ANKARA - Foreign Ministry Spokesman Namik Tan said on Wednesday that a mechanism like a special status for Turkey could not be within the rules of EU from now on.
In his first news conference as the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, Tan said that Turkey had already had a special relation with EU with 1963 Ankara agreement.
Upon a question about the view of German opposition CDU party leader Angela Merkel who proposed ''privileged partnership'' for Turkey, Tan said that the relations between Turkey and EU were carried out not on verbal statements, but according to EU decisions, accession partnership documents, national programmes and progress reports, which all constituted the EU acquis.
''The rules of this process are known,'' Tan said, adding that upon the report of the EU Commission which would note that Turkey had fulfilled the political criteria, Turkey would start negotiation talks with EU with the decision to be taken in EU Summit at the end of this year.
Noting that the process of the negotiations would depend on the performance of Turkey, Tan said that ''from now on, a mechanism like special status for Turkey can't be within the rules of EU.''
(Öª-AÖ) 18.02.2004