Luxembourg, 16/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - Monday's General Affairs Council decided to convene an extraordinary meeting of Coreper to review the list of terrorist organisations drawn up by the European Union, it was announced by President-in-Office of the EU Council Josep Piqué when addressing the press on Tuesday. The special meeting of EU15 Permanent Representatives would meet after the ministerial Euro-Mediterranean conference scheduled for 22 and 23 April in Valence, that is at the end of next week, "in order to reach a decision on extending the list early May", he said. The list of international and European terrorist organisations had been adopted on 27 December last by the Fifteen, as a follow-up to the measures taken since the attacks on 11 September. The list was, and still is, the subject of considerable discussion. Spain had not managed to have the Basque party, Batasuna, included, although several Batasuna members condemned for terrorist acts were on the list. Denmark recently said it supported inclusion of the PKK on the list, thus giving its support to the repeated request put forward by Turkey. The United States is also putting pressure on Europeans to come into line with its own lists. "We know what a sensitive issue this is, and we wish to give an adequate response to the different sensitivities, mainly in Turkey", Josep Piqué said after his meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister in Luxembourg on Tuesday (see above).
The Kurdish Labour Party, PKK, announced on Tuesday morning that it was putting an end to its activities to become a solely political party, under the name of Kadek. Answering questions on this announcement after the EU-Turkey Association Council, the Turkish Foreign Minister made it quite clear in his response that he did not believe "a change in name would mean a change in the nature" of the organisation. "In my view, there is absolutely no change", he added.