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Bid To Save EU Turkish Entry Talks

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  • Bid To Save EU Turkish Entry Talks

    BID TO SAVE EU TURKISH ENTRY TALKS

    CNN
    Oct 3 2005

    Draft document sent to Turkey, Austria to try to broker deal

    LUXEMBOURG -- European foreign ministers were trying to rescue talks on
    Turkey's entry to the European Union after they were forced to postpone
    them following a hard line by Austria on full Turkish membership.

    EU president Britain presented Turkey and Austria with a revised
    draft negotiation mandate for Turkey's EU membership talks in a bid
    to break a diplomatic deadlock and launch the talks, diplomats said.

    "Things are at an advanced stage. We are checking with Ankara and
    Vienna to ensure that any text we put on the table will meet the
    approval of all," a British official told Reuters.

    Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was waiting in Ankara to fly
    to Luxembourg for a delayed opening ceremony late on Monday if the
    compromise was accepted, the diplomats said.

    But chances appeared slim, with Austria -- alone among the 25 EU
    nations -- sticking to its insistence that predominantly Muslim Turkey
    be offered something short of full membership if it cannot meet the
    entry criteria.

    The postponed ceremony had been due at 5 p.m. (1500 GMT) in Luxembourg
    and was to have involved Turkey's Gul.

    In the end following Austria's stand, he did not leave Turkey in time
    to attend -- and a bid from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
    to get the talks started on schedule failed.

    Austria was sticking to demands that the vast, poor, Muslim country
    be offered an alternative, less-than-full membership if it failed
    to meet all the EU criteria. Turkey said it angrily rejected any
    second-class status.(Turkish PM: No compromise)

    British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw -- due to chair the talks --said
    negotiations were "hard and difficult," but continuing.

    Straw had told reporters after a private meeting with Austrian Foreign
    Minister Ursula Plassnik and a telephone call with Turkish Foreign
    Minister Gul Monday morning he was not sure the talks would go ahead.

    Diplomats told Reuters he had told the 24 other EU foreign ministers
    upon resuming talks after only a couple of hours' sleep: "Yes, we
    are near but we are also on the edge of a precipice.

    "If we go the right way we reach the sunny uplands. If we go the
    wrong way, it could be catastrophic for the European Union."

    Diplomats said there were also problems between Turkey, on the one
    hand, and Greece and Cyprus, on the other, over a clause in the draft
    negotiating mandate demanding that Ankara not block the accession of
    EU states to international organizations and treaties.

    Turkey was concerned the wording could give a divided Cyprus a lever
    to join the NATO defense alliance without a U.N.-brokered peace
    settlement on the Mediterranean island.

    Turkish hardliners had argued that Turkey could prevent Ankara blocking
    a divided Cyprus from joining NATO.

    Diplomats revealed how U.S. Secretary of State Rice had stepped in
    Monday to try to rescue the talks.

    They told Reuters that Rice had spoke by telephone with Turkish
    Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and assured him that the EU's proposed
    negotiating framework for the talks, due to open later on Monday,
    would not impinge on NATO.

    Cypriot officials denied to The Associated Press that they sought
    additional demands.

    But the central problem remained Austria's insistence -- alone among
    the 25 EU nations, including Cyprus -- that Ankara be offered a
    status short of accession if it failed to meet the criteria or if
    the EU was unable to absorb it.

    Straw had urged that all member states had to fulfil their many
    promises to Turkey, a long-establish NATO member and strategic ally
    of America and Europe, British sources said.

    He also warned that pulling the plug now risked widening the divide
    between the Christian and Muslim worlds, the UK's Press Association
    reported.

    Turkish financial markets weakened on the uncertainty in Luxembourg,
    with the main share index down 2.3 percent and the lira down almost
    1 percent against the dollar. Although there was no apparent markets
    panic, failure of talks could deal a longer term blow to political
    reform and foreign investment in Turkey.

    "We are not striving to begin negotiations no matter what, at any
    cost," Gul said in an interview published Sunday in Turkey's Yeni
    Safak newspaper. "If the problems aren't solved, then the negotiations
    won't begin."

    Outgoing German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer warned his colleagues
    that Turkey might walk away if the EU watered down the terms on offer
    any further.

    "If you want to open negotiations, you have to remember we have to
    have someone to open them with," a diplomat told Reuters he had told
    the meeting Sunday.

    Cyprus issue The EU has already angered many Turks by demanding that
    it recognize Cyprus soon and open its ports and airports to traffic
    from the divided Mediterranean island.

    The European Parliament compounded Turkish ire last week by saying
    Turkey must recognize the 1915 killings of Armenians under Ottoman
    rule as an act of genocide before it can join the EU.

    EU diplomats had hoped Austria would ease its stance after regional
    elections in Styria province Sunday. Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's
    People's Party lost power there for the first time since 1945 despite
    his brinkmanship on Turkey.

    Schuessel has informally linked the Turkish issue to a demand that
    the EU open accession talks immediately with Austria's largely Roman
    Catholic neighbor, Croatia.

    But those talks have been frozen until Zagreb satisfies U.N. war
    crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte that it is cooperating fully in
    the hunt for a fugitive indicted ex-general.

    Accepting the mostly poor, predominantly agricultural Turkey into the
    bloc has been met with resistance across the EU. Recent polls show
    a majority of French, German and Austrian voters oppose admitting
    Turkey, and a majority of Danes would rather see non-EU candidate,
    Ukraine, in the EU than an Islamic country.

    Turkey has accepted unprecedented conditions to take part in the EU
    negotiations, including an open-ended halt to the movement of Turkish
    workers into the bloc.

    Turkish immigration remains a thorny issue in many EU states and
    anti-Turkish sentiment figured in votes in the EU constitution in
    France and the Netherlands.

    Austrians in particular have some deep-rooted historical mistrust
    of Turkey, seeing themselves as Europe's gatekeepers ever since they
    vanquished the Ottoman Turks in the 1683 Battle of Vienna. (Austrians
    troubled by Turkey)

    http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/03/eu.turkeytalks/
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