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Success of Turkey talks 'vital to whole world' |
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Written by Financial Times
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Friday, 08 September 2006 09:35 |
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The European Union risks sending a dangerous signal to the Muslim world if Turkey membership negotiations collapse, Ankara's chief negotiator with Brussels warned on Thursday.
Ali Babacan said the consequence of a breakdown of negotiations would be "devastating", emphasising that Turkey's membership talks were a crucial event not just for Turkey and the EU "but also for the future of the world".
The issue of Turkish membership of the EU was a test for "this whole idea that the values and ideals of the EU could be shared also by a country which has a Muslim population", he told the FT.
Countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Caucasus were following the progress of Turkey's talks, he said – even though many European diplomats are sceptical about the links between Turkey and the Arab world.
Mr Babacan's comments come amid warnings from Olli Rehn, EU enlargement commissioner, that negotiations with Turkey are heading for a "train crash" over a dispute with Cyprus. Many diplomats worry that in the next few months the issue could plunge Turkey's membership bid into a crisis from which it would not recover.
The EU has demanded that Turkey open up its ports and airports to Cypriot vessels this year. But Ankara refuses to do this while the EU fails to honour its own pledge to reduce the isolation of the Turkish community in the north of the island.
Cyprus, which is an EU member but is not recognised by Turkey, has threatened to block all future progress in the negotiations unless Ankara changes its stance. "Turkey is not going to do anything unilaterally on ports and airports – that is clear," Mr Babacan said.
He said he did not believe Cyprus would bear the responsibility of using its veto to break off EU negotiations with Turkey, but urged the international community to put pressure on Nicosia to step back from the brink.
If the talks were suspended, he warned that Turks would see it as a breach of faith by the EU and that the Cyprus dispute was a smokescreen.
"People would see it as the end," he said. "It's difficult to make people think that Cyprus is the real issue. People will think there are other issues and the whole EU project was simply too good to be true."
Mr Babacan acknowledged that Turkey was failing to win the public relations battle over Europe both at home and abroad.
He said he was open to a Commission initiative to put the Cyprus issue on the backburner by referring the dispute over port access to the European Court of Justice, thus pushing a showdown beyond next year's Turkish elections.
But Cypriot diplomats said on Thursday the idea was "categorically a non-starter".
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