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Kouchner Opposed Turkey's EU Bid

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  • Kouchner Opposed Turkey's EU Bid

    KOUCHNER OPPOSED TURKEY'S EU BID

    PanARMENIAN.Net
    08.04.2009 14:48 GMT+04:00

    France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Tuesday he had turned
    against the idea of allowing Turkey to join the European Union because
    of Ankara's behavior at last week's NATO summit.

    "Turkey's evolution in, let's say, a more religious direction,
    towards a less robust secularism, worries me," he told RTL radio.

    France's President Nicolas Sarkozy has long been opposed to Turkey's
    EU bid and that has been official French policy, but his foreign
    minister had been more open to the idea, at least until Saturday's
    talks in Strasbourg.

    Kouchner said he had been surprised when Turkey's delegation to
    the NATO summit had initially refused to accept the appointment of
    Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's new
    secretary general.

    "I was very shocked by the pressure that was brought on us," Kouchner
    told his interviewer, when asked why he had spoken of his former
    support for Turkey's European ambitions in the past tense.

    Rasmussen made enemies in the Muslim world in 2005 when he defended the
    freedom of expression of Danish cartoonists who mocked the Prophet
    Mohammed, and has angered Turkey by refusing to close a Kurdish
    television channel.

    Turkey's President Abdullah Gul delayed talks at the summit by refusing
    to accept Rasmussen's nomination, and only dropped his veto threat
    after US President Barack Obama brokered a compromise deal.

    Rasmussen has since promised to reach out to the Islamic world, Turkey
    is to have a NATO deputy secretary general post and Obama came out
    forcefully in favor of Turkey's EU membership bid.

    "It's not for the Americans to decide who comes into Europe or not,"
    Kouchner retorted. "We are in charge in our own house."

    The foreign minister, a former Socialist and humanitarian leader
    who joined Sarkozy's right-wing administration in 2007, said Turkey
    had been "to say the least, clumsy" in bringing up the issue of the
    Mohammed cartoons.

    Turkey's current government is led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
    Erdogan's AKP party, which has its roots in the Islamist movement.

    Turkey began negotiations on becoming an EU candidate country in
    2005. If it joined it would become the Union's biggest member in
    terms of population, and its first with a Muslim majority.

    France, Germany and Austria have come out against the idea, while
    Britain and the president of the European Commission, Manuel Barroso,
    support it, AFP reported.

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