Luxembourg, 15/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - Turkey is determined to continue the democratisation process in view of rapidly joining the EU, declared the country's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül at the end of the 42nd EU/Turkey Association Council. While stressing the progress in this area, the Commission and the Presidency are still awaiting political reforms and the settlement of the Cypriot issue. On Monday the Council adopted without debate, the revised accession partnership for Turkey, proposed by the European Commission and which doubles the amount of pre-accession aid for turkey over the next three years - EUR 1.05 billion (EUROPE 27 March p 8).
Mr Gül declared that, "We know that the implementation of the political criteria is essential and we want to speed up the process for beginning accession negotiations in 2004 without delay. He also stated that they had, "enough strength in the Parliament to get the reforms adopted". Günter Verheugen, Commissioner for Enlargement, explained that the priorities are the struggle against torture, respect for fundamental rights and the decisions of the European Court on human rights. in a perspective of assessing the reforms that the Commission will be carrying out in November and the report which will be resubmitted at the end of 2004 and on which Member States will base their decisions for deciding whether to open accession negotiations with Turkey, the Commissioner declared that, "We are encouraging Turkey to adopt necessary legislation and put it into place". However, as well as human rights, the problem of reunification in Cyprus remains a brake on the process. Tassos Giannitsis has requested Abdulla Gül to encourage the Turkish part of the island to "revise its copy". Mr Verheugen declared "The reunification proposed by the UN is still on the table". He also added that this could constitute a basis for new negotiations (also see p 8). The Commissioner did admit, nevertheless, that, "if the situations does not end before the end of next year, thing could get complicated".
Asked about post war Iraq, Mr Güll explained that he was worried about stability in the region. The Turkish Minister supports the idea of a central role for the United Nations in the reconstruction of the country and for NATO to take part as well, "as a member of NATO, we are asking to participate there", he declared. Mr Gül indicated that there had not been proof of Syria possessing weapons of mass destruction, as asserted by the Bush administration but, "perhaps the Americans have" he added, concluding, "all weapons of mass destruction in the region must be destroyed" (see below).
Mr Gül supports promotion of positive image of Turkey to European public opinion
According to some sources, during the lunch before the Council with the Turkish Minister and the Presidency and the Commission, Mr Gül expressed his wish for cooperation for preparing an information campaign to raise "awareness" in European public opinion regarding the perspectives of Turkey's accession. Mr Gül would also like to raise awareness on this point in the media. He explained that he hoped that Turkey was invited to take part in the next Intergovernmental Conference and added that he had certain reservations about the conclusions of the report by the European Parliament on Turkey's accession to the EU (Annie Oostlander) and its impact on EU relation and his country.