Brussels, 14/05/2009 (Agence Europe) - The new Turkish minister for foreign affairs, Ahmet Davutoglu, appealed to EU member states not to make Turkish accession into a domestic political issue. On Thursday 14 May in Stockholm, during a joint press conference with the European Commissioner for enlargement, Olli Rehn, the minister appealed to member states not to, “make a domestic issue out of Turkey's integration process into the EU”. The Turkish minister emphasised that Ankara regards accession as its “strategic priority” and joining the EU as a “full member” as its only objective. Mr Davutoglu said that his country did not want to become closer as part of a “privileged partnership” as proposed by the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany Chancellor, Angela Merkel. He also asserted that, “we do not see accession as a simple question of normal foreign policy or as a simply technical issue” but rather as, “a long process of Turkey's modernisation”. The minister for foreign affairs said that he was optimistic that new chapters in the accession negotiations could be opened before the end of the Czech presidency and during the Swedish presidency in the second half of this year. So far, Turkey has only opened 10 of the 35 negotiating chapters, only one of which has been provisionally closed. (H.B./trans/rh)