MADRID - Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said on Wednesday that they wanted the public opinion to take up the discussions on the Sixth Adjustment Package, adding that ''if we didn't want that, we could submit it to the parliament directly and adopt it.''
Holding a news conference in Madrid where he participated in the NATO Foreign Ministers' Spring Term Meetings, Gul responded to questions.
When asked if the Sixth Adjustment Package came to agenda during his meeting with Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou and upon the news telling that new formulas were found about the package in Turkey, Gul said that ''the normal procedure was to send the package to the parliament by the decision of the cabinet. ''There is no necessity that we had to wait for the National Security Council (NSC) to discuss it,'' said Gul, adding that there were many ways of showing that Turkey was a democracy in European standards.
Gul said that great progress was recorded recently in Turkey and nothing should be done to overshadow that, noting ''certainly this issue, like other important issues will also be discussed in NSC, but getting authority or permission for adjustment package is out of question. This gives an image as if Turkey could not reach the standards which it wants to reach. Therefore we started a discussion in the public opinion.''
Gul stated that Turkey had two critical months ahead of it, adding that ''we want to show that the Copenhagen criteria was fulfilled in Turkey before the parliament recesses.''
Replying to a question about his meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan, Gul said that they would give a new 'energy' to the issue.
Noting that Turkey attributed great importance to living in peace with its neighbors, Gul said that there could not be economic development if peace and stability did not exist in a region.
''We want to recover our relations with Armenia'', Gul said and added that this was possible with mutual steps to be taken by both sides.
Gul said that with this respect, he had told Oskanyan that they would extend every effort for solution of problems between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
When asked whether or not Turkey had launched a new initiative about the issue, Gul said, ''the new thing is that the problem was continuing without anyone's help but now we attribute importance to it, we are accelerating it, we draw attention and we will give energy to it. We are active about other issues, and there are things to be done about this issue.''
Gul recalled that under this, ambassadors of Minsk group co-chairmen United States, Russia and France in Ankara had been received last week. Gul stated that feasible things should be done but a change in policy was out of question. Deputy Secretary for Political Affairs Marc Grossman,
Replying to a question about his meeting with U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, Gul said that they had discussed what kind of things could be done in Iraq, adding that there were many things that Turkey could do especially in terms of humanitarian aid.
When asked whether or not he would visit the United States, Gul recalled that Ministry of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Ugur Ziyal would pay a visit to this country in the near future, adding that whether his visit or Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to the United States would come onto the agenda after Ziyal's visit.
Gul said that Grossman and he had taken up the issue that 'it was meaningless to talk about the past regarding relations between Turkey and the United States'.
Meanwhile, Madrid meetings in which NATO member states' foreign ministers participated ended following bilateral meetings and press conferences.
Gul will attend the dinner that Turkish Ambassador in Madrid Volkan Vural will host in his honor, and he will leave Spain early on Thursday.
(MS-Öª) 04.06.2003