Summit a ‘success,’ but not 100 percent, Erdogan says

Association agreement to include Cyprus; Schuessel vows referendum

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (c) is flanked by his Luxembourg counterpart Jean-Claude Juncker (l) and Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul (r) after a family photo at the end of a European Union heads of state summit in Brussels yesterday. EU leaders and Turkey agreed yesterday on the terms on which Ankara will start historic membership talks with the bloc next October.

BRUSSELS (Combined reports) - An EU summit that decided yesterday to start membership talks with Turkey was “a success,” but it would be wrong to call it a 100 percent success, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

“We did not obtain all that we wanted 100 percent,” Erdogan told a news conference, “but we can say that it was a success.” Erdogan said he was particularly pleased that the target of full membership for his country at the end of talks scheduled to begin in October 2005 was inscribed in the summit’s conclusions “unambiguously.”

“We have reached a point where Turkey is rewarded for 41 years of efforts,” he said, referring to the first association agreement signed between Turkey and the EU’s predecessor, the European Economic Community, in 1963.

Erdogan said he was pleased that one of his favored projects, a “reconciliation of civilizations between Christianity and Islam,” now rested on a “concrete base.”

Erdogan said agreeing to sign a text extending his country’s association agreement with the EU to include Cyprus did not mean recognition of its government.

Turkey almost walked away from an historic deal to open entry talks with the EU earlier yesterday because it refused to move toward recognition of the internationally accepted Greek-Cypriot government, itself an EU member since May.

“The extension of the (association) agreement to 25 new EU member countries (including Cyprus) is a technical procedure,” Erdogan told a news conference after the historic summit.

“This adaptation protocol is in no way a recognition (of the Greek-Cypriot government),” he said.

The accord clinched yesterday envisages Turkey starting EU entry talks on October 3, 2005, and it is expected to sign the protocol by that date.

“This calendar is not only a period when we integrate with the EU laws and institutions but also a period when we will be able to change the nature of many disputes we have had to deal with up until now,” Erdogan added, striking an optimistic note.

Erdogan said Turkey was ready to cooperate in any UN-led drive to revive the Cyprus reunification process, which has stalled since Greek Cypriots rejected a UN peace plan in a referendum last April.

Meantime, yesterday, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel said yesterday that his country, whose population is overwhelmingly opposed to Turkey’s EU accession according to polls, will hold a referendum on Ankara’s EU hopes.

“If the negotiations produce a positive result, the people will be consulted before membership,” he told reporters. “At the end of the process, the Austrian people will have the last word, not just the Parliament.” Austrians are the EU nation most opposed to Turkey’s EU accession: Only 28 percent were in favor, according to a recent poll.

“I think it is an important decision in a democracy like Austria,” Schuessel said. (AFP, Reuters)