Brussels, 24/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - Bernard Bot, the Dutch Foreign Minister who will chair the "General Affairs" Council in the second half of the year, has said that he is confident that Turkey will make progress by December to fulfil the necessary criteria for accession negotiations to start in 2005. "the position of the Dutch Presidency is quite simple: we will wait for the Commission's report in October, before taking a decision in December", he said. It is therefore "too soon" for statements about the state of the country's preparations, especially as "we still have six months ahead of us, and we know that Turkey has made considerable progress in a relatively short period of time", said Mr Bot (a former ambassador of his country to Ankara). "If we compare the progress made in the past year with that of the ten previous years, I am confident that extra progress can be made in the next six months. But let us first of all wait for what the Commission has to say in its report", said Mr Bot on Wednesday, at the presentation of the Dutch Presidency's work programme (yesterday's EUROPE, p.5).