ACTURCA

Today’s Zaman (Turkey)

27.09.2007, Ankara 

The foreign ministers of France and Turkey will establish a working group to systematically deal with the latter’s somewhat bumpy journey toward becoming a full member of the European Union.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who is expected to pay an official visit to Turkey early next month, reiterated on Tuesday that he would shortly be meeting with his Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan, who is also Turkey’s chief EU negotiator, in order to discuss Ankara’s contentious bid to join the EU.

Delivering a speech at the US think tank Council on Foreign Relations in New York where he had been attending a general assembly meeting of the UN, Kouchner said he and French President Nicolas Sarkozy “spent one-and-a-half hours with Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan yesterday (Monday), and we decided that the Turkish foreign minister and I will be in charge of establishing a sort of working group to consider all the possibilities [of Turkey's EU membership].”

Kouchner said he was among those who convinced Sarkozy, who has spoken out against Turkey joining the EU, to not put hurdles before Turkey’s membership negotiations. He stressed that he thought it would be a mistake not to accept a moderate Muslim country such as Turkey as this would play into the hands of radical Islamists.

Most recently, Sarkozy said last week he did not believe Turkey belongs in the EU, and that “what I wish to offer Turkey is a true partnership with Europe, not integration with Europe.” Yet, Kouchner said, “The French position is very clear — we have time,” adding that currently “France has good relations with Turkey.”

Meanwhile, Erdoğan, who has also been attending the UN summit in New York, admitted that it would be difficult for Ankara to change Sarkozy’s vision for Turkey. “Sarkozy is a man whose mind is difficult to change and a man who is generally hard to convince,” Erdoğan told reporters on Tuesday when reminded of Sarkozy’s constant opposition to Turkey’s full entry to the 27-member bloc, following his bilateral meeting with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on the margins of the UN gathering.

Sarkozy opposes Turkey’s membership in the EU, saying the predominantly Muslim country whose territory mostly lies in Asia does not belong to Europe. Instead he said Turkey should lead a group of Mediterranean countries that have close ties with the EU. Ankara says considering any formula other than full membership is out of the question.

Nonetheless bilateral relations between the two countries are expected to pick up new momentum despite the negative developments in the background. Sarkozy came under fire from his far-right rivals for softening his stance on Turkey when reports said he was seeking to revoke a constitutional clause introducing a referendum on accession of new members into the EU after candidate Croatia joins. The clause, introduced during the term of former President Jacques Chirac, was widely seen as a step to prevent Turkey’s accession to the bloc.