Brussels, 25/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - After the visit he made last week to Brussels and which enabled him to meet Commissioner Verheugen as well as several members of the European Parliament, the Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs Ismail Cem felt that Turkish relations with the EU where now "on the right path" to the extent that it is possible to "foresee that the full accession negotiations should be started before the end of 2001". For Mr Cem, "the erroneous and unfair statements and comments have given way, especially at the Commission level, to a spirit of understanding" which leads to clear and sincere dialogue. "We are still suffering some problems with the European Parliament", he added while also recognising that "certain divergences of views" remain with the Council (but, he said, "we intend to resolve them over time"). From now on, felt Mr Cem, "the ball is now in the Turkish court " which must continue with a series of action to satisfy the accession criteria. According to the Anatolie agency, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affair added on this issue (unofficial translation): "We must not fear harmonisation. There are no economic problems. Certain progress was seen in terms of the alignment on Community acquis. It remains for use to conform with the Copenhagen political criteria. A delay in this are would lead to a delay in the accession procedure. There exists a certain mobilisation of Conservatives (Turkish) with the aim of blocking Turkish accession: we must counter it".
On the other hand, the Turkish government official assigned itself the following "priority objectives": - acceleration of the work necessary for Turkey to align itself on the EU criteria, which notably implies legislative changes concerning workers rights, the freedom to organise meetings and demonstrations, the law relating to political parties; - the development of free thought and expression; - better functioning of the judicial system; - "the allegations of torture, in particular, and the other violations of human rights will be the object of a good and due investigation" and those which are responsible will be brought before the courts. To guarantee more effective supervision of this problem, a Human Rights department will be set up within the Prime Ministers service; - in view of reducing regional disparities, and special attention will be granted to social and economic measures in favour of Eastern and South Eastern Anatolia while the implementation of the ""Returning to the village" programme will be accelerated; - at the same time to the fight against terrorism, conditions for lifting the state of emergency will be rapidly created"; the ten year programme for the education in human rights will be implemented on a permanent basis and Turkish citizens, in particular those employed in the public sector, will be especially sensitive to the principals and aims of the EU; - the government will ensure that the legislative drafts already submitted to the Turkish Grand National Assembly in view of alignment with Community acquis will be rapidly discussed and that those that must be submitted by the executive are rapidly, the priority being granted, in this context, to amendments required in civil law and the penal code.
Document review downwards compared to original project?
Nonofficial sources in Turkey add that the government's document: - constitutes the downward revised version of the report by the State planning organisation in February 2000 on the reforms needed to conform with the Copenhagen political criteria, report which was considered unacceptable by a number of institutions such as the army Chiefs of staff, the Secretariat of the National Security Council and the Office of the Prime Minister; - contains imprecise and very general formulations; - was qualified by the Prime Minister as a simple reference working document; - far from proposing a radical transformation of the "National Security Council", brings cosmetic changes as to the number of civilians that are present in the Council; - does not mention, in its final version, the abolition of the death penalty; - does not include, due to opposition from the Minister for Justice and Secretary of State responsible for Cypriot issues, the recommendation concerning the improvement of the functioning of the foundations belonging to minorities recognised by the Lausanne Treaty (Armenians, Greeks and, de facto, Jews) neither to improve the functioning of the practice of non Muslim cults not part of the framework of the Lausanne Treaty (Old Eastern Churches).