ANKARA - Turkish Foreign Minister & Chief Negotiator for EU talks Ali Babacan pledged Wednesday to make more reforms regarding fundamental rights and freedoms, saying Turkey had achieved significant success since 2002 but there was a long reform process ahead.
"These reforms that we made are not sufficient. Turkey has not yet reached to the point that we target. We did a lot but there is a long reform process ahead of us," Babacan told at the opening of the 58th meeting of EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Commission in Ankara.
Babacan said Turkey implemented several reforms regarding democratization, human rights, fundamental rights and freedoms, and mainly the constitutional amendments, and all these should be considered as economic, political and social transformation.
"Turkey has achieved almost the impossible. Turkey has fulfilled the Copenhagen criteria 'satisfactorily'. But the word 'satisfactory' should not be misunderstood. There is a long way ahead," he reaffirmed.
Babacan said Turkish people supported government's efforts to join the European Union despite objections and negative attitude of several European countries and their leaders.
"Unfortunately, France's stance over Turkey's EU process have negative impact on our people's eagerness regarding EU. We hope that Turkey will maintain its EU process and this process will be kept on track. We hope the principle of pacta sunt servanda, which is very common in EU and is one of its fundamental values, will work. That is what we expect," he added.