EU URGES TURKEY TO OVERHAUL CONSTITUTION

Today’s Zaman
Sept 17 2008
Turkey

The European Union has urged Turkey to overhaul its military-inspired
Constitution to break out of a cycle of annual political crises and
move forward with its disputed EU membership bid.

"Now is the time for Turkey to update its constitution to reflect
the country and society it has become and to consolidate rights
and freedoms for its citizens," Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn
said after talks with Foreign Minister Ali Babacan. "These reforms
are necessary not only for Turkey’s EU prospects but essentially for
Turkey to break the cycle of its — I dare to say — annual political
crises," he said.

Rehn said Ankara should take advantage of the end of the latest
crisis, when the Constitutional Court last month rejected a public
prosecutor’s effort to ban the ruling party, to pursue reforms with
renewed vigor. But Turkish analysts say that seems unlikely because
of continuing political tensions, an economic slowdown and local
elections next year.

Babacan said Ankara was pressing ahead with an ambitious reform
program, called the Third National Program, to achieve its goal of
full EU membership, but EU support was also necessary to complete
the process. "We will continue to take steps for the opening of new
chapters. We believe the Turkish people deserve a better quality of
life," he said.

French Secretary of State for European Affairs Jean-Pierre Jouyet,
who chaired the talks after Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner left
Brussels early, pledged that Paris would conduct the negotiations
impartially despite President Nicolas Sarkozy’s strong opposition to
eventual Turkish membership.

Jouyet said France expected to open more chapters — or policy areas —
for negotiation during its six months in the EU chair, which run until
the end of December. Rehn said the chapters on free movement of capital
and on information society and media policy were ripe for opening soon.

But Babacan referred pointedly to two areas on which France has blocked
negotiations. "Turkey is also ready, for example, to open the chapters
on economic and monetary policy and on culture and education, but there
are some political considerations in play that are preventing that,"
he said.

He also said Turkey was ready to negotiate on energy policy, a key
area for cooperation with the EU, which is seeking to diversify its
energy sources away from dependence on Russia.

Babacan and EU officials also discussed a visit by President Abdullah
Gul to neighboring Armenia, with which Turkey has no formal ties,
on Sept. 6 to watch a soccer game between national teams of the two
countries. Rehn said the EU expected that the positive movements in
the Turkish-Armenian relations will result in full normalization in
ties between the two countries.

Turkey closed its border and severed diplomatic ties with Armenia
in 1993 in protest of Armenia’s occupation of a chunk of Azerbaijani
territory in a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.