12-09-2003, 07:59 PM
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...003_pg7_46
<b>Turkey to give up EU drive if denied date for talks </b>
ANKARA: Turkey will give up its drive to join the European Union if it fails to win a date at the end of 2004 for opening entry negotiations with the bloc, Monday newspapers quoted Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as saying.
EU leaders are due to decide at a summit next December whether Turkey has made enough progress on human rights to start what are sure to be lengthy and difficult accession talks.
Financial markets monitor the Turkey-EU relationship closely. âEverybody knows that not getting a date means the end of the EU road (for Turkey),â the Yeni Safak newspaper quoted Gul as saying. But he also said Turkey, whose ambition to join Europe goes back some four decades, was doing its best to remedy shortcomings identified in a recent progress report from the European Commission.
Gul singled out reforms aimed at turning the National Security Council, traditionally dominated by the military, into a purely advisory and more transparent body as well as greater cultural and linguistic rights for the Kurdish ethnic minority.
Gul said the government had tackled another key EU complaint about the lack of civilian control over Turkeyâs military budget. âFrom now on, all public expenditure, including defence, will be included in the budget,â he was quoted as saying.
âOur country is becoming more transparent. As we become more transparent corruption will disappear, the responsibility to account for our actions grows,â Gul said.
Turkey, a strategically important NATO member, has been knocking on Europeâs door since the 1960s and has watched with irritation as a number of ex-communist countries in central and eastern Europe have overtaken its own membership bid. Ankara has often accused the EU of double standards and suspects the bloc does not really want to admit Turkey, a poor Muslim country of 70 million people. âReuters
<b>Turkey to give up EU drive if denied date for talks </b>
ANKARA: Turkey will give up its drive to join the European Union if it fails to win a date at the end of 2004 for opening entry negotiations with the bloc, Monday newspapers quoted Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as saying.
EU leaders are due to decide at a summit next December whether Turkey has made enough progress on human rights to start what are sure to be lengthy and difficult accession talks.
Financial markets monitor the Turkey-EU relationship closely. âEverybody knows that not getting a date means the end of the EU road (for Turkey),â the Yeni Safak newspaper quoted Gul as saying. But he also said Turkey, whose ambition to join Europe goes back some four decades, was doing its best to remedy shortcomings identified in a recent progress report from the European Commission.
Gul singled out reforms aimed at turning the National Security Council, traditionally dominated by the military, into a purely advisory and more transparent body as well as greater cultural and linguistic rights for the Kurdish ethnic minority.
Gul said the government had tackled another key EU complaint about the lack of civilian control over Turkeyâs military budget. âFrom now on, all public expenditure, including defence, will be included in the budget,â he was quoted as saying.
âOur country is becoming more transparent. As we become more transparent corruption will disappear, the responsibility to account for our actions grows,â Gul said.
Turkey, a strategically important NATO member, has been knocking on Europeâs door since the 1960s and has watched with irritation as a number of ex-communist countries in central and eastern Europe have overtaken its own membership bid. Ankara has often accused the EU of double standards and suspects the bloc does not really want to admit Turkey, a poor Muslim country of 70 million people. âReuters