HANOVER - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said here on Monday that the EU should open its eyes to the economic potential of his country as it considered whether to grant it membership.
Turkey "has so much to offer" and "Europe should realise that", Erdogan said at the opening of the Hanover trade fair in this northern German city where Turkey is guest of honour.
Erdogan said Turkey was already acting as "a corridor" for many of Europe's energy needs.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid tribute to the "courageous economic reforms" she said had injected new dynamism into the Turkish economy and suggested that Turkey's example could be adopted by Germany as it sought to increase the pace of its own economic reforms.
Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats have been cool on Turkey's bid to join the 27-nation European Union, calling in the past for a "privileged partnership" with the predominantly Muslim nation but not full membership.
However her government coalition partners, the Social Democrats, strongly back the Turkish bid.
Merkel said on Monday that she hoped Germany and Turkey would "get to know each other better" and underlined that Germany was home to 2.5 million Turks.
Erdogan meanwhile said the two countries had a number of "common values."
The Turkish prime minister has adopted a softer approach in recent days after using interviews before his visit to accuse Germany, the current EU president, of failing to do more to advance Turkey's troubled bid to join the EU.
The EU re-opened membership talks with Turkey in March after a long hiatus caused by Ankara's refusal to respect its trade obligations to Cyprus under a customs agreement with the EU.
Turkey refuses to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot traffic until the EU lives up to its pledge to end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriot statelet in the north of the Mediterranean island, which is recognised only by Ankara.
04/16/2007 17:54 GMT