The Daily Star, Lebanon
Oct 1 2005

Gloomy and frustrated, Turkey gears up for EU showdown

Compiled by Daily Star staff
Saturday, October 01, 2005

ANKARA: Turkey urged the European Union to show “honesty” on its
troubled membership bid, as anger and frustration simmered over what
Turks see as European backpedaling on pledges to admit the country
into the bloc. Britain meanwhile stressed the “enormous strategic”
stakes of admitting Turkey to the European Union.

With just three days left before the start of membership talks, EU
countries are still wrangling over accession terms for Turkey,
leaving Ankara on the edge and its decades-old dream of integrating
Europe shrouded in uncertainty.

“If we fail to see the honesty we expect, Turkey’s response will
undoubtedly be very different from what has been said so far,” Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in the northern city of Corum, the
Anatolia news agency reported.

The EU will hold an emergency meeting of foreign ministers tomorrow
to seek a compromise on a negotiating.

The deadlock is blamed on Austria’s insistence to offer Turkey
“privileged partnership” as an alternative to full membership, an
option Ankara flatly rejects.

“Some people in the EU have fallen prey to fanaticism, unable to free
themselves from prejudice,” Erdogan said.

Britain warned that the stakes are high if Turkey is left out in the
cold, because it could serve as a democratic “beacon” for the
troubled Middle East across its borders.

“Turkey is of enormous strategic importance to the EU,” Britain’s
Europe Minister Douglas Alexander told BBC radio.

“Successfully integrating Turkey in the EU we believe would help us
tackle most of the many difficult problems that we face in the modern
world,” he added.

Sweden, Denmark and Finland joined Britain in rejecting a delay in
entry talks.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said the European Commission
had clearly stated that “we are launching these negotiations with the
aim of including (Turkey).”

“If this is not possible (by the end of the process), then we should
try to find a different solution (but) it is too early now to
determine what this other solutions should be,” he said.

For her part, Austria’s Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik argued that
Vienna’s concerns are shared “all over Europe.”

Many Europeans are concerned about the EU’s ability to absorb Turkey.

“What we propose is an option in case membership does not work out,”
Plassnik told the Associated Press.

Full membership for Turkey is possible “one day – if Turkey fulfills
the requirements and if the European Union is also in a position to
absorb Turkey,” she said. “However, we should now listen to the
concerns voiced by so many people across Europe.”

Meanwhile, the head of the Armenian Church in Turkey sent a letter to
EU foreign ministers warning that a delay in entry talks could
undermine efforts to bring together the Muslim East and the Christian
West.

Minorities in Turkey have strongly supported the country’s EU bid in
the hopes of greater democratic reforms and freedoms.

The leader of the largest non-Muslim group in Turkey, Patriarch
Mesrob, wrote: “Turkey has expended great efforts to implement the
union criteria and has in a positive sense been steered toward real
change on the democratic road.

“Pressures in recent days from various circles to postpone Turkey’s
membership process cause us concern,” he added.

“Such undesired developments will be a blow not only to Turkey and
Europe but to reconciliation between East and West,” he wrote. –
Agencies

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress