ANKARA STEPS UP EFFORTS FOR CHANGES IN EP REPORT

The New Anatolian, Turkey
Sept 6 2006

The Turkish Foreign Ministry criticized yesterday the European
Parliament’s highly critical report on Turkey, calling on MEPs to show
common sense and make making necessary changes before the report goes
to a vote in the full EP late this month.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Namik Tan in a statement said that
the report puts too much emphasis on "elements that have nothing
to do with Turkish-European Union affairs that won’t contribute to
relations and are far from being reasonable or objective."

Tan said that some elements in the report are "far from reality and
penned with political motives, [and] don’t mesh with the European
Parliament’s respectability."

"Attempts to impose conditions that are far from being objective —
such as the so-called Armenian genocide which requires a serious
academic study — were met with deep sadness," he added.

Turkey’s permanent Ambassador to the EU Volkan Bozkir warned that
the report approved by the EP Foreign Relations Committee has many
parts that could damage Turkey’s relations with the Union, urging
necessary changes to be made immediately.

Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan also ruled out taking the report prepared
by MEP Camiel Eurlings seriously, stressing that Turkey will never
accept the Armenian genocide claims.

"Turkey’s stance and decisiveness on the so-called Armenian genocide
issue is clear and nobody should expect us to change that," Erdogan
said. "European parliamentarians have already debated this issue and
rejected the genocide claims."

Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission Co-Chairman Joost Lagendijk
warned the EP about dangers of approving the report in the assembly
saying, "If you increase your demands of Turkey every year, you will
give an impression that the EP is against Turkey’s membership in
the EU."