BERLIN - Onur Oymen, a member of the Parliamentary Commission for Adjustment Into European Union (EU), has said that they had been exerting joint efforts with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) for Turkey's EU membership.
Claudia Roth, the chairwoman of the German government's human rights board and the Turkish-German Parliamentary Friendship Group, had a meeting in Berlin with Parliamentary Commission for Adjustment Into EU members headed by Yakis.
Speaking at the meeting, Oymen, a deputy of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and former Turkish Ambassador in Bonn, said, ''when she came to Turkey, CDU leader Angela Merkel said that she could not explain accession of a big Muslim country like Turkey into the EU to the German people. So we should bring positive developments in Turkey to the foreground rather than negativities.''
Noting that they immediately intervened in each human rights violation in Turkey, Oymen said that they did not even consider all those efforts sufficient and they had same opinions about human rights as the German Green Party.
Stating that resolution of the Cyprus issue was to the benefit of Turkey, Oymen said, ''we only want necessary measures to be taken to prevent reoccurrence of incidents in the past. There are still terrorists in the south of the island. So we should be careful about the issue of annulling borders. The Greek Cypriot side has rejected all proposals that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Turkish government have made so far in talks.''
The delegation also including AK Party deputies Ibrahim Onal and Muharrem Karsli will have a meeting with Social Democrat Party (SDP) foreign policy spokesman Gerd Weisskirchen later the same day.
The delegation members will meet with SDP European policy spokesman Guenter Gloser and Union parties (CDU/CSU) federal assembly group European policy expert Matthias Wissmann on Wednesday.
(MS-AÖ) 09.03.2004