British Church Hierarchs Question Whether Turkey Should Join EU

British Church Hierarchs Question Whether Turkey Should Join EU

PanARMENIAN.Net
22.09.2006 18:35 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Catholic archbishop of England and Wales
on Thursday questioned whether Turkey, a predominantly Muslim and
secular country, should join the European Union. Cardinal Cormac
Murphy O’Connor, the archbishop of Westminster, is disputing Prime
Minister Tony Blair’s strong advocacy of Turkey’s membership. "There
may be another view that the mixture of cultures is not a good idea,"
Cardinal O’Connor said in an interview with BBC radio. Cardinal
O’Connor questioned whether "a continent that, fundamentally, is
Christian" would benefit from admitting a large predominantly Muslim
country to the Union. "I speak also in a sense for the people of this
country," 70 percent of whom say they are Christian, he said.

In related news, former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury George
Carey also expressed reservations about Turkey joining the EU. "I
think the jury is still out on Turkey at the moment. I look at its
record on freedom of speech and so on, what it is doing to writers
in Turkey who want to speak out, and some of them are in jail,"
the Anglican leader said, reported AP.