BRUSSELS - Turkish Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said on Saturday that solution of problems on the European Union (EU) Constitution provided removal of concerns about the future of the Union, at the same time met the requests of Turkey.
Gul added that thus, the constitution problem was eliminated prior to December summit, stating that if the Constitution problem had not been solved, perhaps Turkey would not have been taken up in that summit.
Gul, who attended Intergovernmental Conference together with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, held a press conference and evaluated EU Summit and the Conference.
Noting that it was not possible to please everybody completely, but a constitution, which everybody liked, was adopted, Gul said that the Constitution was balanced in Turkey's aspect. Gul said that the religion issue, to which a reference was considered, was solved in a good way and he added that a reference was made to the heritages of the whole Europe.
Gul also evaluated the part about Turkey in the final statement of the summit. Gul said that the steps which Turkey has taken were praised. He added that he agreed with the criticisms about implementation of reforms. He said that the changes in Turkey were so rapid that they were not completely reflected.
Gul said that the recent situation between Turkey and the EU was a significant turning point in the aspects of its results. He added that Turkey's situation should not be considered as similar with the situation of Croatia which is rapidly getting closer to EU membership process.
Gul said that some openings about trade with Greek Cypriot administration could be in question within the scope of Customs Union.
Gul then departed from Belgium for Turkey.
(GC-AY) 19.06.2004