TURKEY RISKS SCUPPERING EU MEMBERSHIP TALKS OVER CYPRUS STANCE
by Amelie Bottollier-Depois
Agence France Presse — English
September 27, 2006 Wednesday 4:53 PM GMT
Turkey’s talks on European Union membership could be frozen unless
Ankara fully opens its ports to Cypriot ships, the European Parliament
warned Wednesday.
In a 429 to 71 vote, with 125 abstentions, the euro-MPs voted that a
"lack of progress" in the matter would have "serious implications
concerning the negotiation process and could even stop it".
The vote was merely consultative and has no legal strength.
The deputies were discussing a tough report on Turkey, prepared by
Dutch rapporteur Camiel Eurlings.
"It is important that this process should not be a game of accusing
each other. It should be a process where we advance until we reach a
solution," Eurlings said, while praising the parliament’s stance as
"very strong but also fair".
The euro deputies did however water down the declaration by deleting a
paragraph calling on Turkey to recognise the 1915-17 Armenian genocide
as a precondition for joining the European Union.
Ankara refuses to apply the term genocide to the events. Earlier
this month it rejected an EU report saying that it should do so as
a condition for membership.
In July 2005, Turkey signed a protocol extending its customs agreement
with the EU to the 10 new states that joined in 2004, including the
island of Cyprus which Ankara refuses to recognise.
But its parliament has yet to ratify the document and Ankara continues
to block Cypriot ships’ access to Turkish ports.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Ankara on Wednesday that
any extra conditions for Turkey’s European Union entry would be
"unacceptable", while pledging that his government would stick to
the path of democratic reform.
"We do not ask for privileges from the EU but putting forward new
criteria is unacceptable for us," he told a conference in Istanbul.
Erdogan was speaking after EU officials signalled that enlargement
may slow down after they opened the door for Bulgaria and Romania to
join in January.
Armenians estimate that up to 1.5 million of their forebears perished
in systematic killings orchestrated by the Ottoman Empire between
1915 to 1917.
Turkey rejects all accusations of genocide, estimating the number of
Armenian deaths at 300,000 and arguing they were not a consequence
of deliberate extermination but a combination of war, disease, famine
and ethnic conflict.
The European deputies also deplored the slow pace of Turkey’s
reform process over the past year and called on Ankara to "relaunch"
it immediately.
Their resolution put particular emphasis on freedom of expression
and religion and treatment of Turkish minorities.
The European Commission — the EU’s executive arm — is set to issue a
crucial report on Turkey’s progress towards EU membership on November
8 amid mounting criticism of Ankara within the bloc.
Several European officials have warned that the Cyprus question could
lead to a crisis between Ankara and the EU before the end of the year.
Last week, the EU criticised Ankara for failing to promote free speech
after best-selling novelist Elif Shafak went on trial for insulting
the Turkish nation in a book about the massacres of Armenians.
Even though the writer was swiftly acquitted, the Commission said "a
significant threat to freedom of expression" remains in Turkish law
and urged amendments to the penal code, including the infamous Article
301, which landed Shafak and a string of other intellectuals in court.
Philippe de Schoutheete, of the Belgian Royal Institute for
International Relations, said there was "reluctance over Turkey
entering (the EU) certainly in western Europe and in some parts of
central Europe".
This was apart from the growing feeling of "enlargement fatigue",
he told AFP, and more due to its relatively large size and political
issues including the Armenian question and human rights.
