Tacar: Turkey Should Learn To Live With E.U.'s Double Standard

ANTALYA (CIHAN) - Turkey's former ambassador to the EU, Pulat Tacar, said in a conference in Antalya on Monday that the European Union would continue to give new excuses to exclude Turkey from the EU even though many reforms have been enacted in recent years.
Tacar said that European Union could not imagine the inclusion of a culture or civilization, that is different from European culture.
Commenting on the EU's decision to commence accession talks with Croatia at the beginning of 2005 even though Croatia's EU candidacy had only been accepted by the European Union in 2002; Tacar said that European Union's reports on human rights in Croatia were not positive at any time and the former ambassador called the EU's decision a 'double standard'.
Turkey's candidacy was announced in 1999, but Turkey has not succeeded in gaining a start date for accession talks. Croatia's candidacy was announced in 2002 and it will start accession talks at the beginning of 2005 in spite of Croatian deficiencies in several areas - minority rights, judicial reform, regional cooperation and the struggle against corruption. The European Union had also demanded development in five areas from Turkey while it had been more flexible in its treatment of Croatia.
Tacar also added that the ten countries, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta, which entered the European Union on May 1, 2004, were in no shape better than Turkey's current position when their accession talks began in 1999.
Former Ambassador Tacar said that the European Union is not in favor of including Turkey due to cultural differences and the European Union will not be able to assimilate Turkish culture. He added that the European Union could not imagine inclusion of a culture or civilization that is different from its own.
Tacar said that Turkey has taken very important steps in the areas of cultural rights and human rights and these developments were not non-functional developments. The rights were added to the Turkish Constitution and regulations.