ANKARA - Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu said on Monday that Turkey was ready to take its place in a powerful European family with its historical and cultural heritage.
Aksu delivered a speech in an international meeting on ''Local Administration Reforms in Public Management Reform Process within the scope of the European Union (EU)'' organized by the World Bank Institute and Interior Ministry at Ankara's Dedeman Hotel.
Stating that EU and other similar international organizations started to shape up the world, Aksu said that those organizations defended democracy, taking under guaranty rights and freedoms and increasing prosperity of people.
Aksu said that Turkey determined full membership to the EU as a significant target in its state policy and stated that this target was an important part of Turkey's social, political, economic and modernization project.
Noting that Turkey was ready to take its place in a powerful European family with its historical and cultural heritage, Aksu said that they should put into practice public management and local administrations reform as soon as possible as the necessity of economic and political criteria.
Aksu said that they did not consider EU membership as a goal but as a tool in Turkey's economic and political development in its integration to a powerful Europe.
Aksu said that state, with its clumsy, old-line and centralist structure, did not comply with the concept of current modern state.
Recalling that they had committed that reform on local administrations would be put into practice within one year, he said that studies on Public Management Basic Draft Law were about to be completed. He added that it would be debated in the Council of Ministers in detail and it would have the final shape.
(EÖ-BRC) 06.10.2003