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TURKEY HOPEFUL NEW FRENCH PRESIDENT WILL AID ITS EU CAUSE
The Sunday Independent
May 13, 2012
South Africa
ISTANBUL: Turkey is hoping that new French president Francois Hollande
will open a fresh page in relations with Ankara and, unlike his
predecessor, back the Muslim-majority country's EU bid.
"We are hoping that he (Hollande) would open a new page in the very
deep and fruitful historical relations between Turkey and France,"
Turkish European Affairs Minister Egemen Bagis said.
Ankara would like to see France "become one of the champions of Turkish
integration into the EU", as it was under president Jacques Chirac,
he said.
That was not the case under the outgoing French leader Nicolas Sarkozy.
Tension between Ankara and Paris also flared this year over a French
law making it a crime to deny the Armenian massacre by Ottoman Turks,
a point of World War I history that Turkey disputes.
The law was eventually overturned by the French Constitutional Court.
"Sarkozy probably had different priorities. Sarkozy was a smart
politician, saw an opportunity of a vote to the extreme right and he
went after that," Bagis said.
It worked in 2007, he added, "but I think it did not work in the
second election".
Hollande, after winning the run-off vote on May 6, will take over as
president on Tuesday.
The Socialist leader has shown himself to be more open to Turkey's
EU ambitions.
Bagis spoke of mending fences with Paris in a friendly spirit of
finding solutions.
"We are not in the business of creating animosity, we are in the
business of creating friendship, where diplomacy and politics are
part of finding solutions, not creating problems," he said.
For his part, Hollande has noted that Turkey would not become an
EU member during his five-year term - the road to EU accession is a
long one.
Turkey and the EU began formal accession negotiations in 2005, but
since then Brussels has opened with Ankara only 13 of the 35 policy
chapters that every state must negotiate to join the bloc.
Just one chapter has been successfully closed.
Besides opposition from France, along with Austria and Germany,
the talks have stalled over problems relating to the ethnic Greek
government of EU member Cyprus, a Mediterranean island divided between
Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Only Ankara recognises the Turkish Cypriot
statelet in the north.
Turkey has threatened to freeze diplomatic relations with the EU when
Cyprus takes on the rotating EU presidency for six months in July if
there is no reunification deal.
Yet Ankara continues to pursue European integration even as the bloc
is mired in an economic crisis. In contrast, Turkey's economy expanded
by 8.5 percent last year.
But, Bagis said, for Turkey the EU was not an economic project,
but a major avenue for peace.
"Turkey can turn the grandest peace project of the history of mankind,
which is the EU, from being a continental project to a global project."
Bagis sees Turkey as a democratic inspiration in the Arab world and
believes Europe could have a greater influence there with Ankara at
its side. - Sapa-AFP
The Sunday Independent
May 13, 2012
South Africa
ISTANBUL: Turkey is hoping that new French president Francois Hollande
will open a fresh page in relations with Ankara and, unlike his
predecessor, back the Muslim-majority country's EU bid.
"We are hoping that he (Hollande) would open a new page in the very
deep and fruitful historical relations between Turkey and France,"
Turkish European Affairs Minister Egemen Bagis said.
Ankara would like to see France "become one of the champions of Turkish
integration into the EU", as it was under president Jacques Chirac,
he said.
That was not the case under the outgoing French leader Nicolas Sarkozy.
Tension between Ankara and Paris also flared this year over a French
law making it a crime to deny the Armenian massacre by Ottoman Turks,
a point of World War I history that Turkey disputes.
The law was eventually overturned by the French Constitutional Court.
"Sarkozy probably had different priorities. Sarkozy was a smart
politician, saw an opportunity of a vote to the extreme right and he
went after that," Bagis said.
It worked in 2007, he added, "but I think it did not work in the
second election".
Hollande, after winning the run-off vote on May 6, will take over as
president on Tuesday.
The Socialist leader has shown himself to be more open to Turkey's
EU ambitions.
Bagis spoke of mending fences with Paris in a friendly spirit of
finding solutions.
"We are not in the business of creating animosity, we are in the
business of creating friendship, where diplomacy and politics are
part of finding solutions, not creating problems," he said.
For his part, Hollande has noted that Turkey would not become an
EU member during his five-year term - the road to EU accession is a
long one.
Turkey and the EU began formal accession negotiations in 2005, but
since then Brussels has opened with Ankara only 13 of the 35 policy
chapters that every state must negotiate to join the bloc.
Just one chapter has been successfully closed.
Besides opposition from France, along with Austria and Germany,
the talks have stalled over problems relating to the ethnic Greek
government of EU member Cyprus, a Mediterranean island divided between
Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Only Ankara recognises the Turkish Cypriot
statelet in the north.
Turkey has threatened to freeze diplomatic relations with the EU when
Cyprus takes on the rotating EU presidency for six months in July if
there is no reunification deal.
Yet Ankara continues to pursue European integration even as the bloc
is mired in an economic crisis. In contrast, Turkey's economy expanded
by 8.5 percent last year.
But, Bagis said, for Turkey the EU was not an economic project,
but a major avenue for peace.
"Turkey can turn the grandest peace project of the history of mankind,
which is the EU, from being a continental project to a global project."
Bagis sees Turkey as a democratic inspiration in the Arab world and
believes Europe could have a greater influence there with Ankara at
its side. - Sapa-AFP