Turkey Will Host Significant Meetings In June

ANKARA - Turkish Justice Minister and Government Spokesman Cemil Cicek has said, ''Turkey will host the NATO Summit and the meeting of foreign ministers of Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in June. Our expectation from all these meetings is to explain Turkey's views in detail.''
Holding a press conference following meeting of the Council of Ministers, Cicek said on Monday that Turkey would host some significant international meetings in June.
''Turkey will host the NATO Summit and the meeting of foreign ministers of OIC in June,'' he said.
Cicek told reporters that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would pay a visit to the United States.
Recalling that the parliament would recess on July 1, Cicek said, ''we want to delay the parliamentary recess to enact some draft laws that would make an important contribution to the Progress Report of the European Union (EU) for Turkey and to further stress Turkey's determination to fulfil the Copenhagen political criteria. These drafts will be first discussed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Later, we will assess them with the Republican People's Party (CHP), the main opposition party.''
Noting that the draft Turkish Penal Code was among them, Cicek said, ''the penal code is directly related with the other drafts. After its enactment, other drafts should be adopted one after the other.''
Referring to Turkey's EU membership process, Cicek said, ''Ireland's EU term presidency will end at the end of June. The Netherlands will act as the EU term president in the next six-month period, which is critical in regard to Turkey's EU membership process. Therefore, we will participate in some meetings. Our expectation from all these meetings is to explain Turkey's views in detail. These international meetings should be considered an important opportunity to promote Turkey and resolve its problems.''
(UK-AÖ) 07.06.2004