TURKEY: ITALY ‘VIGILANT AND IF NECESSARY CRITICAL’ ALLY
AKI, Italy
June 13 2007
Ankara, 13 June (AKI) – Italian foreign minister Massimo D’Alema has
described his country as a "vigilant" but if necessary "critical"
ally of Turkey in its attempts to join the European Union. D’Alema
who was in Ankara on Wednesday made the remarks in a letter he wrote
to the editor-in-chief of the Italian business daily, Il Sole 24 Ore.
"We have the ambition to propose ourselves as an attentive interlocutor
with Turkey, as a partner that strengthened by a hard-won credibility,
can maintain an intense dialogue – vigilant and if necessary critical –
to support Turkey in its integration into Europe," D’Alema wrote in
the letter.
"Europe does not ‘export’ democracy, with all the risks and
uncertainties that entails, but it tends to generate or consolidate
the indegenous democratic components of the countries that adhere or
aspire to adhere to the European Union," the Italian foreign minister
wrote in his letter to editor-in-chief Ferruccio De Bortoli.
Turkey’s membership process would be evaluated on the basis of
"specific and as yet unresolved issues, such as freedom of expression
and religion, the still awaited solution to relations with Cyprus,
the ‘Kurdish issue’ and relations with Armenia," D’Alema added in
the letter.