Turkish Prime Minister: EU should not become a Christian club
31.01.2010 16:54 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ No matter what they do, or what kind of obstacles
they put in front of us, we will keep walking, patiently, Turkish
Premier Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an said in an interview with Euronews TV
channel, commenting on EU membership talks’ future.

`There is, certainly, an end to this. That will be the moment at which
all the EU members say `We are not accepting Turkey.’ We will not stop
until they say this,’ he stressed.

Emphasizing Turkey’s determination to gain full membership in the
European Union, Erdogan slammed French and German leaders for putting
obstacles in Turkey’s way.

Speaking on religious and cultural differences, Erdogan said, `EU
should not become a Christian club. The EU should not take part in a
campaign of Islamophobia,’ he concluded, addressing a warning to any
country taking such a stance.

EU-Turkey negotiations: After four decades in the EU’s waiting room,
accession negotiations with Turkey were opened on 3 October 2005.
According to the mutually agreed negotiating framework, these
negotiations are "an open-ended process, the outcome of which cannot
be guaranteed". At the same time, analysts tend to point out that
there has been no case in EU history where accession negotiations,
once started, have not led to an offer of full membership.

Several analysts also recall that the term "negotiation" is slightly
misleading, since, during the accession process, European law (ie the
acquis) is to be adopted rather than negotiated.

Outside the immediate framework of the accession negotiations, Turkey
is expected by the EU to normalize its ties with all of its neighbors,
primarily Greece, Cyprus and Armenia, before joining the Union. Ankara
must also do its best to reconfigure European public opinion in its
favor.