New Straits Times, Monday, 30 October 2005
Turkey Rejects EU Partnership Offer
Turkey's PM, Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Austria's Chancellor, Wolfgang Schuessel, by telephone that Turkey will not accept a lesser "privileged partnership" as an alternative to full EU membership.
EU foreign ministers met on Sunday, 2 October 2005, to persuade Austria to drop its objections to starting membership negotiations with Turkey, which are scheduled to start on 3 October 2005. Austria says it is speaking in the name of the majority of European people in saying it does not want Turkey as a full member.
CNN-Turk showed footage of Erdogan, dressed in a tuxedo at a reception to celebrate the opening of a new parliamentary session, confronting the Austrian ambassador. "If you continue to play politics like this, you'll fail in the next election," he said. "If the EU decides not to keep its words, if its own leaders decide to forget their signatures beneath the decisions they've made before the ink has even dried ... if they decide to ignore all this and impose new conditions that Turkey will never accept ... then of course in that case this kind of partnership can never be".
A Qatari analyst, Abdelhamid al-Ansari, former dean of theology at Doha University said: "by accepting Turkey, the EU will be shedding its 'Christian Club' label, improving Europe's image in the Muslim world and encouraging Turkey's model - a moderate Islamic state which is also a democracy ... This would help moderates and liberals across the Muslim world to confront extremism."
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