EU says Turkey has 'long way to go' to membership
ANKARA (AFP) — European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso urged Turkey on Thursday to speed up democratic reforms, saying it had "a long way to go" to catch up with EU membership criteria.
Barroso, accompanied by Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, was visiting Ankara amid simmering tensions between the Islamist-rooted government and hardline secularists that pose a new threat to Turkey's struggling membership bid.
"It is important to keep the path of reform," he said after talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "There is still a long way to go... a lot of work to do."
Barroso said he was confident that two new policy areas would be opened for negotiations with Turkey by July, bringing the total to eight out of 35 chapters that candidates are required to complete.
With his government under fire for slackening its EU reform drive, Erdogan insisted Ankara was "putting all its efforts and determination" behind the EU accession bid.
"Our common objective is membership and we cannot accept any other alternative," he said, referring to opposition by EU countries such as France and Germany, who advocate special partnership rather than full accession for the mainly Muslim nation.
Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is currently the subject of a court case seeking to ban the party for allegedly undermining Turkey's secular order in favour of an Islamist regime.
The case "is not common, to say the least, in a normal, stable and democratic country," Barroso said.
Rehn has earlier signalled that accession talks could be derailed if the AKP is banned.
AKP supporters see the case as a fresh attack by hardline secularists, whose prominent members include senior judges, the military and academics, after the party was re-election for a second term in July with almost 47 percent of the vote.
The AKP has disowned its roots in a now-banned Islamist movement and pledged commitment to democracy, launching a series of reforms that led to the start of Turkey's EU accession talks in 2005.
But critics argue that the AKP aims to advance its Islamist ambitions under the guise of improving religious freedoms in line with EU norms, and point to the abolition of a ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities and the prohibition of alcohol in restaurants run by AKP municipalities.
Many Turks are frustrated with what they see as inadequate EU support for the country's much-cherished secular system.
Addressing the Turkish parliament later, Barroso said the EU had no recipe for defusing the political conflict in Turkey over secularism, urging Ankara to find "its own internal compromise."
He welcomed a proposal to amend a law the EU has denounced as a threat to freedom of speech in Turkey, which the government sumbitted to parliament this week in a bid to mend its pro-EU credibility.
Barroso urged Ankara to improve also the rights of the Kurdish community, women, trade unions and to curb the military's influence in politics.
"Turkey needs to devote all its energies to pursuing long-awaited reforms, and should not be distracted from this goal," he said in parliament.
Turkey's membership bid took a serious blow in 2006 when Brussels froze negotiations on eight chapters over Turkey's refusal to grant trade privileges to EU member Cyprus, which Ankara does not recognise.
Erdogan stressed Thursday that Ankara backed a rapid settlement to Cyprus' 34-year division between its Turkish and Greek communities, which lies at the core of the dispute.
Barroso, who met also with President Abdullah Gul and opposition leaders, was to have talks with Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, in Istanbul Friday.
