Zaman, Turkey via JTW, Turkey
March 15 2005
The Ball is in Brussels’s Court
Abdulhamit Bilici
Columnist Abdulhamit Bilici comments on Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gul’s current official visit to Britain and Turkey’s European Union
membership bid. A summary of his column is as follows:
`British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who received our Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul yesterday in London, said that Turkey was quite
ready to sign the protocol extending its Customs Union with present
EU members to all the new states. `The ball is now in Brussels’
court,’ Straw said at a joint press conference following his meeting
with Gul. For his part, Gul stressed that preparations to start
membership negotiations with the EU in October were on track. Asked
whether Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos could put increased
pressure on Brussels to slow down Turkey’s EU process, Straw said
that Britain has no wish to deal with any further problems on the
Cyprus issue now, because it is high time for Ankara and Brussels to
focus on the start of negotiations. Prior to his visit to the
country, Gul was hoping to get London’s support for ending the
isolation of the Turkish Cypriots, because Britain will this July
take over the EU term presidency from the current president,
Luxembourg. Gul yesterday said that he hoped positive steps would
soon be taken on the issue.
Gul yesterday was first interviewed by a Financial Times reporter,
then had lunch with prominent representatives of British finance
circles. Later he addressed members of the London office of
Bloomberg, the information technology giant, where he called on
British businessmen to participate in the privatizations of big
companies in Turkey. Gul was then asked many questions by these
businessmen covering a variety of subjects, including such sensitive
ones as the Armenian problem and the ruling Justice and Development
Party’s (AKP) Islamic roots.
`What would happen if an independent Kurdish state were established
in northern Iraq?’ asked one businessman. `This would plunge the
region into greater chaos,’ Gul warned. `All ethnic groups must see
themselves as Iraqis. We don’t want any further turmoil in the
region. What would Arabs say to such a division? Not only Turks but
also all regional countries want to protect Iraq’s territorial
integrity.’
Gul also delivered a speech at the London School of Economics. It was
quite interesting that he was asked many more questions about the
heavy-handed police action last week to control a women’s rights
demonstration on the eve of the government’s talks with top EU
officials, rather than Turkey’s current reforms. Gul stressed that a
full investigation on the incident was underway whose findings would
be announced in a few days. Because of a demonstration by a radical
leftist group in front of the school, Gul had to leave the building
by the back door.’