The New ANatolian, Turkey
Feb 2 2007

Babacan: Turkey is more ‘open’ with EU process

Turkey’s chief European Union talks negotiator Ali Babacan yesterday
touted Turkey’s rapid transformation toward openness, saying, "Turkey
has become very open, very fast."

Babacan, in an interview with Business Week magazine, stated that the
assassination of Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink last month
"looks like an anachronism." It’s not compatible with the open
society we are looking for, he said.

Dink was shot dead on Jan. 19, outside the offices of his Agos weekly
in Istanbul.

Babacan also underlined that a "reform in mentality" was still needed
in Turkey and that certain things "were not changing overnight."

Business Week commented that Turkey has striven to come up to EU
standards of openness to prepare its bid to join the Union.

"A whole new media web has sprung up in the Eurasian nation of 75
million people, where almost none existed before," the magazine said.

"From a single state-owned TV station, more than 300 channels have
emerged," said the magazine. "Eleven hundred radio stations crowd the
airwaves. Every private school is now linked to the Internet, and the
the government is distributing 400,000 PCs to pupils."