GREECE ON TURKEY’S EU OBLIGATIONS

Athens News Agency, Greece
Oct 12 2006

Greece on Thursday reiterated that European Union hopeful Turkey must
recognise EU member-state Cyprus as soon as possible.

In a regular weekly press briefing, foreign ministry spokesman George
Koumoutsakos referred to a paradox, as he said, in Turkey’s quest for
EU membership, namely, the fact that it continues to not recognise
a country that is a member in an organisation it wants to join,
something he termed "paradoxical and irrational".

Conversely, the spokesman said the upcoming period will allow for
opportunities to "lift this paradox".

Asked about the screening of Turkey’s ongoing EU accession process,
Koumoutsakos said the chapter on "business and industrial policy" was
discussed at a work group level within the EU recently, and that the
Greek side had aired certain "substantive concerns" over technical
issues. He added that the Cypriot side had expressed a negative
opinion, leading to the tabling of relevant discussions for the future.

Meanwhile, the foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment on
the substance of a recent initiative by the Finnish EU presidency
vis-?-vis the Cyprus issue and Turkey’s stance, merely noting that
the action aims to seek input by all interested sides. He also said
that Athens has a standing position over the matter and does not wish
to enter a reasoning of ‘trade-offs’.

Finally, Koumoutsakos was again asked about Wednesday’s somewhat
eyebrow-raising quip by his counterpart at the Turkish foreign
ministry, Namik Tan, who reportedly responded to Koumoutsakos’
allusion to the ubiquitous "train crash" metaphor – a leitmotif
in press reports and European leaders’ comments about EU-Turkey
relations over the recent period – by saying that "Greece’s specialty
are airplane accidents. I would advice him (Koumoutsakos) to stick
with those instead of train accidents".

"I must tell you, because I know him, that Mr. Tan is a gentleman,
and for this reason his statement surprised me," Koumoutsakos said,
while declining to comment further. The spokesman’s exact statement
in Athens was: "Turkey will not derail if it follows the tracks…"

In an ANA-MPA dispatch from Istanbul later on Thursday, Tan told an
ANA-MPA correspondent that his comments were misinterpreted.

"My statements had absolutely no intention of provoking or irritating,"
he said, while adding that he has repeatedly in the past highlighted
the positive side of Greek-Turkish relations and has made systematic
efforts to clear-up possible misunderstandings between Athens and
Ankara.

Comment on French decision

Meanwhile, in an unrelated development, Koumoutsakos was asked about
Thursday’s decision by the French National Assembly to pass a law
making it a crime to deny that ethnic Armenians suffered genocide at
the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War I.

"It is well known that the Greek parliament adopted a 1996 resolution
condemning the Armenian genocide. At the same time, we believe that
in the modern world the past must not be an obstacle for the future."