BERLIN - Whole Europe will benefit from Turkey's membership to the European Union (EU), Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis said on Friday.
Caramanlis, who gave an interview to German Bild newspaper, expressed his belief that ''Turkey, after being integrated to Europe, would be an advantage for whole European nations, and Turks themselves would benefit from this''.
Caramanlis declined to comment on when Turkey could become a member of the EU, but extended support to Turkey's bid (to be a member of the EU).
He said ''giving a start date to Turkey for entry negotiations depended on what Turkey could do''.
Caramanlis said ''there should not be discussion on geographical borders about Turkey's full membership'', but noted that ''he cannot imagine that a country, located east of Turkey, could be a EU member''.
Caramanlis said ''he believed that Turkish government deployed intense efforts to fulfill the reforms in all required areas'', stressing that ''particularly under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, extraordinary efforts were made''. He said ''Turkey fulfilled a series of reforms and adopted laws in recent years to grant further rights to its citizens''. Greek Prime Minister said ''he appreciated those reforms even if he did not know whether or not those reforms were put into practice''.
Noting that ''European spirit did not have much to do with the religions'', Caramanlis said ''he believed that European spirit was mostly included in other values like democracy, mutual understanding, equality, respect to human dignity and minority rights, which are also shared by all other religions''.
Caramanlis said ''he did not want to draw geographical or geopolitical borders'', stating that ''everyone adopting those principles and living according to those values have the right to knock on the door of Europe''.
Caramanlis said ''Turkey has close relations with Europe for more than 600 years'', noting that ''for this reason he believed that Turkey was a part of the European society''.
Caramanlis said ''Turkey, as well as the EU should decide for membership''. He said ''the EU has put forward clear-cut criteria for membership and that Turkey could be a member of the EU if it meets the requirements''. He said ''Turkey's decision whether or not to belong to Europe or adopt those values was important'', yet stressed that ''there were several difficulties which should be overcome''.
-BILATERAL RELATIONS-
Pertaining to Turkish-Greek relations, Caramanlis said ''it was not a secret that there had been crises and tensions between Turkey and Greece in history, even in the past 30 years, adding Cyprus was one of the biggest problems''.
Caramanlis said ''they are still working on this problem'', stating that ''they work for a peaceful, fair and permanent solution''. He added ''they did not have very much harmonized relations with their Turkish neighbors. However, the two countries live together and try to solve the problems like civilized people''.
Caramanlis said ''the perspective to become a EU member encouraged Turkey to exert efforts to reach higher European standards''.
(AY-ULG) 13.08.2004