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  • Schroeder pressures Turkey on EU reform,stresses non-Muslim freedoms

    Schroeder pressures Turkey on EU reform, stresses non-Muslim freedoms

    EUbusiness (press release), UK
    May 4 2005

    Document Actions 04/05/2005

    German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Wednesday urged Turkey to fully
    implement the democracy reforms it adopted to achieve European Union
    norms and called for more freedoms for Christian communities in this
    Muslim-majority country.

    Schroeder, a staunch supporter of Turkey's EU membership bid, assured
    Ankara that the bloc was determined to open accession talks with
    Turkey on schedule on October 3.

    "The dynamics of reform should continue," Schroeder told reporters
    after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "The
    constitutional and other legal amendments should be put into practice."

    Referring to concerns that France will vote down the European
    constitution at a May 29 referendum and plunge the EU into crisis,
    the German leader said: "No referendum anywhere in Europe will affect
    Turkey's EU process."

    Schroeder also renewed EU demands from Turkey to expand the freedoms
    of its non-Muslim comminuties, mostly Orthodox Christians and Jews.
    "Religious freedom is a European principle," Schroder said. "It is
    indisputabe and is valid for Turkey as well. People should freely
    practice their religions."

    Turkey is under pressure to remove legal obstacles for non-Muslim
    religious foundations to fully exercise their property rights and to
    open a Greek Orthodox seminary in Istanbul closed down more than 30
    years ago.

    Schroeder also backed a Turkish proposal to Armenia for the creation
    of a joint commission of historians to study allegations that the
    Ottoman Turks committed genocide against their Armenian subjects
    during World War I.

    "We want Turkish-Armenian relations to improve," Schroeder said.
    "Germany is ready to do its best to help in this issue and open
    its archives."

    Germany and the Ottoman Empire, from which the present-day Turkish
    Republic was born, were allies during World War I, when the Armenian
    massacres occured.

    Turkey has come under mounting international pressure to recognize
    the 1915-1917 killings as genocide; some EU politicians, including
    the German opposition, argue that Ankara should address the genocide
    claims if it wants to join the European bloc.

    Erdogan denounced an appeal issued by the German parliament last
    month calling on Ankara to face up to its history.

    He said he "conveyed our serious concerns and expectations" on the
    issue to Schroeder.

    The two leaders said they also discussed the Cyprus conflict, a major
    stumbling block to Turkey's EU membership bid.

    Schroeder pledged he would work for the release of a 259 million
    euromillion dollar) EU aid package earmarked for the breakaway Turkish
    Cypriot community and the activation of measures aimed at easing trade
    restriction imposed on the island's Turkish sector. The EU promised
    the aid last year as a reward for the strong support Turkish Cypriots
    gave to a UN peace plan, which was killed off by an overwhelming "no"
    by the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot side.

    The measures have been blocked, however, because of opposition by
    the Greek Cypriots, who joined the EU in May 2004.

    Schroeder's Social Democrats-Greens coalition has been a staunch
    supporter of Turkey's EU aspirations, but Germany's main opposition
    Christian Democratic Union advocates a special status for Turkey
    rather than full membership.

    Germany is Turkey's largest trading partner and home to the largest
    Turkish immigrant community in Europe, some 2.5 million people.
    Schroeder is scheduled to meet President Ahmet Necdet Sezer before
    heading to Istanbul later Wednesday, where he will visit the spiritual
    leader of the Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I,
    and attend a meeting of Turkish and German business people.
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