ANKARA (CIHAN) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will pay a three-day official visit to France to promote Turkey's EU membership drive. The Prime Minister will head to Paris today. He will meet with his French counterpart Jean-Pierre Raffarin and with Turkish citizens living in France on the first day of visit.
On July 20th, Erdogan will attend a conference where he will deliver a speech titled "Turkey - France: New Perspective for Affective Partnership." Erdogan is to meet French President Jaques Chirac on the same day and ask for support for Turkey's EU membership bid.
London, Berlin and Madrid support Turkey's EU membership while Paris is still skeptical.
The Turkish Prime Minister will carry out talks with French political party leaders on July 21st. Erdogan is expected to meet François Hollande and former UMP leader Alain Juppé who also opposes Turkey's EU membership.
During NATO summit in Istanbul last month, Chirac viewed Turkey's drive toward the European Union as "irreversible", stating that Turkey has an historical and ancient European place.
The former chairman of the UMP, Alain Juppe, had declared that the accession of Turkey into the European Union would be the end of Europe. Instead, Juppe proposes Turkey be offered the position of privileged neighbor, an offer which is strongly opposed by Turkey.
Bilateral relations, Turkey-EU relations and international developments including the latest events in Cyprus, Middle East, Iraq, Northern Africa Project and Afghanistan will be taken up in the official government meetings.
Turkey is hoping to open entry talks with the European Union (EU) by the end of 2004, and has adopted a series of EU harmonization packages, including political and economic criteria, to meet membership requirements. The Turkish Parliament has adopted seven EU harmonization packages in the last two years, and has also abolished capital punishment in order to comply with EU standards.
EU leaders are due to meet in December to decide whether Turkey, a candidate country since 1999, has made enough progress on human rights and political freedoms for the initiation of the long-delayed accession talks.
Meanwhile, Armenian associations in the French cities of Paris and Marseille will hold demonstrations against the Turkish Prime Minister.