Turkey sounds upbeat note about joining EU despite tensions with West, eastward turn

Turkey sounds upbeat about joining EU

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s president sounded an optimistic note Wednesday about his country’s prospects of joining the European Union despite its recent turn toward the East.

The man in charge of expanding the European Union gave a mixed response, praising Turkey’s progress in granting more cultural rights to the Kurdish minority and curbing the influence of the military on politics but saying the reunification of Cyprus needs urgent attention. Cyprus was divided into Turkish and Greek sectors after Turkish troops invaded it in the wake of a coup seeking to unite the island with Greece in 1974. The Greek-speaking half of the Mediterranean island entered the EU in 2004.

“Turkey has been making remarkable steps toward membership,” Stefan Fule, the commissioner for European Union enlargement said on the sidelines of a Balkan summit in Istanbul. “We trust that Turkey will give full attention to the Cyprus problem.”

EU membership is still regarded by officials at the highest level of the Turkish state as the ultimate way of advancing and modernizing the maturing democracy. Europe is Turkey’s top trading partner and Turkey has a customs union agreement with the continent. Turkey also hopes to help reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian energy by supplying gas and oil from Central Asia and the Middle East.

But there is consistently low enthusiasm about admitting a large, poor and Muslim nation in much of the EU. The EU and Turkey started membership negotiations in 2005, but Germany and France have proposed a special partnership for Turkey that falls short of full membership, angering Turkish leaders who argue that it violates the principle of equality for the candidate countries.

Turkey also resents pressure from the West to reckon with the uglier aspects of its past, by making peace with Armenians and acknowledge that mass killings of Armenians at the turn of the century were genocide — a claim strongly denied by Turkey. Opponents say Turkey also has not moved fast enough on promised reforms and should grant more rights to minority Kurds and withdraw its troops from Cyprus.

“We want the EU to support memberships of countries and to refrain from taking steps that would delay the process,” Turkish President Abdullah Gul told the summit at Ciragan Palace, an extravagant Ottoman palace on the shores of the Bosporus strait. “We started full membership talks with the approval of France and Germany. Small disputes will of course occur and they will eventually be resolved.”

There are fears among Turkey’s secular opposition that, with EU accession moving slowly, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is steering NATO’s only Muslim member away from the West and jeopardizing the membership efforts’ chances of ultimate success.

Turkey recently voted “no” to sanctions on Iran at the U.N. Security Council and defended Tehran’s right to acquire nuclear energy for peaceful use. Its ties with regional ally Israel are at a new low after a deadly Israeli commando raid on an aid flotilla headed to Gaza, left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead, including eight Turks and an American-Turkish teenager.

On Wednesday, Turkey and 12 other southeastern European countries issued a joint declaration at the end of a meeting of the Southeast European Cooperation Process (SEECP) that they want “an impartial, independent and internationally credible investigation on this matter.”

Turkey was not alone in complaining from EU’s attitude on Wednesday.

Serbian President Boris Tadic called on the EU to openly tell his country “without making any excuses” whether it wants Serbia to join the 27-nation bloc or not.

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Associated Press Writer Erol Israfil contributed to this report from Istanbul.

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