Turkey vents fury over EU offer

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Friday, 13 December, 2002, 10:30 GMT

European Union plans to delay membership talks with Turkey are "unacceptable," Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said on Friday.

"It's impossible to accept" the EU's offer to set a start date for membership talks with Ankara at the end of 2004, Mr Gul told UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Mr Gul accused the EU of "great discrimination" after Brussels said accession talks would only take place if Turkey made significant human rights progress in the next two years.

His comments came as European Union leaders affirmed their commitment to "irreversible" enlargement at a landmark summit in the Danish capital Copenhagen.

Ten countries are expecting offers to join in 2004, while the EU has said Bulgaria and Romania will become members in 2007.

A day of last-minute horse-trading is expected as the 15 EU members and the 10 candidate states hammer out the final details of the deal.

Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister, Abdullatif Sener, took a more moderate line than the prime minister, saying "whatever the decision at Copenhagen we will still be facing westwards".

Late on Thursday, the EU's Danish presidency announced a funding package for the candidates, worth a total of 40.5bn euros ($40.5bn) over a period of three years.

The new funding deal offers the 10 candidates about 1.5bn euros more than a previous package approved in October.

It now awaits approval by the candidate countries themselves.

Hard bargaining

Poland, the largest of the states seeking membership, has been holding out for an even more generous offer.

But earlier the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned them that there was no more money and if they refused the offer they could risk delaying membership until at least 2007.

Denmark is holding individual meetings on Friday with the candidates which have not yet accepted terms of accession.

But most of the candidate countries signalled their willingness to accept the EU's entry conditions ahead of the summit and three of them - Cyprus, Estonia and Slovakia - have already wrapped up formal talks.

Poland is also expected to follow suit in the end.

"I believe there are fairly good chances to conclude with fairly positive results even tomorrow, with a bit of flexibility, a bit of goodwill," the country's chief negotiator Jan Truszczynski said as he arrived in Copenhagen late on Thursday.

Mr Rasmussen met Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller at 0800 (0700 GMT).

Turkey had been pressing for an immediate start to its negotiations on joining the EU.

It has been kept waiting for decades because of its poor human rights record, but the newly-elected government believes a recent rush of new legislation means it deserves to begin talks soon.

France and Germany have both backed 2005 as a starting date, provided Turkey meets its obligations on human rights.

But former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who is chairing a forum on Europe's future, has made clear his view that Turkey - as an eastern, mainly Muslim country - has no place in the EU.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2002


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