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ITALIAN LEADERS CONFIRM SUPPORT FOR TURKISH, SERBIAN EU ENTRY
Il Sole 24 Ore, Milan,
11 Oct 06
"D'Alema: Support for Ankara"
Rome: "The Italian government supports Turkey's European prospects
with conviction. It is a strategic choice for our country, and it
is not influenced by any contingent aspects." That was how Massimo
D'Alema, Italy's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, opened
the second plenary session of the permanent table on Turkey at the
Farnesina [Italian Foreign Ministry] yesterday.
"We are convinced of the added value represented by Turkey's
membership, which we consider essential," D'Alema explained. He added:
"We do not hold a view of a Europe that is closed on either an ethnic
or a confessional basis. Europe is plural and it is based on the
values of freedom and of democracy, which are nonconfessional."
His speech, which was designed to foster detente, came on the very day
the Turkish magistracy passed an 18-year jail sentence on an adolescent
who shot dead an Italian priest, 61-year-old Father Andrea Santoro, in
his parish church of St Mary's, in Trabzun, on 5 February of this year.
But while Italy voiced its support for Ankara, and also for Serbia,
which, Prime Minister Prodi said, "belongs to the great European
family, and thus Italy will do everything that can be done to ensure
that it joins the EU", the tension between Turkey and France does
not appear to be abating.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared open war yesterday
on what he called a "systematic lying machine". He was alluding to
France's attempt to pass a law branding it a crime to deny the Armenian
genocide. "Since when has it been France's job to concern itself with
an issue that is the business of Turkey and of Armenia? The world is
no longer an arena for colonizers," Erdogan thundered.
After hearing those words, the French government ran for shelter.
Jean-Baptiste Mattei, a spokesman for the Quai d'Orsay [French Foreign
Ministry], marked his distance from the measure that the Socialist
Party has submitted to parliament (a measure which, it has to be said,
enjoys cross-party support, with most of the deputies in the UMP [Union
for a Popular Movement], the party with the parliamentary majority,
planning to abstain when a vote is held tomorrow), saying that the
measure "does not involve the government, and it is not necessary".
Il Sole 24 Ore, Milan,
11 Oct 06
"D'Alema: Support for Ankara"
Rome: "The Italian government supports Turkey's European prospects
with conviction. It is a strategic choice for our country, and it
is not influenced by any contingent aspects." That was how Massimo
D'Alema, Italy's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, opened
the second plenary session of the permanent table on Turkey at the
Farnesina [Italian Foreign Ministry] yesterday.
"We are convinced of the added value represented by Turkey's
membership, which we consider essential," D'Alema explained. He added:
"We do not hold a view of a Europe that is closed on either an ethnic
or a confessional basis. Europe is plural and it is based on the
values of freedom and of democracy, which are nonconfessional."
His speech, which was designed to foster detente, came on the very day
the Turkish magistracy passed an 18-year jail sentence on an adolescent
who shot dead an Italian priest, 61-year-old Father Andrea Santoro, in
his parish church of St Mary's, in Trabzun, on 5 February of this year.
But while Italy voiced its support for Ankara, and also for Serbia,
which, Prime Minister Prodi said, "belongs to the great European
family, and thus Italy will do everything that can be done to ensure
that it joins the EU", the tension between Turkey and France does
not appear to be abating.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared open war yesterday
on what he called a "systematic lying machine". He was alluding to
France's attempt to pass a law branding it a crime to deny the Armenian
genocide. "Since when has it been France's job to concern itself with
an issue that is the business of Turkey and of Armenia? The world is
no longer an arena for colonizers," Erdogan thundered.
After hearing those words, the French government ran for shelter.
Jean-Baptiste Mattei, a spokesman for the Quai d'Orsay [French Foreign
Ministry], marked his distance from the measure that the Socialist
Party has submitted to parliament (a measure which, it has to be said,
enjoys cross-party support, with most of the deputies in the UMP [Union
for a Popular Movement], the party with the parliamentary majority,
planning to abstain when a vote is held tomorrow), saying that the
measure "does not involve the government, and it is not necessary".