EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ADOPTS NEGATIVE REPORT ON TURKEY
Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran
Sept 27 2006
The European Parliament adopted Wednesday a report which is critical
of the slow reform process, religious discrimination and free speech
and the role of the army in Turkey.
The report adopted by 429 votes in favor 71 against with 125
abstentions reiterates the EP’s position that membership negotiations
with Turkey are an ‘open-ended process, and do not lead a priori and
automatically to accession’.
The EP report comes a day after the EU announced that Bulgaria and
Romania will join the European bloc on January 1, 2007.
MEPs called on Turkey to recognize the Republic of Cyprus, withdraw
its forces from the island and lift its embargo on Cypriot vessels
and aircraft.
The report warns Turkey that a lack of progress in implementing the
Ankara protocol ‘will have serious implications for the negotiation
process, and could even bring it to a halt’.
The EP, however, rejected a para in the report that called the
acknowledgement of the ‘Armenian genocide’ a ‘precondition’ for
Turkey’s EU accession.
The report noted that, although the recognition of the Armenian
genocide as such is formally not one of the criteria for EU membership,
it is indispensable for a country on the road to membership to come
to terms with and recognize its past.
MEPs urge Turkey to take the necessary steps, without any
preconditions, to establish diplomatic and good neighbourly relations
with Armenia, to withdraw the economic blockade and to open the land
border at an early date.
MEPs urged Turkish authorities to ‘fulfill their commitments regarding
freedom of religion’, since they noted an ‘absence of progress’
in this area.
It notes that an important discussion on headscarves is going on
within Turkish society; points out that there are no European rules
in this matter, but expresses its hope that a compromise will be found
in Turkey on the wearing of headscarves by students at universities.
The House welcomed ‘the opening of broadcasting in Kurdish’ while
nevertheless noting the continued intimidation of civil society
representatives in the southeast of the country.
The report ‘strongly condemns the resurgence of terrorist violence
on the part of the PKK’ and ‘calls on the PKK to declare and respect
an immediate ceasefire’.
It also pleads for ‘a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue’.
The Parliament also expressed its ‘serious concern’ about the
‘non-respect for women’s rights’ and the high role of the military
in Turkish public life.