Quote:
EU wants to further accession talks with Turkey, Barroso says
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
US official signals Washington's diminishing influence on EU decisions on Turkey
ÜMİT ENGİNSOY
WASHINGTON - Turkish Daily News
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Monday that the European Union wanted progress in membership negotiations with Turkey, despite Brussels' move last month to freeze talks on some political chapters because of a dispute on Cyprus.
“I told President Bush our wish to go further with the negotiations, and also with respect to the criteria” needed to be fulfilled before accession, Barroso told a news conference here after his talks with U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House.
“As I have said very often, it will be a difficult and long process, but a process to which we are very much engaged,” he added.
Barroso's remarks came after EU leaders at a December summit suspended eight out of 35 policy chapters in Turkey's EU accession negotiations, also refusing to conclude talks in any sector until Ankara opens to trade with Greek Cyprus.
The EU wants Turkey to open its ports and airports to traffic from Greek Cyprus, a union member, but Ankara insists on the simultaneous lifting of an economic embargo on Turkish Cypriots in the North of the east Mediterranean island.
Analysts here suggested that Barroso apparently preferred to avoid a strong statement critical of Turkey at a time when Ankara was not expected to radically change its position as the Turks gear up for two key elections later this year.
Turkey's Parliament is due to elect a new president in the spring, and nationwide legislative elections are scheduled for November.
In a related development, a senior U.S. official signaled diminishing U.S. influence on EU decisions on Turkey, saying that the fate of Ankara's EU membership bid depended on its own deeds and not on Washington's support.
“Turkey's EU ambitions really do lie in its own hands,” Matt Bryza, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, told a panel on Turkish-EU ties organized by the American-Turkish Council, an organization representing mainly U.S. companies doing business with Turkey.
Ankara complains that it is subject to a campaign of discrimination by the EU, even when compared to present and past candidate nations, and that accession criteria for Turkey are being frequently changed.
But Bryza said the EU, as the owner of the club, was de facto at liberty to apply its own rules, qualifying the situation as “a fact of life.”
“Washington is effectively telling Turkey, ‘don't count on us, we can't do much for you, only you can help yourselves',” said one analyst here.
The United States wants to see Turkey inside the EU mainly for strategic security reasons and over the past 10 years has significantly contributed to the resolution of disputes between Ankara and Brussels. Its vocal backing for Turkey has sometimes drawn reactions by some EU members, most notably France. But after the EU formally decided to launch membership talks with Turkey in late 2005, the accession process has become almost exclusively an EU-Turkish matter, analysts say.
“When I go back to Brussels, some newspapers report that I pressure the European Commission. I can't pressure the EU Commission, it makes me laugh,” Bryza said.
The EU's move to suspend talks on some chapters was not so bad, he added: “The EU has decided to slow down, but not stopped Turkey's EU accession. There were no ultimatums.”
Bryza also said that one U.S. goal this year would be to re-energize a U.N. process for a Cyprus solution.
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=63545
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www.justiceforcyprus.com
