ROME - Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ugur Ziyal met on Wednesday with Italian Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Umberto Vattani in Rome.
Ziyal spoke to A.A correspondent after the meeting.
Ziyal said Turkish-Italian bilateral relations were extremely positive, noting that, ''Italy will continue to support Turkey's EU full membership process. Italians are aware of the reforms we have fulfilled. During the meetings, we had the opportunity to convey the developments recorded in implementation.''
Vattani in his part said what Turkey should do, was to put into practice the legal arrangements that were done.
Ziyal said daily regional and international issues as well as bilateral relations and EU relations were discussed during the political consultation meetings.
Ziyal said Italy, which sent soldiers to Iraq, wished solution of the problem. He said, ''they attribute great importance to UN decision. They think issuing of UN decision would be important.''
When a journalist said, ''Italy mentions possibility of giving some part of Iraq to NATO control'' and asked whether or not this issue was discussed, Ziyal said, ''Italy talk about this as a possibility. They make several evaluations according to themselves how this could be possible. Of course we do not know how Iraqis will consider this. Those are very important points.''
Noting that they had also discussed the Cyprus issue in the meeting, Ziyal said, ''Italians know that we have done our best in the Cyprus issue but they think also the latest situation should be resolved. We expressed our opinions to them. We told them that steps should be taken to save the Turkish Cypriots from isolation and they told us that the commission had been working on this issue. They believe that Turkey has fulfilled its responsibilities regarding the Cyprus issue.''
Asked whether or not Italian officials had also talked about several deficiencies in Turkey's EU membership process, Ziyal said, ''they did not mention any serious deficiency. They stated that meeting the needs of the Christian communities in Turkey is very important for them. They stressed importance of meeting the religious requirements of Dutch, German and similar Christian communities.''
Asked whether or not Italian officials had implied providing those groups with facility for building churches in Turkey, Ziyal said, ''yes, they mentioned it within this framework. However, all these issues are actually on Turkey's agenda.''
Meanwhile, replying to the A.A correspondent's questions, Italian Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Umberto Vattani said they thought it very important to see existence of religious tolerance and several religious institutions also in Turkey like in whole Europe, adding that they believed it would be quite important and meaningful. He stressed that reforms in Turkey were in harmony with Europeans' desire.
Recalling that Turkey and Italy had been holding ''regular and systematic'' meetings in last few years in level of undersecretaries, Vattani said that Turkey and Italy had powerful and perfect bilateral relations.
Vattani highlighted importance of implementation of legal arrangements in regard to Turkey's getting a date from the EU for opening of accession talks.
He recalled European Commission Director General for Enlargement Fabrizio Barbaso had also pointed out that Turkey had taken important steps to adjust itself to European standards.
Vattani added that they targeted to further strengthen bilateral relations between Turkey and Italy.
Turkish Ambassador to Italy Necati Utkan and Italian Ambassador to Turkey Carlo Marsili were also in attendance at the meeting.
Ziyal and the accompanying delegation are expected to depart from Italy tomorrow.
(AY-MS-UK) 26.05.2004