issues. Babacan
called the reforms which have been implemented in Turkey over the
last three years a `silent revolution.’ Babacan said that steps had
been taken on education and broadcasting in certain dialects and
languages and that criticisms of certain elements of the new Turkish
Penal Code (TCK), which came into force on June 1, could be removed
in practice. /Hurriyet/