TURKISH AUTHOR CALLS FOR FULL EU MEMBERSHIP FOR HOMELAND

Agence France Presse — English
October 3, 2005 Monday 5:31 PM GMT

As Turkey appeared close on Monday to reaching agreement with the
European Union to start accession talks, controversial Turkish author
Orhan Pamuk called for his homeland to be allowed full membership.

“Despite all the criticism of Turkey, I am in favour of it having
full membership of the European Union,” Pamuk said ahead of receiving
a cultural prize awarded by the German city of Darmstadt.

Turkey was due to begin membership negotiations on Monday but Austria’s
reservations over the talks with the predominantly Muslim state forced
foreign ministers into intense negotiations to resolve the standoff.

Austria had said it wanted the possibility written into the
negotiations that Turkey may eventually only be allowed special
partnership status rather than full membership, but late on Monday
it dropped its opposition.

Pamuk, who was recently charged under Turkey’s criminal code with
insulting the national identity after remarks he made about a massacre
under the Ottoman Empire, compared the opposition to his country
joining Europe’s club of 25 nations to someone hanging a “No Entry”
sign on the door.

“The people who have hung up this sign to protect their security,
their possessions and their beliefs, do they have any idea how much
they are insulting others?” Pamuk asked.

Pamuk, the widely translated author of such internationally renowned
works as “The White Castle” and “Snow”, is set to go on trial in
December for telling a Swiss newspaper in February that “one million
Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk
about it”.

He has said he has received several death threats since being charged.