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ANSA Med - Italy
June 21, 2012 Thursday 2:12 PM CET
Turkey: Relations warm with France, Erdogan invites Hollande
(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, JUNES - The period of cool relations between
Ankara and Paris during Nicholas Sarkozy's presidency (the main EU
opponent to Turkey becoming an EU member state) seem to have come to
an end: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has today had talks with
France's new president Francois Hollande, who he invited to pay an
official visit to Turkey, reports the news agency Anadolu. For the
past 20 years, since the time of Francois Mitterand - who was enamored
of the Istanbul of those years - no French president has visited
Turkey. And relations between the two countries - on Ankara moving
closer to the EU as well as the issues of immigration, Cyprus and the
Armenian genocide - have been turbulent over the past few years.
Anadolu reports that Hollande had called Erdogan's invitation ''a
privilege''. Hollande's election in France has rekindled the hope in
Turkey of a rapid resumption of EU membership talks, which commenced
in 2005 but have basically been stopped for two years due to France's
opposition and Ankara's refusal to authorise the entrance of ships
from the Republic of Cyprus (Turkey occupied the northern half of
Cyprus in 1974) into its ports.
From: A. Papazian
June 21, 2012 Thursday 2:12 PM CET
Turkey: Relations warm with France, Erdogan invites Hollande
(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, JUNES - The period of cool relations between
Ankara and Paris during Nicholas Sarkozy's presidency (the main EU
opponent to Turkey becoming an EU member state) seem to have come to
an end: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has today had talks with
France's new president Francois Hollande, who he invited to pay an
official visit to Turkey, reports the news agency Anadolu. For the
past 20 years, since the time of Francois Mitterand - who was enamored
of the Istanbul of those years - no French president has visited
Turkey. And relations between the two countries - on Ankara moving
closer to the EU as well as the issues of immigration, Cyprus and the
Armenian genocide - have been turbulent over the past few years.
Anadolu reports that Hollande had called Erdogan's invitation ''a
privilege''. Hollande's election in France has rekindled the hope in
Turkey of a rapid resumption of EU membership talks, which commenced
in 2005 but have basically been stopped for two years due to France's
opposition and Ankara's refusal to authorise the entrance of ships
from the Republic of Cyprus (Turkey occupied the northern half of
Cyprus in 1974) into its ports.
From: A. Papazian